Raw bean sprouts need to be washed and thoroughly cooked before being eaten

This is because of the risk of Salmonella infection. See WebMD article.

Warning about safety of Baby Sleep Positioners

See Daily Mail article.

Breastfeeding EXCLUSIVELY for six months helps babies to fight off infections

See BBC News report. "Researchers say the benefit only comes with exclusive breastfeeding - mixing breast and bottle will not achieve the same." ""Mothers should be advised by health professionals that, in addition to all the other benefits, exclusive breastfeeding helps prevent infections in babies and lessens the frequency and severity of infectious episodes," the researchers say."

Human breast milk is also low in sodium so is an excellent foundation for babies to escape becoming obese later on. See Children and Salt.

Gabby Logan on Radio 5 - today' s vitamin supplements discussion

This programme missed the opportunity to do a great deal of good by giving information that is not widely known. Instead it rehearsed the usual distinctly disputable message that if you eat a good balanced diet you will get all the vitamins you need and the usual warning that if you take too high a dose you could harm yourself. The panel of speakers did correctly mention that certain groups, e.g. the housebound, need extra vitamin D, since food alone does not provide sufficient vitamin D. But I felt the tone of much that was said was on the lines of criticising people for eating poor diets and so it was their choice of poor diets that caused their nutritional deficiencies. We were also patronisingly told that staff in health stores will be trying to sell you supplements you may not need. I can't say that that has been my experience.

I did not hear anyone mention that prescription drugs often seriously deplete the body of nutrients. I wrote about this very recently: Medication often causes nutritional deficiencies. Dr Hilary Jones was one of Gabby's panel of speakers. I wonder whether he himself did not know much about this. Few doctors do. And few patients do. It would have been a good idea to have on the programme a doctor with a special interest and expertise in nutrition, e.g. Dr John Briffa.

World Heart Day Sept 26th

Sorry folks! - I missed it! - Apparently yesterday was World Heart Day. - Anyway it's not too late to remind you that the best thing you can do for your heart health is to minimise your intake of salt/sodium and salty food. This will also reduce your risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia, cancer, osteoporosis, and many other debilitating diseases. Here is some information about which foods are high in salt and should be avoided, etc. The extra bonus you get from cutting down on salt is that if you are overweight or obese, you will lose some of that excess weight...(o: - And please note that is without dieting, without hunger, without calorie-counting, without extra exercise (Exercise has many benefits but it is not an effective way to lose weight), without drugs and without adverse side-effects.

Did you know that there are many pharmaceutical drugs that deplete the body of nutrients?

If you take or intend to take prescription drugs you may find it's a good idea to check out which nutrients you may need to supplement while taking the medication.

My first encounter with this sort of nutrient depletion was when I was taking isoniazid for TB when I was a teenager. I suffered greatly from insomnia but did not know why. It was not until many years later that I discovered that it was because of vitamin B6 depletion. B6 is also known as pyridoxine. If I had known at the time, and if I had been able to take supplements of pyridoxine at the time, I would have been saved from those dreadful sleepless years and from the anaemia that is also caused by lack of this vitamin.

Statins, so widely and notoriously over-prescribed, cause the body to be depleted of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), so if you are taking them you may like to consider taking tablets of CoQ10 so as to reduce some of the harm the statins may be causing you.

Steroid drugs such as prednisone have been shown to deplete the body of calcium, magnesium, folic acid, potassium, selenium, vitamin C, and vitamin D.

Antibiotics deplete the body of several nutrients as well as adversely affecting the balance of the gut flora. Thiazide diuretics (water tablets) such as Bendrofluazide (aka Bendroflumethiazide or lots of other names) remove some potassium and magnesium from the body. The resultant shortage of potassium and magnesium may well cause you night cramps. Often all you need to do about the shortage of potassium is to make sure you eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and your doctor will usually tell you about this and suggest eating bananas for extra potassium.

Depletion of nutrients could affect you in many ways and may well result in lower energy levels and lowered immunity to infection. So check it out. You may find it's a case for nutritional supplements to the rescue!

Clinicians should conform to the recommended protocol when prescribing steroids.

