Hi Everyone, here is Dr. Group's Quote of the Month:

"There is tremendous power not only in the words that we speak to others, but also the words that we 'speak' to ourselves. Repeat the following affirmations to yourself daily: I love and thank you GOD right NOW and every second of every day for everything you do for me; God gives me abundance to BLESS, TEACH and LOVE other people NOW and every second of every day; I forgive myself and others right NOW for any negative thoughts, wrongdoings or actions; I am living In Perfect Health – My cells are filled with God's Light, Sound and Blessings right NOW and every second of every day."
--- Dr. Edward F. Group, III, DC, ND, DACBN

Editorial

We hope you find this issue of Alternative Health & Healing full of information that we be helpful and useful to you and your family. We do urge you to take the action required to let the FDA and Wyeth Pharmaceutical know that you want to be able to choose your hormone replacement therapies and that bio-identical hormones can and do work effectively without harming the body. Wyeth would love to be the only manufacturer of bio-identical hormones thus making it necessary that you have a prescription for the use of natural progesterone along with the added expense of a doctor's office visit to get the script. We suspect that with everything that is going on with CODEX we will begin to hear more and more about vitamins and supplements being attacked and discredited. Get ready and don't believe every "study" that you hear about on the nightly news and please feel free to contact us about any information that you may need clarification about.

We have been very busy at GHC up-dating a couple of our internet sites. Please take a look at www.skin-care-support.org and www.fibromyalgia-suppport.org Let us know how you like the "new" look and feel of the sites. Our new Fibro-Balance product will be out soon and the GHC Newsletter family will be among the first to know the official launch date.

For most in the United States, February is the coldest month of the year, reminding us that it will still be a while before the arrival of Spring. Enjoy and keep warm during these cold days and evenings and as always be sure to pass on this issue of Alternative Health & Healing to your friends and family.

Take Care & Be Well

Alternative Health & Healing Editors
www.ghchealth.com

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McDonald's French Fries Have More Trans Fats Than Ever Before

McDonald's recently announced that its French fries contain a third more trans fats than was previously thought.

Each serving of fries contains 8 grams of trans fat, rather than 6, and the total fat content is 30 grams rather than 25.

As Little as Possible
Trans fats are believed to cause cholesterol problems and heart disease. Dietary guidelines issued by the U.S. government advise people to consume as little trans fat as possible.

Changing the Taste
In countries such as Australia, Denmark, and Israel, McDonald's cooks its fries in canola oil, which contains no trans fats. However, the company is reluctant to make the switch in America, for fear of changing the taste of its fries.

Yahoo News February 8, 2006

Comment from Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I hate to focus on McDonald's as they do many things right and I respect them as a business. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars.

The average American spends 90 percent of their food money on processed food, and many wonder why we have an epidemic of chronic degenerative disease.

If these statistics are surprising to you, I would encourage you to read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. It is a fascinating read and a great expose on McDonald's.

The following facts are taken from the book: In 1968 McDonald's had 1,000 restaurants, today it has about 30,000 and opens 2,000 new ones each year. In fact, McDonald's is the largest owner of retail property in the world. The company earns most of its profit from collecting rent, not from selling food.

McDonald's is the nation's largest purchaser of:

• Beef
• Pork
• Potatoes

It is also the second largest purchaser of chicken.

The impact of McDonald's is hard to overstate. The golden arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.

And if you are a parent, you know all too well that every month 90 percent of American children between the ages of 3 and 9 visit a McDonald's, where they receive massive doses of soda. McDonald's sells more Coca-Cola than anyone else in the world.

More evidence that the promise McDonald's made to find a safer oil to rid its foods of trans fats has been long forgotten.

From a nutritional standpoint, all the chemicals contained in a single French fry may be more harmful to you than smoking a cigarette, which is why fries made my list of the five worst foods you could possibly consume.

Please remember trans fat is one of the worst "foods" you can put in your body and should be rigidly avoided at all costs.

Trans fats have only been around for the last 100 years, introduced as an artifact of the food processing industry. Ninety percent of trans fats are hidden. They are in many of the processed foods Americans eat, not just margarine.

Trans fats lead to a major increase in cancers, arthritis, fatigue and nearly all chronic illnesses. Trans fats are also an enormous instigator of diabetes, which is dramatically increasing.

The recent statistics show that over 16 million Americans have diabetes, and it is becoming an epidemic largely due to the shift in our food choices.

If you want to review a good primer on trans fat, you should read "Trans-Fat: What Exactly is it, and Why is it so Dangerous?" I also recommend the page-turner, "Trust Us, We're Experts," by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber if you are looking for insight on "facts" and "truths" in the marketplace.

With all the unhealthy ingredients used at fast food restaurants, the key to winning the battle against them is to simply not go. You can only fool your body for so long. Thus, it is a virtual certainty that if you subsist on fast foods, you are accelerating the aging process and compromising your health.

