This Earth has provided the human race, and all other species, the means with which to cure many ailments, from the stomach upset to cancer and AIDS. It is in the soil that has bacteria every species needs to survive, and most important, it is in the foods we eat.

Modern day medicine is a great boon to the human race. But what of the ancients, and the medicines they knew of? The medicines that have been lost to time, to war and to superstition? And are now being lost to deforestation, pollution and large pharmaceutical companies that do not have your best interest at heart.

Listen to the commercials that advertise sleep medication, anti-depressants or cholesterol lowering drugs, when they begin to tell you of the side effects.
It actually sounds like a Saturday Night Live comedy skit. But it is also very troubling. More people die each year from drugs that are prescribed by a doctor, than all of the illegal drugs put together.
In addition, the very government entity, the Food and Drug Administration, that is supposed to regulate these prescription drugs, is basically bought and paid for by those same pharmaceutical companies that make the drugs that kill so many people.

Read a short biography about a man who has lived HIV positive for 30 years and his struggle with modern day medicines. He then tells of a plant that was found in Ecuador and how it has helped him.
I encourage you to check out the links that are provided in the threads of the article, also. There is much information to disseminate.

However, if you or someone you care about is fighting cancer or a debilitating disease, this article and the links provided may just be what you are looking for.
Editor

Roundup

Scientific American has a very good article on the research of Roundup, the common herbicide people use to kill daisies and other pesky weeds.

I encourage you to read the whole article at the link above.

Excerpt from the article:

Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.

One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”

“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.

Scientist Ruins Career by Speaking Out Gainst GM Foods

I strongly encourage you to read the whole article at the link provided.

Excerpt from article:

"Lotter has a Ph.D. in agro-ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a master of professional studies in international agricultural and rural development from Cornell University. He has taught environmental science, soil science, plant science, entomology, and vegetable crop production for Santa Monica College, Imperial Valley College, and UC-Davis.

Lotter does not have a tenured position and is currently working on an agricultural project in Tanzania. He half-jokingly describes his paper as "career destroying" because he says it will be difficult to find a position at a US university due to the general recognition at most US universities that GM foods are safe and will help "feed the world."
DL: The promoter gene used in genetically engineered crops, the cauliflower mosaic virus, is a powerful promoter of inter-species gene exchange. Scientists thought it would be denatured in our digestive system, but it's not. It has been shown to promote the transfer of transgenes from GM foods to the bacteria within our digestive system, which are responsible for 80% of our immune system function; they are enormously important. This is a huge flaw, but not even the biggest in crop transgenics.

The process of splicing genes into plant genomes, transgenics, causes serious genetic damage-mutations, multiple copies of the transgenic DNA, gene silencing. The ramifications of this damage, incredibly, have never been elucidated or even explored for that matter.

Do you think the increase in food allergies we are seeing may be due to GM foods?

DL: Yes, there is evidence pointing to it. The industry is powerful enough to stop any labeling legislation. Without labeling they can't track these problems. We know that after the introduction of GM soy in Britain, there was an increase of soy allergies there.

Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Flow to Bottled Water

A good article here about how your money goes to bottled water companies.

All of the reports coming out in mainstream media about how contaminated the water supply is in the US appears to be geared toward the big business end end of water sales.
In other words...let's tell people their water supply is contaminated with all sorts of crap so botlled water sellers can keep their profit margines up.
Yes, there are contaminants in just about every water source in the US. Pesticides, herbicides, anti-biotics, excessive nitrates...and the list could go on.
However, many of these chemicals are in the parts per billion, and many of them ARE NOT removed in the bottles water process.
But...and this is a BIG BUT....no one talks about the crap in our food supply. No one talks about how the crap gets in our food and water supplies.
Wouldn't want to actually give the people the info they need to make informed decisions.

Reverse osmosis, the method used to make bottled water from your tap water, is readily available at most Home Depots, etc. in the form of a 1 or 2 gallon tank, a couple of filters and a little spout.
These are not expensive! The local Home Depot sells them for around 100 to 150 dollars. Consider what you pay for a bottle of water, and then consider how much water you can get from an under-sink filtration system.

Go get an under-sink reverse osmosis in your kitchen and quit paying a company to sell you back the water you are already paying for.

Better yet....get better informed on your local water treatment plant. Maybe next time the city wants to sell a bond for an upgrade to the water treatment plant, you won't bitch as loud.

Chevron/Texaco severely pollutes a chunk of the Amazon Rain Forest in Ecuador, and leaves.

Click on the link to watch the video and read the article.

People are getting sick and dying from cancers. Animals have been dying for years. Rivers and streams are unusable...but the people that live in the region have no choice but to use the water.

