GMO Rice Approved While Other GMO Grasses Cannot Be Contained

On May 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became the third major regulatory agency this year to approve Golden Rice for consumption – the same rice that the FDA just said offers no nutritional benefits:

The FDA has determined that no health claims can be made for Golden Rice, the genetically engineered (GE) rice meant to contain beta-carotene. The amount of the nutrient it contains is so low that it fails to qualify for a nutrient claim – and it rapidly degrades in storage.  Most GE crops currently on the market are engineered to withstand herbicide exposure, but Golden Rice has been the poster-child for the biotech industry, engineered to provide improved nutrition. Wild plants at the side of the field, now largely gone due to increased pesticide use, traditionally provided beta-carotene in developing countries.” – Cornucopia

The company says the most important approvals, the Philippines and Bangladesh, are yet to come. These countries are where the rice is said to have the greatest potential for positive impact.

Golden Rice has been genetically modified to help prevent blindness in undernourished children. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has been working since 2006 to develop a strain of rice that produces beta-carotene, an orange or red plant pigment found in carrots, sweet potatoes, and cantaloupe. The human body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A. One serving of Golden Rice is said to supply half the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. The company hopes to release the genetically modified rice for production in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia where hundreds of millions of people are poverty-stricken and suffering from malnutrition with vitamin-A deficiencies. A lack of vitamin A can cause blindness and early death.

Golden Rice has been the source of much controversy, stemming from its status as a genetically modified (GM) crop.

Golden Rice has been around for a long time. It’s different from other types of rice because its DNA has been altered so that the plant produces Vitamin A, as opposed to the many other GMOs that are being produced in an effort to sell more RoundUp.

Now that the U.S. has become the fourth nation to approve golden rice, others may follow. The U.S. is part of an international body that forms recommendations about food safety that other countries can adopt if they lack their own version of the FDA. Though three other nations have approved golden rice, they might have a tough time winning over the 186 other countries that have a say in international food standards — all of which have been silent on the crop.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Unapproved GMO Creeping Bentgrass Loose In Oregan

A variety of creeping bentgrass sold by Scotts (owned by Bayer, formerly Monsanto)  and engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup, has been found in Idaho. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which vets most new genetically engineered products, had not approved the plant’s release. But in 2010, landowners discovered it growing in great mats throughout the irrigation system that stretches like a spider web across Malheur County.

Creeping bentgrass thrives in canals and ditches, where it collects sediment and impedes water flow, and it has proved difficult to control. No one believes the bentgrass can be fully eradicated. Many fear it could contaminate non-GMO crops and invade natural areas.  Scotts has tried to rein in its escapee, with some recent success. But in a series of decisions over the last several years, the USDA has relieved Scotts of future responsibility in return for the company’s promise not to market the grass.

Related: Monsanto’s Name To Be Retired – Bayer Aims To Erase Sordid History

Canada’s Rogue GMO Wheat Problem

Genetically modified RoundUp-ready wheat was discovered last summer in Alberta, Canada, near a rural road after it was sprayed with herbicide and did not die. GMO wheat has not been approved anywhere for commercial production. Wheat is big money to Canada, and the country is one of the world’s largest wheat exporters. Canadian government officials said they did a lot of testing and said the genetically modified wheat is not present in the grain or seed supply.

The government is going to provide information to allow our trading partners to make informed, science-based decisions to continue trading in Canadian wheat.” – Kathleen Donohue, executive director of market access at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Related: CRISPR Edited Cells May Cause Cancer According to Two Studies

Even though officials say the wheat wasn’t in a farmer’s field or the food chain, Japan promptly closed its markets to all Canadian wheat right after they heard the news. South Korea followed suit. South Korea is a much smaller market, but it’s considered an important emerging one.

Last year, Japan bought $203 million worth of wheat from Alberta. Japan was the second-most lucrative market for Alberta wheat in the last two years, and in 2016, Japan was actually their biggest customer, buying even more wheat than the Americans.

Personally, I just see it as an overreaction because there is no health risk even it was in the commercial system. There’s no safety risk whatsoever.” – Kevin Bender, Alberta Wheat Commission chair

Japan imports about 1.5 million tonnes of wheat a year and is known to buy some of the highest-quality grain at premium prices, according to Cereals Canada president Cam Dahl. He also stated:

I am confident that we have the answers that Korea is looking for just as I’m very confident that we have the answers that Japan is looking for.”

