Will There Be an Ebola Outbreak in America?

By Dr. Mercola

The video above features Barbara Loe-Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit charity dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defending the legal right for everyone to make vaccine choices.

In her video, Barbara discusses how "a localized Ebola outbreak has been turned into a global public health emergency," and why there's reason to suspect that American and international authorities did not actually want Ebola to be confined to a few African nations.

US public health officials now warn that Ebola—a highly contagious and deadly hemorrhagic fever-type disease—might become as widespread as HIV/AIDS.

And while public health officials have alternative downplayed and hyped up fears about Ebola, there are actually few reasons why Ebola should turn into a full-blown deadly epidemic in developed countries like the US with strong health care infrastructures.

So far, only one Ebola infected person, a citizen from Liberia visiting the U.S., has died on American soil. He was originally misdiagnosed at a Dallas community hospital, which delayed treatment and there are questions about whether the inappropriate antibiotics he was given may have contributed to his early demise.

Regardless, by rousing fears about Ebola (which had killed about 5,000 people in West Africa by Nov. 1, 2014), vaccine manufacturers co-developing experimental genetically engineered Ebola vaccines with federal health agencies are now in a better position to fast-track licensure of Ebola vaccines.¹ If Ebola vaccine makers are shielded from product liability lawsuits² in the event people are injured or killed by their vaccine, their profits will be substantial.³

But, in order to get indemnification for a fast-tracked vaccine, the government must recommend the vaccine for universal use in children or adults or designate it as a “bioterrorism” vaccine needed to protect national security — as was the case with the 2009 swine flu pandemic H1N1 vaccine.

How Ebola Kills

The current Ebola outbreak involves Zaire ebolavirus, which leads to severe immunosuppression. Many deaths, however, are attributed to dehydration and lack of adequate treatment, which is in part why the mortality rate is so high in Africa (on average 40-50 percent) and sometimes as high as 70 percent.

Early signs of infection include non-specific flu-like symptoms; sudden onset of fever, diarrhea, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, and abdominal pains. As the infection sets in, shock, cerebral edema (fluid on the brain), blood coagulation disorders that cause uncontrollable bleeding and secondary bacterial infections may occur.

As explained by Dr. Robert Rowen, Ebola is very efficient at hijacking your immune system and suppressing it. Once your immune system realizes the virus is there, it launches a cytokine storm, and it is this cytokine storm that leads to massive tissue destruction and capillary leakage.

This is what causes the lethal hemorrhaging associated with Ebola, so part of successful treatment of Ebola hinges on preventing the cytokine storm from occurring. According to Dr. Rowen, ozone therapy may be the answer the world has been looking for.

Ozone not only inactivates viruses, it also acts very similarly to the experimental drug ZMapp in that it dramatically boosts your immune function, allowing your body to eliminate the viral infection on its own accord—without having to launch a cytokine storm.

Dr. Rowen is currently in Sierra Leone, teaching health care workers how to administer ozone therapy to Ebola patients, and I look forward to getting an update upon his return.

If you missed my recent interview with him, in which we discuss ozone therapy for Ebola, I highly recommend taking the time to listen to it now.

Download Interview Transcript

Ebola Spread Raises Questions About Disease Containment Procedures

So, just how did Ebola land on American soil? In her video and accompanying referenced commentary,⁴ Barbara summarizes the chain of events that led to the spread of the virus from the African continent to the US.

She notes a number of instances where the actions and decisions of US government officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) run contrary to what you'd expect in a disease-containment situation:

• In the spring of 2014, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone began reporting a surge in Ebola cases. By summer, African missionary workers repeatedly contacted US health officials, calling for an immediate response to the rapid spread of Ebola.

So why did CDC officials, both in the US and in Africa, ignore the exploding epidemic?

• By the beginning of August, an American missionary infected with Ebola was flown from Liberia to Atlanta for treatment with the experimental drug ZMapp.

A second aid worker is also flown back to the US for treatment around that same time, and in early September, a third American doctor infected with Ebola is flown back to the US, this time to Nebraska, for treatment. All three quickly improved and have since fully recovered.

But why did US government officials fly infected patients to the US, thereby risking the spread of infection among American hospital personnel, when they could have treated them with ZMapp in Africa?

• On September 18, the United Nations Security Council adopted a US-developed resolution that lifted travel and border restrictions on African citizens living in Ebola-stricken areas. This allowed everyone to travel freely between nations, including into the US...A mere two days later, a Liberian citizen infected with Ebola flew from Liberia to Texas, where he exposed family members, health care workers, and other patients at a Dallas hospital to the virus after falling ill.

The hospital initially misdiagnosed his symptoms and sent him back home. Two days after that, he’s diagnosed with Ebola, but public health officials failed to immediately employ appropriate infection control measures, again exposing others to infection. As Barbara asks,⁵ “Why did the US government press the United Nations to adopt a resolution calling for no restrictions on international travel from Liberia and other Ebola-stricken countries?”

And “why did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, supposedly the world’s leading infection control agency, fail to immediately assist Texas health officials when the first case of Ebola was diagnosed on US soil to guarantee that, at a minimum, the kind of infection control measures used in most nursing homes in America would be carried out?”

• On September 30, CDC officials held a press conference stating that the only time a person infected with Ebola is contagious is when they’re symptomatic. They also claimed the only way you can contract the disease is via direct contact with body fluids of an infected person, but that “under no circumstances is Ebola airborne.” But why was this done when the Director of the CDC knew, or should have known, that such statements might be false?⁶

For example, back in 2000, scientists reported that the Ebola virus has the capacity to cause asymptomatic infection, and could persist in the bloodstream of an asymptomatic carrier for at least two weeks after exposure.^{7, 8} Research suggests an asymptomatic carrier can still transmit infection via saliva, stool, semen, breast milk, tears, and blood.⁹

Just over a week later, on October 8, top disease control and Ebola infection experts went on the record admitting that, really, scientists are not sure how Ebola is transmitted, and that there’s a possibility the virus could be transmitted through the air, should an infected person cough or sneeze. They also confirmed that an asymptomatic carrier may be able to infect others, and noted that screening for Ebola at airports using fever as a guide may be ineffective, as fever and other mild symptoms can be masked taking over-the-counter medication, such as Tylenol.

• So, again, why did the director of the CDC fail to address any of this available scientific evidence?
• Last but not least, Barbara raises the important question of “why are experimental Ebola vaccines being fast tracked into human trials and promoted as the final solution rather than ramping up testing and production of the experimental ZMapp drug that has already saved the lives of several Ebola infected Americans?”
• Indeed, why a vaccine and not a drug? Could it be because “universal use” and “bioterrorism” and other types of government-designated vaccines used in “public health emergency” situations are indemnified from legal ramifications should people be harmed or die from the vaccine? Drugs do not have the same kind of legal protection.

Some People Are Sure to Benefit from the Spread of Ebola...

The chain of events Barbara summarizes in her commentary (and video) highlights what appears to be more than incompetence or intermittent slips of judgment. There appears to be orchestrated “failures” permitting the disease to easily spread beyond borders, while still allowing government officials to fall back on excuses and plausible deniability.

"A logical conclusion is that some people in industry, government and the World Health Organization did not want the Ebola outbreak to be confined to several nations in Africa because that would fail to create a lucrative global market for mandated use of fast tracked Ebola vaccines by every one of the seven billion human beings living on this planet," Barbara writes. "Will there be an Ebola outbreak in America? Ask the CDC, WHO, DOD, NIH and Congress."

Ozone Therapy—A Promising Option for the Prevention and/or Treatment of Ebola

Working with Ebola patients in Africa, Dr. Rowen is locating clinicians who can administer oxidative therapies. I certainly agree this could be a promising option for prevention and/or treatment of this and perhaps other serious diseases and deserves much further attention by health officials. Ebola is but one infectious disease that has the potential to be treated in this manner. Oxidative therapies work by stimulating your immune system, enhancing mitochondrial processes, and facilitating healing with virtually no side effects, and can be used either as treatment or prevention.

They can also be used as a potent anti-aging health strategy for general wellness. Of the various oxidative therapies available, like IV vitamin C, or hydrogen peroxide, or hyperbaric oxygen, ozone appears to be the best overall, as it's the most versatile. It's particularly beneficial for blood treatments and infection. To learn more about the general use of oxidative medicine, which include ozone therapy, ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy, and intravenous hydrogen peroxide therapy, please see my previous interview with Dr. Rowen.

