Scientologists ‘Heal’ Haiti Quake Victims Using Touch
January 25, 2010
BreitBart
Amid the mass of aid agencies piling in to help Haiti quake victims is a batch of Church of Scientology “volunteer ministers”, claiming to use the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems.
Clad in yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the controversial US-based group, smiling volunteers fan out among the injured lying under makeshift shelters in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital.
A wealthy private donor provided his airplane to fly in 80 volunteers from Los Angeles, along with 50 Haitian-American-doctors, in a gesture worth 400,000 dollars, said a Parisian volunteer who gave her name as Sylvie.
“We’re trained as volunteer ministers, we use a process called ‘assist’ to follow the nervous system to reconnect the main points, to bring back communication,” she said.
“When you get a sudden shock to a part of your body the energy gets stuck, so we re-establish communication within the body by touching people through their clothes, and asking people to feel the touch.”
Next to her lay 22-year-old student Oscar Elweels, whose father rescued him from the basement of his school where he lay with a pillar on his leg for a day after the deadly January 12 quake.
His right leg was amputated below the knee and his left leg was severely bruised and swollen.
More than half of his fellow students died in the rubble of his school, although the rest of his family was unscathed, he said, thanking God.
“One hour ago he had no sensation in his left leg, so I explained the method to him, I touched him and after a while he said ‘now I feel everything’,” said Sylvie.
“Otherwise they might have had to amputate his other leg. Now his sister knows the method and she can do it.”
Asked about the method being used on him, a smiling Elweels described it as “a sort of harmony between the nerves, a kind of exercise. I couldn’t feel at all, but then I could.”
Does he know Scientology? “Yes, it’s a French organization,” he said.
“All the patients are happy with the technique,” said Sylvie. “But some doctors don’t like the yellow T-shirts. It’s a color thing,” she insisted.
Another group of Scientologists distributed antibiotic pills. “The doctors said give everyone with wounds antibiotics,” said Italian volunteer Marina.
Some doctors at the hospital are skeptical. One US doctor, who asked not to be named, snorted: “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”
When asked what the Scientologists are doing here, another doctor said: “I don’t know.”
Do you care? “Not really,” she said, wheeling an unconscious patient out of the operating room to join hundreds of others in the hospital’s sunny courtyard.
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Omega-3s Help Fight Schizophrenia, Huntington’s, and Other Nervous-System
January 11, 2010
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
Research just published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience provides evidence that adequate omega-3 fatty acids are needed for healthy nervous systems. That could explain why low levels of omega-3s are associated with the information processing difficulties experienced by people with bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; schizophrenia; Huntington’s disease and other illnesses affecting the nervous system. What’s more, this research suggests that increasing dietary omega-3s may be a natural way to prevent and treat those conditions.
Scientists at the Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism studied two forms of omega-3 essential fatty acids found in certain foods including fatty fish and some algae: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). The human body can only acquire these key nutrients by metabolizing their precursor, linolenic acid (LNA), or from foods or dietary supplements with DHA and EPA in a readily usable form.
EPA has been shown in numerous previous studies to have anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular protective effects DHA, although less studied, is also crucial to the body. In fact, it makes up more than 90 percent of the omega-3s in the brain, retina and the nervous system.
For their study, the research team fed four groups of pregnant mice and their offspring four different diets with no or varying types and amounts of omega-3s. Then, after the newborn mice grew into mature animals, the scientists recorded how they responded when exposed to a sudden loud noise.
This classic test of nervous-system function normally makes healthy animals flinch. However, if animals with a normal nervous system are exposed first to a softer tone before the loud one, they flinch much less. Scientists believe that’s due to an adaptive process known as sensorimotor gating which causes an initial stimulus to prepare the body for future stimuli.
The results of the tests showed that only the mice raised on DHA and EPA, but not their precursor of LNA, demonstrated normal, adaptive sensorimotor gating. These healthy animals responded in a significantly calmer way to loud noises if they had first heard softer tones. The mice in all other groups, however, were startled almost as much by the initial soft sound as by the loud noise that followed.
The reason? The scientists concluded that when DHA was deficient the nervous system was in an abnormal state that left the animals almost constantly startled and easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli. “It only takes a small decrement in brain DHA to produce losses in brain function,” lead researcher Norman Salem Jr., PhD. said in a statement to the media.
The researchers think this important information may be very significant for humans — because weak sensorimotor gating is a hallmark of many nervous-system problems including Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And they’ve suggested that omega-3s could have therapeutic potential for these and other diseases marked by nervous system problems.
