We've received a good number of letters asking us to change our font, change our background, and hey, how the heck do you print this page so that it all shows up on paper?

Black on white is the preferred color scheme. Our font is large enough so that most anyone can read it. If you are having problems, please find out how to change the Text Size in your browser.

In Microsoft's Internet Explorer, click on View (at the top, left), choose Text Size in the drop-down menu, then choose a larger text size. Mine is set to Largest.

To print any site (that we've updated--please be patient, this will take some time), click on the Printer Friendly Page link at the top of the article, go to that page and print.

The newsletter will now be published whenever we've got something to publish. This means it will be smaller, and sent out irregularly. There will always be a link at the top to read the archives in case you've missed something, and a link to the subject index in case you are searching for a specific subject.

Our home page has changed a bit too. We are no longer the Wellness Directory of Minnesota; we are the International Wellness Directory. We are producing a directory of wellness practitioners from around the globe.

Additionally, we've held off for a long time from incorporating a variety of web tools at our site so that everyone can read the material. We have now found a happy medium. We now have some java script (such as our main menu on the home page) but for those who cannot see the menu (for whom java script just doesn't work in their browser) all links are provided at the bottom of every page we create. You can still get around the entire website, just go to the bottom of the page.

You will also notice some scrolling text (the links in the text do operate like normal links) that will update you to what's new at this site.

At the top is a Flash animation. As we learn more how to use Flash animations, we'll be adding them to the site to make your visit a bit more exciting. However, if your browser does NOT use flash, you're not going to miss out on anything. The pages will appear to you like everyone else. The only thing you won't get is the animation.

We hope you like our new format, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us: info@mnwelldir.org.

Some of you might wonder how in the world these organic standards affect you. I realize that many of you do not eat organic foods. So, how does this affect you? The history of farming on this planet has been thus: use up the land and then move on. This is historical fact. I’m not sure of the latest figures, but while I was in college, I learned that 192 acres a day in California turn to desert and will not grow a thing, because of conventional farming techniques. The Sahara grows, last I heard, by 25,000 square miles each year. Additionally, fifty acres a minute of oxygen-producing plants are eaten away by some circumstance every minute of every day. The best figures, (gained from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Institute of Science in Society, and various other scientific organizations) indicate that land degradation claims 12-17 million acres of farmland each year. Land all over the world turns into desert (desertification) because we’ve overused it and stretched its capacity to sustain life beyond its limits. Organic farmers are stewards of the land. They practice “sustainable” farming practices. For this alone, we all must support them and support the standards they’ve established. Profitability I’m sure you’ve all noticed that organic foods are expensive. So have the factory farms, the agribusinesses. They want some of that profit. Imagine them being able to create organic foods and sell it for less. Imagine how much they’d rake in. I purchased a red pepper the other day that sold for over seven dollars a pound. Imagine agribusinesses selling their “organic” red peppers for three dollars a pound. People would jump at that; but sadly, the red pepper would not be organic. It is organic only due to lowered standards. Instead of them adopting the organic standards and growing organic foods, the big money in the food industry exerts a powerful influence on the government to modify the organic standards so that factory farms can call their food “organic.” In the end, the consumer thinks s/he is buying organic food and thinks s/he is supporting sustainable farming techniques, when we are actually just buying the same old crud that the conventional agribusinesses have been producing all along -- only now they’re allowed to call it Certified Organic. Profits Be Damned Normally the USDA will publish that they are considering modifying organic standards and await the response from the public. This time, Congress tried to slip one by us by burying the organic standards changes in the middle of an unrelated bill. This is proof of the profitability of the organic food market, when the monied interests pressure Congress to change the standards so they can join in—without having to change their methods. Our letters to Congress quashed the bill, at least for now. Senate lawmakers were surprised at the number of letters, calls, and faxes they got asking them to uphold the standards. The pressure caused the Senate to back off. For now, the newly diluted standards will have to wait while the Secretary of Agriculture (who does not personally eat organic foods nor has he supported organic standards) studies this issue further. From the Health Action Center we got: Although we’ve neutralized the threat in the Senate, proponents of the rider still have the ability to submit the compromising language during House/Senate conference committee sessions.  That’s why we need you to keep up the pressure. Tell your Senators and Representatives “hands off organics” during conference negotiations When we sent out our action alert last week, we asked you to send a letter to your Senator, telling him or her to oppose any amendment that would weaken organic standards.  As the Agriculture Appropriations Bill heads into conference committee, I ask you to send another letter, this time to your U.S. Representative, who until now may not have heard from his or her constituents about the threat to organic standards. Send a letter today We’re almost there.  With your help, we will send a powerful message to our elected officials and government agencies that we organic consumers value our food and are willing to fight for it. Go ahead, click the links above and send a letter. And please read the next article and learn how you can be notified immediately when our health standards are being attacked. Keep in mind that the current administration has doled out loans, grants, and tax breaks to corporate agribusiness, but has completely overlooked the small farmer who cares for the earth by employing sustainable farming methods. From the Organic Consumers Organization: UPDATE: STOP THE SNEAK ATTACK ON ORGANIC STANDARDS Over the past month, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) network members have deluged Congress with over 170,000 letters, asking policymakers to reject an industry sponsored stealth "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill. The rider would weaken organic standards and allow hundreds of synthetic substances in organic production without prior review or public participation. Feeling the heat from their constituents, the U.S. Senate stalled the rider vote and forwarded it on for discussion in the House/Senate Conference Committee. Thanks to all of you for contacting your Congresspeople! Unfortunately we are up against powerful lobbyists from giant food processors such as Kraft as well as supermarket chains. If you have not taken action, please send an email to Congress. If you have already emailed or called your Senators and Representative, thank you. Please consider forwarding this action alert on to your friends and colleagues. We hope to generate more than 250,000 letters to stop this rider from being passed by Congress. TAKE ACTION: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm   Do everything you can to stop this; the stewardship of farmable land is all our responsibility. This Just In! Action Alert! October 25, 2005 (this alert expires 11/15/2005) Stop Factory Farm Dairy Feedlots from Labeling Their Products as "USDA Organic" Click here to sign an important petition to the USDA: http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda.htm Apologies for the unusually high number of emails from us right now. Typically, you can expect only one email from the OCA every two weeks, but the national organic standards are currently under siege, as never before. As our SOS Action Alerts and newsletter, Organic Bytes, have pointed out over the past month, there is currently an industry-sponsored Sneak Attack on organic standards in the U.S. Congress. We've kept you updated about this Sneak Attack, involving an industry rider that would greatly weaken organic standards by allowing hundreds of synthetic substances to be used in organic production without proper review by the National Organic Standards Board and the organic community. We will keep you posted on that issue, and appreciate the more than 200,000 individual emails the OCA network of consumers has generated to Congress on that issue. We need a similar response from you on the following, equally serious issue... THE PROBLEM: Under pressure from big agribusiness, the USDA is deliberately refusing to take action against factory farm dairy feedlots who are unethically selling their products as "organic." This blatant labeling fraud is compounded by a loophole in federal organic regulations that is allowing unscrupulous organic dairy farms to import young calves from non-organic conventional farms (where the animals have been weaned on cow blood, injected or medicated with antibiotics, and fed genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton seeds, laced with slaughterhouse waste and tainted animal fats). These confinement and feeding practices are inhumane, unhealthy, environmentally unsustainable, and unfair to the majority of organic dairy farmers, who follow strict organic principles on pasture access and animal feed, and do not import animals into their herds from conventional farms. Take action here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda.htm WHERE DOES YOUR ORGANIC MILK COME FROM?   Actual photo of cows "grazing" at an "organic" factory farm. Photo of cows grazing at an organic family farm.   Some of the factory farms that currently confine thousands of cows in close quarters are operated by leading organic dairies such as Dean Foods (Horizon Organic) and Aurora Organic Dairy (producer of store brand organic milk to chains such as Wild Oats, and supplier to Horizon).   THE SOLUTION: On November 16, in Washington, DC, organic consumer and farm representatives will attend the National Organic Standards Board meeting to urge the USDA to stop allowing giant intensive confinement dairy feedlots to illegally market their milk as "organic." The OCA will be presenting a petition with thousands of signatures, which you can sign online right now: http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda.htm For four years, the USDA has ignored requests from its own National Organic Standards Board to clarify standards on organic dairy farms. These clarifications would assure that animals have access to pasture, fresh air, and water, and that a considerable portion of their diet is pasture grass, as opposed to grains and other highly processed feeds used in confinement feedlots. In addition, OCA and organic advocates want the USDA to put an end to the practice of allowing organic dairies to increase their herd size by importing young calves from conventional farms. OCA and the public interest Cornucopia Institute need your help right now to pressure the USDA to stop these outrageous practices. Click here to send a petition to the USDA: http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda.htm   Despite these attacks on organic integrity, OCA is confident that we can "Keep Organic Organic," just as we've done before in 1998, 2002, and 2004--when the USDA and corporate agribusiness tried to degrade organic standards by permitting genetic engineering, food irradiation, sewage sludge, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and non-organic animal feed to be allowed under the "USDA Organic" label. But to preserve organic integrity, we need your continued vigilance, energy, and financial support. For more information, see the "Safeguard Organic Standards" section of the OCA website, which is updated daily. Donate Here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm For Organic Integrity, Ronnie Cummins National Director Organic Consumers Association An article worth reading: CODEX is NOT Going Away.

Vitamins, supplements, and organic foods are under attack. CODEX is winning everywhere. You don’t think it can happen here? Oh yes, it can.

Many of us never thought America would violate international law and start a preemptive war.  We were wrong.   

It can happen here, and it will happen here if we do not stand together; if we do not act proactively and keep our leaders in Washington deluged with our demands. Our demands are very simple: Health Freedom.

In Australia, they are trying to pass a law that will put you in jail for up to 5 years for using a non-standard, non-approved therapy -- on yourself.

Yes, if the law passes, you can go to jail for ordering some oleander extract off the internet, or you can go to jail for taking the oleander plant that grows on your front porch and drinking an extract you made from it. It’s happening in Australia, and it can happen here.

You must read this article from Australia: Therapeutic Goods Administration Amendment Bill 03150.

Here are two very interesting articles from Down Under written by a health freedom fighter there:

http://www.evehillary.org/health.freedom.info.htm

http://www.evehillary.org/corp.med.1.html

To be informed immediately so that you can inform others and begin a letter writing campaign, write to me here: info@mnwelldir.org or go to our Home Page and join there. When action is needed, you'll be notified immediately.

* * *

CONGRESS SET TO PASS LAW ELIMINATING LIABILITY FOR VACCINE INJURIES

Here is what the bill will purportedly do:

• If the Burr bill passes, "all economic incentives to insure mandated vaccines are safe will be removed and the American people are facing a future where government can force them to take poorly regulated experimental drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" or go to jail."

• BARDA The federal agency which will be in charge will be allowed: "to operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, insuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become public."

Here is a site where you can sign a petition to reject the Senate bill S.1873 (Biodefense & Pandemic Vaccine & Drug Development Act). 

But you must also write your representatives in Washington.

Become a Health Freedom Fighter: Click Here. 

Most people writing to us who ask about our affiliates and our income sources are antagonistic. We've been accused of taking big bucks from companies to promote their wares. One recent letter from a reader told me that he had visited the Consumer Labs web site and looked up the study of probiotics we referenced in our article: Digestion Part II. He attacked us for publishing a lie and said that the probiotics we had reviewed (by Sedona Labs) weren't even listed.

