The primary causes of amphibian extinctions are pollution, loss of
habitat, climate change, invasive species, road mortality,
over-harvesting for the pet and food trades, and the infectious disease
chytridiomycosis, which is spread by human activity.
Introduction
Amphibians
are without a doubt the most endangered group of animals on the
planet: nearly 1/3 of the world's species are on the brink of
extinction. There are six major factors negatively affecting amphibians,
and all are due to human activity: habitat destruction, infectious diseases, pollution & pesticides, climate change, invasive species, and over-harvesting
for the pet and food trades. As the human population spirals out of
control, these threats will continue to grow, unless immediate action is
taken.
To make matters worse, many of these threats act in concert with
one another to create synergistic (magnified) effects. For instance,
perhaps exposure to either a particular pesticide or pathogen would not
kill affected frogs. However, if the frogs became infected by the chytrid fungus
after a pesticide had compromised their ability to mount a sufficient
immune response, the population may experience a lethal disease
outbreak, and be driven to local extinction. If a significant portion of
the species' remaining habitat had already been logged, invaded by
introduced species, or had become unusable due to altered rainfall
patterns, the species could be on a rapid path toward global extinction. Unfortunately,
though national parks and preserves are an integral part of conserving
amphibian populations, they are no longer sufficient in and of
themselves, as airborne pollutants, climate change and infectious
diseases can easily cross any boundaries.
A significant amount of effort will be required to alleviate the current threats to amphibians. This will require scientists, lawyers, educators, media, and an informed public that votes for and supports politicians and businesses who are committed to the environment.
Frog Art by Melody Cabral
Art showing the threats to frogs, by Meiral.
"We must act to protect amphibians from a multitude of threats. It is sad that it is not on most people's radar."
-- SAVE THE FROGS! Member Daniel Goutos
Quote: ""The DIME Bomb: Yet Another Genotoxic Weapon"
by James Brooks December 12, 2006
“Horrific” wounds in Gaza may foreshadow warfare of the future
Its been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been
dropping a “mystery weapon” on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media
around the world have run stories depicting the strange and “horrific” wounds inflicted by
the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics
who say Israels new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly
increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks.
In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new
weapon may also represent the near future of US “counterinsurgency warfare”.
Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this
evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME).
DIME is an LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed at the US Air Force
Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs
produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a
superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA).
Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune
system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic).
It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel’s new
weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly
disproportionate brutality of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people—reason enough for
the media to suppress it.
Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have introduced Americans to their
government’s DIME weapons program. This article will ask whether Israel is testing US
DIME bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and projected use of
DIME weapons. DIME’s roots in depleted uranium (DU) research will lead us to consider
DIME in its historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military’s long-running
development of genotoxic weapons.“They cannot return to life again”. The first reports about‘
Israel’s new weapon came from Dr Joma Al-Saqqa, chief of the
emergency unit at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was
using “a new chemical weapon” and its siege was “a live exercise on a new ammunition
that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200.” He observed that,
“despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments
were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the
body.”
“There were usually entry and exit wounds,” Dr. Al-Saqqa reported. “When the wounds
were explored no foreign material was found. There was tissue death, the extent of
which was difficult to determine....A higher deep infection rate resulted with subsequent
amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher mortality.” The effects of the
weapon seemed “radioactive”.
According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa “confirmed that there were dozens
of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and
distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again.”
“When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues
around the bones...it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the
spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a
surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this
weapon.”However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre wounds. On the
first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had conveniently destroyed Gaza’s only criminal
laboratory.
Despite his pleas to the “international community” to investigate and lend assistance in
treating the victims, “no one has lifted a finger”, the doctor was quoted in mid-July. “What
we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community,
nothing.” On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that
Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-Saqqa’s hospital, “where the
staff is struggling to deal with wounds resulting in an unusually high number of
amputations.” Commissioner AbuZayd commented that “what we saw in Al-Shifa...was
rather horrific.” According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), “75 per cent of war-
wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed amputations” following an Israeli
attack on Gaza City. The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an investigation into the
injuries. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel “agreed to take away fragments of tissue
from the bodies of Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza for
possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an international investigation.”
