Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog/David Brock: Plateauing

Partners in Excellence Blog   

Plateauing

Posted: 29 Dec 2017 07:22 AM PST

As we often do, at this time of year, we take stock of where we are in our business and personal lives.  We look at what we’ve accomplished in the past year, and our goals for the coming year.  Some of us develop “resolutions.”  (I don’t.)

I’ve been reflecting a lot on my personal performance and growth. While, from pure business outlook, things couldn’t be better.  We are involved in truly exciting projects with our clients, making an impact on their businesses and lives.

Part of me feels as though we, or at least I have plateaued.

Plateauing, I think happens to all of us, in some form.  We all plateau at varying levels–both in performance, and in personal growth.  We can be very high performers, we can be meeting our goals, but at the same time may have plateaued somewhat in our own growth.

Personally, I feel I’m at one of those points.  I’ve been thinking a lot about “what’s the next big thing,” “what’s the next big idea.”  In the past, I’ve focused a lot on those, both for my personal and business development, in helping our clients, and in what I write about.

These big things haven’t necessarily been new or tremendously insightful, but recognizing them and applying them have enabled us to make huge improvements in what we do and how we perform.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been reflecting on myself and my own personal growth, trying to find that new “big thing,”  the thing that will help me raise my level of play, my contribution, and my happiness.

I think I’ve stumbled on it, ironically, I think my big thing is actually little things, very little things, or micro improvements.

Recently, I wrote about the concept in, The Importance Of Small Changes In Improving Performance.  I explored the math behind micro improvement.  For example, if we improve our own performance by just 0.% every day, over the course of a year the improvement is close to 10%!

I’ve been experimenting with this concept, particularly over the past 30 days.  The first thing I struggled with was, “what thing do I want to focus on for driving micro improvements.”  The analytic side of me also started looking at, “how do I measure those micro improvements?”

I realized I was over-complicating the process (As I’m sometimes prone to do.)

Coincidentally, I was rereading Marshall Goldsmith’s Triggers.  I was struck by his use of active questions in assessing our own performance, mindset, and so forth.  For example, we tend to phrase goals in ways that are difficult to assess, particularly if you are doing a daily assessment.

For example, one of my goals has always been: How did I contribute to the success and growth of my clients?  It’s something important to me and to our company.  It’s something that sets us apart both in the way we work and the value we create.

But it’s really tough to assess.  After a period of time, we can look, saying, “We helped Company X improve sales performance by 42%, we helped company Y double their win rates,” and so forth.  But those are after long periods of time.  I was looking for that daily improvement, I knew my clients wouldn’t appreciate my calling up every day asking, “How much did performance improve over yesterday.”

Marshall reminded me that, I’m really putting a burden on others, my clients in this case, for the improvement.  I’m not looking at my personal responsibility in supporting my clients in these things.

A simple rephrasing of that goal, changes everything.  He suggests starting with “Did I do my best to….”  In this case, it would be “Did I do my best to contribute to the success and growth of my clients today?”  This changes the context completely.  First, the responsibility is mine, not someone else’s.  Second, while it focuses on what I can control.  I can’t control what my clients do, but I can control my own behavior and actions in how I work with my clients.

Marshall suggests developing a daily scorecard, tracking yourself on the responses to your “Did I do my best to….” questions.  I’ve taken his his approach and re-engineered it a little.

For the past month, I’ve been tracking myself on 19 items.  They are all big, but at the same time, little goals.  I’m not tracking, “Did I do my best to solve world hunger?”  Marshall provided a starter kit of six questions:

    Did I do my best to set clear goals for the day?
    Did I to my best to make progress toward those goals?
    Did I do my best to do the things that make my happy in the day?
    Did I do my best to find meaning in the day?
    Did I do my best to build positive relationships?
    Did I do my best to be fully alive (Marshall suggested “fully engaged,” I rephrased it because being fully alive has a much broader context for me.)

I added a number of others, simple things like “Did I do my best to exercise in the day?”  When I’m really busy, as I often am, I tend to neglect this.  “Did I do my best to stay hydrated?”  Again, that’s a problem for me.  “Did I do my best to express my love and appreciation to Kookie?”  Sometimes, we tend to take our relationships with the people most important for granted.

In total, right now I’m tracking 19 items.  I don’t know whether they are the right things, but I’m going to keep them for another 30 days, then look at revising some of them  (A few seem to overlap a lot and I’m wondering why I identified them in the first place.)

I’m scoring them on a 1-10 scale, as Marshall suggests, but I’ve modified it.  I don’t allow myself a “7.”  7 is an equivocating, MEH number.  If I want to give myself a 7, I force myself to commit to a 6 or 10.  (I did this midway in the month, so you will see some 7’s in the earlier days.

The other adaptation I’ve made to this approach is that I write a single sentence about how I felt in the day.  It’s not what I accomplished, it’s how I felt.  It’s much more meaningful, for example if I accomplished a lot, I probably feel much better.  But, the “how I felt” sentence seems more encompassing to me.

Every morning, I spend my first few minutes scoring myself for the previous day.  I used to do it in the evening, but switched to the next morning.  It allows me a little more reflection, plus it allows me to review what’s important at the beginning of the day–enabling me to focus more mindfully on them.

I’m only 30 days into it.  Have I seen differences?  Absolutely!  There have been ups and downs.  For example, when I’m traveling, I tend to have both the exercise and hydration challenges–but I’m paying more attention.

Can I measure the improvement?  No–but again, I’m looking at micro improvements that will accumulate over time.  I suspect in 3, 6, 12 months, when I look back I will see major improvements in what I accomplish and how I’ve grown, but for today, I’m looking only at if I’ve done my best……

I think the biggest things I can see right now is it’s causing me to be more present, more conscious, more aware/alive.

I had plateaued, even though my performance is at a very high level, I was struggling with my own growth.  For me, changing my approach, focusing on micro-improvements has made all the difference.


Related Posts:

•    The Importance Of Small Changes In Improving Performance
•    Getting Personal About Metrics
•    Performance Metric Friday — Personal Development
•    What Have You Done Lately?
•    Tilting The Revenue Curve

Internationalrivers.org/Bonnie Raitt: Join me in protecting our water future

Dear Reader,

Throughout my life, I've supported many causes – environmental protection, water issues, indigenous and human rights, and sustainable energy alternatives. International Rivers is one of the only organizations working at the intersection of so many of these issues that are close to my heart. Strengthen the movement for rivers and the rights of people who depend on them with a donation today.

Freshwater is a gift to all of us. We need to stop damming and polluting this precious resource. Instead, we need to do all we can to be stewards of our rivers, and to support the people and communities who are protecting them.
                                      
I am proud to say that I have stood with International Rivers as they have protected free-flowing rivers by stopping over 200 destructive dams, channeling $174 billion away from destructive dams toward sustainable energy alternatives, and working with over 850 grassroots partners.

This amazing track record of success would not have been possible without the support of people like you and me. Please join me in making a gift to International Rivers this year, and protecting our freshwater resources for future generations. Thank you for being a part of the global movement for rivers.

In solidarity,
Bonnie Raitt

Bonnnie Raitt<contact@internationalrivers.org

International Rivers is an environmental and human rights organization with staff on four continents.
For three decades, we have been at the heart of the global struggle to protect rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them.

2054 University Ave., Suite 300, Berkeley, CA 94704 USA
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Dr. Mercola: Have You Ever Wondered Why Your Blood Is Red?

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Have You Ever Wondered Why Your Blood Is Red?

    December 30, 2017 • 723 views

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why blood is red
Story at-a-glance

    Color plays an important role in nature as it is used for camouflage, protection and communication; pathologists are now evaluating if abnormal tissue produces a discernably different color from healthy tissue
    The iron atom attached to your hemoglobin is responsible for turning your blood red; some animals have copper attached to hemocyanin, turning their blood blue, others have neither hemocyanin nor hemoglobin; hence, their blood is translucent
    Your bone marrow produces stem cells that develop into white cells, red cells or platelets; after cells in your kidney sense a reduction in oxygen, erythropoietin is secreted that triggers your marrow stem cells to produce red cells

By Dr. Mercola

The range of color in nature is amazing. Hues of all colors may be found in animals as a form of camouflage, protection, sexual behavior and even communication. Some animals are even translucent in order to improve their ability to escape predators.1

In the human body, color is an important way to differentiate tissues, organs, bones, tendon and muscle. Pathologists have a unique need to be aware of color differences as this sometimes translates into pathological processes that require identification for appropriate treatment. These color differences are evident in gross examination. In microscopic evaluation, cells often appear colorless.

