Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Why Vegetarian? supports common sense arguments!

The following arguments are the same as i explain in my food talk. They concern what i call the psychological evidence that humans are not meat eaters. There is so much physiological evidence that meat is not good for our bodies or minds, but this is more interesting than that! This is deeper evidence that we were not equipped to eat dead animals by G-d. If we were, we would go about it the same way all the others do. I think this stuff is common sense and obvious... what do you think?


Why Vegetarian?


There Was
No Slaughterhouse
in the Garden of Eden...


The main reason for becoming vegetarian is self preservation. The consumption of animal products causes the pH of the body to become acidic, leading to cellular degeneration and the onslaught of disease. This has been confirmed in hundreds of scientific studies. An acidic pH in the body is the primary precurser to all disease. When you choose a vegetarian lifestyle, you not only help yourself, but you help the planet as well.

"As we sow, so shall we reap." "Thou shalt not kill." "For every action there is a reaction." "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Whatever we do to the creatures of the earth, we do to ourselves." In many ways and in many cultures, the same message has been delivered. We must gently live with others if we want gentle reactions. Inflicting pain and death brings the reaction of premature pain and death. Witness our healthcare system.


No Human is a Carnivore
If you've ever watched a carnivore eat. You know instantly that humans are not carnivores. Carnivores stalk their prey. They attack, usually biting through the neck and ripping the throat to shreds. After killing, they rip open the belly with their sharp teeth and devour the entrails. They lap up the blood. Finally, they chew the bones, crushing them in their powerful jaws. No human could eat like a carnivore eats, except perhaps, the totally insane. We are not carnivores.

The only way humans can eat animals is to disguise what they are really doing... get someone else to kill the animal, then drain and dispose of its blood, slice the muscles into pieces that are unrecognizable, grind the internal organs to make "sausages", cook it, smother it with sauces and seasonings... all in an effort to keep from experiencing the reality of what a carnivore does and is. We are not carnivores.


If you have ever had a pet, you know that animals have feelings, that they are intuitive, sensitive creatures. The production of animals for the consumption of their muscle and organ tissues is less than human. If we are going to create a Heaven on Earth, these atrocities must end. Interspersed throughout the text below are positive options and useful statistics.


Some statistics

Over 7 billion farm animals die or are slaughtered in the U.S. every year for the production of flesh, mostly in highly mechanized factory-like systems using unprecedented, largely unregulated methods of brutality, danger, and cruelty.

Over a billion cattle populate the earth, with a combined weight greater than the entire human population. They are sustained unnaturally in these numbers to satisfy demand for their flesh. They are a primary cause for the destruction of the environment. Beef cattle return only 1 pound of meat for every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans they are fed, causing huge inefficiencies in food utilization, while millions of people go hungry.

Animal-based diets are high in saturated fat, excessive protein and cholesterol, leading to heart disease and stroke, nearly 50% of all deaths in the U.S.

It takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, "The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer could float a destroyer." In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat.

The world's cattle alone (not including other livestock) consume food enough for 8.7 billion people. Over a hundred million of tons of grain go to animals while only 5 million tons of grain could adequately feed the 15 million children throughout the world who starve to death every year. By feeding grain to livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, 99% of its carbohydrates, and 100% of the fiber.

A meat-eating American needs 3-1/4 acres of cultivated farm land per year; vegetarians only require 1/6 acre per year.

There are virtually no laws against cruelty to animals raised for food in the U.S.

Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained in higher quality directly from plant sources.

Grotesque methods of reproduction are employed on animal farms. One method of animal procreation employs so called "teaserbulls" (cattle) or "sidewinders" (boars) to identify females in heat. Their penises are surgically re-routed to come out of the sides of their bodies so that they cannot reproduce directly. These mutilated, frustrated studs exist only to identify fertile females. The cows or sows are artificially inseminated.

Meat would cost over $35/lb. if the water used by the meat industry were not subsidized by the U.S. government. Livestock production accounts for twice the pollution of industrial sources in the U.S.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a key researcher involved with The China Study, says "In the next 10 to 15 years, one of the things you're bound to hear is that animal protein ... is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered." Risk for disease increases dramatically when even a little animal protein is added to the diet.

The planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in a just over a decade if the whole world adopted the technology used in the U.S. to produce the standard American meat-centered diet.