If you absolutely have no alternative then you can modify your selections by always avoiding the French fries and soft drinks, especially diet soda. When you choose a hamburger, ask for it without the bun. Many fast food restaurants now offer this as an option.

However -- if you want to really get healthy, you need to spend some serious time in the kitchen preparing your own food, or pay someone to do it for you.

New Survey Shows Cardiologists Aware of Life-Saving Diet, Yet Failing to Recommend It

by Healthy News Service

Wider Use of Vegetarian Diet Would Result in Fewer Surgeries and Deaths from Heart Disease; Studies Show Patients Transition Easily to New Diet

WASHINGTON-A pilot survey of cardiologists reveals that most know about the life-saving potential of a truly low-fat vegetarian diet for heart patients, but fail to recommend the diet in the mistaken belief that patients will not comply. Published studies actually show that patients transition fairly easily to a low-fat diet that contains no animal products, and most rate this diet as "good" or "extremely good." If cardiologists' knowledge of the acceptability of the vegetarian diet were equal to their familiarity with its efficacy, the result would be improved patient care and fewer deaths.

Instead, most cardiologists responding to the survey recommend the standard omnivorous low-fat (up to 30 percent of calories from fat) diet, which recently made headlines for its role in the Women's Health Initiative study. Omnivorous low-fat diets have not proven effective for treating or preventing heart disease. To experience dramatic improvement, heart patients must consume a diet that contains less than 15 percent of calories from fat and excludes saturated fat from animal products.

"Patients hospitalized with life-threatening cardiac conditions should be advised by their doctor that they could head off another heart attack by switching to a low-fat vegetarian diet," says report coauthor Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D., a senior nutrition scientist with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and an assistant professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina. "Dietary changes reinforced by a doctor's recommendation will make it even easier for patients to make simple changes that could add years to their lives."

Ninety-one percent of responding cardiologists were either "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with the research supporting very low-fat cardiac diets, the survey found. In 1990, cardiologist Dean Ornish, M.D., changed cardiac care forever with a study published in The Lancet showing arrest and even reversal of heart disease with a very low-fat vegetarian diet. Other researchers have published similar findings.

The simplicity of a vegetarian diet that excludes animal products appeals to people busy with work and family, and many familiar recipes are easy to adapt. At least four studies published in peer-reviewed journals show that patients give the low-fat vegetarian diet a high rating in terms of acceptability.

Provided by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on 2/16/2006

Playing With Numbers – Part One

by Ralph Moss, Ph.D

"Huge."
"Historic."
"A milestone."
"A first."
"A dramatic turning point."
"No small matter."

If you listened to the mainstream media last week, you might have thought that the end of cancer was in sight. The cancer death rates are down at last, we were told, for the first time in over 70 years. "It's a notable milestone," said Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society (ACS). "That's momentous news," said Andrew C. von Eschenbach, director of the US National Cancer Institute. "It proves that our expectation of continued progress against cancer is well founded."

When you look more closely at the statistics in question, however, you find that the advance is more symbolic than substantive. A review of US death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the number of cancer deaths had dropped to 556,902 in 2003. In the previous year it had been 557,272. That represents a decline of 370 deaths. That's right, just 370 out of 557,272 cases, or around seven hundredths of one percent (0.066) between 2002 and 2003. At that rate, cancer deaths in the US should be entirely eliminated by the year 3508, which is a little more than 1,500 years from now.

While deaths fell in men by 778, at the same time they rose by 409 in women. Didn't hear about that, did you? In an alternate universe, the headlines might have read: "Cancer Deaths Among Women on the Rise!"

There was really not much new in this news. In fact, the death rates for several kinds of cancer have been falling slightly for about a decade, a fact that has been easily discernable in the annual graphs published by the ACS. However, apologists for conventional therapy jumped on the latest bandwagon and tried to attribute this minuscule change to improvements in diagnosis and treatment. I will clarify why I do not feel this is a likely explanation.

Changes in Therapy?

The most noticeable change in cancer statistics over the last few decades has been the decline in deaths from stomach cancer (gastric carcinoma). In 1930, the US death rate from gastric carcinoma in men was around 38 per 100,000. Today, it is around 6.9 per 100,000 for men and 3.4 per 100,000 for women. But this dramatic decline had little or nothing to do with improvements in diagnosis or treatment; indeed, outside of radical surgery for early stage disease, there are still no effective treatments for most cases of gastric cancer. Adding chemoradiation after surgery will only extend life by an average of nine months (Macdonald 2001).

Experts are unsure of the reason for this demographic shift, but some attribute the falling stomach cancer death rates in the US to a variety of environmental causes, such as better food preservation, better dietary habits, and a down turn in Helicobacter pylori infection associated with dietary improvements.

