Category Archives: Mens Health

The Dangers Of Colonoscopies

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By: Wolverine
Source: roarofwolverine.com

The overuse of the procedure known as colonoscopies as a prophylactic for colon cancer, has not only become quite a fad in recent decades, but also a multimillion dollar industry.  Every year, over 14 million perfectly healthy individuals age 50 and up, submit themselves to this invasive procedure in the hope of receiving protection from colorectal cancer.  Do the benefits of this screening outweigh the risks involved?

Sometimes in this world, a treatment may be as dangerous as the disease itself.  I serve as a living testament to the severity of the damages possible with this procedure.  The many injuries that can be caused by colonoscopies, the anesthetics and preparation required for this procedure, is what I would like to cover in part 1 of this series.

I would like to preface this by saying that colorectal cancer is a very real,  frightening and deadly disease, and I am in no way lightening that fact.  But, a colonoscopy injury can be as lethal and cause as much fear and suffering as colorectal cancer itself.  So, which one carries the greatest risk of actually happening to you in your lifetime?  Especially between the age of fifty to sixty?

Reported in this study from 2006; “The perforation rate reported from colonoscopies was 1 in 1000 procedures, and ‘serious complications’ occurred in 5 in1000”.  According The Annals Of Internal Medicine’s report on colonoscopies, an estimated 70,000 (0.5%) will be injured or killed by a complication related to this procedure.  This figure is 22% higher than the annual deaths from colorectal cancer itself – the very disease the device was designed to prevent.

The average age for developing colorectal cancer is 71.  The medical industry recommends screening starting at the age of 50 and as low as 45 for African Americans.  So, for the first couple of decades, you are risking your life with a dangerous, invasive procedure to diagnose a disease that is far less of a risk at that age than the odds of being injured by the screening device.  I could stop right there, because that should be enough to make a critical thinker forget about this barberic diagnostic tool, at least until the age of 65.  But, there is more – a whole lot more to consider, which leads me to believe we should search to discover a safer and more effective tool.

Many of the related injuries associated with colonoscopies go unreported or are never diagnosed.  Death from colon cancer will very rarely not be reported as the cause of death, so those are accurate predictions.  But, we have no idea just how high the actual number for colonoscopy injuries and death may actually be [more].  I am living proof of that.  The reason for the necrosis of my bowels was unreported because all priorities focused on saving my life, not what caused the decline.  Nowhere on my medical record is the reason for what caused my organs to die reported, so I doubt that I am part of those statistics, even though I am a victim of a colonoscopy.

Typically, a patient left untreated for as long as I was will die.  Had I died, the death report would say complications from necrosis of the bowels and mention nothing of the colonoscopy.  Perforations and other injuries from colonoscopies can be extremely difficult to diagnose and are often of little concern when the patient is dying.  We also have to consider that doctors and hospitals will rarely report an injury from a colonoscopy unless forced to.  It is up to the patient to successfully prove that the procedure caused their injury or resulting infection in a civil trial before it will be reported and logged.  The fact that few, if any, of these cases will see the light of day will be covered in my post “Is There Any Such Thing As Malpractice?”.

Even though statistics say that 70,000 people will be injured or killed by this procedure this year, the actual number is far greater.   But even if you go by only those that have been forced to be reported, the number of injuries are still significantly higher than the incidence of colorectal cancer.

One of the more dangerous outcomes of a colonoscopy is the one I was a victim of – a perforation.  Everyone considering this diagnostic procedure is required to sign a paper stating that they understand all of the injuries possible with this invasion of their organs with a mechanical device and the air pressure exerted in order to inflate the colon.  The list of the horrific complications, including death, should be enough to give anyone pause.  But, patients are immediately calmed when their doctors explains that these things are rare.  The favorite tool of compliancy in the doctor’s arsenal is the phrase “I’m not worried about it”.  They’re not the ones about to have a metal tube shoved four feet up their pooper and they also understand that by signing that paper, you have waived all rights to legal compensation if injured.  Any wonder why they’re not worried?  As long as your insurance checks out, they won’t break a sweat.

Other than perforations, there are other dangers, including a list of possible reactions to the general anesthesia that must be used during a colonoscopy.  Though rare, they can range from deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms to pneumonia.  No other cancer screening test requires a general anesthetic to be used.  There can also be complications associated with the colon prep required for the procedure.  This prep can include a 2 liter enema of synthetic laxatives administered about an hour before the procedure.  This cocktail of chemicals can cause everything from deadly electrolyte imbalances (which can lead to congestive heart failure), to possible thrombosis in the mesenteric artery, to kidney damage.

If this diagnostic procedure still sounds safe to you, we will also throw in the newest discovery that has come to light in recent years.  It is impossible to sterilize an endoscope!  This high tech device cannot be boiled or steamed because high temperatures can destroy the sensitive electronics.  There are many tiny nooks and crannies in and around the tip of the scope, which are impossible to clean, even by hand.  Recent biopsies of these scopes have revealed encrustation of fecal matter, tissue, blood, and mucus imbedded from previous patients.  At present, medical personnel bathe the scopes in a disinfectant solution.  They’re not scrubbed.  Not disassembled.  Not heated.  They’re rinsed in an ineffective bath of Glutaraldehyde, which if not rinsed off thoroughly, has been cited as a cause of toxic Colitis.