To locate a clinician who can administer oxidative therapy you can try the following sources:

• Dr. Rowen's website has a list of oxidation doctors, trained by Dr. Rowen and his team
• American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM.org)
• International College of Integrative Medicine (ICIMED.org)
• OxygenHealingTherapies.com also has a list of doctors trained in a variety of oxidation therapies
• American Academy of Ozonotherapy

Low Carb, High-Fat Diets May Reduce Epileptic Seizures

By Dr. Mercola

A ketogenic diet calls for minimizing carbohydrates and replacing them with healthy fats and moderate amounts of high-quality protein.

This kind of diet is now being investigated for its potential to prevent and treat cancer, but it has long been established as an excellent treatment for epileptic seizures.

A high-fat, low-carb diet will also help optimize your weight and virtually all chronic degenerative disease, as eating this way will help you convert from burning carbs to burning fat as its primary fuel.

In the US, epilepsy affects an estimated 2.3 million adults and nearly 468,000 children below the age of 17. It’s a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurring seizures, which can have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life, given the heightened risk of accidents and injuries.¹

Ketogenic Diet—An Accepted First Line Approach for Epilepsy in Children

Standard treatment for epilepsy includes anti-epileptic drugs, which tends to work for 60-65 percent of patients.² For the remainder, the drugs don’t work—but oftentimes a ketogenic diet will.

Clinical medicine began recognizing the ketogenic diet as a valuable option in the treatment of epilepsy in the late 90s, and there’s even a Ketogenic Diet Special Interest Group at the American Epilepsy Society.

The special interest group was organized by Dr. Thomas Seyfried, who today is one of the leading academic researchers looking at using the ketogenic diet as a cancer treatment.

Jim Abrahams was another key player. Abrahams created the Charlie Foundation for his son Charlie, who went through a near-death experience from seizures and was healed using a ketogenic diet.

Today, the ketogenic diet is frequently used as a first line approach in seizure disorders where medications fail, and according to Dr. Seyfried, it’s recognized as an important component for the management of refractory (drug resistant) seizures in children specifically.

Interestingly, the mechanism by which the ketogenic diet manages seizures is not nearly as clear as the way the ketogenic diet manages cancer. This is ironic considering that it’s barely known, let alone applied, within oncology circles, while it’s already an established treatment for epilepsy.

New Study Investigates Ketogenic Diet for Adult Epileptics

While the ketogenic diet has a successful track record in treating epileptic children, adult studies have been scarce. To investigate the potential effectiveness of dietary intervention in adult epileptics, researchers recently reviewed^{3, 4, 5, 6} the limited body of published studies.

Two types of diets were included:

• Ketogenic diet, consisting of a 3:1:1 or 4:1:1 fat to carbohydrate and protein ratio, with 87-90 percent of calories from fat
• Modified Atkins diet: 1:1:1 fat to carb and protein ratio with approximately 50 percent of calories from fat

In all, the results were very similar between the two diets; 32 percent of those on a ketogenic diet and 29 percent of those on a modified Atkins diet reduced their seizures by about half.

A small subset of patients—nine percent of those following a ketogenic diet, and five percent of those using a modified Atkins diet—reduced the frequency of their seizures by more than 90 percent.

The effects were persistent over the long term, but low rates of diet acceptance and high rates of treatment discontinuation were found to be significant barriers to success.

More than half of all patients doing a ketogenic diet discontinued it before the end of the study period, as did 42 percent of those on a modified Atkins diet. That said, for those who kept the course, the results were typically rapid and beneficial. According to the authors:

“The anticonvulsant effect occurs quickly with both diets, within days to weeks. Side effects of both diets are benign and similar. The most serious, hyperlipidemia, reverses with treatment discontinuation. The most common, weight loss, may be advantageous in patients with obesity...

In summary, ketogenic and modified Atkins diet treatment show modest efficacy, although in some patients the effect is remarkable. The diets are well-tolerated, but often discontinued because of their restrictiveness. In patients willing to try dietary treatment, the effect is seen quickly, giving patients the option whether to continue the treatment.”

Another finding was that while children sometimes remain seizure free after discontinuing the diet, such was not the case in adults. This means that adult epileptics would likely have to maintain the diet indefinitely, or suffer a relapse...

The Importance of Intermittent Fasting

In my experience, the vast majority of people are adapted to burning carbs as their primary fuel opposed to burning fat. This is the result of eating a diet too high in sugar/carbs and generally lacking in healthy fats.

One of the most common side effects of being a sugar-burner is that you end up with insulin and leptin resistance, which it at the root of most chronic disease. Intermittent fasting is one of the most effective strategies I know of to shift your body from burning sugar to burning fat as its primary fuel.

While there are many different strategies, my favorite (and the one I personally used to become fat adapted) is to simply restrict your daily eating to within a six- to eight-hour window, which means you’re fasting for about 16-18 hours each day. This upregulates the enzymes that are designed to burn fat as a fuel, and downregulates the glucose enzymes. This approach really only needs to be used until insulin resistance resolves.

This kind of intermittent fasting can also be a useful modality to help you make a more gradual transition to a ketogenic diet, as it helps break your body’s addiction to glucose. In fact, eliminating sugar cravings is one of the most welcomed side effects of intermittent fasting. Unless you have a very serious disease, I believe it is best for most people to implement intermittent fasting slowly over six to eight weeks rather than a three day complete fast. You begin by not eating for three hours before you go to bed and then gradually extend the time you eat breakfast until you have skipped breakfast completely. 

For Optimal Health, Pay Attention to What and When You Eat

For optimal health, there are two key factors to keep in mind: what you eat, and when you eat. Some intermittent fasting advocates permit you to eat just about any kind of junk you want as long as you restrict calories on certain days, but in my view this can be really counterproductive because when you’re fasting, optimal nutrition becomes more important, not less so...

As you will see below, the ketogenic diet is very similar to what could be considered ideal for most people, and I believe it can be very beneficial for the vast majority of people, either alone or in combination with intermittent fasting. The primary difference between someone struggling with a chronic disease such as epilepsy or cancer and people who have not yet been diagnosed with a chronic disease is how long you have to maintain this type of regimen.

As a general rule, if you are insulin resistant, I recommend intermittent fasting along with a ketogenic-type diet for as long as it takes to resolve your insulin resistance. At that point, you can add more meals back in. However, whether you’re intermittently fasting or not, I believe the following food guidelines are beneficial for the vast majority of people—especially if you’re trying to shed unwanted weight:

1. Avoid sugar, processed foods, fructose in excess of 15 grams, and grains. This effectively means you must avoid most processed foods
2. Eat plenty of whole foods, ideally organic, and replace the grain carbs with:
• Large amounts of fresh organic locally grown vegetables
• Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein (think organically raised, pastured animals). Most Americans eat far more protein than needed for optimal health. I believe it is the rare person who really needs more than one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. Those that are aggressively exercising or competing and pregnant women should have about 25 percent more, but most people rarely need more than 40-70 grams of protein a day.

The rationale behind limiting your protein this: when you consume protein in levels higher than recommended above, you tend to activate the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, which can help you get large muscles but may also increase your risk of cancer. There is also research suggesting that the "mTOR gene" is a significant regulator of the aging process,⁷ and suppressing this gene may be linked to longer life.

To determine whether you’re getting too much protein, first calculate your lean body mass by subtracting your body fat percentage from 100 (example: if you have 20 percent body fat, you have 80 percent lean body mass). Then write down everything you’re eating for a few days, and calculate the amount of daily protein from all sources.

Aim for one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass, which would place most people in the range of 40 to 70 grams of protein per day. If you’re currently averaging a lot more than that, adjust downward accordingly. You could use the chart below or simply Google the food you want to know and you will quickly find the grams of protein in the food.

Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6-9 grams of protein per ounce. An ideal amount for most people would be a 3-ounce serving of meat or seafood (not 9- or 12-ounce steaks!), which will provide about 18-27 grams of protein	Eggs contain about 6-8 grams of protein per egg. So an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12-16 grams of protein. If you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
Seeds and nuts contain on average 4-8 grams of protein per quarter cup	Cooked beans average about 7-8 grams per half cup
Cooked grains average 5-7 grams per cup	Most vegetables contain about 1-2 grams of protein per ounce

• As much high-quality healthful fat as you want (saturated and monounsaturated from animal and tropical oil sources). Most people need upwards of 50-85 percent fats in their diet for optimal health. Sources of healthful fats to add to your diet include:

Avocados	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk	Raw dairy	Organic pastured egg yolks
Coconuts and coconut oil	Unheated organic nut oils	Raw nuts, such as almonds, pecans, and macadamia, and seeds	Grass-fed meats

Low-Fat Diets Finally Acknowledged as ‘a Bad Idea’

One of the most destructive health recommendations that have pervaded the US food system is the recommendation to avoid dietary fat. As noted above, most people need at least 50 percent or more of their daily calories in the form of healthy fat—a far cry from the 10 percent currently recommended.

