Let's Talk Detox http://www.letstalkdetox.com/ ARE YOU TOXIC?_____________________Toxins, Issues and DETOX solutions. en-us Nucleus CMS v3.24 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.letstalkdetox.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Let's Talk Detox http://www.letstalkdetox.com/ Sunscreen Causes Cancer and FDA Does Nothing http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=93  


Unregulated by the FDA  it's well known for a decade now that sunscreen does not protect people from cancer. In fact it is known to cause breast cancer, and increase the incidence of malignant melanoma... one of the most aggressive and deadly cancers known.


 Sunscreen


How can this be you might ask. If I didn't think it was absolutely a horrendous thought, I might suspect that the FDA was doing everything it could to help us all GET cancer!?!?!


Most of us (mothers) have slathered sunscreen on our children since birth, feeling we were doing the right thing for them. Many of us have also been slathering it on ourselves. Watching my sis go through mastectomy and chemo for breast cancer at 45 years old, I can't help reading this story and picturing her many outdoor camping and hiking trips armed with 30 SPF.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



FDA REMAINS ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL ON THE DANGERS OF SUNSCREENS, BESIDES OTHER COSMETICS AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS


CHICAGO, IL, August 7, 2008 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- Since 1978, sunscreens have been regulated and labeled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the basis of their SPF (Skin Protection Factor).



On August 23, 2007, the FDA proposed new regulations for more informative labeling of sunscreens. However, almost a year later, they still remain pending.



In response to FDA’s inaction, and mounting concerns on the unreliability of the SPF, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wrote to the FDA on July 24 criticizing its failure to regulate the sunscreen industry, and prevent it from making “dangerously misleading claims” on the safety and effectiveness of its products.



A week later, Senator Jack Reed (D-Ri) and Christopher Dodd (D-Ct) introduced the “Sunscreen Labeling Act of 2008.” This gave the FDA six more months to finalize comprehensive rules, otherwise the Act would become law.



Sunscreens pose scientifically well documented risks. While well known for over a decade, they remain unregulated by the FDA, and ignored by the industry.



Sunscreens are based on six ingredients, some of which actively penetrate the skin, accumulate in the body, and have been identified in urine and breast milk.



More ominously, these ingredients have toxic hormonal effects, known technically as “endocrine disruptive.” Evidence for these effects has been well documented over the last decade. This includes stimulation of human breast cancer cells in test tube experiments, and increased uterine growth in immature female rats following skin painting or feeding.



Sunscreens block short wave ultraviolet light (UVB), which is responsible for sunburn. This encourages prolonged exposure, particularly of children. Moreover, sunscreens are ineffective against long wave ultraviolet light (UVA), which is responsible for malignant melanoma, the fastest growing known cancer. As a result, its incidence has increased by 130%, and its mortality has increased by 26% since 1975. FDA’s continuing regulatory failure in this regard reflects the reckless indifference to consumer product safety of its Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, former director of the National Cancer Institute.



Of major concern, and still ignored by the FDA, is the increasing addition to sunscreens of unlabeled atom or molecule size zinc oxide or titanium dioxide particles. Technically known as nanoparticles, they increase the durability and effectiveness of these products. However, as reported in over two dozen scientific publications since 2003, including those by an Environmental Protection Agency research team and the International Center for Technology Assessment, nanoparticles can penetrate the skin, invade blood vessels, and produce devastating distant toxic effects.



FDA’s regulatory failure extends from sunscreens to a wide range of other dangerous ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products. Of illustrative concern is FDA’s reckless failure to respond to November 1994 and May 2008 Citizen Petitions, by the Cancer Prevention Coalition, “Seeking a Cancer Warning on Cosmetic Talc Products,” used for feminine hygiene. As detailed in these Petitions, talc is a major avoidable cause of ovarian cancer, a relatively rare cancer at any age, whose incidence has escalated dramatically by 12% for white and 32% for black women, with about 15,000 deaths annually. This makes it the fourth most common fatal cancer after breast, colon and lung.



The “Sunscreen Labeling Act” should be the first step to developing a comprehensive “Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Labeling Act.” This could be modeled along the lines of California’s precedential 2007 Safe Cosmetics Act.



As warned by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Ma) at September 10, 1997 Hearings on the FDA Reform Bill, “The cosmetics industry has borrowed a page from the playbook of the tobacco industry by putting profits ahead of public health.” This warning remains recklessly unheeded by the FDA.



