Pediatrician calls state trooper, child protective services on mother for refusing to vaccinate child

(NaturalNews)What would you do if your pediatrician called the cops and child protective services on you for refusing to get your child vaccinated? That is exactly what happened recently to Rachel Garmon of Pennsylvania when she told her new pediatrician that her healthy and vibrant…

Raw Milk Freedom Riders ride again! Join them at Chicago’s Independence Park on December 8, 2011

(NaturalNews) After successfully rallying hundreds of parents and food freedom advocates for its inaugural raw milk rally at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, just a few weeks ago, the Raw Milk Freedom Riders (RMFR) are riding once again! On December 8, 2011, a caravan of food freedom patriots will make the trek from Wisconsin to Chicago’s Independence Park to distribute raw milk and cookies, and collectively take a stand for food freedom. Birthed by the Farm Food Freedom Coalition (FFFC), the RMFR movement on November 1, 2011, successfully hauled a load of raw milk from Pennsylvania, where it can be legally sold, to Maryland, where it cannot be legally sold. Now the group plans to do the same thing from Wisconsin, where raw milk sales are illegal, to nearby Illinois, where it can only be sold to consumers directly from the farm. The caravan will meet at US-14 E and 6 Corners Road at the border of Illinois and Wisconsin just south of Walworth, Wisc., at 10:00 am on Dec. 8. From there, the riders will travel south and east into Chicago via I-90, and commence at Independence Park for the official rally at 11:30 pm. Independence Park is located at 3850 West Irving Park Road. Liz Reitzig, co-founder of FFFC, will be joined by heath freedom heroes Max Kane, Michael Schmidt, David Gumpert, Kathy Pirtle, John Moody, Jim Marlowe, and others in distributing 100 gallons of raw milk and cookies to event attendees as a statement of solidarity in support of freedom of food choice and dietary privacy. Anyone interested in joining the caravan or attending the rally at Independence Park is encouraged to show up and express his or her support. Like he did for the first RMFR event in Maryland, health freedom advocate Max Kane has once again challenged the FDA to see if the agency will show up to the Chicago event and try to take enforcement action against the riders, which it did not do in Maryland. You can view his video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK1VpnkANRY RMFR Chicago has also created a Facebook event page by which you can learn more about the event, and confirm your attendance if you plan to attend: https://www.facebook.com/events/290165197690562/ To learn more about the RMFR movement and to stay abreast of all future rides, visit: http://www.rawmilkfreedomriders.com

Max Kane calls out FDA to enforce raw milk law against moms — will the agency show up on Nov. 1?

(NaturalNews) A caravan of Raw Milk Freedom Riders (RMFR) will be making its way to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in just a few days on Nov. 1 to protest against the agency’s irrational ban on the sale and distribution of raw milk across state lines. Max Kane, executive producer of FarmFoodFreedom.org and one of the speakers at the event, wants to know if the FDA will actually show up and try to enforce these laws against the mothers. Kane recently tried to call the FDA to report the “illegal” activity that will soon take place in front the agency’s main facilities in Silver Spring, Md., on Nov. 1. After getting shuffled around a couple dozen times to different offices and divisions of the FDA, he finally gets through to the voicemail of John Sheehan, director of the FDA’s Division of Plant and Dairy Food Safety, and one of the head honchos in the war against raw milk. You can watch the full video of Kane’s attempts to report the RMFR event to the FDA at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8KfB7005UY In early 2011, the FDA used its interstate commerce clause to file a lawsuit against Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer from Pennsylvania, alleging that he was illegally shipping raw milk across state lines into Maryland where the food is prohibited for sale. Consumers in other states are now challenging this lawsuit with one of their own against the FDA (http://www.naturalnews.com/029322_raw_milk_Amish.html). But a group of mothers has decided to take things one step further by organizing a caravan that will deliberately bring raw milk into Maryland from Pennsylvania, and stage a massive “drink in” in front of FDA headquarters, which is located at 10903 New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring. This offensive approach, which is drawing nationwide attention, has left the FDA literally speechless. In his voicemail message, Kane invites Sheehan and any others at the FDA to either attend the event, or to come and take action against the mothers, whom he says will be parked on the southbound shoulder of Conowingo Road (US Route 1) in Rising Sun, Md., at exactly 10:30 am EST on Nov. 1. This is the official meeting spot just south of the Pennsylvania border where the caravan will meet up and proceed to FDA’s headquarters. Be sure to watch Kane’s full video appeal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8KfB7005UY To learn more about Raw Milk Freedom Riders, or to join the caravan yourself, visit: http://www.rawmilkfreedomriders.com

District ignores unanimous opposition by parents, approves installation of Phillips Exxon Mobil Corp ‘fracking’ wells on school property