It is very possible, and clinically proven, that you can be infected by HPV (Human Papilloma Virus); HIV; Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Helicobacter pylori,; Hepatitis B and C; Salmonella; Pseudomonas and Aeruginosa; Flu Viruses and other common bacteria such as, E. Coli O157:H7 and Creutzfeldt- Jakob Disease.  And the pathogens you may be infected with are typically going to be a hospital borne variety, which means they are strains that have been exposed to, and become immune to most antibiotics.  Leading microbiologists have advocated using sterile, disposable parts for endoscopes as well as the use of a condom-like sheathes for each new patient.  But, the manufacturers and health-care providers have resisted these solutions because of added costs.  Isn’t that nice?  These safety precautions are mandated in England, but not used here in the U.S..  The FDA even recognizes this problemhere, but acts as if their present recommendations are effective – they have been proven not to be.

Following my transplant, I was required to undergo an ileoscopy, including biopsies, weekly to check for signs of rejection.  Patients are not anesthetized for this procedure because the scope is inserted into a stoma, rather than the anus, so it is painless.  I was allowed to watch the procedure on a television monitor.  They would fish a tool (similar to an alligator clip) through the instrument port of the scope (refer to image at the top of page), to tear off a piece of villi for a biopsy.  Each time I could see a tiny injury which would begin to bleed.  An open, bleeding wound near the tip of a scope encrusted with fecal matter – sounds like a real good medical practice.  Each time you undergo a colonoscopy they may clip out a piece of your intestine for biopsy or snip off a polyp.  There will be an open wound and mixing of your blood with whatever may be lingering on the end of that scope which has been in hundreds of other colons and is unable to be sterilized.

A few days after one of the scopes, I came down with a systemic gram negative rod infection called pseudomonas, a very deadly pathogen to immunosuppressed patients.  The particular strain that I had was identified as being multi-drug resistant, meaning it was certainly a hospital borne variety.  It nearly ended my life as I succumbed to septic shock and by the time the ambulance arrived at the ER, my blood pressure had dropped to 35/28 and I was given a very small chance of surviving the night.  Before intubating me, they told me they would send in my wife so I could say “goodbye” to her for the last time – this is how sure they were I would never awake from the anesthesia.

It is quite obvious now that I contracted that pathogen from the scope I had just received two days before (I failed so quickly because I was so immunosupressed from the transplant).  Seven months prior to that, I had been the victim of a perforation as the result of a routine colonoscopy, which ultimately cost me all of my intestines and nearly my life.  That is two near death injuries on just one patient within seven months from endoscopes.

I met six other transplant patients in the last two years.  Three out of those six people, adding myself (making seven), had suffered a perforation from scopes and a fourth one had suffered a perforation in a similar invasive procedure.  Two of those patients died as a result of their injuries and I nearly died both times from mine.  The third transplant recipient needed an emergency resection of her newly transplanted bowels because of a perforation from a scope.  The baby of our transplant family, a young woman only 28 years old, is fighting a Klebsiellasepsis at this time, which was most likely transmitted via a recent scope.   “Injuries and perforations from colonoscopies are rare” my ass!

Because of what happened to me and the manner in which the doctor lied to me about the rarity of these injuries is what has motivated me to study and investigate the subject for the last two years.  I have discovered that perforations are not as rare as the doctors would like us to believe.  But at a charge of $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 per procedure and the fact that some gastroenterologists can rush in as many as 30 -40 procedures a day, it is not hard to see a motivation to suppress the truth about the dangers and your risk of being perforated or infected by this medical fad.

From an a 2006 article in The New York Times; “… if our group is representative of an average group, you will see people (doctors) who take 2 or 3 minutes and people (doctors) who take 20 minutes to examine a colon. Insurers pay doctors the same no matter how much time they spend.”   It is often about quantity, not quality and your risk of being injured increases the faster the practitioner attempts to finish your procedure, not to mention the efficiency of the cancer screening falls dramatically when hurried.

I hope that one day this killer will end up on the junk pile of quack medical devices from the Victorian Age, and I hope I can have a hand in placing it there.  This will not be easy.  The medical industry now has celebrities, such as Katie Couric, actively using their fame to promote this procedure as a life-saving miracle, rather than the barbaric medieval medical device it really is.  They used the fact that Katie lost her husband to colon cancer and swooped in on this grieving widow and convinced her this “snake oil” medical device could have prevented it.  I am sure that the fact that NBC is also owned by General Electric, a manufacturer of endoscopes, had little to do with sponsoring her televised colonoscopy and using her celebrity pitching skills to bring this killer to the forefront of common medical practices.

You may be thinking that I must have lost my mind, because after all, this procedure has effectively saved thousands of lives, or at least that’s what you’ve been led to believe by the medical industry and their advocates in the media.  But is there any more truth to this than the lie that injuries are rare?

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The Vitamin that has Been Shown to Dramatically Improve Fertility

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By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Did you know that in northern countries, which have dark, cold winters, couples are less likely to conceive during the winter, whereas conception rates peak in the summer?

There are a number of reasons why this association exists, but new research highlights vitamin D as one of the most important variable.

Vitamin D, a steroid hormone that influences virtually every cell in your body and has been positively linked to health conditions ranging from cancer to heart disease, may significantly boost fertility in both men and women.

If You’re Struggling With Infertility, Get Your Vitamin D Levels Checked

Vitamin D is so crucial to health that I urge everyone to make sure their levels are optimized, but if you’ve been dealing with infertility, this is especially important.

A new report has shown that exposure to sunlight boosts fertility in both men and women by increasing their levels of vitamin D, a benefit that appears to work on multiple levels.

As the researchers reported in the European Journal of Endocrinology:

  • Among women, vitamin D appears to impact in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common female endocrine disorder, as well as boost levels of progesterone and estrogen, which regulate menstrual cycles and improve the likelihood of successful conception
  • In men, vitamin D is essential for the healthy development of the nucleus of the sperm cell, and helps maintain semen quality and sperm count. Vitamin D also increases levels of testosterone, which may boost libido

The researchers state:

“Given the high prevalence of infertility as well as vitamin D insufficiency in otherwise healthy young women and men and the possible role of vitamin D in human reproduction, research might lead to new therapeutic approaches such as vitamin D supplementation in the treatment of female and male reproductive disorders.”

