Environmentally-Caused Disease Crisis? Pesticide Damage to DNA Found ‘Programmed’ Into Future Generations
When Dr. Paul Winchester, a pediatrician, moved to Indiana from Colorado in 2002, he noticed something disturbing—a high number of birth defects.
“I was used to the number of birth defects I should see in a community hospital, and I saw many more in Indiana,” said Winchester, who is medical director of the Neonatal and Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis.
Winchester decided to investigate the reason for the higher numbers of birth defects. His research zeroed in on the herbicide atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. and the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. drinking water.
Winchester and several other researchers including Michael Skinner, professor of biology at Washington State University’s Center for Reproductive Biology, conducted a study to see if there was a link between atrazine in drinking water and birth defects.
Studies have found that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor, a substance that can alter the human hormonal system. Atrazine was banned by the European Union because of its persistent groundwater contamination.
In their study, Winchester and his team found that concentrations of atrazine in drinking water were highest in May and June when farmers sprayed their fields with the herbicide. They also found that birth defects peaked during the same months indicating a close correlation.
“We plotted water concentrations and birth defects, and they fit like a hat,” Winchester said.
https://www.ecowatch.com/generational-harm-of-pesticides-2596453994.html
https://www.ecowatch.com/generational-harm-of-pesticides-2596453994.html
Coconut Oil Is Bad? One of the healthiest fats with which you can eat or cook.
Destructive Mechanism That Blocks the Brain from Knowing When to Stop Eating Identified
I would be very interested to know what fats the mice were fed as this goes completely against the ketogenic diet.
I also find it interesting that the focus in the article is on how to find a drug that will solve it rather than what can we do to alter our diet and lifestyle to preent the problem. – Tom
Summary: Researchers report mice fed a high fat diet produce an enzyme called MMP-2, which results in leptin being blocked from binding to its receptors. This, they report, prevents neurons from signaling that the stomach is full. The study suggests blocking MMP-2 may help people with obesity to lose weight.
An international team of researchers has uncovered a destructive mechanism at the molecular level that causes a well-known phenomenon associated with obesity, called leptin resistance.
They found that mice fed a high-fat diet produce an enzyme named MMP-2 that clips receptors for the hormone leptin from the surface of neuronal cells in the hypothalamus. This blocks leptin from binding to its receptors. This in turn keeps the neurons from signaling that your stomach is full and you should stop eating.
This is the first time that a destructive molecular mechanism has been observed and described.
https://neurosciencenews.com/leptin-obesity-overeating-9739/
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We Have Turned Childhood Into A Mental Disorder. And It’s Ruining Our Kids
According to a report, there has been a dramatic rise in children misusing and overdosing on ADHD medications. I happened to see that report a day after I read another study revealing an increased risk for obesity and diabetes in kids who take ADHD meds. This is not to be confused with the recent research showing that ADHD drugs could be linked to brittle bones. These must all be added, of course, to the cacophony of already known side effects, including insomnia, irritability, decreased appetite, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
Maybe this is why a majority of kids diagnosed with ADHD wind up developing other mental illnesses as they grow older. Pharmaceutical companies cite that latter detail as proof of the biological basis of ADHD. I think it is much easier to see it as proof of the pharmacological basis for the mysterious rise in mental illnesses across America. Drug companies and the psychiatric industry have so far gotten almost 20 percent of the country onto psychiatric drugs. Many of these drugs cause suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. Meanwhile, a lot of Americans are having suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. One need not be a detective to notice a potential causal relationship here.
Thought For The Day – Who Packed Your Chute?
From Larry Meredith:
I saw this years ago, and it’s a great story!! Very well worth the time to read and share!
Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb
ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, ‘ You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!
‘How in the world did you know that?’ asked Plumb.
‘I packed your parachute,’ the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude.
The man pumped his hand and said, ‘I guess it worked!’
Plumb assured him, ‘It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.’
Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, ‘I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good
morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.’ Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, ‘Who’s packing your parachute?’ Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what isreally important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone onsomething wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.
I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my parachute. And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped pack yours! Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us without writing a word. Maybe this could explain it! When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do – you forward jokes. And to let you know that you are still remembered, you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get? A forwarded joke. So, my friend, next time when you get a joke, don’t think that you’ve been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you’ve been thought of today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile, just helping you pack your parachute.
Paul asks, “Is Capitalism Killing Us?” I Think Out-Ethics Is!
by Paul Craig Roberts
Ecological economists, such as Herman E. Daly, stress that as the external costs of pollution and resource exhaustion are not included in Gross Domestic Product, we do not know whether an increase in GDP is a gain or a loss.
External costs are huge and growing larger. Historically, manufacturing and industrial corporations, corporate farming, city sewer systems, and other culprits have passed the costs of their activities onto the environment and third parties. Recently, there has been a spate of reports with many centering on Monsanto’s Roundup, whose principle ingredient, glyphosate, is believed to be a carcinogen.
A public health organization, the Environmental Working Group, recently reported that its tests found glyphosate in all but 2 of 45 children’s breakfast foods including granola, oats and snack bars made by Quaker, Kellogg and General Mills. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/16/weedkiller-cereal-monsanto-roundup-childrens-food
In Brazil tests have discovered that 83% of mothers’ breast milk contains glyphosate. https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazil-Poisonous-Agrotoxin-Found-Over-80-of-Breast-Milk-Samples-in-Urucui-20180809-0008.html
The Munich Environmental Institute reported that 14 of the most widely selling German beers contain glyphosate. https://sustainablepulse.com/2016/02/25/german-beer-industry-in-shock-over-probable-carcinogen-glyphosate-contamination/#.W3XKtC-ZOGQ
Glyphosate has been found in Mexican farmers’ urine and in Mexican ground water. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486281/
Scientific American has reported that even Roundup’s “inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/
A German toxicologist has accused the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and the European Food Safety Authority of scientific fraud for accepting a Monsanto-led glyphosate Task Force conclusion that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/17307-german-toxicologist-accuses-eu-authorities-of-scientific-fraud-over-glyphosate-link-with-cancer
Controversy about these findings comes from the fact that industry-funded scientists report no link between glyphosate and cancer, whereas independent scientists do. This is hardly surprising as an industry-funded scientist has no independence and is unlikely to conclude the opposite of what he is hired to conclude.
There is also controversy about what level of contamination is necessary for products adulterated with glyphosate to be classified as dangerous. It does seem to be the case that the concentrations rise with use and time. Sooner or later the concentration becomes sufficient to do the damage.
For this article, the point is that if glyphosate is carcinogenic, the cost of the lost lives and medical expenses are not borne by Monsanto/Bayer. If these costs were not external to Monsanto, that is, if the corporation had to bear these costs, the cost of the product would not be economical to use. Its advantages would be out-weighed by the costs.
It is very difficult to find the truth, because politicians and regulatory authorities are susceptible to bribes and to doing favors for their business friends. In Brazil, lawmakers are actually trying to deregulate pesticide use and to ban the sale of organic food in supermarkets. https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18409-brazilian-lawmakers-seek-to-deregulate-pesticide-use-ban-sale-of-organic-food-in-supermarkets
In the case of glyphosate, the tide might be turning against Monsanto/Bayer. The California Supreme Court upheld the state’s authority to add the herbicide glyphosate to its Proposition 65 list of carcinogens. https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18411-monsanto-loses-another-court-case-over-glyphosate-weedkiller
Last week in San Francisco jurors awarded a former school groundkeeper $289 million in damages for cancer caused by Roundup. Little doubt that Monsanto will appeal and the case will be tied up in court until the groundkeeper is dead. But it is a precedent and indicates that jurors are beginning to distrust hired science. There are approximately 1,000 similar cases pending. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial-verdict/index.html
What is important to keep in mind is that if Roundup is a carcinogen, it is just one product of one company. This provides an idea of how extensive external costs can be. Indeed, glyphosate’s deletarious effects go far beyond those covered in this article. https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/expert-gmos-to-blame-for-problems-in-plants-animals.39442/
GMO feeds are also taking a toll on livestock. http://educate-yourself.org/cn/Mike-McNeil-Whats-Killing-the-Cows-Day8-24July2018-55mins.mp3
Now consider the adverse effects on air, water, and land resources of chemical agriculture. Florida is suffering algae blooms from chemical fertilizer runoff from farmland, and the sugar industry has done a good job of destroying Lake Okeechobee. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article216329745.html
Fertilizer runoffs cause blue-green algae blooms that kill marine life and are hazzardous to humans. Currently the water in Florida’s St. Lucie River is 10 times too toxic to touch. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-08-10-florida-algae-bloom-st-lucie-microcystin
Red tides can occur naturally, but fertilizer runoffs fuel their growth and their persistance. Moreover, pollution’s contributions to higher temperatures also contribute to red tides, as does draining wetlands for real estate development, which results in water moving quickly without natural filtration. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/13/florida-gulf-coast-red-tide-toxic-algae-bloom-killing-florida-wildlife?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=283418&subid=1480231&CMP=GT_US_collection
http://www.wafb.com/story/38850029/graphic-red-tide-off-fl-gulf-coast-kills-marine-life
As water conditions deteriorated and algae blooms proliferated, Florida’s response was to cutback its water monitoring program: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article215993665.html
When we consider these extensive external costs of corporate farming, clearly the values attributed to sugar and farm products in the Gross Domestic Product are excessive. The prices paid by consumers are much too low and the profits enjoyed by corporate agriculture are far too high, because they do not include the costs of the massive marine deaths, the lost tourist business, and the human illnesses caused by the algae tides that depend on chemical fertilizer runoff.
In this article I have barely scratched the surface of the problem of external costs. Michigan has learned that its tap water is not safe. Chemicals used for decades on military bases and in the manufacture of thousands of consumer items are in the water supply. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/16/health/tap-water-crisis-toxic-michigan-pfoa-pfas/index.html
As an exercise, pick any business and think about the external costs of that business. Take, for example, the US corporations that offshored Americans’ jobs to Asia. The corporatons’ profits rose, but the federal, state, and local tax bases declined. The payroll tax base for Social Security and Medicaid declined, putting these important foundations of US social and political stability into danger. The tax base for school teachers’ and other government employees’ pensions declined. If the corporations that moved the jobs abroad had to absorb these costs, they would have no profits. In other words, a few people gained by shoving enormous costs on everyone else.
Or consider something simple like a pet store. All the pet store owners and customers who sold and purchased colorful 18 to 24 inch pythons, boa constrictors, and anacondas gave no thought to the massive size these snakes would be, and neither did the regulatory agencies that permitted their import. Faced with a creature capable of devouring the family pet and children and suffocating the life out of large strong adults, the snakes were dumped into the Everglades where they have devastated the natural fauna and now are too numerous to be controlled. The external costs easily exceed many times the total price of all such snakes sold by pet stores.
Ecological economists stress that capitalism works in an “empty economy,” where the pressure of humans on natural resources is slight. But capitalism doesn’t work in a “full economy” where natural resources are on the point of exhaustion. The external costs associated with economic growth as measured by GDP can be more costly than the value of the output.
A strong case can be made that this is the situation we currently face. The disappearance of species, the appearance of toxins in food, beverages, water, mothers’ breast milk, air, land, desperate attempts to secure energy from fracking which destroys groundwater and causes earthquakes, and so forth are signs of a hard-pressed planet. When we get right down to it, all of the profits that capitalism has generated over the centuries are probably due to capitalists not having to cover the full cost of their production. They passed the cost on to the environment and to third parties and pocketed the savings as profit.
Update: Herman Daly notes that last year the British medical journal, Lancet, estimated the annual cost of pollution was about 6 % of the global economy whereas the annual global economic growth rate was about 2 percent, with the difference being about a 4% annual decline in wellbeing, not a 2 percent rise. In other words, we could already be in the situation where economic growth is uneconomical. See https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-10-19/study-world-pollution-deadlier-than-wars-disasters-hunger
Study: Weed killer found in oat cereal and granola bars
A video well worth watching. Unfortunately the closing remark from the talking head, stating the long-term effects are unknown is a complete sham as we know the short term effects are deadly! Glyphosate even in concentrations as low as 5 parts per billion (ppb) causes health issues in rats so 1,000 ppb? It is an outrageous lie to calim that level is safe.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/study-weed-killer-found-in-oat-cereal-and-granola-bars