Denver Becomes First City In U.S. To Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms
Denver has approved the grassroots ordinance 301 to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms (aka psychedelic mushrooms).
It looked like the initiative would be a failed effort but it narrowly passed. It with 50.56% voting in favor of decriminalization.
Psilocybin mushrooms won’t be legal in Denver, but once the ordinance goes into effect the city will not be criminally prosecuting or arresting adults for possession, as long as they are 21 or more years old. The ballot also allows for growing the mushrooms for personal use. The initiative is expected to take effect sometime next year.
What happened in Denver may be the start of a much larger movement, which seeks safe access to psilocybin for its purported medicinal value. Supporters point to research, suggesting psilocybin is not addictive and causes few ER visits compared to other illegal drugs. Ongoing medical research shows it could be a groundbreaking medicine for treatment-resistant depression and to help curb nicotine addiction.
Republican congressman Jeff Shipley, in Iowa, has proposed to legalize the medicinal use of psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, and ibogaine. Oregon and California also have campaigns legalize psilocybin mushrooms for the 2020 elections.
Psilocybin mushrooms classified under federal law as a Schedule 1 drug. NPR reports that DEA officials in Denver say they will still prosecute for psilocybin possession and trafficking.
MMR Vaccine Licensing Called Into Question Following Exposure of FDA Coverup
The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) reports that a Freedom of Information Act disclosure from the FDA revealed the MMR vaccine was “licensed based on clinical trials which in total had less than 1,000 participants and far more adverse reactions than previously acknowledged.”
It’s alarming that an appeal was required to get this information, but it’s more alarming that every time ICAN prevails in obtaining a FOIA disclosure from the FDA, CDC or HHS, we learn about another serious shortcoming in their duties to assure Americans’ health and health care.”
The press release lists the following “key facts” learned from the clinical trial reports obtained from the FDA:
There were eight clinical trials that in total had less than 1,000 individuals, out of which only 342 children received the MMR vaccine
The safety review period only tracked ‘adverse events’ for 42 days after injection
More than half or a significant percent of all participants in each of the eight trials developed gastrointestinal symptoms and upper respiratory infections
All adverse events were generically described as ‘other viruses’ and not considered in safety profile of licensure
The control group received other vaccines for either rubella or measles and rubella, and none of the controls received a placebo (an inert substance such as a saline injection)
Thanks to the laws in this country that for now at least permit access to various government records, we now know the MMR vaccine was licensed using an irresponsibly small and limited group of children.
But what’s even more alarming is learning about the serious adverse events that were known and acknowledged, yet ignored in order to license the MMR vaccine. This was after only tracking adverse events for 42 days after injection – imagine what they might have found had they tracked safety for three years against an appropriate control, like they do for drugs.”
EPA Says Roundup Is Safe While Bayer Is Losing Millions In Lawsuits
Bayer finally got some good news after two recent major defeats in court. With more than 11,000 lawsuits pending, Bayer stands to lose billions, but at least the EPA is in its corner.
The lawsuits claim that glyphosate causes cancer. In March a federal jury in San Francisco awarded $80 million to Edwin Hardeman, a plaintiff with cancer. In August of last year, Bayer was ordered to pay 289 million to Dewayne Johnson, though the award got cut down to 78.5 million. Regardless, the EPA…
…continues to find that there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label and that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.”
Environmental advocates denounced the decision, and so did the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency.
Just weeks ago, the administration’s own officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released a toxicology report for glyphosate, which confirms that exposure to the toxic herbicide is harmful to human health. ‘Health agencies and credible non-industry experts who’ve reviewed this question have all found a link between glyphosate and cancer,’ Sass says.”.
Right now Bayer is in the middle of the third glyphosate lawsuit. It’s a joint trial with Alva and Alberta Pilliod. Brent Wisner is representing the married couple from Livermore, California. They say that their 35 years of spraying Roundup on their residential properties gave them the disease.
The probability that both Alva and Alberta would get non-Hodgkin lymphoma is 1 in 20,000, Wisner told the 12-person jury in Oakland on Thursday. Their treating physician said it was so unlikely they would both develop the same cancer that an environmental factor like Roundup was the likely culprit.”
