Most Sunscreens Fail to Protect

Related article: Sunscreen Causes Cancer!


The Environmental Working Group has shone light on what may be a falsely presumed protection from sunscreen.

The simple rule of sunscreen – the higher the SPF and the thicker the slather, the better – has come under doubt.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington-based research group and habitual gadfly to the business world, has found that 4 out of 5 of the nearly 1,000 sunscreen lotions analyzed offer inadequate protection from the sun or contain harmful chemicals. The biggest offenders, the EWG said, are the industry leaders: Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena.

While 3 out of 3 industry leaders are rather upset with the EWG report, and while some dermatologists criticize it for hyperbole, the report does underscore several long-standing health concerns:

Sunscreens do not offer blanket protection from the sun and do little to prevent the most deadly form of skin cancer; reliance on them instead of, say, a hat and protective clothing, might be contributing to skin cancer; and the Food and Drug Administration has yet to issue any safety standards, mysteriously sitting on a set of recommendations drafted 30 years ago.

Subcutaneous homesick blues

Read moreMost Sunscreens Fail to Protect

Low Sperm Counts and Deformed Penises: The Chemical Industry Has a Hold on Your Reproductive Future

By Joshua Zaffos, Colorado Springs Independent
Posted on June 26, 2008

From car seats to condoms, nasty compounds have invaded our lives.
Hormones are going haywire, and our human future is at risk.

I am half the man my father is.

This disturbing fortune came to me about five years ago, but not from an odd relative or a sadistic girlfriend. Instead, this dinner-table diagnosis came from Theo (short for Theodora) Colborn, an internationally known scientist who has helped develop the field of research exploring how chemical compounds interfere with the hormones that guide human development.

Known as endocrine disruption, chemicals found in computer screens and car seats, shower curtains and shampoo, plastic water bottles and prophylactics are skewing our odds against cancers and causing developmental delays and reproductive roadblocks, including declining sperm counts.

So, when Colborn informed me of my inferior manhood, I took consolation in the fact that she was indicting my entire generation — and her own — for loading our natural environment, our workplaces and our homes with tens of thousands of chemical compounds without really having a clue about what we’re doing. Our Stolen Future, the book Colborn co-authored in 1996, first delivered this bad news to the general public.

More than a decade later, scientists are still conducting experiments and measuring results, from cramped basement labs at universities to expansive high-country lakes in the wilderness. The hypotheses generally aren’t questions of whether chemicals are pervading and persisting in the environment, but rather how severely they are stunting our development and health. The federal government has investigated these questions with timidity, if not contempt, operating a regulatory system practically beholden to the chemical industry.

With half of my manhood at stake and hopes for a better assessment in the future, I’m wondering how we can heed the warning signs and reverse our chemical course.

A day in my half-life

For years, I started off each day drinking coffee out of a metallic cup, likely coated with bisphenol-A, a chemical commonly used to line plastic bottles and other food and beverage cans and containers. Anyone who has lugged around a Nalgene bottle made of polycarbonate plastic, trying to save the Earth one paper cup at a time, has gotten his or her share of bisphenol-A, which leaches from containers into liquids to enter our bodies. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control study detected bisphenol-A in 93 percent of all Americans.

Inside us, bisphenol-A mimics estrogen, plugging into hormone receptors; this is endocrine disruption. In pregnant or breastfeeding mothers and young and prepubescent children, it can have critical impacts, rewiring our developmental profiles and opening up our risks for cancers and physical and behavioral abnormalities. Lab tests suggest that chronic, low-dose exposure to bisphenol-A — like drinking out of a coated cup or polycarbonate bottle daily — may cause women to have greater chances of breast cancer and polycystic ovary syndrome, a leading cause of infertility, and men to have increased odds of prostate cancer and reduced sperm counts.

That’s a lot to think about during the day’s first cup of coffee or sip of water. Now I try to stick to ceramic mugs and glasses.

As my body starts to properly caffeinate in the mornings, I usually sit in front of a laptop and do whatever it is writers do to put off writing — checking e-mails and boxscores — until I’m warmed up. As a computer warms up, particles inside start to fly and some catch a ride on dust. For years, I breathed in polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) from my laptop.

These compounds are flame-retardants, nearly universally used in couch cushions, televisions, cars and carpets. PBDEs have similar chemical structures to thyroid hormones, and, according to lab tests, they can lower our bodies’ production of the real thing.

Over time, thyroid-hormone deficiencies can hurt metabolism. Hypothyroidism causes fatigue, depression, anxiety, hair loss and a waning libido. Women with low thyroid-hormone counts are five times more likely to have children with IQs that qualify them as mildly retarded, according to one study. A 2005 experiment found that a single low dose of a common PDBE given to rats in utero resulted in a class of hyperactive rodents with persistent low sperm counts.

Read moreLow Sperm Counts and Deformed Penises: The Chemical Industry Has a Hold on Your Reproductive Future

Pesticide Dangers to Human Health Carry Through Multiple Generations

(NaturalNews) A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has uncovered evidence that the damage done by pesticides may last for four generations or more.

Reproductive neuroendocrinologist Andrea Gore and evolutionary biologist David Crews compared the sexual behavior of two different groups of rats. One group of rats was a standard laboratory rat stock, while the other group was descended from rats that had been subjected to the hormone-disrupting effects of chemicals. Reproductive biologist had injected the great-grandmothers of these rats with vinclozolin, a common fungicide that is particularly popular among grape-growers.

Skinner’s research had previously shown that the male descendents of the rats who had been injected with vinclozolin developed various reproductive and other difficulties later in life, including sperm deficiencies, infertility, breast tumors and kidney disease.

Read morePesticide Dangers to Human Health Carry Through Multiple Generations

Officials suspend California aerial spraying program

Related article:
Should Government Aircraft Spray Chemicals on Residential Areas?

Officials on Thursday abruptly canceled a state program to spray chemicals to combat crop-eating moth in urban areas after months of public uproar over its unclear effects on the environment and human health.

A.G. Kawamura, state secretary of food and agriculture, announced that California had abandoned plans to send up pesticide-spraying planes to fight the light brown apple moth in cities. That includes the densely populated San Francisco Bay area, which had been scheduled for treatment this fall.

“I know there’s concern out there, and we want to be able to address that,” Kawamura told reporters. “Our focus is to use the technology that has moved progressively forward.”

Read moreOfficials suspend California aerial spraying program

Should Government Aircraft Spray Chemicals on Residential Areas?

Related articles:
Governor Schwarzenegger Backed Immoral Sex Pheromone Spraying Continues…

Plan To Spray Toxic Biological Chemicals Over San Francisco Announced

Note to the government: When you unilaterally send aircraft to spray unfamiliar chemicals over residential areas, the public will get very worried.

Environmental activists will pick through mounds of official documents in an attempt to make sense of what you are doing: Will it affect our health?

Since material safety data sheets can make even the most benign molecules sound terrifically dangerous, vigilant citizens will express their concern about rather innocuous substances — damaging their credibility with the scientists who should listen to their objections — and making it hard to sort out any real threats. In some cases, the wording of those documents is so alarming that it could give activists reason to believe that the spraying is part of a mind control program.

Excerpt from LBAMspray.com:

Check this MSDS from Dupont one of the 3 ingredients listed includes “1,2-BENZISOTHIAZOLIN-3-ONE” which is in LBAM-F. See Page 2 under “Potential Health Effects” “SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS EFFECTS OF ACUTE OVEREXPOSURE: High oral doses can cause apathy (lack of feeling or emotion).”

Even if you have the best intentions, to eradicate a tiny moth that could destroy dozens of fruit crops, be prepared to explain your plans, and seek the approval of the public, before getting started with such a controversial program.

Example

Read moreShould Government Aircraft Spray Chemicals on Residential Areas?

Bananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture

(NaturalNews) Prepare to say goodbye to bananas. Do you remember back in the sixties when there was a change in bananas? It wasn’t announced, but those of us who love the fruit did. They became less sweet and creamy — just not as good. There was no information about it. The change seemed to slip under the radar and most of us forgot about it.

That change foretold what’s now coming — the complete death of bananas. No, this is not hyperbole. Bananas are dying, and their death is a precursor of what’s to come if we continue to accept corporate farming. But first, back to the impending loss of bananas.

