by Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

A second Minnesota teenager has reportedly died from complications of infection with influenza Type A during this current flu season, prompting health officials across the state to urge the public to get flu shots for their own protection. But missing from many of the news reports on this tragedy is the fact that the child in question, 14-year-old Carly Christenson, had already been vaccinated for influenza before flu season even started, proving the utter failure of flu shots to protect against the flu.

As reported by CBS 4 News in Minnesota, young Carly passed away on January 8, 2013, not long after she was admitted to urgent care with a bad sore throat. Believing the symptoms to stem from a mild infection, doctors at the response center gave Carly a prescription for Prednisone, a powerful steroid drug used to treat inflammation, and sent her on her way. But by the next morning, things for Carly took a serious turn for the worse.

According to reports, Carly’s sore throat evolved into a serious fever that included shortness of breath and wheezing. Her lungs filled with fluid not long after that, and she had to be rushed to the hospital to have a heart and lung bypass with an ACMO machine. In the days that followed, Carly was given regular blood transfusions, but these were ultimately not enough — she died just a few days later.

Misplaced faith in the flu shot On the first day when Carly was admitted to urgent care, both her parents and the doctors at the clinic were reportedly not all that concerned about the child’s mild throat infection, as she had reportedly already been vaccinated for the flu back in August.

The fact that Carly had gotten a flu shot, in other words, was seen by Carly’s family and her doctors as a shield of protection for the girl — after all, authorities would not recommend flu shots if they did not actually work, right?

This misplaced faith in flu shots ultimately provided a false hope for Carly’s  family that she would be protected against the flu, a faith that was ultimately shattered by the reality of the complete ineffectiveness of the flu shot. Immediately after Carly’s death, authorities actually tried to deny that Carly died from the flu, referring to her condition as “flu-like.”

The head of the Minnesota Health Department, Kris Ehresmann, even went so far as to claim that she “could not confirm” that Carly had ever even had a flu shot, even though other sources had already confirmed that she had, indeed, gotten the shot.

Still others have since tried to reassure the public that flu shots still work, and that Carly’s death is some kind of medical anomaly.

But the science speaks for itself — in a best case scenario, flu shots provide protection for only about 1.5 out of every 100 people.

The other 98.5 people who get flu shots are needlessly exposed to toxic adjuvants and viral materials that could cause them to develop the flu, or worse.

Consider the case of seven-year-old Kaylynne Matten of Vermont as evidence of the dangers of the flu shot. As reported by investigative journalist Christina England over at Vactruth.com, young Kaylynne died last year in her mother’s arms just four days after receiving a flu shot at an annual checkup.

According to Kaylynne’s parents, the young girl, who had no pre-existing health conditions and was a very healthy child, developed a serious headache and fever the day after getting her flu shot. Three days later, Kaylynne suddenly stopped breathing and died without warning in her mother’s arms.

by Michael Snyder
American Dream

COLUMN – Why do men and women have a such a hard time relating to each other in a meaningful way in America today? Could our oversexed culture have anything to do with it? In the United States today, we are constantly being bombarded with sexual messages. Just think about it. Did you watch the Super Bowl a few weeks ago? Most of the commercials were about sex on some level, and the “halftime show” featuring Beyonce might as well have been a strip club act. It was utterly shameful. But in America today, all of this is considered to be “normal”.

We literally worship sex, and we can never get enough of it. And of course the results of such a society are predictable. There are 20 million new sexually-transmitted infections in the U.S. each year, we have the highest teen pregnancy rate on the planet, and it is estimated that one out of every four girls in the U.S. is sexually abused before they become adults. This culture of sex is pushed on our children from a very early age, and at this point it would be quite accurate to say that U.S. public schools have become training centers for sexual deviancy. A lot of people focus on “sex education” as the problem, but the truth is that it goes much deeper than that. Sex education only lasts for a few weeks at most.

The much bigger problem is the fact that an obsession with sex literally permeates our schools. If parents could only eavesdrop on the conversations that our teens are having, they would be absolutely horrified. Thanks to endless brainwashing by the mainstream media, our teens are absolutely addicted to a sexual atmosphere. Every form of entertainment that they enjoy is soaked with sexual imagery, and lust and sex are never far from their minds when they relate to members of the opposite sex (or sometimes the same sex).

So should we really be surprised that students are having sex with each other in the hallways of our schools? Should we be surprised that young teachers are taking advantage of our students sexually behind closed doors? We have created a society that is sexually supercharged, and what we are witnessing now are the predictable results of the very foolish decisions that we have made.

The following are 21 signs that U.S. public schools have become training centers for sexual deviancy…

#1 There is a raging epidemic of sexually-transmitted diseases among our young people. According to the latest figures released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, there are 20 million new sexually-transmitted infections in the United States every single year, and Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 account for approximately 50 percent of those new sexually-transmitted infections.

