Here is a video on Fox News, Monsanto, bovine growth hormone, and free speech.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
New Law May Slow Cell Phone Cancer Epidemic
This article is a copy of one that appears on Dr. Mercola's website. The original can be viewed here.
New Law May Slow Cell Phone Cancer Epidemic
Supporters of a Maine bill which would require cell phone manufacturers to put warning labels on mobile phones say that ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic.
David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University of Albany, argued, "We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That's what happened with smoking."
The bill would make Maine the first state to mandate warnings that cell phones can cause brain cancer, especially among children.
Sources: Google News March 3, 2010
Dr. Mercola's Comments
Time will tell if Maine will rise to the challenge and become the first US state to mandate warning labels on cell phones. Sponsored by democratic Rep. Andrea Boland, the bill, HP 1207/LD 1706, also known as “An Act to Create the Children's Wireless Protection Act,” was referred to the Committee on Health and Human Services on January 7 of this year.
It has created some national news, and for good reason. It’s a highly controversial issue, and vehemently opposed by the wireless industry who, ironically, claims the bill is little more than political grandstanding and has no scientific basis.
The Scientific Basis of Cell Phone Warnings
Despite industry’s reluctance to admit the scientific basis of placing a prominent warning on every cell phone sold, the legislation was indeed prompted by such scientific findings.
I’ve reported on a number of them in the past, such as:
In addition, a review of 11 long-term epidemiologic studies published in the journal Surgical Neurology revealed that using a cell phone for 10 or more years approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head where the cell phone is typically held.
Another noted brain cancer authority, Australian Dr Vini Gautam Khurana, published a paper in 2008 titled: Mobile Phones and Brain Tumors, which also covers more than 100 sources of recent medical and scientific literature on this topic.
Are We Headed Toward a Brain Cancer Epidemic?
It should be noted that while there are a significant number of studies showing the biological effects of electromagnetic fields and radiofrequencies within the microwave range, the industry claims that since these technologies do not have a thermal (heating) effect on your body, they will not cause biological harm.
Alas, there are literally thousands of studies showing that this logic is incorrect. I’ve barely scratched the surface with the examples I listed above.
Clearly, to claim there is NO evidence of harm from cell phones and other non-thermal radiation is ludicrous at this point.
In addition, real-life is starting to show us the truth, just like we saw with smoking and the rise in lung cancer. Australia, for example, has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade.
This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years. In fact, brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children.
If you still have doubts, I highly recommend reading the book Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution, written by Camilla Rees and Magda Havas, PhD., to get a better understanding of the facts on this important issue.
What Would the Warning Label Say?
Boland’s bill calls for the following statement to be prominently placed on every cell phone and all related packaging, on a non-removable label:
In addition, the bill, as currently written, requires the label to include the color graphic showing the electromagnetic absorption of a 5-year old child’s brain, as depicted in a 1996 study published by the IEEE on the effect of cell phone microwave emissions on the neck and head.
How to Protect Yourself and Your Family
I strongly urge you not to wait for legislation to be passed before you start paying attention to this issue.
And while you can’t completely avoid radiation in today’s wireless world, if you’re ready to give up your cell phone, you can virtually eliminate that one hazard, at least.
At the bare minimum, don’t let young children use a cell phone or other wireless devices, and avoid cell phone exposure while pregnant or carrying your infant as children are FAR more susceptible to harm from microwave radiation than adults. If you’re not prepared to ditch your cell phone, you can at least minimize exposure by heeding the following advice:
Personally, I believe this issue is so important, I’ve created an entire web site dedicated to EMF education and information. Feel free to bookmark EMF.mercola.com, and check back on occasion for the latest news and updates.
The Web site ElectromagneticHealth.org also offers ten free audio interviews with some of the world’s leading experts in the field of EMF.
Related Links:
Great Example Why You Simply Can't Believe That Cell Phones Are Safe
How Cellphone Radiation Affects Your Cells
Interview with Expert on Dangers of Cell Phones
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
New Law May Slow Cell Phone Cancer Epidemic
Supporters of a Maine bill which would require cell phone manufacturers to put warning labels on mobile phones say that ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic.
David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University of Albany, argued, "We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That's what happened with smoking."
The bill would make Maine the first state to mandate warnings that cell phones can cause brain cancer, especially among children.
Sources: Google News March 3, 2010
Dr. Mercola's Comments
Time will tell if Maine will rise to the challenge and become the first US state to mandate warning labels on cell phones. Sponsored by democratic Rep. Andrea Boland, the bill, HP 1207/LD 1706, also known as “An Act to Create the Children's Wireless Protection Act,” was referred to the Committee on Health and Human Services on January 7 of this year.
It has created some national news, and for good reason. It’s a highly controversial issue, and vehemently opposed by the wireless industry who, ironically, claims the bill is little more than political grandstanding and has no scientific basis.
The Scientific Basis of Cell Phone Warnings
Despite industry’s reluctance to admit the scientific basis of placing a prominent warning on every cell phone sold, the legislation was indeed prompted by such scientific findings.
I’ve reported on a number of them in the past, such as:
- A study by Dr. Siegal Sadetzki linking cell phone use to salivary gland tumors
- Wearing a cell phone on your hip – either on your belt or in a pocket – has been linked to decreased bone density in the pelvic region. (All the other vital organs located in your pelvic region – your liver, kidney, bladder, colon and reproductive organs – are also susceptible to radiation damage)
- Proximity to cell phone towers causes an increase in the symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, visual and auditory disturbances, and cardiovascular effects
- The REFLEX report, which concluded there is real evidence that non-thermal hyperfrequency electromagnetic fields can have geno-toxic effects and can damage DNA, which is an underlying cause of cancer
- The BioInitiative Report, which includes studies showing evidence for:
- Effects on Gene and Protein Expression (Transcriptomic and Proteomic Research)
- Genotoxic Effects – RFR and ELF DNA Damage
- Stress Response (Stress Proteins)
- Effects on Immune Function
- Effects on Neurology and Behavior
- Brain Tumors, Acoustic Neuromas, and childhood cancers like leukemia
- And much more
- The 2009 special EMF issue of the Journal of Pathophysiology, which contains over a dozen different studies on the health effects of electromagnetic fields and wireless technology
In addition, a review of 11 long-term epidemiologic studies published in the journal Surgical Neurology revealed that using a cell phone for 10 or more years approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head where the cell phone is typically held.
Another noted brain cancer authority, Australian Dr Vini Gautam Khurana, published a paper in 2008 titled: Mobile Phones and Brain Tumors, which also covers more than 100 sources of recent medical and scientific literature on this topic.
Are We Headed Toward a Brain Cancer Epidemic?
It should be noted that while there are a significant number of studies showing the biological effects of electromagnetic fields and radiofrequencies within the microwave range, the industry claims that since these technologies do not have a thermal (heating) effect on your body, they will not cause biological harm.
Alas, there are literally thousands of studies showing that this logic is incorrect. I’ve barely scratched the surface with the examples I listed above.
Clearly, to claim there is NO evidence of harm from cell phones and other non-thermal radiation is ludicrous at this point.
In addition, real-life is starting to show us the truth, just like we saw with smoking and the rise in lung cancer. Australia, for example, has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade.
This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years. In fact, brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children.
If you still have doubts, I highly recommend reading the book Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution, written by Camilla Rees and Magda Havas, PhD., to get a better understanding of the facts on this important issue.
What Would the Warning Label Say?
Boland’s bill calls for the following statement to be prominently placed on every cell phone and all related packaging, on a non-removable label:
In addition, the bill, as currently written, requires the label to include the color graphic showing the electromagnetic absorption of a 5-year old child’s brain, as depicted in a 1996 study published by the IEEE on the effect of cell phone microwave emissions on the neck and head.
How to Protect Yourself and Your Family
I strongly urge you not to wait for legislation to be passed before you start paying attention to this issue.
And while you can’t completely avoid radiation in today’s wireless world, if you’re ready to give up your cell phone, you can virtually eliminate that one hazard, at least.
At the bare minimum, don’t let young children use a cell phone or other wireless devices, and avoid cell phone exposure while pregnant or carrying your infant as children are FAR more susceptible to harm from microwave radiation than adults. If you’re not prepared to ditch your cell phone, you can at least minimize exposure by heeding the following advice:
- Reduce your cell phone use: Turn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters. As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call.
- Use a land line at home and at work: Although more and more people are switching to using cell phones as their exclusive phone contact, it is a dangerous trend and you can choose to opt out of the madness.
- Reduce or eliminate your use of other wireless devices: You would be wise to cut down your use of these devices. Just as with cell phones, it is important to ask yourself whether or not you really need to use them every single time.
- If you must use a portable home phone, use the older kind that operates at 900 MHz. They are no safer during calls, but at least many of them do not broadcast constantly even when no call is being made.
- Note the only way to truly be sure if there is an exposure from your cordless phone is to measure with an electrosmog meter, and it must be one that goes up to the frequency of your portable phone (so old meters will not be of much use). You can find meters at www.emfsafetystore.com.
- As a general rule of thumb, you can pretty much be sure your portable phone is a problem if the technology is DECT, or digitally enhanced cordless technology.
- Use your cell phone only where reception is good: The weaker the reception, the more power your phone must use to transmit, and the more power it uses, the more radiation it emits, and the deeper the dangerous radio waves penetrate into your body. Ideally, you should only use your phone with full bars and good reception.
- Also seek to avoid carrying your phone on your body as that merely maximizes any potential exposure. Ideally put it in your purse or carrying bag.
- Don’t assume one cell phone is safer than another: Please understand that despite assurances, there’s still no such thing as a “safe” cell phone.
- For example, SAR value, while providing information for comparison purposes between phones, is very limited in its usefulness as a measure of ‘safety.’ For more details on SAR values, please review this previous article.
- Keep your cell phone away from your body when it’s on: The most dangerous place to be, in terms of radiation exposure, is within about six inches of the emitting antenna. You do not want any part of your body within that area.
- Use safer headset technology: Wired headsets will certainly allow you to keep the cell phone farther away from your body. However, if a wired headset is not well-shielded -- and most of them are not -- the wire itself acts as an antenna attracting ambient information carrying radio waves and transmitting radiation directly to your brain.
- Make sure that the wire used to transmit the signal to your ear is shielded.
- The best kind of headset to use is a combination shielded wire and air-tube headset. These operate like a stethoscope, transmitting the information to your head as an actual sound wave; although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.
Personally, I believe this issue is so important, I’ve created an entire web site dedicated to EMF education and information. Feel free to bookmark EMF.mercola.com, and check back on occasion for the latest news and updates.
The Web site ElectromagneticHealth.org also offers ten free audio interviews with some of the world’s leading experts in the field of EMF.
Related Links:
Great Example Why You Simply Can't Believe That Cell Phones Are Safe
How Cellphone Radiation Affects Your Cells
Interview with Expert on Dangers of Cell Phones
“Warning, this device emits electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer. Users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep this device away from the head and body.”
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
The negative health effects of chlorine
This is a reproduction of an article appearing on The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. The original article can be viewed here.
The negative health effects of chlorine.
by Joseph Hatterly
Summary
Federal regulations require chlorine treatment of the water supplied to urban/suburban areas of America and much of Canada from surface sources such as lakes, reservoirs and rivers. That constitutes about 75% of water that Americans consume. Water from underground sources generally is not chlorinated unless it is supplemented by surface water. My hometown, Lacey, Washington, and some surrounding communities that are supplied water by Lacey, are fortunate to be among that group.
Chlorination is inferior water treatment on at least two counts. (1) Although it has greatly lowered infectious waterborne diseases in the US and Canada, chlorination fails against a variety of water problems including parasites, and can seriously harm people who use the water, (2) Its cost is unnecessarily high. As of 1996, Andover, Massachusetts' new ozone treatment costs $83 per million gallons of purified water, only two-thirds as much as the old treatment process. The town saves $64,000 annually in chemicals costs alone, (1) and uses less electricity.
