Chinese prisoners forced to mine fake gold in online video games as part of elaborate money-making scheme

(NaturalNews) The fake currencies used in online role-playing games like World of Warcraft (WoW) have become a hot new commodity that is now worth a significant amount of real currency. According to a recent report in the UK’s Guardian , some Chinese labor camps actually force their prisoners to spend countless hours on computers every day engaged in “gold farming” — and this fake gold is then sold to other players in exchange for actual money. “Prison bosses made [sic] more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labor,” said Liu Dali, a former prisoner at the Chinese Jixi labor camp, concerning his tasks there. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000 – 6,000 rmb ($770 – $924) a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.” Dali explained that during the day, prisoners performed actual physical labor like digging trenches and moving heavy boulders. But at night, everything turned virtual as select gaming prisoners performed repetitive labor tasks in the online world in order to earn fake currency, which in turn was later sold for real cash. Punishments administered to prisoners who do not perform well enough in the virtual world are very real, however, According to Dali, low-performing gamers are routinely subjected to physical punishments, many of which would qualify to the average person as torture. “If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically,” Dali is quoted as saying in the Guardian . “They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.” In other words, prisoners who fail to achieve enough fake earnings in the fake world are subject to very real consequences in the real world. And so it goes in this increasingly sick and twisted modern world where, ironically, many other common things like processed food, birth certificates, and even currencies are also fake, and yet accepted as if they are actually real (http://www.naturalnews.com/032217_Obama_birth_certificate.html). Sources for this story include: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

Radiation exposure chart admits cancer radiotherapy delivers fatal dose to patients