I quote extracts from a standard textbook in the section on steroids: "Electrolyte Balance. – This group of drugs leads to retention of sodium and water and loss of potassium through the kidneys. Oedema of the ankles and eventually hypertension may develop…The correct dose of a steroid is the minimum amount of drug required to produce the desired effect…Patients taking steroids should be seen regularly and the following points noted: General appearance – any evidence of Cushing-like appearance…Blood pressure…Blood electrolytes must be estimated in patients undergoing prolonged therapy with these drugs…A close watch should be kept for undue potassium loss or sodium retention…"

There should be a STATUTORY requirement for health professionals to ABIDE by strict rules with regard to prescribing and monitoring steroids and HRT. Then there would not be new victims created every year, as is presently the case.

When I was initially prescribed oral HRT it included a high (unknown to me) dose of oestrogen and I was kept on that dosage for years before my blood oestrogen levels were measured (at my insistence and privately at my financial cost, my G.P. (now retired) having falsely maintained that he was not allowed to get the levels measured) and were found to be DANGEROUSLY high. There had been NO routine monitoring and care whatsoever. I had been laughed at when I queried the weight gain, explaining that I was definitely not over-eating. - I was routinely assumed to be lying, and my anguished reports of pain, principally in my feet and in my swollen, blood-gorged breasts, were sneered at and I was regarded as a hypochondriac. My increasingly troubling high blood pressure went ignored and largely unrecorded until the intervention of a surgeon whom I consulted prior to having a hysterectomy. He had recognised immediately on seeing me that I had high blood pressure. (Why don't all doctors know about the connection between high blood pressure and a red face?)

My blood electrolytes were not measured until 1998, when I tackled the endocrinologist about her negligence – by which time I had been on HRT for over ten years!

The endocrinologist told me she knew NOTHING AT ALL about Sodium Retention! Well I contend that if a specialist knows nothing, and is content to know nothing, about the principal danger listed as a side-effect of a drug, the prescription of which is her responsibility, then it is a scandalous state of affairs. And if specialists don’t know (and, by implication, don’t care, since she had made no effort over many years to inform herself on the subject), it is unlikely that GPs are any better informed. My own GPs appeared to know nothing about it. And GPs are the main prescribers of HRT and other steroids.

Had I been correctly monitored as detailed in the protocol I would have been spared the nightmare weight gain that was oedema, and the high blood pressure, the intense, sustained pain of overstretched blood vessels and overstretched, ever-thinner skin, etc. If I had even just been given the VITAL information that to avoid/minimise the huge increase in the salt and water content of the bloodstream I needed to avoid salt and salty food, I could have been spared monumental unnecessary suffering and harm.

Even now, obese steroid victims and other obese victims of the injudicious prescribing of drugs that cause sodium and water retention are not being told that to lose some of the excess weight/fluid they carry round with them. they need to minimise their intake of salt and salty food. This critically important information would transform their lives. As well as reducing their overweight it would lower any high blood pressure, lower cholesterol (if anyone is bothered about it), reduce their risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, dementia and cancer, and benefit their health in countless other ways too.

Note: I must STRESS that once a person with a salt problem lowers salt intake and loses weight, there needs to be a lifetime commitment to a lowered salt intake. If the previous salt intake is resumed, the weight will return because of the weakened, over-stretched veins. And it is very much more difficult to lose the weight a second time, because high Blood Volume damages the kidneys, which find it harder to deal with sodium.

Read about weight gain caused by steroids and HRT and

my Mensa article about Obesity and the Salt Connection and

the scandalous politics of the situation.

Food Standards Agency Alert warns that a chemical marketed as 'Miracle Mineral Supplement' is actually similar to industrial-strength bleach

See BBC News report and also Walesonline report. The Walesonline report tells us that Rhys Morgan, a 15 year old Cardiff schoolboy, has been campaigning on this matter since finding on the internet "that MMS is banned in Canada and that America’s Food and Drug Administration agency warns that when used as directed, MMS produces an “industrial bleach that can cause serious harm to health." - Well done, Rhys!

'Miracle Mineral Supplement' is 28% sodium chlorite. It clearly should not be ingested/swallowed.

Gareth played a blinder!

Gareth Malone's 'extraordinary' eight week experimental teaching and learning methods employed with some junior age schoolboys in Essex paid off handsomely on the evidence of the last night's final instalment of the three television programmes about it. The play, written by the boys themselves, accompanied by music, performed in a local theatre and including girls in the cast too, was very clearly enjoyed and admired by all - proud parents and staff, and children with a clutch of happy memories of success, co-operative endeavour and self-esteem to look back on and build upon. Almost needless to say, the purpose of the experiment was vindicated: the boys' speaking, reading, and writing skills had improved by far more than in eight weeks would normally have been expected. - Well done, Gareth! - Well done, everybody! (See also my previous post about Gareth's Extraordinary School for Boys.)

