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December 2002 Vol. 7 No. 12
“There are always a lot of people so afraid of rocking the boat that they stop rowing. We can never get ahead that way”.
Harry S. Truman
“The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give”.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Table of Contents:
Californians Are Drinking Tuberculosis-Milk Because The BIG USDA Lie Continues
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year
Mom “Cures” Son by Eliminating Milk
Scientific Proof: Milk Causes Autism & Add
Parent’s Magazine Reports Milk Link To Autism
Calorie Restriction Offers More Than Weight Loss
Eye Damage from MSG
Eating Fish May Reduce the Risk of Neurological Disease
Dietary Fats and the Cause of Heart Disease
Recommended books from the Editor
Californians Are Drinking Tuberculosis-Milk Because The BIG USDA Lie Continues
”The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is doing all that it can to keep you from learning California’s biggest secret.”
In June, when I reported this USDA-censored story, 90 cows on one California dairy farm tested positive for tuberculosis and had to be destroyed. USDA then awarded California’s dairy industry “tuberculosis-free” status.
On November 14, 2002, the Fresno Bee reported: ”…6,400 Tulare County cattle killed…Cow tests positive for bovine tuberculosis…” By slaughtering these animals, USDA again names California as “tuberculosis-free.”
During this charade, Californians continue to drink milk and eat cheese from diseased animals.
Reporter Jason D. Plemons wrote: ”The fight against bovine TB has cost more than $13.6 million in state and federal funds for testing programs and reimbursement payouts to Nonning Leyendekker, owner of the Friesian Farm Dairy.”
In 1988, the Journal of Dairy Science (volume 71) revealed: “Many diseases such as tuberculosis are transmissible by milk products.” Sixty-five years ago, the Journal of Dairy Science (19:435, 1936) reported:
”Infected raw milk is the chief means by which milk-borne tuberculosis is transmitted to man.”
In 1970, the National Mastitis Council announced: ”Some strains of mycobacteria, similar to those that are associated with tuberculosis, have been found to survive pasteurization.” This week, 6,400 cows will die so that California can continue to market their dairy industry as “tuberculosis-free.”
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year
This article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the best article I have ever seen written in the published literature documenting the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm.
This information is a follow-up of the Institute of Medicine report, which hit the papers in December of last year, but the data was hard to reference as it was not in peer-reviewed journal. Now it is published in JAMA, which is the most widely circulated medical periodical in the world.
The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and she describes how the US health care system may contribute to poor health.
ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:
12,000 — unnecessary surgery 8
7,000 — medication errors in hospitals 9
20,000 — other errors in hospitals 10
80,000 — infections in hospitals 10
106,000 — non-error, negative effects of drugs 2
These total to 250,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!!
What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in a patient by a physician’s activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially of a complication of treatment.
Dr. Starfield offers several warnings in interpreting these numbers:
First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients.
Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include negative effects that are associated with disability or discomfort.
Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.1
If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebro-vascular disease).
Another analysis 11 concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings, with:
116 million extra physician visits
77 million extra prescriptions
17 million emergency department visits
8 million hospitalizations
3 million long-term admissions
199,000 additional deaths
$77 billion in extra costs
The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care.
However, evidence from a few studies indicates that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive inappropriate care. An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among them die each year as a result of medical errors.2
This might be tolerated if it resulted in better health, but does it? Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,3,4 the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators. More specifically, the ranking of the US on several indicators was:
13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall 14
11th for post-neonatal mortality
13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
10th for age-adjusted mortality
The poor performance of the US was recently confirmed by a World Health Organization study, which used different data and ranked the United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries. There is a perception that the American public “behaves badly” by smoking, drinking, and perpetrating violence.” However the data does not support this assertion. The proportion of females who smoke ranges from 14% in Japan to 41% in Denmark; in the United States, it is 24% (fifth best). For males, the range is from 26% in Sweden to 61% in Japan; it is 28% in the United States (third best).
The US ranks fifth best for alcoholic beverage consumption.
