Too_Many_Tools wrote:


If we want real action in weaning the United States off foreign oil,
the price of crude needs to be MUCH higher.

I really think it should be well over $100/barrel.

The past 30+ years of inaction proves that no action will occur till
it does happen.

TMT



We don't want any such thing.

Why do you keep coming back to this?

We will continue to use it just like we do now
until it is gone.

So what?

Deal with it.


Richard

snip?

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:20:05 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:05:04 -0700, Too_Many_Tools wrote:

Today it is beef....tomorrow toys...the next day...well something
else...fasteners, tires, tools?

It would seem that lack of quality control has just cost this company
its existence and its employees their livelihoods.

Should a company be responsible for its own quality control or is it a
responsibility of government to protect us?

Taking responsibility for one's own quality control is about the only
effective way to make government controls unnecessary.

Depending on government to protect you is just stupid.

And how do you know what's safe, Rich? Do you have a full set of
chromatography equipment at home, for analysis? Or do you eat nothing but
things you grow yourself?

No, I expect the company to take care of testing - you don't get
any repeat business from dead customers. Haven't you heard of the
huge Wal-Mart recall? They did it preemptively, before anyone got
lead poisoning.

And who really cares about e.coli on meat? Do they expect people
to eat it raw?

Cheers!
Rich

"Rich Grise" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:20:05 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:05:04 -0700, Too_Many_Tools wrote:

Today it is beef....tomorrow toys...the next day...well something
else...fasteners, tires, tools?

It would seem that lack of quality control has just cost this company
its existence and its employees their livelihoods.

Should a company be responsible for its own quality control or is it a
responsibility of government to protect us?

Taking responsibility for one's own quality control is about the only
effective way to make government controls unnecessary.

Depending on government to protect you is just stupid.

And how do you know what's safe, Rich? Do you have a full set of
chromatography equipment at home, for analysis? Or do you eat nothing but
things you grow yourself?

No, I expect the company to take care of testing - you don't get
any repeat business from dead customers.

Well, with nobody watching them, who do you know who caused the dead
customers? For example, who would know that it was Topps' beef that was
carrying the e. coli?

Doctors can't tell. Consumers can't tell. Topps won't tell. Only the
government can tell.

Haven't you heard of the
huge Wal-Mart recall? They did it preemptively, before anyone got
lead poisoning.

Because they knew they'd get caught if they didn't.

And who really cares about e.coli on meat? Do they expect people
to eat it raw?

The people who care are the ones who get sick or die from it. And how would
they know, on their own, or how would their doctors know, that they got sick
from e.coli on meat?

That's the problem. That's why you and I, and everyone else, needs well-run
government inspections.

--
Ed Huntress

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...

snip


Estrogen production in fat is well established it seems. Google is
your
friend. Here is one article:
http://www.cancerportfolio.org/abstract.jsp?SID=159653&ProjectID=312260

That's about post-menopausal women, Joe. As far as I've ever heard,
estrogen
in girls and young women is produced by the ovaries. And we're talking
here
about precocious development of sexual characteristics in girls.

Umm. Yes, but I have to believe that estrogen production in fat didn't
just start at age 50. I imagine a little more research would buttress
the point.

Imagine all you want. The road to perdition is paved with failed
speculations about the endocrine system. d8-)

But there are a lot of endocrine functions associated with adipose
tissue,
and I'm sure there's more to it than I had to study. I was studying
metabolic syndrome. Among the complex of endocrine functions that go on
within adipose tissue, the studies I've worked with focus on their
mediating
functions in the production of hormones secreted in other glands (insulin
in
the pancreas; estrogen in the ovaries; etc.).

Another layer of complexity emerges.

That ain't the half of it, pard':

"Regardless of their origin, neuroactive steroids are capable of modifying
neural activities by modulating different types of membrane receptors.
Neurosteroids are synthesized de novo in neurones and glia. Steroidogenic
enzymes are found in the central nervous system. Classical steroid receptors
are localized in the cytoplasm, they exert regulatory actions on the genome,
and their activation causes medium- and long-term effects. Non-classical
receptors are located within the membrane and act as mediators of short-term
effects. Other important players are co-repressors and co-activators that
can interfere with or enhance the activity of steroid receptors."

And so on.

snip


But I'm less interested in the scientific argument, which we can't settle
here, than in what you're implying about the burden of proof. Are you
suggesting that when the data is inconclusive, we should allow the use of
a
drug or food additive until the mechanism of action can be proven to have
harmful effects?

Almost. Given the large uncertainties, it has to take real proof of
harm (even if the exact mechanism isn't known) before we forbid
something. And inconclusive data is just that - inconclusive.

"Real proof of harm" is in the eye of the beholder, if you're allowing that
the mechanism may not be known. Overall, I think the FDA has it about right.

Regarding "evil motive," the issue is marketing and the inescapable
structure of incentives in business, and their inappropriateness to
something like pharmaceuticals, not evil intent. Marketing drugs is what
I
did, and I often was given explicit instructions about what to emphasize
and
what to soft-pedal. That's the way the pharmaceutical industry works.
It's a
business, not a philanthropy, and the object is to sell as many drugs as
you
can at the highest price you can get. The ethical conflict that often
leads
to is rampant in both food and drug production and sales.

Sure. But we know that. This is why proof is needed, but it cuts both
ways.

There is no civilized country in the world that allows drugs to be sold
until there is proof they are harmful. ALL of the burden of proof is on the
manufacturer. And rightly so.

There is the sticky problem of unregulated "natural supplements" and such.
They kill a few people every year. The loophole will eventually be closed.


The story about rimonabant is a good example. I wrote literature about
that
drug that was intended to educate doctors, public health officials, and
corporate benefits managers about the health benefits of the drug, which
are
quite real. What I didn't know, because the research on it was not yet
published and was known primarily by the manufacturer -- they didn't even
tell us about it -- is that there have been incidences of depression and
even suicide among some users of the drug. It could be argued that the
data
is inconclusive, which I believe is true. But the way it was handled kept
any mention of that problem out of the marketing literature. Fortunately
the
FDA regulations on reporting required that they inform the FDA about it.
The
FDA denied approval of the drug pending further studies, which will take
roughly three years to complete.

"Jumping to conclusions" is what the FDA and other regulatory bodies
around
the world do every day. That's their job and their responsibility. That's
exactly what we *want* them to do. They have to be both suspicious and
cautious. Protecting the public's health requires caution in the use of
agents, whether they're drugs in humans or chemicals in food, based on
correlations that usually are uncertain at the time when an appearance of
risk appears in preliminary studies. The burden of proof is, and must be,
on
the sellers of those agents to prove they're safe, not the other way
around.
And when medical science advances and makes more sensitive proofs
available,
those drugs and food additives may have to prove themselves once again.

This is a whole other thread. The FDA is trying to find drugs that are
at once are effective, are totally safe, and have zero side effects.
Impossible, but Congress keeps trying.

That's not the value system they use. They weigh the *significance* of the
"effectiveness," and both the nature and incidence of adverse effects is
weighed, as well. It was the former that bit rimonabant in the rear.

Without going into detail, the FDA will tolerate very few dangerous side
effects on a weight-loss drug. But they will tolerate a 5% death rate or
even higher for a terminal cancer drug that extends lives by only a few
months in patients who are otherwise virtually sure to die in weeks.

There should be no grandfather clauses for food or drugs.

Be careful what you pray for.

Well, it's not something you have to pray for. Several drugs have been
pulled off the market by the FDA years later, even after their patents
expired and they went generic, as new research uncovered newly discovered
hazards.

Do you think garlic and jalapeños could
ever be approved today?

Sure. The whole scheme on foods is different. There, the point is freedom
from infectuous diseases.

Right now, there are health-department warnings on such things as eating
large quantities of fish that live in PCB-infested waters and are high on
the food chain. There are some fish that can't be sold. So there are food
regulations that come about despite the fact that people ate those things
for centuries or more.

Fortunately, they have been around for
centuries to millennia, so they are grandfathered, if only because any
regulator that tried to outlaw them would be laughed off the planet.