In an effort to help pathologists differentiate the colors of healthy and abnormal tissue and to answer the question why human organs have different colors, researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center wrote a review article.2 Their objective was to start answering these questions and establish a groundwork of knowledge from which further study can grow.

Color variations may have been the foundation of the “humorism theory of disease,” prevalent in ancient times.3 This theory was systematized in ancient Greece and central to the teachings of Hippocrates. It continued to influence medical practice well into the 1800s. Although initially integrated into medical practice, the four humours also found a place in psychological evaluation4 and in Shakespearean analysis of personality.5
How You See Color

This short video explains the small portion of light on the color spectrum that is available to the human eye and how we perceive specific colors. Your brain interprets color based on the wavelength of light transmitted from your retina to your brain. As light passes through your eye, it hits color cells called cones.

Your eye has three color cones that enable you to see a variety of color based on how the wavelengths are mixed. Your cones can see green, blue and red. When a light hits an object, some of the light is absorbed and some bounces back off the object.6 If that object is a red apple, most of the light wavelengths, except red, are absorbed and the red light bounces off. Your eye then sees the apple as red.

You have between 6 and 7 million cones, or photoreceptors, in your retinas that are concentrated into a small area, approximately 0.3 mm wide. With three different color cones, humans see color better than most mammals. However, there are other animals that see more of the light spectrum, such as some insects that may see ultraviolet light that is invisible to humans, or birds that have four types of cones, enabling them to see shorter wavelengths than humans.
The Importance of Color in Biology

While humans see only a short section of the light spectrum, the colors we do see are important in the evaluation and diagnosing of disease. The perception of color is also important in nature. For instance, as might be expected, when color perception in bees was altered genetically, their ability to perform daily tasks was significantly hampered.7

How we respond to color has roots in biology, while the way we group colors is determined by the culture in which you live.8 Alice Skelton, research and doctoral candidate at the University of Sussex, and her colleagues analyzed the response of over 175 babies between the ages of 4 and 6 months to learn what connects the way humans see color and how it is categorized as adults talk about color.

The results of the study9 suggest there is a biological origin to how color is categorized by different cultures, and also perceived. For instance, while babies can see the difference between green and blue within the first six months of life, Skelton says:10

    “If you [use] a language that doesn’t make a distinction between green and blue, for example, then as they grow up babies and children learn to no longer make that distinction.”

This difference in how cultures differentiate color in their respective languages may have an impact in communication between cultures. Asifa Majid of Radboud University in the Netherlands believes the colors children are exposed to as infants may also predispose them to categorize color in different ways. This information may point to differences that need to be addressed as pathologists move forward in their quest to categorize pathological tissue based on color differentiation.
What Is in Your Blood?

The color of human tissue is not related to the color of your blood, even though blood flows through the tissue. For instance, drained of blood, your liver, spleen and kidneys are a red-brown color, your bones are white and your brain nuclei are brown-black.11

When you see blood it is actually composed of several different types of molecules. One of those is plasma, a yellow colored liquid that consists mostly of water and transports nutrients and hormones throughout your body.12 White blood cells fight infection, and platelets help your body to stop bleeding if you get cut. The cells in your blood that give it the red color are red blood cells (RBCs).

Your RBCs account for between 40 and 45 percent of the total volume of your blood.13 Each cell contains a hemoglobin protein that helps to carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. Once oxygen is released at the cell level, the hemoglobin molecule picks up carbon dioxide, the result of cellular metabolism, and returns to the lungs where it can be exhaled.

The concentration, or percentage, of whole blood volume that is made of your red blood cells is called your hematocrit. This common measure of red blood cell level helps your physician diagnose anemia, long-term or recent blood loss, vitamin deficiencies, dehydration or lung or heart diseases.14 Your red blood cells have several characteristics that make them unusual:15

• Red blood cells are shaped like a biconcave disc that appears like a round, flat shallow bowl

• RBCs have no nucleus

• Red cells have an amazing ability to change shape without rupturing or breaking as they move single file through small capillaries

• The hemoglobin molecule can bind with up to four oxygen molecules as it makes a circuit from your lungs and around your body
What the Heme Molecule Binds to Changes the Color of Your Blood

The color of your blood is related to the structure of the hemoglobin molecule and the metal attached. To bind oxygen to the hemoglobin, each chain binds with one iron atom and each iron atom may bind with one molecule of oxygen. It is the iron on your hemoglobin molecule on your red blood cell that gives your blood its distinctive red color.16

However, in some animals the oxygen-binding molecule fixes to other metals, thereby changing the color of the blood. For instance, several species of octopuses have copper-rich protein that carries the oxygen in their blood, called hemocyanin, giving their blood a distinctive blue color.17

The ocellated ice fish lives in frigid waters off Antarctica and has blood that is colorless. It’s transparent because it has neither hemoglobin nor hemocyanin. Since cold water has the ability to hold more concentrated amounts of oxygen than warm water, this fish doesn’t need either molecule to transport oxygen. The ocellated ice fish also lacks scales, which scientists believe helps oxygen diffuse into the fish’s body more readily.18

Blood also comes in the color green in Papua, New Guinea. The skink, a relative to the lizard family, uses hemoglobin and iron to carry oxygen through their body in the same way most mammals do. Used hemoglobin is then broken down in the liver into bilirubin and biliverdin. However, unlike humans who excrete these waste products in the intestines, the skink absorbs and thrives on high levels of biliverdin, to a point that the waste product turns the blood green. This amount of biliverdin in a human would be fatal.
How Your Blood Is Made

The production of your red blood cells is initiated in your kidneys. Your bone marrow produces stem cells that may grow into red cells, white cells or platelets. Special cells in your kidney, called peritubular cells, sense a drop in oxygen level in your blood as older red cells are cleaned up in the liver, or after blood loss, such as an injury or blood donation.19 These special cells trigger the secretion of erythropoietin, which then sends a message to the marrow stem cells to develop into red blood cells instead of white cells or platelets.

The hemoglobin molecule in your RBCs are encoded with genetic material. When there are mutations to those genes it may result in diseases such as thalassemia or sickle cell anemia.20 Thalassemia is an inherited disorder where the hemoglobin your body produces is abnormal and unable to efficiently transport oxygen. It also results in destruction of large numbers of red cells, leading to anemia.21

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic condition in which your red blood cells are abnormally shaped.22 To have the condition you must have two sickle cell genes, one from each parent. If you have one gene, you carry the sickle cell trait. The RBCs are shaped like a sickle and don’t have a normal life span, leading to anemia. Children with sickle cell disease often do not live past childhood as the shape of the blood cells leads to clumping and sickle cell crisis, resulting in intense pain and organ damage.23
What Determines Your Blood Type?

Although all human blood is red, not all red blood is the same. There are eight different types of RBCs, differentiated by two different proteins on the cell. Blood type is identified by one or two letters and a positive or negative sign.24

The proteins on your RBCs are antigens involved in your immune system. Prior to 1901, without knowledge of these different antigens, blood transfusions were very dangerous. When different blood types were mixed during transfusion, it resulted in clumping of the blood and toxic reactions. On the surface of the RBC are one, two or no antigens. Scientists have labeled these antigens:25

• Group A — only antigen A on the red cells (and B antibody in the plasma)

• Group B — only antigen B on the red cells (and A antibody in the plasma)

• Group AB — both antigens A and B on the red cells (but neither A nor B antibody in the plasma)

• Group O — neither antigens A nor B on the red cells (but both A and B antibody are in the plasma)

In addition to these, you also have an Rh antigen that is either present (positive) or not present (negative). Both the A/AB/B/O and Rh antigens are genetically passed from both parents to their children. The Rh antigen is an important factor during pregnancy. If there is comingling of blood between an Rh- mother with an Rh+ baby during her pregnancy, the mother’s body produces antibodies that affect the RBC production in her next baby. Untreated, this may result in severe anemia, brain damage, heart failure and even death.26

Rh incompatibility can now be treated with Rh immune-globulin injections to the mother during her 28th week of pregnancy and within the first 72 hours after giving birth. Today physicians test a new mother’s blood type early in pregnancy to initiate treatment protocols and prevent damage to her future children.
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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

If you want to use an article on your site please click here. This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.

