All dietary carbohydrates are digested into sugars called glucose. Glucose, in turn, can be metabolized (burned) for fuel using two different pathways. First, the glucose is metabolized into pyruvate. The pyruvate can then either enter the glycolysis pathway in the cytoplasm of the cell and produce lactate (this is an inefficient backup pathway), or it can be converted into acetyl-CoA and shuttled to the mitochondrial electron transport chain, which results in optimal energy production
The Warburg Effect refers to the observation that if your body has access to enough oxygen, it will preferentially burn (oxidize) glucose in your mitochondria by converting the pyruvate into acetyl-CoA
The state of mitochondrial physiology that Warburg accurately identified occurs when your body has enough oxygen and the mitochondria are not maxed out, yet still uses the backup glycolysis pathway. This is also called cancer metabolism. It gives the false impression that cancer is using glucose to supply its metabolic needs for energy, but it is merely an illusion
The primary reason glucose cannot be burned in your mitochondria is because the mitochondria are dysfunctional. This dysfunction is the result of the electron transport chain (ETC) being backed up with an excess of electrons that are unable to flow easily through the five complexes. This condition is known as reductive stress. In this situation, your body has no choice but to use the backup system, glycolysis
Contrary to natural fructose (found in ripe fruits and honey, for example), refined sugars and many starches are more likely to cause gut dysbiosis that leads to the production of endotoxin. This endotoxin is one of the factors that destroys mitochondrial function, resulting in cancer metabolism (the Warburg Effect) where glucose is burned through glycolysis
There’s a common misconception that all sugar, i.e., carbohydrates in general, will act as fuel for cancer, but nothing could be further from reality. When it comes to the “sugar fuels cancer” issue, it’s important to make a distinction between the sources of the carbs.
Today, I sent the following information to my brother-in-law, who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. This was after listening to the latest Greg Hunter ‘Watchdog USA’ podcast on turbo cancers and Ivermectin being used to treat certain cancers. I did some research and I found a plethora of peer reviewed studies on this subject. Below I’ve linked 5 of those articles along with some highlights.
I’m sharing this as it might be very useful information to those of you that may either be suffering with a cancer or, know someone who is. ******************************************************
Ivermectin converts cold tumors hot and synergizes with immune checkpoint blockade for treatment of breast cancer
The main propaganda line is that vaccines and boosters are ‘safe and effective’ and prevent severe illness and death. These are lies, as shown by the data.
COVID propaganda lies set a record in the history of the human race. It has killed millions of people.
The recent sharp increase in COVID deaths has caught my attention. I have been watching daily COVID statistics in The Washington Post. A few months ago, the 7-day average for deaths was about 300. In last Sunday’s paper, it was 500.
Darlene Coker knew she was dying. She just wanted to know why.
She knew that her cancer, mesothelioma, arose in the delicate membrane surrounding her lungs and other organs. She knew it was as rare as it was deadly, a signature of exposure to asbestos. And she knew it afflicted mostly men who inhaled asbestos dust in mines and industries such as shipbuilding that used the carcinogen before its risks were understood.
Coker, 52 years old, had raised two daughters and was running a massage school in Lumberton, a small town in eastern Texas. How had she been exposed to asbestos? “She wanted answers,” her daughter Cady Evans said.
Fighting for every breath and in crippling pain, Coker hired Herschel Hobson, a personal-injury lawyer. He homed in on a suspect: the Johnson’s Baby Powder that Coker had used on her infant children and sprinkled on herself all her life. Hobson knew that talc and asbestos often occurred together in the earth, and that mined talc could be contaminated with the carcinogen. Coker sued Johnson & Johnson, alleging that “poisonous talc” in the company’s beloved product was her killer.
J&J didn’t tell the FDA that at least three tests by three different labs from 1972 to 1975 had found asbestos in its talc – in one case at levels reported as “rather high.”
A San Francisco Jury awarded $289 million in damages to a former school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, who said Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller gave him terminal cancer. The award consists of $40 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages.