But even if Canada were somehow able to reign in all traces of wheat and completely get a handle on the outbreak and assure Japan that there is nothing to fear, it’s still not likely to be able to hop right back into the market. It took 10 years to get trade barriers lifted after the Japanese banned Canadian beef when cows in Alberta were discovered with mad cow disease.

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Antibiotics May Lead to Kidney Stones

The instances of kidney stones have risen dramatically in new demographics like children, women, and African Americans and a newly released study from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has found that taking commonly prescribed antibiotics is a factor in that rise. Researchers examined the health records of 25,981 people 3 to 12 months before their first incidence of kidney stones and a control group consisting of 259,797 people without kidney stones. They discovered that the risk of kidney stones increased after patients were given any of 5 different categories of often used antibiotics; sulfas, cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, nitrofurantoin/methenamine, and broad-spectrum penicillins. The risk increase was anywhere from 27 percent higher for penicillins to twice that number for sulfonamides. Gregory E. Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, a pediatric urologist and epidemiologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) led the study. Based on his experience,

The emergence of kidney stones in children is particularly worrisome, because there is limited evidence on how to best treat children for this condition…The fact that stones were once rare and are now increasingly common could contribute to the inappropriate use of diagnostic tests such as CT scans for children with kidney stones, since healthcare providers historically have not been accustomed to evaluating and treating children with kidney stones. These trends of increased frequency of kidney stones among adolescents, particularly females, are also concerning when you consider that kidney stones are associated with a higher risk of chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular and bone disease, particularly among young women.”

Related: Natural Remedies for Kidney Stones, Prevention, and What Really Causes Them

Kidney Stones And Other Disease

Long associated with older men, the rising risk of kidney stones among other parts of the population means other, connected health conditions will likely increase as well. Kidney stones have been linked to chronic kidney disease, heart disease, stroke, and bone disease. There has been a correlation between the increase in kidney stones and the increase of some of these conditions, and that’s becoming more difficult to ignore. For example, the lifetime risk for kidney stones for women between 1997 and 2012 rose from 10.5% to 15.2%. Meanwhile, the rate of hospitalization for women aged 35-44 due to acute ischemic strokes rose by 30%.

Related: How to Detoxify From Antibiotics and Other Chemical Antimicrobials

Kidney stones by no means guarantee someone will have a stroke, but both conditions are affecting increasingly younger and more diverse demographics. Kidney stones are likely to reoccur, increasing the risk for other diseases related to kidney stones. What does that look like for a twenty-year-old who has developed kidney stones?

Related: Inexpensive, Easy Detox – The One Gallon Challenge

The Key is Holistic

It’s so easy to look for or focus on a single reason that things have happened. We all want a definitive answer or an easy scapegoat. But the real answers are often messier. Our lives and our health are made up of minute ripples, that we don’t keep track of and forget about until all of a sudden it’s serious. If a recurring issue isn’t addressed at the root cause (likely diet), it will continue to accumulate damage in the body, until the body is no longer able to function properly. Kidney stones are not the only serious health condition becoming more prevalent in younger people. This will be the first generations of Americans with shorter, lower quality lifespans than the previous generation. The system is designed to keep us well enough to function, but that doesn’t always equate with a high quality of life.

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Derailed Train Leaks 230,000 Gallons of Crude Into Iowa River

Thirty-two cars of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train derailed. Fourteen of those cars leaked crude oil into the Rock River in Doon, Iowa. The cause of the derailment is unknown, but Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and other officials believe that the heavy rain Wednesday and Thursday which led to flooding is at least in part to blame. Flooding from the river has risen over the tracks.

The train has leaked 230,000 gallons of crude oil into the river.

Rock Valley felt prepared this time around, when the city faced its second flood in four years. Then, crude oil was added into the mix.” – The Des Moines Register

The river feeds Rock Valley’s water system. The city shut off its water wells within a few hours of the accident. Officials say they will drain and clean the wells and use a rural water system until tests show that the river water is safe again. The oil spill may also contaminate drinking water 150 miles downstream in Omaha and Nebraska. The Rock River merges with the Big Sioux River, which then feeds into the Missouri.

