Eating GMO Corn Proven To Be Hazardous To Your Health

A new study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences showed that three different varieties of genetically modified corn from Monsanto are toxic to the liver and kidneys.

The difference between their study and the ones conducted by Monsanto? Monsanto manipulated the results of their experiment by using statistical analyses that would favor the safety of their product, as opposed to utilizing all tools available to them to fully analyze the data to determine whether or not there were signs of toxicity.

Another difference? Any sign of toxicity should have elicited a need to continue collecting data past the 90 days Monsanto had designated for the length of their study, since 90 days is no where near long enough to determine long-term effects and chronic illness. The authors of this recently published paper, on the other hand, are extending their experiment for up to two years in light of their results.

Makes me wanna smash things.

The thing that gets me is that these products have been deemed safe for human consumption based on the powerful truth that is science. However, the research itself is up for sale, whereby some laboratories have been paid to produce specific data and, conversely, paid to stop experiments when the data conflicts with what the agropharma companies want to see. It makes me angry.

Anyway, I'm done with my ranting. Just don't eat any GMO foods if you can help it, ok?

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart

This is a "novel" concept: a trailer for a book. Amy Stewart's new book is about dangerous plants, and in this video she references a few that are available in the Chinese pharmacopoeia: monkshood (Wu Tou, whence springs our friends Fu Zi, Chuan Wu and Cao Wu), castor bean (Bi Ma Zi, a harsh downward draining herb) and strychnine (Ma Qian Zi).

Remember what Paracelsus said: "All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." That's another way of saying the dose makes the poison.

Ice Cream, Don't Do It

Here's a fun factoid: ice cream makes you sick. It's true.

Well, I should say that it made me more sick than I was before.

I had started to come down with something on Monday evening, starting with a sore throat and heaviness in the head. I blasted myself with herbs, and upon waking I was feeling better. By the end of my shift at noon, however, my sinuses were completely congested, and it felt as though it was clogged through to my ears.

I went home and nursed myself, taking a different set of herbs for my congestion. I even stayed home and canceled my shift, not wanting to infect anyone else with my evil qi. By the afternoon, I was feeling so much better that, despite better judgment, I decided to celebrate with some ice cream. Two spoonfuls, to be exact.

Before the ice cream, I had no sore throat, no headache, no congestion, and no runny nose. After the ice cream, within minutes, my nose clogged up and I was back to wiping snot off my face and I had to drink hot tea to combat the coldness I started to feel. It's as if the ice cream canceled out all of the herbs I've taken and the sleep I've gotten in the last two days.

So next time you think of having ice cream, just don't do it... Unless it's Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk, in which case it might be worth it.

No Drugs Down The Drain Week

It's official, folks. There is a week-long celebration in the state of California dedicated to NOT dumping your pharmaceutical drugs down the toilet. Your BCP's and Viagra now join the likes of pet alligators and paper towels.... Just don't do it.

Why is it so important? Why are we focusing for an entire week on Drugs Down the Drain, when there is only one day dedicated to all of the presidents of the United States combined? Because that stuff can end up in your drinking water, that's why!!

Forget about saving the environment, and all that stuff about polluting the rivers and killing innocent plants and animals.... think about your internal environment!! Pharmaceutical drugs are nasty, they are meant to be nasty. They are designed to be pervasive and work really well at what they do, which is destroy their target micro-organism/chemical pathway/physiological process. Because they are so good at what they do, they sometimes do things that drug-makers and researchers had no idea they would do until after they'd been in use for a while. The pharmaceutical drug industry is still very young, beginning with the advent of penicillin in the 1930's. This revolution in health care has saved a lot of lives, but it has also bred a lot of super drugs that now threaten our ability to utilize them as useful tools, as well as threaten our own immune systems with their potency.