(NaturalNews) Thanks to the Fukushima catastrophe, we’ve all been learning a lot about the laws of physics lately — especially about radiation. To help explain it all, the folks over at InformationIsBeautiful.com have created a radiation explanation chart that shows the relative levels of harm from various doses of radiation (link below). The InformationIsBeautiful website is pretty cool. The folks there specialize in making complex data visually interesting. I’ve admired some of their work for quite some time. So I was checking out their new “Radiation Dosage Chart” which explained all the effects of receiving radiation doses of various levels. The chart revealed things like: • 100 mSv Annual dose at which increased lifetime cancer risk if evident • 250 mSv Dose limit for US radiation workers in life-saving operations • 1,000 mSv Temporary radiation sickness. Nausea, low blood count. Not fatal. … and so on. As I read down the chart, things got really interesting. View the chart yourself here: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/radiation-detail-1000ms-2.jpg • 2,000 mSv Severe radiation poisoning • 4,000 mSv Extremely severe dose – survival possible • 5,000 mSv Extremely severe radiation dose – high chance of fatality • 6,000 mSv Usually fatal dose • 10,000 mSv Fatal dose And then, right there on the chart, the very next line was a huge eye-opener, because it said: • 20,000 mSv Highly targeted dose used in cancer radiotherapy Cancer radiotherapy dose is fatal? Okay, so wait a minute . A dose of 10,000 is fatal, yet the cancer industry uses twice that dose to “treat” cancer? I knew cancer radiation treatments were barbaric, but I never knew they were twice the amount considered absolutely fatal. This outcome was so intriguing that I took a screen capture of the chart. That’s what you’re seeing at: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/radiation-detail-1000ms-2.jpg The next day, I went back to the InformationIsBeautiful.net website to make sure I really saw what I thought I saw. After all, if cancer radiotherapy is being given at 20,000 mSv, that’s a pretty big story, especially in light of the Fukushima fallout and the increasing radiation burden on populations everywhere. So I brought up the website, and guess what? The 20,000 mSv cancer radiotherapy line had been removed from the chart . You can now see this for yourself at the InformationIsBeautiful website: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/radiation-dosage-chart/ Notice anything missing? The 20,000 mSv line has been removed. It now jumps from 10,000 to 30,000. Jokingly stated, it seems that the Information Is Beautiful website might now appear to be the Information Is Missing website. Cancer industry influence? So how do you think this line about 20,000 mSv in cancer radiotherapy got removed? I suppose there are a number of possible explanations for it. One particularly conspiratorial explanation is that someone from the cancer industry probably asked them to remove it. The cancer industry, after all, doesn’t want people knowing the simple truth that cancer radiotherapy involves a fatal dose of radiation . And no industry operates with more secrecy than the cancer industry, it seems, with all its cover-ups about the dangers of chemotherapy and its continued suppression of the truth about vitamin D and its cancer preventive effects. Then again, the InformationIsBeautiful website has actually done a fantastic job of producing information about Vitamin D and sunlight exposure. This is precisely the kind of information the cancer industry doesn’t want people to see: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/vitamin-d/ (Pretty cool chart, eh?) Just to give these folks a chance to explain all this, I sent off an email to David at the InformationIsBeautiful website asking them to clarify why they pulled the cancer radiotherapy information off their radiation dosage chart. Perhaps there’s a completely innocent explanation for it, I thought, and I want to know the real story here. The email I received in return was a polite response with a collection of frequently asked questions and answers. I don’t blame the guys there for using this — they’re probably incredibly busy these days — but I was intrigued by one of the answers in the email itself: It said that the InformationIsBeautiful team has ” done commercial work for GE, the BBC, Google and many others. ” And who is GE? They are, of course, one of the world’s top manufacturers of radiotherapy equipment ! You can see an example of their radiotherapy machines at http://radiologynews.gehealthcare.com/en/computed/pm/detail/0/200/39/radiotherapy-solutions.html So now we have the Information Is Beautiful team pulling the “cancer radiotherapy” line out of their chart, then admitting they are a paid client of General Electric, a top manufacturer of radiotherapy equipment. None of this proves anything, of course, but it probably raises a few eyebrows. Is there a financial conflict of interest at work here? Personally, I like their website a lot, and I’m a fan of their charts. So I don’t want to think they might be engaged in some sort of intentional censoring of their chart data just to protect the cancer industry. But I’ve seen stranger stuff happen, for sure… Is this a case of blatant information distortion? The Information Is Beautiful website, by the way, isn’t necessarily known for censoring their information due to political pressure. They do seem to be good guys in plenty of ways. For example, they say they’re donating the proceeds from the sales of their radiation dosage chart to help with Japan relief efforts, and that’s admirable. They also produce a lot of other really useful charts that have been very popular across the ‘net. Then again, the cancer industry can be very, very threatening to those who don’t submit to its suppression of information both on the web and across the mainstream media. Now, the trolls and paid online muckrakers hired by Big Pharma will of course insist that I’m making all this up. They’ll say the chart never had the 20,000 line in it. I must have Photoshopped my screenshot to put it there, they’ll charge. These people never stop lying in their attempts to smear those who are working each day to expose the deceptions of the pharmaceutical industry, of course. (They are actually paid by Big Pharma to poison the ‘net.) Fortunately for me, there is yet another source of evidence that backs up my story. A thread over at Gizmodo.com contains the exact same original radiation dosage chart that captured as a screen shot. It shows quite clearly the original 20,000 mSv line. You can see that page at http://gizmodo.com/#!5786933/the-most-colorful-readable-radiation-dosage-chart-yet?comment=37994352 I am taking a screen shot of that page, too, just in case it magically disappears. If you go there and don’t see the