Do You Honestly Care About Your Health?

Do You Honestly Care About Your Health?

Here’s a story I’ve given you before, but it’s so important, I’m going to share it with you again. The new mother was told that her “twin” babies had died after birth. However, the truth was far different: they were sent to an institute near Moscow to be studied since they were joined at the hip and the doctors wanted to study them. This was to be the fate of “Masha” & “Dasha”, one of the most unusual set of conjoined twins ever born. Pay close attention to this if you have children or grandchildren.

Siamese twins are formed in the same way as identical twins but the eggs, for some reason, don’t completely separate; instead, they remain partially attached. Because their circulatory systems are interconnected, the twins shared each other’s blood. A germ that enters one twin’s bloodstream would soon be seen in the blood of her sister. Now here is the kicker. Surprisingly, illness affected them differently. Dasha was near-sighted, prone to colds and right-handed. *Masha* was a healthier constitution, higher blood pressure, good eyesight and is left-handed.

The twins differing health pattern presented a mystery. How could one girl become ill with a childhood disease while the other one did not? The measles “bug” was in both of their bodies, in their collective bloodstream; so why didn’t they both get the measles? What made one healthier than the other? This phenomenon was seen over and over again with the girls (flu, colds, other diseases were all experienced separately). If ‘germs alone’ had the power to cause infectious diseases, why would one of the twins be disease-free while the other was ill? What was it in their makeup that differentiated one from the other?

The answer was in their nervous system. Although the twins had common circulatory, digestive, excretory, lymphatic, endocrine and skeletal systems (they were joined at the hips remember), they had separate spinal columns, separate brains, and separate spinal cords.

This was a very important difference between the girls, but something most doctors would have missed. In these extraordinary twins, nature’s “laboratory” devised an experiment that no researcher could ever duplicate. The twins are an invaluable example confirming that there is much more to “catching” a disease than simply breathing in germs; germs can make you sick if, and only if, your body provides them fertile ground in which to grow.

The state of your nervous system can determine whether or not (and how quickly) you will recover. By keeping your spinal column and nervous system FREE from misalignment (subluxation stress), chiropractic care keeps you in a higher state of health, hence able to ward off dis-eases.

There is no shortage of theories to explain the role of the subluxation in disease and the effect of the adjustment in relieving symptomatology. Your autonomic nervous system (that part of your nervous system which controls vital functions in your body) may be effected by spinal dysfunction or subluxation causing a compromise in that function.

Immunity is one such function which can be adversely affected if your spine is not aligned. You know as well as I do if the front end of your car is misaligned, it’s going to affect the ride, and the tires. They are going to wear out and you’re going to spend more money until you fix the problem.

The same is true for your dynamic body and spine. If they are not aligned, things are going to happen that will cost you more money in the end. If you want to stay as healthy as you can, and this includes your children, make sure your spine is checked on a regular basis. If it’s not checked on a regular basis, you are more apt to get disease. It really is as simple as that.

Neck Adjustments Are Safe!

One of the most effective chiropractic adjustments is to the cervical
spine. Yet, critics have warned that such adjustments are dangerous.
That notion has been put to rest!

A recent Canadian study shows that you're no more likely to suffer a
stroke following a visit to a chiropractor than to a medical doctor.
Published in the journal Spine, the research looked at 818 Canadians
who suffered a stroke from an "arterial dissection."
While researchers confessed that they suspected a link between
chiropractic care and stroke, they didn't find one.
Please forward this to anyone you know who has unwittingly fallen for the false impression
circulated by chiropractic critics.

Lawsuits and Proposition 65

March 15, 2010
Dear Healthcare Provider,

Recently, a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court cited a number of suppliers of fish oil supplements for selling products contaminated with high levels of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) compounds. The levels identified were above the safety limits established by California’s Proposition 65. Prop 65 established a safety limit of total PCBs at 0.09 ppm (90 ppb or 0.09 ug/kg). In fact, the
lawsuit stated that some products contained as much as 70 times the amount of PCBs as other products!