When food manufacturers started removing saturated fats from their foods, they added not just one but two ingredients that have wrought tremendous harm: sugar, and trans fats. As recently noted by investigative journalist Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal:⁸

“The top scientist guiding the US government’s nutrition recommendations made an admission last month that would surprise most Americans. Low-fat diets, Alice Lichtenstein said, are ‘probably not a good idea.’ It was a rare public acknowledgment conceding the failure of the basic principle behind 35 years of official American nutrition advice.”

I recently interviewed Nina on the topic of fats, and in that interview she revealed that while the food industry reduced the use of trans fats, restaurants ended up reverting back to using regular vegetable oils (such as peanut, corn, and soy oil) for frying, and these oils, it turns out, degrade into highly toxic oxidation products when heated... In fact, they may be even worse for you than the trans fat they’re replacing! Basically, while the FDA has recognized the harms of trans fat and is in the process of eliminating them, they have not reviewed the evidence to conclude what the healthiest replacement might be. As explained by Nina:

“There’s a whole category called aldehydes, which are particularly worrisome... [A]t fairly low levels of exposure, these aldehydes in animals caused tremendous inflammation, which is related to heart disease. They oxidized LDL cholesterol, which is thought to be the LDL cholesterol that becomes dangerous. There's a link to heart disease. There's also some evidence that links these aldehydes in particular to Alzheimer's. They seem to have a very severe effect on the body."

One researcher has found that cyclic aldehydes cause toxic shock in animals through gastric damage, and this seems consistent with the rise in immune problems and gastrointestinal-related diseases in the human population. So, please, while it’s important to avoid trans fat, you also want to avoid food cooked in regular vegetable oils, as the byproducts produced when these oils are heated may be even worse for your health than trans fat... Instead, stick to saturated fats like coconut oil, butter, or lard for cooking.

Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting Can Be Greatly Beneficial for Most

If you or your child is an epileptic, I would encourage you to try a ketogenic diet. Intermittent fasting may further boost results. I also believe it’s crucial for cancer^{9, 10} patients.

That said, a ketogenic diet, in which you replace carbs with low to moderate amounts of  protein and high amounts of healthy fat (such as avocado, coconut oil, butter, olive oil, and macadamia nuts), is really recommended for everyone, whether you have a chronic health problem or not. It’s a diet that will help optimize your weight and health overall, as eating this way will help you convert from carb burning mode to fat burning.

Number of Children Lacking Vitamin D Soars

By Dr. Mercola

In the last five years, the number of children with vitamin D deficiency has increased by more than 200 percent, according to a study commissioned by the UK-based public awareness campaign Vitamin D Mission.¹

What’s more, they uncovered that many physicians and parents had a “worrying lack of knowledge” about the importance of vitamin D for children’s health and the widespread prevalence of deficiency.

Your skin produces vitamin D from exposure to sunlight, but during certain months of the year – namely November, December, January, February, and March in the UK and much of the US.

During this time not enough of the sun’s rays reach the earth to produce ample vitamin D in your body (plus, it’d be too cold outside to go sunbathing, even if it was).

Only 7 percent of physicians could identify these months of the year when it is difficult to get enough sunlight exposure to produce adequate vitamin D, and only 4 percent of parents were aware that sunlight during the winter months could not provide vitamin D.

Many Parents and Health Care Practitioners Are Unaware of the Importance of Vitamin for Children

There’s widespread misinformation and lack of awareness when it comes to vitamin D, which is tragic because it’s incredibly important for multiple aspects of health – and it’s one of the easiest vitamin deficiencies to fix.

When surveyed, half of parents with children under 5 said they knew “not much” or “nothing” about the importance of vitamin D for children’s health. Another third said they had not received any information from their physicians about it.

Further, one-third of health-care practitioners and four out of five parents did not know the UK’s Department of Health recommends children under 5 take a daily vitamin D supplement.² Unfortunately, they recommend just 280 IUs of vitamin D daily for children aged 6 months to 5 years, and 400 IUs daily for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

These levels are likely far too low to bring vitamin D levels into the optimal therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml year-round, and even still it’s estimated that the average British toddler only gets 27 percent of the too-low recommended intake!³ No wonder rates of rickets and other vitamin-D-related conditions are increasing year after year…

Why Is Vitamin D So Crucial for Children’s Health?

Your body needs vitamin D at all life stages, including for development in the womb. In fact, if you’re a woman who is pregnant or planning to become pregnant, now is the time to optimize your vitamin D levels for the sake of your child (and your own health as well). One of the leading vitamin D researchers, Dr. Michael Holick, explained in our interview:

"I usually recommend that vitamin D is critically important from birth until death. Just to give you a couple of examples: during pregnancy, we're now realizing that vitamin D deficiency is a major issue for the developing fetus.

Pre-eclampsia, the most serious complication of pregnancy, is associated with vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is critically important for muscle function, which, of course, is important for birthing action. We showed a 400 percent reduced risk of women requiring a C-section if they simply were vitamin D sufficient at the time they gave birth.

We're now beginning to realize that in-utero vitamin D deficiency is more likely that the young children are going to have asthma and wheezing disorders. We're also now realizing that children who are vitamin D deficient are more likely to develop type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis later in life, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn's disease.”

For instance, poor diet and lack of vitamin D during pregnancy were found to be determining factors in whether children suffered from asthma and wheezing by the age of 5.⁴ In childhood, studies of critically ill children found that vitamin D deficiency is very common in sick children, and is associated with worse outcomes and extended hospital stays.⁵

Your immune system needs vitamin D to function properly, too, which is why children with adequate vitamin D levels are less likely to catch the flu than children without.⁶ Vitamin D even plays a role in the health of your teeth, and children with early childhood caries tend to have lower vitamin D levels than children without.⁷

In fact, this association appears to begin in utero, as mothers of infants with cavities were found to have significantly lower vitamin D levels during pregnancy than mothers with infants who were cavity-free.⁸ Research shows that 56 percent of black women and 19 percent of white women were vitamin-D deficient during their first trimester of pregnancy, however this used a deficiency definition of <20 ng/ml.⁹

This is well below the optimal 50-70 ng/ml, as you can see in the table below. So most of those who the study classified as having enough vitamin D were actually deficient as well – giving you an idea of just how widespread vitamin D deficiency actually is.

Sources

Inadequate Vitamin D in Adults: Linked to Asthma, Neuromuscular Disease, Thyroid Issues, and More

As an adult, your vitamin D requirements are equally important as children’s. Accumulating research continues to highlight the many different aspects of your health that are affected by too little vitamin D. For instance:

• Low vitamin D levels may be associated with autoimmune thyroid disease¹⁰
• People with neuromuscular disease are often vitamin D deficient¹¹
• Adults with asthma who are also vitamin D deficient are at a higher risk of having an asthma attack, and boosting levels may help manage attacks¹² (the same has been found to be true in children as well)

From my perspective, however, vitamin D deficiency appears to have the greatest impact on cancer rates. At present, the US cancer mortality rate is equivalent to eight to 10 airplanes crashing each and every single day. Optimizing vitamin D rates across the general population could reduce that by about 50 percent. And it's virtually free—at least if you opt for sun exposure.

As mentioned by Dr. Holick, one of the Nurses' Health Studies showed that nurses who had the highest blood levels of vitamin D, averaging about 50 ng/ml, reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by as much as 50 percent. Similarly, a Canadian study showed that women who reported having the most sun exposure as a teenager and young adult had almost a 70 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer. It's just insane not to take advantage of this prevention strategy…

How to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels

It has become increasingly clear that vitamin D deficiency is absolutely rampant, not just in the UK but also in the US. For example:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 32 percent of children and adults throughout the US were vitamin D deficient
• The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 50 percent of children aged 1 to 5 years old, and 70 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 11, are deficient or insufficient in vitamin D
• Researchers such as Dr. Holick estimate that 50 percent of the general population is at risk of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency

I firmly believe that appropriate sun exposure is the best way to optimize your vitamin D levels. I personally have not taken a vitamin D supplement for over five years, yet my levels are in the 70 ng/ml range. If you can't get enough sunshine, then a high-quality tanning bed would be your next best option. What makes for a high-quality tanning bed? Most tanning equipment uses magnetic ballasts to generate light. These magnetic ballasts are well known sources of EMFs that can contribute to cancer. If you hear a loud buzzing noise while in a tanning bed, it has a magnetic ballast system.