chart, rest assured that’s exactly what happened (I’ve seen this happen hundreds of times with sensitive topics). The chart image on that page links to an archived image on Gawkerassets.com which contains the full chart: http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/03/radiation_chart_01.png And there, for all the world to see, is the full chart, with the 20,000 mSv “cancer radiotherapy” line, credited to David McCandless, March 2010, InformationIsBeautiful.net Now, just in case that image also gets squelched off the ‘net, I have saved a copy of it as well. (You might want to save off your own copy just in case.) Version 1.35 has less information than version 1.0 Interestingly, if you go back to the version of the chart on the InformationIsBeautiful website, you’ll notice that it currently says version 1.35 along the bottom (http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/radiation-dosage-chart/). What’s really interesting is that if you compare the Version 1.0 and Version 1.35 charts, there are no significant differences other than the removal of the 20,000 mSv cancer radiotherapy line . In other words, as this chart got “upgraded,” its content actually got pared down. And what exactly got cut from the chart? The line about cancer radiotherapy. Again, I am not accusing the guys over at InformationIsBeautiful of outright censorship or anything. There might be an innocent explanation for all this. But I’ve seen before how knowledge gets selectively removed from the most visible information sources, keeping people in the dark about something that is quite literally killing them. So we’ll see where this goes. I’m genuinely curious to see what their response is to this article. If they’re polite and have a reasonable explanation for this, I’ll do my best to pass it along. Heck, maybe they’ll even want NaturalNews to help promote some of their upcoming charts on health issues such as vitamin D. Their charts are, after all, uber cool . What are the actual radiation doses used by the cancer industry? In the mean time, you might be wondering about another possibility: Is it possible that the line was pulled from the chart because it was not accurate? Maybe it was a typo, and the cancer industry doesn’t even use that high of a dose. Interestingly, a post beneath the chart on the Gizmodo thread, posted by user scarbrtj , says: Chart says 20,000 mSv (20 Gy) is a “highly targeted dose used in cancer radiotherapy.” Not really. That (very low) dose is almost never used for any cancer. For example, a dose of 80,000 mSv (80 Gy) is used for prostate cancer (and incidentally side effects are minimal to zero long-term because the radiation is so targeted in this case)… 60,000 mSv for breast cancer… 70,000 mSv for lung cancer… 50,000 mSv for rectal cancer. Not that random internet posters have instant credibility or anything, but here we have a user explaining that far higher doses are routinely used in other cancer treatments. Just to double check my facts here, I went looking for more information on the actual radiation doses used in cancer treatments. It turns out that 20,000 mSv (roughly 20 Gy) is on the low end. Epithelial tumors, for example are routinely treated with 60 to 80 Gy ! Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_therapy) Even more interestingly, doses of 45 – 60 Gy (roughly 45,000 – 60,000 mSv, see notes below) are used as a cancer prevention dose in breast cancer and cancers of the head and neck. The radiotherapy scam exposed — again! Just in case you’re not following all this, what we’re seeing here is that 10,000 mSv is a fatal dose. The 20,000 mSv line was removed from the chart between versions 1.0 and 1.35. Meanwhile, the cancer industry is routinely using 60,000 mSv focused on the head and neck as a way to “prevent” cancer! Are you starting to see how huge this cancer radiotherapy scam really is? Think about it: If exposure to just 100 mSv can actually cause cancer , then how can exposure to 60,000 mSv somehow “cure” it? Not surprisingly, the cancer industry’s lies fall apart when you look at the science. No wonder the industry has to work so hard to keep people misinformed. If cancer patients knew they were receiving literally 60,000% higher radiation doses (that’s 60,000 mSv versus 100 mSv) than the level necessary to significantly increase the risk of cancer, they probably wouldn’t sign up for more “treatments.” For the record, mSv and Gy units (Grays) don’t always convert neatly and nicely back and forth, so these numbers are approximate, and they can vary based on the type of radiation and its so-called “biological damage conversion factor.” As explained on the RadProCalculator website (http://www.radprocalculator.com/FAQ.aspx): Rad and Gray are absorbed dose units. When we look at radiation being absorbed in tissue, the absorption varies with the energy of the radiation. With a higher energy deposition in tissue, there are more rads or more Grays deposited than a lower energy deposition at the same rate (particles or photons per second). Now, what is a rem and what is a a Sievert? The term rem came from an acronym that means Roentgen Equivalent Man, in another words the equivalent biological damage done to human tissue. Some radiation emissions, when depositing the same energy as other radiation emissions, do more biological damage to the human organism than others. How does one convert? To go from rad to rem or from Gray to Sievert, you need a multiplication factor that represents the effective biological damage. Most training texts call this a quality factor (QF) or a radiation weighting factor. Some training texts call it a biological damage conversion factor but what it truly represents is the the ratio of biological damage done by radiation types to the biological damage done by gamma radiation. For gamma, x-ray and beta radiation, this factor is 1. For alpha, it is 20. For neutrons it is between 3 and 10, and is generally conservatively taken as 10. What this implies is that a rad or Gray of alpha energy absorbed by soft human tissue does 20 times more damage than a rad or Gray of gamma, x-ray or beta energy absorbed. Since for gamma, x-ray and beta, the multiplication factor is 1, one rad equals one rem and one Gray equals one Sievert. So the actual calculations of damage depend on what numbers you use for the QF (radiation weighting factor). But even if you’re off by 10 or 20 percent, the dosage of radiation being used in cancer radiotherapy is orders of magnitude higher than the dose needed to cause cancer in a very high percentage of those people who are exposed. The cancer industry’s own treatments, it turns out, are its best source of repeat business. This is also true with chemotherapy, because the No. 1 side effect of chemotherapy is — guess what? — cancer! I’ll keep you posted on the response (if any) we receive regarding this issue.

Super bug breakthrough — manuka honey may reverse antibiotic resistance

(NaturalNews) In less than a week, three different research studies have been released about antibiotic-resistant super bugs. Two were issued as nothing less than dire warnings. For example, as NaturalNews covered earlier, UK scientists are calling for the “urgent need for global action” due to the discovery of a spreading phenomenon — a gene that is turning bacteria into not just super bugs but SUPER superbugs. On the heels of that report, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has just sounded the alarm that an impending “health care disaster” is looming unless Big Pharma can find new drugs to combat deadly antibiotic-resistant super bugs. Tired of all this bad news? Keep reading. Because amid all this gloom-and-doom about the threat of deadly super bugs comes yet another study from a third group of scientists that reaches a new and hopeful conclusion. It turns out these researchers have found a way to battle life-threatening super bugs naturally with manuka honey. In fact, manuka honey could be an efficient way to clear chronically infected wounds and could even reverse super bug bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Those are the results of a report just presented at the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Conference in Harrogate in the UK. Professor Rose Cooper from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff is investigating how manuka honey interacts with three types of bacteria that commonly infest wounds: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Group A Streptococci and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). She and her research team have discovered that honey can interfere with the growth of these bacteria in a multitude of ways. And that makes honey a strong option for the treatment of drug-resistant wound infections. The idea that honey has antimicrobial properties is nothing new. In fact, traditional therapies containing honey were used in the topical treatment of wounds by numerous ancient civilizations. Professor Cooper is particularly interested in the super bug-fighting potential of manuka honey, which comes from nectar collected by honey bees foraging on the manuka tree in New Zealand. Although manuka honey is found in modern wound-care products sold around the world, the anti-infection properties of the honey have not been used much by mainstream medicine. According to a press statement, Professor Cooper’s group believes this is because the mechanisms of the honey’s germ zapping action haven’t been known. So they are working to document just how manuka honey halts wound-infecting bacteria, including super bugs, on a molecular level. “Our findings with streptococci and pseudomonads suggest that manuka honey can hamper the attachment of bacteria to tissues which is an essential step in the initiation of acute infections. Inhibiting attachment also blocks the formation of biofilms, which can protect bacteria from antibiotics and allow them to cause persistent infections,” explained Professor Cooper in a media statement. “Other work in our lab has shown that honey can make MRSA more sensitive to antibiotics such as oxacillin — effectively reversing antibiotic resistance. This indicates that existing antibiotics may be more effective against drug-resistant infections if used in combination with manuka honey.” The researchers believe their findings may increase the clinical use of manuka honey as doctors are faced with the threat of diminishingly effective systemic antibiotics now used to try and control wound infections. “We need innovative and effective ways of controlling wound infections that are unlikely to contribute to increased antimicrobial resistance,” said Professor Cooper. “The use of a topical agent (manuka honey) to eradicate bacteria from wounds is potentially cheaper and may well improve antibiotic therapy in the future. This will help reduce the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from colonized wounds to susceptible patients.” For more information: http://www.sgm.ac.uk/news/ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/idso-laf040711.php http://www.naturalnews.com/032004_superbug_bacteria.html

NC bill to criminalize natural medicine delayed: Call and oppose NOW

(NaturalNews) Yesterday, NaturalNews made an important announcement about a rogue bill in North Carolina that threatens to criminalize the practice of unapproved forms of alternative medicine, and we urged our readers to immediately call and oppose it. Thanks in part to your quick action on the matter, Senate Bill 31 (SB 31) has once again been delayed for a vote, this time until tonight — which means now is the time to continue flooding the legislature with calls of opposition. In case you missed it, SB 31 is a bill that was filed in early February as a type of clarification to existing North Carolina law concerning the “unauthorized practice of medicine.” If passed, the bill will reclassify those who practice unapproved forms of natural and alternative medicine as Class I felons, which threatens a large number of practitioners who are not officially licensed by the state to do the work they do, with being put out of business (http://www.naturalnews.com/031953_medical_practice_licensing.html). Few in the natural health community were even aware of the existence of SB 31 until just recently when the original NC House discussion and vote on the bill was to take place on March 31. That first vote ended up getting delayed until the evening of April 4, just hours after we made the announcement to our readers to call and oppose it. As of this morning, the NC House is now planning to debate and vote on SB 31 this evening (http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2011%20%20&BillID=s31). You can read our first announcement about SB 31 here: http://www.naturalnews.com/031953_medical_practice_licensing.html You can also read an actual copy of SB 31 here: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/PDF/S31v2.pdf This is a crucial time to continue hammering the NC legislature with opposition to SB 31, as the push-back seems to have made an impact in delaying the vote. NC lawmakers appear to be catching on to the fact that the public is aware of their scheme, and perhaps they are now reconsidering the repercussions of supporting a piece of legislation that is clearly not in the best interest of North Carolinians, or the millions of Americans that stand to be impacted by the negative precedent this bill will set. If you live in North Carolina, you can find contact information for your appropriate Congressmen by clicking the following link: http://www.ncleg.net/GIS/RandR07/Representation.html Once there, you can find your representatives by selecting your district, or by inputting your county our zip code. And even if you do not live in North Carolina, you can still help oppose the bill by calling the NC General Assembly line at (919) 733-7928 and expressing opposition. You can also reach NC Governor Bev Perdue’s Raleigh office by calling (919) 733-4240. Be sure to call as soon as possible as the hearing and vote is set for some time today . And once again, be respectful and clear in presenting your case. Explain that SB 31 threatens to further erode health freedom by turning many honest alternative health practitioners into criminals. The bill also threatens to set a dangerous precedent of intolerance for those who practice outside the officially-approved government medical paradigm. And be sure to urge support for the Consumer Health Freedom Act (http://www.ncchf.org/2011/03/29/opposition-to-sb31-action-alert/).

NC bill threatens to criminalize naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, midwives, aromatherapists as felons

(NaturalNews) Alternative health practitioners in North Carolina (NC) and their patients need your help to defeat a stealth bill that flew under the radar of most everyone in the natural health community. Senate Bill 31, which clarifies the penalties for the “unauthorized practice of medicine,” essentially criminalizes the practice of unlicensed forms of medicine, which includes the work of many naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, aromatherapists, and even some midwives in the state. The bill was adopted by a judiciary committee in early March, and it recently passed the NC Senate. Now, the NC House is set to vote on the bill tonight , and unless NC governor Bev Perdue vetoes it, the practice of natural medicine for many in NC may soon become a more severe criminal offense. SB 31 states that anyone who practices medicine or surgery without having been first “licensed and registered to do so” will be guilty of a Class I felony. Class I felonies in NC are the least severe kinds of felonies, but they do include things like burning crosses on private or public property, and sexually exploiting children. So if passed, SB 31 will essentially make those who practice alternative medicine without an official, state-sanctioned license and permit, criminals of the likes of sexual predators and cross burners. You can read the short bill for yourself at the following link: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/PDF/S31v2.pdf Proponents of the bill say it fixes a loophole in the current law that classifies out-of-state practitioners who practice without a license as Class I felons, while in-state practitioners who practice without a license are only guilty of a Class I misdemeanor. But what the bill actually appears to do is make it even harder for alternative practitioners who literally cannot be licensed in NC because their work is not “approved,” to practice at all. After all, who is going to be willing to provide alternative medical services for consenting patients when doing so makes them a felon? SB 31 is really just another way to target alternative practitioners and reign in the practice of medicine to only that which has been approved by the government overlords. And the timeline for defeating this bill is very short. Alternative practitioners in NC, and those who safely and successfully use their services, need your help now to successfully defeat this bill. Citizens for Healthcare Freedom (CHF), a nonprofit health freedom organization in NC, says the bill is “not in the interest of the citizens of North Carolina” because it affects many alternative practitioners who will be put out of business if it passes. The vast majority of these practitioners have been practicing for years, and they have helped thousands of patients over the years using methods not officially sanctioned by state medical boards (http://www.ncchf.org/2011/03/29/opposition-to-sb31-action-alert/). The NC House is set to debate and vote on SB 31 at 7:00 pm tonight . And whether or not you live in NC, this bill contributes to setting a precedent of intolerance for natural and alternative medicine, so it is important to oppose it regardless of whether or not you live in NC. You can reach the NC House to oppose the bill by calling (919) 733-7928. You can reach Governor Bev Perdue’s Washington DC office to oppose the bill by calling (202) 624-5833. Remember, when contacting government officials to express your thoughts, always be respectful, but firm in your discourse. Clearly and succinctly express opposition to SB 31 on the grounds that it further erodes health freedom in NC by criminalizing those who practice alternative medicine. Also, urge support for the CHF Consumer Health Freedom Act, which establishes the freedom to practice alternative medicine without criminal penalty (http://www.ncchf.org/2011/03/29/opposition-to-sb31-action-alert/).

General Mills imitation blueberries story keeps spreading; Total cereal exposed as deceptive

(NaturalNews) It’s the story that just keeps going viral. We broke it here on NaturalNews with the release of The Blueberry Deception , a mini documentary that exposed the truth about many name-brand food products that fake their blueberries. You can watch it here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7EC06D27B1A945BE85E7DA8483025962 It’s also featured over at www.FoodInvestigations.com Since the release of this video, it has gone viral across the ‘net and picked up hundreds of thousands of views across NaturalNews.TV and YouTube while also breaking into mainstream media . To date, all the following news organizations have now covered this story: Fox News, CNN, The Huffington Post, NPR, MSN, Yahoo News, LA Times, CBS News, NY Daily News and many more. Just two days ago, I was contacted by a reporter from CBS News who was working up a story for CBS News Correspondent Susan Koeppen (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/03/earlyshow/contributors/susankoeppen/main7313579.shtml), who even went into a grocery store and filmed a segment talking about the very products I first mentioned in my documentary: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini Wheats Blueberry Muffin, for example, which is made with artificial colors, sugars and oils that mimic the appearance of blueberries. (Kellogg’s says the “Blueberry Muffin” part of the product name is just a description of the “flavor,” not a description of what’s actually in the box.) I didn’t get name credit in this particular story, but CBS News was kind enough to link back to the Consumer Wellness Center (www.ConsumerWellness.org), and that’s all the credit we really need. I’m just happy this story is getting out there. Kudos to the mainstream media outlets who have been covering this story! What’s really interesting is that CBS’s Koeppen has now hinted that this issue is headed to the FDA for review: “Koeppen added the Food and Drug Administration will go after companies if they use deceptive labeling. ‘We talked to them yesterday,’ Koeppen said. ‘They said they can neither confirm nor deny that they’re looking into the fake blueberry issue. But yes, if there is something that is deceptive, the FDA sometimes steps in and makes those companies change their labels.’” Wouldn’t it be interesting of a documentary developed right here at NaturalNews actually ended up rattling the desks of folks at the FDA and General Mills who were forced by public pressure to put a stop to some rather blatantly deceptive processed food marketing practices? The story behind the blueberries story I created this documentary as a volunteer effort under the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center, and have never received any compensation for creating this, by the way (nor do I receive any compensation for any of the videos I create). To this day, I’m shocked that nobody else did this first. I always thought that with such a deceptively labeled product on store shelves, somebody at USA Today, or the NY Times, or the Washington Post would investigate the issue and expose it long before we could. But no. The mainstream media doesn’t really do as much truly investigative journalism as it used to back in the Nixon days. Much of the media today, let’s face it, is focused on entertainment. Explosions. Violence. Teen rock stars. Michael Jackson. It’s junk food for your mind, or at least that’s how it was described to me by a reporter who actually works for the media. To actually see the media dig into a grassroots consumer issue and go up against the processed food industry is quite rare. Hence the need for organizations like NaturalNews. We tackle the stories the mainstream media often ignores. And we do it on a shoestring budget, yet based on solid research, reliable documentation of the facts, and an ever-growing audience of literally millions of readers who are increasingly tuning in to NaturalNews to get health information they can trust. I’m not saying the mainstream media can’t be trusted, but there’s little question that when your network is funded by pharmaceutical money, any story that questions the safety of vaccines (for example), is going to be canned long before it hits the air. But here at NaturalNews, I have no boss . YOU are my boss, effectively, and I can’t be fired by anyone for telling the truth. We only answer to you, the readers, and that’s why you consistently find us reporting the truth, day after day, without any corporate agenda interfering with our work. What will General Mills and Kellogg’s do now? What’s interesting is that now, all of a sudden, the mainstream media is following some of our stories. NaturalNews is driving these stories that end up being replicated across the national media. I have over a dozen emails right now from reporters in major newspapers across the country who want a heads up on our next breaking food investigation story. Think about that for a minute: The consumer health advocate (Health Ranger) that the mainstream media has largely ignored is now all of a sudden one of their sources. So now, I’m walking through the grocery store, and I’m using all the knowledge I’ve gathered over the years to identify all the really crazy chemicals and non-food items being put into the food supply by companies all the way from PepsiCo to Dean Foods. And now I’m making a list of which items are the worst offenders and deserve to be highlighted in the next Food Investigations mini-documentary. Because, of course, there are more mini-documentaries coming soon, and you’ll see them posted at www.FoodInvestigations.com This has put me in the sad, sad situation of actually buying PepsiCo products at the grocery store. But it’s all for research, I assure you. Still, it feels odd to even allow such items into my grocery cart, much less my home! Meanwhile, I haven’t heard a thing from General Mills or Kellogg’s on the imitation blueberries issue. You would think that if these folks had a decent P.R. team, they would reach out and try to “educate” me about their foods and convince me they’re not all that bad after all. But I haven’t heard a thing. I suppose they’re convinced it’s better to just try to ignore this imitation blueberries problem and hope it goes away. But it’s not going away. If anything, the story is spreading and getting more attention. Watch the hilarious new video: General Mills Mind Games And now it’s going to get even more viral with the release of a new comedy video I’ve just put together called General Mills Mind Games . It’s a character voice skit between a customer named “Bob” and the General Mills customer service department. Watch the video now (just 4 minutes) at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=851519FA1AC72A56F7205D2285CC66CF Please share this video, too, because people need to know this stuff. Entertaining videos really works to educate people while they’re laughing and having fun! Everybody who has seen this 4-minute video loves it! Well, except perhaps for the General Mills public relations team, which appears to be frozen in place on this whole issue, sort of like a deer caught in the headlights. But I guess if you’re a P.R. lackey working for General Mills, the truth about what’s NOT in their cereals kinda sucks, doesn’t it? You can’t exactly spin away the simple truth that the fruits mentioned prominently on the front label of Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal aren’t even found in the cereal. I would sure hate to have that job. It’s way more fun to have no boss and be able to tell the truth rather than have to lie for some dishonest corporate employer.

Burn Fat – Diets that Work

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Doctors should be forced to tell patients they are seriously impaired from lack of sleep before they operate

(NaturalNews) Here’s another one of those stories about mainstream medical practices that sounds like it couldn’t be true — but it is. According to an editorial just published in the New England Journal of Medicine , there are currently regulations in place to restrict the work hours of doctors in training — but no such rules for fully trained physicians. That means doctors who are severely sleep deprived are currently performing operations on unsuspecting patients who have no idea their surgeons are as impaired as if they were drunk out of their minds. “Studies have shown that sleep deprivation impairs psychomotor performance as severely as alcohol intoxication,” the authors of the study pointed out in a media statement. The editorial presents a compelling case that these sleep-deprived physicians should not be allowed to perform elective surgery unless their patients give informed, written consent agreeing to be operated on by an impaired doctor. “This approach would represent a fundamental shift in the responsibility patients are asked to assume in making decisions about their own care and might prove burdensome to patients and physicians and damaging to the patient-physician relationship,” the authors wrote. “This shift may be necessary until institutions take the responsibility for ensuring that patients rarely face such dilemmas.” So just how dangerous is it to be operated on by a doctor who is sleep-deprived? A 2009 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a significant increase in the risk of complications in patients who underwent elective daytime surgical procedures performed by surgeons who hadless than a six-hour opportunity for sleep during a previous on-call night. What’s more, doctors who are sleep-deprived are often not able to accurately recognize how severely they are impaired. “Sleep deprivation affects clinical performance. It increases the risks of complications. And it is clear from survey data that patients would want to be informed if their physician was sleep deprived and that most patients would request a different provider,” Michael Nurok, M.D., Ph.D., an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician at Hospital for Special Surgery who is first author of the editorial, said in a press statement. “We think that institutions have a responsibility to minimize the chances that patients are going to be cared for by sleep-deprived clinicians.” The editorial concludes that sleep-deprived physicians should be required to inform patients of their condition; it also argues that patients have the right to be told of the potential hazards that can come from surgery performed by sleep-impaired surgeons. And patients should be given the opportunity to go ahead with the procedure, proceed with a different doctor, or reschedule for another time. If patients decide they want to go ahead with a planned operation performed by a sleep deprived doctor, Dr. Nurok and his co-authors believe they should be required to sign a consent form on the day of the procedure in front of a witness to show they understand the potential risks. Although it would seem like a no-brainer that patients have a right to know a surgeon they are trusting their bodies and lives to is not impaired, the editorial authors say there are many barriers to the idea of this informed consent. Not surprisingly, one of the biggest problems is based on the fear that when patients learn doctors are impaired from lack of sleep, there will be financial consequences for hospitals and physicians. Some doctors will lose cases and have a drop in income and medical centers will lose money if patients reschedule and go elsewhere for their surgery. However, Dr. Nurok and his colleagues counter that by giving patients the facts and true informed consent, any income lost by docs and hospitals will be offset by improved surgical outcomes and reduced complications. “There has been widespread discomfort with the idea that patients are having procedures performed by physicians who are fatigued,” Dr. Nurok concluded. “New policies are needed.” For more information: http://www.hss.edu/newsroom.asp

Purple foods ward off degenerative diseases

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the journal Archives of Toxicology explains how many degenerative diseases are caused by poorly-bound iron in the body that reacts with various bodily components to generate toxins. This iron is consumed through various foods but is not stable enough to stay put and provide health benefits. But iron chelators, which are especially present in purple foods and green tea, provide iron with the binding nutrients it needs to function properly as well as prevent various degenerative diseases. According to the study, brightly-colored fruits and vegetables are rich in iron chelators, and by consuming lots of them, the body is able to bind iron and help it to perform the vital role of transporting oxygen to bodily tissues, as well as absorb other nutrients. But without these necessary chelators, not only can iron become a type of harmful toxin, but other important nutrients like vitamin C will not be able to be readily absorbed and used by the body. In fact, Professor Douglas Kell, author of the study and professor of Bioanalytical Science at the University of Manchester, says that nutrients like vitamin C that are normally beneficial can also become harmful if properly-bound iron is not present. And the result of this badly-bound iron, also known as hydroxyl radicals, is the onset of debilitating and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. “Much of modern biology has been concerned with the role of different genes in human disease,” explained Kell. “The importance of iron may have been missed because there is no gene for iron as such. What I have highlighted in this work is therefore a crucial area for further investigation, as many simple predictions follow from my analysis.” “If true, they might change greatly the means by which we seek to prevent and even cure such diseases.” Some excellent purple fruits and vegetables to consume for iron-binding purposes — and for overall health benefits — include purple grapes, blueberries, eggplant, pomegranates, plums, blackberries, cherries, and black currants. Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/uom-soa120710.php