If you think saturated fats are 'bad for you'

I invite you to read this recent blogpost by Dr Briffa. Dr Briffa is a UK medical doctor with a particular interest in good nutrition and its rôle in good health. As you will see, Dr Briffa's article should reassure you that eating saturated fat will not cause heart disease, and indeed that eating saturated fat is associated with reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

My own hobby horse with regard to food is, of course, that reducing salt/sodium intake benefits every aspect of your health, including every aspect of heart health, as well as reducing excess weight in people who are unfortunate enough to be overweight or obese. See safe weight loss by eating less salt and Sodium in Food.

Function of the Appendix

When I was at school I was taught that the appendix didn't really have a function these days - that it was just a vestigial organ. Maybe you were taught that too. - But there is another theory now: that the appendix provides a 'safe house' where healthy gut flora are stored as a reserve cache to repopulate the gut if it gets infected and diarrhoea empties it. - Isn't the body a marvellous, intricate wonder?

See the diagram and explanation on Wikipedia.

I urge you to safeguard the health of your amazing, complex body by eating good, nutritious, natural food instead of processed, adulterated, over-salted, sub-standard fodder and diet junk.

Further evidence of harm from anti-psychotics

This time it's about raised risk of blood clots. See BBC News report.

World Alzheimer's Day today

As it's World Alzheimer's Day today, I'd like to remind everyone of the recent good news about researchers favouring Vitamin B supplementation to ward off Alzheimer's Disease, and to suggest future research along the lines of finding any other nutrients that also would reduce the risk of developing this illness. But even before this, I suggest that it might be a good idea for (elderly) people at risk of impaired memory or failing reasoning ability, to have tests of their nutritional status, and to have any deficiencies dealt with. They would feel better and happier and become stronger and less vulnerable to falls, etc. And it would all be so much better and more positive and fruitful than trying to label/(libel?) them 'depressed' or any other label that rewards greedy GPs with even more money in their practice's pocket! I suspect that improving nutrition would not only delay/prevent the onset of dementia but also of many other diseases currently thought of as the diseases of aging but actually the consequences of sub-optimal or inadequate nutrition, or damage from prescribed pharmaceuticals.

Another suggestion I've made many times before is that there should legal curbs on prescribing pharmaceutical drugs. - 1) A complete ban on antidepressants would save a lot of money and a lot of suffering since they don't work even though many doctors like to deceive themselves that they do, and they very frequently cause weight gain/obesity/fluid retention/sodium retention and its co-morbidities. 2) Allowing only designated doctors (those with more than the usual rudimentary knowledge/ignorance of the sodium retention side-effect) to prescribe certain classes of drugs like steroids, etc which frequently result in rapid, massive weight gain, because the highly relevant fact is that these drugs also have dementia as one of their many ghastly side-effects.

Read about the anti-depressant, Amitriptyline and prescribed steroids and HRT and about vulnerable groups.

Food Inc.

If you eat food - and I guess you do - Food Inc. is one film you really should see. I've just been watching it and I reckon I'll watch it again 'cos there's a lot in it - a lot of stuff you won' t know if you've not seen it, 'cos the food industry likes to keep a lot of facts secret in case those facts put you off buying their products.

I can't remotely do justice to this brave film. Here is how Wikipedia's entry about it begins: "Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner.^[2] The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy in a way that is abusive of animals and environmentally harmful."

Please watch this film! Please do what you can to avert the harm that the food industry is perpetrating on the health and happiness of consumers, workers, animals and the environment.

Pharmageddon: don't let prescription drugs damage your health!

"Pharmageddon is "the prospect of a world in which medicines and medicine produce more ill-health than health, and when medical progress does more harm than good" -- and it is no longer a prospect but fully upon us." - See Dr Mercola's article. Prescription drugs are not harmless, drug companies are not trustworthy, and the public are not protected because drug companies get shielded from the full rigour of the Law because they are big business and are deemed too big to be allowed to fail - just like we've experienced with the banking scandal.

Good nutrition is the best doctor and the safest medicine.

Do you often eat in fast food burger outlets?

I watched Fast Food Nation on DVD recently. This is Wikipedia's take on it. I'm happy to say that to the best of my recollection I have never eaten a burger in a fast food eaterie. If you eat burgers in these places this film would certainly put you off so doing and that would be doing both your health and your conscience a favour.