We tend to think of bananas as a single species with no more than one or two variations on the theme –something like oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits that are all variations of a single species. That, though, is far from the truth. Until the mid-eighteen hundreds, most bananas grew wild and local people ate them, though some local cultivation existed. There was a huge variety. Some were sweet and some sour. Some were creamy, while others had a bit of crunch. Some were yellow, but others were red or purple. Today, most of that variety is lost.

Chiquita’s History

During the 1870’s, Minor Keith was a young man from a wealthy railroad company who went to Costa Rica to help build a national railroad. He and other relatives accomplished the task at the cost of 5,000 workers’ lives. He also started planting bananas, a crop that was gaining popularity in the U.S., on the easements along the railway. The Costa Rican government could not make payments on its railroad loans from British banks. Because of his wealth and connections, Keith was able to raise the money to finish the job, largely by negotiating a significant decrease in the interest rate, from 7% down to 2.5%. This put him in the debt of the dictator, whose daughter he had married, so he was granted 800,000 acres of tax-free land along the railroad, where he’d been planting bananas, along with a 99-year lease on the railroad’s operation along that route.

Read moreBananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture

Sunscreen Causes Cancer!

(NaturalNews) Given the fact that just about everything you put on your skin gets absorbed into your bloodstream, it is interesting that there is a complete lack of regulation of cancer-causing ingredients in skin care products. There are over 150 toxic cancer-causing ingredients currently used in cosmetic products alone. According to federal law, products containing cancer-causing substances should carry a written warning. But the FDA does not enforce this law with cosmetics or personal care products. Consumers are left to purchase these products at their own risk, and as a result they are being harmed by them.

Let’s consider a product that’s harming tens of millions of people every day in America alone: sunscreen. Sunscreen products do not block ultraviolet radiation very well unless you apply multiple coats, but there has been a flurry of research lately on the harm caused by sunscreen chemicals. These chemicals actually promote skin cancer. This product is causing the very condition from which it claims to protect people.

The skin is not the only organ that is harmed by sunscreen chemicals. Those chemicals are absorbed by the skin, circulate throughout the body and end up harming the liver, the organ responsible for neutralizing chemicals in the body. The continued use of sunscreen products — especially those with fragrance in them — will inevitably harm the liver and, in my opinion, can lead to organ failure or liver cancer.

Sunscreen is not the only harmful product people put on their skin; consider perfume and cologne. In an effort to smell attractive to others, consumers routinely put toxic chemicals on their bodies that come out of beautifully designed glass bottles. Most people do not realize that these fragrances are often made from toxic substances that are known to cause cancer; the perfume industry gets away with murder. This includes everything from skin cream to moisturizer lotion, not to mention shower soaps and other cleaning products with added fragrance. Unless you are buying the natural forms of these products from truly organic companies, there is no doubt that you are applying a bewildering array of harmful chemicals to your skin. And when you put them on your skin, they are absorbed directly into your bloodstream.

Read moreSunscreen Causes Cancer!

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

(NaturalNews) Our children’s brains and reproductive organs may be having their development harmed by an estrogen-like chemical that is present in plastic according to a federal health agency report. BPA is an ingredient in polycarbonate plastic. BPA is also one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals today. It has been shown to seep from hard plastic beverage containers (such as baby bottles) and even from liners in cans that contain food and infant formula.

The National Toxicology Program (part of the National Institutes of Health) has concluded that there is some concern that fetuses, babies and children are being harmed because bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to harm animals at levels that are surprisingly low and found in nearly all humans.

The draft report followed an 18-month review that involved allegations of bias, disputes among scientists, and even the firing of a consulting company that had financial ties to the chemical industry.

Some scientists fear that BPA exposure early in life disrupts hormones and alters genes. This may program a fetus or child for breast or prostate cancer, may set them up for premature female puberty, and may lead to attention deficit disorders and other reproductive or neurological disorders.

Read moreChemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

Dirty Secret of Drug Industry: Their Pills are Made in China!

“What it means is that U.S. drug companies contract with cheap, low-end Chinese chemical factories to manufacture their drugs at something like two cents a pill (which they can mark up to $20 a pill or more…), and then they import these Chinese-made pills and don’t even test them before selling them to U.S. consumers!”

