Category Archives: Rants

Economics Over Your Child’s Life – The Conservative View of the World

In a book I reviewed earlier this week, How Everyday Products Make People Sick, by Dr. Paul D. Blanc, there is one part that both angered and sickened me. It had to do with a review of the effects of lead by the conservative think tank – the American Enterprise Institute – Brookings Joint Center AEI/BJC on Regulatory Studies. The comment shows the kind of denial and obfuscation that the conservative right uses to protect industry’s ability to dump toxins on us despite overwhelming research.

Lead is a well known neurotoxin that was used in both gasoline and paint prior to the 1970s. According to numerous studies, lead causes IQ levels to drop, especially in children. What amazed me is that the AEI/BJC did not dispute the fact that lead was neurotoxic but that economically parents gain only $1,100 per IQ point while their children gain $1,900 through lead abatement. Are they kidding me??? Do we measure life benefits in terms of parents versus children? What kind of moral system do these people hold dear? One of their comments was “This analysis suggests lead standards will redistribute resources from parents to their children, because the benefits to parents are less than the costs of the standards. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should reconsider their lead standards.”

Appalling?  You bet. Morally corrupt?  Closer to the truth. My parents came to this country back in 1953 to make their kids lives better, not at our expense but at theirs. The AEI/BJC is one of the many groups that our present administration looks to for advice. What does that say for us when the argument used to reconsider reintroducing lead into our environment is that parents should make more money at the expense of their children?

But lest this be a Bush-Bashing party, let me make it clear that this kind of disgusting government behavior has been going on for centuries and by just about every government in this world. In 1868, the British Fisheries Preservation Authority wrote a pamphlet entitled On Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom. they saw the problems back than.

Dr. Blanc even points out that in 1549 writers talk about things like sick building syndrome (not that term exactly) in a paper called Aerarium Sanitatis. We know that pollution and the dumping of toxins are killing us and causing incalcuable damage to our children and generations to come. As long as it is business as usual, we will continue to be dumped on and lied to about the dangers that surround us.

Please get this book. I don’t care if you get it through clicking on the link below or through any portal you chose, get it. It is one of the finest books on the effects of environmental toxins on human health I have ever read and believe me, I have read a lot of them.

 

How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace

Intolerance and Hatred – There is no place for it in a enlightened world.

Earlier today news that former NBA player Tim Hardaway made the following statement about John Ameche another former player who admitted being gay, “Well, you know, I hate gay people. I let it be known I don’t like gay people. I don’t like to be around gay people. I’m homophobic.” — Tim Hardaway, on Dan Le Batard’s radio show made all the sports and news talk shows. What strikes me is not the idea that someone is opposed to the gay lifestyle but the use of the word hate. I am not one to judge people like John Ameche for his lifestyle or Tim Hardaway for his comments, that is for a greater being than I am, what I do have a problem with is the lack of respect for a fellow human being and the hypocracy that is Tim Hardaway, his comments and others who have the same deep seated anger.

While listening to the Colin Cowherd talk show on ESPN radio this morning, I was astonished at the number of angry callers who agreed in principle with Mr. Hardaway. One caller claimed that since he was molested as a child he had a good reason for hating gays. Thankfully, Mr. Cowherd admonished him and reminded him that fully 80% of child molesters are heterosexual not homosexual. It is through ignorance that we generate hate, not intelligence. Hate is a base emotion that is borne of frustration and lack of knowledge for the most part.

Gene Wojciechowski wrote what I think is a brilliant response to this situation where his major astonishment is how a man like Hardaway can show such bigotry since he “…played at the same university and for the same coach who, years earlier, helped destroy racial stereotypes by starting five African-American players against all-white Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA Final Four championship game.” So I guess Mr. Hardaway feels it is all right to be a bigot against gays but not blacks.

What I hope for is that news of another gay person coming out of the closet is relegated to the back page of the newspaper, buried with other unimportant issues. The same for the announcement that this Super Bowl is the first with two black head coaches or other news like that. My ideal world would be one where people who are unique don’t have to hide from the spotlight but also that they don’t need to have a spotlight shown on them because they are different.

There are far more pressing issues in this world than the fact that an athlete is gay or that an ignorant ex-player hates him. Let’s move on to more important things like saving our environment or making the world a better place for our children to live in. Oh, and if you have some hate mail for me because of my point of view, just leave it in the draft box because I won’t pay any attention to it.

Want to Make an Ecological Difference? Stop Buying Bottled Water

When I came upon this bit of information I was astonished and dismayed. Bottled water is not only environmentally bad, it is harmful to third world countries and its people as well.

This coming Monday, February 12th I will be doing a presentation entitled “10 Things You Can Do To Save The Environment And Protect Your Health” at the Rotary Club of Incline Village. My tenth item was about not buying bottled water anymore. Here are the major points. After reading it I bet you will never look at bottled water the same ever again.