Samuel S. Epstein, MD

Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine

University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health

Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition

Chicago, Illinois

www.preventcancer.com

epstein@uic.edu

]]> General http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=93 Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:17:17 -0600 Autism, Thimerosal and Liquid Zeolite. http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=92 Zeolite Canada Health Forum

excerpt

The claim, one of 4,900 autism cases currently pending in Federal "Vaccine Court," was conceded by US Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and other Justice Department officials, on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, the "defendant" in all Vaccine Court cases.

The child's claim against the government -- that mercury-containing vaccines were the cause of her autism -- was supposed to be one of three "test cases" for the thimerosal-autism theory currently under consideration by a three-member panel of Special Masters, the presiding justices in Federal Claims Court.

Keisler wrote that medical personnel at the HHS Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation (DVIC) had reviewed the case and "concluded that compensation is appropriate."

The doctors conceded that the child was healthy and developing normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, when she received vaccinations against nine different diseases all at once (two contained thimerosal).

Days later, the girl began spiraling downward into a cascade of illnesses and setbacks that, within months, presented as symptoms of autism, including: No response to verbal direction; loss of language skills; no eye contact; loss of "relatedness;" insomnia; incessant screaming; arching; and "watching the florescent lights repeatedly during examination."

Seven months after vaccination, the patient was diagnosed by Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a leading neurologist at the Kennedy Krieger Children's Hospital Neurology Clinic, with "regressive encephalopathy (brain disease) with features consistent with autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development." The girl also met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) official criteria for autism.

This is HUGE and a step towards the government acknowledging that in at least some cases the vaccination precipitated the illness.

On to zeolite and it's use in Autism.

Zeolite removes heavy metals, including mercury, so is it possible that liquid zeolite could have some positive reversal effects in cases where heavy metal toxicity could be a precipitating factor?

Well, scientifically, there is no proof YET that this is the case. There is however, one study that I know of currently, that is in it's second year, so we may have some preliminary conclusion soon. The study is being performed in the United States, and you can read more about it at http://zeoliteautismstudy.com. The reason for the study is that there was much ANECDOTAL (testimonial) evidence that autistic children given the original liquid zeolite formula had improvements. Testimonial does not equal scientific proof however. That's why this study is so important.

The study is not currently recruiting new participants at this time, and current participants were limited to residents of certain states. Since liquid zeolite is non-toxic and could be helpful to remove toxins, many people are using the original liquid zeolite themselves and for their families, while they await the study results.

If you have questions about liquid zeolite you can find my contact info in the left menu of this site, we have International connections, and can assist you in getting some zeolite liquid no matter where in the world you are. Of course, some parts of the world are easier than other and you would have to balance the cost of extra shipping from North America, but I am willing to trouble shoot with you to find a solution to get product.

The bottom line is, liquid zeolite removes heavy metals and toxins. We don't know for sure yet of the outcome of the study. search the internet for testimonials, and information and inform yourself before making a decision on whether liquid zeolite might be a supplement for you or your loved ones.

ref: Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court - Now What?
Zeolite Canada Health Forum]]> Heavy Metal Detox - Liquid Zeolites http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=92 Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:11:42 -0700 Baby bottles leaching chemical, study finds http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=91 when heated, the bottles can release potentially harmful chemicals.

The study, commissioned by the Canadian group Environmental Defence, found that the bottles ooze bisphenol A (BPA) into the beverage inside in levels that surprised even the researchers.



Updated: Thu Feb. 07 2008 13:01:05

SOURCE: CTV.ca News Staff


Researchers from the University of Missouri-Columbia were asked to test nine polycarbonate bottles from three manufacturers -- Playtex, Avent and Gerber. The bottles were filled with water and heated in an oven at 80 degress Celsius, to simulate how the plastic would react to dozens of washings.


The laboratory tests detected 5-8 nanograms per milliliter (parts per billion) of bisphenol A leached out of all the bottles when they were heated -- a level that Environmental Defence calls "very significant."

All the Playtex products leaked BPA, regardless of whether they were heated or not. All three of the Gerber bottles and one of the Avent bottles had no detectible levels of BPA in fluids stored at room temperature.




Researcher Julia Taylor, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, says the results disturbed her.


"They were a little scary. You don't like to think that that amount of chemical would leech out into milk contained in a bottle, but clearly that's a potential problem," she told CTV News.


Taylor notes that the study represented how many parents typically use the bottles, heating them to sterilize them and then adding heated liquids, such as breast milk, formula or cow's milk.


"That tells us that with repeated use and repeated heating and increased damage to the bottles that would come through washing, we would see increased amount of bisphenol leaching out as the bottles age," she says.