This is not a real issue. If someone discovered that they kill people, that
would be a different matter.


A good example is the FDA trying to deal with German beer (unpasturized)
and especially French raw-milk cheese (ditto). The fact that ~120
million people are none the worse for it doesn't seem to matter.

If they caused an epidemic of listeriosis, like some cheese made from
unpasteurized milk did a few years ago, they'd be yanked as fast as
possible.


Which reminds me of a war story. In the 1970s I worked with an ex-Army
guy who had been stationed in West Germany. The US Army warned their
soldiers against eating the local German food, and my coworker followed
this advice until one day he was driving and went by a line of young
German boys walking to school, each with a lunchbox and a bottle of
beer. And these boys looked rosy-cheeked *healthy*. What can the Army
be thinking? Coworker stopped listening to the Army, and went native.

I have no idea what the army is thinking, at any time and about most
subjects. Maybe there was a reason for the caution and maybe there wasn't. I
find it doubtful that the army was telling those soldiers not to drink beer,
but who knows.

As for the rosy cheeks on those kids, vascular dilation in the cheeks is
common to people of northern European descent when they drink a lot of
alcohol. The kids were probably half in the bag. d8-)

snip
..

It is complex. Studying the mediative pathways in endocrine functions is
one
of the bleeding edges of medical research. You and I are unlikely to be
able
to sort them out, although, as with global warming, the preponderance of
historical studies fall on one side -- the side that says hormones in
beef
are OK, in this case.

Right. If it were really that dangerous, we would have the piles of
dead bodies to prove it.

Or kiddies with tits, which seems to be a trend, and the thing that started
this discussion.



I remain suspicious because I've seen the effects of business incentives,
which are normal and healthy in non-health-related cases, as they operate
in
the food and drug industries. They don't work in the favor of consumers,
IMO. And specific studies continue to raise a red flag here and there.

Yes, companies are biased towards their economic interests. That's why
they have to be made to prove their case. But again, it cuts both ways,
and long-term successful use is a very powerful argument, and very much
puts the burden of proof on the latecomer claiming heretofor unknown
great danger.

Sure.


More generally, we always have conflicting agendas, and one can always
accuse the proponents of the sides of bias and conflict-of-interest and
general evil. It may even be true. But this will never change, so we
have to deal with it.

That's why we have an FDA and a National Academy of Sciences who don't run
for political office.



It *will* be sorted out, because there is a billion-dollar
business awaiting the evil company that figures it out. And likely a
Nobel Prize or two.

When you figure out how it would be in the financial interest of a
company
to show that hormones in beef are bad for our health, let us know. The
opposite is true in the extreme. And that's the way the whole pharma
industry operates: there is no incentive and no money for studies that
show
a drug is bad for you. The incentive is almost exclusively to try to show
that they're good.

No, I was talking about the whole endrocrine system involving weight
control, diabetes, estrogen, et al. There is a fortune to be made here,
and someone will crack that nut. The motive is there.

And one perhaps unintended consequence is that we would find out for
sure if extra hormones in beef mattered, and why. And how.


Excuse me for trimming the rest of this message off, but I think we're
repeating ourselves. And we probably don't disagree very much, anyway. I
recognize what you're saying about the people who keep warning that the
sky
is falling, on this as well as many other issues. I just happen to apply
a
different standard of proof to matters of the things we put in our
bodies.

OK. Why would bodies be different? It's the same scare tactics.

Human bodies would be different from, say, cows, because the object is to
avoid human mortality and morbidity. That's why the whole discussion
started. Tits on kids is morbidity.



I hope we didn't make too many people fall asleep here. g

It *is* an occupational hazard.


But I have to ask: Why is ice cream sales correlated with highway
accident rate? It is true; the question is why.

Do you mean by time of year? We drive more in the summertime, especially
when it's hot enough for ice cream and to go to the beach.

--
Ed Huntress

I don't think the FDA has had it right the first or second time ever.
For years they fed us color in food and candy and ... that caused cancer.
Then when they 'discovered' it - so many people dying... so many doctors
reported problems...

Finally they switched to coal based color from oil - or perhaps it is in reverse
- and then the colors have free radicals of sulfur attached. Just what we
need to die off earlier having these attack kidneys as they try to convert
the sulfur compound into a sulfate which is safe to MAN.

Yellows and 'green which is a Yellow' are serious versions.

They state that 1% of the population would die once implemented, and they
accepted that (on their web site) as justification. The number is 1% die,
and 28 or 29 in various levels of severe to the hospital to stomach and kidney
issues.

If the kidney cannot resolve by dumping enzymes on the sulfur the free radicals
run through the blood system. Attaching and attacking as it floats along.

Congress has never really supported this agency of the U.S. - it is housed
in many buildings across the District. But they could do better.

I firmly believe they are on the take for color and the preservatives used
in the U.S. time and time again medical and scientific people point out
the dangers to the public and they look the other way.

Their charter is to guard and protect us. They don't.
So sad. OBTW - I'm in the 1% that should die. I refuse so far once I found
them out and take what I can to combat what the dose us with.

Martin
Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


"Real proof of harm" is in the eye of the beholder, if you're allowing that
the mechanism may not be known. Overall, I think the FDA has it about right.


--
Ed Huntress



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Rich Grise wrote:
And who really cares about e.coli on meat? Do they expect people
to eat it raw?

Cheers!
Rich

Entirely too many do.
...lew...

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I don't think the FDA has had it right the first or second time ever.
For years they fed us color in food and candy and ... that caused cancer.
Then when they 'discovered' it - so many people dying... so many doctors
reported problems...

You're probably refering to Red Dye #2, banned in 1976, which has never been
shown to cause any health hazards. None. Nada. Nowhere, except, allegedly,
in the old Soviet Union. It's still used in Canada and Europe, and may again
be used in the US, as soon as some new non-animal-based research methods are
perfected. FDA already is planning to re-examine #2.


Finally they switched to coal based color from oil - or perhaps it is in
reverse - and then the colors have free radicals of sulfur attached. Just
what we
need to die off earlier having these attack kidneys as they try to convert
the sulfur compound into a sulfate which is safe to MAN.

Red #2 is an aniline dye, based on "coal tar." So are most other food colors
in use today.


Yellows and 'green which is a Yellow' are serious versions.

They state that 1% of the population would die once implemented, and they
accepted that (on their web site) as justification. The number is 1% die,
and 28 or 29 in various levels of severe to the hospital to stomach and
kidney
issues.

If the kidney cannot resolve by dumping enzymes on the sulfur the free
radicals
run through the blood system. Attaching and attacking as it floats along.

Congress has never really supported this agency of the U.S. - it is housed
in many buildings across the District. But they could do better.

I firmly believe they are on the take for color and the preservatives used
in the U.S. time and time again medical and scientific people point out
the dangers to the public and they look the other way.

Their charter is to guard and protect us. They don't.
So sad. OBTW - I'm in the 1% that should die. I refuse so far once I
found
them out and take what I can to combat what the dose us with.

Virtually everything you said above is a complete fabrication by somebody,
Martin. There is no class of drugs or food additives that have been more
scrutinized by the FDA than aniline food- and cosmetic colorings. There are
no deaths attributed to their use. Someone is pulling your leg in a big way.

--
Ed Huntress

In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...

snip


Estrogen production in fat is well established it seems. Google is
your
friend. Here is one article:
http://www.cancerportfolio.org/abstract.jsp?SID=159653&ProjectID=312260

That's about post-menopausal women, Joe. As far as I've ever heard,
estrogen
in girls and young women is produced by the ovaries. And we're talking
here
about precocious development of sexual characteristics in girls.

Umm. Yes, but I have to believe that estrogen production in fat didn't
just start at age 50. I imagine a little more research would buttress
the point.

Imagine all you want. The road to perdition is paved with failed
speculations about the endocrine system. d8-)

But there are a lot of endocrine functions associated with adipose
tissue,
and I'm sure there's more to it than I had to study. I was studying
metabolic syndrome. Among the complex of endocrine functions that go on
within adipose tissue, the studies I've worked with focus on their
mediating
functions in the production of hormones secreted in other glands (insulin
in
the pancreas; estrogen in the ovaries; etc.).

Another layer of complexity emerges.

That ain't the half of it, pard':

"Regardless of their origin, neuroactive steroids are capable of modifying
neural activities by modulating different types of membrane receptors.
Neurosteroids are synthesized de novo in neurones and glia. Steroidogenic
enzymes are found in the central nervous system. Classical steroid receptors
are localized in the cytoplasm, they exert regulatory actions on the genome,
and their activation causes medium- and long-term effects. Non-classical
receptors are located within the membrane and act as mediators of short-term
effects. Other important players are co-repressors and co-activators that
can interfere with or enhance the activity of steroid receptors."

And so on.

It even makes sense.


snip


But I'm less interested in the scientific argument, which we can't settle
here, than in what you're implying about the burden of proof. Are you
suggesting that when the data is inconclusive, we should allow the use of
a
drug or food additive until the mechanism of action can be proven to have
harmful effects?

Almost. Given the large uncertainties, it has to take real proof of
harm (even if the exact mechanism isn't known) before we forbid
something. And inconclusive data is just that - inconclusive.

"Real proof of harm" is in the eye of the beholder, if you're allowing that
the mechanism may not be known. Overall, I think the FDA has it about right.

To the degree permitted by Congressional politics.


Regarding "evil motive," the issue is marketing and the inescapable
structure of incentives in business, and their inappropriateness to
something like pharmaceuticals, not evil intent. Marketing drugs is what
I
did, and I often was given explicit instructions about what to emphasize
and
what to soft-pedal. That's the way the pharmaceutical industry works.
It's a
business, not a philanthropy, and the object is to sell as many drugs as
you
can at the highest price you can get. The ethical conflict that often
leads
to is rampant in both food and drug production and sales.

Sure. But we know that. This is why proof is needed, but it cuts both
ways.

There is no civilized country in the world that allows drugs to be sold
until there is proof they are harmful. ALL of the burden of proof is on the
manufacturer. And rightly so.

There is the sticky problem of unregulated "natural supplements" and such.
They kill a few people every year. The loophole will eventually be closed.

Maybe. Depends on the kill rate.


The story about rimonabant is a good example. I wrote literature about
that
drug that was intended to educate doctors, public health officials, and
corporate benefits managers about the health benefits of the drug, which
are
quite real. What I didn't know, because the research on it was not yet
published and was known primarily by the manufacturer -- they didn't even
tell us about it -- is that there have been incidences of depression and
even suicide among some users of the drug. It could be argued that the
data
is inconclusive, which I believe is true. But the way it was handled kept
any mention of that problem out of the marketing literature. Fortunately
the
FDA regulations on reporting required that they inform the FDA about it.
The
FDA denied approval of the drug pending further studies, which will take
roughly three years to complete.

"Jumping to conclusions" is what the FDA and other regulatory bodies
around
the world do every day. That's their job and their responsibility. That's
exactly what we *want* them to do. They have to be both suspicious and
cautious. Protecting the public's health requires caution in the use of
agents, whether they're drugs in humans or chemicals in food, based on
correlations that usually are uncertain at the time when an appearance of
risk appears in preliminary studies. The burden of proof is, and must be,
on
the sellers of those agents to prove they're safe, not the other way
around.
And when medical science advances and makes more sensitive proofs
available,
those drugs and food additives may have to prove themselves once again.

This is a whole other thread. The FDA is trying to find drugs that are
at once are effective, are totally safe, and have zero side effects.
Impossible, but Congress keeps trying.

That's not the value system they use. They weigh the *significance* of the
"effectiveness," and both the nature and incidence of adverse effects is
weighed, as well. It was the former that bit rimonabant in the rear.

Without going into detail, the FDA will tolerate very few dangerous side
effects on a weight-loss drug. But they will tolerate a 5% death rate or
even higher for a terminal cancer drug that extends lives by only a few
months in patients who are otherwise virtually sure to die in weeks.

There should be no grandfather clauses for food or drugs.

Be careful what you pray for.

Well, it's not something you have to pray for. Several drugs have been
pulled off the market by the FDA years later, even after their patents
expired and they went generic, as new research uncovered newly discovered
hazards.

Do you think garlic and jalapeños could
ever be approved today?

Sure. The whole scheme on foods is different. There, the point is freedom
from infectuous diseases.

Right now, there are health-department warnings on such things as eating
large quantities of fish that live in PCB-infested waters and are high on
the food chain. There are some fish that can't be sold. So there are food
regulations that come about despite the fact that people ate those things
for centuries or more.

I think the theory is that PCBs have not been around for centuries.
Mercury in fish may be a better example.


Fortunately, they have been around for
centuries to millennia, so they are grandfathered, if only because any
regulator that tried to outlaw them would be laughed off the planet.

This is not a real issue. If someone discovered that they kill people, that
would be a different matter.


A good example is the FDA trying to deal with German beer (unpasturized)
and especially French raw-milk cheese (ditto). The fact that ~120
million people are none the worse for it doesn't seem to matter.

If they caused an epidemic of listeriosis, like some cheese made from
unpasteurized milk did a few years ago, they'd be yanked as fast as
possible.

Drinking raw milk is one thing, eating cheese is quite another. That
was the point.


Which reminds me of a war story. In the 1970s I worked with an ex-Army
guy who had been stationed in West Germany. The US Army warned their
soldiers against eating the local German food, and my coworker followed
this advice until one day he was driving and went by a line of young
German boys walking to school, each with a lunchbox and a bottle of
beer. And these boys looked rosy-cheeked *healthy*. What can the Army
be thinking? Coworker stopped listening to the Army, and went native.

I have no idea what the army is thinking, at any time and about most
subjects. Maybe there was a reason for the caution and maybe there wasn't. I
find it doubtful that the army was telling those soldiers not to drink beer,
but who knows.

As I recall the story, it was the food that was advised against. But
foolishly.


As for the rosy cheeks on those kids, vascular dilation in the cheeks is
common to people of northern European descent when they drink a lot of
alcohol. The kids were probably half in the bag. d8-)

Nah. They are German; were raised on the stuff. No effect.


snip
.

It is complex. Studying the mediative pathways in endocrine functions is
one
of the bleeding edges of medical research. You and I are unlikely to be
able
to sort them out, although, as with global warming, the preponderance of
historical studies fall on one side -- the side that says hormones in
beef
are OK, in this case.

Right. If it were really that dangerous, we would have the piles of
dead bodies to prove it.

Or kiddies with tits, which seems to be a trend, and the thing that started
this discussion.

To use this, you have to show that the prevalence of kids with tits (or
any other oddity) is a factor larger than now. A percentage won't do,
as the probability of random false positives is too great.


I remain suspicious because I've seen the effects of business incentives,
which are normal and healthy in non-health-related cases, as they operate
in
the food and drug industries. They don't work in the favor of consumers,
IMO. And specific studies continue to raise a red flag here and there.

Yes, companies are biased towards their economic interests. That's why
they have to be made to prove their case. But again, it cuts both ways,
and long-term successful use is a very powerful argument, and very much
puts the burden of proof on the latecomer claiming heretofor unknown
great danger.

Sure.


More generally, we always have conflicting agendas, and one can always
accuse the proponents of the sides of bias and conflict-of-interest and
general evil. It may even be true. But this will never change, so we
have to deal with it.

That's why we have an FDA and a National Academy of Sciences who don't run
for political office.

True, but they have their own politics. We just hope that it's neutral
with respect to the question at hand.


It *will* be sorted out, because there is a billion-dollar
business awaiting the evil company that figures it out. And likely a
Nobel Prize or two.

When you figure out how it would be in the financial interest of a
company
to show that hormones in beef are bad for our health, let us know. The
opposite is true in the extreme. And that's the way the whole pharma
industry operates: there is no incentive and no money for studies that
show
a drug is bad for you. The incentive is almost exclusively to try to show
that they're good.

No, I was talking about the whole endrocrine system involving weight
control, diabetes, estrogen, et al. There is a fortune to be made here,
and someone will crack that nut. The motive is there.

And one perhaps unintended consequence is that we would find out for
sure if extra hormones in beef mattered, and why. And how.


Excuse me for trimming the rest of this message off, but I think we're
repeating ourselves. And we probably don't disagree very much, anyway. I
recognize what you're saying about the people who keep warning that the
sky
is falling, on this as well as many other issues. I just happen to apply
a
different standard of proof to matters of the things we put in our
bodies.

OK. Why would bodies be different? It's the same scare tactics.

Human bodies would be different from, say, cows, because the object is to
avoid human mortality and morbidity. That's why the whole discussion
started. Tits on kids is morbidity.

The politics of scaring people is the same, and the cows are not the
guilty parties. That is my point.


I hope we didn't make too many people fall asleep here. g

It *is* an occupational hazard.


But I have to ask: Why is ice cream sales correlated with highway
accident rate? It is true; the question is why.

Do you mean by time of year? We drive more in the summertime, especially
when it's hot enough for ice cream and to go to the beach.

Bingo! It's a very good example.

Joe Gwinn

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

snip, snip...


"Real proof of harm" is in the eye of the beholder, if you're allowing
that
the mechanism may not be known. Overall, I think the FDA has it about
right.

To the degree permitted by Congressional politics.

And who do you want making those decisions, if not elected legislators?
Merck? Pfizer? Ha!

snip mucho mas



A good example is the FDA trying to deal with German beer
(unpasturized)
and especially French raw-milk cheese (ditto). The fact that ~120
million people are none the worse for it doesn't seem to matter.

If they caused an epidemic of listeriosis, like some cheese made from
unpasteurized milk did a few years ago, they'd be yanked as fast as
possible.

Drinking raw milk is one thing, eating cheese is quite another. That
was the point.

Huh? Your own example was cheese. My example was cheese. Has the pea slipped
under another shell while we weren't looking? d8-)


Which reminds me of a war story. In the 1970s I worked with an ex-Army
guy who had been stationed in West Germany. The US Army warned their
soldiers against eating the local German food, and my coworker followed
this advice until one day he was driving and went by a line of young
German boys walking to school, each with a lunchbox and a bottle of
beer. And these boys looked rosy-cheeked *healthy*. What can the Army
be thinking? Coworker stopped listening to the Army, and went native.

I have no idea what the army is thinking, at any time and about most
subjects. Maybe there was a reason for the caution and maybe there
wasn't. I
find it doubtful that the army was telling those soldiers not to drink
beer,
but who knows.

As I recall the story, it was the food that was advised against. But
foolishly.


As for the rosy cheeks on those kids, vascular dilation in the cheeks is
common to people of northern European descent when they drink a lot of
alcohol. The kids were probably half in the bag. d8-)

Nah. They are German; were raised on the stuff. No effect.

I hope you're joking. It's ethnic Germanic peoples who demonstrate the most
noticable cheek-flushing effect from alcohol. They also have a strong
incidence of rosacea, possibly for similar genetic reasons.

More generally, we always have conflicting agendas, and one can always
accuse the proponents of the sides of bias and conflict-of-interest and
general evil. It may even be true. But this will never change, so we
have to deal with it.

That's why we have an FDA and a National Academy of Sciences who don't
run
for political office.

True, but they have their own politics. We just hope that it's neutral
with respect to the question at hand.

For the most part, these scientific bodies are made up of people whose bias
is toward evidence-based science. Political views are hard to extract from
anyone's view of the world but I don't know of any better way to do it than
the way it's being done.



It *will* be sorted out, because there is a billion-dollar
business awaiting the evil company that figures it out. And likely
a
Nobel Prize or two.

When you figure out how it would be in the financial interest of a
company
to show that hormones in beef are bad for our health, let us know. The
opposite is true in the extreme. And that's the way the whole pharma
industry operates: there is no incentive and no money for studies that
show
a drug is bad for you. The incentive is almost exclusively to try to
show
that they're good.

No, I was talking about the whole endrocrine system involving weight
control, diabetes, estrogen, et al. There is a fortune to be made
here,
and someone will crack that nut. The motive is there.

That's why Sanofi-Aventis invested a hundred million dollars or whatever
into rimonabant. Stock analysts predicted sales of $3.5 billion/yr.
worldwide. So far, it's running around $20 million/yr. in Europe and South
America, but S-A is willing to invest millions more to get it approved in
the US, so they're following up on the studies. Their stock took a hit when
the FDA decided not to approve it yet but they aren't abandoning the drug.

It is a very promising field. Think about it: You can control your weight
through diet and exercise, in most cases, or you can do it by taking a pill.
Which one is going to win, in a free market? g



And one perhaps unintended consequence is that we would find out for
sure if extra hormones in beef mattered, and why. And how.


Excuse me for trimming the rest of this message off, but I think we're
repeating ourselves. And we probably don't disagree very much, anyway.
I
recognize what you're saying about the people who keep warning that
the
sky
is falling, on this as well as many other issues. I just happen to
apply
a
different standard of proof to matters of the things we put in our
bodies.

OK. Why would bodies be different? It's the same scare tactics.

Human bodies would be different from, say, cows, because the object is to
avoid human mortality and morbidity. That's why the whole discussion
started. Tits on kids is morbidity.

The politics of scaring people is the same, and the cows are not the
guilty parties. That is my point.

Actually, you were responding to *my* point, which is that I expect more
regulatory scrutiny for things I put in my body, or anyone's body, than for
things I put in, say, the tank of my car.

But I have to ask: Why is ice cream sales correlated with highway
accident rate? It is true; the question is why.

Do you mean by time of year? We drive more in the summertime, especially
when it's hot enough for ice cream and to go to the beach.

Bingo! It's a very good example.

But see how easy it was to connect? Med-science researchers are far better
than we laymen at recognizing coincidental correlations versus those that
have a strong chance of a causative relationship. Once they smell serious
smoke, the alarms should go off. Otherwise you're putting your life in the
hands of people who just want you to buy their drugs and then go away.

--
Ed Huntress

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:06:49 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

Doctors can't tell. Consumers can't tell. Topps won't tell. Only the
government can tell.

Oh, feh. Another Gubmint worshipper.

Shudder!
Rich

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:36:17 -0500, David R. Birch wrote:
Tom Gardner wrote:

Wouldn't it be great to hold your doctor to the same standards as you hold
your car mechanic?

Know any car mechanics who can work on a car while it's running at 60
mph? Docs can't shut you off, fix you, then turn you on again.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Many years ago, I had a Ford Econoline;
my neighbor was a car guy. We took the doghouse off, and he was adjusting
my engine while we were doing about 60 on the freeway.

The look of ecstasy on his face was priceless. :-)

And don't forget - for "open heart" surgery and the like, they actually
do turn the patient off, and restart him/her when the operation is done.

Cheers!
Rich

"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:06:49 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

Doctors can't tell. Consumers can't tell. Topps won't tell. Only the
government can tell.

Oh, feh. Another Gubmint worshipper.

Tell us, Rich, how in the hell could YOU tell that it was the e.coli in the
Topps burgers? How would you know it wasn't the e.coli in your spinach? The
producers aren't going to tell you. Your doctor has no way of knowing. You
have no way of knowing.

So, what would you do, stop eating?

Use your head, man, and stop being a knee-jerker.

--
Ed Huntress

I have the FDA documents on my desk. It is from their web site documents.

I couldn't remember the source of the two color sets. And it was aborted
at great expense due to the cancer scare.

Remember - THE red Cherry company had to use a crappy red not the real
M Red kind. They were concerned their business was going the way of government
intervention.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I don't think the FDA has had it right the first or second time ever.
For years they fed us color in food and candy and ... that caused cancer.
Then when they 'discovered' it - so many people dying... so many doctors
reported problems...

You're probably refering to Red Dye #2, banned in 1976, which has never been
shown to cause any health hazards. None. Nada. Nowhere, except, allegedly,
in the old Soviet Union. It's still used in Canada and Europe, and may again
be used in the US, as soon as some new non-animal-based research methods are
perfected. FDA already is planning to re-examine #2.

Finally they switched to coal based color from oil - or perhaps it is in
reverse - and then the colors have free radicals of sulfur attached. Just
what we
need to die off earlier having these attack kidneys as they try to convert
the sulfur compound into a sulfate which is safe to MAN.

Red #2 is an aniline dye, based on "coal tar." So are most other food colors
in use today.

Yellows and 'green which is a Yellow' are serious versions.

They state that 1% of the population would die once implemented, and they
accepted that (on their web site) as justification. The number is 1% die,
and 28 or 29 in various levels of severe to the hospital to stomach and
kidney
issues.

If the kidney cannot resolve by dumping enzymes on the sulfur the free
radicals
run through the blood system. Attaching and attacking as it floats along.

Congress has never really supported this agency of the U.S. - it is housed
in many buildings across the District. But they could do better.

I firmly believe they are on the take for color and the preservatives used
in the U.S. time and time again medical and scientific people point out
the dangers to the public and they look the other way.

Their charter is to guard and protect us. They don't.
So sad. OBTW - I'm in the 1% that should die. I refuse so far once I
found
them out and take what I can to combat what the dose us with.

Virtually everything you said above is a complete fabrication by somebody,
Martin. There is no class of drugs or food additives that have been more
scrutinized by the FDA than aniline food- and cosmetic colorings. There are
no deaths attributed to their use. Someone is pulling your leg in a big way.

--
Ed Huntress



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I have the FDA documents on my desk. It is from their web site documents.

I couldn't remember the source of the two color sets. And it was aborted
at great expense due to the cancer scare.

Martin, I'm not following what you're talking about. The FDA rejected
roughly half of the aniline dyes (out of a set of around 200) that were in
use around 1960 or so, after they were given new authority and new
responsibilities to test and certify food colorants. What is it that they
supposedly did irresponsibly? That's what I couldn't follow in your last
post.

The big fiasco was over Red #2, starting in the late '60s. Which ones are
the issue, and what are you saying about what the FDA did with them?

--
Ed Huntress


Remember - THE red Cherry company had to use a crappy red not the real
M Red kind. They were concerned their business was going the way of
government
intervention.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I don't think the FDA has had it right the first or second time ever.
For years they fed us color in food and candy and ... that caused
cancer.
Then when they 'discovered' it - so many people dying... so many doctors
reported problems...

You're probably refering to Red Dye #2, banned in 1976, which has never
been shown to cause any health hazards. None. Nada. Nowhere, except,
allegedly, in the old Soviet Union. It's still used in Canada and Europe,
and may again be used in the US, as soon as some new non-animal-based
research methods are perfected. FDA already is planning to re-examine #2.

Finally they switched to coal based color from oil - or perhaps it is in
reverse - and then the colors have free radicals of sulfur attached.
Just what we
need to die off earlier having these attack kidneys as they try to
convert
the sulfur compound into a sulfate which is safe to MAN.

Red #2 is an aniline dye, based on "coal tar." So are most other food
colors in use today.

Yellows and 'green which is a Yellow' are serious versions.

They state that 1% of the population would die once implemented, and
they
accepted that (on their web site) as justification. The number is 1%
die,
and 28 or 29 in various levels of severe to the hospital to stomach and
kidney
issues.

If the kidney cannot resolve by dumping enzymes on the sulfur the free
radicals
run through the blood system. Attaching and attacking as it floats
along.

Congress has never really supported this agency of the U.S. - it is
housed
in many buildings across the District. But they could do better.

I firmly believe they are on the take for color and the preservatives
used
in the U.S. time and time again medical and scientific people point out
the dangers to the public and they look the other way.

Their charter is to guard and protect us. They don't.
So sad. OBTW - I'm in the 1% that should die. I refuse so far once I
found
them out and take what I can to combat what the dose us with.

Virtually everything you said above is a complete fabrication by
somebody, Martin. There is no class of drugs or food additives that have
been more scrutinized by the FDA than aniline food- and cosmetic
colorings. There are no deaths attributed to their use. Someone is
pulling your leg in a big way.

--
Ed Huntress

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+
Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption
=----

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:11:45 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:36:17 -0500, David R. Birch wrote:
Tom Gardner wrote:

Wouldn't it be great to hold your doctor to the same standards as you hold
your car mechanic?

Know any car mechanics who can work on a car while it's running at 60
mph? Docs can't shut you off, fix you, then turn you on again.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Many years ago, I had a Ford Econoline;
my neighbor was a car guy. We took the doghouse off, and he was adjusting
my engine while we were doing about 60 on the freeway.

The look of ecstasy on his face was priceless. :-)

Same doghouse trick works on Class A front-engine motorhomes when
you simply can't find the source of that odd noise in the driveway.

On the 60's Dodge and Ford "mid-engine"/"forward control" vans you
could take the top /and/ sides of the doghouse apart and have full
access to the sides of the engine while driving.

-- Bruce --

In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

snip, snip...


"Real proof of harm" is in the eye of the beholder, if you're allowing
that
the mechanism may not be known. Overall, I think the FDA has it about
right.

To the degree permitted by Congressional politics.

And who do you want making those decisions, if not elected legislators?
Merck? Pfizer? Ha!

I stated no opinion, merely made an observation.


snip mucho mas



A good example is the FDA trying to deal with German beer
(unpasturized)
and especially French raw-milk cheese (ditto). The fact that ~120
million people are none the worse for it doesn't seem to matter.

If they caused an epidemic of listeriosis, like some cheese made from
unpasteurized milk did a few years ago, they'd be yanked as fast as
possible.

Drinking raw milk is one thing, eating cheese is quite another. That
was the point.

Huh? Your own example was cheese. My example was cheese. Has the pea slipped
under another shell while we weren't looking? d8-)

Well, I don't recall too many stories of French falling ill due to their
cheese. Maybe there is a vast conspiracy to hide the truth -- there
were 80 million, Frenchmen, but were now down to 60 million...


As for the rosy cheeks on those kids, vascular dilation in the cheeks is
common to people of northern European descent when they drink a lot of
alcohol. The kids were probably half in the bag. d8-)

Nah. They are German; were raised on the stuff. No effect.

I hope you're joking. It's ethnic Germanic peoples who demonstrate the most
noticable cheek-flushing effect from alcohol. They also have a strong
incidence of rosacea, possibly for similar genetic reasons.

Yes, but they are happy about it. They seem to live on the stuff. It's
something to aspire to.


More generally, we always have conflicting agendas, and one can always
accuse the proponents of the sides of bias and conflict-of-interest and
general evil. It may even be true. But this will never change, so we
have to deal with it.

That's why we have an FDA and a National Academy of Sciences who don't
run
for political office.

True, but they have their own politics. We just hope that it's neutral
with respect to the question at hand.

For the most part, these scientific bodies are made up of people whose bias
is toward evidence-based science. Political views are hard to extract from
anyone's view of the world but I don't know of any better way to do it than
the way it's being done.

Ah well my experience of scientists is that they are people too, and
they do have their politics. And academic fights can be *very* nasty.

I think it was Henry Kissinger who commented something to the effect
that academic fights are particularly nasty because so little is at
stake.


It *will* be sorted out, because there is a billion-dollar
business awaiting the evil company that figures it out. And likely
a
Nobel Prize or two.

When you figure out how it would be in the financial interest of a
company
to show that hormones in beef are bad for our health, let us know. The
opposite is true in the extreme. And that's the way the whole pharma
industry operates: there is no incentive and no money for studies that
show
a drug is bad for you. The incentive is almost exclusively to try to
show
that they're good.

No, I was talking about the whole endrocrine system involving weight
control, diabetes, estrogen, et al. There is a fortune to be made
here,
and someone will crack that nut. The motive is there.

That's why Sanofi-Aventis invested a hundred million dollars or whatever
into rimonabant. Stock analysts predicted sales of $3.5 billion/yr.
worldwide. So far, it's running around $20 million/yr. in Europe and South
America, but S-A is willing to invest millions more to get it approved in
the US, so they're following up on the studies. Their stock took a hit when
the FDA decided not to approve it yet but they aren't abandoning the drug.

We wish them luck. I've read that it on average costs ~$800 million per
approved new drug. This includes the costs of the ones that never made
it.


It is a very promising field. Think about it: You can control your weight
through diet and exercise, in most cases, or you can do it by taking a pill.
Which one is going to win, in a free market? g

But it sounds ...mumble... too easy!


And one perhaps unintended consequence is that we would find out for
sure if extra hormones in beef mattered, and why. And how.


Excuse me for trimming the rest of this message off, but I think we're
repeating ourselves. And we probably don't disagree very much, anyway.
I
recognize what you're saying about the people who keep warning that
the
sky
is falling, on this as well as many other issues. I just happen to
apply
a
different standard of proof to matters of the things we put in our
bodies.

OK. Why would bodies be different? It's the same scare tactics.

Human bodies would be different from, say, cows, because the object is to
avoid human mortality and morbidity. That's why the whole discussion
started. Tits on kids is morbidity.

The politics of scaring people is the same, and the cows are not the
guilty parties. That is my point.

Actually, you were responding to *my* point, which is that I expect more
regulatory scrutiny for things I put in my body, or anyone's body, than for
things I put in, say, the tank of my car.

OK. The point isn't that regulation is necessarily bad, it's that a lot
of what we hear is an appeal to the emotion of fear, and not to reason.


But I have to ask: Why is ice cream sales correlated with highway
accident rate? It is true; the question is why.

Do you mean by time of year? We drive more in the summertime, especially
when it's hot enough for ice cream and to go to the beach.

Bingo! It's a very good example.

But see how easy it was to connect? Med-science researchers are far better
than we laymen at recognizing coincidental correlations versus those that
have a strong chance of a causative relationship. Once they smell serious
smoke, the alarms should go off. Otherwise you're putting your life in the
hands of people who just want you to buy their drugs and then go away.

Yes, this example is chosen to be tellingly obvious in retrospect, as a
teaching device. But respected researchers are forever getting tripped
up by unexpected common variables, and it isn't always so obvious. This
is one thing discussed at length in the NY Times Magazine article I
mentioned.


Joe Gwinn

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...

But I have to ask: Why is ice cream sales correlated with highway
accident rate? It is true; the question is why.

Do you mean by time of year? We drive more in the summertime,
especially
when it's hot enough for ice cream and to go to the beach.

Bingo! It's a very good example.

But see how easy it was to connect? Med-science researchers are far
better
than we laymen at recognizing coincidental correlations versus those that
have a strong chance of a causative relationship. Once they smell serious
smoke, the alarms should go off. Otherwise you're putting your life in
the
hands of people who just want you to buy their drugs and then go away.

Yes, this example is chosen to be tellingly obvious in retrospect, as a
teaching device. But respected researchers are forever getting tripped
up by unexpected common variables, and it isn't always so obvious. This
is one thing discussed at length in the NY Times Magazine article I
mentioned.

If this is what our discussion has come to -- the ideas that life if
complicated and that nobody is perfect -- I'd say we've stripped it all down
to something that no one could argue with. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

A chemical that is to be used on us is often - and really often
passed by our government on the word of the making company / industry.
When a problem occurred then they went on to test. They claiming they
can't test every pill and additive and food and ...... No room, no people
not enough of anything. Just a trusting recovery machine to me.

Some things they hold up for a while and the chem/drug company gets
congress to jump on their case.

Birth defects occur, deaths, cancers abound due to lack of understanding
that this chemical gives you pancreas cancer just by smelling it in
the process of spraying it in a yard.

Lots of garden and yard chemicals were taken off or restricted due
to people dying because of use. Proper or improper didn't matter.
My father-in-law was one. He lived a long life, but poor testing or none
killed him. The chemical that did it is restricted now.

Aspartame is one case - 1981 it was approved. GAO said it was approved ok.
It kills people or gives "Brain damage" if people with genetic disease PKU
or a pregnant woman with high levels of phenylalanine in the blood - they
can't metabolize the chemical and one of the components with it.

Sulfite's - on for greed, off for life, on for greed. banned and then allowed
once again if they must. They must most of the time. But now most label.
Ever read the long small print labels in a store ? Ha!

Sulfite is very dangerous. I helped a friend that was only partially afflicted
come back from the brink of being committed as a advanced case of Alzheimer's.
Sulfite attaches to and disables the enzymes in the brain that are used
to transmit signals from one brain cell to another. Short term memory is
halted. Long term memory is 'uploaded' into short term and it in term
is sent to the mouth.... Think of short term memory as computer cache.

Another friend has one kidney since the other one was removed due to cancer.
The kidney generates enzymes that convert sulfite's into sulfates.
He was having pain in his one and only kidney (as I did today with both of mine)
since he got a dose of sulfur. He switched to good water and began
to feel better and recover from yet another issue. It can impair liver cell ATP
energy production. In other words one gets fatigued.

Saccharin and yellow #5 contain sulfite radicals. Pickles have Yellow... even.

Sulfur kills most everything we put it on. But the FDA continues to allow
it to be used in our foods after it was banned and brought back... is wrong
for most if not all. For some it is critical. For some it is most important.

Martin



Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I have the FDA documents on my desk. It is from their web site documents.

I couldn't remember the source of the two color sets. And it was aborted
at great expense due to the cancer scare.

Martin, I'm not following what you're talking about. The FDA rejected
roughly half of the aniline dyes (out of a set of around 200) that were in
use around 1960 or so, after they were given new authority and new
responsibilities to test and certify food colorants. What is it that they
supposedly did irresponsibly? That's what I couldn't follow in your last
post.

The big fiasco was over Red #2, starting in the late '60s. Which ones are
the issue, and what are you saying about what the FDA did with them?

--
Ed Huntress

Remember - THE red Cherry company had to use a crappy red not the real
M Red kind. They were concerned their business was going the way of
government
intervention.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
I don't think the FDA has had it right the first or second time ever.
For years they fed us color in food and candy and ... that caused
cancer.
Then when they 'discovered' it - so many people dying... so many doctors
reported problems...
You're probably refering to Red Dye #2, banned in 1976, which has never
been shown to cause any health hazards. None. Nada. Nowhere, except,
allegedly, in the old Soviet Union. It's still used in Canada and Europe,
and may again be used in the US, as soon as some new non-animal-based
research methods are perfected. FDA already is planning to re-examine #2.

Finally they switched to coal based color from oil - or perhaps it is in
reverse - and then the colors have free radicals of sulfur attached.
Just what we
need to die off earlier having these attack kidneys as they try to
convert
the sulfur compound into a sulfate which is safe to MAN.
Red #2 is an aniline dye, based on "coal tar." So are most other food
colors in use today.

Yellows and 'green which is a Yellow' are serious versions.

They state that 1% of the population would die once implemented, and
they
accepted that (on their web site) as justification. The number is 1%
die,
and 28 or 29 in various levels of severe to the hospital to stomach and
kidney
issues.

If the kidney cannot resolve by dumping enzymes on the sulfur the free
radicals
run through the blood system. Attaching and attacking as it floats
along.

Congress has never really supported this agency of the U.S. - it is
housed
in many buildings across the District. But they could do better.

I firmly believe they are on the take for color and the preservatives
used
in the U.S. time and time again medical and scientific people point out
the dangers to the public and they look the other way.

Their charter is to guard and protect us. They don't.
So sad. OBTW - I'm in the 1% that should die. I refuse so far once I
found
them out and take what I can to combat what the dose us with.
Virtually everything you said above is a complete fabrication by
somebody, Martin. There is no class of drugs or food additives that have
been more scrutinized by the FDA than aniline food- and cosmetic
colorings. There are no deaths attributed to their use. Someone is
pulling your leg in a big way.

--
Ed Huntress
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"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
A chemical that is to be used on us is often - and really often
passed by our government on the word of the making company / industry.
When a problem occurred then they went on to test. They claiming they
can't test every pill and additive and food and ...... No room, no people
not enough of anything. Just a trusting recovery machine to me.

Some things they hold up for a while and the chem/drug company gets
congress to jump on their case.

Birth defects occur, deaths, cancers abound due to lack of understanding
that this chemical gives you pancreas cancer just by smelling it in
the process of spraying it in a yard.

Lots of garden and yard chemicals were taken off or restricted due
to people dying because of use. Proper or improper didn't matter.
My father-in-law was one. He lived a long life, but poor testing or none
killed him. The chemical that did it is restricted now.

Aspartame is one case - 1981 it was approved. GAO said it was approved
ok.
It kills people or gives "Brain damage" if people with genetic disease PKU
or a pregnant woman with high levels of phenylalanine in the blood - they
can't metabolize the chemical and one of the components with it.

Sulfite's - on for greed, off for life, on for greed. banned and then
allowed
once again if they must. They must most of the time. But now most label.
Ever read the long small print labels in a store ? Ha!

Sulfite is very dangerous. I helped a friend that was only partially
afflicted
come back from the brink of being committed as a advanced case of
Alzheimer's.
Sulfite attaches to and disables the enzymes in the brain that are used
to transmit signals from one brain cell to another. Short term memory is
halted. Long term memory is 'uploaded' into short term and it in term
is sent to the mouth.... Think of short term memory as computer cache.

Another friend has one kidney since the other one was removed due to
cancer.
The kidney generates enzymes that convert sulfite's into sulfates.
He was having pain in his one and only kidney (as I did today with both of
mine)
since he got a dose of sulfur. He switched to good water and began
to feel better and recover from yet another issue. It can impair liver
cell ATP
energy production. In other words one gets fatigued.

Saccharin and yellow #5 contain sulfite radicals. Pickles have Yellow...
even.

Sulfur kills most everything we put it on. But the FDA continues to allow
it to be used in our foods after it was banned and brought back... is
wrong
for most if not all. For some it is critical. For some it is most
important.

Martin, you have here a mixture of anecdotes and assertions that would
require a lot of checking. If you have legitimate research to back up the
general assertions, I'll be glad to take a look at them. As for the
anecdotes, I knew a kid who died from peanut allergy, but we still have
peanuts. I guess that means the world can't be made safe for everyone, all
the time.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...

A chemical that is to be used on us is often - and really often
passed by our government on the word of the making company / industry.
When a problem occurred then they went on to test. They claiming they
can't test every pill and additive and food and ...... No room, no people
not enough of anything. Just a trusting recovery machine to me.

Some things they hold up for a while and the chem/drug company gets
congress to jump on their case.

Birth defects occur, deaths, cancers abound due to lack of understanding
that this chemical gives you pancreas cancer just by smelling it in
the process of spraying it in a yard.

Lots of garden and yard chemicals were taken off or restricted due
to people dying because of use. Proper or improper didn't matter.
My father-in-law was one. He lived a long life, but poor testing or none
killed him. The chemical that did it is restricted now.

Aspartame is one case - 1981 it was approved. GAO said it was approved
ok.
It kills people or gives "Brain damage" if people with genetic disease PKU
or a pregnant woman with high levels of phenylalanine in the blood - they
can't metabolize the chemical and one of the components with it.

Sulfite's - on for greed, off for life, on for greed. banned and then
allowed
once again if they must. They must most of the time. But now most label.
Ever read the long small print labels in a store ? Ha!

Sulfite is very dangerous. I helped a friend that was only partially
afflicted
come back from the brink of being committed as a advanced case of
Alzheimer's.
Sulfite attaches to and disables the enzymes in the brain that are used
to transmit signals from one brain cell to another. Short term memory is
halted. Long term memory is 'uploaded' into short term and it in term
is sent to the mouth.... Think of short term memory as computer cache.

Another friend has one kidney since the other one was removed due to
cancer.
The kidney generates enzymes that convert sulfite's into sulfates.
He was having pain in his one and only kidney (as I did today with both of
mine)
since he got a dose of sulfur. He switched to good water and began
to feel better and recover from yet another issue. It can impair liver
cell ATP
energy production. In other words one gets fatigued.

Saccharin and yellow #5 contain sulfite radicals. Pickles have Yellow...
even.

Sulfur kills most everything we put it on. But the FDA continues to allow
it to be used in our foods after it was banned and brought back... is
wrong
for most if not all. For some it is critical. For some it is most
important.


Martin, you have here a mixture of anecdotes and assertions that would
require a lot of checking. If you have legitimate research to back up the
general assertions, I'll be glad to take a look at them. As for the
anecdotes, I knew a kid who died from peanut allergy, but we still have
peanuts. I guess that means the world can't be made safe for everyone, all
the time.

--
Ed Huntress




Ed,

A lot of stuff is antidotal but much of it has a basis in truth. I know
for a fact that sodium Benzoate causes my digestive system problems. I
stay away from it but sometimes it is impossible. I ate some potato
sailed with it in and had gas for two days. I never get gas even when I
eat chile with beans. Another one is calcium propionate in baked goods
and a bunch of other stuff. I break out with white pimples if I eat any
quantity of stuff that has it in it. Beef is another problem.
Sometimes it will make hands and feet swell up, sometimes it won't. When
we had our own home grown beef I never had the problem. Another problem
I have noticed since I was young was that anything with corn surrup in
it would make my muscles stiff the next day. I almost never have stiff
muscles since I try to stay away from corn surrup and any corn product.
Another thing I have found is that if I drink at lest two quarts of
water a day I feel a lot better than if I don't.

These are just my personal observations over the many years. They work
for me. The other thing I have found is that if I lift too much my back
hurts..... Warning to all you young guys... take care of your back and
don't try to prove how strong you are. My father would always tell me
to take care of my knees... My knees are in great shape, its my back
that gives me a pain now and then.


John

"john" wrote in message
...


Ed Huntress wrote:

snip



Martin, you have here a mixture of anecdotes and assertions that would
require a lot of checking. If you have legitimate research to back up the
general assertions, I'll be glad to take a look at them. As for the
anecdotes, I knew a kid who died from peanut allergy, but we still have
peanuts. I guess that means the world can't be made safe for everyone,
all the time.

--
Ed Huntress


Ed,

A lot of stuff is antidotal but much of it has a basis in truth. I know
for a fact that sodium Benzoate causes my digestive system problems. I
stay away from it but sometimes it is impossible. I ate some potato
sailed with it in and had gas for two days. I never get gas even when I
eat chile with beans. Another one is calcium propionate in baked goods
and a bunch of other stuff. I break out with white pimples if I eat any
quantity of stuff that has it in it. Beef is another problem. Sometimes
it will make hands and feet swell up, sometimes it won't. When we had our
own home grown beef I never had the problem. Another problem I have
noticed since I was young was that anything with corn surrup in it would
make my muscles stiff the next day. I almost never have stiff muscles
since I try to stay away from corn surrup and any corn product.
Another thing I have found is that if I drink at lest two quarts of water
a day I feel a lot better than if I don't.

These are just my personal observations over the many years. They work
for me. The other thing I have found is that if I lift too much my back
hurts..... Warning to all you young guys... take care of your back and
don't try to prove how strong you are. My father would always tell me
to take care of my knees... My knees are in great shape, its my back that
gives me a pain now and then.

And I double up in agony, in a fetal position, if I eat anything sweetened
with sorbitol. 'Same with monosodium glutamate. Most people don't react as
violently to those chemicals, if at all. So what should we do about it?
That's the question.

We probably could find a reason to outlaw most foods and additives if we
based it on anecdotes, John. I sympathize with your reaction to beef but
you'll have to pry those T-bones out of my cold, dead hands. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:22:41 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:06:49 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

Doctors can't tell. Consumers can't tell. Topps won't tell. Only the
government can tell.

Oh, feh. Another Gubmint worshipper.

Tell us, Rich, how in the hell could YOU tell that it was the e.coli in the
Topps burgers? How would you know it wasn't the e.coli in your spinach? The
producers aren't going to tell you. Your doctor has no way of knowing. You
have no way of knowing.

I don't eat meat raw, and it doesn't take long at all to run spinach under
the faucet.

So, what would you do, stop eating?

No, as I've said, I cook the meat, and wash the fresh vegetables. Do you
eat uncooked meat, and unwashed fresh vegetables, setting yourself up for
diseases, becauser you're depending on Uncle Sugar Daddy to watch over you?

Use your head, man, and stop being a knee-jerker.

Well, so, now, I'm a knee-jerker, just because I'm not a government-
worshipper?

Bottom line, I just don't believe in depending on a pack of liars, cheats,
and thieves to "take care of me". I'd much rather take responsibility for
my own well-being.

But that's entirely too terrifying to those who refuse to grow up.

Thanks,
Rich

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:59:44 -0700, Bruce L. Bergman wrote:

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:11:45 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:36:17 -0500, David R. Birch wrote:
Tom Gardner wrote:

Wouldn't it be great to hold your doctor to the same standards as you hold
your car mechanic?

Know any car mechanics who can work on a car while it's running at 60
mph? Docs can't shut you off, fix you, then turn you on again.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Many years ago, I had a Ford Econoline;
my neighbor was a car guy. We took the doghouse off, and he was adjusting
my engine while we were doing about 60 on the freeway.

The look of ecstasy on his face was priceless. :-)

Same doghouse trick works on Class A front-engine motorhomes when
you simply can't find the source of that odd noise in the driveway.

On the 60's Dodge and Ford "mid-engine"/"forward control" vans you
could take the top /and/ sides of the doghouse apart and have full
access to the sides of the engine while driving.


Well, this guy didn't have access to the left side, because I was in
the way. :-)

Cheers!
Rich

"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:22:41 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Richard The Dreaded Libertarian" wrote in message
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:06:49 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

Doctors can't tell. Consumers can't tell. Topps won't tell. Only the
government can tell.

Oh, feh. Another Gubmint worshipper.

Tell us, Rich, how in the hell could YOU tell that it was the e.coli in
the
Topps burgers? How would you know it wasn't the e.coli in your spinach?
The
producers aren't going to tell you. Your doctor has no way of knowing.
You
have no way of knowing.

I don't eat meat raw, and it doesn't take long at all to run spinach under
the faucet.

Running spinach under the faucet won't do a thing if it's heavily infested
with e.coli. And do you never eat salads? Do you never eat fish? Do you
never eat in a restaurant?

Problems crop up with all of those things, Rich, and with many more, despite
the levels of government regulation and inspection we have. With no
inspection and regulation, it's Katie bar the doors.

I have to admit I've never met an ideologue so pure than he doesn't want
government testing and inspecting food and drugs. I guess you guys used to
die off, before we had inspections. g


So, what would you do, stop eating?

No, as I've said, I cook the meat, and wash the fresh vegetables. Do you
eat uncooked meat, and unwashed fresh vegetables, setting yourself up for
diseases, becauser you're depending on Uncle Sugar Daddy to watch over
you?

I don't wash my lettuce with soap and hot water, which is what it would
take. Rinsing it with cold water is kind of a joke, actually. And I don't
know what in the hell they do in restaurants, but I do eat in them
sometimes.


Use your head, man, and stop being a knee-jerker.

Well, so, now, I'm a knee-jerker, just because I'm not a government-
worshipper?

No, because you jerk so quickly that you don't want anybody regulating the
crap they can put in your food or drugs.


Bottom line, I just don't believe in depending on a pack of liars, cheats,
and thieves to "take care of me". I'd much rather take responsibility for
my own well-being.

Good luck. Stay inside and boil everything in a pressure cooker. Some
bacteria can tolerate 230 deg. F. And don't buy any processed food at all,
including milled flour. Mill your own to be sure.


But that's entirely too terrifying to those who refuse to grow up.

Unlike the libertarian ideologues, I at least prefer to have a *chance* to
grow up. Of course, you've lived your entire life with that regulation and
inspection, too.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , "Ed Huntress" wrote:


Problems crop up with all of those things, Rich, and with many more, despite
the levels of government regulation and inspection we have. With no
inspection and regulation, it's Katie bar the doors.

And yet that same government refuses to permit a method of killing bacteria on
food that has been in use in Europe for a generation: irradiation. Go figure.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article , "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


Problems crop up with all of those things, Rich, and with many more,
despite
the levels of government regulation and inspection we have. With no
inspection and regulation, it's Katie bar the doors.

And yet that same government refuses to permit a method of killing
bacteria on
food that has been in use in Europe for a generation: irradiation. Go
figure.

Do you remember what happened when they started that? It was just like
"frankenfood" in Europe. People went nuts over the idea of eating food that
had been exposed to nuclear radiation. It was all politics based on
irrational fears.

The US army used it on beef. Maybe they still do.

--
Ed Huntress

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Problems crop up with all of those things, Rich, and with many more, despite
the levels of government regulation and inspection we have. With no
inspection and regulation, it's Katie bar the doors.

And yet that same government refuses to permit a method of killing bacteria on
food that has been in use in Europe for a generation: irradiation. Go figure.

Thats rather disgusting. I wonder though what the public acceptance
would be with all the "misinformation" (or is it "disinformation")
circulated by the media. It realy makes one wonder about the
intelligence of both the public and the media as well as the
government agencies.
...lew...

On Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:11:26 -0600, Lew Hartswick
wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "Ed Huntress" wrote:

Problems crop up with all of those things, Rich, and with many more, despite
the levels of government regulation and inspection we have. With no
inspection and regulation, it's Katie bar the doors.

And yet that same government refuses to permit a method of killing bacteria on
food that has been in use in Europe for a generation: irradiation. Go figure.

Thats rather disgusting. I wonder though what the public acceptance
would be with all the "misinformation" (or is it "disinformation")
circulated by the media. It realy makes one wonder about the
intelligence of both the public and the media as well as the
government agencies.
...lew...


"Alar"


Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:

"Alar"


Gunner

That was the apple spray business wasen't it? In Washingtn.
...lew...

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:53:56 -0600, Lew Hartswick
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

"Alar"


Gunner

That was the apple spray business wasen't it? In Washingtn.
...lew...

http://www.acsh.org/publications/pub...pub_detail.asp

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:53:56 -0600, Lew Hartswick
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

"Alar"


Gunner


That was the apple spray business wasen't it? In Washingtn.
...lew...


http://www.acsh.org/publications/pub...pub_detail.asp

Yep. I guess my memory isn't as bad as I thought. :-)
...lew...

I apologize for the nearly-spammish nature of this post but, I wanted to
let Too Many Tools know that he/she/it has, in fact, been able to change
the world with his/her/its initial rant on this topic.

I got to thinking about recalls. How so many of them involve China, and
how so many of them involve lead paint, and how many of them involve
companies which just don't care about the customers, and who apparently
see recalls and fines as just another cost of doing business. So I set
up a website last week, in an evening:

http://www.productrecallwatch.com/

It downloads RSS feeds from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the
FDA, the NTSB, and a half dozen other mostly government sources, and
links to the refrenced recalls. Nothing fancy but, what started out as a
"I can't find this info in one place" exercise seems to have turned into
a useful resource. Yeah, there's google ads, but I don't expect to get
rich on it any time soon, and there's no charge to use the site.

I'm going to write a "sign up for notifications for (category) or
(keywords)" as soon as I get time but it's already looking like it could
turn into a good reference.

Just for TMT, I'm going to write a "hall of shame" module which lists
the top 20 or so terms, be it "Mattell", "lead paint", "china", or some
other entity that we're apparently supposed to apologize to because
they're trying to poison our kids.

So thanks, TMT, for the inspiration. I hope it warms your heart to know
that you have, in fact, finally made a difference in the world. And to
anyone else, take a look if you want, and all comments are welcome.
And to the OT topic of the thread, if someone draws conclusions from the
hard data that I'm gathering and presenting, which changes their
purchasing patters away from people who don't care about our safety,
then I think everyone is better off. Except for the companies whose
demise only a few will regret.