Alva was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2011. He has been in remission ever since, but he says the aggressive chemotherapy degraded his cognitive abilities. Alberta was diagnosed with the same cancer in 2015. She had a tumor in the middle of her brain. The chemotherapy left her with extensive brain damage and then she relapsed. She did more chemotherapy and is now said to be in remission.
In the lawsuit, Brent Wisner has made the explosive allegation that Monsanto used fake data to win over regulators.
The company planted one of its employees at a contract lab called Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT) in the 1970s to fake negative mouse carcinogenicity data for Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate that were to be used to win regulatory approval for the weed killer in 1975; planned an attack to discredit the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research agency, anticipating the agency would classify glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015; and exploited “deep connections” within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to classify glyphosate as non-carcinogenic.
Glyphosate may increase the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41%, but it’s not just cancer we have to worry about. A recent study showed that individuals who were exposed to pesticides were more than twice as likely to have heart problems including heart disease. Another recent study showed that prenatal exposure to glyphosate increased odds of having a child with autism spectrum disorder with intellectual disabilities by 30%. It also has been shown to cause tumors and birth defects.
Bayer bought Monsanto for 66 billion dollars in 2016. Since then Bayer’s share prices have been cut in half.
Bayer firmly believes that the science supports the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides, which are some of the most thoroughly studied products of their kind, and is pleased that the regulators tasked with assessing this extensive body of science continue to reach favorable conclusions.”
Arsenic found in 11 bottled water brands According to Consumer Reports
Even though bottled water consumption causes massive environmental issues, consumers bought more than 391 billion liters of bottled water in 2017 (103 billion gallons). Bottled water sales have been on a steep rise for more than a decade with little signs of slowing down. The International Bottled Water Association says nation’s bottled water is the best selling bottled beverage in America. This is likely due to consumer concerns regarding the quality of tap water. And we should be concerned. Flint’s water still isn’t safe, and the EPA lied to Flint residents. But Flint’s not the only one:
If you live in the United States, there is a nearly one-in-four chance your tap water is either unsafe to drink or has not been properly monitored for contaminants in accordance with federal law, a new study has found.
Many people who are concerned with the environment love to tell us that tap water is perfectly safe and tastes just as good, and that buying bottled water is foolish. This is obviously nonsense. But some brands of bottled water aren’t safe either.
Consumer Reports looked at 130 bottled water brands and found 11 contained detectable arsenic levels.
High levels of arsenic in groundwater have been shown to cause cancer and other environmental illnesses. The federal standards set for allowable level for arsenic in drinking water is 10 parts per billion, and none of the brands exceeded this threshold. But research suggests that 3 parts per billion are likely to be dangerous to consume regularly. Regular consumption of even lower levels of arsenic over extended periods may lead to cardiovascular disease, cancers, and may lower IQ scores in children.
The investigation showed that some bottled water has more arsenic than tap most water municipals.
For this report, CR tracked down and reviewed hundreds of public records and test reports from bottled water brands, and from various federal and state regulators. We found that several popular brands sell bottled water with arsenic levels at or above 3 ppb; current research suggests that amounts above that level are potentially dangerous to drink over extended periods of time. CR believes the federal limit for bottled water should be revised to 3 ppb from the current federal standard of 10 ppb.
It makes no sense that consumers can purchase bottled water that is less safe than tap water. If anything, bottled water—a product for which people pay a premium, often because they assume it’s safer—should be regulated at least as strictly as tap water.”
The good news for bottled water consumers is that Consumer Report also found dozens of bottled water brands that showed no detectable levels of arsenic.
Trump Comes out As Pro-Vaccine – Says We All Need To Get Measles Shot
Today U.S. President Donald Trump on urged Americans to get the measles vaccination.
“The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They have to get their shots.”
Nearly 700 cases have been confirmed by federal health officials as of this week in a resurgence that has been concentrated in a handful of states — New York, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, and California — although 22 states in all are affected. Measles can cause severe complications or death.
We’d like to take a moment to remind our readers of the one Candidate big pharma is most scared of. Bernie Sanders. He doesn’t take corporate money. He talks about reining in big pharma all the time. He hasn’t come out against vaccines but we have to get the money out of politics and some of the corruption out of the pharmaceutical industry first.