Johnson’s trial was fast-tracked due to the severe state of his non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system he says was triggered by Roundup and Ranger Pro, a similar glyphosate herbicide that he applied up to 30 times per year. His doctors didn’t think he’d live to live to see the verdict.
Johnson testified that he had been involved in two accidents during his work in which he was doused with the product, the first of which happened in 2012. Two years later, the 46-year-old father of two was diagnosed with lymphoma – which has covered as much as 80% of his body in lesions.
It sucks getting old. I had to have Mohs surgery to remove some skin cancer above my lip this morning. I thought it was going to be some minor slicing. The dude took a huge chunk out of my face. Now it hurts like hell and my lip is swollen to enormous proportions. The bandage can come off tomorrow. I’m sure it will look splendid. Then I get to do an 8 hour round trip to Penn State to move my son back to school. Avalon laughed when I told her to take the picture. Can’t a guy get some compassion? My mustache is going to be a mess.
I concluded a few years ago that once anything gets big, it goes bad. What might start out as a noble cause eventually becomes corrupt, mismanaged, and worthless. When I realized the thousands and thousands I had donated to the Catholic Church over the years was funding the priest abuse cover-up, I stopped giving and walked away from the corrupt organization run by evil men. I’ve given money to the Wounded Warrior organization. Another waste of money. The executives were partying with 50% of the contributed funds. Never give a penny to this organization again. The same goes for every large charity organization. The bigger they get, the more it is about the people running the operation.
Any organization that spends more than 10% of their funds on overhead, should be shunned. That’s why I only give to the local foodbank near my house. They directly help people in need every day. No middleman. No advertising campaigns. No massive organization. One building, a couple people running it, volunteers feeding the down on their luck, and no lavish homes and perks for executives like the Cancer scams, United Way, ALS, and a myriad of other massive bureaucracies designed to bilk you.
Wounded Warrior Project execs fired
But CBS News found Wounded Warrior Project spends 40 to 50 percent on overhead, including extravagant parties. Other veterans charities have overhead costs of 10 to 15 percent.
Wounded Warrior Project’s Chief Executive Officer, Steven Nardizzi, and Chief Operating Officer, Al Giordano, were fired after a meeting Thursday afternoon in New York.
By appealing to America’s generosity, Wounded Warrior Project raised more than a billion dollars in donations since 2003 — $300 million in 2014 alone.
Tomorrow at lunch, a kid is going to dare you to take a dip of Copenhagen. If you say yes, like I did, you’ll be addicted for the rest of your life. Well, the rest of your life up to the point when you are diagnosed with cancer.
I get what you’re thinking. You’re 16 — you’re invincible, just like all your buddies. If you were to jump ahead 33 years, you couldn’t write a better dream than the one your life is going to be.
With one exception.
If you say yes tomorrow, you will become addicted to chewing tobacco and you will get mouth cancer.
I’m going to tell you a little story that I think may help guide you. (I saw this on a TV series called The West Wing — great show, you’re going to love it one day — and it very much rings true).
There was a man — we’ll call him Joe. Joe lived in the same house his entire life. One day, a huge storm came. He turned on the radio: Prepare for torrential rains and deadly flash flooding. Everyone should evacuate to safety immediately.
See, Joe was a devout Christian. He had the Lord in his life for as long as he could remember. Church every Sunday, prayed twice a day.
“My faith in God is resolute. He will save me,” Joe thought.
The rain kept coming down.
About two hours later, water began to flood his house, so he scrambled on to the roof.
After a half-hour, with the water rising rapidly, a boat sputtered up to Joe’s house, which was now partially submerged.
Boat driver: “Come on down, I will take you to safety!”
Joe sat calmly on his roof.
Joe: “No thanks! My faith in God is strong, God will save me!”
So the boat sped off.
Another hour went by, and the water had risen to the roof.
A helicopter flew over, saw Joe and swooped down, dropping down a rope.