  • Let’s take the example of Fiji Water.
  • It is transported 8,700 killometers from Fiji to San Francisco. Imagine the fuel used to transport the water and the bottles (it is bottled in Fiji).
  • The bottles themselves use petrochemicals to manufacture and the plastic for the bottle is transported from China about 7,000 kilometers away requiring more fuel to transport.
  • A bottle that holds 1 liter requires 25 liters of water in its manufacturing process (this includes power plant cooling water).
  • Every bottle takes 1,000 years to biodegrade. More than 50% of the bottled water brands out there simply purchase U.S. municipal reserve water (your tap water) and filter it before bottling it. Then they resell it to you for an average of $5/gallon.
  • Buy a water filter. You’ll save lots of money.
  • One thing that should outrage every Rotarian especially.
    Companies like Coke (Dasani), and Pepsi (Aquafina) have discovered that buying up the drinkable water from some third-world country, bottling their water source and shipping it to you to sell to the U.S., is less expensive than paying for water from the municipal reserve. And they’re buying up the ONLY drinkable water sources in some countries.
  • So every bottle you drink is not just at the expense of the environment, but also at the expense of another somewhere else, who doesn’t have any other water. And you do.
  • Do you wonder why third world countries don’t like us?

Buying bottled water, unless you really need it should embarass you. It is unnecessary and bad for the environment and does nothing to make you any healthier than if you bought a water filter for your kitchen tap and filled a reusable bottle everyday. Come on America, stop being lazy and uncaring and change your habits. You will save money and make the world a better place.

A Rant in Time, May Save the Environment

Today I’m a little peeved. No, make that really angry.  Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of The House is telling everyone she needs a big plane to go from Washington D.C. to California and back because of her position. Now I’m not just a little mad that this will waste taxpayer money, no I’m really mad because this hypocrite who criticized President Bush for his horrible (and it is horrible) environmental track record is going to waste ten’s of thousands of gallons of jet fuel every year because of her position. Hey Nancy, that is just not right.

Al Gore is another one who should talk about the environment while he flies around in a private jet and riding in a gas guzzling limo. I can understand having some privileges in life but holy cow does it have to be so blatant and wasteful? I bet Al Gore’s ecological footprint is the size of a few hundred of us “simple folk.”

If people are going to buy into the whole “save the environment, save the world” issue, our leaders need to step up to the plate and lead by example. Don’t tell me to cut back on my consumption when you waste so much fuel that I couldn’t make up for it if I lived in a cave and never used a bit of energy for the rest of my life.

Lest I sound like a Democrat basher today, the revelation that 87% of Republican Congressmen don’t buy global warming makes me wonder whether we have a mandatory I.Q. test for our representative or whether all you need is a smile, a few million bucks and a friend in some major industry. Hey guys, if you’re right we will be forced to spend money on making our environment better for generations to come and if you’re wrong and we do nothing like you seem to suggest, our coastal cities will be underwater, our environment will be in horrible shape leading to an increase of disease and suffering (and the added expense of dealing with all those sick people) and droughts will wreck havoc with major regions of the world.  Hmmmm.  What should we do?

Fight on the Hill – Will Big Pharma Get the Tide Turned on Them

Ever since the Republican’s have had control over the House and Senate, as well as the White House, Big Pharma has received a lot of benefits, which in my opinion have been undeserved and unwarranted. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 was a gift to the industry to the tune of more than $8 billion dollars of additional profit according to the January 13, 2007 issue of The Lancet . Since the top ten harmaceutical companies half-year profits in 2006 were a staggering $38 billion, this seems utterly ridiculous.

This opinion piece is not meant to bash a political party. Lord knows they both deserve bashing. What I do have a gripe with is how the Republicans have unabashedly pandered themselves to Big Pharma’s deep pockets. That party received more than 2/3rd’s of the industry’s campaign contributions annually. They spent more than $800 million lobbying Congress and the rest of the Federal government agencies since 1998.

Well, you might ask, they have been creating a bunch of life saving drugs with all the research they’ve been doing, right? Poppycock I say. According to the General Accounting Office, their R & D spending went up by 147% from 1993 to 2004 but new-drug applications only went up 38% in that time frame. Not only that, but the number has been dropping since 1996. If you call Viagra, Cialis and Levitra life saving drugs, well maybe I’m wrong.

In reality, in 2007, there are relatively few new drugs in the pipeline. the industry is in legal battles because of their patent dishonesty when it came to potential side-effects of their drugs (Vioxx, Zypreza to name a few).

The Democrats have already begun the introduction of bills requiring Medicare drug price negotiation, something the Republican backed bill of 2003 forbade. Other bills such as increasing the availability of generics, importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and improved after approval monitoring of existing drugs seem to be on their way. While my faith in politicians is similar to my faith in dinosaurs suddenly appearing at my two young daughter’s elementary school, I do hope a change of climate in Washington D.C. will begin to pull back bad policy decisions made over the past 13 years.

Imagine a Cancer Drug That Kills All Cancers. Too Bad You Can’t Get It.

Imagine if you will that there is a drug that would kill almost any type of cancer, has very few side-effects and is relatively cheap. Actually, you don’t need to imagine it as it does exist and it’s called dichloroacetate or DCA. The problem is no pharmaceutical company will touch it because they can’t patent it and they can’t make ridiculous amounts of money on it. So much for compassionate corporations eh?

