Cutting Through the Hell of the Medical-Industrial Complex
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Friday, April 28, 2017
Imported hot sauces contain high levels of lead, study says
John M. GlionnaThis post has been updated. See below for details.
July 23, 2013
July 23, 2013
So you like your hot sauce south-of-the-border spicy, with that extra punch?
Well, Nevada researchers have found that little added twang might not be an intended result of the recipe: Many imported hot sauces sold in the U.S. contain dangerous levels of lead, according to a what is billed as a first-of-its-kind environment and food study.
Shawn Gerstenberger, lead researcher for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas study, told the Los Angeles Times that there are no U.S. government standards for the amounts of lead in hot sauce brands.
UNLV researchers tested 25 bottles of hot sauce imported from Mexico and South America. The products were bought in the U.S. at ethnic markets and grocery stores. Four bottles, or 16% of the sample, exceeded U.S. Food and Drug Administration standard for safe levels of lead. The product packaging was also tested because lead in packaging has been known to leach into food.
The results were published earlier this year in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health and recently publicized by the university.
[Updated, 11:19 a.m. PDT July 23: According to the study's researchers, the four sauces with the highest lead content are Salsa Picante de Chile Habanero, El Pato Salsa Picante, Salsa Habanera and Bufalo Salsa Clasica.]
Gerstenberger said lead poisoning can invade all the body’s organs and is responsible for learning disabilities and behavioral problems in young children. Researchers acknowledged that many children probably steer clear of hot sauce, but said it is a staple of some ethnic diets.
“We’ve been working quite some time looking at child lead poisoning,” he told The Times. “For children, there are no acceptable levels of lead. There are thousands of brands of imported hot sauce for sale out there, so this study is just a start.”
Gerstenberger said the study took place almost by accident: UNLV Researcher found in 2006 that Mexican-style candies containing chile peppers and salt also contained high lead levels. That study helped bring about the removal of some imported candies from grocery store shelves.
“Candies from Mexico often contain high amounts of lead from their peppers and salt, which are the same ingredients in hot sauce,” he told The Times. “Since the two products often sit next to each other on the shelves, we figured we should take a look at the hot sauce.”
The solution was better product monitoring in both Mexico and the U.S., Gerstenberger said.
"The results indicate the need for more rigorous screening protocols for products imported in Mexico, including an applicable standard for hot sauce. Without enforceable standards for hot sauces and condiments, manufacturers will not be encouraged to improve quality-control measures designed to reduce the amounts of lead and other toxic elements before exporting," he said in a statement released by UNLV.
In an interview, Gerstenberger said FDA officials have pledged to look into the matter.
“There is no standard for hot sauce like there is for sugar or raisins because the product is considered a condiment or seasoning,” he said. “In our study, the standard we used was for acceptable FDA levels for candy, since there is no agency scale for hot sauce.”
Along with federal regulations, states could choose to reject imported hot sauces found to contain detectable concentrations of lead, he said.
Gerstenberger said Mexican companies were urged to make changes to the hot sauce industry like they did with candy.
“All it takes is washing the chiles and using sea salt instead of mine salt, which is known to be high in lead,” Gernstenberger said.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
President Donald J. Trump visits VA and signs executive order ‘Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection at the Department of Veterans Affairs’
Today President Donald J. Trump visited VA to thank Veterans for their service, and VA employees for their work helping Veterans.
While at VA, the president signed an executive order entitled, “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection at the Department of Veterans Affairs,” and Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Dr. David Shulkin, made three new key announcements at the VA’s Central Office.
The executive order is focused on improving “accountability and whistleblower protection” at VA by creating an office dedicated to that purpose and the position of special assistant to the secretary who will report directly to the secretary and serve as executive director of the office.
The new executive director “will report directly to me as secretary so that we can identify barriers that are preventing us from removing employees and people that we have identified that should no longer be working at VA,” said Shulkin. “We want make sure that we have employees who work hard and are committed to the mission of serving our Veterans.”
The VA will establish the office and appoint the executive director within 45 days of the signing of the executive order.
The executive director will advise and assist the secretary in using all available authorities to discipline or terminate any VA manager or employee who has violated the public’s trust and failed to carry out his or her duties on behalf of Veterans. The executive director will also assist the secretary in recruiting, rewarding, and retaining high-performing employees.
