Friday, April 27, 2007

RE: orgasm

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: ♥ Angel ♥ ™
Date: Apr 27, 2007 10:31 AM


From: Tony



Thanks! ~
SHELLapis Lazuli
Kogi Heart



Ancient Egyptian Sexual Ankhing

by Drunvalo


Sex, and specifically the orgasm, is more that just something that feels good and allows procreation. There are many other functions, such as the release of dysfunctional energy within the body, which can help to keep one from becoming diseased. There is the function that opens the higher chakras, and under the right conditions allows a person to begin the process of enlightenment. And further, if two people, lovers, practice sacred sex, the entire experience can lead them together into higher consciousness and into worlds beyond this plane.

In relationships, a simple sexual principle, as taught by the ancient Egyptians, can change the energy level within your body and help to bring strength and vitality into your bodies and your relationship.

The full subject in detail of Egyptian Tantra is incredibly complex, and cannot be completed in an article of this scope. But we can speak of the heart of the matter — the human ankhing experience as practiced by the ancient Egyptians.

And so, adapted for our readers from The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life, Volume II, I offer this insight to assist two lovers — or even yourself, alone — to begin to find the higher path. This practice will not directly show you the true path. But it will increase your life-force energy, making you stronger, more alive, and more conscious. And perhaps — if you believe the Ancient Egyptians — it may lead you into eternal life.

—Drunvalo


Egyptian Sexual Energy and the Orgasm

It was believed in ancient Egypt that the orgasm was the key to eternal life, and that it was intimately connected with the chakra system. A chakra is an energy vortex connected to the entire human energy field, and the Universal Heart Chakra is the fifth of thirteen chakras. (There is also a system of eight chakras; in that system, the heart chakra is number four.) The Egyptian system held that the orgasm was intimately connected to this fifth, or Universal Heart Chakra.

First, we will explain the connection to eternal life.

Most people in the world are ignorant about what happens to their sexual energy after they have an orgasm. Usually, the energy moves up the spine and out the top of the head directly into the eighth or thirteenth chakra (same chakra, different system). In a few rare cases, the sexual energy is released down the spine into the hidden center below the feet, the point opposite the one above the head. In either case, the sexual energy — the concentrated life-force energy called prana in Hinduism — is dissipated and lost. It is similar to discharging a battery into a ground wire. It is no longer in the battery and so it is gone forever. This is what all the world's Tantric systems that I am aware of believe, that orgasm brings one a little closer to death because a person loses his or her life-force energy in the orgasm and is made weaker. But the Egyptians found long ago that it does not have to be this way.

It is for this reason that the Hindu and Tibetan Tantra systems ask the male to avoid ejaculating. Instead, they speak of these tiny invisible tubes where, when a student learns to control the orgasm and the flow of their sexual energy, the sperm migrates up to the higher centers.

Both of these systems, and also the Chinese Taoist Tantra system, are all primarily concerned with the sexual energy flow, sometimes referred to as ''sexual currents.'' They are primarily concerned with what happens as the sexual energy is moved before the orgasm, but they all have entirely different views of this energy compared to the Egyptians.

The Egyptians believed that orgasm is healthy and necessary, including the release of sperm in males, but that the sexual energy currents must be controlled in a deeply esoteric procedure that is unlike any other system. They believed that if this energy is controlled, the human orgasm becomes a source of infinite pranic energy that is not lost. They believe that the entire Mer-Ka-Ba or lightbody (the field of energy surrounding and interpenetrating the body) benefits from this sexual release. They even believe that under the right conditions the orgasm will directly lead to eternal life, and that the ankh is the key.

What is the ankh, and what has the ankh to do with sexual energy? It is complicated to explain, but we will simplify. First the ankh itself is a shape that looks like the figure at right.

In order to see and understand what took thousands of years for the Egyptians to grasp, we will begin with the fifth, Universal Heart Chakra. This lower heart chakra, the chakra of Unconditional Universal Love, is the first place where the energy completes itself. Each chakra has a ''direction'' associated with it, as the life-force energy rotates its way up the body in a pattern similar to the DNA molecule. In the lower heart chakra, the fifth place of a thirteen chakra system, the energy is facing the same direction as it began, and thus the circle is complete.




In the three views above, you can see how the rotation of energy either around the body, as in (a), around a circle, as in (b), or in a sine wave, as in (c), all complete themselves in five steps.

The fifth or heart chakra is the first chakra that completes itself and has the energies of both front-to-back and left-to-right. If you could see these energies — and the Egyptians could — from above the head, as in (a), at left, they would appear as this symbol. It needs to be understood that these are actual energy lines around the body coming from the fifth chakra.

If you were to see these energies from the front view of a human, they would appear as in (b) at left. In the center of the cross there is a hidden energy line coming straight off the page and also moving in the opposite direction away from the reader.

Notice that both of the above examples are Christian symbols that come from the heart chakra. However, if you could see the same energies from the side of a human being, they would appear different than you would expect. There is another energy-flow ''tube'' there (in Chinese medicine it's called a ''meridian'') that the Egyptians discovered long ago. It looks like (c).

I find it very interesting that the Christians must have understood what we are talking about here, for on the robes of many Christian priests, at certain times of the year that are usually associated with resurrection, you will see the following symbol.

This symbol (d) shows all three views — the top, front, and side simultaneously. I believe the Christians omitted the complete loop of the ankh so that they would not directly show a connection with the old Egyptian religion, since they were breaking away from that tradition. But it is obvious that they knew.

Now that you know that this ankh energy conduit is located in the human energy field and where, you will be able to understand the reason for the Egyptians' sexual conduct, which we are about to explain.

First let me explain something about the ankh before I speak about its relationship to sexual energy. When I toured the museums in Egypt, I personally observed over 200 Egyptian rods.

These rods (pictured at right) were mostly made of wood, although other materials were sometimes used. They had a tuning fork on the bottom end, and the top end had four different types of devices that could be attached. One of these devices was in the shape of the ankh. What we found is that if you put the ankh on the top of the rod, which is like the human spine, the vibration from the tuning fork lasts a great deal longer. The energy seems to wrap around back into the rod along the curve of the ankh, moving downward as it returns, thereby sustaining the energy.

I was in Holland a couple of years ago, and there some people had made some rods out of copper with a high-quality tuning fork at the bottom and a threaded end at the top, so that different end pieces could be screwed on. I experimented with this rod. Using it without a top piece, I struck the tuning fork and timed how long it would vibrate. Then I screwed on the ankh and struck the tuning fork again. With the ankh on top, the rod vibrated almost three times longer. If you apply this idea to the human spine, you can see why the energy of the orgasm enhances the entire human system and the energy wraps itself back around and back into the human meridians.

This is the key to why the Egyptians performed the particular sexual practices we are about to explain. They found that if they had an orgasm and let it go out the top or bottom of the spine, the sexual energy was lost. But if the sexual energy was guided by consciousness to move into the ankh conduit, it would come back into the spine and continue to resonate and vibrate. The life-force energy was not lost. In actual experience, it seems to increase the energy. One does not feel depleted after sex, but rather recharged.

You can talk about it all day, but if you try it one time, you will understand. However, it is not easy to do in one test. For the first few times, the sexual energy will often shoot past the point of the fifth chakra and continue on up and out of the body. So it takes practice. Once it is learned, I doubt seriously if you would ever have an orgasm any other way. It's too powerful and feels too good. Once your body remembers this experience, it is not likely to revert back to the old way.


Instructions for the Egyptian Orgasm

Here is exactly how to achiever the ankhing associated with the human orgasm. Whatever you do sexually before the orgasm is completely up to you. I am not here to judge you — and definitely the Egyptians would not, since they believe in knowing all sixty-four sexual modes before you enter the King's Chamber to ascend to the next level of consciousness. This is their idea, but it is important to know that it is not necessary. You can reach the next level of consciousness without knowing this information. However, from their point of view, the idea of ankhing is of paramount importance in achieving eternal life. You will have to decide for yourself if it is something you wish to practice.



The moment you feel the sexual energy about to rise up your spine, take a very deep breath, filling your lungs about 9/10th full, then hold your breath.


Allow the sexual energy of the orgasm to come up your spine. But at the moment it reaches the fifth chakra (located just a couple of finger-widths above the sternum), with your willpower you must turn the flow of sexual energy 90 degrees out the back of the body. It will then automatically continue inside the ankh tube. It will slowly turn until it passes exactly through the eighth (or thirteenth) chakra, one hand-length above the head at 90 degrees to the vertical. It will then continue to curve around until it returns to the fifth chakra, where it began, only this time in the front of the body.

Even if you don't understand what was just said, it will happen automatically if you get it started out the back of the body at the fifth chakra, and it will automatically come back around to the front of the body and reconnect at the fifth chakra. You just have to make it turn 90 degrees so that it begins.


It will often slow down as it approaches its point of origin, the fifth chakra. If you can see the energy, it comes to a sharp point. When it approaches the fifth chakra from the front of the body, there is sometimes a tremendous jolt as it reconnects with this chakra again. All this takes place while you are holding your first breath.


The instant the sexual energy reconnects with its source, the fifth chakra, take in the full breath. You had filled your lungs only 9/10th full, so now you fill your lungs as completely as you can.


Now exhale very, very slowly. The sexual energy will continue on around the ankh channel as long as you are exhaling. When you reach the bottom of this breath, you will continue to breathe very deeply, but a change happens here.


It is here that, if you know the Lightbody work of the Mer-Ka-Ba, you would begin to breathe from the two poles using Mer-Ka-Ba breathing. But if you are like most people and don't know this work, then continue to breathe deeply until you feel the relaxation begin to spread throughout your body. Then relax your breath to your normal rate. Feel every cell becoming rejuvenated by this life-force energy. Let this energy reach down into the deepest physical levels of your body structure even past the cellular level. Feel how this beautiful energy surrounds your very being and brings health to your body, mind and heart.


Once the relaxation begins, slow your breath down to a normal shallow breathing.


If possible, allow yourself to completely relax or even sleep for a while afterward.

If you practice this for even one week, I believe you will more than understand. If you practice it continually, it will begin to give health and strength to your mental, emotional, and physical bodies. It will give great strength and power to your Lightbody, as well.

If for any reason this practice does not feel right, stop and return to normal. It just is not time.

It was this discovery of the secret tube that fostered the Ancient Egyptians' belief that eternal life was intimately connected to this particular energy-flow. It is this ankhing of their sexual energy through this tube, in an extremely deliberate procedure, that I have been taught to emulate.



http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/apr1/ankhing.htm(w/pictures)



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RE: RE: Not eating pig has its advantages

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: ♥ Angel ♥ ™
Date: Apr 27, 2007 9:06 AM


Much Thanks to: Houdini



Hogs given tainted feed may be in human food supply

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the human food supply, the government said Thursday.

