It’s hard to believe that after those lofty vows of marriage, a relationship could break up because of something as mundane as dishes left in the sink or the protocols of reading in bed. Yet even the most evolved relationships get snagged in the pettiest of disputes. And the current recession only makes things worse, warns Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian and author of Marriage, a History (Penguin Books, 2005). “During economic stress, we tend not to notice what’s going well and what our partner does that makes life easier. We only notice the irritations,” she says.
As the downbeat comments start to build up, you find yourselves going into negativity override, and the default mode of your interactions becomes the blame game. That’s when the fights start to escalate—within the situation-specific “you didn’t take out the trash” remark lurks the global “you never do your share” accusation. Harshness and contempt often incite regrettable words and actions. Each partner is then left alone to lick his or her wounds, no one dares revisit the turf voluntarily, and the feelings that had been ignited are left to smolder until the next blowout.
Monica and Ian Mathews of Madison, Wisconsin, who struggle frequently in their marriage and say they are on the verge of separating, are all too familiar with this scenario. “When we fight, we’re already stressed out, we are running out the door, and we haven’t been communicating for a while,” Monica says. “I’ll usually start with a not-so-skillful intro, and then Ian will get very quiet, which makes it worse.” It’s a classic disaster pattern, the snowballing of defensiveness, criticism, and lack of communication, and it can suck the lifeblood out of a relationship. That’s the bad news. The good news is that unhappy couples can learn to emulate happy ones by adopting their simple strategies—praise, humor, and affection—even under duress.
John Gottman, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington who is renowned for his work on the “masters and disasters” of marriage, has developed a practical—in fact, quantifiable—approach to couples therapy. It applies pattern recognition to measuring and predicting marital stability or the likelihood of divorce. “What he found,” says Coontz, “is that it’s not the negative things that make or break a relationship. It’s the ratio of five positive acts of appreciation, love, and respect to every one negative occurrence.”
Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? But when was the last time you gave your significant other five compliments in a single day? You can probably remember effortlessly the last time you let rip at least one criticism (constructive, of course). It may sound a bit facile to believe that the secret to familial harmony is piling on the praise, but statistics are hard to dispute (see “The Numbers Game” on page 75). So we talked to a few experts and some of our own “master” and wannabe master couples (no disasters here) to come up with a simple game plan to help your relationship stay strong even when you feel like you’re losing your foundation.
Express your appreciation Think of positive interactions with your partner—laughing together, holding hands, committing intentional acts of kindness—as small deposits made to your joint emotional bank account. You want to have a substantial amount of positives in reserve to buffer the withdrawals made by criticism and conflict. This is the single most important thing you can do to nurture any relationship (try it with your kids too). Consistent kindness, especially in the face of conflict, creates a currency of gratitude and goodwill. And you might be surprised how much you need appreciation. Adam Philips, a London-based psychoanalyst, suggests our wish for praise might be even stronger than our wish to be loved or understood.
Unfortunately, it seems like we grudgingly resist praising those we love. “Most people feel that criticism works, and they do it for their partner’s good,” says Kathlyn Hendricks, PhD, cofounder of The Hendricks Institute, a conscious-living learning center in Ojai, California. “In fact, it’s the No. 1 relationship killer.” She’s a strong believer in the five-to-one ratio—sharing five positives for every negative—but finds that very few couples really know how to achieve it. “We need to learn how to customize appreciation and find out how our partner likes to receive it: Some like public displays, others like written notes, others respond to gifts and gestures.” Sometimes the most powerful expression of appreciation highlights the habitually overlooked—the things your partner does but doesn’t draw attention to.
Do damage control Gottman’s research shows that positivity, especially during fights, is one of the strongest predictors of a relationship’s longevity. Even though being affectionate during an argument sounds nearly impossible, therein lies the secret to connubial bliss. Women tend to initiate the exchange, says Gottman, but they do so harshly, launching in with a rebuke that is a general criticism, such as, “You’re so lazy—you never help with the chores.” Rather than attacking your partner’s character, try starting with a situation-specific comment, like, “I get really frustrated when you pile your dishes in the sink.” If and when tensions escalate, that is the time to turn toward your partner, both literally and figuratively, rather than away. Use humor, affection, interest, and empathy to help you connect with what your partner is feeling. Hendricks recommends trying to say something you genuinely appreciate about your partner in that moment, even if the only thing you can come up with is that the person is still with you.
Turn on the attunement Real appreciation requires a fundamental cognitive shift to see and praise what is, rather than rue what is not. To make this shift, you have to clearly see the emotional backdrop—made up of learned reactions, fears, and inner struggles—against which you and your partner act out your relationship. “When we’re able to observe our reactions, we’re better able to modulate them,” says Timothy Stokes, a psychologist and marriage therapist in Boulder, Colorado, and author of What Freud Didn’t Know (Rutgers University Press, 2010). “If we can’t see these reactions, the fight-or-flight response usually takes over.” That’s what Gottman refers to as “flooding”—the amped-up feeling when your cortisol lets loose, blood pumps, and face flushes. It’s not a particularly receptive state. The brain, to conserve energy, shuts down, limiting perception and new information. What kicks in instead, says Stokes, is some version of an old, almost primal memory of feeling fundamentally threatened.
For Stokes, the flood of these old emotional memories acts like blinders, getting in the way of our ability to be present with our partner. But once we come to terms with our own hot spots, we also become more aware of when our partner’s reactions seem over the top, hinting at a deeper hurt. “Our assumptions about the situation change, and we can more compassionately tune in to how the other has been hurt.” We learn to sense just how far to dig down and when to move on, navigating the tricky terrain of the heart with heightened awareness and compassion.
Cultivate curiosity One common denominator of couples headed for divorce is a lack of curiosity about each other’s inner lives, says Gottman. So try to build a map of your partner’s world—likes and dislikes, fears and dreams, quirks and peeves. By learning to see your spouse in all his fullness, completely autonomous from you, you slowly familiarize yourself with an equally valid reality that is not your own. You find something in his story that you can understand, even if you strongly disagree with it.
Joseph Prunty, of Philadelphia, attributes his marital success to the curiosity he and his wife share about what makes each other tick. “It gives us an entry point to each other’s motivations—intellectual, emotional, and to some degree spiritual,” he says. “I need that for camaraderie’s sake: the shared experiences, the pursuit of mutual goals, the feeling of teamwork.”
