Wednesday October 29, 2008, 8:12 am
[statement from Brasscheck TV]

I don't often send bulletins, but this is
potentially very serious.

You have probably heard of the deliberate
adulteration of infant formula with melamine
in China.

It killed and injured thousands of children
there.

What you don't know - because the FDA and others
don't want you to know - is that as much as
20 million TONS of Chinese manufactured milk powder
and products containing milk powder were imported into
the US from China this year.

Now please read the next part very carefully:

The US...is the ONLY country...including China...
that has NOT pulled food products containing
milk powder manufactured in China off its
shelves.

Please re-reread the previous paragraph carefully.

The person blowing the whistle on this is
an expert in toy manufacturing who stumbled
on this while researching this season's
Halloween candy offerings.

He has found candy manufactured in China
with milk powder widely being sold in
US stores.

Obviously, I have not had time to check all the
facts, but knowing the parties involved - China,
the FDA, the Bush administration, and corporate
America - I have no doubt that this is not only
highly plausible, it's highly likely.

It's serious.

Wednesday October 29, 2008, 8:13 am
[excerpt]Mike Mozart is a toy designer who also runs a video blog about new developments in the toy industry.

His reviews are normally light, cheerful affairs and completely apolitical.

If he appears distraught, it's because he is. This is serious.

Mozart has discovered that the US is the ONLY country, including China itself, that still permits potentially melamine-contaminated food on its shelves.

That's right. This poison that killed and injured thousands of people, mainly children, may be in US food. We're the only country that hasn't pulled it from its shelves.

Here's what you need to know

1. Melamine was added to food products manufactured in China to simulate protein content. These food products were imported into the US by the ton.

2. Melamine itself is bad, but much worse - and not reported - is that melamine is an industrial product, not a food product and often comes contaminated with a wide range of dangerous industrial toxins.

There is no such thing as food grade melamine. None of it is suitable for food.

3. The widespread practice of adding melamine to powdered milk products has killed and seriously injured thousands of children in China.

4. The Chinese government knew this contaminated food was on the shelves killing children and said nothing so as not to put a damper on the "Olympic spirit."

5. As much 20 MILLION POUNDS of food manufactured in China that contains milk powder was imported into the US this year. Also, it's not clear how many US food manufacturers use milk powder manufactured in China in their products.

6. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refuses to test for melamine contamination - or it is has, refuses to make the results of these tests available to the public.

Further, the FDA refuses to force food manufacturers to remove the contaminated food from its shelves, something they are completely capable of doing.

7. Why is this being done?

Mozart theorizes: a) to prevent a scandal before the election and b) to avoid further deterioration of the US stock market.

Are these motivations plausible?

Long-time Brasscheck TV viewers know that the FDA has demonstrated over and over again throughout its history that it is a political instrument designed to protect well connected law breakers with next-to zero interest in the public welfare.

AVOID all food products manufactured in China and any product that contains milk powder that does not disclose its source. (Egg powder is also being identified as a potential source of contamination.)

The direct YouTube link for this video is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUB79WJ9ktQ

Please share this information with friends, families and colleagues so they can make an informed decision about what they eat.

Knowing the parties involved, you can be sure that none of them can be trusted to look out for the public welfare.

Thursday October 30, 2008, 2:19 pm
I'd like to know where all the pet food, milk products, candy, eggs, animal feed, and so on, ends up. This is tons and tons of product. I don't see it all going to trash dumps. This problem isn't going to go away any time soon. It will just keep becoming someone else's problem, including factory farm animals.

Everyone who knowingly adds this product to food or feed is a murderer and should be treated accordingly.

And what happened to all those lead-contaminated toys?

Thursday October 30, 2008, 2:37 pm
Linda ~ Good question. Since the majority of people purchasing these tainted foods and contaminated toys are caught up just trying to get by in life, I fear these products will be consumed and used to their detriment. You and I represent a small percentage of aware people who will avoid these products. The government and manufacturers know this and continue to hide behind the laws that allow them to get away with this.

All we can do is continue to spread the word.

Friday October 31, 2008, 4:56 pm
October 28, 2008
A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children
By LAURIE TARKAN

To the great surprise of parents, kidney stones, once considered a disorder of middle age, are now showing up in children as young as 5 or 6.

While there are no reliable data on the number of cases, pediatric urologists and nephrologists across the country say they are seeing a steep rise in young patients. Some hospitals have opened pediatric kidney stone clinics.

“The older doctors would say in the ’70s and ’80s, they’d see a kid with a stone once every few months,” said Dr. Caleb P. Nelson, a urology instructor at Harvard Medical School who is co-director of the new kidney stone center at Children’s Hospital Boston. “Now we see kids once a week or less.”

Dr. John C. Pope IV, an associate professor of urologic surgery and pediatrics at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, said, “When we tell parents, most say they’ve never heard of a kid with a kidney stone and think something is terribly wrong with their child.”

In China recently, many children who drank milk tainted with melamine — a toxic chemical illegally added to watered-down milk to inflate the protein count — developed kidney stones.

The increase in the United States is attributed to a host of factors, including a food additive that is both legal and ubiquitous: salt.

Though most of the research on kidney stones comes from adult studies, experts believe it can be applied to children. Those studies have found that dietary factors are the leading cause of kidney stones, which are crystallizations of several substances in the urine. Stones form when these substances become too concentrated.

Forty to 65 percent of kidney stones are formed when oxalate, a byproduct of certain foods, binds to calcium in the urine. (Other common types include calcium phosphate stones and uric acid stones.) And the two biggest risk factors for this binding process are not drinking enough fluids and eating too much salt; both increase the amount of calcium and oxalate in the urine.

Excess salt has to be excreted through the kidneys, but salt binds to calcium on its way out, creating a greater concentration of calcium in the urine and the kidneys.

“What we’ve really seen is an increase in the salt load in children’s diet,” said Dr. Bruce L. Slaughenhoupt, co-director of pediatric urology and of the pediatric kidney stone clinic at the University of Wisconsin. He and other experts mentioned not just salty chips and French fries, but also processed foods like sandwich meats; canned soups; packaged meals; and even sports drinks like Gatorade, which are so popular among schoolchildren they are now sold in child-friendly juice boxes.

Children also tend not to drink enough water. “They don’t want to go to the bathroom at school; they don’t have time, so they drink less,” said Dr. Alicia Neu, medical director of pediatric nephrology and the pediatric stone clinic at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. Instead, they are likely to drink only once they’re thirsty — but that may be too little, too late, especially for children who play sports or are just active.

“Drinking more water is the most important step in the prevention of kidney stones,” Dr. Neu said.

The incidence of kidney stones in adults has also been rising, especially in women, and experts say they see more adults in their 20s and 30s with stones; in the past, it was more common in adults in their 40s and 50s.

“It’s no longer a middle-aged disease,” Dr. Nelson said. “Most of us suspect what we’re seeing in children is the spillover of the overall increase in the whole population.”

The median age of children with stones is about 10.

Many experts say the rise in obesity is contributing to kidney stones in children as well as adults. But not all stone centers are seeing overweight children, and having a healthy weight does not preclude kidney stones. “Of the school-age and adolescent kids we’ve seen, most of them appear to be reasonably fit, active kids,” Dr. Nelson said. “We’re not seeing a parade of overweight Nintendo players.”

Dr. Slaughenhoupt has seen more overweight children at his clinic. “We haven’t compared our data yet,” he said, “but my sense is that children with stones are bigger, and some of them are morbidly obese.”

Dr. Pope, in Nashville, agreed. His hospital lies in the so-called stone belt, a swath of Southern states with a higher incidence of kidney stones, and he said doctors there saw two to three new pediatric cases a week.

“There’s no question in my mind that it is largely dietary and directly related to the childhood obesity epidemic,” he said.

Fifty to 60 percent of children with kidney stones have a family history of the disease. “If you have a family history, it’s important to recognize your kids are at risk at some point in their life,” Dr. Nelson said. “That means instilling lifelong habits of good hydration, balanced diet, and avoiding processed high-salt, high-fat foods.”

There is also evidence that sucrose, found in sodas, can also increase risk of stones, as can high-protein weight-loss diets, which are growing in popularity among teenagers.

A common misconception is that people with kidney stones should avoid calcium. In fact, dairy products have been shown to reduce the risk of stones, because the dietary calcium binds with oxalate before it is absorbed by the body, preventing it from getting into the kidneys.

Children with kidney stones can experience severe pain in their side or stomach when a stone is passing through the narrow ureter through which urine travels from the kidneys to the bladder. Younger children may have a more vague pain or stomachache, making the condition harder to diagnose. Children may feel sick to their stomach, and often there is blood in the urine.

One Saturday last February, 11-year-old Tessa Cesario of Frederick, Md., began having back pains. An aspiring ballerina who dances en pointe five nights a week, she was used to occasional aches and strains. But this one was so intense that her parents took her to the doctor.

The pediatrician ordered an X-ray, and when he phoned with the results, her parents were astonished.

“I was afraid he was calling to say she pulled something and wouldn’t be able to dance,” said her mother, Theresa Cesario. Instead, they were told that Tessa had a kidney stone.

“I thought older men get kidney stones, not kids,” Ms. Cesario said.

The treatment for kidney stones is similar in children and adults. Doctors try to let the stone pass, but if it is too large, if it blocks the flow of urine or if there is a sign of infection, it is removed through one of two types of minimally invasive surgery.

Shock-wave lithotripsy is a noninvasive procedure that uses high-energy sound waves to blast the stones into fragments that are then more easily passed. In ureteroscopy, an endoscope is inserted through the ureter to retrieve or obliterate the stone.

Tessa Cesario is taking a wait-and-see approach. Her stone is not budging, so her parents are putting off surgery until they can work it into her dance schedule. In the meantime, she has vastly reduced her salt intake by cutting back on sandwich meats, processed soups and chips.

And, her mother said, “she drinks a ton more water.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/health/28kidn.html?bl&ex=1225339200&en=5f15e7dc1d0b8032&ei=5087%0A

Saturday November 1, 2008, 6:23 am
Thank you, Johnnie. This is tragic to see children get kidney stones. I'm a strong advocate of growing our own food so we know what we are eating. If that isn't possible, we should go toward organic food grown locally. Many say they cannot afford organic food. Well, if a person gets sick, compare the cost to doctor and hospital bills and the cost becomes insignificant.

It's all about awareness and priorities. If we select our foods as carefully as we select a piece of clothing that looks and fits properly, the government would quickly improve our quality of foods.

Tuesday November 11, 2008, 5:35 pm
It's like our country is trying to kill us. They don't seem to care. Noted with disgust. Thanks Marion.

Tuesday November 11, 2008, 7:09 pm
Joycey ~ I agree. There are some people who believe this is one way of reducing the population...while we pay for our own demise.

Saturday November 22, 2008, 2:05 pm
Now this pisses me off!!!

I have this Issue in my 'Constitutional Amendments' Petition. I wish people would sign it!

At least 12 Issues that need to be addressed, and changed by a Vote of the People. *sigh*