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Month: September 2015 - Organic Lifestyle Magazine Month: September 2015 - Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Besieged by Guilt: Ex-Pharmaceutical Employees Speak Out Against the Industry

It turns out, that old adage is true – money does not buy everything. For some, money does not buy a clear conscience. Despite earning high incomes, these former pharmaceutical employees left their jobs and are now sharing the truth of what goes on behind the curtain.  Many of them have written books, participated in documentaries, and shared their stories through online videos. Here are a few.

Dr. Peter Rost, Former Vice President of Pfizer

Dr. Peter RostDr. Rost, a former anesthesiologist and pharmaceutical VP, is the author of The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman. Dr. Rost is an expert witness on Big Pharma in the areas of patent infringement, pharmaceutical marketing, drug product liability, drug marketing and promotion, and drug sales.

Universities, health organizations, everybody that I’ve encountered in my former career as a pharmaceutical executive, are out there with their hands out. You know everybody’s begging for money, nobody has any money. The government doesn’t have any money. The universities don’t have money. Nobody has money. The only ones that have money are these big multinational corporations, and they have lots of money. And they use that money to basically buy influence. And the way it’s done is – number one, you give these organizations and institutions grants, grants for various kinds of research. You develop research together with them. You establish friends. You make sure that they become beholden to you. And you also pay individual professors and doctors – researchers – directly. You may pay them as speakers to travel around the country, a thousand, two thousand dollars per day, sometimes more.  

You give them money for programs, the educational programs, where they can make a profit and then they put on these programs, as they’re supposed to be third-party independent from the company. Which is all fine, but as you and I can both imagine, if you have a promotional budget, at a corporation you’re probably going to give that money to the universities that do the programs that most support your drug, and the ones that don’t, or are critical in any shape, way, or form, they are not going to get anything. And everybody obviously knows that this is how things work.

And that means even if you can officially claim “… this is arms-length we didn’t have anything to do with it. We just gave them a grant. They can do whatever they want with it.” Reality is they’re not going to continue to get money unless they’re saying what you want them to say. They know it. You know it. It’s only maybe the public that doesn’t know it. And that’s how you influence the medical establishment – simply with money.

Dr. John Rengen Virapen

Dr. John Rengen Virapen(The following has been edited for clarity)

Dr. John Virapen is plagued by a guilty conscience. After completing his medical training, Dr. Virapen started in the pharmaceutical industry as a salesman. Eventually, he rose to the top ranks and became the general manager of Eli Lilly and Company in Sweden. He admits he participated in bribery, giving false information and deception to launch and market several popular drugs. After becoming a father at age 62, he grew a conscience. He has vowed to dedicate his remaining years to speaking out against the very industry that made him a wealthy man. Here are some quotes from his videos.

I have spent 35 years of my life working in an industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and they do nothing but annihilate the population of this world. Why do they do that? Because they want to make money, money, money, money, money…They don’t care about your lives. They only care about their wallets.

Now, whatever I tell you here today, is not something that I dreamed about, or observed somewhere. It’s something that I have done myself. I have been just as criminal as they are. My hands are just as dirty as these people.

 Now all of you sitting here, answer me a question. When you go to the doctor, he looks at you, stethoscope, laboratory tests, machine tests. Those tests by the way, are to make money. Then he tells you you’re sick here is a prescription. “Go to the pharmacy and take this medicine, one tablet three times a day.” What do you do?…You go to the pharmacy and you get your medicine, and you take it like a good citizen.

But when you go to the car company to buy a car, you ask the salesman questions. If you don’t get what you want, you don’t buy the car. So tell me, why don’t you ask that doctor? What is it that he is giving you? The reason I’m telling you this is because only all of you have the power to stop these criminals with what they’re doing in the pharma industry. Because you are not sick people. You are consumers. You are consumers and the pharma industry makes money because they tell everybody that you are sick.

…The almighty power blessed me and my wife with a child. I was 62 years old. This child is now 4 ½. When this child was born he went to the pediatrician after six months for a checkup. That doctor checked the boy and said, yeah he’s healthy, he’s fine. Now we need to give him his mandatory vaccine cocktail. Now, I have told my wife, nobody, not a doctor, not a professor, nobody gives my child any kind of medication unless they discuss it with me and I approve it. Now this this doctor well apart from being lucky that I wasn’t there, she threw my wife and child out at the clinic and said, “We only treat vaccinated children.”

…How dare she refuse, to have my child come to this clinic, and she’s practicing as a doctor. What happened to Hippocrates, the oath of Hippocrates when you become a doctor you swear the oath! “Primum Non Nocere”-Above All Do no Harm. The patient comes first.

…So I researched this lady and I found that she was sitting in a committee, or on a committee with a politician and members of the pharmaceutical company that made the IMP, the vaccine. And they’re advocating to the government in Germany to introduce mandatory vaccination. So I started to do some research on what’s going on in Germany.

 …I found out also that general practitioners, just like this woman and other doctors, were prescribing psychotropic drugs to children. Shortly after that, I read in an article that was posted from the European Medical Association that they were going to approve the drug Prozac to give to children.

Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, Pharmaceutical Sales Rep for 10 Years

Kathleen Slattery-MoschkauKathleen is the writer and director of the film Side Effects starring Katherine Heigl. She helps to explain the difference between cutting edge marketing, and scientific progress.

(The following has been edited for clarity)

The psychiatric market is huge and every company out there wants a little piece of that pie because it is so lucrative. We did a lot of lunches and dinners and we brought in speakers and those speakers were obviously paid by us and we would we wave, you know, renowned studies at them from renowned journals but of course we would never say that these studies were paid for by our company and that it was written by a ghost writer who is paid by our company or that our company tends to do a ton of advertising within that particular medical journal.