Luckily most of our readers can actually read. The full study was not published on the page he sent to us, only a sampling. We got the full study from Consumer Labs in return for linking to their site. It even states on the page this character read that what was listed there are "some" of the results of the study. This reader told us he could never trust us again. Oh well.

Do we have to give Full Disclosure to our readers? No, we don't. We've got nothing to hide (except our incompetence) and we're not only not afraid to let the world know how we survive here, we're quite proud of how we've done it.

Keep in mind that we are NOT a charitable organization because we would have to keep immaculate records. I am not a good businessperson. I have a disability that affects my memory and ability to do math, etc. I spend a lot of my time looking for things that were just in my hand. It recently took me four days to get some checks mailed to the bank because I kept misplacing them, losing the deposit slip, and then when I had it all in the envelope, I lost the envelope. Last week, I found a check on my desk that was sent to us 14 months ago. You really don't want me running your business, I'm sure.

So, here goes:

We are just a tad over $50,000.00 in debt. Half of that ($24,000.00) is owed to creditors. What are our expenses? We have $17,000.00 in printers, and a $9,000.00 computer system (and software) that is backed up to external drives. There is some 20+ years of research on our computer system that we do not wish to lose. Until recently, we were paying just under $90.00 per month for internet access (Satellite and AOL), but we now have DSL which brought down the costs significantly.

Sadly, I have to report that the company selling us our printers really put it to us. Before we had printed 200,000 pages on the printer, we were told that it was now obsolete and that we might have problems finding parts. We still owed $14,000.00 on the printers. 

Research is not free. We subscribe to many journals and newsletters, and as often as we can, we purchase a DVD that costs us nearly $300.00 and helps us to locate practitioners for our directory and for people seeking a practitioner who won't poison, burn, or slash them to death. We ask for donations when we find someone a practitioner, but not everyone pays and we don't turn anyone down.

As to where we get our funding, first off, I must preface that I do NOT recall the exact percentages we get from our affiliates. I'm not good with numbers and I'm not about to waste my time looking up every minuscule percentage we get; suffice it to say, just read on and I'll tell you as much as I know.

Amazon Dot Com: we have the same relationship with Amazon as we have with Barnes & Noble. We've never received a check from them yet. Our book links are through either Barnes & Nobel or Amazon. If you wish to purchase from them, fine; if not, that's your decision.

Buy Dot Com: same as above. I don't recall receiving a check from them in over two years.

Simply the Best: A lot of people have asked about our connection to Simply the Best. It's very simple. I helped them get started. The main idea was to support our work, support the small companies that produce great products, get people (especially our readers) the products at a discount, and hire the disabled. I am a part time volunteer for them, downloading their figures at the end of the month to bring to an accountant at the end of the year. I answer letters at times, and help to put out forest fires. However, the business is not going well. The shipper has made a few mistakes (he's recovering from a brain injury), there were a lot of returns (which the company supplying the product would not stand behind), and some bad luck involving bad checks and undelivered products. Were they making a profit, we'd be receiving some of it. But so far, their contribution has been rather small. We're just glad that they now have some good products, that they give discounts to our readers, and that the companies they support are doing well.

Learning Strategies: this is a local company that produces CDs, DVDs, and video/audio tapes. Their products are top quality and we do get a hefty percentage of each sale. I think it's greater than 25%. We've gotten about $300.00 in the past two years from them. They make one of the best Qigong packages we've ever seen. Additionally, they produce some of the best CDs and audio tapes for meditation. Well, it's not really your normal meditation. They are called Paraliminal CDs and tapes. They really are unique. I've been using them since 1991 when I first discovered them. You really should check them out: Paraliminal CDs and Tapes.

Ultimate Immune: is our latest affiliate. We've used their products for over a year now (when needed) and have sent many readers to their site. We will soon review their products for you, but in the meantime, you can go there to purchase  immunosupportive products to be ready for the cold and flu season. We've received nothing from them yet, and their affiliate percentage is quite small. But their products are the best and we will review them for you in the near future.

Our longtime readers know that we maintain the highest standards of integrity here. When the Masters Miracle people split with the originator of the company, we ripped every reference to their products off our website and promoted the original product, Miracle II, instead. Master's Miracle had been a big source of income; Miracle II gives us nothing.

It is not uncommon for readers to find references to products suddenly absent at our site. It's very simple: if a person or company is not straight with us; if their business ethics are less than perfect, they will not find any support at our site. I really don't care if they've discovered a cure for death. In this life, the only thing we have that we can truly call our own is our integrity.

We are all volunteers here. Not a one of us earns a dime from our work. When we go to print, we do pay the advertising salespersons a commission, which is expected. If you have trouble believing any of this, then you should read this letter from our accountant. You can even give her a call (her phone number is on the letter).

We do not "exchange" links with other sites. If they have a good product we will review it and then link to them. Daily, webmasters come to us asking if we will exchange links. We won't.

As to reviews, if you have something out there you want reviewed, just write and we will contact the manufacturers, distributors, or author and try to get a review copy. We've only been turned down a few times, but that has been their loss, as many of the companies whose products we've reviewed will tell you.

Lastly, if you've made it this far, you probably remember that I said, above, that half of our debt is owed to creditors. This begs the question, "To whom is the other half owed?" It's simple; it's owed to the management of this company. We've all put our own money into keeping this ship afloat. Perhaps one day we'll get it back, perhaps we won't. The important thing is that we're going to do this until we can no longer do it.

Keep in mind that we sell none of the products we write about. We do sell promotional items and our books. Some people assume that this must be profitable, but because we give away more books than we sell, no publishing company will take on our books, and we've lost money on most of our publications. When we finally sat down to figure out our profits from our second edition of the directory, we discovered that we had lost $4.00 on each book we sold, putting us $12,000.00 into debt.

We will continue selling our books, asking for donations, and selling promotional items that will pay our debts. This month we are selling a t-shirt that is quite unique. We've only got a few left, so if you want one, you'd better order soon.

In the future, since publishing companies have finally been knocking at my door concerning my fiction, we've decided to publish a collector's edition of that fiction. Each book will be handmade, the dedication page will contain whatever the purchaser wishes to have printed there, along with its "printing number" out of 100, and my signature. It will sell for $200.00. It will be covered in hand made paper (from weeds and cattails and the like). This book will be something very special. After each short story, you will find an essay on how the story was written. If you have any interest, it would be best to write and tell me, since once we do this (by next summer) we're pretty sure they'll go fast. You'll have a unique book, and we'll be able to pay our creditors off.

Additionally, since my reputation as a photographer is growing, we sell numbered prints of my photos for $200.00 each now. Again, if you want a copy, numbered and signed, you must write to me.

We apologize if our newsletter seems a bit commercial with links everywhere to buy products, but that's life. We have to pay our bills and we support only the best companies out there. That's how we do it and that's how we'll continue doing it.

And if you want to support our efforts, keep in mind that 99% of the time when you re-order from one of our affiliates, you have to go through a link at our site in order for us to get credit.

We've touched upon probiotics (acidophilus being one most people are familiar with) in the past, especially in our Digestion Articles (Part Two), but felt that we really needed to get into more depth on this subject since it is of such importance. We've found some amazing new research into the role of probiotics in our immune system.

Since we've focused in depth in this issue on the Avian Flu (scare), much of what we have learned comes down to this: your preventive program MUST contain probiotics.

So we've updated the Digestion articles with this new information. You can find it right here: Probiotics.

And if you are looking for probiotics, the best we've found (the best Consumer Labs has found) are from Sedona Labs and are on sale to our readers at Simply the Best.

Simply the Best is having an unadvertised sale that only YOU will know about: Buy 4 and get 1 free of any Sedona Labs product at the site. This is a spectacular discount. I did the math on this one and they're barely making a profit on this sale. You will NOT find any information at the site on this discount, simply order 4 of one Sedona Labs product and you will get a notification that you will be receiving 5 in your shipment. If not, write me and I'll check this out.

We are in shock. The Russians know something we've not yet caught on to: a healthy population makes for a stronger democracy.

How can people who are sick and exhausted fulfill their responsibilities or their obligations as guardians of a democracy?

In a democracy, the president is a leader and a servant. He is a servant to the people. The people hold the power.

How much power can an ailing population hold?

Democracy demands we all participate. It takes a healthy people to participate fully.

This is why Russia outlawed microwaves. Microwave ovens are slowly killing us. Microwave ovens create food that was never meant to enter our bodies.

As we fill our bodies with microwaved poisons, we slowly fill up with inflammation and all the various diseases inflammation brings on: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue, MS, fibromyalgia, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

We've written about microwaves in a previous newsletter. One of the first links ever at this site is Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking, the report of an actual study that was blocked from publication.

I was asked by a reader what I thought of Kevin Trudeau’s book,

I told him I hadn’t read it, and probably wouldn’t. So, that reader went out, bought it and sent it to me. I read it.

If you know anything about Kevin Trudeau, you’ll know he spent time in a federal penitentiary for credit card fraud and has been investigated by practically everyone over some scheme.

However, I never hold anyone’s past against them. Let’s face it, St Augustine was a sinner long before he became a saint.

Having said that, I can judge Trudeau’s book, Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About in and of itself.

First off, there are NO secrets in medicine, only things you’ve not yet heard of.

Second, no one from the pharmaceutical industry cares one whit about what you know or don’t know. The pharmaceutical industry is not spending a dime trying to suppress information.

The pharmaceutical industry is spending billions to keep alternative health products away from you. They want to own the vitamin and supplement industry too, and overcharge you for that like they’ve overcharged for their drugs. They want to make sure that cheap alternatives are outlawed. THIS is how they are spending their money, and they are doing a bang up job. Read the articles about what is going on in Australia.

Don’t buy into the hype.

Trudeau’s book is chock-full of information. It is presented plain and simple. There is no depth to his research. In fact, his research is not really research, but simple plagiarism. He hardly gives credit to anyone or tells you where he found the information. It’s as if he bought a few books on natural cures, garnered information from the web and slapped this together. Which, in my opinion, is exactly what he did.

I, too, could have created a web site that same way, if my goal had been to make money. However, my goal was to heal and help others to heal. And I won’t just write out something that I do not understand fully. I try to make the difficult, obscure and complex a bit less difficult, obscure, and complex to my readers. I try to simplify without oversimplifying.

Trudeau’s book is designed to make money only. He is not the consumer advocate or the expert he claims to be, but he is an expert at separating people from their money.

His book is one huge advertisement for his web site and his newsletter for which you can buy a lifetime subscription at the minuscule cost of $495.00.

Or, you can come to our web site for free. [What am I doing wrong?]

Here’s some further reading about Trudeau and his schemes:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art36180.asp
http://www.mlmsurvivor.com/felon.htm

So, when you get something in the mail about this hidden secret or this secret ingredient, don’t believe it. It’s not a secret.  Many common substances are sold under "new names" in order to generate bigger profits. If you really want to know the truth about something, you can write to us and ask. If we don’t know about it, we will look it up.

Continuing our examination of the history of medicine, we have found an extraordinary woman who served the Union army as the first female surgeon the military had ever employed.

For those of you who missed the Civil War article from our last newsletter, written by a surgeon and medical historian, Dr Julius Prestigiacomo Bonello, here you go: Civil War Medicine.

For the rest of us, let's take a look at this Dr Mary Edwards Walker.

Dr Garry Gordon's book, The Omega-3 Miracle is the most thoroughly researched and delightfully presented book on these miracle fats I've ever read. In fact, I was given two books on the same subject and the other was so eclipsed by this one, I refuse to hurt the author by publishing that review here. Click here to read our review of The Omega-3 Miracle.

This entire story is amazing. The discovery, the battle over the discovery, the tests and further studies, and finally the simple fact that our arteries have another enemy that came from nowhere. Click here to read our review of The Calcium Bomb.

Dr Bruce Fife loves our little web site. He sent me two more review copies of his latest coconut books. They are a must in every kitchen and first aid kit. Click here to read our review of Coconut Cures, and click here to read our review of Cooking with Coconut Flour.

Note: GasAway has been discontinued because their new digestive enzymes called NextZyme contain those gas fighting enzymes. Read about NextZyme.

I have tried everything. When the Sedona Labs rep called me offering me a couple bottles of GasAway, I told them just that. I’ve tried all the probiotics, digestive enzymes, BeanO, GasX, you name it. If someone makes a product for flatulence, I’ve tried it.

A little gas is normal. A lot of gas is a sign that you are not properly digesting your food. It’s a struggle to find out what’s missing. Like I said, I’ve tried everything. So when the rep from Sedona Labs told me they had an anti-flatulence formula for me to review, I jumped at the chance to test it.

The most amazing thing about GasAway is its price. I thought it would cost as much as their other products, but when I called and asked for the retail price, they told me $8.99.

But first let me tell you how I tested it.

I took two capsules before the meal. The recommended dose is one capsule before a meal. Yeah, right.

I sat down to one of my favorite Mexican meals: Bean burritos, chips, salsa, hot sauce, and a good beer (life is too short to drink cheap beer).

Normally, within 45 minutes of this meal, I’m tooting like a tug boat.

That night: Nothing.

Later that night, just one “pfffft” escaped, but beyond that, nothing.

I was in shock.

I ordered a case.

I can date again. :o)

So, if you have a toot or two now and then, this isn’t for you. But if the US Department of Energy has your tush listed on their natural gas reserves, you might want to consider using GasAway.

Contact our friends at Simply the Best, and keep in mind they’re having an unadvertised Buy 4 get 1 Free sale.

No matter where I go or what I’m doing, the one thing people want to know, the question I am most often asked, goes something like this: from all your research, what has been your best finding?

Most of the time, the person asking the question means products; something solid like an herb or a vitamin. They don’t want to hear about the spiritual healing processes I’ve discovered in which one can heal ones life in an instant, but, sadly, hardly anyone does because her/his belief system will not allow it.

So, what are my best discoveries on this journey so far?

1. Electrolyzed Water

I put off reviewing Electrolyzed water for over a year. I was so busy being busy that it had to take a back seat. Funny, eh?

This is the most amazing stuff in the world. We are continually receiving testimonials on this stuff; continually learning more and more about its uses.

If you’ve not read our review of Electrolyzed Water, you can click the link above. If you have read it, then we’re just going to touch on a few new things we’ve picked up since our last newsletter.

I’ve had people approach me to sell machines that Electrolyze Water. They run for about $3,000.00. The machines make darn good water. The only problem is that the water will eventually return to normal. We plan on testing this in the future and reporting back to you on how long you can expect your water to maintain its pH.  

Super Detox

What I’m about to tell you is something that just a few months back (when I first heard of it) I said to myself, well this is something I’m not about to pass on. Well, now I have to. It’s the only way to explain the anecdotal evidence we’re getting in testimonials about how powerful a detoxicating agent this water really is, so here goes.

A woman came to me wanting to quit smoking. She said she’d trade housekeeping for my helping her quit. She said that in the past, when she’d try to quit, she’d get a migraine that was so powerful that by the second day, her moaning and screaming forced her family members to run to the store to get her some smokes. One puff, and the migraine began to fade.

From the first day, I had her drink a quart a day of the alkaline water.

She experienced no withdrawal symptoms. Not a one.

She calls me nearly daily, telling me how I saved her life. Sure, she’s starting to gain a little weight (that oral fixation is hard to placate). But she has quit smoking; any addiction she has is only mental, not physical, because the electrolyzed water detoxed her body of that nicotine within 24 hours. That is the only explanation. (I’ve added this to our How to Quit Smoking article and our article Cleaning House – The Correct Way to Detox.)

More and More Uses Coming In

The latest was from my cousin. She took some of the acidic water along on her vacation. She loved it for all its uses, but one day she spilled red raspberry juice down her white shirt and onto her pants. She had no quick change of clothing, but thought about using electrolyzed water.

To her surprise, it took out the stain. No one could believe it.

And of course, she’s like me. When she got to her destination and used the acidic water with her relatives there, she had to leave them the bottle when she drove off. She just had to. It’s in my family’s genetic structure. We are all missionaries for these wonderful products.

My Personal Use

I make ice with the alkaline water and at night, I fill a mug with the ice, pour in 8 – 16 ounces and drink her down. I keep it at my bedside and drink all night. I’ve never felt better in my life.

You can go without food for a very long time. We can’t go that long without water.

2. Omegasentials

This was number one on my list till I discovered Electrolyzed Water.

Our diets lack these essential fats and we are a society on fire with inflammation. I’ve probably mentioned Omegasentials more than any other product at this web site, mostly because our diets lack these essential fats, but also because this is the best way I have found to get these life-saving lipids.

The product has cofactors that just stand it head and shoulders above any other form of flax (and flax oil) we’ve found, and it is water soluble, hence more bio-available.

It has fish oils added to it to make sure you get your DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eiocosapentaenoic acid) for brain and nervous system support.

At the time of this writing, we are having an Omegasentials Baking Contest.

The recipes we’ve created already have been received well by our readers, and we’ve gotten lots of feedback, with most people saying they never thought health food could taste so good.

Simply the Best was created to sell Omegasentials to our readers at a hefty discount. You might want to check them out.

Personally, I love this stuff and use it daily, whether on yogurt or in a smoothie, or in one of my Omega-Muffins. And I know, after five physicians told me that I should have been killed from a horse kick some four years ago now (that my aorta should have burst from the kick) that it is my daily use of Omegasentials that keeps my arteries supple and young.

3. Salt

You’d never expect salt to be much of a discovery. It’s taken a lot of abuse over the years. When Dr Albert Schweitzer found the first cases of cancer in the African jungles, he suspected the culprit to be the salt from American foods sent there. Your cardiologist will tell you to cut back on salt if you have a tendency toward high blood pressure.

But the salt I’m talking about here, my favorite, is not processed, white table salt. It’s not processed sea salt. It’s unprocessed salt. Processing changes the salt; minerals are removed (in their natural state) and sold back to us in an unnatural state. We can buy them in health food stores or get them from fortified cereals. In this form, they probably do nothing for us. It won't stop the advertisers hyping their "fortified" foods. 

In Celtic Sea Salt® Brand or Himalayan Crystal Salt, the minerals are ionic. Ions are electrically charged particles. For a mineral to work in the human body, it must be in an ionic form. I’ve written about both the Celtic Sea Salt® Brand (Original Article) and the Himalayan crystal salt at this web site. I love them both. Both are charged with ionic minerals.

I was diagnosed as being bipolar and the doctor wanted me to try some lithium. I opted for the natural lithium salts in Celtic Sea Salt® Brand, and less than a year later, they had to change my diagnosis.

Crystals are energy. We read about electrolytes being added to solutions for babies and runners. Electrolytes is just another word for an ion. Adding just a pinch, a homeopathic amount, of Himalayan Crystal salt to your water can improve your well-being and overall health immensely.

Personally, people were amazed this past spring when I traveled about the country. At a restaurant, I’d whip out my bag of salt and share it. I don’t like putting white, processed salt into my body. The natural energy is gone; all that’s left are the chemicals.

I’ve received a lot of mail from people selling Himalayan salt who send me articles about how polluted Celtic Sea Salt® Brand is. Celtic Sea Salt® Brand does take a lot of abuse from the ocean since the oceans are the worlds garbage dump, but Celtic Sea Salt® Brand is cleaned and assayed each year. The stories of it being filled with mercury and petrochemicals are promulgated by people selling other salt. (Again, this is why we sell nothing. Our opinions are based upon facts, not profits.) I use the Celtic Sea Salt® Brand for the mineral content and I use the Himalayan salt for its subtle energies.

4. Automodine (Detoxified Iodine)

You can read my write up on Detoxified Iodine if you’ve not done it already, but in short, it’s a form of iodine that Edgar Cayce described in one of his trances. The stuff works and works well. It’s a nutritional substance.

Automodine has been known to help clear up malaria in just a few hours. It is antifungal and antibacterial. Someone asked me: if I had an earache which would I use? Automodine or Electrolyzed Water? They both work well.

My answer was Automodine. Why? Because it is a nutrient our bodies need. Putting it on your skin (or under your toenails or between your toes; great for toenail fungus or athletes foot, though it stings a bit) gets it into your body (as does anything we put on our skin).

Did you know that the US Military is stockpiling potassium iodide? This is a form that can be taken orally and protects the body against thyroid cancer caused by exposure to radiation. We’ve written about this previously: after the nuclear holocaust in Japan, the people there detoxed themselves of the radiation by eating miso soup with seaweed. Seaweed contains iodine.

Our military seems to think that there is a pretty good likelihood of our being hit with a nuclear or dirty bomb. Some seem to think that America is ready to launch a nuclear war with Iran (who could put it past us, eh?). Either way, there seems to be a shortage of potassium iodide in the world right now.

One problem with this solution to high radiation levels is that it must be taken prior to or right after contact with the radiation. Thus this stockpile of potassium iodide must be located near the contamination area, which is pretty hard to determine beforehand.

Iodine is a needed nutrient that is lacking in most diets. Our government requires salt companies to add iodine to salt so that we get our daily requirements. The required amounts established by our government are far less than what good research tells us (as you can see in the article we wrote).

We reviewed a form of iodine made by Phil Thomas. He has recently sent us his latest batch made from kelp.

Some people are allergic to iodine and must avoid it, and those with thyroid problems must be monitored if using it.

If you want to take it orally in the automodine form, Phil gleaned these instructions from the Edgar Cayce readings: In a glass of water, on Monday put one drop. On Tuesday put 2; Wednesday 3; Thursday 4; and Friday 5 drops.

Potassium Iodide might require a prescription (there are ways to get around this) though Phil’s automodine does not. (See below the article on Potassium Iodide.)

The importance of iodine in our diet is enormous, yet we hear very little about it, so it is my job to inform you just how important iodine is to health and wellness:

From the American Thyroid Association

The thyroid gland is a butterfly-shaped endocrine gland that is normally located in the lower front of the neck. The thyroid’s job is to make thyroid hormone, which is secreted into the blood and then carried to every tissue in the body. Thyroid hormone is essential to help each cell in each tissue and organ to work right. For example, thyroid hormone helps the body use energy, stay warm, and keep the brain, heart, muscles, and other organs working as they should.

Let me emphasize: "The thyroid’s job is to make thyroid hormone, which is secreted into the blood and then carried to every tissue in the body."

That hormone is called thyroxine and it contains 4 iodine atoms. Without iodine, your body will not function properly, period.

From the World Health Organization:

Iodine Deficiency is the world’s most prevalent – yet easily preventable – cause of brain damage. Today we are on the verge of eliminating it – an achievement that will be hailed as a major public health triumph, ranking together with smallpox and poliomyelitis.

Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) jeopardize children’s mental health – often their very lives. They start before birth. Serious iodine deficiency during pregnancy may result in stillbirths, abortions and congenital abnormalities such as cretinism, a grave, irreversible form of mental retardation that affects people living in iodine-deficient areas of Africa and Asia. However, of far greater global and economic significance is IDD’s less visible, yet more pervasive, level of mental impairment that lowers intellectual prowess at home, at school and at work.

From Dr David Brownstein’s book Iodine: Why You Need It; Why You Can’t Live Without It:

Of all the elements known so far to be essential for human health, iodine is the most misunderstood and the most feared. Yet, iodine is the safest of all the essential trace elements, being the only one that can be administered safely for long periods of time to large numbers of patients in daily amounts as high as 100,000 times the RDA. However, this safety record only applies to inorganic, nonradioactive forms of iodine. Some organic iodine containing drugs are extremely toxic and prescribed by physicians. The severe side effects of these drugs are blamed on inorganic iodine although studies have clearly demonstrated that it is the whole molecule that is toxic, not the iodine released from it.

How important iodine is to overall health and wellness can be summarized by listing all of the conditions it affects:

Iodine is antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antiparasitic, and anti-inflammatory when it comes to preventing Hashimoto’s Disease, or autoimmune inflammation. [www.drbrownstein.com]

It helps to regulate moods, prevent cancer (especially in breasts, ovaries, uterus, prostate and thyroid gland), prevent and treat fibrocystic breasts in women, regulate blood pressure, regulate blood sugar and prevent and treat diabetes, and prevent abnormal cardiac rhythms. [http://www.mbschachter.com/Iodine.htm and the New England Journal of Medicine, http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/332/9/562]

Dr Brownstein's book points out that iodine is effective for the following conditions:

Breast Disease, Dupuytren’s Contracture, Excess Mucous Production, Fatigue, Fibrocystic Breasts, Hemorrhoids, Headaches and Migraine, Headaches, Keloids, Ovarian Cysts, Parotid Duct Stones, Peyronie’s, Sebaceous Cysts, Thyroid Disorders, Cancers (breast, ovarian, thyroid, prostate)

And finally, iodine is utterly important in the event of nuclear holocaust. In our detox paper, Cleaning House - The Correct Way to Detox, we point out how after Hiroshima, the Japanese used seaweed soup to help detox the radiation. Seaweed contains iodine. Having the proper amount of iodine in your thyroid gland will protect against radiation poisoning. Here is an article that will show you how important iodine is, and how important our government thinks it is too: WHY YOU SHOULD BUY POTASSIUM IODIDE NOW

Unlike Dr Howenstine, I prefer Automodine over potassium iodide.

Editor's Note: Before I go on to number five, I should tell you that these first four products, when used together, work in synergy. The first three are about oxygen and energy. This last is a nutrient that cares for the thyroid gland first, and then every cell in the human body. Dr Budwig created a diet that cured cancer with omega-3 fatty acids. Adding Electrolyzed Water to this diet makes it even better. Electrolyzed Water will not cure cancer on its own, though we've received some great testimonials. Together, Electrolyzed Water and Omegasentials make the body stronger and healthier, and cancer cells just cannot compete in this environment. Add the two salts and iodine, and you have a foundation of perfect health. The minerals from salt will affect every function in our bodies and assist in healing anything that comes along. Iodine will also help every function in the body, and protect against disease. These first four of my favorites are all about complete essential nutrition and energy.

5. Berries

Up till now, all the things we’ve talked about can be considered essential to life. I read that the average American could go 54 days without food. We can’t go very long without water. (I just happen to like Electrolyzed Water the best.)

Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids are essential to good health. Without salt, we die. Iodine, too, is an essential nutrient. The essentials are at the top of my list. After this, nearly all are ranked the same (at least in my book), but if we have to assign a hierarchy, here is the order in which they randomly popped into my head.

Berries are optional, though for me, they are essential. I’ve written about berries many times here. The chemicals in berries are more powerful than chemotherapy yet they don’t do a single disservice to your body. They help fight cancer, heart disease, and are just fantastic in smoothies.

One of my favorite statistics involving red raspberries is this: “One cup of red raspberries will stop prostate cancer growth for one week.” We found this in a tiny booklet (Chemopreventive Properties of Phytochemicals) sent to us by one of our readers. The booklet is NOW available online: Chemopreventive Properties of Phytochemicals. 

In the future I'll tell you about some new berries I've discovered that have many healthful properties.

6. Mushrooms

I’ve enjoyed very much my discovery of mushrooms. In the early nineties I actually grew my own shitake mushrooms because the dehydrated shitakes sold for over $90.00 per pound. Today, the supply has burgeoned dramatically and the prices have dropped dramatically, for the shitake and the other medicinal mushrooms. The only medicinal mushroom that has a nasty taste is the reishi which can be found in an extract form. It is very bitter and does not go good in recipes. However the rest: shitake, maitake, and (my favorite) the ABM mushroom are great in recipes. These things just plain boost your immune system, and with the cold and flu season on the horizon, this is the time to start stocking up. I always have bottles and bottles of mushroom extracts (and vitamin C & Echinacea) on hand for those first signs of a cold or flu (How to Beat the Cold & Flu Season).

Our most recent affiliation is with a company called Ultimate Immune. I've been using their products for months now, and I have found them to be very powerful and effective. I will soon post a review of their products, though we have mentioned them from time to time in some of our testimonials. They produce some very high-quality beta-glucan products from mushrooms; they also handle other immunosupportive products.

My most recent discovery involving berries is the Elderberry. Elderberry extract cuts your influenza down time in half (and it’s been added to the article How to Beat the Cold & Flu Season.

7. Coconut

On the islands, this is called the Medicine Plant. We’ve written so much about this wonderful food (and we have two new book reviews by Bruce Fife on coconuts) that we really can’t say much more right here, except to point to our past articles: Coconut Oil; Coconut Recipes.

8. Ron Salley Creams (Miracle Skin)

Ron had an idea. He wondered if you could pull the good stuff out of herbs without heating them. He was told that it was impossible. So, he set out to do the impossible, and in doing so, he discovered that it wasn’t impossible at all.

Ron’s creams are called Miracle Skin, and his customers agree that they are miraculous. Personally, I’ve never found a better foot cream than Sugar Foot. It heals cracks in just a day or two. His Healon PF™ is something that I take with me everywhere I go. It’s perfect for cuts, scrapes, rashes, mold and fungus.

And now we’ve just discovered it’s great on burns, even third degree burns.

I’ve updated the newsletter with our review of Ron’s products by adding a letter from a physician and two very convincing before-and-after photos.

You can read the letter here: Dr Hall's Letter (and photos).

The photos are there, or you can see one right now: This man had third degree burns on his nose and his doctor felt that he was going to lose the nose. The patient used Healon PF™ twice a day for three weeks. The doctor was astounded, and so will you be: Before and After.

I must tell you of a personal experience with Ron Salley’s creams:

This summer, while banging away at my computer keyboard, I noticed that my arm pits where burning. I noted this and went back to work. I ignored the pain till I could ignore it no longer. I got up, went to a mirror, and raised up my arms. My armpits had a terrible heat rash. It was painful just to move my arm a tiny bit because the hairs would pull at the red burning skin. I knew I had to do something, so I grabbed my trusty Golden Touch and sprayed. It felt good, but when I put my arms back down, the burning came back. Ron Sally’s Healon PF™ came to mind. It’s a very powerful lotion, but it can also be quite painful, and since I’m a wimp and I was already in enough pain, I thought maybe I could put some SugarFoot on the rash instead. So I did. Within 30 seconds, complete relief. I could go on typing and no pain whatsoever. That night, I looked and the rash was completely gone. Ron Sally’s Miracle Skin creams and lotions are unparalleled in this world. We’ve truly been honored to help him promote his products.

Ron is presently creating three new products: an Acne Formula, a Psoriasis Formula, and one called Advanced Skin Care (ACS) formula. Again, he’s been receiving lots of testimonials from these products and Simply the Best will soon be carrying them.

9. Digestive Aids

One statement that really opened my eyes, which we published in our series on digestion, is: The inside of your colon is still the outside of your body.

This says it all. You can eat the best foods in the world, but still not get their nutrition.

We’ve already focused on probiotics and GasAway in this newsletter, and we’ve also focused on digestive enzymes and a cluster of digestive aids in the two articles on digestion: Digestion Part One and Digestion Part Two. We can now tell you that Simply the Best is now carrying Sedona Labs digestive aids and not only do they give our readers (we are the only site advertising them) a hefty discount, they currently are running an unadvertised special that only you know about: Buy 4 of any ONE product and they will send you one free bottle.

I’ve checked out the math behind this and I can tell you that this sale makes them very little profit. They are doing this for our readers, as an introduction to Sedona Labs’ wonderful digestive aids. As I said above, you will not see any mention of this sale at their site; only our readers know about it.

If you order 4 bottles, they will write to you that you will be getting 5 in the mail. If not, PLEASE write to me: info@mnwelldir.org.

When the sale is ended, we will remove all references to it at our site, and they will post at their site that the buy 4 get 1 free sale has ended.

So, for now, if you want to get a great deal on digestive aids, just go here: Simply the Best.

10. Chi, Love, Beauty, and Joy

Healing works on many levels. To be true to the holistic model, we can’t just take a vitamin, or an immunomodulator, we must treat the whole person, body, mind, and spirit.

When I discovered Chi (Qi), a whole nother world opened up for me. Qigong changed my life. It allowed me to build the subtle energies from within and to help others heal. I’ve witnessed miracles:

Thank you, David for your healing. I went back to the doctor and he said to me, “I don’t know what you’ve done, but your tumor is contained and we can now remove it.”  Roxie.

That was from a letter I received from a dear friend I’d met online, in a cancer support room. I went to visit her and she took me on my very first trip to see Niagara Falls. Afterwards, with friends and relatives focusing their thoughts on healing her, I did my first “group” healing. When we were finished, she gave me the warmest hug of my life and told me, “David. I can breathe.”

She’s smoked for years and had lung cancer. It had spread through the lungs and was no longer operable. As you can see from her letter to me, something had happened, something miraculous. I was overjoyed to be a witness to this.

However, we cannot stop death. Death is not an enemy. Death comes no matter how healthy we are, but for those healthy in body, mind, and spirit, it comes quickly and greets them like an old friend.

Roxie died of cancer just a while back. She refused to quit smoking, and her cancer came back. We cannot change others; we can only change ourselves, and even that is a struggle with much screaming and kicking.

It was not just the Chi that helped Roxie during her healing, but the love. Love and chi are sometimes the same. And the unconditional love from the greatest power in the universe is the most healing energy we’ll ever know.

And when you are healed and full of love and the chi flows freely, we can discover beauty. My journey to health has brought me to a place where I’ve been allowed to capture beauty, the beauty of creation and nature and the beautiful creation that is human. Artists throughout the ages have painted and sculpted the human form. It is one of the Great Spirit’s creations that we’ve marveled at since the beginning of time. When I read that “God created us in His image,” to me that means something a bit different than the usual accepted meaning. To me it means that our creator is in everything created, and the beauty we see around us and within us is that creator, shining through the creation.

I want to thank you all for allowing me to share my journey with you, and I wish you all the best: the best healing, chi, love, beauty, and joy. It’s right there. All you have to do is reach out and grab it.

