The internet has increased our level of awareness to unprecedented heights. For better and for worse, we have had a freedom of information that we have never enjoyed before. One major drawback has been fake news (though the phrase has been co-opted to mean news one disagrees with). Today social media sites are using fake news and other disinformation as an excuse to censor alternative news and information.

Pinterest has banned our website and Facebook has warned us about spreading anti-vaccine information. Even MailChimp has banned anti-vaccine content and Amazon removed books with anti-vaccine information.

A few years ago we saw the writing on the wall and we put our energy towards ensuring we ranked well on the search engines – primarily Google because they account for more than 95% of search engine web traffic.

But on June 3rd, Google had a major algorithm change, which nearly eliminated the organic search results for natural health websites including Green Med Info, Mercola, DrAxe.com, Naturalnews.com, and ours.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

We agree that disinformation is a problem but questioning the prevailing wisdom, raising concerns, and alternative news is imperative for a fair democracy. Censorship is not what we need.

The problem of fake news isn’t solved by hoping for a referee, but rather because we as citizens, we as users of these services, help each other. We talk and we share and we point out what is fake. We point out what is true. The answer to bad speech is not censorship, the answer to bad speech is more speech. We have to exercise and spread the idea that critical thinking matters, now more than ever, given the fact that lies seem to be getting more popular.”

Edward Snowden 

This concept is backed up by the fact that the younger generation is better at identifying fake news and other forms of disinformation.

And while Pinterest and MailChimp may mean well, Amazon is getting into big pharma in a big way, Facebook makes a lot of money from the pharmaceutical industry and Mary Ellen Coe, Google’s president of Customer Solutions sits on Merck’s Board of Directors (Merck is one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers). And Alphabet (the company that owns Google) is now a pharmaceutical company.

Google today is not only a weapon for promoting the pharmaceutical agenda but now also a drug company itself. During the past six years, Google’s parent company Alphabet has launched two pharmaceutical companies. In 2013, it founded Calico, run by Genentech’s former CEO Arthur Levinson. Calico operates an R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area for the discovery of treatments associated with age-related diseases. Two years later, Alphabet founded Verily Life Sciences (previously Google Life Sciences). Both pharma companies are partnering with other drug corporations. Recently, Verily has partnered with the European pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to form a new drug company, Galvani Bioelectronics for the development of “bioelectronic medicines.” The collaboration is costing the companies $715 million, and the new firm is being chaired by Glaxo’s former chairman of its global vaccines business.

Fed Up Democrat

Here are ten alternatives to Google search (sourced from Collective Evolution):

• StartPage – StartPage gives you Google search results, but without the tracking (based in the Netherlands).
• Searx – A privacy-friendly and versatile metasearch engine that’s also open source.
• MetaGer – An open-source metasearch engine with good features, based in Germany.
• SwissCows – A zero-tracking private search engine based in Switzerland, hosted on secure Swiss infrastructure.
• Qwant – A private search engine based in France.
• DuckDuckGo – A private search engine based in the US.
• Mojeek – The only true search engine (rather than metasearch engine) that has its own crawler and index (based in the UK).
• YaCy – A decentralized, open-source, peer-to-peer search engine.
• Givero – Based in Denmark, Givero offers more privacy than Google and combines search with charitable donations.
• Ecosia – Ecosia is based in Germany and donates a part of revenues to planting trees.

The Environmental Protection Agency has rejected a proposal to ban the use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that is already classified as moderately hazardous and that has been linked to neurological issues in young children. This is no the first time the EPA has blocked a ban of this pesticide, with Scott Pruitt denying a petition to ban the pesticide back in 2017. These rejections are contrary to recommendations from the EPA’s own experts.