 We would never say that it’s the psychiatric meds that are so easy to expand into all of the problems of our life. So right now we see the industry… over the past several years we’ve seen the industry medicalizing, you know, so many different things throughout our life. If you’re shy, here, take a pill. If you’re a little anxious, you know, take a pill. If you have road rage, we’ve got a pill for that, too!

 … through direct to consumer advertising and the beautiful drug ads that are on television they have been able to play off of our deepest insecurities as human beings, and it’s so effective. It’s marketing. This is marketing. This is not science. This is incredibly effective marketing. It has nothing to do with science.

 We’re being bombarded left and right with these beautiful ads on the screen, painting this lovely Norman Rockwell life on the screen of beautiful, smiling, happy, sexy people and we all want a little piece of that.

 …to produce the ad would be somewhere probably in the million dollar range. And then to air these ads, to buy the air time slots, again depending on what time of day they’re airing or what type of show their airing on, can cost anywhere from tens of thousands per 30-second ad up to close to a million dollars. In the most recent campaigns, over last year or so, you’re hearing so much “Ask your doctor, or talk to your doctor about…” and when you hear that on the screen it sounds so nice.

 It sounds like they really care and want you to discuss this with your doctor. But what the studies have shown is that if you actually bring up a brand-name drug with your doctor by name, you’re significantly more likely to walk out the door with that drug. So they do that for a reason. The industry is responsible to Wall Street, and Wall Street first. They have to please Wall Street because they are private industry. And so when you have that scenario, you have to make profits your number one goal.

 We have billions of dollars being spent right now in terms of marketing, in terms of PR.

Gwen Olson, a 15-Year Sales Rep Who Worked For Johnson & Johnson, Syntex Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories and Forest Laboratories

Gwen OlsonOver time, Gwen had what she describes as a spiritual awakening as she observed the harm that pharmaceuticals caused people. This led her to come forward and to speak out against the pharmaceutical companies. She explains what their priorities really are.

What the pharmaceutical industry is in the business of doing is disease maintenance and symptoms management. They are not in the business to cure cancer, to cure Alzheimer’s, to cure heart disease, because if they were, they would be in the business of putting themselves out of business. And that in fact doesn’t make sense.

 …It’s really important to understand the motivation behind all the current maintenance drugs that are on the market. Even, for example, drugs such as cholesterol-lowering drugs. And what we are in fact finding now is that cholesterol drugs are lowering cholesterol excessively and causing other disease states as a consequence.

 …what was found was the information that activists and other researchers have known for decades was that antidepressants are no more effective than a placebo. No more effective than sugar pills but yet, they’re over 44 million people that have been taking these anti-depressants.

 …Another recent study that was released showed that exercise was in fact more effective than either placebo or the anti-depressant drug.

 The clinical data has been contrived or that their patient populations have been cherry-picked or that the side effects have been minimized and reported in such a manner that it doesn’t present the information correctly.

 …I’m here to tell you that the industry has run amok. That we are at a severe crossroads in this nation and that we have got to take our power back and we have got to start making the pharmaceutical industry accountable for their actions and for the defective products that they’re putting on the market. It won’t be long before every American is affected by this disaster.

 You need to get yourself educated and understand that there are options, and those options are much more effective than drugs. You need to look into the nutritional aspects of your diet and your lifestyle.

Scott Cooper, Award Winning Salesman For Merck

Scott CooperLike so many other well-informed parents, Scott didn’t struggle with whether or not to vaccinate his child. His experience in the pharmaceutical industry convinced him not to vaccinate. His challenge was convincing his wife and doctor that vaccines are not safe or effective.

My child was born in ’91. He’s now going to be 24 this year. He was never vaccinated. He grew up very, very healthy. Rarely if ever sick and always much healthier than his peers. When they were all running around all the kids had runny noses, drank a lot of milk, were all vaccinated. My child was always healthy, runny nose free, always very, very healthy and smart.

If I can digress a little bit this was 1990 so the Internet wasn’t really available. I had read numerous books on vaccines, and like most people I grew up believing in vaccines from what I was told in school. And it became a real shock to me when I started reading and learning that vaccines were not only ineffective, but also there are major risks involved with vaccination.

When I found out my wife was pregnant, I had a discussion with her about not vaccinating and, of course, she was pro-vaccine, and so I made her a deal. At the time, I worked for a very large pharmaceutical company as a sales rep, and so I made her a promise. I said I’ll go to the library I’ll bring home everything I can find pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine. You can read for yourself, and then you can make a decision. That’s what I did. I went and scoured the periodicals in the libraries.

…I just gave them to her and let her make up her own mind. I would come home from work and she would be reading the stuff and crying from what she was reading. By the time our child was born we were both on the same page about vaccination.

And it was interesting because I had my OBGYN or my wife’s OBGYN sit me down in his office and say, “Look, you work for a large pharmaceutical company, what do you mean you’re not vaccinating?”

My company actually made a lot of the vaccines and we had a vaccine division and everything else, and I told them, I told them flat out, why we went, had a huge discussion about it. He didn’t agree. We still went to the course that I wanted.

… do your own research, all right? If you’re on the fence about vaccines or wondering at all, whether to vaccinate your child. Please, please do your own research. There are a ton of resources available out there. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, she has a site that is full of resources.

Thousands of pages are published, medical studies showing the inherent risks that are involved with vaccines. There are a ton of books out there showing this over and over again – the vaccine damage that has been done by these vaccinations. If you believe what you’re told by the AMA and the CDC and your doctor, you’re not doing enough research.

Brandy Vaughan, Former Sales Rep for Merck & Co.

