CONTENTS
1) Editorial
2) Feature: Climate Change Means Time for a Change: An Interview on Global Warming with Dr. David Suzuki
3) Issue Updates
--No Factory Farm-like “Organic” Dairies!
--BC’s Bennett Point to Get Another Open Net-Cage Farm
--Toxic Nation Spring Cleaning Challenge
4) Media Watch
--Safety Checks on GMOs Flawed: EU Environmental Chief
--Report: The First Decade of GMO Crops in the US
--European Food Safety Authority Criticized for GMO Bias
--Quebec Beefs Up Pesticide Ban
--Health Study on 2,4-D Underlines Weed Killer Concerns
--Global Warming Hits Canada’s Remotest Arctic Lands
--Act Now on Climate Change, Scientists Urge Canada
--Apocalypse 101: A Climate Change Compendium
--Canada Backs Breakaway Six-Nation Climate Group
--Canada’s Health Care “Crisis”
--Health Canada Report Calls for Agency to Protect Patients
--Many FDA Experts Have Drug Industry Ties
--PAP Smears: This Simple Test Can Save Your Life
--Conspiracy, Bias or Just Plain Stupidity?
--Experts Say Antidepressant Drugs Cause Suicides Instead of Preventing Them
--Three Herbal Medicines May Ease Back Pain
--Organic Watchdog Sues US Department of Agriculture
--WHO Says 9,300 Likely to Die from Chernobyl Effects, Greenpeace Says more than 90,000
--Mediterranean Diet May Repel Alzheimer’s
--Prevalent Food Additives Don’t Add Up
--Studies of Dental Fillings Reassuring
--Mercury in Dental Amalgam -- A Neurotoxic Risk?
--Medical Journal: Autism Rates Decline as Mercury Removed from Childhood Vaccines
--Mobiles Safe? Hold the Phone
--AIDS: A Treatable Combination of Nutritional Deficiencies
--Oxygen Tank Aids Healing
--Cold Sore Remedies
5) Calendar of Events
--The Origin and Healing of Breast Cancer, May 11th
--Emotional Stress and Skin Disorders, May 25th
--Cancer(s) Triggered by Diagnosis Shock, June 22nd
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1) Editorial
Hi there!
What a glorious spring day today, a beauty. I just read the newspaper while preparing to tackle my morning. The Vancouver Sun featured a story on the annual Sun Run, which boasted over 50,000 people in attendance, the highest ever. What a marvelously orchestrated and well-attended collection of BC enthusiasts running together for cancer. And inside the folds of the paper were articles about the brilliant research now taking place to combat this ravaging disease.
I’m reminded of a phone call I made to the head epidemiologist of the Canadian Cancer Society nearly 30 years ago. For obvious reasons, I won’t mention his name. At the time, I wanted to know what he thought of the low to non-existent rate of cancer amongst the Hunza people of the Himalayas, and if their unprocessed and nutrient-rich diet may have been a contributing factor. His answer is as clear in my head as if it were yesterday.
“Madam, trust me. I am the expert. There is NO correlation between diet and cancer,” he said.
So here we are, 2006, and how much closer to eliminating it are we? Not much. As a matter of fact, cancer still surpasses heart disease as the number one killer in Canada. Andrew von Eschenbach, former Director of the US National Cancer Institute drew huge criticism when he boldly claimed that death and suffering due to cancer would be eliminated by 2015. (Read about The Politics of Hope -- Andrew von Eschenbach and the Decline of the National Cancer Institute, by cancer research Ralph Moss, PhD, at http://www.cancerdecisions.com/041606.html.)
The good news is we have made enormous advances in understanding cancer, including the preventive role of a healthy lifestyle. We know there is a HUGE correlation between diet and cancer. We know that although statistics say one in three Canadians will battle cancer in their lifetime, alternative and complementary medicine offers increasing weapons to add to the anti-cancer arsenal. Let’s hope some of those Sun Run charity dollars will go towards this kind of research.
In the meantime, I’m glad that HANS exists, that we have a place where we can discuss and intellectualize health ideas that make good common sense, ideas that benefit people even if they aren’t necessarily featured on the front pages of mainstream newspapers.
All the best,
Lorna Hancock
Founding Member and Director
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2) Climate Change Means Time for a Change
An Interview on Global Warming with Dr. David Suzuki
by Sandra Tonn, RHN
What exactly is global warming?
