Yours in Chiropractic, Armand Rossi

This issue of Kid`s Unlimited turned out to have quite a bit of information regarding vaccines.  I have certain personal issues involving vaccinations.  I have never received one, nor has anyone in my family.  My professional opinion is that everyone has a right to decide for themselves.  That is why I oppose any type of mandatory vaccination. You`ll hear many views about the toxicity of vaccines and reactions.  You`ll hear about autism and ADHD and more.  My opinion is based upon the result on the psyche of the child.  When a child is vaccinated (no matter the age), the child is given a subconscious message that he or she is not good enough to maintain their health on their own.  They will always need some type of "outside-in" assistance to maintain their health. The children grow up believing that they have an inherent inability to stay healthy from "inside - out".   This, to me, is the travesty of vaccination.  Rather than empowering our youth with the understanding of how wonderful they really are, we create an educated weakness within them that carries on subconsciously for the rest of their lives.

I`ve also included a recent article that isn`t directly related to chiropractic or health, but is so touching and wonderful that it really does relate to everything we do.  Read on.....

Deadly Immunity

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal

By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency`s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting`s first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment -- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on."

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry`s bottom line. "We are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits," said Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware. "This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff attorneys in this country." Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC, expressed relief that "given the sensitivity of the information, we have been able to keep it out of the hands of, let`s say, less responsible hands." Dr. John Clements, vaccines adviser at the World Health Organization, declared flatly that the study "should not have been done at all" and warned that the results "will be taken by others and will be used in ways beyond the control of this group. The research results have to be handled."

In fact, the government has proved to be far more adept at handling the damage than at protecting children`s health. The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical`s link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten`s findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data hadbeen "lost" and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to aprivate company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.

Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to eleven-year-olds.

The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government`s vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bio-terrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Andy Olsen, a legislative assistant to Frist.

Even many conservatives are shocked by the government`s effort to cover up the dangers of thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, oversaw a three-year investigation of thimerosal after his grandson was diagnosed with autism. "Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic," his House Government Reform Committee concluded in its final report. "This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal, a known neurotoxin." The FDA and other public-health agencies failed to act, the committee added, out of "institutional malfeasance for self protection" and "misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.

I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source, and I certainly understood the government`s need to reassure parents that vaccinations are safe; the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it. I tended to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform Committee for leaping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations. "Why should we scare people about immunization," Waxman pointed out at one hearing, "until we know the facts?"

It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the leading scientific research and talking with many of the nation`s pre-eminent authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.

Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation -- those born between 1989 and 2003 -- who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children."

More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among eleven children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations. They argue that the increase is a result of better diagnosis -- a theory that seems questionable at best, given that most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single generation of children. "If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis," scoffs Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world`s authorities on mercury toxicity, "then where are all the twenty-year-old autistics?" Other researchers point out that Americans are exposed to a greater cumulative "load" of mercury than ever before, from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest that thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem. It`s a concern that certainly deserves far more attention than it has received -- but it overlooks the fact that the mercury concentrations in vaccines dwarf other sources of exposure to our children.

What is most striking is the lengths to which many of the leading detectives have gone to ignore -- and cover up -- the evidence against thimerosal. From the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive has been overwhelming. The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth in vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent neurotoxin. Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants are particularly susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children`s vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

"You couldn`t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It`s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage."

Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even death -- in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn`t bother to report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal`s safety "did not check with ours." Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based vaccines became sick, leading researchers there to declare the preservative "unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on dogs."

In the decades that followed, the evidence against thimerosal continued to mount. During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it "poison." In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly`s own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic" and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants. In 1977, ten babies at a Toronto hospital died when an antiseptic preserved with thimerosal was dabbed onto their umbilical cords. In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over-the-counter products that contained thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered banning it from animal vaccines. But tragically, that same year, the CDC recommended that infants be injected with a series of mercury-laced vaccines. Newborns would be vaccinated for hepatitis B within twenty-four hours of birth, and two-month-old infants would be immunized for haemophilus influenzae B and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.

The drug industry knew the additional vaccines posed a danger. The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck`s vaccine programs, warned the company that six-month-olds who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury. He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when used on infants and children," noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The best way to go," he added, "is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives."

For Merck and other drug companies, however, the obstacle was money. Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in vials that contain multiple doses, which require additional protection because they are more easily contaminated by multiple needle entries. The larger vials cost half as much to produce as smaller, single-dose vials, making it cheaper for international agencies to distribute them to impoverished regions at risk of epidemics. Faced with this "cost consideration," Merck ignored Hilleman`s warnings, and government officials continued to push more and more thimerosal-based vaccines for children. Before 1989, American preschoolers received only three vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

As the number of vaccines increased, the rate of autism among children exploded. During the 1990s, 40 million children were injected with thimerosal-based vaccines, receiving unprecedented levels of mercury during a period critical for brain development. Despite the well-documented dangers of thimerosal, it appears that no one bothered to add up the cumulative dose of mercury that children would receive from the mandated vaccines. "What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?" Peter Patriarca, director of viral products for the agency, asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999. "Why didn`t CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?"

But by that time, the damage was done. Infants who received all their vaccines, plus boosters, by the age of six months were being injected with levels of ethylmercury 187 times greater than the EPA`s limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.