Chlorpyrifos has been banned in Europe since 2008. States in the U.S. are also working towards banning the pesticide. Hawaii voted to ban the chemical in 2018, California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed 5.7 million towards finding safer alternatives to chlorpyrifos, and the New York state legislature has passed a bill banning all use of the pesticide by December of 2021.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Bad Guy

Chlorpyrifos has been linked to several health issues, the most egregious being neurological conditions in small children. A study conducted by researchers from Columbia University followed measured chlorpyrifos levels in mother’s umbilical cords and gave their children intelligence tests later in childhood. Higher chlorpyrifos levels corresponded with decreased mental development. The chemical has also been linked to attention deficit disorder, lower IQs, and other developmental, altered thyroid levels, and learning disorders in children and lung cancer and immune disorders in adults.

The chemical has also been linked repeatedly to the struggles facing pollinators, specifically bees. Honeybees exposed to chlorpyrifos experience memory and learning deficits, making them less effective pollinators.

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Ignoring Science

Chlorpyrifos is toxic. The Obama administration made efforts to ban the pesticide. Yet Trump and his administration seem determined to treat this like they do other Obama era policies – destroy it. Unfortunately, the president’s destructive behavior is frequently a detriment to the health and safety of the country.

Sources:

• Trump administration won’t ban pesticide tied to childhood brain damage – The Guardian
• New York Passes Bill to Ban Dow’s Brain-Damaging Pesticide Chlorpyrifos – Friends of the Earth
• Hawaii Becomes First State To Ban Widely-Used Pesticide Found To Be Harmful To Kids – HuffPost
• Widely Used Pesticide in Food Production Damages Children’s Brain – Beyond Pesticides
• EWG: ‘Just because chemical agribusiness wants to use a brain-damaging pesticide doesn’t mean they should’ – Environmental Working Group
• Bees ‘dumb down’ after ingesting tiny doses of the pesticide chlorpyrifos – Science Daily

The Trump administration wants to exempt many new genetically engineered crops from regulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Trump wants it to be easier for genetically engineered plants and animals to enter the food supply. He signed an executive order on June 11th to have federal agencies simplify the “regulatory maze” for genetically modified food producers.

The administration says it wants to cut the cost of genetically modified crop development and exempt crops that have similar traits to plants that could be produced through hybridization (traditional plant breeding). GMO companies would be allowed to determine if their products are exempt from regulation.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

The administration argues the approach will allow regulators to focus on ‘increasingly complex products which, in turn, may pose new types of risks.’ “

Bloomberg

Crops produced with the newer gene-editing technologies wouldn’t automatically be subject to special oversight under the proposed rule. GMO companies say gene-editing makes it so that they can easily and more precisely alter the DNA of plants and animals, and that these changes to the DNA could be done with conventional breeding techniques.

Jaydee Hanson of the Center for Food Safety warns that these new gene editing techniques can make significant changes, “including those that would never happen in nature,” and says that the companies need oversight.

The proposed rules are open for public comment through Aug. 5 before the department issues a final regulation.

The Trump Administration has been friendly to companies like Bayer (formerly Monsanto) in the past. In 2019 Trump’s administration lifted Obama’s ban on GMOs and bee-killing chemicals in wildlife refuges.

In parts of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency Tuesday following a measles outbreak. The outbreak is reportedly affecting the Orthodox Jewish community. The media and public officials say the outbreak is due to a growing movement against vaccinations.

Last week, the city ordered religious schools and day care programs in the affected communities to exclude unvaccinated students or risk being shut down.

The City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is expected to check vaccination records of people who may have been in contact with infected patients. The mayor said the city would issue violations with potential fines of $1,000 for those who don’t get vaccinated.

The order applies to anyone who is working, living, or going to school in the ZIP codes of the neighborhood of the outbreak. The order requires unvaccinated people of the areas to get the vaccine. The order also applies to children more than six months old.

The city can’t legally force anyone to get vaccinated but officials say they can impose the $1,000 fine for those who choose not to vaccinate.

If people will simply cooperate quickly, nobody will have to pay a fine.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio

Dr. Oxiris Barbot is the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She blames the outbreak on “a small group of anti-vaxxers” in the targeted neighborhoods. The commissioner is empowered by law to issue such orders in cases when they might be necessary to protect against a serious public health threat.

They have been spreading dangerous misinformation based on fake science. We stand with the majority of people in this community who have worked hard to protect their children and those at risk.”

Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot

This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately. The measles vaccine works. It is safe, it is effective, it is time-tested.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio

News reports say that the measles virus was introduced into the community by a person who contracted the disease in Israel, which is said to also be dealing with a measles outbreak.

There are two measles-containing vaccines used in the United States. We have the MMRII by Merek which is a live virus combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. We also have the ProQuad option also produced and distributed by Merck, which is a live virus combination measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMR-V) vaccine. Both products are produced and distributed by Merck.

Merek says both vaccines are safe to be given to children of age one year or older, but the New York order includes children six months or older to be vaccinated.

The World Health Organization says more than 110,000 people, mostly children, died of measles worldwide in 2017. The last recorded death in the United States from measles was in 2015.

We cannot find vaccine damage statistics at this time. Septics say they are grossly underreported, but the damage and death statistics are not made public. According to the CDC, from 2006 to 2017 more than 3.4 billion doses of vaccines were distributed in the U.S.  Of the petitions filed within 2006 to 2017, 6,253 petitions were adjudicated by the vaccine Courts, with 4,291 compensated.

Related:

• How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children
• Vaccines, Retroviruses, DNA, and the Discovery That Destroyed Judy Mikovits’ Career
• The MMR Vaccine – A Comprehensive Overview of the Potential Dangers and Effectiveness
• MMR Vaccine Causes Seizures in 5,700 U.S. Children Annually, Says Study
• Autism, Gut Health, Obesity, the MMR Vaccine, and Andrew Wakefield

From the National Vaccine Information Center: Can Measles Vaccine Cause Injury & Death?

Serious complications reported by Merck in the ProQuad(MMR-V) product insert during vaccine post-marketing surveillance include⁶:

• measles;
• atypical measles;
• vaccine strain varicella;
• varicella-like rash;
• herpes zoster;
• herpes simplex;
• pneumonia and respiratory infection;
• pneumonitis;
• bronchitis;
• epididymitis;
• cellulitis;
• skin infection;
• subacute sclerosing panencephalitis;
• aseptic meningitis;
• thrombocytopenia;
• aplastic anemia (anemia due to the bone marrow’s inability to produce platelets, red and white blood cells);
• lymphadenitis (inflammation of the lymph nodes);
• anaphylaxis including related symptoms of peripheral, angioneurotic and facial edema;
• agitation;
• ocular palsies;
• necrotizing retinitis (inflammation of the eye);
• nerve deafness;
• optic and retrobulbar neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve);
• Bell’s palsy (sudden but temporary weakness of one half of the face);
• cerebrovascular accident (stroke);
• acute disseminated encephalomyelitis;
• measles inclusion body encephalitis;
• transverse myelitis;
• encephalopathy;
• Guillain-Barré syndrome;
• syncope (fainting);
• tremor;
• dizziness;
• paraesthesia;
• febrile seizure;
• afebrile seizures or convulsions;
• polyneuropathy (dysfunction of numerous peripheral nerves of the body);
• Stevens-Johnson syndrome;
• Henoch-Schönlein purpura;
• acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy;
• erythema multiforme;
• panniculitis;
• arthritis;
• death

Serious complications reported by Merck in the MMRII product insert during vaccine post-marketing surveillance include⁹:

