(NaturalNews) A California lawsuit is accusing several fish oil supplement manufacturers of selling fish oils that contain unsafe levels of polychlorinated biphenyl compounds, also known as PCBs. The state's Proposition 65 requires products that may contain toxic ingredients above safe levels to have warning labels for consumer safety.
Five supplement companies, CVS and Rite Aid drug stores, and Omega Protein, Inc., the world's largest producer of omega-3 fish oil, are all named in the suit, which the plaintiffs hope will bring light to fish oil contamination problems. They also hope to see more accurate labeling of fish oils that includes specifics about contaminants like PCBs; that way, consumers will be able to make better decisions about which kinds are safe to buy.
The PCB chemical family consists of 209 different chemical compounds, all of which were tested for in the lawsuit by a California lab. That same lab also tested each of the product samples for 12 of the most toxic PCB compounds. It then evaluated each sample in terms of daily exposure to PCBs overall, and daily exposure to PCBs in terms of toxicity.
The brands tested included Nature Made, Twinlab, Now Foods, Solgar and GNC. Each brand included various types of fish oil, including cod liver, shark liver and salmon. Those that tested the lowest for PCBs contained one-70th the amount of those with the highest levels, indicating a significant difference in contamination among various brands, and types, of fish oil.
According to David Roe, the man who filed the lawsuit in San Francisco's Superior Court, the oils that tested highest exceed California's daily limit for PCBs by a factor of ten in terms of cancer risk. On the same token, some of the oils tested very low, and are not of particular concern to consumers.
Both Nature Made and Twinlab issued immediate responses to the lawsuit in defense of their respective brands' safety. Erin Hlasney from the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), a supplement industry trade group, also came to the defense of fish oils in general, explaining that they have been used safely for decades.
But the plaintiffs contend that it is not enough to simply say that a product meets guidelines; consumers have a right to know how a product actually tests for contaminants once it arrives on store shelves. Many brands claim that their fish oils have been purified and treated to reduce or remove contaminants, but few actually explain to what extent these toxins have been removed.
For complete details about the case and to view the fish oil test results, please visit www.fishoilsafety.com.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14501...
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ConsumerN...
Showing posts with label toxin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toxin. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Chemical in antibacterial soaps produces toxic dioxins
(NaturalNews) Dioxins are a group of highly toxic compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants. People are exposed to dioxins through the environment and the food chain -- the highest levels of these compounds are found in soils, sediments and food such as dairy products, meat, fish and shellfish. And, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), this exposure can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer.
So you would never flush dioxins into your water supply, right? If you use antibacterial soaps and other antibacterial products, you could be doing the equivalent of just that.
In 2003 and 2009, University of Minnesota civil engineering professor William Arnold and his colleague Kristopher McNeill published their discovery that the antibacterial agent triclosan, when exposed to sunlight, generates a specific group of four dioxins. Now, in a new study, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology, Pace Analytical (Minneapolis), the Science Museum of Minnesota and Virginia Tech, have documented how triclosan is transformed into dioxins that are accumulating in the environment. This research, just published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, concludes dioxins originating from triclosan (found in many hand soaps, deodorants and dishwashing liquids) account for a huge increase in total dioxins now polluting Mississippi River sediments.
Efforts to cut down on dioxin contamination resulting from industrial pollution have been underway for several decades. However, the issue of triclosan in antibacterial consumer products has been virtually ignored. And the research team has found that over the last 30 years, while levels of all the other dioxins have dropped by 73 to 90 percent, the levels of dioxins derived from the antibacterial soap ingredient triclosan have risen by 200 to 300 percent.
For the new study, which was headed by Jeff Buth, a recent University of Minnesota Ph.D. graduate in chemistry, the researchers examined sediment samples from Lake Pepin, an enlargement of the Mississippi River located 120 miles downstream from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. They analyzed sediment cores (which contain a record of accumulated pollutants in the lake over the past 50 years) and checked for amounts of triclosan, the four dioxins derived from triclosan, and the entire family of dioxin chemicals.
The results? In the most current sediments, triclosan-derived dioxins account for about 30 percent of the total dioxin mass. "These four dioxins only come from triclosan. They didn't exist in Lake Pepin before triclosan was introduced," Dr. Arnold said in a statement to the media.
