Bacterial Trail May be Next Forensic Clue
March 16, 2010
Breitbart
Forensic scientists could soon use hand germs to help identify criminals and victims, a study said Monday.
Researchers led by Noah Fierer of the University of Colorado at Boulder swabbed individual keys on three personal computer keyboards, extracted bacterial DNA from the swabs and compared the results with bacteria on the fingertips of the keyboards’ users.
They also lifted germs from an unspecified number of other private and public computer keyboards that the three individuals did not use to see if there was a cross-over between the bacteria on an individual’s hands and bacteria on keyboards that had never been touched by that individual.
The bacteria on each person’s fingers were “personal” and gave a much closer match to the germs on the keyboard they used than to bacteria found on keyboards they had never touched, the researchers said.
The researchers also swabbed nine personal computer mice that had not been touched for at least 12 hours and took bacteria samples from the palms of their owners.
The bacteria on each mouse were “significantly more similar” to those found on the owner’s hand than to bacteria taken from 270 other hands, which were on record from previous studies.
“Each one of us leaves a unique trail of bugs behind as we travel through our daily lives,” said Fierer, a professor at the University of Colorado’s ecology and evolutionary biology department, adding that hand bugs could “become a valuable new item in the toolbox of forensic scientists.”
Hand germs are abundant, can be lifted from small areas and are remarkably hardy. The researchers found that colonies of hand bacteria remain essentially unchanged after two weeks at room temperature, and recovered within hours of handwashing.
Fingerprints, however, can be smudged or impossible to obtain, such as on fabric.
And unless there is blood, tissue, semen or saliva on an object, it is often difficult to obtain enough human DNA for forensic identification, said the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“Given the abundance of bacterial cells on the skin surface… it may be easier to recover bacterial DNA than human DNA from touched surfaces although additional studies are needed to confirm that this is actually true,” the study said.
Click here for the full report.
Food Manufacturer Knew Plant Had Salmonella
March 15, 2010
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
The company at the heart of a growing recall of processed foods knew that its plant was contaminated with salmonella but continued to make a flavoring and sell it to foodmakers around the country, according to inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration.
Managers at Basic Food Flavors of Las Vegas learned on Jan. 21 that samples taken a week earlier from their Nevada facility tested positive for salmonella, a potentially deadly bacterium, but they kept shipping their product to foodmakers, according to FDA inspection records.
The company makes hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, a flavor enhancer used in a wide variety of processed foods, from potato chips to sweet and sour tofu. The additive, which comes as a powder or a paste, is mixed into foods to give them a meaty or savory flavor — similar to the use of monosodium glutamate.
Basic Food Flavors tested surfaces near food-processing equipment throughout its plant twice in January and once in February, and each time the samples showed salmonella contamination, according to FDA records. The company continued to ship products and to make more HVP without cleaning the plant or the equipment in a way that would have minimized contamination, the records said.
“The FDA is reviewing the evidence in association with the current inspection of Basic Food Flavors to determine the appropriate regulatory response,” FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said.
It is illegal to knowingly sell food products that are contaminated with salmonella.
Officials at Basic Food Flavors did not return calls seeking comment.
No one is thought to have fallen ill from contaminated HVP, and the health risk is considered to be low because most products containing HVP are cooked during processing or carry cooking instructions for consumers, so any salmonella probably would be destroyed before the food was eaten. Ready-to-eat products, such as chips and other snack foods, would carry greater risks.
“It highlights why we need strong rules that would prevent contamination in the first place, so the FDA isn’t swooping in like the cops after the fact,” said Erik Olson, director of chemical and food safety programs at Pew Charitable Trusts.
Legislation that would require companies to take measures to prevent contamination was overwhelmingly passed by the House last year but has been held up in the Senate.
Federal officials were alerted to a problem with Basic Food Flavors in early February by a foodmaker who detected salmonella in one lot of HVP it purchased from the Nevada manufacturer.