(NaturalNews) Not a single parent of a student attending a South Butler County School District (SBCSD) school has expressed support for the district’s plan to allow Phillips Exxon Mobil (PEM) Corp. to build oil and natural gas drilling wells on school property. But this did not stop the Pennsylvania school district’s board members from approving, in a 6 – 2 decision, a lease permitting PEM to build the wells as close as 500 feet from classrooms. Pennsylvania has become a hotbed of natural gas drilling operations in recent years due to its proximity right over the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, both of which contain large amounts of lucrative natural gas fuel. As a result, formerly-unspoiled land, private property, and now public schools, are all becoming infested with drilling machinery and wells, which are a serious threat to environmental and human health (http://www.naturalnews.com/032358_fracking_gas_drilling.html). “I have concerns that the safety of our children may be compromised,” said Heather Rickenbrode, a Penn Township resident and parent of a SBCSD-enrolled child, to Pittsburg Live . “I am personally not willing to gamble my child’s health for an education.” At a recent public hearing on the issue, which was not widely announced, a group of local residents expressed serious concerns about allowing “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) wells to be built so closely to facilities where young children spend much of their time throughout the school year. Since fracking involves the injection of many tons of water and chemicals into the ground — and many accidents have already occurred, resulting in poisoned groundwater and other environmental contamination — it has no place on school property, they say. SBCSD also has a water well on site that it uses to water the school football field, which represents another problematic factor in the equation. Though the well is not used for drinking water, its possible contamination by fracking chemicals could have devastating effects on the student athletes that use the field for practice and games. Nevertheless, despite a complete death of support from local residents or parents for the project, district officials have approved the fracking lease anyway. If and when drilling wells are built, SBCSD will receive $3,750 from PEM per acre used, plus an 18 percent royalty fee, according to Pittsburg Live . PEM will also pay SBCSD a $15,000 fee for every well that it builds. Sources for this story include: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_756893.html#ixzz1Y82vZHY9

Is natural gas ‘fracking’ responsible for the recent earthquake swarms in strange locations?

(NaturalNews) The natural gas industry and its advocates claim that hydraulic fracturing, the modern technique for extracting natural gas, also known as “fracking,” is beneficial to the interests of American energy independence. However, a simple report recently issued by KARK 4 News in Little Rock, Ark., suggests that fracking operations, which involve pumping large amounts of water and chemicals deep underground, may be responsible for triggering the mysterious earthquakes that have been striking in unusual locations across the nation in recent months. One of at least 14 US states where fracking operations are currently active, Arkansas is not exactly the most seismically active region in the US. Though the state sits near the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), a fault that is considered to have the highest earthquake risk outside the West Coast, the area typically only experiences a few small shakes in an average month, with larger ones occurring on an even more sporadic basis. However, the area around Greenbrier, Ark., had experienced an unusually high frequency of small-to-mid sized earthquakes in recent months — that is, until several local fracking operations ceased operations. While fracking was still taking place in the area, it was common to experience hundreds of earthquakes in an average month. But now that all fracking wells have been closed, the earth surrounding them has calmed significantly. During one three-week period when fracking was still occurring in the Greenbrier area, for instance, the Arkansas Geological Survey (AGS) recorded an astounding 919 earthquakes. After the first two fracking fluid disposal wells were closed, earthquake frequency dropped to 312. And following the closure of all four wells, the number or earthquakes that occurred dropped to a mere nine, none of which clocked in above a 2.5 magnitude. Similarly, some have suggested that fracking operations in Pennsylvania may have been at least partially responsible for the recent 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck near the unusual location of Mineral, Va., on August 23, 2011 (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Did-Fracking-Cause-the-Vir-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-110823-993.html). There will, of course, always be natural earthquakes that occur without the help of man-made intervention. But in this case, it appears as though a modern technology that pumps millions of gallons of toxic fluids deep into the earth’s upper crust may be helping to jostle things a little bit more than usual. Sources for this story include: http://arkansasmatters.com/news-fulltext?nxd_id=461097 http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/fracking-across-the-united-states http://www.opednews.com/articles/Did-Fracking-Cause-the-Vir-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-110823-993.html

Philadelphia exurb ends water fluoridation

(NaturalNews) We can only hope that the recent surge in American communities voting to end water fluoridation is an omen to the eventual end of this abominable and toxic practice across the entire country. A recent report in the The Mercury explains that officials in Pottstown, Penn., a northwest exurb of Philadelphia with over 21,000 residents, have decided to stop fluoridating the borough’s public water supply. Reports indicate that, despite the fact that not a single Pottstown resident showed up at any of the public hearings concerning fluoride, the Pottstown Borough Authority voted to remove the toxic chemical on its own, which it had been importing from China. Pottstown had been one of only a few communities in Pennsylvania that artificially fluoridate their water supplies. Only one board member, Aram Ecker, opposed removing fluoride — and he did so, of course, using the same outdated and pseudo-scientific talking points peddled by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA), and others who continue to deny the numerous, more recent studies that show fluoride consumption causes brain damage, thyroid dysfunction, and other health problems (http://www.naturalnews.com/fluoride.html). The move will save Pottstown as much as $60,000 a year, which is roughly what it costs to import the liquid toxin from China, and lace it in the water supply. As a result, the borough’s water department workers will also no longer have to go through the intense handling procedures that are required when dealing with highly corrosive fluoride chemicals. Pottstown’s decision came just one day after Spring Hill, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville, voted to remove fluoride from its water supply, which marks what appears to be the eventual decline of the chemical’s use across the US (http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110818/WILLIAMSON12/308180009/Spring-Hill-drop-fluoride). Sources for this story include: http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/08/17/news/doc4e4c8b9451e2d973211155.txt