Helicopter pilot: “Grab a hold! I will pull you up!”
Joe: “No thank you! My faith in the Lord is strong. He will save me!!”
The man looked awkwardly at what he could only guess was someone who’d lost his mind. The helicopter flew off.
About 10 minutes later the water overtook Joe’s roof, so he swam out into the strong current. It quickly pulled him below.
When Joe opened his eyes, he saw the Lord standing at the gates of Heaven.
“Joe, what on earth are you doing here??”
“I was just about to ask you that very question, Father,” Joe replied.
“Wait… what?” says God.
“Father I have had Faith in you since my first memory. I have prayed morning and night to you. I have sinned, but you know that in my heart I have asked for forgiveness and tried my hardest to do right by you.”
“Yes, Joe I know in your heart you are a good, honest and loving man.”
“Then why did you let me die?” Joe asked.
“I sent you a radio message, a boat and a helicopter! What more did you want?”
I tell you, 16-year-old me, that story for a very important reason. From tomorrow forward, you will be given the same signs that Joe was given a hundred times over. Many will be far more insightful and far more telling than the ones he received.
You will develop sores, you will lose your sense of taste and smell. You will develop lesions. You will lose your gums — they will rot. You will have problems with your teeth for the rest of your life.
You will meet men — many good, honest men — who chewed. None of them will have their entire face. They will be missing jaws, chins, cheeks, noses and more. None will live more than a year or two after you meet them. All of them were tobacco chewers.
You will meet Joe Garigiola. He will introduce you to Bill Tuttle. Bill will have no lower face. His entire lower jaw is gone. It was that, or die of mouth cancer. Well, not “that or,” because that mouth cancer would kill him inside of two years.
You will brush your teeth and your mouth will bleed. Not light blood from your gums, but darker blood from deeper inside your mouth. That’s the chew destroying your tissue. You will get message after message, but your addiction will always win, until it wins the biggest battle.
You will get message after message, but your addiction will always win, until it wins the biggest battle
If you say yes tomorrow, you will begin to kill yourself from the inside out. It’s difficult for you to understand in this current phase of your life, but by chewing tobacco, you are jeopardizing your participation in what will be some of your most important moments.
You will risk any chance of seeing your four amazing children graduate high school. You will potentially lose the opportunity to walk your daughter Gabriella (who, like her dad, will be blessed with simple yet outstanding pitching mechanics) down the aisle. You will risk not seeing Gehrig, your oldest son, pitch for four years at a New England college. You may miss your son Grant graduating high school and changing the world. And you may be absent as your youngest son Garrison — who aspires to follow in your father’s footsteps and join the army — masterfully plays goalie with a remarkable passion.
You could miss the most important and rewarding days of your life with your beautiful wife Shonda.
If cancer kills you, what are you leaving them with? What are you leaving them for?
Your dad is going to die in five years. You know what’s going to kill him? A heart attack brought on by heart disease and lung cancer caused by tobacco use. He’ll die right in front of you. You two will be alone and together for his final minutes on earth. The night before he passes away, you two are going to sit up and talk until 4 a.m. You will chalk up the conversation as peculiar, but years later it will hit you like a ton of bricks. It will hit you like a radio message, boat or helicopter. He knew. It’s why the things he told you that night were things only a dad can tell a son. He knew.
Right now, you don’t listen to the messages God gives you. And if you don’t alter this habit, in 32 years you will be diagnosed with cancer.
Finally, consider this: How many kids will start dipping over the next 32 years because they saw you do it?
Do you want that on you? No?
Then my advice is simple. Tomorrow, at lunch, just say no.
Make the right choice,
– Curt
Schilling currently serves as an on-air analyst for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Shonda Schilling is running the 119th Boston Marathon on April 20 as part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team to support Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where Curt received treatment for cancer last year. Click here to contribute to Shonda’s run.
I could get rich selling my cancer cure by the ounce. I give it away for free now. Avalon doesn’t need to worry about getting cancer sleeping in the same room as me.