Biotics Research Corporation takes painstaking measures to ensure all the products we produce are of the highest quality and are safe and effective. This includes our products containing fish oils. Biotics Research was not named in this or any other Prop 65 lawsuit. We are pleased to inform you that our fish oil products not only comply with the Prop 65 standards for PCBs, but also comply with the much more stringent European safety standards for fish oil products.

Interestingly, this recent lawsuit comes on the heels of other similar lawsuits and reports relating to the quality, or lack thereof, of dietary supplement products. One suit filed in Alameda County Superior Court in California sited 74 manufacturers and suppliers for selling products containing excessive levels of lead, a toxic heavy metal (see Santa Cruz Sentinel Staff Report posted 4/22/09).
Just last month, an investigative article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Feb 10, 2010) reported on selenium toxicity associated with a dietary supplement. It involved a liquid multiple with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, 58 “trace elements” and other ingredients supplied by a chiropractor to his patients. The report stated that the product contained 200 times the amount of selenium stated
on the label. It is interesting to note that some of the companies named in the lawsuits have independent GMP certifications from various organizations.
The above mentioned incidences support Biotics Research’s philosophy and use of our own stringent Quality Control policies and procedures; many of which far exceed the regulatory requirements, not because of some legislation such as Prop 65 or the newly enacted GMPs, but because it has always been the right thing to do. It is part of our corporate fabric and has been since our inception more than three decades ago. Simply stated, it is part of who we are. We have state of the art laboratory
facilities and well trained, highly skilled QC and QA personnel working together with our production department to ensure our products are of the highest quality possible, are safe and effective, and meet the needs of our Health Care Professional customers and their clientele.
Biotics Research Corporation: Bringing you “The Best of Science and Nature.” Visit us online at www.bioticsresearch.com
Sincerely,
Daryl DeLuca
Vice President, Biotics Research Corporation

We’re Loaded with Toxins: Analyzing the Toxic Body Burden of Americans

Autism Society of America
7910 Woodmont Avenue Suite 300
Bethesda, MD 20814-3067
Web: www.autism-society.org Phone: 800.328.8476

