Free ebook on recycling

"Recycled Thoughts" is a free ebook on recycling, repurposing, and being "green".

50 holistic doctors dead

50 holistic doctors have been killed in the last 12 months as pressure to label GMOs increases and data about the toxicity of our food and water becomes more public. While that SEEMS like a lot, the article didn't really present any evidence of foul play, not that there wasn't any, there just wasn't any evidence.

Source

Newstarget which leads to HealthNutNews.

New TiddlyWiki 5.1.12

TiddlyWiki is a single HTML file where you can take notes. You can open it in any browser and edit those notes, just like a wiki. The TiddlyWiki concept is most closely related to the old Apple Hyperstack cards of the 1980s, or an actual Wiki, like Wikipedia. Go to the TiddlyWiki link in the next paragraph and what you see is an actual TiddlyWiki about TiddlyWiki. Each "card" is called a Tiddler.

TiddlyWiki has a new version, 5.1.12. This version supports markdown. You can have a whole wiki in a single self-modifying HTML file. You can also host it on a website for free at www.tiddlyspot.com. You will be able to edit your TiddlyWiki but others without the password will not. That is, others can edit your TiddlyWiki, but they will not be able to save their changes.

TiddlyWiki is useful for storing and finding information like:

1. Todo lists with check boxes.
2. Planning a wedding, party, graduation, or other event.
3. Taking notes on a new language.
4. Summarizing a computer language.
5. Storing recipes. 
6. Storing project notes.  
7.  Reminders with alarms.
8. Organizing just about any information. 

What's new

1. New text editor toolbars
2. New bitmap editor toolbars with usable drawing tools
3. Upgraded KaTeX and CodeMirror plugins
4. Experimental Evernote import by dragging .enex files
5. Added a bulk delete button to advanced search "Filter" tab
6. Introduction of the new WikifyWidget
7. New "internals" plugin that allows results of parsing and rendering to be previewed
8. Many bug fixes

We're not done yet

With summer comes gardening, work, and other plans and sometimes I don't have time to create another post. But never fear, we are not dead yet! It just gets busy in the summer for me sometimes. I'll post when I can.

Rio: no water venue is safe, superbacteria found

No water venue is safe to use for the Olympics in Rio. It comes with a superbacteria that causes meningitis and is resistant to antibiotics.

Source
Accuweather Video.

Is Red Dye #40 harmful to most people?

(Red 40, red 3, yellow 5. Make from petroleum? Cancer risk? )

In the US, three dyes compose 90% of dye consumption in the US:  Red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6. In 2010, CSPI published a report stating that most food dyes likely cause cancer, cause allergic reactions in some children, or are not adequately tested. This report mentions:

Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 contain benzidene, a human and animal carcinogen permitted in low, presumably safe levels in dyes.2 The FDA calculated in 1985 that ingestion of free benzidine raises the cancer risk to just under the “concern” threshold (1 cancer in 1 million people). Bound benzidene also has been detected in dyes in much greater amounts than free benzidene,7,8 but routine FDA tests measure only free contaminants, overlooking the bound moiety.2 Intestinal enzymes release bound benzidene, “so we could be exposed to vastly greater amounts of carcinogens than FDA’s routine tests indicate,” says Jacobson—especially considering today’s children are exposed to multiple dyes and flavoring agents and other added chemicals in foods.9

Red 40
Red 40 dye, also called Allure Dye (international number E129), or FD&C Red Dye 40, is made from petroleum products but industry claims it's so refined it's not dangerous. It's also called "Azo Dye". It might be listed as "Red 40 Lake" on the ingredients. A "lake" form of a dye is one that water will not wash off, it's not water soluble. This is mostly used in pills where the manufacturer does not want the dye to be washed off if it contacts a bit of water.

In Europe, foods that contain the dyes that might causes sensitivity must be labeled. In 2009 the European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated the use of Red 40 dye. The panel found that red #40 did not have genotoxicity with Salmonella, nor cause cancer. The panel recommends limiting red #40 (Acceptable Daily Intake) to 0-7mg/kg of body weight. But since the weight of red dye in US foods is not listed, this ADI is useless for consumers.


Here are some studies on red dye.

1. 1989. Study abstract here. "The no-adverse-effect levels in this study were 5.19% (2829 mg/kg/day) for male rats, and 1.39% (901 mg/kg/day) for female rats." It is unknown how many mg of dye people eat on average because this information is not on nutrition labels. The ingredients are listed but not the amounts of each ingredient.
2. 1992. Azo dyes are not mutagenic.
3. 1997. Red dye #3 increases growth of human breast cancer cells. 
4. 2002. Red dye #40 found to be most genotoxic.

