Monday, September 24, 2012
Renewed boycott announced against GMO pushing mega-corporations
Proposition 37, a Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative, plainly states that raw or processed foods offered for sale to consumers must be properly labeled if they contain GMOs, and that no food products labeled "natural" can legally contain GMOs. Passage of this important ballot measure is the key to sparking GMO labeling laws nationwide, as it has the potential to drastically change for the better the way major food companies formulate their products. (http://www.carighttoknow.org/)
Several major chemical and food corporations; however, have been actively injecting tens of millions of dollars behind the scenes to stop Prop. 37 from becoming law. And many of these corporations own smaller companies and brands that are marketed as organic or "natural" in health food stores all across the country. It is important in these final days before the November 6 election to stop buying these brands, and support only healthy and organic brands that are not tied to major corporations fighting GMO labeling efforts.
Here is a list of the top corporations fighting GMO labeling efforts, as well as their subsidiary companies and brands. Many of these companies' products and their respective brands are available in health food stores, and you should avoid supporting them because of their pro-GMO position:
• Pepsi -- SoBe, Tazo, IZZE Sparkling Juice, Naked Juice, Naked Juice Coconut Water, Mother's Cereals, Nut Harvest Nuts, Sabra Hummus, Stacy's Pita and Bagel Chips, Aquafina
• Nestle -- Gerber Organics, Juicy Juice, Perrier, Poland Spring, S. Pellegrino, PowerBar, Tribe Mediterranean Foods
• Coca-Cola -- DASANI, FUZE Healthy Infusions, glaceau smartwater, glaceau vitaminwater, Honest Tea, Odwalla, Simply juices
• ConAgra -- Alexia Foods, Lightlife
• Kellogg's Company -- Kashi, Bear Naked, Wholesome & Hearty (Gardenburger), Morningstar Farms / Natural Touch
• General Mills - Cascadian Farm Organic, Muir Glen, Good Earth, Larabar, Liberte Greek yogurt, Nature Valley
• Kraft - Halls cough drops
• Dean Foods / Land O Lakes - Silk, Horizon Organic
A more thorough list of the top companies fighting GMO labeling can be accessed here:
http://www.anh-usa.org/our-gmo-boycott-is-expanding/
ANH-USA has also created its own list of companies and brands that are tied to mega-corporations fighting against Prop. 37 and other GMO labeling initiatives:
http://www.anh-usa.org/boycott-companies-fighting-prop-37/
"Why is this GMO labeling fight so important? Once GMOs are labeled in California, it will bring a cascade effect in other states as well, since most national companies won't create two labeling schemes, one for California and one for the rest of the country," says ANH-USA. "Moreover, once products containing GMOs are labeled, people will stop buying them -- and this economic pressure will be enough to force GMOs off the market."
On the flip side, here is a list of companies that actively support Prop. 37 and GMO labeling efforts elsewhere (http://www.anh-usa.org/boycott-companies-fighting-prop-37/). These are the companies that deserve our unabashed support for their commitment to honesty and transparency in food labeling:
Source: Natural News
Non-Disease Virus Kills Breast Cancer Cells In Lab
In earlier studies, the team also showed that AAV2 promotes cell death in cervical cancer cells infected with human papillomavirus (HPV).
Cells have different ways of dying. When a healthy cell gets damaged, or starts behaving in an abnormal way, this normally triggers production of proteins that cause apoptosis or cell suicide: part of this process also involves switching off proteins that trigger cell division. The problem with cancer cells is that apoptosis fails, and the proteins that regulate cell division and proliferation stay switched on, so abnormal cells continue to multiply and create new abnormal cells and that is how tumors develop.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world and the main cause of cancer-related death in women.
First author Dr Samina Alam, research associate in microbiology and immunology at Penn State, told the press in a statement released on Thursday that breast cancer is also "complex to treat".
Senior investigator Dr Craig Meyers, professor of microbiology and immunology at Penn State, explained why:
"Because it has multiple stages, you can't treat all the women the same. Currently, treatment of breast cancer is dependent on multiple factors such as hormone-dependency, invasiveness and metastases, drug resistance and potential toxicities."
However, he went on to say that in their study, they showed that "AAV2, as a single entity, targets all different grades of breast cancer".
He and his team believe that AAV2 is switching back on the apoptosis pathways that were switched off in the cancer cells.
For their study they used lab tissue cultures of cancer cells and found AAV2 killed 100% of them within seven days, with most of the cell death proteins activated on day five.
In another experiment, working with cancer cells from an aggressive form of breast cancer, they found the virus took three weeks to kill the cells.
Alam said they can see the virus is killing the cells, but exactly how it is doing it remains somewhat of a mystery.
"If we can determine which viral genes are being used, we may be able to introduce those genes into a therapeutic. If we can determine which pathways the virus is triggering, we can then screen new drugs that target those pathways. Or we may simply be able to use the virus itself," said Alam.
They still need to do more to find out exactly how AAV2 kills the cancer cells and for instance establish which of its proteins trigger the cell death pathways.
Although AAV2 does not affect healthy cells, if it were used directly as a treatment, the human immune system would probably target it and expel it from the body. That is why the researchers think a better approach would be to find which pathways it uses and then develop drugs that use them.
Meyers has a hunch that it involves the cellular myc gene. This gene is usually linked to cell proliferation, but sometimes myc protein is known to be involved in apoptosis as well.
In their paper, he and his co-authors explain how they found increased expression of this gene close to the time of death in the breast cancer cells.
The researchers at Penn State have also found that AAV2 can kill cells derived from prostate cancer, methoselioma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma.
They have also studied the effect of AAV2 on the most aggressive form of breast cancer in a mouse model; preliminary tests suggest it destroys such tumors in mice, and they will be reporting those findings soon, they said in a statement.