I strongly recommend you avoid these types of beds and restrict your use of tanning beds to those that use electronic ballasts. Dr. Holick recommends protecting your face when using a tanning bed, and to only go in for half the time recommended for tanning. Make sure the tanning bed you're using is putting out UVB radiation. There are some on the market that only put out UVA, as this is what creates a tan, but you need UVB to produce vitamin D.

If You Opt for a Vitamin D Supplement…

If your circumstances don't allow you to access the sun or a high-quality tanning bed, then you really only have one option if you want to raise your vitamin D, and that is to take a vitamin D supplement (make sure it is vitamin D3, not D2). I recommend regularly testing your levels to make sure you're staying within the therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml year-round. The Society Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee recommends the following dosages. Keep in mind that these guidelines are thought to allow most people to reach a vitamin D level of 30 ng/ml, which many still consider suboptimal for disease prevention.

• Neonates: 400 to 1,000 IUs per day
• Children one year of age and above: 600 to 1,000 IUs per day
• Adults: 1,500 to 2,000 IUs per day

GrassrootsHealth offers a helpful chart showing the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels based upon your measured starting point. Many experts agree that 35 IUs of vitamin D per pound of body weight could be used as an estimate for your ideal dose, but you’ll need to test your levels to find out the dosage that’s right for you.

Vitamin K2 and Magnesium Are Important Alongside Vitamin D

Nutrients do not exist in a bubble… they often require the synergistic actions of supportive nutrients to function properly within your body, and this is very true of vitamin D, vitamin K2, magnesium, and also calcium. These four nutrients perform an intricate dance together, with one supporting the other. Lack of balance between these nutrients is why calcium supplements have become associated with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, and why some people experience vitamin D toxicity.

Part of the explanation for these adverse side effects is that vitamin K2 keeps calcium in its appropriate place. If you're K2 deficient, added calcium can cause more problems than it solves, by accumulating in the wrong places. Similarly, if you opt for oral vitamin D, you need to also consume in your food or take supplemental vitamin K2 and more magnesium. Taking mega doses of vitamin D supplements without sufficient amounts of K2 and magnesium can lead to vitamin D toxicity and magnesium deficiency symptoms, which include inappropriate calcification.

Magnesium and vitamin K2 complement each other, as magnesium helps lower blood pressure, which is an important component of heart disease. So, all in all, anytime you're taking any of the following: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D3, or vitamin K2, you need to take all the others into consideration as well, since these all work synergistically with one another. Please don’t simply assume that you’re getting enough, either, as an estimated 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium.

The health consequences of deficiency can be quite significant, as magnesium performs a wide array of biological functions, including activating muscles and nerves and creating energy in your body. So, ideally, strive to get the vitamin D your body needs naturally, via healthy sun exposure, but if you opt to take a supplement be sure to find out how to optimize your vitamin K2, magnesium, and calcium levels along with it.

Can People Receiving Live Virus Vaccines Transmit Vaccine Strain Virus to Others?

By Dr. Mercola

There’s currently a great concern about Ebola, and this provides us an opportunity to investigate some basic vaccine questions. The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US contracted it while visiting relatives in Africa. He recently died, and transmitted the disease to two nurses at a Dallas community hospital, who took care of him.

Both nurses have recovered and have been declared free of infection. That’s a good sign that tells us Ebola is in fact very survivable if caught and treated early.

But there’s still plenty of fear to go around, and it’s quite clear that this is something multinational drug companies are taking advantage of to fast-track an Ebola vaccine to licensure.

When pharmaceutical companies develop a new experimental drug, there’s the possibility it might kill people. When that happens, the families of those who die have the legal right to sue companies in civil court for damages.

But when drug companies develop bioterrorism and pandemic influenza vaccines, or vaccines that are recommended by the CDC for universal use by children or adults, that is not the case.

Congress in 1986 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 have banned all civil lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers when Americans are injured or die from federally recommended and state mandated vaccines.

After vaccine manufacturers were first indemnified against legal action by legislation Congress passed nearly 30 years ago, a huge incentive was created for the pharmaceutical industry to target vaccines as a market alternative to drugs. Today, new vaccine development is the fastest growing sector in the pharmaceutical industry.

There is tremendous market pressure on drug companies to produce a large number of new vaccines right now and there are experimental vaccines in the pipeline for Ebola, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), enterovirus, West Nile, dengue, cholera, and multiple types of influenza.

The Emerging Risks of Vaccines

Barbara Loe-Fisher is the co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit charity dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defending the legal right for everyone to make vaccine choices.

She explains how you can shed live virus in body fluids whether you have a viral infection or have gotten a live attenuated viral vaccine:

“Live attenuated viral vaccines (LAV) that use live viruses try to, in essence, fool your immune system into believing that you’ve come into contact with a real virus, thereby stimulating the antibody response that, theoretically, will protect you,” she says.

“When you get these live viral vaccines, you shed live virus in your body fluids. Just like when you get a viral infection, you shed live virus. That’s how viral infections are transmitted.

Because viruses, unlike bacteria, need a living host... in order to multiply. What these viruses do is they try to disable the immune system and evade immune responses.”

Ebola is a perfect example. Ebola is a very efficient disabler of the innate (cellular) immune system as well as the humoral (learned) immune system. That’s why it’s such an efficient killer. In Africa, the mortality rate is around 50-70 percent. (In sharp contrast, Ebola patients in the US have fared very well. All but one is either recovered or on their way to recovery.)

However, there are still many things we do not fully understand about viruses and how they spread. According to Barbara, Ebola has been detected in semen for 40 days after symptoms begin and during the convalescent period. It’s one of the ways it might be transmitted. As Barbara notes in a brand new report, “The Emerging Risks of Live Virus and Viral Vectored Vaccines:”

"There is an ongoing debate among scientists about where viruses came from and how they evolved and are still evolving.¹ One virologist observed that replicating and mutating viruses are the ‘world’s leading source of genetic innovation…’²

Discussing the co-evolution of viruses with humans and other living organisms, another virologist wrote in 2012 that during epidemics viruses evolve. Genetic and environmental co-factors make some individuals more or less likely to die from or survive the infection, producing an increase of the numbers of resistant individuals in the population."³

One of the dangers of any viral disease outbreak is that people often fail to realize is that you can be an asymptomatic carrier of a viral infection; so while you show no symptoms or only mild symptoms, you may still be able to transmit the virus to others. Even fewer people understand that this is also true for live virus vaccines!

You Can Transmit Live Vaccine Strain Virus After Getting Vaccinated

Smallpox, for example, is transmitted via body fluids. And, when you get a live attenuated smallpox vaccine, which contains live attenuated vaccinia virus, you can develop vaccinia virus (VACV or VV) strain infection, which you can then transmit to others. The same is true for polio and the live oral polio vaccine (OPV).

“In the days before [polio] vaccines in this country, many people got poliovirus infection. Most did not show any symptom or only mild symptoms. Their bodies dealt with it and they were immune. During the time they had an infection, whether they were symptomatic or asymptomatic, they could transmit it.

A tiny number of people went on to have complications from poliovirus infections; they became paralyzed or died. But the majority of people got polio, went through the disease, became immune, and did not suffer an injury.

The live polio vaccine, the Sabin vaccine, which followed the inactivated Salk vaccine, was given orally [and] contains live attenuated polioviruses.

Those polioviruses, when you take that [live] vaccine, you shed them in your body fluids—your saliva, urine, and stool. Vaccine-strain viruses like disease viruses or infections can be found also sometimes in tears and vomit. This is true for the Ebola virus as well.

Whether you have the viral infection or you get the live attenuated vaccine, you shed live virus in your body fluids and you are able to transmit the virus to other people who come in contact with your body fluids. I think this is a very important thing for people to understand,” she said.

Live Virus Vaccines Have Risks — Who’s Paying Attention?

Barbara has compiled a special report, “The Emerging Risks of Live Virus and Viral Vectored Vaccines” containing over 200 references, which delves into virus shedding and vaccine virus shedding. In it, she raises valid questions about whether or not scientists, public health officials, and vaccine manufacturers truly understand the impact live attenuated viral vaccines and vaccines using viruses as vaccine vectors, have on our immune function, genetic integrity, and the environment.

Live virus vaccine shedding and transmission may also affect the evolution of viruses that infect humans and animals because vaccine strain viruses are released into the environment, where recombinations and further mutations can occur. For example, in Africa, vaccine campaigns with live oral polio vaccine have contaminated the water supply and sewers with live vaccine strain polioviruses.