©2006 Autism Society of America
We’re Loaded with Toxins: Analyzing the Toxic Body Burden of Americans
By Judy Chinitz Gorman
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit organization, has taken on a huge project:
analyzing the toxic “body burden” of Americans. What they have found is the stuff of which nightmares are made. The researchers tested for 525 toxins (analyzing subgroups of toxins in several different studies) and found 455 different toxins in their research subjects. On average, participants’ bodies contained 60 toxins that could be detrimental to the stomach or intestines, 57 that could affect the health
of the reproductive system, and 52 that could affect the brain and nervous system. To obtain this information the EWG tested the blood, urine, breast milk and umbilical cord blood of 72 randomly selected subjects. The toxins found in these subjects’ bodies ranged from polybrominated diphenyl ethers, which are flame retardants found in furniture foam, computers and TVs (known to adversely affect brain development and the thyroid), to the heavy metals such as methylmercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium (which are particularly dangerous to infants, fetuses and children, and are known to cause cancer, a range of chronic illnesses and even death).
Perhaps most frightening of all is that 256 toxins known to cause birth defects and developmental delays were found, an average of 51 of these toxins per person. We know that fetuses and children can be critically damaged even by low levels of exposures to many of the toxins found.
The EWG also conducted a study in 2005 to assess the “body burden” of newborns. They tested umbilical cord blood from 10 randomly selected infants and found that an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants had crossed the placenta. The list includes substances such as mercury, pesticides and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which are the active ingredients or breakdown products of Teflon, Scotchgard and other fabric and carpet protectors, and food wrap coatings. All of these are
linked to birth defects and developmental issues, as well as to cancer.
“Yes, this can seem very depressing and, yes, it is alarming. But the good news is that at least now science is moving in the right direction,” says Lauren Sucher, EWG’s director of public affairs. “Twenty years ago we didn’t even know that chemicals could cross the placenta. Now we know differently. Now we can collect this kind of information so that hopefully soon we can make the best use of it.”
The EWG is a small group of only 20 people, yet its voice is disproportionately loud. “We share this information with the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” says Sucher. “Every two years they put out the ‘National Exposure Report,’ which lays out what chemicals they found in the blood of Americans. Their sample sizes are much larger than ours, but while their data is a mile wide and an inch deep, ours is an inch wide and a mile deep. We complement each other.”
EWG’s Web site notes, “Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know.”
There is plenty to be unsettled about, according to Sucher. For example, only 11 percent of the chemicals used in make-up, shampoo, soap and shower gel -- products used every day by millions of people -- have been screened for safety.
Sucher says a key reason for the lax regulation of chemicals is that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs the industry’s use of chemicals, is 30 years old and outdated. On August 2, 2006, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) presented its report to the Senate on the effectiveness of the TSCA to protect Americans. In this report, “Actions Are Needed to Improve the
Effectiveness of EPA’s [Environmental Protection Agency] Chemical Review Program,” the GAO states that “Chemicals play an important role in everyday life, but some may be harmful to human health and the environment . . . some chemicals, such as lead and mercury, are highly toxic at certain doses and need to be regulated because of health and safety concerns.”
The GAO found that the EPA exerted its authority to require testing for fewer than 200 of the approximately 62,000 chemicals currently used in commerce, because the task was too costly and time consuming.
Additionally, since the TSCA was enacted, the EPA has banned or limited the production of only five individual chemicals or groups of chemicals.
The study also stated that the EPA’s reviews of the safety of new chemicals “provide only limited assurance that health and environmental risks are identified because TSCA does not require companies to test chemicals before they notify EPA of their intent to manufacture the chemicals.”
A Senate bill addressing this issue, S.1391, has been proposed by Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and James Jeffords (I-VT). The EWG believes this bill would update and strengthen the TSCA. “Right now our governmental policy is one of first allowing the use of chemicals and worrying about their safety later. This bill will reverse that,” says Sucher.
According to Sucher, the bill would place the burden of proof of a chemical’s safety back on the manufacturer. It would also considerably reduce the parameters of what is considered confidential and allow the public much greater access to information. For the first time ever, chemical substances will have to meet a safety standard, described in the bill as “a reasonable certainty of no harm,” she notes.
Such legislation, the EWG believes, could potentially play a significant role in preventing neurological and developmental disorders such as autism. In a 2004 report entitled “Overloaded?” the EWG notes that the work of Jill James and colleagues (see separate article in this issue) reveals that exposure to toxins may be particularly deleterious to children who are at risk of developing autism. James and colleagues found that many autistic children have a metabolic impairment that reduces their ability to rid their bodies of heavy metals and other toxins. The findings of James’ research team, the EWG says, “potentially identify a subgroup of people with dramatically increased risk of harm from industrial chemicals, and provide important new evidence that policies designed to protect the average person, or even the average child, from chemical exposure, are insufficient to fully protect the public health.”
Other nonprofit groups, including the Washington Toxics Coalition, the Alaska Community Against Toxics and Commonweal, also have tested for “body burdens” of toxins, and all have found similar results. Communities are beginning to use this information to leverage change with public awareness campaigns and legislative initiatives. The state of California, for example, recently passed a bill that
mandates a state-based biomonitoring program for toxic exposures.
Information about the Environmental Working Group is available online at www.ewg.org. An online copy of the report “Overloaded?” is available at www.ewg.org/reports/autism/execsumm.php.
Judy Chinitz Gorman, is the parent of two sons, one of whom has autism. She holds a master’s in special education and is currently pursuing another in nutrition.

