Fantastic New Magazine from the National Geographic!!!
By Mark Schauss | March 21, 2008
While in line at the local Costco (buying some new eco-safe products), I stumbled upon a magazine I want to share with you. Everyone, and I mean everyone interested in saving the environment and learning techinques on how to green up you life should subscribe to the magazine Green Guide from the National Geographic. A two-year subscription is only $25 and it comes out quarterly (wish it were a weekly it’s so good). Go to their website and learn about all the great things you can do to save our world and your health.
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Health, Our World, Toxicity, Websites | No Comments »
Links to Help Inform You About How To Achieve Victory Over Our Toxic World
By Mark Schauss | March 20, 2008
In my book, Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World, I have a section about links to important websites so you can become better informed about the real issues about our environment. Some are purely educational and provide raw data, others give you tips on how to make your life healthier and less toxic. Today, I want to share some new links (new to me) that I believe are helpful in your journey through the toxic jungle out there.
Concerned about seafood? Here is a great link to the best, and worst seafoods from the Environmental Defense Fund. You can even printout a card to carry around with you to the store.
There is no doubt in my mind and the minds of honest scientists that breast cancer is often times caused by environmental toxins. The Breast Cancer Fund believes that the prevention of the dreaded disease is crucial to a healthy life. You can go to this link to read more about the relationship between toxicity and breast cancer.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a great place to read up on environmental news from around the world. It gives me a feeling that we can actually win this battle after purusing their web site.
If you asked me to name the one company that is the worst when it comes to their environmental destruction, I would quickly name ExxonMobil. They fund anti-global warming pseudo-science, they refuse to invest their obscene profits into alternative energy research and they abuse the environment with no regard toward anything but profit. Exxpose Exxon is a great site showing the world what kind of horrible citizen this company truly is. Because of what I learned, I will never buy a single drop of fuel from them, and I hope you boycott them as well.
Want to learn about the most toxic places on Earth? The Blacksmith Institute is the place to go. Their top ten list is available here.
And finally, want to know how long a food or condiment lasts? Go to the Table of Condiments website for an interesting way of presenting the data like the Periodic Table of Elements.
Oh and welcome to Spring!!!
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Health, Life, Our World, Petrochemicals, Research, Toxicity, Websites | 6 Comments »
Clinical Trial Transparency – A Long Time In Coming
By Mark Schauss | March 19, 2008
Pharmaceutical companies have been under fire recently because data that showed that some of their drugs had significant side-effects or were not as effective as we were told or that they had serious human research protection violations when studied were hidden from the public and even the FDA. The journal Science, recently reviewed a new bill (the FDA Amendments Act – FDAAA) passed by Congress last September that mandates an opening of data to the public on most clinical trials. The section in question is known as 801. Basically what it does is releases the information from the trials within 12 months of its completion or within 30 days of FDA approval for a drug.
Why do we need this? Here are some examples of the pharmaceutical companies manipulation of known negative results for their money making drugs.
- GlaxoSmithKline had studies hidden that showed serious safety and efficacy concerns for Paxil.
- Merck did not publish trials and did not bring the data to the attention of the FDA showing increased risk of developing cardiovascular problem with their drug Vioxx.
- Avandia, an diabetes drug, was shown to be potentially harmful to its users but that data went unpublished.
- Only after media attention and Congressional inquiry did the ENHANCE study get released showing a negative outcome for the drug Zetia, a non-statin drug to lower cholesterol.
- The antibiotic Ketek, which is an antibiotic, was killing children in a trial in Zaire and there was data fraud in the trial as well to hide the problems.
- Bayer had problems with Baycol and knew it but that was only released as a result of a lawsuit (Want to know why they want tort reform? So they can avoid telling the truth).
- Bayer further knew their clotting drug Tasylol caused an increased risk for cardiovascular and renal disease but didn’t release it until after a meeting with the FDA.
The industry is up in arms saying that public access to these trials and the data is wrong because they are not sophisticated enough to properly review the data. Wait a minute, you do think we’re sophisticated enough to listen to your deceptive commercials and make choices about drugs you push? Do you see the hypocracy?
I don’t hold out a lot of hope that things will change as long as the model of health care in America is one of profit above everything else. As long as Wall Street drives health care, we are doomed to ever increasing costs and lowered performance. A major overhaul is needed and needed now.
Topics: Drugs, Health, Healthcare, Research | No Comments »
Life – An Encyclopedia of Our World
By Mark Schauss | March 18, 2008
A group of scientists are getting together for one of the largest collaborations ever attempted which is to catalog every life form on earth into one website, the Encyclopedia of Life. The site is full of amazing information on the incredible diversity of life on Earth. Hopefully, life will be able to survive under the increasing pressure put on it via our constant need to pollute our world.
The site’s eventual goal is to have a web page for all 1.8 million known species of life for people to enjoy. It is a marvelous goal and I wish them all the luck in the world.
Topics: Life, Opinion, Our World | No Comments »
Weakend Smog Control – Bush Intervenes Yet Again
By Mark Schauss | March 17, 2008
In another astonishing push of politics over fact and science, President Bush forced the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to weaken the smog standards for cities despite the known need to reduce smog drastically to reduce pollution induced health problems. What this administration is saying is that citizens of America, we are not interested in your health, just your money. It must be incredibly frustrating to work at the EPA in this anti-logic environment.
“Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief’s expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt,” said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. “It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference.” The countdown to the end of this administration can’t come fast enough.
Topics: Environment, Health, Opinion, Politics, Research, Toxicity | No Comments »
The World is Changing – Unfortunately the U.S. isn’t When it Comes to Toxicity
By Mark Schauss | March 13, 2008
In a remarkable book written by Mark Schapiro Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, he details how the European Union (EU) has supplanted the United States as the leader in the fight against environmental toxicity. On June 1, 2007, the parliament of the EU voted for a new law called REACH Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals.
One part of this law forces companies to prove the safety of chemicals before they come to market. More importantly, it forces previously grandfathered chemicals to be tested for safety which was vehemently opposed by not just the American Chemical Society but by our own government. It scared them so much that they sent in C. Boyden Gray, the heir to the RJ Reynolds tobacco fortune to lobby against it. This is the same Republican operative who worked to eviscerate the EPA under Reagan by applying cost-benefit analysis over risk-based decision making. In other words, make money first, care about peoples health second.
In retrospect, I’m glad my government in their ultimate arrogance decided to lobby as hard as they did because in the end, this we’re better than you attitude is what pushed the EU parliament to pass the bill. According to one European diplomat quoted in Mr. Schapiro’s book “If their only message is why we should not do anything more than they’re doing in the United States, then why should we listen? The more the United States give the impression of mounting an attack against REACH, the less we listen….. We are not going to ask the United States for permission. If we were to listen to the United States, how would we explain to European citizens where the two hundred chemicals in their bodies came from? What are we doing to them? This is the same not just for Europeans, but for Americans and every country in the world.”
The Bush Administrations steadfast belief that it is more important to make a dollar today for their big buddies than protecting the citizens of the United States is causing us to lose the leadership role we had for decades. He has lost us the respect from the world, not just because of the ill-conceived war, but because the world sees us as only caring for profits, not for people under the guise of jobs. How many jobs could we create by leading the world in the research of safer products? Millions of them. Sad to say, we won’t see a change soon unless there is a change in the White House come this November. We need it to save our children and the billions of children unborn coming to this world in the next hundred years.
Topics: Environment, Health, Opinion, Politics, Research, Toxicity | No Comments »
The Environmental Destruction Agency
By Mark Schauss | March 12, 2008
The US EPA, which once stood for the Environmental Protection Agency, is an outright sham today due to its director Stephen Johnson. He has done what he could to demoralize the staff, disregards law, science and the rules of the agency and forgets what it is his agency was mandated by Congress to do which is to protect the environment. He answers to only one rule and that is protect business first the environment last.
Not only did he refuse to give a waiver to the State of California to regulate auto exhaust, despite the protestations and begging of his own staff, he ignored the EPA’s official Principles of Scientific Integrity citing “fluoride drinking water standards, organophophosphate pesticide registration, control of mercury emissions from power plants”. Sadly, it is unlikely that Stephen Johnson will resign and will continue with the administrations policy of environmental decay. We can only hope that the damage he does can be undone.