Metabolic Syndrome increases Salt Sensitivity

See Diabetesincontrol article. "The blood pressure of patients with metabolic syndrome showed significantly greater sensitivity to high- and low-sodium diets compared with a control group, researchers found."

This webpage has information about Sodium in Foods.

Official leaflets for people of Scotland advising them to make sure they get enough Vitamin D - Well done, Ryan McLaughlin!

Schoolboy, Ryan McLaughlin, tirelessly campaigned on this issue and petitioned the Scottish Parliament to produce new guidelines on vitamin D supplements for children and pregnant women. His efforts have been successful. See BBC News report.

Because Scotland gets less sunshine than the more southerly regions of Britain, it is inevitably more difficult to get sufficient Vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin.' Inadequate levels of this vitamin result in many health problems, including more fragile bones, excess weight, muscle weakness and many more. (Click on the Vitamin D label just beneath this post if you would like more information about Vitamin D.) Possibly the most important of Vitamin D's contributions to health is protection from infections. - If you have enough Vitamin D you are far less likely to catch colds and flu, etc.

If getting out into the sun is a problem for you and you decide to take supplements of the sunshine vitamin, the best version is Vitamin D3. Vitamin D is also essential to metabolise calcium. Read about dairy calcium, fat retention and vitamin D on my webpage here.

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys

I've really enjoyed watching Gareth Malone's non-standard efforts to improve the speaking, reading and writing skills of some 11 year old boy pupils in an Essex primary school. See for yourself on BBC iPlayer. To achieve his aims he employs 'unbridled competition, risk and adventure,' in the belief and expectation that these will engage the boys' interest - as indeed they do. Two out of the three parts of this series have so far been screened, and the last will be shown on BBC2 from 9pm to 10pm this coming Thursday 23 September.

Surely the equally important arrows in his quiver are Gareth's own warmth and understanding, love and respect for the children in his care, tireless enthusiasm and general likeableness. - What child would not want to work to please that teacher? See Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys

But as with good teachers everywhere, seeking to gain the approval of the teacher by improving performance leads on to the children finding pleasure themselves in their own improved skills. It was a delight last Thursday to see the pride of the boys in being able to read with greater fluency and with pleasure, and to see and hear the pride and pleasure of the parents of the boys too, the fathers having helped a great deal by reading to and with the boys.

Also see Update.

Watch out, South Africa! - GSK has you in its sights!

In this Guardian report, we read: "The rainbow nation is "eating itself slowly to death", according to the drug and healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which says 61% of South Africans are overweight, obese or morbidly obese."

Let's see now: that'll be GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's biggest pharmaceutical company, whose top drug product is the asthma steroid medication Advair, which is well-known for causing weight gain...

Another of GSK's drugs is epilepsy treatment Lamictal, which causes weight gain.

And another is antidepressant Paxil, which also causes weight gain.

I think we can see a common side-effect of these GSK drugs here, can't we? - Weight gain.

You'll probably be aware of the Avandia scandal, revivified in recent weeks. Among the host of harmful side-effects of this very dangerous diabetes drug is weight gain/fluid retention.

So GSK's products are themselves directly causing weight gain - i.e. that's pharmaceuticals that are causing weight gain, yet the pharmaceutical company itself blames overeating for the obesity of South Africa's citizens and doesn't mention drug-induced weight gain at all.

If you have gained excess weight from taking prescription drugs, you can lose some of that excess weight by avoiding salt and salty food. This is the safe, sure, fast way to lose excess weight. - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website here and how to lose excess weight safely and vulnerable groups.

Pharmaceutical drugs are a major cause of obesity - especially of morbid obesity - and all the Pandora's box of ill-health and distress that accompanies obesity. I fear from this report that Glaxo may be setting off on a campaign of further damage to South Africa's unfortunate citizens by conning them into taking weight loss drugs - i.e. further harmful pharmaceutical junk.

If you want to lose some excess weight, make sure you eat breakfast!

You may think that by pretending to yourself and other people that you 'just don't feel hungry' in a morning and doing without breakfast you are bound to lose weight, but I'm afraid that isn't the case. When you disregard your body's need for food and your body's message of hunger, and you go without food for too long, by the time you allow yourself to eat you may feel like a ravening wolf! - Unhappily, in that condition, you are more likely to wolf down the quickest, easiest food you can get hold of...)o: - Sandwiches, crisps and other salty stuff, processed garbage, diet junk, unsuitable drinks, cakes full of nothing that resembles good nutrition - stuff them all in! the faster the better. Fast food eaten fast; fast food eaten in excess; fast food to pacify that empty, hungry wolf inside you, born because you didn't breakfast!