Triclosan was first added to commercial liquid hand soap in 1987. Four years later, nearly 80 percent of commercial liquid hand soaps contained it, the researchers noted. And what happens to this chemical when people use triclosan-containing products to wash their hands and dishes? About 96 percent of it ends up in residential drains, leading to large loads of triclosan-contaminated water that enters treatment plants.
Unfortunately, triclosan can not be completely removed during the wastewater treatment process. So when treated wastewater is released back into the environment, there's triclosan still in it and sunlight converts some of the triclosan (and related compounds) into dioxins.
That's how the triclosan and dioxins ended up in Lake Pepin sediments, the researchers explained. The chemicals stuck to organic particles in the river and then sank into sediment when they reached the calmer waters of the lake.
In addition to the environmental danger that arises from triclosan's ability to morph into dioxin, the chemical has also been linked to disruptions of hormonal function and may play a role in the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics -- yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to address these concerns. In April, the FDA announced it would finally at least study the triclosan situation.
For more information:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021...
http://www.naturalnews.com/022178_t...
So you would never flush dioxins into your water supply, right? If you use antibacterial soaps and other antibacterial products, you could be doing the equivalent of just that.
In 2003 and 2009, University of Minnesota civil engineering professor William Arnold and his colleague Kristopher McNeill published their discovery that the antibacterial agent triclosan, when exposed to sunlight, generates a specific group of four dioxins. Now, in a new study, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology, Pace Analytical (Minneapolis), the Science Museum of Minnesota and Virginia Tech, have documented how triclosan is transformed into dioxins that are accumulating in the environment. This research, just published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, concludes dioxins originating from triclosan (found in many hand soaps, deodorants and dishwashing liquids) account for a huge increase in total dioxins now polluting Mississippi River sediments.
Efforts to cut down on dioxin contamination resulting from industrial pollution have been underway for several decades. However, the issue of triclosan in antibacterial consumer products has been virtually ignored. And the research team has found that over the last 30 years, while levels of all the other dioxins have dropped by 73 to 90 percent, the levels of dioxins derived from the antibacterial soap ingredient triclosan have risen by 200 to 300 percent.
For the new study, which was headed by Jeff Buth, a recent University of Minnesota Ph.D. graduate in chemistry, the researchers examined sediment samples from Lake Pepin, an enlargement of the Mississippi River located 120 miles downstream from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. They analyzed sediment cores (which contain a record of accumulated pollutants in the lake over the past 50 years) and checked for amounts of triclosan, the four dioxins derived from triclosan, and the entire family of dioxin chemicals.
The results? In the most current sediments, triclosan-derived dioxins account for about 30 percent of the total dioxin mass. "These four dioxins only come from triclosan. They didn't exist in Lake Pepin before triclosan was introduced," Dr. Arnold said in a statement to the media.
Triclosan was first added to commercial liquid hand soap in 1987. Four years later, nearly 80 percent of commercial liquid hand soaps contained it, the researchers noted. And what happens to this chemical when people use triclosan-containing products to wash their hands and dishes? About 96 percent of it ends up in residential drains, leading to large loads of triclosan-contaminated water that enters treatment plants.
Unfortunately, triclosan can not be completely removed during the wastewater treatment process. So when treated wastewater is released back into the environment, there's triclosan still in it and sunlight converts some of the triclosan (and related compounds) into dioxins.
That's how the triclosan and dioxins ended up in Lake Pepin sediments, the researchers explained. The chemicals stuck to organic particles in the river and then sank into sediment when they reached the calmer waters of the lake.
In addition to the environmental danger that arises from triclosan's ability to morph into dioxin, the chemical has also been linked to disruptions of hormonal function and may play a role in the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics -- yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to address these concerns. In April, the FDA announced it would finally at least study the triclosan situation.
For more information:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021...
http://www.naturalnews.com/022178_t...
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
BPA Plastic Chemical Linked to Aggression, Hyperactivity in Toddlers
(NaturalNews) Prenatal exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) may increase aggressive behavior in toddler girls, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and published in the journalEnvironmental Health Perspectives.
Researchers measured bodily levels of BPA in 249 pregnant women, then followed their daughters for two years. Children who had been exposed to the highest levels of the chemical before the 16th week of gestation had significantly higher scores on tests for aggression than girls of the same age with less exposure.