No more than 345 hogs, from farms in three states, that possibly ate tainted feed are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

Salvaged pet food from companies known or suspected of using tainted ingredients was shipped to hog farms in seven states for use as feed. A poultry feed mill in an eighth state, Missouri, also received possibly contaminated pet food scraps left over from production. The fate of the feed made from that waste was not immediately known.

The pet food sent to the farms later was discovered to have included either of two ingredients imported from China that were tainted by an industrial chemical, melamine.

Since mid-March, pet food companies have recalled more than 100 brands of dog and cat food and treats; more recalls were announced Thursday. An unknown number of cats and dogs have fallen ill or died after eating products made with contaminated wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate.

Some pet food, while unsuitable for sale for that purpose, was still considered safe for livestock to eat. Its use at hog farms raised the possibility that melamine entered the human food supply.

The risk to human health posed by the chemical is considered very low. The University of California, Davis, is developing a test to measure melamine levels in tissue, Andrews said.

The department on Thursday released the following state-by-state breakdown of its investigation into farms thought to have received the contaminated pet food for use as hog feed. The farms were not identified.

# CALIFORNIA: State officials are working to contact the purchasers of 50 whole hogs raised on a single farm.

# NEW YORK: A breeder farm's 125 to 140 swine are under quarantine pending the results of urine and manure tests. None of the hogs went to slaughter.

# SOUTH CAROLINA: Urine tests done on some of the 800 hogs now quarantined at a farm have shown low levels of melamine. None went to slaughter. According to the state veterinarian, none of the suspect feed was fed to the hogs. Federal tests on the feed have come up negative. The positive urine tests could not be immediately explained.

# NORTH CAROLINA: A farm with 1,400 hogs is under quarantine. It shipped 54 animals to a slaughterhouse, where they are on voluntary hold.

# UTAH: Eight hogs sent to slaughter by one farm remain on hold. Also on hold are 3,300 hogs at a second farm, as well as 40 to 50 carcasses at a slaughterhouse supplied by that producer. Meat from no more than 100 other hogs from the producer, all processed earlier by that same plant, may have entered the food supply, Andrews said.

# KANSAS: Meat from 195 hogs from a single producer may have entered the food supply via a Nebraska slaughterhouse. The farm is holding another 150 hogs.

# OKLAHOMA: A show hog operation purchased contaminated feed but no hogs have gone to slaughter.

In addition, an Ohio hog farm has been cleared.

Each year, about 105 million hogs are slaughtered and processed in the United States.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This bulletin may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.

RE: Pesticides and Parkinson's

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: thumbs
Date: Apr 27, 2007 10:15 AM


Click: Pesticides and Parkinsons

Is this the only disease that's had it's cause covered up?

How about Mad Cow (BSE) or Scrapie?

Click: Mad Cow

Canola (formerly known as Rape) was found to be an effective insecticide. Where Sheep were fed Rape; they came down with Scrapie which is the sheep version of the disease (why do they have different names for it? - perhaps to confuse?).

Would it be the first time they tried shifting blame?

Find out about many other deceptions in the medical field:

Personal Health and Nutrition Forum

RE: FORCED MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING FOR YOUR CHILDREN

You an yours first, Bush!!!


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Pamela's Protest
Date: Apr 26, 2007 6:45 PM


http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd64.htm

Related
Articles:

Bush Plans to
Screen Whole US
Population For
Mental Illness

Illinois Launches
Compulsory
Mental Health
Screening

Mental Health
And World
Citizenship

The Insidious Mental Health Plan



Other Devvy Articles:

ACLU Demands LA County Remove Cross From Official Seal
OKC - What Really Destroyed the Building? Part 1

How The Government Lies About Social Security Part 1

How the IRS Lies to Employers About Withholding

This is What Your FEAR is Protecting, America
How The IRS Violates Its
Own Code

IRS Makes Chilling Proclamation

Where Have All The Men Gone?

More Devvy
Articles:


FORCED MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING FOR YOUR CHILDREN





By: Devvy

September 19, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227

In his September 14, 2004 commentary, Congressman Ron Paul blasted the latest Communist ideology being put forth by President Bush:

"A presidential initiative called The “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health” has issued a report recommending forced mental health screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment......The greater issue, however, is not whether youth mental health screening is appropriate. The real issue is whether the state owns your kids. When the government orders “universal” mental health screening in schools, it really means “mandatory...The political right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent.”

Anyone who has followed the draconian legislation coming out of Washington, DC for the past few decades doesn't buy the "recommending" label for a NY second. The shadow government working towards the destruction of a self-reliant, independent, sovereign America, take their steps incrementally and test the masses for resistance before they thrust the dagger. Make no mistake: when the timing is desirable, whether it be Bush or Kerry, recommending will become mandatory "for the children."

Such blather is nothing more than a tool of tyrants. To better understand the game plan, let me quote the author of The Great Communitarian Hoax, The Voices of America's Destruction and Masters of Seduction, Jeri Lynn Ball:

"Americans are being trained by slow degrees to give up their individuality, independence and autonomy (their unique personal traits, their desires and personal ambitions, their intellectual capacity to direct their own lives). Since individuality is the basic, indispensable property of every living human being, the degree to which he strives to wipe out his own individuality (become selfless) is the degree to which he experiences feelings of helplessness and instability. Individuals who unwittingly embrace the Soviet slave philosophy, i.e. community values (or the Communist morality), including altruism (selflessness) and collectivism (loss of the individual in the collective mass), proceed to disintegrate both mentally and physically. They may manifest an array of symptoms ranging from anxiety and chronic depression to despair and suicidal feelings to alcoholism and drug abuse. A growing number of Americans now suffer from eating disorders, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders and schizophrenia.

"Ritalin is now being given to almost 4 million children, which is more than twice the 1990 number. In 1997, about 3 million teenagers contracted a sexually transmitted disease. There are twenty dangerous sexually transmitted diseases that are now rampant among the young, including herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia.

"Soviet and American leaders have been achieving the ideological and psychological convergence of the United States and Communist Russia. America is becoming a replica of Russia: sick, brutal, deviant, vulgar and violent, yet slavish and submissive toward governmental authority. Virtually every major problem facing America today is the result of the Communists' war against the mind and their attack on this country's founding principles. Using the mixture of political indoctrination and the specter of ruthless mass terror, communitarian and mind-subverters have been overwhelmingly successful in their attempt to make selflessness a mass phenomenon and to produce profound feelings of instability, helplessness and worthlessness in many Americans."

Jeri Lynn Ball is a gifted writer, a thorough researcher and understands the toxic formula for creating the "new Communist American" like very few in this country. Sadly, most Americans will pay no attention because Dan Blather, Tom Brokenjaw and other media gasbags have been convincing the American people for over a decade that "Communism is dead!" Ha! That's exactly what the shadow government wants you to believe.

Is forced mental health screening by the federal government constitutional? Of course not. The federal government has no authority whatsoever to dictate or force mental health screening on anyone's children. The one critical historical fact the people continue to ignore is this: When the colonials were setting up the new national government, those wise men far ahead of their time knew that government is the enemy of the people if not checked. Because they knew this to be true, specific restrictions and restraints upon a new national government were of paramount importance to ensuring the states would retain their rights and so would we the people.

In order to accomplish this, the representatives of the states at the time created the national government with three separate branches, each separate and independent of each other for checks and balances. The people would be represented by electing representatives to serve in the House of Representatives; this process would be based on population. They ensured the rights of the states would be inviolate by their legislatures appointing two U.S. Senators to represent them in Washington, DC; all states would be represented equally with two senators. This balance was destroyed by the fraudulent ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. This fraud continues today and all 100 U.S. Senators sit in office under a law that flat out doesn't exist. Every candidate running for the U.S. Senate is running under a law that does not exist, but none of them seem to care.

In order to keep the national government from evolving into a tyrannical beast, the Founding Fathers placed very specific restrictions upon Congress and those are contained in Art. 1, Sec. 8 of the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution. These very few and specific items were those the creators knew had to be uniform throughout the states of the new Union in order to maintain consistency, i.e. copyrights, patents, duties, imposts, excise taxes and things of that nature. Everything else was left to the states under the Tenth Amendment or to the people themselves under self-government. As an extra measure, the brilliant men who birthed this Republic created a Bill of Rights which definitively defined our natural rights that no government can take away because we are born free.

Will this Nazi style proposal of Mr. Bush's become a bill in Congress? It's anyone's guess, but these duplicitous, lying dogs in Congress know they will run into the same brick wall as when Marxist Hillary Clinton attempted to socialize America's health care system. As I pointed out in a recent article on health care, the feds know they cannot legislate in the area of medical care or practice. Forced mental health screening won't pass a constitutional test, so the only other option would be for Bush (or Kerry) to do it through an executive order.

Our children do not belong to the state or the federal government. No President can force our children to under go mandatory health screening. If Bush thinks he can ram this down our throats via an executive order, he's going to find out that the American people are wise to this favorite tool of Presidents to circumvent the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Bush will quickly find out how badly he and his handlers underestimate the resolve of the American people by refusing to surrender our children and grand babies to a blue print of Nazi Germany.

For those who would like to learn more about how Presidents increasing violate their oath of office in an attempt to destroy our God-given rights, take a few hours over this weekend and read an outstanding document titled Executive Orders and National Emergencies: How Presidents Have Come to "Run the Country" by usurping Legislative Power by William J. Olson and Alan Woll. The way to curtail abuse of power is through knowledge of the law and refusing to get down on your knees and submit to tyranny.

If you play the game, the game will play you. Will you be master or slave? Will you give up your parental rights and allow mother government to screen your child for any "mental health defects" and then force medication upon their little bodies? What can you do to stop this? You might send a post card to Mr. Bush and simply tell him that you will refuse to surrender your parental rights and will not allow any government to use your child as a guinea pig for the pharmaceutical industry. Ten or twenty million post cards should do the trick.