Low Vitamin D Levels Previously Linked to Infertility

This is not the first time the “sunshine vitamin” has been linked to infertility. In 2008, Australian fertility specialist Dr. Anne Clark found almost one-third of the 800 infertile men included in her study had lower than normal levels of vitamin D, (bear in mind here that “normal” does not equal “optimal” — so by optimal standards, the rate of vitamin D deficiency was likely far higher than one-third) stating that:

“Vitamin D and folate deficiency are known to be associated with infertility in women, but the outcomes of the screening among men in our study group came as a complete surprise. Men in the study group who agreed to make lifestyle changes and take dietary supplements had surprisingly good fertility outcomes.”

In fact, of the 100 men who agreed to make and maintain certain lifestyle changes (quitting smoking, minimizing intake of caffeine and alcohol, weight reduction, along with a course of vitamins and antioxidants) for three months prior to fertility treatment, 11 of them went on to achieve pregnancy naturally, without IVF treatment.

Previous studies, such as one published in The Journal of Nutrition, also found that although vitamin-D-deficient female rats were capable of reproduction, it reduced fertility by an astounding 75 percent, diminished litter sizes by 30 percent, and impaired neonatal growth.

Interestingly, another study published in November 2009 confirmed that human sperm does in fact have a vitamin D receptor. Analysis indicated that vitamin D is produced locally in the sperm, which suggests that vitamin D may be involved in the signaling between cells in the reproductive system. According to the authors, the study revealed “an unexpected significance of this hormone [vitamin D] in the acquisition of fertilizing ability,” and the results imply that vitamin D is involved in a variety of sperm signaling pathways.

What Else Might be Impacting Your Fertility?

An estimated 1 in 6 American couples struggle with getting pregnant each year, and there’s compelling evidence that lifestyle, diet and environmental exposures are largely to blame. Not only are you exposed to hundreds (if not thousands) of toxins each and every day, but some of the most commonly prescribed drugs, poor diet, and common vitamin deficiencies have also been linked to reduced fertility, just to name a few.

As Iva Keene, author of the Natural Fertility Prescription, stated:

“Conventional IVF and other assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments don’t address root causes of infertility. These root causes include: nutritional deficiencies, toxin exposure, stress, food intolerances, allergies and immune deficiencies. These subtle but critical factors interact synergistically to impact the quality of your eggs and sperm, affecting your ability to conceive and the health of your embryo.

… during the generation and maturation of gamete cells — sperm and ovum — that form an embryo [a period of 120 days], everything that you and your partner ingest, inhale or are exposed to will influence the health of your eggs and sperm for better or worse, and the ultimate quality of the genetic building blocks you pass onto your child. This is why it’s crucial to follow a good preconception plan for a minimum of 4 months before conception. A baby is a 50-50 product of his or her parents — therefore optimizing the quality of eggs and sperm is of paramount importance.”

You can find 10 tips that may help resolve infertility naturally in her past article, but here are a few initial strategies to consider:

  • Genetically modified food (GM), especially corn and soy, contain significant concentrations of the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), which has been linked to infertility in a number of studies.
  • Avoid chemicals as much as possible. Bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, fluoride (in drinking water), MSG, and many, many others have shown negative impacts on your reproductive health.
  • Consume a healthy diet, rich in healthy fats and antioxidants, and low in sugar and grains. Insulin resistance is an underlying factor responsible for most chronic disease, and it should come as no surprise that it plays a role in fertility as well. The treatment strategy is to reduce or eliminate grains along with sugars, especially fructose.
  • Identify potential gluten intolerance. Celiac disease (gluten intolerance) has been linked to fertility problems in both sexes. In men, it’s associated with abnormal sperm, such as lower sperm numbers, altered shape, and reduced function. Men with untreated celiac disease may also have lower testosterone levels.
  • Be aware of electromagnetic fields, as research suggests cell phones may impact sperm quality as well. One study found men who talked on a cell phone for more than four hours a day had the lowest average sperm counts (50 million per milliliter) and the least healthy sperm.

Are You Ready to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels?

This is an imperative step for anyone planning a pregnancy, not only for increasing the rate of conception but also for the benefits it offers during pregnancy. Vitamin D deficiency is currently at epidemic proportions in the United States and many other regions around the world, largely because people do not spend enough time in the sun to facilitate this important process of vitamin D production.

So the first step to ensuring you are receiving all the benefits of vitamin D is to find out what your levels are using a 25(OH)D test, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

There are two vitamin D tests — 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D — but 25(OH)D is the better marker of overall D status. It is this marker that is most strongly associated with overall health, and it is the one you should ask your physician for.. The point of vitamin D testing is, of course, to be sure you are maintaining a therapeutic level of vitamin D in your blood. A few years back, the recommended level was between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), but more recently the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml.

To get your levels into the healthy range, sun exposure is the BEST way to optimize your vitamin D levels; exposing a large amount of your skin until it turns the lightest shade of pink, as near to solar noon as possible, is typically necessary to achieve adequate vitamin D production. If sun exposure is not an option, a safe tanning bed (with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields) can be used.

As a last resort, a vitamin D3 supplement can be taken orally, but research suggests the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day in order to elevate their levels above 40 ng/ml, which is the absolute minimum for disease prevention.

Infertility can be a challenging condition with multiple contributing factors, but you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by optimizing your vitamin D levels. It is free if you do it via sun exposure, and inexpensive if you use a safe tanning bed or vitamin D3 supplement. It’s a simple step that can have a profound impact on your health, even if trying to conceive naturally is not your primary goal.