On the link above, you can watch the video. If Chevron/Texaco is not made to clean up their mess in Ecuador, they will be doing the same thing in this country, and very soon.

Look what happened with the Exxon Valdez in Alaska. Exxon still has not paid any where near what the cost of clean-up is, yet they can claim billions of dollars in profits.

If we do not make these corporations responsible for cleaning up the messes they make, then we are, in fact, culpable.

Chevron/Texaco needs to be held responsible.

Chevron/Texaco Hires Six Public Relation Firms to Help Them in the Lawsuit brought on by the People of Ecuador.

Click on the link to read the article.

Here is another good one for you. After you read the article, do not just shake your head and say it won't happen here. Because it can and it will.

Does anyone really believe these huge corprations will stick around once they have raped the land and the people? Why do you think they like NAFTA so well?

Aspartame: Sweetener or Silent Killer

Here is a documentary on Aspartame, that sweetener that was created in a lab and is not “natural” as some would like us to believe.

The documentary is long, but it shows how the foods we have been eating all of our lives more than likely have artificial ingredients that are literally killing us.

What is FD & C Yellow #5? Or Red #6?

What is that ingredient that is listed on the box, that you cannot pronounce? If you are reading this article, you have a computer, go look up that ingredient. If it does not scare you, it should at least make you think about what you are eating.

Editor

Check out the latest Chevron/Texaco

debacle that is taking place in Ecuador. They left a polluted mess in the Amazon Rain Forest the size of New Jersey. Now that the oil is all gone, they leave and don't want to clean up the mess they made.

These oil companies are allowed to make billions in profits, and cannot even spend a few million to restore the land, rivers and streams.

Have Any Idea Who Owns the Food You Eat?

Please read the article at link.

Excerpt from article:

"Directed at governments, parliaments and patent offices, the alert warns about a new class of patents covering plants and animals derived from conventional breeding. "These patents even claim harvests and derived food products such as milk, butter and bread," the report revealed.

By speaking of "Monsantosizing", the signatories to the alert warned that the whole chain from seed to food production might be controlled by a few big international corporations like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta, leading to a process of oligopolies and increasing concentration."

Keep writing letters and telling your elected officials you don't want a handful of companies OWNING the largest percetage of food products you eat.

Control the food supply, control who lives and who dies.

Amazon Rain Forest Drought Excerpt from article: "In normal years the forest absorbs nearly 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. The drought caused a loss of more than 3 billion tonnes. The total impact of the drought - 5 billion extra tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - exceeds the annual emissions of Europe and Japan combined."

Top scientists from around the world completed their study and I encourage you to read the article, even if you are a skeptic of global warming/climate change.

75 Percent of Farmer's Seeds Owned by Four Corporations

" Societies and economies can be destroyed by bombs. Societies can also be destroyed by locking every aspect of life like provision of food and water through an economic war.”
By Vandana Shiva

This is becoming a war. A war with our food supplies. Who is going to win?

Make a difference. Write your elected officials. Become the change that you want to see.

This is an excerpt from Sustainable.Org that I found from this link.

"American consumers are drinking more bottled water every year. They collectively spend hundreds or thousands of dollars more per gallon for water in a plastic bottle than they would for the H20 flowing from their taps.
Plastic bottle production in the United States annually requires about 17.6 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel more than one million cars.
About 86 percent of empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the garbage instead of being recycled. That amounts to about two million tons of plastic bottles piling up in U.S. landfills each year.

To solve this, action must be taken from the federal, state, and local governments must protect the quality and integrity of our water resources.
Again investing in the maintenance and renewal of municipal water and sewage treatment plants, storage, and distribution. Our water pipes and sewer lines in the United States were built in the late 1800s, the 1920s.

Old, corroded water lines can break are not only wasting water but also opening avenues for contamination. Worn out or overburdened sewage systems can overflow into our streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans, creating serious health concerns. The National Research Council recently warned of more water-borne disease outbreaks unless we make "substantial investments" in improving our drinking water and sewage storage and distribution systems.

Every year, Congress debates proposals for funding clean drinking water. A 2007 bill provided $14 billion in federal loan guarantees over four years for water and sewer improvements. While the bill passed the House of Representatives, it has not yet passed the Senate. Unfortunately, even if it were to become law, it would still be insufficient in meeting our nation's water infrastructure needs.

Collectively, our communities fall about $22 billion short annually of what they need to maintain and improve public drinking water and sewage systems. Federal dollars are the only way to address this clean water infrastructure funding gap estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Government Accountability Office, and the non-profit Water Infrastructure Network at between $300 and $500 billion over 20 years. Much of the funding gap stems from government cuts to clean water programs."