NOTE: Primary author is Lillian Dell’Aquila Cannon (see her blog)
When I was pregnant with my first child, I just thought that circumcision was what you did, no big deal, and that every man was circumcised. Then one day I saw a picture of a baby being circumcised, and everything changed. Just one tiny, grainy photo was enough to make me want to know more, and the more I knew, the worse it got. It turns out, circumcision really is a big deal.
Part 1 – Circumcision Surgery Myths
Myth 1:They just cut off a flap of skin.
Reality check: Not true. The foreskin is half of the penis’s skin, not just a flap. In an adult man, the foreskin is 15 square inches of skin. In babies and children, the foreskin is adhered to the head of the penis with the same type of tissue that adheres fingernails to their nail beds. Removing it requires shoving a blunt probe between the foreskin and the head of the penis and then cutting down and around the whole penis. Check out these photos: http://www.drmomma.org/2011/08/intact-or-circumcised-significant.html
Myth 2:It doesn’t hurt the baby.
Reality check: Wrong. In 1997, doctors in Canada did a study to see what type of anesthesia was most effective in relieving the pain of circumcision. As with any study, they needed a control group that received no anesthesia. The doctors quickly realized that the babies who were not anesthetized were in so much pain that it would be unethical to continue with the study. Even the best commonly available method of pain relief studied, the dorsal penile nerve block, did not block all the babies’ pain. Some of the babies in the study were in such pain that they began choking and one even had a seizure (Lander 1997).
Myth 3:My doctor uses anesthesia.
Reality check: Not necessarily. Most newborns do not receive adequate anesthesia. Only 45% of doctors who do circumcisions use any anesthesia at all. Obstetricians perform 70% of circumcisions and are least likely to use anesthesia – only 25% do. The most common reasons why they don’t? They didn’t think the procedure warranted it, and it takes too long (Stang 1998). A circumcision with adequate anesthesia takes a half-hour – if they brought your baby back sooner, he was in severe pain during the surgery.
Myth 4:Even if it is painful, the baby won’t remember it.
Reality check: The body is a historical repository and remembers everything. The pain of circumcision causes a rewiring of the baby’s brain so that he is more sensitive to pain later (Taddio 1997, Anand 2000). Circumcision also can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anger, low self-esteem and problems with intimacy (Boyle 2002, Hammond 1999, Goldman 1999). Even with a lack of explicit memory and the inability to protest – does that make it right to inflict pain? Ethical guidelines for animal research whenever possible* – do babies deserve any less?
(NaturalNews) Formulating a healthy eating plan that is both balanced and nutritious can be difficult in today’s world, especially when the guidelines pertaining to what constitutes healthy food vary dramatically depending on who you ask. Consequently, there are several healthy eating myths of which you will want to be aware, particularly if you are in the process of trying to reformulate your dietary habits. These myths include:
1) ‘Low-fat’ is good for you. Modern society has largely been indoctrinated into the mindset that fat clogs your arteries and makes you fat, and should thus be avoided. But nothing could be further from the truth. Tropical oils like coconut and palm, as well as grass-fed butter and meat fat is actually quite healthy for you. These saturated fats help promote healthy brain function and regulate proper hormone production. Popular vegetable oils, on the other hand, which oftentimes are hydrogenated and morphed into trans fats, are a primary cause of heart disease and other illness, and should be avoided.
2) You need to eat less salt for better health. This claim assumes that most people are consuming high amounts of synthetic, refined table salt, which is highly toxic and responsible for causing widespread cellular inflammation, hence the many warnings about salt intake. But what most people do not know is that unrefined, all-natural sea and mineral salts are completely different, as they are packed with health-promoting minerals, electrolytes, and other important nutrients. Eating lots of sea and mineral salt, in other words, is actually good for your health.
3) Replacing refined sugar with agave, honey is better for you. In most cases, switching out that table sugar for honey or agave nectar in the name of improving health is a misnomer, as these popular sugar substitutes are sometimes just as refined and unhealthy as regular sugar. Agave, for instance, contains high levels of fructose, which is metabolized directly by the liver and turned into fat. And unless your honey is raw, unprocessed, and locally sourced, it is also a toxic offender when consumed liberally.
4) Eating eggs raises your cholesterol. The medical system has gone back and forth on this one, but the truth about eggs will always remain the same – pasture-raised eggs from healthy chickens are an excellent source of both protein and cholesterol, and are not in and of themselves a cause of heart disease. And removing egg yolks and eating only the whites, as many people now do, can actually be detrimental to your health, as eggs should be eaten in complete form for optimal nutrition.