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The Worthless Way to Prevent Cancer

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By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

On October 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices issued the recommendation that Merck’s vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), Gardasil, be given to males between the ages of 11 and 21.

They further recommend the vaccine series can be given to boys as young as nine, as well as to men up to the age of 26, especially if they engage in homosexual sex—allegedly to offer partial protection against genital warts, and cancers of the penis and rectum.

Another key part of the recommendation is the claim that reducing HPV in men will reduce transmission to girls and women, and thereby prevent cervical cancer deaths.

But according to a recent study, which is based on a mathematical study of HPV transmission, this is not an effective strategy.

Rather, the authors concluded that:

“Increasing vaccine uptake among preadolescent girls is more effective in reducing HPV infection than including boys in existing vaccination programs.

As a rule, directing prophylactic immunization at the sex with the highest prevaccine prevalence results in the largest reduction of the population prevalence.”

According to an MSNBC report:

“Because many countries have started vaccinating girls against HPV, these countries should stick to vaccinating girls, said study researcher Johannes Bogaards, of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. Only once most girls are vaccinated should efforts begin to vaccinate boys, and even then, only if there will be an added benefit to male vaccination, Bogaards said.”

There’s NO Evidence that Gardasil Reduces Cervical Cancer Incidence

Despite Merck’s claims, the question of whether Gardasil will reduce cervical cancer deaths in real-world conditions has actually never been answered. The company-sponsored studies on the subject looked at cervical changes that aren’t indicative of cervical cancer in the first place.

According to Discover Magazine:

“Merck says that in males, the vaccine is 89 percent effective against genital warts and 75 percent effective against anal cancer. On closer inspection, some of the numbers don’t just deflate, they evaporate … So how did the HPV vaccine become a multi-billion-dollar winner for Merck? Well you might not be surprised to hear that the company happily lavished money on doctors, professional societies, and over 100 legislators.”

Vanishing Efficacy Rates

In her Discover article, medical investigative journalist Jeanne Lenzer goes on to expose how misleading Merck’s stated efficacy rates really are:

“On May 10, 2007, Merck published the results of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that claimed an astounding 98 percent efficacy in preventing changes in the cervix used as a marker for cervical cancer.

But…[to] achieve the 98 percent efficacy claim, Merck excluded from analysis anyone who “violated” the study protocol. In other words, all real-world problems that arose were excluded from analysis. Problems like girls who refused to take a second or third shot after they became sick and (correctly or incorrectly) blamed the vaccine…

To Merck’s credit, they reported that when all women in the study were analyzed, the vaccine’s efficacy dropped to 44 percent… [But the] 44 percent benefit included only those women with the two specific cancer-causing HPV strains found in the vaccine… [W]hen the researchers looked at negative cervical changes from any causes, they found that changes occurred in unvaccinated women at a rate of 1.5 events per 100 person-years, while vaccinated women had 1.3 events—dropping the benefit to 17 percent.

Moreover, most of the cervical changes tracked by the researchers weren’t even indicative of cervical cancer in the first place. Most were innocent cellular abnormalities that either disappear entirely on their own, or never progress to cancer. In fact, when they looked more closely at advanced cervical changes most likely to progress to cancer versus more innocent changes that go away spontaneously, it was the innocent changes that accounted for the decline.” [Emphasis mine]

Gardasil has already proven to be a reactive vaccine with potentially devastating side effects. In order to accept a high level of risk to your child’s health, don’t you think you deserve some pretty overwhelming proof that it is in fact worth this risk? Ultimately you need to carefully review the risk/benefit ratio of this vaccine and carefully consider this important decision.

Why Expose Millions to Potential Harm in Order to Save a Handful?

According to a recent CNN report, the cost to vaccinate 11- and 12-year old boys would be $38 million. How can this in any way be justified as cost-effective, when anal cancer, for example, has so far stricken a mere 5,820 men and women this year. The annual death rate from anal cancer is 770 individuals—300 men and 470 women!

Gardasil is claimed to be 75 percent effective against anal cancer in men, so crunch the numbers… This is nothing short of crazy. They actually want to place millions of people at risk with this dangerous vaccine in order to reduce anal cancer deaths that claims less than 300 men per year? That’s incredible! Likewise, cervical cancer accounts for less than ONE percent of all cancer deaths, so this vaccine is certainly not aimed at any major health threat, no matter which way you look at it. But it gets worse. As explained by Lenzer in the featured article:

“First off, let’s define the problem: The annual number of deaths from anal-rectal cancer among all men in the U.S. is 300. And how did Merck get its happy statistics on efficacy? Once again, they reported an idealized benefit by excluding from analysis 1,250 study violators out of 4,055 total test subjects. When the real-world analysis was conducted, the numbers plunged—right down to plum nothing. After evaluating tissue changes in male genitalia that were suggestive of a cancer precursor, Merck reported that vaccine efficacy against such lesions “was not observed.”

Believe me, this is a health emergency in the making. Please do not be deceived into giving this dangerous vaccine to your kids, regardless of their gender. As Angela Raffle, a specialist in cervical cancer screening, told the New York Times three years ago:

“Oh, dear. If we give it to boys, then all pretenses of scientific worth and cost analysis goes out the window.”

Gardasil Sorely Lacking in Safety

While cost-effectiveness is an important concern, I believe safety would certainly trump it. It’s important to realize that while Gardasil hasnot been proven to actually prevent cancer in the long term, there is mounting evidence showing it carries tremendous long-term health risks, including:

According to the featured article:

“… Nizar Souayah, MD, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, says he and his colleagues found “clear evidence from our database of an increased incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome in the first six weeks, especially the first two weeks, after [HPV] vaccination.”

There’s also another important factor to take into account when discussing the potential risks versus alleged benefits of the HPV vaccine, and that is the effect the vaccine will have on other cancer-causing HPV strains. Might it actually promote more aggressive cancers? No one knows… This issue was however raised in the September issue of New Scientist:

“[W]hat effect will the vaccine have on the other cancer-causing strains of HPV? Nature never leaves a void, so if HPV-16 and HPV-18 are suppressed by an effective vaccine, other strains of the virus will take their place. The question is, will these strains cause cervical cancer?

Results from clinical trials are not encouraging. Vaccinated women show an increased number of precancerous lesions caused by strains of HPV other than HPV-16 and HPV-18. “

Why Risk Your Life to Prevent an Avoidable Disease?

Deadly blood clots, acute respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and “sudden death due to unknown causes” have all occurred in girls shortly after they’ve received the Gardasil vaccine. These are atrocious risks to potentially prevent cervical cancer someday down the road. And for boys, these are profound risks to prevent the spread of HPV to girls, and to potentially prevent 300 anal cancer deaths a year…

According to the CDC more than 6 million women contract HPV annually, yet less than 3,900 women will die from cervical cancer out of those 6 million. This is because, in 90 percent of all cases, your immune system can clear up the HPV infection on its own. Furthermore, the infection is primarily spread through sexual contact, so it is behaviorally avoidable.

The bottom line is that Gardasil is largely ineffective, potentially very dangerous, both for girls and boys, and a major waste of money. Of course, you need to do your own careful research, but I simply cannot recommend this vaccine for anyone. There are far better ways to protect yourself and your sons and daughters against HPV infection, and all potentially related cancers.

    • Talk to your kids about HPV. The infection is transmitted through direct skin-to-skin contact. Its main mode of transmission is sexual (genital-to-genital contact), so for sexually active persons, condoms can reduce the risk of HPV by 70 percent. Since condoms cannot offer 100 percent protection, it’s important to understand that other factors that increase your chances of getting HPV include having multiple sex partners, having a low immune system, having other sexually transmitted diseases, and using hormonal contraceptives.

Also, be aware that the vaccine doesn’t work if you’ve already been exposed to the viruses against which it protects. Health officials know this – in fact, both HPV vaccine manufacturers say this in their prescribing inserts for physicians.

  • Keep your immune system strong. A healthy immune system is better able to handle a heavier emotional and physical stress load. The ideal healthy habits to keep your body and mind strong are detailed in these 12 changes that will cut your cancer risk in half.

Keep Educating Yourself on Vaccines

It is becoming increasingly necessary to continue to educate yourself and your family on the issues surrounding vaccinations of all kinds. There are so many problems; no one article can possibly cover them all. You can find and search all vaccine related articles on my Latest Vaccine News page. I also recommend you familiarize yourself with the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) web site. As a leader for vaccine safety, the NVIC offers information on everything from laws to informed consent to late-breaking vaccine news.

For information about Gardasil and HPV infection, please see this fact page.

What You Can Do to Make a Difference

While it seems “old-fashioned,” the only truly effective actions you can take to protect the right to informed consent to vaccination and expand vaccine exemptions, is to get personally involved with your state legislators and the leaders in your community.

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.

Mass vaccination policies are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level, and it is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.

Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org not only gives you access to practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community, but when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips to make sure your voice is heard.

So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.

Contact Your Elected Officials

Write or email your elected state representatives and share your concerns. Call them, or better yet, make an appointment to visit them in person in their office. Don’t let them forget you!

It is so important for you to reach out and make sure your concerns get on the radar screen of the leaders and opinion makers in your community, especially the politicians you elect and are directly involved in making vaccine laws in your state. These are your elected representatives, so you have a right and a responsibility to let them know what’s really happening in your life and the lives of people you know when it comes to vaccine mandates. Be sure to share the “real life” experiences that you or people you know have had with vaccination.

Share Your Story with the Media and People You Know

If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with each other, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.

I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.

We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies to dominate the conversation about vaccination. The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mass vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.

Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More

I encourage you to visit the following web pages on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) website at www.NVIC.org:

  • NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
  • If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions: Learn how to recognize vaccine reaction symptoms and prevent vaccine injuries.
  • Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment by doctors or government officials for making independent vaccine choices.

Connect with Your Doctor or Find a New One that Will Listen and Care

If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination.

However, there is hope.

At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents. It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.

So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.

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How Women May Be Contributing to Men’s Rising Cancer Rates

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By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Many conventional health experts believe the hormone testosterone causes prostate cancer — but research actually suggests that estrogen may be the more likely culprit.

Like women, men also make estrogens such as estradiol, although (usually) in much lower amounts than women.

Even the characteristically “male” hormone testosterone can be converted into estradiol via the hormone aromatase – which is found in higher concentrations in fat tissue.

While this process of testosterone-to-estrogen conversion is necessary for proper bone density and quality in men, for instance, it may also contribute to prostate growth and malignancy.

Fortunately, testosterone is also antagonist to estrogens like estradiol, which may explain why men with low testosterone are at greater risk of prostate cancer.

It may be, also, that men are being exposed to hidden sources of estrogen from the environment.

Estrogen-mimicking chemicals such as bisphenol-A, PFOA and phthalates are disturbingly widespread; as are soy foods that contain high levels of phytoestrogens, which are capable of mimicking estrogens and/or disrupting their cellular receptor sites.

Not only that, but a wide range of heavy metals have been identified to have powerfully estrogenic properties.

These “metalloestrogens,” as they are called, include aluminium, antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenite, and tin.  Recently, an interesting new theory has been proposed that suggests another route of estrogen exposure in men: water contaminated by women’s birth control pills. Could this be the culprit in the rising number of prostate cancer cases?