The most precipitous death rate decline in recent years started around 1990, when lung cancer deaths among men began falling. The rate has continued to drop steadily ever since. Many commentators have pointed out that most of this decline can be attributed to a reduction in cigarette smoking. In 1965, 42 percent of all American adults age 18 years and older smoked; in 2003, only 22 percent smoked. Although 45 million Americans continue to smoke cigarettes, the decline in smoking has been reflected in a parallel drop, albeit delayed, in lung cancer mortality among women as well as men.

In other words, cancer incidence and deaths rates tend to change over time, and that can be independent of any new treatments or diagnostic procedures. To suggest, without evidence, that the decline is due to improved medical care is simply unwarranted, and smacks of self-promotion.

Prostate Cancer Rates

Prostate cancer deaths have also declined since 1990, but here the reasons are even less clear. I think it is premature to declare that this decline is due to more widespread screening or to more effective treatments. In fact, a recent large study concluded that screening men for elevated levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) or utilizing the older technique of the digital rectal examination (DRE) does not actually save lives. John Concato, MD, and colleagues at Yale University, New Haven in a study of 71,000 veterans, failed to show any benefit from either PSA or DRE used as screening method. The paper was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (an AMA publication) on January 9, 2006.

But this sobering fact has not dampened the self-congratulatory mood at the American Cancer Society (ACS). "For years we've proudly pointed to dropping cancer death rates even as a growing and aging population meant more actual deaths," said John Seffrin, PhD, ACS chief executive officer. "Now, for the first time, the advances we've made in prevention, early detection, and treatment are outpacing even the population factors that in some ways obscured that success."

But wait a minute! Where are the studies to prove that the modest decline in prostate cancer deaths is actually due to improvements in diagnosis and treatment? Dr. Seffrin's triumphant statement about the efficacy of early detection is undercut by the factual Concato study. I am also unaware of any dramatic improvements in prostate cancer (PC) therapy over the past few years that could account for this decline.

One could with more plausibility point to the dramatic growth of PC support groups, such as US TOO, a cancer information and support network. Many men with PC are now speaking to each other, attending lectures by experts, and taking charge of their own health, the way women with breast cancer have done for many years. They are more proactive about seeking out the best treatments. From my experience, they are also exercising more, watching their weight, and becoming involved in the preparation of food. Finally, they are exploring the use of supplements, some of which have been shown in various studies to positively impact prostate cancer survival. For instance, a randomized controlled trial from Holland recently showed that a mixture of supplements (soy isoflavones, lycopene, silymarin and antioxidants) led to "a 2.6 fold increase in the PSA doubling time from 445 to 1,150 days for the supplement and placebo periods." In other words, it significantly slowed the growth of prostate cancer (Schroder 2005), which could lead to a reduction in the death rate.

Why is it that when ACS and others in the cancer establishment speculate on the reasons for the decline in prostate cancer deaths they exclusively focus on the things that oncologists do (such as diagnosis and treatment) but fail to acknowledge the contribution made by patients themselves through diet, exercise, supplements, etc.?

According to other reports, "one of the most important reasons for the decline in deaths is a huge shift in how technology is helping medical professionals screen for cancer" (Seben 2006). But I repeat: changes in screening and diagnosis have little if anything to do with this decline in cancer deaths. In fact, as has been convincingly shown by William Black, MD, and Gilbert Welch, MD, of Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, what we are doing as a society is inflating the number of people diagnosed with cancer through the over-diagnosis of "pseudo-cancers" - that is, the detection of asymptomatic and often totally harmless precancerous lesions that in many cases would never progress to full-blown malignancies (Welch 2005).

Role of Autopsies

I would also point to another factor that may be responsible for diminishing the number of registered cancer deaths: the decline of autopsies. Cancer registries such as the NCI's SEER database rely exclusively on information provided by death certificates, and death certificates by no means always list cancer as the cause of death, even when a patient has been in the advanced stages of the disease in the months leading up to his or her death.

Autopsies are the most reliable means of establishing the actual cause of death. Pathologist Elizabeth Burton, MD, of Louisiana State University, New Orleans, studied this problem for ten years. She and her colleagues performed 1,105 autopsies. One hundred and eleven malignant cancers were discovered in 100 of these bodies, which had either been misdiagnosed or had gone entirely undiagnosed during life. In 57 of these patients, the immediate cause of death was attributed to the undiscovered cancers. "The discordance between clinical and autopsy diagnoses of malignant neoplasms [cancers, ed.] in this study is 44 percent," they wrote (Burton 1998).

George Lundberg, MD, then editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which Burton's article was published, explained that this startling data called into question all cause-of-death data in the United States. Upon re-evaluation, he said, cancer might turn out to be far more prevalent as a cause of death than conventionally realized.

Dr. Lundberg lost his job soon after these comments. According to ABC News, he was fired in part for criticizing doctors "for having moved away from performing large numbers of autopsies." To this day, the decline in autopsies is a factor that is almost never discussed in relation to cancer mortality statistics.