Ridiculous Study of the Day Says Smelling Farts Might Prevent Cancer
“Although hydrogen sulfide gas”—produced when bacteria breaks down food—”is well known as a pungent, foul-smelling gas in rotten eggs and flatulence, it is naturally produced in the body and could in fact be a healthcare hero with significant implications for future therapies for a variety of diseases,” Dr. Mark Wood said in a university release.
Although the stinky gas can be noxious in large doses, the researchers seem to think that a whiff here and there has the power to reduce risks of cancer, strokes, heart attacks, arthritis, and dementia by preserving mitochondria. Researchers are even coming up with their own compound to emulate the stinky smell’s health benefits.
“‘We have exploited this natural process by making a compound, called AP39, which slowly delivers very small amounts of this gas specifically to the mitochondria,” Professor Matt Whiteman, who worked on the study to be published in the Medicinal Chemistry Communications journal, said.
So thank the guy in the elevator. While it might have seemed like the ride from hell, IT MIGHT JUST SAVE YOUR LIFE. Or not.
Dr. John O’Connor can’t forget the cancer patients he’s seen. The quiet school bus driver who tried to hide his jaundice from his wife. The traditional elderly man who came to the examining room “yellow, almost green” and died the day after his operation. The Lebanese immigrant, deeply in love with his partner who lost her uncle nine years ago to the same disease, given less than a year to live. As the physician for the beautiful, remote First Nations community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, O’Connor wants to know why he’s seen so much suffering.
“Why should I see such illness in such a stunning, out of the way community?” he wondered. “It makes absolutely no sense. The rate of smoking is lower there. People walk everywhere … There’s no processed foods in their diets. It just doesn’t make sense.”
It was 2006 when O’Connor first went public with his claims of unprecedented cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan. What followed were eight long years that saw O’Connor questioned, threatened, and forced to move, all because he publicly voiced his suspicions that those rates might be caused by pollution from large tar sands reserves extracted just 150 miles upstream.
Now, he is still wondering why the government hasn’t yet studied the cause for the high cancer rates, why they recommended the oil industry take part in the health study process, and, perhaps most importantly, why it has taken so long to provide updated information regarding the cancer rates to the ailing community.
“It is nauseatingly disgusting, what’s going on,” O’Connor said. “This community has been totally brushed aside.”
‘Totally Unprecedented’
In March 2006, CBC News published its first article about O’Connor and Fort Chipewyan, known locally as Fort Chip.
“Dr. John O’Connor, a physician and medical examiner for the remote northern community, says the population of 1,200 has been disproportionately affected by a high number of both rare and common cancers,” the article read. “Elders in the community say they didn’t see these kinds of diseases until the oil industry started production near their homes on the southwestern tip of Lake Athabasca. O’Connor said he suspects oil and gas activity may play a role.”
Soon after, the public and the media began putting pressure on the government to study the cancer rates further. If pollution from tar sands production was indeed causing these high cancer rates as O’Connor suspected, people wanted to know. After all, Fort Chip is only 150 miles downstream from Canada’s largest tar sands reserve. If cancer was on the rise there, the same could be true for other communities.
Then, in what many considered a surprising turn, the country’s lead agency for public health filed four complaints of misconduct against O’Connor, including causing “undue alarm” and “engendering a sense of mistrust” in the Canadian government. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta was asked to investigate. O’Connor risked losing his medical licence.
“From what I’ve heard off the record, from members of the medical community, this [was] totally unprecedented,” Andrew Nikiforuk, a Canadian journalist who has been writing about the oil and gas industry for nearly 20 years, said during a parliamentary hearing on O’Connor’s now-famous situation.
Media attention swirled around O’Connor in Alberta while the charges were being processed. So he moved to Nova Scotia, “to escape all the craziness.” He set up his own practice there, and a friend, Dr. Liam Griffin, took over physician services at Fort Chip.
