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Excerpts of Key Health Media Articles in Major Media

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Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

The tally is in. The major New Mexico school district with the largest percentage of students opting out of vaccinations against contagious diseases is ... in New Mexico’s, and one of the world’s, science centers: Los Alamos. According to a recent report by the state Department of Health, 2.3 percent of students in the Los Alamos Public Schools have exemptions from having to get vaccinations. That’s a higher percentage than in the public schools of our New Age-friendly and alternative thought capitals of Santa Fe and Taos. The statewide average is less than 1 percent. The rating for Los Alamos seems demographically in line with the findings of a 2014 survey by the Health Department of 794 vaccine-exemptor parents – 74 percent were Anglo and 67 percent had at least four years of college. Many people in Los Alamos don’t just have college degrees – they’re scientists, with lots of degrees. Los Alamos National Laboratory in fact has done some heavy research on infectious disease and development of an HIV vaccine. “That’s a curiosity,” said Los Alamos schools superintendent Gene Schmidt of his district’s relatively high rate of vaccination exemptions among what he called “a pretty scientific and literate community.” So what’s the deal with higher education levels correlating with vaccine exemptions, which New Mexico allows for medical reasons certified by a physician or for religious beliefs?

Note: Isn't it fascinating that Los Alamos, where top secret government labs proliferate, is the place where parents don't get their children vaccinated? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.

Joni Mitchell, 71, was taken to a hospital in Los Angeles on Tuesday after she was found unconscious at her Los Angeles home. In recent years, the singer has complained of a number of health problems, including one particularly unusual ailment: Morgellons disease. People who believe they have the condition report lesions that don’t heal, “fibers” extruding from their skin and uncomfortable sensations like pins-and-needles tingling or stinging. Sufferers may also report fatigue and problems with short-term memory and concentration. But Morgellons is not a medically accepted diagnosis. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 115 people who said they had the condition. In a report published in 2012, they said they were unable to identify an infectious source for the patients’ “unexplained dermopathy.” The investigators cast doubt on Morgellons as a distinct condition and said that it might be something doctors were already familiar with: delusional infestation, a psychiatric condition characterized by an unshakable but erroneous belief that one’s skin is infested with bugs or parasites. These patients have a reduced quality of life, the researchers concluded, but the cause is not clear. Science one day may find that Morgellons has a physical basis, but at the moment most experts treat it as a psychiatric disorder — to the great frustration of people, like Ms. Mitchell, who ... are afflicted with it.

Note: See this excellent article on the strange Morgellons disease, and read this one for more information.

Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow's stomach. They were "astonished" to find it almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA. Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference. The remedy was found in Bald's Leechbook - an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library. Anglo-Saxon expert Dr Christina Lee, from the University of Nottingham, translated the recipe for an "eye salve", which includes garlic, onion or leeks, wine and cow bile. Experts from the university's microbiology team recreated the remedy and then tested it on large cultures of MRSA. The leechbook is one of the earliest examples of what might loosely be called a medical textbook. It seems Anglo-Saxon physicians may actually have practised something pretty close to the modern scientific method, with its emphasis on observation and experimentation. Dr Lee said there are many similar medieval books with treatments for what appear to be bacterial infections. She said this could suggest people were carrying out detailed scientific studies centuries before bacteria were discovered. The team's findings will be presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for General Microbiology, in Birmingham.

Note: The recipe for the medieval remedy is available at the link above. For more see this CBS article. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer announced findings that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp line of pesticides, is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The research, published in The Lancet Oncology, relies on studies conducted on the chemical over the last few decades. Use of glyphosate – which the EPA has deemed safe — has soared in the last two decades with the introduction of crops genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide. Glyphosate is also a main ingredient in a new product called “Enlist Duo” recently introduced by Dow Chemical. Widespread use of the chemical has also come under fire because weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to it. Dow has marketed its new product ... as a new tool for farmers battling herbicide-resistant weeds. But agriculture experts say farmers should look at other ways to manage weeds, like cover-cropping, increased rotation and mechanical removal. This week, environmental groups sent a letter to the EPA renewing their calls for the agency to reconsider its decision to approve Enlist Duo. The groups also called on the EPA to reexamine its findings that glyphosate is safe. Monsanto has come out swinging. In a press release, Chief Technology Officer Dr. Robb Fraley said the company is “outraged”. Monsanto has demanded a retraction of the report.