Federal inspectors went to the plant within days of the complaint and conducted 14 inspections in the span of about two weeks. They documented dirty utensils and equipment — mixers and tubing coated with brown residue — and cracks and fractures in the floor, as well as standing water on the floor — all conditions where bacteria can breed.
In one area where paste mixers and belt dryers were positioned, FDA inspectors noted “standing, grey/black liquid” in the drain near the area where the hydrolyzed vegetable protein was turned from paste to powder. “We sensed an odor in the vicinity of this drain,” the inspectors wrote.
The company is one of only a handful that manufacture hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and its customer list is extensive. It produces about 20 million pounds of the food additive annually, according to a food industry source.
The contamination is believed to date to September 2009, meaning millions of pounds of potentially tainted HVP — all of which the company has recalled — was shipped in bulk to foodmakers over five months. Many of those companies then sold their products to other clients, complicating the distribution chain and making it hard for federal officials to gauge the scope of the problem.
Food companies had recalled more than 100 products as of Tuesday afternoon, ranging from dips to salad dressings to soup bouillon, and that list is expected to balloon over the next several weeks.
Click here for the full report
Gut Bacteria & Obesity May Be Linked
March 8, 2010
Reuters
Some of the hundreds of bacteria found in the digestive systems of humans may be linked to specific diseases like cancer, diabetes and obesity, an international team of scientists said in a paper on Thursday.
Researchers, led by Chinese scientist Wang Jun, said in the latest issue of Nature they found more than 1,000 different species of bacteria in the human gut.
They said they had sequenced, or analyzed, the genes of each bacteria, creating the first genetic catalog of the organisms found in the human digestive system. Their research was based on analysis of stool samples from 124 people from Denmark and Spain.
Wang and his fellow researchers found several genes that may be linked to obesity and Crohn’s disease, but he said more validation work was needed.
“Apart from helping you digest, these bacteria may also play a very important role in … diseases like Crohn’s disease, cancer, obesity,” Wang, executive director of the Beijing Genomics Institute, said in an interview with Reuters.
“If you just tackle these bacteria, it is easier than treating the human body itself. If you find that a certain bug is responsible for a certain disease and you kill it, then you kill the disease,” Wang said.
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory illness of the intestines which some believe may be caused by a variety of bacteria. Other possible causes include genetics and environmental factors.
Wang said creating the genetic catalog of all the bacteria in the human gut was only a beginning.
“There are a lot of unknown bacteria and pathogens that can cause different kinds of diseases,” he said.
“So this is the first step and we have to study further to find concrete associations between these bacteria and human diseases, and then you can start learning how to get diagnosis, prognosis and then treatment,” Wang said.
Wang and colleagues in China are working on a similar 120-sample study in Chinese hospitals.
“There are four groups: obese diabetics, obese non-diabetics, lean diabetics and lean non-diabetics. And we found some interesting bugs related to each type of diabetes,” Wang said.
Click here for the full report.
Kroger Recalls Onion Soup & Dip Mixes
March 1, 2010
Associated Press
Kroger Co. is recalling two onion soup and dip mixes because of possible salmonella contamination.
The grocer said an ingredient in its Kroger Onion Soup & Dip Mix and Kroger Beefy Onion Soup & Dip Mix may have been contaminated with the bacteria.
The mixes were sold in a number of states and are being recalled from its Kroger, Dillons, Fry’s, King Soopers, City Market, Smith’s, Food 4 Less, Jay C, Scott’s, Owen’s, Baker’s, Gerbes, Hilander and Pay Less stores.
No illnesses have been reported in connection with the products. But eating food contaminated with salmonella can cause salmonellosis, a potentially life-threatening bacterial foodborne illness.
Kroger said customers who purchased the products should not eat them and return them to the store for a refund or replacement.
Click here for the full report.
Mad Cow Disease Able to Mutate and Evolve
March 1, 2010
Natural News
By Ethan A. Huff
The Scripps Research Institute has published a study in the journal Science alleging that prions, lifeless protein particles that are believed to cause serious brain diseases, are able to mutate and develop resistance to drugs in the same way that bacteria and other living things do.
Associated with over 20 different brain diseases, prions have typically been thought to morph only once and in the presence of living transformation agents but recent research is suggesting that these proteins can continue to mutate as they transfer from host to host, becoming more virulent each time.
In the presence of infections like mad cow disease, prions are converted from their normal state into an abnormal, malignant state. As the disease gets passed around, it often becomes more deadly due to the ever changing characteristics of the prions which develop increasingly resistant to drugs.
Charles Weissman, head of the department of infectology at Scripps in Florida, remarked that prions have similar adaptive characteristics as viruses, yet without the DNA or RNA. Interestingly, lab tests showed that prions which were removed and placed into a new environment ended up out-performing those that remained in the original host. Each time prions are moved to a new environment, those that survive and adapt do so more quickly and effectively than did the ones at the original source.
Prions are normal and likely exist throughout the body. Though excited about their findings, researchers noted that the implications of their discovery reveal much about the dangers of continually mutating disease. Their solution is to investigate new drugs that can block normal prion proteins in order to prevent them from ever adapting and causing the host to develop resistance to other drugs.
Drugs, drugs, and more drugs seem to be the answer to every medical science problem in the Western world, even when the problem in question was likely caused by drugs. Similar to “superbugs” that are emerging due to overuse of antibiotics, the emergence of mutating proteins which develop resistance to drugs cannot be remedied by more drugs.
Mad cow disease is the result of feeding cows ground cow meal and other animal byproducts. Rather than pursue yet another drug to solve the problem, perhaps the best option is to reassess what cows eat and reformulate it to what is proper and healthful. The same strategy can and should be pursued with other diseases that easily morph and become increasingly virulent.
Click here for the full report
Using Pharmaceuticals as Weapons
March 1, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Most people are familiar with traditional weapons of mass destruction such biological weapons, nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. The point of all such weapons of mass destruction is to inflict a large number of casualties on civilian populations as a way to cripple a nation into political or military submission.
When it comes to actually deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against civilian populations, no country has murdered more innocent civilians than the United States of America through its bombing of two Japanese cities during World War II. (This isn’t rhetoric, it’s an historical fact.)
Atomic bombs were very visible WMDs deployed in World War II as a way to force the empire of Japan to surrender to western forces. Since that time, full-scale nuclear weapons have never again been used directly on civilian targets, meaning the United States of America maintains the distinction of being the only nation in the history of human civilization to have dropped atomic weapons on civilian populations.
It begs the question: If national leaders believe dropping atomic weapons on civilian populations is justified, what other weapons might they feel justified in unleashing upon civilian populations?
Weapons of Mass Prescription
What if a nation wanted to reduce its own civilian population but do it covertly? One way to accomplish that would be to slowly poison the civilian population through exposure to toxic chemicals, heavy metals, hormone-disrupting molecules and nerve toxins.
And as any terrorist can tell you, the most covert way to accomplish that would be to inject such chemicals into the everyday products that people routinely consume: Water, food, personal care products and medicines. I even published a cartoon with this theme a couple of years ago.
Here’s another interesting fact: If you examine what’s in the water, food, products and medicines sold across North America, you’ll discover a dangerous assortment of chemicals that, taken together, could quite reasonably be considered weapons of mass destruction.
Interestingly, the fluoride dumped into public water supplies was originally an offshoot of the enrichment processing facilities for uranium to be used in nuclear weapons. These days, however, fluoride is usually just the toxic waste from fertilizer manufacturing factories or the waste from smokestack scrubbers of coal-fired power plants. Either way, it’s not good for your teeth: The entire fluoride agenda largely a convenient, low-cost way to dispose of industrial waste chemicals while calling it a public health program.