Officials responsible for childhood immunizations insist that the additional vaccines were necessary to protect infants from disease and that thimerosal is still essential in developing nations, which, they often claim, cannot afford the single-dose vials that don`t require a preservative. Dr. Paul Offit, one of CDC`s top vaccine advisers, told me, "I think if we really have an influenza pandemic -- and certainly we will in the next twenty years, because we always do -- there`s no way on God`s earth that we immunize 280 million people with single-dose vials. There has to be multidose vials."

But while public-health officials may have been well-intentioned, many of those on the CDC advisory committee who backed the additional vaccines had close ties to the industry. Dr. Sam Katz, the committee`s chair, was a paid consultant for most of the major vaccine makers and shares a patent on a measles vaccine with Merck, which also manufactures the hepatitis B vaccine. Dr. Neal Halsey, another committee member, worked as a researcher for the vaccine companies and received honoraria from Abbott Labs for his research on the hepatitis B vaccine.

Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who work on vaccines, such conflicts of interest are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC "routinely allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on intellectual advisory committees that make recommendations on new vaccines," even though they have "interests in the products and companies for which they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight." The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine laced with thimerosal "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

Offit, who shares a patent on the vaccine, acknowledged to me that he "would make money" if his vote to approve it eventually leads to a marketable product. But he dismissed my suggestion that a scientist`s direct financial stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment. "It provides no conflict for me," he insists. "I have simply been informed by the process, not corrupted by it. When I sat around that table, my sole intent was trying to make recommendations that best benefited the children in this country. It`s offensive to say that physicians and public-health people are in the pocket of industry and thus are making decisions that they know are unsafe for children. It`s just not the way it works."

Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave me similar assurances. Like Offit, they view themselves as enlightened guardians of children`s health, proud of their "partnerships" with pharmaceutical companies, immune to the seductions of personal profit, besieged by irrational activists whose anti-vaccine campaigns are endangering children`s health. They are often resentful of questioning. "Science," says Offit, "is best left to scientists."

Still, some government officials were alarmed by the apparent conflicts of interest. In his e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999, Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines. "I`m not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials and the pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use" of thimerosal in child vaccines.

If federal regulators and government scientists failed to grasp the potential risks of thimerosal over the years, no one could claim ignorance after the secret meeting at Simpsonwood. But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -- over to a private agency, America`s Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it could not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM`s Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001.

"We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee`s chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

For those who had devoted their lives to promoting vaccination, the revelations about thimerosal threatened to undermine everything they had worked for. "We`ve got a dragon by the tail here," said Dr. Michael Kaback, another committee member. "The more negative that [our] presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization -- and we know what the results of that will be. We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work our way out of the trap, I think is the charge."

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal`s risks.

In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report. Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism. The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared the case closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful of studies that were "fatally flawed" by "poor design" and failed to represent "all the available scientific and medical research." CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth, Weldon told me, because "an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children.

Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves?" Under pressure from congress, parents and a few of its own panel members, the Institute of Medicine reluctantly convened a second panel to review the findings of the first. In February, the new panel, composed of different scientists, criticized the earlier panel for its lack of transparency and urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.

So far, though, only two scientists have managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier, president of the Genetics Center of America, and his son, David, spent a year battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC. Since August 2002, when members of Congress pressured the agency to turn over the data, the Geiers have completed six studies that demonstrate a powerful correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage in children. One study, which compares the cumulative dose of mercury received by children born between 1981 and 1985 with those born between 1990 and 1996, found a "very significant relationship" between autism and vaccines. Another study of educational performance found that kids who received higher doses of thimerosal in vaccines were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism and more than three times as likely to suffer from speech disorders and mental retardation. Another soon-to-be published study shows that autism rates are in decline following the recent elimination of thimerosal from most vaccines.

As the federal government worked to prevent scientists from studying vaccines, others have stepped in to study the link to autism. In April, reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI undertook one of the more interesting studies himself. Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a "control" in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who refuse to immunize their infants. Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant. The other three -- including one child adopted from outside the Amish community -- had received their vaccines.

At the state level, many officials have also conducted in-depth reviews of thimerosal. While the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the risks, the Iowa legislature was carefully combing through all of the available scientific and biological data. "After three years of review, I became convinced there was sufficient credible research to show a link between mercury and the increased incidences in autism," says state Sen. Ken Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation. "The fact that Iowa`s 700 percent increase in autism began in the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines were added to the children`s vaccine schedules, is solid evidence alone." Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury in vaccines, followed by California. Similar bans are now under consideration in thirty-two other states.

But instead of following suit, the FDA continues to allow manufacturers to include thimerosal in scores of over-the-counter medications as well as steroids and injected collagen. Even more alarming, the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines. The World Health Organization continues to insist thimerosal is safe, but it promises to keep the possibility that it is linked to neurological disorders "under review."

I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a moral crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American medicine. "The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence," says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned about the role of mercury in medicines. "The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It`s bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you`ve ever seen."

It`s hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come to believe that America`s most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It`s not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America`s enemies abroad. The scientists and researchers -- many of them sincere, even idealistic -- who are participating in efforts to hide the science on thimerosal claim that they are trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting children in developing nations from disease pandemics. They are badly misguided. Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will come back horribly to haunt our country and the world`s poorest populations.