Accept influence To have a true partnership, both parties must be open to accepting influence from the other, explains Gottman, and women tend to do this more naturally than men. Yes, it’s the “C” word—compromise—and for such a mild word, the experience can be shockingly torturous, as if ceding ground equals personal invalidation. “Choosing what’s good for the relationship over one’s own thoughts and feelings, doing what works instead of what you want, is the way to openness, growth, and positivity,” says Robyn Walser, PhD, coauthor of The Mindful Couple (New Harbinger, 2009). For Prunty, that means learning to live with the dishes his spouse leaves in the sink, while for Ian Mathews, it means listening to Monica process more than he feels the situation warrants.
When all else fails, humor can work miracles. So can being the first to say, “I’m sorry,” even if you feel your partner had been in the wrong. But as for the special sauce that makes a marriage juicy, vital, and satisfying, it seems praise and appreciation work any day. Counting the ways that you love someone isn’t just for maudlin Victorian poets; numbers and romance, it turns out, make passionate bedfellows.
Elizabeth Marglin would like to thank her husband for always cleaning the kitty litter.
The Numbers Game 96% The chance that, once an argument begins harshly, it will stay that way or just get worse. 50% The frequency with which people in unhappy relationships miss their partner’s positive attempts at connection. 80% How often the woman brings up issues in the relationship as opposed to the man. 69% Amount of fights that bring up old, unresolved issues. 25 The number of separate studies that confirm a drop, often quite steep, in marital satisfaction after the transition to parenthood. 4 Number of years children of divorced parents have their life expectancy shortened. 40% How much more money married men make compared to single guys. 62% The number of people who rank sharing household chores third in importance for what makes a marriage successful—just below good sex and faithfulness. 78% The number of unhappy marriages repaired within five years.
Sources: University of Washington; Gottman Institute; Stephanie Coontz; Child Development; The Case for Marriage by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher; Pew Research Institute; Psychology Today
The United States conducted 22 successful nuclear detonations as part of Operation Dominic here in 1962.
Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (which became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 250 miles (400 kilometers) above a point 19 miles (31 kilometers) southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT. continue
8 November 1957: Grapple X Round C1, the first successful British hydrogen bomb test, detonates over Kiritimati's South East Point.
Behind the Headlines: GM Food "No one can control what happens when genetic material from different species is mixed -- like putting a gene from, say, a fish into a plant. It might do what you want it to do, or it might change the plant in unexpected ways and even make it poisonous."
Genetically Modified (GM) food is definitely not what it appears to be.
Following is a review of F. William Engdahl's new book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
The last three or four years have seen a number of books, documentaries and articles on the dangers of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. Majority has focused on adverse health and environmental impact; almost none on the geo-politics of GM seeds, and particularly seeds as a weapon of mass destruction. Engdahl has addressed this issue but the crop seed is one of the many “Seeds of Destruction” in this book.
Engdahl carefully documents how the intellectual foundations of 'eugenics,' mass culling of the sick, colored, and otherwise disposable races, were actually first established, and even legally approved, in the United States. Eugenics research was financially supported by the Rockefeller and other elite families and first tested on Jews under Nazi Germany.
It is purely by chance that world's poorest nations also happen to be best endowed with natural resources. These regions are also the ones with growing population. The fear among European ruling families, increasingly, integrating with economic and military might of the United States, was that if the poor nations became developed, the abundant natural resources, especially oil, gas, and strategic minerals and metals, may become scarcer for the white population. That situation was unacceptable to the white ruling elite.
The central question that dominated the minds of the ruling clique was population reduction in resource rich countries but the question was how to engineer mass culling all over the world without generating powerful backlash as it was bound to happen. When the U.S. oil reserves peaked in 1972 and it became a net oil importer, the situation became alarming and the agenda took the centre stage. Kissinger, one of the key strategists of Nixon, nurtured by the Rockefellers, prepared what is known as National Security Study Memo (NSSM#200), in which he elaborated his plan for population reduction. In this Memo he specifically targets thirteen countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, and the Philippines.
The weapon to be used was food; even if there was a famine food would be used to leverage population reduction. Kissinger is on record for stating, “Control oil, you control nations; control food and you control the people.” How a small group of key people transformed the elitist philosophy, of controlling food to control people, into realistic operational possibility within a short time is the backdrop of Engdahl's book, the central theme running from the beginning till the end with the Rockefellers and Kissinger, among others, as the key dramatis personae.
He describes how the Rockefellers guided the U.S. agriculture policy, used their powerful tax-free foundations worldwide to train an army of bright young scientists in hitherto unknown field of microbiology. He traces how the field of Eugenics was renamed “genetics” to make it more acceptable and also to hide the real purpose. Through incremental strategic adjustments within a handful of chemical, food and seed corporations, ably supported by the key persons in key departments of the U.S. Government, behemoths were created that could re-write the regulatory framework in nearly every country. And these seeds of destruction of carefully constructed regulatory framework -- to protect the environment and human health -- were sown back in the 1920s.
Pause to think: a normal healthy person can at the most go without food for perhaps seven days but it takes a full season, say around four months, for a seed to grow into food crop. Just five agri-biz corporations, all U.S. based (Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels, et al), control global grain trade, and just five control global trade in seeds. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow Chemicals control genetically engineered seeds. While these powerful oligopolies were being knocked into place, anti-trust laws were diluted to exempt these firms. Engdahl writes, “It was not surprising that the Pentagon's National Defense University, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, issued a paper declaring: 'Agribiz is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East.' Agribusiness had become a strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world's only superpower.” (page 143)
The “Green Revolution” was part of the Rockefeller agenda to destroy seed diversity and push oil and gas based agriculture inputs in which Rockefeller's had main interest. Destruction of seed diversity and dependence on proprietary hybrids was the first step in food control. (See my notes, Box 1)
It is true that initially Green Revolution technologies led to spurt in farm productivity but at a huge cost of destruction of farmlands, bio-diversity, poisoned aquifers and progressively poor health of the people and was the true agenda of 'the proponents of Green Revolution.'