Note: The negative health impacts of Monsanto's RoundUp are well known, while the risks and dangers of genetically engineering crops to tolerate such chemicals are becoming increasingly clear.

The issues surrounding G.M.O.s - genetically modified organisms - became more complicated last week when the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the widely used herbicide Roundup, probably causes cancer in humans. Two insecticides, malathion and diazinon, were also classified as "probable" carcinogens by the agency, a respected arm of the World Health Organization. Roundup, made by Monsanto for both home and commercial use, is crucial in the production of genetically engineered corn and soybean crops, so it was notable that the verdict on its dangers came nearly simultaneously with an announcement by the Food and Drug Administration that new breeds of genetically engineered potato and apple are safe to eat. Few people are surprised that an herbicide in widespread use is probably toxic at high doses or with prolonged exposure, circumstances that may be common among farmers and farmworkers. Nor is it surprising that it took so long - Roundup has been used since the 1970s - to discover its likely carcinogenic properties. There is a sad history of us acting as guinea pigs for the novel chemicals that industry develops. To date, G.M.O.s and other forms of biotech have done nothing but enrich their manufacturers and promote a system of agriculture that's neither sustainable nor for the most part beneficial. We don't need better, smarter chemicals along with crops that can tolerate them; we need fewer chemicals. There's no reason to put the general population, and particularly the farming population, at risk for the sake of industry profits.

Note: Monsanto's Roundup and the GMO crops that support its use are well-known by scientists to be a threat to public health. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMO risks and how these are covered up.

A report on lab safety at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put together by a committee of external experts calls the agency's commitment to safety "inconsistent and insufficient." The report, which was completed in January but posted on the agency's website this week, also says "laboratory safety training is inadequate." An external group of 11 experts in biosafety, laboratory science and research [say] in the report [that] they are "very concerned that the CDC is on the way to losing credibility." The agency created the advisory group to improve lab safety in July in the wake of two mishaps and other issues that were uncovered. One incident occurred in June when dozens of employees in a bioterrorism lab working with the deadly anthrax virus, were at risk because of a failure to properly follow sterilization techniques. The head of that lab resigned after the incident. This followed a May incident in which avian influenza samples, thought to not be dangerous, were unintentionally mixed with the deadly H5N1 influenza virus and then shipped to a USDA lab. Then in December, with the advisory group already working to reduce lab safety risks and improve the culture of safety, employees in the Ebola lab were potentially exposed to that virus when a technician mistakenly transported the wrong specimens from a high-level lab to a lower-level lab. Internal investigations were done after each incident.

Note: See powerful media reports suggesting that both the Avian Flu and Swine Flu were manipulated to promote fear and boost pharmaceutical sales. For more along these lines, see the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.

Diet soda gives you a sugar rush far stronger than the granulated stuff in a sugar bowl ever could – and for no calories. But research is mounting that low-and no-calorie sweeteners may not be great choices for dieters. A recent study found that over nine years, diet-soda drinkers gained nearly triple the abdominal fat–3 in. (8 cm)–as those who didn’t drink diet soda. Though scientists are still puzzling over how this may happen, here’s what they think is going on. The most popular artificial sweetener in diet drinks ... is about 200 times sweeter than sugar without triggering a feeling of satiety. Bad things can happen when you strip sweetness of its power to satisfy: the link between eating and the role of calories in your body starts to crumble. It may also mess with your [digestive] microbes, [and] be bad for your heart. In a study based on dietary questionnaires of 9,500 people, those who said they drank one can of diet soda a day had a 34% higher risk of metabolic syndrome – a cluster of risk factors that can lead to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes – than those who didn’t drink diet soda. The study stopped short of drawing a cause-and-effect link, but the association surprised the authors, who called for more research.

Note: If you can't access this article on the Time website, you can read it here. What this article fails to mention is the copious amount of research and many researchers who have found that aspartame, which is the sweetener used in most diet drinks, can be highly hazardous to health. Read more on this important fact.