Trees are being cut at an alarming rate to clear land for meat production. If tomorrow people in the U.S. switched to vegetarian,, 200 million acres could be returned to forest.

"Redskins" are chickens on the conveyer belt to death which missed not both the brine-filled electrified stunning trough but also the knife that was to cut their throats and bleed their bodies. Their deaths occurred in the scald tank where feathers are loosened before plucking. Piles of them are thrown aside every day.

Chicken feed is routinely laced with hormones and antibiotics to allow agribusiness the efficiency of massive flocks under intensive confinement. Only with massive drugs, a practice begun in the fifties, can such cruel and brutal conditions be maintained. These hormones and antibiotics make their way into those who eat their flesh causing hormonal imbalances and antibiotic resistance.

Meat-centered diets are linked to many kinds of cancer, such as cancer of the colon, breast, cervix, uterus, ovary, prostate, and lung.

U.S. livestock produces 20 times the excrement of the human population.Their waste no longer serves to fertilize pastures a little at a time, since they spend much or all of their lives in factory sheds or feedlots. Wastes are often simply flushed away dangerously raising ammonia and nitrate levels in our drinking water. Going vegetarian helps to clean up our nation's water more than any other single action.

The human digestive system is not designed for meat. A natural carnivore's bowel is relatively short (2-3 times the length of its torso) and smooth inside, a human's bowel is 12 times the length of the torso and deeply twisted and puckered. The carnivore has much stronger digestive acids. In the long convoluted human digestive tract, meat putrifies and becomes toxic to the body.

John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, says that a dairy cow living in today's modern milk factory "is bred, fed, medicated, inseminated and manipulated to a single purpose -- maximum milk production at minimum cost. She lives with an unnaturally swelled up and sensitive udder, is kept inside a stall her entire life, is milked up to 3 times a day, and is kept pregnant nearly all of the time with her young taken from her almost immediately after birth. "Contented" is the characteristic most often attributed to the cow. However, cows in factories are fed tranquilizers to calm their frazzled nerves."

On a calorie basis, spinach has 14 times the iron of sirloin steak. Animal products are deficient in vitamin C which is needed for iron absorption, .

Male cattle in the beef industry are castrated to make them more docile and to promotes a fattier (more profitable) animal. Anesthetics are seldom used.

The typical egg factory may hold 80,000 hens per warehouse with 4 or 5 layer hens squeezed into a 12" x 18" cage. Poultry producers de-beak their chicks with hot-knife machines to prevent the crazed birds from killing each other in response to their intense confinement.

The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat daily are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than those who eat little or no meat

At the expense of their own hungry populations, exporters in poor countries produce luxury foods such as meat to sell to rich countries. Meat is much more profitable than subsistence crops of rice, beans and vegetables.

Cattle are responsible for 12% of the methane emissions. Methane contributes to global warming by trapping 25 times more solar heat than carbon dioxide.

Pigs in today's factory farms are often stacked two and three decks high in space just big enough to fit in. They stand on metal or concrete slats which painfully cripple the legs of half of them before slaughter. Their entire lives are lived this way. Pigs have a similarly high intelligence and sensitivity as the family pet dog.

Mother's milk from a nursing woman who eats a diet rich in animal sources is so toxic that if it were to be sold across state lines, it would be subject to confiscation and destruction by the FDA.

Two hundred years ago, American topsoil averaged 21 inches. Today, it's only about 6 inches. Each year an area the size of Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion. Livestock production is responsible for about 85% of this erosion.

Fish concentrate toxic chemicals. Consumer Reports (Feb., '92) notes that the incidence of unacceptable levels of PCB's and mercury were found in certain species of fish. Ingesting PCB's is considered a primary cause for the sperm count in American men to be 70% of what it was 30 years ago. Half the world's fish catch is fed to cattle, which concentrates the poisons.

Drugged animals in factory sheds are supposed to have their drugs stopped at a certain time before slaughter. Withdrawal schedules are often lax. Troughs of old, drug-laden feed are not removed when withdrawal should begin. Since animals are often fed animal waste and flesh, drug and pesticide residues accumulate.

The common cold, as well as allergies to dust, cats and pollen, are likely to go away when milk is removed from the diet. No other mammal in nature drinks milk after weaning, or drinks the milk of other species. Cows will not even drink cows milk after weaning.