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Dr. Mercola: Treats Disease Naturally, but Big Pharma Wants You Clueless About It

Ghost in the Machine, Part 4 — The War on Supplements, Essential Oils and Homeopathy

    December 30, 2017 • 6,858 views

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Story at-a-glance

    As supplements and alternative therapies become more popular, Pharma is calling them ineffective and possibly harmful
    The drug industry accuses the supplement industry of false claims and manufacturing irregularities — the same problems which afflict Pharma
    Even as Big Pharma discredits supplements, many drug companies market their own vitamins and supplements

By Dr. Mercola

If you suspect that supplements are more popular than ever, you are right. More than half of American adults have used one or more supplements and more than half of women and 43 percent of men used a supplement of some kind within the last 30 days.1,2

While that means not takirang vitamins or supplements is now a minority position, it also means Big Pharma is trying to get "in on" the supplement business. The U.S. retail sales of vitamins and supplements is expected to exceed $36 billion in 2017.3 While that's less than a tenth of what Pharma rakes in annually, it has nevertheless caught the drug industry's attention.

Also, the highest users of supplements and alternative therapies are the most desirable demographic to marketers — those reporting "excellent" or "very good" health, usually with a higher discretionary income.4 No wonder Pharma and Pharma-supported voices have launched an all-out smear campaign against supplements and alternative therapies. Both categories lack the huge price tags of drugs and encourage patient education and self-care.

Supplements and natural products also often treat or prevent the very conditions that enrich drug companies, which further explains Big Pharma's wrath. For example, probiotic-rich fermented food treats the heartburn for which Pharma hawks dangerous proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Omega-3 fats such as krill oil and other nonprescription products lower heart disease risks without using dangerous statins.

Prescription drugs can also increase the need for supplements. If you take a diuretic, an acid-blocking PPI or the diabetes drug metformin, you are more likely to develop vitamin or mineral deficiencies.5
Traditional Media Outlets Question Value of Supplements

In 2016, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a large study of U.S. supplement usage that found, according to The New York Times:6

    "Americans spend more than $30 billion a year on dietary supplements — vitamins, minerals and herbal products, among others — many of which are unnecessary or of doubtful benefit to those taking them. That comes to about $100 a year for every man, woman and child for substances that are often of questionable value."

Elsewhere in recent years, negative news articles about vitamin C, vitamin A and beta carotene, vitamin E, vitamin B6, vitamin D, calcium and multivitamins have run. Supplements like ginkgo biloba, echinacea, fish oil and ephedrine are also under attack, as are homeopathy and aromatherapy.7,8,9,10

Some articles, many written by medical professionals, say supplements are ineffective and a waste of your money; others actually accuse supplements of causing or risking physical harm and even shortening lives. Some medical specialists also accuse supplements of impeding or interfering with drugs taken for other medical conditions.11

In addition to print media and the web, TV news media have joined in the discrediting of the supplement industry, exposing alleged disreputable manufacturers and lobbyists.

While I would never defend unethical makers of supplements who put the public at risk, these same news shows largely give Big Pharma a pass even though prescription drugs put the public at a much greater risk. Prescription drug overdoses are the ninth leading cause of death in the U.S., and the death toll continues to rise thanks to the growing opioid addiction crisis.12
Pharma Is a Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Leading Pharma's campaign to discredit supplements is the charge that unproven health benefits, not backed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are claimed by supplement makers. Yet almost every major drug company has entered into a settlement for the same thing, known as "off-label marketing" in the prescription drug world. At least 31 drug companies have been charged with such false promotion including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Forest, Amgen and Allergan.13

Pfizer paid a $430 million fine for off-label marketing of Neurontin for the non-FDA approved indication of bipolar disorder.14 Eli Lilly engaged in another off-label marketing scheme, trying to market the selective estrogen receptor modulator Evista for the unapproved FDA indication of prevention of breast cancer, and unleashed hundreds of drug reps to sell the unapproved use.

Reps were told to hide a disclosure page that said, "The effectiveness of [Evista] in reducing the risk of breast cancer has not yet been established," from the doctors they were trying to sell on the drug, according to the Department of Justice.15 Scott Gottlieb, the new FDA Commissioner, drug stock trader and Pharma consultant, defended Evista's off-label marketing in a Wall Street Journal oped.16
Questions About Product Purity Cut Both Ways

Another way that Pharma-friendly voices try to discredit supplements they have yet to sell themselves is through raising questions about their purity, label accuracy and manufacturing process. Here is a quote from Dr. Paul A. Offit, one of the nation's leading drug and vaccine defenders, in an interview about his 2014 book "Do You Believe in Magic?" on Medscape:17

    "Look at what happened with this vitamin-maker called Purity First. Purity First, a few weeks ago, had all of its products recalled by the FDA. They made three products. They made vitamin C. They made a multimineral preparation, and they made a B-complex vitamin preparation.

    What happened was there were 25 women in Connecticut who started to develop symptoms of increased hair where they didn't want hair to be, deepening of the voice, and loss of menstrual cycles because they were inadvertently taking anabolic steroids.

    Anabolic steroids had contaminated those preparations. How does that happen?... Just imagine if vaccines were inadvertently contaminated with anabolic steroids. You would never hear the end of it, but here somehow it all gets a free pass."

Offit is dead wrong. Drugs, vaccines and medical products are frequently recalled for quality and contamination though recalls are seldom reported in the mainstream press. In April 2017, GlaxoSmithKline recalled nearly 600,000 defective Ventolin inhalers.18 In March 2017, generic giant Mylan (of EpiPen fame) said it was recalling 4,005,177 bottles of the cholesterol fighter atorvastatin because of the "potential of an elevated bioburden with identification of objectionable organisms."19

Recalls of biologics (drugs that contain an ingredient extracted from a "biological" source such as cells from humans, animals or microorganisms) have increased significantly, especially for vaccines. From 2007 to 2010, 14 vaccine recalls and 13 recalls for immunoglobulins were made. Additionally, vaccines are not adequately tested for safety and effectiveness using methodologically sound scientific studies before they are licensed, so all of their side effects and long-term negative health outcomes are often unknown.
Examples of Supplements, Essential Oils and Homeopathy Therapy at Work

The medical literature includes notable examples of supplements and natural remedies that function as valuable medicines. Why do we so rarely, if ever, hear of them on health news sites or TV? Supplements and natural substances cannot be patented and hence present no profit potential for Pharma no matter how dramatic their actions. Here are some supplements for which there is promising evidence of effectiveness:

Folic acid, when added to enalapril (an ACE inhibitor used to treat high blood pressure, diabetic kidney disease and heart failure) produced a significant reduction in stroke occurrence in 2015 JAMA research.20

Oregano might be effective against the norovirus, say investigators at the University of Arizona.21

High doses of vitamin C may be useful in the treatment of ovarian cancer, boost the power of chemotherapy and ward off stroke, research indicates.22,23,24

Multivitamins and olive oil are under investigation for their roles in managing breast cancer.25,26

A compound found in a Japanese mushroom could be a cure for the currently untreatable human papilloma virus.27

Vitamin E likely plays an important role in deterring miscarriage.28

Preliminary evidence even suggests that micronutrients could be beneficial in treating adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to 2014 research published in The British Journal of Psychiatry.29

When children with ADHD inhaled vetiver essential oil three times a day for 30 days they had improved brain wave patterns and behavior and did better in school.

