USDA Walks Back Healthy School Lunch Policies

The United States Department of Agriculture has rolled back several healthy school lunch requirements. These changes include allowing schools to serve flavored milk, opt out of whole grain requirements, and more slowly reduce the sodium in their offerings. In the USDA’s press release, Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, cited their reasons for the changes, “Based on the feedback we’ve gotten from students, schools, and food service professionals in local schools across America, it’s clear that many still face challenges incorporating some of the meal pattern requirements. Schools want to offer food that students actually want to eat. It doesn’t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can. These flexibilities give schools the local control they need to provide nutritious meals that school children find appetizing.”

Many of the issues cited by the USDA as problematic for school lunch providers are not actually a problem. A statement released by Center for Science in the Public Interest Vice President for Nutrition Margo G. Wootan:

Virtually 100 percent of schools are already complying with the final nutrition standards, including the first phase of sodium reduction…Nine out of 10 school-aged children are eating too much salt, which is why reducing sodium levels in school meals is so important. The USDA should be doubling down on helping schools reduce sodium, not slowing down progress, as the Trump administration proposed today.”

Diet is the foundation of health, and it’s fitting that the government making it easier to serve schoolchildren less nutritious lunches is also the administration dismantling the current healthcare system without a viable system to take its place. The USDA considers the school lunch program a part of its nutrition safety net. So why is it making it easier for vulnerable school children to eat poorly?

Nutrition Education and Healthy Choices

Today, one in five children between the ages of 6-19 is obese, and that number has tripled since the 1970s. More than one-third of Americans are obese. The healthcare costs for an obese person are nearly $1,500 higher for an obese person than a normal weight person. Our health nationwide is not improving because we are failing to properly educate kids about healthy food and healthy lifestyle choices. Only one in ten Americans eat enough vegetables. Combine that with a nutrition safety net willing to compromise health standards out of concern with program operators, school nutrition professionals, industry, and other stakeholders. It’s no wonder kids don’t know how important healthy food choices are, let alone how to make them.

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President Trump Has Nominated A Pro-Vaccine Exec to Secretary of the Health and Human Services

President Trump has just nominated Alex Azar, the former chief lobbyist and President of the US division of drug the company Eli Lilly, to be the next Secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS). Alex Azar was deputy secretary for Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration. He is slated to replace Dr. Tom Price as head of the department.

Eli Lilly invented and manufactured thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in vaccines that have been repeatedly linked to autism and other neurological disorders.

In contrast to Mr. Price, an orthopedic surgeon and former Republican congressman, Mr. Azar is a lawyer and health care expert who allies predicted would use his deep knowledge of the federal bureaucracy to advance Mr. Trump’s agenda of undermining President Barack Obama’s health care law. Mr. Azar recently called the Affordable Care Act a “fundamentally broken system.” –NY Times

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

From Autism Action Network:

Prior to employment at Eli Lilly, under George W. Bush, Azar was general counsel and later deputy secretary of HHS at the time the decision was made to give an expedited efficacy and safety review to Gardasil, a vaccine for human papilloma virus produced by Merck that has enormous safety issues. As general counsel (head attorney) for HHS, Azar participated in the Autism Omnibus Proceeding that denied more than 5000 claims of vaccine injury, even though HHS settled one of the test cases that found that Hannah Poling’s autism was indeed caused by vaccine injury. Azar is exactly the wrong person to head HHS. Azar must be approved by the Senate, and the Autism Action Network will be working hard to stop his confirmation.

While the head of Eli Lily in the US, Azar was also on the board of directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Association, a trade and lobbying association for manufacturers of biological products including drugs, vaccines and GMOs. Azar’s career perfectly mirrors the “revolving door” door between regulatory agencies and the industries that they supposedly regulate in the public interest. The revolving door is one of the clearest indicators of government corruption. And Azar is only 50 years old, so we can probably expect several more trips through the revolving door before his career is done.

Azar has the wrong experience, the wrong track record, the wrong associations, and the wrong personal financial and career interests to head HHS. America has the most expensive healthcare and drugs in the world, yet our indicators of public health are among the lowest found in developed countries. A former lobbyist for one of America’s largest drug companies is not the person who will bring desperately needed reform. The head of HHS should be an advocate for allowing research to go wherever honest science leads, regulatory policy that puts the safety and health of the public before corporate and physician’s profits, transparency in all medical research and regulatory reviews, informed consent as the basis for all medical procedures, and aggressive policies to end the epidemics of autism, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and on and on.