© 2004 Devvy Kidd - All Rights Reserved

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Devvy Kidd authored the booklets, Why A Bankrupt America and Blind Loyalty, which sold close to 2,000,000 copies. Has been a guest more than 1600 times on radio shows, ran for Congress twice and is a highly sought after public speaker. Devvy is a contributing writer for www.NewsWithViews.com Devvy's web site is: www.devvy.com; is sponsored by El Dorado Gold; e-mail is: devvyk@earthlink.net

RE: Device Keeps Organs Alive Outside The Body

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Precarious333
Date: Apr 26, 2007 4:43 PM


Thanks Andre and www.outlawjournalism.com

Device Keeps Organs Alive Outside The Body

Richard Gray
Sunday Telegraph
April 24, 2007

A pioneering device that keeps organs “alive” outside the body could dramatically improve the success of transplants and provide new ways of treating tumours and liver disease.

For the first time, scientists at the University of Oxford have managed to disconnect an organ from the body’s blood supply and keep it functioning on an artificial blood circuit.

The procedure has allowed them to keep livers viable outside the body for more than 72 hours - four times the current time limit.

It is hoped the technique will make it possible to transplant organs that would previously have been unusable - alleviating the problems caused by a shortage of donors.

Organs are capable of regenerating high levels of damaged tissue when isolated from the rest of the body, the scientists found.

A version of the technique could also be used to treat organs with high doses of chemotherapy to combat cancers without harmful side-effects on the body. Such treatments might also be developed to fight liver disease caused by alcohol and hepatitis.

Scientists are now planning the first clinical trials in patients and hope to use the technique on other organs including the lungs, kidneys and pancreas. They hope the procedure will be widely used within five years.

“There are a lot of things you can do therapeutically to an organ if you can isolate it from the rest of the body,” said Peter Friend, a transplantation professor at the university.

“We have good evidence that we can take an organ that has been really quite badly damaged before it is removed and recover it so that it works.

“We think it will not only improve the results of a transplant, but it will also go some considerable way towards making more organs available, as we can start to use organs that are currently declined as they are not suitable.”

He added: “In the longer term, we also envisage carrying out therapeutic approaches such as chemotherapy by isolating the organ from the rest of the body, treating it with the drug and reconnecting it without having to remove it.”

Trial surgery has involved removing a liver from the body’s blood supply and linking it to a pump and artificial blood vessels.

Fresh blood, enriched with oxygen and nutrients needed to keep the liver alive, is then pumped through the liver at normal body temperature. It is thought the organ is able to repair itself because it is freed from its normal function within the body.

Currently, surgeons rely on donors who have been declared clinically dead but whose hearts are still beating. Lack of oxygen and the need to store organs on ice during transport can cause severe damage.

The new method will allow the transplant of organs from patients whose hearts have stopped for up to an hour and the use of damaged organs.

Constantin Coussios, a biomedical engineering lecturer who is developing the new device with Prof Friend, added: “The organ never knows it has left the body as we provide it with oxygen, maintain the temperature and feed it with nutrition so it can survive. We have yet to find the maximum amount of time we can keep an organ alive for outside the body.”

Researchers hope the new method will increase the number of organs viable for transplantation by more than 50 per cent.
More than 7,200 patients in Britain are currently waiting for organ transplants, but only 3,000 such operations were carried out last year.

A spokesman for the NHS organisation UK Transplant said: “There is a desperate shortage of donated organs in the UK, so anything that can improve the success of a transplant and increase the number of organs available is to be welcomed.”

http://www.outlawjournalism.com/news/?p=5552

RE: Plant vault passes billion mark

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Nibiru
Date: Apr 26, 2007 2:44 PM


Plant vault passes billion mark

Breaking Earth News
Great Britain

Britain's "Noah's Ark" for plants has just collected its billionth seed in a race against time to save the world's plants from global warming wipe-out.

RE: FDA CAM Guidline misinformation

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Pharmaceuticals KILL People & Animals!
Date: Apr 26, 2007 2:47 PM


The American Association for Health Freedom is pleased to announce a small victory.

The FDA has moved the deadline from April 30, 2007 to May 29, 2007 for public comments to the FDA document 2006D-0480 - Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. [Visit our website for more information.]

This extension provides us time to execute the most effective strategy, which is to prepare and deliver a reasoned, specific and technically accurate response that covers the law and case history that delineates the FDA’s role, power and authority in these areas.

We have been talking with many members of Congress about the FDA CAM Regulation Guidance and they’re listening. Pressure has been exerted on the FDA from organized groups in the community and from Congress. Unfortunately writing directly to the unelected bureaucrats at the FDA has little impact, even if a million citizens write. Writing to your elected officials, as our earlier alert suggested, has had an impact and we’ve sent thousands of letters to the Hill.

We love the fact that the community is so passionate and wants to be involved. Unfortunately we have seen a lot misinformation traveling the Internet about the “dangers” of the FDA CAM Regulation Guidance. The sky is NOT falling. Whether the deadline is April 30th, May 29th, July 31st or beyond, this guidance document alone does not change the laws and regulations of: functional foods, dietary supplements, medical devices and therapies, religious practices, or practitioners.

We are very concerned that the FDA is over-reaching in the CAM guidance. With the new extension date of May 29, 2007, we now have the time to properly respond to the guidance and provide you, Congress, and the FDA with the specifics of what those problems are and how the guidance should be changed.

Our strategy is built on 15 YEARS of experience advocating health freedom and working with our legal and public policy experts (who are leaders in their fields). Our plan is based on a strategic, credible, and logical review of the document. Our mission is to provide the community with reliable, accurate information and not to raise panic. As one of our board members is fond of saying “we don’t work to be ‘busy’ but work to be ‘effective’.”

For perspective, John Weeks of the Integrator Blog has a very good article where he interviews many members of the health freedom community as well as the FDA. I highly recommend you read this article for more information.

Our general counsel, Mr. Michael Ruggio, is preparing our strategy and comments to the FDA which we believe is the strongest course of action that AAHF can take. Our lobbyist Dr. William Duncan continues to execute our public policy work with Congress, FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, and other government agencies. Our plan is to continually educate our members and others who are interested in our work and at the same time, reassure everyone through direct, first-hand information about what is happening on Capital Hill.

We remain committed to this and other health freedom issues that directly impact the right of the consumer to choose and the practitioner to practice. In terms of the FDA CAM Regulation Guidance, we will proceed with our legal strategy, which includes educating Congress. Quoting John Weeks in the article referenced above, “Vigilance remains critical.”

Please feel free to post and forward this message. Thank you.

Brenna Hill
Executive Director
American Association for Health Freedom
4620 Lee Highway, Suite 210
Arlington, VA 22207
1.800.230.2762
Fax: 703.294.6380
www.healthfreedom.net
P.S. Don’t forget to JOIN, DONATE, TAKE ACTION, and TELL-A-FRIEND!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

RE: REPOST IF YOU HONOR & RESPECT WOMEN !!!!!!!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: " THE COLLECTIVE "
Date: Apr 26, 2007 12:05 PM


Date: Apr 26, 2007 8:43 AM


From: Seven
Date: Apr 26, 2007 8:38 AM


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From: LORD ABBA
Date: Apr 26, 2007 8:29 AM


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From: Queen Aset
Date: Apr 26, 2007 9:55 AM


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From: LORD J ALLAH
Date: Apr 26, 2007 9:31 AM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: GREENUNIQUE
Date: Apr 26, 2007 4:47 AM


ATTENTION!!!

FOR ALL WOMAN AND MEN WHO CARE FOR WOMEN-REPOST

Subject Rather scary !!!! IMPORTANT POST FOR WOMEN
Body: Rather scary !!!!

If you are a woman and you use pads, but especially if you use tampons, read this and pass it on to your friends.

For the men receiving this e-mail, please forward it to your friends, significant others, sisters, mothers, daughters, etc.

Thanks!

Check the labels of the sanitary pads or tampons that you are going to buy the next time and see whether you spot any of the familiar signs stated in this e-mail. No wonder so many women in the world suffer from cervical cancer and womb tumors.

Have you heard that tampon makers include asbestos in tampons?

Why would they do this?:

Because asbestos makes you bleed more. If you bleed more, you're going to need to use more. Why isn't this against the law since asbestos is so dangerous?

Because the powers that be, in all their wisdom (not), did not consider tampons as being ingested and, therefore, did not consider them illegal or dangerous.

This month's Essence Magazine mentions 2 manufacturers of a cotton tampon alternative.

The companies are: Organic Essentials @ 1-800-765-6491 and Terra Femme @ 1-800-755-0212.

A woman getting her Ph.D. at Universityof Colorado sent the following:

"I am writing this because women are not being informed about the dangers of something most of us use: Tampons. I am taking a class this month and I have been learning a lot about biology and women, including feminine hygiene. Recently we have learned that tampons are actually dangerous (for other reasons than TSS).

After learning about this in our class, most of the females wound up feeling angry and upset with the tampon industry, and I for one, am going to do something about it. To start, I want to inform everyone I can, and e-mail is the fastest way that I know how.

HERE IS THE SCOOP:

Tampons contain two things that are potentially harmful: Rayon (for absorbency), and dioxin (a chemical used in bleaching). The tampon industry is convinced that we, as women, need bleached white products in order to view the product as pure and clean.

The problem here is that the dioxin, can lead to very harmful problems for a woman. Dioxin is potentially carcinogenic cancer-associated) and is toxic to the immune and reproductive systems. It has also been linked to endometriosis and lower sperm counts for men. For both sexes, it breaks down the immune system.

Last September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that there really is no "acceptable" level of exposure to dioxin given that it is cumulative and slow to disintegrate. The real danger comes from repeated contact (Karen Couppert "Pulling the Plug on the Tampon Industry"). I'd say using about 4-5 tampons a day, five days a month, for 38 years is repeated contact", wouldn't you?

Rayon contributes to the danger of tampons and dioxin because it is a highly absorbent substance. Therefore, when fibers from the tampons are left behind in the vagina (as usually occurs), it creates a breeding ground for the dioxin. It also stays in a lot longer than it would with just cotton tampons. This is also the reason why TSS (toxic shock syndrome) occurs.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

Using feminine hygiene products that aren't bleached and that are all cotton. Other feminine hygiene products (pads/napkins) contain dioxin as well, but they are not nearly as dangerous. So, what can you do if you can't give up using tampons?

Use tampons that are made from 100% UNBLEACHED cotton.

Unfortunately, there are very few companies that make these safe tampons. They are usually only found in health food stores. Countries all over the world Sweden, Germany, British Columbia, etc. have demanded a switch to this safer tampon, while the USA's decided to keep us in the dark about it.

In 1989, activists in England mounted a campaign against chlorine bleaching. Six weeks and 50,000 letters later, the makers of sanitary products switched to oxygen bleaching (one of the green methods available).(MS magazine, May/June 1995)."

WHAT TO DO NOW:
Tell people! Everyone! Inform them! We are being manipulated by this industry and the government, let's do something about it!