Industry calls study 'scare tactics'


The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, the industry group representing the bottle manufacturers says the levels detected in the study are still considered "safe," and says it "stands by the scientific research indicating that plastic baby bottles are safe and reassures consumers not to fall victim to scare tactics."

"There is irrefutable data available on the safety of Bisphenol-A," the group said in a statement. "In spite of this strong scientific support, misinformation about polycarbonate baby bottles continues to circulate and as a result is needlessly scaring parents and caregivers away from a trusted and safe product."


Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence, disagrees, saying that recent research suggests that even lower levels of BPA exposure can alter cell function.

"What the results show is that Canadian babies are being contaminated by the very bottles that are supposed to be giving them life and nutrition," he says.


Environmental Defence says while the testing focused on nine brands, they believe the results can be considered indicative of almost all polycarbonate plastic baby bottles sold in North America.

CTV News asked for comment on the study from each of the three manufacturers. Gerber Canada and Avent have not yet provided responses; Playtex referred us to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association statement.

Bisphenol A has been the focus of much scrutiny in recent years, with worries that the chemical mimics estrogen. There are fears it can cause earlier onset of puberty in girls, declining sperm counts, and raise the risk of breast and prostate cancer.


But most of the scientific evidence demonstrating the effects of BPA have been conducted on laboratory animals such as mice, so there is little clinical evidence of the chemical's effect on humans.


While BPA is not bioaccumulative (meaning it doesn't persist in the environment or build up in fat stores), the European Commission recently classified the chemical for reproductive toxicity.

Health Canada conducting 'high priority' evaluation


For its part, Health Canada says it's currently conducting a "high priority" evaluation of the safety of bisphenol A, with a report due this May.


In a statement released this week to CTV News, it noted: "Health Canada is conducting several different studies on the leaching rate of bisphenol A. One of these studies does look at bottles first filled with boiling water. These results will be considered in the risk assessment as well as other potential consumer use scenarios.


"Health Canada is aware that bisphenol A (BPA) migration from polycarbonate bottles is temperature dependent and in its assessment of BPA is reviewing the results of other Canadian and international studies."


Last week, a report in the journal Toxicology Letters found that polycarbonate plastic drinking bottles release BPA 55 times more rapidly and in higher amounts than when they were filled with room temperature water.


When the bottles were filled with cool water, the rate of BPA release ranged from 0.2 to 0.8 nanograms per hour. After the bottles were exposed to boiling water, rates increased to 8 to 32 nanograms per hour.


Smith says precautionary action should be taken now.


"The federal and provincial governments should immediately ban this chemical from food and beverage containers," he says. "And if any parents have these bottles at home, they should get rid of them immediately."

Environmental Defence is also encouraging retailers to stop selling products that contain BPA. Both Mountain Equipment Co-op and Lululemon recently chose to take polycarbonate plactic drinking bottles off their shelves.


Worried parents can switch back to traditional glass bottles, though the bottles do carry the risk of breakage. There is also a new generation of BPA-free plastic bottles now being sold in North America and Europe, mostly in health food stores and specialty baby stores.


Julie Daniluk of the Toronto health food store The Big Carrot says the line of BPA-free products they stock has sold well for years, but she is now expecting a spike in sales with the release of this new report.


"We plan on trying to do a massive order of to accommodate people the second the research gets out," she told CTV earlier this week. "We will have a hard time keeping it in stock."

Environmental Defence offers these tips to parents who continue to use polycarbonate bottles:

  • do not use harsh detergents or put bottles in the dishwasher. These factors help to degrade the plastic and break down the bonds to release bisphenol A. Instead, clean polycarbonate bottles with warm, soapy water and a sponge.

  • Avoid heating polycarbonate containers in the microwave; use glass or ceramic containers instead.

  • Avoid using infant formula in cans lined with a white, epoxy liner, which is also thought to contain bisphenol A.


With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip]]> Consumer Toxins http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=91 Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:34:44 -0700 Bootlegged Federal Report Spells Trouble for 8 States http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=90 and adult malignancies, including breast, colon, and lung cancers.U.S. News Today:
Ben Harder

The scientific evidence supporting those links is only circumstantial—the report describes geographic patterns of contamination and disease but explicitly makes no claims about causes or effects. Nevertheless, the number of people who might be at risk is staggering: The 54 affected counties have more than 9 million residents, including 230,000 whom the report deems particularly "vulnerable."