But public pressure over O’Connor’s case would not cease, and the Alberta Cancer Board finally conducted a study on O’Connor’s claims in 2009. In that study, the Board confirmed that there were, indeed, high cancer rates in Fort Chip. O’Connor was absolved of the charges and moved back to Alberta — but not without scars from the experience.
“The feeling, it’s hard to describe,” O’Connor said. “That was two years and eight months of my life that I would not want to repeat.”
Three Options
The results of Alberta Cancer Board’s study were staggering. Cancer rates in Fort Chip were 30 percent higher than expected. There were elevated rates of blood cancer, lymphatic cancer, and soft tissue cancers. The high rates were primarily seen in the last six years of the 12-year study, a finding the Board said should warrant “closer monitoring of cancer occurrences in Fort Chipewyan in the coming years.”
The Board was not asked to look into the cause of the cancer. It did, however, offer three potential reasons for the increased rates.
First, O’Connor could be what is called a “Texas Sharp Shooter” — like someone who randomly shoots his gun at the side of a barn and draws a bulls-eye around the bullet clusters. In this case, O’Connor’s observations of cancer would be a coincidence.
Second, O’Connor could just be a really good at detecting cancer. Maybe, before O’Connor came to the community, Fort Chipewyan’s doctors just weren’t as skilled at recognizing disease. Maybe there was always cancer in Fort Chip.
And the third option the board offered was that the people of Fort Chipewyan could be at higher risk of developing cancer due to heightened exposure to carcinogens that may have leached into their water from tar sands and uranium extraction.
O’Connor believes the answer is option three. For him, knowing the history of Fort Chip before and after tar sands expansion, it is just common sense.
Warning Signs
Though O’Connor became Fort Chip’s physician in 2006, he began visiting in 2000. “Like every or any aboriginal community, you don’t just barge in and expect people to trust you right away,” he said. “I kind of represent the invader, the white guy. They sort of have to get a measure of you before they open up.”
During his visits, he would hear about the old Lake Athabasca, the clear Lake Athabasca. Twenty years ago, Fort Chip residents would draw their drinking water from it, bathe in it, think nothing of dunking a cup over the side of a canoe during fishing trips. A bounty of big walleye and pickerel made the lake a fishing industry for two months of the year and residents would earn extra money sending the fish to markets in the Eastern United States.
But then things started to change. “Every one of them described the same thing,” O’Connor said. “The water was constantly — there was a sheen of oil on it. It didn’t taste right. It tasted bad. They couldn’t boil it. They couldn’t use it for anything at all.”
The fish started to change, too. Fort Chip elder “Big Ray” Ladouceur said he began to see “pushed in faces, bulging eyes, humped back, crooked tails.” A friend caught a jackfish with two lower jaws. The community eventually decided to send two boxes of the fish to Canada’s Fish and Wildlife agency for study. At the last minute, the boxes were never sent.
“I think they did that on purpose,” Ladouceur said. “They didn’t want to get the feedback … They’re scared.”
Fort Chip did receive some feedback anyway in 2007, a few months after O’Connor’s self-exile to Nova Scotia. Health Canada released a study that said the fish abnormalities were not necessarily related to water pollution or toxic discharges. Even so, the study recommended residents limit fish consumption and caution children against playing in the surrounding waters, due to higher-than-expected levels of mercury, aluminum, and selenium.
Water surrounds Fort Chip, making it nearly impossible to avoid. The community is only reachable by plane, save for two months out of the year when the ice can serve as a road for vehicles. The portion of Lake Athabasca that encompasses the community is located 150 miles downstream from the Athabasca tar sands, one of three large deposits that helps make Alberta home to the second largest oil reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia.
Out of those three regions, the Athabasca tar sands are the biggest. It is also the only large tar sands field that is suitable for surface mining. There are several active and abandoned uranium mines that surround the lake, which O’Connor believes could also be contributing to the elevated cancer rates.