Moreover, the research underlines the dangers of the typical American diet of processed foods and lots of meat — making it far higher in omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s. That imbalance reduces the body’s ability to incorporate omega-3s and, as a result, “we have the double whammy of low omega-3 intake and high omega-6 intake,” stated Dr. Salem. “It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that ‘fats are bad’ and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet.”
Editor’s note: NaturalNews is opposed to the use of animals in medical experiments that expose them to harm. We present these findings in protest of the way in which they were acquired.
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Ritalin Side Effects can Include Sudden Death
November 20, 2009
Examiner
By Etta Brown
After years of speculation and rare case reports, a recent FDA-funded study by The National Institute of Mental Health claims that drugs such as Ritalin – widely used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder in children – increase the risk of sudden death by five hundred percent among children and teens.
“Drugs are not the answer,” said Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist, veteran social worker and author of Learning Disabilities, Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges from Langdon Street Press. “Doctors and pharmaceutical companies are quick to tell parents there is a pill that will fix their kids, but it’s a false bill of goods. In many cases, these drugs – like Ritalin – will serve only to dull their kids’ senses and create health risks the parents could never have imagined.”
The irony of Ritalin, Brown added, is that it actually damages the neural connections needed for learning. While it may calm a hyper-active child, so that he is less of a problem in the classroom, it does not create the ability to learn.
“Another well-documented side effect of Ritalin is that it may cause a permanent tic of the face, head and neck,” Brown said. “There is a long fifty-year history of false advertising by drug companies that sell drugs with known side effects that are more damaging to the developing nervous system of children than the condition they are designed to treat.”
Between two to18 percent of American children are thought to be affected by ADHD, and Ritalin remains one of the most prescribed drugs for the behavioral disorder. This suggests that the medical approach to poorly nourished children who aren’t getting enough exercise is to dose them with a drug that is known to interfere with the development of their brains, cause permanent tics of the face, head and neck, and increase the likelihood of sudden death by 500 percent. And the FDA is not looking.
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Swine Flu Deaths are “Just a Coincidence”
November 4, 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
By Rebecca Smith and Kate Devlin
With millions of people being vaccinated against the virus there is a real risk that coincidental events will be seen as reactions to the jab, a paper in The Lancet said.
Experts at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in America calculated the background rate of conditions that may be mistaken for vaccine reactions and warned that there is a risk people will shun the jab needlessly.
Only if these background rates are exceeded will it point to a potential problem with the vaccine.
Medical experts have been told to watch for any cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome during the flu pandemic as some research suggested there was a link between a flu vaccine used in America in 1976 and the condition, in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system and can be fatal in rare cases.
However flu itself it also linked to the condition and about one in every 100,000 people a year.
Dr Steven Black and colleagues calculated that if 10 million people in Britain were vaccinated there would be around 22 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome and six cases of sudden death would be expected to occur within six weeks of vaccination as coincident background cases.
Just over nine million people in priority groups, such as pregnant women and those with long-term illnesses, and another two million front line health and social care workers will be offered the vaccine in Britain over the next two months.
Decisions will be taken soon over whether to offer the vaccine more widely.
The research also suggested that 397 per one million vaccinated pregnant women would be predicted to have a spontaneous abortion within one day of vaccination.
But this is the rate of spontaneous abortion that would occur on any given day out of a group of one million pregnant women during a vaccination campaign or not.
Dr Black wrote: “Misinterpretation of adverse health outcomes that are only temporally related to vaccination will not only threaten the success of the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine programme, but also potentially hinder the development of newer vaccines.
“Therefore, careful interpretation of vaccine safety signals is crucial to detect real reactions to vaccine and to ensure that temporally related events not caused by vaccination do not unjustly affect public opinion of the vaccine.
“Development and availability of data banks that can provide locally relevant background rates of disease incidence are important to aid assessment of vaccine safety concerns.”
The researchers said although scientists know that events connected only be time does not prove cause and effect, the cases ‘nonetheless raise public concern’.
Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge and Co-Director of Straight Statistics, said: “What a fine paper. If millions of people are vaccinated then just by chance we can expect bad things to happen to some of them, whether it’s a diagnosis of autism or a miscarriage.
“By being ready with the expected numbers of chance cases, perhaps we can avoid overreaction to sad, but coincidental, events. And why don’t we ever see a headline ‘Man wins lottery after flu jab’?”