Antibacterial soaps derive their antibacterial properties from chemicals that are molecularly quite similar to the infamous Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War. And yet these products are openly marketed for use by children.
Similarly, children and adults continue to be poisoned by heavy metals like mercury thanks to the highly toxic practices of modern dentistry — an industry which astoundingly has still failed to admit to the obvious toxicity of a heavy metal its practitioners continue to install in people’s mouths as “silver fillings” (which actually contain more mercury than silver).
There are hormone-disrupting chemicals in most of the plastics used in the processed food industry — especially canned soups which are often highly toxic for a variety of other reasons. MSG and other nervous system destroyers are used throughout the food supply in soups, snack foods, salad dressings, flavorings and dips.
These are all chemical assaults of one kind or another, but the greatest assault on the minds and bodies of western consumers comes in the form of pharmaceutical chemicals. That’s why I call them ‘Weapons of Mass Prescription.’
Destroy any nation by destroying the health of its citizens
If you want to destroy any nation, simply unleash Big Pharma into its medical system. Within just two generations, its people will suffer widespread organ damage, sharp decline in cognitive function and rampant degenerative disease brought on by the side effects of everyday pharmaceuticals.
Click here for the full report
FDA Approves New Vaccine From Fraudster Pfizer
February 26, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new version of the widely used children’s vaccine Prevnar.
The current Prevnar vaccine is given to infants and toddlers to prevent seven strains of bacteria known as streptococcus pneumoniae that cause a range of illnesses like ear infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and meningitis, an infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord.
Click here for the full report
British Hospitals Banning Bedside Flowers
February 22, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
In an effort to prevent what they believe may cause patient health complications, some British hospitals have begun banning flower bouquets from hospital rooms. Citing the possibility of infection from bacteria in the water and the ill-conceived notion that flowers may use up all the oxygen in the room – even though plants actually release oxygen – some hospital officials are up in arms over the alleged dangers posed by plants.
Researchers from the Imperial College of London decided to survey hospital patients and staff to get their take on the situation. They found that most patients appreciate having flowers around while many staffers dislike them because they can be messy. Few made any correlation between plants and an increased risk for disease or infection.
Virtually all scientific research has shown that flowers pose no health risks to patients, yet many hospitals continue to cling to antiquated superstition that they are somehow dangerous to patients. The vast majority of studies have revealed that flowers have both immediate and long-term benefits for patients.
Aside from improving general morale and mood, flowers have been shown to increase patient memory, lead to fewer cases of postoperative analgesic application, reduce blood pressure and heart rate, and decrease pain. Though obvious, controlled studies found that patients who have flowers beside their beds are much happier than those who do not.
Simon Cohn, a medical anthropologist, sees the hysteria over bedside flowers as indicative of a trend in health care towards regimented, outcome-based delivery rather than relationship-based care of patients.
Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
It’s hilarious, really, to think that hospitals would ban flowers out of a fear that they might make people sick. Should they also ban sunlight, too? How about banning laughter while you’re at it?
With few exceptions, hospitals are death traps. They are not places of healing; they’re places of health deterioration. And (nearly) everything you experience at a hospital is bad for you: The laughable “food” you’re served, the re-circulated air, the artificial lights, the onslaught of medications and even the tap water (which is contaminated with fluoride).
Flowers might be the one thing that’s actually good for you in a hospital, and now they want to ban those, too. Why am I not surprised? Allowing patients to experience joy would be counterproductive to the whole agenda of suppressing their healing response…
Click here for the full report
Superbugs Getting Stronger and Stronger
February 11, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The steady medical advance against viruses and bacteria that many experts were trumpeting in the early days of vaccines and antibiotics seems to have stalled, if not reversed. The ongoing emergence of new and increasingly drug-resistant diseases is now causing many to question whether the war against microbes is one that can ever be won.