The powerful U.S. sugar industry skewed the government's medical research on dental care. Sugar industry leaders advocated for policies that did not recommend people eat less sugar. The government listened, according to a new report published in the journal PLOS Medicine. In the 1960s, amid a national effort to boost cavity prevention, the U.S. government spearheaded a research program, known as the National Caries Program (NCP), which aimed to eradicate tooth decay. But instead of turning to an obvious solution — having people eat less sugar — the government was swayed by industry interests that pushed alternative methods, such as [using] vaccines for fighting tooth decay. [The] committee that was set up by the government to set research priorities for the NCP included many doctors and scientists who were also ... part of another group called the International Sugar Research Foundation, which was established by the sugar industry. Rather than recommending that people reduce sugar intake, government-funded research focused on interventions that wouldn't advise Americans to lower their sweets consumption. For instance, the research encouraged the wider use of fluoride. More recently, the industry attempted to influence the ongoing debate about changes to the Food and Drug Administration's nutrition facts label. One of the key changes currently being mulled is the inclusion of an "added sugar" label, which is meant to communicate how much of any given food's sugar content was added during processing. The industry is vehemently opposed.

Note: "When you take on Big Sugar, you take on a huge political money operation," Rep. Mark Steven Kirk from Illinois said while fighting Big Sugar back in 2007. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

Lower IQ, adult obesity and 5% of autism cases are all linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors found in food containers, plastics, furniture, toys, carpeting and cosmetics, says new expert study. Europe is experiencing an explosion in health costs caused by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that is comparable to the cost of lead and mercury poisoning, according to the most comprehensive study of the subject yet published. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with the human hormone system, and can be found in food containers, plastics, furniture, toys, carpeting and cosmetics. The new series of reports by 18 of the world’s foremost experts on endocrine science pegs the health costs of exposure to them at between €157bn-€270bn (Ł113bn-Ł195bn), or at least 1.23% of the continent’s GDP. “The shocking thing is that the major component of that cost is related to the loss of brain function in the next generation,” one of the report’s authors, Professor Philippe Grandjean of Harvard University, told the Guardian. After IQ loss, adult obesity linked to exposure to phthalates, a group of chemicals used in plastics, was the second largest part of the overall cost, with an estimated price tag of €15.6bn a year. The study attributes at least 5% of European autism cases to EDC exposure. “These studies tell a frightening and expensive story equivalent to a €7,500 cost for every man, woman and child in the EU every year,” said Genon Jensen, the director of the Health and Environment Alliance.

Note: Recently, a major report showing the dangers of many common pesticides was suppressed by EU officials. Federal regulators in the US claim to have no data on over 62,000 industrial chemicals that US consumers are exposed to.

Physicians and public health officials know that recently vaccinated individuals can spread disease. "The public health community is blaming unvaccinated children for the outbreak of measles at Disneyland, but the illnesses could just as easily have occurred due to contact with a recently vaccinated individual," says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Both unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals are at risk from exposure to those recently vaccinated. Vaccine failure is widespread; vaccine-induced immunity is not permanent and recent outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough, mumps and measles have occurred in fully vaccinated populations. Flu vaccine recipients become more susceptible to future infection after repeated vaccination. "Vaccine failure and failure to acknowledge that live virus vaccines can spread disease have resulted in an increase in outbreaks of infectious disease in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals," says Leslie Manookian, producer of The Greater Good. "CDC should instruct physicians who administer vaccinations to inform their patients about the risks posed to others by those who've been recently vaccinated." The number of measles deaths declined from 7575 in 1920 (10,000 per year in many years in the 1910s) to an average of 432 each year from 1958-1962. The vaccine was introduced in 1963. Between 2005 and 2014, there have been no deaths from measles in the U.S. and 108 deaths reported after the MMR vaccine.

Note: If the CNBC link fails, see this webpage. The above article provides an extensive list or references. For more, read this informative webpage on the excellent alternative health website Mercola.com. And this US government webpage states, "Since 1988, over 18,897 petitions have been filed with the VICP. Over that 29-year time period, 16,857 petitions have been adjudicated, with 5,782 of those determined to be compensable. Total compensation paid over the life of the program is approximately $3.7 billion."

In the 1980s, Dr. Vincent Felitti, now director of the California Institute of Preventive Medicine in San Diego, discovered something potentially revolutionary: childhood abuse and neglect could affect adult health. In the 1990s, Felitti got together with an epidemiologist named Dr. Rob Anda, who at the time was on staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They came up with a set of questions to trace, in a larger group, how tough childhood experiences might affect adult health, [and] called their work the study of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE. [Upon] getting a rough measure of the severity of the patients' experiences, when Anda's team at the CDC crunched the numbers, he was shocked. One in 10 of the patients surveyed had grown up with domestic violence. Two in 10 had been sexually abused. Three in 10 had been physically abused. Now, 15 years after the ACE study came out, some scientists are trying to connect the dots — to get a clearer picture of what exactly adverse childhood experiences do to the body and why the study results came out the way they did. "Well, you've reshaped the biology of the child," says Megan Gunnar, a developmental psychologist at the University of Minnesota who, for more than 30 years, has been studying the ways children respond to stressful experiences. "This is how nature protects us," Gunnar adds. We all become adapted to living in "the kinds of environments we're born into." And if you have scary, traumatic experiences when you're small, Gunnar says, your stress response system may, in some cases, be programmed to overreact, influencing the way your mind and body work together.

Note: An NPR poll whose results were released alongside this report suggests that people are largely aware that childhood trauma impacts adult health. If healthcare providers are ignoring the scale of this issue, something is very wrong with industrial medicine.

A large study that looked at data from nearly every general medical practice in England suggests that water fluoridation may increase the risk of developing hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid. This condition, in which the thyroid gland doesn’t produce enough hormones, is associated with symptoms such as fatigue, obesity and depression. The study found that locations with fluoridated water supplies were more than 30 percent more likely to have high levels of hypothyroidism, compared to areas with low levels of the chemical in the water. Overall, there were 9 percent more cases of underactive thyroid in fluoridated places. Fluoride is added to the water of about 10 percent of England’s population—and to the taps of about two-thirds of Americans—for the purpose of preventing cavities. Fluoride was used to treat hyperthyroidism (or an overactive thyroid) in the 1950s. It may put a damper on the gland’s activities by suppressing the activity of various enzymes, causing physical damage or interfering with the absorption and use of iodine, a substance that is critical for thyroid health. In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency convened a panel that recommended lowering the maximum allowable level of fluoride in water. Nine years later, the EPA is still considering whether or not to revise its fluoride standards.

Note: Read lots more excellent information on fluoridation of water in this article on mercola.com. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

Last year Public Health England released a report saying fluoride was a ‘safe and effective’ way of improving dental health. But new research from the University of Kent suggests that there is a spike in the number of cases of underactive thyroid in high fluoride areas such as the West Midlands and the North East of England. In England, around 10 per cent of the population (6 million) live in areas with a naturally or artificially fluoridated water supply of 1 mg fluoride per litre of drinking water. The researchers compared areas to records from 7935 general practices covering around 95 per cent of the English population in 2012-2013. Rates of high underactive thyroid were at least 30 per cent more likely in practices located in areas with fluoride levels in excess of 0.3 mg/l. Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in water in varying amounts, depending on the region and it is also found in certain foods and drinks, including tea and fish. It helps combat tooth decay by making enamel more resistant to bacteria. But previous studies have found that it inhibits the production of iodine, which is essential for a healthy thyroid. The thyroid gland, which is found in the neck, regulates the metabolism as well as many other systems in the body. An underactive thyroid can lead to depression, weight gain, fatigue and aching muscles and affects 15 times more women than men, around 15 in 1,000 women.

