A recent Tokyo confab of the world's power brokers revealed the internationalists are still designing the global plantation.
The Trilateral Commission, meeting in Tokyo April 8-10, directly called for world government, a goal long shared with its brother group, Bilderberg.
For three days, efforts to make the United Nations into a world government dominated the agenda at Tokyo's Okura Hotel.
The meeting ended on April 10 with a world government pep rally led by Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, who gave a speech entitled "The United Nations and Global Governance."
This was followed by a panel discus sing "Global Governance in the Early 21st Century"—indicating they believe their dream to be near reality.
The panelists were Laurent Fabius, president of the French National Assembly and former prime minister; William Perry, a professor at Stanford and former U.S. secretary of defense, and Kiichi Miyazawa, finance minister and former prime minister of Japan.
Building up to this climax on the preceding days were speeches by several luminaries.
Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state and a member of
the interlocking leadership with Bilderberg, spoke about "American
Politics and Foreign Policy" while Martin Feldstein, former
chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, discussed
"a new economy." Both spoke at a luncheon devoted to
"The United States: Domestic Developments and Their International
Implications."
Another session was devoted to "Trilateral Responses to the
Challenges of Globalization."
Keizo Takemi, Japan's former state secretary of foreign affairs, discussed "human security" and Mario Vargas Llosa, member of the Royal Spanish Academy, talked of "an integrating global community."
C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics and former assistant treasury secretary, discussed "multilateral management of a globalizing world economy."
"Of course, the Trilaterals consider what transpires behind their locked doors to be 'private' and expect the press to collaborate, but by now they can expect some exposure," said a high-level State Department official and reliable observer of the world government movement.
"So being very direct about their world government goal suggests they believe the public mind—especially that of Americans—has been conditioned to accept surrendering of national sovereignty to the UN," the official said.
David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilaterals who also holds much power in Bilderberg, was among many familiar faces. Others included Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman; Allen Andreas, head of Archer Daniels Midland; Michael Armacost, head of the Brook ings Institution and former ambassador to Japan; Gerald Corrigan of Goldman Sachs; and Winston Lord, former assistant secretary of state.*
While Bush and Gore continue their rhetoric about reforming our corrupt government, the powerful influence peddlers continue along their merry way virtually unabated.
Take the case of the chicken pox vaccine.
Chicken pox is a childhood nuisance disease that confers lifelong immunity on the individual after going through minor symptoms. The need for a mandatory vaccine for this condition was challenged when it was first dreamed up and developed by Merck, the world's leading vaccine producer.
Not only has this vaccine managed to make its way into the circle of government mandated childhood vaccines - and exceptionally lucrative business, with questionable results - it is moving its mandate along state by state.
MANDATORY VACCINE
Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in the Ohio State Senate which will make the chicken pox vaccine the ninth vaccine required in order for children to attend school in that state.
State Sen. Bruce Johnson (R-Westerville) introduced the bill at the request of Merck, children's hospitals, the Children's Defense Fund and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The entire promotion is rolling from state to state under the direction and impetus of Merck.
The Ohio mandate will add about $7 million a year to the state budget for each class on new kindergartners. With a kindergarten through grade 12 mandate, the chicken pox revenues could be even more for Merck.
When this vaccine was first proposed, the late Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a nationally known pediatrician and author, stressed that it was silly to inoculate for this mild nuisance. Merck and the bureaucrats who approve vaccines ignored the critics and commonsense.
Today, it is widely recognized that this vaccine is produced n lung tissue cultured from aborted fetuses. Merck will only admit that the vaccine "contains residual components" of fetal ling cells.
The Long-term effectiveness and safety of this vaccine, however, remains unknown. Merck has contributed significant amounts to various politicians; organizations like the American Academy of Pediatricians and front groups claiming to support the need for vaccines in order to advance the lucrative mandatory vaccine business.
Not only do the taxpayers pay for the childhood vaccines and enforce the edict that all school age children be vaccinated, but the taxpayers pick up the tab whenever a vaccine causes serious illness or death to a child.*
A double-blind, placebo-controlled study at a major university has proven that two supplements have been shown effective in significantly reducing hypertension.
Two dietary supplements have been shown in recent peer-reviewed studies to help lower high blood pressure: Coenzyme Q-10 (CoQ10) and palm tocotrienols.
A double-blind study using 64 heart disease patients with hypertension was conducted in India. The study group received 60 mg of CoQ10 twice daily for 8 weeks while the control group received a "placebo" containing B-vitamins. Since B-vitamins are vital to human health they should hardly be considered a "Sugar pill" or placebo.
All the patients had been receiving high blood pressure medication for the previous year. After the eight-week trial period, the study group sustained significantly greater reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings than the B-vitamin "Placebo" group. The control group also sustained a slight lowering of the blood pressure.