As a candidate, and in office, President Trump said he would “drain the swamp of government corruption.” In his tweet announcing the Azar’s nomination, Trump wrote, “He will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!” But according to the Dow Jones Newswires, “during Alex Azar’s tenure Eli Lilly & Co. executive prices rose dramatically for some of the company’s top drugs.” The last person we need heading HHS is a drug company fox guarding the hen house. Alex Azar should not be confirmed as Secretary of HHS.
Please share this message with friends and family and please post to social networks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwRWckMKVC4

Related: How Plumbing (Not Vaccines) Eradicated Disease

If you’ve like to take action, click on Autism Action Network and scroll down, there’s an email form. You can also call the White House and politely express your opposition to Azar’s nomination at (202) 456-1111.

Recommended: Lyme Disease – Holistic Protocol to Completely Rebuild the Immune System

Other Trump News Regarding Health, Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Environment

The Keystone Pipeline Leaked 210K Gallons in South Dakota. President Donald Trump issued the federal permit for the Keystone XL project in March,  though it had been rejected by the previous administration due to environmental concerns, and many argue the pipeline addition is not even needed.

Trump also began to reverse the Obama administration’s ban on bringing heads of elephants killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the U.S. Fortunately, the Don heard the uproar:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/931685146415255552

But he also, again, delayed the implementation of “Organic Animal Welfare Standards”.

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Trump Is Lifting Ban on Importing Elephant Trophies from Africa

The Trump administration is reported to be reversing the Obama administration’s ban on bringing heads of elephants killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the U.S.

Imports will be allowed for elephants killed between Jan. 21, 2016 and the end of 2018. The decision has been cheered by many hunting and gun rights organizations. The United States and international authorities say the African elephant is an endangered species, and the Obama administration argued that allowing trophy imports of the elephants would harm the animals by encouraging the killing and poaching of them.

Even though elephants are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, a provision in the act allows the government to give permits to import these trophies if there is evidence that the hunting actually benefits conservation for that species. The official said they have new information from officials in Zimbabwe and Zambia to support reversing the ban to allow trophy hunting permits.” – ABC News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghr1oldTVJc

Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation.” – FWS spokesman

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., Donald Trump’s sons, are known to be fans of large game hunting.

https://twitter.com/Weinsteinlaw/status/930959251312447489

Newsweek states that the elephant population has declined since 2001 in Zimbabwe and in some regions in Zambia.

Hunters often choose the healthiest or strongest members of animal populations, to have a more impressive trophy, but this can have negative effects on the species overall.

This 2015 poll showed that 86 percent of Americans are opposed to big-game hunting, and 60% of respondents said that it should be illegal.

Update!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/931685146415255552

Nice work everyone!



Climate Change Causing Less Nutrition, More Sugar In Our food

How Excess Carbon Dioxide Diminishes Nutrients in Plants

Our food system has become a game of Jenga, and we’re running out of blocks to pull from the bottom. Disease and challenging growing conditions threaten popular foods like coffee, chocolate, bananas, and wheat. Bees, nature’s perfect pollinator, are stressed and disappearing rapidly. Plants are also less nutritious, thanks to climate change.

Climate change leads to more carbon dioxide in the environment. Plants enjoy the extra food, growing more quickly, but they are unable to sustain that growth. Too much carbon dioxide affects the amount of macro and micronutrients that in plants. What we eat contain fewer nutrients than ever before due to their “junk food” diet. Do we need to put plants on a low-carb diet?

The Deets

Scientists know that foods are less nutritious than they used to be but previously attributed that discrepancy to modern agriculture’s preference for higher yield crop varieties. Irakli Loladze, a mathematician studying the effect of CO2 on pants for 15 years, finds that climate change has an equal or greater effect on plant health and nutrition content.

Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising…We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.”

How diluted are we talking here? A 2017 research paper estimated that by 2050, many of the staple crops we rely on like rice, wheat, barley, and potatoes will lose 7.6%, 7.8%, 14.1%, and 6.4%, of their protein, respectively. This is devastating news for countries that rely on those crops for protein. Eighteen countries could lose more than five percent of their dietary protein, and 148.4 million people will also be at risk.