USDA meat inspection today is virtually non-existent with sometimes as few as 3 out of 1,000 carcasses checked. Federal inspectors are not allowed to stop the assembly line if a problem is sighted, they may only complain. Many cancerous carcasses pass inspection.

Cattle grazing destroyed most of the lush ecosystems in North America. Grazing is the primary cause for the loss or endangerment of plant species in the U.S.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Food and Nutrition Board recommend eating only 2.5% to 6% of one's calories as protein to satisfy requirements. It's nearly impossible to get below 9% with a vegetarian diet. Typical Americans eat 28% of their calories as animal protein and an additional 12% as non-animal protein. High protein intake is the primary cause of osteoporosis.

About 98% of all milk in the U.S. is produced with factory methods. Today's factory cow is fed dangerous levels of hormones to produce two to three times more milk than normal. After about four years, when the hormones no longer work, the spent cow becomes hamburger. Slaughter ends the agony of mostly solitary, intense confinement, in which our friend has never seen a blade of grass. A cow naturally lives 20 years.

Cattle grazing is subsidized on public lands in the U.S. The market rate is about $6.40 to $9.50 per month per cow, many government permit holders pay less than $2. According to U.S. Congressman Dick Armey of Texas, our nation's "farm cartel" government policy is simply "Welfare to the rich."

Factory-farmed animals have as much as 30 TIMES more saturated fat than yesterday's free-range, pasture-raised animals.

Nearly half then fish tested by Consumers Union were found to be contaminated by bacteria from human or animal feces. The suspected cause is poor sanitation practices.

In the barnyard of the past, a sow gave birth to 6 piglets a year. Today's factory farms are working towards 45! Frankenstein methods include hormone injection for greater fertility, artificial insemination, "embryo transfers" where embryos are surgically removed, and implanted into other sows -- all in the name of greater meat production at reduced cost. Similar methods are employed in the beef industry.

Cow's milk is meant for calves, not humans. An infant's natural protein needs are actually quite low. Human milk contains only 5% of its calories as protein which enables an infant to double in size in 180 days. In contrast, cow's milk is 15% protein by calorie. Newborn calves double in size in only 47 days.

At most stockyards so called "downers" may lie suffering for days until they are dragged by chain to their slaughter. The tragedy is that an animal can legally be kept in agony, sick or with broken bones simply because alive it will fetch a higher price for a rancher.

More antibiotics are used in animal production than for humans. Animal drug sales are in the billions.

Meat industry apologists claim that livestock do not compete for edible food with humans because they live on forage humans cannot eat. In truth, 70% of all the grain produced in the U.S. is fed to livestock.

Today's animals are packed indoors and kept alive with drugs and vitamin injections. The battle against infection and death in the factory farm shed is a constant concern. Misting animals with insecticides has become routine. In the chicken factories, birds are fed chemicals to control flies which are so potent, they stay active even in their droppings, still able to kill larvae.

The great Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies the nation's bread basket with water, is being pumped dry, mostly for growing grain to feed livestock. It spans over 8 midwestern states with an area three times the size of New York State. This natural reservoir from the last Ice Age may be gone in 30 years.

Meat contains about 14 times more pesticides than plant foods; dairy products more than 5-1/2 times.

There are 20 - 30 thousand animal drugs currently in use. Roughly 90% have NOT been approved by the FDA.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group of 3,000 physicians, introduced the New Four Food Groups: fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Meat, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, and oils are termed "optional" foods, not considered necessary for health.

All natural instincts are restricted in today's pig factories. Driven insane, bored, and frustrated, these naturally intelligent, playful creatures are driven to gnawing and biting on other pig tails and hind ends. A mauled pig may die from an attack and then be eaten by his attackers. Mauled pigs cannot be sold, a definite problem to the producer. In answer? Pigtails are amputated and animals are kept in total darkness except for feeding.

The Bureau of Labor lists poultry processing as one of the most hazardous occupations. Workers often contract diseases from sick animals. The meat packing industry suffers injuries10 times the national average, primarily nerve and tendon damage from repetative motion (up to 8,000 times an hour).

Egg factories all over the country weed out male chicks and dispose of them en masse in plastic bags and barrels where they are crushed and suffocated. A half a million chicks a day are disposed of. They may also be ground up WHILE STILL ALIVE for use as animal feed.

Animals at the top of the food chain absorb many of the toxic chemicals in their diet. Pesticides, insecticides, petrochemicals, hormone injections, antibiotics as well as toxic wastes such as PCB's and mercury in our oceans. Today, more than ever, it is wise to eat low on the food chain. Plant foods are the safest.

A diet vegetarian diet helps prevent diabetes, often relieves the symptoms, and can even eliminate the need insulin treatments.

Detection of salmonella is not required by the USDA. Not a single plant in the country inspects for it. CBS's "60 Minutes" found half of the chickens they randomly purchased to be contaminated.

The male calf born to a dairy cow is taken immediately after birth to a veal factory and locked up, immobile, for his entire life. He is fed a diet without iron or roughage to produce tender milky white meat. He is injected with growth hormones and antibiotics to keep him alive. He is kept in darkness except for feeding. Veal fetches a premium price.

Agricultural engineers discovered that the energy costs of producing poultry, pork and other meats was over10 times that of any plant food.

Nearly all toxic chemical residues in the American diet (95% to 99%) come from animal sources.

To help end the controversy over whether humans are carnivores, consider that it is not common for a person to stalk a wild animal, catch it by sinking claws into its body, bite its neck, and feel comfort in the taste of fresh warm blood and uncooked flesh.

To crank up pork production, piglets may be taken away from their mother soon after birth. They are then provided with a mechanical teat, without which they would die from the emotional loss. The forced weaning allows the sow to end her lactating period, so she can become pregnant again.

The high incidence of constipation hemorrhoids, hiatal hernias, diverticulosis, spastic colon and appendicitis parallels today's widespread high fat, low fiber, meat-centered diets.

Our dwindling water supply is directly tied to meat consumption. Over half of the water in the U.S. irrigates land for livestock feed and fodder.

Considering factory housing, irrigation, trucking, refrigeration, and petrochemical fertilizer, vast amounts of energy, about a gallon of gasoline, is required for every pound of grain-fed beef.

The Allied naval blockade during World War I forced Denmark dramatically into nationwide vegetarianism. The death rate from disease during the period dropped by 34%.

Chicken feathers, guts, and waste water, which normally would be discarded, are routinely "recycled"back to the hen houses as feed. Industry experts believe this unclean slaughtering, processing, and forced cannibalism, leads to the rampant salmonella epidemics in poultry plants. Ignoring true causes, the U.S. government recommends food irradiation to "sanitize" contaminated birds. Food irradiation causes potentially carcinigenic changes to proteins.

Even, though organic farming and natural insect controls are proven, agribusiness continues with pesticides. Pesticides may take hundreds of years to decompose.

In a March, 1984 Time magazine reported on cholesterol and heart disease... "in regions where ... meat is scarce, cardiovascular disease is unknown."

An acre cultivated in spinach yields 26 times more protein than it does for beef.

Human beings have no sharp needle-like teeth to puncture flesh as do carnivores; humans have flat back teeth to grind (plant) food unlike carnivores.

The USDA does not inspect for trichinosis in pork, which must be thoroughly cooked before eating. About 4% of Americans have trichinella worms in their muscles.

Vegetarians live on average about six years longer and are healthier than meat eaters.

Desertification, now affecting 29% of the earth's landmass, is largely due to the demands of livestock production around the world. Meat-eating countries, such as the U.S., drive continued increases due to conversion of land which has been sustainably farmed for centuries being coverted to beef production for export.

European countries have banned nearly all imports of American beef because of the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock.

Demand for ocean fish contributes to over 200,000 deaths of marine mammals and birds caught in fishing nets every year.

Doctors learn to treat diseases with drugs and surgery. Today's physician has virtually no education on nutrition.

USDA poultry inspectors are expected to inspect about 90 birds per minute on a fast moving conveyor. An impossibility. They are forced to allow unsafe poultry to get the USDA's stamp of approval.

To produce foie gras, duck and geese are force-fed huge quantities of grain three times a day through a feeder tube. This painful process lasts 28 days before slaughter, often causing stomachs sometimes to burst. Diseased livers, which swell to several times normal size by this process, are considered a delicacy which sells for about $12 an ounce. About 8,000 tons are produced worldwide each year.