Please write to the companies: Tampax (Tambrands); Playtex; O.B.; Kotex.

All the 1-800 numbers are listed on the boxes.

Let them know that we demand a safe product: ALL-COTTON, UNBLEACHED TAMPONS.

REMINDER:

In order not to lose the impact of this email, I suggest that anyone who wants to forward it to their friends, PLEASE copy this mail and paste it into a NEW message. That way it will not distort the whole message with all the forward arrows. Please do this with consideration and seriousness.

RE: How and why to grow your own food

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: *Galactic Consciousness*
Date: Apr 26, 2007 1:29 PM


From: •°•RASWOLF
Date: Apr 26, 2007 12:26 PM






RE: WATCH "Are Human animals natural meat eaters?" & Repost!

This has got to be the funniest explanation of carnivore or herbivore that I've seen yet, take five and have a laugh.


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: *Galactic Consciousness*
Date: Apr 26, 2007 1:36 PM


From: Vegan Delly Doolittle
Date: Apr 26, 2007 12:34 PM


GET EDUCATED! X

From: vegveglondon
From: Steph
From: Mamasita
Thanks!Riverbird
Date: Apr 26, 2007 9:42 AM


Thanks!: sherry
Date: 26 Apr 2007, 07:01
Excellent! Thanks Debi! I love Bizzarro.
From: Debi
Date: 4/26/2007 5:05:00 AM


Watch "Are Human animals natural meat eaters?"
From: faeryfay
Date: Apr 26, 2007 4:57 AM
THANK YOU Theyre sentient beings, not food choices-Go Vegan
LOVE IT!







RE: FDA, Supplements And So-Called Hate Crime Bill

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: robert
Date: Apr 26, 2007 8:45 AM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: The Man Common
Date: Apr 26, 2007 5:34 AM


Rock Washington, Dc Now: FDA, Supplements And So-Called Hate Crime Bill

 

 

By: Devvy


Go to Original

I'm going to cut to the chase here on the latest efforts by non elected government bureaucrats and Congress to further destroy our natural rights. First, our right to natural health care and supplements, which cuts into the mega billions of dollars in profit to the big pharmaceutical companies, see Tom DeWeese's recent column:

"The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has launched another sneak-attack, trying to regulate your health freedom into oblivion. Through FDA’s unholy partnerships with Big Pharma and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (an offshoot of the UN), we are very close to losing alternative health care in America. This is a crisis, and needs your immediate action."

The loons behind this new world order nightmare where every aspect of our life is controlled, include water to be regulated! Think I'm blowing some conspiracy junk? "The website noted that among likely developments if the FDA has its way: Growing and selling common garden herbs will get you arrested as a drug dealer. Massage oils and handheld massagers will be regulated as "medical devices." Vegetable juice will be regulated as a drug. Weight machines will be regulated as "medical devices" and require FDA approval before being sold or used. Raw sprouts and other anti-cancer foods will be regulated as drugs. Bottled water that "treats" dehydration will be regulated as a drug....." Read the rest of this factual column here.

Anyone who has done even a minimal amount of research is fully aware that the FDA is nothing more than a pimping operation for the big pharma houses. The question is this: does the FDA have any authority to regulate natural food supplements and vitamins, never mind water? First one has to understand jurisdiction and treaties. Let me quote constitutional attorney, Larry Becraft:

"Control over the possession and sale of any item within the states is not a power possessed by Congress. This was so held in United States v. DeWitt, 76 U.S. 41, 45 (1870), which tested the constitutionality of a federal revenue act making it illegal to sell illuminating oil of a certain flammability. Here, the Court held Congress did not have the power to penalize these sales:

"As a police regulation, relating exclusively to the internal trade of the States, it can only have effect where the legislative authority of Congress excludes, territorially, all state legislation, as, for example, in the District of Columbia. Within state limits, it can have no constitutional operation."

"More than 40 years later, Congress enacted a federal drug law designed to make criminal the possession of contraband drugs like opium. Based upon the decision in DeWitt, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Jim Fuey Moy, 241 U.S. 394 (1916), that Congress did not have power to make penal mere possession of drugs within the states. These two cases have never been reversed, so how did we get the DEA? Like the Fish & Wildlife Service, the origins of this federal agency is also in treaties.

"In 1912, the Senate adopted the International Opium Convention - see 38 Stat. 1912. Later, this convention was supplemented by a similar convention of 1913, the Multilateral Narcotics Drugs Convention, ratified on March 31, 1932, 48 Stat. 1543, which was thereafter implemented by appropriate federal legislation designed to control poppy production within this country. In Stutz v. Bureau of Narcotics, 56 F.Supp. 810, 813 (N.D.Cal. 1944), some poppy growers sought an injunction to enforcement against them of the provisions of the act implementing the convention, their argument being the act invaded the reserved powers of the Tenth Amendment. In rejecting this argument and holding that the act applied within the jurisdiction of California, the Court declared:

"The competency of the United States to enter into treaty stipulations with foreign powers designed to establish, through appropriate legislation, an internationally effective system of control over the production and distribution of habit forming drugs is not questioned. The obligations of the United States incurred as a party to the two Conventions heretofore mentioned were lawfully undertaken in the proper exercise of its treaty making power. And Congress is constitutionally empowered to enact whatever legislation is necessary and proper for carrying into execution the treaty making power of the United States."

"Other cases have also noted that control over drugs by the federal government arises from these treaties - see United States v. Rodriguez-Camacho, 468 F2d. 1220 (9th Cir. 1972); and NORML v. Ingersoll, 497 F2d 654 (D.C.Cir. 1974), later opinion at 559 F2d. 735 (D.C.Cir. 1977). The jurisdiction of the DEA is therefore based upon these drug treaties and it thus has an international jurisdiction. Henry Hudson, Randy Weaver's defendant and the former head of the Marshal's Service, stated as much on his Sunday afternoon radio show in the D.C. area back in March of this year.

"The power of the DEA to control "bad" drugs such as opium and cocaine is constitutionally indistinguishable from the similar power of the FDA to control other "drugs" such as Vitamin B and shark cartilage. If the DEA is a treaty-based federal agency, is it not possible that so is the FDA? As you might expect, the authority of the FDA arises from a 1906 international Agreement for Unification of Pharmacopeial Formulas for Potent Drugs."

The FDA has conducted massive 'destroy the healer' tactics for decades, prosecuting, persecuting and harassing natural health care providers while Congress turns a blind eye and sits on their worthless backsides. The real criminals are those who run the FDA and the Federal Department of Injustice for prosecuting good, decent natural health care providers who teach Americans how to naturally maintain good health and cure diseases naturally, which cuts into the huge profits of the pharmaceutical companies who buy the favors of Congress. Natural products such as B-17 and many others are not "habit forming drugs." It is long past time to stop this Nazi persecution by the FDA and their latest efforts to take away our right to treat ourselves and our bodies. It's time the people told Congress once and for all: we the people DEMAND our right to consume natural health care products, supplements and you people had better stop the FDA from their agenda to take away our right to naturally prevent and cure cancer. Stop this Nazi style persecution of natural health care providers and get U.S. out of the insidious CODEX because we intend to fight you every step of the way, period.

Under the U.S. Constitution, there are only FOUR types of conduct criminal in offense: treason, piracies and felonies on the high seas, counterfeiting, and offenses against the laws of nations. NO WHERE does our right to consume B-17 or other natural health care supplements, vitamins or minerals fall within those categories of criminal offenses. Where is there some crime against nations under any treaty by me consuming natural health care products and supplements? None, zero, zip. Byron Richards has also put together an excellent column on another bill which will give the FDA unprecedented power that MUST BE STOPPED:

"A new attack against health freedom, drug safety, and dietary supplements was launched last week by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) with major support from Michael Enzi (R-WY). It is called the Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Act (S.1082). This legislation was planned over the past few years working hand-in-glove with the FDA’s dysfunctional management and legal team – meaning this legislation was written for the profits of Big Pharma and Big Biotech at the expense of safety and human health."

Hate crime legislation: Again, it all boils down to jurisdiction by Congress. H.R. 1592 was scheduled for a last hearing on April 24, 2007, but you can still demand your congress critter vote NO. As you will see by the links below, this unconstitutional Nazi style legislation has nothing to do with hate, it is simply another gigantic step by mother government to please certain hot button special interest groups like the wrongly named 'Anti-Defamation League,' sexual deviant organizations and many others. A crime is a crime, period. These craven poltroons in Congress are once again attempting to use interstate commerce as their excuse to legitimize certain PREFERRED sexual behavior and attach a bias to a crime committed by one race against another or against sexual deviants. A crime is a crime and should be punished, period. Should this junk become "law," I firmly believe that with the proper legal challenge, it would be reversed, but we need to stop it from even becoming law. Americans are being bankrupted fighting these unconstitutional laws and it is flat out wrong. Let me once again refer you to Lopez v U.S. and Printz v. U.S. and Richard Mack, two cases which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who for once, actually got it right.

In both of these cases regarding interstate commerce, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress over stepped their authority to legislate and I submit to you that these so called "hate crimes" also fall into the same category. Despite endorsement of these special interest bills from factually challenged media hacks like Bill O'Reilly, the Constitution is very specific regarding legislative areas of jurisdiction for Congress. The fact that they have gotten away with passing mountains of unconstitutional junk over the decades to please the poisonous politically correct groups and organizations in this country does not make it right or constitutional. Of course, if you read this bill, the feds also sweeten the pot with federal grant money they have no legal authority to offer. This has nothing whatsoever to do with hate, it has everything to do with control. If you go to the link above regarding interstate commerce, you will see that the sponsors of this garbage are all pro-communism; they call themselves "progressives," but in fact, their political ideology is communism and that is the ultimate goal - the sovietization of these united States of America.

What you must do today: Call (forget e-mail) your federal house member and counterfeit U.S. Senator. Tell them (1) Stop the FDA from unlawfully trying to take away our right to consume and use natural health care products and remedies. We demand the ban against Vitamin B-17 be rescinded. I don't know about you, but I am sick to death of seeing all the misery and death from cancer when we know it can be prevented and successfully eradicated without mutilation or dangerous treatments like chemotherapy and radiation. B-17 was banned decades ago, but I take it every day. How? The natural way from apricots because I refuse to be told by some bureaucrat in Washington, DC, that I cannot take the one natural supplement that I know prevents cancer. (See the column below on world without cancer.) Only the big pharma houses and cancer charities benefit because there's no money in the cure, only the treatment.