• brain inflammation (encephalitis) and encephalopathy (chronic brain dysfunction);
• panniculitis (inflammation of the fat layer under the skin);
• atypical measles;
• syncope (sudden loss of consciousness, fainting);
• vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels);
• pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas);
• diabetes mellitus;
• thrombocytopenia  purpura (blood disorder);
• Henoch-Schönlein purpura (inflammation and bleeding in the small blood vessels);
• acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy (rare vasculitis of the skin’s small vessels occurring in infants);
• leukocytosis (high white blood cell count);
• anaphylaxis (shock);
• bronchial spasms;
• pneumonia;
• pneumonitis(inflammation of the lung tissues);
• arthritis and arthralgia (joint pain);
• myalgia (muscle pain);
• polyneuritis (inflammation of several nerves simultaneously);
• measles inclusion body encephalitis (a disease affecting the brain of immunocompromised persons);
• subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (a fatal progressive brain disorder caused by exposure to the measles virus);
• Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) (a disease where the body’s immune system attacks the nerves);
• acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) (brief widespread inflammation of the nerve’s protective covering);
• transverse myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord);
• aseptic meningitis;
• erythema multiforme (skin disorder from an allergic reaction or infection);
• urticarial rash (hives, itching from an allergic reaction);
• measles-like rash;
• Stevens-Johnson syndrome (severe reaction causing the skin and mucous membranes to blister, die, and shed);
• nerve deafness (hearing loss from damage to the inner ear);
• otitis media (ear infection);
• retinitis (inflammation of the retina of the eye);
• optic neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve);
• conjunctivitis (pink eye);
• ocular palsies (dysfunction of the ocular nerve);
• epididymitis (inflammation of the epididymis);
• paresthesia (burning or prickling of the skin);
• death.

Andrew Yang is the Democratic presidential candidate best known for his Universal Basic Income (UBI) platform. Andrew is a successful entrepreneur who says that the country elected Donald Trump in large part because so many workers are being left behind due to automation, and he says it’s only going to get worse.

Andrew Yang wants to tax automation and give each and every citizen $1,000 a month, no strings attached. He says that “We need to move to a new form of capitalism – Human Capitalism – that’s geared towards maximizing human well-being and fulfillment.” His policies also include Medicare for all, reducing harm to children caused by smartphones, free marriage counseling for all, the modernization of military spending, an increase in teachers salaries, net neutrality, and he is pro-choice. He leans progressive on every issue we’ve looked into. In fact, he seems to have the most progressive platform of any candidate running. Check out his platform on his website here.

Related: Circumcision Linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

He has a child who is on the autism spectrum and he says he wants to have more research done on the causes of autism and how best to deal with the epidemic.

Yang has also recently let the public know he is an intactivist. If you’re not familiar with the term, an intactivist opposes circumcision.

I’m highly aligned with the intactivists. History will prove them even more correct.”

Daily Beast

Related: Circumcision, the Primal Cut – A Human Rights Violation

Yang said he initially planned to circumcise his sons for fear they’d be “self-conscious” if they retained their foreskins, but his wife convinced him not to.

From what I’ve seen, the evidence on it being a positive health choice for the infant is quite shaky.”

Rolling Stone

Yang says he does not intend to ban circumcision, but he wants to “inform parents that it is entirely up to them whether their infant gets circumcised, and that there are costs and benefits either way.”

It’s sort of pushed on parents in many situations.”

Given everything he has said about circumcision and the fact that his son is on the spectrum, we’re very curious about his stance on vaccines, but if he has any anti-vaccine sentiments it’s probably best for him to keep them to himself for now.

The more choice we give parents, and the more we diminish the possible preconceptions or misinformation various parents are receiving, then the better off we’ll be as a society.”

Facebook is being pressured to censor misleading or “fake” information.

Officials believe information discouraging people from getting vaccines may have contributed to the recent outbreaks of measles. Adam Schiff, U.S. Representative for California’s 28th congressional district, sent a letter to Facebook’s  Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, asking the companies to address the problem.

Facebook curates content based on the user’s interests. Recommended posts are displayed on the Facebook wall, based on what the Facebook algorithm deems most likely to engage the reader.

Bloomberg reports that Facebook responded to Adam Schiff’s letter by saying the company is “exploring additional measures to best combat the problem.” The company says it is considering removing anti-vaccine information from the recommendations feed, which will severely limit the post reach, “while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available.” The company also says it may stop recommending groups with questionable content.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut

YouTube is often criticized for pushing misinformation and has recently come under fire for promoting flat earth theories. Last month, Google’s YouTube algorithm adjusted how it recommends videos. The company says said it will stop recommending videos with “borderline content” that “misinforms users in harmful ways,” for example, videos that promote “a phony miracle cure for a serious illness.”