In patients with allergies, those using homeopathy reported improvements in nasal airflow compared with a placebo group and researchers described a "clear, significant and clinically relevant improvement in nasal inspiratory peak flow, similar to that found with topical steroids."
Don't Rule Out Vitamin D

In the past few years, vitamin D has gone from a vitamin "hero" whose deficiency potentially explained many maladies, to VNG (Vitamin Non Grata).30,31 The same flip-flop has been seen with calcium, once a good guy, now potentially another supplemental bad guy.32 In fact, vitamin D has been so demonized, the pro-Pharma Forbes site actually writes:33

    "Vitamin D supplements, to put it plainly, are a waste of money. (For those concerned about osteoporosis, the widely used drug alendronate (Fosamax®), has been shown to increase bone density by about 5 percent, as explained in a 2011 article by Dr. Sundeep Khosia. But Fosamax has side effects.)"

The "side effects" mentioned by Forbes are an understatement. Bisphosphonate bone drugs such as Fosamax and Boniva have been linked to esophageal cancer, jawbone death, heart problems, intractable pain and the very fractures they are supposed to prevent.34 They are one of the most dangerous drug classes ever marketed.

Far from a waste of money, vitamin D made such a difference in a 2014 breast cancer survival study, an investigator said "There is no compelling reason to wait for further studies to incorporate vitamin D supplements into standard care regimens."35 Research suggests it may have a valuable role in multiple sclerosis management, diabetes and depression, chronic liver disease and diseases of older age.36,37,38,39
Final Ironies

Even as the drug industry attacks the safety, reliability and effectiveness of vitamins and supplements, it creates them itself. In 2013, PGT Healthcare LLP (a venture of Procter & Gamble, Teva and Swisse Wellness) said it would expand its range of more than 100 vitamins, minerals and supplements.40

Other drug giants are also in the supplement business. Sometimes making vitamins results in drug companies making positive instead of negative statements. Here is what research funded by Roche (now DSM Nutritional Products) BASF and Pfizer found about multivitamins41

    "A daily multivitamin can help a man reduce his risk of cancer, according to new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). The first-of-its kind study will be presented October 17 at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research and published online the same day in the Journal of the American Medical Association."

Marketing vitamins also subjects Big Pharma to the same false claims charges it cites about the supplement industry. Pfizer, which makes Centrum products, was sued to remove its claims that the products support "energy and immunity," "heart health," "eye health," "breast health," "bone health" and "colon health."42 And although Merck announced December 14 that it plans to sell its subsidiary, Seven Seas, a quick look at its Seven Seas Multivitamin Complete reveals claims that it contains ingredients that "provide adults with energy … as well as a healthy heart … good eye sight, healthy bones and digestion system."43
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NationofChange/Alexandra Jacobo: Activists win major victory, forcing the EPA to update regulations on this harmful neurotoxin

Friday, December 29, 2017
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Activists win major victory, forcing the EPA to update regulations on this harmful neurotoxin

The EPA wanted years to study the hazards, instead the court gave them 90 days to update regulations.
Alexandra Jacobo / NationofChange / News Report - December 29, 2017
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A federal appeals court in California this week ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must update their antiquated federal lead regulations within 90 days.

Advocates for the change have been fighting in court to get the EPA to update very outdated regulations regarding lead, a harmful neurotoxin.

The new rules will strengthen lead hazard standards. The EPA has previously concluded that “lead poisoning is the number one environmental health threat in the U.S. for children ages 6 and younger” and that the current standards are insufficient.

The previous standards the EPA was using for dangerous levels of lead in paint and dust were 17-years-old.

“This is going to protect the brains of thousands of children across the country,” said Eve C. Gartner, a staff attorney for Earthjustice, one of the groups supporting stronger standards. “It’s going to mean that children that otherwise would have developed very elevated blood lead levels will be protected from the damage associated with that, assuming EPA follows the court order.”

The 2-1 decision ordered that the EPA must propose a new rule within 90 days, as opposed to the six years the Trump administration had requested. This request was on top of the six-year long delay under former President Barack Obama. The Obama administration had asked the EPA in 2009 to make the standards more stringent. The EPA responded by establishing a review panel to examine the standards process, review scientific research and conduct a housing survey, but still had not updated the regulations.

The EPA will then need to implement a final rule within one year.

“Indeed EPA itself has acknowledged that ‘lead poisoning is the number one environmental health threat in the U.S. for children ages 6 and younger,’ and that the current standards are insufficient,” the ruling stated, adding, “The children exposed to lead poisoning due to the failure of EPA to act are severely prejudiced by EPA’s delay.”

The regulations that need updating define the standards for what is considered a dust-lead hazard and what qualifies as lead-based paint. Despite years of work to reduce lead in paint, dust and water, lead levels affecting children is still a problem, especially in parts of the Northeast.

Currently there are about half a million young children in the United States with blood lead levels above five micrograms per deciliter, the level at which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says public health intervention is needed.

Elevated blood levels can lead to aggression, lack of impulse control, hyperactivity, inability to focus, inattention and delinquent behaviors.
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Alexandra Jacobo
Alexandra Jacobo

Alexandra Jacobo is a progressive writer, activist, and mother who began her political involvement in earnest passing out blankets to occupiers in Zuccotti Park in 2011. She is concerned with educating the public and inspiring them to take action on progressive issues that promote positive change at home and abroad.
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Dr. Mercola: Training Your Mind as Well as Your Body

Training Your Mind as Well as Your Body

    December 29, 2017 • 924 views Disponible en Español

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Story at-a-glance

    Taking the time to “train” your mind using meditation may be a simple way to enhance your physical fitness and well-being
    College athletes who spent more time using mindfulness meditation had increased mental resilience and less declines in mood during challenging preseason training
    Mindfulness-based interventions may help athletes manage negative emotions and stress, improve well-being and even reduce injuries

By Dr. Mercola

Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or someone who regularly hits the gym to stay in shape, you know that summoning up the power to finish your workout takes mental strength just as much as, if not more so, than physical strength. Without the mental fortitude to keep going and finish strong, your body may give in to the stress and decide to quit.

Exercise is a form of beneficial stress to your body, particularly when you engage in vigorous or high-intensity activities. This is why it’s so important to take adequate time for recovery and also why mental resilience and focus is crucial to a successful training session. Your mind, like your body, can grow weary, however, and researchers have begun looking into how training your mind via meditation and other tools may in turn help you train your body.
Meditation Boosts Athletes' Well-Being During Demanding Training

Taking the time to "train" your mind using meditation may be a simple way to enhance your physical fitness and well-being, according to a study published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement.1 College athletes (Division I football players) took part in either relaxation training, in which they listened to calming music while relaxing their muscles, or mindfulness meditation, which involved focusing on breathing and staying in the present moment.

The sessions lasted just 12 minutes and took place in the gym following strength-training workouts for a period of four weeks during preseason training. The students were also asked to engage in the techniques on their own during the week, but all sessions were voluntary. While all of the athletes tended to show signs of mental strain as the preseason training progressed, there were benefits to those who took more time to train mentally as well. The New York Times reported:2

    "The more an athlete in the relaxation group had practiced relaxing, the less his mood had tended to decline, the researchers found. And those in the meditation group, if they had practiced often, showed considerable mental resilience, with higher scores than the other athletes in either group on the measures of both attention and mood."

In other words, by tending to their mental needs, the athletes were able to alleviate some of the cognitive strain that occurred during the demanding athletic training, with mindfulness training showing an advantage over relaxation training. Even for non-athletes, the research suggests that mindfulness meditation may give you a mental edge that helps you stay on target during challenging workouts (and also has benefits in other areas).
Increasing Research Supports Mindfulness Training for Athletes

The topic of mindfulness training for athletes, including those in high school and college, is becoming increasingly popular, especially as evidence continues to emerge that mindfulness-based interventions may help improve physical and mental well-being in this injury- and stress-prone population. In 2016, a study published in the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation asked whether mindfulness for student athletes between the ages of 13 and 24 years would help reduce stress and injury and improve overall quality of life.

After reviewing the available literature, the authors concluded that mindfulness-based interventions helped student athletes manage negative emotions and stress, improve well-being and even reduce injuries.3 A 2017 meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine also revealed that mindfulness appears to affect cognitive processes that may improve athletic performance, noting:4

    "Mindfulness practice consistently and beneficially modulates mindfulness scores. Furthermore, physiological and psychological surrogates improved to a meaningful extent following mindfulness practice, as well as performance outcomes in shooting and dart throwing. It seems reasonable to consider mindfulness practice strategies as a regular complementary mental skills training approach for athletes, at least in precision sports."

Mindfulness May Help You Start and Maintain Your Exercise Program

For non-athletes simply interested in staying healthy, overcoming mental barriers to exercise is still crucial, and this, too, may become easier if you regularly practice mindfulness. While some people look forward to exercise and enjoy the rush of pleasurable feelings it creates (the so-called "runner's high"), others dread it. Mindfulness may play a powerful role here.

One intriguing study published in the Journal of Health Psychology revealed that people who reported being mindful during exercise (i.e., being in the moment, fully immersed in the activity) also felt more satisfied with the exercise.5 Study author Kalliopi-Eleni Tsafou, a Marie Curie research fellow at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told the Times:6

    "The message is that mindfulness may amplify satisfaction, because one is satisfied when positive experiences with physical activity become prominent … For those experiences to be noticed one must become aware of them. We would argue that this can be achieved by being mindful."

Research published in Mindfulness journal similarly found that being more mindful may encourage you to make healthier choices and increase exercise motivation.7 In some cases, group exercise classes are even incorporating brief moments of mindful introspection into its high-intensity classes, which are designed to train both your mind and your body at the same time.8
How to Add Mindfulness to Your Workout

Practicing "mindfulness" means you're actively paying attention to the moment you're in right now. Rather than letting your mind wander, when you're mindful you're living in the moment and letting distracting thoughts pass through your mind without getting caught up in their emotional implications.

You can add mindfulness to virtually any aspect of your day — even while you're exercising, eating, working or doing household chores like washing dishes — simply by paying attention to the sensations you are experiencing in the present moment. You can also be formally "trained" in mindfulness via mindfulness meditation courses and other mindfulness-based interventions.

Professionally organized mindfulness training programs may be best for some people, but you can also take steps to become more mindful in your everyday life, then pull up these skills whenever you feel stress starting to take hold, including while you're exercising.

As for why it's so effective in terms of exercise, remember that exercise is a form of stress, and research shows mindfulness may regulate your body's physical stress response via stress-reduction pathways in your body.9 As explained via a press release from Carnegie Mellon:10

    "When an individual experiences stress, activity in the prefrontal cortex — responsible for conscious thinking and planning — decreases, while activity in the amygdala, hypothalamus and anterior cingulate cortex — regions that quickly activate the body's stress response — increases. Studies have suggested that mindfulness reverses these patterns during stress; it increases prefrontal activity, which can regulate and turn down the biological stress response.

    Excessive activation of the biological stress response increases the risk of diseases impacted by stress (like depression, HIV and heart disease). By reducing individuals' experiences of stress, mindfulness may help regulate the physical stress response and ultimately reduce the risk and severity of stress-related diseases."

More Mind Tricks to Boost Your Physical Fitness

Mindfulness is just one way to tap into the close connection between your mind and physical body. There are others as well, each of which has the potential to "trick" your mind into making physical fitness more easily attainable. The video above shows ways you can trick yourself into exercising, although research suggests consistent exercisers have made exercise a habit triggered by a cue, such as hearing the morning alarm and heading for the gym first thing in the morning without even thinking about it.11

This kind of habit is referred to as "an instigation habit," and it was found to provide people with the most consistent results. What else works to hack your mind for a better, more intense workout and, ultimately, a fitter you?

Focus Your Eyes on a Set Target

Keeping your eyes focused on a target in the distance while walking makes you walk faster and makes the distance seem shorter, according to research published in Motivation and Emotion. Study author Emily Balcetis, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of psychology at New York University, said in a press release:12

    "People are less interested in exercise if physical activity seems daunting, which can happen when distances to be walked appear quite long … These findings indicate that narrowly focusing visual attention on a specific target, like a building a few blocks ahead, rather than looking around your surroundings, makes that distance appear shorter, helps you walk faster and also makes exercising seem easier."

Exercise in Front of a Mirror

The simple act of watching yourself exercise in a mirror will make your workout more efficient, as people have a tendency to adopt a step pattern that is similar to people around them. By watching yourself in a mirror, it may encourage you to stabilize your movement pattern for a more efficient workout. Study authors explained, "Visual information influences treadmill locomotion and associated measures of stability even when there is no intention to coordinate with external stimuli."13

Use Positive Affirmations

When you're tempted to quit, stay positive by reminding yourself you can do it. Positive affirmations like "I am strong" and "I'm full of energy" work well here, and research suggests they can also boost performance.14 Nick Galli, an assistant professor of sport psychology, told Men's Health, "Positive self-talk reinforces your confidence and boosts your energy so you won't quit when you feel tired or challenged."15

Listen to Music

When exercisers were able to listen to their favorite songs during a session of sprint interval training, their perceived enjoyment increased and was consistently higher than those performing the interval training without music.16 Past research has also shown that music can significantly boost your exertion level during a workout.

Ultimately, it's becoming clear that in order to have a strong physical body, a strong mind is also required. There are many ways to build your mental reserves and stamina, from mindfulness meditation to positive self-talk, and harnessing those that appeal most to you can boost your overall wellness while helping you reach higher fitness plateaus.
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Dr. Mercola: Among the Most Unethical Examples of Preying on the Poor

Among the Most Unethical Examples of Preying on the Poor    

Ethicists cite multiple reasons this practice should be banned even while medical elitists are brazen operatives in this dirty business - even some whose PR arms make them look like great champions of the poor. This puts that claim to shame. And it's worse than you probably think.

Ghost in the Machine, Part 3 — Pride and the Politics of Vaccines

    December 29, 2017 • 4,781 views

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Story at-a-glance

    The history of vaccine development and use of vaccines in underdeveloped countries reveals great hypocrisy and examples of unethical opportunism
    Mainstream medicine, media and the U.S. government itself have deep financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry linked to Big Vax, which explains why there is so much misinformation about vaccine risks
    The “vaccine court” created by Congress and operated by federal agencies and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. protects vaccine manufacturers from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths and discourages improvements in vaccine safety

By Dr. Mercola

There needs to be an open, rational discussion about vaccination, infectious diseases and health. After all, don't all of us want our children to be healthy and safe from unnecessary harm?

If we want to protect the health of all children, we cannot continue to ignore the signs that public health policies making mandatory use of multiple vaccines in early childhood as our nation's No. 1 disease prevention strategy have gotten tothe point where we have no idea how children's lives are being sacrificed in the name of "the greater good."

From my point of view, there can be little doubt that we need to review the safety and effectiveness of the current vaccination program in the U.S., and that this review needs to include methodologically sound investigative studies that are not compromised by conflicts of interest within industry and government. If we don't do that now, we may not be able to stop further damage to the health of future generations.
Vaccine History Is Shameful

Many are aware of the unethical and manipulative marketing of today's vaccines. But the roots of the greed-based marketing — battling over markets, patents, intellectual property, profits, "turf" and prestige — could be seen 20 years ago with the Children’s Vaccine Initiative (CVI).1

The CVI was founded in 1990 after the World Children’s Summit in New York City by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) with an overarching goal of vaccinating all the children in the world with vaccines endorsed by the WHO and governments.2

Reportedly, CVI has been marked by a rivalry for leadership between the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the U.S. The CVI was created as a means for UNICEF to fund research and development of vaccines for distribution globally without directly giving money to WHO.

There were difficulties inherent in coordinating the efforts of different governments and public-private partnerships. Also, there were questions about vaccine production itself, such as would the ability of drug companies and governments to quickly produce large quantities of vaccines end up compromising the quality of vaccines?

According to the book, “The Politics of International Health: The Children’s Vaccine Initiative and the Struggle to Develop Vaccines for the Third World,” the U.S. Department of Defense was a cooperative partner with CVI:3“The Army, unlike the public sector generally, worked closely with private pharmaceutical companies to make sure that the vaccines it needs were actually produced. It could not afford to leave decisions to the marketplace.”
Overseas Vaccine Disasters

Increasingly, Big Pharma produces, tests and sells its vaccines in poorer, undeveloped countries — sometimes with disastrous results. This is what happened with Gardasil, a Merck vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is linked to venereal warts and cervical cancer. As reported by Counterpunch:4

    "Merck attempted to cast the vaccine as lifesaving — even in poor countries with much more pressing disease risks — but Pap smear tests are equally effective in preventing [through detection] cervical cancer and cost much less. Nor are the vaccines clearly safe. [In 2015], judges in India's Supreme Court demanded answers after children died during a trial of Gardasil and Cervarix, GlaxoSmithKline’s counterpart vaccine.5"

Young tribal girls as young as 9 were given Gardasil and Cervarix HPV vaccines with no informed consent or even awareness that they were participating in an experimental vaccine trial. The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.6

The pharmaceutical industry likes overseas clinical trials because regulations are less strict and sometimes nonexistent, and product liability lawsuits involving personal injury are unlikely. In fact, trial participants often welcome the test drugs thinking they are being given important or needed medical care.

Clinical trial participants in foreign countries, especially those who live in poverty with little education or access to medical care, are also "drug-naïve" — they have not used the antibiotics, statins, psychiatric and GERD medications so common in industrialized countries.7 Clinical trials require that participants have a "washout" period to ensure any drug residues in their bodies do not confound the trial results, and subjects in poor countries have no drugs to "wash out."

Many medical ethicists also question whether trials of pharmaceutical products should be conducted on people who don’t need them or won’t receive them after the trial. If the drug (or vaccine) will not be available free or for a reasonable cost for a significant time afterward, the trial itself is unethical in that it is “exporting the risk of research to those who will, in the end, not be able to afford the resulting medical products,”8 say ethicists.

And informed consent? Some ethicists have argued that videotapes of informed consent statements by trial participants would protect them much better than the current written consent forms being used because of language barriers and the fact that some trial participants in impoverished countries cannot read.
Big Pharma Conflicts of Interest Abound

Mainstream media are financially linked to Big Pharma through drug ads (estimated to account for as much as 72 percent of commercials)9 and through allowing drug company representatives to serve as board members. Here is how Organic Consumers Association (OCA) describes the conflicts:10

    "There are brazen and unhidden conflicts of interest between mainstream media and vaccine makers which color reporting and discourage safety questions.

    'According to a 2009 study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, with the exception of CBS, every major media outlet in the United States shares at least one board member with at least one drug company,’ reports Mike Papantonio, of the ‘America’s Lawyer’ TV show. 'These board members wake up, they go to a meeting at Merck or Pfizer, and then they have their driver take them over to a meeting at a TV station,’ says Papantonio."

The government is also in the vaccine "biz." Vaccine safety activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reported that the CDC owns more than 20 different vaccine patents and sells $4.1 billion in vaccines each year, noting that those patents create a significant undisclosed conflict of interest when it comes to the agency's involvement in vaccine safety. It is a case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

The New York Times reported that most experts who served on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panels to evaluate flu and cervical cancer vaccines had potential conflicts that were never resolved.11 The vaccine industry also “gives millions to the Academy of Pediatrics for conferences, grants, medical education classes and even helped build their headquarters,” according to a CBS investigative report.12
Unscientific ‘Conclusions’ Reached By News Outlets

Almost all news sites parrot the Big Vax party line in shocking abdication of journalistic ethics. For example, no news outlet would declare “all drugs safe” because they clearly are not, yet they obligingly declare “all vaccines safe," which insults the public’s intelligence. In addition to published reports of vaccine injuries,13 there are many reports of vaccines recalled for safety issues.

No, all vaccines are not “safe” and every pharmaceutical product carries a risk of injury or death that can be greater for some people than others.

To get a clearer understanding of the many safety concerns raised by vaccine researchers, get a copy of Neil Z. Miller’s book, “Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and Researchers.” In it, he reviews the vaccine safety and efficacy concerns raised by 400 peer-reviewed published studies.

Imagine a news outlet blaming motor vehicle accidents in which the motorist fell asleep and harmed others on the motorist’s refusal to take stimulants for sleepiness. As outrageous as that would be, headlines from respected news sites do exactly that when they blame disease outbreaks on "anti-vaxxers."

As scientists and reporters with integrity know, causation can almost never be claimed; the preferred terms are “linked, “associated” and “correlated.” "Anti-vaccine activists spark a state’s worst measles outbreak in decades," trumpeted The Washington Post in May.14 "Anti-vaxxers brought their war to Minnesota — then came measles," screamed Wired.15

"Attempts by anti-vaccine activists to influence the Somali parents of Minnesota have ended with a measles outbreak that has made dozens of kids sick,” declared The Daily Beast.16 "Anti-vaccine groups blamed in Minnesota measles outbreak," charged CNN.17 Conveniently ignored is the fact that the CDC maintains a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) that in February revealed 416 deaths from measles vaccines MEA, MER, MM, MMR or MMRV.18
The Science Is Ignored

Earlier this year, Kennedy, chairman of the World Mercury Project, actor Robert De Niro and others held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., calling for an open and honest discussion about vaccine safety. Appearing in a video was the late Dr. Bernadine Healy, who was the first female director of the National Institutes of Health, serving from 1991 until 1993.

She was also professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, professor and dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health at Ohio State University and president of the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association.19 In the video, Healy expresses concern that no government attempts have been made to see if a population of susceptible people exists for whom vaccines are risky.

She said she did not believe “the public would lose faith in vaccines” if such a population were found, a fear she said was expressed at the Institute of Medicine. She also lamented how animal studies which suggest vaccine links to neurological damage have been ignored. One such study was savaged by pro-vaccine scientists. As reported by OCA:20

    “A 2010 paper published in Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis, a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering neuroscience, found that ‘rhesus macaque infants receiving the complete U.S. childhood vaccine schedule’ did not ‘undergo the maturational changes over time in amygdala volume that was observed in unexposed animals.’

    Pro-vaccine scientists pounced. Not enough monkeys were used to establish a scientific finding, said one scientist. Opposite findings about the amygdala have been reached, which invalidate the study, said another scientist.

    One angry scientist was even willing to discredit the monkey study by claiming that monkeys are not a valid model for human disease — thus annulling millions of experiments including the ones on which human drugs are approved! Of course, many in the animal welfare community have questioned the validity of animal ‘models.’”

‘Vaccine Court’ Protects Vaccine Makers' Interests, Not the Public

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington D.C. handles contested vaccine injury and death cases in what has become known as "vaccine court." The vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) is a "no-fault" alternative to the traditional civil court lawsuit and was established in 1986 after a string of high-profile lawsuits by parents of vaccine injured children had hauled vaccine manufacturers into court to have their cases heard in front of juries.

At the time, parents were suing vaccine manufacturers after their children were brain injured or died following federally recommended and state mandated DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccines, or children were left paralyzed by live oral polio vaccinations (OPV).

Several DPT injury lawsuits against the vaccine makers in the 1970s and early 1980s resulted in multimillion-dollar jury verdicts. At that point, vaccine manufacturers threatened to stop producing DPT, MMR and oral polio (the only childhood vaccines at the time) if civil litigation were allowed to continue.

Common sense would have dictated that such lawsuits were a sign that vaccine manufacturers needed to raise safety standards and produce less toxic vaccines. Instead, Congress buckled to industry pressure and gave vaccine manufacturers the legal protection they demanded through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

As a result, vaccine makers have no incentive to produce the safest vaccines possible, especially when many childhood vaccines are state mandated for school attendance and 2 out of 3 vaccine injured children are turned away from the VICP with no compensation.
Vaccine Court Cases Are Usually Dismissed and Seldom Publicized

Many Americans do not even realize the vaccine court exists because the Department of Health & Human Services does not publicize the existence of a federal vaccine injury compensation program and few VICP claims are ever disclosed, let alone publicized. In fact, two-thirds of claims received are dismissed.

The desire for secrecy on the part of public health officials is understandable. If Americans were routinely informed of the vaccine injury and death claims processed through the VICP, public doubts about vaccine safety would escalate. Still, disturbing vaccine-related injuries have surfaced, often though legal firms, according to Opednews:21

    “In 2011, in a report in the Pace Environmental Law Review, the researchers identified 83 NVICP cases in which victims demonstrated evidence of autism (though the cases often emphasized other injuries) resulting in more than $96.7 million in settlements.

In addition to 32 cases which included the presence of autism-like symptoms, there were 51 cases interviewed by the researchers in which parents said their child's vaccine injury led to "an autism diagnosis, autistic features or autistic-like behaviors."

    "In another case, petitioners claim that within 48 hours after their baby received a DPT vaccine, he began to seizure and an MRI subsequently revealed suspicious black lesions. Like many children with seizure disorders he needed around the clock care and supervision. Eight years after a claim was filed, the boy received $7 million for a lifetime of medical care from the NVICP."

In yet another case, described by Opednews, a 2-month-old baby girl "started to have seizures, abnormal breathing [and] irregular heartbeats" hours after receiving a the same, routine DPT vaccine. In the following six years, the girl suffered from cognitive delays, cerebral palsy, encephalopathy and seizures.
Mercury Is Not the Only Vaccine Risk

While Kennedy focuses on the potential role of thimerosal in vaccine damage, researchers have presented a number of other potential mechanisms of vaccine harm, including the long-acknowledged ability of vaccines to cause brain inflammation (encephalitis/encephalopathy), the toxic effects of aluminum adjuvants and other toxic vaccine ingredients, and the hazards of immune overstimulation by virtually any means.

For example, pertussis toxin and live measles virus can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage — regardless of thimerosal. Moreover, vaccine safety is not simply a matter of proving or disproving the link between vaccines in general and autism specifically.

There are many other, potentially severe side effects, including immune system dysfunction, that can lead to or exacerbate any number of health problems. Veterinary scientists have even noted increasing rates of autoimmune problems in dogs following vaccination.

Research has shown an increase in death following receipt of inactivated vaccines suggesting vaccine adjuvants can also be culprits. Aluminum adjuvants might be a factor, but it appears inactivated vaccines may also program your immune system in a way that decreases your body's ability to fight off disease later.

Moreover, the gut-brain axis and the compelling synergy between compromised gut flora and autism can be triggered by vaccines. The potential for DNA fragments and retroviral contaminants in vaccines to produce an exaggerated and potentially lethal immune response is also possible and underreported. Clearly the presentation of vaccines as “always safe” and the vilification of vaccine activists comes out the greed-based vaccine business model.
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The Guardian/Alastair Gee: Death in an Amazon dumpster

The Guardian
Outside in America
Death in an Amazon dumpster

When his body was found in a dumpster outside an Amazon warehouse, the homeless man’s death was a mystery. The search to uncover his past exposes the dangers of a life spent scavenging

    Sign up to our monthly Outside in America newsletter

by Alastair Gee in San Francisco
Supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
About this content

Thu 28 Dec ‘17 12.00 GMT
Last modified on Thu 28 Dec ‘17 12.42 GMT

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The day before last year’s presidential election, a hungry homeless man named Jonathan Manley stopped at a dumpster outside a warehouse in San Francisco. Unmarked on the outside, the building was occupied by Amazon.

For those able to tolerate the grime and the smell, and who have no other choice but to risk eating expired or rotting food, the large dumpsters stationed there can be bountiful. Visitors say they have found ice cream, bananas, strawberries, grapes and frozen pizzas, not to mention cans and packaging that can be sold for pennies at recycling centers.

The lid was too high and too heavy for Manley to flip open from the sidewalk, so he climbed the side, pulled the lid back and dropped into the trash. It was full of things to eat.

“That’s when I noticed him,” Manley said.

At the front, on all fours as if he was struggling to stand up, was a middle-aged man wearing a T-shirt, pants and boots. He had a graying mustache and beard, his hands were caked with dirt and there was blood around his nose.
Outside in America: learn more about our ongoing homelessness project
Read more

Manley tried to wake him but could not. He tried to lift him, but the man weighed too much and was too stiff. Poking his head out of the dumpster, Manley saw two passersby walking a dog across the street and yelled for them to call 911. When the paramedics arrived, they determined that the man was beyond resuscitation.
•••

Dumpsters can be life-sustaining for people surviving on the streets. But a Guardian investigation has found that they are also implicated in dozens of homeless deaths.

This has added resonance in San Francisco, where the economy hinges on the noncorporeal – algorithms, the cloud and the flows of venture capital – yet some 4,500 people sleeping outdoors still struggle each night for the basic physical necessities of existence. They subsist in the interstices of the new paradigm, or in some cases off its waste.

Just inside the Amazon warehouse, visitors are confronted by shelves stacked with food, everything from peanut butter to tabasco sauce, Oreos, teabags and jello.

    The dumpsters outside of an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco, where the homeless man’s body was found. Photo: Talia Herman for the Guardian

The dumpsters outside of an Amazon warehouse, where the homeless man’s body was found.
The inside of an Amazon dumpster.
The inside of an Amazon dumpster.

    The inside of a dumpster outside the Amazon warehouse. Photo: Talia Herman for the Guardian.

In another room, staff hurriedly prepare bags of shopping. When they are ready, delivery people dispatch this abundance to the inhabitants of San Francisco.

The garbage receptacles outside are not the first tech dumpsters to have attracted the attention of homeless locals. A few years ago, they responded with wonder and bemusement to a dumpster by a nearby Google warehouse.
Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country
Read more

It “had every kind of food you can imagine”, said a resident named Michael Mundy. “They just threw it away, thousands of dollars’ worth.”

But the warehouse closed down, and people had to look elsewhere. “All of a sudden,” said a woman who only gave her first name, Renee, “they started talking about Amazon”.

•••

For about a week after stumbling on the body, Manley went through the encampments of south-eastern San Francisco, trying to find somebody who was missing someone. Thousands of homeless people die in American cities each year to little fanfare, and the Amazon incident barely made the news. Neither the man’s name nor the occupant of the warehouse appear to have ever been reported.

At an encampment underneath a highway, he came across a woman who had strung up dried flowers around her tent and cultivated succulents. Cheryl Iversen, 49, had riotous, flaming orange hair, a personality to match and, fittingly, went by the name of Tygrr, pronounced “Tiger”. Manley told her what he had discovered, and she felt the burden of not knowing what had happened to Frank Ryan lifted.

“I said ‘thank you’,” she recalled. “He held me when I cried.”
Cheryl Iversen by her tent in San Francisco.

    Iversen, whose boyfriend Frank Ryan died in a dumpster outside Amazon, at her home on the streets of San Francisco. Photo: Talia Herman for the Guardian.

An abusive childhood had led Iversen to run away at 12, and then to exotic dancing, a bad marriage and a heroin addiction. She calls herself a “functional junkie”.

Over a decade ago she met Ryan, whose own origins are unclear. His friends said he was the son of a gold-miner. One suggested he had been sexually abused. He had lived in RVs in the Bay Area since at least the 1990s, making a living by scavenging scrap metal. On occasion he could earn thousands of dollars per haul, with which he subsidized meth and marijuana habits. He was never seen without a jug of milk in his hands and obsessively collected rocks that he hoped were meteorites.

Iversen vividly remembers the day they got together. They were wading by a pier in San Francisco Bay, gathering stones that they could sell and placing them on a plastic float. As the tide rose, they sat on the float, and had to lie down when their heads started to bump on the pier above. He brushed her hair from her cheek and they kissed.

A few days later, Iversen wrote a poem about it that she still remembers by heart.
Cheryl Iversen’s poem

    Cheryl Iversen’s poem, written for Frank. Photo: Alastair Gee for the Guardian.

“He had such a beautiful soul, he was so smart,” she said. “He never once made me feel stupid for not knowing something.”

Although they were not monogamous – Iversen described herself dismissively as a “side-piece” – towards the end Ryan had told her wanted to settle down with her in a warehouse squat. When she last saw him he said he was going to look for ice cream.

•••

For those so inclined, living out of dumpsters can occasion philosophy. “Almost everything I have now has already been cast out at least once, proving that what I own is valueless to someone,” Lars Eighner wrote in his treatise On Dumpster Diving.

Eighner’s experiences were distinct from those of people who dumpster-dive as a lifestyle choice – he began when he was struggling to pay rent, and the day-to-day realities were brutal. “No matter how careful I am I still get dysentery at least once a month, oftener in warm weather,” he said.

A Guardian review of news reports from the last decade has found at least 50 cases of dumpster-related homeless deaths and serious injuries. In some instances, the dumpster is simply the bleak setting. On Christmas Day last year, a Wichita, Kansas, man was found in a dumpster outside a bakery, and while a preliminary autopsy suggested he died of natural causes, his relatives could not fathom what had prompted him to get inside.

In other examples, it is the act of trash collection itself that is fatal. A man in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was tipped out of a dumpster and then run over by a garbage truck. In Forth Worth, Texas, a screaming man had a heart attack after the dumpster he was inside was picked up. More common are situations in which homeless people, sleeping in dumpsters or sheltering from the elements, are collected by garbage or recycling trucks and compacted along with the trash. This is why ruined bodies sometimes end up at the dump.

    I could just hear my bones breaking. It was just going through my legs like a hot knife through butter
    Marcus Baldwin

In 2003, a woman sued a waste-management company for more than $10m after her brother was suffocated in this way in Portland, Oregon, alleging “reckless and outrageous indifference” to homeless lives.

In an interview, her lawyer, Greg Kafoury, recalled the testimony of a garbage worker, who said that after picking up dumpsters with his truck he shook them in order to wake anyone sleeping inside, and taught his colleagues to do the same. Kafoury also remembers hypothesizing before the jury that, because six people had died in similar circumstances over the course of several years in Oregon, a state with a little over 1% of the US population, as many as 600 could have been killed in the country as a whole.

The lawsuit “was a chance to save untold numbers of lives”, he said – but he lost. “Somebody needs to take one of these cases and go the distance with it because the case can be won.”

On occasion, though, there are survivors.

In November 2016, about two weeks after Ryan climbed into the dumpster, Marcus Baldwin did the same thing in Mount Clemens, just north of Detroit. Alcoholism had led to the breakdown of his marriage and to homelessness. Finally he found a job in demolition, but he still had nowhere to stay, and after work on a cold and wet night a dumpster beckoned. It was filled with cardboard and seemed clean. He fell asleep.
Marcus Baldwin, who survived being compacted inside a garbage truck.

    Marcus Baldwin, who survived being compacted inside a garbage truck. Photo: Garrett McLean for the Guardian.

At around 5.30am, he awoke to “this beeping noise”, Baldwin said. “The next thing I knew, I was going up into the air.”

Falling on his head, he was disoriented and in pain, and he had the sensation of having been dropped into a sewer. It was greasy and filled with rotten food, old clothes and construction materials.

He screamed for the driver to no avail. About 15 minutes after Baldwin was picked up, the compacting process began. A contraption that reminded him of a snow shovel began to move along the length of the vehicle and pinned Marcus to an interior wall. “I could just hear my bones breaking,” Baldwin said. “It was just going through my legs like a hot knife through butter.”

Both were shattered. Baldwin thinks he was compacted another five times, every quarter-hour or so. He tried to protect himself with a shopping cart. Eventually the driver noticed him and he was rescued, but owing to a bad infection doctors had to amputate his right leg below the knee.

•••

The life expectancy of homeless people is only around 50; when he died, Ryan was 55 or so. His autopsy report gave the verdict of a methamphetamine overdose. At his wake, his friends poured some of his ashes into the bay along with jugs of milk and some buds of weed. His dog was adopted, and Iversen planted a garden of succulents and cacti near her tent in his memory.

“I’ve never felt so right in my life,” she said of her time with Ryan, “and nothing has been right since. It probably never will be, and what can I expect? Such a big piece of me is gone.”

In a statement, Amazon, which recently announced that it would host a homeless shelter in one of its new buildings in Seattle, called the death a “sad event”.

Surprisingly, considering that Ryan appears to have dropped off the map long ago, the impact of his passing has reverberated far beyond a small homeless community in an obscure part of San Francisco.

In the vicinity of Spokane, Washington, for instance, there lives a 34-year-old who is also called Frank Ryan. He is the late Frank Ryan’s long-lost son.
Iversen’s memorial garden for Frank Ryan: ‘Such a big piece of me is gone.’
Part of the succulent garden that Iversen made for Frank Ryan
Cheryl Iversen in southeastern San Francisco

    Iversen at the memorial garden she made for Frank Ryan: ‘Such a big piece of me is gone.’ Photo: Talia Herman for the Guardian.

In the late 1980s, when he was six or seven, he lived with his father, as well as with his father’s new wife and her daughter from a previous relationship.

The younger Ryan remembers little of his father beyond a birthday when he was given a bike and shown how to assemble it. The two Frank Ryans were separated when the son was, as he describes it, spirited away by his mother. “Even if he was looking as hard as he could he probably wouldn’t have been able to find me due to the measures my mother had taken,” Ryan said in an interview recently. “I never harbored any ill will.”

During an itinerant period in the western US with his mother, he said he lived in a van and slept on blankets on the ground and obtained food from churches and food banks. Now he has a young family and works in security for the federal government.
The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger
Read more

Several months before his father’s death, the older Ryan re-established contact via Facebook, and they made plans to meet for the first time in three decades. These plans were interrupted because Ryan Sr accidentally shot himself in the groin while trying to remove the rust from a discarded handgun, leaving him hobbling and unable to work or pay for travel. He died before the meeting could take place.

“The fact that he was hungry enough to crawl into a dumpster definitely was the hardest part,” the younger Ryan said. It “stirred up” his own experiences of homelessness.

When the younger Ryan was taken away by his mother, he also lost contact with the little girl who was residing with them. Today Danielle Lent, who goes by the name Avalon, is 37 and lives in a town an hour north of San Francisco.

Her memories of her stepsibling are warm, though the relationship between the adults was anything but harmonious. The older Ryan only seemed to care about the drugs he was taking. And one night, she said, he entered Lent’s room and sexually abused her, the first of several occasions.

Lent remembers herself “just staring at the alarm clock, saying ‘when is this going to be over?’” Afterwards her mother did not believe her. Indeed, when the older Ryan became homeless, Lent’s mother took food and money to him. “My mom was so in love with him and he did all these bad things to both of us. I still have night terrors over all of this. I’m on anxiety medication.”
Danielle Lent, who goes by the name Avalon, at her home in Vacaville, California.

    Danielle Lent, Frank Ryan’s former stepdaughter, at her home in Vacaville, California. Photo: Talia Herman for the Guardian.

The importance of finding her stepsibling was impressed on Lent by her mother. “On her deathbed she told me, ‘Danielle Marie, I have three wishes,’ and this is the last wish that she asked for.” For Lent herself, the relationship seemed like one of the best things from that time.

At Lent’s request, and with Ryan’s permission, the Guardian put them in touch with one another, and on Christmas Day they spoke for the first time since they were children.

“He said he’s not stopped looking for me,” Lent told a reporter afterwards. “And I never stopped looking for him.”

“It seems more than a coincidence that out of the millions of homeless Americans that you could do a story on, it would be my father,” said Ryan.

•••

The Amazon dumpsters continue to provide.
US spends twice as much on tax break for rich as on rent for the poorest
Read more

On a Saturday morning earlier this year, a brown-haired young man wearing a varsity jacket cycled up and climbed inside in full view of passing cars and pedestrians.

At that moment, the gate of the warehouse loading dock rose to reveal a staffer clutching some white trash bags. He moved to throw the bags into the open dumpster when he caught sight of the visitor. They locked eyes.

The employee gently tossed the bags to the dumpster-diver, who opened them. A few minutes later, the homeless man got on to the bike, balanced a few items on the handlebars and unsteadily rode off.

Do you have an experience of homelessness to share with the Guardian? Get in touch

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