ABC News Kills Big Mercury Story - Says It`s Too Hot, But May Reconsider Political Parent group responds
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>An A-CHAMP Announcement
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>The online version of Rolling Stone`s "Deadly Immunity", by Robert F. Kennedy, JR., is already sparking a national debate on the use of thimerosal, a mercury containing preservative, in vaccines.
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>Mr. Kennedy`s scheduled appearances on ABC World News Tonight, 20/20 and his Thursday, June 16th appearance on Good Morning America regarding his report, have been cancelled by ABC. Officials at ABC stated their decision to cancel Mr. Kennedy`s appearance on their network is because it is "too politically controversial."
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>However, this debate should be ratcheted up as the print version hits the newsstands starting today. This will coincide with the unprecedented, simultaneous release of the article on Salon.com.
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>Rolling Stone, released in a few markets on June 15, should be widely available by this weekend.
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>With regards to ABC News canceling the story, our opinion is that they are more concerned about protecting their huge advertising revenues from the pharmaceutical industry than reporting news that could protect pregnant women, infants and children from mercury tainted vaccines. SHAME ON ABC!
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>Lujene Clark, co-founder of NoMercury and A-CHAMP (Advocates for Children`s Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning), worked extensively with Mr. Kennedy and his office over the past several weeks in preparing the article for publication. The print copy will contain a sidebar from Ms. Clark, providing perspective from her experience as the mother of a thimerosal-injured child and advocate for removing mercury from vaccines.
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>A-CHAMP encourages parents to obtain copies of Rolling Stone as soon as they are available to distribute to legislators and members of the medical community. Please spread the word to family and friends of Mr. Kennedy`s courageous article appearing simultaneously in Rolling Stone and on Salon. com.
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>Do not wait for mainstream media to spread the word! Join us in asking our elected officials to remove this known neurotoxin from vaccines and to address the neurodevelopmental damage done to 1 in 6 American children.
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>Please take a moment to send a message to your elected officials and the media: Go here to let your voice be heard!

Check out June issue of Men`s Health.  Under "Malegrams", There is an article called "Drug - Free Cures".  They state:  For the Flu.  Instead of a flu shot try a chiropractic adjustment.  "Vaccine shortage? No problem. A study at Florida Atlantic University found that people who underwent chiropractic adjustments had a 15% lower rate of the flu than people who didn`t have their backs cracked."  Didn`t like the "cracked" reference, but it`s good press.

ICA Responds to TIME Magazine Editorial on Chiropractors and Vaccination

The International Chiropractors Association (ICA) has responded to an editorial that appeared on June 7, 2005, by Leon Jaroff entitled “Chiropractors v. Vaccination.”   In this article, Mr. Jaroff, a regular contributor to TIME and longtime chiropractic critic, presented the orthodox medical position that “…vaccination has saved untold millions of lives,” but “Critics here charge that it is largely responsible for increases in such disorders as asthma, autism, juvenile diabetes and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). That advice, unfortunately, is being dispensed to patients by chiropractors, far too many of them.”  Mr. Jaroff goes on to say that, “Chiropractors are accustomed to, and generally ignore, such criticism from the medical profession. In fact, the International Chiropractors Association sells a book entitled Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System.”

In a letter to TIME, ICA President John K. Maltby wrote:

“We are deeply disappointed by the shallow and incomplete depiction of the very serious issue of vaccination risk and injury, and the likewise incomplete representation of the position of this organization presented in your publication by Mr. Jaroff.  By direct reference, Mr. Jaroff named the International Chiropractors Association (ICA), and did correctly report that ICA does offer to the public a book entitled Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System.  This book, which is only one among the dozens that ICA has for sale on a variety of important issues, represents compelling reading.  One might conclude, however, that all Mr. Jaroff read was the title.  He certainly did not bother to research the ICA’s formal policy on vaccinations, which is as easy to find on our organization’s website, www.chiropractic.org, as the book to which he refers.” 

“For the record, please note the ICA’s official policy statement on vaccination states that, ‘…the use of vaccines is not without risk. The ICA supports each individual`s right to select his or her own health care and to be made aware of the possible adverse effects of vaccines upon a human body. In accordance with such principles and based upon the individual`s right to freedom of choice, the ICA is opposed to compulsory programs which infringe upon such rights.’

“This is not a chiropractic issue; it is a public health and accountability issue.  ICA’s policy is not one of opposition to or promotion of vaccination; it is one of informed consent and personal freedom.” 

ICA also expressed concern about the way Mr. Jaroff simplified the research record in favor of his editorial opinion, doing both the chiropractic profession and the consumer a grave disservice.   Credible examples of research studies that call the safety and efficacy of mass vaccination programs into question exist in large quantities, a fact well known in the chiropractic profession. 

ICA believes that this is a debate that must go on, and not be silenced by scare tactics, by government mandates that are fundamentally contrary to the basic concepts of American freedoms, or by a badly flawed and suspect research environment.  With billions of dollars at stake, it has become clear that the pharmaceutical industry is willing to pay whatever price it takes to buy the research outcomes they need to defend themselves. 