In related news, Pinterest blocked our website. When asked why this was their response:

Almond milk producers are allowed to call their product milk, says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court agreed with another court dismissal of a class action lawsuit filed against Blue Diamond Growers, makers of the best selling almond milk in the United States. The lawsuit alleged that the company was misleading consumers and subsequently advocated for labeling plant-based milk as “imitation milk” due to their inferior nutritional content. This is not the first time nut milk has found itself fighting to use the term milk, as the dairy industry is using all avenues available to them to deal with a culturally, ethically, and environmentally shifting world.

Ongoing Saga

The initial lawsuit against Blue Diamond Growers was filed in January 2017. the almond thing has been in court since at least 2017. The case was dismissed with prejudice in 2017, and the case was then appealed by the plaintiff in 2018. After the second dismissal due to the lack of proof that consumers would be misled by almond milk’s nutritional claims and information, it seems unlikely that almond milk manufacturers will need to change their labeling practices based this lawsuit. They will, however, need to reconcile this issue with the Food and Drug Administration sooner rather than later.

In a statement released in September 2018, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb expressed sentiments remarkably similar to those in the case against Blue Diamond Growers.

The wide variety of plant-based foods that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for standardized dairy products has been the subject of much discussion in our initial work on the Nutrition Innovation Strategy. The rising demand for plant-based products, like soy-based alternatives to cheese and nut-based alternatives to milk, has created a growing number of new food choices in supermarket aisles. However, these products are not foods that have been standardized under names like “milk” and “cheese.” The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content. It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.”

It’s comforting to hear that the FDA is paying attention to and invested in the changing nutritional needs of the public. Still, recent studies have found that milk doesn’t provide nearly the health benefits either, especially if you’re unable to easily digest it. Yet the FDA references the nutritional superiority of dairy with the phrase “key nutritional attributes.” Why is the government agency acknowledging new attitudes without making room for the possibility that we might not need milk like previous generations thought we did?

Related: Homemade Vegan Nut Milk Recipes

Dairy Farmers in Crises

The growing interest in relabeling milk alternatives has a direct correlation with the fortunes of the dairy industry. The dairy industry is in a particularly rough spot and has been for decades now. Dairy consumption has dropped by 40 percent since the 1970s, and that shows no sign of stopping. The dairy industry has received two separate bailouts within the last three years, including a billion dollar allotment in a budget agreement signed by the Senate in 2018 and a USDA purchase of 11 million dollars of surplus cheese in 2016. Previous efforts at combating the downward trend include the popular got milk campaign, but the current business strategy of blaming alternative milk for declining milk sales isn’t likely to fix the issues with the dairy industry.

Nut milk appeals to the lactose intolerant, the health conscious, the environmentally conscious, and vegans. The public is also paying more attention to how their food is produced, and several dairy industry practices make consumers less likely to support the dairy industry. These practices include but are not limited to separating mothers and babies less than a week after birth, dehorning cows, and keeping cows constantly pregnant.

In addition to shifting public perceptions, the dairy industry is also dealing with a problem of their own making. While the demand for milk and other dairy products has declined, dairy producers have continued to build their surplus. In 2017, the reported milk surplus was more than four times the amount of the actual consumer demand for milk. This imbalance also negatively effects dairy farmers, who are forced to sell milk for lower prices. Many farmers are subsequently going out of business.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut

Milking Nuts

All of this is good news for nut milk producers like Blue Diamond Growers, the defendant in this case. The dairy industry is losing its mojo, and this lawsuit and other stalling tactics are only increasing the whiff of desperation. The dairy industry may not like the competition from nut milk and other non-dairy alternatives, but that won’t change the fact that those products are here to stay.

Sources:

• Federal Court Rules that Almond Milk is Milk – VegNews
• Amongst FDA SOI Conversation, Ninth Circuit Agrees Consumers Are Not Misled by Plant-Based Milks – National Law Review
• Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on modernizing standards of identity and the use of dairy names for plant-based substitutes – FDA
• Dairy Organizations Applaud Congressional Letter to FDA Asking for Stricter Enforcement of Milk Labeling Standards – NMPF
• Big Dairy Is About to Flood America’s School Lunches With Milk – Bloomberg