Topics: Opinion, Politics, Toxicity | No Comments »
Vaccines and Money, It’s All About The Profit
By Mark Schauss | March 11, 2008
There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding vaccines and autism as well as whether flu shots really benefit anyone. For years, the pharmaceutical industry has bemoaned how vaccines didn’t make them any money so they were really for the benefit of the people. Oh really? Click on this link to an industry newsletter and find out why this isn’t really the case (you don’t need to buy the report for $1600, just read the abstract).
The “global market” is poised to reach $21 billion dollars by 2010 and they are going from just targeting children to going after adults and the elderly. The U.S. is their biggest market – yeah for us 🙁 – followed by Europe. I guess since they are failing miserably at bringing new, safe and effective drugs to market to deal with real health issues, they need to create a new market to supposedly prevent diseases (cancer being their #1 target). Unfortunately, we won’t know whether these vaccines won’t create other diseases or other problems that will only crop up years from now.
Do you even know what is in the vaccines? Supplements and foods have to list all their ingredients on the label but for some reason, vaccines don’t. While this video is quite humorous, it is a very serious issues. Would you really want to be injected with formaldehyde, mercury and ether? I know I don’t.
Topics: Drugs, Health, Healthcare, Mercury, Opinion | No Comments »
Go for the Cure Instead of Stop the Cause – Misused Money in the Fight Against Breast Cancer?
By Mark Schauss | March 10, 2008
Most of us have been affected by breast cancer. Whether you are a survivor, know someone who has had it (my mother) or have a friend who has or did have it, breast cancer is a devastating disease. Major corporations such as the makers of Campbell’s soup have jumped on the “Go For The Cure” bandwagon to help raise money to find a cure for the dreaded disease. Is this money going to the right place? Could it go to a better cause and help more people? I think so.
According to all of the research I have seen, environmental toxins are one of the main causes of many cancers. I would spend the money trying to eliminate environmental causes of breast cancer. The Breast Cancer Fund, a non-profit organization of health advocates, hasclaimed that 50% of breast cancer cases have no known risk factors aside from exposure to toxic chemicals we are exposed to daily.
We must follow the precautionary principle which basically states that we avoid chemicals with questionable health risks until proven safe. Instead, our government allows anything until there is overwhelming evidence that it is toxic. This way companies can poison us, through confusing tobacco science out there to confuse and delay, and then at the end go, oops, sorry. The European Union is using the precautionary principle and protecting their citizens, the US government is sadly backing big business. Sorry Americans, there is no one to protect us anymore.
Topics: Environment, Health, Opinion, Toxicity | 1 Comment »
Heart Attacks and Cholesterol – Public Policy That Makes No Sense
By Mark Schauss | March 7, 2008
I have touted the book Overdosed America by Dr. John Abramson over and over. It is shocking to me that so few people, especially doctors, know that high cholesterol and heart attacks are only correlated through the age of 40. Lowering weight, eating right, not smoking and exercising have more benefits and reduce heart attack risk more than statin drugs by far. Too low cholesterol increases the risk of other fatal diseases and over use of statin drugs does little but enrich the pharmaceutical industry.
On his blog site, Dr. Abramson has reviews of his book listed which are well worth reading. Here is one such review from the San Diego Union Tribune:
“Abramson, who has a background in statistics and health policy, took the time to read the full 284-page version of the panel’s 2001 report, rather than the 11-page summary that most doctors saw. The results of his careful analysis are enough to shock a healthy heart into failure. He notes that data from the venerable Framingham study – a large, long-term study of risk factors for heart disease – show that elevated total cholesterol levels correlate with an increased risk of death only through the age of 40. Even more astounding is the finding that the risk of death from causes other than coronary heart disease increases significantly with lower total cholesterol levels for both men and women after the age of 50. And that doesn’t even touch on the question of the long-term side effects – both known and unknown – of the statins themselves.”
Buy two copies of the book which is in paperback and give one to your doctor. Physicians need to know that prescribing statin drugs to all but a small percentage of individuals is bad medicine, morally wrong and just plain harmful. Statin drug prescriptions is an industry not true medicine.
Topics: Drugs, Health, Opinion | 1 Comment »