rigorousintuition.ca

In an effort to accentuate the positive ;

Congratulations to the citizens of Chile, South America! You have understood the merits of removing toxic ethylmercury (Thimerosal) from vaccines to be given to pregnant women, children up to 8 years of age, and senior citizens over 60 years old. Furthermore, vaccines given to populations not mentioned will contain no more than 1 microgram of mercury per dose, along with other specifications.

According to a press release from BioAutismo, “Thimerosal Banned in Chilean Vaccines, A New Law” (Bill #7036-11):

• Thimerosal will be banned from all vaccines for the most vulnerable segments of the population (children 0-8 years of age, pregnant women, and adults over 60 years of age).

• Trace amounts of Thimerosal will be allowed (up to 1 microgram of mercury per dose) in vaccines for the rest of the population, with informed consent, as per current Law # 20.584, article 14.

• In case of emergencies or epidemic outbreaks, Thimerosal amounts higher than a trace may be allowed, but not simply because of a lack of stock, rather because there are no alternatives in the market without this compound, and always under a Presidential decree, keeping close attention to the strictest limits set forth by the regulatory agencies in the world, and, as always, with informed consent.

Link ; http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/chi ... rcury.html

And from the same source, this...

Today, an Indiana state house committee gave preliminary approval to a bill which would severely restrict the use of drones within the state.

Introduced by Rep. Eric Allan Koch (R-65), House Bill 1009 (HB1009) “Prohibits the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and tracking devices to conduct warrantless searches,” with very limited exceptions.

HB1009 was referred to the State House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code where a hearing was held this morning. After a short discussion, the bill passed by a vote of 6-1. Voting yes were committee chair, Rep. Jud McMillin (R-68), along with Reps. Pierce, McNamara, Harman, Mahan and Rhoads. The lone no vote was cast by Rep. DeLaney (D-86).

The legislation does include some narrow exceptions to the warrant requirement to allay the fears of law enforcement officials who did not want to be hamstrung in emergency situations when a drone’s use might spell life or death.

Even so, the bill also sets strict standards governing the use of a drone when authorized. It also “prohibits the placement of cameras or electronic surveillance equipment on private property to conduct warrantless searches.” Evidence obtained in violation of the act would be “inadmissable as evidence in an administrative or judicial proceeding.”

Link ; http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/ind ... .html#more

As I am regularly reminded, the devil is of course in the detail, but its a start at least.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/monsanto-gmo-technology-genetically-modified-organisms


Is Monsanto Giving Up On GMOs?
—By Tom Philpott| Wed Jan. 29, 2014 3:00 AM GMT

Is genetically modified seed giant Monsanto doing the unthinkable and moving away from genetically modified seeds?

It sounds crazy, but hear me out. Let’s start with Monsanto's vegetable division, Seminis, which boasts it is the "largest developer and grower of vegetable seeds in the world." Monsanto acknowledges Seminis has no new GM vegetables in development. According to a recent Wired piece, Seminis has reverted instead to "good old-fashioned crossbreeding, the same technology that farmers have been using to optimize crops for millennia."

Why? The article points to people's growing avoidance of genetically modified foods. So far, consumers have shown no appetite to gobble up GM vegetables. (But that doesn't mean people aren't eating GMOs: Nearly all GMOs currently on the market are big commodity crops like corn and soy, which, besides being used as livestock feed, are regularly used as ingredients in processed food—think high-fructose corn syrup and soy oil.)



Advertise on MotherJones.com

But the Wired piece also suggests a factor that doesn't get nearly enough attention: GM technology doesn't seem to be very good at generating complex traits like better flavor or more nutrients, the very attributes Monsanto was hoping to engineer into veggies. Here's Wired:

Furthermore, genetically modifying consumer crops proved to be inefficient and expensive. [Monsanto exec David] Stark estimates that adding a new gene takes roughly 10 years and $100 million to go from a product concept to regulatory approval. And inserting genes one at a time doesn’t necessarily produce the kinds of traits that rely on the inter­actions of several genes. Well before their veggie business went kaput, Monsanto knew it couldn’t just genetically modify its way to better produce; it had to breed great vegetables to begin with. As Stark phrases a company mantra: “The best gene in the world doesn’t fix dogshit germplasm.” [Emphasis added.]

Okay, that's vegetables. What about Monsanto's core business, selling seeds for big industrial commodity crops like corn, soybeans, cotton, and alfalfa? Monsanto has come to dominate these markets with its Roundup Ready products, which are designed to withstand Monsanto's flagship herbicide, and, for corn and cotton, its "Bt" products, which are engineered to produce a toxin found in bacillus thuringiensis, an insect-killing bacteria. Does the company have lots of novel GM products in mind for this vast, lucrative sector?