Investigation panel concludes U.S. government guilty of medical crimes against humanity in secret Guatemalan medical experiments

(NaturalNews) U.S. government medical researchers, including those from the National Institute of Health (NIH), engaged in heinous crimes through secret medical experiments on Guatemalan medical experiments , concluded an investigative report commissioned by President Obama. The report concluded that: • The U.S. government knowingly funded and deliberately engaged in criminal medical experiments against Guatemalan prisoners. • At least 5,500 people were drafted into the experiments, including children , women and the mentally ill. The number deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) exceeded 1,300 (that we know of). • U.S. doctors and medical researchers knowingly and deliberately violated all the fundamental medical ethics including “do no harm.” • The victims of this criminal, government-run pharmaceutical experiment were mentally ill prisoners who were deliberate infected with STDs just to see what would happen. • The victims were “not treated like human beings” but rather like laboratory animals and were deprived of basic human dignity in these heinous medical crimes. • The purpose of the medical experiment was to test the effectiveness of penicillin for the pharmaceutical companies so they could sell the drug at high profit while claiming it had been “scientifically and clinically tested” to prevent the contraction of STDs. • Victims were not even informed they were being infected with STDs. The entire experiment was a clandestine operation involving an admitted conspiracy between Big Pharma and the U.S. government . Undeniable evidence has now emerged that the doctors and medical researchers involved in the experiment actively took steps to hide what they were doing. (Because they knew they were engaged in EVIL actions.) (Gee, I guess conspiracies really do exist, huh? All those people who dismiss “conspiracy theorists” have obviously never read actual U.S. history and have no knowledge of the way the pharmaceutical industry really works…) • One purpose of these experiments was to “…find a reliable way of infecting subjects for future studies,” reports the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-scientists-knew-1940s-guatemalan-std-studies-were-unethical-panel-finds/2011/08/26/gIQA2CxLoJ_story.html). “Doctors also poured bacteria onto wounds they had opened with needles on prisoners’ penises, faces and arms. In some cases, infectious material was injected into their spines.” • Today, of course, the medical industry has long since found the perfect way to infect subjects for experimental studies — Vaccines! Seriously: If these doctors, NIH researchers and government authorities would inject mentally ill prisoners with infectious diseases (directly into their spines), do you honestly think they wouldn’t load up today’s vaccines with live viruses and unleash mass vaccination campaigns to cause cancer , pandemics and other diseases that generate Big Pharma profits? (Grow up, folks. The medical industry is based on fundamental evils and criminal madness. The sooner you get that through your heads, the sooner you’ll understand why there are no pharmaceutical cures for any disease — they WANT you to be sick!) “They should shock the conscience not in spite of their medical context, but precisely because of it,” said commission chairwoman Amy Gutmann, who also serves as president of the University of Pennsylvania. “The people who were in the know, did want to keep it secret because if it would become more widely known, it would become the subject of public criticism,” she said. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/usa-guatemala-syphilis-idUSN1E77S0XW20110829) • Guatemala condemned the medical experiments as “crimes against humanity” and vowed to prosecute the United States government for its role in international courts. • The Institute of Medicine was asked by President Obama to take part in the investigation of the criminal medical experiments on Guatemalans but had to recuse itself because of past ties with the research. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033455_Institute_of_Medicine_vaccines.html) Details about Dr. John Cutler, the M.D. who carried out these medical crimes on behalf of the U.S. government and the NIH • These crimes in Guatemala were carried out by a conventional medical doctor named Dr. John Cutler who was funded by a grant from the NIH. • Dr. Cutler acted with complete alignment alongside the pharmaceutical industry’s total disregard for human life. When one of the mentally ill victims who was infected with STDs began to show signs that she might die , Dr. Cutler proceeded to infect her with yet more syphilis and did nothing while she suffered and then died. This is how the pharmaceutical industry routinely operates in conspiracy with the NIH and government entities (see below). • These medical experiments were not merely conducted in “foreign countries,” by the way. After successfully sacrificing Guatemalans on the altar of pharmaceutical profits, Dr. John Cutler was granted permission to take part in the infamous Tuskegee experiments that targeted African Americans. That experiment went on for four decades until it was finally ended in 1972. Yes — FOUR decades of government-run medical experiments on black Americans. • After the Tuskegee experiments, Dr. John Cutler continued to run medical experiments on Americans in Terre Haute, Indiana, where prison inmates were deliberately infected with STDs. • Dr. Cutler died in 2003 and probably went to Hell. He never apologized for his research, insisting that he was acting in an ethical manner as a doctor. (Seriously. This is yet another great example of how doctors suffer from egomaniacal self delusion that allows them to justify vaccines, chemotherapy and other deadly procedures that kill millions of innocent people every year.) Other facts about Dr. John Cutler • Dr. Cutler was a eugenicist — a person obsessed with population control and shaping the future gene pool of the human race by deliberately killing “inferior” races. This is why his medical experiments, by the way, often targeted blacks, South Americans and other groups that he saw as “inferior.” • The U.S. government was so impressed with the criminal medical experiments and eugenics projects run by Dr. Cutler that he was made assistant U.S. Surgeon General in 1958! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Charles_Cutler) Job well done, doctor! Here, have a raise! • The medical university system was also impressed with Dr. John Cutler’s crimes against blacks and Guatemalan prisoners, so he was appointed a professor of international health at the University of Pittsburgh in 1967. There, he served as the chairman of the department of health administration and was the dean of the Graduate School of Public Health (1968 – 1969). The University of Pittsburgh even held a lecture series in his name to honor his legacy! (Yes, this is how much the medical university system worships criminal murderers and soulless death dealers who run the pharmaceutical establishment.) • As the truth about these experiments has surfaced, and the criminals involved in it are starting to be exposed, all the usual suspects are predictably coming out and insisting it’s all terrible, terrible stuff. “This is a dark chapter in our history. It is important to shine the light of day on it. We owe it to the people of Guatemala who were experimented on, and we owe it to ourselves to recognize what a dark chapter it was,” said Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania. Adding to that, Anita L. Allen, also of the University of Pennsylvania, added “Actually cruel and inhuman conduct took place. These are very grave human rights violations.” (Yet they say nothing about similar crimes being conducted right now through the mass vaccination of our children with live viruses and chemical adjuvants…) • Dr. Cutler’s wife has admitted that he was steeped in the industry of population control . Both he and his wife reportedly contributed to the Population Council and Pathfinder International (http://saynsumthn.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/population-control-was-the-passion-of-john-c-cutler-author-of-controversial-guatemala-syphilis-study-the-us-now-apologizes-for/). His wife, Eliese Cutler, later served as a board member of Planned Parenthood. The real story is that this is all Standard Operating Procedure for the medical industrial complex The real story in all this is not that the U.S. government waged a murderous medical experiment with the help of medical doctors who totally knew they were murdering people but did it anyway — although that might seem like a whopper of a discovery all by itself. No, the real story here is that this is how the government pharmaceutical medical industrial complex operates every single day. You think these experiments have stopped? You think the Guatemalan experiments were an isolated case of some mad doctor? Think again. Both the U.S. government and the pharmaceutical giants (especially the vaccine companies) have waged hundreds of illegal, inhumane medical experiments in just the last century. We’ve published a list of the worst ones, in fact. And these are only the ones that somehow got found out. Behind the scenes, probably thousands of illegal medical experiments have been conducted in prisoners, mentally ill patients, children, senior citizens, soldiers and other people. See the list we’ve published at: http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html and http://www.naturalnews.com/019187.html In fact, Dr. Jonas Salk , the widely-worshipped “God” of the vaccine industry and the hero of all those brainwashed scientists who ridiculously believe vaccines halted the polio pandemic, was himself a medical criminal who conducted illegal experiments on mentally ill patients (http://www.naturalnews.com/031564_Jonas_Salk_medical_experiments.html). And no, polio vaccines did not stop polio. But we’ll save that report for another day. The vaccine industry is driven by profits, not any sort of respect for human life The kind of heinous medical crimes against humanity that took place in Guatemala continue to this very day. The pharmaceutical industry (and the vaccine industry in particular) has zero respect for human life and will routinely sacrifice any number of lives to test some new experimental drug or vaccine they want to sell for profit. In 2008, for example, Pfizer was caught engaging in illegal drug trials on Nigerian children. The crimes were so malicious — eleven Nigerian children DIED in the trials — that Nigerian officials actually issued arrest warrants for Pfizer researchers (http://www.naturalnews.com/023654.html). Just recently, Pfizer has reluctantly been forced to begin compensating the families of some of those victims of the illegal drug trials (http://www.naturalnews.com/033358_Pfizer_drug_experiments.html). Merck has long engaged in the use of the population for vaccine experiments involving things such as SV40 cancer viruses which even Merck’s own top vaccine scientist admits was knowingly contained in the Polio vaccines given to tens of millions of Americans. Watch this stunning video of a Merck scientist admitting all this: (seriously, watch this video and you will be absolutely stunned that the old media never reports any of this) http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=13EAAF22CDA367BB3C2F94D2CD90EF7B This video was compiled by Dr. Len Horowitz, a leading vaccine researcher who exposes Big Pharma’s lies about vaccinations, infectious disease and much more. (www.DrLenHorowitz.com) Vaccines ARE the medical experiment! Today, pharma-run medical experimentation on humans continues en masse through mass vaccination schemes. Vaccines are made with experimental, unproven viral fragments and often contain LIVE viruses that cause infectious disease. The Institute of Medicine even admitted all this in its latest report on vaccine adverse reactions (http://www.naturalnews.com/033447_Institute_of_Medicine_vaccines.html). Every year, flu vaccines are pushed onto the population with no randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies whatsoever. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to show that flu vaccines are either safe or effective. In fact, all the evidence shows that flu vaccines are all but worthless in actually preventing flu infections (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_junk_science.html). At the same time, vaccines contain thimerosal (methyl mercury), aluminum, polysorbate and chemical adjuvants that are highly toxic to the human nervous system. When these are all injected into little children, they often suffer seizures or even death (http://www.naturalnews.com/029586_Australia_vaccines.html). This is no different from Dr. John Cutler and the U.S. government injecting the spinal columns of Guatemalan prisoners with infected materials. This is ROUTINE in the medical industry. They do it every single day in the vaccine industry. The Gardasil HPV vaccine, by the way, has been linked with numerous deaths of teenage girls (http://www.naturalnews.com/030991_Gardasil_vaccine.html). Medical conspiracy becomes medical fact The really astonishing thing about this story is that these Guatemalan medical experiments only became widely known through the conventional media after Susan M. Reverby, a historian at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, discovered the Guatemalan experiments while researching information on the Tuskegee medical experiments. All this suddenly burst onto the scene in 2010 only because an academic in the university system went public with it. If the alternative media had published a story about all this, the mainstream media would have totally ignored it and pretended it was all some “conspiracy theory.” But as you quickly learn if you read NaturalNews, what was once dismissed as conspiracy theory eventually becomes acknowledged as conspiracy fact . Most of the medical industry’s top priorities are all pursued through conspiracies involving drug companies, the CDC, the FDA, medical journals and countless doctors and researchers who routinely accept bribes and falsify “scientific” studies to produce the results they want (http://www.naturalnews.com/028194_Scott_Reuben_research_fraud.html). Of course, nearly everything the alternative media like NaturalNews.com and InfoWars.com publishes about vaccines, the FDA, the pharmaceutical companies and processed food companies is completely true — and much of that truth reveals crimes against humanity that are far worse than the Guatemalan medical experiments. Yet these things go completely unreported. Don’t expect Anderson “CIA” Cooper to cover this on CNN. Don’t expect any admission by the media that the vaccine industry or the government does anything bad to anyone, ever! To hear the old media tell it, vaccines are good for you. Drug companies are loving, compassionate companies that respect life and are seeking cures. What they don’t tell you is that vaccines are essentially manufactured by taking rooms full of primates imprisoned in cages, injecting them with diseases, waiting for those diseases to fester in their organs, then “harvesting” those diseased organs from the dying primates, blending them up into a bloody liquid mass, then processing that into a liquid that’s loaded into vaccine vials and injected into the bodies of little children. That’s the truth about the vaccine industry, and it’s a truth you will never hear reported in the sick, deceptive mainstream media which only reluctantly reported this Guatemalan story because they couldn’t cover it up quickly enough. All the vaccine pushing “skeptics” and “quack watchers” out there, by the way, think these Guatemalan medical experiments are just great! The more experiments, the better. They fully support any and all crimes against humanity as long as pharmaceutical profits can be achieved in the process. Know one thing: Wherever on planet Earth that you find the most heinous, barbaric and inhumane crimes being committed (Nazi Germany, for example), you always find a medical doctor nearby , often running the show. Who oversaw the gassing of the Jews in Nazi Germany? Medical doctors. Who ran the Guatemalan medical experiments? Medical doctors. Who pushed for the mass fluoride poisoning of the populations of North American cities? Medical doctors. Throughout the history of modern medicine, medical doctors have been the criminals, the masterminds, the henchmen and the slithering serpents who carried out the worst crimes ever recorded in human history. No wonder the symbol of western medicine is the Caducaes — two serpents intertwined in the shape of human DNA, climbing a staff which indicates domination and control. The message of this symbol which adorns countless hospitals, doctor’s offices and clinics across the western world, is very clear: We shall wield control over human biology in the name of pure evil (the serpents). And if you think these murderous, government-funded medical experiments conducted in Guatemala were bad, then I dare you to look in the mirror . If you take vaccines in 2011, YOU ARE THE EXPERIMENT.