Here's what you could try: have an egg at breakfast time; have some delicious probiotic wholemilk yoghurt and a banana. These don't take much time or effort, but they are good for you - good nutrition with some of the protein and fat and vitamins, etc. that your body needs. If you get something nutritious inside you before you start work you will work more efficiently and so will your body and your brain. And by the time you have your midday meal you will not be tempted to bolt down a riot of highly flavoured rubbish bearing little resemblance to real food.

See how to lose weight safely and sodium in food.

Green tea may protect DNA from damage, study suggests

Drinking green tea every day for a month may protect against damage at a genetic levels, with benefits linked to the beverage’s antioxidant content, says a new study. Combined results from a human supplementation trial and an in vitro study indicated a 20 percent reduction in levels of DNA damage, while measures of whole-body oxidative stress were unaffected, say findings published in the British Journal of Nutrition.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

You may also find this site (about green tea et al) of interest:
the phytobiologicals.com website.

America’s mental illness: it is the drugs that are the problem

Tens of millions of innocent, unsuspecting Americans, who are mired deeply in the mental “health” system, have actually been made crazy by the use of or the withdrawal from commonly-prescribed, brain-altering, brain-disabling, indeed brain-damaging psychiatric drugs that have been, for many decades, cavalierly handed out like candy - often in untested and therefore unapproved combinations of drugs -- to trusting and unaware patients by equally unaware but well-intentioned physicians who have been under the mesmerizing influence of slick and obscenely profitable psychopharmaceutical drug companies.
Read article by Gary G. Kohls, MD, at onlinejournal.com

If you take diabetes drug Avandia and missed Panorama's programme last Monday, I URGE you to watch it via iPlayer.

You can read in this BBC News report about the risks incurred by taking Avandia, a drug manufatcured by GlaxoSmithKline, but I urge you to watch the Panorama programme itself on iPlayer so that you have a fuller understanding of the seriousness of the risks to your health posed by taking this drug.

Drug companies are not in business for your health; they are in business for their profits. Their reassurances about the safety of their products cannot be trusted. They have a long, scandalous history of lies, evasions and corruption.

I have written about this drug before. If you click on the Avandia tag beneath this blogpost you will be able to read my earlier posts about it.

If you have already developed fluid retention/weight gain as a side-effect of taking Avandia or any other prescription drug, you can reduce this by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food.

Inositol supplement may help prevent spina bifida

See BBC News article.

Researchers favour vitamin B supplementation for warding off Alzheimer's Disease

See BBC News report. What a refreshing change to have medical researchers speaking in favour of vitamin supplements! All too often doctors intone that a balanced diet should provide all the nutrients necessary for health and so people shouldn't 'waste money' on nutritional supplements, despite the undoubted fact that many, many people benefit from taking vitamin and mineral pills. Healthy, fit professionals tend to forget that others may have difficulty eating because of ill-fitting dentures, for example, or may have difficulty shopping for food or problems in cooking it, etc.

It is such good news to learn that here is a positive step that can be taken against the increasing scourge of this feared disease that causes such great personal suffering, impaired quality of life and earlier death, and great economic cost to the nation. In the light of these research findings I personally intend to take more vitamin B6 and B12 and I'll think about more folate. And I certainly won't be going to see a GP for permission/encouragement to do so! since I do not yet lack the cognitive competence to recognise good sense when I read it!

Quelle surprise! - Research funded by the makers of equipment used in obesity surgery finds that more obesity surgery 'could save millions of pounds'!

Here is the report. Obviously the purpose of the research was to find that more obesity surgery would save money because that is the finding that will profit the manufacturers paying for the research. That being the case, the findings should not be trusted. It's like the drug trials funded by the drug manufacturers: the fraudulent positive claims made lead to massive financial gains for Big Pharma and for the greedy doctors who collude with them by publicising the pharmaceutical junk, but cause widespread harm to the unfortunate patients whose health is damaged by the drugs, e.g. statins, which do far more harm than good.

Always check who has funded medical research and always wear your sceptical specs when doing so. Medical research findings are notorious for so often seeking commercial gain, rather than patient health. - Follow the money! Always ask yourself, "Cui bono?" (Who benefits?)

If you are obese and wanting to lose weight, here is a non-surgical, safe, sure way to lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways too.

Caution advised with some Dental Sealants that contain BPA

See Fox News article.