“One of the reasons they’re having such a hard time eradicating polio with the use of live [polio] virus vaccine is you have a circulation and sometimes a co-circulation of both wild-type polioviruses as well as vaccine-strain polioviruses. Viruses constantly mutate. We’re shedding viruses in the environment, and they’re mutating and recombining with each other,” Barbara notes.

If we’re going to continue to use live virus vaccines, and genetically engineer these viruses and use them as vectors, shouldn’t we understand the potential long-term price on human health and animal health? Do we understand it fully? I don’t think we do.

I think that the public needs to become more educated and more involved in the kinds of policies that are being set, and the kind of science that’s being done...Because the people who are creating vaccines and profiting from them are not, in my opinion, doing a good enough job with the science and making sure that what they’re creating is not going to cause long-term health problems for humans.”

Shedding with GMO Virus-Vectored Vaccines

Among live virus vaccines being used in the U.S. and other countries are measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox (varicella zoster), live virus (nasal spray) flu vaccine, shingles vaccine, and the rotavirus vaccine that’s given to infants for diarrhea. When you or your child gets a live virus attenuated vaccine, you can shed vaccine strain live virus in your body fluids, and the vaccine strain virus could potentially be transmitted to others, in whom it might cause serious complications. Unfortunately, many doctors are not even aware of this risk. According to Barbara’s report:

“Humans and animals receiving live virus-vectored vaccines will be shedding and transmitting genetically modified vaccine strains that may pose unpredictable risks to the vaccinated, close contacts and environment. For example, vaccine developers creating an experimental AIDS vaccine by genetically engineering the live-attenuated measles virus to express a fusion protein containing HIV-1 antigens, face challenges in trying to limit shedding and transmission of infectious virus by the recently vaccinated.⁴

These very real risks should be thoroughly quantified before licensure and widespread use of GMO vaccines⁵ because the ability of vaccine strain viruses to recombine with wild-type viruses and produce new hybrid viruses with potentially serious side effects that are shed and transmitted in human and animal populations cannot be underestimated.^{6, 7}

...Sometimes the weakened vaccine strain live virus can mutate and regain virulence, including neurovirulence, which significantly raises risks of serious complications from vaccine strain virus infection.^{8, 9} Healthy persons can suffer complications from vaccine strain viral infection¹⁰ but children and adults with immunodeficiency are more likely to develop complications after they receive live virus vaccines or come in close contact with a person who is shedding vaccine strain live virus.”^{11, 12}

Vaccine Reactions Are Grossly Underreported

Drug companies making and profiting from vaccine sales are notorious for giving nothing more than lip service to safety. They conduct their own pre-licensure clinical trials and are not required to use a true placebo to prove safety. And there’s no aggressive effort to monitor for side effects. The federal government created the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), but for every person who reports an adverse effect, there may be about 100 that go unreported.

There’s gross underreporting of vaccine reactions, injuries, and deaths to VAERS, even though it’s a matter of federal law as of 1986. Any doctor or other vaccine provider who gives a vaccine is supposed to monitor the person they vaccinated, and report any subsequent injuries, hospitalization, or death to VAERS. But there’s no enforcement or penalties for failure to comply with the vaccine safety informing, reporting, and recording provisions in the 1986 law.

“What’s happening is a lot of the providers of vaccines, the doctors, are determining that when something bad happens after vaccination, it’s not the fault of the vaccine; it’s just a coincidence. You have less than 10 percent, or perhaps less than one percent of all vaccine providers actually reporting to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System,” Barbara says.

Adding insult to injury, there’s also an attempt to censor public conversation about all these vaccines that we’re using, and the hundreds of vaccines in the research pipeline – including live virus vaccines and genetically engineered viral vectored experimental vaccines for Ebola and HIV. Are we paying a much-higher price than scientists creating vaccines originally considered? Is overuse of vaccines leading to more serious health problems?

Barbara and I agree that this is one of the biggest public health issues of our time. And in light of the gaps in vaccine science, having the legal right to know and freedom to make an individual, voluntary choice about vaccination is essential.

“Vaccines not only carry a risk of injury or death from a reaction but they also can cause vaccine strain viral infection, and they also can fail to protect,” Barbara warns. “A product that cannot be guaranteed to be effective and cannot be guaranteed to be safe for everyone is not a product that should be mandated. It’s not a product that should be liability-free and have nobody accountable in the civil court of law.”

Erosion of Medical Exemptions Threatens Many People’s Health

As noted by Barbara, over the past 30 years, the number of medical exemptions has narrowed dramatically. At present, virtually everyone is a candidate for vaccination, whether you’re immune-compromised or not. Virtually no health condition qualifies anymore as a medical reason not to vaccinate or delay a vaccine. Interestingly, immune-compromised people are very efficient shedders of either viral infections or vaccine strain live viruses. The more immune-compromised you are, the more efficiently and the longer you shed virus in your body fluids.

“It’s a real puzzlement to me why the no-exemptions policy also applies to the immune-compromised, because they actually can shed the virus—either the regular virus or vaccine strain virus—for longer periods of time. They also can have serious complications from either the viral infection or live virus vaccines,” she notes. “We really need to pay attention to who we are individually and have a greater understanding of our risk with infections and our risk with vaccines.”

Some Viruses and Bacteria Are Highly Beneficial for Health

It’s well worth noting that viruses and bacteria actually contribute to the healthy functioning of your body—a fact that many in our antibacterial-obsessed society still haven’t fully grasped. As noted in her special report:

“Most people fear and view viruses as dangerous microbes that only cause sickness and death. However, emerging evidence has revealed that viruses play an integral role in helping us stay well, too. Healthy infants experience many different kinds of wild-type viral infections and shed virus without showing any clinical symptoms of illness. In addition to the protection they receive from maternal antibodies, viruses help the infant’s immune system develop and gives them early protection against more serious viral infections in infancy and later in life…^{13 14, 15}

According to scientists discussing the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ increased sanitation and public health interventions in modern societies have reduced the diversity of early experiences with viral and bacterial infections among infants and children and one negative outcome has been an increase in autoimmune and allergic diseases.¹⁶ They suggest that some infectious microbes, especially those that have co-evolved with humans, protect against a wide spectrum of immune-related disorders."¹⁷

Your body contains about 100 trillion bacteria, and bacteriophages (viral components) outnumber the bacteria by 10 to one. All of these bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms make up your body’s microbiome. Barbara’s report points out that while we commonly view all viruses as “bad,” this is really not the case. Some viruses, known as bacteriophages, appear to promote health by infecting and killing bacteria that might otherwise cause disease:

“As one group of European scientists wrote in 2006, ‘The role of bacteriophages in protecting against pathogenic microorganisms and controlling bacterial flora in the human organism is of major significance.’”¹⁸

There’s a broad and compelling scientific base of evidence showing that a healthy human immune system is the most powerful way to resist infectious diseases or heal after infection and the efficient functioning of your immune system is dependent on health gut flora. About 80 percent of your immune system is in your microbiome. Hence, the obvious conclusion is that in order to maintain health and/or successfully recover from infections without serious complications, you need to optimize the functioning of your immune system. In her report, Barbara notes:

“Viruses and bacteria always present in the body are constantly interacting with each other in a complex and dynamic process from infancy through adulthood.¹⁹ In 2012 a consortium of scientists analyzing the structure, function and diversity of the human microbiome confirmed that biodiversity and the uniqueness of each individual human being is important to individual and human health.

They found that the microbiomes of ‘even healthy individuals differ remarkably’ and that “much of this diversity remains unexplained, although diet, environment, host genetics and early microbial exposure have all been implicated.”²⁰ Why some people get sick and develop complications from infectious diseases while others do not has a lot to do with individual differences and microbiome diversity appears to be a big part of the puzzle.”

The Importance of Robust Immune Function

Eating a high-sugar diet is one of the most harmful things you can do to your immune system, as it kills beneficial bacteria and feeds pathogenic microbes that promote disease. Vitamin D deficiency is another important factor that can severely depress your immune function. If you’re eating a healthy diet low in sugar and high in probiotics, and getting sensible sunlight exposure to optimize your vitamin D level, that’s likely to help you resist infection and stay healthier than simply getting vaccinated. There’s really no comparison because by doing the former you will naturally activate your body’s own intrinsic immune system.

Several Ebola patients treated in the US have received ZMapp, which is not a drug in the conventional sense. It’s a passive antibody that works by reducing viral replication so your own immune system has enough time to come in and kill the virus without setting off a cytokine storm—which is what causes the lethal hemorrhaging. ZMapp actually demonstrates that what really works is your own immune system, not some external pill or vaccine.

