W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
12 June 2010
FDA typically vague about cell phones and brain tumor research
Hard Sell
http://hsibaltimore.com/2010/06/09/cell-phone/
Great news! There is no evidence linking cell phone use to brain tumor risk.
What a relief!
But…uh oh…that great news comes from the same people who brought you "Vioxx is safe," and "Keep using Avandia."
Yep–the FDA
So if the FDA is assuring us that cell phones don't cause brain tumors, my response is: "Gulp!"
At face value, the FDA report is actually reassuring.
It's based on a series of international studies called Interphone, coordinated by the World Health Organization. According to WHO officials, Interphone is the largest study to examine cell use and brain cancer, and includes the largest number of users with at least 10 years of radiofrequency exposure from cell phones.
And here's the FDA's quick summary of the results: "The study reported little or no risk of brain tumors for most long-term users of cell phones."
Okay…wait a second. The FDA spin doctors titled their press release "No Evidence Linking Cell Phone Use to Risk of Brain Tumors." But then they say there's "little or no risk."
So, which is it? Little risk, or no risk? And "for most long-term users"? That sounds to me like people ARE at risk if they can't pry the cell away from their ear. And I know LOTS of people like that. I'll bet you do too.
The FDA does this sort of thing all the time. When it comes to delivering news that might be unpleasant for giant corporations (such as Pfizer, or Lilly, or (in this case) Sprint, or ATT) they're as vague as a schoolboy who doesn't want to show his mother a bad report card.
Brain dangers
A New York Times article covered the same study and revealed some VERY important points missing from the FDA version.
For starters, Interphone subjects who used cell phones the most had a 40 percent higher risk of giloma, the same type of brain tumor that Senator Kennedy died from. But in FDA World, this is not "evidence" because it doesn't prove that cell use caused the tumors.
That's a pretty thin slice of comfort. And the comfort disappears completely when you hear from those who worked on Interphone.
The Times reports that several Interphone researchers told Microwave News that giloma risk among long-term users was larger toward the end of the study.
And Elisabeth Cardis–leader of the Interphone project– said, "Overall, my opinion is that the results show a real effect."
Which is pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of the FDA press release title.
Hmmm…it's almost as if FDA officials WANTED to obscure the danger. Which would not be exactly shocking. After all, it is one of the things they do best.
One quick side note: The Times refers to the FDA as a "health group." As you can imagine, THAT had me laughing.
Drug industry shill–absolutely. Protector of the corporate status quo–without question. But a health group?
When flying pigs use cell phones.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Sources:
"No Evidence Linking Cell Phone Use to Risk of Brain Tumors" FDA Consumer Update, 5/17/10, fda.gov
"Questions About Cellphones and Brain Tumors" Tara Parker- Pope, New York Times, 5/18/10, well.blogs.nytimes.com
Submitted by Christine
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Why vanishing snake colonies have 'large-scale implications' for humanity
Lesley Ciarula Taylor Staff Reporter Fri Jun 11 2010
The first documented evidence of the baffling disappearance of up to 90 per cent of snake colonies in five disparate spots on the globe has "large-scale implications" for humanity, a Canadian expert says.
And the "most obvious cause, intuitively, would be climate change," biologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto, told the Star.
"Snakes are top predators in their eco system," said Head. "They are regulators on rodents. If we remove that regulator, you can expect an increase in the number of disease vectoring (carrying) animals."
Venomous snakes are taking the biggest hit in the findings, which has serious consequences for medicine, said Head.
"Snakes are not an insignificant component of human society," he said. "There are large-scale implications" to the disappearance of some kinds of snakes, including the role of snake venom in medicine.
"You can draw your own conclusions."
A recently published study in the journalBiology Letters involving painstaking research in England, Nigeria, Australia, Italy and France discovered eight species in 17 snake populations in those widely different climates that had "declined drastically," said Dr. Christopher Reading, lead researcher for the study.
"In some of the populations, the decline was 70 to 90 per cent,"
Reading of the Center for Ecology & Hydrology in Wallingford, England, told the Star.
"This is the first documented evidence that some snake populations have declined. And the fact that it happened at all of the same time, irrespective of geography, indicates there is something at a higher level behind it."
Snakes are "quite difficult animals to work with," Reading explained. His team used a tag similar to the microchip that veterinarians use on dogs or cats, while the Italian researchers tracked their snakes with a permanent mark on their belly scales.
In all, 11 species were followed from as far back as the 1980s through 2005. In the late 1990s, certain species started vanishing.
In particular, the "fairly sedentary" snakes that use an "ambush foraging technique" disappeared in greater numbers compared with the "wide-ranging, active foragers," said Reading. And those most sedentary snakes tended to be the venomous ones.
"The scale and precision of this study" impressed Head. And while researchers were careful not to pin the mysterious decline on any one cause, the vastly different geologies of the regions, from tropical to temperate, suggested "one ultimate driving mechanism," with climate change the clearest culprit, he said.
"It's alarming, to be honest," Head said. "This is a compelling analysis that is certainly going to get a lot of people looking at the diversity of the species."
The next stage of study, Reading said, would be to track more snake colonies and more species in more parts of the world, including North America.
"It's possible what we have found is an aberration. But I suspect it is much more widespread."
Reading makes it clear the discovery is only the first stage.
"The whole reason for this paper was to say, 'Look, this is what we've found. We are quite alarmed by it. We don't know what the causes are, but we are flagging it so that herpetologists around the world will look at it."
SOME DECLINING SNAKE POPULATIONS
Smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) in the U.K.
Asp viper (Vipera aspis) in France and Italy
Orsini's viper (Vipera ursinii) in Italy
Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica) in Nigeria
Rhinoceros viper (Bitis nasicornis) in Nigeria
Royal or ball python (Python regius) in Nigeria
Western whip snake (Hierophis viridiflavus) in France
Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus) in France
Submitted by Lori
Note - Poorly designed electrical systems allow considerable amounts of electricity to travel across the land in much of North America (stray voltage). That electricity can carry very dangerous high frequency electrical pollution. It would not be surprising to discover that snakes are being harmed by this pollution.
Please view the attached document 'Frog Study'.
Martin Weatherall
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Electropollution can cause diabetes
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Mike Adams
Natural News
http://www.gcnlive.com/wp/2010/06/10/new-research-electropollution-can-cause-diabetes/
Web site www.weepinitiative.org e-mail contactweep@weepinitiative.org
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