It is also striking that the country with some of the highest cancer death rates, Hungary, also has the highest rate of autopsies in Europe. In other words, there are probably many more cancer deaths in Western societies than meet the eye. The seeming "decline" in cancer mortality statistics may be due, in part, to a failure to look for it as a cause of death.

And even when a death is ultimately a result of cancer, the immediate cause of the patient's demise may not be recorded as such, but as something else - pneumonia, hemorrhage, or abdominal obstruction leading to peritonitis, for example. This is not even to mention deaths from acute toxicity due to treatment itself, or deaths due to complications of surgery for cancer, which are also generally not recorded as cancer deaths. The aforementioned Dr. Welch has found, for example, that "some deaths that are conventionally attributed to surgery are not being attributed to the cancer for which the surgery was performed" (Welch 2002).

Together, this combination of over diagnosis of pseudo-disease and under diagnosis of occult (hidden) cancer makes any statistic on the absolute number of genuine cancer deaths very much a matter for debate. And correspondingly, since death rates are calculated on the assumption that incidence and prevalence figures are a genuine measure of the amount of cancer in a population, the figures for death rates are equally debatable. As Welch and Black have pointed out, the use of 'cancer-specific death rates' as the measure of treatment effectiveness in clinical studies obscures the very real possibility that deaths from treatment itself are being systematically overlooked in the statistical calculations.

Organic Food Fends Off Pesticides

www.forbes.com

If you are looking to banish pesticides from your child's diet, new research suggests that organic food will do the trick, at least when it comes to two common pesticides.

Researchers found that pesticide levels in children's bodies dropped to zero after just a few days of eating organic produce and grains. "After they switch back to a conventional diet, the levels go up," said study co-author Chensheng Lu, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at Emory University.

But Lu acknowledged that organic food is often more expensive than conventional food, and he added that the health risks of the pesticides in question aren't entirely clear.

According to the study, it has been difficult to figure out exactly how much pesticide residue children are exposed to when they eat food that was treated as it grew in the field.

Lu said the impetus for the new study was a previous research project that examined pesticide levels in 110 children and only found one child whose body was pesticide-free -- a child who regularly ate organic food.

His team looked at two common pesticides known as organophosphorus. According to Lu, their use in residential areas is banned, but they're still used by growers.

In 2003, researchers recruited 23 children from Seattle-area schools, all aged 3-11. Researchers monitored levels of two organophosphorus pesticides -- malathion and chlorpyrifos -- in their urine during a 15-day period in which they alternated between their regular diets and diets featuring organic fruits, vegetables and grain products.

The findings were to be discussed Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis. The study, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, appeared online last September in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The researchers found that the pesticide levels dropped immediately when the children started eating the organic foods. The staying power of the pesticides was "relatively short," Lu said.

"Whether that is important in terms of health effects remains to be seen," Lu added, noting that scientists don't know exactly how the pesticides affect the body over time.

There is evidence that they're dangerous, said Dr. Nathan M. Graber, a fellow in pediatric environmental health at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "We know that at high doses, these pesticides can cause serious symptoms because they are toxic to the nervous system," he said, adding that there's "sound scientific reasoning" suggesting that low doses can hurt the developing brain.

What should parents do? Kids should be eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, regardless of whether they are organically grown, because the benefits greatly outweigh the risk, Graber said. "Parents should not feed their children less nutritious foods out of fear of pesticides."

Foods that are especially vulnerable to pesticide residue include strawberries, nectarines, peaches, apples, pears and cherries, Lu said. Some other foods, such as bananas and oranges, aren't as vulnerable, he added.

Got Pizza Hut? Got Silicone!

by Robert Cohen - notmilk.com

Once upon a time, it used to be a beautiful day in the neighborhood...that no longer applies to the world of 2006.

Good morning, boys and girls. Can you say: Polydimethylsiloxane?

Polydimethylsiloxane is a substance that is manufactured by Dow Chemical and is primarily used in food-manufacturing factories as a de-foaming agent for commercial boilers.

Polydimethylsiloxane is not approved for use as a food additive, yet, Pizza Hut is using this silicone-based chemical as a stabilizer for cheese on its patented pizza products. Some of those pizzas go directly to your child's school and are served at lunchtime.

In order to preserve their frozen pizzas, Pizza Hut claims that their silicon emulsifier is a necessary preservative and emulsifier.

Although the package does not list its own secret formula, it does list "other additives" under the guise of this patent:

Patent # 4894245

A review of the United States Patent Office website confirms this story that was first reported on page 5 of the February, 2006 issue of Pete Hardin's "Milkweed." The actual patent: http://tinyurl.com/7d6t8

The following is included in the online patent:

"A silicone emulsifier (Dow Corning FG-10) is mixed with water to form a 0.05% emulsifier solution. This solution is sprayed on the frozen cheese granules at a rate of 1.75 parts of solution per 100 parts by weight of cheese."

