
Health Issues
Big Ag and Big Pharma are interested in profit, not public health, and their lobbyists fight to protect their corporate interests, not consumer interests. OCA advocates for a sustainable, integrative healthcare system with an emphasis on prevention, nutrition, wellness promotion, and freedom of choice in healthcare for everyone.
Dear Members & Friends of the Organic Food Network,
So far in this series, we have looked at what to eat and what not to eat to strengthen our immune systems and "be healthy." The e-mail preceding the start of this series offered different perspectives on the bird flu issue and gave us some background to understand the possibilities should the bird flu virus mutate and spread to humans. Remember that this is all speculation at this point and that my position is that we can all use this opportunity to improve our health habits and
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"Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide?"
Thursday, March 16, 2006
www.rachel.org -- To make a secure donation, click here.
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Featured stories in this issue...
Getting Beyond Risk Assessment
Most environment-and-health decisions are now made using numerical
risk assessment. But this
LA JOLLA, California, March 17, 2006 (ENS) - A team of researchers from three institutions have described a possible pathway for a virulent strain of the avian flu virus H5N1 "to gain a foothold in the human population" that they say would require only "minor" mutations in the virus.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus, commonly known as bird flu, is a highly contagious and deadly disease in poultry. So far, its spread to humans has been limited, with 177 documented severe infections, and nearly 100 deaths in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand,
Read morePRESS RELEASE:
Leading doctor and ANH Medical Director, Dr. Damien Dowling, rebuts Professor Ernst on claims that natural products are worthless for protection against bird flu
For immediate release
Leading doctor rebuts Professor Ernst on avian influenza claims that natural products worthless Dr Damien Downing, President of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, Medical Director of the Alliance for Natural Health,
Read moreCHICAGO (Reuters) - Optimism is good for the heart, a study said on Monday. The most optimistic among a group of 545 Dutch men age 64 to 84 had a roughly 50 percent lower risk of cardiovascular death over 15 years of follow-up, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Previous research has suggested being optimistic boosts overall physical health and lowers the risk of death from all causes. A positive attitude also has been shown to help patients who suffer from heart disease caused by narrowed arteries.
The new study measured participants'
Read moreThe Journal of the American Medical Association is rocking the boat in conventional medicine. An article in JAMA has come up with the suggestion -- aghast! -- that doctors should stop accepting bribes from drug companies. Most people didn't know that doctors routinely accept bribes (including hundreds of thousands of dollars in "contractor's fees" for signing patients up for drug trials), so this news may come as a bit of a shock to some.
Big Pharma spends nearly $19 billion a year bribing and influencing physicians, by the way. That's billion with a "B." How much money is $19
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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #844
"Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide?"
Thursday, March 2, 2006....
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Featured stories in this issue...
Why Civilizations Decline
Some civilizations reach their peak of power
"The concentration camps were used as a huge laboratory for human experimentation," says Wolfgang Eckhart, professor of Historical Medicine at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. During the Holocaust, Bayer, Hoechst, BASF and other German pharmaceutical and chemical companies combined into a powerful cartel known as Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (IG Farben). As well as manufacturing everything from the deadly gas used to kill Holocaust victims, the gasoline used to move war vehicles and the explosives used to bomb enemies and conquer Europe, IG Farben was
Read moreCouple the recent media predictions of a pandemic-proportion flu season with talk of more vaccination shortages, and the spread of panic isn't far behind. However, the flu does not have to be inevitable for you or your family and can be avoided naturally by strengthening your immune system.
Taste the rainbow
Eating a wide variety of fresh, wholesome foods packed with powerful vitamins and minerals is the first step to ensuring a strong immune system. Vitamins A, B6, C and E and the minerals zinc, iron, copper and selenium are
Not just in India, industrial poultry is the cause of the spread of the bird flu outbreak worldwide.
Several studies show that transnational poultry industry is the root cause of the problem. The spread of industrial poultry production and trade networks have created ideal conditions for the emergence and transmission of lethal viruses like the H5N1 strains of bird flu.
Inside factory farms viruses becomes lethal and multiply. Air thick with viral load from infected factory farms is carried for kilometres, while integrated trade networks spread the disease through many
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