It’s not hard to believe that the tar sands may be causing some detrimental pollution. The Primrose tar sands project near Cold Lake, Alberta has been leaking for at least the past ten months, though Canadian officials acknowledge they’re not sure when those leaks started. In northeast Alberta, scientists have found the tar sands deposits are surrounded by a nearly 7,500-square-mile ring of mercury. And at least six families, including children, have abandoned their homes in Peace River, Alberta, citing health concerns from heavy oil emissions. The Alberta Energy Regulator recently confirmed that those families’ illnesses were likely caused by the tar sands.
A Seat At The Table
Dr. O’Connor concedes that he does not know if it’s pollution from the tar sands that is causing cancer in Fort Chip and that’s precisely the reason why, for the last eight years, he has been asking for the Canadian government to conduct a comprehensive health study that could pinpoint the cause.
That study seemed like it just might happen back in September 2009 when Health Canada and Alberta Health agreed to set up a joint federal committee, called the Physician Advisory Committee (PAC), to set the terms. O’Connor says things ultimately fell apart, though, when the chair of the PAC — Dr. Brent Friesen, the medical officer of health at Alberta Health Services — suggested that a clause be added giving the tar sands industry an integral role in management and oversight of the study.
The Canadian government is not allowed to conduct studies on First Nation communities without their consent, and Fort Chip residents would not give their blessing to a study overseen by the oil industry, O’Connor said. Alberta Health confirmed that the Friesen and other members of the PAC had proposed industry representation in the study, but added that it was not meant to be a requirement for it to move forward.
“Dr. Friesen did not, in any way, insist upon industry representation as a condition of the study proceeding,” Alberta Health senior communications advisor Shannon Evans said via e-mail. “Though the proposal did suggest the inclusion of industry representation … neither Dr. Friesen nor other Physician Advisory Committee members insisted upon this industry representation as a condition of the study proceeding.”
On the other side, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said his community specifically rejected the health study proposal because the oil industry had to be involved.
“It was a condition that was put on the [study] and that’s why it was rejected by the First Nations,” Chief Adam said.
Health Canada, the other government agency spearheading the PAC, declined to answer questions about industry involvement in a health study for Fort Chip residents. Instead, Health Canada spokesperson Judith Gadbois-St-Cyr said Fort Chip residents “have publicly stated they do not support proceeding with that study,” not because of industry involvement but “because [the study] would not focus solely on cancer, but instead be a comprehensive health study that would include cancer as a key element.”
When pressed to explain why Health Canada would not address industry ties to a study, Gadbois-St-Cyr said the agency’s official position was that it was “not their place” to participate in a “he said she said” argument over why Fort Chip residents did not want a health study, and noted that Alberta Health had a bigger role.
Alberta Health confirmed that Friesen once sat on the Health Sub-Committee of OSCA, an industry group with a focus on community impacts of the oil sands, but only to “ensure that [Alberta Health] — as the health service delivery organization — is properly represented in discussions pertaining to prevention, treatment and health services needs in the area,” Evans said. Evans denied accusations that Friesen ever did any consulting work for CAPP.
Those in Fort Chip are not convinced. “We’re doing our analysis on Dr. Friesen and we’re going to expose him,” Chief Adam said. “We’re going to bring all of this into perspective, but give us some time.”
Still Fighting For Answers
Last week, Alberta Health officials released updated numbers for cancer rates in Fort Chip. According to those numbers, the community has slightly increased rates of biliary tract cancer, cervical cancer, and lung cancer. Everything else, they said, is normal.
The numbers report was not the comprehensive health study Fort Chip residents are looking for — just an update on how much cancer is in the area compared to other areas of Alberta. Even so, Alberta Health’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. James Talbot, told the community that none of their increased cancer rates are likely due to pollution from the tar sands industry and can easily be explained by other factors.
Not everyone is buying it.