US Energy Department panel endorses shale fracking, suggests pumping ground with millions of gallons of chemical water will help save environment

(NaturalNews) Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” for the purpose of extracting natural gas from the earth involves flooding it with millions of gallons of chemical-laden water, a practice that by all estimates is damaging the environment to some extent. But a US Energy Department (ED) advisory panel, which happens to be padded with members connected to the natural gas industry, insists that fracking is safe, and even contends that it will help to lower the carbon dioxide emissions allegedly responsible for so-called climate change. A recent report in The Washington Post (WP) explains the ED panel’s notion that, despite continual outcry over fracking operations polluting rivers and groundwater supplies, natural gas fracking can safely continue as long as fracking companies agree to be more open about their actions, and comply with monitoring requirements that track environmental impact and make this information publicly available. But in an industry that is already knowingly hiding the truth about its polluting activities — and secretly dumping its toxic waste directly into the environment, for instance — it is naive for ED committee members to purport that simply telling drilling companies to be more forthcoming is going to have a substantially beneficial impact. Fracking, no matter how closely monitored, pollutes the environment in devastating ways. In order to release oil and gas from shale rock deep underground, giant machines must force large amounts of water, sand, chemicals, and radioactive elements deep into the earth’s upper crust in order to crack the rock that potentially holds this valuable fuel. But in the process, the resultant radioactive chemical cocktail seeps into water tables, wells, rivers, and lakes, as well as the various drinking water supplies to which these sources are fed. Even if the fracking industry suddenly decides to be more open and honest about the fact that drilling fluids are severely contaminating soil and water, the only thing that will change is that now everyone will be aware of it. Thanks to an energy bill passed by Congress back in 2005 that exempts the natural gas drilling industry from having to comply with the US Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), fracking operations are free to pollute as much as they please — they just might have to disclose this fact at some point in the future. The Shale Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SGS) which put out the recent report endorsing fracking does not even address this SDWA exemption. As a result, its recommendations are meaningless in all practical terms, as they will do absolutely nothing to stop the tide of environmental pollution being spewed by the fracking industry. Current water purification techniques are unable to capture methane and radon, for instance, both of which come from fracking. Consequently, drinking water supplies throughout Pennsylvania, which is a fracking hot spot due to its location in the Marcellus Shale Formation region, are becoming increasingly toxic with no end in sight. So as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues its ongoing investigation into the environmental impacts of fracking, the SGS committee comes along and makes a few useless recommendations that it says will address the problems with fracking, but that in reality will do absolutely nothing to solve them. At least six SGS committee members have ties to the natural gas industry The mindless recommendations made by SGS in support of the fracking industry make a lot more sense, however, in light of the industries to which many of its members are connected. According to a recent report issued by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), at least six SGS committee members are known to have connections to the oil and gas industries. Signed by 28 scientists from 22 universities and institutions in 13 states, all of whom object to the SGS panel’s recommendations, the EWG report explains that Chairman John Deutch, Stephen Holditch, Kathleen McGinty, Susan Tierney, Daniel Yergin, and Mark Zoback all have financial ties to the oil and gas industries, a blatant conflict of interest for a committee that is supposed to offer unbiased counsel to the ED. SGS Chairman John Deutch, for instance, currently serves on the board of the natural gas firm Cheniere Energy. According to the WP, Deutch was paid more than $1.4 million by both Cheniere and Schlumberger, another oil and gas firm, between 2006 and 2009. And Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who was appointed directly by President Obama, chose Deutch for the SGS Chairman position knowing full well his connections to the oil and gas industries. So just like the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is filled with officials connected to the pharmaceutical industry, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is filled with officials connected to the biotechnology industry, the Energy Department, is filled with officials connected to the oil and gas industries. And so it goes in the “land of the free,” where special interests run the government and its powerful regulatory agencies. Driven by greed and an insatiable lust for power, corporate snakes have quietly infiltrated the very agencies that were designed to protect the interests of the people, and have restructured them to serve corporate interests instead. Sources for this story include: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/energy-department-panel-to-endorse-shale-gas-exploration/2011/08/10/gIQAXqbh7I_story.html

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg pushing to eliminate conflict of interest laws, allow paid drug company shills to fill advisory positions

