Fox News, USA Today, and a number of other major media outlets reported this week on news from Maryland where dozens of parents were notified by a district court that either they vaccinate their children or go to jail. The media reports have caused a lot of confusion around the U.S. among parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their children for certain illnesses based on concerns about possible negative impacts from the vaccines themselves. While the mainstream medical community claims vaccines are safe and effective, some people blame immunizations for a rise in autism and other medical problems. In actuality, there are no federal laws requiring vaccinations. Providing schools with vaccine exemption forms for your child is all that is required by federal law. If you have thoroughly researched the vaccine issue and have decided one or more vaccines may not be right for your children, follow this link to a website where you can download exemption forms for your state or country. http://www.vaclib.org/exemption.htm
A new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine indicates that the annual $10 billion the food and beverage industry is spending on advertising foods to kids is working alarmingly well. The study found that four out of five kids preferred the flavor of foods served in McDonalds packaging as compared to the exact same foods served in packaging without the McDonalds brand. By the time they are two years old, children may already have beliefs about certain brands, and by the age of six they can recognize brands and specific brand products. Not surprisingly, the study found that kids with more televisions in the home had stronger preferences for brands. The authors suggested this study strengthened the justification for tighter regulation or banning of advertising and marketing of high calorie, low nutrient food and drink, and perhaps a ban on all marketing that is aimed at young children. Learn more and take action in OCA's "Appetite for a Change" campaign: http://www.organicconsumers.org/afc.cfm
For those who work with children and young adults:
Author and poet, Janet Wong, will soon publish a new children's picture book, THE DUMPSTER DIVER, about seeing the potential in what other people throw away. In conjunction with the book's release, All for Kids Bookstore in Seattle is sponsoring a contest for kids called "Junk Is Good." Designed to promote creating or imagining "treasures out of trash," winning entries will be announced on Earth Day in April. Kids of all ages are welcome to participate. For details, go to:
Dec 15 - CHILDREN with high IQs are more likely to be vegetarians when they grow up, according to new research.
A British study of more them 8000 men and women aged 30 whose IQs had been measured when they were 10, showed that the higher the IQ, the greater the odds of being a vegetarian.
"People who are more intelligent as children, who will obviously keep that intelligence when they are 30, were more likely to say they are vegetarians at that age than those that were less intelligent, " said Dr Catherine Gale, an epidemiologist at the University of Southampton in England.
She said the findings, which are published online by the British Medical Journal, were consistent with other studies showing people who are more intelligent tend to eat a healthier diet and exercise more.
"There is quite a lot of evidence linking vegetarianism to a lower risk of heart disease. People who are vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and they do have a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease," Dr Gale said.
For each 15-point rise in IQ scores in the study, the likelihood of being a vegetarian rose by 38 per cent. Even after adjusting to factors such as social class and education, the link was still consistent.
More than 33 per cent of the men and women in the study described themselves as vegetarians but said they ate white meat and fish. Just over 4 per cent were strict vegetarians and 2.5 per cent were vegans, who eat no animal products at all, including eggs and dairy.
Would you like to launch a Guerrilla Advertising Campaign on your family? Did you know that seeing an appealing image of food more than three times makes most people crave that food?
If you look closely you'll see that most cooked food and junk food advertisements use water droplets throughout their ads to make your mouth water. But really it's the water that is appealing to you. They are using your natural desire for water to sell you their dry packaged food!
When advertising to children half of the ads use pictures of fruit for the same purpose. They know that this is the food that children naturally crave. They use the real allure of fruit to seduce the children into eating junk. They even say "with real fruit flavor!"
Why don't we ever see really appealing commercials for fruit? Well, there's not nearly as much money in fruit as in packaged foods. And you can't patent a fruit.
So we've come up with a new project for our "Take A Fruit Break" Campaign that will allow you to take matters in to your own hands and compete with the billion-dollar junk food advertisers. We've uploaded a series of beautiful posters of fruit that you can download for free and put up in your house, your kitchen, your school, your office, your church, your community center, and everywhere else you and your children can see them, and you'll re-program your natural desire to eat and drink the healthiest food known to man!
By putting up mouth-watering fruit pictures where we can see them several times an hour we can counteract the hundreds of junk food images that bombard our senses daily.
ALERT UPDATE: EPA PROPOSED RULE ALLOWS CHEMICAL AND PESTICIDE TESTING ON KIDS
Thanks to everyone who responded to the OCA Alert in the last issue of Organic Bytes. So far, the EPA has been deluged with over 20,000 comments from OCA supporters demanding changes in the EPA's controversial proposed rule on human chemical testing, which contains loopholes that would allow the testing of chemicals and pesticides on children. EPA's proposal flies in the face of massive public opposition and directives from Congress and the National Academy of Sciences to stop industry from carrying out unethical studies on children. In the wake of this strong citizen backlash, the EPA is frantically trying to discredit the OCA and other organizations working on this issue (such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, etc.) by flat out denying that the proposed rule contains exceptions for testing toxics on children. Unfortunately for the EPA PR greenwashing efforts, the actual proposed rule is still posted on the EPA website, where the public can look beyond the agency's rhetoric and read the rule themselves. We invite you to read these sections of the proposed regulations, which allow chemical or pesticide testing on children under the following circumstances:
Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.
Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.
Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.
If you haven't already done so please learn more and send an instant letter to the EPA here (public comment period expires Dec.12) http://www.organicconsumers.org/epa6.cfm
Thanks to everyone who responded to the OCA Alert in the last issue of Organic Bytes. So far, the EPA has been deluged with over 20,000 comments from OCA supporters demanding changes in the EPA's controversial proposed rule on human chemical testing, which contains loopholes that would allow the testing of chemicals and pesticides on children. EPA's proposal flies in the face of massive public opposition and directives from Congress and the National Academy of Sciences to stop industry from carrying out unethical studies on children. In the wake of this strong citizen backlash, the EPA is frantically trying to discredit the OCA and other organizations working on this issue (such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, etc.) by flat out denying that the proposed rule contains exceptions for testing toxics on children. Unfortunately for the EPA PR greenwashing efforts, the actual proposed rule is still posted on the EPA website, where the public can look beyond the agency's rhetoric and read the rule themselves. We invite you to read these sections of the proposed regulations, which allow chemical or pesticide testing on children under the following circumstances:
Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.
Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.
Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.
If you haven't already done so please learn more and send an instant letter to the EPA here (public comment period expires Dec.12) http://www.organicconsumers.org/epa6.cfm
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