Monsanto's latest Annual R&D Pipeline Review, a document released earlier this month that showcases the company's research into new product lines, foretells all kinds of impressive-sounding stuff. But a surprising amount of the company's new research, even for its most lucrative crops like corn and soy, promise either new iterations of herbicide tolerance and Bt, or rely on classical breeding—not biotechnology.

The one major exception is a corn seed relying on a new kind of GMO: RNA interference (RNAi) technology, a recently discovered way to turn off certain genes, which Monsanto plans to engineer into crops to kill certain insects. According to Monsanto's pipeline review, RNAi corn remains in the early "proof of concept" phase. In a recent piece, the New York Times's Andrew Pollack reports that the technology is showing promise—Monsanto hopes to have it on the market "late this decade." But it's also generating controversy even in normally Monsanto-friendly regulatory circles because researchers have suggested it may kill beneficial insects like ladybugs along with targeted pests. Pollack points to this 2013 paper by Environmental Protection Agency scientists, which warned that the unfamiliar technology presented "unique challenges for ecological risk assessment that have not yet been encountered in assessments for traditional chemical pesticides."

So RNAi corn may be coming—and could bring public relations and regulatory complications for Monsanto, not to mention unpredictable ecological consequences for the rest of us. But how much other GMO-based stuff does Monsanto have up its sleeve? According to the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the agency that oversees the rollout of new GM crops, not much. Of the 13 new GMOs APHIS is tracking, only two are from Monsanto: an alfalfa engineered to be more easily digestible as animal feed, and a soybean designed to withstand a harsh old herbicide called dicamba (a variation on the familiar Roundup Ready herbicide-tolerance theme).

Just two crops in the final stages of USDA deregulation, from the ballyhooed GMO seed giant? That makes me think of Monsanto's recent $1 billion purchase of Climate Corp., a company that proposes to use GPS-backed data analysis tools to help farmers make planting decisions, for a fee. The move reminds me of IBM's mid-2000s decision to transition out of the business that made it famous by ditching the personal computer and focusing on IT products and consulting.

I've called Monsanto's press office to ask about their plans, and I'll return to this topic if they get back to me. And in the meanwhile, to be sure, Monsanto still makes loads of money selling GMO seeds—along with their matching proprietary herbicide, and likely will for a long time. But the facts have me wondering if the company's quiet exit from genetically engineered vegetables and placement of a billion-dollar wager on data services signal that the GMO giant just might be hedging its bets on GM technology.

I've never been able to understand why this mercury compound is used in vaccines. It's purportedly there as a preservative, but there are many other far less toxic things that will perform the same job.

jakell » Wed Jan 29, 2014 7:53 am wrote:I've never been able to understand why this mercury compound is used in vaccines. It's purportedly there as a preservative, but there are many other far less toxic things that will perform the same job.

That's good news!

brainpanhandler » 29 Jan 2014 15:20 wrote:

jakell » Wed Jan 29, 2014 7:53 am wrote:I've never been able to understand why this mercury compound is used in vaccines. It's purportedly there as a preservative, but there are many other far less toxic things that will perform the same job.

That's good news!

It would be even better news if we knew what they were.

brainpanhandler » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:20 pm wrote:

jakell » Wed Jan 29, 2014 7:53 am wrote:I've never been able to understand why this mercury compound is used in vaccines. It's purportedly there as a preservative, but there are many other far less toxic things that will perform the same job.

That's good news!

It's not really news though, alternative preservatives have been around for yonks.

The only case I've seen for thimersol is that it supposedly acts to improve the body's response to the vaccine. I'm not too sure about this though, it sounds a bit like spin from folks who can't be bothered to change something.

Previous threads where this has been exhaustively discussed (there are probably others as well):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30789&hilit
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36705&hilit

It has proven a very contentious topic. Personally I wouldn't introduce it into a thread titled The better news thread because it's a topic that has the potential to completely derail the thread. Probably better to read one of the previous threads first and then bump one of those. Just my 2 cents.

brainpanhandler » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:10 pm wrote:Previous threads where this has been exhaustively discussed (there are probably others as well):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30789&hilit
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36705&hilit

It has proven a very contentious topic. Personally I wouldn't introduce it into a thread titled The better news thread because it's a topic that has the potential to completely derail the thread. Probably better to read one of the previous threads first and then bump one of those. Just my 2 cents.

Well, it's Slimmouse's thread, and he started off with this, so I'm happy to go with that.

I don't mind varying instances on the same material, sometimes different posters in different times, with different contexts can produce differing (better?) results and open up unexplored perspectives..... sometimes.