While none of the initial responses mentioned it, last week’s flooding and the resulting derailment could be related to climate change. A pre-Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment of climate change impacts in the Midwest found that precipitation and storms were projected to increase this century, and precipitation in some areas had already increased by 20 percent.” – EcoWatch

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FDA Approves Marijuana-based Prescription Drug

The US Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of the country’s first marijuana-based prescription medication June 25. The drug is called Epidiolex. This drug is a plant-derived oral solution of cannabidiol, commonly known as CBD. CBD is a chemical component of marijuana and it does not cause intoxication; it does not get you high.

The FDA has just approved it for use with patients aged two and older who suffer from epilepsies known as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. This is the first time FDA has approved a drug derived from cannabis and it is the first time the FDA has approved a drug to treat Dravet syndrome.

The next hurdle is getting the US Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify CBD, which like all cannabis, is currently classified as a Schedule I drug. Schedule I drugs include heroin and LSD and marijuana because they are said to have high abuse potential, no medical use, and severe safety concerns. Schedule I drug use, including medical use, is against federal law. GW Pharmaceuticals, the creator of Epidiolex, won’t be able to market the drug unless the DEA reclassifies CBD.

GW expects that the DEA will reschedule CBD within 90 days. In a statement, GW CEO Justin Gover said:

Today’s approval of EPIDIOLEX is a historic milestone, offering patients and their families the first and only FDA-approved CBD medicine to treat two severe, childhood-onset epilepsies. This approval is the culmination of GW’s many years of partnership with patients, their families, and physicians in the epilepsy community to develop a much needed, novel medicine. These patients deserve and will soon have access to a cannabinoid medicine that has been thoroughly studied in clinical trials, manufactured to assure quality and consistency, and available by prescription under a physician’s care.”

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Canada has Legalized Marijuana

When Trudeau’s Liberal Party was elected in 2015 he ran on a promise to legalize marijuana. Canada is about to realize that promise. The South American nation of Uruguay was the first and only to fully legalize cannabis. Uruguay legalized marijuana in 2013, and now Canada will be the second nation to do so, and the first wealthy nation to do it. The Senate approved Bill C-45, also known as the Cannabis Act, on June 18th.

We will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana. Canada’s current system of marijuana prohibition does not work. It does not prevent young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of the drug.” – Canada’s Liberal Party

The new law will go into effect on October 17, 2018. The bill legalizes marijuana possession, growing cannabis, and selling it to adults. The federal government will still enforce remaining criminal sanctions like selling to minors and the licensing of cannabis production, and provincial governments will oversee sales, distribution, and other related regulations. This means that provinces will be able to impose stricter rules, like raising the minimum age.

Nine states in the US so far have legalized marijuana for recreational use and 29 states allow cannabis for medicinal use.

The United Nations’ international drug treaties explicitly ban legalizing marijuana, so will be in violation of international law. The US is still considered to be in accordance with the treaties because federal law still prohibits cannabis.

Canada’s decision to end cannabis criminalization should come as no surprise. Canadian marijuana policy has been at odds with the United States’ policies for decades. Canadians allowed commercial cultivation of industrial hemp, species of marijuana that possesses zero psychoactivity, two decades ago. Canada also controls a federally licensed medical cannabis production and distribution program, a program that has been in place since 2001. In the U.S. federal law makes no legal distinction between marijuana and hemp.

Like in Canada, voters in the U.S. also endorse cannabis legalization. According to polling data reported last week, 68 percent of registered voters “support the legalization of marijuana.” That is the highest percentage ever recorded in a nationwide, scientific survey. The support is mostly non-partisan. The poll showed that 77 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of independents, and 57 percent of Republicans want federal legalization.

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Chlorine Wash Doesn’t Remove Salmonella on Chicken

The majority of chicken for purchase in the United States has been subjected to a chlorine cleaning, a simple yet problematic procedure currently banned by the European Union. Farming practices in the U.S. like overcrowding and lax welfare standards have prompted companies to wash poultry with chlorinated water to meet health and safety standards. The E.U. does not accept treated poultry, but American poultry producers hoping to sell their wares in a post-Brexit Britain may be stymied by a new study that found bacteria like salmonella and listeria remained active after the controversial chlorine wash.