Don't Give Your Newborn the Vitamin K Shot

By Dr. Mercola
It has been standard practice in the U.S., and most western countries, since 1944 to welcome babies into the world by subjecting them to a variety of medical interventions, one of which is a painful jab with a syringe full of vitamin K.
This injection is routinely done to almost all newborns, unless you, as a parent, refuse to consent.
Birth is an overwhelming sensory experience for your baby. He has never before experienced cold or hunger, been blinded by artificial lights, or felt the touch of hands or metal instruments, paper or cloth. Even gravity is a foreign sensation.
A needle stick is a terrible assault to their suddenly overloaded sensory system, which is trying to adjust to the outside world.
Is this injection really in your baby’s best interest? Is vitamin K really necessary immediately after birth? Or is there a more compassionate alternative?
Vitamin K Shots are Completely Unnecessary for Your Newborn!
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the foremost expert in the world on vitamin K, Dr. Cees Vermeer, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Maastricht (in The Netherlands), I am thrilled to be able to share with you some of the latest information about vitamin K that he shared with me.
The rest of the interview is scheduled to run later this year but this information was so vital and of public health priority that I had to share it with you now.
The great news: Vitamin K shots are completely unnecessary for your newborn.
While this painful injection is inappropriate for reasons I will cover in detail, vitamin K is necessary. But there are other safer and non invasive ways to normalize your baby’s vitamin K levels that don’t have such damaging effects.
Why is this Shot Given in the First Place?
Vitamin K is necessary for normal blood clotting in adults and children. Some babies (in fact, most of them) are born with insufficient vitamin K levels.
In some newborns, this deficiency can lead to a serious bleeding disorder, typically in the first week of life, called Hemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn (HDN). Internal bleeding occurs in the brain and other organs, leading to serious injury or even death.
While this disease is rare (incidence of 0.25 percent to 1.7 percent[i] ),it is has been standard practice to give injections of vitamin K as a preventative measure, whether or not risk factors are present.
Your newborn can be at increased risk for Hemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn if he or she has any of the following:
Preterm delivery
Low birth weight
A forceps or vacuum extraction delivery
Mother’s use of antibiotics, anticoagulants, anticonvulsants, and some other medications during pregnancy
Undetected liver disease
Extremely fast, or extremely prolonged labor, particularly during the pushing phase
Delivery by C-section
Unfortunately, the current standard of care regarding Hemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn and vitamin K was put into practice without adequate research to determine what was best for the newborns. These shotgun approaches were certainly convenient for the physicians but lacked any sort of consideration of side effects for the baby.
Increased rates of circumcision immediately after birth, before infants can develop their vitamin K levels naturally, has undoubtedly contributed to making vitamin K injections routine, to lower the risk for increased bleeding from these early circumcisions.
As pointed out by one Mercola reader, it is interesting to note that a newborn’s natural prothrombin levels reach normal levels between days 5 and 7, peaking around the eighth day of life, related to the buildup of bacteria in the baby’s digestive tract to produce the vitamin K that is necessary to form this clotting factor. Day 8 is said to be the only time in a baby’s life when his prothrombin level will naturally exceed 100 percent of normal.
As it turns out, Genesis 17:12 of the Bible mandates the circumcision of infant boys on the eighth day after birth—a recommendation pronounced long before we had the science to back it up.
I will leave any conclusions to you about the significance of this anecdote, but it is nevertheless interesting.
As far as I know, only one state has a law mandating vitamin K injections—New York State, which is notorious for restricting and preventing exemptions to vaccinations and other mandated medical treatments for children.
However, you can find specific instructions about how to get around this, for New Yorkers and residents of other states, at Vaccine Liberation Organization, which has a page specific to New Yorkers who wish to avoid the Hepatitis B shot, vitamin K injections, or the application of silver nitrate into your newborn’s eyes.
The organization urges you to consider the option of hiring legal counsel to assist you in exerting your rights as a parent, due to how challenging it is to get an exemption in New York State.