At the signing ceremony for the executive order, Shulkin also announced three new key initiatives at the Department.
VA partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services
Effective today, VA is entering a partnership agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services that will allow the assignment of medical professionals from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps to provide direct patient care to Veterans in VA hospitals and clinics in underserved communities.
“My priority has been to improve access to care for our nation’s heroes,” said Shulkin. “By partnering with our colleagues at HHS, we will enhance the availability of clinical care in those areas most in need.”
The initial agreement enables up to 20 officers from the Commissioned Corps to treat Veterans in VA facilities that are most in need of staffing support. The agreement also allows up to 10 more officers to help support coordination for veterans receiving non-VA community care.
New fraud, waste and abuse taskforce
The secretary announced a major new initiative to detect and prevent fraud, waste and abuse in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Effective today, this initiative has the potential to save tens of millions of taxpayer dollars currently at risk, for fraud, waste and abuse that can be redirected to better serve Veterans.
The initiative will include bringing in the leading thinkers from the private sector and other government organizations in an advisory committee to identify and leverage cutting-edge fraud detection tools and; and coordinate all fraud, waste and abuse detection and reporting activities across the department through a single office.
The department has identified potential savings in the area of improper payments to health care providers, major contracts, contracts for pharmaceuticals, and the delivery of benefits to Veterans.
“Restoring the trust of Veterans and improving system-wide accountability are among my top priorities. It’s essential to ensure that all our employees and the companies that we do business with are being good stewards of the resources available to care for our Veterans,” said Shulkin.
Removing red tape at state-owned Veteran nursing homes
Effective today, VA is amending guidelines to allow state-owned Veteran nursing homes to follow state guidelines in the construction design of their facilities – removing red tape, while increasing access to services for Veterans.
Up to now, to qualify for federal grant funding for Veteran nursing homes in their state, Governors and state officials have had to follow federal construction design guidelines. With today’s announcement by the secretary, that is no longer the case and governors are freed up to follow their own state guidelines in the construction design of these facilities while still qualifying for the same level of federal grant funding as before.
In announcing the move, Shulkin noted that state design guidelines already are sufficient to the task of providing safe conditions for our Veterans and the department recognizes the need to move quickly to reduce unnecessary barriers to providing much needed services to our Veterans.
http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/37483/president-donald-j-trump-visits-va-and-signs-executive-order-improving-accountability-and-whistleblower-protection-at-the-department-of-veterans-affairs/
Friday, April 21, 2017
RFK, Jr: My meeting with Trump on vaccine commission
Will Electing Donald Trump Be The Only Way To Finally Expose The Truth About Vaccine Damaged Children?
(Trump.news) A vote for Donald Trump for president will likely mean a lot of things: A rejection of Hillary Clinton, likely for the last time (politically, at least); a belief that Trump definitely will revitalize an economy that President Obama will leave on life support; confidence that he’ll really begin putting America first, among other things. But a vote for Trump – and an eventual Trump victory – may also mean that, for the first time, we’ll have a president who takes seriously the danger aggressive vaccine schedules pose to our children.
As many already know, during the Republican primaries Trump was the first and only candidate to bring up the reported link between MMR vaccines and increased rates of autism.
As NaturalNews reported in October 2015, Trump – a full year earlier – tweeted that “tiny children are not horses” and that they should be given “no more massive injections,” that vaccines should be “one at a time, over time.”
“I am being proven right about massive vaccinations – the doctors lied. Save our children & their future,” he said in another tweet.
“I’m not against vaccinations for your children, I’m against them in 1 massive dose. Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!” he said in another, followed by, “So many people who have children with autism have thanked me – amazing response. They know far better than fudged up reports!”
By contrast, Trump’s likely Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, has voiced only tepid opposition to Big Pharma, which proved to be completely meaningless after news broke that she had accepted more campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies than any of the other Democratic or Republican candidates (in the race at the time).
Trump, of course, came under attack from the mainstream media and mainstream medicine for his stance, especially during a debate sponsored by CNN. Debate moderators tried a “gotcha” question with him, but he answered it brilliantly – and correctly:
Autism has become an epidemic… Because you take a baby in, and I’ve seen it, and I’ve seen it, and I had my children taken care of, over a long period of time, over a two or three year period of time, same exact amount, but you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump – I mean, it looks just like it’s meant for a horse, not for a child, and we’ve had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, two-years-old, two-and-a-half-years-old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic. …I’m in favor of vaccines [but] do them over a longer period of time, same amount, but just in little sections. I think you’re going to have – I think you’re going to see a big impact on autism.