Brandy VaughanNow a mother, Brandy refuses to vaccinate her own child. She explains how the pharmaceutical companies prioritize profit over public health, in a big way.

My first involvement with the pharmaceutical industry was as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Merck back when Vioxx was on the market. I used to rep Vioxx for Merck. When it came out that Merck had falsified safety data and Vioxx actually had twice the increase in heart attacks and strokes… it really made me realize that that there was a lot of corruption behind the scenes and that just because something is on the market, a drug is on the market, doesn’t mean it’s safe.

 After working for Merck, I was pretty disillusioned over the whole scandal. I lived in Europe for 8 years and I had my son over there. I brought him back vaccine-free at 6 months to San Francisco. When I went to a well visit, they pushed for vaccines. At that point I hadn’t done a lot of research in it, but I knew enough not to trust pharmaceutical drugs.

I asked to see a vaccine insert and the doctor got very upset at me and claimed I didn’t trust him. He stormed out of the room and the nurse let me know that I wasn’t really welcome back in that clinic anymore. That was a huge red flag for me, knowing what I knew from being a pharmaceutical sales rep before. I started to do my research into vaccines and the ingredients, and the flawed safety data.

What came to light was many things, but one of them was that aluminum is the main adjuvant in vaccines, in childhood vaccines. I had experience with that, with researching that, and the toxicity of aluminum, because my grandmother had breast cancer.

The doctor biopsied her tissues and there were high levels of aluminum. He told us that she needed to get off traditional deodorant and that the aluminum in there was linked to breast cancer. It was carcinogenic. That was a big red flag for me when I realized those were in childhood vaccines. I couldn’t believe it, actually. Then I started to do more and more research and I realized that the U.S. gives twice as many vaccines on the childhood schedule than most developed countries, and the real health crisis is the fact that our kids are sicker than any other country in the developed world. This is despite spending more per capita on healthcare. We have highest rates of SIDS, asthma, food allergies, ADHD, childhood leukemia, diabetes type one. This to me was the true health crisis.

The more I dug into this, what I realized was vaccines are not for public health. It’s really about profit, pharmaceutical company profit.

 The thing about vaccines is that you don’t have to do the same rigorous safety studies as you do for other pharmaceutical drugs because they’re classified as a public health measure vs. a pharma drug. For vaccines, they have a totally different type of safety study. It’s very short in duration. It’s not double-blind placebo-based, which is the gold standard for pharmaceutical drugs, and vaccines aren’t held to the same rigorous safety studies.

If you look into them, it’s very easy to manipulate the data and present that as something that’s safe. If you really look into the studies and look into the toxicity of the adjuvants and the additives, you realize that the safety studies are not proving safety at all. In fact, there are a lot of studies on the other side showing that a lot of the additives in vaccines are very toxic, especially to children who have very immature immune systems.

As I dug more into the safety studies and saw how flawed they were, it really raised a red flag for me. My son is now four and a half and he’s vaccine-free. I really got motivated to get more into this fight when I realized the mandatory vaccination bills that were sweeping the country, over 100 in 38 states.

 …pharmaceutical companies don’t have any liability for vaccines, in fact [one of] the only products in the U.S. that has no liability so you cannot sue them if there’s injury or death. So you put those two things together and what you have is vaccines as a pharmaceutical drug with the highest profit margin available. If you make those mandatory and you keep increasing the schedule, it’s basically using our children to profit off of.

The pharmaceutical company is using vaccines as a new driver for profit. This is really what’s behind the mandatory vaccination bills. One of the things that I’m often asked is why do we not hear about this if this is true? One of the things that I’ve found out in my research is that the U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers.

I’m sure we’ve all seen the media and advertisements for the pharmaceutical drugs. That happens there is that it allows pharmaceutical companies to basically dictate what is shown to the media. Because when you give the media 30 to 40% [Author’s note: presently the number is closer to 70%] of their advertising dollars, you basically control what they say.

There have been a lot of journalists and stories that have been censored, including the CDC whistleblower that came out in the end of 2014 basically saying that the CDC has covered up data showing that the MMR vaccine does in fact cause neurological damage, AKA autism.

Recently there have been a lot of stories of different countries suing vaccine makers for injury and death, and even pulling vaccines off of the schedule like Gardasil in Japan and Prevnar in China, rotovirus vaccine in France, and Spain has a lawsuit against Merck for Gardasil as well.

…We have a very broken system. Our vaccine system in the U.S. is broken. We cannot mandate something when there are so many unanswered questions and so many things that are going on behind the scenes that people aren’t aware of, including vaccines ingredients, like when the pediatrician didn’t want to show me the vaccine insert. There’s good reason for that.

There’s aluminum, formaldehyde, fetal cells, animal cells. There are a lot of things in there that other countries A, ban from being ingested and therefore have vaccines that don’t include these ingredients, and B, have unknown consequences that we have no data on right now. It’s basically playing Russian roulette with our children.

Pharma is saying it’s all about public help and public safety, and I’m saying why don’t we have more data on what this really will do, long-term studies on what this is doing inside of our bodies and to our children. Because right now we have the sickest children in the developed world. Something is going on here.

It’s probably not just vaccines. It’s a chemical cocktail of pesticides and pollutants in our water and air, but vaccines are often a trigger because genetically we need a trigger to express these kind of diseases and issues that we have. Vaccines are often what does that because the chemicals are injected into our bloodstream, so they don’t go through a lot of the bodies natural detox process. They go straight to the brain past the blood-brain barrier.

We need to ask these difficult questions. Until that, until we have more information, we absolutely cannot mandate vaccines. There has to be a choice. If there’s a risk, there has to be a choice.