Fortunately, subsequent research has revealed that there are safer, better practices that will protect your child from Hemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn just as well.
The Dangers of the Shot They Don’t Warn You About
There are three primary areas of risk associated with these injections:
Probably the most significant is Inflicting pain immediately after birth likely causing psycho-emotional damage and trauma to a newborn, which is totally inappropriate, and unnecessary. It just creates another emotional wound that the helpless and innocent baby needs to overcome to achieve health and wellness.
It is bad enough they will have to overcome unintentional traumas along the way but to mandate this practice is the 21st century is simply unconscionable.
The amount of vitamin K injected into newborns is 20,000 times the needed dose[ii] . Additionally, the injection may also contain preservatives that can be toxic for your baby’s delicate, young immune system.
An injection creates an additional opportunity for infection in an environment that contains some of the most dangerous germs, at a time when your baby’s immune system is still immature.
It is, however, also important to correct the record about one myth that has been propagated for years about the dangers of vitamin K injections in newborns.
It was suggested some years ago that vitamin K injections were associated with cancer and leukemia. However, that conclusion was in error. There is NO known association between the two.
As mentioned above, these injections are absolutely inappropriate for your baby -- but the increased risk for cancer is not a legitimate concern.
Although premature clamping of the umbilical should be avoided as it can result in brain damage, there is insufficient evidence to say that this can lead to lower vitamin K levels in newborns, although you will occasionally see this claim made.
Inflicting Pain Just After Birth Has Long-Term Effects on Your Newborn
For more than a century, many physicians have maintained a denial of infant pain, based on ancient prejudices and "scientific evidence" that was long ago disproven. Many have made claims that newborns don’t feel pain, or remember it, the way adults do.
In fact, not only do infants feel pain, but the earlier they experience it, the more damaging and longer lasting are the psychological effects.
Dr. David B. Chamberlain, psychologist and co-founder of the Association of Pre-and Perinatal Psychology and Health, wrote in his article “Babies Don’t Feel Pain: A Century of Denial in Medicine[iii] ”:
"The earlier an infant is subjected to pain, the greater the potential for harm.
Early pains include being born prematurely into a man-made "womb," being born full-term in a man-made delivery room, being subject to any surgery (major or minor), and being circumcised.
We must alert the medical community to the psychological hazards of early pain and call for the removal of all man-made pain surrounding birth.”
Back in 1999, Science Daily published an article[iv] about the findings of a research team at the Washington School of Medicine that newborns who are exposed to a series of painful treatments display a variety of long-term effects as older children, including an altered response to pain and an exaggerated stress response.
A 2004 study[v] found that very early pain or stress experiences have long-lasting adverse consequences for newborns, including changes in the central nervous system and changes in responsiveness of the neuroendocrine and immune systems at maturity.
Similarly, a 2008 study of analgesia in newborns and children[vi] concluded:
“Healthy newborns routinely experience acute pain during blood sampling for metabolic screening, injection of vitamin K or hepatitis vaccine, or circumcision.
Acute pain caused by skin-breaking procedures can lead to physiologic instability and behavioral distress, and it has downstream effects on subsequent pain processing, development and stress responsivity.
Because of these detrimental effects, reduction and prevention of pain are worthy clinical goals that are also expected by most parents.”
In addition to the above, the possible trauma from the injection can also jeopardize the establishment of breastfeeding, which is detrimental to both mother and baby.
ORAL Vitamin K is a Safe, Effective Alternative
Fortunately, the alternative to these outrageously unnecessary newborn injections is amazingly simple: give the vitamin ORALLY. It is safe and equally effective, and devoid of any of the previously mentioned troubling side effects.
Oral vitamin K is absorbed less efficiently than vitamin K that is injected. However, this can easily be compensated for by adjusting the dose. And since vitamin K is nontoxic, there is no danger of overdosing or a bad reaction.
If you are breastfeeding, which I hope you are, your baby can be given several low oral doses of liquid vitamin K1 and receive the same protection from Hemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn as he would receive from an injection.