Note: Read lots more excellent information on fluoridation of water in this article on mercola.com. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

Three mothers - all of them educated, middle-class professionals - are among the vaccine skeptics who have been widely ridiculed since more than 100 people fell ill in a measles outbreak traced to Disneyland. Critics question their intelligence, their parenting, even their sanity. Some have been called criminals for foregoing shots for their children. "Contrary to the common sentiment, we are not anti-science," said Michelle Moore, a businesswoman. The backlash ... has been so severe that dozens of anti-vaccine parents contacted by The Associated Press were afraid to speak out. But a handful of mothers agreed to discuss their thinking. Anti-vaccination parents include a mix of views. Many are Americans with college degrees. Most hesitant parents do not avoid all vaccinations. They typically under-vaccinate, either delaying the shots until their child is older or refusing certain vaccines while continuing with others. The parents who spoke to AP recounted spending hundreds of hours reviewing medical studies, books and news stories. They cited cases of children who were supposedly hurt by vaccines and the existence of a government-run vaccine injury-compensation program. And they worried about the oversight of pharmaceutical companies that reap profits from vaccines and are shielded from liability when a vaccine causes harm. Moore and others also ... say large doses of synthetic additives found in vaccines, including aluminum and mercury, can harm the immune and digestive systems and brain.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.

When Susan Lawson of Colorado hears parents declaring, unequivocally, that everyone should vaccinate their children because it’s perfectly safe, she says it feels “like a punch in the gut.” That’s because she’s seen another side of the story: Her daughter Julia, now 9, was left with permanent brain damage - an injury acknowledged by a federal court payout - after receiving her MMRV (measles-mumps-rubella-varicella) shot when she was a year old. Renee Gentry, a Washington D.C.–based vaccine-injury attorney ... believes that injuries, however rare, should be a part of the public conversation. “Vaccines are incredibly important, but we should treat them as they are - man-made pharmaceuticals that carry risk. The fear is that if you talk about that at all, people won’t vaccinate.” But not discussing it, she says, is to deny reality. “To say there is nothing unsafe about vaccines - when you can have a reaction to an aspirin - makes no sense.” She adds, “Informed consent is the underlying basis of medical care, and parents shouldn’t have to be afraid to raise questions with their doctors. Because yes, vaccine injuries are rare, but they do exist.” Since the first Vaccine Injury Compensation Program claims were filed in 1989, nearly 4,000 compensation awards have been made, totaling nearly $3 billion; nearly 10,000 claims, meanwhile, have been dismissed. In 2014, the court made 365 awards totaling more than $223 million. Lawson, meanwhile, has been forever changed by ... becoming one of the rare statistics.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.

It’s not so much that more than a whopping 100 cases of measles have cropped up in California since December. It’s not even that concerns over the number of unvaccinated kids have been escalating in recent years. The reason measles is on the tip of so many people’s tongues these days, and the subject of so much sturm and drang in the media, is this: It’s a mild case of mass hysteria. The reality, doctors contend, is that chances of the potentially deadly disease once again becoming epidemic are nil. The virus was declared wiped out in the U.S. in 2000, and with more than 90 percent of the country still getting vaccinated, overall safety is still strong. The current measles outbreak began in December, when the illness cropped up at two Disneyland theme parks in Southern California. Within a month, smatterings of viral infections had spread throughout the state with a handful of cases showing up in other states. To date, California has reported nearly double the 61 measles cases reported all of last year. That’s ... considerably fewer than the tens of thousands of cases that were diagnosed across the nation in 1989 in another outbreak. But try telling that to parents of little kids who have become alarmed at ceaseless news reports of increasing cases. Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one or two people in 1,000 with measles worldwide will die from the illness. That’s less deadly than ... tetanus, which globally kills up to 20 percent of its victims.

Note: How many mass media mass hysterias do we have to endure? Every couple years there’s a new killer plague about to devour us all. Today, it’s measles, a couple of months ago, it was Ebola. A few years ago, avian flu was going to do us in. And there was the swine flu, which turned out to be just a common flu. Of course governments worldwide paid Big Pharma billions to buy a special swine flu vaccine. Now it’s measles, and everybody has to get a shot or the drug companies won't make their billions. We definitely wouldn't want that!

The duty to guide patients through the end-of-life decision-making process rests squarely upon primary care providers, writes one internist in The New England Journal of Medicine. Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at the Oregon Health and Science University, is one of three physicians responding to the NEJM’s most recent “Clinical Decisions” case feature, detailing a woman undergoing treatment for metastatic breast cancer. The two other physicians who responded with their opinions ... claim an oncologist or palliative specialist should initiate the conversation about the patient’s goals. But Tolle says it is the primary care physician’s obligation to lead this difficult discussion. [Yet] without widespread intervention of primary providers, patients will be less likely to ensure their end of life wishes are honored. Leaders within the American College of Physicians ... agree. “Somebody has to step up,” said Robert Centor, Chair of the ACP Board of Regents. “If you’re a primary care physician, it’s incumbent on you to have the discussion with patients before and especially after they get sick about goals. If we don’t know a patient’s goals, they can’t get the best possible care.” End of life planning, however, is not a billable Medicare service.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.