(2) Tell these cretins in Congress that H.R. 1592 is beyond their authority to legislate. Demand they vote no. As far as I'm concerned, you can kick the FDA to the curb and let the states handle drugs and natural supplements within their jurisdiction. Demand FDA Commissar, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., be fired. The FDA wants you to make your comments to them in writing: Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. The hell with that, we're out of time. Get on the phone: 1-888-463-6332, press 2.

(3) Tell your counterfeit U.S. Senator to vote NO on S.1082 because we the people will refuse to participate and will fight them. The FDA and food safety? What bunk! The FDA knew about the bad spinach situation, did nothing about it and people died. How many drugs has the FDA approved as "safe" which are now off the market because people have died or suffered massive strokes? Dozens. They are never held responsible, but lawyers are making billions from the lawsuits. Enough! has long since passed. Make those calls, on your lunch hour or while sitting in commute traffic and ask everyone you know to do the same thing. We are the people and we DO have the power to stop these scoundrels, but it takes big numbers.

Important information:

1. Federal jurisdiction (scroll down for a legal analysis which includes supreme court cases, circuit court and state on this critical issue)
2. National Health Federation
3. The Drugging of Our Children - free Internet video

4. Natural Solutions Foundation

5. TVC charges proposed hate crimes bill makes Jesus Christ and his followers criminals
6, Pro-Homosexual/Drag Queen ‘Hate Crimes’ Bill Introduced
7, H.R. 1592 - Could Hate Crimes Bill Tie Hands of Border Patrol?
8, A world without cancer
9, House of Representatives contact
10, Counterfeit U.S. Senate contact
11, States must force 17th Amendment showdown
12, FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food

RE: THE SECRET

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From: Pamela's Protest
Date: Apr 25, 2007 11:27 PM


THE SECRET

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From: SoulDrifter
Date: Apr 25, 2007 8:25 PM


THE SECRET-DOCU/FILM






RE: Flouride...the history and commentary from J. Donahue (deep)

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: robert
Date: Apr 25, 2007 11:02 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Queen of Night
Date: Apr 25, 2007 7:59 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: R4ND0mLI9HT
Date: Apr 25, 2007 7:44 PM


Vague thanx

=P

to RATHER DIE ON MY FEET THAN LIVE ON MY KNEES-WOLVES

SOURCE


By James Donahue

I was a child when fluoride, a by-produce from the manufacture of atomic bombs, was first introduced to the American people.

Nobody told us where fluoride came from. All we knew is that it was a newly discovered chemical that would make our teeth extra hard and ward off cavities. When a free fluoride clinic was set up one summer in our school, all the kids in town lined up to have the bitter tasting stuff rubbed on their teeth.

We were pretty gullible in those days. The period immediately following World War II was a time of scientific advancement. After the inventions of nylon, rayon, plastic and other marvelous products that replaced fabrics, rubber and steel during the war years, people were lulled into the belief that those balding men in white laboratory jackets could solve all of the problems of the world. The belief was so strong that we blindly accepted whatever a "scientist" told us. Nobody dreamed that we might be victims of fraud.

My father was part of the magic. He worked as a chemical engineer for a factory that made a variety of products out of wheat and corn starch (including the brain-killing excitotoxin monosodium glutamate). He provided well and I consequently made regular visits to a dentist every summer. I knew well the agony of the dentist drill. It was nothing like the advanced water-cooled high-speed equipment used by modern dentists. Repairing a cavity doomed us to what seemed like hours of white-knuckle torture under the glaring lights of the dental chair, while a man with plastic rimmed glasses and bad breath bored his way through teeth (and bone?). Once the drilling was done, the dentist filled the hole he made with a hot metallic material that burned when it went in, and left a bad taste in your mouth.

We had a mom-and-pop grocery store in our neighborhood where kids could buy penny candy and a package of gum for a nickel. I made a lot of visits to that candy store.

Even though my mother made sure that I brushed my teeth daily, somehow I don't remember linking the candy I was eating to all of the cavities. When fluoride was introduced, it seemed like a child's dream come true.

I was disappointed, of course. I had just as many cavities in my teeth the following year.

When they started dumping fluoride in the local water supply, and adding it to the ingredients in our toothpaste, I thought that would surely solve my problem. It seemed reasonable to think that I didn't get a heavy enough dose of fluoride when I attended the free clinic. After all, if a little bit of fluoride was good for my teeth, it made sense that a lot more fluoride would be even better.

But alas, after years of drinking, scrubbing and consuming fluoride-laced products, we now learn that we've been scammed. This chemical is found to be totally ineffective in preventing tooth decay. Not only that, it seems to be directly linked to a variety of medical problems ranging from discolored teeth to bone disease and cancer.

In short, fluoride is a poison.

This is not news to the medical world. The Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine have both reported greater incidence of hip fractures in fluoridated areas. The National Institute of Environmental and Health Services has linked fluoridation with cancer.

A book by Dr. John Yiamouyiannis, titled "Fluoride, The Aging Factor," shows that the drug causes a premature aging process. He notes that in areas where fluoride is consumed in the drinking water, there are higher rates of bone disorders (skeletal fluorosis, osteoporosis and arthritic pain) and people suffer from brown decaying teeth.

"Fluoride is a poison!" Yiamouyiannis warns." The 1984 issue of Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products lists fluoride as more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. It has been used as a pesticide for mice, rats and other small pests. A 10-pound infant could be killed by 1/100 of an ounce and a 100-pound adult could be killed by 1/10 of an ounce of fluoride. The Akron Regional Poison Center indicates that a 7-ounce tube of toothpaste contains 199 mg. of fluoride, more than enough to kill a 25-pound child."

Yiamouyiannis writes that the acceleration of the aging process by fluoride occurs at the bio-chemical level by causing enzyme inhibition, collagen breakdown, genetic damage and disruption of the immune system.

"Fluoride interacts with the bonds which maintain the normal shape of proteins," he continues. "With distorted protein, the immune system attacks it's own protein, the body's own tissue." The visual and physical effects from prolonged exposure to fluoride include nausea, bloody vomit, faintness, stomach cramps, tremors, constipation, aching bones, stiffness, skin rash, weight loss and brown or black discoloration of the teeth.

The horror in this story is that fluoride was known as a deadly poison from the start. But if this was true, why would the U. S. government promote the sale of it to its own people, and later people all over the world? Would you believe the answer to this question is money?

There is compelling evidence that the program of water fluoridation began as a massive effort to cover up bad publicity from one of the most toxic materials to emerge from the government's secret nuclear weapons program. The idea was that if fluoride could be presented to the country as beneficial, then no one could sue the government for being harmed by it.

An article by Dr. Jackie Alan Giuliano in "Healing Our World" noted that reporters Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson discovered the truth about fluoride while researching hundreds of declassified documents about the Manhattan Project, America's secret atomic bomb development program.

They found that fluoride as a key chemical in atomic bomb production. Millions of tons were used during the Cold War period to manufacture high-grade uranium and plutonium.

"Fluoride was the top chemical hazard of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, not only for workers, but for those living in nearby communities as well," Giuliano wrote.

"The documents show that the first U.S. lawsuits levied against the atomic weapons program were over fluoride poisoning, not radiation damage. The documents reveal that the U.S. government secretly ordered atomic bomb scientists to create "evidence useful in litigation" against defense contractors who were being accused of injuring citizens with fluoride."

This secret work to head-off government lawsuits lead to a multi-billion dollar industry that has been poisoning our water supplies, our toothpaste, and our bodies ever since. Believe this or not, fluoride tablets are even available for children.

To escape the harmful effects of fluoride, Yiamouyiannis suggests that you seek non-fluoride toothpaste (but you may have to go to health stores to find it), and drink bottled water. Even using tap water to cook may expose you to fluoride.

Now that the truth about fluoride is out, why haven't towns and toothpaste companies stopped dumping this terrible poison in our water and toothpaste supplies? Don't expect that to happen. Remember, I said this is a multi-billion dollar industry. Nobody shuts down a money machine like that without a fight.

(Visit the author's web site at www.perdurabo10.tripod.com/themindofjamesdonahue.

Important Update: Harvard Links Fluoride To Cancer!

By Jessica Fargen
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday.

The study, published online yesterday in a Harvard-affiliated journal, could intensify debate over fluoridation and mean more scrutiny for Harvard's Dr. Chester Douglass, accused of fudging the findings to downplay a cancer link.

"It's the best piece of work ever linking fluoride in tap water and bone cancer. It's pretty damning for (Douglass)," said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, which filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against Douglass.

Douglass, an epidemiology professor at Harvard's School of Dental Medicine, is paid as editor of the Colgate Oral Care Report, a newsletter supported by the toothpaste maker.

Harvard and the NIH are investigating whether Douglass misrepresented research findings last year when he said there was no link, despite extensive research to the contrary by one of his doctoral students. The NIH gave Douglass at least $1 million for the research.

That student, Dr. Elise Bassin, wrote in yesterday's Cancer Causes and Control that boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidlines are five times more likely to develop osteosarcoma than boys who drink unfluoridated water. About 250 U.S. boys each year are diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer and the sixth most common cancer in children. Bassin notes that more research is needed to "confirm or refute this observation."

Douglass, in a letter to the editor published in the same issue, said Bassin¹s study was a ³partial view of this ongoing study,² and urged readers to be ³especially cautious² when interpreting the findings.

You may also want to read SV-40: The Deadly Cure.

RE: If we really R what we eat, then what the Hell are our pets?

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Taboo Central
Date: Apr 25, 2007 4:03 PM


This is very important for all animal owners...and the poverty stricken elderly people who send there social security checks to bogus charities, televeangelistas etc and then are forced to subsist on Alpo and Mighty Dog!
By the way...what is that confetti stuff we feed our fish? It's really not bad with Miracle Whip and the free crackers you can snarf at restuarants.

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: nierika
Date: Apr 24, 2007 4:33 PM


http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_john_r_m_070423_you_are_what_you_eat.htm

April 23, 2007

You Are What You Eat: The Politics of Pet Food

By John R Moffett

If you are a cat or dog owner, you almost certainly know about the pet food recall associated with numerous pet illnesses and deaths in recent months. But you probably don’t know much about the details, or the politics and economics behind the pet food debacle, or how these relate to your family’s food. If you thought the food safety problem was limited to pet foods… think again. The Bush administration has gutted the FDA, and all foods are now less safe.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/07/376/

What’s in pet food anyway? Why is it “pet food”, and not just regular food? Is it especially nutritious and wholesome for pets as most vets would have you believe? The answer is no, pet food is not especially wholesome or nutritious, and in fact it can contain things that should not be in food at all. There are two independent food streams in the United States, human food and pet/animal food. Neither is completely safe, but the animal food stream is particularly suspect.