Dr. Suzuki: Global warming is a phenomenon that is not controversial at all. It’s a result of gases in the atmosphere like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane-these are perfectly natural molecules that allow light from the sun to penetrate to the earth. Then when that light bounces back, some of it bounces back as a longer wavelength, or infrared--this is heat. The heat that bounces back tends to be reflected by these greenhouse gases. That means then, rather than escaping back out into the ether out there, the heat is selectively retained on the surface of the planet.
If you have no greenhouse gas, as you have on Mars, then your temperature yo-yos to really hot in the daytime to really freezing cold at night because there’s nothing to hold the heat on the surface. If a planet is covered in too much greenhouse gas, as Venus is where the water vapour covers the planet the entire time, then you trap so much heat that it’s about 400 C. On earth we’ve had just the right balance of greenhouse gases and it’s enabled the temperature of the planet to stay relatively constant, allowing life to flourish.
Is global warming and climate change the same thing?
Dr. Suzuki: Global warming and climate change are used interchangeably, but climate change is a preferable term because when we think of global warming everyone thinks “Oh it’s going to get warmer and warmer.” So when there’s an extremely cold winter or cold snap people say “Oh well, look global warming isn’t happening.” But adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere is going to change the climate. Climate is going to become less stable and while certain areas will experience a much greater rise in temperature, there will be other areas where it will be lower.
What brought about climate change?
Dr. Suzuki: What we’ve been doing over the last 100 to 150 years, through burning fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil), is adding more greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide (CO2), than the planet can reabsorb back. So the balance is now upset. There’s 30 per cent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was 150 years ago. And all indications are that in this century we’re going to more than double that CO2 level. So by increasing the amount of greenhouse gas, by adding new compounds that were never here before, we’re trapping more heat on the surface of the planet.
Specifically, what does this mean for us?
Dr. Suzuki: The change in temperature from the ice ages to the warm ages was about a one-degree rise in 1,000 years. We’re now talking about a temperature rise of between five and 10 degrees in 100 years.
What evidence do we have that the unscientific mind can understand?
Dr. Suzuki: In Canada, we think we’re so big and we’ve got so much nature that it doesn’t matter. But one of the effects we’re seeing already is warming of the ocean. The oceans cover 71 per cent of the earth. When water warms it expands. The first thing that’s happening with global warming is the oceans are getting a little warmer and they’re expanding, so the effect is that the sea level is rising.
Canada has the longest ocean coastline of any country in the world. We’re going to be immediately affected by the sea level rising. The interesting thing about global warming is that because of the way the air works, the North and South poles will be warmer, much warmer, than the equatorial areas. We’re a northern country, so we’re going to feel the effect much more than, say, the Americans. Already the Inuit in the Arctic are telling us they’re seeing the effects.
People in Sachs Harbour, in the Northwest Territories say they don’t get as many icebergs coming in the summer, and if the ice is melting so fast that they are not seeing ice sheets and ice bergs coming out, they can’t hunt. They’re seeing the permafrost melting. They’ve seen a lake, formed by permafrost, emptied out. They lost an entire lake! They’re now seeing salmon and herring in the Arctic where they’ve never seen them before. They’re seeing blue birds and barn swallows and robins where they’ve never been before. They say the children are terrified because they’re now seeing what they call "devil bugs," which are dragonflies. All of these changes are a result of climate change.
What can we do about it?
Dr. Suzuki: The first thing we’ve got to do is demand that the government do something. So we’ve got to say “WE CARE.” The polls indicate the Canadian public understands that the extreme weather we’re seeing is related to global warming. Now they have to say to the government “Do something about it.”
What do we specifically want the government to do?
Dr. Suzuki: We need to have a real halt on urban sprawl, we need to have ways that are people-friendly that allow us to transport ourselves in rapid transit and public transit rather than in cars. We need a friendly living space so we can walk on the street and meet our neighbours. Our space has got to be much friendlier toward gardens filled with plants and birds and butterflies. We’ve got to build a human environment that’s plugged into the natural world. Not this world of concrete, steel and glass that depends on cars to get everywhere, and where people don’t meet face to face.
What can we do as individuals?
Dr. Suzuki: We can, I think, individually begin to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that we produce. Make sure your homes are very, very well insulated. This saves you money and will result in less energy being burned to keep your homes warm.
I think a big area is in the way that we move about -- our transportation. Anybody that drives around in an SUV is showing you that he or she doesn’t care about the environment -- SUVs are up to three times as polluting as regular passenger cars. Besides, I know that 99 per cent of the time these SUVs are being used to drive through cities and usually with one person in the car. Why do we need this? There are cars that can drastically increase your mileage and decrease the amount of gas produced. There are many different ways that we can begin to reduce our output.
What do you say to the average Joe who doesn’t see climate change as a personal threat and who thinks it’s something that’s so far into the future that it will never affect him?
Dr. Suzuki: Throughout history, people always worried about the future for their children and their grandchildren. Now we seem to act as if the bottom line is how much money we’re going to make by the end of the month or the end of the year. The bottom line is being set by corporate bottom lines, which is our quarterly profits or our annual dividends, and by political priorities, which is always related to the results of the next political election. We’ve got to start thinking much more seriously about the kind of world we’re going to leave to our children.
When I was born in 1936, the world was a fundamentally different place. I can remember fishing with my dad. We’d catch steel head and Dolly Varden in the Vedder River close by Vancouver. We would jig for halibut off Spanish Banks or catch juvenile sturgeon in the Fraser River. Today, I can’t take my grandson fishing to those places, because there aren’t any fish left.
If all of these gases are abundant enough to change the climate, what does that mean in terms of pollution?
Dr. Suzuki: It used to be that coal miners took canaries down into the mine with them. If the canary keeled over, they hauled their asses out of there right away because they knew they were breathing the same air as the bird. The bird was an early warning that told them something was wrong with the air. Well today, we are polluting the air. Our burning of fossil fuels not only causes climate change, it is causing air pollution at ground level, and the canaries have become our own children.
If scientists from outer space came to this planet and looked at our species, they’d say “What a weird species. That species has intelligence and yet they are deliberately embarked on a suicidal course. They’re poisoning air, water and soil, which are the very source of their life. And they call it progress.”
Why have we done this?
Dr. Suzuki: We are a creature that has become fundamentally disconnected from the natural world. In 1900, most Canadians lived in rural village communities. We were an agrarian species. So cut ahead 100 years. Eighty-five percent of Canadians now live in large cities. We live in a human-created environment, surrounded by a few species of pets and domesticated plants and animals and by a few pests that we can’t get rid of. We live in a world that is now like a biological desert. We’re surrounded primarily by other human begins. So in that kind of a world, it’s easy to think that we no longer are a part of nature. But when we live in that way, we forget then that the real bottom line -- the real things that we need are dictated by our biological nature.
If we don’t have clean air, if we don’t have clean water, if we don’t have clean food that comes from good soil, if we don’t have clean energy -- we don’t survive. It’s as simple as that. And yet we who boast of being intelligent are using air, water and soil as if it’s a toxic garbage dump. We’ve totally lost sight of who we are and where we belong.
I certainly want to thank you for keeping up your efforts to educate us and really am impressed with how clearly you can see this issue.
Dr. Suzuki: It’s very frightening and what motivates me is that I’m a grandfather and the important thing for my grandchildren is not whether I give them a car for graduation or leave them a huge inheritance. I’m concerned about what condition the air, the water and soil are going to be in when they grow up. And I think everybody ought to be thinking much more about their children and grandchildren.
For more information about climate change, along with ideas on how to take action, visit www.davidsuzuki.org.
Reprinted with author permission. Sandra Tonn is a registered holistic nutritionist, natural health journalist and health educator based in Vancouver, BC. Visit www.sandratonn.com.
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3) ISSUE UPDATES
No Factory Farm-like “Organic” Dairies!
Existing US Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic milk regulations do not clearly require cows to be raised on pasture, which has led to complaints that some organic dairies are running confinement, factory farm-style operations. The USDA’s National Organic Program is currently debating whether to require dairy cows to be raised on pasture, but they need to hear from the public about this important aspect of organics!
Keep organics meaningful! Write to USDA, urging them not to allow confinement, factory farm-style organic dairy production! More at:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsOR...
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BC’s Bennett Point to Get Another Open Net-Cage Farm
Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform supporters were dismayed in April when the government of BC granted another new fish farm license in the besieged Broughton Archipelago.
Grieg Seafoods, a Norwegian company new to the Broughton region but responsible for the largest mass escape in B.C in recent history, was given the go-ahead for an open net-cage industrial fish farm in Clio Channel -- one of the few remaining salmon migratory corridors in the Broughton without a fish farm already in place.
Meanwhile, more applications are in the works and more new farms are being considered for the Broughton and Georgia Strait regions for Norwegian multinationals Mainstream Canada (Cermaq) and Grieg Seafoods.
Premier Campbell, Agriculture Minister Pat Bell, and the Liberal government must hear loud and clear that their actions and continued support for expansion of this unsustainable industry threaten the survival of these ecosystems and our wild salmon. Send an e-mail at: http://www.democracyinaction.org/farmed/campaign.jsp...
IN RELATED NEWS
Failure to List “Coho” Under Species at Risk Act Puts Salmon at Risk
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Campaigns_and_Programs/Sa...
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Toxic Nation Spring Cleaning Challenge
The time has come to pop open the window and clean away winter’s dust and grime. Before you reach into the cabinet under your sink, consider the ingredients in your cleaning products. Make sure you’re not replacing dust and grime with harmful chemicals.
Most conventional cleaning supplies contain ingredients that are hazardous to people and the environment. Take Environmental Defence’s Toxic Nation Spring Cleaning Challenge to simplify and detoxify your cleaning routine!
Download the Toxic Nation Guide to Spring Cleaning at http://www.toxicnation.ca/resources/newsletter/Toxic....
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4) MEDIA WATCH
Safety Checks on GMOs Flawed: EU Environmental Chief
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?typ...
Report: The First Decade of GMO Crops in the US
http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseactio...
European Food Safety Authority Criticized for GMO Bias
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/EFSACRGMOB.php
Quebec Beefs Up Pesticide Ban
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/quebec.cfm
Health Study on 2,4-D Underlines Weed Killer Concerns
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagen...
Global Warming Hits Canada’s Remotest Arctic Lands
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/3...
Act Now on Climate Change, Scientists Urge Canada
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/3...
Apocalypse 101: A Climate Change Compendium
http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2006/04/19/climate_i...
Canada Backs Breakaway Six-Nation Climate Group
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/3...
Canada’s Health Care “Crisis”
http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/11/CanadasHealthCareC.../
Health Canada Report Calls for Agency to Protect Patients
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.htm...
Many FDA Experts Have Drug Industry Ties
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?artic...
AND
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/295/16...
AND
http://healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8356
PAP Smears: This Simple Test Can Save Your Life
http://healthyimmunity.com/newsletters/articles/Test...
Conspiracy, Bias or Just Plain Stupidity?
http://www.doctormurray.com/newsletter/archive.htm#
Experts Say Antidepressant Drugs Cause Suicides Instead of Preventing Them
http://healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8341
Three Herbal Medicines May Ease Back Pain
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?artic...
Organic Watchdog Sues US Department of Agriculture
http://healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8342
WHO Says 9,300 Likely to Die from Chernobyl Effects, Greenpeace Says more than 90,000
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10290
Mediterranean Diet May Repel Alzheimer’s
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&e=2&u=...
Prevalent Food Additives Don’t Add Up
http://www.deliciouslivingmag.com/magazine/index.cfm...
Studies of Dental Fillings Reassuring
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&e=5&u=...
Mercury in Dental Amalgam -- A Neurotoxic Risk?
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/295/15/...
Medical Journal: Autism Rates Decline as Mercury Removed from Childhood Vaccines
http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nr-03-02-2006.php
Mobiles Safe? Hold the Phone
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70555-0.html
AIDS: A Treatable Combination of Nutritional Deficiencies
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v02n03.shtm...
Oxygen Tank Aids Healing
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17018655%26...
Cold Sore Remedies
http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/supplements/a/ColdSo...
For more current stories, check out “News” at www.hans.org.
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5) Calendar of Events
The Origin and Healing of Breast Cancer
When: May 11th
Emotional Stress and Skin Disorders
When: May 25th
Cancer(s) Triggered by Diagnosis Shock
When: June 22nd
Who: Caroline Markolin, PhD, approved German New Medicine Teacher
Where: West End, Coast Plaza Hotel, 1763 Comox St. (corner of Denman), Beach room, free parking, 7:15 – 9:45 pm
Cost: $20, registration not necessary
Contact: cmarkolin@germannewmedicine.ca
Discover a new understanding of disease. In 1981, German medical doctor Ryke Geerd Hamer found that every disease is the result of unexpected emotional stress. This stress not only occurs in the PSYCHE, but at the same time in the BRAIN (visible on a brain CT) and in the corresponding ORGAN.
From more than 40,000 case studies, Dr Hamer was able to identify what type of conflicts cause what type of symptoms. He established that what we commonly call a “disease” is not caused by a malfunctioning organism but is rather a natural meaningful biological survival program that has been successfully practiced for millions of years of evolution.
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Founded in 1984, Health Action Network Society is a membership-based, non-profit charitable organization dedicated to gathering and disseminating health promotion information.