Who agreed with him? Only both of the physicians who were on stage with him that night, retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist.
“We are probably giving way too many in too short a period of time…” Carson said when moderators threw the question to him.
“I’m all for vaccines, but I’m also for freedom. I’m concerned about how they’re bunched up… I ought to have the right to spread out the vaccines a little bit,” Paul noted.
As for Trump’s initial vaccine-autism tweets, as we noted he made them just hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report nothing that autism rates spiked 30 percent among American children in 2012 and 2013:
The report revealed that one in 68 U.S. children had autism in 2014; whereas in 2012, only one in 88 U.S. children had autism. The report claims it was not designed to determine the cause behind the recent spike in autism rates.
As early as 2012, Trump appeared on TV to rail against what he called “monster vaccines” linked to autism.
“I’ve gotten to be pretty familiar with the subject. You know, I have a theory, and it’s a theory that some people believe in, and that’s the vaccinations. We never had anything like this. This is now an epidemic. It’s way, way up over the past 10 years. It’s way up over the past two years,” he told Fox News, as we reported.
When told his views were outside the mainstream, Trump said: “… I couldn’t care less,” adding, “I’ve seen people where they have a perfectly healthy child, and they go for the vaccinations and a month later the child is no longer healthy.”
Sources:
Dr. Suzanne Humphries - Are Vaccines Safe? by debunkerbuster
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
President Trump Signs S. 544 the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act - Breaking News President Trump signed the S.544 Veterans Choice Program Act For military forces
...That's why I'm pleased today to sign into law the Veterans Choice Program Improvement Act. So this is called the Choice Program Improvement Act. It speaks for itself. This bill will extend and improve the Veterans Choice Program so that more veterans can see the doctor of their choice -- you got it? The doctor of their choice -- and don’t have to wait and travel long distances for VA care. Some people have to travel five hours, eight hours, and they'll have to do it on a weekly basis, and even worse than that. It's not going to happen anymore.
This new law is a good start, but there is still much work to do. We will fight each and every day to deliver the long-awaited reforms our veterans deserve, and to protect those who have so courageously protected each and every one of us...
More:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/19/remarks-president-trump-signing-s-544-veterans-choice-program-extension
What this Act about it so the USA Veterans can go see the doctor of there Choice no more waiting for Doctors for Months to get help and no More long Drives to go to nearest VA Hospital these is great News for all the Veterans in the USA They have waited a long time for these to happen and Trump Did he signed the Act This truly is Awesome world News for our Vets This is Breaking News and Great News today for all the Veterans that have served the USA S. 544 the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act this helps improve Healthcare for Our Veterans of the US Today at the White House 2017 April 19
Passed Senate without amendment (04/03/2017)
(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary has been expanded because action occurred on the measure.)
(Sec. 1) This bill amends the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to eliminate the August 7, 2017, sunset date for the Veterans Choice Program, thus allowing the program to operate until all of the money in the Veterans Choice Fund is expended.
(Sec. 2) The bill makes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) the primary payer (currently the VA is the secondary payer) for medical care relating to non-service connected disabilities and recovery of costs from third parties for certain care under the program.
(Sec. 3) The VA may share medical information with a non-VA entity (including private entities and other federal agencies) that provides veterans with authorized hospital care or medical services. Such entity may not redisclose or use such information for a purpose other than that for which the disclosure was made.
This new law is a good start, but there is still much work to do. We will fight each and every day to deliver the long-awaited reforms our veterans deserve, and to protect those who have so courageously protected each and every one of us...
More:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/19/remarks-president-trump-signing-s-544-veterans-choice-program-extension
What this Act about it so the USA Veterans can go see the doctor of there Choice no more waiting for Doctors for Months to get help and no More long Drives to go to nearest VA Hospital these is great News for all the Veterans in the USA They have waited a long time for these to happen and Trump Did he signed the Act This truly is Awesome world News for our Vets This is Breaking News and Great News today for all the Veterans that have served the USA S. 544 the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act this helps improve Healthcare for Our Veterans of the US Today at the White House 2017 April 19
Passed Senate without amendment (04/03/2017)
(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary has been expanded because action occurred on the measure.)