The mean systolic pressure reduced from 168 to 152 in the CoQ10 group while the B-vitamin group experienced a mean reduction from 166 to 164. The mean diastolic pressure decreased from 106 to 97 in the CoQ10 group and from 105 to 103 in the control group.
Additionally, the reductions occurred even though the consumption of such drugs as diltazem, metoprolol, enalapril and nitrate were significantly reduced in the Coq10 group. The use of the drugs, however, was maintained in the control group.
Compared with the control group, the CoQ10 group showed reduced fasting plasma insulin; plasma insulin two hours following a 75-gram glucose challenge; fasting blood glucose; triglycerides and indicators of free radical stress such as lipid peroxides. And, the study group had significantly increased HDL (good cholesterol) levels.
This study clearly adds to the large body of research that shows CoQ10 supplementation is beneficial to promoting heart health.
In another study, palm tocotrienols showed similar promise.
An animal study published in the November 1999 issue of Clin. Exp. Hypertens. found that naturally occurring vitamin E tocotrienols from palm oil prevented high blood pressure after supplementation for three months.
Gamma tocotrienol was also found to reduce lipid peroxides in serum while enhancing antioxidant activity, including SOD (superoxide dismutase) activity.*
Federal "regulators" may be facing contempt charges in a federal appeals court for violating a court order that allows vitamin companies to make health claim on labels.
The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) convened a public hearing April 4, to gather public input on how the agency should go about implementing the court decision of Pearson v.Shalala, 164F.3d 650 (D.C.Cir.1999). Pearson v. Shalala is a landmark 1st Amendment decision that went against the FDA in May 1999.
Judge Silver ruled in the U.S. Court of Appeals that the FDA had no legal right to use the arbitrary and capricious, undefinable "significant scientific agreement" to block vitamin companies from making four specific health claims on their products.
The claims, which the court ordered the FDA to allow - along with disclaimers that the FDA has not approved of them - are:
* "Consumption of antioxidant vitamins may reduce the
risk of certain kinds of cancers";
* "Consumption of fiber may reduce the risk of colorectal
cancer";
* "Consumption of omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk
of coronary heart disease"; and
* "Folic acid (.8 mg) in a dietary supplement is more effective
in reducing the risk of neural tube defects than a lower amount
in foods in common form."
The FDA was ordered by the court to allow these claims. but after 11 months, the rogue agency has obviously been in violation of the judge's decision by continuing to threaten enforcement action against companies that made them.
The FDA's response to questions asked of them at the meeting in Washington, D.C., indicated that it is intentionally operating in contempt of Silver's court order.
On April 7, oral arguments were heard for an emergency preliminary injunction to prohibit FDA enforcement against vitamin companies who make the four claims.
The recent contempt is a revisitation of ongoing FDA policy that is killing people by blocking the dissemination of vital nutritional information.
A few years ago the FDA dragged its bureaucratic feet on allowing vitamin manufacturers to make the valid claim that the consumption of the B vitamin folic acid by expectant mothers prevents neural tube defects. As a result, the FDA condemned untold numbers of children to life long crippling paralysis due to spina bifida - a disease affecting the spinal cord - all because their mother didn't know they needed to consume folic acid during their pregnancy.*
A number of smaller publications are turning up the heat when it comes to fluoridated drinking water. When will government sit up and take note that the problems with fluoride far out weigh the benefits.
The lid is finally about to blow on the water fluoridation issue.
At The SPOTLIGHT we turned the heat up a notch two issues ago with our stories on fluoridation and the Florida phosphate fertilizer industry.
Now a slick magazine with relatively low circulation has turned the heat up another notch. Prevailing Wind recently published a sensational-but-suppressed story about how the U.S. government twisted and suppressed the truth about fluoride's adverse health effects because hydrogen fluoride was part and parcel of the top secret atomic bomb project between 1994 and 1945.
The government, stonewalling in fluoride and its attendant dangers, helped to create the mythology about fluoride being good for children's teeth.
Today, that myth has been exploded without the media noticing.
Virtually everyone in the so-called "alternative" circle knows that all the dirty secrets of the five-decade fluoride experiment have been exposed and there is no "science" supporting this toxic water treatment program. But the mainstream media remains comfortably mum.
Nevertheless, the crowning blow to the cruel fluoridation hoax is taking shape and the media prostitutes can no longer continue to cover for their pimps - the truth is winning out.
The March 2000 issue of Acres USA, the nation's leading eco-farm journal, features an interview with Dr. Albert Burgstahler, an emeritus professor of biochemistry at Kansas University and the editor of Fluoride, the journal of the International Society for Fluoride Research. In the interview, Burgstahler sums up the latest news and goes on to point out that dentists are now very concerned about the increase in dental "mottling" caused by fluoride overload.
That's only part of the story emerging story.
Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson, the investigative journalist once commissioned by The Christian Science Monitor to probe the atomic project's relation to fluoride highlighted these five facts:
1. Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb project scientists, who had been secretly ordered to provide "evidence useful in litigation" against defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride, the documents show.
2. Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water - conducted in Newburgh, New York from 1945 to 1965. then, in a classified operation code-named "Program F" they secretly gathered and analyzed blood and tissue samples from the Newburgh citizens, with the cooperation of the State Health Department personnel.
3. The original secret version - obtained by these reporters - of a 1948 study published by Program F scientists in the Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride was censored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission - considered one of the most powerful of Cold War agencies - for reasons of national security.
4. The bomb program's fluoride safety studies were conducted at the University of Rochester, site of one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. The fluoride studies were conducted with this same ethical mindset, in which "national security" was paramount.
5. The U.S. government's conflict of interest - and its motive to prove fluoride "safe" - has not, until now been made clear to the general public in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the 1950's, nor to civilian researchers and health professionals or journalists.
In the Acres USA interview, Burgstahler independently confirms how the cities of Newburgh and Kingston, N.Y., were part of the fluoridation control experiments starting in 1945 and how the results were suppressed so that the agenda could not be stopped on scientific grounds. He said:
"At the time, the argument was that the tooth decay rates were comparable in the two cities - actually that wasn't quite true - but in the event, they collected data for 10 years following the fluoridation of Newburgh. Proponents claimed there was a 50 to 60 percent lower tooth decay rate in the children they examined. The same was argued for Grand Rapids, Mich.; Brantford, Ontario; and Evanston, Ill. and so forth. But following that 1955-1960 period, tooth decay rates in Kingston were also going down, and in the mid 1990s tooth decay rates in the non-fluoridated control city of Kingston were actually a little lower than in fluoridated Newburgh, but the dental fluorosis rates in Newburg were twice as high.s
"On the medical side, the Newburgh blood samples were sent to the University of Rochester where atomic bomb research was going on. Scientists there were concerned because they had seen some toxic effects in the uranium workers handling uranium hexafluoride for the isotope separation. They were looking to see what kinds of biochemical parameters would be found in that general blood sampling. That was all suppressed. We don't really know what they did find, but some things did leak out: cervical bone abnormalities in the boys in Newburgh were twice what they were in Kingston. The onset of puberty was advanced by some five months for girls in Newburgh, so there were some suspicious things that they should have looked into more closely.
In the Prevailing Wind article, Griffiths and Bryson told how the atomic project had serious liability problems staring them in the face and how they had to cover up the fluoride poisoning at all cost. The secrecy of the atomic project caused the cover-up and it served to propel the fluoridation mythology.
Dr. Phyllis Mullenix has published research that could be the last scientific straw for the fluoride camel's back, because it verifies both hyperactive and lackadaisical effects on animal subjects. Such effects have long been rumored for fluoride.
According to Burgstahler:
Mullenix had developed a very powerful tool called computer recognition patterns in which she was able to use two cameras at one-second intervals of picture taking to see how rats would behave in different saturations - after radiation or certain treatments of drugs - whether they became hyperactive or hypoactive, and whether their movements and movement patterns were altered appreciably.
This is a very sensitive technique, and she found that certain radiation treatments which were being used for leukemic children had these hypoactive effects of making the animals more passive and less alert.
Certain steroid drugs that had fluorine in them had the same effects. When she tested the sodium fluoride separately, she used newborn and adult rats and found an interesting difference. She discovered that the prenatal injections led to hyperactivity in newborns, and the older rats showed a depressive effect.
One does not need to be a brain surgeon, as the saying goes, to see the implication - fluoridated water is very common and growing in cities across America today - as is uncontrolled hyperactivity in children while the "mental sluggishness" of millions of "average Americans is also apparent.
In the interview, Burgstahler offered an anecdote from his own experience that ties into the findings by Dr. Mullenix, namely:
What we lack is a comparison of children with a low fluoride intake versus those with a high fluoride intake. I can give you one anecdotal story that's very relevant. A woman called some years ago about her 16-year old son who was experiencing real problems in school. He couldn't concentrate, he was always jumping around, and was generally unmanageable. I met with her and her child and suggested she try distilled water for a few weeks and see what happened. She called back and said that it was "amazing" as he had become a normal child.
We continue the Mullenix part of the Acres USA interview with Burgstahler.
As a result of that research, she became a very concerned and prepared a paper for publication, but she was told that in order to publish she should clear her findings with the Public Health Service. She went to Washington, D.C., to give a presentation, where they were rather shocked and wanted to know what her publishing plans were. She knew at this point they were trying to suppress publication, but she went ahead and published anyway in Neurotoxicology and Teratology Journal in 1995.