Possible Damage to Arteries
When chlorinated water is run through a hose or carried in a pail followed by milk as in a dairy, "very tenacious, yellowish deposits chemically similar to arterial plaque" form; with unchlorinated water this doesn't happen. (2)
CBS' 60 Minutes show July 11, 1992, displayed two laboratory rats, both of them eating standard rat chow and drinking chlorinated water. One rat had clear arteries. The other was also on pasteurized, homogenized milk. When the animals were sacrificed and cut open, the arteries of the milk-drinking rats were clogged. A scientist in a white coat winked at the camera and said, "He [the live rat he was holding] is the only one doing research on that." The researcher didn't say why, but the powerful dairy and chemical lobbies come to mind.
Dairy buckets, hoses and rats' arteries resist the arterial-wall damage known as atherosclerosis. But what can chlorinated water and cow's milk, particularly homogenized milk, do to the far more susceptible arteries of humans? Those of young chickens are about as susceptible to such damage as people's arteries. So as a first approximation, J.M. Price, MD gave cockerels (roosters less than a year old) only chlorinated water (without milk). They developed arterial plaques; and the stronger the concentration of chlorine, the faster and worse the damage. Cockerels on unchlorinated water developed no such damage. (2)
The residents of the small town of Roseto, Pennsylvania, had no heart attacks despite a diet rich in saturated animal fats and milk - until they moved away from Roseto's mountain spring water and drank chlorinated water. After that, consuming the same diet, they had heart attacks. (2) The Roseto example is dramatic enough, but the needed detailed comparisons and follow-up have never been done.
How well does the incidence of heart attacks match the areas where water is/ was chlorinated? Chlorination spread throughout America in the second and third decades of this century, about 20 years before the mushrooming of heart attacks. Light chlorination, we will recall, yielded slow growth of plaques in Price's cockerels; and so chlorination of people's drinking water at the usual low concentration might have been expected to take at least 10-20 years to produce clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis.
A physician team led by William F. Enos autopsied 300 GIs who had died in battle in the Korean War. These men, who had passed induction examination as healthy, averaged 22.1 years of age. To their shock and amazement, in 77% of the 300 the pathologists found "gross evidence of arteriosclerosis in the coronary arteries." In several, one or more heart arteries were partly or completely occluded. (3)
Although Dr. Enos didn't try to explain his discovery, he assumed arterial clogging had developed gradually. Seeming to support that assumption, almost 20 years later pathologists discovered early arterial damage in 96% of nearly 200 consecutive babies who had died of whatever cause in their first month outside the womb. Two of those babies' coronary arteries were blocked, causing infantile heart attacks. (4) Identified as crib deaths, these were related to functionally deficient vitamin [B.sub.6]. (5)
But did arterial damage in fact develop slowly? The water that the American soldiers had to drink in Korea was so heavily chlorinated that many could hardly tolerate it. In Vietnam too, autopsies of American soldiers found heart-artery damage. (6) Again, water supplied to them had been heavily chlorinated. (2) Did much of the soldiers' arterial damage develop, not gradually but quickly, as in Dr. Price's cockerels? The truth - slow or rapid development of clogging - may never be known. Interestingly, from 1950 to 1965 while heart attacks mushroomed, on a population level arterial lesions did not increase; the major growth was in clotting.
Chemical Background
Highly reactive chlorine is one of the industrial waste products profitably disposed of by using people as garbage cans, then on into the environment. Chlorine oxidizes lipid contaminants in the water. It thus creates free radicals, (2) (highly reactive atomic or sub-atomic particles lacking an electron) and oxysterols (formed when lipid and oxygen molecules combine). (8'9)
To function we require moderate numbers of both free radicals and oxysterols. The immune system employs free radicals to kill cells that its cellular immune mechanism can't handle. A second mechanism using free radicals initiates programmed cell suicide known as apoptosis. (10) And moderate quantities of oxysterols, like cholesterol itself, serve a protective function. (11) But excess free radicals and excess oxysterols damage arteries and initiate cancer, among many other kinds of harm.
How does chlorine in water cause these problems? It destroys protective acidophilus, which nourishes and cooperates with the 3 to 3-1/2 pounds (12) of immunity-strengthening "friendly" organisms lining the colon, where about 60% of our immune cells operate. (13) And chlorine combines with organic impurities in the water to make trihalomethanes (THMs), or chioramines. The more organic matter, the more THMs; and like excess oxysterols they are carcinogens.
Industrial chemist J.P. Bercz, PhD, showed in 1992 that chlorinated water alters and destroys essential fatty acids (EFAs), (14) the building blocks of brains and central nervous systems. (15) The compound hypochlorite, created when chlorine mixes with water, generates excess free radicals; these oxidize EFAs, turning them rancid.
Most Western diets contain very little of critically needed omega-3 EFAS. These are found in fish oil and, better, in flaxseed oil; also in moderate quantity in first-virgin olive oil. These EFAs, except in olive oil, go rancid quickly. And so, to extend their products' shelf life food processors remove all health-promoting EFAs, as well as destroying or discarding most needed micronutrients.
Processors substitute partially hydrogenated trans, transformed fats. Found in all boxed and packaged foods that have long lists of hard-to-pronounce chemical names on the side, trans fatty acids consumed in large quantity can cause heart attacks and many other degenerative diseases. (16-18)
Among the THMs that result from chlorine combining with organic compounds in water are carcinogenic chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. It is the combination of chlorine and organic materials already in the water that produces cancer-causing byproducts. The more organic matter in the water, the greater is the accumulation of THMs. (19)
In a study of more than 5,000 pregnant women in the Fontana, Walnut Creek and Santa Clara areas of California, researchers from the state health department found that women who drank more than five glasses a day of tap water containing over 75 parts per billion of THMs had a 9.5% risk of spontaneous abortion, i.e. miscarriage. Women less exposed to the contaminants showed 5.7% risk; no comparison was given for women who ingested no THMs. (20)
Other Risks of Chlorinated Water
Chlorine in swimming pools reacts with organic matter such as sweat, urine, blood, feces, and mucus and skin cells to form more chloramines. Chloroform risk can be 70 to 240 times higher in the air over indoor pools than over outdoor pools. (21) And Canadian researchers found that after an hour of swimming in a chlorinated pool, chloroform concentrations in the swimmers' blood ranged from 100 to 1,093 parts per billion (ppb). (22) If the pool smells very much of chlorine, don't go near it.
Taking a warm shower or lounging in a tub filled with hot chlorinated water, one inhales chloroform. Researchers recorded increases in chloroform concentration in bathers' lungs of about 2.7 ppb after a 10-minute shower. Worse, warm water causes the skin to act like a sponge; and so one will absorb and inhale more chlorine in a 10-minute shower than by drinking eight glasses of the same water. This irritates the eyes, the sinuses, throat, skin and lungs, dries the hair and scalp, worsening dandruff. It can weaken immunity.
A window from the shower room open to the outdoors would release chloroform from the shower room air. But to prevent its absorption through the skin requires a showerhead that removes chlorine. The ShowerWise[TM] filter and showerhead can be ordered for $69, plus two filters $129 -- from What Doctors Don't Tell You, 1-800-851-7100 or fax 410-223-2619. Others offer comparable products.
[My comments -- Nikken has an excellent and inexpensive shower filter available.]
Dishwashers pollute indoor air with chlorinated organics created from dishwasher detergents and volatilized in the air for us to breathe. They vent 5 to 7 liters (quarts) of air into the house air every minute of operation. The chlorine reacts with food scraps. (23) Ceramic disks, used instead of detergents, totally avoid the problem and are said to be about 75% less costly than detergent. (24-26)
Relation to Melanoma and Cancers
Studies in Belgium have related development of deadly malignant melanoma to consumption of chlorinated water. (27) Drinking and swimming in chlorinated water can cause melanoma. (28-30) Sodium hypochlorite, used in chlorination of water for swimming pools, is mutagenic in the Ames test and other mutagenicity tests. (31-32) Redheads and blonds are disproportionately melanoma-prone; their skin contains a relative excess of pheomelanins compared to darker people. (33) Franz H. Rampen of the Netherlands said worldwide pollution of rivers and oceans and chlorination of swimming pool water have led to an increase in melanoma. (34,35)
That disease is not associated with exposure to ultraviolet light. People who work indoors all the time, exposed to fluorescent lights, (36-38) have the highest incidence of melanoma. And the disease usually appears on parts of the body that are not often exposed to sunlight. (39)
Other Harm from Chlorination
Long-term risks of consuming chlorinated water include excessive free radical formation, which accelerates aging, increases vulnerability to genetic mutation and cancer development, hinders cholesterol metabolism, and promotes hardening of arteries.
Excess free radicals created by chlorinated water also generate dangerous toxins in the body. These have been directly linked to liver malfunction, weakening of the immune system and pre-arteriosclerotic changes in arteries (which, as we saw, struck Dr. Price's cockerels and may have happened to American soldiers in Korea and Vietnam). Excessive free radicals have been linked also to alterations of cellular DNA, the stuff of inheritance. (40) Chlorine also destroys antioxidant vitamin E, (2) which is needed to counteract excess oxysterols/free radicals for cardiac and anti-cancer protection.
A study in the late 1970s found that chlorinated water appears to increase the risk of gastrointestinal cancer over a person's lifetime by 50 to 100%. This study analyzed thousands of cancer deaths in North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin and Louisiana. Risk of such cancers results from use of water containing chlorine at or below the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standard and "is going to make the EPA standard look ridiculous," stated Dr. Robert Harris, lead scientist in the study. (41)
A later meta-analysis found chlorinated water is associated each year in America with about 4,200 cases of bladder cancer and 6,500 cases of rectal cancer. Chlorine is estimated to account for 9% of bladder cancer cases and 18% of rectal cancers. (42) Those cancers develop because the bladder and rectum store waste products for periods of time. (Keeping the bowels moving regularly lowers such risk.) Chlorinated water is associated, too, with higher total risk of combined cancers. (43) Chlorine in treated water can also cause allergic symptoms ranging from skin rash to intestinal symptoms to arthritis, headaches, and on and on. (44)
Recent research has found a new hazard in chlorinated water: a byproduct called MX. A research team from the National Public Health Institute in Finland discovered that, by causing genetic mutations, MX initiates cancer in laboratory animals. (45,46) Also, DCA (dichloroacedic acid) in chlorinated water alters cholesterol metabolism, changing HDL ("good") to LDL ("bad") cholesterol (47) -- and causes liver cancer in laboratory animals. (48)
Substitute Water Treatments
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) destroys infectious organisms and impurities in water 4,000 times better than chlorine. (53) "A 35% technical grade H2O2 will promote bacterial growth to break down sewage and enhance the dissolved oxygen level in discharge water entering lakes and streams." (54) Ozone (O3) treatment, mentioned above, is equally effective. Worldwide, 1,100 cities treat their drinking water with ozone; many have done so since as early as 1901. (55) Los Angeles treats its drinking water with H2O2, and then adds chlorine. (56) Some chlorine may likewise be added after ozonation to prevent re-infestation; about one-third as much suffices.
To generate ozone, dry air or oxygen is passed through a high-voltage electrical field. Ozone drinking-water treatment in Andover, Massachusetts successfully controlled the effects of algae blooms and eliminated water quality problems. Potential THM formation was reduced by an average of 75%. (57)
But H2O2 and O3 are relatively cheap; moreover, the only byproducts are pure oxygen and hydrogen, so no one can reap a big immediate profit on their disposal. (Hydrogen is a potential major energy source for electricity generation and for zero-emission vehicles. (58)) France and Germany, wiser and less controlled by the chemical industry, now chlorinate water only in emergencies. (59)
The chemical companies pulled off a huge coup when they bamboozled America and Canada into chlorination. They make big profits disposing of excess chlorine into our drinking water; otherwise, they would have to pay to destroy it. So now we know why American water isn't treated with safe, cheaper, more effective ozone. And why Dr. Price's revealing studies with cockerels, as well as the Roseto story, were not pursued.
Other Water Pollution Problems
EPA tests have shown that in the water we drink, over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals [including pesticides, heavy metals, radon, radioactive particles (60)] and parasitic (61) organisms including cryptosporidium (62,63) have been identified; 156 of them are pure carcinogens. (In 1993, cryptosporidium killed more than 100 and infected over 400,000.) Of those, 26 are tumor promoting: they can make an existing tumor grow. Exposure to cryptosporidium in people with lowered gastrointestinal immune function could lead to chronic GI tract infection. (64) Other examples include recurring cases of Legionnaire's disease, a pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, which may lurk in hot water supplies. (65)
A public notice recently issued in Washington, DC warned that a high level of bacteria in the [chlorinated, fluoridated city system] water made it unsafe for dialysis patients, AIDS patients, organ transplant patients, the elderly and infants. But water contamination is often worst in small communities that can't afford proper treatment; the EPA has not released this information. (66)
Testimony to hearings of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight revealed Pfiesteria outbreaks among people drinking chlorinated water. The organism, which kills fish, sickens some people; they get sick from drinking the water, not from eating infected seafood. The EPA's Robert Perciasepe said, in written testimony, "Any new public health policy on this issue needs to consider reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in our waters." (67) A bill passed by the US House of Representatives would require managers of municipal water systems to tell customers what contaminants have been found in local drinking water. (68) But government laboratories test only for bacterial content and a few of the major inorganic toxins such as lead and arsenic. So, for a complete water test one must consult a private laboratory.
Sherry A. Rogers, MD, authority on environmental medicine, raises the estimated number of chemicals in drinking water to 5,000. (69) And 85% of American aquifers supplying wells below 8,000 feet altitude are contaminated with heavy metals; (70) a recent federal report says the water you drink may have been recycled from sewage waste back to drinking water five times. (71) The late Kevin Treacy, MD of Australia said, "If municipal water were introduced now, it would not be allowed." (72)
The EPA called 129 contaminants found in water supplies "dangerous" singly, let alone in combination. Pesticides and other toxic wastes run off farmlands and pastures or are dumped by factories, pollute rivers and seep into underground aquifers. Aptly called "biocides" by Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, pesticides are designed to end life; few have been shown to be safe. The EPA depends on producers of pesticides to test their safety: the wolf guards the hen house. It should be no surprise that the tests take a long time, and many have been fraudulent.
Further, one poison is tested at a time; synergistic effects of combinations, potentially far worse, are ignored. (73) Besides, many of the so-called "inert" substances in pesticide combinations are more toxic than the "active"; one of the "marts" is DDT, supposedly prohibited for American farm use since 1973. (74) The American Society of Microbiology reported that water in the US is filled with microbes, such as viruses and bacteria, which pose a growing threat to public health. The document states that water pollution control efforts have focused on protecting water against chemical pollution, but they neglect serious problems from wastewater, sewer overflows, septic tanks, and the risks associated with microbial pollutants. The report recommended creation of a task force to coordinate federal agency activities on environmental and public health issues. (75) Isn't all that bad enough without the deliberate addition of the further toxicity of chlorine?
Plants do not thrive as well on chlorinated as on unchlorinated water; wild animals do not develop atherosclerosis until they drink chlorinated water in American zoos. Although their food, selected by people, isn't the same as what they caught, plucked or dug up in the wilds, evidence indicts chlorinated water, with its thousands of other chemicals, as the worst culprit in zoo animals' arterial clogging. (76)
Scientists in Minnesota propagated embryos from healthy frogs in plain tap water. Some of the frogs had no legs or six legs, or an eye in the middle of the throat. Earlier, deformed frogs were found in tap water in the US, Canada and Japan (77)...And we are drinking that stuff.
Purification of Drinking Water
A reverse-osmosis water purifier that removes 87 to 93% of fluoride and comparable percentages of other toxins, is known as The Duchess. It retails for $650; or $370 from the Natural Medicine Institute, 19125 SE Stark Street, Portland, Oregon 97233; 503-491-1067. (78)
Julian Whitaker, MD uses and recommends the Ultra-Sun water filter, which can be installed under the sink or on the countertop. The system combines solid carbon block filters with ultraviolet (UV) light chambers. The carbon block filters remove lead, chemical and organic pollutants, chlorination byproducts, and improve taste, and the UV light kills microbes. It avoids reverse osmosis, which discards valuable minerals from the water such as calcium, magnesium and trace minerals. (79) The filter can be purchased from Phillips Products and Services at 800-705-5559, ext. K11019. The cost: $295.
The simple PUR filter easily attaches to a kitchen faucet; Consumer Reports, in July 1997, rated it very high. And it is relatively inexpensive. (80)
[My comments -- Nikken has a several styles and varieties of water filters that are NAB certified.]
References
(1.) city improves water quality with ozone system (Andover, Massachusetts). Amer City & County 1996;111:12:38.
(2.) Price JM. Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine: NY: Pyramid, 1969.
(3.) Enas WF et al. Coronary disease among United States soldiers killed in action in Korea. Jour Amer Med Assoc 1953;152:1090-1093.
(4.) Jaffe D. et al. Coronary arteries in newborn children: Intimal variations in longitudinal sections and their relationships to clinical and experimental data. Acta Paediat Scand Supp. 219:1-27.
(5.) Suzman MM. Nutritional and metabolic factors in the development of coronary artery disease in early life: The possible role of dietary protein and pyridoxine. Unpub. Abstr., 1984.
(6.) McNamara, JJ et al. Coronary artery disease in combat casualties in Vietnam. JAMA 1971;216:1185-1187.
(7.) Nieper H. Mineral transporters, New Dynamics of Preventive Medicine, 1974.
(8.) Janney P. Health dowsing in the 1990s (audio tape), Sylvia, NC: Goodkind of Sound. 1992.
(9.) Taylor CB et al. Spontaneously occurring angiotexic derivatives of cholesterol. Amer Jour Clin Nutr 1979;32:40-57.
(10.) Taylor EW. Interview on Bland JS, Funct Med Update 1997; May.
(11.) Smith LL. Another cholesterol hypothesis: Cholesterol as antioxidant. Free Rod Biol Med 1991;11:47-61.
(12.) Bland JS. Funct Med Update, 1999.
(13.) Dash SK. Lecture to National Health Federation, 1993.
(14.) Berez JP. Toxicology of drinking water disinfection byproducts from nutrients. Rate studies of destruction of polyunsaturated fatty acids in vitro by chlorine-based disinfectants. Chem Research in Toxicology, 1992;5:418-425.
(15.) Howell E, Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept. Wayne, NJ: Avery Publ Group, 1985.
(16.) Berez JP. Op. Cit.
(17.) Budwig J. Flax oil as a true aid, published in Budwig J, Flax Oil as A True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases.. Vancouver, BC: Apple Publ., 1993.
(18.) Regers SA. Tired or Toxic? Syracuse, NY: Prestige Publ., 1990.
(19.) Waller K et al. Trihalomethanes in drinking water and spontaneous abortion. Epidemiology 1998;9;2:134-140.
(20.) Herwart BL et al. Outbreaks of waterborne disease in the U.S.: 1989-190. JAWWA 1992 Apr:29.
(21.) J Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology 1994;4;4:491-502.
(22.) Levesque B. in Environmental Health Perspectives 1994;Dec. Summarized in Science News 1995;147:5.
(23.) Sci News 1999;July 10;156:22.
(24.) Craun G. Surface water supplies and health JAWWA 1988;Feb:40.
(25.) Mercola J. Health news you can use. July 1999:6. http://www.mercola.com/
(26.) Herbert HJ. Bacterial threat to water supply reported growing. Orange County Register 1996;July 11.
(27.) Douglass WC. Second Opinion 1994;Feb
(28.) Prota G. Recent advances in the chemistry of melanogenesis in mammals. J Invest Dermatol 1980;75:122-127.
(29.) Rampen FH, Nelewans RT, KerbeekALM. Is water pollution a cause of cutaneous melanoma? Epidemiology 1992;3;3:263-265.
(30.) Murray F. The Murray report. Let's Live 1997;Oct:16.
(31.) Meier JR. Genotoxic activity of organic chemicals in drinking water. Mutat Res 1988; 196;211-245.
(32.) Kurakawa Y, Takayama S et al. Long-term in vivo carcinogenicity Costa of potassium bromate, sodium hypochlorite, and sodium chlorite conducted in Japan. Environ Cellular Perspectives 1996;69:221-25.
(33.) Cesarini J-R. Photo-induced events in the human melanocytic system: Photoagression and photaprotection. Pigment Cell Res 1988;1:223-233.
(34.) Rampen FH et a]. Epidemiology 1992;3;3:263-265.
(35.) Murray F. The Murray report. Let's Live 1997;Oct:16.
(36.) Beral V et al. Malignant melanoma and exposure to fluorescent lighting at work. Lancet 1982;Aug 7:290-293.
(37.) Kustov VI et al. Epidemiology of malignant melanoma. Vopr Onkol 1987;33:35-39 [Engl abstract).
(38.) Ott JN. Light, Radiation and You.. Greenwich, CT. Devin-Adair Publishers, 1990.
(39.) Garland FC et al. Occupational sunlight exposure and melanoma in the U.S. Navy.Arch Environmental Health 1990;45:261-267.
(40.) Bercz JP. Op. cit.
(41.) Harris R. Speech to Miami chapter of Sierra Club, 1980. NY Times 1980;Oct 17.
(42.) Am J Public Health 1997;87:1168-1176.
(43.) Morris RD et al. Chlorination, chlorination byproducts and cancer. A meta-analysis. Amer J Pub Health, 1992;82:955-963.
(44.) Douglass WC. Letters. Second Opinion 1998;June:8.
(45.) Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1997;89:832-833,848-856.
(46.) Whitaker JM. Health and Healing 1997;Aug (Suppl.)
(47.) Douglass WC. Second Opinion 1994;Dec.
(48.) What Doctors Don't Tell You 1997;Oct;special supplement.
(49.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious Individual. l997;August.
(50.) Bland JS. Prey Med Update 1994;Nov.
(51.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious Individual. 1997;August.
(52.) Hattersley JG. Fluoridation's deciding moment. Jour Orthomolecular Med, 1999;14;4:185-197.
(53.) McCabe E. Oxygen Therapies. Morrisville, NY: Energy Publications, 1990.
(54.) Walters C. The last word. Acres USA 1999;Aug:46.
(55.) McCabe E. Op. cit.
(56.) Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power, 1992.
(57.) Ann Hatcher, senior analyst with the NEES Companies, Westborough, Mass. In Amer City & County 1996;111; 12:38.
(58.) The third age of fuel. The Economist 1997;Oct 25:16.
(59.) Hans Raible of Stuttgart, Germany. Personal communication, 1993.
(60.) Null GH et al. What physicians should know about the biological effects of ingested fission products. Townsend Ltr Doc 1993;Aug:812-815.
(61.) Bland JS. Prey Med Update 1993;Mar.
(62.) McAnulty JM et al. A community-wide outbreak of cryptosporidiosis associated with swimming at a wave pool. JAMA 1994;272:1597-1600.
(63.) Rose JB. Environmental ecology of cryptosporidium and public health implications. Annu Rev Public Health 1997;18:135-161.
(64.) Bland JS. Funct Med Update 1997;Oct.
(65.) Whitaker JM. Don't drink tap water. Health & Healing 1998;Apr:4-7.
(66.) Glum GL. Essiac: Nature's cure for cancer. Wildfire, 1991;6:48-55.
(67.) Mlot C. Feds tackle toxic cell. Sci News 1997;152:213.
(68.) From Amer City & County 1996;111;12:38.
(69.) Rogers SA. Northeast Center for Environmental Medicine Health Letter 1994;Summer.
(70.) Janney P. Op. cit.
(71.) Willix.
(72.) Treacy K. Personal communication, 1994.
(73.) Rogers SA. Tired or Toxic?
(74.) Rogers SA. Depression: Cured at Last! Sarasota, FL: SK Publ, 1996.
(75.) Bugs in our water. Acres USA 1999;Sept:5.
(77.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious individual. 1997;Nov. From Washington Post 1997;Oct 1: p. A12.
(78.) Brian H. MacCoy, ND of Portland, Oregon. 1019 l22nd Ave. NE.
(79.) Whitaker J. Don't drink tap water. Health & Healing 1998;Apr:4-7.
(80.) Am J Public Health 1997;87:1168-1176.
(81.) Well Mind Association, 1994;Jan
(82.) Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. T Sugahara, L. Sagan, T. Aoyama. NY: Excerpta Medica, 1992. ISBN# 0-444-89409-8.
(83.) Begen KT. A cytodynamic two stage model that predicts radon hormesis (decreased, then increased lung-cancer risk vs. exposure). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Univ. of California, Preprint UCRL-TC-123219.
(84.) Cohen BL. Test of the linear-no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis for inhaled radon decay products. Health Physics 1991;68:157-174.
(85.) Cohen BL. Test of the linear-no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis. Op. cit.
(86.) Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. Op. cit.
(87.) Cancer postponement with radon. Access to Energy 1997;24;6 (Feb.):1-3.
(88.) Douglass 'NC. DDT -- The slandered chemical.--Second Opinion 1998;8;3:4-5.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
The negative health effects of chlorine.
by Joseph Hatterly
Summary
Federal regulations require chlorine treatment of the water supplied to urban/suburban areas of America and much of Canada from surface sources such as lakes, reservoirs and rivers. That constitutes about 75% of water that Americans consume. Water from underground sources generally is not chlorinated unless it is supplemented by surface water. My hometown, Lacey, Washington, and some surrounding communities that are supplied water by Lacey, are fortunate to be among that group.
Chlorination is inferior water treatment on at least two counts. (1) Although it has greatly lowered infectious waterborne diseases in the US and Canada, chlorination fails against a variety of water problems including parasites, and can seriously harm people who use the water, (2) Its cost is unnecessarily high. As of 1996, Andover, Massachusetts' new ozone treatment costs $83 per million gallons of purified water, only two-thirds as much as the old treatment process. The town saves $64,000 annually in chemicals costs alone, (1) and uses less electricity.
Possible Damage to Arteries
When chlorinated water is run through a hose or carried in a pail followed by milk as in a dairy, "very tenacious, yellowish deposits chemically similar to arterial plaque" form; with unchlorinated water this doesn't happen. (2)
CBS' 60 Minutes show July 11, 1992, displayed two laboratory rats, both of them eating standard rat chow and drinking chlorinated water. One rat had clear arteries. The other was also on pasteurized, homogenized milk. When the animals were sacrificed and cut open, the arteries of the milk-drinking rats were clogged. A scientist in a white coat winked at the camera and said, "He [the live rat he was holding] is the only one doing research on that." The researcher didn't say why, but the powerful dairy and chemical lobbies come to mind.
Dairy buckets, hoses and rats' arteries resist the arterial-wall damage known as atherosclerosis. But what can chlorinated water and cow's milk, particularly homogenized milk, do to the far more susceptible arteries of humans? Those of young chickens are about as susceptible to such damage as people's arteries. So as a first approximation, J.M. Price, MD gave cockerels (roosters less than a year old) only chlorinated water (without milk). They developed arterial plaques; and the stronger the concentration of chlorine, the faster and worse the damage. Cockerels on unchlorinated water developed no such damage. (2)
The residents of the small town of Roseto, Pennsylvania, had no heart attacks despite a diet rich in saturated animal fats and milk - until they moved away from Roseto's mountain spring water and drank chlorinated water. After that, consuming the same diet, they had heart attacks. (2) The Roseto example is dramatic enough, but the needed detailed comparisons and follow-up have never been done.
How well does the incidence of heart attacks match the areas where water is/ was chlorinated? Chlorination spread throughout America in the second and third decades of this century, about 20 years before the mushrooming of heart attacks. Light chlorination, we will recall, yielded slow growth of plaques in Price's cockerels; and so chlorination of people's drinking water at the usual low concentration might have been expected to take at least 10-20 years to produce clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis.
A physician team led by William F. Enos autopsied 300 GIs who had died in battle in the Korean War. These men, who had passed induction examination as healthy, averaged 22.1 years of age. To their shock and amazement, in 77% of the 300 the pathologists found "gross evidence of arteriosclerosis in the coronary arteries." In several, one or more heart arteries were partly or completely occluded. (3)
Although Dr. Enos didn't try to explain his discovery, he assumed arterial clogging had developed gradually. Seeming to support that assumption, almost 20 years later pathologists discovered early arterial damage in 96% of nearly 200 consecutive babies who had died of whatever cause in their first month outside the womb. Two of those babies' coronary arteries were blocked, causing infantile heart attacks. (4) Identified as crib deaths, these were related to functionally deficient vitamin [B.sub.6]. (5)
But did arterial damage in fact develop slowly? The water that the American soldiers had to drink in Korea was so heavily chlorinated that many could hardly tolerate it. In Vietnam too, autopsies of American soldiers found heart-artery damage. (6) Again, water supplied to them had been heavily chlorinated. (2) Did much of the soldiers' arterial damage develop, not gradually but quickly, as in Dr. Price's cockerels? The truth - slow or rapid development of clogging - may never be known. Interestingly, from 1950 to 1965 while heart attacks mushroomed, on a population level arterial lesions did not increase; the major growth was in clotting.
Chemical Background
Highly reactive chlorine is one of the industrial waste products profitably disposed of by using people as garbage cans, then on into the environment. Chlorine oxidizes lipid contaminants in the water. It thus creates free radicals, (2) (highly reactive atomic or sub-atomic particles lacking an electron) and oxysterols (formed when lipid and oxygen molecules combine). (8'9)
To function we require moderate numbers of both free radicals and oxysterols. The immune system employs free radicals to kill cells that its cellular immune mechanism can't handle. A second mechanism using free radicals initiates programmed cell suicide known as apoptosis. (10) And moderate quantities of oxysterols, like cholesterol itself, serve a protective function. (11) But excess free radicals and excess oxysterols damage arteries and initiate cancer, among many other kinds of harm.
How does chlorine in water cause these problems? It destroys protective acidophilus, which nourishes and cooperates with the 3 to 3-1/2 pounds (12) of immunity-strengthening "friendly" organisms lining the colon, where about 60% of our immune cells operate. (13) And chlorine combines with organic impurities in the water to make trihalomethanes (THMs), or chioramines. The more organic matter, the more THMs; and like excess oxysterols they are carcinogens.
Industrial chemist J.P. Bercz, PhD, showed in 1992 that chlorinated water alters and destroys essential fatty acids (EFAs), (14) the building blocks of brains and central nervous systems. (15) The compound hypochlorite, created when chlorine mixes with water, generates excess free radicals; these oxidize EFAs, turning them rancid.
Most Western diets contain very little of critically needed omega-3 EFAS. These are found in fish oil and, better, in flaxseed oil; also in moderate quantity in first-virgin olive oil. These EFAs, except in olive oil, go rancid quickly. And so, to extend their products' shelf life food processors remove all health-promoting EFAs, as well as destroying or discarding most needed micronutrients.
Processors substitute partially hydrogenated trans, transformed fats. Found in all boxed and packaged foods that have long lists of hard-to-pronounce chemical names on the side, trans fatty acids consumed in large quantity can cause heart attacks and many other degenerative diseases. (16-18)
Among the THMs that result from chlorine combining with organic compounds in water are carcinogenic chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. It is the combination of chlorine and organic materials already in the water that produces cancer-causing byproducts. The more organic matter in the water, the greater is the accumulation of THMs. (19)
In a study of more than 5,000 pregnant women in the Fontana, Walnut Creek and Santa Clara areas of California, researchers from the state health department found that women who drank more than five glasses a day of tap water containing over 75 parts per billion of THMs had a 9.5% risk of spontaneous abortion, i.e. miscarriage. Women less exposed to the contaminants showed 5.7% risk; no comparison was given for women who ingested no THMs. (20)
Other Risks of Chlorinated Water
Chlorine in swimming pools reacts with organic matter such as sweat, urine, blood, feces, and mucus and skin cells to form more chloramines. Chloroform risk can be 70 to 240 times higher in the air over indoor pools than over outdoor pools. (21) And Canadian researchers found that after an hour of swimming in a chlorinated pool, chloroform concentrations in the swimmers' blood ranged from 100 to 1,093 parts per billion (ppb). (22) If the pool smells very much of chlorine, don't go near it.
Taking a warm shower or lounging in a tub filled with hot chlorinated water, one inhales chloroform. Researchers recorded increases in chloroform concentration in bathers' lungs of about 2.7 ppb after a 10-minute shower. Worse, warm water causes the skin to act like a sponge; and so one will absorb and inhale more chlorine in a 10-minute shower than by drinking eight glasses of the same water. This irritates the eyes, the sinuses, throat, skin and lungs, dries the hair and scalp, worsening dandruff. It can weaken immunity.
A window from the shower room open to the outdoors would release chloroform from the shower room air. But to prevent its absorption through the skin requires a showerhead that removes chlorine. The ShowerWise[TM] filter and showerhead can be ordered for $69, plus two filters $129 -- from What Doctors Don't Tell You, 1-800-851-7100 or fax 410-223-2619. Others offer comparable products.
[My comments -- Nikken has an excellent and inexpensive shower filter available.]
Dishwashers pollute indoor air with chlorinated organics created from dishwasher detergents and volatilized in the air for us to breathe. They vent 5 to 7 liters (quarts) of air into the house air every minute of operation. The chlorine reacts with food scraps. (23) Ceramic disks, used instead of detergents, totally avoid the problem and are said to be about 75% less costly than detergent. (24-26)
Relation to Melanoma and Cancers
Studies in Belgium have related development of deadly malignant melanoma to consumption of chlorinated water. (27) Drinking and swimming in chlorinated water can cause melanoma. (28-30) Sodium hypochlorite, used in chlorination of water for swimming pools, is mutagenic in the Ames test and other mutagenicity tests. (31-32) Redheads and blonds are disproportionately melanoma-prone; their skin contains a relative excess of pheomelanins compared to darker people. (33) Franz H. Rampen of the Netherlands said worldwide pollution of rivers and oceans and chlorination of swimming pool water have led to an increase in melanoma. (34,35)
That disease is not associated with exposure to ultraviolet light. People who work indoors all the time, exposed to fluorescent lights, (36-38) have the highest incidence of melanoma. And the disease usually appears on parts of the body that are not often exposed to sunlight. (39)
Other Harm from Chlorination
Long-term risks of consuming chlorinated water include excessive free radical formation, which accelerates aging, increases vulnerability to genetic mutation and cancer development, hinders cholesterol metabolism, and promotes hardening of arteries.
Excess free radicals created by chlorinated water also generate dangerous toxins in the body. These have been directly linked to liver malfunction, weakening of the immune system and pre-arteriosclerotic changes in arteries (which, as we saw, struck Dr. Price's cockerels and may have happened to American soldiers in Korea and Vietnam). Excessive free radicals have been linked also to alterations of cellular DNA, the stuff of inheritance. (40) Chlorine also destroys antioxidant vitamin E, (2) which is needed to counteract excess oxysterols/free radicals for cardiac and anti-cancer protection.
A study in the late 1970s found that chlorinated water appears to increase the risk of gastrointestinal cancer over a person's lifetime by 50 to 100%. This study analyzed thousands of cancer deaths in North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin and Louisiana. Risk of such cancers results from use of water containing chlorine at or below the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standard and "is going to make the EPA standard look ridiculous," stated Dr. Robert Harris, lead scientist in the study. (41)
A later meta-analysis found chlorinated water is associated each year in America with about 4,200 cases of bladder cancer and 6,500 cases of rectal cancer. Chlorine is estimated to account for 9% of bladder cancer cases and 18% of rectal cancers. (42) Those cancers develop because the bladder and rectum store waste products for periods of time. (Keeping the bowels moving regularly lowers such risk.) Chlorinated water is associated, too, with higher total risk of combined cancers. (43) Chlorine in treated water can also cause allergic symptoms ranging from skin rash to intestinal symptoms to arthritis, headaches, and on and on. (44)
Recent research has found a new hazard in chlorinated water: a byproduct called MX. A research team from the National Public Health Institute in Finland discovered that, by causing genetic mutations, MX initiates cancer in laboratory animals. (45,46) Also, DCA (dichloroacedic acid) in chlorinated water alters cholesterol metabolism, changing HDL ("good") to LDL ("bad") cholesterol (47) -- and causes liver cancer in laboratory animals. (48)
Substitute Water Treatments
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) destroys infectious organisms and impurities in water 4,000 times better than chlorine. (53) "A 35% technical grade H2O2 will promote bacterial growth to break down sewage and enhance the dissolved oxygen level in discharge water entering lakes and streams." (54) Ozone (O3) treatment, mentioned above, is equally effective. Worldwide, 1,100 cities treat their drinking water with ozone; many have done so since as early as 1901. (55) Los Angeles treats its drinking water with H2O2, and then adds chlorine. (56) Some chlorine may likewise be added after ozonation to prevent re-infestation; about one-third as much suffices.
To generate ozone, dry air or oxygen is passed through a high-voltage electrical field. Ozone drinking-water treatment in Andover, Massachusetts successfully controlled the effects of algae blooms and eliminated water quality problems. Potential THM formation was reduced by an average of 75%. (57)
But H2O2 and O3 are relatively cheap; moreover, the only byproducts are pure oxygen and hydrogen, so no one can reap a big immediate profit on their disposal. (Hydrogen is a potential major energy source for electricity generation and for zero-emission vehicles. (58)) France and Germany, wiser and less controlled by the chemical industry, now chlorinate water only in emergencies. (59)
The chemical companies pulled off a huge coup when they bamboozled America and Canada into chlorination. They make big profits disposing of excess chlorine into our drinking water; otherwise, they would have to pay to destroy it. So now we know why American water isn't treated with safe, cheaper, more effective ozone. And why Dr. Price's revealing studies with cockerels, as well as the Roseto story, were not pursued.
Other Water Pollution Problems
EPA tests have shown that in the water we drink, over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals [including pesticides, heavy metals, radon, radioactive particles (60)] and parasitic (61) organisms including cryptosporidium (62,63) have been identified; 156 of them are pure carcinogens. (In 1993, cryptosporidium killed more than 100 and infected over 400,000.) Of those, 26 are tumor promoting: they can make an existing tumor grow. Exposure to cryptosporidium in people with lowered gastrointestinal immune function could lead to chronic GI tract infection. (64) Other examples include recurring cases of Legionnaire's disease, a pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, which may lurk in hot water supplies. (65)
A public notice recently issued in Washington, DC warned that a high level of bacteria in the [chlorinated, fluoridated city system] water made it unsafe for dialysis patients, AIDS patients, organ transplant patients, the elderly and infants. But water contamination is often worst in small communities that can't afford proper treatment; the EPA has not released this information. (66)
Testimony to hearings of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight revealed Pfiesteria outbreaks among people drinking chlorinated water. The organism, which kills fish, sickens some people; they get sick from drinking the water, not from eating infected seafood. The EPA's Robert Perciasepe said, in written testimony, "Any new public health policy on this issue needs to consider reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in our waters." (67) A bill passed by the US House of Representatives would require managers of municipal water systems to tell customers what contaminants have been found in local drinking water. (68) But government laboratories test only for bacterial content and a few of the major inorganic toxins such as lead and arsenic. So, for a complete water test one must consult a private laboratory.
Sherry A. Rogers, MD, authority on environmental medicine, raises the estimated number of chemicals in drinking water to 5,000. (69) And 85% of American aquifers supplying wells below 8,000 feet altitude are contaminated with heavy metals; (70) a recent federal report says the water you drink may have been recycled from sewage waste back to drinking water five times. (71) The late Kevin Treacy, MD of Australia said, "If municipal water were introduced now, it would not be allowed." (72)
The EPA called 129 contaminants found in water supplies "dangerous" singly, let alone in combination. Pesticides and other toxic wastes run off farmlands and pastures or are dumped by factories, pollute rivers and seep into underground aquifers. Aptly called "biocides" by Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, pesticides are designed to end life; few have been shown to be safe. The EPA depends on producers of pesticides to test their safety: the wolf guards the hen house. It should be no surprise that the tests take a long time, and many have been fraudulent.
Further, one poison is tested at a time; synergistic effects of combinations, potentially far worse, are ignored. (73) Besides, many of the so-called "inert" substances in pesticide combinations are more toxic than the "active"; one of the "marts" is DDT, supposedly prohibited for American farm use since 1973. (74) The American Society of Microbiology reported that water in the US is filled with microbes, such as viruses and bacteria, which pose a growing threat to public health. The document states that water pollution control efforts have focused on protecting water against chemical pollution, but they neglect serious problems from wastewater, sewer overflows, septic tanks, and the risks associated with microbial pollutants. The report recommended creation of a task force to coordinate federal agency activities on environmental and public health issues. (75) Isn't all that bad enough without the deliberate addition of the further toxicity of chlorine?
Plants do not thrive as well on chlorinated as on unchlorinated water; wild animals do not develop atherosclerosis until they drink chlorinated water in American zoos. Although their food, selected by people, isn't the same as what they caught, plucked or dug up in the wilds, evidence indicts chlorinated water, with its thousands of other chemicals, as the worst culprit in zoo animals' arterial clogging. (76)
Scientists in Minnesota propagated embryos from healthy frogs in plain tap water. Some of the frogs had no legs or six legs, or an eye in the middle of the throat. Earlier, deformed frogs were found in tap water in the US, Canada and Japan (77)...And we are drinking that stuff.
Purification of Drinking Water
A reverse-osmosis water purifier that removes 87 to 93% of fluoride and comparable percentages of other toxins, is known as The Duchess. It retails for $650; or $370 from the Natural Medicine Institute, 19125 SE Stark Street, Portland, Oregon 97233; 503-491-1067. (78)
Julian Whitaker, MD uses and recommends the Ultra-Sun water filter, which can be installed under the sink or on the countertop. The system combines solid carbon block filters with ultraviolet (UV) light chambers. The carbon block filters remove lead, chemical and organic pollutants, chlorination byproducts, and improve taste, and the UV light kills microbes. It avoids reverse osmosis, which discards valuable minerals from the water such as calcium, magnesium and trace minerals. (79) The filter can be purchased from Phillips Products and Services at 800-705-5559, ext. K11019. The cost: $295.
The simple PUR filter easily attaches to a kitchen faucet; Consumer Reports, in July 1997, rated it very high. And it is relatively inexpensive. (80)
[My comments -- Nikken has a several styles and varieties of water filters that are NAB certified.]
References
(1.) city improves water quality with ozone system (Andover, Massachusetts). Amer City & County 1996;111:12:38.
(2.) Price JM. Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine: NY: Pyramid, 1969.
(3.) Enas WF et al. Coronary disease among United States soldiers killed in action in Korea. Jour Amer Med Assoc 1953;152:1090-1093.
(4.) Jaffe D. et al. Coronary arteries in newborn children: Intimal variations in longitudinal sections and their relationships to clinical and experimental data. Acta Paediat Scand Supp. 219:1-27.
(5.) Suzman MM. Nutritional and metabolic factors in the development of coronary artery disease in early life: The possible role of dietary protein and pyridoxine. Unpub. Abstr., 1984.
(6.) McNamara, JJ et al. Coronary artery disease in combat casualties in Vietnam. JAMA 1971;216:1185-1187.
(7.) Nieper H. Mineral transporters, New Dynamics of Preventive Medicine, 1974.
(8.) Janney P. Health dowsing in the 1990s (audio tape), Sylvia, NC: Goodkind of Sound. 1992.
(9.) Taylor CB et al. Spontaneously occurring angiotexic derivatives of cholesterol. Amer Jour Clin Nutr 1979;32:40-57.
(10.) Taylor EW. Interview on Bland JS, Funct Med Update 1997; May.
(11.) Smith LL. Another cholesterol hypothesis: Cholesterol as antioxidant. Free Rod Biol Med 1991;11:47-61.
(12.) Bland JS. Funct Med Update, 1999.
(13.) Dash SK. Lecture to National Health Federation, 1993.
(14.) Berez JP. Toxicology of drinking water disinfection byproducts from nutrients. Rate studies of destruction of polyunsaturated fatty acids in vitro by chlorine-based disinfectants. Chem Research in Toxicology, 1992;5:418-425.
(15.) Howell E, Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept. Wayne, NJ: Avery Publ Group, 1985.
(16.) Berez JP. Op. Cit.
(17.) Budwig J. Flax oil as a true aid, published in Budwig J, Flax Oil as A True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases.. Vancouver, BC: Apple Publ., 1993.
(18.) Regers SA. Tired or Toxic? Syracuse, NY: Prestige Publ., 1990.
(19.) Waller K et al. Trihalomethanes in drinking water and spontaneous abortion. Epidemiology 1998;9;2:134-140.
(20.) Herwart BL et al. Outbreaks of waterborne disease in the U.S.: 1989-190. JAWWA 1992 Apr:29.
(21.) J Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology 1994;4;4:491-502.
(22.) Levesque B. in Environmental Health Perspectives 1994;Dec. Summarized in Science News 1995;147:5.
(23.) Sci News 1999;July 10;156:22.
(24.) Craun G. Surface water supplies and health JAWWA 1988;Feb:40.
(25.) Mercola J. Health news you can use. July 1999:6. http://www.mercola.com/
(26.) Herbert HJ. Bacterial threat to water supply reported growing. Orange County Register 1996;July 11.
(27.) Douglass WC. Second Opinion 1994;Feb
(28.) Prota G. Recent advances in the chemistry of melanogenesis in mammals. J Invest Dermatol 1980;75:122-127.
(29.) Rampen FH, Nelewans RT, KerbeekALM. Is water pollution a cause of cutaneous melanoma? Epidemiology 1992;3;3:263-265.
(30.) Murray F. The Murray report. Let's Live 1997;Oct:16.
(31.) Meier JR. Genotoxic activity of organic chemicals in drinking water. Mutat Res 1988; 196;211-245.
(32.) Kurakawa Y, Takayama S et al. Long-term in vivo carcinogenicity Costa of potassium bromate, sodium hypochlorite, and sodium chlorite conducted in Japan. Environ Cellular Perspectives 1996;69:221-25.
(33.) Cesarini J-R. Photo-induced events in the human melanocytic system: Photoagression and photaprotection. Pigment Cell Res 1988;1:223-233.
(34.) Rampen FH et a]. Epidemiology 1992;3;3:263-265.
(35.) Murray F. The Murray report. Let's Live 1997;Oct:16.
(36.) Beral V et al. Malignant melanoma and exposure to fluorescent lighting at work. Lancet 1982;Aug 7:290-293.
