Fetal Stem Cells Cause tumor

I was purusing the articles on ABC news, and I was surprised to see that a headline that said fetal stem cells cause tumors in his spine and brain.
Quote from the article:

"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.

"Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways, it just is going to take a good deal of time" to prove how best to pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.

I think that we need to stop emphasizing embryonic stem cells and use adult stem cells. We keep finding negative things about these embryonic stem cells.

Update on Soy Online Service

Last week, I posted a comment by a reader who questioned the validity of Soy online service's source information and wrote me saying so. The reader did not like how my article relied on soy online service for so much of my information.

I felt that the reader's claim was worth investigating, because I feel it is important to be able to verify the veracity of my sources.

Here is the email I received,

Hi Emily...There are about 200 citations in
www.soyonlineservice.co.nz Every one of those scientific research reports is
from the USA NIH PubMed data base and is linked back to the summary
abstracts. If you use those links you will see at the head of each are the
names of the researchers and the scientific laboratory where the research
was done

After reading this, I went to investigate, and saw that there were numerous citations to pubmed, Journal of Reproduction, etc. I concluded from this that soy online service is a reliable source.

Wonderful Youtube video

I was on natural news, and I came across a Youtube link of a 12 year old girl who makes some really good points about abortion and why it is not a good thing.

Aside from the content, I feel that this young girl represents a portion of children who are actually intelligent and can present themselves well. She did an excellent job and I thought I would post about it here because I was completely ecstatic to see someone so young being able to express themselves in such a positive and intelligent manner. I think this kind of thing is lacking in our society. Any way, here is the video:

Vaccines

Obama has really been bringing change! But not in a good way. I was reading this on naturalnews today and I thought it was really disturbing.

http://www.naturalnews.com/025608.html

It is about the economic stimulus bill that is being proposed before congress. All I have to say is oh boy, and that this is not going to be good!

Recent News

Everyone has heard about the new-mother of eight, Nadya Suleman. And I just wanted to add my two cents to the conversation.

First and foremost, I want to say that I do not agree with the decision she made to have go through in-vitro fertilization in order to have more babies. She already has six children, and is currently unable to afford to care for her children and is a single mother (I am not saying it is bad to be a single mother, but I do think it is wrong for her to bring 14 children in the world without a father.) That is a given, just about everyone, with the exception of Ms. Suleman, can agree that her decision was unwise, selfish, and impractical.

What I do not agree with are the ideas that her children must be taken away from her, that she should have aborted those babies, or (more frighteningly) her actions should be illegal. What she did was, as stated previously, selfish, silly and wrong; however, it is not, and should not be illegal!

I firmly believe that people have the right to make their own decisions in life: whether stupid or not. Her case is a special one, and should not be used to bolster up the idea that we should be able to limit the amount of children one can have.

Let's really look at this: she is clearly an unstable woman who has an unnatural fixation of babies. The person who is really at fault here, and who we should be castigating is the doctor who performed this procedure. He was really at fault, because there is no way she would have conceived these children without his unscrupulous aid. He knew that she had six other children, possibly that another specialist had turned her away, yet he proceeded with the procedure! How outrageous! He should have recommend she get help! She didn't need eight mroe children, she need someone who could help her get through this fixation!

But then who could help her? Obviously, psychiatrists would do nothing more than prescribe some pill to help her. May be there was something in her diet or in her lifestyle she could/should have changed in order to correct the problem.

All in all, I am trying to say, let's not get fanatical and start calling it a crime to produce as many children as we desire--whether it is wise or not. This is not China, and we need to remember that.

Comment I received....

A few weeks ago, I received a comment about my article on the dangers of un-fermented soy products. The comment reads,

I came here after reading your article on soy on the Natural News website. I found your article interesting as I - like many others I expect - had read much about the health benefits of soy. So I decided to read more and follow the source links at the bottom of the article.