Plants are also losing many of the essential micronutrients we need. One in three people is deficient in zinc. The concentration of calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron, and other minerals in the food we eat has by 8% because of rising carbon dioxide. Scientists and climate deniers alike agree the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still growing. Will we be able to counter the effects that has on the food we eat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igLaQ4Gi_0Y

No Easy Solutions, No Quick Fixes

Farming takes time, and results from changes are not always apparent. A new crop takes 15 to 20 years to arrive in stores. Other potential fixes like mass scale composting or reducing carbon dioxide in the air are also time-consuming processes. The well-being of the food we eat and our food system are deteriorating in a world where fewer people have the resources to produce their own food. Are we at the point where we are unable to stay healthy through food alone? Only time will tell…yet it’s the biggest unknown in this entire equation.

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PCBs, Roundup, and Dicamba – Monsanto’s Current Problems

They say bad news comes in threes, and biotech giant Monsanto can certainly attest to the truth of that statement right now. Their newest product line, XtendiMax (better known as dicamba), made it to market without proper volatility testing. This refers to the product’s tendency to vaporize and travel. Subsequently, dicamba is drifting, causing major damage to neighboring crops, and currently banned in one U.S. state. There have also been two separate instances of newly released documents confirming that Monsanto knew two of their products, PCBs (from 1935 and 1977) and glyphosate, are harmful and continued to defend and sell them in spite of that.

For years, Monsanto has presented unsafe products as safe with little to no repercussion. Yet it is still on track to further dominate the food supply due to the company’s merger with Bayer. So why are the agencies charged with regulating food and environmental safety ok with Monsanto’s market control in the face of their shady practices?

Recommended: Lyme Disease – Holistic Protocol to Completely Rebuild the Immune System

Past Indiscretions with PCBs

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were banned pretty much everywhere in 1979 after being linked to cancer and environmental degradation. PCBs began manufacture in 1935, and the first evidence of their toxicity appeared in 1937, after three workers who handled the chemicals died from acute liver damage. Serious health and environmental concerns continue to be reported to this day, even though the largest manufacturer of these, Monsanto, halted their production in 1977.

Monsanto is currently being sued by the state of Washington and eight cities for PCB contamination. Recently released documents have confirmed that Monsanto was aware of the effect of PCBs as early as 1969, eight years before they stopped selling them. A 1969 pollution abatement plan from the company acknowledged the product’s risks, stating “…“The evidence proving the persistence of these compounds and their universal presence in the environment is beyond questioning.” In another letter from a Monsanto manager in 1975, the company knew that “There is a potential real effect to humans – including death…”

In Monsanto’s own words, PCBs are dangerous in more ways than one. Yet they made money and Monsanto is first and foremost a business. But this wouldn’t be the only instance of company records showing corporate profits trump health, safety, and environmental concerns.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Present Problems with Roundup

More court documents exposing Monsanto’s behind the scenes manipulations were released by attorneys pursuing claims against the company in regards to the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Attorneys from the law firm Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman released more than 700 pages of internal documents, detailing Monsanto’s behind the scenes activities. Numerous emails, texts, and other documents confirm that employees at Monsanto ghostwrote and manipulated scientific studies and expert panel discussions, failed to disclose conflicts of interest, discredited multiple negative glyphosate studies, and colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) labeled glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans in 2015, but it’s clear from the recently released documents that Monsanto has known this since before 2008.

These documents also make Monsanto’s strategy for avoiding regulation clear: government collusion. Many of the documents released are communications with high ranking individuals at the Environmental Protection Agency, imploring them to delay scientific reviews of glyphosate multiple times. Monsanto’s has a clear modus operandi once they learn their products cause human harm – muddy the scientific waters, defend it furiously, and make as much money as possible. Their experience with PCBs was a learning experience. The lesson? Get the agencies regulating you to do the dirty work.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

Future Uncertainty with Dicamba

The Environmental Protection Agency approved Monsanto’s newest version of dicamba, XtendiMax, in November of 2016. Poised to replace glyphosate now that many weeds are developing resistance to that product, many farmers instead experienced serious crop loss after illegal versions of it used prior to that release drifted onto their fields from neighboring farms. With the product officially released, Monsanto is now facing a class actions lawsuits from farmers reporting severe losses for the second year in a row.