“It is a war of attrition,” said David Livermore of the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. “There have been points where we have been advancing, and points when we have had to beat a retreat. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, for instance, we would be celebrating the vaccine for bacterial meningitis.”
The news these days contains less of celebration and more of alarm. Even with H1N1 swine flu now appearing less dangerous than originally thought and infection rates of the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) falling in the United Kingdom, widespread antibiotic use and a globalized world have made the processes of pathogen evolution and spread faster than ever before.
The threat from the highly lethal H5N1 bird flu – a mere mutation away from a highly contagious form – has not abated, and other infectious threats thought long vanquished continue to rear their heads. China, for example, is currently battling an outbreak of pneumonic plague caused by Yersina pestis, the same bacterium that wiped out a third of Europe’s population as the Black Plague. Meanwhile, longer lifespans have encouraged the emergence of suberbugs such as Clostridium difficile, which preferentially targets elderly patients who have already been treated with antibiotics.
“Sensible prescribing is part of the answer, but we also need new antibiotics,” Livermore said. “It’s not one of the most attractive areas for pharmaceutical companies as people don’t take them for very long, unlike treatments for heart disease or cancer.”
“We will always be at war with microbes,” said Primrose Freestone of the University of Leicester. “Their genetic promiscuity is impressive.”
Click here for the full report
Heal Yourself in 15 Days (Part 2)
February 1, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
This article continues our 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days. In part one, we looked at why the real secret to rapid healing is to remove the barriers to healing. In part two, we look at why your healing potential is so powerful that you can’t even turn it off!
When you scrape your elbow, a bit of blood oozes out to clean the wound and wash away bacteria. It then forms a protective scab that keeps out invading microorganisms while your skin has a chance to heal underneath. There, some real magic takes place: Your skin cells innately recognize the need to divide and grow to fill the wound. A cancer-like process is unleashed at the cellular level, activating nearby cells to divide and grow. Your DNA is replicated in the nucleus of each cell with the help of some of the most astounding nanotechnology every witnessed in human civilization. (The best scientists in the world can’t even come close to recreating it.)
As your cells multiply, nutrients and building blocks are carried to them through a blood supply that adapts to the particular size and shape of the wound. If a blood vessel was destroyed in your accident, the growth of new blood vessels is spontaneously initiated to take their place, and they grow into the tissues within mere hours.
As your skin cells fill in the previous wound, the replication effort is delicately turned off, one by one, so that replicating skin cells don’t keep replicating beyond what they need to — a process that would cause the creation of a skin tumor. Your body’s cells know exactly when to grow and exactly when to turn off, and when it’s all said and done, you’re left with a perfect replacement for the skin you previously lost.
Completely automatic healing
The truly amazing part of all this is not the cancer-like processes that are delicately controlled by your body wisdom; it’s not even the fact that your body has the ability to re-grow lost cells — it’s the fact that all this takes place without any conscious involvement on your part.
Healing yourself is automatic, in other words. You don’t have to direct blood to the wound, direct the cells to start replicating, direct the molecular waste products to be carried away and decide when cell replication should be stopped. All this happens without your involvement — even without your awareness! Much of it happens while you sleep, in fact. While your conscious mind is dreaming, your innate body wisdom is working the biochemistry and energetic transformations necessary to repair your tissues.
You can’t stop this process even if you wanted to. You could try to focus all your mental power on your skin not healing, and yet your skin would heal itself anyway.
That’s because your body is a powerful self-healing organism. It heals itself automatically, innately, without your conscious awareness or involvement. Your ability to heal yourself is so powerful that you can’t stop yourself from healing!
Why we don’t always heal
If this is true, then why aren’t you healing everything else? Why aren’t you always in perfect health? The answer, as you’ve seen throughout this article series, is because we tend to erect barriers to our own healing. And we often misread the symptoms of sickness that are asking for help, “treating” them in a way that makes the situation worse.
Click here for the full report