The study is the first to examine the effect of BPA on behavior in human children. It is consistent with the results of prior animal studies, which have also found that BPA can affect the brain and reproductive system. The National Toxicology Program concluded in 2008 that there was evidence to support the chemical's effects on human children.
Because BPA mimics the effect of estrogen, which plays a critical role in the male brain during the 11th and 12th weeks of pregnancy, researchers believe that the chemical might be "masculinizing" the female brain.
"In the developing brain, timing is everything," said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.
"I'm worried that tiny amounts of this stuff, given at just the wrong time, could partly masculinize the female brain."
Although the study found no change in male behavior and no increase in behavioral disorders among girls, scientists noted that the population effects may be much greater than those seen in the study. Michelle Macias, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted that children in the study came from predominantly well-educated families, which tend to have lower aggression and hyperactivity rates than the average. In addition, neurologist David Bellinger noted that a population can become more aggressive as a whole without there being strong observable effects in individual children.
The researchers intend to continue studying the children until the age of five.
Sources for this story include: www.usatoday.com.
Researchers measured bodily levels of BPA in 249 pregnant women, then followed their daughters for two years. Children who had been exposed to the highest levels of the chemical before the 16th week of gestation had significantly higher scores on tests for aggression than girls of the same age with less exposure.
The study is the first to examine the effect of BPA on behavior in human children. It is consistent with the results of prior animal studies, which have also found that BPA can affect the brain and reproductive system. The National Toxicology Program concluded in 2008 that there was evidence to support the chemical's effects on human children.
Because BPA mimics the effect of estrogen, which plays a critical role in the male brain during the 11th and 12th weeks of pregnancy, researchers believe that the chemical might be "masculinizing" the female brain.
"In the developing brain, timing is everything," said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.
"I'm worried that tiny amounts of this stuff, given at just the wrong time, could partly masculinize the female brain."
Although the study found no change in male behavior and no increase in behavioral disorders among girls, scientists noted that the population effects may be much greater than those seen in the study. Michelle Macias, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted that children in the study came from predominantly well-educated families, which tend to have lower aggression and hyperactivity rates than the average. In addition, neurologist David Bellinger noted that a population can become more aggressive as a whole without there being strong observable effects in individual children.
The researchers intend to continue studying the children until the age of five.
Sources for this story include: www.usatoday.com.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity killed Brittany Murphy - Could it be killing millions more?
(NaturalNews) The entire pharmaceutical industry is based on the idea that for whatever's wrong with you, there's a patented chemical pill that can make it better. Feeling some anxiety? There's a pill for that. Have high blood pressure? There's a pill for that, too. Suffering from sleepless nights? There's yet another pill for that, too.
Importantly, modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry both believe there is no limit to how many prescription medications you can simultaneously take. If you have ten health problems, they've got ten different pills for you. And when those pills cause twenty different dangerous side effects, they're ready for twenty more prescriptions for you to dutifully swallow.
This idea that health is achieved by taking prescription chemicals is ludicrous from the start. And yet it's the foundation of the pharmaceutical industry. Take as many pills as you "need", they insist. Don't worry: They're all FDA approved!
This is akin to believing that if it's safe to drive 65mph in your truck, and it's also safe to drive 65mph on your motorcycle, then if you load your motorcycle onto your truck, it's now safe to drive 130mph.
Despite the fact that no combination testing has ever been done on pharmaceuticals, they are regularly prescribed in combination. Obviously, this creates a whole new realm of unknown risk based on the way multiple drugs might chemically interact in the human body.
The more pharmaceuticals you take, the more dangerous they become. While one pharmaceutical chemical may at first seem harmless (even though just one drug can actually kill you), when you start adding a second, third, fourth and fifth prescription on top of that, you're dealing with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity (APT) that's never even been tested in clinical trials.
Pharmacists are trained to help people avoid the most toxic two-drug combinations, but they rarely have any real knowledge about what happens when you combine three, four, five or more drugs. No one does. The science has simply never been done on that question. It's no wonder: With all the possible combinations and permutations of pharmaceutical toxicity, it would take literally trillions of clinical trials to test them all.
So this whole idea that you can take a drug to treat one problem, then take a second drug to treat a second problem, and a third to treat a third problem... this entire approach to health care, upon which modern medicine is largely based, is flawed from the start. In clinical trials, patients are tested for one drug at a time. Never five or six (or ten).