In a recent article in the June 9, 2005 edition of the highly regarded scientific journal Nature, entitled “Scientists behaving badly”, the ethics and behavior of researchers were studied through a survey of over 3,200 scientists, and the authors came to alarming, but far from unique conclusions.  According to the study’s authors:

“Serious misbehaviour in research is important for many reasons, not least because it damages the reputation of, and undermines public support for, science…We surveyed several thousand early- and mid-career scientists, who are based in the United States and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and asked them to report their own behaviours. Our findings reveal a range of questionable practices that are striking in their breadth and prevalence.”¹

This article appeared on the same day that The New York Times reported, in a story “Drug Safety System Is Broken, a Top F.D.A. Official Says,” that, “…the nation`s drug safety system had "pretty much broken down" and that there was room for "a lot of improvement" in the government`s approach to uncovering dangers in drugs already on the market.” 

ICA concluded its response to TIME and Mr. Jaroff stating that, “ICA holds that:  all citizens deserve better than the dogmatic, heavy handed, economically driven and scientifically questionable approach which Mr. Jaroff seems to think is good public health policy.  Ask anyone whose child has been harmed, and whose lives have been ruined by the connection between vaccination and autism and other mentally and physically debilitating conditions.” 

 

 

1. The full text of this article is available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7043/full/435737a.html

    

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AUTISM - A POLITICAL BOMBSHELL " NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND"? President Bush unwilling to address this National Tragedy. Parents are outraged.


Autism has hit epidemic levels with no end in sight. The President has failed to address this National Tragedy....WHY ? There are 25 facts that will leave the American people asking questions. New Book Titled, Mercury: The Winged Messenger presents these 25 facts and others...

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) September 13, 2004 -- THE TWENTY FIVE FACTS PRESENTED IN THE BOOK TITLED: MERCURY: THE WINGED MESSENGER.

Fact # 1 Mercury is one of the most poisonous substances known to medical science.

Fact # 2 Thimerosal, is a chemical that was used as a preservative in children`s vaccines that was intentionally added to the vaccines to increase profits by way of multi dose bottles that were given to millions of our children.

Fact # 3 Thimerosal is 49.6% MERCURY, a proven and deadly neuro-toxin that causes permanent brain damage. The Material Safety Data Sheet (M.S.D.S.) confirms toxicity fears.

Fact # 4 Hundreds of Thousands of children received as much as 40 times the safe level for mercury exposure as established by the Environmental Protection Agency ( E.P.A.) from the thimerosal that was used in the vaccines.

Fact # 5 The pharmaceutical industry stocks exploded in value from 1986 to 1999. This was the direct result of federal mandates requiring vaccines for all school children.

Fact # 6 There has been over 700 waivers of the conflict of interest rule by the F.D.A., C.D.C., and the N.I.H regarding paid consultancy from the drug industry. Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana has called this a "VIOLATION OF THE PUBLICS TRUST".

Fact # 7 Former President Bush (41) was appointed to the Eli Lilly board of directors and lobbied for additional tax breaks until the Supreme Court itself told him to stop.

Fact # 8 Former Vice President Quayle`s family controlled Eli Lilly during that time frame. As a result of Bush`s appointment to the Eli Lilly Board of Directors, it is suspected that Dan Quayle was selected as the Vice Presidential Candidate.

Fact # 9 Present and former Eli Lilly executives are now employed with the current Bush Administration.

Fact # 10 The Current Administration has tried to insert an eleventh hour Eli Lilly Rider provision in the Homeland Security Bill, that illegally protected the drug industry at the expense of thousands of mercury poisoned children.

Fact # 11 The current administration tried to "SEAL" CDC documents that proved the danger to children from the thimerosal additive used in the vaccines.

Fact # 12 The CDC tried to bury documented reports on thimerosal. They deliberately marked public documents with the phrase "DO NOT COPY OR RELEASE" This violated most consumer protection laws.

Fact # 13 The drug industry has paid consultants that tried to disprove the relationship between autism and mercury poisoning from the multi doses of thimerosal that was given to our children.

Fact # 14 The symptoms of mercury poisoning and that of autism are IDENTICAL.

Fact # 15 The onset of "Autism" has exploded in the last 15 years to epidemic levels.

Fact # 16 This onset occurred when the multi dose vaccines containing the thimerosal was given to our children on multiple occasions during the first two years of a childs life.

Fact # 17 The U.S. Government and state governments require ALL children to have
21 mandated vaccines before being admitted to schools. Most of these vaccines contained the Thimerosal / Mercury up to the year 2001. The current flu vaccine still contains thimerosal.

Fact # 18 The pet vaccine industry took thimerosal out of pet vaccines over ten years
ago because of known risks to animals.

Fact # 19 Eli Lilly Company distorted information on the dangers of thimerosal as early as 1930. This has been proven by internal Eli Lilly documents and Congressional investigations by
Congressman Burton`s committee on Government Reform.

Fact # 20 The U.S. Government has a three year statute of limitation vaccine court of law, that has illegally protected the drug industry by way of violating the U.S. Constitution. This court has and will dismiss law suits because of this illegal three year statute.....This in essence is obstruction of justice and violates the Constitutional rights of these vaccine injured children.

Fact # 21 Eli Lilly and other drug giants have contributed large sums of money to the Republican political process.

Fact # 22 The drug industry never disclosed that their baby vaccine products contained this dangerous mercury additive. Parents were never warned or notified.

Fact # 23 Congressman Burton of Indiana has proposed bringing criminal charges against those who are responsible for this national tragedy.