We've received a few requests to extend the Omegasentials Baking Contest and so we are doing just that.

We are extending the contest to February 2nd, 2006, Ground Hog's Day. And we're sweetening the pot by offering the winner, not only three bags of Omegasentials, but a copy of Bruce Fife's new book: Coconut Cures.

Our friends at REMOVED BY FDA Naturals who supply us with all our coconut needs just love us and sent us a copy of Coconut Cures not knowing that Bruce Fife had already sent us a copy. So, we'll be passing that on to the winner of the Omegasentials Baking Contest.

You should note that we've changed our recipe for Omega-Muffins just a tad. On the coconut recipe page we substitute Coconut Flour for wheat, and in all our Muffin recipes we've now changed the amount of Omegasentials per recipe to one and a half cups. This guarantees that each muffin will have two tablespoons of Omegasentials, the recommended daily amount.

If you've not yet made our Omega-Muffins, you'll never know how good healthy food can taste.

The following article was sent to me by International Advocates for Health Freedom. The person running this organization is a bit wacko and a fanatic. As most of my readers know, I like to err on the side of wackos. We've already covered this once in a newsletter: May 2003, but this article goes even further in depth.

After this article, we will give you preventive steps we can all take. Things you can do right now to strengthen your immunity for the coming season.

The Avian Flu and Drugless Doctors

BBC carried an article on 5 February titled "1918 killer flu secrets revealed" which tells us that the scientists claim to now have figured out that 50 million people were killed by a virus that "jumped from birds to humans".

Obviously this is to prepare us for a "killer epidemic", something that is supposed to hit any time now, be it this winter or the next or the one after that.

Jon Rappoport found the most interesting analysis of the 1918 flu disaster, in a book by Eleanor McBean. And if you haven't heard of drugless doctors yet, here's the place where you'll meet them.

THE FLU: 1918 AND NOW

FEBRUARY 7, 2004. You may have noticed that researchers are now saying they have analyzed the virus that caused the 1918 global pandemic of flu. They are linking it to a bird virus, which stirs the pot on the current flap about avian flu in Asia.

The PR goes this way: If this current bird virus mutates just a little bit in the wrong direction, we could see a replay of the 1918 disaster.

Here is another analysis, written about 25 years ago by Eleanor McBean. This excerpt, from chapter two of her book, Vaccination Condemned [the book is out of print], makes a quite different observation:

I WAS AN ON-THE-SPOT OBSERVER OF THE 1918 INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC

All the doctors and people who were living at the time of the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic say it was the most terrible disease the world has ever had. Strong men, hale and hearty, one day would be dead the next. The disease had the characteristics of the black death added to typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia, smallpox, paralysis and all the diseases the people had been vaccinated with immediately following World War 1. Practically the entire population had been injected "seeded" with a dozen or more diseases — or toxic serumss. When all those doctor-made diseases started breaking out all at once it was tragic.

That pandemic dragged on for two years, kept alive with the addition of more poison drugs administered by the doctors who tried to suppress the symptoms. As far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu. My family had refused all the vaccinations so we remained well all the time. We knew from the health teachings of Graham, Trail, Tilden and others, that people cannot contaminate the body with poisons without causing disease.

When the flu was at its peak, all the stores were closed as well as the schools, businesses — even the hospital, as the doctors and nurses had been vaccinated too and were down with the flu. No one was on the streets. It was like a ghost town. We [who didn't taken any vaccines] seemed to be the only family which didn't get the flu; so my parents went from house to house doing what they could to look after the sick, as it was impossible to get a doctor then. If it were possible for germs, bacteria, virus, or bacilli to cause disease, they had plenty of opportunity to attack my parents when they were spending many hours a day in the sick rooms. But they didn't get the flu and they didn't bring any germs home to attack us children and cause anything. None of our family had the flu — not even a sniffle— and it was was in the winter with deep snow on the ground.

It has been said that the 1918 flu epidemic killed 20,000,000 people throughout the world. But, actually, the doctors killed them with their crude and deadly treatments and drugs. This is a harsh accusation but it is nevertheless true, judging by the success of the drugless doctors in comparison with that of the medical doctors.

While the medical men and medical hospitals were losing 33% of their flu cases, the non-medical hospitals such as BATTLE CREEK, KELLOGG and MACFADDEN'S HEALTH-RESTORIUM were getting almost 100% healings with their water cure, baths, enemas, etc., fasting and certain other simple healing methods, followed by carefully worked out diets of natural foods. One health doctor didn't lose a patient in eight years.

The very successful health treatment of one of those drugless doctors who didn't lose any patients will be given in the other part of this book, titled VACCINATION CONDEMNED, to be published a little later.

If the medical doctors had been as advanced as the drugless doctors, there would not have been those 20 million deaths from the medical flu treatment.

There was seven times more disease among the vaccinated soldiers than among the unvaccinated civilians, and the diseases were those they had been vaccinated against. One soldier who had returned from overseas in 1912 told me that the army hospitals were filled with cases of infantile paralysis and he wondered why grown men should have an infant disease. Now, we know that paralysis is a common after-effect of vaccine poisoning. Those at home didn't get the paralysis until after the world-wide vaccination campaign in 1918.

End of excerpt

JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com 

See also

The Poisoned Needle - Suppressed Facts About Vaccination by Eleanor McBean

The following links are a must to those worried about vaccinations and their consequences:

http://www.redflagsweekly.com/conferences/shaken_baby/2004_dec10.html

http://www.redflagsweekly.com/conferences/vaccines/sept15_Fisher.html

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=539

http://www.909shot.com/History/Newsletters/nlr696.htm

Wash your hands often and avoid people who are sick. It was discovered that cold and flu germs are picked up by our hands and brought to our faces when we scratch, rub, poke, explore, etc.

Increase your Vitamin C intake. Determining how much vitamin C one needs can be confusing. The first determining factor is your pollution intake. If you are a smoker, you need at least 6,000 mgs daily (and you need to quit smoking). The same goes if you live in, say, Los Angeles county. You too need about 6,000 mgs daily. For the cold and flu season, you will need to up your daily amount to anywhere between 1,000 mgs and 3,000 mgs. Taking 400 to 800 IU of a good vitamin E (mixed tocopherols and mixed tocotrienols plus a bit of selenium) is also a good idea. Taking Beta Carotene is also a good idea unless you smoke or live in a smoky community; it can shorten your life.

Echinacea, though recently attacked by the AMA, will boost your T-Cell levels. However, never take it longer than two weeks. Actually, a few droppers-full for three days is all you need every two weeks.

Important: Goldenseal is also an immunostimulant, but is often sold in an Echinacea combination. Two top herbalists have told me never to mix Goldenseal with Echinacea because Goldenseal goes "deep" into the body, and can bring the Echinacea along with where it can actually play havoc with the immune system. Now, I am not sure as to how this works or what is entailed in all this, only that two very good herbalists who I have no reason to doubt, have passed this information on to me, and now I've passed it on to you.

Astragalus can be taken daily. One dropper-full is all you need.

Ginseng (both the Chinese and Siberian forms) also bolster the immune system.

Zinc has been touted lately as a supplement to help prevent colds or shorten their length, but not if you take too much. It seems that too much can actually work against you. Fifty milligrams is the optimal amount per day.

Most important, is to get your basics. You need iodine in your thyroid gland, minerals, essential fatty acids, and most of all, an alkaline terrain. As we learned in The Lost History of Medicine, the most important is an alkaline terrain. However, in today's life filled with processed dead foods, our bodies are very acidic. Eating a lot of greens, drinking Electrolyzed water, and a bit of lemon squash now and then is going to help, but to truly turn your terrain alkaline, you need to do even more. Eating superfoods filled with supergreens is very alkalizing. Drinking a shot of apple cider vinegar with a touch of honey in the morning is also very helpful (put your iodine into this to disguise the taste).

And you need your probiotics. Every article I've found on the immune system tells us that our immune systems are not the best they can be if our probiotics are lacking.

Next you'll need some powerful immunostimulants, such as those found in mushrooms. We've talked about many at this site. A new one that I am currently using is Glucan Infusion from Ultimate Immune. Others we've talked about are Transfer Factor Plus, the ABM Mushroom, RAAX11, and OPC Rainforest Mixture. These can be found at http://takesun.com/index2.html and at www.agaricus.net.

So, you've now got your fab four (my favorite four: Electrolyzed Water, Omegasentials, Celtic/Himalayan Salt, and Iodine), and you've got your probiotics, and are eating superfoods, taking your vitamins, etc etc etc....what else can you do?

There are two herbs I've just discovered (like most herbs, they've been around a long time) that also seem to help stave off colds and flu. If you're already down with a cold or flu, these will decrease the symptoms and significantly shorten the time you suffer.

The first comes from our Native American Pharmacopoeia: Devil's Club Root.

Natives prized this root for helping to stave off colds and flu and shorten their duration. Modern herbalists have discovered that it stabilizes blood sugar levels and shares some similarities with ginseng. It is a safe and strong respiratory stimulant and expectorant. The natives also used it to treat cancers. 

The next herb I discovered is an ayurvedic herb called Andrographis paniculata.

A recent published review of 11 clinical trials shows that andrographis is safe and effective in treating upper respiratory tract infections associated with colds and flus. [Coon JT, Ernst E. Andrographis paniculata in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infections: a systematic review of safety and efficacy. Planta Medica. 2004;70:293-296.]

According to Dr Ray Sahelian, “Andrographis is a shrub found throughout India and other Asian countries. Andrographis has become popular in Scandinavia for use during winter upper respiratory infections.” He also tells us that “Andrographis contains many flavonoids, which have anti-inflammatory properties. Andrographolide, an active component of andrographis paniculata, inhibits inflammatory responses by rat neutrophils.”

Andrographis is an antioxidant, antidiabetic (assists in glucose metabolism), anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, anti-malarial, and immunostimulant.

We found a product from Canada called Phytocold that contains Andrographis and ginger. Women who are pregnant and people taking blood thinners should not take Phytocold; nor should anyone on a blood-sugar lowering medicine use it. Phytocold will thin the blood and lower blood sugar.  People are warned to stop using Phytocold ten days prior to surgery.

In one study, people taking andrographis cut their cold risk in half compared to the placebo group. [Caceres, DD. Prevention of common colds with Andrographis paniculata dried extract. A double-blind pilot trial. Phytomed 1997; 4:101-4]

In another study, andrographis significantly reduced the symptoms of upper respiratory infections after just two days and after four days the effects were even more pronounced. [Caceres DD et al. Phytomed 1999]

The most interesting thing I learned when researching both of these herbs was that they were both hypoglycemic; they lower blood sugar levels. We've often talked about sugar and how it is immunosuppressive. Thus, when I discovered that both of these herbs stimulated the immune system and also lowered sugar levels in the blood, well, it was an eye opener. The first way to stimulate the immune system, it would seem, is to lower blood sugar levels.

And finally, have a lot of vitamin C on hand, a good Ester C (the body retains it longer), echinacea, and immunostimulants (subreach as the Glucan Infusion). And finally, if I were you, I'd have a dozen or so bottles of Elderberry Extract on hand. It's tasty and can cut a bout of the flu in half.

If you should catch a cold or flu, you've got all these things handy, so run and take a look at the article How To Beat The Cold & Flu Season (where you will find out what to do if it hits you).