A vegetarian diet is often a quick cure for ulcerative colitis.

Each pound of feedlot beef can be equated with 35 pounds of eroded topsoil, at an estimated cost of $44 billion a year.

Antibiotics for medical use are becoming ineffective because excessive use of antibiotics, especially in the meat industry, creates super bugs that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It is predicted that we are about to embark upon an era in which antibiotics are useless.

It's easy to become a vegetarian.
Simply do not buy meat or eggs when you go to the grocer or to a restaurant. If you do not buy it, you will not consume it. You will learn how to cook and serve nutritious and delightful vegetarian fare. There are many cookbooks available at your favorite natural food store or bookstore.


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Over 30% of Americans are OBESE! We must evolve quckly!

1 in 3 Americans are Obese
33% of Americans are Obese according to the NY Times Today. The New York Times said that now the big class actions are going to be directed towards Obesity as a risk factor rather than Tobacco. It is about time! Michelle Obama is really on the right track here! She is totally integrating the right messages of gardening, healthy food in inner cities, responsibility over what we eat.

What i don't understand so well is why we are not eradicating obesity in this decade by simply implementing the formula we know works. We simply must exercise every day, eat according to our biological design, and employ awareness in our lives so that we can feel our natural well being.

My South Beach Detox Program could eradicate obesity in 5 years or less. If it were implemented on a national scale as i implement it here in South Beach, the results would be stunning. We must make sure we continue to eat intelligently and exercise vigorously every day and then we can eliminate the epidemic, plague of obesity in our country, and the world will follow.

"As public health priorities shift, anti-tobacco programs are losing out to the campaign against obesity."

When the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation decided in 1991 to take on Joe Camel, it became the nation’s largest private funding source for fighting smoking. The foundation spent $700 million to help knock the cartoon character out of advertisements, finance research and advocacy for higher cigarette taxes and smoke-free air laws and, ultimately, to aid in reducing the nation’s smoking rate almost by half.



The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation took on Joe Camel in the 1990s. It is now spending $500 million to battle childhood obesity.


But a few years ago, the Johnson foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., added another target to its mission, pledging to spend $500 million in five years to battle childhood obesity. As the antiobesity financing rose to $58 million last year, a new compilation from the foundation shows, the organization’s antismoking grants fell to $4 million.

The steep drop-off in private funds illustrates the competition under way for money as public health priorities shift. In the race for preventive health care dollars, from charities and from federal and state government sources, the tobacco warriors have become a big loser. And the nation’s battle to shed pounds has in its corner the White House, with Michelle Obama leading a new campaign against childhood obesity. Shortly after the first lady kicked off the “Let’s Move” program, the administration awarded more funds to fight obesity than tobacco through two big new money sources for preventive health. The funds, totaling $1.15 billion, came from economic stimulus and health care reform legislation. They still provided more than $200 million for tobacco-use prevention, but much more to grapple with obesity.

The changes in financing are also evident across the country. State governments have used tobacco’s billions to balance their budgets while cutting $150 million from antitobacco programs over the last two years. On the airways, obesity public service announcements are lining up while a “Truth” campaign about tobacco languishes for lack of money.

“Don’t forget tobacco,” pleaded a commentary this month in The New England Journal of Medicine.

One in five Americans still smokes.

But one in three is obese.

Avoid Nightmares with Conscious Work

New York Times released info today about the work using the conscious mind to help alleviate bad dreams at night. This is pretty simple for the Yogi to understand...How when we use conscious awareness to root out old patterns in the mind, that we are able to liberate ourselves from suffering. The dream state is related to the waking state, of course and so we can use the power of our mind in the present moment to affect the dream state. This is very Yogic.


Nightmares resulting from traumatic events usually fade over time, as the haunting images and terrifying plots become less intense. The dreams may also naturally evolve into what some specialists call “mastery dreams,” in which the dreamer has found a way to ease the pain or horror — say, confronting a rapist or saving someone from a fire.


But when that does not happen of its own accord, many therapists use behavioral interventions to reduce nightmares or guide the waking patient toward having a mastery dream — using the conscious mind to control the wild ways of the unconscious.

Some of these techniques have been in use for years. In one treatment, known as lucid dreaming, patients are taught to become aware that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress. In another, called in vivo desensitization, they are exposed while awake to what may be haunting them in their sleep — for example, a live snake, caged and harmless — until the fear subsides. Both techniques have been researched extensively.

More recently, therapists and other experts have been using a technique called dream incubation, first researched in the early 1990s by Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School.

And Hollywood has just produced its own spin on lucid dreaming and the idea of controlling dreams, with the release earlier this month of “Inception,” a thriller whose plot swirls through the darkest layers of the dream world. As Dr. Barrett wrote in an online review of “Inception,” for the International Association for the Study of Dreams, “I love the idea of millions of action-film fans the world over leaving theaters asking each other if they’re ever had a dream in which they knew they were dreaming — or whipping out their smartphones and Googling to find out if you really can learn to influence dream content.”

Using dream incubation for problem solving, Dr. Barrett, the author of “The Committee of Sleep,” which expanded on her initial research, asks patients to write down a problem as a brief phrase or sentence and place the note next to the bed. Then she tells them to review the problem for a few minutes before going to bed, and once in bed, visualize the problem as a concrete image, if possible.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Painkillers being abused by patients and doctors and FDA doesn't really care

The overuse of painkillers in our society is a real epidemic. And yet the FDA does not have the gumption to regulate these extremely toxic and addictive drugs. Patients are taught to ignore their pain and thus continue on doing what they were doing that got them there. And physicians are also abusing the painkillers, impairing their judgment. This is a real epidemic because once again it is a system of palliation that is not interested in getting to the root cause of the pain.

Doctors should do what Hippocrates said in the Hippocratic Oath and 'Do no harm'.


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F.D.A. Panel Opposes Plan to Tighten Use of Painkillers
By BARRY MEIER
Published: July 23, 2010

An advisory committee for the Food and Drug Administration voted overwhelmingly on Friday to reject a plan proposed by the agency to reduce the misuse and abuse of long-acting painkillers like the drug OxyContin.
Members of the panel, which included doctors, pain experts and others, voted 25 to 10 against the F.D.A. plan, saying they did not think it was strong enough to control the use of such prescription narcotics. The F.D.A. usually abides by the advice of its advisory committees.
Most panel members voted against the proposal because it did not contain a requirement that doctors undergo training in the appropriate use of such drugs, F.D.A. officials said.
While long-acting narcotics are critical to pain treatment, drugs like OxyContin, fentanyl and methadone have been associated in recent years with a national epidemic of prescription drug abuse and addiction, as well as thousands of overdose-related deaths.
There are also growing concerns that their misuse by physicians poses risks to patients.
Two years ago, the F.D.A. and the drug industry began working on a plan to try to reduce the misuse and abuse of these medications. The agency held subsequent public meetings at which interest groups like physician groups and patient advocacy organizations expressed their views about what the plan should look like.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Breast Cancer False Positives

One of the most interesting parts of this article from the NY Times yesterday is where it is admitted that they have a very hard time trying to figure out if a cluster of cells in malignant or benign. It is very interesting because it may be that at that point the cluster of cells has not decided. There are so many places along the way that Cancer cell formation can be mitigated and possibly reversed. Understanding what foods promote tumor growth and which foods reverse the trend is invaluable information. Cancer is not a big deal necessarily. It becomes a bigger deal because we continue to 'feed it'.

Nearly a year earlier, in 2007, a pathologist at a small hospital in Cheboygan, Mich., had found the earliest stage of breast cancer from a biopsy. Extensive surgery followed, leaving Ms. Long’s right breast missing a golf-ball-size chunk.

Now she was being told the pathologist had made a mistake. Her new doctor was certain she never had the disease, called ductal carcinoma in situ, or D.C.I.S. It had all been unnecessary — the surgery, the radiation, the drugs and, worst of all, the fear.

“Psychologically, it’s horrible,” Ms. Long said. “I never should have had to go through what I did.”

Like most women, Ms. Long had regarded the breast biopsy as the gold standard, an infallible way to identify cancer. “I thought it was pretty cut and dried,” said Ms. Long, who is a registered nurse.

As it turns out, diagnosing the earliest stage of breast cancer can be surprisingly difficult, prone to both outright error and case-by-case disagreement over whether a cluster of cells is benign or malignant, according to an examination of breast cancer cases by The New York Times.