What DCA does is cause cancer cells to switch from using glycolysis to generate energy back to using the mitochondria for energy production. This causes the cells to revert from their immortal cancerous state where they commit suicide (apoptosis).

One problem with the drug is that it changes the way researchers need to look at cancer. Instead of being caused by a genetic mutation, they would have to change their point of way and admit that metabolism can spark cancer. My old mentor told me that the real definition of cancer is the abnormal growth and rate of growth of cells. Nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, cancer research is a big business and imagine the problem that would arise if we had a simple and inexpensive answer to many cancers? Lots of jobless researchers I guess.

After reading about this drug in the British journal New Scientist last week I think we need to change the name of drug companies from pharmaceuticals to harmaceuticals. The tag fits them better.

Never Thought I’d See the Day, but I’m Glad I Did!

If you had told me yesterday that oil giant Exxon-Mobil would begin discussions about how to become a better environmental citizen, especially in addressing the issue of global warming, I would have told you to stop hitting the bottle. Well, surprise surprise, in an article from MSNBC.com they did just that. The company announced they would no longer fund global-warming sceptics and would begin to seriously address their responsibilities when it comes to global warming.

Now I’m under no illusion that this was not just done out of the goodness of their hearts but any move to lower gree-house gases is a step in the right direction. I’m not one to go out and tell everyone to sell their cars and ride bicycles instead but we do need to do our part to help stem the tide. Still, when a behemoth like Exxon starts changing (and we’ll see if they really do), then a very good thing has happened. This is a two thumbs up day for the good guys.

Back Posting Again

For those of you who wonder where I’ve been in recent weeks the answer is, all over the place.  On October 28, 2006 I was lecturing in Baden-Baden, Germany and my talk was called “Modern matrix medicine: toxic loads and excretion therapies.” The crowd of health care practitioners from around the world numbered between 350-400. I would like to thank Heel GMBH and the International Society for Homeopathy and Homotoxicology for inviting me to their annual event.

From there I went to the meeting of the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM) in Rancho Mirage, California and when I got back, it was into the hospital to get my Achillies tendon repaired along with removing a nasty bone spur.  While I expected to be down for a few days, little did I realize how much I would need the support of pain killers to deal with the aftermath of some pretty extensive surgery.

So, now that I’m somewhat recovered, my topics over the next few weeks will include the following topics:

  • The influence of BigPharma on patient advocacy groups
  • Recent research into treatment options and prostate cancer
  • Is angioplasty really that effective?  Or worse, can it be harmful?
  • Growing evidence on the effects of environmental toxins on obesity
  • Neurological damage caused by industrial chemicals
  • Obesity, an American phenomena or world-wide epidemic?
  • The development of a lab competency testing protocol
  • Books that inspire, educate and provoke thought
  • Resources to research environmental health issues
  • Trivia, opinions and straight from the hip comments

I am looking forward to the coming weeks of information sharing.

The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman

For those of you still not convinced of the sad state of our health care system, and for those of you who need more ammo when discussing the issue, out comes a book by a former executive of a major pharmaceutical company called: The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman. 

It does a great job in detailing the deceit and profiteering going on that has nothing to do with health but all to do with greed and money. To buy a copy, click on the image below. It’s around $10 from Amazon.

 

The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman

Mercury and Forest Fires

According to Merritt R. Turetsky from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, mercury that has been released into the atmosphere from industrial sources, has a great affinity for organic materials such as peat and rich forest soils.  This is important as whenever a forest fire burns, mercury is released back into the atmosphere.  Previous research had suggested that this release was a paltry 23 tons in the Northern Hemisphere (as compared to industry dumping of 4,400 to 7,500 tons) but the new calculations made by Dr. Turetsky et al have put that figure at a more robust 340 tons annually.

Let’s put this into prospective.  If we think about the fact that about 200 milligrams are lethal to humans (goes up and down dependent on a number of issues like genetics and environment as well as the type of mercury) and if we release say a mid-range number of 5,500 tons of mercury into the atmosphere, what kind of number are we really talking about?

5,500 tons of mercury translates to 24,250,549 kilograms which then breaks down to 24,250,848,840,337 milligrams.  This is 24 and a quarter trillion milligrams. Now if we estimate that the total human population is about 6.5 billion, this means that we are pumping 3791 milligrams of mercury per human being into the environment.  That is 18 times the lethal dose.  Now of course, most people don’t get exposed to that much mercury but we also have to understand that this is a bioaccumulative toxin.  It keeps building up in our systems over the years.

Let’s look at another reality.  If we take a guess that we are only going to come in contact with 1% of that mercury, how long before we hit the lethal dose? In only 5.4 years we will be exposed to the lethal dose.  Of course, we do excrete mercury as we get exposed, some better than others.  Let’s now suppose that we excrete 75% of that mercury (it’s probably less).  We would then have accumulated the lethal dose in 21.44 years. If we excrete 90% then we would hit that level in 54 years. Frightening isn’t it?