Pet food is made from what giant, multinational agribusiness considers “byproducts” of human food production - stuff that is mostly unfit for human consumption. Much of it would become costly garbage if industry could not legally make it into dog and cat food. Basically, you would never feed it to your pet if you knew what was in it. Pet food agribusiness is a $30 billion a year mega-industry in the US, and it is growing every year.

http://tedeboy.tripod.com/drmichaelwfox/id73.html

The delightful industry term for animal byproducts is “offal” - carcass parts that cannot be used for human food, which are automatically slated for animal food production at the slaughterhouse. “Offal” has been estimated to amount to approximately 40 billion pounds per year in the US, and often contains significant amounts of rancid rendered fats, oils and grease. It also includes bacterial- or parasite-contaminated carcass parts which could not pass human food inspection. This is especially true because offal contains animal intestines and their contents, which are rich in e-coli. Next time you scrutinize the stuff in a can of cat or dog food… think “offal”.

On top of the issue of contaminated or diseased carcass parts there is now the looming issue of toxic Chinese food-additive contamination in many pet foods in the United States. It was a serious wake-up call for pet owners that so many different products produced by so many different pet food companies could all become contaminated. This fact showed clearly that both “premium” and plain pet foods contained low-quality ingredients from uncertain sources.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/200269

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover041507.htm

At first the contaminated pet food showed up mostly in the US, but eventually surfaced in other places, such as South Africa

click here

and Puerto Rico

click here

The critical questions quickly became “what poison” and “what source”? At first it was thought that a rat poison called aminopterin was responsible. Then the focus quickly shifted to a chemical called melamine, which is used primarily in the making of plastics. The culprit “food product” was thought to be contaminated wheat gluten from the Chinese manufacturer “Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co”. Because melamine contains a huge amount of nitrogen, it would give a very high “protein reading” when inspectors employed the simple chemical color test typically used to quickly assay protein content in a food product. This made some sense as to why melamine would show up at high levels in cheap Chinese wheat gluten product – as a despicable, unethical attempt to artificially jack up the protein rating.

However, there is a slight problem with the melamine hypothesis. The affected pets are thought to have died from kidney failure, but melamine is not known to cause kidney failure. The amount of melamine required to cause death is very large, far beyond the amount found in contaminated pet foods. The main health issues associated with chronic melamine exposure include cancer and reproductive damage. Indeed, there is no data that suggests that melamine even in significant doses can cause acute adverse effects such as kidney failure and death. The levels of melamine found in the pet food were far below those considered acutely toxic.

So what caused the animal sickness and death, and where did it come from? Some investigators have noted that ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in anti-freeze, does cause acute kidney failure in animals. Many pets die every year from drinking anti-freeze drained out of car radiators because it has a sweet smell and taste. However, it does not seem likely that sufficient levels of ethylene glycol could get into pet foods.

As such, it seems very likely that the actual culprit has still not been found. It may turn out to be melamine, but more likely it will turn out to be something else not yet identified. In either case, the FDA would very much like Americans to think that the situation is well in hand. It is far from well in hand, and in fact, the FDA is overwhelmed, underfunded and understaffed. It is also being hamstrung by an administration that despises government oversight of business.

click here

So what can you do? Make your own pet food. It is more time-consuming than opening a can or dumping some kibble in a bowl, but a varied and nutritious diet based on human-grade foods will greatly increase the chances that your pet will have a healthy diet, and a long life. Dogs and cats are fully domesticated animals, and have evolved over thousands of years along side people, eating left-over scraps of food. They are well adapted to a human-centered diet, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just wrong.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/04082007/nhnews-08sun-petfood.html

http://www.sunherald.com/160/story/31845.html

It is critically important to note that the problem isn’t limited to the food your pet eats - there are serious problems with the food you eat too. It’s the same functionally deficient FDA that is supposedly watching out for you and your family by inspecting foods produced in the US and those imported from other countries. There have never been so many food producers as there are now, and in modern times there has never been less FDA action. As this situation worsens, people are getting sick from contaminated spinach, peanut butter, and now new cases have been reported, again, about people getting sick from e-coli tainted beef:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/21/BAGPGPD9GI6.DTL

It goes further - it has been reported that livestock have been fed large amounts of animal feed which was contaminated with melamine, or whatever unidentified toxic substance has been killing pets, thus putting people at risk from the “pet food contamination problem”. By eating animals, people are thus subjected to the animal food stream.

click here

Eating less meat, and more organic produce is a great way to improve your health, and reduce your exposure to potentially toxic compounds in the food supply. Dogs also do very well on a diet rich in rice, vegetables, oatmeal, eggs, and other non-meat items, but cats need to eat mostly meat. Both cats and dogs should be given appropriate amounts of calcium and vitamin supplements if they are getting human food.

While the human food stream is far from perfect, it is still substantially better than the animal food stream.

You are what you eat. So be highly vigilant about what you, your family, and your pets eat.



Authors Website: http://www.factinista.org/

Authors Bio: Dr. John Moffett is an active research neuroscientist in the Washington, DC area, who has published articles on the nervous and immune systems. Dr. Moffett is also the author and webmaster of the political opinion website www.Factinista.org.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

RE: SEX!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: ♥ Angel ♥ ™
Date: Apr 25, 2007 4:52 PM


Well, this one's right up my alley!! :) Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket



Thanks to:
Tony
Namaste'
Glenda




1) 4% of men lie about their dick size.
According to condom manufacturers, only 6% of men need to use extra large
condoms.

2) The average man is 4-5 inches long when erect; no matter what you have heard ladies, that's the truth. Incidentally the average vaginal capactity is only 6 inches, for you women who think you can handle king kong.

3) 80% of American men are circumsized, though Pediatrics say it is not necessary.

4) No matter what all the ads say nothing but time can make your penis grow. (most men reach the end of their growth by the early 20's)

5) There is no correlation between penis size and shoe size, hand size, or nose size.

6) Blue balls does exist! It's technically called "prostatic congestion."

7) Only 16% of men shave their privates.


+Some stuff on the ladies+
------------------------------

1) Only 9% of women around the globe consider themselves "attractive" (20% of British women do). 43% of women use the term "natural", 24% say they have "average" looks, 8% prefer the term "feminine", 7% say they are "good looking", and 7% say they are "cute", and finally only 2% of women say they are "sexy".

2) An estimated 85% of women wear the wrong size bra.

3) 60% of women have had breast implants.

4) 75% of women like giving/getting oral sex.

5) 95% of women shave their privates.


+Both+
--------------------------------

1) Masturbation is healthy for both men and women.

2) 70% of highschoolers have had sex before they have graduated. 27% loose their virginity senior prom night. Only 3% wait until marriage.

3) 95% of men would have sex with a girl after 1 month of dating. Only 10% of women feel this way.


+5 Reasons Why Sex is Good+
---------------------------------------------

1) It is a good workout. Sex burns about 150 calories every half an hour. It will lower your cholesterol and improve breathing circulation.

2) You won't get sick. According to research if you have sex 1-2 times a week you are less likely to get sick.

3) You'll feel happier. You will feel a greater sense of well-being. Women who have more sex were clinically proven to be less depressed than women who dont have sex.

4) Makes you look better; problem is that ugly people don`t get any. Sex releases hormones which make your skin and hair softer and shinier and tone your physique.

5) (The best reason) You will live longer. Studies prove that sex makes you live longer. Men who had sex 1-2 times a week had half the death rate as those who did not indulge themselves at least once a month. It also makes you look younger. If you have sex 3 times a week you may look up to 10 years younger than you really are.


Did You Know?
----------------------------------------

1) Having sex 3 times a week for 1 year adds up to running 75 miles!!!!

Labels:

RE: Massive animal die off

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: FREEDOM
Date: Apr 25, 2007 4:53 PM


RE: RE: Massive animal die off

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Charlie Brown (Truth Seeker)
Date: Apr 25, 2007 1:40 PM


What the Hell?

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Valerie
Date: Apr 25, 2007 1:25 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Shane
Date: Apr 25, 2007 12:40 PM


Many thanks to LOST CHIEF - Stolen Peace and all whom came before. I have been following the bee story closely for days but had until now failed to realize that so many things were happening simaltainiously. Could this be some magnetic frequency upset (natural or otherwise) or perhaps a side effect of the notorious HAARP project or contrails fallout. I am certain the conspiracy theorists will have a heyday with this but IT HAS TO STOP. Who knows what this really is but this is alarming at best.

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: LOST CHIEF - Stolen Peace!
Date: Apr 25, 2007 12:06 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Death to fanaticism
Date: Apr 25, 2007 12:35 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: § Lori §
Date: Apr 25, 2007 5:41 AM


RE: Birds..bees...fish..frogs all dying in large .'s recently

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: People Against Global Warming
Date: Apr 25, 2007 2:27 AM


Very strange...perhaps pollution is having a butterfly effect beyond our wildest nightmare with domino effect kicking in !

From: Angel Shadow™
Date: Apr 24, 2007 10:27 PM


From: Indigogirl
Date: Apr 24, 2007 1:40 PM


----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: *♥* Celebrate Life
Date: Apr 23, 2007 12:02 PM


Prayers needed for our Earth and environment...

Somethings going on in the environment?

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Divine Love
Date: Apr 22, 2007 11:00 AM


Somethings going on in the environment?
Happy Earth day~ our Beloved Earth Mother needs our prayers~
NOW MORE THAN EVER~~~~

From: FREE FALL (reality theorist)


This Really Stinks!


Rainbojangles

Kenny - Lightworker





Million Fish Die In Colorado
At Once - 'A Lack Of Oxygen'?

From Judith Moriarty
noahshouse@comcast.net


3-10-7




I was having a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard a 'brief' blurb on the news telling of a million fish that had died in the Colorado River (covering an area of 7 miles). The reason given was 'lack of oxygen'. I waited to hear more on evening broadcasts (pictures) and there was NOTHING just that 30 second announcement. When I went searching I found that this was not an aberration pertaining just to the Colorado, but was happening in all parts of the country (rivers & lakes) and to put the people, who blame farmer's fertilizer at ease, many of these areas had no farms anywhere near them. Tens of thousands of fish have been found in California, Oregon, Washington State, Pennsylvania, and the Potomac etc. Looking further, I found that this is happening world wide, from Romania to China! Combine these massive die-offs with thousands of dead whales, sea turtles, porpoises, birds, honey bees, and butterflies.well, it's not hard to reason that the planet is dying. These massive deaths appear to be reported only locally and never making it to the national scene or an all out alarm by the EPA or environmental (corporate sponsored) groups?






