Why does every damn thing have to be contaminated by synthetic scents?

Laundry never smells clean any more. It smells of artificial 'freshness' or something - from either the wash stuff or the conditioner stuff or both. - And the smell never seems to wear off! It permanently poisons the air in our homes.

Dry-cleaning these days smells especially vile! - Not from the toxic dry-cleaning fumes themselves so much, as from the disgusting stink that is sprayed on to cover up the cleaning agent odour. - I'm going to have to give some just-cleaned garments to charity because I simply cannot bear the lingering, noxious stink.

Heaven knows why people want to spray Febreze on mucky stuff to pretend it is clean! - I'd rather smell the muck than the ghastly cover-ups!

Bring back CLEAN! - Just plain CLEAN!

I've been reading The Death of Grass by John Christopher

I've been reading The Death of Grass by John Christopher, which a friend lent/gave me recently. But this is not a book review: just some thoughts about the book.

 

The Death of Grass, a short, apocalyptic novel from the 1950s, posits a dystopian future in which nation states have pressed their farmers to change to an almost worldwide growth crop of 'grass'. The 'grass' in the UK is mainly wheat. The 'grass' in China is, of course, rice. Other countries grow their own national 'grass'. 

 

Monoculture is always a risky undertaking, and so it proves in this novel. When a deadly virus attacks the rice crops in China, and the scientists who had been expected to be able to overcome the problem, gradually find it beyond them, widespread famine/starvation/death results, and once-fertile ground becomes barren. Nearby countries find, courtesy of the wind and other dispersal agents, that their grassy crops become infected too. Eventually the wheat in Britain, where the story is set, becomes contaminated. There is too little other food to feed a nation and everyone has to try to survive as best they can, and by whatever means, abandoning as they must, moralities they previously followed.

 

This book was remarkably prescient. The threat of agrarian monoculture in this century is here already in parts of the world. I read only today in The Ecologist, of the threat to Paraguay's small farmers, "suffering social and environmental ills from the country's meteoric rise in soya farming." I urge you too to read the article and learn how today, in reality and not in fiction, the ruthless agrochemical GM/biotech industry is wreaking havoc on real farmers and on the environment. And I hope that if you do not already oppose the genetic engineering of crops, that you will consider doing so. Everyone's fate may depend on curbing the malign power of Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry.

Chile stands up against Monsanto

"On March 21, the Chilean Transparency Council stood with its citizenry against Monsanto and other global seed corporations to protect Chileans' right to know about genetically engineered (GE) crops. The Council's decision ensures that farmers, beekeepers and rural residents can find out exactly where GE crops are planted — basic information that is critically important as they seek to protect their farms, apiaries and families from toxic pesticide drift and contamination by pollen from GE plants."
Read article on the Pesticide Action Network North America website

Energy saving light bulbs emit carcinogens when switched on

Read the report in the Telegraph. It is by no means the first time that there have been reports of cancer-causing chemicals in energy saving light bulbs, as you will see if you type something like 'light bulb cancer warning' into your favourite search box. But it has become a greater and more pressing problem for us now because of the "EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year." There is also the big problem of the mercury that is contained within these bulbs. The mercury may well become a big contamination problem on landfill sites of the future. We little realised the multiplicity of costly, harmful problems that being a member of the EU would prove to be, when, with no mandate to do so, a former Tory government signed us into membership of this wasteful, kleptocratic and dangerous federation.

Should you avoid using products containing the antibacterial chemical triclosan?

I think I'll do my best to give it a miss after reading this WebMD article. Mind you, I do routinely try very hard to avoid unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs and iffy chemicals and I deplore the way they are used ever more widely and inappropriately.

Contamination problems in canned foods and in pharmaceutical drugs...

New Scientist Short Sharp Science Blog: Total Recall - New Scientist

Extracts:

"If we can send people to the Moon, why can't we make canned chilli that's safe to eat? That's the question that's on my mind today as I read about the recall of various types of canned chilli, beef stew and other meat products from the Castleberry Food Co. company, which is based in Augusta, Georgia, US. Inspection officials reportedly said on Thursday that the dangerous botulism toxin found in cans of the chilli sauce might have resulted from an equipment malfunction.

Great. So now, on top of spinach, peanut butter, olives and tomatoes, here's another food I'll eat with trepidation, at least in the short term. It certainly doesn't help that the US Food and Drug Administration is overwhelmed and has recently scaled back the number of food inspectors it employs."

"Roche Pharmaceuticals announced this past June that some batches of an AIDS drug called Viracept produced at its Swiss plant contained a dangerous chemical. The company reportedly says that the recall affects 45,000 patients worldwide. The New York Times describes how poor people in developing countries face a horrible dilemma: "The recall has left those patients with the painful choice of discontinuing a lifesaving medicine, or using a drug that might contain a dangerous contaminant.""

With regard to the dilemma caused by possibly contaminated pharmaceutical drugs. the best course surely is to transfer our trust from Big Pharma to good nutrition.

Reducing salt in food to an absolute minimum, and eliminating unnatural chemicals that would never normally be present in food and drink, would be a boost to good health and the body immune system.

IMO, Big Pharma's products do far more harm than good and are really of benefit only to the shareholders.

Contaminated Aids drug, Viracept, recalled.

Contaminated Aids drug is recalled throughout Europe - Guardian

Extracts:

"An unprecedented emergency recall of all stocks of an Aids drug in the UK and the rest of Europe was ordered last night because the tablets contain a dangerously high level of a cancer-causing chemical.

All those taking the drug Viracept are being asked to see their doctor immediately so that they can be prescribed an alternative medicine.

Investigators are trying to find out what happened at the plant in Switzerland where Viracept is manufactured. It is understood that the contamination could have occurred in March and affected supplies of the drug for three months. That would mean large quantities of contaminated drugs have already been consumed."

"Roche, the Swiss manufacturers, said last night that some 550 people were on Viracept in the UK. It is one of the earlier antiretroviral drugs and most people who were on it will now have been switched to something newer. But there will still be many thousands on Viracept across Europe, particularly in less wealthy countries.

It is also widely used in Africa since campaigners fought a long battle in 2002 to persuade Roche to drop the price there. They succeeded in the following year."

"Roger Pebody, treatment adviser of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said that anybody taking the drug should not miss a dose, because it can lower the effectiveness of the virus suppression, but should contact their doctor immediately.

"It is essential that people who are taking it go to their doctor immediately in the next day and work out with their doctor the best way to proceed," he said. "That is putting people under a lot of pressure but you would not want to leave off one or two doses.""


Boost your body's natural defences against infection by cutting down on salt and salty food!

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
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