Fact # 24 There have been over 120,000 documented cases of "AUTISM" - Mercury poisoning to our children. Another 250,000 cases are suspected.

These children will require care and support for the rest of their lives. The costs to the parents will exceed $ 2 million dollars per injured child. These are crimes against humanity. Children`s lives have been destroyed.

Fact # 25 Majority leader Bill Frist has proposed a new law that again illegally protects The pharmaceutical industry by way of violating the Constitutional Rights of over 120,000 vaccine injured children. Title ll of this proposed law is an atrocity. The rights of these children and that of their parents MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.

These 25 facts and others are presented in detail in the Book Titled, MERCURY: THE WINGED MESSENGER...A MUST READ BOOK FOR EVERY PARENT.

The American people deserve the TRUTH!

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All NSAIDs May Be Linked to MI Risk, Study Indicates

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jun 09 - Selective and nonselective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with an increased risk of a first MI, results of an observational study suggest. Diclofenac and ibuprofen seem to pose about as much risk as the COX-2 inhibitor rofecoxib, the study authors say.

Rofecoxib (Vioxx) was withdrawn from the pharmaceutical market at the end of September 2004 after use of the drug was tied to adverse cardiac effects. Since then, however, questions remain, such as whether all NSAIDs share these harmful effects.

Drs. Julia Hippisley-Cox and Carol Coupland, from the University of Nottingham, UK, conducted a population-based nested case-control study using the QRESEARCH database of information from UK general practices. They report their findings in the June 11th issue of the British Medical Journal.

Their study included 9218 cases of a first MI in people between the ages of 25 and 100 during study period from 2000 to 2004, and 86,349 controls matched by age, calendar time, gender and practice.

The authors identified all prescriptions for NSAIDs for each case and control in the 3 years before their index date (specifically celecoxib, rofecoxib, ibuprofen, diclofenac, naproxen, other selective NSAIDs and other nonselective NSAIDs). Their multivariate analyses adjusted for comorbidities, medications, and other confounders.

The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for rofecoxib use within the 3 months before an MI was 1.32; for ibuprofen it was 1.24 and for diclofenac it was 1.55 (p < 0.01).

The authors observed a tendency to increased risks with use of other selective NSAIDs (OR = 1.27), naproxen (OR = 1.27) and other nonselective NSAIDs (OR = 1.21), though these did not reach the 0.01 significance level.

Dr. Hippisley-Cox and Dr. Coupland estimate the number-needed-to-harm for patients aged 65 years and over were 521 for diclofenac, 1005 for ibuprofen and 695 for rofecoxib.

"Given the high prevalence of the use of these drugs in elderly people and the increased risk of myocardial infarction with age, even the relatively large number of patients needed to harm could have considerable implications for public health," they note.

There were no significant interactions between NSAID use and either aspirin or coronary heart disease.

"We think that enough concerns exist to warrant a reconsideration of the cardiovascular safety of all NSAIDs," the investigators conclude.

In an associated editorial, Dr. Peter Juni, from University of Berne in Switzerland, and colleagues urge that these data be "interpreted with caution," given that they are observational and other trials have yielded discrepant results.

What is called for now, they contend, are complete meta-analyses, which should "help decision making about issues such as the need for additional trials... to establish the best and safest treatment for patients with musculoskeletal pain."

BMJ 2005;330.

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Right now, the biggest threat from the psychiatric industry is the proposed nationwide mental health "screening" of school children.
 
Psychiatry`s objective is to screen every child in the U.S. school system (aka `TeenScreen`) and then refer them over to mental health `services`.  It is a marketing scam that will quickly double or triple the number of children on dangerous mind-altering psych drugs.

Click below for an article on who is fighting back.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0506/S00168.htm#a

Click here to sign a petition to have Congress pass HR 181 to prevent federal  funds from being used for mental health screening.
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/pcapetition.htm
 
 
PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL YOU KNOW.

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CHIROPRACTIC ACES

• HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU SPEND ON SEMINARS EACH YEAR IF ANY? 

• IF YOU DON`T ATTEND SEMINARS, HOW DO YOU STAY MOTIVATED, AND UP TO, THE FAST MOVING PACE OF MAINTAINING A VIABLE PRACTICE?

   

SOME OF THE SEMINARS ARE POORLY ATTENDED AND NOT VERY EXCITING OR

MOTIVATING.  

SOME ARE REALLY JUST COME-ONS TO JOIN ONE OF THE 40 TO 50 COACHING TYPE "CATCH AS YOU CAN" MEETINGS.

WHAT IF YOU COULD HAVE SEMINARS 24/7 ANYWHERE, ANY TIME, AT HOME, IN THE OFFICE, ON VACATION, OR WHERE EVER YOU PLEASE, AND WHEN YOU PLEASE, WITH TOPIC, AND SPEAKER OF CHOICE?

YOU CAN LISTEN TO 1/1/2 HOURS AT A TIME OR BREAK IT DOWN INTO 15 MIN. SEGMENTS.

WHAT IF YOU COULD HEAR DRS. ADJUSTING 2400 PER WEEK, OR 3000 PLUS PER WEEK, WOMEN CHIROPRACTORS ADJUSTING 600 T0 900 PER WEEK.