(NaturalNews) At a time when drug industry corruption is reaching a pinnacle of public exposure, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is actually proposing eliminating one of the few pseudo-effective measures in place that restricts the agency from becoming a full-blown Big Pharma “rubber stamp” consultant. In a recent announcement, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg stated that the agency may next year loosen certain conflict of interest restrictions that prevent scientists with financial ties to the drug industry from becoming members of FDA advisory panels. There are 45 different FDA advisory committees that, according to the FDA’s own website, are supposed to obtain “independent expert advice on scientific, technical, and policy matters.” In other words, these panels are purportedly to be composed of objective, unbiased individuals that do not have financial or other ties to the very companies about which they are advising. Makes sense, right? Well, in the eyes of Commissioner Hamburg, these common sense restrictions, which at least give the illusion that the FDA conducts honest regulatory work on behalf of the people, are unreasonable and must be eliminated. Hamburg apparently believes that drug industry-funded “scientists” are vital to the FDA’s work, having stated publicly that allowing Big Pharma shills to serve on advisory committees is essential if the agency is to get the information it needs to make decisions. “We have to be sure that FDA has subject-matter experts that we need for our important decision making,” stated Hamburg. But expecting to receive “independent expert advice” from industry-sponsored consultants posing as scientists rather than actual independent scientists, however, is the epitome of inane — and this is precisely what Hamburg is suggesting as a correct form of FDA policy. Does the FDA have the power to change its own regulatory restrictions? Aside from Hamburg’s senseless and illogical opinions about how best to obtain crucial decision-making information, the other glaring elephant in the room is the fact that the FDA can apparently change its own regulatory restrictions at will. What is the point of an agency having conflict of interest restrictions placed on it when that very same agency can simply change them when they are no longer convenient? Last time we checked, Congress was still in charge of creating and passing laws, not the FDA. But Commissioner Hamburg seems quite sure of herself, presumably because of expressed congressional support, that the FDA’s conflict of interest laws will soon be history. And it appears, based on the FDA’s released draft guidance, that the FDA is actually the one in charge of amending its own policies (http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm126832.htm). The FDA claims that it needs to loosen or eliminate the conflict of interest policies from its advisory committee procedures because it is unable to find enough members to serve on its committees. According to a recent Bloomberg report, only 77 percent of FDA advisory committee positions were filled as of March 2011, which leaves 138 vacant positions out of 608 total. But if the FDA is having a hard time filling these positions, perhaps it would do best to begin looking for eligible candidates in other places. And Robert Weissman, president of the non-profit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, agrees, having stated that the rules should not change because the FDA is unable, or unwilling, to find independent scientists to fill its ranks. “We need strong protection rather than less,” state Weissman, following Hamburg’s statements to his group about needed to relax or change the law. A study published back in March by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine discredits the FDA’s claim, having found that about 44 percent of cardiologists have no ties to the drug industry. Eric Campbell, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and one of the study’s authors, stated that the study “flat out dismisses this idea that there are no experts who don’t have relationships,” a claim being made by the FDA in support of its proposed new guidelines (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-fda-bias-idUSTRE7703R320110801). “There are lots of people out there who are smart and who don’t have conflicts of interest,” said Sid Wolfe, also with Public Citizen. “It just takes much more work for the FDA to find them. But the result is you have much less tainting of the panel discussion.” Tell the FDA to do its job, not tailor laws to suit the agenda of special interests According to the FDA’s draft guidance, the agency published a final rule on February 2, 1998, requiring clinical investigators who submit marketing applications for drugs or medical devices to also disclose whether or not they have financial ties to the companies who make the products they reviewed. Current guidelines also limit who can serve on advisory committee positions. Both of these policies can work, at least as long as the FDA is willing to put in the work necessary to find qualified individuals who are not on the payrolls of drug and medical device companies. But the agency is demonstrating a pure unwillingness to do this, and instead is planning to cave to the drug industry and to certain lawmakers who are pushing to have the law amended instead. Though the official comment period for the FDA’s proposed new guidance for financial disclosure by clinical investigators ended on July 25, it is still crucial to contact the FDA and tell it to stop catering to special interests, and to leave be the conflict of interest policies that help preserve what little integrity remains in the agency’s advisory committee process. You can contact the FDA to oppose the new draft guidance by writing to: Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305) Food and Drug Administration 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 10-61 Rockville, MD 20857 Or calling: (888) 463-6332 Be sure to reference Docket No. FDA-1999-D-0792 To contact FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg directly, you can call her: (301) 796-5000 Or email her: Office: Margaret.Hamburg@fda.hhs.gov Personal: margaretahamburg@aol.com You can also contact your representatives by visiting: http://www.congress.org Sources for this story include: http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/05/24/2011-12623/draft-guidance-for-clinical-investigators-industry-and-fda-staff-financial-disclosure-by-clinical http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/conflict-of-interest-rules-may-be-relaxed-in-2012-hamburg-says.html

Medical atrocities routinely committed against chimpanzees in the name of science