Testimony from researchers, regulators, and a company employee indicate that Monsanto used its influence to bring the product to market without all of the proper tests, including a proper volatility test. In fact, testing contracts for the product explicitly forbade it. Yet the EPA approved the product without it.

Arkansas was the only state to ask for additional testing. Monsanto denied that request. Arkansas has now banned dicamba, and other states are now assessing damage from the herbicide for the second year in a row. This damage occurs when dicamba drifted to other, non-modified crops, the exact scenario further testing could have predicted. A class action lawsuit is pending.

Is It Too Late?

Monsanto wields incredible influence with government agencies, scientists, and researchers. This allows the company to continually deny and create confusion around health and environmental damages that their products are actually causing. And it’s scary. What chance do we have when those charged with upholding regulations created to protect the public are on the Monsanto Christmas card list?

It took nearly a decade from when Monsanto privately acknowledged the damage PCBs were causing for regulatory agencies to do something about it. The new formulation of dicamba, XtendiMax, has been on the market for less than a year and has been banned in both Arkansas and Missouri. The times are changing.

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5 Tons of GM Fish Sold for Human Consumption (And Only The Producer Knows Where They Are)

For the first time in human history, genetically modified (GM) fish has been sold for human consumption.

The seller? AquaBounty Technologies – a company that produces GM AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon.

In their most recent quarterly report, AquaBounty stated that they sold approximately 5 tons of their GM Atlantic salmon fillets. The worst part is that only AquaBounty knows where their genetically modified fish are going. All we know is that the GM fish are in Canada.

“No one except AquaBounty knows where the GM salmon are,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN). “The company did not disclose where the GM salmon fillets were sold or for what purpose…”

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Lucy has been trying to get answers from AquaBounty for years. In 2013, she went straight to AquaBounty’s facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada to investigate.

Unfortunately, Lucy and her colleagues were treated like criminals. The only information they could find is that AquaBounty is polluting their local environment.

Organizations like CBAN are essential in keeping the Canadian public informed on genetically modified food because members of the Canadian Parliament voted against mandatory GM food labeling in May.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

But what does this have to do with the United States?

In the United States, GM salmon is approved for human consumption. The only thing that is keeping it from being sold to the US is an import ban that has been put on GM fish until labeling guidelines are published.

At first, this sounds like great news, but what this really means is that GM fish will not be imported into the United States… yet.

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Bumblebees Are Now An Endangered Species

The rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis), once such a common site in North America, is now on the endangered species list. This bee species was once abundant and thriving in 28 states and the District of Columbia. They were common in the grasslands and prairies of the East and the Midwest. Now, the bees that are left are mostly confined to small areas within twelve states and the province of Ontario Canada.

We are thrilled to see one of North America’s most endangered species receive the protection it needs. Now that the Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the rusty-patched bumble bee as endangered, it stands a chance of surviving the many threats it faces — from the use of neonicotinoid pesticides to diseases.” – Xerces Society director of endangered species, Sarah Jepsen

The bee’s population is down almost 90 percent since the 1990s. But other pollinators may reap the benefits of protecting the bumblebee as well.

“While this listing clearly supports the rusty patched bumble bee, the entire suite of pollinators that share its habitat, and which are so critical to natural ecosystems and agriculture, will also benefit. This is a positive step towards the conservation of this species, and we now have to roll up our sleeves to begin the actual on-the-ground conservation that will help it move toward recovery.” – Rich Hatfield, Xerces Society senior conservation biologist

It wasn’t easy getting the bee listed, and there is a good chance the designation of bumble bees as an endangered species will face more resistance from several industries and corporations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized the bumblebee’s listing as an endangered species on January 11th, but it took longer than expected to put the bee on the list of endangered species. The National Cotton Council, the National Association of Home Builders, and the American Petroleum Institute pushed to postpone the decision and Trump’s administration delayed Obama-era regulations that hadn’t yet taken into effect, which delayed the rusty-patched bumblebee from being listed.

The Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress in 1973 and signed into law by President Nixon in December of the same year. The legislation is considered the most significant and powerful wildlife protection act in U.S. history. The Trump administration is interested in gutting or possibly ending the Endangered Species Act.

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