The real impetus came with the technological possibility of gene splicing and insertion of specific traits into unrelated species. Life forms could be altered. But until 1979, the U.S. Government had steadfastly refused to grant patent on life form. That was changed
[my comment: helped much by a favorable judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court granting patent protection to oil eating bacteria developed by Dr Ananda Chakraborty]. Life forms could now be patented. To ensure that the world surrendered to the patent regime of the seeds corporations, the World Trade Organization was knocked into shape. How it conducted business was nobody's business, but it forced the world to accept intellectual property right of these corporations. There is opposition but these firms are too determined as Engdahl describes.
“The clear strategy of Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and the Washington Government backing them was to introduce the GMO seeds in every corner of the globe, with priority on defenseless. African and developing countries,” write Engdahl (page 270). However, Engdahl also describes how U.S. and Canadian farmlands came under GMOs. It was suspected that GMO could pose serious threat to human and animal health and the environment, yet efforts at independent biosafety assessment were discontinued. Scientists carrying out honest studies were vilified. Reputed scientific establishments were silenced or made to toe the line that was supportive of the Rockefeller's food control and mass culling agenda. The destruction of the credibility of scientific institution is yet another seed of destruction in Engdahl's book.
Engdahl cites the example of a German farmer Gottfried Glockner's experience with GM corn. Glockner planted Bt176 event of Syngenta essentially as feed for his cows. Being a scientist, he started with 10% GM feed and gradually increased the proportion, carefully noting milk yield and any side effects. Nothing much happened in the first three years but when he increased the feed to 100% GM feed, his animals “were having gluey-white feaces and violent diarrhea” and “milk contained blood.” Eventually all his seventy cows died. Prof Angelika Hilbeck of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found from Glockner's Bt 176 corn samples Bt toxins were present “in active form and extremely stable.” The cows died of high dose of toxins. Not if, but when human food is 100% contaminated should be a sobering thought.
In the U.S. unlabelled GM foods were introduced in 1993 and that 70% of the supermarket foods contain GMOs in varying proportions in what should rightly be called world's largest biological experiment on humans. While Engdahl has clearly stated that the thrust of U.S. Government and the agi-biz is control over food especially in the third world, he has left it to the readers to deduce that American and European citizens are also target of that grand agenda. And there are more lethal weapons in the arsenal: Terminator seeds, Traitor seeds, and the ability to destroy small independent farmers at will in any part of the world, and these are powerfully presented in the book. Engdahl provides hard evidences for these seeds of final destruction and utter decimation of world civilizations as we have known.
It is a complex but highly readable book. It is divided into five parts, each containing two to four short chapters. The first part deals with the political maneuverings to ensure support to Seed and Agri-biz firms, the second deals with what should be widely known as 'The Rockefeller Plan', the third deals with how vertically integrated giants were readied for Washington's silent wars on planet earth, the fourth part deals with how GM seeds were unleashed on unsuspecting farmers, and the final part deals with how the elites is going on destroying food, farmers that would eventually cause mass culling of population. He does not offer any solution; he can't because it is up to the rest of the world, including Europeans and Americans, to wake up and take on these criminals head on. An essential read for anyone who eats and thinks.
For a population of seven million people, Hong Kong has stockpiled 20 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, a medicine to which the new swine flu virus has not yet developed resistance but it’s a toss up which is more dangerous, the swine flu or Tamiflu. Dr. Russell Blaylock writes, “I was in the military during the first swine flu scare in 1976. At the time it became policy that all soldiers would be vaccinated for swine flu. As a medical officer I refused and almost faced a court martial, but the military didn't want the bad publicity. Despite the assurance by all the experts in virology, including Dr. Sabin, the epidemic never materialized. What did materialize were 500 cases of Gullian-Barre paralysis, including 25 deaths-not due to the swine flu itself, but as a direct result of the vaccine.”
Jon Barron writes, “Pandemic doesn't mean what most people seem to think it means. A pandemic does not necessarily mean black-plague carts being hauled through the streets piled high with dead bodies. Nor does it mean flesh eating zombies wandering the streets feeding on the living. All a pandemic means is that a new infectious disease is spreading throughout the world. That's it. Symptoms associated with a given pandemic can be mild or deadly severe, but that has nothing to do with the word pandemic. It's quite possible to have a pandemic that kills very few people.”
It is good to remember how the CDC comes up with their number of deaths from the flu. It was convoluted in that it wasn't the flu itself causing deaths but the complications that arose from flu. What is Really Going On
Dr Leonard Horowitz makes a case for a vaccine manufacturer letting loose a genetically modified bug to get what they need to move forward and increase demand for their vaccines. Very convincing must see video. Authorities have admitted that the current flu is a new combination but they are mum about who made it and why. The WHO is just now raising the pandemic alert level to level 5 indicating widespread human to human transmission. Someone and I doubt it was God, designed this virus for maximum effect though perhaps it will not be more dangerous than other flu outbreaks. It seems significant that it is not flu season. No matter how many people get this particular swine flu we have to do our best to reduce complications and deaths. The first step in this direction is to not administer or accept dangerous vaccines and medications like Tamiflu for all evidence and testimony seem to point to the dangers of doing so. The advisability of magnesium measurement, as a second step, appears to be convincing in many medical circumstances1 yet when the flu strikes doctors stand around like the deaf, dumb and blind. Electrolyte abnormalities, mainly hypokalemia and hypomagnesemia, are associated with an increased risk for complications like developing cardiac arrhythmias. Magnesium replacement reduces morbidity and prolonged hospitalization from atrial fibrillation or mortality from sustained ventricular arrhythmias. It would make sense it would be much more difficult to die of the flu if deficient magnesium levels were raised as quickly as possible. Dr. Joseph Mercola, of all people, champions magnesium IVs saying, “My favorite is an IV of magnesium and hydrochloric acid (HCl). Folks this is a genuine pearl. I learned this from Dr. Wright and the therapy is over 80 years old.”
Cause of Death is Due to?