Advances in mammography and other imaging technology over the past 30 years have meant that pathologists must render opinions on ever smaller breast lesions, some the size of a few grains of salt. Discerning the difference between some benign lesions and early stage breast cancer is a particularly challenging area of pathology, according to medical records and interviews with doctors and patients.

Diagnosing D.C.I.S. “is a 30-year history of confusion, differences of opinion and under- and overtreatment,” said Dr. Shahla Masood, the head of pathology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville. “There are studies that show that diagnosing these borderline breast lesions occasionally comes down to the flip of a coin.”

There is an increasing recognition of the problems, and the federal government is now financing a nationwide study of variations in breast pathology, based on concerns that 17 percent of D.C.I.S. cases identified by a commonly used needle biopsy may be misdiagnosed. Despite this, there are no mandated diagnostic standards or requirements that pathologists performing the work have any specialized expertise, meaning that the chances of getting an accurate diagnosis vary from hospital to hospital.

Dr. Linh Vi, the pathologist at Cheboygan Memorial Hospital who diagnosed D.C.I.S. in Ms. Long, was not board certified and has said he reads about 50 breast biopsies a year, far short of the experience that leading pathologists say is needed in dealing with the nuances of difficult breast cancer cases. In responding to a lawsuit brought by Ms. Long, Dr. Vi maintains that she had cancer and that two board-certified pathologists at a neighboring hospital concurred with his diagnosis.

Yet several leading experts who reviewed Ms. Long’s case disagreed, with one saying flatly that her local pathologists “blew the diagnosis.”

The questions that often surround D.C.I.S. diagnoses take on added significance when combined with criticism that it is both overdiagnosed and overtreated in the United States — concerns that helped fuel the recent controversy over the routine use of mammograms for women in their 40s.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel that issues guidelines on cancer screening, found last November that the downside of routine annual mammograms for younger women might offset the benefits of early detection. The panel specifically referred to overdiagnosis of D.C.I.S., as well as benign but atypical breast lesions that left undetected would never cause problems.

D.C.I.S., which is also called Stage 0 or noninvasive cancer, was a rare diagnosis before mammograms began to be widely used in the 1980s. Until then, breast pathology typically involved reading tissue from palpable lumps. The diagnoses — usually invasive cancer, a benign fibroid tumor or a cyst — were often obvious.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Vatican's Radios cause cancer... so do our cell phones!

I often talk about energy and how even though you can't see it, that doesn't make it not real. I explain in my discussions how energy can effect us in a negative way like radiation or a positive way like Sanskrit chanting and healers energy. I usually use the example of how cell phones are dangerous sources of radiation and they should always be used on speakerphone no matter what! The below article from the bbc confirms this by connecting the radio (radiation) transmitters with the outbreak of cancer. This is what are exposed too also with all the cell phone towers and cell phone, wireless, hotspot kind of radations. There are ways to mitigate your exposure...eating good is a decent start! if you have questions just email me

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Experts: Vatican Radio transmitters 'pose cancer risk'
By David Willey BBC News, Rome
From its studios in Vatican City, Vatican Radio broadcasts around the world
There is a "coherent and significant connection" between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer, researchers have said.
The Italian experts looked at high numbers of tumours and leukaemia in children who live close to Vatican Radio transmitters.
The 60 antennas stand in villages and towns near Rome.
The Vatican said it was astonished and would present contrary views to a court in Rome.
Italian courts have been investigating for 10 years whether of an abnormally high number of deaths from cancer among families living near the aerials just north of the Italian capital can be attributed to electromagnetic radiation.
The 300-page report, ordered by the courts and carried out by Italy's most prestigious cancer research hospital, now concludes that there is a connection between radiation and the cancer incidents.
Obsolete
Some 60 huge steel aerials were erected on farmland owned by the Vatican during the last century.
They transmit Vatican Radio programmes around the world on medium and short wave.
However, the technology is now largely obsolete, as Catholic radio stations in many countries rebroadcast Vatican Radio shows after picking them up on the Internet.
In one court case against the Vatican the statute of limitations ran out, but another case is still pending.
The Vatican says it intends to defend its position and claims there is no threat to public health through its transmissions.
People living near the aerials say the radio waves affect TV reception and interfere with many household electronic appliances.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Best Talk on Nutrition, Food, Wellbeing and Enlightenment


The World Cup of Food Talks!

