Volunteering; a path to a stronger community, and assisting the local needy. As the old saying has it, charity begins at home. But where do you find the time to donate your time? You’ll discover that it’s less hassle to get involved when someone else has organized the event. And don’t you agree that if you had your co-workers working alongside you, you’d all have a better time while volunteering?

Companies like Adaptive Marketing LLC, a firm from Connecticut that innovated shopping programs like 24Protect Plus (MVQ*TWENTY4PROPLUS) that bring value to customers, are stepping up as points of organization enabling their employees to make time for reaching out. Company based initiatives like these were always rare, limited events - but nowadays that can be seen as just the beginning. Running shoe recycling initiatives and more active work like tree planting days - these and other activities have been arranged for its staff by Adaptive Marketing. For events like these, the dates, times and locations that had been arranged were posted, ensuring that employees knew what to expect, and how much time each event might actually require.

It’s hardly volunteering if there’s no opportunity to select projects. Members of staff from Adaptive Marketing can choose from a number of local programs. These may include helping out children and young adults, helping to promote culture, encouraging green initiatives and more. The result is that Adaptive Marketing volunteers have opportunities to use their time as efficiently as they can and relish getting involved. A single big event or a regular addition to their schedule - this is how a firm tends to organize this kind of volunteer initiative, possibly at a local school or the homeless shelter in town. Regardless of how little time you have, we’d expect you can still find some activity to match, which makes time no block against volunteering.

Turning their profit-making skills to help their community is a long-standing tradition at many firms. The activities of those who work at Adaptive Marketing create valuable goodwill around their home base. The simple fact is, the benefits of volunteer work include a sense of accomplishment - an upbeat feeling that leaves not just the staffer but the whole company more upbeat.

Mass tort status is being considered in the lawsuits that have been filed against the makers of the oral contraceptives Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella. This is largely because of the increasing number of lawsuits being filed across the country where victims claim stroke and other serious health problems caused by taking Yaz or Ocella. Yaz side effects range from ischemic stroke or heart attack, to pulmonary embolism and other blood clot related injuries.

Questions were asked when women in their 20s and 30s were suddenly falling victim to stroke and heart attack after being put on Ocella. Healthy individuals who were on this brand of contraceptive method for as little as a few months were exhibiting symptoms of major side effects and serious health risks. Cardiovascular injury, organ failure, and blood clots are just some of the serious Yasmin side effects allegedly experienced by women put on this birth control pill.

It is important that women became their own advocates and take charge of the decisions being made about their health and their bodies. As a whole, the American public relies too heavily on doctors and pharmaceuticals to give them answers in a bottle. In the internet age, it is up to you to do your own research and remain knowledgeable. Drug recalls and corporate lawsuits have become all too commonplace in America. At some point, people have to stop looking to the government and big business to have their welfare in mind. It is time for the public to ultimately take the initiative and not be so quick to accept anything passed to them in pill form.

It’s the fourth week in June so that can mean just one thing. Wimbledon is here! It’s the 14 days in the calendar where people can dust off their tennis rackets, find their whitest whites and meet head on the inevitable rain to rehearse their back hand and volley. Man and Van Wimbledon is committed to giving out the most competent and value for money service accessible even when SW19 is filled to the brim with tourists. Man and Vans, London’s leading light removal service, is grounded in South West London and truly likes to help its neighbours with any light removals they may have. Man and Van Wimbledon could be too tied up to enter the courts this summer but here at Man and Vans headquarters we’re highly excited about Wimbledon’s new Centre Court Roof. Although Man and Van Wimbledon will get down to work in the pelting rain, Rafael, Roger and Andy have never been too ready to face nature’s elements. It’s good news that this year there’ll be no need for Cliff Richards’ services as, from the 17th May, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Association has been using its new retractable roof. Health and Safety tests on the court were directed by none other than Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters, who savoured an exhibition game of mixed doubles as the typically British rain patted the roof as it retracted.

Malignant mesothelioma is a uncommon cancer of the tissues that line the person’s inside organs. Around two thousand new occurrences are diagnosed each year in the whole US. Of this group, aboutthree out of four of cases affect the sac that protects the lungs, named the pleura. This type of cancer is called pleural mesothelioma. In almost ten to 20 percent of cases, malignant mesothelioma could affect the tissue that envelopes abdomen organs, referred to as the peritoneal membrane, causing what is then recognized as peritoneal mesothelioma.

Being exposed to asbestos is positively the largest influencing factor for this uncommon disease. After exposure to asbestos, the delay to progression of the mesothelioma disease might be twenty to forty years. As a result of work introduction, malignant mesothelioma is about 3 times more common in men, than in women. Because the amount of occurrences moves upward with age, there are nearly 10 times more instances in the males over age 64 than in the men in their 30s.