The Gulf of Mexico has a DEAD ZONE that is approximately 7,000 square miles! Oregon has a DEAD ZONE off of its coast the size of Rhode Island. NO ALARM bells. I can understand this depraved indifference, since massive pollution, (84,000 gallons a day) from a landfill holding 2.3 MILLION TONS of putrid garbage is contaminating ground water and rivers in my own state (NH). When our state Department of Environmental Services held a hearing in the little town of Bethlehem (northern NH) they had the audacity to tell a citizen, who held a jar aloft, with this rusted polluted water that 'iron is good for you'. Sending the website 'Goliath Trust' and photos off to the Governor, Executive Council, and various legislators, was met with SILENCE. Moral: Corporate polluters, military testing (sonar), corporate HOG farmers, etc, take precedence over the health of the nation and our waters...

SOURCE




Up to one million fish found dead in Thai river


Tue Mar 13, 3:07 AM ET

BANGKOK (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of farmed fish have been found dead in one of Thailand's key rivers, the fisheries department said Tuesday, prompting fears that factories were polluting the waterway.

Parts of the central provinces of Ang Thong and Ayutthaya along the Chao Phraya river were officially declared disaster zones Tuesday, after the fish started dying there on Sunday night.

Officials said they were still trying to determine what had caused the deaths of up to one million caged tubtim fish, a type of tilapia, at different locations along the river about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Bangkok.

Jaranthada Karnsasuta, director general of the fisheries department, said a sudden lack of oxygen in the water killed the fish.

"Oxygen in water is very poor. Some reported zero to 0.5 percent of oxygen in the water, while fish need more than three percent to survive," he told AFP.

He said they were currently investigating two possible explanations -- that a sugar boat which capsized earlier this month released toxic byproducts into the river, or that upstream factories had polluted the waterway.

Local villagers and farmers suspect that factories, including one that produces the food additive monosodium glutamate, had released untreated water into the Chao Phraya, which flows down to the capital Bangkok, Jaranthada said.

It was less likely to have been caused by the capsized boat, he said, as the accident happened March 3 and the fish would have been affected earlier.

The Ministry of Agriculture will compensate fish farmers for their losses, which total about 40 million baht (1.3 million dollars), Jaranthada said.

An official in Ang Thong told AFP that the public health ministry had reassured him that the dead fish were not poisonous to humans, but added that they would be buried rather than entering the food chain.

Jaranthada said that the quality of water on the affected stretch of the Chao Phraya was improving after the irrigation department released clean water from an upstream dam.

SOURCE




Dead birds rain down on towns half a world apart


It could be the plot of a horror film, but in two towns on opposite sides of the world the mysterious phenomenon of thousands of dead birds dropping out of the sky is all too real.

Officials are baffled by the unexplained deaths which have affected Australia and the U.S.

Three weeks ago thousands of crows, pigeons, wattles and honeyeaters fell out of the sky in Esperance, Western Australia.

Then last week dozens of grackles, sparrows and pigeons dropped dead on two streets in Austin, Texas.

As birds continue to die in Esperance and the town's dawn chorus remains eerily silent, vets in both countries have been unable to establish a cause of death - despite carrying out a large number of autopsies on the birds.

Wildlife officials from Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation said they were baffled by the "catastrophic event" but emphasised the deaths had nothing to do with a severe storm which recently struck the area, as the birds had started dying before then. District nature conservation coordinator Mike Fitzgerald said: "It's very substantial.

"We estimate several thousand birds are dead, although we don't have a clear number because of the large areas of bushland."

Birds Australia, the country's largest bird conservation group, said it had not heard of a similar occurrence.

"You'd have to call it a most unusual event and one that we'd all have to be concerned about," said chief executive Graeme Hamilton.

Dr Fiona Sunderman, chief veterinary officer of the Department of Agriculture and Food, suspects the cause of death is some form of toxic poisoning.

Esperance resident Michelle Crisp, who normally sees hundreds of birds roosting in her garden, counted 80 dead ones in one day.

"It went to the point where we had nothing, not a single bird," she said. "It was like a moonscape - just horrible."

In Texas, officials are also working on the toxic poisoning theory. Adolfo Valadez, medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services, said it might be weeks before any conclusive results were known.

Such was the concern that the birds suffered deliberate toxic poisoning that several streets were closed in Austin while police and fire crews checked the area for any substance that might be of harm to humans.

"This was a precautionary measure. We certainly take these kinds of thing seriously, especially following 9/11," said Mr Valadez. "It may be a matter of time before we know what happened and why it happened. There is no threat to public health."

Federal officials in Washington said they were monitoring the situation, but a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said: "There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or Austin at this time."

SOURCE




Honeybees Dying At Alarming Rate


Honeybees are dying off at an alarming rate in almost half the country. It's a mystery scientists are calling "colony collapse disorder." Now, some Ark-La-Tex beekeepers are beginning to see the same signs.

Bees are far more than a picnic inconvenience. They are the givers of honey and the providers of pollination to 14-billion dollars in U.S. crops. Even clover needs bees. "Lots of farmers put this on their land and it requires pollination by bees and other pollinating insects," said beekeeper James Aulds, as he grabbed a handful of clover from the ground.

SOURCE

Mystery of the vanishing bees


VISALIA, California: David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states across America, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable.

"I have never seen anything like it," Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. "Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home."

The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first U.S. national affliction.

In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why.

Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call "colony collapse disorder," growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.

Along with recent stresses on the bees themselves, as well as on an industry increasingly under consolidation, some fear this disorder may force a breaking point for even large beekeepers.

A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts.

"Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

The bee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent. Beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the off-season to be normal.

Beekeepers are the nomads of the agriculture world, working in obscurity in their white protective suits and frequently trekking around the country with their insects packed into 18-wheel trucks, looking for pollination work.

Once the domain of hobbyists with a handful of backyard hives, beekeeping has become increasingly commercial and consolidated. Over the last two decades, the number of beehives, now estimated by the U.S. Agriculture Department to be 2.4 million, has dropped by a quarter and the number of beekeepers by half.

Pressure has been building on the bee industry. The cost of maintaining hives, also known as colonies, is rising, along with the strain on bees of being bred to pollinate rather than just make honey.

And beekeepers are losing out to suburban sprawl in their quest for spots where bees can forage for nectar to stay healthy and strong during the pollination season.

"There less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate," Browning said. "While this sounds sweet for the bee business, with so much added loss and expense due to disease, pests and higher equipment costs, profitability is actually falling."

About 15 worried beekeepers convened in Florida this month to brainstorm with researchers on how to cope with the extensive bee losses.

Investigators are collecting samples and exploring a range of theories for the colony collapses, including viruses, a fungus and poor bee nutrition.

They are also studying a group of pesticides that were banned in some European countries, including France, to see if they are somehow affecting bees' innate ability to find their way back home.

It could just be that the bees are stressed out. Bees are being raised to survive a shorter off-season, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom begins in February. That has most likely lowered their immunity to viruses.

Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to kill mites are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many worker bees. The queens are living half as long as they did just a few years ago.

Researchers are also concerned that the willingness of beekeepers to truck their colonies from coast to coast could be adding to bees' stress, helping to spread viruses and mites and otherwise accelerating whatever is afflicting them.

Dennis van Engelsdorp, a bee specialist with the state of Pennsylvania who is part of the team studying the bee colony collapses, said the "strong immune suppression" investigators have observed "could be the AIDS of the bee industry," making bees more susceptible to other diseases that eventually kill them off.

Growers have tried before to do without bees. In past decades, they have used everything from giant blowers to helicopters to mortar shells to try to spread pollen across the plants.

More recently, researchers have been trying to develop "self-compatible" almond trees that will require fewer bees. One company is even trying to commercialize a "blue orchard bee" that is stingless and works at colder temperatures than the honeybee.

Beekeepers have endured two major mite infestations since the 1980s, which felled many hobbyist beekeepers, and three cases of unexplained disappearing disorders as far back as 1894. But those episodes were confined to small areas, van Engelsdorp said.

Today, the industry is in a weaker position to deal with new stresses. A flood of imported honey from China and Argentina has depressed honey prices and put more pressure on beekeepers to take to the road in search of pollination contracts. Beekeepers are trucking tens of billions of bees around the country every year.

California's almond crop, by far the biggest in the world, now draws more than half of the country's bee colonies in February. The crop has been both a boon to commercial beekeeping and a burden, as pressure mounts for the industry to fill growing demand.

Spread over 580,000 acres, or about 235,000 hectares, stretched across 300 miles, or 480 kilometers, of California's Central Valley, the crop is expected to grow to 680,000 acres by 2010.

Beekeepers now earn many times more by renting their bees out to pollinate crops than they do producing honey. Two years ago a shortage of bees for the California almond crop caused bee rental prices to jump, drawing beekeepers from the East Coast.

This year, the price for a bee colony is about $135, up from $55 in 2004, said Joe Traynor, a bee broker in Bakersfield, California.

A typical bee colony ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 bees. But beekeepers' costs are also on the rise. In the past decade, fuel, equipment and even bee boxes have doubled and tripled in price.

The cost to control mites has also risen, along with the price of queen bees, which cost about $15 each, up from $10 three years ago.

To give bees energy while they are pollinating, beekeepers now feed them protein supplements and a liquid mix of sucrose and corn syrup carried in tanker-sized trucks costing $12,000 per load.

Over all, Bradshaw figures, in recent years he has spent $145 a hive annually to keep his bees alive, for a profit of about $11 a hive, not including labor expenses.

"A couple of farmers have asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'" Bradshaw said.

"I ask myself the same thing. But it is a job I like. It is a lifestyle. I work with my dad every day. And now my son is starting to work with us."

Aulds works the 350-hives for Hummer & Son Louisiana Honey in Bossier City. "There are very few feral bees in this area," added Aulds who explained that most wild bees locally died off in the early '90's thanks to mites.

"Bees do not take care of themselves. That's why there's beekeepers," said Aulds. Operations like Hummer & Son are now hired by farmers for pollination help so their animals can still graze and grow.

Aulds said half the country's bees are in Calfornia, helping pollinate huge crops, especially almonds. But there's trouble this year as California bee farmer Louis Rosburg described. "Disappeared. There's nothing there. There's no bees on the ground anywhere. There's just a completely empty hive."

Scientists fear that everything from viruses and mites to fungi and pesticides could be to blame for the mysterious "colony collapse disorder," with bees dying off by the hundreds of thousands. Aulds said, "since we live in a global economy with instant travel of stuff, we have all the diseases from all over the world in the United States."

He isn't ready to say colony collapse disorder is here or not but conceded that they are seeing a lot more bees dying. Typically a honey farm like Hummer & Son might see a 10-percent reduction in bees over wintertime. This time it's 30 percent. What would make them start to panic? Aulds estimated that another twenty percent drop and they would begin to change their strategies.

Hummer & Son is expected to add several hundred more hives to compensate for their winter loss and then keep their fingers crossed that the worst is over. They now rent out bees to 8-family farms for pollination. And since this is a relatively new venture for them they expect to sign up many more.

SOURCE




Why are the Frogs Dying?


2/15/07

Ponds and swamps are becoming eerily silent. The familiar melody of ribbits, croaks and chirps is disappearing as a mysterious killer fungus wipes out frog populations around the globe, a phenomenon likened to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Scientists from around the world are meeting Thursday and Friday in Atlanta to organize a worldwide effort to stem the deaths by asking zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens to take in threatened frogs until the fungus can be stopped.

The aim of the group called Amphibian Ark is to prevent the world's more than 6,000 species of frogs, salamanders and wormlike sicilians from disappearing. Scientists estimate up to 170 species of frogs have become extinct in the past decade from the fungus and other causes, and an additional 1,900 species are threatened.

"This is the precedent of a disease working its way across an entire species on the scale of all mammals, all birds or all fish," said Joseph Mendelson, curator of herpetology at Zoo Atlanta and an organizer of Amphibian Ark. "Humans would be absolutely stupid if they didn't pay attention to that."

Amphibians - of which frogs make up the majority - are a vital part of the food chain, eating insects that other animals don't touch and connecting the world of aquatic animals to land dwellers. Without amphibians, the insects that would go unchecked would threaten public health and food supplies.

Amphibians also serve important biomedical purposes. Some species produce a chemical used as a pain reliever for humans; one species is linked to a chemical that disables the virus that causes AIDS.

Amphibian Ark wants zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums in each country to take in at least 500 frogs from a threatened species to protect them from the killer fungus, which is called chytrid fungus. Each frog would get cleaned to make sure it doesn't introduce the scourge into the protected area.

The group estimates it will cost between $400 million and $500 million to complete the project. It is launching a fundraising campaign next year to create an endowment.

The scientists say the amphibian collection is simply a stopgap. It buys time and prevents more species from going extinct while researchers figure out how to keep amphibians from dying off in the wild.

The fungus isn't the only thing that's deadly to amphibians it's just killing them faster than development, pollution and global warming, said George Rabb, the retired head of the Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and a leader in Amphibian Ark. Scientists will have to closely monitor frog populations rereleased into the wild once the fungus is eliminated, he said.

"Right now with global warming and the garbage heap we put in the atmosphere, there are going to be risks," said Rabb, one of the country's leading conservation scientists. "That's why we'll need people from other professional fields epidemiology, climate change."

Scientists aren't quite sure of the fungus's origin, but they suspect it might be Africa. The African clawed frog, which carries the fungus on its skin and is immune to its deadly effects, has been shipped all over the world for research.

The clawed frog was also used in hospitals in the 1940s as a way to detect pregnancy in women. It produces eggs when injected with the urine of a pregnant woman.

The fungus works like a parasite that makes it difficult for the frogs to use their pores, quickly causing them to die of dehydration. It has been linked to the extinction of amphibians from Australia to Costa Rica.

Last month, Japan reported its first cases of frog deaths from the fungus, prompting research groups to declare an emergency in the country. On the Caribbean island of Dominica, the fungus has almost wiped out the mountain chicken, a frog species considered an island delicacy.

At Yosemite National Park in California, the mountain yellow-legged frog is close to extinction. The park has only 650 frog populations left, but 85 percent are infected with the fungus and the growing quiet along the park's lakes is evident as many of the frogs are dying off.

SOURCE

On the Net:

University of California-Berkley's AmphibiaWeb: http://www.amphibiaweb.org

Amphibian Ark: http://www.amphibianark.org/

Zoo Atlanta: http://www.zooatlanta.org




Species dying off at unprecedented rate, researchers say
15,589 species are at risk of extinction and least 15 have gone extinct
in the past 20 years, conservationists say


Posted Nov. 18, 2004
Courtesy World Conservation Union
and World Science staff

From the mighty shark to the humble frog, species are dying off faster than ever before, according to a new report billed as the most comprehensive evaluation ever conducted of the world's biodiversity.

The announcement was made at the World Conservation Union's World Conservation Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, this week. The findings are based on a report called the Global Species Assessment, released by a consortium of conservation groups in conjunction with the union's annual “Red List” of threatened species.

“There is some good news,” said a statement released by the World Conservation Union, an environmental organization, this week regarding the findings. “Conservation measures are already making a difference – a quarter of the world’s threatened birds have benefited from such measures. What is needed is more of them, and to focus them better.”

The Global Species Assessment shows trends in biodiversity over four years since the last major analysis in 2000, and it includes, for the first time, complete assessments of amphibians, cycads (an ancient group of plants) and conifers, as well as regional case studies. It also highlights which species are at greatest risk of extinction, where they occur, and the many threats facing them.

“Governments are starting to realise the value of biodiversity and the critical role it plays in their peoples’ well-being. Species provide food, medicine, fuel, and building materials. They help filter water, decompose waste, generate soil and pollinate crops. Recognition of this is growing but governments need to mobilize far more resources,” said David Brackett, Chairman of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

In 1996 it was revealed that one in eight birds (12%) and one in four mammals (23%) were threatened with extinction (falling into the Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable categories). This infamous line-up has now been joined by one in three amphibians (32%) and almost half (42%) of turtles and tortoises, according to the World Conservation Union.

With amphibians relying on freshwater, their catastrophic decline is a warning about the state of the planet’s water resources, the report said. Even though the situation in freshwater habitats is less well known than for terrestrial, early signs show it is equally serious. More than half (53%) of Madagascar’s freshwater fish are threatened with extinction.

The vast ocean depths are providing little refuge to many marine species which are being over-exploited to the point of extinction. Nearly one in five (18%) of assessed sharks and rays are threatened.

Many plants have also been assessed, but only conifers and cycads have been completely evaluated with 25% and 52% threatened respectively.

For the first time, the assessment includes the Red List Index, a new tool for measuring trends in extinction risk. This shows overall changes in threat status (projected risk of extinction) over time for a particular group. It will be important for measuring changes in biodiversity. Red List Indices are currently available for birds and amphibians, and show that their status has declined steadily since the 1980s.

“Although 15,589 species are known to be threatened with extinction, this greatly underestimates the true number as only a fraction of known species have been assessed. There is still much to be discovered about key species-rich habitats, such as tropical forests, marine and freshwater systems or particular groups, such as invertebrates, plants and fungi, which make up the majority of biodiversity,” says Craig Hilton-Taylor, the World Conservation Union’s Red List Programme Officer.

People, either directly or indirectly, are the main reason for most species’ declines. Habitat destruction and degradation are the leading threats but other significant pressures include over-exploitation for food, pets, and medicine, introduced species, pollution and disease. Climate change is increasingly recognised as a serious threat.

“It is clear that the situation facing our species is serious and getting worse. We can continue to assess and bemoan the loss of the world’s biodiversity or we can act! We must refocus and rethink the way in which society must respond to this global threat,” says Achim Steiner, the World Conservation Union's Director General.

“While most threats to biodiversity are human-driven, human actions alone can prevent many species from becoming extinct. There are many examples of species being brought back from the brink including the southern white rhino and black-footed ferret, and thousands of dedicated people around the world are doing their utmost to reverse the extinction rate,” he added. “But this cannot continue to be the task of the environmental community alone. Governments and business must commit to these efforts as well”.

Since the release of the 2003 Red List, more than 15,633 new entries have been added and 3,579 species reassessed. There are now 7,266 threatened animal species and 8,323 threatened plant and lichen species. A total of 784 plant and animal species are now recorded as Extinct with a further 60 known only in cultivation or captivity.

Since 2003, there have been some notable changes to the list, including some marked deteriorations, like the St Helena olive (from Extinct in the Wild to Extinct), the Hawaiian crow (from Critically Endangered to Extinct in the Wild), the Balearic shearwater (From Near Threatened to Critically Endangered), the giant Hispaniolan galliwasp lizard (from Near Threatened to Critically Endangered), and an African begonia, Begonia oxyanthera (from Near Threatened to Vulnerable).

But there have also been some improvements, such as the European otter (from Vulnerable to Near Threatened) and the Christmas Island Imperial pigeon (from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable).

The 2004 assessment shows that threatened species are often concentrated in densely populated areas, particularly in much of Asia and parts of Africa. A major conservation challenge will therefore be to reconcile the demands of large numbers of people on the environment, whilst protecting the biodiversity upon which so many people’s livelihoods depend.

The importance of international support in safeguarding biodiversity is critical says the assessment. Many countries with a high concentration of threatened species have a low Gross National Income (GNI) per capita and are unable to implement the required conservation measures without international assistance.

Some key findings from the Global Species Assessment

* Numbers of threatened species are increasing across almost all the major taxonomic groups.
* The marine environment is not as well known as the terrestrial environment but initial findings show that marine species are just as vulnerable to extinction as their terrestrial counterparts.
* Freshwater habitats are also poorly known, but recent surveys reveal that many aquatic species are threatened with extinction.
* Most threatened birds, mammals, and amphibians are located on the tropical continents - Central and South America, Africa south of the Sahara, and tropical South and Southeast Asia. These regions contain the tropical broadleaf forests which are believed to harbour the majority of the earth’s living terrestrial and freshwater species.
* Australia , Brazil, China, Indonesia and Mexico hold particularly large numbers of threatened species.
* Countries with high numbers of threatened species and relatively low GNI include Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru and the Philippines.
* The world’s list of extinctions increases – from 766 in 2000 to 784 documented extinctions since 1500 AD.
* Although estimates vary greatly, current extinction rates are at least one hundred to a thousand times higher than background, or "natural" rates.
* Over the past 20 years, 27 documented extinctions or extinctions in the wild have occurred but this underestimates the true number that have taken place.
* While the vast majority of extinctions since 1500 AD have occurred on oceanic islands, over the last 20 years, continental extinctions have become as common as island extinctions.
* Humans have been the main cause of extinction and continue to be the principle threat to species at risk of extinction.
* Habitat loss, introduced species, and over-exploitation are the main threats, with human-induced climate change becoming an increasingly significant problem.

SOURCE

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