Tungsten in Tissue Samples: A DIME Weapon?
On October 19, Italy’s Rai24news televised an investigative report that supplied crucial
new information. The Italian investigators had tissue samples from the victims in Gaza
analyzed by Dr. Carmela Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr.
Vaccaio reportedly found “a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials, such as
copper, aluminum and tungsten.” The doctor concluded that her "findings could be in line
with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME." For complete article go to: http://www.grassrootspeace.org/israel_dime_bombs_121206.pdf
Nb. Original pdf file partially converted into "Rich Text" and edited by Self.
Quote:"A Norwegian doctor in the besieged Gaza Strip has strongly criticized
Israel for using cancer-inducing bombs against Palestinian civilians.
Dr. Erik Fosse told
Press TV that the majority of patients hospitalized in Gaza are
civilians injured in attacks on their homes and about thirty percent of
them are children.
Dense Inert Metal Explosive, known as DIME, is an explosive device developed to minimize collateral damage in warfare.
Experts say it has a relatively small but effective blast radius and
is believed to have strong biological effects on those who are hit by
the bomb’s micro-shrapnel.
Fosse, a department head at a university hospital in Oslo, also says
some Palestinians in the besieged enclave have been wounded by a new type
of weapon that even doctors with previous experience in war zones do
not recognize.
Israel also used depleted-uranium * and white phosphorus shells in the besieged region during their previous assaults.
This comes as Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip for the sixth
straight day. The latest Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 32
Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Palestinian sources say Israeli fighter jets have hit nearly 200 targets over the past 24 hours.
At least 167 people have lost their lives and more than 1100 others
injured in Gaza since Tuesday when the Israeli attacks began.
People have held a funeral in Gaza for the Palestinians who have been
killed in Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave. The participants in
the funeral condemned the US support for Israel." Go to: http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/07/norwegian-doctor-dime-dense-inert-metal-explosive-bombs-being-used-in-gaza-2995616.html
* Bold italicised underscore mine Ed!
Quote: "Norwegian surgeon witnesses Israeli war crimes in Gaza
Norwegian professor Mads Frederick Gilbert
is utterly shocked as he checks the corpses of martyrs and the bodies
of the wounded as they continuously arrive in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza
on the seventh day of the bloody Israeli onslaught on the besieged Strip.
Gilbert, 67, a surgeon, murmurs as he walks in the Intensive Care
Unit: "This is outrageous, horrific and unbelievable... what's happening
is no less than premeditated killing and genocide."
In an interview with Safa News, Gilbert says the Israeli
occupation deliberately uses internationally forbidden destructive
weapons in its continued onslaught on Gaza.
"Israeli bombs cause injuries that cannot be immediately seen via
x-ray," Gilbert said, "After a period of time, the injury starts to
bleed."
"The material used in these bombs is uncommon, which explains why we
cannot cure the injured parts, and in some cases doctors are forced to
amputate them," he says.
Gilbert arrived in Gaza on Thursday via the Rafah border crossing
after Israel barred him from entering Gaza via the Beit Hanoun/Erez
crossing.
The Norwegian physician has been to Gaza a number of times, the last was during the Israeli offensive in 2012.
An internationally renowned activist and member of the Norwegian
socialist party the Red Party, Gilbert specialises in anaesthesia, and
heads the Department of Emergency Medicine at the North Norway
University Hospital.
"I feel as though I moved from a colourful world, where people enjoy
freedom and peace, to the world of Gaza where life, peace and security
are simply non-existent," he says while examining all cases that arrive
in the hospital
He adds that his visit to Gaza this time is different. "The entire
Gaza Strip has become a military target for Israeli warplanes; there is
no safe place here. You can hear the air raids everywhere and see fear
and anxiety on the faces of all the people and children."
More than 178 Palestinians, including 35 children and 24 women, have
been killed by Israeli raids on Gaza since last Monday, July 7.
