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https://tinyurl.com/ykfkdb


Informant: binstock

by Elissa Meininger

Victims of mercury poisoning have long endured an uphill battle in their efforts to expose the risks of dental mercury fillings against the entrenched dental and medical establishment and the government agencies this establishment appears to control. So, this time around, members of the venerable victims support group, Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome.....

https://www.newswithviews.com/Meininger/elissa3.htm

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Amalgam: Brussels
https://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/amalgam_brussels.htm

Amalgam-Stellungnahme, RKI-Kommission
https://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/amalgam_stellungnahme.htm



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=amalgam
https://omega.twoday.net/search?q=amalgam

Prof. Peter Saunders reviews

The Politics of BSE , Richard Packer, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006. ISBN 1-4039-8529-4

BSE transmission to humans admitted after 10 years

It's twenty years since reports first appeared of cattle in the UK coming down with a disease now known as BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis). The number of animals affected rapidly increased, and because the disease was both fatal to cattle and also similar to at least two diseases that are fatal to humans, Creutzfeld Jacob Disease (CJD) and kuru, people began to worry about the danger to human health. For ten years, the government kept reassuring the public that there was no risk involved in eating beef. Many of us can still remember how the Secretary of State for Agriculture John Gummer was shown on television feeding a beefburger to his daughter to demonstrate how confident he was that it was safe.

Then, on 20 March 1996, the Secretary of State for Health Stephen Dorell announced that contrary to what he and his fellow ministers had been telling us for the past ten years, BSE can be transmitted to humans and in humans, it leads to an inevitably fatal disease known as variant CJD (vCJD).

That was a bit of a bombshell, with an immediate and lasting effect on public opinion. It probably did more than any other single event to shake the public's confidence in government pronouncements about science, and is one of the major reasons that the British public has steadfastly refused to accept GM food, despite constant insistence by government agencies that the products are “perfectly safe”.

Inside MAFF

The Politics of BSE is a story told by someone who was a senior civil servant in the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) throughout the period leading up to the BSE crisis and its aftermath, and was its Permanent Secretary from 1993 to 2000. Richard Packer describes the events as seen from the inside, combining the care and attention to detail of a Whitehall report with flashes of irony and invective. It's not an unbiased account, given the circumstances you could hardly expect one, but there is a lot to be learned from what Packer writes.

Read the rest of this article here https://www.i-sis.org.uk/the-inside-story-of-BSE.php

Seton Shoal Creek ECT protest rally summary 2
From: Gary Kohls
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 17:19:18 -0600


----- Original Message -----
From: John Breeding
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 3:22 PM
Subject: 11-1-06 CAESTSeton Shoal Creek ECT protest rally summary

Summary of CAEST Electroshock Protest Rally at Seton Shoal Creek Hospital

11-1-06

We held out third protest event in the last six months at Seton Shoal Creek Hospital this morning, sending another strong, clear message to this wayward facility that we mean business and are not going away. Though our numbers were smaller than at our June event, this was more than made up for by the moving testimony of three individuals whose lives had been hurt by electroshock.

We first stood on 38th street once again, transversing the bridge adjacent to Seton, and showed our signs ("Electroshock Is a Crime Against Humanity," and "Stop Electroshock Before Electroshock Stops You," "Shame on Seton Shoal Creek!" etc.) and our presence to the Austin community as citizens drove by on their way to work and school. We had a week of radio (special thanks to Jack Blood, and to Stuart Nelson and the other folks at Radio Free Austin) and a talk at Brave New Books. We have ongoing repeats of our previous rallies and interviews of shock survivors Dianna Loper and Mimi Greenberg on Austin Public Access television. It is clear that the community of Austin is becoming more aware that electroshock is going on in the heart of Austin, and that we are organizing to put a stop to it.

After gathering in a circle, we took a moment of silence to focus our loving on the hospital, and our intention that the shock program will be stopped. In keeping with the date of this rally on All Saints’ Day, and the previous "Day of the Dead," John Breeding spoke about ECT and death. He referred to Leonard Frank’s piece on electroshock and death (see https://www.endofshock.com ), citing the summary of studies showing death rates ranging from 1 in 4 for the infirm elderly, to the 1 in 10,000 APA task force estimate based on death within 24 hours in a California summary. The average is somewhere in between. John read the following USA TODAY excerpt from the Electroshock Quotationary, also on our website, to emphasize the fact that not only does ECT kill but that people have died as a result of ECT at Seton Shoal Creek.

1995 — [Doctors are expanding ECT’s] reach — to high-risk patients, to children, to the elderly — altering the profile of who gets shock therapy so much that the typical patient now is a fully insured, elderly woman treated for depression at a private hospital or medical school.

Someone like Ocie Shirk.

Shirk, a widow coping with recurring depression, already had one heart attack and suffered from atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes rapid heart quivers.

On a Monday at 9:34 am, Oct. 10, 1994, she received shock therapy at Shoal Creek Hospital [now known as Seton Shoal Creek Hospital], a for-profit psychiatric hospital in Austin. She had a heart attack in the recovery room. Four days later, she died of heart failure.

Yet shock therapy isn’t mentioned on Shirk’s death certificate, despite repeated instructions on the form to include every event that may have played a role in the death....

In addition to Shirk, state records show two other patients died after shock therapy at Shoal Creek. Asked about these deaths, [the hospital’s chief executive Gail] Oberta repeats "We could find no correlation between deaths of patients and receiving ECT at this facility."

DENNIS CAUCHON, "Shock Therapy," USA Today, 6 December 1995. ( https://www.endofshock.com )

Our movement has become exceedingly more powerful and real as the result of the presence in our group of two recent Seton shock survivors. As John emphasized in our press release, "Our Coalition considers it remarkable that recipients of a reportedly beneficial and benevolent medical ‘treatment,’ psychiatric electroshock, afterwards declare that treatment to be harmful and dangerous, and organize as activists determined to abolish the treatment." We have had shock survivors with us all along as the history of electroshock activism is long and intense (again see Leonard’s Electroshock Quotationary on our website, or his book on The History of Shock Treatment). One of these Coalition shock survivors, 79-year-old Mimi Greenberg, read her powerful poem, previously published in the Winter 2002 issue of Mind Freedom.

I Can’t Close That Door, Yet…

I can’t close that door, yet…

Before I grieve for me,

I can’t close that door yet…

Before I remember,

Standing in line,

Clasping hands with another,

In fear, always in fear.

I can’t close that door yet…

Before I remember—

That small room, that smelled of death.

I can’t close that door, yet…

Before I remember,

That narrow table,

Those reins holding me down.

I can’t close that door, yet…

Before I remember,

The backward count…

Lulling me to sleep.

I can’t close that door, yet…

Before I bury the one on that table.

But I will!

I will!

Soon!

Very soon!

And then my soul

Will give birth to me,

Again…

After Mimi’s reading, John made the point that sensitive people, including musicians and artists, often seem to end up on the wrong end of psychiatric assault by electroshock. Two Austin music legends, Roky Erickson and Townes Van Zandt, are examples. As you may know from previous rallies, Roky and his family strongly support our effort to abolish ECT.

Today, Austin musician Don Erickson spoke at our rally. Mr. Erickson received 10 ECT treatments in June and July of 2005 at Seton Shoal Creek. After the last outpatient session, Don’s records show that he was so disorganized and suicidally desperate that the hospital admitted him for 10 days. Don stated in our press release, "I was feeling confused and desperate for help. Now that I have some distance, I think of electroshock as rape of the soul, and I want this assault to stop!" Don told the crowd about his history of arteriovenous malformation, a life threatening congenital brain problem, and how he was so desperate he had hoped ECT might kill him. Fortunately for us all, Don lived. He gave moving personal testimony at the rally, and called wholeheartedly for the energy of love to replace ECT at Seton.

Our final speaker was Kathy Scogin. Kathy is an Austin nurse. Her sister was electroshocked at Seton Shoal Creek between 30 and 50 times between September 2005 and June 2006; as is common, Kathy’s sister cannot remember the number of times she received ECT. In our press release, Ms. Scogin said, "As a result of electroshock, my sister is now unable to work and is currently on disability. Seton Shoal Creek Hospital has stolen our lives. They have got to stop using electroshock on people." She read a written statement at the rally called, "Stolen Lives," and moved us to tears.

As a special treat Don Erickson played two of his own songs for the group. The first, "Beautiful," is a melodic declaration of loving care; the second, "Time for Change," is a soulful song of transformation. This last prepared us to commence marching. We loudly and boldly marched up and down Mills Avenue in from of Seton Shoal Creek, demanding, "No More Shock," and "STOP SHOCK NOW!

By Matthew Saltmarsh
International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2006

https://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/27/business/wbreach.php

PARIS Three years ago, Margot Wallstrom, who was then the European Union's environment commissioner, revealed to a startled Brussels press corps that a blood test had found the presence of 28 artificial chemicals in her body, including DDT, a pesticide banned from European farms since 1983, when it was found to harm wildlife and attack the nervous system.

"I was surprised to see some of these chemicals in my blood," Wallstrom, now deputy president of the European Commission in charge of communication, said in a recent telephone interview from Brussels. "I was raised in northern Sweden, where our air and water were supposed to be clean."

Wallstrom's disclosure was one high-intensity moment in an eight-year campaign by European officials to curb what health experts call a relentless march of toxic chemicals - used in just about everything from ballpoint pens to household cleaners to DVDs - into the everyday lives of Europeans.

The legislation, known as Reach, for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals, has generated one of the bitterest and most expensive lobbying campaigns the European establishment in Brussels has ever seen.

For European citizens, the rules could raise the cost of everyday products but also offer hope that there would be less chance of contact with harmful substances through those products.

Chemical companies across the spectrum, from large multinationals like Dow Chemical to industry associations representing small enterprises that make fragrances for dishwashing liquid, have spent billions trying to persuade lawmakers to water down or drop legislation that they say would unnecessarily multiply tests for harmful chemicals and cost the industry additional billions.

Nongovernmental organizations like Greenpeace are fighting back, saying the rich and aggressive chemicals lobby has already neutralized the proposed rules and asserting that the battle is solely for health and safety. European heads of state and the U.S. State Department have at various times joined the battle in seeking to shape the debate in favor of their citizens, corporate or otherwise.

A new version of the legislation heads for a final vote at the European Parliament by the end of the year. Lobbyists and diplomats are still fighting for last-minute changes. Whether the final law leans toward industry or the environment, the financial stakes of the legislation for businesses around the world are sizable.

Chemicals, plastics and rubber generate about 3.2 million jobs in Europe at more than 60,000 companies, according to the European Commission. In 2004, world chemical sales were estimated at €1.74 trillion, or $2.20 trillion, with revenue from the 25 countries of the European Union accounting for €586 billion, according to the European Social Investment Forum, a nonprofit organization whose members include managers of some of the largest investment funds.

When the Reach proposal was introduced 2001, it sought to impose a thicket of new testing requirements. An initial version of the proposal that year would have required chemical makers to perform extensive toxicological and environmental tests on the 30,000 chemicals most commonly used in commerce. Over the following years, the proposals were amended, watered down in the opinion of some and improved in the view of others.

For example, one contentious part of the original plan would have imposed the new testing rules on companies that produce chemicals in annual amounts as small as 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, the size a small bag of garden fertilizer. That measure was ultimately killed after industry and governments argued that it would place an undue cost burden on small companies.

Environmentalists and health experts are angry that, among other things, some of the thresholds used to determine whether a safety test is needed for certain chemicals were altered, cutting the number of substances originally covered by the measure by about two-thirds. Greenpeace estimates 17,500 chemicals will be excluded from the original list.

From the start, the German chemical industry association, the Verband der Chemischen Industrie, which includes companies like BASF and Bayer, and the German government have led a fierce campaign to soften the original proposal, according to campaigners and European Commission officials. The Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations in Europe, or Unice, and the European Chemical Industry Council, or Cefic, were also active in the project. Companies like Novartis of Switzerland, Rhodia of France and Shell Chemicals of Britain all worked with Cefic.

The leaders of Britain, France and Germany sent a letter to the commission in 2003 describing the proposal as "too bureaucratic."

"This was a very intensive lobby campaign," said Wallstrom, the commission's deputy president. "I mean really! And the way they lobbied - the national governments!"

Dow Chemical, the U.S. giant, Unice, Cefic and Bayer deny that they tried to kill the legislation and argue that their lobbying was legitimate because of estimates showing that the proposals would impose a staggering financial burden on the chemical industry.

In 2003, the commission estimated that macroeconomic effects would be limited and asserted that Reach would yield business benefits including improvements in innovation, competitiveness and workers' safety. The total costs, including those to smaller, or "downstream," users, were estimated at €2.8 billion to €5.2 billion.

If the legislation succeeds in reducing chemical-related diseases by 10 percent, the commission added, the health benefits would be €50 billion over 30 years, while it could prevent 2,200 to 4,300 occupational cancer cases per year.

In 2004, the European Commission and industry groups agreed to ask KPMG, the accounting firm, to assess the costs of the legislation. Rob Ronday, a consultant associate at KPMG who led a nine-month study on the Reach legislation, said he and his team had been inundated with faxes, e-mail messages, telephone calls and requests for meetings at all hours by representatives of the chemicals industry. "I wouldn't say the lobbying was hostile," he said, "but it was very close to that."

Wallstrom recalled that commissioners and their aides in Brussels "just didn't have the resources to respond." She added: "It was so unbalanced. Who will speak for the fish and the unborn?"

Meanwhile, the United States joined the battle. A report prepared for Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and released in 2004 uncovered documents and transcripts showing that Bush administration officials were "actively meeting with the U.S. chemicals industry to solicit their views and concerns" on the legislation.

The report said the lobbying effort had included pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Departments of State and Commerce .

In March 2002, Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, sent a cable directing U.S. diplomatic posts to "raise the EU chemicals policy with relevant government officials" and to object to the Reach legislation as "a costly, burdensome and complex regulatory system."

The report also said officials working for the U.S. trade representative had exchanged e-mail messages with industry representatives identifying European Union nations that needed to be "targeted" and urging industry to "get to the Swedes and Finns and neutralize their environmental arguments."

C. Boyden Gray, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, said he had not "received instructions from people in Washington or the chemical industry" to fight the legislation.

As the European Parliament prepares for a final vote on the legislation in November or December, Guido Sacconi, an Italian Socialist who is steering it through Parliament, said he was confident that a compromise could be found.

"The distance between the sides is not so big," Sacconi said. "The principle is the same."

Gray said he still hoped for changes that ensured that small businesses and U.S. companies were not unduly punished. "Our concern is for the small guy," he said.

Wallstrom, the European Commission vice president, acknowledged that the legislation would fall short of some of its original aims but insisted that "the whole debate has been useful" and would create a need for more improvements.

Others are not so sure that all the time, energy and money has been worthwhile.

"The commission will have to ask itself, 'Was it all worth it, all the resources and the money?" said Ronday, the KPMG consultant associate.

"They might want to do it differently next time."


Informant: binstock

https://tjh.elequity.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=1310

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How Prescription Drugs Are Poisoning Our Waters

An aging population and our growing addiction to pharmaceuticals may have disastrous consequences for our water supply.

https://www.truthout.org/issues_06/102406HA.shtml

https://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2006/oct/20/566640420.html


Informant: binstock

The danger of working in the semi-conductor industry was pointed also in Gunni Nordstrom's book "the invisible disease" which is very recommended.

Iris Atzmon.


Computer factory staff are ‘at greater risk of cancer’

MARTYN McLAUGHLIN
October 19 2006

Staff at computer factories could be at increased risk of contracting cancer because of working environments containing high levels of chemicals, metals and electromagnetic fields, according to a new study. In what is the largest study of its kind, the findings focus on upwards of 30,000 deaths of members of staff at factories in the US since 1969. It comes as government health inspectors have begun conducting a long-delayed follow-up inquiry into an Inverclyde factory at the centre of numerous cancer scares. Scots scientists have criticised the "limited" second investigation into the National Semiconductor plant in Greenock, and say the new study helps "firm-up the picture" surrounding health risks. The study by the Boston University School of Public Health in the US, published in the science journal Environmental Health, analysed the causes of death for 31,941 IBM workers and compared them with causes of death among the American population during this period. The information was obtained from IBM as part of a California lawsuit against the firm. The results of the study indicate there was increased mortality due to several types of cancer, especially in manufacturing workers and workers at particular plants in California, Minnesota, New York, and Vermont. Most notably, there was an excess of deaths due to cancer of the brain and central nervous system. Richard Clapp, from Boston University School of Public Health, said: "It was not possible to link these deaths to specific chemicals or other exposures in the workplace because the information necessary to do this was not available." The research appears to back up previous, smaller studies and highlights clear health risks for workers in computer factories. Among these was the Health and Safety Executive's initial 2001 study of 4000 people at National Semiconductor, which showed statistically significant excesses of lung, stomach, and breast cancers among women and an excess of brain cancer among men, with some rates four or five times higher than average. The HSE said it had received "ethical approval" to begin a new study at Greenock. Announced last June, and planning to look at various cases of cancer in more detail, it has been subject to significant delays. Professor Andrew Watterson, of Stirling University's occupational, environmental and public health group, said: "The US study confirms some of the evidence we have seen at Nat Semi. The families of former Nat Semi workers have been calling for years for a Europe-wide or international study into the industry, and this is the next best thing." Jim McCourt, of Phase Two, a support group for Nat Semi workers, said: "We've no doubt working in Nat Semi is dangerous. The scale of this study shows the industry has a real problem, and we would call on the HSE to initiate a UK-wide study."

"The results of the study indicate there was increased mortality due to several types of cancer, especially in manufacturing workers and workers at particular plants in California, Minnesota, New York, and Vermont. Most notably, there was an excess of deaths due to cancer of the brain and central nervous system."

https://www.theherald.co.uk/news/72495.shtml

https://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_42/b4005001.htm


Informant: NHNE