Our children are eating silicon in school cafeterias. Silicon is not an approved substance for human consumption. Neither is Polydimethylsiloxane, or formaldehyde which results as a byproduct when frozen silicone-sprayed pizza is subjected to heat. Polydimethylsiloxane breaks down into formaldehyde when subjected to heat in excess of 150 degrees centigrade.

See: http://www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/osh/ic/9016006.htm

As guardians for all children, should we continue allowing school kids to naively ingest silicone and formaldehyde?

How dangerous is formaldehyde? The National Cancer Institute reports: "Formaldehyde has been classified as a human carcinogen (cancer-causing substance) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

See: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/formaldehyde

Write a letter to your local school board. The health of our children is in great jeopardy.

themilkweed.com/Current.htm

Dr. Edward Group III on the Safety & Merits of Colloidal Silver

Recently Dr. Edward F. Group III, CEO and Founder of Global Healing Center in Houston Texas and formulator of Quantum Silver held a question and answer open forum dealing with the mystery and confusion surrounding the merits of colloidal silver. The following are excerpts from this open forum:

1) First of all, Dr. Group, will you address the concern about argyria, a condition that causes the skin to turn blue-gray from the use of colloidal silver?

Dr. Group: Yes, I would be glad to set the record straight on this much discussed topic. In this day and time I do not have a major concern regarding argyria. This was a condition that has been made famous recently by individuals that are trying to degrade the effectiveness of silver compounds used in the market place. There have only been two documented cases of argyria. The first case involved a lady named Rosemary Jacobs and the second case involved a man named Stan Jones. Both of these cases took place in the early 1900's, back then they didn't really understand or know what concentration levels of silver were in the solution. For example, some of the colloidal silver from the 1900s had a 30% concentration which would be the equivalent today of 300,000 ppm. Today we don't have concentrations nearly that high as we average 10 ppm to 100 ppm. What we do know is that Rosemary Jacobs took silver nitrate given to her by her doctors in the form of nose drops and that has been documented as what caused her argyria. Now with Stan Jones, his case was caused by using a colloidal silver which was his own homemade concoction. We know that colloidal silver must be made with distilled water or very clean water. Mr. Jones was using tap water and was allowing it to brew for over an hour. So most likely the concentration was extremely high and because he was using tap water he had other reactions taking place which resulted in very large particles within the concentration. With his case he was ingesting 8- ounces of this super saturated silver everyday for four years. He was basically taking 800 to 1000 times the recommended dosage of a super concentrated formula. Even if you were to take 800 times the amount of water you were supposed to drink on a daily basis, you would die; the same with 800 times the normal amount of air that you normally take in you would hyperventilate and die. Both cases verify that you would have to have extremely poorly made silver and ingest extremely high amounts of silver to bring on this condition.

2) Please explain PPM and how important the PPM (parts per million) is in a silver product?

Dr. Group: PPM stands for parts per million. It stands for a unit of concentration often used when measuring levels of pollutants in air, water, body fluids, etc. One ppm is 1 part in 1,000,000. The common unit mg/liter is equal to ppm. For example: Four drops of pure 99.9% silver in a 55-gallon barrel of water would produce a "silver" concentration of 1 ppm.

3) I notice that your recommended dosage is 1-ounce every 2nd day. Most Silver products recommend just 1 teaspoon per day. Why are your recommendations so high?

Dr. Group: The reason why I recommend 1-ounce every 2nd day is because according to the early studies a reasonable amount of a 10 ppm colloidal silver, for prevention, would be approximately 1-ounce every day. Because our silver is on the angstrom side, it would be defined as an angstrom scale colloid. I recommend one ounce every second day because it gives your body a day to rest in order to detoxify and does not throw your body into a heavy detoxification process (healing crisis) making it easy for your body to process and eliminate dead organisms. You can also use this as a preventative measure for as long as needed. When individuals are sick I have used up to 8 ounces daily for 1 week straight. This would be for the FLU, food poisoning or any bacterial or viral infection.

4) Is Quantum Silver considered Ionic Silver? Why or Why Not?

Dr. Group: No, it is not considered Ionic or colloidal It is defined as an "Angstrom Scale Colloid" This means you do not have the harshness (Abrasiveness) of a pure ionic solution and the inertness (low activity, dullness, heaviness) of a colloidal solution. So it is in the middle between a true Ionic and a true Colloidal.

5) Has your company had Quantum Silver tested by an independent lab? If so, please share the results.

Dr. Group: We test batches every so often and so far every test has proved to be at the 10ppm or slightly higher. Of course it tests free from microbes which include yeast, mold, bacteria etc.

6) What is Fulvic Acid and why add it to Quantum Silver?

Dr. Group: We use Fulvic Acid as a chelating agent. We use this instead of some of the earlier forms of silver which contained a mild protein as a chelator and because Fulvic Acid has shown in recent studies to be one of the best nutritional and biochemical substances that the body utilizes. Most of the time we get Fulvic Acid from plants, but now we are starting to learn about all the benefits added to the human body through ingestion of FA. FA has many other benefits besides just as a chelating agent in Quantum Silver. Fulvic Acid works as the best organic and natural electrolyte which helps balance out the body's energetic and biological systems. What that does is that it enables the cells to be active, healthy, to reconstruct properly and to rebalance the electrical cellular potential. This is how it works with the silver---when the Fulvic Acid bonds to the silver it chelates it and turns the silver into a bio-available form that will travel past the blood brain barrier and travel intra-cellular much easier. It could really be defined as a Fulvic Acid silver molecular complex or Silver Fulvic Acid molecular complex. It also enhances the availability and transportation of nutrients making minerals and vitamins more readily available. Fulvic Acid also increases activity of enzymes, helps stimulate metabolism, increases oxygen concentration and enhances cell-division.

7) So according to your answer above could Quantum Silver be used effectively as a heavy metal detoxifier?

Dr. Group: No because it is already bonded to the silver. If Fulvic Acid is taken by itself then it could be used to detoxify the system of heavy metals. If you mix Fulvic Acid with EDTA or chlorella or cilantro then that would be a customized special formula or more of a detoxifier of heavy metals. FA is a chelator and a carrier much like DMSO is a carrier.

8) I have read recently on the internet that because of the high concentration of silver particles, true silver colloids are never clear like water. In your opinion is this true?

Dr. Group: Quantum Silver will not have the same characteristics because it is bonded to Fulvic Acid. This is why the color is anywhere from a clear to a slight whiteness. It is in between an ionic and an actual colloid form. Even in a standard colloidal silver formula which is at a 10ppm strength you still would not see any type of cloudiness.

9) What about colloidal silver that is golden in color?

Dr. Group: This most likely indicates contamination. If it is yellow, gold or orange in color that means that the processing that was used was possibly contaminated. They had silver chlorides, silver nitrates, silver salts or were not using the proper type of water or the proper type of electrolysis. This indicates that someone is trying to make an extremely high concentration (ex. 100-200ppm) which would indicate that the particle size is too large to do much good. I, personally, would recommend that in purchasing silver, the individual make very sure that they don't purchase anything that is not completely clear or a slight cloudiness. There is no such thing as "golden" or yellow colloidal silver. Silver is white. Lange's Handbook of Chemistry lists silver as "...the whitest of metals. Pure silver particles suspended in water should be clear at low PPM concentrations or have a very slight white-colored cloudy fog to it.

Merck's Handbook describes many silver compounds as "pale yellow." They include silver bromide, silver carbonate, silver chlorite, silver hypo nitrate, silver iodide, silver nitrite, silver phosphate and silver picrate. Some of these compounds are described as toxic. Some silver compounds are quite toxic. Merck's lists silver nitrate as highly poisonous. The color of silver in all the chemical books is clear to white. Silver is the whitest of all metals.

10) Quantum Silver is clear. How would you classify Quantum Silver?

Dr. Group: Quantum silver would be classified as an angstrom scale colloid.

11) Has Quantum Silver been analyzed for Nitric Acid?

Dr. Group: Yes it has been analyzed and does not contain any Nitric acid. Nitric acid would occur if you are not using the proper current or using mineral water instead of distilled water then you may create nitric acid.

12) Why should a consumer buy your product over other silvers on the market today?

Dr. Group: It is the only silver product out there that uses distilled water as a base which then goes through a wellness water system. The Wellness Water System also includes an additional six system filtration.

• Taichoseki is a proprietary media used in all Wellness Filters®. Water treated with Taichoseki mineral stone slows down and even stops the growth of fungus and bacteria, including staphylococcus aureus, bacillus subtilis, aspergillus niger, myrothecium verrucaria, trichophyton interdigitale, and candida albicans.
• Bakuhanseki is a proprietary media used in all Wellness Filters®. The Japan Ministry of Health uses Wellness Filter® water in their hospitals and in many of their approved health bathing spas. The Bakuhanseki mineral adjusts the water to a stable alkaline pH, increases dissolved oxygen, removes harmful substances and enhances the taste of the water. It will also remove lead, mercury, and chromium from tap water. It imparts trace Angstrom size minerals (silica, potassium, and magnesium).
• SPG Sand: Obtained from volcanic rocks, the surface area of this material is 6.16 sq. meters per gram and provides 0.5-micron level filtration. Produces high efficiency filtration, removes parasites and absorbs trace heavy metals, and yields very pure water.
• Granulated Activated Carbon: Made from highest quality coconut shell carbon. Removes chlorine, chlorinated hydrocarbons, organics, volatiles, MTBE, tastes and odors.
• Magnet & Magnetite Stone: High flux density (greater than 4,500 gauss) magnetic stone and magnets create magnetic field in filter for magnetic resonance activation of the water. Lowers surface tension, increases solubility and increases cellular absorption.
• Far-Infrared Ceramic: Proprietary ceramic media made from far infrared emitting stone at 2,200°F. Produces hydroxyl ions and hydrogen ions, which neutralize free radicals. Believed to aid the body in fighting immune disorders, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

And then we use Fulvic Acid as a chelator in the silver to create an angstrom scale colloid which is between an ionic form and a colloid form. As said previously, this form will be better absorbed and better utilized by the body.

13) Can colloidal silver be safely used in the eyes, ears, nose, vaginally, etc.?

Dr. Group: Yes, as a matter of fact it has been used successfully in all areas for infections with bacteria, yeast, pink eye, cataracts, sinus infections, ear infections, vaginal infections and more...

14) Can colloidal silver be used on pets, orally and topically?

Dr. Group: Yes, orally it can be added to the pet's water. Make sure the water is distilled if you administer Quantum silver to your pet and it is served in a glass bowl. You can mix 1-ounce of Quantum Silver in 10 to 12 ounces of distilled water 1x weekly to keep your pet healthy.

Legislation Could Ban Free Range & Organic Poultry Production

by Healthy News Service

Cornucopia Institute Opposes Virginia Poultry Proposal
Legislation Could Ban Small Scale/Humane Production

The Cornucopia Institute has announced their support for family farmers in their opposition to a legislative proposal in the state of Virginia that could eliminate the ability of the state's residents to raise chickens and other fowl in the outdoors for eventual sale to consumers. The stated purpose of the controversial legislation, HR 982, is to control live bird markets-of which there are none in Virginia-but the Institute believes that it's real purpose is to stop independent poultry producers from raising their flocks outdoors because federal officials are worried about an avian flu epidemic.

"This legislation is extremely troubling as consumers are increasingly hungry for organic and sustainable eggs and poultry that come from healthy birds raised outdoors," said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic farming watchdog group. "The bill's language is too vague and would allow the state's Agricultural Commissioner to arbitrarily regulate and control small- to medium-sized poultry flocks, not just live bird markets, which currently don't even exist in Virginia."

Passage of the legislation by Virginia would make the state eligible for federal funding that could be used to hunt down outdoor poultry producers and lead to the shutdown of their operations.

"Nothing would make the huge poultry confinement operators happier than to squelch an increasingly popular competitor that consumers are flocking to," Kastel added. "Consumers have discovered that the purveyors of organic and direct-market eggs and poultry raised in healthy, outdoor conditions offer a superior-tasting product, and that scares the huge confinement operations."

Kastel noted that it was no coincidence that the bill was being pushed by the Del-Mar-Va Poultry industry, a giant industrial poultry cooperative, and by the state's Agribusiness Council and the Farm Bureau. Organic and sustainable farming advocates are concerned that this legislative initiative in Virginia is just the first in a battle that will spread to statehouses around the nation.

Joel Salatin, a Virginia poultry farmer, is skeptical of the hype surrounding avian flu and domestic outdoor bird operations. "This has been an issue in Southeast Asia," said Salatin, "because of the extraordinarily unsanitary conditions their fowl are raised in." Pointing to China, Salatin explains that "because of theft, families typically confine 200 birds in an 8' x 8' cage with no bedding provided. The birds are living on six to eight inches of raw fecal build-up and locked in unhygienic squalor."

These conditions in foreign lands stand in marked contrast to the way organic and sustainable growers raise poultry in the United States. Salatin calls his birds "pastured poultry" because his thousands of chickens and turkeys are moved on a daily basis to fresh pasture paddocks and allowed to exhibit their natural, instinctive behaviors. Salatin, who has raised poultry for 50 years, strongly criticizes regulators and health experts for failing to grasp this different agricultural style: "Nobody-not the World Health Organization, the European Union, or the USDA-has been willing to articulate the difference between clean outdoor housing and unhygienic outdoor housing."

"Virginians should reject this ill-framed poultry proposal and allow its consumers and citizens freedom of choice in the food they want," Salatin added.

If federal experts are truly concerned about an avian flu outbreak in poultry flocks, Kastel suggests they look elsewhere. "Historically," Kastel observed, "Avian flu outbreaks have been concentrated in large, confinement, industrial-scale poultry facilities, where management is theoretically practicing stringent bio-security measures."

Even before the latest flu scare, poultry industry lobbyists were advocating the change of organic poultry standards at the National Organic Standards Board by seeking removal of the federal requirement that organic birds have access to the outdoors. "Trade lobbyists were trying to gut federal law so that their clients can use their confinement practices," noted Kastel. "Should the Virginia proposal pass, we think these same powerful forces will use it as a model for other states and try to achieve through the backdoor-and under cover of the avian flu scare-what they've been unable to get from the National Organic Standards Board."

Consumers and farmers interested in more information on this issue, and contact information for sending messages to the Virginia legislature, can visit Cornucopia's Web page at www.cornucopia.org

Provided by Organic Consumers Association on 2/10/2006

Stop Wyeth And The FDA From Denying Your Right To Choose Bio-Identical Hormones

Wyeth Pharmaceutical wants the FDA to take away your right to choose safe, effective and natural, bio-identical hormones and regulate your choice of health treatments. We have until April 4, 2006 to stop them.

Wyeth, the maker of Premarin and Prempro, filed a "Citizens Complaint" with the FDA on October 16, 2005, requesting that the FDA effectively prohibit compounding pharmacies from providing bio-identical hormones to their patients. This would mean that you would no longer be able to get your bio-identical hormones from us or from any one else.

Since the 2002 Women's Health Initiative (WHI) which demonstrated that Wyeth's products, Premarin and Prempro, caused a significant increase in breast cancer, blood clots to the lungs, heart attacks and strokes, Wyeth has seen a dramatic decline in the sales of these counterfeit hormones. Wyeth's financial reports, which are available online at www.wyeth.com, indicate the following significant decline in sales of Premarin Family products; 2002 - $2,072,000,000; 2003 - $1,275,000,000; 2004 - $880,000,000.

This represents a 68% decline in sales of Premarin Family products between 2002 - 2004. Wyeth's profits have likewise declined precipitously; 2002 - $4,447,000,000; 2003 - $2,051,192,000; 2004 - $1,234,000,000, a 72% decline in profits.

Tens of thousands of women have forsaken Premarin family drugs for bio-identical hormones. Wyeth is simply trying to stop its losses and regain its market share. Wyeth wants to force women to take their counterfeit hormones by eliminating the competition from bio-identical hormones prepared by compounding pharmacies.

The FDA receives drug user fees, totaling at least $300,000,000 in 2004, from the pharmaceutical companies for the drugs they sell. The less drugs that Wyeth sells, the less money the FDA makes.

The FDA collects no drug user fees from compounding pharmacies because they are regulated by the states, not the federal government. So the FDA wants to eliminate compounding pharmacies as well. Pharmaceutical companies recruit key FDA employees to work for them at huge salaries.

This is the dream of many bureaucrats, to get a high paying job with a big drug company. So you can understand why FDA regulators have an incentive to please Wyeth.

Wyeth, like all the major pharmaceutical companies, contributes billions of dollars to various medical societies and patient advocacy organizations. So it is not surprising that many of these organizations have written responses to the FDA in support of Wyeth's complaint.

Because of their money ties to Wyeth, these organizations endorse Wyeth's products and do Wyeth's bidding. When an organization supports something which is obviously detrimental to women and men, it is important to follow the money trail. Wyeth can and must be defeated in its attempt to restrict patients' rights to choose to safe, effective and natural treatments using bio-identical hormones.

You can voice your opposition to the Wyeth Complaint by going directly to the FDA comment link below and telling the FDA your story about the benefits that bio-identical hormones have made in your life. The comment filing period ends on April 4, 2006 at which time the FDA will make its decision. To stop Wyeth and the FDA we need at least 20,000 comments opposing the Wyeth complaint. So write your comment on line today! Please forward this information to any one who will support this effort. FDA Comment Link for the Wyeth Complaint The comment period on the Wyeth Petition is open until April 4, 2006.

Here is a link where comments can be filed with the FDA on-line:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/commentsmain.cfm?EC_DOCUMENT_ID=794&SUBTYP=NEXT&CID=&AGENCY=FDA

If you are receiving this information by e-mail then just click on the above link.

After entering the requested information (zip code, name, etc.), hit the continue button to get the comment screen. Comments can be up to 4,000 characters.

Hit the continue button to get to the next screen, where attachments can be filed. Hit the button Save Comments to submit (doesn't make sense, but I tried it with a test comment).

Hard copy comments (which can also be scanned and submitted as an attachment using the above link) can be mailed to:

Food and Drug Administration Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305) 5630 Fishers Lane Room 1061 Rockville , MD 20852

Allow me to recommend for your consideration that you go to the above link and draft your response on the job today. Also please forward this e-mail to everyone on your distribution lists.

Your ability to continue to choose your treatment depends upon our success in blocking Wyeth and the FDA in their plan to eliminate bio-identical hormones. Thanking you for supporting patients' rights to choose bio-identical hormones.

Editor-In-Chief: Dr. Edward F Group III, DC, ND, DACBN
Executive / Managing Editor: Dr. Loretta Lanphier, ND, CN, HHP

Published monthly by:
Global Healing Center, Inc.
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Houston TX 77018
713.476.0016   |   800.476.0016
www.ghchealth.com

Questions or Comments? staff@ghchealth.com

Check out our websites for more advice and information on improving your health at www.ghchealth.com, www.oxypowder.com, or www.colon-cleanse-constipation.com.

Required disclaimer: Any statements in this newsletter have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease.

"Forgiveness helps the soul become free and radiant. Not until we are ready to forgive can we move forward with our own internal healing. It is vital to forgive yourself and everyone for any past actions to keep your body healthy."
--Dr. Edward F. Group, III, DC, ND, DACBN

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