Gilbert expresses his distress over the volume of bloodletting caused
by Israeli airstrikes: "I am very pained by the scenes of the dead and
wounded at every corner of the hospital."
The Norwegian professor repeats that Israel "deliberately" targets
civilians, "particularly women and children," adding that the majority
of the victims are women, children and the elderly.
Gilbert has been subject to an Israeli smear campaign; Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor accused him of spreading lies.
Gilbert responds saying: "Regrettably, the Israeli media machine in
Europe portrays the victims as members of Hamas. But we will eventually
discover that these are lies and rumours. What crime have women and
children committed to be killed and bombed?
"If Israel denies my claims, it should open Gaza for international
teams to come and see for themselves and issue reliable medical
reports," he said defiantly.
Gilbert is working diligently with other medical teams at the Shifa
Hospital to rescue incoming casualties. "Israel is collectively
punishing civilians," he stresses.
"The casualties we saw are horrific and abnormal. Most of them are in
the head or chest, and there is no room for cosmetic operations because
the type of injuries requires amputation," he explains.
Gilbert confirms that the Israeli occupation has breached all
international laws and treaties, particularly the Geneva Conventions,
through its policies of war and siege, and its usage of internationally
banned weapons." Go to: http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/12805-norwegian-surgeon-witnesses-israeli-war-crimes-in-gaza
Quote: "There's a certain entity within the Pentagon that's quite (in)famous
for developing terrifying robots, advanced weapons and futuristic tech.
It's called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or, as most
people know it, DARPA: the Department of Defense's "mad science"
division. While all the machines coming out of the agency make it seem
like its sole purpose is to build a killer-robot army, DARPA has many,
many other projects to speak of. In fact, DARPA's at the heart of some
of the most significant technological advances of our time. Hell, there
might not be an internet to read this article on if DARPA didn't create
it.
HOW DID IT BEGIN?
President Dwight Eisenhower founded DARPA way back in 1958 in order
to develop cutting-edge technologies for the United States. Originally
known as ARPA (same meaning, but without "Defense"), it was created as a response to the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik, which, according to DARPA itself,
signaled that "a fundamental change was needed in America's defense
science and technology programs." Since then, it's been involved in
several technological milestones; for instance, it developed an early
networking system that went live in 1969 called the ARPANET. It's one of
the networks that eventually led to creation of the internet, which,
suffice it to say, changed the world. Love Siri or Cortana? You can
thank DARPA for those virtual assistants, too, as its Speech
Understanding Research (SUR) program in the 1970s played a key role in
advancing speech recognition technology widely in use today.
HOW DOES IT OPERATE?
Despite being part of the Pentagon, DARPA operates independently from
the Defense Department's military research division. Its personnel are
divided into groups led by a manager, with each one tackling a
particular issue the agency wants to address. These teams are free to
look for ideas that would solve the problems they're given both from
within and outside the organization. DARPA then provides each group with
anywhere from $10 to $40 million in funding. Some projects receive far
less funding, but big projects could get up to $100 million. If you're
wondering, the agency had a $2.78 billion budget for the 2014 fiscal
year and is currently requesting $2.91 billion for fiscal year 2015.
So, what is DARPA doing with the people's money, exactly? Here are some of its most prominent, wackiest and latest projects:
ROBOTS
One of the first robotic projects DARPA has ever funded is Shakey the robot,
which began development in 1966. Shakey was a multi-purpose machine on
wheels that could perform menial tasks like switching lights on or off.
These days, the agency's probably most known for its advanced machines,
some of which look undeniably unnerving. These include a number of
Boston Dynamics creations, such as the four-legged Cheetah, which later
became known as WildCat, that can sprint faster than Usain Bolt. BigDog,
one of the company's other DARPA-funded projects, is also a four-legged
machine designed to traverse tricky terrains while carrying heavy
supplies and equipment.
