Four Health Myths You Probably Believe Are True

Antibacterial Cleansers Keep You Healthy

Most people know by now that the orgy of antibacterial dish, body and laundry soaps that emerged in the 2000s do less to protect people from germs than to build new and better germs via antibiotic resistance. They also know that such bacterial overkill   (soap and water work just as well) is at the basis of the "hygiene hypothesis" theory of childhood allergies that says a too clean environment with no exposure to microbes subverts the immune system.

But who knew that the germ killers in such products, called endocrine (hormone) disrupters, are the same pesticides that are producing frogs with no penises in polluted streams?

Studies show that one "antibacterial" agent nee pesticide, triclosan, breaks down into chloroform with tap water and dioxin in the environment, impairs thyroid function and lives in human breast milk, urine and blood. When Dr. S arah Janssen, a staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, spoke in Chicago last year about the health risks of triclosan and other endocrine disruptors in consumer products, many went home and filled garbage bags with Ajax and Palmolive antibacterial dish detergents, "deodorant" bar soaps and Colgate's Total toothpaste. Yes, people are brushing their teeth with pesticides.
Meat, poultry and even fish ave grown with antibiotics by Martha Rosenberg

Meat Is Safe If You Cook It

There are knowns and unknowns when eating meat products to quote a former defense secretary. Thorough cooking kills pathogens like E. coli, salmonella, listeria and campylobacter but what about veterinary drugs, pesticides and heavy metals like copper and arsenic? Are they dug in with the A1 Steak Sauce?

Yes according to a 2010 Office of Inspector General report. Of 23 pesticides designated by the EPA and FDA as high risk, the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service only tests for one and in just six months, four carcasses with "violative levels of veterinary drugs" were released onto the public dinner plate.

"Farmers are prohibited from selling milk for human consumption from cows that have been medicated with antibiotics (as well as other drugs) until the withdrawal period is over; so instead of just disposing of this tainted milk, producers feed it to their calves," says the report, sounding more like PETA than the U.S. government. "When the calves are slaughtered, the drug residue from the feed or milk remains in their meat, which is then sold to consumers."

FDA records corroborate the OIM report finding Templeton Feed & Grain and Darr Feedlots sold antibiotic-tainted animal feed and Land Dairy and Martin Feed Lot sold cows with sulfamethazine in their livers as food. Bon Appetit.

After Mercury Exposes, Tuna and Sushi Are Safe

Is your tuna filled with mercury? Over five years ago the Chicago Tribune said unequivocally yes. "The tuna industry has failed to adequately warn consumers about the risks of eating canned tuna, while federal regulators have been reluctant to include the fish in their mercury advisories -- at times amid heavy lobbying by industry," said the paper. Three years later, the New York Times found similar contamination in area sushi.

But rather than tuna mercury warnings for people other than pregnant women and children   and more distance between federal officials and the industry they are supposed to regulate, tuna fish consumers got...more studies.

Last year Time magazine reported 100 samples of both lean red tuna and fatty tuna from 54 restaurants and 15 supermarkets in Colorado, New Jersey and New York, exceed recommended amounts of mercury.

And this year Consumer Reports says every tuna sample tested at an outside lab "contained measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million. The Food and Drug Administration can take legal action to pull products containing 1 ppm or more from the market. (It never has, according to an FDA spokesman.)"

In fact mercury-filled tuna is so rampant, it was what inspired Fischer Stevens to make the Oscar winning-documentary about the Japanese dolphin fishing industry, The Cove, he told NBCLA, when he personally came down with mercury positioning after eating tuna three or four times a week. Which made him question the entire seafood industry.

Sun Screens Always Reduce Cancer

 1  |  2