(Sec. 1) This bill amends the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to eliminate the August 7, 2017, sunset date for the Veterans Choice Program, thus allowing the program to operate until all of the money in the Veterans Choice Fund is expended.
(Sec. 2) The bill makes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) the primary payer (currently the VA is the secondary payer) for medical care relating to non-service connected disabilities and recovery of costs from third parties for certain care under the program.
(Sec. 3) The VA may share medical information with a non-VA entity (including private entities and other federal agencies) that provides veterans with authorized hospital care or medical services. Such entity may not redisclose or use such information for a purpose other than that for which the disclosure was made.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Sunday, April 16, 2017
How Long Have Vaccines Been Tainted with Monsanto's Roundup?
Again, the issue at stake here is calling for SAFE vaccines rather than zero vaccines, and to apply only the minimum amount of vaccines deemed necessary. Big pharma, being a business, wants YOU (every member of the population) to take as much medicine as they can manufacture.
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, April 17th, 2017.]
Saturday, April 15, 2017
'Drugged': Path to sobriety - is opioid addiction curable? - Reality Check: FDA's Disinformation Campaign on Kratom
Note: CBD does not get you high.
Mandi Thompson10 hours ago
He needs to educate on CBD Canabidiol, which is now legal in 50 states. It could help him.
LSG9 hours ago
The FDA approved a new more powerful opioid pill called Zohydro. Meanwhile, Cannabis which is not physically addictive and impossible to overdose on is still a Schedule 1 illegal drug. The biggest financiers of the anti-legalization movement are Big Pharma, Police, Private Prisons and Alcohol companies. It must just be a coincidence that they also stand to lose a lot of money if cannabis became legal...
Matthew10 hours ago
I know how to solve the problem! Let's keep jailing people for harmless marijuana! Nailed it, right Jeff Sessions?
The opioid crisis is killing tens of thousands of Americans each year.
So why would the FDA crack down on a substance that may be helping millions of addicts get off drugs like heroin and Oxycontin?
Reality Check: FDA's Disinformation Campaign on Kratom
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, February 25th, 2018.]
Related:
WATCH President Donald Trump's Commission Team on Combating Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis 6/17/17:
http://trumpisright.blogspot.com/2017/06/watch-president-donald-trumps.html
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Possible effects of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, in surface waters
Removing Pharmaceuticals From Water Doesn't Come Cheap Or Easy:
http://welcometohealth.blogspot.com/2017/04/removing-pharmaceuticals-from-water.html
Household Waste Disposal - Some household items shouldn't be flushed because they do break down in water. Dissolved chemicals can travel through the sewer system and pollute the marine environment...
https://mindtreasury.blogspot.com/2017/04/household-waste-disposal-some-household.html
"Surface Waters - places of invisible pollution": Pharmaceuticals are a special class of micro-pollutants - when present at low concentrations they can be potent pollutants in the environment. Humans are using increasing amounts of drugs and many of them are excreted and pass waste treatment systems unchanged to end up in surface waters. In the laboratory zebrafish are being used to investigate the effects of individual pharmaceuticals and to assess the risks of their release into the environment. Mixtures of pollutants may even have different effects, therefore cocktails of pharmaceuticals, and/or other chemicals are tested on aquatic biofilm communities to measure toxicity or study changes in these micro ecosystems. Another problem is posed by improper use of antibiotics, their discards and subsequent release into sewage systems. The development of drug resistant bacteria, pose a serious risk to human health.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Removing Pharmaceuticals From Water Doesn't Come Cheap Or Easy
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — Shivaji Deshmukh drinks water extracted from raw sewage. He knows the water is clean because his job is to help make it so as an engineer at the Orange County Water District.
“It’s an efficient, cheap water supply — and it’s the best quality,” says Deshmukh, amid the hiss of machines at the state-of-the-art facility.
Performing the recycling transformation requires a battery of treatments.
Wastewater strained and disinfected at an adjacent sewage treatment plant is first filtered through tiny straws. Then, in a process called reverse osmosis, the water is forced across a spiraled sheet of plastic with holes so small that little else can slip through. In the final phase, the water is zapped with ultraviolet light.
The three-step operation is one of the most sophisticated cleansing systems anywhere. While the incoming water contains minuscule levels of prescription drugs, tests for any traces of a half-dozen pharmaceuticals, conducted as the treated water leaves the plant, detect nothing.