Further Reading:
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How to Roast Butternut Squash – Seven Step Simple Recipe

Squash is pretty much synonymous with fall in my house. Typically, during September we are up to our eyeballs in a bounty of harvest from our garden. Every countertop is stacked with squash, onions, potatoes, carrots, and beets. It’s a wonderful and busy time of year. To save time, I stick to simple but tasty recipes.
Image courtesy of Mean Miss Mustard
One of my favorite squashes is the butternut. Butternut squash is a yellow-orange fleshed fruit that has a slightly sweet, nutty flavor. This beautiful fall/winter squash offers a nutrient punch that is just what we need at the season’s change. Butternut squash is a great source of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, and B-6.

One of the easiest ways to prepare this winter squash is to roast it and here I bring you my super simplified recipe. Winter squashes of all sorts will burst with flavor when roasted and all follow a similar preparation.

For this recipe you will need:

  • 1 butternut squash
  • approx. 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • optional: grass-fed butter

Simply:

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
  2. Cut off stem side, just about an inch or two into the top side of squash. Discard this piece.
  3. Next, cut the squash in half, lengthwise.
  4. Scrape out the seeds and set aside.
  5. Lightly brush the cut flesh with extra virgin olive oil.
  6. Place cut side down on a foil or parchment-lined baking sheet.
  7. Bake for 35 minutes or until squash is tender.

Spoon out onto individual plates, season with salt and pepper and add a bit of grass-fed butter if you wish.

A large squash will serve 4 as a side dish.

Other winter squash you might try preparing this way are pumpkin, acorn, and delicata.




Eat Vegetables First

I always think of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham when I am sharing the benefits of vegetables with clients and friends. There is often so much resistance. Can’t you just see it? “Could you, would you?” and the famous reply…“But I do not like them, …”

On my personal journey, the most difficult emotional shift I needed to make around food was to move meat from the center of my plate and replace it with amazing, nutrient dense vegetables. It was difficult only because of the mindset I’d had my entire life. When it came to considering what to make for dinner, I always started with the meat. My thoughts went something like, “What am I going to make for dinner? Well, chicken and potatoes and green beans.” I needed to shift this habit to be, “What am I going to make for dinner? Roots and shoots with a side of quinoa topped with a small slice of chicken breast.” You see, the meat became the optional side. It felt difficult only because of the thought pattern. Once I made the shift in my mind, the rest was easy.

We are just beginning to understand the role vegetables can play in our well-being. Nutrition is a young, complex, and ever evolving science. What we do know is that plant foods offer a diverse and deep well of nutrition that supports our body in creating energy, fighting off cancer, preventing early aging, and aiding our digestive tract. Vegetables also help us to have clear skin and sleep better, and they seem to prevent a myriad of diseases. Every vegetable offers something slightly different, but the nutrients in each plant work together synergistically in a way we cannot yet recreate in a lab. What does this mean? There is really no substitute for the real thing.

As an example, a single cup of spinach holds 888.5 mcg (micrograms) of vitamin K, 14742.0 IU of vitamin A, 1.7 mg of manganese, and 262.4 mcg of folate. It also contains amazing amounts of magnesium, iron, vitamin C, riboflavin, calcium, (where do you think elephants get their calcium from anyway?), potassium, B6, tryptophan, fiber, copper, B1, protein, phosphorus, zinc, vitamin E, omega 3 fatty acids, niacin, selenium, beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin.  (Mateljan, 2007)

Adding vegetables to your diet can make a huge impact on how you feel and on your ability to reach your health and wellness goals. If you would like to focus on nutrient density, the ANDI food scoring guide will help you to choose foods with an amazing nutrient power pack. The trick here is diversity. Try mixing up your vegetables and changing up how you prepare them. In the beginning, you might feel resistant, the flavors and textures might be different than what you are used to, but by sticking with it, you and your taste buds will adapt. Whole, natural, foods have flavors that vary as widely as their colors – sometimes it’s in the preparation and sometimes it’s in the season and growing location.

Try this exercise:

Adding vegetables to your plate at every meal can be incredibly impactful. This will be a trial to identify what it feels like to have them more often and in greater amounts. As you work through the vegetables, if after a few tries you absolutely do not like a certain one, don’t force yourself to eat it. We don’t have to like all foods and by pushing ourselves to eat foods we dislike, we are trying to create an unsustainable habit. (I know I can’t stick with eating things I don’t like for very long so it’s okay if you can’t either.)

Begin by visiting the ANDI food scoring guide and choose a vegetable or two that you’d like to add to your plate over the next two weeks.

Take Action & Schedule It!

  1. What food(s) did you choose?
  2. Where will you get it?
  3. When will you get it?
  4. How will you prepare it?
  5. How many times will you have it?

Write your plans for your meals and track your food in a personal journal.

At the end of 14 days, come back and answer these questions:

  1. What did you try?
  2. How did you prepare it?
  3. What was your favorite way of having it?
  4. How often did you eat it?
  5. How do you feel?

Bringing awareness to your experience allows you to practice listening to your body and what’s working and what’s not. Watch for subtle shifts, greater energy, reduction of mind fog, and less bloating.

This article is an excerpt from Lessons for MomPositive Living, Attainable Wellness for Modern Moms written by Tammi Hoerner, INHC. This book is available for purchase here.

Recommended Reading:



Five Things Healthy People Do Differently

We all know at least one or two people who are super fit and never seem to get sick. They always seem to be really happy, too. But how do they do it? Were they born that way?

The short answer is no! Healthy people have some rules they live by, even if they don’t consciously follow them. So what are these rules?

They Enjoy Exercising

Healthy people love to exercise and have exercises or sports that they really enjoy doing. As a result, they keep doing exercises because they like to, not because they have to. When we try to do exercises we don’t like doing, the lifestyle change never lasts long term. Try to find an exercise or sport that you actually enjoy. That way you will look forward to it rather than dread it.