“The blood of the Ebola survivors is now being viewed like gold because there was a natural immune response. Those antibodies are superior in quality to vaccine-acquired antibodies. I think this is a really important concept that everybody needs to understand. Naturally acquired antibodies are superior in quality to vaccine-acquired antibodies. That’s why the blood of [the missionary who recovered from ebola] was used with some of the others who were infected... He was able to give those antibodies to them through his blood,” Barbara says.

How Do Vaccines Affect Human Immune Function Long-Term?

Illogically, we’ve traded longer lasting naturally acquired immunity for a temporary, artificial vaccine acquired immunity against an entire array of infectious diseases—most of which never led to mass casualties in the first place. In the last 30 years, the US has tripled the number of vaccines given to infants and children during their most critical period of development—the first three years of life. Could the ramifications of this be reflected in the current abysmal chronic disease and disability statistics in the U.S.?

“We do not understand the impact we’ve had on the immune function of several generations of children, whose immune systems have been atypically manipulated over and over again with inactivated bacterial vaccines and live virus vaccines,” Barbara says. “We don’t know the impact on their epigenetics, on their DNA, and on their immune function.”

Along with microbiome science, we’ve also seen advances in epigenetic science. These are brand-new frontiers in scientific knowledge, and what scientists are finding is that we do not understand the complexity of the immune system or the complexity of the human body as a whole... The idea that vaccines are the “obvious answer” to every health problem is undoubtedly driven by ideology and profit-making and not in consideration of a full spectrum of scientific knowledge.

Maintaining control over public health policy and protecting the financial status quo for vaccine developers is probably a big reason why the pharmaceutical industry, public health officials and medical trade groups are working overtime to censor or dismiss vaccine safety discussions rather than face legitimate questions head on, and pursue the unbiased scientific research that is needed to clarify the impact of our current reliance on vaccines.

“We’re going through a really rough time,” Barbara says. “The pressure is on and the alliance among the medical trade associations, the pharmaceutical companies, the public health officials, government public health officials, is a very powerful lobby. They are trying to take away [vaccine] exemptions. They restricted the vaccine exemptions in Washington State, Oregon, and California. We held the line in Colorado this year. We held the line in Vermont to a great extent. But they’re going into other states this year.”

It’s Time to Show Up and Speak Out...

At this juncture, it’s really important that people show up when public hearings are held and when legislation is introduced. You need to take action and contact your elected officials whenever the opportunity arises. The NVIC Advocacy Portal (NVICAP) at NVICAdvocacy.org provides real-time information via email when legislation is moving in your state that might take away exemptions. So please, take a moment to sign up to be a user of this free online communications and networking tool that can help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your state and contact your own legislators to make your voice heard.

“We’re seeing a tightening of the rope around the neck of the people,” Barbara warns. “We’re seeing people who are being fired from jobs – healthcare workers – if they don’t get an annual flu shot. The childcare workers are the next on the list to be tracked and threatened with unemployment if they don’t get all the vaccines. They’re talking about the airline industry, the food service industry, and the teachers. I always say, ‘You’re not yet perhaps on that list, but you will be on that list – everyone will be on the list.’ This is a long-term goal: 100 percent vaccination rate with full government recommendation on vaccines – no exemptions.”

That’s a scary thing to consider. But we can turn this around if enough of us venture out into our communities and reach out to our elected officials. It’s up to us to participate in the democratic process and change the laws that we don’t like. Knowledge is power, so you have to educate yourself. And we have to change the laws to allow for freedom to make health choices, including vaccine choices.

The NVIC Advocacy Portal is a great tool that can help you get involved. Just being fretful and saying, “I can’t believe it,” isn’t really going to accomplish anything. To make a difference, you have to participate in the process. And you can. It’s important to realize that it doesn’t take a majority of people to make a difference on this. It just takes a motivated group of people who really know the truth and who are willing to share it with others.

“I think that 2015 and 2016 are going to be the years where this issue is going to be decided in America. Are we going to be forced to use every single government-recommended vaccine and not be able to function as a society? Or are we going to be free to make independent, informed vaccine choices, and by extension, health choices, choose how we want to stay healthy? It’s up to the people. We can only show them the way, but we can’t do it for them,” Barbara says.

Roasted Root Vegetables -- A Tasty Treat

By Dr. Mercola

If you want to eat more veggies and indulge in a "comfort food" that's warming and satisfying, look no further than root vegetables. Packed with vitamins, minerals, and other disease-fighting phytonutrients, these vegetables add powerful nutrition to your diet and delicious flavor to virtually any savory dish.

The most popular root vegetable in the US is the white potato, but I urge you to move beyond this starchy mainstay to some of the other more nutritious options. Below I've detailed some of the very best options, including why they're so phenomenal for your health.

What Are the Healthiest Root Vegetables?

Rutabaga

Rutabaga, a cross between a turnip and a cabbage, is rich in fiber and vitamin C (one cup contains 53% of the daily recommended value). Rutabagas are also members of the cruciferous family of vegetables, which are rich in antioxidants and anti-cancer phytonutrients.

Rutabagas are also an excellent source of potassium, manganese, B vitamins, magnesium, and phosphorus. Rutabagas are also a good source of zinc, which is essential for immune support and may help protect your body from the effects of stress.

As a mild-tasting root vegetable, rutabagas work well roasted or baked, and can serve as a nutrient-rich substitute for potatoes. They can also be eaten raw along with a dip, such as hummus.

Turnip

Turnips are members of the cruciferous family of vegetables, which are nutrient-dense and antioxidant-rich. Turnips contain a type of phytonutrient known as indoles, which may help fight cancer. One type in particular, brassinin, has been shown to kill human colon cancer cells.¹ Turnips are also rich in fiber.

Just 100 calories' worth of turnips can give you 25-40 percent of your daily fiber requirement. Glucosinolates, which are sulfur-containing compounds found in turnip sprouts, appear to have anti-cancer, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic, and antibacterial benefits

Parsnip

These root vegetables resemble carrots but are whitish in color and have a sweet, nutty flavor. Parsnips are rich in nutrients like fiber, folate, potassium, and vitamin C. Eating foods rich in potassium is important because this nutrient helps offset the hypertensive effects of sodium.

An imbalance in your sodium-potassium ratio can lead to high blood pressure and may also contribute to a number of other diseases, including heart disease and stroke.

Onions

Onions are a very good source of vitamins C and B6, iron, folate, and potassium. But it's their phytochemcials – including the flavonoid quercetin and allyl disulphide – that are most exciting to researchers. To date, onions have shown a wealth of beneficial properties; they're anti-allergic, anti-histaminic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant,² all rolled into one.

In particular, onions are especially rich in polyphenol flavonoids called quercetin. Quercetin is an antioxidant that many believe prevent histamine release—making quercetin-rich foods "natural antihistamines."

Onions also contain numerous anti-cancer compounds, including quercetin, which has been shown to decrease cancer tumor initiation as well as inhibit the proliferation of cultured ovarian, breast, and colon cancer cells.³

In addition, the sulfur compounds in onions are thought to have anti-clotting properties as well as lower cholesterol and triglycerides. The allium and allyl disulphide in onions have also been found to decrease blood vessel stiffness by releasing nitric oxide.

This may reduce blood pressure, inhibit platelet clot formation, and help decrease the risk of coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular diseases, and stroke. The quercetin in onions is also beneficial, offering both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may boost heart health.

Ginger

Ginger is one spice that I recommend keeping on hand in your kitchen at all times. Not only is it a wonderful addition to your cooking (especially paired with garlic) but it also has enough medicinal properties to fill several books.

Ginger has broad-spectrum antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-parasitic properties, to name just several of its more than 40 pharmacological actions. It is also anti-inflammatory, making it valuable for pain relief for joint pain, menstrual pain, headaches, and more.

Ginger shows promise for fighting cancer, diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, asthma, bacterial and fungal infections, and is one of the best natural remedies if you struggle with motion sickness or nausea (from pregnancy or chemotherapy, for example).

Sweet Potato

Orange-colored sweet potatoes owe their appearance to the carotenoid beta-carotene. As an antioxidant, beta-carotene can help ward off free radicals that damage cells through oxidation, which can speed up aging and make you vulnerable against chronic diseases.

This antioxidant can help support your immune system, as well as lower your risk of heart disease and cancer. Research shows that sweet potatoes can help regulate blood sugar because of their ability to raise blood levels of adiponectin, a protein hormone created by your fat cells, to help regulate how your body metabolizes insulin.

Sweet potato extract is said to help reduce inflammation in brain and nerve tissue throughout your body. The phytonutrients within sweet potatoes also influence fibrinogen, an important glycoprotein required for blood clotting. Together with thrombin and fibrin, balanced amounts of fibrinogen are important for wound healing and blood loss prevention.

Carrot

The nutrients in carrots may provide protection against heart disease and cancer while helping to build strong bones and a healthy nervous system. Carrots contain falcarinol, a compound that may stimulate cancer-fighting mechanisms, and the consumption of carrots has also been associated with a lower risk of heart attacks in women.

Carrots are an excellent source of vitamin A (in the form of beta-carotene) and also contain vitamin K, vitamin C, and calcium. Carrots are healthy when eaten raw, but cooking carrots may help to boost their antioxidant levels and overall nutritional value even more. I generally recommend eating carrots in moderation because they contain more sugar than any other vegetable aside from beets.

Beets

Beet roots have always been included in my most recommended vegetables list, although, like carrots, they are in the "use sparingly" category because of their high sugar levels. Beet roots contain valuable nutrients that may help lower your blood pressure, a benefit that likely comes from the naturally occurring nitrates in beets, which are converted into nitric oxide in your body. Nitric oxide, in turn, helps to relax and dilate your blood vessels, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure.

Nutrients in beets may also help fight cancer and inflammation, boost your stamina, and support detoxification. Specifically, the betalin pigments in beets support your body's Phase 2 detoxification process, which is when broken down toxins are bound to other molecules so they can be excreted from your body. Traditionally, beets are valued for their support in detoxification and helping to purify your blood and your liver.

Try This: Oven-Roasted Root Vegetables

Most root vegetables can be eaten raw, as part of a salad or slaw for instance, but their flavor really comes out when they're cooked. The next time you're looking for a healthy satisfying side dish, swap out your mashed potatoes for these nutrient-rich roasted root vegetables. The simple recipe below is from the Food Network;⁴ choose organic ingredients as much as possible.

Oven-Roasted Root Vegetables5 Ingredients 1 large butternut squash, (1 ½ to 2 pounds) halved, seeded and peeled 3 large Yukon gold potatoes (1 ½ pounds), scrubbed 1 bunch medium beets, (about 1 ½ pounds), scrubbed and tops trimmed 1 medium red onion 2 large parsnips (about 8 ounces) 1 head garlic, cloves separated, and peeled (about 16) 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper Directions Place 2 baking sheets in the oven and preheat to 425°F. Cut all the vegetables into 1 ½-inch pieces. Cut the onions through the base core to keep some of the layers in chunky pieces. Toss all the vegetables with garlic, olive oil and salt in large bowl. Season generously with pepper. Carefully remove the heated baking sheets from the oven, brush or drizzle with olive oil. Divide the vegetables evenly between the 2 pans, spreading them out to assure they don't steam while roasting. Roast the vegetables until tender and golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cook's Note: Some very large parsnips have a pithy core, which should be trimmed before cooking. Copyright 2005 Television Food Network, G.P. All rights reserved. From Food Network Kitchens

Note: While the recipe above uses olive oil, I recommend coconut oil instead. Olive oil is susceptible to oxidation when heated and should only be used cold, whereas coconut oil is stable enough to resist heat-induced damage.

New Documentary “Bought” Exposes the Hidden Story Behind Vaccines, Pharma, and Food

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Bought

The hidden story about vaccines, drugs and food… Three huge topics in one film. Why put all this in one movie? Because these issues are directly related, and we have an opportunity to harness the millions of us engaged in each of them to overcome the noise put out by the medical-industrial conglomerate. You peel back the layers and see what’s really driving our industrialized food, our vaccine expansion, and our dependence on pharmaceuticals – it’s the same culprit. Huge corporations funded by individual misery, one broken life at a time. These three story lines converge on Wall Street, but this story takes us beyond the problem to the inspiring and empowering role mothers are now taking in uniting to protect their families.

By Dr. Mercola

"Your health is now brought to you by Wall Street. If you thought they hurt us with the banks, wait 'til you see what they are doing to our health care." – Jeff Hays, "Bought"

The new documentary Bought dives deeply into the inner workings of the industries at the core of our food and healthcare system, exploring the truth about how vaccines and drugs are developed and rushed to market and the ongoing secrecy behind the genetic engineering of our food supply.

For a limited time proceeds from renting or purchasing this film will be donated to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit organization advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent protection in the public health system.

Filmmaker Jeff Hays believes, as I do, that you have a right to the truth so that you can make educated decisions about your health, food, and medicine. Unfortunately, the truth is not easy to come by today.

Like the banks, the food and drug industries have grown more powerful and less transparent over time, and profit has become the primary motive. Hays may be best known for his 2012 documentary "Doctored," which exposes how the medical and drug industry conspire to control the health care system.

Hays' new film peels back the layers to show how the drug, vaccine, and chemical technology industries have joined forces as one supervillain, with its "undisclosed location" smack-dab in the middle of the White House.

You can't effectively address one industry without addressing them all, as they are now inextricably linked. Until enough people raise their voices, nothing is likely to change. According to Hays:¹

"From opiates, to statins, to a blizzard of psychotropic medications that do far more harm than good, the film covers how our entire health care system, from education to practice has been Bought... three story lines converge on Wall Street, in a tale of corruption, greed and shocking lack of conscience."

Federal Vaccine Court: Designed Specifically to Clean Up the Trail of Destruction Left by Vaccines

Vaccines are a $30 billion per year industry. Today, four dominate the world market (Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi Pasteur, and GlaxoSmithKline). Given the furor that erupts when anybody publicly questions vaccine safety, you would assume that the US government considers vaccines completely safe.

But in reality, that's not the case as evidenced by the establishment of a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) where vaccine injury claims are decided in a Federal Vaccine Court² to compensate vaccine victims, but in reality protects the vaccine industry from lawsuits. The official line by federal health officials is that vaccines are safe and never cause autism.

However, the fact is that for many years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Justice and the Federal Vaccine Court have been quietly settling cases of brain inflammation and permanent brain damage (encephalopathy) that included symptoms of autism.

These VICP awards have been made to cover treatments related to autism. The VCIP was established in 1986 when Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act,³ which protected vaccine manufacturers, pediatricians and other vaccine providers from nearly all civil liability for injuries and deaths caused by government recommended and mandated vaccines.

If vaccines are so safe, then why has the government set up a federal compensation program specifically to manage the damage they cause? In Bought, families who have won and lost in Vaccine Court share their heartbreaking stories.

These parent and health care professionals speaking out about their experiences are articulate, knowledgeable, and compelling witnesses to the damage that vaccines and one-size-fits-all vaccine policies have done. They are not part of some anti-vaccine campaign—in fact, the reason they were in Vaccine Court is because of what happened when they DID vaccinate their children!

Most Vaccine Reactions Are Never Connected to Vaccines

Proving causation is extremely difficult with vaccine injuries in part because there are huge gaps in vaccine safety science and, also, unless a vaccine reaction is immediate and obvious, parents may not connect their child's deterioration in health to the shots the child was given.

When parents report their child's regression into chronic poor health following vaccination to their child's pediatrician, they are typically told the illness couldn't possibly be related to the vaccine or vaccinations the child was given.

Sometimes reactions occur within hours or days of vaccination and are dramatic and life threatening and the child is taken to the emergency room and the vaccine reaction symptoms are recorded in the child's medical record. Usually, only the most clear cut and identifiable vaccine reactions end up in Vaccine Court—the ones where the "dots" are easily connected.

Unfortunately, at that point the damage is done and the child may be left with lifelong chronic illness and disability. The vast majority of vaccine adverse reactions are never reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Still, CDC's VAERS database⁴ lists 8,000 different adverse vaccine reactions, from localized swelling and anaphylactic shock to autism, coma, and death.⁵

Because of the factors already discussed, the actual number of reactions is probably much higher than the database reports. As vaccine safety advocate Dawn Loughborough said in "Bought:"

"We used to have this idea we were protecting children from infectious diseases. And we created the National Vaccine program with children in mind, but somewhere in time protecting the program became more important than what's happening to our children."

Physicians Are in a Difficult Position Today

As a parent, you would like to believe your doctor is making decisions that are in your child's best interest—but when you begin to realize how the system really operates, you can see how this may not be the case.

Most physicians DO have good intentions and believe they are helping their patients. But pediatricians and other healthcare providers are overwhelmed, and many "don't know what they don't know"—and the pharmaceutical industry is taking full advantage of that fact.

The current American healthcare system requires physicians to make patient care decisions based on public health policy. Most doctors do not stop to analyze or critique public health policy, including vaccine policy, but simply implement it—and there is great risk to them if they step out of line.