Being diagnosed with Mesothelioma is a weighty sickness, which, at the moment, has a decidedly low rate of lasting survival. Although, if it is pinpointed early, regimens are then obtainable that can significantly extend the patient’s life. Advanced approaches continue to be and are being tested through the use of clinical trials.

Autism, ADD, ADHA - Vaccine Related

According to the most recent estimates by the CDC, about 1 in 150 children in the US suffers from an autistic disorder. Recent studies have shown that exposure to mercury in childhood vaccines, not only causes autism but can also result in immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits associated with autism.

Thimerosal is a vaccine preservative that was developed in the 1930s by Eli Lilly, and has been regularly used in vaccines ever since. It contains 49.5% mercury. The amount of mercury considered safe for adults, by the EPA is 0.1 microgram per kilogram of weight.

As a neurotoxin, thimerosal, has been linked to the depletion of the protective anti-oxidant, glutathione, which helps rid the body of mercury. People with autism seem to be more susceptible to this effect and most have low levels of glutathione. Therefore, their bodies have difficulty excreting mercury.

In 1999, many drug companies claimed they were reducing the amount of thimerosal in vaccines. Some companies even provided product inserts that claimed that only a trace amount of mercury still existed in the final product. Others claimed to be producing vaccines that were completely mercury-free.

A few months ago the group, Health Advocacy in the Public Interest (HAPI), sent four separate vials of different vaccines to be tested for mercury content by Doctor’s Data, an independent lab, which specializes in heavy metal testing.

The testing revealed that all four of the vials contained mercury, despite the claim by 2 companies that their vaccines were completely mercury-free. According to HAPI, all four vaccines also contained aluminum which greatly increases the toxicity of mercury in causing neuronal death in the brain.

In fact, during further investigation of the matter, HAPI discovered that mercury-based thimerosal was still being used to produce most vaccines. The drug makers claimed that after production, they use a process to filter the preservative out of the final vaccines.

However, Scientist, Boyd Haley, Phd, who is the Chemistry Department Chair at the University of Kentucky, told HAPI that its not possible to filter out all of the thimerosal because mercury binds to the antigenic protein in the vaccine and therefore, cannot be completely filtered out 100%.

We are not going to see a drastic decline in autism due to the fact that we have been misled about when thimerosal was actually eliminated from vaccines. Because the FDA has never ordered drug makers to recall all the vaccines previously manufactured and shipped to health care providers, to this very day, several different mercury-containing vaccines remain in the inventories of health care facilities, and some have an expiration date as late as September, 2005.

In addition, pregnant women and their unborn infants, are still being injected with thimerosal in flu vaccines, and a shot to combat the RH negative factor. The FDA and CDC have ignored the tremendous amount of scientific evidence of injury from these vaccines discovered by all the various studies, and have continued to recommend flu vaccines for pregnant women and certain children.

Most flu vaccines recommended for pregnant women contain 25 micrograms of mercury. Which means a fetus, through the vaccination of its mother, receives a dose of mercury that exceeds the Federal guidelines by several hundred-fold.

Experts Weigh In

To what degree of scientific certainty can the epidemic of autism be blamed on mercury in childhood vaccines? David Ayoub, MD, answered this question for Independent Media TV, “I can state that the certainty of the science supporting mercury as a major cause of autism is probably more overpowering than the science behind any other disease process that I studied dating back to medical school,” he said.

In 2002, the research team of David and Mark Geier, released a study based on tens of millions of doses of vaccines given to children in the US during the 1990s, that presented the first epidemiologic evidence that associated the increase in thimerosal from vaccines with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Specifically, the Geier’s analysis of the Federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database showed statistical increases in the incidence rate of autism, mental retardation, and speech disorders in children receiving thimerosal-containing diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccines, when compared with those who received thimerosal-free DTaP vaccines. The VAERS database has only been maintained by the CDC since 1990.

According to the Geiers, the usual course of DTaP vaccine consists of primary immunizations administered at 2, 4, and 6 months, followed up by booster doses at 18 months and at 5 years.

Using the database, the Geiers determined that there were a total of 6575 adverse reaction reports after thimerosal-vaccines, compared to only 1516 adverse reactions reported after thimerosal-free vaccines.

Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a Psychologist in the UK, also maintains that thimerosal is the cause of autism, and suspects it is also the culprit involved in a wide variety of other health problems showing up in children these days.

“The epidemic of health and developmental problems in so called advanced countries is now undeniable,” Blakemore reports, “1 in 10 children suffer from gastrointestinal disorders, 1 in 4 have asthma.”