(NaturalNews) The question of whether chimpanzees and other primates should be used for biomedical research is an issue that has recently been reinvigorated thanks to 186 chimps at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico who are waiting for their verdict of either life in a grassy sanctuary or a life of torture in the name of medical research. For years, these chimps were used for biomedical research, primarily for hepatitis and HIV. Lennie, once a space chimp, has been documented as suffering atrocities, including being infected with HIV and hepatitis as well as enduring four spinal taps, a bone-marrow biopsy and repeated blood draws, to name a few. All of these very stressful experiments, no doubt, contributed to his death, apparently from heart disease, in 2002. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government entity, is interested in relocating these chimps from their “sanctuary” on an Air Force base in New Mexico, where they’ve been on a 10-year hiatus from invasive experimentation, to the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio, where they’ll be put back into invasive research. Due to public outcry spearheaded by animal rights activists, such as the Humane Society, Animal Protection of New Mexico and In Defense of Animals, the NIH has commissioned a panel to determine the fate of chimpanzees in experimentation. An analysis – to be completed in seven months – is being conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the medical branch of the independent National Academy of Sciences, “to reassess the scientific need for the continued use of chimpanzees to accelerate biomedical discoveries.” According to Eric Kleiman, the Research Director for In Defense of Animals, the IOM process is illegitimate and the outcome a foregone conclusion because of the pro-experimentation make-up of the panel and the fact that the NIH deliberately omitted the topic of ethics from the panel’s charge. For Kleiman, who’s been fighting against chimpanzee experimentation for seventeen years now, it’s a frustrating scenario. He points to what he calls a “remarkable” editorial in Nature , one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. In its June 16 issue, the journal wrote that “[The NIH] may wish to divorce the science from the ethics, but society at large will not accept such a distinction. Nor is it intellectually defensible….” Consequently, Kleiman believes that the IOM report will not be definitive. The same Nature editorial wrote that the panel’s report will provide a “valuable starting point” for the much broader discussion of the use of chimpanzees in experimentation. In fact, many researchers now believe that animal testing isn’t necessary anymore. A Petri dish can hold just as much knowledge as a live animal. For the recently-published McClatchy Newspapers Special Report “Chimps: Life in the Lab,” Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania ethicist who chaired a government panel in the 1980′s that set guidelines for animal research stated that, “the burden of justifying the research is on the researcher, and it’s very high. For primate research, you had better be able to show me that you’ve got something that’s pretty promising: an HIV vaccine, a cancer drug.” “Chimpanzees have not been a universally satisfactory model for human diseases,” concluded the National Research Council (affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences) in a 1997 report; while Science Director, Jarrod Bailey, of the anti-animal testing New England Anti-Vivisection Society is quoted as saying, “100 vaccines had been tested in nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees, and success in animals didn’t translate to success in humans.” Of course, groups like the NIH stand by their beliefs that these animals are important to their research, however there are myriad factors to consider. So where do we draw the line? “When it comes to animal experiments, in general, we’re one of the most regressive countries in the world,” laments Kleiman as he explains that, “NIH is the largest funder of animal experiments.” America is the only country, besides Gabon, that allows for invasive experiments to be conducted on chimpanzees. As a country that should be leading the way, we are falling radically behind in the arena of ethics and animal rights. Still, America isn’t entirely at fault. Although it is true that most countries have outlawed such experimentation, their companies are still free to travel overseas to utilize American facilities. Such allowances are simply loopholes and should not absolve these countries of their culpability in the perpetuation of this heinous activity. After an hour-long conversation with Kleiman, it was clear that there was a whole lot more to the story than most people are aware of, quite literally enough to write a book about. The labyrinthine issue is a mine-filled mess of fabrications and deceptions. “They’ve [the NIH] violated the law, they’ve lied to Congress,” says Kleiman. “What they’re legally doing to these chimpanzees is appalling. The NIH shouldn’t be allowed within a thousand miles of them.” When asked what he expects to see change over the next ten years, Kleiman does not seem optimistic, even though he believes the NIH’s lack of use of these chimpanzees at the APF over the past ten years is a clear indication the agency’s claims that these chimps are vital for experimentation is false. The reality is “the research goes where the money goes,” and “the NIH still has an ‘animal-model’ mindset.” He explains that much of the research conducted on animals is for useless experiments that aren’t cited by anyone but the researchers themselves. “It’s a fundamentally broken system,” says Kleiman. At some point, when playing God with the creatures we cohabitate with on planet earth, we have to ask ourselves what our obligation is as caretakers, and how long can we keep declaring that the ends justifies the means. The Dalai Lama has said that, “Today more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.” Even Einstein said, “Our task must be to free ourselves — by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” From spirituality to science, the answer seems crystal clear. Let’s hope the panel sees it that way too. When asked what the general public can do to support this cause and the freedom of the Alamogordo chimpanzees, Kleiman suggests going to this link (which provides information on contacting your representatives/senators): http://ida.convio.net/site/MessageViewer/&printer_friendly=1?em_id=18201.0&dlv_id=20641. For More Information on this Issue: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/full/474268a.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/24/v-print/112433/as-science-turns-from-chimp-research.html http://idausa.org/endchimpresearch http://idausa.org/rr http://nihchimpcruelty.com To Contact the NIH: http://www.nih.gov/about/contact.htm Texas Biomedical Research Institute – Chimpanzee Program Info: http://txbiomed.org/SNPRC/primates_chimpanzees.aspx Watch Papa Gorilla play with Baby Gorilla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKq-Tmxyly4 A Documentary Film (coming soon) on a Chimpanzee Raised by a Human Family: http://www.project-nim.com/

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