Due to lack of magnesium the heart muscle can develop a spasm or cramp and stops beating. Most people, including doctors, don’t know it but without sufficient magnesium we die. It is more than helpful to understand that our life span will be reduced if we run too long without sufficient magnesium in our cells and that the principle way our life is cut short is through cardiac arrest. Yet when someone dies of a heart attack doctors never say “He died from Magnesium Deficiency.” Allopathic medicine is designed to ignore the true causes of death and disease. In the field of cardiology this is more than telling.2 When it comes to the field of virology we have a sea of ignorance about these kinds of issues.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) wants doctors to stop using the term "shaken baby syndrome," wanting instead to call it “abusive head trauma." This issue highlights dramatically how wrong the medical establishment can be about cause of death or injury. Many defense attorneys and doctors believe shaken baby syndrome doesn't exist, arguing that it's impossible to shake babies hard enough to cause brain injuries without breaking their necks. The National Institutes of Health says shaking can cause bruising, swelling, and bleeding, "which can lead to permanent, severe brain damage or death." The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome says an estimated 1,200 to 1,400 U.S. children are injured or killed by shaking each year, but that the number may be much higher since many cases likely are not detected.
When it comes to Hepatitis B they have gone after the babies of the world. Injecting new born babies with mercury for some illusionary viral danger that 99.999 percent are not at risk for is more than a bad idea. True medical insanity was born with this one. We live in an insane medical world and 90 percent of the people don’t know it so they continue to vaccinate their children. Medical religion is the new religion of the world and there are more alters to it than the church ever had.
It is impossible for me to communicate my full feelings of disgust with the AAP and the medical industrial complex in general (which includes public health officials at the CDC and the FDA) about these issues. And I might as well include the medical staff reporters at the associated press and other mainstream media outlets because what they don’t report on is the probability that Shaken Baby Syndrome is just one more cover up for massive vaccine damage.
Dr. Irene Scheimberg3 warns that, “by relying on this famous triad of symptoms - brain hypoxia, subdural hematoma (SDH) and retinal haemorrhages - to diagnose shaken baby syndrome, when there's no evidence of inflicted trauma, we may be sending to jail parents who lost their children through no fault of their own.” The medical media and our present system of medicine are the most dishonest locusts to have ever inhabited our precious planet. It is truly sickening when they turn on children and their parents, which they routinely do with the childhood vaccination program that is killing many more children than are officially recorded by the federal government. That is absolutely correct. Vaccines kill children; there is no doctor or medical official that will deny that fact. The only question is if it is murder on a truly massive scale?
Investors hope this swine flu is the biggest thing since the bubonic plague. And they have it wrong on swine flu. It won't be an epidemic – it'll barely even be a ripple. I've run medical clinics in Africa – I know what an epidemic looks like. And this isn't it. Yes, they have apparently had some cases of bad swine flu in Mexico. They've had lots of dengue fever and chagas, too, but you don't need to stay up at night worrying about it. Beating the swine flu isn't any different from beating the regular flu.
Dr. William Campbell Douglass II.
I recently published a four-part essay on blood dynamics and the explanation in detail for brain hypoxia, SDH and retinal haemorrhages was put forth (a subject championed by Dr. Andrew J Moulden). We have the big lie working and a process of complete denial that Americans are especially used to. Who else would believe you could fly a modern jet airliner into the Pentagon and have all the wreckage disappear including titanium engines made by Roll Royce? Who else would believe World Trade building number seven (which was not hit by a plane) would just collapse in on itself without cause? But we believe parents are shaking their babies to death in a very skillful way, just so perfectly as to not break their necks but enough to cause massive brain damage.
There are no lab tests to confirm the presence of the highly-pathogenic virus. Dr. Anna Thorson
All we really have is a continuation of a cherished fantasy about viruses though it seems modern scientists have become very skilful at developing new combinations of DNA that attack us and give us the flu. Dr. Stefan Lanka, virologist and molecular biologist is just one of many voices that are smothered by the medical industrial establishment. There is one breathtaking fact for the public to deal with and that is the fact that not even one of the (medically relevant) natural viruses has ever been isolated; there is no proof of their existence. "So for a long time I studied virology, from the end to the beginning, from the beginning to the end, to be absolutely sure that there was no such thing as HIV. And it was easy for me to be sure about this because I realized that the whole group of viruses to which HIV is said to belong, the retroviruses -- as well as other viruses which are claimed to be very dangerous -- in fact do not exist at all," says Dr. Lanka.
Retroviruses are not living creatures but bits of protein that attach themselves to living cells.
“For almost one year we have been asking authorities, politicians and medical institutes after the scientific evidence for the existence of such viruses that are said to cause disease and therefore require "immunization." After almost one year we have not received even one concrete answer which provides evidence for the existence of those "vaccination viruses," continues Lanka.
When it came to the bird flu threat Lanka said, “We’re being asked to believe that migratory birds in Asia have been infected with an extremely dangerous, deadly virus. These mortally diseased birds then keep flying for weeks on end. They fly thousands of kilometres, and then in Romania, in Turkey, Greece and elsewhere infect hens, geese or other poultry, with which they have had no contact, and which within a very short time get diseased and die. But the migratory birds do not get diseased and do not die, but keep on flying, for weeks on end, thousands of kilometres. Anyone who believes this will also believe that babies are brought by the stork.”
Actually we are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known and believe just about anything fed to us through the media, especially in the area of medicine. Our thoughts and attitudes are continually being shaped and molded by dishonest people who implant the public consciousness with thousands of medical media clips each year.
Just think about how many times you've heard an evening news anchor spit out some variation on the phrase, "According to experts ...." and we are supposed to trust them, naturally, that’s what being an expert is all about, being trusted in ones field. In reality there are two kinds of "experts" in question -- the public relations spin doctors behind the scenes and the "independent" experts paraded before the public, scientists who have been hand-selected, cultivated, and paid handsomely to promote the views of corporations.
Dr. Lanka reminds us, “Those side effects which are noted on the instruction slips accompanying packages of Tamiflu are almost identical to the symptoms of serious influenza. Thus, on a large scale, medicines are now being stored which cause precisely the same symptoms as those which appear in an actual so-called influenza. If Tamiflu is administered to sick persons, then this is likely to cause far more serious symptoms than those of a serious influenza. If a pandemic is stated to exist, then many people will take this medicine at the same time. In that case we will actually have unequivocal symptoms of a Tamiflu epidemic. Then deaths caused by Tamiflu are to be expected, and this will then be presented as evidence of the dangerous nature of the bird (or now swine) flu.”
Obviously something exists down on that level of reality. Protein bits, little junks of life, biological debris.