I can't think of much to add to what I posited about Thimersol though, so can't see where any derailment would occur (people constantly surprise me though).

jakell » Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:42 am wrote:

brainpanhandler » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:10 pm wrote:Previous threads where this has been exhaustively discussed (there are probably others as well):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30789&hilit
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36705&hilit

It has proven a very contentious topic. Personally I wouldn't introduce it into a thread titled The better news thread because it's a topic that has the potential to completely derail the thread. Probably better to read one of the previous threads first and then bump one of those. Just my 2 cents.

Well, it's Slimmouse's thread, and he started off with this, so I'm happy to go with that.

Holy fuckerballs! That's one of the downsides of putting people on ignore. I just scanned the op. I guess Slim, even with nearly 9 years experience here, didn't realize that starting a thread so generically titled as The better news thread with an article with the possibility of starting another endless go round on the thimerasol/autism carousel might not be the best idea if the intent really was to create a thread to index whatever "better news" there is in the world. I guess I underestimated him. but he's free to do as he pleases, of course.

I don't mind varying instances on the same material, sometimes different posters in different times, with different contexts can produce differing (better?) results and open up unexplored perspectives..... sometimes.

Yes, who could argue with that? Carry on.

I can't think of much to add to what I posited about Thimersol though, so can't see where any derailment would occur...

Especially since it was mentioned first in the OP!

Honestly though, this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30789&hilit

Is about as good a discussion of thiomersal/vaccination/autism as you are likely to find anywhere.

You never met barracuda or compared2what, did you?

I think the downsides of having someone on ignore outweigh any benefits, and I use it reluctantly, in fact I've only ever done it once.

One of my motivations is that I have actually become interested in problematic posters** (in general that is), and this started to overcome my annoyance at them. When I encountered the 'Flamewarriors' site, and the humour contained therein, I started to crystallise the study of Trollogy.

http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/troglodyte.htm

Flamewarriors IMO is a great tool for navigating these characters. It's got a bit bloated lately, but the original characters are still great (Troglodyte is one of the older ones)

** an analogue from my gardening activities is, 'if something initially annoys, and you can't shift it.... make a feature of it'

jakell » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:01 pm wrote:I think the downsides of having someone on ignore outweigh any benefits, and I use it reluctantly, in fact I've only ever done it once.

It took about 6 years before I put slim on ignore. The upside outweighs the downside for me, probably also for him and the whole board for that matter.

One of my motivations is that I have actually become interested in problematic posters** (in general that is), and this started to overcome my annoyance at them. When I encountered the 'Flamewarriors' site, and the humour contained therein, I started to crystallise the study of Trollogy.

http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/troglodyte.htm

Flamewarriors IMO is a great tool for navigating these characters. It's got a bit bloated lately, but the original characters are still great (Troglodyte is one of the older ones)

I loves me the caves.

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=15009&hilit

In other news:

01/29/2014 | 8:43 AM
Scientists discover a new, simpler way to make stem cells
By Carolyn Y. Johnson / Globe Staff


A team of Boston and Japanese researchers stunned the scientific world Wednesday by revealing a remarkably simple and unexpected way to create stem cells able to give rise to any tissue in the body.

To transform mature cells into powerful stem cells that are a biological blank slate, the team simply bathed them in an acid bath for half an hour. The technique appears to be far easier and faster than current methods for creating these cells, which scientists are racing to develop into therapies for a range of diseases.

The result is “shocking,” “astounding,” “revolutionary,” and “weird,” said scientists not accustomed to using such exuberant words to describe new research findings. The finding has been officially reported only in mice, but human studies are underway. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital said that over the weekend they made what appears to be a human version of the stem cells, although further study and confirmation of that preliminary result is needed.

“It’s just a wonderful result; it’s almost like alchemy,” said Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who was not involved in the research published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “It says one has found a way to reveal the hidden potential of cells with a relatively straightforward method.”

...

The approach is so simple and so out-of-the-box that it might never have been tried if it hadn’t been for the persistence and curiosity of Dr. Charles Vacanti, a Brigham and Women’s anesthesiologist working largely outside the field of stem cell science.

Vacanti is best known for his work on the “earmouse,” the flashy tissue engineering feat of growing a human ear on the back of a mouse that made headlines in 1995. Vacanti wanted to find a better cell type to use on tissue engineering projects and began working with a team including his younger brother Martin, a pathologist, to find one.

In a 2001 study, they reported the discovery of a new kind of stem cell that they isolated with a technique that had been used to isolate neural stem cells: they mashed up mature tissue and passed it through ever-smaller pipettes to sift out a new type of cell they called a “spore-like cell.”

“Our lab was pretty ridiculed,” Vacanti recalled, of the scientific response. After that, “I kind of kept it to myself.”

...

Vacanti believes that it’s possible what the researchers uncovered is part of the body’s natural healing mechanism—that the more stringent the stress on the cell, the further they get kicked back to a pluripotent state.

...

Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplantation program at Boston Children’s Hospital, said that it had been a long time since he read a scientific paper and felt both so amazed and perplexed. The technique must be repeated in many labs, he said, and probed to see whether it could be useful, but it’s a provocative reminder of the malleability of cells—a concept that has undergone a revolution in biology over the past decade.

“It’s a startling result that makes you stand up and go, ‘Wow!’” Daley said. “With an equal dose of amazement and skepticism.”



http://www.boston.com/news/science/blog ... /blog.html


Always love to hear a story about a maverick researcher being scoffed at by the establishment and then being vindicated. It's doubly sweet when the reasoning and discovery are fairly simple in hindsight. As in so right under the establishment's nose that they cant see it and look like fools afterword. An anesthesiologist no less. Wonder if he's huffing his own wares.

Is it "better news"? Hard to say. Could be a key discovery on the way to creating a self replicating army of artificial people. And then they won't need us breeders/useless eaters at all. Fucking illuminati!

Previous threads where this has been exhaustively discussed


pot meets kettle


who do you think you are slim.........AD???

...
Paging Dr Wakefield...
...

Tasmania recently extended its ban on GMO crops indefinitely. This move will enable the Tasmanian island state of the Australian Commonwealth, located 150 miles off the southeast coast of mainland Australia, to maintain export leverage to European nations and others that won't import GMO foods.

The Strait of Bass separates Tasmania from the Australian mainland and the city of Melbourne. It is the 26th largest island in the world, flanked by several small islands that are part of the state of Tasmania.

Obviously, GMO bans in Australia are allowed to be mandated by states. For a while, several states in Australia had bans on GMO crops. But now only Tasmania and South Australia are holding their ground against the biotech industry. South Australia is a fairly large state in the south central portion of Australia. It's coastal area that curves northwesterly away from the Bass Strait.

Bans needed more than labeling, please
In addition to South Australia and Tasmania, there are a few other regions or nations with complete GMO bans or suspensions of planting or even importing GMOs. Japan, Uruguay, Kenya, Italy and Switzerland have invoked complete bans or suspensions of GMO planting and importing.

Several other European and Middle Eastern nations have at least partial bans on both importing GMO products and planting GMO crops.

Kenya's firm stance has raised resistance among several other African nations except for South Africa, which has totally sold out to the biotech industry. Nigerian Catholic institutions and leaders have called for their government to expel the Bill Gates Foundation.

It's been reported that the Seralini study was the final nail in Monsanto's coffin for Kenya. Slowly, the real news or truth of Seralini's paper being removed from the journal Food and Chemical Toxicity (FCT) in which it was first placed is getting out.

It was most likely maneuvered by a former Monsanto scientist, Richard Goodman. He was placed on the editorial staff shortly before Seralini's paper was removed with bogus explanations. The long arms of the evil Monsanto empire reach everywhere. FCT also refuses to publish conflicts of interest in their editorial staff.

Russia has demonstrated resistance to GMO infiltration both with imports and crop planting. The latest is that they are considering a total ban. Key Russian officials are aware of GMO pitfalls and the economic comparisons of conventional, organic and GMO farming. So they haven't been buying the GMO propaganda, so far.

Just like Tasmania, Russia would have an economic food export edge on nearby eastern European and Mid-Eastern nations that are also concerned about GMO contamination. Here's another list of regions with at least partial bans posted by the Organic Consumers' Association (http://www.organicconsumers.org).

Back in the USA and the rest of North America, there are only a handful of isolated resistance pockets. Three farming counties in Northern California have completely banned GMO planting on their soils: Mendocino, Trinity and Marin counties.

GMO papaya continues in Hawaii, although the Hawaiian main island's mayor, Billy Kenoi, put a stop to future GMO crops, and the island of Kauai has recently put restrictions on GMO crops and pesticides (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Canada's canola crops are almost completely GMO. In the USA, nearly all the crops available for genetic engineering, especially corn and soy, are GMO. Some rice, potatoes, sugar beets and tomatoes are GMO, with wheat and apples waiting in the wings.

Meanwhile, parts of Mexico, the origin of corn in North America, have experienced some GMO corn contamination from corn exported cheaply by the USA to Mexico. Right, contamination even without crop fields nearby.

This further demonstrates how coexistence of conventional and organic crops among GMO crops is not possible. Labeling is a consumer choice issue in a land where most don't care what they eat. It won't prevent GMO contamination of all crops and seeds. Only banning will.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/043693_genet ... ania.html##ixzz2rrQpeyw0