As soon as that happened, the lid blew off. She was then informed that her services were no longer required. The Forsyth Institute admitted bluntly that if she were to continue there, their funding, which was practically the entire source of support for the research institute, would be cut off by the Public Health Service in retaliation.
Griffiths and Bryson showed Dr. Mullenix the documentation that the researchers uncovered about the "top secret" version of the research that was published in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association:
The secret version reports that most of the men had no teeth left. The published version reports only that the men had fewer cavities.
The secret version says the men had to wear rubber boots because the fluoride fumes disintegrated the nails in their shoes. The published version does not mention this.
The secret version says the fluoride may have acted similarly on the men's teeth contributing to their toothlessness. the published version omits this statement.
The published version concludes that "the men were unusually healthy, judged from both a medical and dental point of view."
...After comparing the secret and published versions of the censored study, toxicologist. Phyllis Mullenix commented, "This makes me ashamed to be a scientist." Of other Cold War-era fluoride safety studies she asked, "Were they all done like this?"*
The following compiles shocking new reports about the artificial sweetener, aspartame.
Jonathan Leake, the science editor of the UK's Sunday Times, has written an article about the discovery, through Britain's equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act, of a report by the U.S. National Soft Drink Association(NSDA) which was compiled in protest of aspartame being approved for use as an artificial sweetener.
The effects of aspartame poisoning on the public since being approved for use as a sweetener by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in other nations throughout the world are beginning to be calculated. The mountains of evidence that had to be overlooked by the FDA in order to approve aspartame for the marketplace is staggering.
COMPROMISED BRAIN FUNCTION
The 1983 NSDA report, which can be read in its entirety by visiting the web-site, http://www.dorway.com , warned that aspartame is a toxin that can compromise brain function, change behavior and even compel people to crave carbohydrates - thus neutralizing any benefits that may have been gained from its low caloric content.
According to Leake, "The documents were unearthed in late February under freedom of information legislation. It follows a decision by researchers at King's College in London to study suspected links between aspartame intake and brain tumors."
Aspartame ws developed by the Searle corporation and is widely produced by chemical giant Monsanto and marketed under the trade name "NutraSweet." Monsanto bought Searle in 1985 - a year before aspartame was approved by the FDA. Monsanto announced Feb. 25, that it has agreed to sell its interests in aspartame for $440 million.
The irony is that the 30-page NSDA report, upon whose board sat executives from some of the world's largest soft drink manufacturers like coca Cola, places toxic substance into cans and bottles for their unsuspecting consumers.
UNSTABLE
The "secret" report stated, "Aspartame is inherently, markedly and uniquely unstable in aqueous media. In a liquid, such as a soft drink, APM will degrade as a function of temperature and pH. Higher temperatures and more acidic liquids increase the rate of degradation. Higher temperatures may also affect the degradation products which are formed."
The report further protested the approval of aspartame for its inability to meet with existing federal law with regard to the use of food additives that may result in the adulteration of the product.
"The present record does not contain data which demonstrate that the use of aspartame in soft drinks will not result in the adulteration of the beverages under section 402(a)(3) of the FDC Act, 21 U.S.C. 342(a) (3), which provides that a food is adulterated if it contains, in whole or in part, "...a decomposed substance or if it is otherwise unfit for food."
It has been well documented, even by a sixth grade girl named Jennifer Cohen in 1998, that aspartame has a tendency to break down and produce methanol, a toxin, which, in turn, breaks down further to produce formic acid and formaldehyde. Phenylalanine, another breakdown product of aspartame, is extremely dangerous to people with the common enzyme deficiency phenyketonuria.
Miss Cohen, the daughter of pure food activist Robert Cohen, decided to look into the decomposition of aspartame because she wanted to find out why her diabetic grandmother almost died from consuming products which contained the artificial sweetener.
In animal studies aspartame triggered the formation of brain, mammary, pancreatic, uterine, ovarian and testicular tumors and pituitary adenomas. Despite the evidence presented to it in the NSDA report and other documents that expressed the FDA's own concerns that aspartame is poisonous to people, the product was approved by the federal agency - after the patent rights had been transferred to Monsanto.
More recently, Coke, Pepsi, the federal government and Monsanto knew aspartame to be a toxic substance that breaks down into several toxic substances at temperatures above 86 degrees. Yet thousands of pallets of aspartame-sweetened diet pop were sent to the Persian Gulf.*
Many doctors agree that there are plenty of reasons to avoid aspartame.
Ralph Walton, M.D., psychiatrist, chairman of the Center for Bhavioral Medicine, said: "We have known for years that when aspartame is ingested with a carbohydrate-rich meal the usual physiologic increase in tryptophan is blocked, while bain phenylalanine and tyrosine concentrations are increased. These changes in amino acid neurotransmitter precursors could, I believe, alter indoleamine/catechloramine balance, and thus have a profound effect on mood and cognition...depressed mood, anxiety, dizziness, panic attacks, nausea, irritability, impairment of memory and concentration."
Aspartame is found in numerous medical products that are given to children. The list includes children's vitamins, chewable and flavored overpthe-counter drugs, prescription drugs like Augmentin and flavored Pedialyte.
Dr. Miguel Baret of the Dominican Republic reported giving 360 children juice laced with aspartame and said most developed "abnormal restlessness, lack of concentration, irritability and minor depression."
When he removed the aspartame, he said: "The results were astonishing. Their symptoms disappeared in four to six days in ALL of them!"
Neurosurgeon Russel Blaylock, M.D. author of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, said aspartame is a toxin like arsenic and cyanide that causes confusion, disorientation, autism, seizures, cancer, pancreatic, uterine, ovarian and brain tumors.
According to Dr. James Bowen, all soft drinks lack any physical sterilization process and sterilizants called preservatives are added, benzoates and sorbates are the most common. Benzoates, for example, are used in come countries as insecticides. The use of a benzoate to preserve soda pop is appropriate in this case.
"For a preservative to sufficiently stabilize a product in these conditions it must, indeed, be an effective insecticide, bacterocide, fungicide, nemacide and protozoacide at the actual concentration used in the beverage," explained Bowen.
"This only serves to point out that these chemicals cannot be harmless to human tissues," Bowen said. "Since NutraSweet has chemically hypersensitized a large portion of our population these sensitized people will react more violently to other chemical insults.
"I consider any manufacturer who would put aspartame, a deadly chemical poison, in our children's food and drugs absolutely depraved and obscene," Bowen stated.*
Betty Martini of Mission Possible is one of the world's most knowledgeable aspartame activists.
She had recently reported several disturbing facts that parents must consider because the present and future health of their children rests upon their knowledge of what is going into their bodies.
Martini reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled more than 24,000 cases of the soft drink Fresca with undeclared acesulfame potassium (acesulfame K) that were distributed in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, California and Nevada. Fresca also contains aspartame. According to FDA, fountain machines contain no PKU warnings required by law for children who cannot metabolize phenylalanine.
"If a baby is PKU-positive, if he survives aspartame at all which triggers birth defects, autism, ADD etc., he can be mentally retarded," Martine said and added that soft drink vending machines do not post warnings for pregnant women who should not drink soft drinks sweetened with aspartame.
PEDIALYTE CONTAINS ASPARTAME
There was also a recent controversy involving the use of the electrolyte-replacement product Pedialyte.
Martini has been contacted by women whose babies suffered seizures and died after being given flavored Pedialyte which contains aspartame.
"I picked up one baby with urticaria (hives) who was so fretful and sick. I asked the mother if the baby was on aspartame and she said she never used it. Then when I mentioned Pedialyte she said ‘oh yes, I gave him some today,'" Martini said.
Martini recalls a conversation with a spokesperson from Ross Products, a division of Abbott Laboratories, the company that produces Pedialyte: "I did call Pedialyte and tell them to take this poison out of babies' products. I was told, ‘we have one unflavored version that doesn't contain the toxin.'
"I said: ‘Look, just because you market one product without arsenic doesn't give the right to market others with arsenic and poison our children.'"
Martini, disgusted by the company's disregard for public safety said, "This stuff is being advertised all over TV, in babies' magazines and physicians are telling mothers to use it."
Augmentin, a pediatric antibiotic that is often given to babies in conjunction with Pedialyte, also contains aspartame to give infants a double whammy of aspartame exposure.
There is no safe amount of the know neurotoxin aspartame that can be consume by an infant whose brain is still developing.
This country is currently experiencing an epidemic of toddler-aged children who are being prescribed the psychotropic mood altering drug Ritalin to combat unpredictable and hyperactive behavior.
A recent study estimates that 1.5 percent of children two to four years of age are taking Ritalin. Although there are no studies that have proven the long-term effects of Ritalin among children so young, the number of prescriptions for two to four year old has risen exponentially in the last 10 years.
Martini has clinical evidence to indicate that aspartame poisoning may be the root cause of many children's erratic behavior.
Jean Hudon, another activist who has been studying the aspartame controversy, cautions parents of problem children, before they resort to giving their children an addictive drug to mask the problem.
"To carefully look into what he/she behavioral problems," Hudson said.
Aspartame poisoning is real and parents must be aware that many sodas may be sweetened with aspartame without any mention of it on the label.
"I'm sick and tired of reading such horrors stories about the deadly effects of aspartame." Hudson added. "This is another field of action for those of us motivated enough to help put an end to this criminal poisoning of people and innocent children."*
A major chemical company recently sold its rights to aspartame. Was this because the firm's representatives fear a back lash when news of its reported toxicity leak out.
Chemical giant Monsanto announced March 26, that it has agreed to sell its NutraSweet label to Childs Equity Partners II, LLP, for $440 million.
Monsanto sold its rights to the artificial sweetener at a time when the American public is beginning to understand that aspartame is a dangerous neurotoxin.
The Food and Drug Administration has a list of 92 symptoms that can be attributed to the use of aspartame which include brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia and diabetes. There are also reports that babies who have taken the electrolyte replacer Pedialyte, which contains aspartame in its flavored products, have suffered seizures that have lead to death.
Monsanto is also selling its European interests in what has been called one of the most dangerous substances ever to be foisted on the unsuspecting public. Monsanto's NutraSweet AG and Euro-Aspartame SA were sold for $67 million in cash to joint venture partner Ajinomoto Co., Inc., Japan's largest seasoning maker.
Monsanto reportedly put its aspartame interests up for sale in order to reduce billions of dollars in debt it incurred from buying several seed companies in recent years. Monsanto is the patent holder on the "terminator gene" that produces crops which do not produce viable seed.
It would appear that one of the world's largest corporations is moving away from poisoning people with its controversial artificial sweetener and is moving toward monopolizing the world's food supply by controlling seed production.
"We're pleased that the (sweetener) business and its people will have the opportunity to enhance the business in focused, stand-alone entities," Hendrik Verfaillie, Monsanto's president and chief operating officer, said in a prepared statement.
Prior to aspartame being approved by the FDA, Monsanto purchased rights to the product from the Searle Corporation, which apparently did not have the lobbying strength to achieve FDA approval for the highly toxic artificial sweetener.
Monsanto's new industry of controversy is the growing field of genetically altered foods. The public and the FDA have growing concern over the increase of genetically altered foods that are on the market without any long-range testing for safety. In order to get its genetically altered food products into the marketplace, Monsanto is expected to apply the same type of pressure against the FDA that caused the federal agency to approve aspartame.
Later this year Monsanto plans to merge with Pharmicia & Upjohn Inc. to form a company with $11 billion annually in pharmaceutical sales.
Monsanto's projected sales from genetically modified seeds an argricultural products is $5 billion making it the second largest seed company in the nation after only a few years of interest in the industry.*
As more and more Americans are incorporating "health foods" into their diet, the controversy rages on as to whether soy-based products are beneficial.
Banner headline news stories in Hawaii's two major newspapers Nov. 19 and 20, 1999, added more fuel to the fire of the soy food controversy, but the rest of America was kept in the dark.
A banner heading in the Honolulu Star Bulletin on Nov. 19 stated that a study showed to much tofu - a form of processed soy bean curd - induced "brain aging."
The next day, the front page headline of the Honolulu Advertiser read: "Tofu Linked To Dementia, Study Says." The subhead read: "2 Servings A Week My Be Harmful".
Despite numerous media wire services such as Associated Press and Reuters, there was not one mention of soy in the mainland U.S. press or any other media on either of those days.
This information is important because many millions of Americans consume soy protein foods such as tofu in ever greater amounts.
The Hawaii press heard about Dr. White's research only after he presented his abstract before the Third International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating Chronic Disease in Washington D.C. the first week of November 1999.
THE WHOLE STORY
The Hawaiian newspapers considered White's research to be important local news and both papers called him for interviews.
The research paper was, indeed, big news in Hawaii, and should have been important news elsewhere because the research was well-conducted and the results have significant implications for the ever enlarging, massively-hyped soy food diet.
White explained the significance of his research:
"Our investigation utilized the resources of the Honolulu Heart Program, a longitudinal study of 3,734 Japanese-American men established in 1965 for research on heart disease and stroke.
We observed a consistent pattern of association between answers given by men in 1965 and 1971 regarding the number of servings of tofu consumed per week - and their scores on a test of cognitive function when examined in 1991-1993. Higher frequencies of tofu consumption were associated with poorer test scores. This observation remained strong after controlling for all the relevant factors such as age, education, occupation, smoking,, alcohol consumption and so forth. No other foods or drink showed such an association.
Separately, we observed an association of high mid-life tofu intake with low brain weight determined at autopsy, again after controlling for all other relevant factors.
Also, separately, we observed an association of high mid-life tofu intake with enlarged ventricles identified by MRI.
While we did not find an association of high mid-life tofu intake with the brain lesions that characterize Alzheimer's disease in our autopsy study, we did find high mid-life tofu intake to be a risk factor for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
We believe that the most reasonable mechanism would be an interference with the normal mechanisms in the brain that maintain the connections between neurons during aging, such as brain plasticity mechanisms, caused by the isoflavone phytoestrogens that are know to be present in pharmacologically significant concentrations in most soy food.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin article pointed out that White actually urged caution at the International urged caution at the International Soy Symposium, which was sponsored by Archers Daniels Midland and DuPont, because most of the speakers were touting soy's role in the prevention and treatment of disease.
White told the Honolulu reporter that the majority of scientist said the data they were talking about for the beneficial affects on health was very weak and doesn't really support health claims for soy foods. This is an important point that The SPOTLIGHT has made in previous stories - much of the soy hype is based upon premature, incomplete studies and should not be construed to be proven, especially for human beings.
In the Star-Bulletin article White asked a poignant question: "Why in the world would a loss of cognitive ability happen? Everyone knows protein in tofu and soy is wonderfully nutritious?
"But, more and more, over the last five to ten years," White responded, "people have been claiming the health benefits of soy foods are less related to its nutrient composition, proteins and fat, and more related to other molecules that occur in tofu made by soy plants and act as pharmacological agents."
Isoflavones, White explained are the most talked about constituents in soy. He pointed out that these isoflavones are "molecules that the soy plant makes while it's germinating to help fend off mold and other things that attack the plant in the ground.
"These molecules look like estrogen," White told The SPOTLIGHT. "But they are not natural human estrogens. They are merely look-alike molecules.
"They can act like estrogen or anti-estrogen in the human body," he said. "The estrogen activity is weak next to estrogen produced in the human body. Sometimes they can inhibit certain enzymes and alter the metabolism of cells. Sometimes this may be okay, at other times it may not be.
"The important point," he stressed, "these are not nutrients - they are drugs - and they may have possible benefits at times, and potential side effects as well."
Scientists, for example, are fully aware of the potential for breast cancer benefit int the drug tamozifen, which white pointed out is "a first cousin to the soy isoflavones." At the same time, researchers also know that while perhaps halting breast cancer, tamoxifen may cause uterine cancer.
As Dr. Daniel Sheehan from the FDA's toxicological labs said in a letter to FDA Director Jane Henney which we reprinted in our last issue of Here's to Your Health: "Soy phytoestrogens are a two-edged sword at the very best."
The concluding statement in the Star-Bulletin article stated:
Companies that make money from soy products are pushing hard to have people think of them as "perfect food," White said.
But, if we're talking about soy foods containing substances that have effects on health that aren't nutrients, that are not vitamins or fat, but change how cells operate, they're acting like drugs act. And the way we think of them should be how we think about drugs.
The Honolulu Advertiser's story, by Beverly Creamer, also covered the news story very well. She noted in her opening paragraphs that White's research was "...The first time scientists have labeled a dietary risk factor for the disease that effects 2 percent of the nation's 65-year olds and up to 16 percent of 80-year olds..."
The article also noted that the president of the Aloha Chapter of the Alzeimer's Association and director of the Geriatric Medicine program at the University of Hawaii, Dr. Patricia Blanchette, called it "big news" a point obviously lost on mainland America's news editors.
Estrogen mimics are nothing to take lightly. Before proclaiming soy food a "health food" all the facts about soy isoflavones should be thoroughly, openly and honestly evaluated by unbiased scientists.*
Radical new advances in genetic technology are leaving some with the sinking feeling that this may be the biological equivalent to the creation of the atomic bomb.
Last month, President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly requested that biotech companies, which had been participating in the previously top secret human genone project, make their data available to the public. The announcement caused biotech stock to temporarily plummet.
The announcement also caused people all over the world to shudder at the thought that their genetic code - the DNA sequence that makes them unique - would suddenly be, at the request of Clinton and Blair, in the public domain.
"Private firms are racing madly to read and patent the genetic code that makes you and me," wrote Conella Meadows in an article entitled, Moments of Shocked Silence About Biotechnology.
"They are trying to beat publicly funded labs, which are required as a condition of their grants to publish the gene sequences they unravel," Meadows wrote.
An Associated Press article which circulated among the nation's dominant media publications last February described how one influential biotech corporation, Celera Genomics, intends to use the secrets of genetic sequencing to produce designer drugs that perform specific functions to alter the behavior or metabolism of a specific person.
"Celera Genomics is funded by drug companies with the understanding that the funders will see the code before anyone else does," Meadows explained knowing that drug companies are largely responsible for the medical armageddon that looms on our horizon.
"If it strikes you as alarming that private investors can patent and keep secret and sell something that sits within every cell of your body, you ought to pay much closer attention to the new, jaw-dropping biotech industry," Meadows warned and then gave the following example of where the biotech industry is going with its technological advances.
...We heard from an ecologist who sits on a USDA panel that approves the release of genetically engineered crop plants. of the 71 applications currently pending, one is for the implantation of the gene by which scorpions make their toxin.
Splice that gene into a plant, and anything that nibbles on a leaf, from woodchucks to bugs, falls down dead.
