Health in the News

Rather than clean up the commercial feedlot practices which contribute mightily to the down steam flow of E.coli, salmonella, antibiotics and other contaminants, the FDA is voting to "sterilize" our vegetables. For those who enjoy the benefits of raw spinach and other vegetables, it won't be raw anymore when it has been irradiated. The delicate enzymes and nutrients that make raw food so valuable will be "zapped away" along with the potential germs.

Organic food is supposed to be exempt from irradiation. Food which has been irradiated is supposed to carry a little sign that looks completely innocuous, like a flower.

Kroger Co, one of the nation's largest retail grocery chains, said last year it was rejecting the synthetic hormone. So too has Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Dean Foods. And for more than a decade the European Union also has rejected imports of meat derived from hormone-treated cattle.

Consumer pressure to stop the use of this hormone reflects a growing concern among parents that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., has been on the forefront of the battle to cease the use of this synthetic hormone. In his book, What's In Your Milk?, he makes 3 key points: rBGH milk is supercharged with high levels of a natural growth factor (IGF-1) which is readily absorbed through the gut. Excess levels of IGF-1 have been incriminated as a cause of breast, colon, and prostate cancers. And IGF-1 blocks natural defense mechanisms against early submicroscopic cancers.

Scientists have long known that arsenic is linked to cancer. And now we see evidence of its contribution to the obesity epidemic. With this kind of information getting into the mainstream news, it is harder to ignore that toxicity in our environment can have a huge impact on our health. Arsenic was associated with development of type II diabetes as early as the 1950s, when a patient was given IV arsenic for a sexually transmitted disease. Two primary sources of arsenic: non-organic chicken and groundwater naturally contaminated with arsenic – and heavy metals.

We are capable of eliminating the body burden of toxins and heavy metals. Perhaps the refusal of the medical establishment to consider therapy, and the refusal of the insurance establishment to cover the cost of reducing the body burden, is at least partly responsible for rising health care costs. The epidemic of diabetes goes hand-in-hand with higher rates of heart disease, strokes, amputations, and disability. At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine, we provide detox therapies and chelation.

The FDA's finding is based largely on the strength of two industry-funded studies that found no problems. This underscores what many critics have said is an all too cozy relationship between the FDA and the industries it is supposed to regulate.

But consumers would rather be safe than sorry. Several retailers, including Wal-Mart and Toys R' Us, announced that they were phasing out baby bottles that used BPA. I've seen "BPA-free" water bottles now at REI sporting goods stores.

When we are dying, antibiotics are a good choice to debulk the infection so that the body can deal with the clean-up. But the casual use of antibiotics has led to the growth of "superbugs." And all pharmaceutical drugs carry risk. We think we know the effects of drugs, but their effects have not tested on every metabolic process in the body. Only "post-marketing" reports will reveal some of these side effects, which may well turn out to be affecting essential metabolic processes as we have found out with Cipro.

This is being called a major victory for consumers. However, it is interesting to note how Monsanto is positioning its products in this time of high global food prices. Spokesperson Chavis positioned the new face of Posilac as a "green" alternative for farmers, saying the drug allows big savings in terms of feed and land.

"As the environmental pressure on agriculture gets greater, this allows dairy producers to produce more milk with less (sic) cows thereby reducing the overall carbon footprint of milk production," Chavis said.

Meanwhile, Monsanto is going to focus even harder on genetically modified foods which many of us physicians feel represents a huge threat to human health.

More than half of the U.S. soybeans and corn that make up roughly 70 percent of pre-packages grocery store items come from genetically engineered ingredients. Recently, rBGH has been tested on catfish and tilapia to increase growth.

The medical community is becoming increasingly aware of the damage chemicals do to human health, and Environmental Working Group has documented what is inside all of us, the "body burden." This event demonstrates the need for us to rely less on government agencies to protect us, and to rely more on self-education. An excellent new book I recommend is The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakawzawa. This particular book got attention from homeopathic and holistic physicians because it looks at the linkages between environmental contaminants and the rise in all manner of autoimmune diseases. The book got endorsements from head people at the National Institutes of Health and John Hopkins – both mainstream organizations.