When U.S. health regulators find serious problems with how medical researchers collect their data, the researchers’ final reports often don’t mention it, a new analysis suggests. Out of 78 published papers reporting on clinical trials in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found very serious issues, only three mentioned any violations, the new report says. “These are major things,” said Charles Seife, a journalism professor and the study’s author. Using documents and data from 1998 to 2013, Seife and his students at New York University in New York City identified 57 clinical trials that received an “official action indicated” violation - the most serious type of violation for trials - for reasons including poor record keeping, false information and poor patient safety. The problems that weren't reported were sometimes egregious. One paper, for example, said all patients reported improvement, but in fact, the FDA found that one patient had a foot amputated two weeks after receiving the treatment. In another case, the entire clinical trial was considered unreliable by the FDA - but the published paper didn't mention that. In another, researchers falsified data, which led to one patient’s death. Data on these violations are not readily available. So it's impossible to say how often tainted data are published and how often the violations are noted, Seife said.

Note: Read an informative article with much more detail about the egregious conduct of the FDA. This article raises the question, "Why does the FDA stay silent about fraud and misconduct in scientific studies of medicine?" For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing science corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

As many as 31 pesticides with a value running into billions of pounds could have been banned because of potential health risks, if a blocked EU paper on hormone-mimicking chemicals had been acted upon. The science paper, seen by the Guardian, recommends ways of identifying and categorising the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that scientists link to a rise in foetal abnormalities, genital mutations, infertility, and adverse health effects ranging from cancer to IQ loss. Commission sources say that the paper was buried by top EU officials under pressure from big chemical firms which use EDCs in toiletries, plastics and cosmetics, despite an annual health cost that studies peg at hundreds of millions of euros. The unpublished EU paper ... was supposed to have enabled EU bans of hazardous substances to take place last year. Under pressure from major chemical industry players, such as Bayer and BASF, the criteria were blocked. In their place, less stringent options emerged. Last month, 11 MEPs complained in a cross-party letter to the health and food safety commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, about the EU’s failure to honour its mandate and adopt the EDC criteria. This was supposed to have happened by the end of 2013. In place of the proposed identification of hormone-mimicking compounds, the EU’s current roadmap favours industry-supported options for potency-based measurements of EDCs. These would set thresholds, below which exposure to low-potency EDCs would be deemed safe.

Note: One key study estimates that as few as zero endocrine-disrupting pesticides will be withdrawn from the EU market as a result of this profit-driven manipulation of policy. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about corporate and government corruption from reliable major media sources.

This year's flu vaccine offers little or no protection in Canada against becoming sick enough to require medical care, a study published Thursday suggests. "I would say overall it's signalling no protection," said lead author Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. The study, an interim estimate of this year's flu vaccine effectiveness, was published Thursday in Eurosurveillance, an online journal belonging to the European Centre for Disease Control. Skowronski said the message people should take from the study is that if they are at high risk of developing pneumonia or getting seriously ill if they contract influenza, they should take other steps to protect their health. An interesting finding of the study is that people who did not get a flu shot last year appeared to get more protection from the vaccine this year than people who got shots both years. There is an emerging school of thought that repeated vaccination in some circumstances may actually undermine the protectiveness of the vaccine. Earlier this month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control published interim vaccine effectiveness data for that country. The flu season south of the border has been very similar to the one in Canada — almost all caused by H3N2 — and their early findings suggested the vaccine lowered a recipient's risk of contracting the flu and getting sick enough to need medical care by 23 per cent. That's well below the 50 to 70 per cent effectiveness estimate that is often cited for flu vaccine.

Note: A National Institute of Health study found in 2007 that flu shots do not protect the elderly. More recent studies have shown that some flu shots actually increase the risk of infection. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.