“And finally, consider this: Big Pharma is now pushing the Supreme Court to grant the industry blanket immunity for all pharmaceuticals, a move that would immediately lift any and all testing requirements and quality control measures since the drug companies would no longer be liable for what’s in their pills! See this story for more details: http://www.naturalnews.com/023042.html
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(NaturalNews) Remember a couple of years ago how the FDA warned Americans not to buy prescription drugs from Canada because they might be “contaminated by terrorists?” I’m not making that up: That was the official announcement of an FDA spokesperson, and it was part of their fear strategy for enforcing a monopoly on U.S. consumers so that Big Pharma could continue engaging in rampant price fixing.

The implication in that warning is that drugs purchased in the United States are therefore safer, correct? What the FDA didn’t tell anyone, however, is that most pharmaceuticals purchased in the United States are manufactured outside the U.S.; many from China or Puerto Rico. So they’re not even made in the U.S. anyway, and drug companies are simply importing them from other countries just like a consumer might do if she drove across the border and bought her medications in Canada or Mexico.

But hold on: The FDA actually used to run full-page magazine ads warning consumers about the dangers of drugs being contaminated if they were bought from Mexico, Canada or — God forbid — the Internet! Those drugs were dangerous, the FDA warned us, because they were not subjected to rigorous quality control requirements. The implication in that warning, of course, is that brand-name pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S. at U.S. pharmacies must therefore NOT be contaminated.

Read moreDirty Secret of Drug Industry: Their Pills are Made in China!

Are chemicals altering the planet?

…Not a single chemical has been tested…

…”In eleven years all that’s happened – all that’s happened, is the committee has come up with a list, a potential list of chemicals that should be tested. In eleven years,” said Prof. Tyrone Hayes….

“If you are a male frog exposed to attrazine at very low ecologically relevant levels you become a hermaphrodite,” said Professor Hayes…

… “The current system of regulating chemicals is really broken,” said Bill Walker from the Environmental Working Group…

Read moreAre chemicals altering the planet?

Plan To Spray Toxic Biological Chemicals Over San Francisco Announced

(NaturalNews) People of the world, the US Government is planning to poison more than two million people, in California, using an untested biological “pesticide” this summer. The chemical to be sprayed is classified by the EPA as a “pesticide” and the plan is to douse cities with this chemical designed to stick on everything for 90 days or longer. This application is not a one time event, but will continue every 1-3 months for as long as five years. The pesticide to be sprayed is not designed to harm the light brown apple moth’s who it is designed for, but merely to confuse its mating habits. While harmless to moths, the pesticide has been documented to harm humans.Side effects range from vomiting and flu like systems, to male and female reproductive cycle disruption. One child nearly died from the exposure, and some people have developed asthma from being exposed to this chemical concoction. It is cause for alarm that a chemical being labeled as harmless and “safe” even in minute doses, causes severe health effects in some people. The government is racing to cover up and hide the dangerous health effects so that they can continue their aerial spray plans this summer. Your attention and action on this subject is needed in the most important way.

Read morePlan To Spray Toxic Biological Chemicals Over San Francisco Announced

104 products on shelves already contain toxic ‘grey goo’ by stealth, say Friends of the Earth

Some skin creams use nano particles but many are now concerned about the use of the technology in foods
Potentially toxic chemicals are being incorporated into food, packaging, health supplements and other products by stealth, it is claimed.

Manufacturers boast that nanoparticles can deliver drugs or vitamins more effectively, kill harmful bugs in food or create self-cleaning windows.

But scientists, consumer groups and green campaigners fear the technology is being introduced into the diet, body and environment without proper safety checks.

Nanoparticles are 80,000 times thinner than a human hair – so small they can cross membranes protecting the brain or a baby in the womb.

Critics say it is not known how such tiny particles will interact with the body and organs in the long term, whether they are toxic or how long they will persist in the body.

Doom-mongers have warned that nanoparticles could mutate and reproduce out of control, consuming all life on earth, a scenario often referred to as “grey goo”.

nanotechdm0101_228x441.jpg

Some skin creams use nano particles but many are now concerned about the use of the technology in foods

Read more104 products on shelves already contain toxic ‘grey goo’ by stealth, say Friends of the Earth