The results of studies are mixed because they look for different things. But it certainly is within the realm of possibility that some kids will become hyperactive to red #40 if they consume it. When in doubt, avoid it. It does contain benzidine which is a known carcinogen.

Red 40 sources
FD&C red 40 chemical info.

Some non-profit organizations to help you with your health

The Health Ranger's network of websites: 
Videos on health: http://tv.naturalnews.com/.
Food investigations. http://foodinvestigations.naturalnews.com/.
EPAWatch. Families sending in water samples to test, tests show heavy metals. The PDF form to submit a sample is here. Their email: la bs at epawatch .org.
Natural News website for news. 

Iowa Farmer: GMOs are complete failure

An Iowa farmer tells how GMO crops kill critical birds and insects. (This year for the first time ever I have to hand pollinate my own cukes.) George Naylor comes form a long line of farmers. With GMO crops farmers go into a spiral of debt one reason being because they cannot collect their own seed, they must buy new seed each year. Even the corn rootworm has become resistant to GMO crops.

GMO crops also produce super weeds. Roundup Ready crops add poisonous glyphosate to foods. See Breakfast foods contain glyphosate.

And just a few more problems:

1. India has GMO problems.
2. Some plants produce the poison Bt. Monarch caterpillars killed by Bt pollen. 
3. Aphids stopped ignoring GMO wheat in UK. 

Source
NaturalNews.

Part of New York state's water is poisoned

In early June at least two residents in the small upstate New York village, Hoosick Falls, were tested to have 50 times the national average of the toxic chemical PFOA (perflurooctanoic acid). Harold and Marion Stevens told News 10 ABC TV that their numbers were 159 and 104 mcg per liter respectively. The nationwide average readings for PFOA are 2.08. PFOA likely comes from a plastics manufacturing plant near Hoosick Falls, NY. PFOA causes kidney and testicular cancer, as well as ulcerative colitis (stomach problems).

Source
Website.

Vaccines contain embalming fluid

The CDC, on one of its pages, lists all the ingredients of various vaccines. Many have formaldehyde  (the same as formalin), which are used in embalming dead people. If you had a high school biology class and dissected dead animals that strong smell was formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is very toxic.

Here are some excerpts from the Material Safety Data Sheet:

1. Toxic if swallowed. Will cause burns to the mouth, mucous membranes, throat, oesophagus and stomach. If sufficient quantities are ingested (swallowed) death may occur. The methanol stabilizer in solutions is a cause of visual impairment and possible permanent blindness.
2. Will cause burns to the eyes with effects including: Pain, tearing, conjunctivitis and if duration of exposure is long enough, blindness will occur.
3. Toxic by skin contact. Will cause burns to the skin, with effects including; Redness, blistering, localised pain and dermatitis. The material is capable of causing allergic skin reactions and may cause skin sensitisation. Toxic effects may result from skin absorption..
4. Toxic if inhaled. Will cause severe irritation to the nose, throat and respiratory system with effects including: Dizziness, headache, incoordination, chest pains, coughing, respiratory paralysis and or failure. Inhalation can cause cancer. Animal studies have shown formaldehyde to cause carcinogenic effects. In particular, chronic inhalation studies in rats have shown thec development of nasal cavity carcinomas at 6 and 15 ppm.
5. Some long term animal test data suggests a carcinogenic potential for the formaldehyde contained in these solutions. 
6. This material has been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Group 2A agent. Group 2A - The agent is probably carcinogenic to humans. [IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of the Carcinogenic Risk of Chemicals to Humans. - Supplement 7, World Health Organisation, 1987]. Link to vol 88 about Formaldehyde. See pdf page 46.

Sources

1. Direct link to CDC PDF. Link has been archived here. No more of this disappearing link BS.
2. The CDC page that links to the PDF. 
3. Formaldehyde MSDS safety sheet.
4. IARC studies of formaldehyde and cancer in humans. 

Is thimerisal safe to inject into people?

Thimerosal is a mercury compound that is widely used in the US to preserve vaccines. Here are some studies showing toxicity of thimerosal.