That led me to the 'Soy Online Service' which you have extensively used for references in this Blogger post and in your Natural News article. What I saw there worried me. 'Soy Online Service' describes itself as: "a small group of private citizens with a mission to inform the public of the truth about soy". Looking around their website, there is no information on who this group of "private citizens" are or what their qualifications are. They denigrate soy with references to "independent research" but don't provide any source references and don't publish any research reports on their site.

Their "testimonials" attacking soy seem to be too well written to be true (they look like they are professionally written), and there seems to be an underlying theme through many of them about how bad soy tastes (that seems strange because to me soy has a fairly bland taste).

I am therefore wondering, just wondering, given that website is based in New Zealand, whether we are all being hoodwinked not by a group of "private citizens" but by a group of "dairy farmers".

I am not challenging your observations on soy, because I haven't researched the issue enough myself, but I am concerned that you are basing your articles on what appears to be quite unsubstantiated sources.

There is so much 'information' and 'counter-information' about natural health (you know, one day there's an article about how bad coffee is for you, the next day there's another one that says quite the opposite) that I have learned to be skeptical from both sides, but there does seem to be far more independent research published supporting the health benefits of soy against research that says the opposite (and I am excluding research financed by the soy industry).

One thing that I do know is that everyone's bodies react to different foods and substances in different ways. Even some healthy foods can't be tolerated by some people, so it does not surprise me that you may have had problems with soy. But I am wondering whether what you read on the 'Soy Online Service' was simply what you wanted to hear. It's easy to be convinced in that frame of mind.

Me . . . I'm much more of a skeptic about anything I read on the Internet - especially a website where people are not prepared to identify themselves or their experience.

I would just like to say that I think that you are right to be skeptical and worried about where this information is coming from--it is a sign that you are an invested reader and do not blindly take information at face value. I find it interesting that you find limited sourcing for their articles. This is going to be a matter I will have to look in to in the future.

I thank you for your honest criticism, and I would just like to assure you that my conclusions about soy were not solely reached from this one website: I have been gathering information, both personal and scientific, from varying sources over the years. I used soy online service just as kind of a reference to which a lot of the things I had read about were found.

Thank you again!

Fermenting and Super Bowl

I am so excited! I just started making my first bactch of beet kvass! I hope it turns out well because I had one little concern: I used the kind of whey that Sally Fallon used in the book, but I think there might be too many milk solids! I hope that is not the case.

Also, I used a different brand of sea salt than was mentioned in the book. I hope that is not going to affect the final product because I have read some stories on how the batch can be too salty. I am also scared of it becoming alcoholic! Oh so many fears! It is my firts time lacto-fermenting anything other than milk (which is pretty easy) so I am a little nervouse! All I can do is wait and pray that every thing turns out alright.

I also am making a huge batch of kefir. I need to drink more, but I think I might have made a mistake on that as well. Typically, I only fill the container half-way up so I can easily mix the kefir, but this time I filled it almost to the top. I fear that kefir grains are sitting in the cream and not in the milk! I will stir it as soon as I get home. Oh well, you live and learn.

I ordered some new books, (I think I am addicted to Amazon shopping!). I am going to get a book about keeping, milking, and caring for a cow and I also purchased the milk book by Dr. William Douglass! I read some of quotes from his book in Nourishing Traditions and I thought to myself, "I absolutely have to get this book!" I am also excited that I am getting the latest edition of The Untold Story of Milk! I cannot wait!

This may seem frivilous to some, but in a world where our food supply is heavily tainted, unjust wars going on in the Middle East, chaos in our economy, one must take pleasure and seek relief amongst some of their favorite hobbies, and one of mine is football!

I love my Steelers and I am ecstatic they won the superbowl on sunday! I am a little saddend that I could not attend the victory parade; however, when they win their seventh title, I will go and celebrate with my townsfolk! Go Steelers!

Update on Jan. 29th post

A very informed and thoughtful reader posted a comment on that post and gave a link to a wonderful website that exposes and details the flaws of this latest study.

Thanks again to the reader, sites like the one you gave really help further knowledge and truth.

Here is the address: http://www.ageofautism.com/

and the link referring to the latest study:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/01/an-addendum-to-februarys-first-read.html