They Eat Bad Foods In Moderation

Many people think healthy people never eat any “bad” food. While this may be true for some, it’s not true for everyone. But healthy people have a different definition of “bad” food. They don’t drink conventional sodas and eat GMO corn chips, but they may have a sweet snack or a dessert once or twice a week, compared to others who eat junk food or sugary snacks once or twice a day. Try to make sure your meals and your snacks are healthy. Over time, you’ll elevate your definition of junk food, too.

They Eat Healthy Snacks

Snacking on junk food can cause all sorts of damage and contributes to weight gain. Healthy people make sure they eat healthy snacks and prepare them ahead of time. They eat snacks such as raw nuts (unsalted and unroasted), fresh fruit, and cut up vegetables (eg. celery and carrots). Try and plan ahead when it comes to snacks, and the next time you are at the grocery store, shop accordingly.

They Drink Plenty Of Water

Water does so many good things for your body. Keeping hydrated helps your skin and hair look great. It’s no wonder healthy people always seem to look great. They drink plenty of water and don’t drink sodas. Sodas are full of sugar, and don’t think diet sodas are any better. Diet sodas are filled with extra chemicals and terrible artificial sweeteners. Don’t be drinking plenty of fruit drinks such as orange juice either. Why? Have you ever thought of eating 30 oranges in a row? No? Well that’s pretty much what you’re doing when you drink a glass or two of orange juice. It’s a lot of sugar! Some fruit drinks are also full of other nasty ingredients. Try drinking water and herbal teas. Or check out this recipe for cranberry lemonade with stevia.

They Go To Bed Early and Are Early Risers

We all know that sleep is an important part of life. But healthy people know just how important it is to get at very least 7 hours of consistent sleep every night. They go to sleep earlier and get up much earlier even on their days off. And then, they tend to exercise first thing in the morning. Exercising in the morning has great benefits and can make us far more productive during the day.

Have you changed anything in your life that has made you healthier? Whether it is your diet or exercise regime, or a sport you love. Post your changes in the comments below.




Better Grades and Fewer Sick Days: Clinical Aromatherapy for the School Year

It’s that time again—books, new clothes, and first-day jitters. That’s right, ready or not, it’s back to school—tests, homework, and flu season included. Parents do their best to keep their children healthy and to excel academically, but adding essential oils to daily life can give students of all ages an added edge. Best of all, it’s easy and enjoyable! Children journey through life through their senses, so it is only logical that aromatherapy can be a friend during their greatest challenges, both in and out of the classroom.

Boosting Academic Performance with Aromatherapy

It has been shown that inhaling essential oils such as lavender, peppermint, and rosemary during study time and before taking exams boosts cognitive function, eliminates “brain fog”, and yields higher grades. Studies have also demonstrated that citrus oil, especially grapefruit, improves focus and mental performance before exams, public speaking, or performances. Let’s take a closer look at the five top brain boosters and how they can help young people excel during the school year:

Peppermint: Peppermint is the premiere essential oil to boost energy levels, especially on Mondays or rainy days when classwork feels like an insurmountable chore. It is also helpful for the apathetic child who is easily discouraged or distracted. Peppermint is highly effective as a study aid to sharpen memory, keep the mind alert, and increase concentration. How to use: Add a drop to a tissue, fold, and inhale for 5 minutes or so before taking exams or at intervals while studying. It can also be used in the morning to help wake up sleepyheads. Caution: do not use in cases of asthma unless it is certain that menthol can be tolerated. Substitute with grapefruit.

Lavender: Lavender is well-known for its calming properties, even for promoting sleep, but it also has a great reputation for boosting brain clarity, especially when inhaled before taking a test. Lavender essential oil has been shown to boost test scores up to 50%. How to use: Add a drop or two to a tissue, fold, and inhale for 5 minutes or so before taking tests or at intervals while studying. It can also be used to calm pre-exam nerves.

Lemon: Lemon is a “bright” oil that is excellent to clear foggy thinking, improve optimism and self-confidence, and improve test scores. Studies have shown that inhaling lemon essential oil prior to exams produced better grades with 54% fewer mistakes.

Grapefruit: Grapefruit essential oil, like lemon, promotes a “sunny” outlook, brightens the mood, and most of all, sharpens memory and boosts overall brain function—so much so, that this oil has been shown to be a powerful tool in improving symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia by inhibiting cholinesterase, the enzyme responsible for breaking down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is essential for brain health and memory retention. How to use: Add a drop or two to a tissue, fold, and inhale for 5 minutes or so before taking exams or at intervals while studying.

Rosemary: “Rosemary for remembrance” is an age-old expression from folk medicine and one that rings true. Rosemary essential oil improves memory in general and is highly useful before taking exams and during study time. It also provides the body and mind with a boost of energy during long school days or afternoon slumps. How to use: Add a drop to a tissue, fold, and inhale for 5 minutes or so before taking exams or at intervals while studying. Caution: Do not use in cases of epilepsy or seizure disorders. Substitute with grapefruit.

Boosting Your Child’s Immune Response with Clinical Aromatherapy

Essential oils can be your child’s best friend, not only for better grades but fewer sick days. These precious, concentrated essences from plants, fruits, and trees kill viruses and bacteria, increase oxygen in the bloodstream, and promote the production of white blood cells. They also balance the pH factor (acid/alkaline balance essential to life) and can increase the electrical frequency of the body. Disease and pathogens cannot thrive or survive in an oxygen-abundant environment, therefore, using essential oils topically throughout the school year can build your child’s defenses from the deepest level possible.