“We live with an uncountable number of retroviruses. They're everywhere -- and they probably have been here as long as the human race,” says Dr. Kary Mullis. Dr. Lanka adds, “It is being maintained that these short pieces of genetic material, which in the sense of genetics are not complete and which do not even suffice for defining a gene, together would make up the entire gene substance of an influenza virus.”
The viral story hit the mainstream when Harper Magazine (March 2006 issue) ran a 13-page article titled "Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science," which focused much attention on Dr. Peter Duesberg, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading AIDS dissident.
The orthodox view of HIV as a direct killer of human immune cells has been thrown out. How could HIV kill so many T cells if one could not detect significant numbers of free HIV in a patient's blood? Dr. Peter Duesberg
Dr. Deusberg insists that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS, and he is in a position to know. There are many hefty scientists and medical people around the world who do not believe a word from the CDC on AIDS.4 Most people do not know that it is almost impossible to isolate live virus from AIDS patients; a crucial point that Duesberg has been making for almost twenty years. “Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not the cause of AIDS because it fails to meet the postulates of Koch and Henle, as well as six cardinal rules of virology,” wrote Deusberg in HIV Is Not the Cause of AIDS.5
Some suggest that this flu is no natural phenomenon, that it was caused by man, either unintentionally, or was caused or exacerbated by conditions created by factory farms. Some people think it is a beta test for bioterrorism. We know it started exactly at the time of Obama’s visit to Mexico and it was reported that one of the people he met was one of the first to die.6 Only a week later we have a report that Air Force One was strafing Manhattan causing New Yorkers to panic but we are told it was just a photo opt. Is the media fanning a firestorm of panic and fear, or are they covering up a growing threat from another direction? We really don’t know but no matter what the truth it’s a good idea to practice effective and safe preventive medicine.
Almost all of us believe in the terror of viruses and buy into the fear the medical industrial complex insists we should have about them. If they say so it must be so. The simple fact that health officials are not warning us of the real danger to our health speaks miles about the trust we should put in them about their warning of viral infections. Mark Sircus Ac., OMD Director International Medical Veritas Association publications.imva.info
Special Note: Wesley Pruden, writing for the Washington Post said, “We were all supposed to be in the graveyard by now, done in by AIDS, SARS, bird flu, poisoned peanut butter, Hong Kong flu, killer tomatoes, global warming and strangulation by kudzu. But here we are, proof that there really is life after death.”
Even the Health Ranger Mike Adams wants us scared insisting that the health authorities are trying to “downplay the true danger of this fast-spreading virus. It seems that the decision makers at the WHO, along with Mexico's health authorities, are working hard to make swine flu appear less dangerous than it really is.” No one has told him yet that the fast spreading virus is not the real danger – it’s our total ignorance of what to do about the flu once we get it or what to do before we even get it. His staff writer on the subject recommends garlic among a host of other things, all of which are good ideas. Reading the essay though one can understand why he is worried because one can easily get confused when confronted with dozens of choices. When treating life threatening situations we need to know what to reach for first, second and third. We need to have our priorities straight.
My own mother asks me if I would give Tamiflu to my kids and tells me there is nothing we can do about the flu. She had an excuse though; she had not received my latest email being an AOL subscriber. No one in my family takes me seriously about anything when it comes to medicine. And I doubt if anyone in the official medical establishment is interested in solid medical advice, which is evident since they have none to give. Through all the hype and scare they are offering no legitimate treatment or prevention for the swine flu except:
Certain fascist swine are hoping to make lots of money from selling vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu.
Robert Slovak, President of Original Quinton of North America wrote me in response to my Emergency Natural Allopathic Medicine article yesterday, “Your "Swine Flu Treatments" was the only meaningful and feasible information on the subject so far with nothing close in sight. Even your peers seem to be lost and the medical establishment is spouting deceptive or incompetent mumbo-jumbo.”
Something is happening of that we can be sure but what it is we can only doubt.
I also heard today that Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the day following his meeting Obama in Mexico (mentioned above), from symptoms similar to flu, actually died of a heart attack, which we already learned is actually death by magnesium deficiency. If you doubt that please read my book Magnesium – The Ultimate Heart Medicine.
And finally reports, though being quickly snuffed out in the press, are saying there was no plane actually taking the pictures of the Air Force One photo opt making a scandal only New Yorkers want to talk about.
The Federal Reserve quickly printed money to pay for the flights so the costs were minimal being no more than ink and paper, no big deal. Today, if you are the federal government, you can buy anything in the world for cheap having the greatest counterfeit printing press in the universe. Universe is the right word since America has more debt in dollars (if you count unfunded entitlements, corporate and personal debt) then stars in all the known galaxies in the universe. Our own home galaxy only has 100 billion stars and the US federal government can now spend that in ten days.
Haven’t we gotten wise yet, or, learned anything about how this corrupt elite oligarchy works? They play on our psychological weaknesses like pawns on a chessboard. And yes, I left out a long list of other medicinal agents that could be helpful though I did mention chicken soup.
Robert Slovac did remind me of the use of pure seawater as the perfect medicine for dehydration when used in the correct dosage. But when I hear about MMS (magical mineral supplement, which is sodium chlorite) or colloidal silver (which is thought to be helpful by many) I retreat to my Natural Allopathic Medicine, which champions medicinals that the body needs rather than substances that are alien to human physiology, as all pharmaceuticals are. I would always choose iodine over MMS and magnesium chloride and bicarbonate over silver though I am not against using these harsh substances when all else fails.
Dr.Devin A. Mikles, MD reminded me of some medical history, “Of the fifteen hundred cases reported at the Homeopathic Medical Society of the District of Columbia there were only fifteen deaths. Recoveries in the National Homeopathic Hospital were 100%. Of 1,000 cases of influenza treated with homeopathy reported by T. A. McCann, MD, Dayton, Ohio, there were no deaths. In the state of Ohio 24,000 cases of flu treated allopathically had a mortality rate of 28.2% while 26,000 cases of flu treated homeopathically had a mortality rate of 1.05%. In Connecticut, 6,602 cases treated with homeopathy had a fatality rate of less than 1%. A physician [Roberts] on a troop ship during WWI, had 81 cases of flu on the voyage to Europe, and he reported that every man was treated successfully with homeopathy with no deaths.”
Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site.
On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):
Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.