Those who question public health policy face professional criticism, isolation, and potential loss of licensure. But where does this policy come from? It comes from the US government, which gets its data from the drug companies that manufacture vaccines, drugs, and medical equipment—and their lobby. Clinical trials are now nearly entirely funded by both the U.S. government and the medical-pharmaceutical industry in a cozy public-private financial partnership.

Even medical schools in big universities are hugely influenced by pharmaceutical industry money and it affects what's being taught to medical students. So, even academia and our educational system has been bought. In the featured film, former executive sales representative (and whistleblower) for GlaxoSmithKline Blair Hamrick states:

"I have a new respect for those docs that did not want drug reps in their offices. The reps have four-year degrees in public relations, media or whatever, but they're not scientists. They're given these three-week crash courses on these drugs, and they're told exactly verbatim what to say, and they're persuading doctors to make decisions about patient care. The drug reps do not educate physicians—they do nothing."

An Industry Steeped in Corruption

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The drug industry has grown immensely powerful, wealthy, and corrupt, especially over the past 30 years. Science—or what is passed off as science these days—is virtually meaningless when funded by these companies, which cherry-pick results and manipulate data to fit the conclusions they want. Some of the most monumental legal cases of the past decade highlight the degree to which they'll go to maximize their profit, at any cost. Here are a few that were mentioned in the film:

• Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline plead guilty and agreed to pay a $3 billion fine for illegal marketing and withholding information about health hazards associated with several of its drugs, including Avandia and Paxil. This was the largest fine ever paid by a drug company.
• In 2012, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay more than $1 billion in a civil suit involving the illegal marketing of their antipsychotic drug Risperdal, which they promoted for off-label use for more than a decade. This massive case required more than 100,000 investigative hours over the course of six years, review of more than a million documents, and 140 depositions.
• In 2010, two Merck virologists filed a federal lawsuit against their former employer, alleging the vaccine maker falsified data related to the efficacy of the mumps vaccine. A US District Court Judge just recently gave them the green light to proceed.

Chances are we've not seen the last of this massive corporate corruption within the drug industry. There's not much incentive for them to clean up their act, when you consider their profit margin in comparison to their fines. For example, Johnson & Johnson paid out $3 billion in fines—for a drug that earned them $44 billion. For them, maybe it's just the cost of doing business.

Autism Rates Explode 30-FOLD in Three Decades

The official line is that vaccines don't cause autism. Yet, the CDC recently reported that the disorder now affects one in 32 boys between the ages of six and 17. Autism rates are at least 30 times higher than they were 30 years ago—and that's a conservative estimate:

• 1985: 1 in 2,500 (other estimates suggest 1 in 10,000)
• 1995: 1 in 500
• 2001: 1 in 250
• 2007: 1 in 150
• 2014: 1 in 77 (other estimates suggest 1 in 50)

Dr. Stephanie Seneff projects that half of all children will have autism by the year 2025. It costs approximately $70,000 per year to raise a child with autism, which is three times as much as raising a healthy child. Not to mention the emotional toll on the parents—80 percent of marriages involving a special needs child end in divorce.

Vaccine Adjuvants Linked to Dangerous Gene Mutations

Rates of autism and other serious immunological and neurological diseases have exploded over exactly the same period of time that our children have been bombarded with one vaccine after another. Industry experts deny that vaccines cause autism, claiming it's a "genetic disease," but it's actually an epigenetic disease—meaning, autism can be triggered by changes to a child's genes. But what's prompting these changes? Environmental chemicals and other toxins can turn genes on that would ordinarily be dormant, and turn genes off that would normally protect you.

Two of the agents shown to do this are mercury and aluminum, and exposure to both has gone up dramatically over the past 30 years, thanks to the outrageous number of vaccines being given today. Recent research has correlated increases in autistic disorder with the introduction of vaccines that use human fetal cell lines and retroviral contaminants. In the 1980s, kids received 23 doses of seven vaccines.

Today, CDC recommends 69 doses of 16 vaccines, starting the day of birth and continuing through age 18—including 49 doses before the age of six. This regimen deals a heavy blow to your child's developing immune system, raising his or her risk for brain abnormalities and autoimmune dysfunction. Although neurotoxic mercury preservatives were removed from many vaccines in the late 1990s, there are still heavy metals in vaccines like aluminum adjuvants, which are also neurotoxic—especially to infants and children. We don't know all of the factors that interact to produce toxic and mutating effects on your DNA because science does not have all the answers yet and much more research needs to be done. 

The drug and agricultural industries have thrown caution to the wind, with the assistance of a government that's gone from watchdog to accomplice. A recent study⁶ reveals just how rampant conflicts of interest are among FDA advisors. On average, 13 percent of the members in any given committee have a financial interest in the company whose drug is up for review by that committee. The Precautionary Principle—"first, do no harm" and establish safety first—has been replaced with do whatever it takes to rush a drug or vaccine to market, then deal with the fallout later. But this recklessness isn't reserved solely for the pharmaceutical industry—the corporate food system has been silently allowing genetically engineered ingredients to be injected into our food supply for more than three decades.

The United States Is World's Top Producer of GE Foods

Genetically engineered (GE) ingredients have made their way into our food supply, without our knowledge, permission, or labeling, since 1976. Essentially no scientific studies have been done to determine whether or not it's safe to eat these foreign proteins, and plants soaked with toxic herbicides that can't be washed off, for years on end. Ninety percent of processed foods contain GMOs, and the US is the top producer. Monsanto is the top manufacturer of GE seeds, producing 90 percent of the GE seeds across the globe.

Studies about the effects of GMOs on human health are sorely lacking, but those involving livestock show some pretty disturbing evidence of developmental abnormalities, disturbed organ development, and damaged microflora. Research has shown that a child's microbiome plays an important role in autism. Pesticides inserted into GMO crops are also finding their way into pregnant women's bloodstreams. Many scientists maintain that we haven't had enough time for the effects of GMOs to fully reveal themselves across populations—and when they do, the damage may be irreparable.

Cheap Food Brings Expensive Healthcare

Since 1996, the incidence of chronic diseases has escalated at the same rate as GE crops have increased, to meet the growing demand for "cheap food." In order to meet this demand, farmers are pushed daily for higher yields. The current system, which employs monoculture, has been devastating to our bee colonies and soils, as well as causing massive environmental pollution and a glut of ecological problems. Forty years ago, Americans spent 16 percent of their income on food and eight percent on healthcare; today, those numbers are reversed. This "cheap food" system has bought us the most expensive healthcare in the world.

In the same way that medical schools and universities are controlled by the drug industry, the food system is controlled by the agrichemical industry. The industrialized food system is putting many small farmers out of business. Land grant universities, funded by corporate agribusiness, are under enormous pressure to shush any research that goes against the party line. Educational institutions are afraid to "bite the hand that feeds them."

Mark Kastel, Co-Founder of the Cornucopia Institute, explains how other strategies are used to ensure that the public never finds out about the health dangers of GMOs:

"Monsanto and others actually have contracts with farmers, a technology agreement that prohibits the farmers from using any of their crop for research—other than agronomic research and yield research. So they can't partner with a physician or a medical researcher to take a look at the impact on human health. They've really impeded our ability to know whether or not GMOs are safe."

Big Bucks Buys Big Votes

Money changes everything... take Prop 37, for example. In 2012, California's GMO labeling bill was a shoe-in to win. Surveys showed as much as 85 percent of the public favored GMO labeling; $6.7 million was raised and the proposition was headed for passage. Then Monsanto, Dow, and food manufacturing giants poured more than $45 million into the anti-labeling campaign, replete with false claims, misrepresentations and scare tactics. Who knew that it is perfectly legal to lie in these types of campaigns? The proposition was defeated by six points. Bought!

Between 2012 and mid-2014, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) successfully blocked GMO labeling laws in over 30 states, at a price tag of more than $100 million. According to the most recent analysis, opponents of GMO labeling spent more than $27 million on lobbying in the first six months of 2014 alone—this is about three times more than they spent during all of 2013.

On Being 'Pro-Evidence'

It's time to stop the insanity. As a nation, we've gone from a society that values and utilizes science to caring only about what's best for industry. But if enough of us make our voices heard, things CAN change. Think about it... what fuels industry? Money. And how does industry make its money? Off of YOU! You vote with your wallet every day with every purchase, be it at the drug store or grocery store or garden center. For example, you can boycott GMA Member Traitor Brands, which helps level the playing field.

As always, continue educating yourself and sharing what you've learned. Think of yourself as being pro-evidence, as opposed to anti-GMO or anti-vaccine. Just because you question something doesn't mean you're opposed to it—you just want more evidence so that you can make a good decision for yourself and your family. The movie Bought is an excellent learning tool, so I urge you to forward it to your friends and family.