#2 Many of our teens our catching diseases that they can’t even pronounce correctly. There were more than 1.4 million cases of chlamydia reported in the United States in 2011. An astounding 33 percent of those cases involved Americans that were younger than 20 years of age.

#3 At this point, one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

#4 Apparently, all of the propaganda about “safe sex” is not really working very well. According to one survey, 24 percent of all U.S. teens that have an STD say that they still have unprotected sex.

#5 When you take morality out of public life, the results are predictable. In the United States today, approximately 47 percent of all high school students have had sex.

#6 Many of our young people seem to not understand the value of waiting until marriage to become a mother. Amazingly, one out of every five teen girls in the U.S. actually wants to be a teenage mother.

#7 When I was growing up, I don’t remember a single girl being pregnant at my high school. But today all of that has changed.

#8 If you can believe it, the United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire planet.

#9 Increasingly, oral sex is being promoted to our young people as a “safer” form of sex. According to shocking research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately two-thirds of all Americans in the 15 to 24 year old age bracket have engaged in oral sex.

#10 Sex “education” has become much more about “indoctrination” in recent years. One recent example of this trend was detailed in the New York Times…

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.

#11 Sexual “experimentation” among our teens is reaching heights never seen before. According to one recent study, sexual contact between teen girls in the United States is now at the highest level ever recorded.

#12 In America today, sex in public school hallways has become a common occurrence.

#13 Would you feel okay about your teenage girl sharing a bathroom with boys? In the state of Massachusetts, boys will now be able to freely use girls restrooms and girls locker rooms if it makes them feel more “comfortable”.

#14 One of the results of our “culture of sex” has been an explosion in the number of babies being born outside of marriage. For women under the age of 30 living in the United States today, more than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock.

#15 Being a single parent is incredibly hard, but more U.S. children are being raised by just one parent than ever before. At this point, more than one out of every four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent.

#16 Thanks to our “sexual revolution”, men and women are having a harder time than ever relating to each other in a meaningful way. Our young people are being taught that marriage is a “burden” and that they should delay it for as long as possible. Today, an all-time low 44.2 percent of all Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are married.

#17 There is an epidemic of sex between teachers and students in the United States. In fact, for some teachers one student is just simply not enough. For example, a 33-year-old art teacher down in Arizona was charged with having sex with four of her male students.

#18 A former high school English teacher down in Texas has that teacher beat. She has been accused of having sex with five different male students. The most disturbing part of her story is that she is a mother of three children and her husband is serving this country in the U.S. Army.

#19 But a high school teacher down in Georgia has both of them beat. She was recently charged with having sex with seven of her students.

#20 Sometimes even teachers that have been convicted of having sex with a student cannot stop themselves. For example, there was one case where a probation officer found a student that a teacher had been convicted of having sex with previously hiding in her closet…

VENEZUELA: Chávez home to die, speculates opposition

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Hugo Chávez

According to Latin News, nothing more has been heard from President Hugo Chávez since his surprise return to Venezuela early on Feb. 18, fuelling speculation that plans are afoot for him to swear in privately before the supreme court and then step aside, triggering snap elections in which Vice-President Nicolás Maduro would bid to replace him. Senior ministers continue to insist that the president remains in full control of his faculties and continues to run the country, now from a hospital bed in Caracas, rather than Havana, Cuba.

Chávez’s return after two long months in Cuba in almost total silence (because he literally could not talk, it has now transpired), will help restore some stability, even in the absence of any proper details of his medical condition.

The photos released of the president prior to his return evidenced that he is not at all a well man. Officials from the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) were clear that the president’s immediate priorities remained medical, not political. In response to opposition calls for a resolution to what it says is the extra constitutional state of affairs in the country since Chávez’s failure (on Jan. 10) to swear in for the new term to which he was elected in October 2012, the state governor of Anzoátegui, Aristóbulo Istúriz, who sits on the PSUV leadership, said that Chávez 6would swear in “when he is well and healthy”, noting that the PSUV-controlled national assembly had given the president an indefinite period to get better. In a similar vein, Rodrigo Cabezas, a Venezuelan delegate to the Andean Parliament and also on the PSUV leadership, on 19 February stated, “The president has returned to continue his medical treatment, he has a time that is not political. His time now is not political”.

‘Sources’ from the supreme court (TSJ) quoted by the opposition daily El Universal on Feb. 19 made clear that “there has been no change in the exceptional circumstances that motivated the constitutional chamber’s Jan. 9 ruling, thanks to which the head of state and his ministers remain in their functions, despite the fact that the former could not meet the requirement to take office on Jan. 10”.

Nicaragua: More social investments with international support

(Prensa Latina) Nicaragua will carry out new aqueduct and sewer system works in 19 main cities with collaboration from Spain, the European Union and regional financial bodies, the government confirmed today.

Resources from Fondo de Agua (Spain), the EU and the Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCEI) and the Inter-American Development Bank (BID) will back the projects, reported Rosario Murillo, a member of the presidential Cabinet.