In the fine print of the Division-E legislation, (available for download at www.drtenpenny.com so you can read it for yourself), there is a suggestion that a massive, bioterrorist vaccination program could be "voluntary."
Will the media make everyone aware of the one-line provision that potentially gives us the right to refuse?
Will government mandates override State exemption laws? The future is unclear but this has been suggested. Your personal rights in this area are growing very thin and activism has never been more important.
April 27, 2009
We knew this was coming. Even though the bird flu hype was removed years ago from the nightly news, planning for the global pandemic and the development of pandemic flu vaccines has continued with little notice. Our government has instructed FEMA, made checklists for Homeland Security, given action plans to State and local authorities. These plans include methods and drills for global inoculation with a vaccine that will no doubt have the same deadly consequences as the Swine Flu vaccine in 1976.
My book, FOWL!, published in 2006, foretold the events that are now happening in Mexico. Reported death rates are skyrocketing, from 20 to 60 to 86, in a matter of hours. More than 1,300 others have supposedly become ill with "suspected" cases of the infection and reports are coming in from various States and Canada of swine flu. There are no sources or references given with these numbers; we have to take the word of CNN. A short look back at plans that were put in place several years ago will confirm this is not a spontaneous eruption and the solution – global vaccination – has been in the works for quite some time.
History Repeating
Even though April 30, 1975 marked the end of the U.S. presence in Vietnam, young men across the country continued to sign up for the all-volunteer army. Just after the Christmas holiday in 1975, thousands of enthusiastic new army recruits reported to the barracks at Fort Dix, New Jersey, to begin basic training. However, by mid-January, many were complaining of flulike symptoms; a few had even been hospitalized.
One recruit reported to his drill instructor that he felt tired and weak. Given the option to rest, he opted instead to participate in a five-mile training march on a cold February night. Twenty-four hours later, on February 6, 1975, the 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis of Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, was dead. Word arrived the following week from the CDC laboratory that his death was caused by an unusual influenza type A virus. Particularly worrisome was that four other samples taken from ill recruits at Fort Dix had also tested positive for influenza A virus—a type that had previously been detected only in pigs.
Within three weeks of Lewis’ death – the only person ever confirmed to have died from swine flu on the entire military base – researchers and public health officials converged in Washington to persuade members of Congress to implement a costly new program to vaccinate the country. A nationwide campaign, launched with the urgency of a five-alarm fire, was started by the CDC which ramped up the vaccine production with millions of government dollars allocated to develop of a novel vaccine for mass vaccination.
The same five-alarm fire is happening today. This morning, April 26, 2009, the federal government declared a public health emergency, as the number of cases of swine flu in the U.S. rises to a mere 20, announcing the arrival of the long-planned for and awaited pandemic.
Big Pharma Protected!
In 1976, the Federal Insurance Company advised Merck that all liability, indemnity, and defense costs associated with claims arising from the new swine flu vaccine would not be covered by its insurance plan. Having absorbed the embarrassment and the economic losses caused by the polio vaccine in 1955, the pharmaceutical industry and their insurance providers were determined that would not happen again.
This time, there are no worries. Drug companies have completely covered their tracks, and when reports of adverse event and deaths from the new swine flu vaccine start to roll in, they will be smiling all the way to the bank.
Flu shots were added to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Table in 2003, meaning, if anyone is injured, a claim needs to be filed through the Federal Court of Claims and it will be years before it is adjudicated. And that is just the basic layer of protection. All the drug companies have to do is whisper that this may be a "terrorist attack" and they are home free.. . . .
$ $ $
The swine flu outbreak is going to benefit one of the most prolific and successful venture capital firms in the United States: Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Share prices have already risen for two of eight public traded companies in the firm's portfolio of Pandemic and Bio Defense investments. BioCryst, up more than 26 percent, to $2.21 per share, and Novavax, maker of viral vaccines, escalated 75 percent to $1.42 per share on the first announcement of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. . . . .
The Division-E provisions would protect the company from all liability!
Before he was voted out of office in 2006, then-senator Bill Frist (R-TN), a physician, drove through a bill that gave drug companies more immunity than any bill ever passed by Congress. The legislation, referred to as "Division-E" was tacked on to a Defense appropriations bill in the final minutes of the Congressional sessions before the Christmas recess.
Staying Healthy
Certainly, keeping yourself healthy and protected from all types of flu strains is a priority, now more than ever. Here are some suggestions:
Good hydration with alkaline water
If you don’t have access to an alkaline water machine, be sure to eat large amounts of alkalinizing, fresh vegetables and fruits such as broccoli, carrots, sprouts, avocados and berries. Here is a site with a great list: http://athma-pure.com/alkaline.aspx
Sleep
Get at least 8.5 hours per night, every night. Sleep is often overlooked at the key to health. This is simple to do and best of all, it is free.
Vitamin D
Much has been written on the importance of adequate vitamin D for resisting viral infections. Have your blood tested for 25-OH-vitamin D. Your doctor can order it or you can order it yourself through sites such as www.directlabs.com and www.labsafe.com. Your vitamin D level should be at least 50 ng/ml. It is safe to take at least 2000 IU of vitamin D3 per day. With summer coming, you can get your dose of D naturally from sunshine.
Vitamin C
Humans don’t store vitamin C and under stress, much more is required. Vitamin C is important for fighting viral infections. Take in at least 2000 mg/day for overall immune health.
Vitamin A
This vitamin is one of the best supporters you can have in your cabinet. Mycel A drops given in juice are easy to take for children and adults of all ages. By taking 5,000 IU/day for 5 days is safe for everyone and will give your immune system a protective boost against all types of viral infections.
While these suggestions are not meant to be all encompassing, these some simple solutions for you and your family.
The Fluoride Deception: How a Nuclear Waste Byproduct Made Its Way Into the Nation’s Drinking Water
Journalist Christopher Bryson claims in his new book “The Fluoride Deception” that the post-war campaign to fluoridate drinking water was less a public health innovation than a public relations ploy sponsored by industrial users of fluoride–including the government’s nuclear weapons program.
Hailed as a harmless chemical that would prevent tooth decay, new evidence shows how fluoride could be linked to serious health problems. Fluoridation was first advanced in the US at the end of the second World War. Proponents argued that fluoride in water and toothpaste would help to protect teeth and prevent decay. Over the following decades, fluoride was added to public water supplies across the country.