And if nothing works, and you've wracked your brains and tried everything, but just can't beat it, then it's time for some old fashioned medicine: a warm bath, stay warm, lots of blankets, chicken soup with lots of garlic and cayenne pepper, lots of liquids, lemon and honey for the throat, and keep a humidifier going.

THIS JUST IN:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 26, 2005

VITAMIN C BEATS BIRD FLU AND OTHER VIRUSES, TOO

(OMNS) High dose vitamin C is a remarkably safe and effective treatment for viral infections. [^1,2]  In high doses, vitamin C neutralizes free radicals, helps kill viruses, and strengthens the body’s immune system. Taking supplemental vitamin C routinely helps prevent viral infections.

The Avian Flu (or Bird Flu), so often mentioned by newspapers, magazines and other news sources, is a particularly severe form of influenza. It should probably be called Poultry Flu, since almost all of the 150 or so human infections have come from domestic poultry. [³]  Interestingly, the symptoms of avian flu include hemorrhages under the skin, and bleeding from the nose and gums.  These are also classical symptoms of clinical scurvy, which means a critical vitamin C deficiency is present.

This means that vitamin C (ascorbate) is needed to treat it. Severe cases may require 200,000 to 300,000 milligrams of vitamin C or more, given intravenously (IV) by a physician. This very high dosing may be needed since the Avian Flu appears to consume vitamin C very rapidly, similar to an acute viral hemorrhagic fever, somewhat like an Ebola infection.

What should you do if you think you have a viral infection - any viral infection - coming on and IV vitamin C is not readily available? Nobel laureate Linus Pauling said that as soon as you feel the symptoms of sniffles, a cold or the flu, take oral doses of thousands of milligrams of vitamin C.

For best results, take vitamin C in evenly divided doses during the waking hours.  Continue taking vitamin C on this schedule until, Pauling says, you have loose stool (just short of diarrhea). After having loosened stool, reduce the vitamin C dosage reduce by about 25 per cent.  If you have another loose stool, reduce the vitamin C again, but if the symptoms of the viral infection begin to return, increase the dosage. You will quickly learn how much vitamin C to take; even children can learn to do this. Continue until you are completely well. Vitamin C greatly shortens the severity and duration of viral illnesses.

Vitamin C expert Robert Cathcart, M.D., specifies very high therapeutic doses of vitamin C. For a severe cold: 60,000 to 100,000 milligrams/day. [⁴] For most influenza (flu), 100,000 to 150,000 mg/day. [⁵] For Avian (Bird) Flu, 150,000 to 300,000 mg/day.[⁶]

Remember:

Vitamin C replaces antiviral drugs at saturation (bowel tolerance or loose stool) levels. 

The reason very high doses of a vitamin can cure an illnesses is because a disease-induced deficiency of that vitamin can be a cause of the illness.

As for the safety of this approach: There is not even one death per year from vitamins. Pharmaceutical drugs, properly prescribed and taken as directed, kill over 100,000 Americans annually. Hospital errors kill still more. Unlike drugs, with vitamins, the range of safe dosages is extraordinarily large.

What is Orthomolecular Medicine?

Linus Pauling defined orthomolecular medicine as the treatment of disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body.  Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

Take the Orthomolecular Quiz at http://www.orthomolecular.org/quiz/index.shtml

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Abram Hoffer, M.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Bradford Weeks, M.D.
Carolyn Dean, M.D. N.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org .

To subscribe at no charge: http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

References:

1. Gorton HC, Jarvis K. The effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms of virus-induced respiratory infections. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1999 Oct;22(8):530-3. “Vitamin C in megadoses administered before or after the appearance of cold and flu symptoms relieved and prevented the symptoms in the test population compared with the control group.”

2. Smith L. (Ed)  Clinical guide to the use of vitamin C. (Also published as: Vitamin C as a fundamental medicine: Abstracts of Dr. Frederick R. Klenner, M.D.’s published and unpublished work) 1988.  F. R. Klenner, M.D., “reports cases of influenza, encephalitis, and measles easily cured with Vitamin C injections and oral doses.”
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

3. http://my.webmd.com/content/article/112/110522.htm

4. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C, titrating to bowel tolerance, anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy. Medical Hypotheses, 7:1359-1376.  http://www.orthomed.com/titrate.htm

5. Cathcart RF. Treatment of the flu with massive doses of vitamin C.  http://www.orthomed.com/mystery.htm#treatment

6. Cathcart RF. Avian (bird) flu. http://www.orthomed.com/bird.htm

[Reprinted with permission from the Doctor Yourself Newsletter, copyright 2005 by Andrew W. Saul. Dr. Saul is Contributing Editor for the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, and is the author of the books Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works and Fire Your Doctor! How to be Independently Healthy. His peer-reviewed natural healing website, http://www.doctoryourself.com, receives 35,000 hits per day.]

My daughter's parakeet is in grave danger.

Need you ask why? Because the Bird Flu is coming!

With all this terrifying talk about bird flu, I have a lingering question: Has anyone thought about protecting the birds? Living near Lake Ontario, I regularly feed entirely too many seagulls. They come inland as well.  Just this weekend, I fed a characteristically ravenous flock of them at an interstate highway parking lot. The gulls encircled me like a Hitchcock movie. Another time, I was ungraciously harassed by a renegade herd of emus that I was, perhaps unwisely, attempting to feed. I had to climb up onto some boulders to get out of range.

Nice ol' birds; they just wanted a nosh.  

Too bad they are all going to die. And soon, too.

Yes, every one of them. There will not be a gull (or at the lake, a bouy) left standing. Surely, now, if bird flu is truly dangerous, the birds are at terrible risk. All of them. No more starlings. No more pigeons. Goodbye, Mr. Hawk. Goodbye, Mrs. Robin. No more Woody; no more "Beep-Beeps"; Donald is doomed.

And then there's all the gorgeous song birds, all those tiny little dickie birds, like the ones I've held in my hand while they were being banded: they are all dead meat.

What's that you say? That I'm exaggerating? That all the world's bird species are NOT condemned to get Bird Flu? Then I say, Ask yourself how that can be.

After all, no shots means no chance. Or at least that is the gist of our pharmaphilic government's and media's clanging presentations to the public.

Truth be told, this is nothing new. They've tried this before with the colossal Swine Flu panic some thirty years ago. Remember?

The U.S. Government cannot say without qualification that flu shots are either safe or essential. 

Here is what the government of the United States said about the infamous Swine Flu vaccine, in a 1976 mass-distributed FDA Consumer Memo on the subject: 

"Some minor side effects - tenderness in the arm, low fever, tiredness - will occur in less than 4% of (vaccinated) adults.  Serious reactions from flu vaccines are very rare." 

So much for blanket claims of safety, for many persons well remember the very numerous and very serious side effects of Swine Flu vaccine that forced the federal immunization program to a halt.

As far as being essential, in the same memo the FDA said this of the same vaccine:

"Question: What can be done to prevent an epidemic?  Answer: The only preventive action we can take is to develop a vaccine to immunize the public against the virus.  This will prevent the virus from spreading."

This was seen to be totally false; after all; the public immunization program was abruptly halted and still there was no epidemic of Swine Flu.  If vaccination were the only defense, literally tens of millions of Americans should have been struck down with the Swine Flu, for a large percentage of the population of the U.S. was not vaccinated.

Surely there are other factors involved in prevention of illness or epidemic.  But try telling that to allopathically-oriented health commissioners and doctors. You'd think that monks and nuns who work with the sick would have to get their patients' diseases... but they seldom do. Did the elderly and diminutive Mother Theresa die from leprosy? From AIDS?

If germs or viruses are all around us, why aren't we all dead, or at least deathly ill? And how come crows and vultures regularly eat diseased and decaying road kill, pressing their faces into a maggoty mess, and then fly happily away?

And, as my friends and I used to so energetically search railroad underpasses for sick and injured pigeons to take to our treehouse and nurse back to health, well, I now wonder how we survived at all.

But as for you, you non-bird you, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the medical media say that without a shot, you are a sitting duck for bird flu.

It seems to me, by logical extension, that without vaccinations for all birds, all birds are goners. Ducks included, sitting or otherwise. Without flu shots for birds, there will be no birds. Silent spring.

Birds are seemingly such frail little creatures. Their permanently feverish bodies are already around 104 degrees Fahrenheit every day. A bird with a real fever must be one hot little number indeed. Yet, every year, tiny little chickadees spend entire frigid winters in my backyard. Gale force subzero winds and our typical eight to ten feet of snowfall do not stop them. And they do not have vaccinations. Not a one. They don't even have heated socks. How on earth do they do it?

So: Shall I have my daughter's little green budgie vaccinated? All the more reason, really, since the parakeet is also at risk from all the human flu strains. Yes, Virginia, all those zillions of Human Flu viruses are out there, just waiting to kill your 'keet. And you with it.

Influenza is a serious disease, and historically, has been the Reaper's scythe. About 10 million soldiers were killed in World War I, charging machine guns and getting mowed down month after month.  There were nearly a million casualties at the Somme and another million at Verdun.  A terrible slaughter went on for four years.  Yet, in just the two years following the war, over 20 million people died from influenza.  That is more than twice as many deaths from the flu in one-half the time it took the machine guns. There is no way to make light of that.

On the other hand, there is ample reason to now, finally, end our wishful belief that flu shots stop the flu, because generally they don't, not even in the elderly, their target audience.

NBC and the Associated Press (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9438511/ ) reported on Sept 22, 2005 that

"A new analysis of 40 years of research provides more evidence that flu shots are not as effective in the elderly as commonly believed. But health officials said older people should still be vaccinated. . . The findings are similar to those of a study done by U.S. National Institutes of Health that found flu shots for the elderly in the United States had not saved lives."

And then they add: "Flu shots may be required in all nursing homes. Federal officials urging flu shots for all this year."

Will Rogers sure was right: with stuff like this in the papers, who needs a comedy writer? Congress writes farce so very well, and the news obligingly tosses it straight into to our living rooms.

But wait: there's more!

An interesting if not downright revealing article at www.medicinenet.com (1) says, in part:
   
"According to a study appearing in the Sept. 22 online issue of The Lancet, vaccines against influenza are only "modestly effective" in people in long-term care facilities and even less effective for elderly people still living in the community. . . "The vaccine doesn't work very well at all," said study author Dr. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist with the Cochrane Vaccines Field in Rome. "Vaccines are being used as an ideological weapon. What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense." Dr. Marc Siegel, author of "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear," agreed. "We have set up a situation where a fear is created, and then we try to create the treatment for this fear. The public gets the idea that the flu is going to kill them and the vaccine will save them. Neither is true," he said."

For the record, both these critics are medical doctors.

With our century's worth of accumulated scientific hindsight, we must today ask this: Was a lack of vaccinations really the cause of those flu deaths, or was it really wartime stress,  and especially war-induced malnutrition, that set the stage in 1918? And now, once again, we have an alarming and rather similar scenario: between nutrient-poor processed convenience foods, McNothing meals and TV news scare stories, we have the basic ingredients for an epidemic.

But we now also have a simple, safe and effective answer. First, the nutrition solution: eat a good, healthy, whole foods natural diet, and take lots and lots of vitamin C. And second: relax! De-stress your life, take it easy, and cheer up. It has been very well said that you are of much more value than any number of birds. You are factory-equipped with a kick-ass mammalian immune system that is a true marvel of nature. To maximize your resistance to any viral disease, including any strain of flu, I think you would do well to stop eating processed junk food, and load up on ascorbate.