(37.) Kustov VI et al. Epidemiology of malignant melanoma. Vopr Onkol 1987;33:35-39 [Engl abstract).
(38.) Ott JN. Light, Radiation and You.. Greenwich, CT. Devin-Adair Publishers, 1990.
(39.) Garland FC et al. Occupational sunlight exposure and melanoma in the U.S. Navy.Arch Environmental Health 1990;45:261-267.
(40.) Bercz JP. Op. cit.
(41.) Harris R. Speech to Miami chapter of Sierra Club, 1980. NY Times 1980;Oct 17.
(42.) Am J Public Health 1997;87:1168-1176.
(43.) Morris RD et al. Chlorination, chlorination byproducts and cancer. A meta-analysis. Amer J Pub Health, 1992;82:955-963.
(44.) Douglass WC. Letters. Second Opinion 1998;June:8.
(45.) Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1997;89:832-833,848-856.
(46.) Whitaker JM. Health and Healing 1997;Aug (Suppl.)
(47.) Douglass WC. Second Opinion 1994;Dec.
(48.) What Doctors Don't Tell You 1997;Oct;special supplement.
(49.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious Individual. l997;August.
(50.) Bland JS. Prey Med Update 1994;Nov.
(51.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious Individual. 1997;August.
(52.) Hattersley JG. Fluoridation's deciding moment. Jour Orthomolecular Med, 1999;14;4:185-197.
(53.) McCabe E. Oxygen Therapies. Morrisville, NY: Energy Publications, 1990.
(54.) Walters C. The last word. Acres USA 1999;Aug:46.
(55.) McCabe E. Op. cit.
(56.) Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power, 1992.
(57.) Ann Hatcher, senior analyst with the NEES Companies, Westborough, Mass. In Amer City & County 1996;111; 12:38.
(58.) The third age of fuel. The Economist 1997;Oct 25:16.
(59.) Hans Raible of Stuttgart, Germany. Personal communication, 1993.
(60.) Null GH et al. What physicians should know about the biological effects of ingested fission products. Townsend Ltr Doc 1993;Aug:812-815.
(61.) Bland JS. Prey Med Update 1993;Mar.
(62.) McAnulty JM et al. A community-wide outbreak of cryptosporidiosis associated with swimming at a wave pool. JAMA 1994;272:1597-1600.
(63.) Rose JB. Environmental ecology of cryptosporidium and public health implications. Annu Rev Public Health 1997;18:135-161.
(64.) Bland JS. Funct Med Update 1997;Oct.
(65.) Whitaker JM. Don't drink tap water. Health & Healing 1998;Apr:4-7.
(66.) Glum GL. Essiac: Nature's cure for cancer. Wildfire, 1991;6:48-55.
(67.) Mlot C. Feds tackle toxic cell. Sci News 1997;152:213.
(68.) From Amer City & County 1996;111;12:38.
(69.) Rogers SA. Northeast Center for Environmental Medicine Health Letter 1994;Summer.
(70.) Janney P. Op. cit.
(71.) Willix.
(72.) Treacy K. Personal communication, 1994.
(73.) Rogers SA. Tired or Toxic?
(74.) Rogers SA. Depression: Cured at Last! Sarasota, FL: SK Publ, 1996.
(75.) Bugs in our water. Acres USA 1999;Sept:5.
(77.) Williams DG. Alternatives for the Health Conscious individual. 1997;Nov. From Washington Post 1997;Oct 1: p. A12.
(78.) Brian H. MacCoy, ND of Portland, Oregon. 1019 l22nd Ave. NE.
(79.) Whitaker J. Don't drink tap water. Health & Healing 1998;Apr:4-7.
(80.) Am J Public Health 1997;87:1168-1176.
(81.) Well Mind Association, 1994;Jan
(82.) Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. T Sugahara, L. Sagan, T. Aoyama. NY: Excerpta Medica, 1992. ISBN# 0-444-89409-8.
(83.) Begen KT. A cytodynamic two stage model that predicts radon hormesis (decreased, then increased lung-cancer risk vs. exposure). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Univ. of California, Preprint UCRL-TC-123219.
(84.) Cohen BL. Test of the linear-no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis for inhaled radon decay products. Health Physics 1991;68:157-174.
(85.) Cohen BL. Test of the linear-no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis. Op. cit.
(86.) Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. Op. cit.
(87.) Cancer postponement with radon. Access to Energy 1997;24;6 (Feb.):1-3.
(88.) Douglass 'NC. DDT -- The slandered chemical.--Second Opinion 1998;8;3:4-5.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Fosamax-Induced Osteonecrosis of the Jaw More Common Than Previously Thought
Here is reprint of an article on The Center for Medical Consumers website titled: Fosamax-Induced Osteonecrosis of the Jaw More Common Than Previously Thought
Dentists have been in the forefront of identifying a severe complication of Fosamax, the osteoporosis drug widely prescribed to prevent fractures. The January issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association published a study describing a significant risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw from even oral use of Fosamax. Until this small study of 208 dental patients was published, jaw osteonecrosis was thought to be rare and limited to people with cancer who received large doses of Fosamax intravenously to treat bone metastases.
Dental School Patients Studied
In this study conducted at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry, 4% of the dental patients taking oral Fosamax had osteonecrosis of the jaw. All had suffered dental trauma—either a tooth extraction or ill-fitting dentures that resulted in jawbone exposure; all were women, average age 73 years, who had been taking the drug for 12 months or longer. Osteonecrosis is defined as “the presence of exposed bone in the mouth, which fails to heal after appropriate intervention over a period of six or eight weeks.”
Parish P. Sedghizadeh, DDS, and colleagues at the USC School of Dentistry found no cases of osteonecrosis of the jaw among their 4,384 dental patients not taking Fosamax who underwent tooth extraction. Fosamax was the first and most aggressively promoted of all drugs in a class called bisphosphonates, which also includes Actonel, Boniva, Aredia, Zometa and Bonefos.
4% Risk is Not Rare
Sedghizadeh and colleagues say their findings contradict Merck’s claim that jaw osteonecrosis is a rare side effect of its drug. “We have been told that the risk with oral bisphosphates is negligible, but 4% is not negligible,” said Dr. Sedghizadeh. (The benefit of Fosamax could also be described as rare because the drug reduces the risk of hip fracture from 2% to 1%, as demonstrated in premarketing trials.) Prior to receiving FDA approval, Fosamax was tested in trials that lasted only three to five years. Ever since this drug first came on the market in 1996, the unanswered question has been: How long can people safely take Fosamax—or any one of other bisphosphonates, which are known to suppress bone turnover.
Drugs Have a Long Half-Life
This warning came from the USC Dental School research team: Bisphosphonates have half-lives of ten years or more, and people taking the drug orally may ultimately reach the same high dose level as that given intravenously to treat bone metastases in cancer patients. Sedghizadeh and colleagues also explained that because bisphosphonates stay in the bone for a long time, the risk of osteonecrosis remains even after people go off the drugs. The half-life of a drug describes how long it takes for half of it to be eliminated from the bloodstream.
The USC study is not the last word on the frequency of osteonecrosis of the jaw in people taking bisphosphonates. A much larger study is needed; ideally, one that takes place in many dental schools. Researchers at other institutions are trying to determine the prevalence of osteonecrosis of the jaw in cancer patients treated with bisphosphonates for cancer metastases. In the journal Bone, Dr. I.R. Reid, University of Auckland, estimated that it is 5% among people with myeloma, breast cancer or prostate cancer.
What to do
Thirteen years after Fosamax was launched, severe adverse effects have been showing up that may not be as rare as the public has been led to believe. Last year, the FDA reported that all bisphosphonates carry the risk of severe and sometimes incapacitating musculoskeletal pain. And case reports in several medical journals describe an unusual type of severe fracture of the femur associated with bisphosphonate use. In 2007 an increase in serious cases of atrial fibrillation was reported in people given the relatively new once-a-year bisphosphonate injection for fracture prevention (Zometa).
Osteonecrosis Treatments
As for osteoporosis of the jaw, more information is needed about how to prevent and treat it successfully—if that’s possible. Sedghizadeh and colleagues at USC Dental School did not have too much to offer on this topic. They advise unnamed alternate treatment options be considered for “nonnecessary extractions;” reducing the amount of the bacteria with a chlorhexidine rinse for those who must undergo a procedure; and daily antibiotics for those with denture trauma. For the exposed bone that fails to heal, the researchers name a procedure called “mucosal coverage.”
University of New Zealand’s Dr. Reid put it more succinctly “Management focuses on prevention, treatment of infection and cessation of bisphosphonate. The role of surgery is unclear.”
Maryann Napoli, Center for Medical Consumers©
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Dentists have been in the forefront of identifying a severe complication of Fosamax, the osteoporosis drug widely prescribed to prevent fractures. The January issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association published a study describing a significant risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw from even oral use of Fosamax. Until this small study of 208 dental patients was published, jaw osteonecrosis was thought to be rare and limited to people with cancer who received large doses of Fosamax intravenously to treat bone metastases.
Dental School Patients Studied
In this study conducted at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry, 4% of the dental patients taking oral Fosamax had osteonecrosis of the jaw. All had suffered dental trauma—either a tooth extraction or ill-fitting dentures that resulted in jawbone exposure; all were women, average age 73 years, who had been taking the drug for 12 months or longer. Osteonecrosis is defined as “the presence of exposed bone in the mouth, which fails to heal after appropriate intervention over a period of six or eight weeks.”
Parish P. Sedghizadeh, DDS, and colleagues at the USC School of Dentistry found no cases of osteonecrosis of the jaw among their 4,384 dental patients not taking Fosamax who underwent tooth extraction. Fosamax was the first and most aggressively promoted of all drugs in a class called bisphosphonates, which also includes Actonel, Boniva, Aredia, Zometa and Bonefos.
4% Risk is Not Rare
Sedghizadeh and colleagues say their findings contradict Merck’s claim that jaw osteonecrosis is a rare side effect of its drug. “We have been told that the risk with oral bisphosphates is negligible, but 4% is not negligible,” said Dr. Sedghizadeh. (The benefit of Fosamax could also be described as rare because the drug reduces the risk of hip fracture from 2% to 1%, as demonstrated in premarketing trials.) Prior to receiving FDA approval, Fosamax was tested in trials that lasted only three to five years. Ever since this drug first came on the market in 1996, the unanswered question has been: How long can people safely take Fosamax—or any one of other bisphosphonates, which are known to suppress bone turnover.
Drugs Have a Long Half-Life
This warning came from the USC Dental School research team: Bisphosphonates have half-lives of ten years or more, and people taking the drug orally may ultimately reach the same high dose level as that given intravenously to treat bone metastases in cancer patients. Sedghizadeh and colleagues also explained that because bisphosphonates stay in the bone for a long time, the risk of osteonecrosis remains even after people go off the drugs. The half-life of a drug describes how long it takes for half of it to be eliminated from the bloodstream.
The USC study is not the last word on the frequency of osteonecrosis of the jaw in people taking bisphosphonates. A much larger study is needed; ideally, one that takes place in many dental schools. Researchers at other institutions are trying to determine the prevalence of osteonecrosis of the jaw in cancer patients treated with bisphosphonates for cancer metastases. In the journal Bone, Dr. I.R. Reid, University of Auckland, estimated that it is 5% among people with myeloma, breast cancer or prostate cancer.
What to do
Thirteen years after Fosamax was launched, severe adverse effects have been showing up that may not be as rare as the public has been led to believe. Last year, the FDA reported that all bisphosphonates carry the risk of severe and sometimes incapacitating musculoskeletal pain. And case reports in several medical journals describe an unusual type of severe fracture of the femur associated with bisphosphonate use. In 2007 an increase in serious cases of atrial fibrillation was reported in people given the relatively new once-a-year bisphosphonate injection for fracture prevention (Zometa).
Osteonecrosis Treatments
As for osteoporosis of the jaw, more information is needed about how to prevent and treat it successfully—if that’s possible. Sedghizadeh and colleagues at USC Dental School did not have too much to offer on this topic. They advise unnamed alternate treatment options be considered for “nonnecessary extractions;” reducing the amount of the bacteria with a chlorhexidine rinse for those who must undergo a procedure; and daily antibiotics for those with denture trauma. For the exposed bone that fails to heal, the researchers name a procedure called “mucosal coverage.”
University of New Zealand’s Dr. Reid put it more succinctly “Management focuses on prevention, treatment of infection and cessation of bisphosphonate. The role of surgery is unclear.”
Maryann Napoli, Center for Medical Consumers©
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Osteoporosis drugs linked to esophageal cancer
This is a reprint of an article by Gene Emery appearing on Reuters.
BOSTON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Merck's (MRK.N) popular osteoporosis drug Fosamax and other similar drugs may carry a risk for esophageal cancer, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said on Wednesday.
Diane Wysowski of the FDA's division of drug risk assessment said researchers should check into potential links between so-called bisphosphonate drugs and cancer.
In a letter in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Wysowski said since the initial marketing of Fosamax, known generically as alendronate, in 1995, the FDA has received 23 reports in which patients developed esophageal tumors.
Typically, two years lapsed between the start of the drug and the development of esophageal cancer. Eight patients died, she reported.
In Europe and Japan, 21 cases involving Fosamax have been logged, as well as six instances where Procter & Gamble's (PG.N) Actonel or risedronate and Didronel or etidronate, and Roche's (ROG.VX) Boniva or ibandronate may have been involved. Six of those people died.
Esophagitis, which is an inflammation of the lining of the tube carrying food to the stomach, is already know to be a side effect of the drugs, which is why patients are instructed to remain upright for at least a half hour after taking them.
In addition, Wysowski said, doctors should avoid prescribing the drugs to people with Barrett's esophagus, which is a change in the lining that leads to the stomach. It is often found in people with acid reflux disease and itself increases the risk of cancer.
In November the FDA said clinical trial data showed no overall risk of heart rhythm problems in patients taking bisphosphonates.
However, the FDA also said it was aware of conflicting findings in other studies and was considering whether conducting further studies to investigate the risk were feasible.
The drugs aim to treat bone-weakening osteoporosis by increasing bone mass. An estimated 10 million Americans, mostly women, have osteoporosis. (Editing by Maggie Fox and Mohammad Zargham)
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
BOSTON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Merck's (MRK.N) popular osteoporosis drug Fosamax and other similar drugs may carry a risk for esophageal cancer, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said on Wednesday.
Diane Wysowski of the FDA's division of drug risk assessment said researchers should check into potential links between so-called bisphosphonate drugs and cancer.
In a letter in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Wysowski said since the initial marketing of Fosamax, known generically as alendronate, in 1995, the FDA has received 23 reports in which patients developed esophageal tumors.
Typically, two years lapsed between the start of the drug and the development of esophageal cancer. Eight patients died, she reported.
In Europe and Japan, 21 cases involving Fosamax have been logged, as well as six instances where Procter & Gamble's (PG.N) Actonel or risedronate and Didronel or etidronate, and Roche's (ROG.VX) Boniva or ibandronate may have been involved. Six of those people died.
Esophagitis, which is an inflammation of the lining of the tube carrying food to the stomach, is already know to be a side effect of the drugs, which is why patients are instructed to remain upright for at least a half hour after taking them.
In addition, Wysowski said, doctors should avoid prescribing the drugs to people with Barrett's esophagus, which is a change in the lining that leads to the stomach. It is often found in people with acid reflux disease and itself increases the risk of cancer.
In November the FDA said clinical trial data showed no overall risk of heart rhythm problems in patients taking bisphosphonates.
However, the FDA also said it was aware of conflicting findings in other studies and was considering whether conducting further studies to investigate the risk were feasible.
The drugs aim to treat bone-weakening osteoporosis by increasing bone mass. An estimated 10 million Americans, mostly women, have osteoporosis. (Editing by Maggie Fox and Mohammad Zargham)
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Another Merck Drug is Under Legal Attack
This is a mirror copy of an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on July 5, 2006.
As Merck & Co. defends itself against a deluge of litigation involving its pain reliever Vioxx, the pharmaceutical giant also is fielding the first of what could be another wave of lawsuits involving Fosamax, its second-biggest seller.
The emerging litigation targeting the osteoporosis drug, still in its early stages, illustrates how quickly lawyers can organize themselves and assemble prospective plaintiffs after reports of adverse drug effects -- even when those problems appear to be relatively rare.
Reports in the last few years have linked Fosamax and similar drugs, known as bisphosphonates, to a serious side effect in which the jawbone partially crumbles and dies. Researchers agree that the incidence of this problem, called osteonecrosis, is quite small.
But trial lawyers are advertising on the Internet and in newspapers for patients who have taken Fosamax or the other drugs, and they are finding potential clients.
"We're getting people calling every day," said Gary Wilson, a lawyer in the Minneapolis office of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi.
Wilson said his firm had enlisted medical and dental experts to thoroughly review the records of potential plaintiffs who have taken one of the drugs, adding that he would probably file about 20 cases in the coming months.
"It's too early to tell whether these cases will be successful," said Edward Weltman, a San Francisco defense lawyer who represents drug makers. "But as soon as there is publicity about any kind of possible problems with a medication, the plaintiffs get geared up."
Merck spokesman Skip Irvine says that Fosamax is safe and effective in treating osteoporosis and that the company "will vigorously defend ourselves against these suits."
"Osteonecrosis is very rare and not well understood," Irvine said, noting that in controlled clinical trials involving more than 17,000 patients, there had been no reports of the malady.
Ethel Siris, a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons who has also consulted for Merck, said new research studies were underway to understand what triggers the onset of this jaw problem.
In the meantime, she said, she tells her osteoporosis patients that the benefits of the bisphosphonate drugs greatly outweigh their risks.
Fosamax is probably the best-known brand-name drug for preventing hip fractures and deteriorating bones that often destroy the quality of life for older women.
Millions of women have taken the drug since it was first marketed in 1995. Fosamax generated $3.2 billion in sales last year, outstripping the other major oral osteoporosis remedies, Actonel, produced by Procter & Gamble Co. and Sanofi-Aventis, and Boniva, made by Roche Laboratories.
Scientific reports of jaw problems have generated a wave of newspaper articles that in turn have sown panic among users of the drugs.
Many have turned to their doctors or dentists for advice on how to prevent jaw decay and the best treatment options. Last month, the American Dental Assn. released a set of treatment guidelines.
Some users have turned to lawyers as well.
A Florida attorney, Timothy O'Brien, has filed 30 damage suits involving Fosamax and expects to file at least 300 more over the next few months involving that drug as well as Actonel.
One of his clients is Rochelle Kenig, who took Fosamax for nine years until she woke up one morning in 2004 with "excruciating, excruciating" pain in her jaw.
"This has been a living nightmare, and nobody knew anything about it," the Boynton Beach, Fla., resident recalled.
Kenig, 67, said she underwent multiple courses of potent antibiotics, repeated surgeries, treatment in a hyperbaric chamber and acupuncture. Yet the pain and bone deterioration continued, she said.
She finally got some relief in April after a new group of surgeons replaced part of her jaw with a titanium plate secured with metal hinges. But, Kenig said, the decay and infections had caused a permanent loss of sensation on the right side of her lip and face, as well as the loss of several teeth.
Merck's Irvine declined to comment on Kenig's claim, adding, "We don't want to argue cases in the newspapers."
O'Brien has asked a Florida federal court to certify a class action for the Fosamax suits. He estimated that he and other lawyers had filed a total of 50 lawsuits with possibly hundreds more to come.
Two bisphosphonates produced by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., Aredia and Zometa, are given intravenously in treating some forms of bone cancer. The drugs have also been targeted in lawsuits from about 100 claimants to date.
Some experts see the relatively slow pace of lawsuit filings against Fosamax and its related drugs -- compared with the flood of Vioxx suits that followed Merck's decision to pull the drug in 2004 -- as evidence that plaintiffs' lawyers have become more cautious in recent years.
Litigation involving silicone gel breast implants and Bayer's cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol proved less successful than lawyers initially expected, said Francis McGovern, a Duke University law professor.
"Now, you might take a particularly good case and see how good it is before you take lots of others and invest a lot of money," McGovern said.
Drug makers are also taking more precautions. Merck added language about the potential problem to Fosamax's label in July after a request from the Food and Drug Administration, which had reviewed reports of osteonecrosis, Irvine said.
The revised label "communicates the issue clearly to physicians," Irvine said.
But attorney Wilson said that precaution statement "is buried deep in the label and just doesn't have the same impact" as a formal warning, which he thought the company should have issued. A warning is "a whole different thing, especially for the physicians who prescribe the drugs," Wilson said.
Attorney O'Brien characterized Merck's posture as "significantly more quiet about the relationship between Fosamax and osteonecrosis of the jaw than they were in disputing the relationship between Vioxx and heart attacks."
"They were very defensive on Vioxx," he said, "and I think they've learned from that and are playing things closer to the chest on Fosamax."
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
As Merck & Co. defends itself against a deluge of litigation involving its pain reliever Vioxx, the pharmaceutical giant also is fielding the first of what could be another wave of lawsuits involving Fosamax, its second-biggest seller.
The emerging litigation targeting the osteoporosis drug, still in its early stages, illustrates how quickly lawyers can organize themselves and assemble prospective plaintiffs after reports of adverse drug effects -- even when those problems appear to be relatively rare.
Reports in the last few years have linked Fosamax and similar drugs, known as bisphosphonates, to a serious side effect in which the jawbone partially crumbles and dies. Researchers agree that the incidence of this problem, called osteonecrosis, is quite small.
But trial lawyers are advertising on the Internet and in newspapers for patients who have taken Fosamax or the other drugs, and they are finding potential clients.
"We're getting people calling every day," said Gary Wilson, a lawyer in the Minneapolis office of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi.
Wilson said his firm had enlisted medical and dental experts to thoroughly review the records of potential plaintiffs who have taken one of the drugs, adding that he would probably file about 20 cases in the coming months.
"It's too early to tell whether these cases will be successful," said Edward Weltman, a San Francisco defense lawyer who represents drug makers. "But as soon as there is publicity about any kind of possible problems with a medication, the plaintiffs get geared up."
Merck spokesman Skip Irvine says that Fosamax is safe and effective in treating osteoporosis and that the company "will vigorously defend ourselves against these suits."
"Osteonecrosis is very rare and not well understood," Irvine said, noting that in controlled clinical trials involving more than 17,000 patients, there had been no reports of the malady.
Ethel Siris, a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons who has also consulted for Merck, said new research studies were underway to understand what triggers the onset of this jaw problem.
In the meantime, she said, she tells her osteoporosis patients that the benefits of the bisphosphonate drugs greatly outweigh their risks.
Fosamax is probably the best-known brand-name drug for preventing hip fractures and deteriorating bones that often destroy the quality of life for older women.
Millions of women have taken the drug since it was first marketed in 1995. Fosamax generated $3.2 billion in sales last year, outstripping the other major oral osteoporosis remedies, Actonel, produced by Procter & Gamble Co. and Sanofi-Aventis, and Boniva, made by Roche Laboratories.
Scientific reports of jaw problems have generated a wave of newspaper articles that in turn have sown panic among users of the drugs.
Many have turned to their doctors or dentists for advice on how to prevent jaw decay and the best treatment options. Last month, the American Dental Assn. released a set of treatment guidelines.
Some users have turned to lawyers as well.