False Positives

Microbiologists from the University of Southhampton discovered that the American chicken cleaning process does more to camouflage the bacteria than it does to neutralize it. The chlorine washing makes it impossible to culture the chicken in a lab, making poultry treated like this appear less likely to spread food poisoning. Professor William Keevil led the university team behind the study from Southhampton.

We therefore tested the strains of listeria and salmonella that we had chlorine-washed on nematodes [roundworms], which have a relatively complex digestive system…All of them died. Many companies and scientists have built their reputations promoting anti-microbial products. This research questions everything they’ve done.”

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Bigger Does Not Mean Better

Faulty food safety tests and American factory farming are a dangerous combination.

The majority of the British population is against introducing American poultry that’s been treated with chlorine. Poultry farmers in the U.K. concentrate their food safety efforts on the birds while they’re still alive, relying on smaller flock densities to avoid rampant infections. The conditions in U.S. poultry facilities allow bacteria to thrive. Instances of food poisoning may be ten times higher in the U.S. than in Europe. The U.S. has a much bigger system, but farmers choose sustainability for short-term gain.

If the U.K. accepts American chicken that has been treated with the chlorine wash at the end of its production cycle, the impact on public health could be serious. Kath Dalmeny, the chief executive of British food and farming pressure group Sustain, described the Southampton research as a wake-up call:

Those dead nematodes are telling us something. This research suggests US chlorine washing may give a false impression of food safety. Proper food safety relies on clean production methods with high animal welfare, resilience to disease, and full traceability and labeling – not just end-of-pipe chemical washes.”

Doubling Down

The U.S. has long been able to rely on its status as a world leader to find markets for our products. There is a distinct possibility that period is over, and that isn’t a bad thing. Factory farmed chicken might be cheaper from a money standpoint, but the world has only seen a portion of the actual bill in terms of our health, the environment, and human rights. In that respect, the chlorine wash is an apt metaphor. The chicken has the appearance of clean chicken, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find it’s all on the surface.

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HPV Vaccine May Be Associated with Infertility…Again

A new study has found that women who received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine were statistically less likely to conceive than those who had not received it. Reviewing data on 8 million U.S. women from ages 25-29 gathered by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the study suggests that under a 100% HPV vaccination rate, the number of women who successfully conceived would drop by 2 million. The data does not give the HPV vaccine as the cause of infertility, but after accounting for others factors like income, ethnicity, marital status, and education women who received the vaccine were 25% less likely to have conceived.

HPV and Controversy

The HPV vaccine has been massively controversial, and it has been associated with infertility before. Three girls aged 16 to 18 in rural southwestern Australia were diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency shortly after receiving the vaccination. The study examining those young women also noted that the report for the HPV vaccine did not present an ovary histology report (even though the vaccine is for women…). Gardasil has also been linked to other long-term damage, with many women experiencing the development or aggravation of autoimmune issues or neurological problems like seizures, paralysis, and speech problems. Popular Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, says,

Gardasil alone has had more than 38,000 adverse events reported through March 2015. And that number is estimated to be only 10% of all actual adverse events…”

Even the vaccine inserts show evidence that the HPV vaccine is a factor in inducing serious long-lasting health conditions.

Related: Vaccines, Retroviruses, DNA, and the Discovery That Destroyed Judy Mikovits’ Career

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkyjgY70yPA

Related: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

A Bad Deal

The HPV vaccine is only one reason for declining fertility, but then again premature ovary failure is only one of the health issues that has been reported as a result of the vaccine. There are nearly 32,000 instances of HPV caused cancer every year in the U.S. The National Institue for Health estimates that 23.5 million Americans suffer from an autoimmune disorder, one of the commonly reported health issues caused by Gardasil. Conventional medicine is pushing a vaccine that will protect thousands at the cost of negatively impacting millions. Why is this ok? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that healthcare costs associated with autoimmune disorders are twice as much as those associated with cancer. Autoimmune disorders create repeat customers…and business is booming.

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