Here's a WONDERFUL Medical Research Site

I've always been a big fan of WEB MD, but am blown away by this site.  Here's a link to their Multiple Myeloma section.  From there, you can research many diseases and medications.  Where has this been all of my life?  *smiling*

http://www.dailyrx.com/conditions/multiple-myeloma

NON-GMO SHOPPING ASSISTANT

TRUE FOOD SHOPPER’S GUIDE
How to Avoid Foods Made with Genetically Modified Organisms [GMOs]

Jump to Guide
By Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance On December 14, 2012 ·

On The Job With Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma occupational risk factors identified
(dailyRx News) Exposure to certain chemicals is thought to be a possible cause of a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. Researchers have honed in on this to see how occupation affects risks.

An international study discovered that people who had worked in certain occupations had higher risks of developing multiple myeloma. These included telegraph and radio operators and people who had worked in the farming, printing or cleaning industries.

------------------------SNIP--------------------------


Previous research has suggested MM risks may be linked to working with children, live animals, chemicals, dust, contact with meat and ionizing radiation.

Researchers found that certain occupations increased an individual’s risk of multiple myeloma compared to people who had not had that occupation. They found:

General farm workers had a 77 percent increased risk compared to non-farm workers.

If someone had been exposed to chemicals for more than 10 years, they had a 62 percent increased risk of developing multiple myeloma.

Telegraph and telephone operators had a six-fold increased risk.

Printers also had higher risks, though they weren’t considered significant.

Low education level was also associated with a 69 percent increased risk.

The average person's lifetime risk of being diagnosed with multiple myeloma is 1 in 159

MORE HERE

Why Baby Carrots Are Killing You

What could I possibly have against these cute little “healthy” snacks that can be found in school lunchboxes across America? It’s back to school time and baby carrots are one snack to keep out of your child’s lunch.

It may shock you that baby carrots do not come out of the ground that way. There is no little baby carrot garden where these are harvested. Manufactured baby carrots are a result of taking all the broken and “ugly” big carrots they can’t put in the package, grinding them all up, processing them into the “baby” carrots and giving them a bath in chlorine to give them a bright happy orange color. There are also “Cut & Peel” baby carrots that are whittled
into a miniature form.

If you look on the package it doesn’t say “Chlorine”, because it was added as part of manufacturing and not added as an ingredient…why is that?

Packaged foods contains lots of chemicals both in the ingredients and in the manufacturing process. The tricky part is chemicals added as part of the manufacturing process are not considered to be an ingredient therefore does not have to be listed on the food label. So there is no way to tell what else is hiding in that box or package.

As defined by the EPA, Chlorine is a pesticide. Its purpose is to kill living organisms. So it would make sense that when you ingest chlorine, it kills some parts of our body like the healthy bacteria in your gut and intestinal flora for instance. Chlorine is a highly toxic, yellow-green gas most heavily used in chemical agents like household cleaners and can be found in the air near industrial areas especially around paper processing plants. Exposure to Chlorine has been linked to health problems such as sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, narrowing of the bronchi, wheezing, blue coloring of the skin, accumulation of fluid in the lungs, pain in the lung region, severe eye and skin burns, lung collapse, a type of asthma known as Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome (RADS).

Chlorine is also added to the public water supply. So not only are you drinking it, but you are absorbing it through the largest organ in your body, your skin. In fact, 2/3 of human absorption of chlorine is from inhaling the steam in the form of chloroform and fast absorption through your open pores in the warm shower or bath. The inhalation of chloroform is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children… which has increased 300% in the last two decades. Other health risks associated with chloroform is cancer, potential reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage. Chloroform is also found in the air and in food, like baby carrots.

Conclusion: Stick to organically grown whole carrots. They are really easy to find as you can buy them at your local farmers market or grocery store. Wash them and cut them into sticks for your childs lunch box. Carrots are an excellent snack that we enjoy all the time. Enjoy!
LINK

More GMO Tidbits.... Knowledge is Power!

Russia Throws Poisonous Meat back to US

Russia throws poisonous meat back to US

TRUTHER DECEMBER 12, 2012

U.S. meat supplies to Russia have been banned. The Russian Federation and the United States differ in the assessment of the causes of the situation. Russia claims that the reason for the ban was the presence of ractopamine drug in US meat. America insists that Russia’s actions were a response to the adoption of the Magnitsky Act by the Senate and accuses Russia of violating WTO rules.

On December 7, 2012 Russia’s Federal Agency for Agricultural Control, Rosselhohznadzor, banned the imports of meat containing ractopamine. This is a food additive that allows to reduce the content of fat in beef and pork. The drug is added to food so that animals grow the muscle mass instead of fat. According to researchers, ractopamine affects the human cardiovascular system, and in some cases can cause food poisoning. This drug is banned for use in 160 countries, including China and Russia. It is allowed in 24 countries, including Canada and the United States. Codex Alimentarius of the World Health Organization, adopted in July 2012 in Rome by representatives of 186 countries, allows the contents of ractopamine in meat.

Formally, Russia does not prohibit the delivery of pork and beef from the United States. It only notified a number of countries, including the US of A, of the need to provide documents saying that animals had not been fed ractopamine – the drug that is banned in Russia. However, the warned countries (in addition to the U.S. the list includes Canada, Brazil and Mexico and excludes 20 countries where the drug is used) do not have the appropriate expertise, because there was no need to have it before. Rosselkhoznadzor promised to introduce a transitional period for those countries, until about the end of January 2013. However, specific implementation mechanisms remain unclear.

As for foreign countries, the move of the Russian Agency for Agricultural Control will hit the United States most. Russia is the fourth largest importer of U.S. meat and spends about $500 million a year on it. The Russian market consumes 0.6 percent of all beef and 1.4 percent of pork produced in the United States. More than 200 containers of meat products worth about $20 million are currently on their way to Russia from the United States.

However, the lack of U.S. meat on the Russian market will affect the Russian economy. The pork from the United States comes fourth on the volume of shipments to Russia. In total, the share of imported meat in the Russian market makes up not less than a third.

The United States regards the ban of meat imports as a political move. According to American analysts, Russia has reacted so to the recent adoption of the Magnitsky Act by the U.S. Congress. On December 6, the U.S. Senate almost unanimously (92 votes “for” and 4 – “against”) approved the bill that imposed visa and financial sanctions against Russian officials involved, according to Washington, in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer of Hermitage investment fund. The first three parts of this document are devoted to the interaction of Russia and the U.S. in the WTO. In particular, the bill abolishes the Jackson-Vanik amendment for Russia and Moldova, which was adopted in 1974. It is expected that U.S. President Barack Obama will sign the bill in the near future.

“This seems to be in retaliation to the Senate’s passage of the trade bill with Russia … there is certainly no doubt about it,” Rich Nelson, chief strategist at research and brokerage company Allendale Inc, said.

Russian officials were surprised to know that US analysts associated the ban on meat imports with the Magnitsky Act.

“One can speculate about whether it was done in retaliation or not, but the measure was based on the content of some additives in meat that are contrary to Russian sanitary standards,” deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada, Victor Supyan told Pravda.Ru.

Previously, the Russian side promised to take comprehensive, multidimensional and extremely strong measures should the Magnitsky Act be adopted in the USA. Presently, the United States accuses Russia of violating WTO rules. “All WTO members break these rules. This is normal,” Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said in response to similar accusations in November of this year in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper. However, on Saturday, U.S. officials said they were expecting actions from Russia to change the situation. The U.S. side expressed a hope that in the near future Russia would remove the ban on the imports of meat, thus fulfilling its obligations as a WTO member. Russia, in turn, does not see any violations in its actions.

www.pakalertpress.com/2012/12/12/russia-throws-poisonous-meat-back-to-us/

Robin Roberts' next step: 'Returning to work'

10:01AM EST December 10. 2012 - Robin Roberts, who is continuing to recover from her Sept. 20 bone marrow transplant for her rare blood disorder, welcomed some of the Good Morning America gang to her home to trim her Christmas tree and sip spiked punch.

"Best medicine ever," she tweeted, meaning the visit, not the punch.

Josh Elliott, Sam Champion, Lara Spencer and George Stephanopoulos put on Santa hats and opened presents when they stopped by after Thursday's broadcast. Josh and Sam went for the spiked punch, noted Roberts on Twitter.

In footage of the fun that aired this morning on GMA, Roberts, 52, said she is looking forward to her next step — "returning to work." The anchor even said she will welcome the "normalcy" of the alarm going off at 3:45 a.m. No date or time frame for her return was given, though.

On Dec. 1, she was allowed to leave her NYC apartment to travel to Connecticut. And she tweeted last week that her beloved dog, K.J., will be home "soon." All good signs.

GO ROBIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chemobrain: How much is actually caused by cancer treatments?

Along with chemotherapy’s well-documented side effects of nausea and fatigue, cancer patients also complain about a type of brain fog that sets in clouding their memory, judgement, and cognitive abilities. But a new study presented Friday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio suggests that the condition -- called “chemobrain” -- may not always be due to the drugs but to the stress and anxiety that comes from receiving the diagnosis and fears of impending treatment.

JUMP

Conditions recognized as related to exposure to Agent Orange

The following presumptive conditions are recognized by the Veterans Affairs as related to Agent Orange exposure for veterans who served in county in Vietnam during Jan. 9, 1962, through May 7, 1975.

• AL Amyloidosis — A rare disease caused when an abnormal protein, amyloidal, enters tissues or organs

• Chronic B-cell Leukemias — A type of cancer which affects white blood cells

• Chloracne (or similar acne form disease) — A skin condition that occurs soon after exposure to chemicals and looks like common forms of acne seen in teenagers

• Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 — A disease characterized by high blood sugar levels resulting from the body’s inability to respond properly to the hormone insulin

• Hodgkin’s Disease — A malignant lymphoma (cancer) characterized by progressive enlargement of the lymph nodes, liver, and spleen, and by progressive anemia

• Ischemic Heart Disease — A disease characterized by a reduced supply of blood to the heart, that leads to chest pain

• Multiple Myeloma — A cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell in bone marrow

• Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma — A group of cancers that affect the lymph glands and other lymphatic tissue

• Parkinson’s Disease — A progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects muscle movement

• Peripheral Neuropathy, Acute and Sub acute — A nervous system condition that causes numbness, tingling, and motor weakness.

• Porphyria Cutanea Tarda — A disorder characterized by liver dysfunction and by thinning and blistering of the skin in sun-exposed areas.

• Prostate Cancer — Cancer of the prostate; one of the most common cancers among men

• Respiratory Cancers (includes lung cancer) — Cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus

• Soft Tissue Sarcomas (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or mesothelioma) — A group of different types of cancers in body tissues such as muscle, fat, blood and lymph vessels, and connective tissues

LINK

Dom Remains in COMPLETE REMISSION!

Just hung up the phone with Tulane Cancer Center-

ZERO M-SPIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's 41 months!

This is the best Christmas present that we could hope for.

Iowa livestock producer claims operation lost due to GMO corn

An Iowa man raising cattle and hogs told the Food Nation Radio Network he was forced to quit farming when GMO corn made his animals sterile.

In an interview with Michael Serio, Iowa farmer Jerry Rosman said he lost his family farm due the corn he was feeding his livestock.

Rosman said he used hybrids in the past and started to use GMO corn in feed in 1997 without any trouble, but things changed in 2000 when he switched to a different company’s genetics with a new genetically modified trait.

Starting in 2000, most of Rosman’s animal were unable to reproduce with a low sperm count in males and females showing false pregnancies. The pigs that were reproducing had smaller litters. By adjusting the type of corn used, Rosman concluded the corn with the genetically modified trait he started using in 2000 was causing the problem. Continued losses and his shrinking herd forced him to close his farm two years later.

A 2006 publication from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) reports at least 65 million metric tons of GM corn grains are used in livestock diets annually and extensive testing and a long approval process accompany every GM crop introduction.

The resource explains safety concerns on the use of GM crops as feed ingredients involve three questions:

• Are GM crops safe as feeds for livestock?
• Is animal performance affected by GM crops?
• Could transgenic materials be transferred to and accumulate in milk, meat, and eggs?
• Interesting comments

Dom's Latest Numbers- Doc is Very Pleased

WBC:          6.6
HCT:          37.1
PLT:          195
ANC:           61
*******************************************************************************
Tulane recently started testing Light Chains.  Once again, his doctor is pleased:

AUG                                                       NOV
Kappa-  18.00                                         Kappa-  15.89
Lambda-   15.60                                      Lambda-  13.42
Ratio-       1.15                                        Ratio-      1.18

These numbers fall into the "Normal Range".

I'm waiting for his M-Spike results, but so far, so good!

Early Christmas Presents- What Fun!

Christine and Troy got me LED Wine Glasses and a set of 9 LED "Ice Cubes".... these pictures don't reflect how beautiful they are!  You can set the cubes to flash or stay on.  The glasses can be set to change colors if you wish.... LOVE THESE!

In PCB, there's a store that sells retro toys.  Dom always pops in to see what's new.  The last time we were there, he asked the manager if he had access to an old-time electric vibrating football game that he had as a child.  No luck.

Then, when Christine and Troy were here, he mentioned it to them.  I got jiggy with it on the computer and found this on Amazon.  He's tickled!

And, of course, I'm absolutely tickled with my Kindle 8.9" HD!

HO HO HO!!!!!!!!!!