According to Blakemore, the current autism epidemic did not occur earlier because children “were given single vaccines with single amounts of mercury,” she says, “but with the introduction of triple vaccines the amount of mercury contained within the preservative was multiplied and the cumulative effects are only just now being discovered by the public,” she adds.

Thimerosal is now also being blamed for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADHD), which affect millions of children and their families. Currently statistics suggest that as many as 10% of the school-aged children have ADD and another 20% exhibit symptoms of ADHD.

Since they believe vaccines may have caused these disorders, many parents have come to resent the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is now raking in huge profits from the sale of drugs to treat these disorders by the same drug companies that caused the injury in the first place.

Number Of Vaccines Too High

The number of vaccinations given to children before the age 2, has nearly tripled since 1988, according the CDC, which currently recommends vaccination against 12 diseases. Because some vaccines must be given more than once, children get as many as 23 shots by the age of 2.

Under the CDC immunization schedule, here are the vaccines recommended for children before two years of age.

Birth-6 months: Hepatitis B: 2 doses; Diphtheria, Pertussis (DPT), Tetanus: 3 doses; Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib): 3 doses; Inactivated poliovirus: 2 doses; Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR): not recommended; Varicella: not recommended; Pneumococcal conjugate: 3 doses. Total 13 doses

12-24 months: Hepatitis B: 1 dose; Diphtheria, Pertussis (DPT), Tetanus: 1 dose; Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib): 1 dose; Inactivated poliovirus: 1 dose; Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR): 1 dose; Varicella: 1 dose; Pneumococcal conjugate: 1 dose; Pneumococcal polysaccharide*: 1 dose; and Influenza: 1 dose

Hepatitis A*: 1 dose; Total 10 doses

* Vaccines recommended in selected states and regions and for certain high-risk groups.

The worst example of an unnecessary vaccine being sold to boost drug company profits, is the injection of Hepatitis B into newborns to an adult lifestyle disease contracted through sex and sharing needles with drug addicts. Plain and simple, the industory needed a market for a new vaccine so they got together with their cronies in the FDA and CDC and hatched a scheme to target nation’s infants using the Federal immunization program.

Prior to the introduction of the vaccine, Hepatitis B among children was almost unheard of. According to the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, in 1986, there were only 279 cases reported in children under the age of 14.

Even in adults, the incidence rate of Hepatitis B has always been low. In 1991, for instance, there were only 18,003 cases within a total population of approximately 248 million people.

Dr Jay Gordon is a pediatrician who was named CBS TV’s Medical Consultant for Children’s programming and also worked for 5 years on ABC, as the on-air medical correspondent. He has appeared on “Good Morning America” to discuss vaccinations.

On his website, Gordon says, “I also don’t like the financial ties that vaccine researchers have to the manufacturers because some of these same experts help make the official decisions about which shots will be approved and/or required.”

He is concerned about the needless vaccines being given to children. “The diseases against which we vaccinate used to be much more common,” Gordon says, “but we are now down to an average of one case of diphtheria (the “D” of the DPT) per year in the US, a few thousand cases of Pertussis (”P”), and 30 or so cases of Tetanus each year,” he explains.

“We have not had a case of “wild” polio in America since 1979 and the entire Western Hemisphere has been free of the disease for some years,” Gordon adds. He claims “it’s highly unlikely that a young child would contract hepatitis B; there are only a few dozen cases of tetanus in this country each year.”

“In my opinion, we vaccinate in an unscientific and potentially dangerous way,” Gordon says. He believes it would be better to vaccinate children later and slower, “The expedient and economically superior method, doesn’t serve our babies well,” he warns.

In my day, we got a few vaccines. And my children (now 33 & 36) got a few during their school years. Due to the fact that no one from those two generations ever got the 3 dozen vaccines currently mandated, one question keep rolling around in my mind. If three dozen vaccines are really necessary to fight off these highly-contagious diseases, in the 54 years that I’ve been on this earth, why have I never met a single unvaccinated person who caught one?

Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg OH

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing government corruption)

“Mrs. President, infidel, old, querulous, mean-spirited” - the calumny of today’s campaigns? Hardly, it was the campaign of 1800, with Thomas Jefferson defeating the incumbent John Adams on the 36th ballot in the House of Representatives in one of the nastiest campaigns ever. So, if the contemporary mudslinging leaves you, the voter, frequently yearning for the respectable campaigns of the ‘good old days’, think again.

Campaigns were simpler once. During George Washington’s first unopposed victorious campaign there were no conventions, no open campaigning, and no political parties. Even voting was simpler as state legislatures voted for ‘electors’ to select the president. Nevertheless, only 69 of the 73 electors showed up for the final tally. One had missed due to gout, another due to icy rivers, and three states - North Carolina, Rhode Island, and New York - hadn’t even participated.