The US has relatively low consumption of animal fats (fifth lowest in men aged 55-64 years in 20 industrialized countries) and the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among men aged 50 to 70 years among 13 industrialized countries. These estimates of death due to error are lower than those in a recent Institutes of Medicine report, and if the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000.
Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, this constitutes the third leading cause of death in the US, following heart disease and cancer.
Lack of technology is certainly not a contributing factor to the US’s low ranking. Among 29 countries, the United States is second only to Japan in the availability of magnetic resonance imaging units and computed tomography scanners per million population. 17 Japan, however, ranks highest on health, whereas the US ranks among the lowest. It is possible that the high use of technology in Japan is limited to diagnostic technology not matched by high rates of treatment, whereas in the US, high use of diagnostic technology may be linked to more treatment.
Supporting this possibility are data showing that the number of employees per bed (full-time equivalents) in the United States is highest among the countries ranked, whereas they are very low in Japan, far lower than can be accounted for by the common practice of having family members rather than hospital staff provide the amenities of hospital care.
Journal American Medical Association 2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5
Mom “Cures” Son by Eliminating Milk
A friend recently sent me an article that appeared in a Manchester, New Hampshire newspaper. (Derry News, December 22, 2000, p 19)
Jill McIntosh) had found a cure for her son’s autism. The cure? Eliminating all milk and dairy products and wheat from the child’s diet. She links autism to a “milk allergy.”
Scientific Proof: Milk Autism & ADD are linked
Florida researcher, Robert Cade, M.D., and his colleagues have identified a milk protein, casomorphin, as the probable cause of attention deficit disorder and autism. They found Beta-casomorphin-7 in high concentrations in the blood and urine of patients with either schizophrenia or autism. (AUTISM, 1999, 3)
Eighty percent of cow’s milk protein is casein. It has been documented that casein breaks down in the stomach to produce a peptide casomorphine, an opiate.
Another researcher observed that casomorphin aggravated the symptoms of autism. (Panksepp, J. Trends in Neuroscience, 1979, 2)
A third scientist produced evidence of elevated levels of endorphin-like substances in the cerebro-spinal fluid of people with autism. (Gillberg, C. (1988) Aspects of Autism: Biological Research Gaskell: London, pp. 31-37) The Autism Research Unit, School of Health Sciences has the following information on their website:
“The quantities of these compounds, as found in the urine, are much too large to be of central nervous system origin. The quantities are such that they can only have been derived from the incomplete breakdown of certain foods.” http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/autism/
Parent’s Magazine Reports Milk Link To Autism
Search the Internet and you’ll find many anecdotal stories from parents blaming their children’s autism on milk and dairy products. One such story appeared in the February, 2000 issue of “Parent’s Magazine.”
http://www.livingsensibly.org/autism.html
See references 25 to 33
A Chemical Aetiology for Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Opioid Peptides and Secretin Unpublished Paper by Stephen Dealler http://trainland.tripod.com/stephen.htm
Calorie Restriction Offers More Than Weight Loss
Following a calorie-restricted diet has been shown to slow the effects of aging on the muscles, brain and heart. New findings show that cutting calories may also reduce chronic disease by slowing age-related changes in the genes of the heart. In a study using 14-month-old mice (middle-aged for mice), it was found that those fed a calorie-restricted diet experienced fewer heart genetic changes brought on by age-close to 20 percent less-than those fed a regular diet. Additionally, potentially harmful changes in the immune system as well as apoptosis, a form of cell death, were decreased.
The findings suggest that calorie-restriction, even if begun in middle-age, can slow aspects of the aging process. Researchers mention that in order to gain benefits, a 30 percent decrease in daily caloric intake would be sufficient, however one must be certain that they are getting enough of the necessary vitamins and minerals.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 2002;10.1073
Eye Damage from MSG
Controversy surrounding food additive MSG (monosodium glutamate-a common flavor enhancer) was re-ignited when a Japanese researcher suggested that consuming too much of the ingredient could make you go blind.