Fat is not necessarily a bad thing. We need fat for energy, hormone production, cellular membranes, organ padding, and certain saturated fatty acids are also needed for important cellular signaling and stabilization processes in the body.

But as this data points out, we've increased consumption of the "bad" fats – vegetable oils and hydrogenated oils (trans fats) which harden cell walls and make them less able to take nutrients in and let out metabolic waste – toxins.

Good fats and fish oils need to be in our diet. And nutrition writers would do well to have a better understanding of naturally-occurring saturated fat found in grass-fed red meat that mankind has eaten for centuries. It has no strong links with disease, while industrially produced trans fats do. I stress grass-fed because healthy red meat, eggs and come from animals fed their natural diet. Unhealthy saturated fat comes from grain fed animals.

Our nurses use FirstLine Therapy to help our patients separate the nutrition hype from reality and learn how to eat good foods that the whole family will enjoy. Want to live without chronic disease? Let us teach you how to build a strong foundation with every bite you take.

I think this misses the bigger picture. The amount of information coming out about the benefits of Vitamin D – the sunshine vitamin – is virtually snowballing. We have escalating rates of cancer and chronic disease, and studies show that low levels of vitamin D is to partly blame.

Because people have been told to fear the sun, there is a widespread vitamin D deficiency today. About 90 percent of the vitamin D in your body is made when your skin is exposed to sunlight. This bill also does not address the sunscreen toxicity issue. A March 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control revealed that 97% of Americans are contaminated with a widely-used sunscreen ingredient called oxybenzone that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage.

This bill would put the FDA in the interesting position of approving the sale of something that kills people and has no medical benefit. According to the CDC, tobacco kills 438,000 people each year in the United States alone. According to conservative figures from the American Medical Association, FDA-approved drugs kill about 100,000 Americans a year. By contrast, 2751 people died in the 9-11 World Trade Center tragedy.

The White House is promising to veto the legislation because "the bill will unfortunately undermine one of the nation's premier public health and regulatory institutions and potentially lead the public to mistakenly conclude some tobacco products are safe." Meanwhile, Barack Obama promises a national ban on smoking in public places.

Politics aside, one thing is for sure. The FDA is undermanned and unable to protect the public health as it is. FDA-approved Vioxx killed 60,000 people and headlines about salmonella in tomatoes and e.coli in the beef just keep coming.

Dr. Lawrence Diller is the author of "The Last Normal Child" (Praeger, 2006). He is to be applauded for bringing attention to the gross conflicts of interests which now permeate standard medicine. These conflicts are hidden from American public by an unquestioning media.

Many times Dr. Paul Offit for example been quoted as an expert doctor when it comes to vaccines, yet rarely does the news mention that he is a paid consultant to Merck Pharmaceuticals who makes vaccines.

Dr. Diller's essay is excellent and can be found in its entirely at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/13/IN7G11L6TL.DTL

Also see our recent news item on the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending cholesterol lowering drugs for children beginning at age 8.

Inappropriate childhood behavior ranging from aggressiveness to autism, from inability to focus to severe stomach pains is our specialty. Read how we examine the whole body – from brain function to gut function and everything in between – and how we apply non-drug based answers at http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/therapies/brain_advantage.html

Manufacturers of consumer products are not required to disclose the ingredients The European Union recently enacted legislation requiring products to list 26 fragrance chemicals when they are present above a certain concentration in cosmetic products and detergents. No similar laws exist in the United States.

If we had better in truth in labeling, we wouldn't be in the dark about toxic chemicals in our environment.

I give a big thumbs up to the words of Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich, who called the FDA's funding distribution pattern a "failure of FDA management to understand that its sole purpose for existence is to protect the American people."