German Study Says Condoms Contain Cancer-causing Chemical
A German scientific research institute has warned that most condoms on the market contain a cancer-causing chemical and has urged that their manufacture be subjected to stringent quality control.
Sobering news for rubber contraceptive users.
The Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Institute in Stuttgart said on Friday it had found the carcinogen N-Nitrosamine in 29 of 32 types of condoms it tested in simulated conditions.
The condoms, which were kept in a solution with artificial sweat, exuded huge amounts of cancer-causing N-Nitrosamine from its rubber coating. Researchers measured amounts of N-Nitrosamine, that were way above the prescribed limits for other rubber products such as baby pacifiers.
"N-Nitrosamine is one of the most carcinogenic substances," the study's authors said. "There is a pressing need for manufacturers to tackle this problem."
The study said that the carcinogen is thought to be present in a substance used to improve condom elasticity. When the rubber material comes in contact with human bodily fluids, it can release traces of N-Nitrosamine.
No immediate health risk
But since there are no prescribed limits of N-Nitrosamine for condoms, the study hasn't caused panic among manufacturers or mass-recalling of the products from counters.
Local government officials said condom users should not stop using rubber contraceptives based on the results of the study because N-Nitrosamine does not present an immediate health risk.
The Baden-Würtemmberg Social Ministry said it didn't think "it posed a risk." Authorities are also withholding the name of the affected manufacturers for fear of litigation.
Manufacturers should use alternative substances
But Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said that daily condom use exposed users to N-Nitrosamine levels up to three times higher than levels naturally present in food.
Werner Altkofer, head of the Stuttgart-based Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Institute said that though the production of rubber usually uses chemicals that can exude N-Nitrosamine, condom manufacturers could bypass it by using more expensive alternative substances available on the market that didn't form the carcinogen.
"We believe that it's up to the manufacturers to use other production processes so that no N-Nitrosamine is formed in condoms," Altkofer said.
He added that the latter was technically possible going by the fact that products of some manufacturers didn't show traces of the carcinogen during the testing.
Beate Uhse taking no chances
Germany's biggest erotica compnay Beate Uhse however, has decided to play it safe.
Shortly after the results of the study were introduced on Friday, the group banned chocolate-flavored condoms from its range. That was because the study had show that condoms laced with a chocolate flavoring had overwhelming high levels of N-Nitrosamine.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Experts discuss the shocking findings of the peer-reviewed GMO cancer trial
The new peer-reviewed study to be published in the upcoming Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal in New York proves that GMO corn and world's best-selling weedkiller, Roundup, causes increased tumors, multiple organ damage and led to premature death in rats.
“This research shows an extraordinary number of tumors developing earlier and more aggressively - particularly in female animals. I am shocked by the extreme negative health impacts,” said Dr. Michael Antoniou, molecular biologist at King’s College London School of Medicine.
Here are the experts discussing the significance of the findings of this unprecedented study:
This study comes at a time when aware consumers in California are trying to force chemical and genetic engineering companies like Monsanto to label any food that contains genetic modification. These recent findings that GMOs are clearly a health threat will likely give this campaign a boost of credibility in the face of millions of lobbying dollars being spent to oppose Prop 37.
Cameras know you by your walk
EVERYONE knows how easy it is to recognise a friend or family member from their walk - even from a distance.
But despite more than three decades of research, using gait analysis as a biometric has never taken off. Until now, perhaps. Recent advances in the accuracy of automated gait recognition suggest the technology could soon form the basis for a new generation of security systems.
Gait analysis has attracted attention because of the shortcomings of other biometric security techniques. Iris scans and face recognition require reasonably high-quality images, for example. They also generally require a cooperative subject, as do fingerprints. By contrast, a person's gait can be recognised from low-quality CCTV footage.
In one leading technique, known as the gait energy image, computer vision techniques use video images of a person to create a blurred silhouette that is characteristic of their gait. A human operator links this gait "signature" to a person's identity, allowing the system to automatically spot that person when they are next caught on film.
This technique uses just a blank silhouette, but Martin Hofmann and colleagues at the Technical University of Munich in Germany have developed a version that also extracts information from the person's image, such as the shadows on their clothing, which leads to a more detailed signature. Hofmann also used Microsoft's gaming sensor Kinect to measure depth, allowing him to better separate the target from the background. The result is a system that is better at tackling tasks that cause problems for the standard version of the technique, such as recognising a person carrying a briefcase. In tests using videos of several hundred people the system achieved a recognition rate of almost 80 per cent, outperforming 13 other gait analysis methods, including the one using gait energy images.
Another problem that has troubled researchers is finding a way to identify a person captured at different camera angles, and Daigo Muramatsu and colleagues at Osaka University in Japan are now working on a solution. They filmed 20 people on a treadmill using 24 cameras ranged around them and used this data to write software that can model the appearance of a person's gait when viewed from different angles. In preliminary tests, the system led to lower identification error rates at almost all angles, results Muramatsu describes as "promising".
Muramatsu and Hofmann will present their work this week at the BTAS biometrics conference in Washington DC.
These and other developments suggest that automated gait analysis might be ready for commercial use in the near future. Muramatsu says his group is already working with forensic scientists in Japan and has also developed gait analysis software that can be used by non-experts.
At the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, UK, researchers have developed a demonstration system that can track people as they move through the laboratory building by their gait alone.
Hofmann cautions against thinking gait recognition will ever rival fingerprints for accuracy. Accuracy rates can plummet if a person walks more rapidly than normal, for example. But that does not mean it won't prove useful. "Gait has potential for commercial applications," he says. "Imagine a bank robber who has covered his fingers and face, but can be identified by the way he walks out of the bank."