Parents are busy people, and children are not far behind with packed schedules, schoolwork, and extracurricular activities. Rest assured, arming your family and fortifying the immune system is easy to incorporate even in the busiest day. Here’s a closer look at the top three immune boosting essential oil combos and how they can make you and your family fight any bug that comes around this year:

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and Organic Lemon (Citrus limonum): Lavender and lemon essential oils, both considered “universal” oils, possess antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties and are heavy hitters when it comes to boosting the immune system and fighting illness. Gentle but powerful, both lavender and organic lemon essential oils are appropriate for all ages. How to use: At bedtime, apply 2 drops of each essential oil to the soles of the feet, 4 drops total. For children under the age of six, use 1 drop of each essential oil, 2 drops total. Allow the oils to be absorbed into the skin and do not shower after application. Use this combination for a week then switch to another combination for another week so the body does not build up a tolerance to the oils and lessen immune response.

Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) and Lemon Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora) Two more “universal” oils that have powerful antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties are tea tree and lemon eucalyptus. When combined, these essential oils pack a heavy punch to any flu bug, infection, or cold. How to use: At bedtime, apply 2 drops of each essential oil to the soles of the feet, 4 drops total. For children under the age of six, use 1 drop of each essential oil, 2 drops total. Allow the oils to be absorbed into the skin and do not shower after application. Use this combination for a week then switch to another combination for another week so the body does not build up a tolerance to the oils and lessen immune response. Caution: Do not use lemon eucalyptus in cases of asthma unless it is certain that menthol can be tolerated. Substitute with juniper berry essential oil.

Clove Bud (Syzygium aromaticum) and Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus): Two more “universal” allies for the flu season, clove and eucalyptus can combat the toughest viruses. How to use: At bedtime, apply 2 drops of each essential oil to the soles of the feet, 4 drops total. For children under the age of six, use 1 drop of each essential oil, 2 drops total. Allow the oils to be absorbed into the skin and do not shower after application. Use this combination for a week then switch to another combination for another week so the body does not build up a tolerance to the oils and lessen immune response. Caution: Do not use eucalyptus in cases of asthma unless it is certain that menthol can be tolerated. Substitute with ravensara essential oil.

Aromatherapy can be something the entire family can use and enjoy—from the helpful hints in this article to innumerable other ways. This beautiful and effective healing modality is vast, and children’s needs are addressed differently, so please be sure to gather as much information as possible before diving into the realm of aromatic medicine. There are many good books on the subject, especially those written by Robert Tisserand.

DISCLAIMER

The statements contained herein have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and the material presented in this article is not intended to treat, prescribe for, cure, mitigate, or prevent any disease or to replace conventional medical treatments.

Sources:

Donato, Marlaina. Multidimensional Aromatherapy. Ekstasis Multimedia, 2015

Young, Gary. Essential Oil Desk Reference. Essential Science Publishing, 2004

Further Reading:

How To  Correctly Use Essential Oils To Prevent the Flu and Other Illnesses




Hellmann’s Vs. Just Mayo – The Very Interesting Battle Within the Mayo Industry

Hampton Creek, a tiny food company that specializes in plant-based products, has received word from the FDA that their Just Mayo line of vegan spreads does not meet the standards set for mayonnaise and needs to change its misleading labels. Normally this wouldn’t be news at all, but there are a few factors here making this more important than the average case of the FDA enforcing labeling laws.

Just Mayo is available virtually everywhere that food is sold in the United States, from Walmart, to Whole Foods, to 7-Eleven convenience stores. And since the product doesn’t include eggs, it is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the recent egg shortage caused by avian influenza, a shortage The American Egg Board predicts could last for more than a year.

The New Kid on the Block

Just Mayo is obviously not the first vegan mayonnaise available for purchase at grocery stores. It is, however, the first one to seriously threaten conventional mayonnaise’s spot in the marketplace.

Before a lawsuit was filed by Unilever in late 2014, Hampton Creek was enjoying its status as a startup darling, supported by tech and food luminaries like Bill Gates and Andrew Zimmern. It was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the cultural shift towards healthier, more eco-friendly food options.

Their promotional materials include the amount of water saved, square feet of land preserved, grams of carbon emissions prevented, and the amounts of sodium, cholesterol, and saturated fats avoided with the use of Just Mayo. All of those allures sit on an even more appealing bottom line – CEO Josh Tetrick claims he’s able to provide all those benefits 30% cheaper than traditional manufacturing.

Within less than a year of its launch date, Just Mayo became the leading mayonnaise brand on shelves at Whole Foods and appeared on Walmart and Target shelves. When a new product takes off that quickly, the established leaders in the market sit up and take notice. In the case of Just Mayo, that notice was delivered on October 31, 2014 in the form of a lawsuit from Unilever, the corporate giant that manufactures and sells Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.

It Begins to Get Ugly

The lawsuit filed by Unilever alleges that Just Mayo does not fit the FDA standards for mayonnaise and that it is ruining the “entire product category” since it does not contain egg yolks in its ingredients. More importantly, they claim it is causing “serious irreparable harm to Unilever.” As a punishment for Hampton Creek’s deceptive packaging and false advertising, Unilever has a simple fix in mind: all Just Mayo products should be removed from store shelves, and Just Mayo should pay Unilever damages for irreparable harm.

David vs. Goliath

If we take Unilever at their word, this is serious, but the history and current industry labeling realities don’t really back Hellmann’s histrionic claims. For example, popular vegan companies like Earth Balance already have the word mayo prominently displayed on their vegan mayonnaise packaging.

Unilever, itself, is not as rigid in their own labeling as they are trying to force Just Mayo to be. When Hampton Creek’s CEO conducted a publicized search through Hellmann’s website, Unilever scrambled to edit and take down pages that could prove their products and labels to be as non-compliant as those they were targeting.