TALKS ON PHILOSOPHY, PROCEDURE, MARKETING, PRACTICE BUILDING TEACHERS, TECHNIQUE, OFFICE LAYOUT, TALKS ON ABUNDANCE, AND THINKING TO GROW RICH, OVERCOMING FEAR, AND NEGATIVE THINKING, COMMUNICATION SKILLS, DRS. TALKS TO NEW PATIENTS, REPORT OF FINDINGS THAT REALLY WORK, AND MUCH MORE.

SPEAKERS LIKE: PAULA HEDGLON, ROB SCHIFFMAN, HOBIE FURSHMAN, JIM SIGAFOOSE, SELINA SIGAFOOSE JACKSON, KEVIN JACKSON, TIM GAY, SHARON GORMAN , CHUCK RIBLEY, JOHN HOFFMAN, GIN KELLER, TONI ANN ROSES, RICHARD SANTO, ARMAND ROSSI, STEW BITTMAN, BOBBIE BRAILE ETC.. 

WE WILL ADD SPEAKERS EVERY FEW WEEKS AND THERE WILL BE NEW , FRESH INFO, AND REVIEW, IF DESIRED.

Check out www.ChiropracticAces.com 

---

Welcome to the town of Allopath

There once was a town called Allopath. It had many people, streets and cars, but due to budget limitations, there were no stop signs or traffic lights anywhere in Allopath. Not surprisingly, traffic accidents were common. Cars would crash into each other at nearly every intersection. But business was booming for the auto repair shops and local hospitals, which dominated the economy of Allopath.

As the population of Allopath grew, traffic accidents increased to an alarming level. Out of desperation, the city council hired Doctor West, a doctor of the Motor Division (M.D.) to find a solution. Dr. West spent days examining traffic accidents. He carried an assortment of technical gear -- microscopes, chemical analysis equipment, lab gear -- and put them all to work as part of his investigation. The townspeople of Allopath watched on with great curiosity while Dr. West went about his work, meticulously documenting and analyzing each traffic accident, and they awaited his final report with great interest.

After weeks of investigation, Dr. West called the people of Allopath to a town meeting for the release of his report. There, in front of the city council and most of the residents of Allopath, he announced his findings: "Traffic accidents are caused by skid marks." As Dr. West explained, he found and documented a near-100% correlation between traffic accidents and skid marks. "Wherever we find these car colliding," he explained, "we also find these skid marks."

The town had "Skid Marks Disease," the doctor explained, and the answer to the town`s epidemic of traffic accidents would, "...require nothing more than treating Skid Marks Disease by making the streets skid-proof," Dr. West exclaimed, to great applause from the townspeople. The city paid Dr. West his consulting fee, then asked the good doctor to propose a method for treating this Skid Marks Disease. As chance would have it, Dr. West had recently been on a trip to Hawaii paid for by a chemical company that manufactured roadaceuticals: special chemicals used to treat roads for situations just like this one. He recommended a particular chemical coating to the city council: teflon.

"We can treat this Skid Marks Disease by coating the roads with teflon," Dr. West explained. "The streets will then be skid-proof, and all the traffic accidents will cease!" He went on to describe the physical properties of teflon and how its near-frictionless coating would deter nearly all vehicle skids. The city council heartily agreed with Dr. West, and they issued new public bonds to raise the money required to buy enough teflon to coat all the city`s streets. Within weeks, the streets were completely coated, and the skid marks all but disappeared. The city council paid Dr. West another consulting fee and thanked him for his expertise. The problem of traffic accidents in Allopath was solved, they thought. Although the cure was expensive, they were convinced it was worth it.

But things weren`t well in Allopath. Traffic accidents quadrupled. Hospital beds were overflowing with injured residents. Auto repair businesses were booming so much that most of the city council members decided to either open their own car repair shops or invest in existing ones. Week after week, more and more residents of Allopath were injured, and their cars were repeatedly damaged. Money piled into the pockets of the car repair shops, hospitals, tow truck companies and car parts retailers.

The town economic advisor, observing this sharp increase in economic activity, announced that Allopath was booming. Its economy was healthier than ever, and Allopath could look forward to a great year of economic prosperity!

There were jobs to be had at the car repair shops. There were more nurses needed at the hospital. "Help wanted" signs appeared all over town at the paramedic station, the tow truck shops, and the auto glass businesses. Unemployment dropped to near zero. But the traffic accidents continued to increase. And yet there were no skid marks.

The city council was baffled. They thought they had solved this problem. Skid Marks Disease had been eradicated by the teflon treatment. Why were traffic accidents still happening? They called a town meeting to discuss the problem, and following a short discussion of the problem, an old hermit, who lived in the forest just outside of Allopath, addressed the townspeople. "There is no such thing as Skid Marks Disease," he explained. "This disease was invented by the roadaceuticals company to sell you teflon coatings."

The townspeople were horrified to hear such a statement. They knew Skid Marks Disease existed. The doctor had told them so. How could this hermit, who had no Motor Division (M.D.) degree, dare tell them otherwise? How could he question their collective town wisdom in such a way?

"This is a simple problem," the hermit continued. "All we need to do is build stop signs and traffic lights. Then the traffic accidents will cease." Without pause, one city council member remarked, "But how can we afford stop signs? We`ve spent all our money on teflon treatments!" The townspeople agreed. They had no money to buy stop signs. Another council member added, "And how can we stop anyway? The streets are all coated with teflon. If we build stop signs, we`ll waste all the money we`ve spent on teflon!"

The townspeople agreed, again. What use were stop signs if they couldn`t stop their cars anyway? The hermit replied, "But the stop signs will eliminate the need for teflon. People will be able to stop their cars, and accidents will cease. The solution is simple." But what might happen if stop signs actually worked, the townspeople wondered. How would it affect the booming economy of Allopath? Realizing the consequences, a burly old man who owned a local repair shop jumped to his feet and said, "If we build these stop signs, and traffic accidents go down, I`ll have to fire most of my workers!"

It was at that moment that most of the townspeople realized there own jobs were at stake. If stop signs were built, nearly everyone would be unemployed. They all had jobs in emergency response services, car repair shops, hospitals and teflon coating maintenance. Some were now sales representatives of the roadaceuticals company. Others were importers of glass, tires, steel and other parts for cars. A few clever people were making a fortune selling wheelchairs and crutches to accident victims. One enterprising young gentleman started a scientific journal that published research papers describing all the different kind of Skid Marks Diseases that had been observed and documented. Another person, a fitness enthusiast, organized an annual run to raise funds to find the cure for Skid Marks Disease. It was a popular event, and all the townspeople participated as best they could: jogging, walking, or just pushing themselves along in their wheelchairs.

One way or another, nearly everyone in Allopath was economically tied to Skid Marks Disease. Out of fear of losing this economic prosperity, the townspeople voted to create a new public safety agency: the Frequent Drivers Association (FDA). This FDA would be responsible for approving or rejecting all signage, technology and chemical coatings related to the town`s roads.

The FDA`s board members were chosen from among the business leaders of the community: the owner of the car shop, the owner of the ambulance company, and of course, Dr. West. Soon after its inception, the FDA announced that Skid Marks Disease was, indeed, very real, as it had been carefully documented by a doctor and recently published in the town Skid Marks Disease journal. Since there were no studies whatsoever showing stop signs to be effective for reducing traffic accidents, the FDA announced that stop signs were to be outlawed, and that any person attempting to sell stop signs would be charged with fraud and locked up in the town jail.

This pleased the townspeople of Allopath. With the FDA, they knew their jobs were safe. They could go on living their lives of economic prosperity, with secure jobs, knowing that the FDA would outlaw any attempt to take away their livelihood. They still had a lot of traffic accidents, but at least their jobs were secure.

And so life continued in Allopath. For a short while, at least. As traffic accidents continued at a devastating rate, more and more residents of Allopath were injured or killed. Many were left bed-ridden, unable to work, due to their injuries. In time, the population dwindled. The once-booming town of Allopath eventually became little more than a ghost town. The hospital closed its doors, the FDA was disbanded, and the Skid Marks Disease journal stopped printing.

The few residents remaining eventually realized nothing good had come of Skid Marks Disease, the teflon coatings and the FDA. No one was any better off, as all the town`s money had been spent on the disease: the teflon coatings, car parts and emergency services. No one was any healthier, or happier, or longer-lived. Most, in fact, had lost their entire families to Skid Marks Disease.

And the hermit? He continued to live just outside of town, at the end of a winding country road, where he lived a simple life with no cars, no roads, no teflon coatings and no FDA. He outlived every single resident of Allopath. He gardened, took long walks through the forest, and gathered roots, leaves and berries to feed himself. In his spare time, he constructed stop signs, waiting for the next population to come along, and hoping they might listen to an old hermit with a crazy idea: ...that prevention is the answer, not the treatment of symptoms.

###

This fable was authored by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. You may reprint or repost, as long as appropriate credit is given to Mike Adams at www.NewsTarget.com

=====================

 

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(Modesto, Calif., June 7) -A new study from the University of Toronto suggests that eating a healthy diet, including almonds, reduces inflammation by about the same level as taking a first-generation statin drug.

The study, published this month in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that following a dietary portfolio that includes almonds not only lowers cholesterol levels, but also C-reactive protein levels, a key marker of inflammation and an independent risk factor for heart disease.

So the next time you are in the supermarket aisle, consider how almonds can give your heart a break: Almonds help reduce inflammation of blood vessels. Inflammation is bad for your heart. It increases your risk of developing atherosclerosis (clogged arteries), and studies suggest a strong association between inflammation and risk of cardiovascular disease. A dietary pattern that reduces inflammationand cholesterol can truly be called "heart healthy."

The liver, in response to inflammation, produces C-reactive protein. As inflammation increases, so do levels of C-reactive protein. In this study, 34 individuals followed a dietary plan, called the Portfolio Eating Plan, which included almonds. Those who followed the dietary plan lowered their C-reactive protein levels 24% from baseline, which is similar to the reduction achieved by taking a first-generation statin drug (16%)-without the side effects of taking the pills.

"Inflammation is likely to receive increasing attention as a marker of heart disease risk," says Cyril Kendall, PhD, University of Toronto and study author. "To date there has been little research into the ability of diet to reduce inflammatory processes involved in heart disease. We now have a dietary strategy that may be used to not only reduce cholesterol but also inflammation."

Almonds as part of a dietary portfolio of cholesterol lowering foods may lower your cholesterol as much as a statin drug. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in February, 2005 examined this same study group found that when directly compared to first-generation statins, the Portfolio Eating Plan diet, including almonds, is just as effective in lowering LDL, or "bad," cholesterol below the recommended range for heart disease prevention.

Almonds are nutritionally dense - a quality emphasized in the government`s latest Dietary Guidelines. Ounce for ounce, almonds are the most nutritionally dense nut. The recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 encourage Americans to choose nutritionally dense foods - that is, to get the most nutrition possible out of the calories you eat. A one-ounce, 164-calorie serving of almonds, or about a handful, is an excellent source of vitamin E and magnesium, and a good source of protein and fiber. It also offers heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, potassium, calcium, phosphorous and iron.

For more information: The Almond Board of California has responded to the new Portfolio Eating Plan study`s positive results involving almonds by creating a patient and health professional Web site with more information on the Portfolio Eating Plan, including study abstracts, menus used by the research team, meal ideas and recipes. Visit www.PortfolioEatingPlan.com. For other information on almonds, visit www.AlmondsAreIn.com.

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A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o`clock, with his hair fashionably coifed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away,  making   the  move necessary.  After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.
 
            As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.
 
 
            "I love it," he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.
 
            "Mr. Jones, you haven`t seen the room; just wait."
 
            "That doesn`t have anything to do with it," he replied.
"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn`t depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it`s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.  "It`s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.
 
            Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I`ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I`ve stored away.  Just for this time in my life.
            Old age is like a bank account.  You withdraw from what you`ve put in.
 
            So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories. Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.
 
            Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
 
            1. Free your heart from hatred.
 
            2. Free your mind from worries.
 
            3. Live simply.
 
            4. Give more.
 
            5. Expect less. 

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A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife`s going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady`s dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs - and I was in the wrong one.- Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX

At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient`s anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," remorsed the patient. - Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle, WA

One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a "massive internal fart." - Dr. SusanSteinberg, Manitoba, Canada

I was performing a complete physical, including the visual acuity test. I placed the patient twenty feet from the chart and began, "Cover your right eye with your hand." He read the 20/20 line perfectly. "Now your left." Again, a flawless read. "Now both," I requested. There was silence. He couldn`t even read the large E on the top line. I turned and discovered that he had done exactly what I had asked; he was standing there with both his eyes covered. I was laughing too hard to finish the exam. - Dr. Matthew Theodropolous, Worcester, MA

During a patient`s two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one?" I asked. "The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I`m running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn`t see Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one. - Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk, VA

While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, "How long have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion she answered... "Why, not for about twenty years - when my husband was alive." - Dr. Steven Swanson, Corvallis, OR

I was caring for a woman and asked, "So how`s your breakfast this morning?" "It`s very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can`t seem to get used to the taste" the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly." - Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, MI

A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room, when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient`s dressing, which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn."

and finally...

A new, young MD doing his residency in OB was quite embarrassed performing female pelvic exams. To cover his embarrassment he had unconsciously formed a habit of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom he was performing this exam suddenly burst out laughing and further embarrassed him. He looked up from his work and sheepishly said, "I`m sorry. Was I tickling you?" She replied, "No doctor, but the song you were whistling was, "I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener".

Dr. wouldn`t admit his name.......

---

THE PERFECT HUSBAND

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands free speaker-function and begins to talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen. >

MAN: "Hello."
WOMAN: "Honey, it`s me. Are you at the club?"
MAN: "Yes."
WOMAN: "I am at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It`s only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"
MAN: "Sure, go ahead if you like it that much"
WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2005 CES - They have the one I really liked."
MAN: "How much?

WOMAN: "$90,000."

MAN: "OK, but for that price, I want it with all the options."
WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing .the house I wanted last year is back on the market. They`re asking $950,000."
MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them  an offer of $900,000 They will probably take it. If not, we can go the extra 50 thousand. It is really a pretty good price."

WOMAN: "OK. I`ll see you later! I love you so much!!"

MAN: "! I love you, too, Bye."
The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, mouths agape.....

Then he smiles and asks: "Anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

---

The Palmetto State Chiropractic Association

 

along with the ICA and NowYouKnow.com presents: 

 

Chiropractic: Without A Doubt

A Unique Blend of Clinical Science and Chiropractic Insight

 

Columbia, SC 

July 16-17, 2005

(Lunch is included on Saturday for those attending the 12 hour seminar.)

Saturday July 16th   10am –4pm
Sunday July 17th     8am – 2pm

Pay for this 12 hour seminar and stay Saturday (4:30-6:30) for 2 hours of "Board Issues"… **FREE**

 

(12 hours approved for.... South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming)

(The 2 hours of Board Issues is good for an additional 2 hours in SC only)

To register, call:
1-866-661-7722

(If you received a postcard in the mail, that number IS valid as well for registration)

PSCA Members  $245*
 Non-Members     $265*
 
*A $20 fee will apply to each registration and/or payment after July 8, 2005
 See our website or call for more details.....

www.palmettostatechiropractic.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
If you only need the 2 hours of “Board Issues" on Saturday, the price for  that is:

 $59 
 SATURDAY  4:30pm – 6:30pm
PSCA Members and Non-Members
===============================================================================  
LOCATION:
 
AmeriSuites Columbia
I-26 and Lake Murray Blvd.
(803) 407-1560
 
Room Discounts available until 6/20/05
Ask for the Palmetto State discount!

 

See our website or call for more details.....

www.palmettostatechiropractic.com

1-866-661-7722