5) Organic produce is no better than conventional produce. There are many who would have you believe that conventional produce grown on factory farms is no different than organic produce grown without synthetic interventions. But as evidenced by numerous studies over the years, including a 1993 study published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition, organic foods are higher in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, and are far less contaminated with toxic pesticide and herbicide residues compared to conventional produce.
6) All red meat is unhealthy. The mainstream media loves to target red meat these days, but the problem with telling people to limit their consumption of red meat in order to avoid heart disease is that not all red meat is the same. In fact, red meat from grass-fed, pasture-raised cattle is actually just as healthy as, and potentially even healthier than, wild-caught salmon. This contrasts sharply with factory-farmed red meat which is high in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. It is all about how the animals are raised and what they are eating that determines the nutritional profile of meat in general, which is why it is always best to choose meat from local, naturally-raised sources.
by Fiona Macrae and Nicola Rowe
Mail Online June 21, 2013
Nestle, Unilever, Knorr, Hellmann’s and Yakult accused of animal testing
Campaign group claims tests were not to assess food safety butto allow the companies to make health claims about their products
Rabbits, piglets and mice are being killed when heavily pregnant, injected with deadly bacteria and bled to death by food firms testing fashionable superfoods, it has emerged.
The experiments involve food giants including KitKat maker Nestle, Unilever – the owners of PG tips – Knorr, Hellmann’s and Yakult, the maker of probiotic drinks.
Food companies stress that animals are used as little as possible and are cared for to the highest standard.
According to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) animals including rabbits, rats, mice and piglets suffered as a result of the growing fascination with so-called ‘superfoods’
But the campaign group that uncovered details of the experiments, which were carried out over the past two years, claim that most were not done to assess the safety of the food.
Instead, they say the tests appear to have been carried out to allow the companies make health claims about their products.
When food-makers around the world make potentially dangerous and deadly foods, some governments ban them. In the U.S., that isn’t so. There are numerous foods that are available here that simply can’t be found outside of this country, and it’s not because we are more free. While some countries ban ingredients that cause things like cancer and organ failure—the U.S. doesn’t only allow them to be sold, but doesn’t warn consumers.
According to a book first profiled by BuzzFeed, “Rich Food, Poor Food,” these “Banned Bad Boys” of food are so dangerous, other countries even prescribe criminal penalties if they are found in foods. Here, however, they are abundant.
“Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that,” said Dr. Alper Bozkurt of NCSU in a news release today.
I guess the Kinect isn’t only good for playing video games after all.
The Kinect is also being used by the researchers to collect data and detect how effectively the remotely controlled cockroaches respond to the electrical impulses that are used as the control system.
The end goal, according to the researchers, is to use the cockroaches to “explore and map disaster sites.”
The emerging and surprising view of how the enteric nervous system in our bellies goes far beyond just processing the food we eat.
As Olympians go for the gold in Vancouver, even the steeliest are likely to experience that familiar feeling of “butterflies” in the stomach. Underlying this sensation is an often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts that is so extensive some scientists have nicknamed it our “second brain”.
A deeper understanding of this mass of neural tissue, filled with important neurotransmitters, is revealing that it does much more than merely handle digestion or inflict the occasional nervous pang. The little brain in our innards, in connection with the big one in our skulls, partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body.
Although its influence is far-reaching, the second brain is not the seat of any conscious thoughts or decision-making.
“The second brain doesn’t help with the great thought processes…religion, philosophy and poetry is left to the brain in the head,” says Michael Gershon, chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at New York – Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, an expert in the nascent field of neurogastroenterology and author of the 1998 book The Second Brain (HarperCollins).
Technically known as the enteric nervous system, the second brain consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, or alimentary canal, which measures about nine meters end to end from the esophagus to the anus. The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system, Gershon says.
This multitude of neurons in the enteric nervous system enables us to “feel” the inner world of our gut and its contents. Much of this neural firepower comes to bear in the elaborate daily grind of digestion. Breaking down food, absorbing nutrients, and expelling of waste requires chemical processing, mechanical mixing and rhythmic muscle contractions that move everything on down the line.
Thus equipped with its own reflexes and senses, the second brain can control gut behavior independently of the brain, Gershon says. We likely evolved this intricate web of nerves to perform digestion and excretion “on site,” rather than remotely from our brains through the middleman of the spinal cord. “The brain in the head doesn’t need to get its hands dirty with the messy business of digestion, which is delegated to the brain in the gut,” Gershon says. He and other researchers explain, however, that the second brain’s complexity likely cannot be interpreted through this process alone.