Ultimately, you should consult your pediatrician about the dose that is appropriate for your baby.
However, midwife Ronnie Falcao uses the guidelines formulated by an international committee of physicians called the Cochrane Collaboration. They have determined the following dosing schedule, which results in very similar rates of protection from HDN[vii] :
1 milligram liquid vitamin K weekly, OR
0.25 milligram liquid vitamin K daily
In the future, research is needed to better pinpoint guidelines about the oral vitamin K dosing for newborns. However, remember that there have been no adverse effects observed in adults or babies who receive vitamin K doses much higher than what is actually required. And the dose given orally will be far less than the megadose given by injection!
So for now, there is no danger in overshooting the mark somewhat to make sure your baby is adequately protected until precise dosing guidelines are made available by science.
You can also increase your infant’s vitamin K levels naturally if you are breastfeeding by increasing your own vitamin K levels.
The milk of lactating women has been tested, and most milk is low in vitamin K because the women themselves are vitamin K deficient. If women take vitamin K supplements, then their milk becomes much richer in vitamin K, as you would expect.
According to Dr. Vermeer, mothers who are adequately supplementing themselves with vitamin K and are breastfeeding should NOT need to give their infants additional K supplements.
But you must be cautious here that your vitamin K levels are optimal, and for most women, the vitamin K absorbed from foods is typically insufficient, so a supplement might be needed.
What You Need to do BEFORE Your Baby is Born
Ultimately, the choice about whether or not to consent for your baby to be given a vitamin K shot is yours. At least now you have the information with which you can make an informed decision.
How do you want your baby’s first few moments of life to be?
There are plenty of unavoidable pains that you can’t prevent, no matter how much you might want to shield your child from all pain and suffering. Why not eliminate one source of pain that is absolutely unnecessary and under your control?
If you choose to not expose your child to vitamin K1 as a shot and would prefer to have it given orally, you will have to make it VERY clear to not only your OB physician but also ALL the nursing staff, as they would be the ones that actually administer the shot.
During the excitement of the delivery it will be very difficult to remember that your baby was not supposed to have the shot. So it would also be helpful to have someone like your spouse at the delivery reminding them that your child should NOT get the shot.
Please note, that is the same strategy I would suggest using if you reach the same conclusion I did about hepatitis B vaccines given to newborns. I believe this is clearly the most unnecessary and inappropriate of ALL vaccines and should be avoided like the plague.
But remember you HAVE to be proactive. Typically the nursing staff will NEVER ask for your permission to give this vaccine or vitamin K shot as it is STANDARD practice so they don’t need your permission. So you have to be VERY diligent in your request.
I know because this happened to my nephew, (my sister’s son) and that was the ONLY vaccine either of her children ever received. I am very close to my sister as she started my medical practice with me in 1985 and ran the office for many years. Now she is an editor for this newsletter, and on the executive team for our business.
I never had any children of my own and her kids are very dear to me so it pains me to not have been more diligent in preventing this shot. We are both convinced the vaccine caused some side effects to this day, more than 12 years later.
Please remember, YOU will have to exercise extreme diligence in making your wishes known. The system will fight you tooth and nail as they sincerely believe they know better than you.
It is so worth it though to take the extra steps to protect your newborn. I would strongly encourage you to make the additional effort.
REFERENCES:
[i] American Academy of Pediatrics Vitamin K Ad Hoc Task Force, “Controversies concerning vitamin K and the newborn,” Pediatrics. 1993 May;91(5):1001-3
[ii] “Newborn vitamin K injections,” Giving Birth Naturally
[iii] Chamberlain D. “Babies don’t feel pain: A century of denial in medicine"
[iv] Science Daily, “Infant pain may have long-term effects,” August 16, 1999
[v] Giboney Page G. “Are there long-term consequences of pain in newborn or very young infants?” J Perinat Educ. 2004 Summer; 13(3): 10-17
[vi] Anand KJS. “Analgesia for skin-breaking procedures in newborns and children: What works best?” CMAJ. 2008 July 1;179(1):11-12
[vii] Falcao R. “Vitamin K injection or oral administration”