Drug Residues Common in Drinking Water

Many waterways in the United States contain residues of birth control pills, antidepressants, painkillers, and many other chemical compounds. This has been known for many years now.

Most of them enter water supplies from human and animal waste that enter rivers from sewage treatment plants, leach into groundwater from septic systems, or run off into groundwater. Even drugs thrown into the trash can wind up in your drinking water, as when it enters a landfill its contents can and do mingle with other trash and its surrounding environment, including water supplies.

The drug industry, while admitting that pharmaceuticals are clearly contaminating water supplies, maintains that the levels are too low to cause any harm. Yet, it’s known that drugs in waterways can harm fish and other aquatic species, and laboratory studies show human cells do not grow normally when exposed to even trace amounts of certain drugs.

Many drugs in the water supply are known to have dangerous side effects when taken in normal prescription doses, not to mention that some people are now exposed to traces of multiple drugs at one time, in addition to other harmful metals and chemicals in their water. Further, people are now being exposed to combinations of drugs that should never be combined, leading to unknown consequences.

Birth Control Pills in Water Supply Linked to Men’s Prostate Cancer

Using data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the United Nations World Contraceptive Use report, which spanned 100 countries, researchers analyzed rates of prostate cancer and prostate cancer deaths, as well as oral contraceptive use among women.

The report concluded that the areas with a high rate of oral contraceptive use also had a high rate of prostate cancer. In addition, the researchers speculated that higher environmental levels of estrogen — and by implication, higher cumulative estrogen exposures in men — may be to blame.

In the United States alone, over 82 percent of women aged 15-44 have used oral contraceptives, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Typically, hormonal birth control methods like The Pill work by releasing estrogen and progestin into a woman’s body, preventing her ovaries from releasing eggs.

While it’s argued that only a small amount of additional estrogen is excreted by a woman using this form of contraception, this “small amount” is compounded by millions of women, many of whom use the pill for long periods of time. Also, synthetic estrogen and progesterone (progestin) – being unnatural – does not biodegrade as rapidly and is far harder to remove through conventional water purification systems – resulting in greater accumulation in the environment.

While this latest study did not prove cause and effect — that is, it did not prove that environmental estrogen from women’s oral contraceptive use causes prostate cancer in men — it did find a significant association between the two that deserves further investigation, especially in light of estrogen’s well established role in a wide range of cancers.

Estrogen Already Proven to Cause Breast Cancer

The guidelines for preventing and treating prostate cancer are almost identical to those for treating breast cancer (more on those shortly), which is why it’s worth noting that causative factors — like estrogen — may also be similar. It is, in fact, already known that breast cancer is closely tied to estrogen exposure.

According to a study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer rates for women dropped in tandem with decreased use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which exposed women to synthetic estrogen. In Canada, between 2002 and 2004 HRT use dropped by 7.8 percent. In fact, it was no coincidence that, during that same time, breast cancer rates also fell by 9.6 percent.

However, after remaining stable at around 5 percent between 2004 and 2006, breast cancer rates then began to rise again, even though HRT use remained lower. The researchers claim this is an indication that HRT simply speeds up tumor growth, as opposed to directly causing it.

It’s also important to consider that you are exposed to a large number of estrogen-like compounds daily, called xenoestrogens. Estrogen pollution is increasingly present all around you, from plastics to canned food and drinks, food additives, household cleaning products, and pesticides. And estrogen levels are rising in our waterways, not only as pollution from birth control use but as a result of the runoff from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

So whether it’s a promoter or a causative factor (likely it’s both), there’s a wealth of evidence supporting excess estrogen exposure as a risk factor for cancer.

What’s All the Buzz About Saw Palmetto and Prostate Cancer?

As we age, testosterone levels decline. One reason why this occurs is because of the overexpression and/or overactivity of an enzyme known as 5-alpha reductase. This enzyme converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a process which simultaneously lowers the amount of testosterone in the body and contributes to both the benign (BPH) and malignant (cancer) growth of the prostate gland.

While the pharmaceutical companies have already capitalized on this biological fact by producing a class of drugs which inhibit 5-alpha reductase activity, thereby blocking the conversion of testosterone to DHT, these drugs come with a significant set of risks, including –  no joke! – increasing your risk of developing prostate cancer.

Unlike the laughably inept pharmaceutical approach, which typically creates greater malignancy than improvement in the organ it is “treating,” i.e. suppressing symptoms in, natural substances like saw palmetto provide a viable alternative. It is, in fact, through this same mechanism of DHT inhibition that saw palmetto works and can make a big difference in your cancer risk.

According to Dr. Rudi Moerck, drug industry insider and an expert in chemistry, the medical literature contains as many as 100 clinical studies on saw palmetto. (One of the first prostate drugs on the US market was actually saw palmetto, released by Eli Lilly Company back in the early 1870s.)

He says:

“The mechanism of action of saw palmetto is not fully clear. We are certainly not making any drug claims, but the anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a reduction in the conversion of testosterone into the dihydrotestosterone, and therefore, men that take saw palmetto will have slightly higher levels of testosterone in their body…That’s a good thing…

It turns out that if you don’t have enough testosterone in your body it can cause all kinds of problems like gaining weight, breast enlargement in men, and problem with urinating. So saw palmetto alone, or with pumpkin seed or lycopene is an interesting proposition … It’s something that you should definitely try.”

Additionally, research sourced from The National Library of Medicine shows that saw palmetto may have therapeutic benefits over pharmaceutical 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors, alleviating symptoms far beyond that of simply an enlarged prostate:

  • Androgenic Alopecia (Hair Loss)
  • Prostate Cancer
  • Low Testosterone
  • Chronic Prostatitis

Beyond taking saw palmetto, another thing you may want to do is to have your testosterone levels checked to ensure they’re in a healthy range. For an interesting article that contains more elaborate information on this topic, read Dr. Morgentaler’s report Destroying the Myth About Testosterone Replacement and Prostate Cancer. It explains how unfortunate assumptions have led to a dogmatic belief that testosterone replacement increases your risk of prostate cancer — a belief that may be preventing many men from optimizing their health. If you are indeed low in testosterone you may want to consider trans rectal DHEA cream. I personally use about 50 mg twice a day, and it has done wonders to optimize my testosterone levels, as DHEA is converted to testosterone in your body.

Smart Solutions for Prostate Cancer Prevention

Like virtually all cancers, your risk of prostate cancer can be influenced by lifestyle changes, with diet having a huge impact on prostate health.

Given the potential risk of drug-contaminated drinking water, filtering your water is a smart choice. The best solution would be to install a whole house water filtration system. This not only protects your body (inside and out, from drinking water and exposure during showers), but also your appliances as well. There’s just one water line coming into your house. Putting a filter on this is the easiest and simplest strategy you can implement to take control of your health by ensuring the water in your house is as clean as possible.

I recommend systems that use at least 60 pounds of filter media and can produce eight or more gallons a minute. When you are running two different showers, the dishwasher and the kitchen sink at the same time, you’ll find out why these minimum levels are so important. This recommendation covers a home or apartment up to 3200 sq./ft. If your home is larger than that, you may need two whole house water filtration systems.

I also recommend looking for a whole house water filter that has three separate stages of contamination removal:

  • Stage one removes sediment
  • Stage two removes chlorine and heavy metals
  • Stage three should be a heavy-duty carbon filter for removing hormones, drug residues, chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides

You want to look for granular carbon in the carbon filter, not a solid block of carbon. The granular carbon allows for better water flow, which translates to more water pressure and better filtering properties as well.

Next, you’ll want to eat as much organic (preferably raw) food as possible. Foods that support prostate health include vegetables and fruits rich in vitamins, carotenoids, and lycopene (animal studies have shown that of all the carotenoids, lycopene accumulates in the prostate of male animals, and this likely holds true for humans as well).

One 2009 study identified the following foods as being particularly beneficial against prostate cancer:

  • Tomatoes (including unsweetened organic tomato sauce)
  • Cauliflower
  • Broccoli
  • Green tea

Other nutrients that have been found to offer significant protection against prostate cancer are animal-based omega-3 fats and vitamin K2. For more information about K2, please refer to this previous article. Although I don’t typically recommend many supplements, animal-based omega-3 fats and vitamin K2 are two of the supplements you may want to seriously consider because many people don’t get nearly enough of them on a daily basis through the foods they eat.

Limiting carbohydrates like sugar, fructose, and grains as much as possible is also important to maintain optimal insulin levels, which will help reduce your cancer risk in general. Highly processed or charcoaled meats, pasteurized dairy products, and trans fats correlate with an increased risk for prostate cancer as well, and should also be avoided.

For more research on the dietary aspects of prostate cancer prevention GreenMedInfo.com contains a list of over 150 natural substances with potential value, backed by solid clinical research. Other important factors include:

1. Optimizing your vitamin D levels

Evidence suggests that vitamin D may be one of the most potent variables associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer.

Thankfully, vitamin D’s impact on your cancer risk is becoming increasingly well-documented, and there are now well over 800 scientific studies confirming the link between vitamin D deficiency and multiple types of cancers, including prostate cancer.

For example, according to a 2005 study, men with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood were half as likely to develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer as those with lower amounts. Another study published two years ago found that men with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood were seven times LESS likely to die from prostate cancer than those with lower amounts.

Testing your vitamin D levels is done by a simple blood test. Anything below 20 ng/ml is considered a serious deficiency state, which will increase your risk of breast and prostate cancers, as well as autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. In most cases, the OPTIMAL value that you’re looking for is between 50-70 ng/ml; however, maintaining a slightly higher level of 70 ng/ml may be ideal for cancer prevention.

The best way to get vitamin D is by exposing your bare skin to natural sunlight on a regular basis. If you can’t get regular sun exposure, you may want to consider using a safe tanning bed or, as a last resort, an oral vitamin D3 supplement. However, be aware that when using a supplement, recent research suggests most adults need 8,000 IU a day to maintain therapeutic levels.

2. Exercising

Exercise is another important factor for prostate health. You need to exercise, especially as you get older, and this includes not only high-intensity exercises like Peak Fitness but also using physical intimacy to exercise your prostate directly.

Dr. Moerck advises:

“… have sex on a regular basis, which involves exercising your prostate. It’s a difficult thing to talk about… [and]  in older people [it can] become an issue because of lack of a partner and those things. But it’s something that every man should think about… I recommend sex on a regular basis… No matter what your age. My recommendation is a minimum of once a week. Probably two times a week for older people.”

One of the reasons for why regular sex promotes male health is that not only does it exercise the prostate, but when a man does not have regular sexual activity, the sperm and other fluids must be reabsorbed into his body. Eventually, that can cause certain immunological issues.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in U.S. men, but it is a disease that can be managed and oftentimes prevented … if you make the appropriate lifestyle modifications. Ideally, you’ll want to pay close attention to your prostate health early on — avoid waiting until you’re in your 60′s, because even though you may be able to reverse damage that’s been done, ideally you’ll want to prevent these problems from occurring in the first place.

Women, Looking for Alternative, Drug-Free Contraceptive Options?

While women’s use of birth control pills may indeed be contributing to growing prostate cancer rates in men, there are other reasons why artificially controlling your menstrual cycle with synthetic hormones may not be a wise option.

In exchange for the convenience of preventing pregnancy (which you can do naturally just as well, and I’ll explain how below), you are putting yourself at risk of:

In fact, the biomedical literature bears testimony to over 25 adverse effects associated with the use of oral contraceptives.

Many women opt for hormonal contraceptives not simply because they’re unaware of the health risks, but because they are unaware of the other effective birth control methods out there. The following options, which include both natural family planning and barrier methods, are effective ways to prevent pregnancy without damaging your health.

  • Male condoms: Condoms have a 98 percent effectiveness rate when used correctly. A water-based lubricant will increase the effectiveness; do not use an oil-based lubricant, however, as they break the latex and often contain harmful petrochemicals.
  • Female condoms: These thin, soft polyurethane pouches fitted inside the vagina before sex are 95 percent effective. Female condoms are less likely to tear than male condoms.
  • Diaphragm: Diaphragms, which must be fitted by a doctor, act as a barrier to sperm. When used correctly with spermicidal jellies, they are 92 to 98 percent effective.
  • Cervical cap: This heavy rubber cap fits tightly against the cervix and can be left in place for 48 hours. Like the diaphragm, a doctor must fit the cap. Proper fitting enhances the effectiveness above 91 percent.
  • Cervical sponges: The sponge, made of polyurethane foam, is moistened with water and inserted into the vagina prior to sex. It works as a barrier between sperm and the cervix, both trapping and absorbing sperm and releasing a spermicide to kill them. It can be left in for up to 24 hours at a time. When used correctly, the sponge is about 89-91 percent effective.

Aside from these barrier methods, there are also natural family planning (NFP) tools that a woman can use to track her ovulation. Many women feel empowered by NFP because it allows them to get in touch with their fertility cycle.

Some of the most popular NFP methods include:

  • Calendar Method: Abstention from sex during the week the woman is ovulating. This technique works best when a woman’s menstrual cycle is very regular. However, it may not work very well for couples who use it as the sole means of contraception, as its success rate is only around 75 percent. You can boost its effectiveness by combining it with the temperature and mucus methods described below.
  • The Temperature Method: This is a way to pinpoint the day of ovulation so that sex can be avoided for a few days before and after. It involves taking your basal body temperature (your temperature upon first waking) each morning with an accurate “basal” thermometer, and noting the rise in temperature that occurs after ovulation.Beware that illness or lack of sleep can change your body temperature and make this method unreliable by itself, but when it is combined with the mucus method, it can be an accurate way of assessing fertility. The two methods combined can have a success rate as high as 98 percent.
  • The Mucus Method: This involves tracking changes in the amount and texture of vaginal discharge, which reflect rising levels of estrogen in your body. For the first few days after your period, there is often no discharge, but there will be a cloudy, tacky mucus as estrogen starts to rise. When the discharge starts to increase in volume and becomes clear and stringy, ovulation is near. A return to the tacky, cloudy mucus or no discharge means that ovulation has passed.

As you can see, there are many alternatives to The Pill and other hormonal contraceptives out there, and my advice to women is to seriously evaluate the risks versus benefits — not only for yourself but potentially for the environment as well — before taking any type of birth control pill.

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Prostate Cancer Risk Linked to a Diet High in Red and Processed Meats

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By: John Phillip
Source: NaturalNews.com

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer and second most common cause of cancer related death in men in the United States. Nearly one in five men will develop the disease during their lifetime. New research demonstrates that increased consumption of ground beef or processed meat is positively associated with aggressive prostate cancer, according to a study published in the journal PLoS ONE. Researchers found a strong correlation between well cooked, grilled or barbequed red meat and processed meats and the development of prostate cancer. Health-minded individuals will want to severely limit and review cooking methods for red and processed meat consumption to limit this prostate cancer risk factor.

The result of a study conducted at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), offers solid evidence of a link between aggressive prostate cancer and meat consumption. Scientists found prostate cancer growth is driven largely by consumption of grilled or barbecued red meat, especially when it is well-done. Senior study author, Dr. John Witte set out to explain the result of prior studies and to establish a scientific basis for increased prostate cancer risk with red and processed meat consumption.

Well Cooked Red and Processed Meats Dramatically Increase Prostate Cancer Incidence

Researchers used a cohort of 470 men with aggressive prostate cancer and contrasted them against 512 matched controls that did not have prostate cancer. All the men completed questionnaires that enabled the researchers to assess not only their meat intake for the previous 12 months, but also the type of meat and how it had been prepared. Researchers placed special emphasis on the “doneness level”, ranging from rare to well-done.

The study authors used pre-established levels of carcinogens from the National Cancer Institute’s CHARRED database, which contains the mutagen content for each type of meat by cooking method and doneness. Compiling the data obtained from the participants allowed the researchers to determine the consumption levels of chemicals that have the potential to transform into cancer-causing compounds including heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The study established the following conclusions:

“Higher consumption of any ground beef or processed meats was positively linked with aggressive prostate cancer, with ground beef showing the strongest association.”

“The main driver of this link was intake of grilled or barbecued meat, with more well-done meat tied to a higher risk of aggressive prostate cancer.”

“Men who ate high levels of well or very well cooked ground beef had twice the odds of developing aggressive prostate cancer compared to men who ate none.”

Dr. Witte and his team were able to make a conclusive link between well cooked and processed meats and incidence of prostate cancer. Of particular importance was the degree of cooking and use of high heat cooking methods that add carcinogens to the surface of the meat. Most health-conscious people avoid regular meat consumption. This study provides further evidence that limiting or eliminating meat from the diet and utilizing proper cooking practices for all types of food can help prevent prostate cancer and many chronic illnesses.

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