“The system is way too complicated to have evolved only to make sure things move out of your colon,” says Emeran Mayer, professor of physiology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.). For example, scientists were shocked to learn that about 90 percent of the fibers in the primary visceral nerve, the vagus, carry information from the gut to the brain and not the other way around. “Some of that info is decidedly unpleasant,” Gershon says.
The second brain informs our state of mind in other more obscure ways, as well. “A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut,” Mayer says. Butterflies in the stomach – signaling in the gut as part of our physiological stress response, Gershon says – is but one example. Although gastrointestinal (GI) turmoil can sour one’s moods, everyday emotional well-being may rely on messages from the brain below to the brain above. For example, electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve – a useful treatment for depression – may mimic these signals, Gershon says.
Comment: The Vagus Nerve can also be stimulated naturally, through controlled breathing excercises. To learn more about easy to use breathing techniques visit the Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program here.
Given the two brains’ commonalities, other depression treatments that target the mind can unintentionally impact the gut. The enteric nervous system uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain, and in fact 95 percent of the body’s serotonin is found in the bowels. Because antidepressant medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increase serotonin levels, it’s little wonder that meds meant to cause chemical changes in the mind often provoke GI issues as a side effect. Irritable bowel syndrome – which afflicts more than two million Americans – also arises in part from too much serotonin in our entrails, and could perhaps be regarded as a “mental illness” of the second brain.
[Potent News editor’s UPDATE: I had a few fishy feelings about this event to begin with and now things are starting to make a lot more sense. I would like to apologize to the readers for my hasty advertising of this event. I would also like to point out that I have great respect for the author of Global March For Chemtrails Has Some Fishy Management (2nd UPDATE), not only because of the content of this article, but also because he previously personally sent me very pertinent information revealing the sketchy nature of Non-Violent Communcation.]
1.The March Against Monsanto was a huge success in bringing the public’s attention to the dangers of genetically modified foods. Nearly fifty percent of U.S. states introduced bills requiring labeling or prohibiting genetically engineered foods since the date of the protest on May 26, 2013. And all without the “help” of mainstream media. Great achievement, but the battle has only just begun. As brilliant as the march was, it only addressed half of the problem.
Unfortunately, there is an insidious connection between chemtrails and GMOs. One of the main toxic fallouts of chemtrails is aluminum. Aluminum alters the PH of soil, killing off plants and seeds in the process.
Have your crop yields declined over the years? Have you noticed the decaying trees in your neighborhood? Well, apparently Monsanto has, which is why the company holds a patent on “aluminum resistant seed.” Don’t want to be forced to eat GMO? Then please march on Sunday, August 25, 2013.
2. What do autism, Alzheimer’s, asthma, influenza and Morgellons Disease all have in common? They have all been skyrocketing since the advent of chemtrails. Award winning investigative reporter, Will Thomas, has reported findings of over 300 types of virally-mutated fungi in chemtrail fallout. The Idaho Observer has reported findings of: 26 heavy metals including arsenic, gold, lead, mercury, silver, uranium and zinc; four molds and fungi; seven viruses; a variety of infectious pathogens; nine chemicals including acetylcholine chloride; drugs including two sedatives; and six bacteria including anthrax. Researcher Clifford Carnicom has reported finding chemtrail fibers that are an exact match with the fibers found in those suffering from Morgellons Disease. Are you ready to put an end to the needless suffering of millions of people? Then march for your brothers and sisters.
3. According to the research of Dane Wigington of Geoengineeringwatch.org, chemtrails and geoengineering are the single, greatest threat to life on Planet Earth. UN scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate and is greater than anything that the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65 million years ago. Chemtrails appear to have triggered climate feedback loops affecting ocean currents between the Atlantic and the Arctic. One of these feedback loops is methane expulsion. This methane expulsion has not been happening over a hundred years or even decades. It has been happening only over a few years. This is a global, game-changing event. Are you ready to put an end to the real global warming? Then march for Planet Earth!
Elizabeth Cook is a teacher and a mother who has studied and protested chemtrails for many years. Since her first observation of the planes depositing milky white swathes of pollution in the sky, she has been researching how chemtrails affect weather, the climate, people and other living creatures. She has dedicated herself to exposing the chemtrail atrocity.
Psychology Today
by Jonathan Benson
When food-makers around the world make potentially dangerous and deadly foods, some governments ban them. In the U.S., that isn’t so. There are numerous foods that are available here that simply can’t be found outside of this country, and it’s not because we are more free. While some countries ban ingredients that cause things like cancer and organ failure—the U.S. doesn’t only allow them to be sold, but doesn’t warn consumers.
Sott.net
PN 