Health Ranger: Fifteen important things I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving

(NaturalNews) I always enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday because it reminds me to be thankful for what we have. And today, I’m publishing a list of 25 things I’m personally thankful for this year. Just for the record, though, I want to say that I am personally opposed to the widespread killing of factory-farmed turkeys for the Thanksgiving holiday. That is an atrocity against animals, and I take no part in that. (I’m eating a vegetarian meal this Thanksgiving.) Nevertheless, I do like to use this holiday as a time to remember to be thankful for the many things we are blessed with. Here’s my list of the top 15 things, in no particular order, that I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. My top 15 things to be thankful for #1 – Free Speech . Without the Free Speech protections provided under the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, NaturalNews simply would not exist. Free Speech allows us to pursue other freedoms while exposing the lies of Big Government and corrupt corporations. #2 – Superfoods . Today we have access to more amazing superfoods than at any other time in the history of the world. If we choose, we can be healthier today than our grandparents could have ever dreamed! #3 – NaturalNews readers . I’m incredibly thankful for all the readership and support from NaturalNews fans and readers. Without your feedback, suggestions and support of our sponsors, our work would be impossible and we simply wouldn’t exist. #4 – Medicinal plants and seeds . Mother Nature provides so many answers for us that we haven’t even begun to tap into the full wisdom of medicinal plants. The long-term answers for human survival are to be found in nature, not in synthetic chemicals. #5 – Sunshine . Without the sun, we wouldn’t even be alive, of course. Sunlight gives us vitamin D, mood enhancements, warmth and energy for the plants that sustain life on our planet. #6 – The internet . Yes, the internet. Without it, we would all be information slaves to the corporate-controlled media. But the internet has shifted the playing field to where small, independent publishers like NaturalNews can reach millions of readers without the corporate control that persists in the mainstream media. #7 – Human immune system. I don’t know about you, but I’m extremely thankful for my immune system. When given proper nutrients, it works better than any medical technology in the world, far surpassing the efficacy of vaccines, drugs or anything made by Man. My immune system has kept me healthy and symptom-free through the Bird Flu, the Swine Flu and seasonal flu, and I never get vaccinated . (Why would I?) #8 – Intelligent, informed people . Even though we live in a world of zombie people who forgot how to think for themselves, I’m always impressed by the amazing number of truly intelligent, thoughtful individuals I do meet — people who are natural-born skeptics and who intelligently question everything going on around them in order to arrive at the deeper truths of our world. Kudos to all of you, as I believe you are the individuals who represent the future of human civilization. #9 – The mainstream media . I’m thankful for the mainstream media because it is a daily source of humor, and laughter is good for your immune system. By reading the hilarious stories published in the MSM, you can actually help prevent the flu! #10 – Our good health . I am thankful for the health I have — and the health YOU have — so that each day we may continue our important work of educating others, sharing the good news about natural health and enjoying our long lives as healthy, happy people. #11 – Animal friends . Don’t you love having animals as companions? Let’s all continue to spread the word about how intelligent animals are so that we can work to enlighten others to the simple truth that animals have consciousness . #12 – Organic foods and small family farms . I’m thankful for organic foods and small family farms, including raw milk producers . I’m also thankful for CSA organizations who provide local, organic food grown on local farms. #13 – God, nature and a greater creative force . Call it what you wish — God, Mother Nature, the Creator, etc. — but I’m thankful that we are blessed with a greater creative power in the universe. #14 – U.S. soldiers and veterans . I’m thankful for the fact that soldiers have helped defend the freedoms and interests of America in the past several decades, and I only hope that our government would use these soldiers less and bring them home more. #15 – Human consciousness . I’m especially thankful we have human consciousness, otherwise this would all be some sort of meaningless exercise carried out by automatons. Interestingly, most “skeptics” in the so-called “scientific” community literally do not believe there is such a thing as consciousness, so they technically have nothing to be thankful for! Bonus item #1 – The strong nuclear force “cosmic coincidence.” I’m thankful that the strong nuclear force isn’t slightly stronger, because if it were, the universe would have no hydrogen, which means virtually no stars, no water (H2O, remember?) and no life. We live in a universe full of life that would not be possible if the strong nuclear force constant were off by a mere 2%. Happy Thanksgiving! Watch my Thank You video message I’ve recorded a special “Thank You” video message for NaturalNews readers. You can watch it at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=3DE64215CB0EA0A4AFDD26F844F45D86 Enjoy!

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