Other than those two quadrupeds, Boston Dynamics continues to refine its disaster-response humanoid machine, called Atlas, for the agency. It's even preparing the biped to walk without a tether before the year ends. When the company was acquired by Google
last year, it promised that it would still fulfill its military
contracts. But as Mountain View made it clear that it won't be pursuing
government funding, it's likely that we won't be seeing a new
DARPA-funded Boston Dynamics robot again. Don't worry -- it's not like
the agency doesn't have other ways to look for outstanding ideas to add
to its roster.
DARPA also hosts an annual Robotics Challenge, with the intention of funding the one that wins top honors. This year's ongoing contest is looking for a humanoid robot to serve as first responder in times of disaster. Sadly, the strongest contender just dropped out,
because (surprise, surprise) Google bought SCHAFT, the Japanese company
that designed it, last year. SCHAFT is now gearing up to produce the
first retail Google robots, so the acquisition sounds like a good
thing... unless you're worried that Mountain View's forming a robotic
infantry of its own.
PROSTHETICS
DARPA's bionic limbs have also been making headlines in recent years -- after all, the division has already sunk $150 million
into its prosthetics program. Its earliest mind-controlled bionic arms
have been serving their owners for years: The first woman and fourth
patient to get one had hers attached
back in 2006. Even so, the agency's not resting on its laurels and
hasn't stopped trying to come up with better products. In 2013, DARPA
took a project that's developing a low-cost, three-fingered artificial arm under its wing and also started working on a brain-controlled arm that can feel. Just this May, the FDA certified the DARPA-funded "Luke" arm, which can understand several commands at once and was developed by the same man who designed the Segway.
MEDICINE
They're not as widely known as their robotic counterparts, but
DARPA's also funding several projects that deal with medical technology.
One, for instance, is working on a brain implant
to help with psychological issues soldiers usually deal with, such as
PTSD and extreme depression. Another one's attempting to conjure up a liquid-to-foam substance
to stop bleeding instantly. In other words, the division's heavily
investing in medicine for the military, which brings us to the next
entry...
MILITARY/DRONES
Hey, DARPA's part of the Pentagon, so it goes without saying that it
plays a huge role in developing new military technologies. In 2011, the
division tested a hypersonic weapon by flying it across the Pacific Ocean, while it signed a $6 million contract to develop highly accurate laser-equipped sniper scopes last year. More recently, the agency unveiled a head-mounted display that tracks friends and enemies alike and lets soldiers communicate with each other.
Of course, DARPA wouldn't be DARPA if it wasn't brewing something
totally out of this world. Some of its crazier-than-usual projects
include developing the technology to climb walls like Spider-Man, as well as designing stealthy hybrid bikes for covert operations. "Plan X"
sounds like its wildest idea to date, though, as it ultimately aims to
turn the real world into 3D that military personnel can access via an
Oculus Rift. In this crazy virtual world right out of the movies,
soldiers would be able to shoot down hackers like on the battlefield.
Drone initiatives are par for the course, as well. Apparently, DARPA's in the process of turning old surveillance drones into WiFi hotspots, conjuring up a design for drones that can transform into whatever the military needs and developing robotic sea pods that release drones on cue.
SPACE
You didn't think an agency as forward-thinking as DARPA would limit
itself to Earthbound technologies, did you? One of its space programs,
called XS-1,
is working toward building an unmanned spacecraft that would be a lot
cheaper to fly than current models. Then there's the Phoenix program,
which aims not only to salvage working parts from dead satellites, but also to send robots to space to assemble satellites on the spot. Also, DARPA's been working on the Space Surveillance Telescope
since 2002 in hopes of providing a means to capture images of small
objects floating around, including space debris that could collide with
and destroy military satellites.
CONTROVERSIES
As you'd expect, a military agency that receives billions in funding
is bound to have its share of controversies. In 2011, it was discovered
that DARPA signed a $1.7 million contract with a bomb-detection firm
owned by the family of its then director, Regina Dugan. That even
prompted the Pentagon to conduct an ethics probe on the agency, though it was later cleared of any wrongdoing. Still, controversy followed Dugan when she left DARPA for Google, especially since a Washington federal appeals court ruled that any Google-NSA relationship could remain a secret, just as she made the transfer. