Author: Jenny

I am a public health nutrition counselor with fifteen years experience in the field of prenatal and early child health and lactation education (breast feeding support). Autoimmune disease, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and genetic defects that can cause nutrient deficiencies are also research interests.
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Glyphosate was found in vaccines; and tips for reducing dietary exposure

The nonprofit organization Moms Across America paid to have five types of vaccines tested in an accredited laboratory for the presence of the herbicide glyphosate. The chemical, which was originally patented as an antibiotic and mineral chelator, has never been tested or marketed as an injectable drug. Vaccines are injected directly into the blood stream which bypasses the protection of the gastrointestinal system.

The World Health Organization has advised that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen and it may affect hormones which would make it dangerous potentially for pregnant women and their expected infants:

“Honeycutt continues, “The public must know that their vaccines likely contain glyphosate, a toxic weed killer, which is acknowledged by the EPA as a “reproductive effector” ( i.e.: endocrine disruptor) which “can cause liver and kidney damage” and has been shown to be a neurotoxin. The WHO has deemed glyphosate a probable carcinogen.” – Moms Across America

The MMR II vaccine by the Merck company was found to have the highest level of glyphosate, 25 times more than what was found in the other four types of vaccines that were tested: “had levels up to 25 times higher than the other vaccines, at 2.671ppb.” The MMR II vaccine has been associated with autism as an adverse reaction (possibly due to an encephalitis reaction which then leads to the more extreme brain damage seen in patients with autism).

This supports the theory discussed by Professor Seneff, that glyphosate may be in vaccinations due to the use of animal products in the gelatin based Petri dishes in which the antigens for the vaccinations are grown. The theory suggests that glyphosate is similar enough to the amino acid glycine that it may be being built right into the protein structure of the animals body parts which include the collagen that is used to make gelatin. The glyphosate would be acting like a puzzle piece that kind of fits in one side of the protein but has the wrong shape on the other side of the puzzle piece so no other pieces of the puzzle can be added afterwards. One part of glyphosate would fit well into the protein structure but then another part wouldn’t be able to do what glycine does – which is donate methyl groups – which can help protect against cancer.

Some genetic canaries in the coal mine, such as myself, may have errors in the methylation cycle that disrupt the glycine function without needing any help from glyphosate. While filling my vitamin boxes for a week’s supply I was reminded that one of the supplements I added after getting my genetic methylation cycle results is . . . DMG . . . which is Dimethylglycine. I’ve been taking one of the capsules in the morning and one in the evening — but there is no guidance for how much of it I might need with my particular genetic defect.  My favorite phrase – or least favorite: “More research is needed.” Current information available suggests 2 grams of glycine per day may be a typical amount provided by the diet but ten times that amount may increase health benefits, no toxicity upper limit has been set; https://draxe.com/glycine/

Professor Seneff included tips for how to possibly reduce your exposure to glyphosate and some strategies that have been used on farm animals who were made sick by acute exposure to glyphosate.

Professor Seneff’s slides for her discussion lists”Some Important Nutrients“:

  • Curcumin
  • Garlic
  • Vitamin C
  • Probiotics
  • Methyl tetrahydrofolate – (this is the bioactive form of folic acid)
  • Cobalamin
  • Glutathione
  • Taurine
  • Epsom salt baths  [My how to tips for Epsom salt baths]

She also recommends:

  • “Get Grounded” — ie work on general lifestyle and stress reduction strategies;
  • Eat organically grown foods whenever possible;
  • Eat foods containing the mineral manganese; (as glyphosate is a mineral chelator which may limit manganese’s availability for essential functions.) She mentions a few foods and shares an image which appears to include: organic whole grains, seeds, organic tofu and other beans, shellfish, tea, dark green leafy vegetables. This list provides more information — for example cardamom and pumpkin pie spice are sources of manganese:  http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000126000000000000000.html
  • Eat foods containing sulfur; (and/or take the Epsom salt baths which would supply magnesium and sulfur.) She mentions a few foods and shares an image which appears to include: beer, cabbage, organic eggs, especially the yolk, crab, shrimp and scallops, cheese, onions, garlic, organic liver, chicken, and something I’m not going to try to guess. Based on this list of the sulfur content of many foods the image may include a picture of dried apricots:  http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/info/books-phds/books/foodfacts/html/data/data5g.html

Professor Seneff speaks very quickly, I may have missed some of her tips for trying to protect yourself from exposure to glyphosate.

She includes information about extracts from common plants that can treat glyphosate poisoning including:

“Extracts from common plants such as dandelion, barberry, and burdock can protect from damage, especially if administered prior to exposure.”* (*C Gasnier et al. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 2011, 6:3). [https://occup-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6673-6-3]

And cows with glyphosate poisoning have been treated with:

“Activated charcoal, bentonite clay, humic and fulvic acids, and sauerkraut juice have been shown to be effective in reducing glyphosate and improving animal health.“** (** H Gerlach et al., J Environ Anal Toxicol 2014, 5:2). [http://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/oral-application-of-charcoal-and-humic-acids-influence-selected-gastrointestinal-microbiota-2161-0525.1000256.pdf]

See the research papers for more detail and a functional medicine professional may be able to help guide individualized treatments with some of the items that are mentioned such as activated charcoal– but seek guidance, professional help is recommended even when using natural treatments.

/Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./

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The herbicide glyphosate is similar to glycine, an amino acid

The herbicide glyphosate was originally patented as an antibiotic and as a mineral chelator (a protein that can bind and transport minerals). It has been in use as an agricultural herbicide since 1975. However it’s use greatly increased in the last ten years since genetically modified Round-Up Ready crops were developed. A professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been researching glyphosate and it’s possible role in the development of autism.

Professor Seneff gave two presentations at an Autism One conference earlier this year. The PowerPoint slides to the lectures are available in links included in the Tweets below, click these links for the pdfs to each video: people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/2016…

The first video includes more information about the chemical similarity between glyphosate and glycine. Glycine is an amino acid that provides methyl groups. Glyphosate is very similarly shaped but has an extra side chain and it wouldn’t provide methyl groups. It is possibly similarly shaped enough, however, for glyphosate to be incorporated into the structure of proteins instead of glycine. It would be like a puzzle piece that fits into another piece but won’t allow any other pieces to be added. Glyphosate may fit in glycine’s spot within a protein but then wouldn’t provide any methyl groups and the extra side chain could interfere with receptor function – like having an extension cord with prongs that no longer can fit into an electric socket because the socket is already blocked with something else.

The risk to health if this is true could be significant. Many proteins contain glycine and any one of them might be important in a variety of ways which glyphosate could disrupt. This is in very early stages of research but the impact could also affect vaccinations because the collagen used to culture material for vaccinations could contain glyphosate instead of glycine if the animals from which the collagen was obtained had been raised with feed containing glyphosate residue.

Zika virus that grew in an environment that contained glyphosate might have it incorporated into proteins instead of glycine which could be making the disease far more dangerous prenatally than it had been in past decades before glyphosate became widely used. Zika infections had not been associated with microcephaly until recently. The second video goes into more detail about how glyphosate could be making Zika more dangerous.

Professor Seneff explains in more detail about the glycine/glyphosate similarity in the first video:

I will get back to this topic after rewatching the videos and taking notes on the recommendations she makes about food and lifestyle strategies for reducing glyphosate exposure or reducing glyphosate levels that may be stored within the body.

9/20/2016 Update: See the following posts for more about glycine and glyphosate:

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.

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End Citizens United and reform campaign finance and voting systems

My Presidential Platform is a plan to turn that “E” for Health and Wellness from a failing grade into an E for excellance.

  • Effective Health Care – a preventative healthcare, not-for profit single payer system.
  • Economy & more Green Jobs.
  • Environment & more Green Jobs.
  • End the War on Peace.
  • End Citizens United & reform campaign finance and voting transparency laws
  • Education — Repeal or rewrite the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top policies to create a public education system that promotes helping the child to maximize their own potential – whatever it is. — Require all under graduate education providers to teach evolution and a science based curriculum. — Reduce college tuition loan rates and work towards restoring public education subsidies for in state college tuition.

The Supreme Court Decision in the Citizens United case allowed nearly unlimited donations to flood elections throughout the nation without heeding state or local boundaries. Judicial elections have also been affected by increased donations or campaigning by PACs. Ending the Citizens United decision that created corporate personhood and allowed businesses to donate to political organizations would be the right thing to do because corporations aren’t citizens and don’t have the right to vote and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to donate to elections whether they are ‘people’ or not. I also don’t think nine humans should be allowed to create a new class of ‘people’  – but that isn’t up to me, so I’ll stick with the fact that corporations certainly aren’t citizens and they don’t have the right to vote.

Getting big money out of elections might help get more citizens elected who would be invested in helping create a sustainable government that supports a healthier environment and viable economy for current citizens and for the future rather than invested in lobbyist’s goals and prewritten bills. Reducing influence of  money and lobbyinsts could help effective health care by reducing risk of laws being influenced by profit goals rather than health goals.

Voting and election rules also need to be strengthened. Gerrymandered districts should be redrawn and prevented in the future. Voting by absentee ballot rules should be made simpler for working people or a national holiday should be scheduled in support of getting more voters out to vote. Transparency of electronic voting systems should be required in order to reduce the risk of voting machines being able to be hacked or otherwise tampered with.

Providing government and nonpartison funded forums for campaigns and restricting commercial advertising by campaigns could bypass the issue of money in elections by reducing the cost of campaigns. Less expensive campaign costs could allow a wider variety of candidates to run and provide a more fair representation of the voters.

To be con’t.

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.

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The U.S. scores on the 2016 Social Progress Index have dropped

Compared to 133 other nations the U.S. ranked fifth for GDP per capita which would make the U.S. one of the richest nations however citizens may not be benefiting from the wealth as much as citizens in some other developed nations.

“Worse, the U.S. joins China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia in a group of countries that significantly underperform on social progress relative to their wealth. The U.S. is the only major industrial nation to significantly underperform in this way. By contrast, countries such as Costa Rica, Nepal, and Malawi have much lower levels of economic and social development than the U.S., but these countries are overperforming. They are doing a good job at turning their GDP into social progress; the U.S. is not.” [“Why Americans are So Angry Despite America’s Strong Economy,” Michael Green, Aug. 2, 2016, hbr.org]

The rankings for the 2016 Social Progress Index are based on the total group of 133 nations so fifth out of 133 for GDP per capita would be equivalent to 3.76 out of 100 or roughly 96% out of 100 which in the U.S. educational system would be graded as an ‘A’.

Other categories, reranked for grades based on percentage of a 100, would place the U.S.:

  • in the ‘A’ group for “Access to advanced education” (ranked 2/133 or 1.5/100) (2017 1/128) and “Shelter” (7/133 or 5.3/100) (2017 10/128)
  • and an ‘A-‘ for “Opportunity Total” (13/133 or 9.8/100). (2017 13/128)

The U.S. might get graded:

  • a ‘B+’ for “Personal Freedom and choice” (16/133 or 12.0/100) (2017 19/128)
  • and a ‘B’ for “Social Progress Overall” (19/133 or 14.3/100) (2017 18/128) and for “Access to info/communication” (19/133 or 14.3/100) (2017 27/128) and for “Basic Human Needs Total” (21/133 or 15.8/100) (2017 17/128) and for “Tolerance and inclusion” (21/133 or 15.8/100), (2017  23/128)
  • and a ‘B-‘ for “Personal Rights” (26/133 or 19.5/100). (2017 19/128)

And the U.S. might get graded:

  • a ‘C+’ for “Water and sanitation” (27/133 or 20.3/100) (2017 27/128) and for “Personal Safety” (27/133 or 20.3/100) (2017 21/128),
  • and a ‘C’ for “Foundations of Well-Being Total” (32/133 or 24.1/100), (2017 29/128)
  • and a ‘C-‘ for “Environmental Quality” (36/133 or 27.1/100) (2017 33/128) and for “Nutrition and basic medical care” (37/133 or 27.8/100). (2017 36/128)

And the U.S. might get graded:

  • a ‘D+’ for “Access to basic knowledge” (40/133 or 30.1/100). (2017 30/128)

And the U.S. might get graded:

  • an ‘E-‘ for “Health and Wellness” (69/133 or 51.9/100). (20177 34/128)

At some point the U.S.’s failing grade on Health and Wellness will make it difficult for the nation to continue to have enough healthy workers to pay for the care of the sick and disabled citizens let alone provide enough caregivers to continue to be able to take care of all of the people unable to care for themselves. Enforcing the purchase or provision of health insurance doesn’t automatically provide more health care professionals or provide more health care facilities — let alone assure that the care that is being provided is actually effective at resolving the underlying health issues rather than simply managing symptoms with treatments that might be exacerbating the underlying issues.

And what if the problem with the poor showing on “Health and wellness” isn’t just an ineffective or understaffed health care system but is actually a problem with excessive negative chemicals in our food supply and environment? It would be difficult to remain healthy in an environment that provides excessive amounts of toxins and insufficient nutrients to cope with the needs of detoxification adequately.

Or maybe U.S. citizens simply all started eating too much and exercising too little sometime around 1992 and the halving of male fertility is just a fluke (not quite halved – 1.7 children on average in 1992 dropped to 0.9 children on average between 2006-2010) *. Maybe. Coincidences do happen — and more and more often it seems in this modern era. But as I don’t believe in coincidences as much as I believe in evidence based science I’ll continue to avoid the toxins that I’ve become aware of and continue to work on sharing information about the underlying causes of health and wellness (the big secret is that functional bodies are made out of a balanced variety of all of the nutrients, {and a good night’s sleep and regular exercise and clean air and water}, rather than being made out of pharmaceuticals or toxins .)

*Excerpt from the last post:

  • Male fertility in 1992 was estimated to be at a rate of 1710 births per 1000 males on average (or 1.7 children per male aged 15-44) and 1960 births per every 1000 females (or 1.9 children per female aged 15-44). https://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0014.pdf
  • However either fertility has decreased or the desire to father children has decreased because the rate of children fathered by men aged 15-44 years in 2002 was at a rate of 1.0 children per male and the rate dropped yet more to 0.9 children per male aged 15-44 years between 2006-2010.  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf

A different excerpt (that was not included in the last post) suggests that fertility rates for females as well as males born in the U.S. may also have been affected because fertility rates were greater for Hispanic men and women who had moved to the U.S. compared to Hispanic women who were born in the U.S.:

“Looking at nativity, higher percentages of foreign-born Hispanic men and women had a child compared with those born in the United States. For foreign-born Hispanic women, 78% had a biological child compared with 51% of U.S.-born Hispanic women. The percentage of U.S.-born Hispanic women with a biological child is similar to that of white women.”  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf

The birth rate for Hispanic women and men was greater than for white women and men:

“Hispanic women are more likely to have had a biological child (65%) than non-Hispanic white women (52%), but there were no differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic black (62%) women. Meanwhile, a higher percentage of Hispanic men had a biological child (54%) compared with both white (41%) and black (49%) men.”   http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf

If tradition is important to a person then it might be a good idea to start asking why our traditions are no longer working as they traditionally used to – maybe foreign born people have greater birth rates because their bodies are less full of toxins and less nutritionally depleted.

The primaries are finally over and I haven’t withdrawn from the 2016 presidential race – yet. I was waiting for the primary process before starting to campaign as an Independent candidate – but that was too long to wait. The current system favors the two main parties by spending so much time on the primaries. The timelines for ballot access are closing soon or have closed already in some states. [Utah] Write-in ballot access can be applied for in some areas within a month or two of the election. For a presidential candidate to apply for ballot access as a write-in candidate they need to file with the state and include a list of registered voters in the state who are willing to act as electoral representatives for the candidate and the name of the Vice Presidential candidate has to be given.

Writing in Bernie Sanders name on a ballot if he hasn’t filed with the state is most likely to get the whole ballot added to the ‘don’t count’ pile. Leaving a section blank and voting on other sections may reduce the risk of a ballot being added to the ‘don’t count’ pile.

My Presidential Platform is a plan to turn that “E” from a failing grade into an E for excellence.

  • Effective Health Care – a preventative healthcare, not-for profit single payer system.
  • Economy & more Green Jobs.
  • Environment & more Green Jobs.
  • End the War on Peace.
  • End Citizens United & reform campaign finance and voting transparency laws
  • Education — Repeal or rewrite the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top policies to create a public education system that promotes helping the child to maximize their own potential – whatever it is. — Require all under graduate education providers to teach evolution and a science based curriculum. — Reduce college tuition loan rates and work towards restoring public education subsidies for in state college tuition.

Effective health care and more Green Jobs for the Economy and Environment are all goals that reinforce each other — we can’t be healthy or very productive over the long term if our environment and food supply are too toxic to support health for us or our wildlife and farm animals and crops.

I will add links for more information regarding each of the platform categories.

Here’s the website with the page of 2017 data for the U.S.. Any of the countries can be chosen from a menu and displayed.  https://www.socialprogressindex.com/?tab=2&code=USA 

More about the organization and the Social Progress Index is available on another website. Collaboration and encouragement to make local level or special interest Indexes is part of the goal and examples of a youth index and regional index are available on the site.  http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/about-us-what-we-do/

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.