Not every company that makes vegan mayo has aroused Unilever’s ire. Just Mayo seems to be their only target, one that wasn’t on their radar until they successfully expanded into mainstream stores and became a viable competitor. It’s easy to see that the irreparable harm Unilever is claiming has more to do with their loss profits than concern over misleading labels.

The Actual Label

The label that’s causing all the controversy is a fairly simple one. It is a natural brown color with text saying Just Mayo and the picture of a plant seedling surrounded by the outline of an egg. While the label does list the product as egg free, it isn’t immediately clear that Just Mayo is a vegan product. Is this deceptive marketing? It could be seen as such, but it clearly wasn’t an issue for the FDA until Unilever became upset.

Circumstances Favor the Bold

With a major lawsuit pending that is funded by the deep pockets of one of the world’s largest corporations, most new companies would be probably be forced to bow out gracefully. Companies facing major lawsuits frequently see investors and markets draw back support. Hampton Creek, however, got a big break in May when avian influenza devastated farms in the Midwest, leading to the death of roughly 38 million chickens, 85% of which were laying hens. With egg production projected to be down more than 5% in 2015, Just Mayo is considered a hot commodity.

FDA Finally Gets Involved

After more than a year and a half of having no issues with Hampton Creek and their Just Mayo product, the FDA has made it clear that they will support the interests of big business on the issue of the Just Mayo label. Ironically, this action comes on the heels of former Hampton Creek employees revealing a blatant FDA violation – lemon juice concentrate was incorrectly labeled as lemon juice.

The FDA sent Hampton Creek a letter citing the misleading Just Mayo label as problematic and adding the fact that several of the ingredients in Just Mayo (pea protein, beta-carotene, and modified food starch) are not allowed in mayonnaise. The company was given three weeks to address these concerns.

Health Ridiculousness

The FDA also claims that the fat content in Just Mayo is too high for the product to claim it’s heart-healthy. The fact that the agency responsible for regulating our food supply makes such outdated claims is as upsetting as the fact that they are holding companies operating in today’s food culture to standards virtually unchanged since 1957 (when the mayonnaise definition was set). Fats have been portrayed as equal opportunity villains for years, but anyone paying attention to modern nutrition and health knows that when it comes to fat, quality makes a bigger impact than quantity.

Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats from whole food sources provide the body with energy, protect cell membranes, help you absorb essential vitamins and minerals, help blood clotting, and give protection against heart disease. These two types of fats are essential to life functions, and institutes of medicine the world over urge people to incorporate these fats into their diets as much as possible. But rather than listen to the research and focus on growing in their field, the FDA is content to conduct business as usual.

It’s All Business

It’s easy to see this clash like a modern day food fairytale version of David and Goliath. Ideally, Hellmann’s is picking on the saintly, vegan small company because they’re making progress in the conventional marketplace. But like anything Big Business touches, there are more layers beneath the surface.

Unilever is undeniably a bully in this situation, but there are legitimate concerns with Hampton Creek’s labeling practices. In the past, they have been caught mislabeling the lemon juice concentrate in their product. The actual design of the label gives no indication that this is anything other than conventional mayonnaise. The inclusion of the egg and the extremely simple name actually reinforces the idea that this is mayonnaise in its purest form…leaving the discovery of its lack of eggs to the discerning customer who reads the fine print.

There’s also the issue of the oil chosen by Hampton Creek. Canola oil, the very basis of Just Mayo, is flawed from both a health and an environmental perspective. Even when the canola oil is non-GMO and expeller pressed, it’s still highly processed. Canola oil studies with animals have shown that canola has adverse effects on a cellular level, and no studies on the long-term safety of canola oil in humans have been conducted.

That being said, we are talking about a vegan mayonnaise that is not only available to anyone and everyone regardless of their food location, but one that also competes with and possibly surpasses conventional mayonnaises. A large part of that may be due to the label, as there is nothing in the packaging that would suggest that this is anything but traditional mayonnaise. But the timing and specific complaints from Unilever more than suggest that this is a lawsuit about business.

Even when it seems that there’s a product on the market that can impact the country’s health in a positive way, there are always issues. Big corporations are unwilling to allow serious competition, and serious threats are not only met with legal action, they are also met with the flexing of government muscle. Once again we see that Big Business exerts undue influence upon our government. And the FDA, the government authority in this conflict, has once again shown itself to be an unreliable bully for hire rather than the protector of our food and health.

Since they chose to use canola oil, lied about the lemon juice concentrate (and were outed by their own employees), and used deceptive packaging, it also feels like Hampton Creek is just another Big Business wannabe, more concerned with marketing and positioning than true health. Even their eco-friendly claims were contrived for marketing. Their greener footprint isn’t due to their manufacturing practices, it’s due to the fact that they do not use eggs. One cannot help but wonder if Hampton Creek and its products were conceived, marketed, and positioned so that it, too, can someday become just another big business that will in turn discourage small competitors with its own lawsuits.

Sources:

 




A Look at the Vaccine Schedule and Autism Rates

All too often those of us opposed to vaccines hear a simple, yet tired counterargument, “Well I had my shots as a kid and I’m fine.” The adults who make this claim don’t seem to realize the number of shots they received was far fewer than the number of shots on today’s vaccine schedule. And few of them follow the adult vaccine schedule.

In reality, the very well vaccinated are not a healthy bunch. They get sick regularly. This is particularly evident for those who get regular flu shots.

American children receive far more vaccines now than at any other time in U.S. history, and they receive more vaccines than children living in any other country. If vaccines were in fact so effective, one would think that America would have the healthiest children. This is not the case at all. Aside from starving children in 3rd world countries, American children are among the sickest children in the world.