“Anyone who knows the slightest bit of mathematics knows that with a population as small as Fort Chipewyan, the statistics are not going to work,” said Dr. David Schindler, a University of Alberta limnologist who has researched how the tar sands effect freshwater systems. “The nature of epidemiological studies is that if you’re studying 10,000 or 100,000 people, you can say something is significant. You can’t do that with less than 1,000 people.”
Schindler says his experience with studying how the oil industry pollutes water — particularly Lake Athabasca and Fort Chipewyan — has proved to him that the Canadian government is disinterested in making the link, if there is one, between tar sands and cancer. He claims that after his research found the industry was adding a significant number of pollutants to Lake Athabasca, the government and the oil industry underwent repeated attempts to prove his studies were flawed.
“It’s a standard government and industry tactic to cast doubt on things and then continue to do what you’re familiar with, and you don’t have to make any decisions,” he said. “It’s interesting, because if they find no chemicals that can be linked to the oil sands, then it exonerates the oil sands completely. But no one seems interested in answering that question.”
Both Alberta Health and Health Canada have stated that they remain committed to funding a comprehensive health study on the cancer rates. But at this point, Fort Chip residents don’t even want them to.
“Based on the specifications that both Health Canada and Alberta Health put on they study, that industry wants to have a say in it, we said no,” Chief Adam said. “We can’t trust them … We need a completely independent report.”
Not Just A Canadian Concern
Fort Chip’s cancer debacle is beginning to attract the attention of some lawmakers — but they’re not from Canada.
U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last month invited Dr. O’Connor to Washington D.C., to testify on his experience working on Fort Chip. They’re now calling for the U.S. government to study how America’s public health would be affected by the increased extraction and processing of tar sands oil, particularly via the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline will leak, after all. All pipelines do.
And the transport of tar sands isn’t the only thing that should have Americans concerned. In February, U.S. Oil Sands received its final permits to begin tar sands extraction in Utah’s Unitah Basin and other states have expressed interest in exploring the possibility, as well.
For the people of Fort Chip, however, simply being concerned is no longer an option.
Inspirational story sent in by a reader named Cameron. These are the stories that teach you what is really important in life. Family, friends and community are an unbeatable combination. We should all remember that.
At a time when my wife and I should have been hanging Christmas ornaments and preparing to spend the holidays with our three month old daughter Lily, our lives were torn apart by terrible news. My wife, Heather, had been feeling ill for a while after giving birth to Lily. When we started to think her tiredness was more than just new mother symptoms, we booked an appointment with our doctor and received the heartbreaking news – Heather had mesothelioma, a rare and extremely deadly form of cancer.
We were not familiar with this disease and our doctor carefully explained as much basic information as he could. Heather and I were completely stunned as we listened to him list the potential outcome of the disease and how imperative it was that we immediately get her to see a specialist. It did not take long for us to make plans to travel to Boston to get her in to see a reputable doctor who had long-term experience in helping patients fight mesothelioma.
As we were leaving the doctor’s office after getting the diagnosis, I could tell how worried and anxious Heather was. I was fighting my own fears and I realized I would have to become a caregiver for her. Heather’s face revealed all of her anxieties, and I tried desperately to hide the worries that were bubbling up inside of me as I made the decision to do everything I could do to take care of her and help her to get better.
Facing the possibility of your wife dying due to cancer is not something anyone should have to go through, but it happens to numerous people every single day. I can only say that it is important to let your determination take priority in helping your loved one to get better.
Becoming Heather’s chief caregiver expanded my already full list of things to do. Heather and I both had been working full-time while also taking care of Lily. Due to her illness, Heather had to leave her job and focus on getting better. I stopped working full-time and worked only part-time hours so I could pick up the slack in other areas. I did my best to be there for Heather every moment possible, and I still tried to spend as much time with Lily as I could. My responsibilities and my anxiety about what could happen overwhelmed me, and many days I felt like I simply couldn’t go on. Luckily, I found out that we did not have to fight this battle alone. Family, friends and even strangers came through with invaluable support when we needed it most.