New Zealand Manuka Honey Producer Pleads Guilty To Adding Chemicals
A New Zealand company pled guilty to charges of adding artificial chemicals to their Manuka honey in order to charge a higher price for it.
New Zealand Food and Safety filed a lawsuit in 2016 against Evergreen Life Ltd after the company recalled 18 of its products. Everything recalled consisted of or contained Manuka honey, and the recall suggested the company had been adding dihydroxyacetone and methylglyoxal to their products.
Both of these substances are crucial to the antimicrobial activity that is so highly prized in Manuka honey. Dihydroxyacetone (DHA) is found in the nectar of Manuka tree flowers, and it converts to methylglyoxal (MGO). The higher the levels of MGO are, the more potent the antimicrobial activity in the honey is. This translates to a more expensive product. While these chemicals naturally occur in Manuka honey, Evergreen Life Ltd has pled guilty to adding artificial DHA (often found in tanning lotions) to their products.
Supply and Demand
Manuka is a highly sought after medicinal product. But is there enough honey to meet the demand? Probably not.
In a 2014 article, the Independent reported that people in the U.K. consumed 1,800 tonnes of Manuka honey. That total is significantly less than the 10,000 tonnes consumed worldwide, but U.K. consumption was still greater than the reported amount of authentic Manuka honey produced: 1,700 tonnes. That math means that the majority of all Manuka honey sold is not genuine.
The organization behind those numbers, the Unique Manuka Factor Honey Administration Factor (UMFHA), has since introduced a Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) certification for Manuka honey. The grading system has been called into question, as the UMFHA is a paid membership trade association. There is also the MGO developed by professor Thomas Henle and used primarily by New Zealand based company Manuka Health. The KFactor grading system has been developed by the Wedderspoon company. These are not independent rating systems, and until recently that didn’t even matter. The New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) only introduced the science-based definition of Manuka honey in 2018, leaving companies free to choose their own authentication methods prior to that decision.
Regulation and Reality
This is the service that government food and regulatory agencies are designed for. Often, the alternative health world has with stories of the USDA and FDA’s incompetence, but those agencies are responsible for food recalls and the reason we have labels on our food in the first place. The biggest problems with these agencies arise when they become bought and paid for, putting corporate profits and big business over the public, or when the agency is unable to keep up with the market. For instance, the U.S. regulating agencies still see no problems with Roundup – despite much evidence to the contrary.
Research is the reality of being a consumer in today’s world. We spend hours looking for the best possible product and hours looking into where it’s from and the history of the manufacturer. Yet today’s world has also gifted us that opportunity. You used to have to take their word for it.
First Major Pharmaceutical Company, Former Executives, Charged Criminally For Opioid Scandal
New York City indicted Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Laurence Doud III, and William Pietruszewski, on Tuesday. Doud is the retired CEO of the Rochester Drug Co-Operative. William Pietruszewski is the company’s former chief of compliance. NPR reports they are being charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled narcotics — oxycodone and fentanyl — for non-medical reasons and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The Rochester company and Pietruszewski are also charged failing to file suspicious order reports to the DEA.
Though Rochester Drug Co-Operative Inc. is one of the nation’s 10 largest pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S. But the company is small compared to the big players in the opioid scandal like Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and Johnson & Johnson.
Laurence Doud III was the CEO of the company and retired in 2017. Doud is being accused of encouraging his sales staff to bring in new customers with no questions asked, supplying pharmacies that the company knew were “illegally dispensing narcotics.”
When Rochester’s largest customer went from buying 70,000 units of oxycodone per month in October 2012 to more than 200,000 units per month a year later, Doud had its back — overruling his own compliance officers and ordering that the pills keep flowing because it was a ‘big account,’ the indictment said.”
Doud is awaiting arraignment on two counts of conspiracy related to drug trafficking. His lawyer says Doud will be fighting the charges. Doud sued Rochester Drug Co-Operative last year claiming that the company was attempting to use him as a scapegoat for the regulatory tissues.
Between May 2012 and November 2016, the company received and filled over 1.5 million orders for controlled substances from its pharmacy customers. However, it reported only four suspicious orders to the DEA. According to the complaint, the company failed to report at least 2,000 suspicious orders.”
This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking, trafficking the same drugs that are fueling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging this country. Our Office will do everything in its power to combat this epidemic, from street-level dealers to the executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.”