If those findings aren't bad enough, the government's alleged foot-dragging in releasing them may be worse. CPI's investigative account, by journalist Sheila Kaplan, begins:

For more than seven months, the nation's top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it contains such potentially "alarming information" as evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates.

The eight states are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Some Canadian territory also fell within the report's purview.

According to the version of the report released today, 21 of the 26 areas of concern had elevated infant mortality rates, and 17 had elevated rates of breast cancer. The researchers mapped health data county by county and compared it with health data from other U.S. counties. It also related the health data to geographical information from two databases that track releases of certain toxic substances and pollutants.

The draft of the Great Lakes report appears one day after three members of Congress on the Committee on Science and Technology sent a letter to Julie Gerberding requesting access to the report and to documents pertaining to its delayed release. Gerberding runs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including its Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which has been preparing the report since 2002.

ATSDR had planned to make its work public last July but "abruptly canceled the release of the report ... days before its planned release," according to the letter sent by Reps. Bart Gordon, Brad Miller, and Nick Lampson, all Democrats. By that time, scientists within ATSDR and outside the government had reviewed the science in the report.

"I understand that the peer review was not critical, that the peer review supported the release of the document," North Carolina's Miller told me today, after his office provided me with a copy of the letter. Last December, he and his colleagues requested documentation from ATSDR to explain what had happened. The documents, he said, "are a month past due already."

But Glen Nowak, the government agency's chief spokesperson, said some peer reviewers raised questions about the report's scientific methods. Many of their concerns—such as discrepancies in the geographical information attached to the various types of data—have been addressed in the past seven months, he said. The report is still undergoing revision, he added. "We're cautiously optimistic that this report will be out [soon]. We're talking weeks instead of months."

"If the [agency's] concern is genuinely about...a lack of scientific rigor," Miller said, "there should be ample documentation of that. That is not the sort of decision that's made at the water cooler. If there is no such documentation, it is going to be very, very difficult to persuade me that that is the real reason" the report has been withheld from the public.

In their letter to Gerberding, Miller and his colleagues also criticized the agency's treatment of ATSDR scientist Christopher De Rosa, an author of the Great Lakes report, and asserted that he had been blocked from granting interviews to the media. "The CDC's conduct in denying the news media access to Dr. De Rosa certainly appears to violate [federal policy]," they wrote.

It's not the first time this administration has been accused of muzzling science. But is a federal agency really burying the work of its own scientists, or is all of this sound, fury, and politics as usual?

Nowak told me today that he would permit De Rosa to speak with U.S. News. I invite readers to suggest questions for the author of this long-awaited report.

Full story and comments]]> Environmental Toxins http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=90 Sat, 9 Feb 2008 21:19:10 -0700 Zeolite Canada expanding http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=89 Zeolite Ontario will be the site of reference for anyone who wants to buy Waiora's Natural Cellular Defense (NCD).

So why the buzz about zeolite detox liquids? Well zeolite removes heavy metals and toxins found in your body. If you poke around on this DETOX blog you will find all kinds of reasons and methods that our world has chosen to pollute your body.

Pick you poison! mercury, lead, asbestos, cadmium, arsenic, pcb's, herbicides, pesticides, exhaust, ... the list is endless. Those chemicals, and toxins are in your body, passed on to your unborn child, and are causing countless problems with your past curent and future health.

Natural Cellular Defense by Waiora is a safe and effective way to remove those compounds from your body.

Just a note about Waiora in Canada. Waiora is currently in a NFR (not for resale) phase of their business. This means the product is permitted to be shipped to Canadian citizen's for personal use. This is not a problem. With Zeolite Canada, Zeolite Quebec, and now newly launched Zeolite Ontario, you can have your Natural Cellular Defense shipped directly to your door, hassle free.

You can even join as a member and order your product at the wholesale price.

A note about Zeolite Canada. We are independent distributors for Waiora. Our goal is to ultimately have enough volume shipping into Canada that will warrant setting up facilities for local warehousing and distribution. If you are looking for Natural Cellular Defense, enhanced zeolite or liquid zeolite information, it is highly likely others are as well. If you want to consider becoming an independent distributor in your area, and earning part time commission for growing a steady base of customers who NEED and WANT this product, your timing couldn't be better. There will be a significant long term income for the person who see's the potential and acts today.

You can get more information at Zeolite Canada, or Zeolite Ontario, and for my french speaking countrymen Zeolite Quebec.]]> Heavy Metal Detox - Liquid Zeolites http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=89 Sat, 2 Feb 2008 05:47:25 -0700 U.S. and Vietnam take steps to contain Agent Orange contamination at old U.S. air base http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=88
But the U.S. government, as well as U.S. foundations and corporations, should contribute more money to clean up the site permanently, members of a joint U.S.-Vietnamese working group on Agent Orange said Friday.

It will cost at least US$14 million to remove dioxin from the site, one of several Agent Orange "hot spots" in Vietnam, said the panel members, who are experts on the environmental, health and political consequences of the herbicide.

Last May, the U.S. Congress set aside US$3 million to clean up Vietnamese sites contaminated by Agent Orange and to finance health programs for people who live near them, many of whom suffer serious illnesses and deformities from exposure to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical compound in the defoliant.

Commission members welcomed that contribution as an important step toward resolving the most contentious remaining legacy of the Vietnam War. But much more money will be needed to solve the problem, said panel member Ton Nu Thi Ninh, a former ambassador and member of Vietnam's National Assembly.

"The significance of the US$3 million is more political than practical," Ninh said, adding, "I hope that's just the first envelope."

The government still hasn't decided how it will allocate the money, but some may be used to pay for cleanup at the old Danang airbase, where U.S. troops used to store, mix and load Agent Orange onto planes.

The U.S. sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides across Vietnam during the war to strip Vietnamese guerrillas of ground cover and kill their crops.

While the threat to the food chain has largely disappeared, dioxin remains in soil and sediment for years and poses a serious health threat to anyone who touches it.

Last year, after years of disagreement on the issue, the United States and Vietnam began working together to address it.

They commissioned a study of the Danang site that found dioxin levels 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits, according to Vietnamese officials. The study confirmed that rainwater had carried dioxin into city drains and into parts of a neighboring community that is home to more than 100,000 people.

Blood tests found elevated dioxin levels in several dozen people who regularly fished or harvested lotus flowers from a contaminated lake on the site.

The U.S. contributed US$400,000 to help fund the study as well as temporary containment measures to keep dioxin from moving off the old base, one of three high-priority sites the Vietnamese government has identified for cleanup.

The work of the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin builds on previous efforts by the governments of Vietnam and the United States, U.S. and international aid organizations and the Ford Foundation, which contributed US$700,000 to health study containment work.

Commission members visited the Danang base on Thursday to see the containment measures, which were completed two weeks ago.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Defense did the work, covering the old Agent Orange storage area with concrete and tanks that capture rainwater running off the site and filter dioxin out of the water.

They have also reinforced a wall around the site and built watchtowers to prevent people from entering.

"These are only preliminary steps," said Lt. Gen. Phung Khac Dang, the vice president of the Vietnam Veterans Association and member of the Agent Orange panel. "It is our dear hope that we could very soon eliminate the risk altogether. As long as the dioxin is still there, it poses a danger."

While much remains to be done, substantial progress has been made since the U.S. and Vietnam began cooperating on the issue, said panel member Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an nonprofit group that promotes international dialogue.

A year ago, he said, rainwater carried dioxin into a lake on the site of the former airbase, where people often went fishing. Now, he said, the water draining into the lake is clean.

"That is literally and figuratively concrete progress," Isaacson said.

The commission is trying to encourage the U.S. government, businesses and foundations to help pay for the remaining work in Danang and at other contaminated sites in Vietnam, including former air bases at Bien Hoa and Phu Cat in the provinces of Dong Nai and Binh Dinh, respectively.

"What was once a sensitive and taboo subject between our two countries is now being worked on cooperatively and effectively," said Susan Beresford, the former president of the Ford Foundation, who convened the Agent Orange working group.

Agent orange has been associated with severe health problems and birth defects. Vietnam believes as many as 4 million people have suffered serious health problems associated with the defoliant. The U.S. says the actual number is probably far lower and that further scientific study is needed to understand the link between Agent Orange and health.

]]> Environmental Toxins http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=88 Sat, 2 Feb 2008 05:15:25 -0700 Smog Can Make People Sick, Even Indoors http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=87
Smog caused by ground-level ozone isn't just an outdoor air problem. A new study shows that when the irritant's level rises outside, the number of people inside suffering from so-called "sick building syndrome" also increases. By David Biello

"We found that outdoor air pollution, ozone, is associated with symptoms of lower-respiratory and upper-respiratory stress that occur in buildings to workers," says environmental health scientist Michael Apte of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who analyzed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data gathered on office air quality across the country. "These symptoms are prevalent at fairly high levels throughout the U.S. and are similar in other parts of the world."