1. List of 165 studies showing thimerosal is harmful. It's an XLSX file. You will need Excel or LibreOffice (free) to open it.
2. 2003. Thimerosal causes cell death, cell membrane damage, DNA damage and more in human neurons and fibroblasts. "Changes in cell viability rapidly occurred after administration of thimerosal in all cell cultures and were detected by the loss of ability to exclude the fluorescent dye DAPI."
3. 2010. Exposure to thimerosal as infants shown to cause lasting changes in mu opioid receptors in the brain.  They have increased sensitivity to morphine. Thimerosal's toxicity is likely augmented by other chemicals in the vaccines.
4. 2012. Thimerosal is well-known to be toxic to brain cells. They tested muscle cells and found thimerosal to significantly inhibit cell growth.
5. 2014. 99% of T-cells were exposed to a vaccine called Pandemrix were killed overnight.
6. 2014. Super small nanomolar concentrations of thimerosal prevents dendritic cell maturation. Vaccine used: Panenza.
7. 2014. "Thimerosal is initially metabolized into ethyl-Hg compounds and thiosalicylate and rapidly binds onto thiol groups found on many proteins in human blood [2]. It is then actively transported across the blood brain barrier, including by the l-type neutral amino acid carrier transport (LAT) system, into human neuronal cells [3, 4], where it significantly accumulates and persists for many months following exposure and alters numbers of neurons in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and thalamus [5, 6]."
8. 2014. Scientists complain about methodologies in studies about the safety of thimerosal. While the CDC says the additive is safe, another CDC study found children were 7.6x more likely to get autism.

That should keep you busy for a while. :)

NN publishes 239 tests of US municipal water systems

239 samples of municipal water were taken across the US. 6.7% have toxic levels of heavy metals. 2.5% exceed EPA limits. (I don't know why they think high copper levels is a problem but it is counted as a problem.)

It's too bad they didn't check for the top 10 pesticides in use.

Get the lab test spreadsheet here.

Where cannabis is legal

US

1. Colorado: recreational marijuana is legal but you cannot smoke it out of doors. You must be inside. 
2. Michigan: medical M is legal but you need a medical marijuana card (MMD) from a doctor. 

Canada

1. British Columbia: It is technically illegal to carry cannabis without a medical license in British Columbia but laws are not enforced generally if one is caught with less than a quarter of an ounce. The BC cannabis industry is brings in a huge $6 billion annually, making bud one of the most valuable cash crops in the area.
2. Vancouver: draws many tourists to its medical and legal marijuana markets. 

Amsterdam, Holland. There are marijuana cafes.

Australia has legalized cannabis and has a pot culture in certain towns. Pot enthusiasts from all over the world are attracted to the annual MardiGrass festival in Nimbin, New South Wales.

Prague: very liberal drug laws where many drugs are decriminalized.

Spain: one of the first European countries to legalize marijuana.

Source
MMU. May 18, 2016.

Another article: Kratom and CBD need protection from overreach of FDA hysterics.

Federal judge: It's still ok to frack on public lands

Obama tried to restrict fracking on public lands but a federal judge struck down the rule from the Dept. of Interior.

So why does the DOI have no authority to make that rule, while the EPA makes up harmful rules as it goes?


Source
Ecowatch.

More radiation poisoning from Fukushima.

MUST READ: Here's a list of more news articles covering how widespread the radiation poisoning from the Fukushima radiation is. Some tidbits just from this one list of articles:

- Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

1. 73 percent of mackerel tested
2. 91 percent of the halibut
3. 92 percent of the sardines
4. 93 percent of the tuna and eel
5. 94 percent of the cod and anchovies
6. 100 percent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish

- BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

- An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

- According to Tepco (the company that owned the Fukushima reactor), a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

Publish your book with Markdown via Leanpub

Leanpub. You write in Markdown or Word and publish as EPUB, .MOBI, HTML or PDF. You get 90% royalties. I just thought this was neat.

Writing in Markdown (of which there are many flavors) allows a person to write once, but produce many types of documents.

Sassafras tea causes cancer

More and more people are turning to "natural" ingredients and are missing out on important information: their dangerous side effects. The plant that once was used to make root beer was deemed to cause cancer, and the FDA banned it decades ago.

Studies: 
Botanical Dietary Supplements Gone Bad. 2007.
Sassafras from WebMD.
From Dr. Weil. 
JAMA article from 1976. "...aromatic oil present in sassafras root bark, was a hepatocarcinogen in rats..."
Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, part 189.180.  
A Google search.