You too can be chipper and chirping away, ignoring swine flu hype, SARS scares, bird flu panics, or any other viral bogeymen being used to scare you into a coerced relationship with a flu shot.

Reference:
1. Gardner A. Flu vaccine only mildly effective in elderly. HealthDay Reporter, Sept 21, 2005. http://www.medicinenet.com

MEDICAL DOCTOR CONFIRMS: VITAMIN C CURES BIRD FLU
The best presentation I have ever seen on just how vitamin C megadoses prevent and cure avian influenza is posted for free reading at the website of Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.: http://orthomed.com/bird.htm

These online articles may also be of interest:

Flu vaccines are largely ineffective

Bird Flu Background and Relation to Vitamin C:

Bird Flu Dangers Greatly Exaggerated: 
 

Though we are not in concert with all of the good doctor's conclusions, we do think you should read this: Avian Flu Fright.

Additionally, here are a few things you might want to peruse:

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund

Immunity (From Prosecution) Sought As Avian Flu Shadow Approaches

MedImmune to Collaborate With National Institutes of Health to Develop Pandemic Influenza Vaccine

Bush Asks for Military to Aid in Quarantine

Vaccine may be linked to bird flu cases

You have to see this..... 
 

I have often been of the belief that most breakfast cereals are so over-processed that the only thing we get from most cereals is dietary fiber. I read once that Corn Flakes are heated up to 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. Mmmmm, now that’s tasty!

One of our readers sent me this quotation from Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions:

Whole grains that have been processed by high heat and pressure to produce puffed wheat, oats and rice are actually quite toxic and have caused rapid death in test animals.  We do not recommend rice cakes, a popular snack food.  Breakfast cereals that have been slurried and extruded at high temperatures and pressures to make little flakes and shapes should also be avoided.   Most, if not all, nutrients are destroyed during processing, and they are very difficult to digest.  Studies show that these extruded whole grain preparations can have even more adverse effects on the blood sugar than refined sugar and white flour!  The process leaves phytic acid intact but destroys phytase, an enzyme that breaks down some of the phytic acid in the digestive

We’ve received even more information on over-processed foods and as always, fortified foods are garbage.

A pretty good article is: Doctors challenge baby feeding myths

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Anvirzel Update

Top

We've got much to tell, but can't tell it now. We've been waiting and waiting and waiting. There is so much happening, that the people involved want to get it all to you at once with no errors.

It's a great story filled with corporate theft, indictments, lies and insinuations, and mass confusion caused by internet sites posting conflicting stories.

They came to us because we seem to be the only ones who want to tell the truth and have nothing to gain by telling you otherwise.

When we get it, we will send out a link to everyone on our mailing list to the Anvirzel update page, and this spot too will have the update.

But until then, just hang in there.

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Tidbits Many sent to us by our readers.

Top

From the movie: Good Will Hunting (1997):

"Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."

Death Watch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

BUSH UNBALANCED AS POLLS PLUMMET

Letter from my state representative, the Honorable James Oberstar:

    Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts regarding radio programming. I appreciate hearing from you about this timely issue.

    The Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) is a broadcast service funded by public tax dollars and reaches nearly one million U.S. troops every day.  On Monday, October 17, 2005, AFRTS was scheduled to begin airing a talk show hosted by Ed Schultz, who is widely known for his liberal views on many issues and is a vocal critic of President Bush. Without explanation, the Pentagon abruptly cancelled the show on the day it was scheduled to premiere.

    On June 16, 2004, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) won unanimous approval in the Senate  for a non-binding resolution urging AFRTS to offer more political balance in its programming.  The resolution, which was offered as an amendment to the 2004 Department of Defense authorization bill, called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to develop appropriate methods of oversight to ensure the news service presents balanced political programming.

    The resolution was necessary because the AFRTS is failing to provide politically balanced radio programming to its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.  A recent survey by Democracy Radio discovered that the Rush Limbaugh Show is the sole program of its kind on AFRTS that offers political commentary.  By failing to provide political balance in its public affairs programming, the AFRTS ensures that Rush Limbaugh's message cannot be countered with more credible voices.

    It is abhorrent that the American taxpayer is paying for the broadcast of a reckless radio host who called the torture of Iraqi prisoners "brilliant" and "effective," and our troops should not be conditioned with his destructive, vitriolic propaganda.  Our fighting men and women hold a variety of political beliefs and they deserve to hear diverse programming that more fairly reflects those beliefs.

     With best wishes.

                            Sincerely,

                            James L. Oberstar, M.C.

If you want to see balanced political media get to our troops, write your congresspersons, senators, and the Armed Forces Radio Network: afrtpln@hq.afis.osd.mil. You're paying for it; let's try to get our money's worth.
 

UPDATE: STOP THE SNEAK ATTACK ON ORGANIC STANDARDS Over the past month, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) network members have deluged Congress with over 170,000 letters, asking policymakers to reject an industry sponsored stealth "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill. The rider would weaken organic standards and allow hundreds of synthetic substances in organic production without prior review or public participation. Feeling the heat from their constituents, the U.S. Senate stalled the rider vote and forwarded it on for discussion in the House/Senate Conference Committee. Thanks to all of you for contacting your Congresspeople! Unfortunately we are up against powerful lobbyists from giant food processors such as Kraft as well as supermarket chains. If you have not taken action, please send an email to Congress. If you have already emailed or called your Senators and Representative, thank you. Please consider forwarding this action alert on to your friends and colleagues. We hope to generate more than 250,000 letters to stop this rider from being passed by Congress. TAKE ACTION: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm   ____________________________________ Senate DEBATES CUTTING FOOD AID TO 150,000 IMPOVERISHED U.S. CHILDREN The Senate is currently debating cutting $3 billion from farm conservation and food stamp programs. Spearheaded by Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga) and GOP supporters, the proposal would eliminate food stamps for more than 300,000 impoverished people. Currently, more than half of all food stamp recipients are children, and a quarter are senior citizens. While millions of Americans are looking for ways to cope with the aftermath of hurricanes and drought, powerful members of the Senate are being swayed by agriculture industry lobbyists, who are pushing for food stamp cuts while supporting massive tax payer subsidies to the nation's wealthiest industrial agriculture operations. "Right now the difference between life and death for many Americans is the food stamp program," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. "We should not, we cannot, cut the very nutritional programs that are literally saving lives." Send a letter to your U.S. Senator here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/rd-subsidy.htm   ____________________________________ LOW INCOME KIDS CREATE HEALTHY FOOD AD CAMPAIGN Bus riders in Seattle are seeing many of the traditional junk food advertisements on the buses converted into pieces of art made by children. According to students in the area, they had never seen an advertisement for fresh fruits and vegetables, but could list countless junk food ads they see daily. Thanks to several local grants and a wealth of creative thinking, a small group of local organizers created an innovative program to improve the nutrition of low-income inner city kids by teaching them gardening, cooking and food self reliance skills. The program has helped nearly a thousand minority and low income kids create their own advertisements for healthy foods which are posted on city buses. The same program is now offering opportunities for low income inner-city students to tour local farms and to learn about gardening. http://www.organicconsumers.org/school/kidads101305.cfm   ____________________________________ FOOD PRICES ESCALATE ON THE HEELS OF RISING OIL PRICES Rising oil prices aren't just raising prices at the gas pump, they're also expected to dramatically increase the cost of conventional foods. According to the Earth Policy Institute, 80% of the energy currently used in the U.S. food system is consumed AFTER the food leaves the farm (transporting, processing and packaging the food). With the average food item traveling a full 2,000 miles from farm to fork, high oil prices will translate into higher food prices. Non-organic crops may also become prohibitively expensive. In the U.S., roughly three quadrillion Btu's of energy annually goes into making conventional fertilizers, which are made from natural gas. That's equivalent to a third of France's total annual energy consumption. As a result of escalating food costs, some market economists are predicting a renaissance of traditional American food production practices, such as sourcing organic foods from local farms and gardening at home. http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/security101105.cfm   ____________________________________ TAKE THE STARBUCKS CHALLENGE In 2000, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) waged a massive leafleting campaign at hundreds of Starbucks stores around the world, urging the company to support family farmers by purchasing fair trade coffee. Starbucks eventually responded to OCA protests and officially announced it would make fair trade coffee available "upon request" in all of its Starbucks stores. Now, five years have gone by and a group of bloggers from L.A. and London have decided check in with other bloggers around the world to find out if Starbucks is really living up to its claim. Thousands of people are now "Taking the Starbucks Challenge," by visiting their local Starbucks location, asking for Fair Trade coffee, documenting the response, and posting the results online. So far, it's not looking very good for Starbucks. The OCA is joining the challenge on its own web forum. If you have a Starbucks fair trade experience please take a second to share it with others and post it here: http://organicconsumers.org/chat/index.php   ____________________________________ GE CROPS CONTAMINATE LAND FOR MORE THAN 15 YEARS A new study, funded by the biotech industry and the British government, has found that growing genetically engineered (GE) crops contaminates the land for at least 15 years. Scientists examined various test plots of GE oilseed rape and found that even if a farmer were to grow the GE plant for only one season, the plants would continue to grow year after year, contaminating future harvests. The study reveals that nine years after growing the GE rape plants, two plants were found to be growing on every square meter. After 15 years, there was still one GE plant growing per square meter. The British government is using this data to fortify its decision to uphold a ban on growing GE crops. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/ruin101105.cfm   ____________________________________ QUICK TIDBITS Fish really is brain food. A new study of elderly men and women found that eating fish at least once per week actually slows down the development of dementia. Although past studies have found the omega-3 fatty acids in fish reduce Alzheimer's disease risk, the current study authors say they are not related to the decline in dementia. The authors are calling for further studies to isolate the specific nutrient in fish related to the dementia decline. http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/dementia.cfm In the next couple of weeks, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce a new policy that would legalize the sale of milk and beef from cloned cows. Hundreds of cloned pigs and cows are already living all across the U.S. but can not yet be sold for human consumption. A 60 day public comment period will follow the FDA proposal. The OCA will keep you posted on this issue. http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/clone.cfm   Tip of the Week: Polls show that around 90% of Americans want genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such. Although 70% of processed foods contain genetically engineered ingredients, there are no laws requiring the labeling of these products in the U.S. But smart consumers are able to tell how their produce was created, just by looking at the PLU code on the sticker of the fruit or vegetable. The PLU code for conventional produce (grown with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers) consists of four numbers. Organically grown produce has a five digit PLU prefaced by the number 9. Genetically engineered produce has a five digit PLU prefaced by the number 8. Now if we could just get processed food to carry such labels...     ____________________________________