Professor Robert Dingwall, University of Nottingham, said: “The difference between cause and coincidence is difficult enough for specialists to grasp, let alone the wider public.
“However, this paper is very important in spelling out the fact that just because two events happen at the same time, they are not necessarily related. There is a background rate of death, disease and accidents that happen all the time regardless of what medical interventions are going on.
“Confusing cause and coincidence may lead to serious policy mistakes that put people unnecessarily at risk.
“I am sure that some coincidences will emerge from a high-profile vaccination campaign and we must be careful not to be misled by them.”
Meanwhile the World Health Organisation said that pregnant women could be immunised with any of the vaccines licensed for use against swine flu.
Dr Marie-Paule Keiny, from the WHO, said: “ Sage (the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts) has concluded that the safety profiles are good and recommend that pregnant women can be immunised with any of the licensed vaccines.”
The WHO also recommended that one dose was sufficient to immunise children.
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Mercury Pollution Widespread In US Streams
August 20, 2009
RedOrbit
A new federal study suggests that fish cannot escape mercury pollution.
The study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the country for traces of mercury, and found that every sampled fish contained the substance.
Although all the fish had traces of mercury, only a quarter had levels considered unsafe for human consumption.
Over a thousand fish were tested from 1998 to 2005 for the study.
“This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation’s waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.
Mercury can cause learning disabilities in young children, and can also damage the nervous system if consumed.
According to researchers, the majority of mercury found in the streams was from coal-fired plant emissions. The mercury released from smokestacks finds its way into streams due to rainfall. Once in the waterways, the mercury is converted into methylmercury, which allows it to work its way through the food chain.
The highest levels of mercury were found in fish that lived in blackwater streams along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana. Bacteria in these regions help the conversion process.
The concentration was also high in largemouth bass from the North Fork of the Edisto River near Fairview Crossroads, S.C.
“Unfortunately, it’s the case that almost any fish you test will have mercury now,” said Andrew Rypel, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Mississippi.
According to Rypel, research has shown mercury in fish from Alaska, Canada, and even fish that live deep in the ocean.
The most contaminated sample came from smallmouth bass collected from the Carson River at Dayton, Nev., an area that contains a number of gold mines.
“Some ecosystems are more sensitive than others,” Barbara Scudder, the lead USGS scientist on the study, told the AP.
All states but Alaska and Wyoming have issued fish-consumption warnings due to mercury contamination.
“This is showing that the problem is much more widespread,” said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst for the Environmental Working Group
“If you are living in an area that doesn’t have a mercury advisory, you should use caution,” she said.
The Obama administration said it would begin crafting regulations for mercury emissions earlier this year. A previous plan drafted by the Bush administration was thrown out by a federal appeals court.
The Bush plan would have allowed companies to buy and sell pollutions credits, similar to a greenhouse gas emissions bill that was passed in the US House of Representatives in June.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has also proposed new regulations to lower mercury emissions from cement plants.
Click here for the full report from RedOrbit
FDA Declares Mercury Amalgam Fillings Safe for All
August 11, 2009
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Any scientific credibility the FDA might have been clinging to in these last few years has now disintegrated with the agency’s recent announcement that after reviewing 200 scientific studies, it has concluded mercury fillings are safe for human health! This ruling, as you’ll read below, further demonstrates how the FDA is a rogue federal agency that respects no law and frequently operates in direct violation of the law.
Case in point: Last year Consumers for Dental Choice (www.ToxicTeeth.org) sued the FDA over the issue of mercury fillings. A court settlement required the FDA to remove from its website statements about mercury fillings being “safe” and, instead, to publish this statement: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”
That statement stayed on the FDA’s website for several months. But that page has now been removed from the FDA’s website, returning no results. The FDA also deleted a “question and answer” page from its website that discussed the health risk of mercury fillings.
Instead, the FDA now posts a press release stating that the levels of mercury “released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients.”
Mercury fillings are indestructible, says the FDA!
What this so-called “scientific” conclusion really says is that mercury fillings don’t produce mercury vapor or mercury dust. But any dentist can tell you that drilling on mercury fillings produces mercury dust that’s immediately inhaled by the patient (and the dentist). This video from the IAOMT provides direct visual evidence that mercury fillings quite readily produce mercury vapor just by chewing on them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yln…
The FDA, however, insists mercury fillings are so safe that even infants and babies can have them installed in their mouths. Susan Runner is the head of dental devices at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, and she explained earlier this week that mercury fillings are safe for children under six years old because they have smaller mouths and breathe less air than adults, thereby “minimizing” any risks. (Huh?)