The works will go from investment studies to construction work to install and extend water supply and sewer service, said Murillo.

According to Director of the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECID), Juan Lopez-Doriga, this is the most ambitious project ever carried out by AECID with a Latin American government.

El Salvador sets up special anti-gang unit

(Prensa Latina) The presidents of the Central American Integration System (SICA) are holding a summit today, in this capital, with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to promote relations and collaboration in Middle America.

Prior to the beginning of his first governmental visit to Costa Rica and Central America, Peña Nieto announced that Mexico would participate in the Infrastructure Fund for Middle America and the Caribbean Countries.

by QMI Agency

Many artificial food dyes that color everything from breakfast cereal to ice cream should be banned because they pose cancer risks, a new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest says.

“These synthetic chemicals do absolutely nothing to improve the nutritional quality or safety of foods, but trigger behavior problems in children and, possibly, cancer in anybody,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, co-author of the report, Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks.

Manufacturers worldwide each year use about seven million kilograms of artificial colors in common prepared foods like cookies, candy, pop and ice cream.

The three most widely used food dyes —Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 — are known to be contaminated with carcinogens, the Washington-based health watchdog organization said. Evidence suggests, but does not prove, that other dyes — Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3 and Red 40 — cause cancer in animals, the CSPI report said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already recognizes Red 3 as a carcinogen, but the Ronald Reagan administration prevented a ban being placed on Red 3, as required by U.S. law in the case of any food additive known to cause cancer.

About 100,000 kg of Red 3 dye are used annually world wide in processing food.

As of Tuesday, European food manufacturers will be required to add a warning on product packaging if the product contains one of six artificial colors linked to cancer and other health issues.

Hair dyes used by millions of women are linked to chemicals that can cause cancer Secondary amines can be found in hair dyes used by millions of Britons Both home coloring kits and salon dye can contain chemicals Could react with smoke and fumes and form highly poisonous chemicals Hair dyes used by millions of women are linked to chemicals that can cause cancer Secondary amines can be found in hair dyes used by millions of Britons. Both home coloring kits and salon dye can contain chemicals. Could react with smoke and fumes and form highly poisonous chemicals

by Fiona Macrae

Hair dyes used by millions of women contain chemicals linked to cancer, British scientists have warned.

They say that both home hair coloring kits and the dyes used at expensive salons pose a potential risk to health.

Writing in a respected scientific journal, they say chemicals in permanent hair dyes can react with tobacco smoke and other pollutants in the air to form one of the most powerful cancer-causing compounds known to man.

With more than a third of women and one in ten men regularly coloring their hair, the researchers say it is ‘imperative’ that the risk to health is quantified.

However, the cosmetics industry has strongly disputed the claim.

The warning comes from scientists at Leedsbased company Green Chemicals who conducted a review of the chemistry surrounding hair dye. They said that all the information was already available and they simply ‘joined the dots’ to make the link with cancer.

They warn that chemicals called secondary amines, which are either found in all permanent hair dyes or are formed in them, can penetrate the skin and stay on the hair for weeks, months or even years after the dye is applied.

Over time, they could react with tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes, to form highly poisonous chemicals called N-nitrosamines. Known to cause cancer, these are banned from use in cosmetics.

But the Leeds reasearchers argue that they can still be generated via a simple chemical reaction.

Hair dye has previously been linked to a range of cancers, including tumors of the breast, bladder, ovaries and brain and leukemia.

There are also concerns that increasing numbers of people are becoming allergic to their contents, sometimes with fatal results.

The sale of home hair dye kits alone is worth an estimated £321million a year and the figure is expected to rise as the population ages.

Professor David Lewis, one of the authors of the study, and an expert in the chemistry of various dyes, said: ‘At this stage, we can’t be sure of the amount of Nnitrosamines produced or the level of risk these compounds pose but it is clear a potential hazard exists.

‘In the interest of consumer safety, it is imperative that a thorough and independent investigation is conducted to establish the levels of toxicity of these compounds and the potential risks.’

A spokesman for Green Chemicals, which is about to launch its own ‘ultra-safe’ range of hair dyes, said that despite numerous studies of the subject the danger posed by the chemicals in hair dye reacting with the air has been missed or ignored until now.

But manufacturers insisted that the possibility of the chemical reaction has been long known.

Dr Emma Meredith, of the Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association, said the law forbids using secondary amines in a form that can react in this way.

George Hammer, the owner of Urban Retreat at Harrods, the world’s largest hair and beauty salon, said: ‘Chemical companies have a huge vested interest in keeping this under wraps.’

The warning is set out in the journal Materials.

In 2009 the Mail revealed that women who use hair dyes more than nine times a year have a 60 per cent greater risk of contracting blood cancer. A year later the European Commission banned 22 hair dyes, which put long term users at risk of bladder cancer.