Big Pharma purports to have all the answers, except of course, what is causing all of these childhood illnesses. Rising rates of autism and other chronic illnesses are said to be a complete mystery (if you wish to be demystified simply read a vaccine warning insert). Despite their supposed cluelessness about our sudden epidemics of chronic illness, both the pharmaceutical companies and the government claim to “know” that “vaccines are safe and effective”. SIDS, asthma, ADHD, ADD, and autism are all considered to be mysterious diseases with an unknown or a genetic cause. This may sound good, but genetic epidemics are not possible, and there are few environmental toxins that could have such a widespread impact on children of all 50 states, at the same time. The most likely environmental toxins that could have spread to all American children simultaneously are toxins from food and vaccines. We at OLM side with the growing number of scientists who think that vaccines, pesticides, and GMOs are the main causes of our childhood illnesses, with vaccines as the primary cause of our nation’s rapidly declining health.

Below is a look at earlier vaccine schedules compared to the current vaccine schedule “recommended” by the CDC. CDC vaccine recommendations are becoming mandatory across the U.S.

A Historical Look at the Vaccine Schedule

1983 Schedule

  • DTP (2 mo)
  • OPV (2 mo)
  • DTP (4 mo)
  • OPV (4 mo)
  • DTP (6 mo)
  • MMR (15 mo)
  • DTP (18 mo)
  • OPV (18 mo)
  • DTP (4 yr)
  • OPV (4 yr)
  • Td (14 yr)

 

vaccines  vaccine baby

Autism Rates in America

  • 1975: 1 in 5,000
  • 1985: 1 in 2,500
  • 1995: 1 in 500
  • 2000: 1 in 150
  • 2004: 1 in 125
  • 2006: 1 in 110
  • 2008: 1 in 88
  • 2010-2014: 1 in 68

Sources: cdc.gov, autismspeaks.org

1994 Schedule

  • HepB (birth)
  • HepB (2 mo)
  • DTP (2 mo)
  • OPV (2 mo)
  • Hib (2 mo)
  • DTP (4 mo)
  • OPV (4 mo)
  • Hib (4 mo)
  • DTP(6 mo)
  • OPV (6 mo)
  • Hib (6 mo)
  • HepB (6 mo)
  • MMR (12 mo)
  • Hib (12 mo)
  • DTaP/DTP (15 mo)
  • DTaP/DTP (4 yr)
  • OPV (4 yr)
  • MMR (4 yr)

 

 

2015 Schedule

  • Influenza (pregnancy)
  • DTaP (pregnancy)
  • HepB (birth)
  • HepB (2 mo)
  • Rotavirus (2 mo)
  • DTaP (2 mo)
  • Hib (2 mo)
  • PCV (2 mo)
  • IPV (2 mo)
  • Rotavirus (4 mo)
  • DTaP (4 mo)
  • Hib (4 mo)
  • PCV (4 mo)
  • IPV (4 mo)
  • HepB (6 mo)
  • Rotavirus (6 mo)
  • DTaP (6 mo)
  • Hib (6 mo)
  • PCV (6 mo)
  • IPV (6 mo)
  • Influenza (6 mo)
  • Hib (12 mo)
  • PCV (12 mo)
  • MMR (12 mo)
  • Varicella (12 mo)
  • Hep A (12 mo)
  • DTaP (18 mo)
  • Influenza (18 mo)
  • Hep A (18 mo)
  • Influenza (2 yr)
  • Influenza (3 yr)
  • DTaP (4 yr)
  • IPV (4 yr)
  • MMR (4 yr)
  • Varicella (4 yr)
  • Influenza (5 yr)
  • Influenza (6 yr)
  • Influenza (7 yr)
  • Influenza (8 yr)
  • Influenza (9 yr)
  • Influenza (10 yr)
  • HPV (10 yr)
  • Influenza (11 yr)
  • HPV (11 yr)
  • Tdap (12 yr)
  • Influenza (12 yr)
  • Meningococcal (12 yr)
  • Influenza (13 yr)
  • Influenza (14 yr)
  • Influenza (15 yr)
  • Influenza (16 yr)
  • Meningococcal (16 yr)
  • Influenza (17 yr)
  • Influenza(18 yr)

 

As the number of scheduled vaccines has risen, so have the rates of now common childhood diseases including ADD/ADHD, SIDS, and asthma. Before the 1970s, ADD and ADHD were not even prevalent enough for a diagnosis to exist in the DSM. The first related diagnosis came out in the DSM-II as “Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood”. This was later changed to “ADD with or without hyperactivity” in the DSM-III in the 1980s. It was further clarified in later editions. The number of children (and adults) that have been prescribed ADD/ADHD drugs has skyrocketed over the past few decades. And asthma rates have also experienced a sharp rise over the years.

According to Harris Coulter, a medical historian and scientist, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) was not reported in the statistics before the rise of mass vaccinations because of its rarity. As vaccination rates have risen, so have SIDS rates. When Japan put a moratorium on all vaccinations before the age of two, their SIDS rate plummeted to almost nothing. Although they are every bit as scientifically adept as we are and highly technologically advanced, their schedule has less than half the recommended vaccinations as the United States schedule.

Just as not everyone can eat the same foods, not everyone can tolerate the same medications. It is incredibly naive to think that just because your child survived vaccines without severe injury, that no harm was done. As more and more vaccines are added to the schedule, the painful reality is becoming clear. Health does not need to be treated as a disease. How many more must die or become disabled by this practice before we wake up and realize what is happening? If you’ve been vaccinated, be sure to check out How to Detox From Vaccines (adults and children).

Further Reading:
Sources: