This is a very long piece, but it needs to be said and all the points are important.  The US’ record on Human Rights is pitiful, and our commitment to our international  obligations doubly so.  From Truthout: (Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t) While President Obama told the country to…

The Senate committee votes whether to declassify on April 3.  Give the committee members your opinion. Maine’s Senators Collins and King will vote to declassify.  Here is WaPo’s: AT THE heart of the dispute between the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency is a document known as the CIA’s internal review. This is…

Behind dysfunctional government, is democracy itself in decay? It took only 250 years for democracy to disintegrate in ancient Athens. A wholly new form of government was invented there in which the people ruled themselves. That constitution proved marvelously effective. Athens grew in wealth and capacity, saw off the Persian challenge, established itself as the…

1.  How widely was Pandemrix vaccine used? Virtually all the narcolepsy data comes from Europe, where the GlaxoSmithKline Pandemrix swine flu vaccine was given to about 31 million Europeans and was used in 47 countries.  It was used in Canada (12 million doses) and a number of developing countries, but little is known about increased cases…

Here we go again.   Twenty-five years ago, the US intelligence community did not know that the USSR was about to fall.  Since then, many hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent by the intelligence agencies, but they still missed the boat on the invasion of Crimea–a subject that should have been of utmost…

Thanks to DS Wright at FireDogLake for this article with useful links.  Don’t miss Scott Shane’s Baltimore Sun piece of how intelligence agency trainees listened in to phone conversations by tapping microwave towers, as part of their training–in 1995! During the drama over the so-called Amash Amendment General Keith Alexander, head of the NSA, went to Capitol…

And now from the Snowden cache is the story of how it ain’t only the metadata that is vacuumed up by NSA and saved for posterity. No, it is the complete audio recording of calls that is being obtained and stored.  The program allegedly began in 2009, but according to the WaPo, calls are only…

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20140307IPR38203/html/US-NSA-stop-mass-surveillance-now-or-face-consequences-MEPs-say Parliament’s consent to the EU-US trade deal “could be endangered” if blanket mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) does not stop, MEPs said on Wednesday, in a resolution wrapping up their six-month inquiry into US mass surveillance schemes. The text also calls on the EU to suspend its bank data deal…

Maine Voices: Maine senators should abide by Constitution, OK release of torture report They should also place the full force of their offices behind a return to constitutional government. By Meryl Nass  Special to the Press Herald ELLSWORTH — On one historic day 225 years ago, on March 4, 1789, the first U.S. Congress met…

The Washington Post  claimed last week: ‘Swine flu’ strain returns; dramatic rise in deaths of young adults, children.  But CDC does not collect info on young adult deaths.  It does collect info on child deaths, however.  And it collects data on hospitalizations. It is actually the 50-64 year olds who are suffering more hospitalizations this…

This article is also based on documents from the Guardian’s Snowden cache. How can people believe that NSA, GCHQ and their ilk are not storing all phone calls (full audio files, not just metadata) when it takes so much more storage to college webcam information? Let’s get real.  Every digital signature you have left during…

From ABC News in NYC: The outbreak of the mumps at Fordham University has spread from one campus to another. There are now 13 reported cases, 12 at the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx and one at the Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan.  The symptoms are similar to the flu, but the virus can…

Alexander Lebedev penned the following NY Times Opinion piece.  He is “a businessman and former senior officer in the K.G.B., is an owner of the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta and publisher of The London Evening Standard and The Independent” according to the Times. He suggests that $30 trillion (yes, with a T) has been embezzled worldwide…

CDC notes the following, where P stands for pneumonia and I stands for influenza: Among 14,628 P&I deaths reported through the 122 Cities Mortality Reporting System from September 29, 2013 to February 8, 2014, a total of 571 (3.9%) were influenza-associated (i.e., they had influenza listed on the death certificate as an underlying or contributing…

Whistleblowers have some protections under US law.  In fact, those who report on corruption that costs the government money are entitled to a large chunk of what $ is recovered as a result of their whistle-blowing.  This often results in multimillion dollar payouts from what are termed “qui tam” or False Claims Act lawsuits. But…

Today’s Washington Post headline reads “‘Swine flu’ strain returns; dramatic rise in deaths of young adults, children.” But the data do not bear this out. Swine flu isn’t really “back”– since 2009, it never left, but there are more cases this year than the last two, relative to other flu strains.  After the 2009-10 swine…

David Kelly was the UK WMD expert and weapons inspector who was found “dead in the woods” in 2003 after he told a BBC reporter that the Blair government memo on WMD did not conform to the facts, and specifically that Saddam could not hit the UK with a nuke in 45 minutes.  This undermined…

The UK Guardian published the following chart in October 2012.  PPP stands for purchasing power parity, or how much the minimum wage is able to buy in its country.  In terms of PPP, we are still beaten by every nation with a higher minimum wage, except Japan.  So we cannot say the US’ low minimum…

The World Press Freedom Index is issued yearly by international NGO Reporters Without Borders. The methodology for ranking nations is described here. 180 nations are included.  At #46, the US is assessed as having less freedom of the press than Papua-New Guinea, Romania, Slovenia, Latvia, and South Africa, to pick a few. However, we did beat…

I gave a “super-easy” cooking class this morning.  Why is a doctor giving cooking classes?  Because the quality of the ingredients in processed food is so poor, I believe it is ushering in an age of chronic ill health.  At least when you cook from basic ingredients, you know what they are.  I may have…

It is great to have this long-awaited EU report on corruption make the news around the world. Yes, corruption is now visible almost everywhere, from petty officials demanding bribes from anyone to the awarding of major government contracts.  We knew that.  Now this is an estimate of size.  However, when you estimate the magnitude of…

From the Atlantic:  … the GOP establishment is changing along with its elected officials; the RNC voted in a winter meeting to literally renounce NSA domestic surveillance. “It was passed by a voice vote as part of a package of RNC proposals,” Benjy Sarlin reports. “Not a single member rose to object or call for further debate,…

A second official advisory panel tells the government its NSA bulk collection of data is illegal and furthermore, has shown no benefit in fighting terrorism.  From NBC: A government advisory panel said Thursday that the bulk data collection program run by the National Security Agency is illegal and should be halted.   Recommendations by the…

CDC just published new guidelines for treatment of anthrax exposure and anthrax disease in pregnancy and the postpartum period.  It is said the guidelines are based on meetings  “of national subject matter experts to review key clinical elements of anthrax prevention and treatment for pregnant, postpartum, and lactating (P/PP/L) women.” A lot of effort was made…

I previously quoted former NSA official Russell Tice regarding NSA surveillance. The website WhoWhatWhy has posted a transcript (and video) of Mr. Tice’s July 10, 2013 interview on RT, and it contains some interesting tidbits. Of course, with respect to NSA surveillance, the big question is who gets and uses the information; who is running…

So much for keeping your computer safe from spying–or even insertions and deletions–by using it only as a typewriter and file cabinet.  Note the devices and programs used by NSA are at least 5 years old. Excerpts from the Times: WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the…

A longer report was published in Haaretz, with an excerpt below:  … In December 2008, the [Israeli Medical Association] investigative committee published a report, which found grave fault with the way in which soldiers were recruited for the experiment, and the unscrupulous methods for achieving the soldiers’ consent – which included failure to inform them…

From the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli MOD has settled with 100 former soldiers who were used in anthrax vaccine experiments and reported subsequent illnesses; money has been set aside to compensate other subjects in the trial who were not part of the original lawsuit. The Israeli MOD’s claim that the Israeli anthrax vaccine “is as…

Thanks to Lawrence Solomon, writing for Huffington Post, who explains that media’s approach to those who question vaccine safety defies rational explanation.  Highly regarded scientists, whose job it was to review the safety of vaccines, have persistent questions about their safety in large, unscreened populations (as do I).  Those who question vaccination programs are kooks…

California’s state Senate voted 31-1 to ban state officials and state corporations from participating with federal agencies to collect electronic data on any persons in a sweeping, rather than individual, fashion. Silicon Valley entities like Google are located in California; they have been ordered by federal officials to participate in surveillance activities.  This bill, if…

From the WSJ: WASHINGTON—A federal judge on Monday ruled against the National Security Agency’s collection of phone records, saying the program “almost certainly does violate” the Constitution. However, the ruling will have little immediate effect and faces a lengthy future of court proceedings. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who was nominated to the Washington, D.C.,…

Anonymous sourcing is far too common in major media.  Usually, when unsourced comments appear in articles about controversial subjects to do with government, the source is providing officially sanctioned disinformation, imho. As a way in to this issue, the WP is talking about the cockamamie excuses that sources have given for refusing to allow publication…

Pam Weintraub, editor of Discover Magazine, has an in-depth piece on problems with commonly used drugs on the ExperienceLife website.   The acid blockers (proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec or Nexium), sold over-the-counter or by prescription, can cause a variety of problems from long-term use.  Getting off them can be a challenge, because a hyperacidity…

For 60 years, US factory farms have included broad-spectrum antibiotics in the feed for livestock. It is said to promote growth. It also promotes antibiotic resistance.  Fully 80% (30 million pounds) of the antibiotics used in the US are fed to animals who provide our meat and dairy products. In 1977, FDA announced it planned…

Are the Intelligence Committees Being Blackmailed? During the Vietnam war, the NSA spied on two prominent politicians – Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker – as well as critics of government policy Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, and a Washington Post humorist. A recently declassified history written by the NSA itself called the effort “disreputable if not…

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard McKeon, (R-California), speaks to reporters following a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 21, 2013. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta From Wired: An excerpt, but suggest you read the whole story and see where your rep fell. The numbers tell the story — in votes and…

Although Secretary of State Kerry said there were multiple nations with whom the US was negotiating to take and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons, none took him up on the offer. So the US, working with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, plans to take a US cargo ship and turn it into a…

The risk of narcolepsy was 13 times higher among those given the Pandemrix vacciney Ireland’s Health Services (HSE) wrote to families of children with narcolepsy with the threat to withhold health benefits from Pandemrix vaccine-induced narcolepsy sufferers if they sued for benefits.  Sufferers went to court today to quash the health system’s order. In response, HSE’s…

Hersh has written an in-depth piece on the intelligence about Syria’s chemical weapons attack in the London Review of Books, suggesting parallels with the justifications created for the war on Iraq in 2003. His final two paragraphs note that Al-Nusra rebels may be the only group left with access to sarin in Syria soon: The…

http://www.gocomics.com/stevebenson/2013/09/08#.UqKtwmRDsrd Steve Benson by Steve Benson September 08, 2013 Previous feature Next feature Current

How do governments do business with each other?  Of course they often share goals, and may benefit jointly from certain actions.  But at the most basic level, they offer each other carrots and threaten each other with sticks. Using some combination of these two strategies, the US government obtained the cooperation of 54 governments to…

From NBC  we learn Obama is going to give Americans more “confidence” in the NSA.  “I’ll be proposing some self-restraint on the NSA and initiating some reforms that can give people some more confidence.” But lack of confidence is not the problem.  Setting up a straw man to knock down “is an intentional misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, often used…

by Brian McFadden for Daily Kos A compendium of comments on the new statin guidelines from Gary Schwitzer at Health News Review: I’d like to see a public survey of comprehension of the recent splash of news about new guidelines for heart disease prevention and statin drug use.  Heads must be spinning.Here are some of the pieces…

The scoop on bullet wounds is very simple:  fired from a long distance, the bullet enters an object making a small entry wound, usually the size of the bullet, and leaves the object with an exit wound the same size or, usually, larger.  From the medical website “Explore Forensics“: Exit wounds – as we have…

From UPI and The Hill: WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) — Three U.S. Senate Democrats are sponsoring a measure they say would require greater transparency regarding National Security Agency surveillance. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland introduced the measure as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate is debating this week, The…

Thanks to NGO Privacy International, we learn that over 300 companies can sell you your own surveillance package, incorporating 97 different technologies.  For example: Over the last four years, Privacy International has been gathering information from various sources that details how the sector sells its technologies, what the technologies are capable of and in some…

About 1,000 pages of heavily redacted documents were released Monday night (yesterday) by the Director of National Intelligence.  Reporters are still sifting through them.  But it is striking that a major finding is that NSA repeatedly overstepped what was legally permissible in its collection of data, and then eventually authorization through FISA would “catch up”…

Albanians celebrate on a monument to the national hero Skanderbeg after Edi Rama rejected the US request to host the chemical weapons. Photo: Arben Celi/Reuters The UN’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has completed its inspection work in Syria on time, and without any major hitch.  All production facilities for chemical weapons have…

New guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology for the use of statin drugs came out on November 12.  This is a very big deal for big Pharma, for doctors and for patients. Health consumers beware!   The guidelines may lead to tens of millions of healthy, low-risk people being transformed…

The first legal cases (outside the secret FISA court and post Snowden) questioning the legality of NSA spying come to the forefront next week.  See the US News piece here. The first case seeks a broad preliminary injection against “some NSA surveillance programs” and will be heard Monday, Nov 18.  It is a class action…

Glenn Greenwald (who left the Guardian to start a new online news service Nov 1) has long had a unique ability to pile on the pithy quotes.  This time he outdid himself, simply by quoting from an amazing report written for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) by Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor….

Yes, thanks to a tiny $2.6 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, local Seattle police know everywhere your cell phone, ipad, and laptop have been for quite awhile.  There is likely video of you as well.  The “mesh network” that the police bought is capable of identifying and storing  “the IP address, device…

Buy a plane ticket, and TSA not only searches numerous databases about you, but then can share the information with state, local, foreign governments and may even sell the info to debt collection agencies or ???  Thanks to the NY Times for this important piece: The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers…

Here is today’s NY Times’ update on negotiations between Germany and the US on spying; it appears we have not given Germany much besides a promise to leave Angela’s phone alone… Just as European and American negotiators resumed work on a groundbreaking trade accord meant to tie their two continents closer together, René Obermann, the…

From the Guardian: [A new NSA document revealed in Germany’s Bild newspaper said there was a] “… not legally registered spying branch” (illegal under German law) in the US embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to “grave damage for the relations of the United States to another government”. From the Washington Post: Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich…

 From the Times: Leaders and citizens in Germany, one of America’s closest allies, simmered with barely contained fury on Thursday over reports that American intelligence had tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone… Ms. Merkel herself angrily demanded assurances from President Obama that her cellphone was not the target of an American intelligence tap as soon…

From the organization itself: StopWatching.us is a coalition of more than 100 public advocacy organizations (especially the Electronic Freedom Foundation) and groups from across the political spectrum. Join the movement at https://rally.stopwatching.us.  This video harnesses the voices of celebrities, activists, legal experts, and other prominent figures in speaking out against mass surveillance by the NSA. Please…

Le Monde (France’s leading newspaper) discussed spyware and various NSA programs used to obtain information.   Discussing internal memos it has obtained: We discover here the proof of the existence of the GENIE programme, one of the most topical in the NSA: the remote delivery of spyware to computers… The document specifies the techniques used to…

I’ve wondered why Dianne Feinstein so persistently defends NSA and other surveillance abuses.  Now she is proposing a bill designed to avoid reining in these abuses–an attempt to circumvent other, more substantive bills such as that of Jim Sensenbrenner and Pat Leahy–and yesterday she penned a paean to surveillance in USA Today that, more than anything, sounds…

How does NSA avoid the legal restrictions that exist in FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) regarding data collection on US persons?  The Post article is explicit about how the law is trampled by collecting the data on Americans from outside the US: from non-US nodes in the worldwide internet. And who maintains the web…

The NY Times details how (borrowed) federal money spares no expense to equip US cities to achieve a level of surveillance of citizens thought only possible in science fiction, i.e., George Orwell’s dystopic 1949 novel, titled 1984.  Here.  Now.  In America. OAKLAND, Calif. — Federal grants of $7 million awarded to this city were meant largely…

Israeli doctor Zvi Howard Abramson reviewed the literature on healthcare worker flu vaccinations in 2012 and found the evidence to support vaccinations wanting. Read the whole article or his key points: (i)There are no studies showing that healthcare workers are at increased risk of influenza and its complications or that the vaccine is more effective…

Rumors of Syrian rebels being armed through weapons coming from and transiting through Libya abound.  Rumors I cited earlier suggest that the Benghazi consulate (which some suggest is a CIA base, not a consulate) attack had to do with several hundred surface to air missiles that were being secured. Today the BBC lends support to…

The Times titled this article: In Test Project, N.S.A. Tracked Cellphone Locations.   In his testimony, Mr. Clapper revealed few details about the project. He said that the N.S.A. does not currently collect locational information under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the provision the government says is the legal basis for the N.S.A.’s once-secret…

From CDC: (the numbers at the bottom of the graph refer to the year followed by the week (by week number)).  Even in the midst of summer, there are about 100 positive tests reported per week, similar to today. From CIDRAP:  Though the flu season hasn’t started in the United States, media reports are starting to…

From yesterday’s Japan Times comes a sobering piece quoting the last chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Jaczko only stepped down in 2012) suggesting there isn’t any way to safely manage nuclear power in a world of earthquakes and natural disasters. The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant is a sign that the world…

From the CSM, citing leaked diplomatic correspondence it had acquired: … According to leaked diplomatic correspondence, Iran has been warning Washington since July 2012 that Sunni rebel fighters have acquired chemical weapons, and called on the US to send “an immediate and serious warning” to rebel groups not to use them.  In a letter acquired by The…

No proof has surfaced to assign blame for Syria’s sarin attack of August 21.  The US government document that was supposed to lay out the proof was simply a litany of assertions, absent any evidence.  Robert Parry discussed the details, or lack thereof.  He points out that Bush’s Iraq war ‘dodgy dossier’ had a lot…

You can hire mobile units to destroy chemical weapons (including those in munitions) from Eisenmann Corp. near Stuttgart, Germany if the US Army won’t share its mobile units with Syria or with its own chemical weapons activities in Blue Grass, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado.   The US stockpile could be destroyed within a year if these…

You may have noticed that some flu shots are “stronger” this year, there are more brands available, and the newer ones cost more.  What should you know? Stronger flu shots This year the newer shots contain 4 antigens instead of 3 (2 each for influenza A and influenza B), although you can get shots with…

 From the BBC:  US and UK insist UN chemicals report ‘blames Syria’ The US, UK and France say a UN report confirming a chemical weapons attack in Damascus has vindicated their stance that Syria was to blame. The US and UK ambassadors to the UN said technical details showed only the regime could have been…

The Independent says sales were approved in 2012.  UK officials tell BBC that although sales were approved, approval was later revoked and no CW precursors went to Syria from the UK: SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson said: “This is utter hypocrisy from the UK government – deploring chemical weapons in public whilst approving the sale…

The US government acknowledges that chemical weapons remain at two US sites, where they will be destroyed by 2023. The sites are Kentucky’s Blue Grass Army Depot and Colorado’s Pueblo Chemical Depot.  Army documents reveal that Pueblo houses 2,611 tons of mustard agent.  The Blue Grass Army Depot houses 523 tons of sarin, VX and mustard agent. According…

From McClatchy, a discussion of discrepancies in what the USG has asserted.  Read it all.  Here is just the beginning: The Obama administration’s public case for attacking Syria is riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for a punitive strike against…

According to the US Army: “The Blue Grass chemical weapons stockpile comprises more than 500 tons of blister and nerve agent in weapons.”   This stockpile includes sarin, VX and mustard, enough to (theoretically) kill millions of humans, packed into weapons and presumably ready for deployment.  The weapons are being held pending construction of a…

Finally, a knowledgeable former state department insider deconstructs the Syria situation. Read William R. Polk’s entire article in the Atlantic, or just this crucial portion, part 4. Who Are the Possible Culprits and What Would be Their Motivations?             Since such information as we have is sketchy and questionable, we should…

Kerry persists today in making outsize claims that he fails to support.  My comments are in parentheses. Secretary of State John Kerry, in his remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged Congress to vote in favor of the president ordering a military strike and argued that “the risk of not acting is greater than…

There are many types of chemicals that have been designated as chemical weapons by the international body established by the UN to prevent the use of chemical weapons. It is called the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and is headquartered in the Netherlands.  Only seven nations are not parties to the OPCW.  Israel and…

Washington Post today:  Sarin gas used in Syria attack, Kerry says That’s great, John.  But — does that mean you were trying to drum up support for an attack before you could prove chemicals weapons were used? Come on, John, you know this is not the real question that needs to be answered.  What we need…

     From Fox News comes this piece from progressive Democratic member of Congress Raul Grijalva: Now that President Obama has made up his mind about taking America to war with yet another Muslim country, he wants Congress to get on board.  To his credit, he’s seeking congressional authorization, as required by the War Powers Act…

Meantime, new research by US government scientists confirms what Canadian (and some other) researchers have been saying for years:  flu shots can actually increase your risk of developing influenza.  In a piece titled Swine study suggests flu vaccination may sometimes backfire, researchers found that vaccinating pigs for flu could also give them a more severe disease: During the…

Vaccinate your children for flu asap, say the experts.  From NBC News: “Get your kids their flu vaccines now, pediatricians advise.” “With the exception of children less than 6 months of age, everybody should go out and get their influenza vaccine as soon as the influenza vaccines are available,” Dr. Michael Brady of Nationwide Children’s…

Obama finally “got it” that his red line and his hawkish posturing left him standing on the brink, alone.  Hollande might jump off the cliff with him, but then again, he might not.  US Ambassadors had fanned out to foreign capitals, but were being rebuffed — no one wanted to join a coalition of hubris. …

Here is the report and it says very little. The report makes the case that a CW attack occurred.  I think by now everyone agrees it occurred.  The issue of import, however, is who did it, not whether it happened. The report also tells us, as if we didn’t already know, that Assad has chemical…

Meryl Nass, MD 45 Beals Ave. Ellsworth, Maine 04605 (H) 207 412-0004 (C) 207 522-5229 EMAIL:  merylnass@gmail.com

From the Associated Press/ Toronto Star: WASHINGTON— The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no “slam dunk,” with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say… Administration…

NBC News queried 700 adults on Aug 28-29, 2013.   The most interesting answer I found to be the following: Q12  Do you think that President Obama should or should not be required to receive approval from Congress before taking military action in Syria? Should be required to receive approval ………………. 79 Should not be…

Finally, those who first jumped on the bandwagon start asking for proof.  From the WaPo: French officials also are calling for a delay in action until U.N. inspectors conclude their report. “Before acting, we need proof,” said Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a minister and government spokeswoman, according to Bloomberg News. The latest developments suggest that Washington’s allies…

Yesterday’s top fun quote, from Conservative Member of Parliament Adam Holloway: Friends stop their friends getting into their cars at the end of an evening and driving away drunk:  I think it is one job of a British Prime Minister to stop American Presidents driving drunk, as George W Bush did (in my opinion) with Iraq…

Identifying an attack with a nerve agent (organophosphate) is not at all difficult.  The symptoms are characteristic:  pinpoint pupils, increased secretions from all orifices, suffocation.  They are the same symptoms experienced by agricultural workers accidentally sprayed with organophosphate insecticides. (I treated one such case 30 years ago.) This is said to be the poison in…

Fewer Maine children getting fully vaccinated; new program hopes to reverse trend Jeff Barnard | AP Sitting in her home in Ashland, Ore., on Nov. 14, 2011, Jennifer Margulis shows off empty vials of vaccine that she saves in case one of her children has a bad reaction. An author of books on parenting who…

The paper representing Maryland’s second largest city is featuring two articles (here and here) skeptical of Ivins’ role in the anthrax letters. It also created a site for readers to vote whether they believe Ivins was responsible for the anthrax attacks, or not.  Right now, only 27% think Ivins was the perpetrator. And now that…

The Boston bombing case was horrific and unexplainable, unpardonable.  Yet the public lacks much evidence about it and no trial has taken place. Where is the evidence the brothers made the bombs?  What is Dzhokhar’s side of the story?  Have you heard it?  One brother is dead and the other has been under wraps since…

I have reprinted in full a piece from today’s New Statesman about the death of David Kelly and the surprising calls from prominent liberal members of the media to “let it be”–denying the many questions regarding cause of death and how Kelly’s death related to the (false) justification for the Iraq war.  The ten year…

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” That is the Fourth Amendment to…

Mika Matsufuji, second from right, and other members of the “Zenkoku Shikyukeigan Vaccine Higaisha Renrakukai” hold a news conference to explain possible side effects of a vaccination against cervical cancer in Tokyo on March 25. (Asahi Shimbun file photo) The Japan Times refers to halting both Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines. In the US, attention has…

Monsanto (NYSE:MON), the Missouri-based seed company, has stopped lobbying for GMO crops in Europe. The company is backing off because it has accepted that there is low demand for genetically modified plants in Europe. A Monsanto Germany spokeswoman, Ursula Lüttmer-Ouazane said ”We’ve come to the conclusion that this has no broad acceptance at the moment.” She also noted that it was “counterproductive…

LD 754, a bill to require that a list of vaccine ingredients be provided to parents when their children are vaccinated, has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Augusta.  The gist of what was written in a Bangor Daily News opinion piece and in a paper circulated by Representatives Pringle and Volk is: •           If…

Dr. Joe Mercola published an excellent short piece on GMOs this week here. EarthOpenSource published a 123 page report on the science of GMOs, here.

Most US corn, sugar, canola oil and soy produced and sold in the US is genetically modified. That includes most food for human as well as animal consumption.  Monsanto has had patents on GMO wheat since the 1990s.   However, wheat is the US’ largest export crop. Rather than being fed to livestock or unwary…