So all the clinical trials that have ever been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry need to be thrown out the window for patients who take more than one drug. And that's just about everybody! Ask any senior citizen which prescription drugs they take, and most of them (the ones who can still remember, anyway) will rattle off a shockingly long list of toxic chemicals that have never been tested in combination. Just because one drug in isolation seems "safe" in one trial in no way means it's going to be safe when combined with half a dozen other toxic chemicals taken by the patient at the same time.
• Topamax (an anti-seizure medication)
• Methylprednisolone (anti-inflammatory drug)
• Fluoxetine (antidepressant)
• Klonopin (anxiety medication)
• Carbamazepine (bipolar medication)
• Ativan (anxiety medication)
• Vicoprofen (pain reliever)
• Propranolol (hypertension drug)
• Biaxin (an antibiotic)
• Hydrocodone (pain medication)
That's a whopping ten medications that Brittany Murphy may have been swallowing all at once.
Now, you can search PubMed, the National Library of Medicine and the archives of the FDA, and you will never find a single clinical trial testing these ten drugs in combination. It's never been done (and never will be). Big Pharma, you see, isn't interested in finding out what happens when their various drugs are combined in the same patient at the same time. Why? Because they know the results would be disastrous.
The result was certainly disastrous for Brittany Murphy. Her FDA-approved, doctor-prescribed, Big Pharma-promoted combination of toxic drugs appears to have cost her her life.
The FDA simply doesn't want to know. That's why reporting drug side effects and deaths to the FDA remains entirely voluntary. Big Pharma doesn't want anyone looking too closely at this issue, either. Coroners, for their part, rarely ask about pharmaceuticals as a possible cause of death. Typically, they just blame the death on whatever organ failed, calling it a "heart attack", for example, even when the heart attack might have been brought on by toxic pharmaceuticals.
Imagine if police detectives worked the same way. Investigating a crime scene where someone was thrown from a ten-story window and plunged to their death on the street below, imagine if the detective reported the cause of death as being, "Hitting the ground."
That's the way coroners work with the cause of death in patients killed by pharmaceuticals. They routinely ignore the real cause -- the chemical cause -- and just name whatever organ happened to fail first. "Liver failure" is a popular one. But what caused the liver to fail in the first place? It usually has something to do with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity.
Sadly, many movie stars have turned to pharmaceuticals to try to keep them functioning through the extreme stresses of a movie shoot. This inevitably leads to devastating consequences.
What professional actors need more than medication is nutrition. Only high-density nutrition can help them cope with the enormous stresses their careers demand. That's why I think more movie stars need to be drinking Boku Superfood, or Living Fuel, or Pure Synergy, or other high-quality superfoods every single day.
I continue to believe that if Brittany Murphy had ditched all those dangerous psychotropic drugs and instead turned to superfoods and high-density nutrition, she'd be alive and well today.
The bigger question in all this, though, is: Could millions of people around the world be dying right now from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? If so, how would we even know?
Sources for this story include:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...
Importantly, modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry both believe there is no limit to how many prescription medications you can simultaneously take. If you have ten health problems, they've got ten different pills for you. And when those pills cause twenty different dangerous side effects, they're ready for twenty more prescriptions for you to dutifully swallow.
This idea that health is achieved by taking prescription chemicals is ludicrous from the start. And yet it's the foundation of the pharmaceutical industry. Take as many pills as you "need", they insist. Don't worry: They're all FDA approved!
This is akin to believing that if it's safe to drive 65mph in your truck, and it's also safe to drive 65mph on your motorcycle, then if you load your motorcycle onto your truck, it's now safe to drive 130mph.
The fatal flaw in the theory behind pharmaceuticals
As you already guessed, there's a fatal flaw in this pharmaceutical approach to sick care: Pharmaceuticals have never been tested in combination with other drugs. So all the so-called "gold standard science" is absolutely worthless at knowing what might happen when half a dozen pharmaceutical drugs are combined in a patient's body. Brittany Murphy may have been on as many as TEN drugs!Despite the fact that no combination testing has ever been done on pharmaceuticals, they are regularly prescribed in combination. Obviously, this creates a whole new realm of unknown risk based on the way multiple drugs might chemically interact in the human body.