Of course people who eat the plant fall down dead too, so there must also be a package of genes to turn the scorpion gene on and off. Turn it on in the roots and leaves and stems, turn it off in the flower and fruit.
WHERE DOES POISON GO?
"But what happens to poison when roots or leaves decompose in the soil? What happens if the turn-off gene doesn't work infallibly? Would we have to check every fruit or grain for traces of scorpion poison?" Meadows asked.
"Don't know," said the government ecologist.
Meadows explained that there were several people in the room and that the response to the USDA ecologist's admission that he did not know what would happen when scorpion poison was spliced into our food supply was, "Silence."
What we must understand is that science, whether for good or ill, goes forward of its own inertia. A scientist dedicates his life to an avenue of investigation, he dies, somebody picks up his notes and begins anew where he left off.
We cannot stop science from going forward - it just does. What we can do is stop supporting corporations such as Celera that fund the development of biotechnological research for commercial applications that common sense tells us are dangerous.*
Toxins that have been banned in the U.S. have been turning up in our drinking water, food and air.
We are exposed to toxic chemicals in air, food and water.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has documented the following chemicals to be "ubiquitous" in the air: p-xylene, tetrachoroethylene, ethylbenzene, benzene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and o-xylene.
The EPA gives honorable mention to the following as being "often present": Chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, styrene and p-dichlorobenzene.
The levels of chlorinated pesticides found in foods is alarming. According to Walter Crinnion, N.D., the EPA found DDE (a partially decomposed version of DDT) in 100 percent of samples of raisins, fresh and frozen spinach, canned chili and beef.
The federal agency also found that 93 percent of processed American cheese, hamburger, hot dogs, bologna, collard greens, chicken, turkey and ice cream sandwiches contained DDE.
And the list goes on.
ALPHABET SOUP OF POISONS
Since DDT and DDE have been banned for use in this country since 1972, the products which are found to contain these cumulative poisons are imported from other countries where these chemicals are still legal to use.
According to the EPA, the most contaminated fruits and vegetables are strawberries, bell peppers, spinach, U.S. cherries, peaches, Mexican cantaloupe, celery, apples, apricots, green beans. Chilean grapes and cucumbers.*
Don't just wipe out all those nuisance dandelions in your yard. They can be effective at purging toxins from your body.
Spring is here and so are the dandelions (taraxacum officinale).
These beautiful yellow flowered herbs are often looked upon as troublesome weeds in our lawns.
But, we can also view dandelions as a reminder of the "golden" opportunity they can provide in assisting us with an internal spring cleaning.
This plant is an excellent spring tonic, considered by some to be the greatest healing aid for mankind's suffering. Its fresh young leaves can be added to spring salads or lightly steamed like spinach to make an extremely nutritious addition to any meal.
Best known as a liver tonic, dandelion root and leaves taken internally increase bile production. Dandelion also promotes healthy circulation, strengthens weak arteries, purifies the blood and restores the gastric juices in those who have suffered from severe vomiting. It has a cleansing effect and is very effective in the removal of obstructions from the liver, gallbladder, spleen and diseases arising from them, such as jaundice.
It is also a powerful diuretic and has the ability to resolve obstructions in the urinary tract.
Since dandelion has been known to relieve congestion in the blood vessels serving the liver, it has been used successfully in the treatment of hepatogenic dropsy, cardiac edema and water retention in the legs.
The word dandelion comes from the French "dent de lion" meaning teeth of the lion in reference to the shape of its leaves. Its scientific name, taraxacum, is derived from the Greek "taraxos" meaning disorder and "akos" meaning remedy.
Including this herb in one's diet has been known to improve eyesight and strengthen the enamel on the teeth. The White milky juice of the stem can be applied to wars and allowed to dry. This is also helpful when applied to corns, acne and blisters.
The flower petals make a colorful addition to spring salads aside from their more well-known use in wine making.
Dandelion is high in protein and has an incredible nutritional profile. It is an excellent source of vitamins A, B-complex, C and E and contains an abundance of minerals in impressive amounts.
Most of today's ailments can be relieved if we would simply take better care of our liver and gallbladder. The liver is the body's blood filter and toxins in our environment (pesticides, herbicides, chemtrails, air pollution of all kinds) often find their way into our livers. When gallstones form in our gallbladders, our liver is compromised. Since every organ in the body gets it nutrients from the liver, it is vitally important to keep this organ in tip top shape. If you suffer from indigestion, gas or an inability to assimilate nutrients, you may be suffering from a congested liver.
The liver is also the seat of repressed anger. If you are an emotional volcano ready to explode you will need to take extra special care of this vital organ.
Numerous people (including myself) have avoided gallbladder surgery as a result of a liver flush.*
Ingri Cassel of The Idaho Observer is an experienced herbalist/healer who ascribes to Dr. John Christopher's philosophy of herbology.