This kind of loopy logic has been extended to all groups — Pregnant women, infants, children and senior citizens — for which the FDA now insists mercury fillings are perfectly safe.
That’s why attorney Charlie Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice says, “FDA remains alone in the world in failing to protect children and pregnant women from mercury fillings. Since 1996, Canadian dentists have been told not to put mercury amalgam in children or pregnant women. Since 1998, British dentists have been told the same for pregnant women. Norway and Sweden have banned amalgam altogether. Regrettably, this rule should have meant the end of two-tiered dentistry: mercury for the poor and choice for the rest. Instead the FDA has failed to carry out its mission of protecting the public health.”
What’s especially astonishing in all this is how the FDA has blatantly violated its own legal settlement with Consumers for Dental Choice which required it to publicly disclose the health risks of mercury fillings. The FDA, much like a common criminal, simply ignores the courts and reverses itself without justification.
The FDA, you see, believes it is subject to no law. This fact is well pointed out in a book by health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord, entitled The Rise of Tyranny. In this book, Emord explains how federal agencies like the FDA become rogue, lawless dictatorships that abide by the rulings of no court.
The FDA, in its decision to revoke its mercury warnings, has done so in direct violation of a court settlement. Any individual acting in such a manner would be found in contempt of court and likely be fined or thrown in jail, but the FDA is apparently subject to no law, and it does whatever it wants, regardless of what the law says.
This is the very definition of tyranny: Domineering power combined with a complete lack of respect for the law (and a lack of respect for human health). The FDA, by any reasonable definition, is a dangerous criminal organization that continues to terrorize Americans with its complete disregard for both the law and human safety.
Consider this: Mercury is one of the most biologically toxic elements in the universe. A teaspoon of it can contaminate an entire lake beyond EPA limits for water safety. For years, even the FDA warned consumers about the toxic level of mercury in seafood. Specific warnings were made to expectant mothers. Those warnings have now been reversed by the FDA, which believes pregnant women can eat all the mercury-contaminated fish they want!
Mercury is also a huge threat to the environment. The very use of mercury in dental fillings is a crime against nature because all that mercury eventually ends up in the environment. Over 30,000 pounds (yes, pounds!) of mercury are dumped into the environment each year through dentistry, and this is devastating our ocean ecosystems.
Lots of people today are worried about the mercury emissions of coal-fired power plants. As stated on Wikipedia: Mercury emissions from coal burning are concentrated as they work their way up the food chain and converted into methylmercury, a toxic compound[10] that harms people who consume freshwater fish. In New York State, winds bring mercury from the coal-fired power plants of the Midwest, contaminating the waters of the Catskill Mountains. The mercury is consumed by worms, who are eaten by fish, and then by birds, including bald eagles. As of 2008, mercury contamination of bald eagles in the Catskills had reached new heights. Ocean fish account for the majority of human exposure to methylmercury; the sources of ocean fish methylmercury are not well understood. Coal-fired power plants shorten nearly 24,000 lives a year in the United States, including 2,800 from lung cancer.
But according to the World Health Organization, mercury from dental fillings and other medical devices accounts for 53% of the total mercury emissions, meaning that dental amalgams are a major source of mercury pollution of our planet.
According to Consumers for Dental Choice, dentists purchase nearly 40 tons of mercury each year. That’s over 35 million micrograms of mercury being put into the bodies of humans and, ultimately, the environment.
How? Because of the popularity of cremation. With burial costs so high and families lacking funds to even claim the bodies of their dead loved ones, more families are choosing cremation over burial. Cremation, it turns out, vaporizes mercury and releases it into the air where it eventually falls on the land and water, contaminating our planet.
Remember this: Every microgram of mercury put into peoples’ mouths eventually ends up in the environment. Anyone concerned about the future of life on earth should be concerned about mercury fillings.
The FDA, of course, is not concerned with protecting the future of life on Earth. That’s why they also ignore the environmental contamination caused by pharmaceuticals. There are now antibiotics, antidepressants and hormone drugs showing up in fish. Pharmaceuticals are contaminating our rivers and oceans, yet the FDA does nothing to regulate their environmental effects. They merely pretend the problem doesn’t exist (much like how they deal with mercury).
It is truly fascinating to see what the FDA considers dangerous: Colloidal silver, medicinal herbs and dietary supplements. But the things they don’t consider dangerous include mercury, antibiotics, hormone drugs, cigarettes and chemotherapy.
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