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PIGS FOR DINNER The FDA has officially closed its investigation on a 2003 food safety mishap, wherein nearly 400 bioengineered pigs, developed for research, mistakenly ended up in the U.S. food supply. The University of Illinois says it accidentally sold the pigs to a livestock dealer, instead of incinerating them, as is required by law. The FDA claims it cannot make a statement regarding potential risk to human health, given the fact that the researchers kept insufficient records. The mishap follows on the heels of a similar situation occurring in 2001, when genetically engineered pigs were stolen from the University of Florida, and later turned up in the sausage served at a funeral in High Springs, FL. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/pigs.cfm __________________________________ YOUR FAVORITE DRUG DEALERS SHARE THEIR SECRETS Over the last decade, the doctor-patient relationship roles have changed dramatically in the U.S. Traditionally, a patient would visit a doctor with an ailment, the doctor would diagnose the ailment, and the best known remedy would be prescribed. But now, pharmaceutical companies have discovered how to bypass this system by convincing patients to demand specific brand name drugs that they've seen advertised over and over again on TV and in magazines and newspapers. Recent studies show drug companies now spend a record $3 billion on direct advertising to consumers. A 60-second commercial slot on TV can tell a viewer what's wrong with them and what drug will fix them. And it works... the advertising, that is. Recently released marketing statistics show that each year, prescriptions for the 50 most heavily advertised drugs rise six times faster than prescriptions for all other drugs. Unfortunately, the side effects of these same prescription drugs kill over 100,000 Americans every year. http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/drugcon091605.cfm __________________________________ WEIGHING THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS VS. AFFORDABILITY Is it really just too hard and expensive to produce organic food? A group of market analysts and public officials in California say it is. In response, the state and federal government have approved a half million dollar grant to begin certifying food products to a lesser standard with a new "Sustainable" label. Although organic farmers say this will weaken demand in the organic market and confuse consumers, proponents of the new label say it provides consumers with an affordable alternative to pricey organic products. The new certification system has requirements for wildlife protection and soil/water management but allows the use of pesticides and a wide gamut of synthetic processing agents. As always, the OCA recommends consumers look for the "USDA Organic" label on their products or, better yet, buy local and regionally produced organic products from farmers you can meet in person at farmers markets or through direct buying in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects: Sustainable Label __________________________________ ALERT : KIDS AT RISK FROM PESTICIDES IN SCHOOLS A summer 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports "significant increases" in pesticide poisonings of children in schools since 1998. Nearly a third of the cases were attributable to drifting pesticides from applications taking place off-site, while the majority were due to the use of insecticides inside schools. Study authors also addressed chronic exposure to herbicides due to repeated applications on school yards, saying "the potential for chronic health effects from pesticide exposures at schools should not be dismissed." A piece of legislation that would reduce these chemical risk factors in schools is currently stalled in the House of Representatives. Learn more and sign on to support the School Environmental Protection Act here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sepa-petition.htm __________________________________ UPDATE: PARENTING MAGAZINE ADVISES KIDS EAT THEIR PESTICIDES In July, Organic Bytes reported that Parents Magazine, one of the most influential parenting publications in the U.S., printed an article belittling the benefits of organic foods as a myth. Likely under the financial sway of the magazine's conventional food advertisers, the magazine endorsed pesticides in foods as safe, stating: "there's no evidence that these chemicals, used at the low levels found in our food supply, are harmful to children." Thanks to you, thousands of letters and emails were generated to the magazine's editorial staff. As an update on this issue, despite this landfall of input, Parents Magazine has refused to respond to any of these letters, including OCA's formal letter of inquiry. (Learn more: "U.S. Government Facts - Children's Chemical & Pesticide Exposure via Foods" __________________________________ QUICK TIDBITS In the last three years, 287 bills related to kicking junk food out of schools have been proposed in some 45 states. The junk food industry has lobbied hard against these laws and has successfully defeated over 85% of them. As the exception, New Jersey and Maine recently passed "junk food laws" that will remove soda, candy and other junk foods from schools (pre-kindergarten through high school) by the end of 2007. The OCA's "Appetite for a Change" campaign is closely monitoring similar proposed legislation in your state. Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.htm After one year of being used as a key tool in the nationwide anti-GMO grassroots activist circuit, The Future of Food made its national theatrical premiere at Film Forum in New York on September 14. The New York Times described the film as a “sober, far-reaching polemic against genetically modified foods.” The landmark film "Future of Food" opens in Minneapolis, MN this week. On Sunday, October 2, a special panel will follow the 7:15 PM show at the Bell Auditorium. Panelists include filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia; Ronnie Cummins, author of Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers and Director of the Organic Consumers Association; and Mark Ritchie, President of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. For more info and the show schedule: http://www.mnfilmarts.org/bell/ San Francisco passed a law last week requiring city contractors to provide documentation that guarantees all new municipal purchases, from uniforms to computers, are not made from sweatshop labor. The city joins other municipalities who have passed similar "sweatshop-free" ordinances, including Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Newark, N.J. and Albuquerque, N.M. At the same time, after extensive lobbying by the Organic Consumers Association, San Francisco officials passed a resolution calling for giving preference to "local and organic" food suppliers for city contracts. http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/index.cfm The U.S. poultry giant, Tyson Foods, is being sued for violating Civil Rights laws. The company's plant in Ashland, Alabama is accused of segregating and mistreating its African American workers. The plant's bathrooms displayed signs saying "Whites Only," doors were padlocked, and only white workers were given keys. Meanwhile Tyson's meats are some of the most popular in the U.S., with over 150 million pounds of the company's products sold every week: Tyson Scandal McDonald's subsidiary restaurant chain, Chipotle is beginning to resist the ways of its parent corporation. Although most of the restaurant's patrons don't realize it, the chain now quietly refuses to use factory farmed meats, sourcing its pork and chicken from free range and family farmed operations. "A majority of customers don't even know we do this. We think this is a better way to go, and as people become more aware of where their food comes from they will care," says Chipotle president, Steve Ells. Hopefully, Steve can clue in his parent CEO at McDonald's on some of the finer points of animal welfare.

Weather Modification Operation?

S. 517: A bill to establish a Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes  [Well, we've done enough so far to melt the north pole, and turn category 2 hurricanes into category 5 as they pass over the Gulf of Mexico...]

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Two Petitions

Tell the President: No More Pardons!

Support HR 505 To Demand The Iraq War Cooked Documents

 

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CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
THE UNTOLD STORY OF FALLUJA
ON SALE NOW

Proceeds go to ongoing relief efforts in Iraq

See the trailer and purchase the DVD: http://www.conceptionmedia.net

Shot from November 2004 to April 2005 inside the city of Falluja, 'Caught in the Crossfire' details the conditions experienced by civilians as they endured the violent clashes and consequences of Operation Phantom Fury and became refugees outside the eyes and care of the international community. A joint production between American and Iraqi filmmakers, 'Caught in the Crossfire' was filmed entirely un-embedded, outside the protection or influence of the military or corporate media, in order to capture the unique and honest perspective of the civilians themselves.

ON SALE NOW $24.95

Purchase the DVD: http://www.conceptionmedia.net

Proceeds from the sale of this film go directly to aid the innocent civilians and refugees caught in the crossfire of combat areas inside Iraq.

The plight of the civilians is THE unreported story of the Iraq war. The refugees of Falluja risked their lives to bring this story to you.

"If you want to know what happened inside Fallujah during the November, 2004 assault on the city, this film is a must see. I could not recommend this film more highly." -Dahr Jamail

You may also find a link to view trailer and purchase this film: http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media
 

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Support the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550).

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Sent in by a reader: http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/28031.htm

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Lafter is the Best Medicine

Top

Fox News FINALLY gets it right:

 

Coin Collectors Divided over New Bush Half-Penny

 

Recently discovered...the reason men are building a time machine:

The Good Wife's Guide
From Housekeeping Monthly, 13 May, 1955.

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.

During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum.

Encourage the children to be quiet.

Be happy to see him.

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Don't greet him with complaints and problems.

Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom.

Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.

Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes.

Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

A good wife always knows her place.

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From a reader:

I suggest we go easy on Saddam Hussein in his trial. We may need him yet.  When he was in power, there were excesses, but he ran a secular government -- which we are unlikely to get now.

Women under Saddam's regime were free to go as high as their talents -- and education -- would take them.  They were not required to veil themselves.

Christians were unmolested.  His foreign minister was a practicing Christian.

Foreign scholars involved in archeological work in this richest of all countries were not only unmolested, but encouraged.  Saddam felt they were proving the ancient greatness of his land, where human beings first learned to write, thus proving the present greatness of Iraq.

Of all the countries in the world of Islam, only Iraq had a symphony orchestra  .... subsidized by the state.

And he stood ready to supply us with all the oil we wanted.

Check out this cartoon from the Atlanta Constitution:

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My wife said she wanted an expensive night out.

So I took her to the gas station, filled up, and bought her a Coke.

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How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to change a light bulb?

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed.

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed.

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb.

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either responsible for changing the light bulb or for darkness.

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb.

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a stepladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished.

7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark.

8. One to viciously smear #7.

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb changing policy all along.

10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

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An elderly couple, sitting together watching television. During one of the commercials, the husband asked his wife, "Whatever happened to our sexual relations?"

After a long thoughtful silence, the wife replied during the next commercial, "You know, I don't know. I don't even think we got a Christmas card from them this year!"

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Bubba Joe's first military assignment was to a military induction center, and, because he was a good talker, they assigned him the duty of advising new recruits about the government benefits, especially the GI insurance to which they were entitled.

Before long the Captain in charge of the induction center began noticing that Bubba was getting a 99% sign up for the top GI insurance. This was odd, because it would cost these poor inductees nearly $30.00 per month more for their higher coverage than what the government was already granting.

The Captain decided that he would sit in the back of the room and observe Bubba's sales pitch. Bubba Joe stood up before his latest group of inductees and stated, "If you have the normal GI insurance and go to Iraq and are killed, the government pays your beneficiary $6,000."

"If you take out the supplemental GI insurance, which will cost you an additional $30.00 per month, the government pays your beneficiary $200,000."

"Now," Bubba concluded, "which bunch do you think they're gonna send into combat first?"

 

15 Ways the Auto Industry Would Change if it Operated Like Drug Companies

By Mike Adams, The Health Ranger What would happen if you had to buy your car from a company that operated in the same way as the pharmaceutical industries? Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, came up with 15 unsettling changes that would occur. Cost Your car would cost $4.5 million, a 30,000 percent markup over cost. The same car would be available in Canada or Mexico for less than $5,000. Dealing with Competition Meanwhile, automakers would be lobbying Congress to outlaw bicycles and airplanes, just as the drug companies try to do with herbs and nutritional supplements. All auto imports would be banned. If you drove a Toyota down from Canada, you would be arrested. Car dealers would be bribed with money, free vacations, free food, and free cars by automobile sales representatives to push certain cars. Safety Cars with no seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, or other safety systems would be declared perfectly safe by the FDA, which would instead focus on the dangers of bicycles. Driver's ed programs would be cancelled nationwide, and people would be encouraged to buy new cars rather than repair damaged ones or avoid accidents in the first place. Safety tests showing that cars were dangerous would be buried, and scientists who produced such results would be prevented from ever conducting car safety tests ever again. After being sued by customers injured in the cars with no safety systems, automakers would further lobby Congress to pass laws protecting car companies against class-action lawsuits. Any federally mandated warnings about car safety problems would be printed in small type on a tiny label hidden under the driver's seat. Driving certain cars would cause side effects like loss of sex drive or full-body muscle pain. Advertising Car companies would heavily promote new models each year, which would be no different from the ones they were selling 30 years ago. Car companies would invent reasons for you to buy a dozen or more cars. Automobile advertising would be filled with pictures of happy, healthy, energetic drivers, but the cars would break down constantly, fail to perform as promised, and quickly stop working. Cars would be sold to you with extra features like a sunroof, air conditioning, or a navigational system, but when the car arrived none of these features would be included, just as drug companies exaggerate the "multiple health benefits" of their products.

News Target July 22, 2005

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My thanks to Janet and Heidi for proofing this newsletter.