While the benefits of fluoridation have been held to be unquestionable, accumulating evidence points to a frightening prospect: that fluoride may have serious adverse health effects, including infant mortality, congenital defects and IQ.
Now a new book, titled “The Fluoride Deception”by Christopher Bryson examines the background of the fluoridation debate. According to Bryson, research challenging fluoride’s safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. He says fluoridation is a triumph not of medical science but of US government spin . . . read the Democracy Now interview of Bryson by Amy Goodman. * * * * "The plain fact that fluorine is an insidious poison, harmful, toxic and cumulative in its effects,even when ingested in minimal amounts, will remain unchanged no matter how many times it will be repeated in print that fluoridation of the water supply is 'safe'." Ludwig Gross, M.D., former Chief of Veterans Administration Cancer Research, Bronx, NY.
By Ian Austin . . . . . . Published: April 18, 2008
OTTAWA — The Canadian government moved Friday to ban polycarbonate infant bottles as it officially declared one of their chemical ingredients toxic. . . . . In Washington on Friday, Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement that he intended to introduce a bill that would create a widespread ban on B.P.A.-related plastics. It would prohibit their use in all children’s products as well as any product use to carry food or beverages for adults. read the rest of the NYT article
The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see watch videos By Siv O'Neall (Axis of Logic) -- The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years. The endless list of genetically modified seeds sold and controlled by Monsanto are putting at enormous risk age-old agricultural patterns under the presumptuous slogan of aiming at solving the huge problem of hunger in the world.
. . .The gospel according to Monsanto is that their patented GM seeds and their bovine growth hormone (BGH) will increase worldwide production of agricultural, dairy and meat products and Bt cotton to the extent that worldwide hunger and poverty will be eradicated.
The actual truth is rather the opposite. GMOs are creating serious damage all over the world and artificial BGH injection in cows cause numerous health problems, and even death.
The Message (question) in the Bottle is finally being discussed!
Finally, 10 years after I asked a scientist at a Risk Assessment* Seminar while discussing the chemical and nuclear contamination generated by weapons manufacturing at Los Alamos National Lab in Northern New Mexico, why these contaminants weren't looked at for their synergistic and cumulative effects. I was told by a scientist that they couldn't do that kind of science yet, maybe in 10 years!
Well it's FINALLY being discussed I recently learned, since January 2005 by the EPA itself! Has this science been suppressed for all these years? Yes, there are incredible amounts of variables that must be considered. The basic issue is that a multitude of toxins continue to be dumped into our air and water. We know they are detrimental to life. Let's turn off the toxic faucet, and then investigate.
Simple common sense tells us we are creating great harm to all life forms on our beautiful Earth by releasing toxic contaminants into our environment. *and just who decides how much risk should be assessed, what an acceptable risk - acceptable to whom??
The following article is from Environmental Health Perspectives
Neurology Triple Threat Activates Neurons
Scientists from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, have reported on a potentially sinister synergy, showing that a combination of three common pollutants--bromoform, chloroform, and tetrachloroethylene--alters nerve cell development, whereas the toxicants alone or in pairs do not. The discovery is an intriguing first step toward understanding whether this trio of pollutants is linked to neurological disorders such as autism.
Carol Reinisch, an expert in chemical-induced neurotoxicity, had read in the scientific literature about the contamination of municipal drinking water in Brick Township, New Jersey, and its possible connection to higher autism rates in local children. Chemical wastes dumped at the town's landfill over the years had contaminated nearby wells with bromoform, chloroform, and tetrachloroethylene, and in 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the landfill a Superfund site. In the 1990s, autism rates in the town started rising, and researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry began to investigate in 1998. Although the incidence of autism was twice the national average, the federal scientists concluded in 2000 that the levels of individual well water contaminants were too low to adversely impact children's health.
Reinisch wondered whether the synergistic effect of the chemicals would tell a different story. Her lab was already using a surf clam (Spisula solidissima) embryo model to assess how polychlorinated biphenyls affect embryonic neuronal development. The transparency of the embryos and the fact that most basic molecular processes involved in early development are conserved across species make the surf clam a good model for such studies. She and her colleagues began studying the three well-water contaminants in combination.
When tested alone or in pairs, the toxicants produced no significant changes, even at levels 1,000 times those in the mixture. But the trio acted synergistically to upregulate a regulatory subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase, a ubiquitous protein involved in neurologic pathways and a key regulator of neuronal growth in the clam embryo model. The clam embryos also showed increased cilia movement. The study appears in the January 2005 issue of Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology.
"The fact that several events are speeded up is abnormal," says Reinisch. Coauthor Jill Kreiling, a developmental biologist, adds, "We found something unusual going on neurologically, but we cannot say this is causing autism."
Now the team is testing the mixture in zebrafish embryos, and their preliminary results parallel those for clam embryos. They hope others will undertake experiments in mice, rats, and higher mammals in order to confirm the association.
Studying mixtures of toxicants yields a more accurate picture of how contaminants work in the environment. "Most risk assessments look at single chemicals acting on single target organs with single outcomes, but that's not the way [exposures] work in nature," says Nigel Fields, a research program manager at the Environmental Protection Agency, which funded Reinisch's project.
Researchers are intensifying their scrutiny of fluoride, which is added to most public water systems in the U.S. Some recent studies suggest that overconsumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland.
So when I came across an article stating that the "ADA endorses fluoridated bottled water" I kept reading out of deep concern.
Having done some research on the ways of the FDA & the ADA, I know they don't always seem to be on the side of health for some strange reason . . . hmmm follow the money, as 'they' say.
When I was recuperating from a bad accident I lived in Arizona with my mom. I listened to the wisdom of Dr. Bob Martinevery Saturday morning.
Dr. Bob is not a Big-Pharma pill-pushing doctor, which today, too many doctors unfortunately are.
Recently my mom who takes no drugs, is 84, and is extremely healthy went to the dr. because of her arthritis - She called me to ask me to look up the drug he wanted to inject - Reclasp. Whoa! very nasty, but the good ol' FDA recently approved it, so drs. are pushing it. Don't take it! nor Boniva or Fosmax - all BAD news~ Dr. Bob recommends non toxic Prolo-therapy.