Here's a more eloquent quote from the book, The Lost Language of Plants, by Stephen Harrod Buhner:

Many excreted pharmaceuticals and their metabolites are not biodegradable and go on producing chemical effects forever. Most that do biodegrade are regularly replenished by the need for continual dosing or by new prescriptions for new people. As pharmaceuticals are excreted in pure and metabolized forms they also intermix in the waste streams that flow into the environment in ways that cannot be predicted, with effects that are not understood. Researchers have found that metabolites, chemicals produced as by-products of pharmaceutical interaction with the body, tend to be more persistent in the environment, and are sometimes more powerful in their actions, than the drugs from which they are derived.

The mixing of chemical compounds in the environment is like mixing your drinks; if you start the night with a fine wine and end it with plastic-bottle vodka and whisky, you're going to regret being alive the next morning. But unlike alcohol, which does metabolize and degrade in our bodies and in the environment, these synthetic compounds do not.

So, remember, when your hands reach for that bottle of pills you no longer need, and you feel the temptation of the shiny white porcelain, think of yourself for a minute. You don't want to drink that in your water later, do you?

Remedy for Snake Bite

Chinese herbs can be taken long-term for chronic dis-eases such as diabetes, hepatitis, autoimmune diseases, and gastrointestinal disorders, either as palliative relief or as a preventative to a recurrence of symptoms. Herbs can also be taken for more acute problems, such as the common cold or allergic reactions, for more immediate relief. If you ever find yourself getting bit in the face by a snake, Chinese herbs can help!

According to TCM, there are three basic causes of disease:

• external environment, most notably cold and wind
• internal upset, from the stifling of emotions to improper diet and exercise
• miscellaneous causes, like being thrown from a horse or bit by a rabid dog.
  

In the case of today's blog post, you've got a one in three chance of being bit by a venomous snake! (OK, so not really)

Unfortunately this formula was taken from a web site that doesn't give dosages or tell you how to take it - how much you should take, how soon after getting bitten, aftercare, et cetera. It may be an internal or external formula... we don't know. Nevertheless, it is an interesting formula and utilizes some less-common herbs.

• 蒲公英 Pu Gong Ying - dandelion
• 金银花 Jin Yin Hua - honeysuckle
  
• 白芷 Bai Zhi - angelica dahurica
  
• 半枝莲 Ban Zhi Lian - barbed skullcap
  
• 连翘 Lian Qiao - forsythia fruit
  
• 蜈蚣 Wu Gong - scorpion
  
• 蟾酥 Chan Su - toad venom
  
• 仙鹤草 Xian He Cao - agrimony
  
• 白花蛇舌草 Bai Hua She She Cao - hedyotis/oldenlandia

You may have noticed that this snake bite remedy uses toad venom and dried scorpion. This may seem counter-intuitive but is an illustration of the Chinese medicine concept of fighting fire with fire - using toxins to lead out toxins.

See the source for this formula at this website, a Chinese medicine clinic in London.

Fugu Not Naturally Poisonous!

Have you heard of fugu? It's the Japanese pufferfish which, improperly prepared, can be deadly. Expert preparation by a specially-registered chef can make the fugu's delicious flesh and organ meats ready for consumption. But take a look at this story in the New York Times:

It was Mr. Noguchi who, over eight years, conducted a study underpinning what two decades of fish farming in Japan had already shown: that fugu could be made poison-free by strictly controlling its feed.

Decades earlier, another Japanese scientist had identified fugu’s poison as tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that leaves victims mentally aware while they suffer paralysis and, in the worst cases, die of heart failure or suffocation. There is no known antidote.

Researchers surmised that fugu probably got the toxin by eating other animals that carried tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria, developing immunity over time — though scientists then did not rule out the possibility that fugu produced the toxin on its own.

By this year, Mr. Noguchi had tested more than 7,000 fugu in seven prefectures in Japan that had been given only feed free of the tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria. Not one was poisonous.

“When it wasn’t known where fugu’s poison came from, the mystery made for better conversation,” Mr. Noguchi said. “So, in effect, we took the romance out of fugu.”

I'm guessing if they released non-poisonous fugu back into the wild, they would go back to eating the same bacteria that creates tetrodotoxin. It probably serves as protection of sorts, against being eaten.