Naturally Interesting

Mercy for Animals advocates becoming a vegan and supports a current California ballot measure that would require giving the birds more space.

Start Here:

Raw Milk Debate at Wikipedia

The revolution will not be pasteurized: Inside the raw-milk underground in Harpers

The Udder Truth in Salon

Further Information Here:

FDA - On the Safety of Raw Milk

Real Milk - A Rebuttal to the FDA Presentation

David Gumpert’s blog The Complete Patient

From Treehugger:

Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement announced yesterday that Bisphenol A would be listed as a toxic substance and banned the use of polycarbonate plastic baby bottles.

Progress. Now if I could just find Stephen Johnson’s email…

The National Institutes of Health, National Toxicology Program has released a report on bisphenol A (BPA, the bad stuff in some plastics).

In its new report, the National Toxicology Program, which reviewed about 500 laboratory animal experiments, concluded that there was “some concern” that fetuses, babies and children were at risk from BPA.

…It “reflects a significant body of science showing that BPA may play a larger role than previously thought in a host of common health problems, including prostate cancer, breast cancer and early puberty,” she said.

…Canada is expected soon to declare BPA a toxic substance, which would be followed by proposals to control its use. California and other states have considered but not adopted bans on BPA in products.

Apparently this guy read a different report:

Steven G. Hentges of the American Chemistry Council’s polycarbonate/BPA group said the findings “provide reassurance that consumers can continue to use products made from bisphenol A.”

Covered various places. Apparently you don’t need 8 glasses a day. You get most of your daily water needs from food.

A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 liters daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 milliliter for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.

For a long time we heard about the evils of six-pack rings, trapping and killing sea creatures. Then it moved on to plastic in general. And now news sources are reporting about microscopic plastic particles breaking down and entering the food chain  where they wreak havoc. Still, one of the most disturbing and under-reported stories of plastic is the North Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch. The Garbage Patch is a swath of plastic and debris the size of Texas in the North Pacific. It is bad - kills sea life, enters the food chain, bio-accumulates, we eat it. Mmm plastic toxins.

Links:

Article in Best Life magazine about The Garbage Patch. Read This Article! It is very well written and informative.

Algalita Marine Research Foundation

GreenPeace

According to Agronomy Journal

Can organic cropping systems be as productive as conventional systems” The answer is an unqualified, “Yes” for alfalfa or wheat and a qualified “Yes most of the time” for corn and soybeans according to research reported by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and agricultural consulting firm AGSTAT in the March-April 2008 issue of Agronomy Journal.

Good news since one of the major arguments for conventional and GMO crops is increased productivity.

Link

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.

 Petersen writes that drug companies push medicines they know don’t work. They invent “diseases,” such as overactive bladder or compulsive shopping disorder, to wring high profits out of marginal medicines. They obfuscate the science by controlling the publication of clinical trial results and writing bogus journal articles. And they shovel millions of dollars to doctors to boost prescriptions. “Selling prescription drugs—rather than discovering them—has become the pharmaceutical industry’s obsession,” Petersen writes.

On that note, how long do we let a company like Eli Lilly with a 100 year history of corporate malfeasance stay in business?

Review in Business Week.

Take the short survey here.

 The FDA judged Bisphenol A safe based on just two studies. Who sponsored these studies? The Society of the Plastics Industry. One of the studies was never published (no peer review), and the other heavily criticized.

Ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses, the Food and Drug Administration determined the chemical was safe based on just two industry-funded studies that didn’t find harm.

Studies have shown that bisphenol A causes breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes and hyperactivity in laboratory animals. The chemical has been found in the urine of 93% of Americans tested.

The FDA: looking out for the health of the American people American companies.

Reported in the Milwaukie Journal Sentinel.