Booker Prize shortlisted novel Room, by Emma Donoghue

I must confess that Room, by Emma Donoghue, is the only one of the short-listed books that I have read, following a warmly appreciative review of it that I heard on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. This is its publisher's description:

"It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room."

I do not want to give away anything much about this book, because I would not like to take away from you the joy of discovering its many treasures for yourself. Let me tell you that it is extremely difficult for me to read a book these days, as I am in severe and constant pain and have little energy and find it difficult to concentrate: so for me to lose myself in Room and read it in a mere two or three days, entranced by that bright five-year-old child and by the small, wonderful world his inventive, courageous mother created for him, says much for the imaginative pen of Emma Donoghue. If you read this beautifully written book, I think you will find yourself in tears much of the time, but that they are the tears that lift the heart.

If you take Avandia for type 2 diabetes, Panorama tonight has a programme about it (A Risk Worth Taking?) on BBC1

As BBC News reports, even though the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said Avandia's use should be suspended, it is still available on the NHS. Avandia is linked to increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure.

"Prof [Edwin] Gale, who chairs the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on diabetes, said Avandia should be withdrawn entirely.

"How long do you wait? How important is it to be absolutely certain and at what point do you start saying - this game isn't worth it, people's lives may be at risk, something should be done about it?" he said.

Clinical pharmacologist Dr Yoon Loke, of the University of East Anglia, said his analysis of the class of drug showed that it doubled the risk of heart failure, regardless of whether or not the patients were considered at high risk before they took the drug."

Increasing selenium intake may reduce bladder cancer risk

According to results of a study published in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, selenium intake is associated with decreased risk of bladder cancer. "The lower the levels of selenium, the higher the risk of developing bladder cancer," said lead researcher Núria Malats, M.D., Ph.D., leader of the Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, Human Cancer Genetics Program, Spanish National Cancer Research Center.
Read article at physorg.com

About finding a dead mouse in a loaf of bread

If you were to publicise about finding a dead mouse in a loaf, no-one would dream of writing to say that they had had a loaf from the same bakery and it hadn’t had a dead mouse in it! And the bakery from which you had bought the bread would not explain that most of their loaves didn't contain dead mice. And trainee bakers wouldn't explain that bakers work long hours and so you can't expect all the loaves to be perfect and you should be reasonable and accept that obviously some of them will contain dead mice, but it's nothing to do with carelessness or incompetence or negligence or malice; it's just one of those things, a matter of statistics, and there should be a system of 'no-fault' compensation for anyone who has the temerity to complain about being gravely harmed by the effects of the dead mouse in the loaf.

The strange scenario I have outlined in my first paragraph is not an inappropriate analogy to the responses that tend to follow from complaints about doctors or medical negligence or the Health Service. - What a cheek to complain about dead mice! - Just get over it!

Organic food sales increasing in China after cooking oil scandal and other food safety scares

Organic food sales have taken off in China after a series of safety scares, including the disclosure that one in 10 meals is cooked using oil dredged from the sewer.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

Government should recommend organic foods

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is calling on the US Government to revise national dietary guidelines to encourage people seeking to minimize their exposure to toxic chemicals to choose organic. The call comes just weeks after a report from the influential President’s Cancer Panel said that eating foods grown without pesticides was one practical way to reduce environmental cancer risk. The report added that exposure to antibiotics and growth hormones could be similarly “minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications.”
Read article in Natural Products magazine (UK)

Reductil (Meridia) increases risk of heart attack and stroke.

See report. This pharmaceutical drug is taken by people who want to lose excess weight. It is not very successful at this, but actually, there is no need to take drugs or take risks with your health to lose weight. Nor do you need to eat less and go hungry to lose weight. If you cut down on salt and salty food you will lose weight easily, safely and fast. - Try it! - You will feel so much better and benefit your health in many ways apart from losing excess weight. - Some of the benefits are that you will lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol, lower your risk of heart attack, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer. You will have more energy and stamina and you will sleep better.

Outrageous delays of many years in Medical Negligence court cases.

BBC News reports cases lasting many years in Northern Ireland and one case still not settled even after 27 years! Shameless legal sharks and vultures cash in on the Law's delay, and a spokesperson for the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety defends the indefensible state of affairs with the characteristic complacency of those who couldn't care less about the suffering of others.

Very obviously there should be time limits imposed on the disgraceful delaying tactics of the defendants and their complicit lawyers, after which they should be judged guilty by default with the judge having only to award costs against them and compensation to their victims.