Researchers at Hirosaki University in Japan have found that rats fed diets high in MSG suffer vision loss and have thinner retinas than those in the control group. Glutamate, a group of chemicals that includes MSG, is an amino acid that acts as a neurotransmitter. It has already been shown to cause nerve damage in experiments where it is injected directly into the eye.
MSG, a sodium salt of the amino acid glutamic acid and a form of glutamate, is used as a flavor enhancer in a variety of foods prepared in restaurants and by food processors. While technically MSG is only one of several forms of free glutamate used in foods, consumers frequently use the term MSG to mean all free glutamate.
Its use has become controversial in the past 30 years because of reports of adverse reactions in people who have eaten foods that contain MSG. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), research on the role of glutamate in the nervous system has also raised questions about the chemical’s safety.
According to lead researcher Hiroshi Ohguro, his is the first study to show that eye damage can be caused by eating food that contains MSG. A report in the New Scientist this week explains that in the study, rats were fed three different diets for six months, containing either high or moderate amounts of MSG, or none. In rats on the high-MSG diet, some retinal nerve layers thinned by as much as 75 percent, and tests that measured retinal response to light showed they could not see as well. Rats on the moderate MSG diet also had damage, to a lesser extent.
The researchers found high concentrations of MSG in the vitreous fluid, which bathes the retina. MSG binds to receptors on retinal cells, destroying them and causing secondary reactions that reduce the ability of the remaining cells to relay electrical signals.
Ohguro acknowledged that large amounts of MSG were used-20 percent of the total diet in the highest group. “Lesser amounts should be OK,” he said, “but the precise borderline amount is still unknown”.
He said the findings might explain why in eastern Asia, there is a high rate of normal-tension glaucoma, a form of the eye disease that leads to blindness without the usual increase in pressure inside the eyeball. The higher rate, however, could also be due to genetics.
The New Scientist report continues that Peng Tee Khaw, a glaucoma specialist at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, said the amounts of MSG in the highest diet are “a lot, lot higher than you’d eat. But if you’re a sodium glutamate junky, then you could potentially run into problems with your retina.”
And while the amount of glutamate in the rats’ diets was extremely high, lower dietary intakes could produce the same effects over several decades.
With such persuasive evidence it is clear that food processors must brace themselves for another wave of anti-MSG activity from global consumer associations. In a bid to reassure these same campaigners, food scientists must continue to investigate the impact of MSG, and free glutamates, on human health, as well as looking into alternatives.
One step toward finding alternatives was reported by FoodNavigator.com in April of this year. New research into the use of human taste and smell receptors in functional assays to screen for novel receptor activators and blockers was reported. Senomyx, the U.S. company that carried out the research, is hoping that their research will lead them to discover alternatives to MSG, as well as enhancers of sweet and umami (the taste conveyed by several substances naturally occurring in foods, including glutamate) tastes.
Experimental Eye Research September, 2002 75: 307
Food Navigator.com October 23, 2002
These ingredients ALWAYS contain MSG:
Glutamate Glutamic acid Monosodium glutamate Textured protein Hydrolyzed protein Monopotassium glutamate Calcium caseinate Sodium caseinate Gelatin Yeast extract Yeast food Autolyzed yeast
These ingredients OFTEN contain MSG or create MSG during processing:
Flavors & Flavorings Seasonings Natural flavors and flavorings Natural pork flavoring Natural beef flavoring Natural chicken flavoring Soy sauce Soy protein isolate Soy protein Bouillon Stock Broth Malt extract Malt flavoring Barley malt Whey protein Carrageenan Maltodextrin Pectin Enzymes Protease Corn starch Citric acid Powdered milk Anything Protein fortified anything Enzyme modified anything Ultra-pasteurized
Some unexpected sources of MSG:
Salad dressings Frozen meals Packaged and restaurant soups Cheese Reduced fat milk Chewing gum Ice cream Cookies Vitamin enriched foods Beverages Candy Cigarettes Medications I.V. Materials Supplements, particularly minerals
Eating Fish May Reduce the Risk of Neurological Disease
Does the consumption of fish or meat decrease the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease? This is the question that French researchers set out to answer in a recent study.
