Increase in severe pneumonia in children may be caused by vaccine

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_11534.cfm
Cases of a life-threatening form of pneumonia that affects the young are rising rapidly in Britain. It now affects around 1,000 children a year. The cause of the increase is unknown but experts fear a vaccine in the immunisation programme could be contributing.

Using Compost can help save the Climate

Compost Can Turn Agricultural Soils Into A Carbon Sink, Thus Protecting Against Climate Change
"An increase of just 0.15% in organic carbon in arable soils in a country like Italy would effectively imply the sequestration of the same amount of carbon within soil that is currently released into the atmosphere in a period of one year through the use of fossil fuels," write Enzo Favoino and Dominic Hogg, authors of the paper.

"Furthermore, increasing organic matter in soils may cause other greenhouse gas-saving effects, such as improved workability of soils, better water retention, less production and use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, and reduced release of nitrous oxide."

Superbugs: Drug Resistant but Not Herb Resistant

Source here

It is generally accepted that MRSA has become immune to many antibiotics due to the overuse. Bacteria are smart and very good at survival. They share knowledge about antibiotics, and can even acquire the necessary encoding for resistance by scavenging the remnants of dead bacteria killed by the antibiotic.

Alternative treatments for bacterial infections are widely available, but they have not been publicized in the recent media frenzy.

One herb, Pau D’Arco (also known as Tabebuia avellanedae, Taheebo, Lapacho), was found by a research team at the University of Rio de Janeiro in 2003 to be an effective topical treatment of MRSA.

It can also be used internally as a tea. The team also suggests that the herb be tested for use against cancer, a claim already made by many herbalists. It is widely available as a tea or in capsule form and can be used against Candida, viruses, and parasites.

So Pau D’Arco not only treats drug resistant Staph, it guards against other infections and health problems, including viruses, parasites, and possibly cancer. Antibiotics however, do not work against viruses and cancer. Instead, antibiotics “may help fungi to proliferate within the human body” , and they kill all types of bacteria, including the beneficial bacteria which aid in healthy digestion. A lack of beneficial bacteria has been linked with autism and bowel disorders.

Honeybees and Almonds, Pigs and MRSA: The Deadly Connections

(NaturalNews)

The New York Times recently reported a highly probable direct link between our unsustainable system of modern industrial agriculture and two recently emerging phenomena that threaten us all. The author makes the very logical connection between the recent epidemic of MRSA (an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria) which is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS (100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005 alone, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association) and the deplorable conditions that exist in the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) in the US and other countries.

Hospital acquired MRSA has been a long standing problem among health care workers and hospital patients, but this new, more virulent strain known as "community acquired MRSA" is killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not been to a hospital in ever increasing numbers. Community acquired MRSA is resistant to precisely the class of antibiotics used by our nation's factory farming operations.

It has been estimated that 70% of the antibiotics used in the US are fed to feedlot animals on factory farms, which is the only way to keep these animals alive in the confined filth and squalor in which they "live". Recent European and Canadian studies have confirmed that pig farms are a breeding ground for MRSA. The study in Europe reveals that 60 percent of pig farms that routinely used antibiotics had MRSA-positive pigs (compared with 5 percent of farms that did not feed pigs antibiotics). The Canadian study in Veterinary Microbiology reports that MRSA was found on 45 percent of the 20 pig farms sampled in Ontario, and in 20 percent of the pig farmers (people can harbor the bacteria without being infected by it). Under NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) pigs flow freely between Canada and the United States. But pigs are far from the only animals given massive amounts of antibiotics and flowing freely across our borders. Cattle, chicken, fish and all other factory farmed animals are susceptible to this same issue. But with pigs, it is well documented.

The author correctly states: "As for independent public-health researchers, they say they can't study the problem without the cooperation of the livestock industry, which, not surprisingly, has not been forthcoming. For what if these researchers should find proof that one of the hidden costs of cheap meat is an epidemic of drug-resistant infection among young people? There would be calls to revolutionize the way we produce meat in this country. This is not something that the meat and the pharmaceutical industries or their respective regulatory "watchdogs" - the Department of Agriculture and F.D.A. - are in any rush to see happen."
=================


The author also discusses the mass deaths of large portions (20-80%) of honeybee populations due to a syndrome recently named "Colony Collapse Disorder". The culprit is thought to be a virus, pesticides or a parasitic mite. It turns out the largest concentration of honeybees occurs, unnaturally, every year in the California Central Valley, home to the orchards that produce 80% of the world's almonds.

Since there are not enough bees to pollinate all of the flowers in the orchards to ensure a plentiful almond harvest, about 40 billion bees are trucked in from all over the country for a three week period in February to do the job. Since many of these bees come from areas where they would normally be dormant and to get them ready for cross country travel, the bees are fed special "pollen patties" (a mix of High Fructose Corn Syrup and flower pollen imported from China). Since 2005, the USDA has even allowed bees to be flown in from Australia for the big "pollination event".

So the bees, jacked up on High Fructose Corn Syrup and Chinese flower pollen, go about pollinating the world's almond crop. And in the process they swap every pesticide, microbe, parasite, virus and mutation thereof among the 40 billion strong swarm. They are then loaded up and shipped back from whence they came, mutant viruses, parasites and pesticides in tow.

Not only do we now have a very probable explanation for "Colony Collapse Disorder", it is entirely possible that the new rules by the Almond Board of California (ABC) and backed by the USDA to mandate the pasteurization of all California almonds were necessitated by this unnatural practice of providing free travel service to every virus, parasite and agricultural toxin in the country. Perhaps the pasteurization mandate is just a temporary stop gap measure against the next emerging MRSA-like mutated superbug.

Schools Drop Burgers From Menu After Downer Cow Scare

Link here

School districts coast to coast and some franchise restaurants are on full alert this week for suspect beef from a California slaughter house, where the Humane Society of the U.S. videotaped what appeared to be the slaughter of so-called "downer" cows.

Cows that cannot stand up are banned from the food supply because it is a primary characteristic of an animal with Mad Cow disease.

The Humane Society says it obtained video evidence that workers at the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. of Chino, California, repeatedly attempted to force "downed" animals onto their feet and into the human food chain.

According to a HSUS release, Hallmark's Chino slaughter plant supplies the Westland Meat Co., which processes the carcasses. The facility is the second-largest supplier of beef to USDA's Commodity Procurement Branch, which distributes the beef to needy families, the elderly and also to schools through the National School Lunch Program.

USDA has indefinitely suspended Westland Meat Company as a supplier to federal food and nutrition programs, pending the outcome of the investigation. Schafer said Westland Meat Company will not be permitted to produce or deliver any products currently under contract.
==================
Article source (+ other mad cow related article links):

Obese people cheaper to treat

Fat people cost healthcare system less

Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn't save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.
ADVERTISEMENT

Tainted pills hit U.S. mainland

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080205/ap_on_he_me/puerto_rico_pill_problems_2

Thirteen of the 20 best-selling drugs in the United States come from plants on this island. But an investigation by The Associated Press has found dozens of examples over four years of lapses in quality control in the Puerto Rican pharmaceutical industry, which churns out $35 billion of drugs each year, most of it for sale as part of the $300 billion market in the U.S.

An AP review of 100 pages of Food and Drug Administration reports shows even modern drug plants here under the watch of U.S. regulators have failed to keep laboratories sterile and have exported tainted pills.

"People would be shocked to find this whole variety of contamination," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Washington watchdog group Public Citizen. "The common denominator of all these is there's really poor quality control."