Cadmium exposure and cigarette papers

Today's article is about cadmium and cadmium compounds in cigarette smoke. Only one of many reasons first-hand and second-hand smoke is so dangerous.

Cadmium is  a heavy metal and can cause all kinds of health problems. Here are some studies linking cadmium exposure from cigarette papers. The papers are soaked in cadmium compounds to make it smolder slowly instead of burn.

- Cigarette Smoke Cadmium Breakthrough from Traditional Filters: Implications for Exposure. 2015.

1. Cadmium, an IARC group 1 human carcinogen, is highly toxic to renal, skeletal, nervous, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems. Pulmonary exposure to nebulized cadmium compounds induces emphysema and pulmonary interstitial fibrosis. Elevated blood cadmium levels are strongly associated with increased prevalence of peripheral artery disease. Pancreatic cancer has been associated with smoking and elevated urine cadmium concentrations. Elevated cadmium/zinc ratios in serum of smokers has been suggested as a critical determinant for risk of prostate cancer.
2. Cadmium passed through 44 mm filters typically used on linear smoking machines to an even greater degree, ranging from 13.6% to 30.4%.
3. Cadmium has a biological half-life of 13.6 to 23.5 years. That means in 23.5 years only HALF will be gone from the body.
4. Concentrations of toxic metals such as barium and manganese are much higher than cadmium concentrations in tobacco.16,17 Cadmium, however, has a lower propensity to form nonvolatile oxides relative to many metals such as these. Therefore, cadmium, like its periodic homologue mercury, is a relatively volatile metal that is readily transported in tobacco smoke.
5. In this study platinum traps were used to trap cadmium in order to more accurately find out how much cadmium comes out of cigarette smoke. 

- Lead, Cadmium, Smoking, and Increased Risk of Peripheral Arterial Disease. 2004.
Blood lead and cadmium, at levels well below current safety standards, were associated with an increased prevalence of peripheral arterial disease in the general US population.

- The German Environmental Survey 1990/1992 (GerES II): cadmium in blood, urine and hair of adults and children. Published 2000.
Active cigarette smoking was found to be dominant in affecting blood and urine cadmium levels in adults, but less important for cadmium levels in hair.

- Establishment of Toxic Metal Reference Range in Tobacco from US Cigarettes. Journal of Analytical Toxicology. 2013.

1. Among the more than 4,000 identified compounds in smoke, many metals contribute to the health risks associated with tobacco use.
2. Specific metals found in tobacco and tobacco smoke have been classified as carcinogens by the IARC.
3. The methods were utilized to examine arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, and nickel content in cigarette tobacco and to establish a reference range for the metals in 50 varieties of cigarettes available in the U.S.
4. At the time of the study about 20% of US citizens were still smokers. 
5. In addition to being a carcinogen, cadmium is associated with development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and toxicity to kidneys.
6. Though barium and manganese concentrations in tobacco are readily measurable, neither is as efficiently transported into smoke as more volatile elements, such as cadmium and lead.
7. Detection limits of the instruments used were down to the fraction of a microgram. 
8. For mean concentrations of various dangerous metals, see Table 3.

Each of these studies references many more studies showing the toxicity of cigarette smoke and heavy metals therein. See the actual studies for more information.

More sources and studies

1. IARC monograph on cadmium. PDF. Monographs summarize data that we know, list studies as the sources, and are updated periodically when new information is available.
2. Toxicological profile of cadmium. 2012 PDF.
3. Navas-Acien A, Selvin E, Sharrett AR, Calderon-Aranda E, Silbergeld E, Guallar E. Lead, cadmium, smoking, and increased risk of peripheral arterial disease. Circulation. 2004;109:3196–201. Pubmed.

Interactive map shows 6500 North Carolina farms that pollute

Farming operations jeopardize stream water with pollutants such as Roundup, pesticides, and animal waste, making the water dangerous and undrinkable. And you sure don't want your kids swimming in it, even you can tolerate the smell.

An interactive map will show the location of these fields.

Direct link to map.

Herpes simplex causes constipation and other problems

A herpes simplex 1 infection can cause constipation.

The HSV1 virus spread from the genitals to nerves in the spinal chord, and then on to neurons in the colon, killing them. The damage to the colonic neurons prevented the movement of food along the digestive tract, leading to an enlarged colon and disease. Other members of the herpes virus family, including Epstein-Barr virus, chicken pox virus, and cytomegalovirus have been found in the neurons of the colon of people with unexplained chronic constipation.

Source
Science Daily. June 8, 2016.