A Florida attorney, Timothy O'Brien, has filed 30 damage suits involving Fosamax and expects to file at least 300 more over the next few months involving that drug as well as Actonel.
One of his clients is Rochelle Kenig, who took Fosamax for nine years until she woke up one morning in 2004 with "excruciating, excruciating" pain in her jaw.
"This has been a living nightmare, and nobody knew anything about it," the Boynton Beach, Fla., resident recalled.
Kenig, 67, said she underwent multiple courses of potent antibiotics, repeated surgeries, treatment in a hyperbaric chamber and acupuncture. Yet the pain and bone deterioration continued, she said.
She finally got some relief in April after a new group of surgeons replaced part of her jaw with a titanium plate secured with metal hinges. But, Kenig said, the decay and infections had caused a permanent loss of sensation on the right side of her lip and face, as well as the loss of several teeth.
Merck's Irvine declined to comment on Kenig's claim, adding, "We don't want to argue cases in the newspapers."
O'Brien has asked a Florida federal court to certify a class action for the Fosamax suits. He estimated that he and other lawyers had filed a total of 50 lawsuits with possibly hundreds more to come.
Two bisphosphonates produced by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., Aredia and Zometa, are given intravenously in treating some forms of bone cancer. The drugs have also been targeted in lawsuits from about 100 claimants to date.
Some experts see the relatively slow pace of lawsuit filings against Fosamax and its related drugs -- compared with the flood of Vioxx suits that followed Merck's decision to pull the drug in 2004 -- as evidence that plaintiffs' lawyers have become more cautious in recent years.
Litigation involving silicone gel breast implants and Bayer's cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol proved less successful than lawyers initially expected, said Francis McGovern, a Duke University law professor.
"Now, you might take a particularly good case and see how good it is before you take lots of others and invest a lot of money," McGovern said.
Drug makers are also taking more precautions. Merck added language about the potential problem to Fosamax's label in July after a request from the Food and Drug Administration, which had reviewed reports of osteonecrosis, Irvine said.
The revised label "communicates the issue clearly to physicians," Irvine said.
But attorney Wilson said that precaution statement "is buried deep in the label and just doesn't have the same impact" as a formal warning, which he thought the company should have issued. A warning is "a whole different thing, especially for the physicians who prescribe the drugs," Wilson said.
Attorney O'Brien characterized Merck's posture as "significantly more quiet about the relationship between Fosamax and osteonecrosis of the jaw than they were in disputing the relationship between Vioxx and heart attacks."
"They were very defensive on Vioxx," he said, "and I think they've learned from that and are playing things closer to the chest on Fosamax."
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
The Dangers of Aspartame
This is a reprint of an article found on Dr. Mercola's website. The full article contains many additional links on this subject.
The Dangers of Aspartame
Aspartame, sold as NutraSweet or Equal, is an artificial sweetener, present in over 6000 products. It is responsible for a host of health problems, including brain diseases, migraines and psychological ailments.
This video will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical. Dr. H. J. Roberts has called aspartame “an ignored epidemic” -- his database contains over 1,300 reports of adverse reactions to aspartame.
NutraSweet is sold in over 100 countries, found in over 5000 products, and is consumed by over 250 million people. It’s found in most diet sodas and a good portion of chewing gum.
How safe is it?
Consider this: There have been more reports to the FDA for aspartame reactions than for all other food additives combined.
Aspartame is a Danger to Your Brain
Early safety studies of aspartame identified potential neurotoxic side effects. In one study, out of seven monkeys fed aspartame mixed with milk, one monkey died and five of the remaining had grand mal seizures. Other have shown that aspartic acid, one of the main ingredients in aspartame, causes damage to the brains of infant mice.
In an analysis of 166 articles about aspartame published in medical journals, 91 percent of the independent studies -- 84 out of a total of 92 -- found at least one adverse health effect in its outcome. In contrast, all 74 of the studies that were conducted by individuals with strong financial ties to the success of aspartame concluded that aspartame posed no health risks.
Those industry-funded studies were highly flawed; among many other problems, the subjects were given pure aspartame administered as capsules or in cold water. No consumer will ever ingest aspartame in this form.
Excitotoxicity
Aspartame has three components: phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol (wood alcohol). Those who defend the chemical argue that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are a harmless and natural part of your diet. Phenylalanine and aspartic acid are indeed amino acids that are normally supplied by the foods you eat. However, they can only be considered natural and harmless when they are consumed in combination with other amino acids, fats, and carbohydrates in the form of real food.
When phenylalanine and aspartic acid are consumed as free amino acids, they enter your central nervous system in abnormally high concentrations, causing excessive firing of brain neurons and potential cell death. This concept has been termed “excitotoxicity” by Dr. Russell Blaylock, a prominent neurosurgeon.
Blindness and Cancer
Potentially even more worrisome is the 10 percent of aspartame that is absorbed into your bloodstream as methanol. The Environmental Protection Agency defines safe consumption of this dangerous substance as no more than 7.8 milligrams per day, which is the amount found in half a can of diet soda. Methanol poisoning can result in fatal kidney damage, blindness, multiple organ system failure and death.
The manufacturers of aspartame again defend the methanol by claiming it is found naturally in many foods. But in nature, methanol is bound to pectin, a form of fiber. As a result of this bond, your body is not exposed to methanol, nor does it break it down. However, your body does absorb the pectin-free methanol in aspartame, and further breaks it down into formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde can accumulate within your cells, and react with other cellular proteins such as enzymes and DNA. Formaldehyde can cause cancer in laboratory animals and likely causes cancer in humans. There is no known threshold level below which there is no threat of cancer.
Over 10,000 Complaints
The FDA has received over 10,000 complaints regarding adverse reactions to aspartame. By the FDA’s own admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it. This means that the 10,000 documented accounts probably mean that there are roughly a million people who have experienced reactions to aspartame.
While a variety of symptoms have been reported, almost two-thirds of them fall into the neurological and behavioral category consisting mostly of headaches, mood alterations, and hallucinations. The remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.
Are You Having a Reaction?
If you think you may be having a reaction to aspartame, you might want to consider doing an elimination/challenge with it. First eliminate it (and all other artificial sweeteners) from your diet completely for a period of one to two weeks. After this period, reintroduce it in a significant quantity. For example, use it in your beverage in the morning, and eat at least two aspartame containing products the remainder of the day. Avoid other artificial sweeteners on this day.
Do this for a period of one to three days. Notice how your body is feeling, particularly if it feels different than when you were artificial sweetener free. Nearly two-thirds of aspartame reactors experienced symptomatic improvement within two days after avoiding aspartame. With continued abstinence, their complaints generally disappeared.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
The Dangers of Aspartame
Aspartame, sold as NutraSweet or Equal, is an artificial sweetener, present in over 6000 products. It is responsible for a host of health problems, including brain diseases, migraines and psychological ailments.
This video will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical. Dr. H. J. Roberts has called aspartame “an ignored epidemic” -- his database contains over 1,300 reports of adverse reactions to aspartame.
NutraSweet is sold in over 100 countries, found in over 5000 products, and is consumed by over 250 million people. It’s found in most diet sodas and a good portion of chewing gum.
How safe is it?
Consider this: There have been more reports to the FDA for aspartame reactions than for all other food additives combined.
Aspartame is a Danger to Your Brain
Early safety studies of aspartame identified potential neurotoxic side effects. In one study, out of seven monkeys fed aspartame mixed with milk, one monkey died and five of the remaining had grand mal seizures. Other have shown that aspartic acid, one of the main ingredients in aspartame, causes damage to the brains of infant mice.
In an analysis of 166 articles about aspartame published in medical journals, 91 percent of the independent studies -- 84 out of a total of 92 -- found at least one adverse health effect in its outcome. In contrast, all 74 of the studies that were conducted by individuals with strong financial ties to the success of aspartame concluded that aspartame posed no health risks.
Those industry-funded studies were highly flawed; among many other problems, the subjects were given pure aspartame administered as capsules or in cold water. No consumer will ever ingest aspartame in this form.
Excitotoxicity
Aspartame has three components: phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol (wood alcohol). Those who defend the chemical argue that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are a harmless and natural part of your diet. Phenylalanine and aspartic acid are indeed amino acids that are normally supplied by the foods you eat. However, they can only be considered natural and harmless when they are consumed in combination with other amino acids, fats, and carbohydrates in the form of real food.
When phenylalanine and aspartic acid are consumed as free amino acids, they enter your central nervous system in abnormally high concentrations, causing excessive firing of brain neurons and potential cell death. This concept has been termed “excitotoxicity” by Dr. Russell Blaylock, a prominent neurosurgeon.
Blindness and Cancer
Potentially even more worrisome is the 10 percent of aspartame that is absorbed into your bloodstream as methanol. The Environmental Protection Agency defines safe consumption of this dangerous substance as no more than 7.8 milligrams per day, which is the amount found in half a can of diet soda. Methanol poisoning can result in fatal kidney damage, blindness, multiple organ system failure and death.
The manufacturers of aspartame again defend the methanol by claiming it is found naturally in many foods. But in nature, methanol is bound to pectin, a form of fiber. As a result of this bond, your body is not exposed to methanol, nor does it break it down. However, your body does absorb the pectin-free methanol in aspartame, and further breaks it down into formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde can accumulate within your cells, and react with other cellular proteins such as enzymes and DNA. Formaldehyde can cause cancer in laboratory animals and likely causes cancer in humans. There is no known threshold level below which there is no threat of cancer.
Over 10,000 Complaints
The FDA has received over 10,000 complaints regarding adverse reactions to aspartame. By the FDA’s own admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it. This means that the 10,000 documented accounts probably mean that there are roughly a million people who have experienced reactions to aspartame.
While a variety of symptoms have been reported, almost two-thirds of them fall into the neurological and behavioral category consisting mostly of headaches, mood alterations, and hallucinations. The remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.
Are You Having a Reaction?
If you think you may be having a reaction to aspartame, you might want to consider doing an elimination/challenge with it. First eliminate it (and all other artificial sweeteners) from your diet completely for a period of one to two weeks. After this period, reintroduce it in a significant quantity. For example, use it in your beverage in the morning, and eat at least two aspartame containing products the remainder of the day. Avoid other artificial sweeteners on this day.
Do this for a period of one to three days. Notice how your body is feeling, particularly if it feels different than when you were artificial sweetener free. Nearly two-thirds of aspartame reactors experienced symptomatic improvement within two days after avoiding aspartame. With continued abstinence, their complaints generally disappeared.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs)
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs. I recently saw an ad on TV where the environmental police would arrest you for various environmental infractions. Using incandescent lightbulbs was one of the offenses. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) are the curly little fluorescent lightbulbs that are - or so we are told - good for the environment. Incandescent lightbulbs are the regular kind that look like the kind Thomas Edison invented. Now I made a pretty bold assertion that CFLs may not be as good for the environment as environmentalists and government regulations would have us believe. Take a look at this short video and you'll see where I'm coming from.
That's right. Although power consumption is less (or so they promise - I never noticed a difference in my power bill when I installed CFLs), CFLs have mercury that needs a hazmat response if one of them breaks. And what about the ones that don't break and end up in the landfill because people don't know how to dispose of them or it's too difficult to find a recycling center for CFLs or someone just doesn't care? That is not good for the environment!!!
The health implications from dirty electricity are massive and far reaching. CFLs are friends of neither the environment nor health.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
That's right. Although power consumption is less (or so they promise - I never noticed a difference in my power bill when I installed CFLs), CFLs have mercury that needs a hazmat response if one of them breaks. And what about the ones that don't break and end up in the landfill because people don't know how to dispose of them or it's too difficult to find a recycling center for CFLs or someone just doesn't care? That is not good for the environment!!!
The health implications from dirty electricity are massive and far reaching. CFLs are friends of neither the environment nor health.
Please visit The Wellness Academy for more information.
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