Sick building syndrome is a term used to describe a broad range of ailments, including dry eye, congestion, difficulty breathing, fatigue and headaches that strike workers inside office buildings but disappear when they leave the premises. Previous studies have shown that individuals may exhibit such symptoms when irritating chemicals and particles are found in the air and that ventilation with clean air can help alleviate or prevent the problem.

The EPA from 1994 to 1998 tested indoor air quality and surveyed office workers in 100 buildings in 37 cities—from the smoggiest to the cleanest—across the country. Nearly all of the buildings had mechanical ventilation systems rather than windows or other natural means of circulating air. Officials measured air quality across a broad range of seasonal conditions, from an office in North Dakota on a –18-degree Fahrenheit (–28-degree Celsius) day to a workplace in Arizona on a 108-degree F (42-degree C) day.

The EPA found that, on average, even in buildings with no special history of sickness, nearly 19 percent of workers surveyed complained of dry eye, 21 percent felt congested on the job, 4 percent complained of difficulty breathing, more than 19 percent felt fatigued, and more than 15 percent reported having headaches while at work.

Apte and his colleagues compared the EPA office data with the agency's measures of local atmospheric ozone levels to determine whether they were linked. Their findings, published in the journal Indoor Air: the number of workers suffering symptoms indoors increased with the amount of smog outside—even at levels below the national limit of 80 parts per billion of ozone in air over an eight-hour period set by the EPA.

"Our body is telling us that there is something irritating in the air," Apte says. "People in the work condition are under all kinds of stress, but it does seem to be a real physical response."

The researchers found that the type of air filter used in a building's ventilation system was also tied to the number of ill people. "There is a six times greater likelihood that these symptoms will occur if you have both higher ozone levels and the polyester or synthetic filters," Apte says, "than if you are in lower ozone levels and using a fiberglass filter."

No specific cause for sick building syndrome has been identified, but Apte speculates that the symptoms are due to unstable ozone molecules chemically interacting with the wide range of materials found in an office building, beginning with the polyester air filter. "Glass is really a very inert material," Apte says of the fiberglass filters. "On the other hand, polyester is a polymer and it's got a lot of bonds in there that are capable of being broken up by ozone."

Read the rest of the story.]]> Environmental Toxins http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=87 Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:20:43 -0700 Harmful pesticides found in everyday food products http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=86
Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children.

The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.


By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
P-I SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

"The transformation is extremely rapid," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Lu, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children.

Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing.

The subjects for his testing were 21 children, ages 3 to 11, from two elementary schools and a Montessori preschool on Mercer Island.

The community has double the median national income, but the wealth of Mercer Island made no difference in the outcome, he said.

"We are confident that if we did the same study in poor communities, we would get the same results," he said. The study is being repeated in Georgia.

The study has not yet linked the pesticide levels to specific foods, but other studies have shown peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, nectarines, strawberries and cherries are among those that most frequently have detectable levels of pesticides.

Read the rest of the story.]]> General http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=86 Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:15:10 -0700 Des informations sur le zéolite liquide dans la langue française http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=85 Des informations sur le zéolite liquide dans la langue française

Are you looking for information about liquid zeolite in the french language? Canadian Distributor Jocelyne Desrosier, of Montreal Quebec, has a website to serve the french speaking population. Jocelyne is a fantastic resource, and available by phone or email to get your questions answered.

Information on Liquid Zeolite (NCD) in french!
]]> Heavy Metal Detox - Liquid Zeolites http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=85 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:45:06 -0700 Zeolite Canada Health Forum http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=84 and get them answered. Shelley Penney has launched a Zeolite Health Forum aimed at getting those questions answered. Now you don't have to spend hours searching for answers. You will never have to have a question about Waiora's (and other) Zeolite product that you can't get info on in a traditional internet search.

Shelley will be personally moderating the Zeolite Health Forum. As it expands and grows she will appoint moderators as needed. In this way, Waiora information seekers will have a community for their questions and concerns. This community will also fulfill the role of ongoing support, allowing people to have their questions addressed promptly even after they begin using the Liquid Zeolite product (NCD) and other products in the line.

Come on over to the Zeolite Canada Health Forum and introduce yourself and become a part of our community.

I'll see you there!

Cheers,

Shelley Penney is a retired nurse, mother of 2 teens, home business success coach and entrepreneur. "Make a Difference" is her motto and mantra.]]> Heavy Metal Detox - Liquid Zeolites http://www.letstalkdetox.com/index.php?itemid=84 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:31:17 -0700