The end product supplies more than 500,000 Orange County residents for a year, nearly one-quarter of the district’s potable water needs.
The cleansing procedure illustrates how difficult — and expensive — it is to scrub virtually every iota of contaminant from our supplies.
The standard ways of cleaning water are not designed to snare the tiny amounts of prescription drugs that survive digestion, and then, with a flush of the toilet, begin their journey toward America’s taps.
It’s not an academic exercise: According to an Associated Press investigation, scientists have found that water piped to tens of millions of people nationwide contains minute concentrations of dozens of pharmaceuticals from tranquilizers to painkillers to antibiotics.
While scientists have not definitively established that people are harmed by these drugs, laboratory tests have shown tiny amounts can have ill effects on human cells. And the fact that they are being consumed in combination, over many years — at any level — worries some researchers.
If those fears are borne out by future studies, it could lead communities and water providers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on more advanced treatments to improve on the commonplace regimen of filtration and disinfection with chlorine.
A large-scale reverse osmosis system is expensive. It costs Orange County about one-eighth of a penny per gallon — or $15 month for the 12,000 gallons used by a typical family of four, a price that doesn’t include overhead charges, such as construction, salaries and maintenance.
Officials at the Greater Cincinnati Water Works say their granular activated carbon filtering system costs 93.6 cents per month for the typical family of four.
Following a parasitic outbreak, the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas — which processes up to 900 million gallons daily at two treatment plants — invested millions of dollars in a different advanced system that dissolves ozone gas into water to destroy micro-organisms.
The cheaper ozonation process isn't designed to remove pharmaceuticals, though it does take care of many compounds.
Tests at the Nevada authority have shown that tiny concentrations of the tranquilizer meprobamate and an anti-epileptic drug regularly resist the treatment, as on occasion has carbamazepine, another anti-convulsant.
At the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 18.5 million people, tests at one of its five plants show that ozonation failed to remove a tranquilizer and an anti-epileptic drug from the finished drinking water, according to an ongoing study.
That district and the Southern Nevada Water Authority both draw from the Colorado River, which, tests show, can contain several hundred parts per trillion of pharmaceuticals, including the active ingredients in medicines to treat depression and anxiety.
The drugs get there because wastewater plants that drain into the river use basic treatments designed to remove microbes and industrial contaminants, not pharmaceuticals — the same scenario in many rivers nationwide.
Even in Europe, where governments have gone much further in addressing trace levels of pharmaceuticals in the environment, there’s scant political will to invest broadly in advanced wastewater treatment.
“The cost isn’t acceptable right now,” Yves Levi, a pharmacist and professor of public health at Paris-South 11 University, said in an interview in French. “No one knows if the risk is considerable or not.”
“The cost isn’t acceptable right now,” Yves Levi, a pharmacist and professor of public health at Paris-South 11 University, said in an interview in French. “No one knows if the risk is considerable or not.”
Another advanced process at drinking water treatment plants, the use of carbon filters, also lets some pharmaceuticals through.
Some of the most detailed testing was done at the Passaic Valley Water Commission in Northern New Jersey, where a drinking water treatment facility downstream from numerous sewage treatment plants chemically removes sediments from water, then disinfects it with chlorine and runs it through the extra filtering step.
Although the treatment decreased pharmaceutical concentrations, some samples heading into drinking water pipes contained all or some of the following: the painkiller codeine, an anticonvulsant drug, the remnants of a drug to reduce chest pains and caffeine.
Lead researcher U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Paul Stackelberg said he expected tests at the same type of treatment plant anywhere in the nation would produce similar results.
“It’s very easy to use all of the products that we use in our daily lives and not think twice about it,” Stackelberg said.
Stackelberg also raised an X-factor: Rather than obliterating some pharmaceuticals, chlorination could chemically transform them into compounds that are even more toxic.
In one lab study, scientists found that acetaminophen, after undergoing chlorination, reacted to form tiny amounts of two known toxic compounds — 1,4-benzoquinone and N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine, the latter being associated with acetaminophen overdoses.
Source: The Associated Press. Daily News-Miner. March 18, 2008.
http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-news/remove-pharmaceuticals-from-water-not-cheap.htm
http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-news/remove-pharmaceuticals-from-water-not-cheap.htm
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Thursday, April 6, 2017
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