More than 1,400 adults, aged 68 and older, reported their fish and meat-eating habits for a period of two to seven years. Education levels were also noted as it has been suggested that individuals with higher-level education are at a decreased risk of dementia due to a greater “brain reserve.”
It was found that those who ate fish at least once a week were 34 percent less likely to develop dementia over seven years than those who did not. It has been suggested that the fatty acids in fish may have a protective effect on the brain, thus reducing inflammation in the brain and protecting vascular health. Interestingly, no significant association was found between meat eating and risk of dementia.
British Medical Journal October 25, 2002;325:932-933
Dietary Fats and the Cause of Heart Disease
Traditional medicine insists that the intake of saturated fat is the main environmental factor for coronary heart disease. However, when scientists attempted to decrease the consumption of saturated fat and replaced it, in part, with unsaturated omega-6 fats, there has been no decrease in heart disease.
It is only when omega-3 fatty acids:
Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), or Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were added to the diet that sudden cardiac death and nonfatal heart attacks were significantly lowered. The protective effect of omega-3 fatty acids occurs rapidly-usually within weeks. The mechanism for preventing ventricular fibrillation seems to be through a direct effect on the heart muscle cells.
Current Atherosclerosis Report November 2002;4(6):419-24
Recommended books from the editor:
Secret Agents:
The Menace of Emerging Infections, by Madeline Drexler. ISBN 0-309-07638-2 I was stunned by this alarming read-truly makes your “blood run cold” as one reviewer wrote. A spell binding quick but disturbing read.
The Crazy Makers:
How The Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains And Harming Our Children, by Carol Simontacchi. ISBN I-58542-035-2 There are certain books that we read that create an epiphany-this is one such read. I implore you to buy this book, read it and pass it on to your loved ones. We must take our own care and prevention into our own hands.
A Diet For All Reasons, Nutrition Guide & Recipe Collection,
By Paulette Eisen Alive Books ISBN 0-920470-68-8 A great recipe book filled with wonderful meals that are healthy and taste great. Who said that eating vegetarian has to be boring and bland. Bon Appetite.
Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide 2nd Ed. Burton Goldberg. Celestial Arts, www.alternativeMedicine.com or www.tenspeedpress.com The title says it all. It should be part of your library-period!
The Healthy School Lunch Campaign is dedicated to improving the health value of the food served to children in public and private schools. The Healthy School Lunch Campaign aims to educate lawmakers, government and school officials, teachers, school food service workers, and parents about the importance of building nutrition information and food offerings based on current scientific evidence to best promote children’s current and long-term health. This campaign is sponsored by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventive medicine and ethics in medical research.The campaign’s key message:
Foods served in schools should promote the health of all children.
Now is the time to act. Most school districts serve meals that, while meeting the standards of the National School Lunch Program, do not provide children the best that foods can offer (see PCRM’s School Lunch Report). Menus served in school lunch programs are too rich in saturated fat and cholesterol and too low in fiber- and nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Major changes are needed to protect the health of our nation’s youth and to reverse the growing trends of childhood obesity and chronic disease amongst children and teens.
A surprising number of meals are based on cholesterol- and saturated-fat—laden cuts of meat or cheeses—because the federal government uses school lunch purchases to stabilize farm commodity prices, while overlooking the health of the children who will be served these products. Also, many children are lactose intolerant and unable to drink cow’s milk without painful gastrointestinal symptoms. Yet most school programs do not provide them an alternative beverage, such as soymilk or calcium-fortified juices.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Child Nutrition Programs, which include the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, among others, are currently undergoing reauthorization by Congress. PCRM is calling for a mandate to provide soymilk, calcium-fortified orange juice, or other non-dairy, calcium rich foods as reimbursable alternatives to cow’s milk and is urging schools to incorporate more low-fat, cholesterol-free meals and side dishes into their menus on a daily basis. Find out what you can do to help. http://www.healthyschoollunches.org/help.html