Members of our community helped us financially, and they also provided immensely helpful care for Lily. It would have been difficult beyond belief to try to survive the whole ordeal without the help that was so generously given to us. If I had to give one piece of advice to others in the caregiver role today, it would be to accept every offer of help that comes your way. The support you receive from others can be a huge weight off your shoulders, and will remind you that you are not alone in the fight.
After months of difficult treatments for mesothelioma, Heather was able to defy the odds and beat this terrible cancer. While she was originally told she may have only 15 months to live, she has now been healthy and happy for over 6 years. Now, we wish to help spread hope to others in their own cancer battles by sharing our story of success over cancer.
The world’s best-selling weedkiller, and a genetically modified maize resistant to it, can cause tumours, multiple organ damage and lead to premature death, new research published today reveals.
In the first ever study to examine the long-term effects of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, or the NK603 Roundup-resistant GM maize also developed by Monsanto, scientists found that rats exposed to even the smallest amounts, developed mammary tumours and severe liver and kidney damage as early as four months in males, and seven months for females, compared with 23 and 14 months respectively for a control group.
“This research shows an extraordinary number of tumours 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, and a member of CRIIGEN, the independent scientific council which supported the research.
GM crops have been approved for human consumption on the basis of 90-day animal feeding trials. But three months is the equivalent of late adolescence in rats, who can live for almost two years (700 days), and there have long been calls to study the effects over the course of a lifetime.
The peer-reviewed study, conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Caen, found that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 Roundup resistant GM maize, or given water containing Roundup at levels permitted in drinking water, over a two-year period, died significantly earlier than rats fed on a standard diet.
Up to half the male rats and 70% of females died prematurely, compared with only 30% and 20% in the control group. Across both sexes the researchers found that rats fed Roundup in their water or NK603 developed two to three times more large tumours than the control group. By the beginning of the 24th month, 50-80% of females in all treated groups had developed large tumours, with up to three per animal.
By contrast, only 30% of the control group were affected. Scientists reported the tumours “were deleterious to health due to [their] very large size,” making it difficult for the rats to breathe, [and] causing problems with their digestion which resulted in haemorrhaging.
The paper, published in the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology today, concluded that NK603 and Roundup caused similar damage to the rats’ health, whether they were consumed together or on their own. The team also found that even the lowest doses of Roundup, which fall well within authorised limits in drinking tap water, were associated with severe health problems.
“The rat has long been used as a surrogate for human toxicity. All new pharmaceutical, agricultural and household substances are, prior to their approval, tested on rats. This is as good an indicator as we can expect that the consumption of GM maize and the herbicide Roundup, impacts seriously on human health,” Antoniou added.
Roundup is widely available in the UK, and is recommended on Gardeners Question Time. But this also represents a potential blow for the growth of GM Foods.
With the global population expected to increase to nine billion by 2050, the UN has said that global food production must increase by 50%. And a consultation led by DEFRA entitled Green Food Project recommended as recently as 10 July 2012 that GM must be reassessed as a possible solution.
Some 85% of maize grown in the US is GM, while 70% of processed foods contain GM ingredients without GM labelling. In the UK and Europe GM maize is not consumed directly by humans but is widely used in animal feed without the requirement for GM labelling.
Antoniou said there could be no doubting the credibility of this peer-reviewed study. “This is the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats.”
Led by Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, the researchers studied 10 groups, each containing 10 male and 10 female rats, over their normal lifetime. Three groups were given Roundup – developed by Monstanto – in their drinking water at three different levels consistent with exposure through the food chain from crops sprayed with the herbicide.
Three groups were fed diets containing different proportions of Roundup resistant maize at 11%, 22% and 33%. Three groups were given both Roundup and the GM maize at the same three dosages. The control group was fed an equivalent diet with no Roundup or NK603 containing 33% of non-GM maize.
A spokesman for Monsanto said: “We will review it thoroughly, as we do all studies that relate to our products and technologies.”