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 26, 2009
When a Merck & Co. vaccine designed to protect girls against a sexually transmitted virus arrived three years ago, the debate centered on one question: Would the shots make young girls more likely to have sex?
[The wrong questions were asked. First you ask IS IT SAFE?!?!?]
"We are still more worried about the promiscuity of girls than the promiscuity of boys," said Susan M. Reverby, a professor of women's studies and medical history at Wellesley College. "There's still that double standard."
The shift in the discussion aboutGardasil (Bad Medicine?) illustrates the complex interplay of political, economic, scientific, regulatory and social factors that increasingly influence decisions about new types of medical care. For the vaccine, the new dynamic reflects a strategic tack by Gardasil's critics, growing concern about health-care costs, fears about whether medical treatments are being vetted adequately and stubborn biases about gender, experts say.
"There is the cost, the safety, the boys versus girls," said Susan F. Wood, a professor of public health at George Washington University. "These are some of the complexities that are going to have to be addressed one way or the other with this vaccine."
Gardasil protects against the human papillomavirus, the most common sexually transmitted infection. HPV causes genital warts and, in women, can lead to cervical cancer -- a disease that strikes about 10,000 American women a year and kills about 3,700.
For males, the vaccine is aimed at protecting against genital warts and less common malignancies that HPV can cause, such as penile and anal cancer, as well as cancer of the mouth and throat. The virus causes at least 250,000 new cases of genital warts and an estimated 7,500 cancers in males each year, causing perhaps about 1,000 deaths. Vaccinating boys and men would also help prevent the spread of the virus to their sexual partners.
"By vaccinating men as well as women, you reduce the amount of virus that is out there that can be transmitted back and forth," said Richard M. Haupt, who leads the HPV vaccine program at Merck & Co., which makes Gardasil. "Hopefully there will be a benefit not only to men themselves, but to their partners and future partners."
After the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in 2006 for girls as young as 9, medical authorities recommended that they receive it at age 11 or 12 to protect them before they start having sex. Critics worried that vaccinating children would send a subtle signal that their parents assumed they would become sexually active and that it would give youngsters a false sense of security.
Merck also began an ambitious marketing campaign and lobbying push to persuade states to add the vaccine to the list of those required for children to attend school. But the company eventually abandoned the strategy in the face of an intense backlash from critics who argued that the decision should be left to parents. Although many states considered such mandates, so far only Virginia and the District have imposed one, and Haupt said the company has no plans to pursue that strategy again.
But in December, Merck asked the FDA to approve the vaccine for males ages 9 to 26, and in February it presented the results of a large study that tested the vaccine in men to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, in the hopes of winning the panel's endorsement. The committee's recommendations influence which vaccines schools require and whether private insurance companies and state programs will pay.
"There would be a tremendous public health benefit to vaccine 11- and 12-year-olds, both boys and girls," Haupt said.
The Merck study, involving more than 4,000 boys and men ages 16 to 23, showed that the vaccine is about 90 percent effective in preventing infection with four HPV types, as well as genital warts and precancerous lesions, Haupt said.
In preparation for a vote as soon as October, the CDC committee will meet again in June to consider cost-benefit analyses underway at the CDC and elsewhere. The relatively pricey vaccine costs about $500 for three shots and the associated office visits.
"The cost-effectiveness data will be looked at very carefully," said Lauri Markowitz, who leads the HPV vaccine work group for the CDC. "There is increased interest in taking cost-effectiveness into consideration when considering prevention efforts."
The American Academy of Pediatrics will also consider cost-effectiveness in deciding whether to endorse Gardasil for boys.
Some question that focus.
"The cost-effectiveness studies are really important, but I don't think they should be the sole driver of public health policy," said Gregory D. Zimet, a professor of pediatrics and psychology at Indiana University. "This is a vaccine that principally benefits women's health. I wonder if it was the reverse, and there was a vaccine for women that helped prevent prostate cancer in men, this would be as much of an issue."
Groups that initially were critical when Gardasil was introduced for girls say they now want to make sure the decision is left up to parents.
"We do not oppose the development or distribution of the vaccine," said Peter S. Sprigg of the Family Research Council. "The only concern we have is about proposals to make vaccination mandatory for school attendance. It's a parental rights issue."
Little research has been done on parents' attitudes about vaccinating their sons, but several experts said it would probably be a harder sell.
"For girls, you can go right to protection against cervical cancer. That's a powerful argument," said Zimet, who is studying the issue as part of his own research and in studies sponsored by Merck. "For boys, you have to make several arguments. Part of it is an altruistic argument. I think it's persuasive, but it's more complex."
Debbie Stein of Bethesda, whose 15-year-old daughter, Sara, was vaccinated, thinks she would agree to have her 11-year-old son, Ben, get the shots if his pediatrician recommended them.
"My feeling is it's a serious virus that causes cancer, and there's no reason not to vaccinate him," Stein said. "I think it will protect him and protect his wife in the future. I don't want to see him when he's 35 or 40 have a wife die of cancer."
But Agustin Zamora, who lives in the District, worries that Gardasil has not been studied enough to know that it is safe and effective for his 9-year-old son, Marco, and his twin 2-year-olds, Antonio and Joaquin.
"It's sort of like doing an experiment on people," Zamora said. "This is something you're giving to a lot of children. You need many years of study."
Federal health officials, Merck and others say they are confident that the vaccine is safe. But some experts said they are concerned that there is insufficient evidence about how long Gardasil's protection will last, whether serious side effects will emerge and whether the relatively modest benefits for boys are worth even the small risks associated with any vaccine.
"There are lots of things about this vaccine we do not know yet," said Karen K. Smith-McCune of the University of California at San Francisco. "I just want to be the voice in the room saying, 'What's the rush to vaccinate in the absence of the best available data?' "
Some also question whether the reduction in infections will mean fewer cancers in the future.
"There's probably enough data to say it probably is effective for the prevention of genital warts. They're not fun, but they're not at the same level as cancer or lethal infectious diseases," said Diane M. Harper, a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri at Kansas City who helped study the vaccine in women for Merck. "This may not be the best use of our resources at this time."
If you could only eat one fruit, an organic papaya should be it. Pound for pound, papayas contain more vitamin A than apricots, more vitamin C than oranges, and more potassium than a banana.