This was the famous food talk... if you have attended this talk you will know why it is famous. If not, come next time or get the DVD! This is a real life-changing talk. It is also the launch for the monthly detox program. If you have any questions just call the studio 305.534.0784... Blessings!
Some of this info can be found in my book, A Clear and Definite Path, which is available on Amazon


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Fred Busch Power Yoga Class at South Beach Yoga Studio



Great class today at South Beach! I hope you like that Power Yoga where we sweat a lot, learn to use awareness to transcend our mind, and feel an intense gratitude.

It was a great food talk today also. I'm glad you all liked it!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Free Classes for Beginners Saturday 9am

Miami Yogashala
210 a 23rd Street
Miami Beach

Free Beginners Yoga Classes Saturdays 9am and Sundays 4:15

Free OPEN POWER YOGA Classes Saturdays 4:30pm and Sundays 6:15pm

all taught by Fred Busch directly... see you there!

Miami Yogashala Teacher Training JULY 2010


Miami Yogashala Teacher Training JULY 2010



Wow i am so blessed to be able to teach such a great group of Yoginis (and Yogi Emiliano) as the one we have assembled for the July 2010 Teacher Training in South Beach.

It has only been three days but we have all already connected so much and everyone is so able and intelligent that it makes my job really easy.

Conducting the Teacher Trainings for Yoga is my most beloved work and i am honored, humbled and blessed to be able to guide such incredible beings in the direction of inner realization and illumination.

Check out the great group! Manuela, Jenny, Andrea, Emiliano, Sandra, Natalia, Megan, Megan, Erin, Elizabeth, Allesandrina, Rosa and Aubrey!

Another great day starts 9am tomorrow!

Next Teacher Training starts September 11th, 2010 in Miami and November 8th in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

fred busch

Monday, July 5, 2010

The Body Heals Itself

The NHS of England just announced they will stop funding homeopathy because they say it is not scientifically based. I do not necessarily disagree with the NHS but what is most interesting is how the vast majority of effort and expense in the field of 'Health' is also not scientifically sound. We know this from the results we are seeing in our society from being under the guidance of organizations like the NHS or Dept of Health. More childhood obesity, more cancer, more diabetes... that is the result of their instruction and priority set.


We need to radically shift away from what is not working and move to the simple and timeless solutions like eating a bit simpler with more fruits and greens. And doing daily exercise like swimming or yoga. The body always heals itself when given the right environment.


Doctors call for NHS to stop funding homeopathy

Page last updated at 13:39 GMT, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 14:39

Homeopathic pills Homeopathic remedies often contain few or no active ingredients

The NHS should stop funding homeopathy and it should no longer be marketed as a medicine in pharmacies, doctors say.

Medics voted on the issue at the British Medical Association's annual conference in Brighton.

They dismissed the highly-diluted remedies as "nonsense" and potentially harmful to patients as it can lead them to shunning conventional medicines.

The Department of Health homeopathy said treatment was under review.

Homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of treatment that uses highly diluted substances.

In some cases none of the original product is left. It is given orally in the belief that it will stimulate the body's self-healing mechanism.

The NHS is thought to spend about £4m a year on the treatment, helping to fund four dedicated homeopathic hospitals and numerous prescriptions.

Dr Mary McCarthy, a GP from Shropshire, said there was no evidence from hundreds of trials that homeopathy worked beyond the placebo effect - in which a patient gets better but only because they believe the treatment will work and their symptoms clear up because of the psychological boost.

She added: "It can do harm by diverting patients from conventional medical treatments."

Watery science

She was supported in the debate by a number of other doctors, despite dozens of supporters of the treatment gathering outside the conference centre urging them not to.

Dr Tom Dolphin, a member of the BMA's junior doctors committee, dismissed it as "nonsense on stilts".

WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY?

  • Involves giving people very dilute amounts of a substance that in larger amounts might produce symptoms similar to the condition being treated
  • For example, one remedy which might be used in a person suffering from insomnia would be made from coffee
  • Supporters believe homeopathy helps relieve a range of minor ailments from bruising to insomnia
  • But critics say it is no better than sugar pills and people only get better because they believe the treatment will work - the so-called placebo effect

"We risk as a society slipping back into a state of magical thinking when made-up science passes for rational discourse."