The more pharmaceuticals you take, the more dangerous they become. While one pharmaceutical chemical may at first seem harmless (even though just one drug can actually kill you), when you start adding a second, third, fourth and fifth prescription on top of that, you're dealing with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity (APT) that's never even been tested in clinical trials.
Pharmacists are trained to help people avoid the most toxic two-drug combinations, but they rarely have any real knowledge about what happens when you combine three, four, five or more drugs. No one does. The science has simply never been done on that question. It's no wonder: With all the possible combinations and permutations of pharmaceutical toxicity, it would take literally trillions of clinical trials to test them all.
So this whole idea that you can take a drug to treat one problem, then take a second drug to treat a second problem, and a third to treat a third problem... this entire approach to health care, upon which modern medicine is largely based, is flawed from the start. In clinical trials, patients are tested for one drug at a time. Never five or six (or ten).
So all the clinical trials that have ever been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry need to be thrown out the window for patients who take more than one drug. And that's just about everybody! Ask any senior citizen which prescription drugs they take, and most of them (the ones who can still remember, anyway) will rattle off a shockingly long list of toxic chemicals that have never been tested in combination. Just because one drug in isolation seems "safe" in one trial in no way means it's going to be safe when combined with half a dozen other toxic chemicals taken by the patient at the same time.
The list of drugs taken by Brittany Murphy boggles the mind
According to information leaked to the press, Brittany Murphy was found near prescription medications of all the following drugs:• Topamax (an anti-seizure medication)
• Methylprednisolone (anti-inflammatory drug)
• Fluoxetine (antidepressant)
• Klonopin (anxiety medication)
• Carbamazepine (bipolar medication)
• Ativan (anxiety medication)
• Vicoprofen (pain reliever)
• Propranolol (hypertension drug)
• Biaxin (an antibiotic)
• Hydrocodone (pain medication)
That's a whopping ten medications that Brittany Murphy may have been swallowing all at once.
Now, you can search PubMed, the National Library of Medicine and the archives of the FDA, and you will never find a single clinical trial testing these ten drugs in combination. It's never been done (and never will be). Big Pharma, you see, isn't interested in finding out what happens when their various drugs are combined in the same patient at the same time. Why? Because they know the results would be disastrous.
The result was certainly disastrous for Brittany Murphy. Her FDA-approved, doctor-prescribed, Big Pharma-promoted combination of toxic drugs appears to have cost her her life.
How many other patients are dying from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? (APT)
Brittany Murphy surely isn't the only Big Pharma customer who has been killed by Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity. But no one knows the actual number because no one keeps track!The FDA simply doesn't want to know. That's why reporting drug side effects and deaths to the FDA remains entirely voluntary. Big Pharma doesn't want anyone looking too closely at this issue, either. Coroners, for their part, rarely ask about pharmaceuticals as a possible cause of death. Typically, they just blame the death on whatever organ failed, calling it a "heart attack", for example, even when the heart attack might have been brought on by toxic pharmaceuticals.
Imagine if police detectives worked the same way. Investigating a crime scene where someone was thrown from a ten-story window and plunged to their death on the street below, imagine if the detective reported the cause of death as being, "Hitting the ground."
That's the way coroners work with the cause of death in patients killed by pharmaceuticals. They routinely ignore the real cause -- the chemical cause -- and just name whatever organ happened to fail first. "Liver failure" is a popular one. But what caused the liver to fail in the first place? It usually has something to do with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity.
Why celebrities need real nutrition
I've said it before, but celebrities lead extremely stressful lives. Being a movie star is no easy career choice -- it involves long hours, stressful travel and crazy work schedules.Sadly, many movie stars have turned to pharmaceuticals to try to keep them functioning through the extreme stresses of a movie shoot. This inevitably leads to devastating consequences.
What professional actors need more than medication is nutrition. Only high-density nutrition can help them cope with the enormous stresses their careers demand. That's why I think more movie stars need to be drinking Boku Superfood, or Living Fuel, or Pure Synergy, or other high-quality superfoods every single day.
I continue to believe that if Brittany Murphy had ditched all those dangerous psychotropic drugs and instead turned to superfoods and high-density nutrition, she'd be alive and well today.
The bigger question in all this, though, is: Could millions of people around the world be dying right now from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? If so, how would we even know?
Sources for this story include:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...
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