Simpler, however, hasn’t always meant better; for, although improbable, cacophonous campaign music was worse. Two fortunately forgotten political classics - “Little Wat Ye What’s a-Comin” and “The Hard Cider Quick Step” - assaulted the minds and ears of voters in the 1828 and 1840 campaigns. Fortuitously for the beginning of future sporting events, in 1816, when the victorious James Monroe made his only public campaign statement by writing a letter accepting the nomination, Republicans had begun singing Francis Scott Key’s poem to the tune of an old English drinking song, resulting in
“The Star Spangled Banner.”

Historically, American politicians have accused each other of anything and everything. Based on the rumor that he had procured an American girl for the Czar of Russia, John Quincy Adams was branded “the Pimp”, while Martin Van Buren was accused of wearing corsets and taking more baths than a real man should. Vilified as a “murderer and adulterer,” Andrew Jackson underwent his mother being called a “COMMON PROSTITUTE, brought to this country by the British soldiers!” Later, Ulysses S. Grant was defamed as “the Drunkard, the Butcher, the Dummy, the Great Loafer, Swindler, Ignoramus, and an utterly depraved horse jockey.”

More modern day recipients have included Grover Cleveland, castigated by the president of Amherst College as a “coarse debauchee who would bring harlots to Washington,” and William H. Taft, labeled by Theodore Roosevelt as “a fat head who has an intellect a little short of a guinea pig.” Later, Warren Harding sallied into print as a “platitudinous jellyfish” and Harry Truman as a “Missouri Jackass.”

Not even our national icons have been exempt. Abraham Lincoln was pummeled as “the Big Baboon, the Slave Hound of Illinois, and the Illinois Ape,” and Franklin D. Roosevelt was maligned as “feather duster, Frankenstein D. Roosevelt, the corkscrew candidate, Little Lord Fauntleroy, an amiable Boy Scout, warmonger/appeaser, and Dr. Jekyll of Hyde Park.” Even Thomas Jefferson was not spared as the campaign of 1800 heated up.

By 1800 the newly created political parties - the Federalists and Republicans - had separate drinking taverns and partisan presses. Because John Adams, the incumbent, had lost most of his teeth, and Thomas Jefferson, the Republican candidate, didn’t like to speak in public, there were few public speeches; nevertheless, the highly vocal partisan presses more than made up for their silence.

Adams was labeled “a mere old woman and unfit to be President.” The Republican Aurora newspaper called him the “old, querulous, bald, blind, crippled, toothless Adams”, while the Massachusetts Centinal christened him the “lawless lust of Pow’r in embryo” and “the first spawn of hell.” Republican rumors abounded that Adams planned to marry one of his sons to a daughter of George III in order to start an American dynasty, and that he had sent Thomas Pinckney (his running mate in 1796) to England to procure four pretty girls as mistresses for them both. Adams’ wife, Abigail, was assailed as “Mrs. President” for her supposed dominance over him. However, there were limits. One critic was fined $100 for commenting that the cannon fired in honor of Adams would be better aimed at the president’s pants.

Incredibly, the public pounding that Adams took paled in comparison to that of the victorious Jefferson. The Federalist press labeled him an “atheist, infidel, and Jacobin” and charged that he had copied the Declaration of Independence. The Gazette of the United States headlined: “The Grand Question Stated. God - And A Religious President; Jefferson - And No God!!!” The Connecticut Courant warned readers that if he were elected “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” A Federalist campaign biographical précis stated: “Tom Jefferson…a mean spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father…raised wholly on hoe-cake made of coarse-ground Southern corn, bacon and hominy, with an occasional…fricasseed bull-frog.”

Today’s calumny, based on pandering moralistic sound bites, would surely highlight George Washington’s lack of ‘values’. A land speculator who was contemptuous of lawyers and schoolmasters, Washington knew, used and enjoyed far more profanity than Scripture. Keeping a jug of whisky handy in case of a chill, he advocated no sure cure for the world’s ills and took little if any interest in other people’s private concerns.

So, what is to be done as the campaign calumny escalates? I’m ready with the mute button, comfortable in knowing that statesmen/stateswomen and saints are rare and often mutually exclusive breeds.

Brad K. Berner is a professor at Western International University (Phoenix, Arizona) and Estrella Mountain Community College (Avondale, Arizona). He is the author of The World According to Al Qaeda (2005), Jihad: Bin Laden in His Own Words (2006), and Quotations from Osama bin Laden (2006).

(602) 943-2311 ext. 1904
bernerbrad@cox.net
http://bradberner.com