It is interesting to note that the American Dental Association however is still standing firm, saying amalgam is: "a safe, affordable and durable material that has been used in the teeth of more than 100 million Americans." And since the FDA is not restricting the use of amalgam, dentists' offices are not prohibited from using amalgam fillings.

This should have been a no-brainer. We do not need mercury, one of the most lethal metals on earth, in our mouths. Many feel that the federal agency charged with the responsibility of safe guarding the health and welfare of the American public shirked that duty. The FDA's change in policy came after a tremendous amount of advocacy – petitions, Congressional hearings, Scientific Advisory Committee hearings, support letters, and finally, a class action lawsuit.

This article so moved me I fired off a letter to the editor at the Republic. It says, in part, "How can I take seriously an article written as though it were "news", when even the headline contains emotionally charged words aimed at steering the reader toward the writer's opinion? In medicine, informed consent involves presenting the facts to patients, discussing the pros and cons, and allowing them to make their own decisions about whether to undergo the proposed treatment. We try very hard not to say that ours is the only way, that other ways are "quackery".

Medical history is full of cases where those who, early on saw value in new ways, were at first ridiculed, then later awarded the Nobel Prize. Linus Pauling of vitamin C fame is one such example. In the case of chelation's use in autism, the writer miserably failed to present both sides of the story.

Chelation is a proven therapy. It was used by the U.S. Navy to successfully remove lead from poisoned sailors and has been used since successfully to treat heart disease. This is not a "fringe" treatment. It is a tried and true treatment now being applied to children because studies show children's bodies are loaded with metals and environmental chemicals.

Of course, parents of autistic children are desperate. An estimated 1 in 150 children now has autism. Conventional medicine, as the article points out, says there is no cure and offers a few prescription drugs. If chelation can bring autistic children back into the world, then the media deserves to give it an honest look and stop merely repeating old dogma. Here at the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine, autistic children use chelation often with great success and we celebrate those successes.

This is another curious recommendation from the AAP. Statins have been around since only the mid-1980s; there is no evidence to show whether giving statins to a child will lower the risk for heart attack in middle age. Despite Dr. Bhatia's breezy endorsement of these drugs, there is evidence that statins cause muscle pain and weakness, and interfere with the mental ability to concentrate and think clearly.

Decades ago, a few studies caused the medical world to think high cholesterol is linked to heart disease. We know now those studies were flawed. We also now know enough that before we prescribe drugs for young children that alter the body's basic processes, we should first look at whether "high" cholesterol is caused perhaps by low thyroid, exposure to chlorine, lack of sun exposure, lack of vitamin c, or hydrogenated oils in the diet.

The AAP also recommends giving children low-fat milk after 12 months if a doctor is concerned about future weight problems. The AAP says that because children often consume so much fat, low-fat milk is now appropriate. Truth is, children absolutely need fat - and cholesterol - for brain development.

But too many kids eat the wrong kids of fats, trans fatty acids from fast foods. What kids need more than anything is DHA, especially when they are very young, to build up their brain function and neural connections. Mother's milk has the highest levels of DHA. It would be a shame to deprive toddlers and growing children of the most helpful part of cow's milk - the full fat - in the mistaken belief that high cholesterol levels are the cause of heart disease.

There has been a lot of PR spin against the benefits of vitamins; it's good to see someone finally producing objective research that shows what we have all known for years. Of course vitamins are good for you, that is why Mother Nature's real food is chock full of them. It is encouraging to see that genetic defects have the potential to be corrected with appropriate supplementation.

We know that what you eat and are exposed to today will affect the DNA you pass down to you children and your grandchildren. To see how the whole science of inheritance is being turned on its head, check out this BBC-produced documentary called The Ghost In Your Genes.

This is a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the maneuverings of the pharmaceutical industry to create an ever widening market for drugs in the United States. They are planting the idea that to quit smoking, you need prescription drugs and those should be paid for by health insurance because smoking is a chronic illness like diabetes.

The authors of this article declared conflicts of interest with the drug companies Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, and Celtic Pharma.

Does "long-term cessation medications" mean that people will essentially transfer their addiction from the tobacco companies to the pharmaceutical industry? Studies have shown that existing medicinal nicotine substitutes are far from harmless. Buproprion, a common nicotine substitute, has been known to cause seizures. And the substitute varenceline has been linked to psychiatric disturbances including suicides.

When the FDA's advisory panels are filled with conflicts of interest, filled with people who have various ties with the industry, the agency cannot expect to operate in the public interest.

We've seen prior problems with tomatoes, we've had the e. coli scare in the spinach field, we've had to recall tons of beef…. The food is recalled, or we are told to cook it longer. But no where is there a call to change industry farming methods which encourage the growth of e. coli and salmonella.

This voices of dissatisfaction with the FDA's mission to protect the public has moved beyond advocacy groups now to the mainstream media. It will be interesting to see how the next presidential administration handles this hot potato.

After WWII ended, the American military was curious to find out why the Japanese field rations tasted so much better. Turned out the secret ingredient was MSG, and that began the large-scale use of it in the United States. MSG makes our brain declare that food tastes really, really good and that we want more of it, regardless of nutritive value.

MSG simulates umami, one of the five basic tastes which the human tongue can recognize and appreciate. Specifically, umami is the taste associated with savoriness, as found in foods such as meat, cheese, tomatoes, and mushrooms. These foods contain naturally formed glutamates, which is what gives them that savory taste. Unfortunately, MSG, like aspartame, is also toxic to the brain.

MSG can be used without disclosure - you won't find it find it listed on the label. Instead, it might be called one of perhaps 50 names including hydrolyzed protein, soy protein, maltodextrin, or natural flavor. It might be in the milk solids in low fat milk. MSG is found in most soups, salad dressings, processed meats, frozen entrees, ice cream, and frozen yogurt, in some crackers, bread, canned tuna, and very often in "low fat" and "no fat" foods to make up for flavor lost when fat is reduced or eliminated. It can be found in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements and infant formula. It is found in vaccines -- including vaccines used on children. It can be used in waxes applied to fresh fruits and vegetables and it sprayed on vegetable crops and nuts in the fields. California wine grapes are sprayed with MSG.

You can read the petition at http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=FDA-2007-P-0178. You can also read Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock's book entitled, "Excitotoxins, The Taste That Kills."

The future has arrived. At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine we evaluate brain function as well as body function, through our BrainAdvantage™ program, and prescribe a program which will help improve memory, judgment and metabolism – all in one location. You no longer have to go to a traditional doctor for blood work, a holistic doctor or naturopath to look at functional tests, and a neuropsychologist to work with your brain. Now you can do it all at the same time, in the same place. Please call us for more information.

It is always a good thing to test myths. So now we know, at least from this one study, that we see similar cognitive decline in people with coronary artery disease, both in those who had surgery (bypass grafts) and in those who did not. So, the questions then become: If "the disease itself is the basis for cognitive decline," are the medications at fault? There is much antidotal evidence that statin drugs for example cause cognitive problems and they are often prescribed to those with "high cholesterol" who are said to be at risk for heart disease. What are the side effects of the drugs given for diabetes and high blood pressure? Is memory loss just a normal part of aging? The study does not appear to address any sort of nutritional or lifestyle alternation, which could have a significant effect on the outcome, even after heart disease has become manifest. The most effective treatment of any chronic illness is modification of nutrition and lifestyle. The Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine offers FirstLine Therapy to help you make the nutritional and lifestyle changes, and we can treat the brain function itself with our BrainAdvantage™ program.

Despite the amount of sun that we see in Arizona, about 98% of my patients have vitamin D levels which are far below the levels recommended by the Vitamin D council. About 5% have levels below the reference range in lab tests – which are the levels required to prevent rickets. About 20 minutes of exposure to the sun each day, in a skimpy bathing suit, without sunscreen, will help the body manufacture close to 20,000 IU of Vitamin D. Or you can take a pill… or a drop. Does too much sunshine cause skin cancer? Read up on it in our library article, "Skin Cancer, Sunshine, and Vitamin D." As more information like this breaks into the mainstream media, the day will come when we retire the mantra "stay out of the sun – it will give you cancer" just as we tossed out the advice from "experts" a decade ago that a high carbohydrate diet was the way to go. Vitamin D is good for us; we need more of it.

Even if Lexapro is given to make what serotonin the brain can still produce hang around longer, this does nothing to help the brain recover from its stroke. Whenever there is a stroke, there are always brain cells in the surrounding area which are partially damaged but not yet dead – the area is called the "penumbra" or "shadow zone". These cells still have a chance to recover, if they can be given sufficient energy. However, because of the stroke, their blood supply has been cut off or diminished to the point where they have used up all their stores of readily available energy (ATP) and have used up all the precursors. So they are left with no gas in the tank. Giving ribose helps to put at least a precursor of gas in the tank, so that the cells have a better chance at surviving.

Since half of the granulated sugar in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, a move towards biotech beets marks a dramatic alteration of the U.S. food supply. Sugar beets have been modified to insert a gene that makes the plant resistant to glyphosate, a toxic herbicide, sold under the trade name Roundup. At the request of Roundup's manufacturer, Monsanto, the EPA increased the allowable amount of glyphosate residues on sugar beet roots by 5,000 percent. The inevitable result is more pesticide in our sugar, and a GM element "hiding" in many items we might by at the grocery store.

According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of Americans say they won't buy food that has been genetically modified. But much of it is not labeled. One way to avoid GM is to buy organic.

Check out www.DontPlantGMOBeets.org. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of nearly 300 faith-based institutional investors, launched this Web-based campaign in March, 2008, "because of weak governmental review and oversight, and the lack of long-term, independent and peer-reviewed safety studies."

Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, and Bob Gregory launched the "GM Free Churches" campaign in Virginia to educate churches about the health and spiritual dangers of GMO-ed foods.

This one should trigger all kinds of alarm bells. We eat food "products" with chemicals that are bad for us, then start taking drugs to counteract the effect of a non-nutritious diet. How backwards is that? Many of our patients find that even if they start a healthy detoxification and nutritional program like FirstLine Therapy late, they can come off their drugs because they no longer need them. This is the perfect example of "less is more." And the choice is ours – modify our lifestyle and eating habits, or take drugs to counteract the effects. The drugs come with side effects and do not resolve problems at their core. It seems like a pretty obvious decision to me…

So, we have done something good for the planet by reducing CFCs, but we didn't do something good for the human body. The new inhalers still make use of fluorine, so you get some every time you puff. Fluorine displaces iodine, causes the thyroid to function poorly, and is toxic to the lungs.

At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine whether they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses. Headlines like this are why Diane Rehm of National Public Radio says the public has little faith anymore in the EPA's ability to protect public health.

Do the White House politicians have such in-depth knowledge of chemistry and medicine that they should feel themselves competent to judge which chemicals should be tested and which are sufficiently safe that they do not need to be tested at all??

What the CNN story did not reveal was Dr. Paul Offit's conflicts of interest. He is one of the patent holders of the rotavirus vaccine, the recipient of a $350,000 grant from Merck for its development, a consultant to Merck Pharmaceuticals, and a vocal spokesman for the pro-vaccine forces.

Although mercury has been removed from most vaccines, vaccines can still contain traces of mercury, at a level so low the actual amount doesn't have to be stated. In other words, they are called "mercury-free." Also, there has been no attempt to remove the other ingredients in vaccines that can cause neurological damage such as aluminum, formaldehyde, phenol, and MSG (used as a stabilizer).

What disappoints me about this news article is its fatalistic overtones. Have we somehow missed hearing about the positive roles of Vitamin B12 and B3, and somehow ignored the negative effects of gluten, artificial sweeteners and colorings, chemicals and the like? I must have missed something in the last 15 years when all these things were being discussed and debated in more advanced medical circles. This article merely speaks to predicting and managing a disease.

The Chinese use chess to help stimulate the brain. Chess, of all the possible games, utilizes strategy and planning – both activities which originate in the frontal lobes of the brain. There is treatment for memory loss. Stay tuned, on this website, for news of a simple way to stimulate the frontal lobes of the brain to improve memory and concentration – no drugs, no bad side effects, just increased mental clarity and memory. This therapy will be available at The Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine starting in July of 2008 – the only place in the country for this particular kind of therapy in a medical setting.

Could it be that our toxic world - our growing body burden of environmental exposures - is coming back to bite us?

And we are STILL recommending drugs as first-line therapy for AD/HD? What is wrong with this picture? Diet and lifestyle and brain training are more effective, less dangerous, and much healthier.

So… one more reason to be wary of trying to appear to be something other than what we actually are. Health and beauty come through good nutrition for body, brain and mind. If we are content with the current state of our lives, there is no reason for frown lines, and they do not have to be flattened by artificial means. Botox is a drug – in fact it is a deadly toxic byproduct of the botulinus bacterium which used to be found in inadequately sterilized canned goods. Why would we want to inject deadly toxins deliberately into our bodies?

Canada has now banned the sale of products containing bisphenol A. WalMart Canada pulled off the shelves baby bottles containing this toxic chemical. Interestingly, this did not happen in the United States. WalMart declared its intention to remove those products by early 2009. In the meantime, the products are still on the shelf. This reminds me of the thimerosal story in 1999 – thimerosal was banned from vaccines as a preservative, but it was still permitted to sell the vaccines left over from the old manufacturing ways – and so thimerosal did not actually come out of the supply chain until about 2002, when the old stores were finally used up. It is possible that there is a conflict of interest between our physical health and the financial health of big industry?

Earlier studies showed low amounts of bisphenol A have the ability to mimic human estrogen, but now we see a U.S. government study addressing the problem.

The draft report said, in pretty plain language, that "bisphenol A can migrate into food from food and beverage containers with internal epoxy resin coatings and from consumer products made of polycarbonate plastic such as baby bottles, tableware, food containers, and water bottles. … Bisphenol A can also be found in breast milk. Biomonitoring studies show that human exposure to bisphenol A is widespread."

The report said that "laboratory rodents show that exposure to high dose levels of bisphenol A during pregnancy and/or lactation can reduce survival, birth weight, and growth of offspring early in life, and delay the onset of puberty in males and females. A variety of effects related to neural and behavior alterations, precancerous lesions in the prostate and mammary glands, altered prostate gland and urinary tract development, and early onset of puberty in females have been reported in laboratory rodents exposed during development to much lower doses of bisphenol A that are more similar to human exposures."

Do you carry a polycarbonate water bottle your car in the Arizona summer heat? If so, then you'll find this part of the report interesting: "The degree to which bisphenol A migrates from polycarbonate containers into liquid appears to depend more on the temperature of the liquid than the age of the container, i.e., more migration with higher temperatures."

Environmental Working Group found that bisphenol A leaches from the metal lining of cans and has been found at alarmingly high rates in one-third of the cans of baby formula tested. Bisphenol A is also found in soda cans, in refrigerator shelving, microwave ovenware, water pipes, electrical appliances, flooring, and part of the plastic used in covering children cavities.

You can join the growing ranks of consumers who are demanding glass – a good idea for health and for the environment because glass can be recycled. Plastic will be around for tens of thousands of years.

The loss of bats may be an even worse concern than the loss of bees. Bats are the world's greatest insect eaters. A small brown bat can eat as many as 600 mosquitoes in an hour. The implications for agriculture are enormous. The spread of severe communicable diseases could be devastating. Diseases borne by mosquitoes include Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Malaria, Dengue Fever, and West Nile Virus.

Right on, Dr. Kellerman! I could not have said it better myself. The assumption seems to be that insurance – rather than the service delivered by doctor to patient – is the more important element in the equation.

All the more reason to start our children out with very healthy anti-inflammatory foods – meats, fruits and vegetables – without additives or colorings or extra sugars. We could almost certainly prevent most of the healthcare spending in later life if we gave our children a good start in life, with food messages to their genes which promote health.

This is called "sarcopenic obesity" – meaning relative lack of muscle compared with total body weight. This is where measurement of the bio-impedance analysis (BIA) of the body is helpful, to gauge amount of body fat, muscle, intracellular water, and other parameters which help us to gauge how healthy or toxic a person may be. At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine we do this measurement on all our new patients, and then repeat the measurement periodically as they go through our nutritional program which is geared at restoring the body to health and eliminating the risk factors of hypertension, hyperglycemia, high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome.

Dental amalgam, or silver filling material, has been around for some 150 years. Yes, it's the same mercury you saw in thermometers as a kid and were warned never to touch. Mercury is a known toxin. From a dentist's perspective, it is a long-lasting material that is cheap and easy to use. It is estimated that half of all dentists still use mercury-based restorations in their practice.

Consumers for Dental Choice, a non-profit organization, is suing the FDA, asking it to remove mercury fillings from the market. Mercury isn't the only culprit by the way, lots of metals used in amalgam filings that can affect certain individuals with a particular sensitivity. The mouth is part of the overall body and it can infect the rest of the body. If you think you have a problem component in your fillings, we can test you for an allergic or hypersensitivity reaction, just as we can test for any other allergic reaction like pollens or molds.

Let us ask, "What would be the harm in getting the measles?" A vaccine only protects a child for about 8 years; an actual case of measles confers protection for life. Measles in adults is much more serious.

In the factual world of public health risk assessment, 1 in 1000 children who contracts measles dies or gets encephalitis, the other 999 are protected for life. That's 0.1% serious or fatal complications.

We now have an autism epidemic where we are seeing 1 in 150 children affected. That's a big incidence – possibly from complications of vaccination. Lewis may say, "studies show no link" but that is not accurate. In November last year, after years of insisting there is no evidence to link vaccines with the onset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the US government quietly conceded a vaccine-autism case in the Court of Federal Claims.

In many autistic children the MMR vaccine with live measles virus has produced an ongoing intestinal infection. Live viruses can trigger a strong and long-lasting immunity, but they may cause serious infections and even death in people who are immune-compromised and sometimes may cause serious infections in people who are apparently healthy.

Parents need to weigh the risk.

A mobile-phone industry group dismissed Khurana's claims as exaggerated and pointed out that health groups say cell phones are safe. The American Cancer Society also says there is no link. But consider this: It took until the 1960's for people to accept the idea that cigarette smoke was harmful. It was another 20 to 30 years before secondhand smoke was accepted as dangerous and outlawed in the work place. Cigarette proponents for decades offered that health claims were exaggerated, that "It's not for sure," and "It needs more study."

It is good to see appearing in mainstream literature what has been common knowledge in functional medicine circles for years. Yes, anti-oxidants are very helpful to treat all forms of oxidative stress, including cancer. Resveratrol is one of the polyphenol antioxidants abundant in grapes, berries, tea, red cabbage, eggplant, beans, whole grains, and cocoa. It is most abundant in blue, red, and purple grapes. Resveratrol is also abundant in a Chinese medicinal root called hu zhang (Polygonum cuspidatum), which is often the source of resveratrol in dietary supplements.

Resveratrol is produced by the grape plant to protect it against environmental stress. How fitting that it will also help to protect us against environmental stress – because what is cancer, if not the ultimate result of environmental stress? And when we eat the grapes, we derive the same benefit as the plant – this is called xenohormesis – messages through our food from other species. How much better to eat these helpful messages, rather than the terrified hormonal messages from the modern meat slaughterhouses.

rBGH is sold as Posilac. Monsanto has been forced to admit to about 20 toxic effects, including mastitis, on its Posilac label. Mastitis causes increased amounts of pus in milk. The use of it increases the amount of milk cows give.

According to Dr. Samuel Epstein, rBGH milk is supercharged with high levels of a natural growth factor (IGF-1), which is readily absorbed through the gut. Excess levels of IGF-1 have been incriminated as a cause of breast, colon, and prostate cancers; IGF-1 blocks natural defense mechanisms against early submicroscopic cancers.

WalMart's move sends a powerful signal to food manufacturers about the growing mainstream demand for food that is free of hormones and other man-made contaminants. Educated consumers have the power to move mountains.

In 2000 the Institute of Medicine (medical arm of the National Academy of Science) published the results of a long term study on medical errors titled "To Err is Human".

Among its findings-
Every single year in the US direct medical errors result in:

• at least 100,000 deaths (half medication error, half surgical error)
• 116 million extra doctors visits
• 77 million extra prescriptions
• 17 million extra emergency room visits
• 8 million extra hospitalizations

Another 225,000 deaths occur from preventable adverse events such as hospital borne infections.

It is estimated that only 5 to 20 percent of adverse reactions and medical mistakes are ever reported.

The "To Err is Human" report concluded that if put in their own category, medical errors would be the 5th leading cause of death in the US killing more people than stroke, Alzheimer's, most forms of cancer, and car accidents.

According to Dr. Carolyn Dean, author of Death by Modern Medicine in 2005, the mainstream medical industry kills 784,000 people each year in America; "Saddam Hussein did not kill that many people each year," she wrote.

Lots of genetic variants can certainly explain in part why some people get a disease and others don't, with exactly the same predisposing factors. However, it is important to realize that there still has to be a "provoking incident" in order for the genetic variant to result in an actual expression of disease. This is called an "epigenetic" factor, something which happens to the person with the genetic variant. So… genetic variants exist. They do not result in disease unless the epigenetic factors are sufficient to overwhelm the system. Thus, post traumatic stress disorder does not occur in the absence of a significant traumatic stress. Heart disease and osteoporosis do not occur in the absence of a diet and lifestyle predisposing to inflammation. We can't change our genetic variants, but we certainly have a great deal of influence over their expression.

So maybe those people who respond poorly to a low glycemic diet would respond better if they were simultaneously taking something to increase their insulin sensitivity – like the hops rho alpha iso acids pioneered by the Metagenics company, or even like metformin, pioneered by the pharmaceutical industry. It is helpful to know the genotype, in order to be able to treat the individual in the most appropriate and economic way.

When reading labels on personal products and makeup, you can avoid ingredients with "myreth," "oleth," "laureth," "ceteareth," any other "eth," "PEG," "polyethylene," "polyethylene glycol," "polyoxyethylene," or "oxynol," in the names.

Consumer beware. Your best bet is to purchase products whose ingredients you can pronounce or are certified under the USDA National Organic Program.

Violence is a tough way to make a point, but their point is valid. There are no studies that show GM foods are safe, but there are studies that raise serious doubts.

This study speaks for itself. We keep coming back to the same old statement, if we can't pronounce it, and it has to be made in a laboratory, we probably should not eat it (or breathe it).

At least this delay gives us time to inform our parents that the vaccination schedule, as it is currently established, is unsafe and needs to be significantly modified in order to be safe for those of our children who have difficulty with detoxification. And is it possible that the recorded drop in IQ scores over the past 10 years may reflect the difficulty of ALL our children with these injections of toxic and infectious compounds? We have an entire lost generation, those children who received vaccinations between 1990 and 2002, who are at risk for developmental and immune system dysfunction for the rest of their lives. If we learn from the events, then we can do something to help future generations of children. It is up to us, one child at a time.

Phoenix's water was not tested as part of this AP investigation. According to the Arizona Republic edition of 03-14-08, both Phoenix and Scottsdale plan to initial testing of their drinking water for pharmaceutical medications. Other cities in the area are choosing to wait and see if the Federal Government tells us that the levels of pharmaceuticals are dangerous. I must confess that I am VERY glad I live in one of the cities which is choosing to be proactive about this potentially extremely dangerous issue.

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inf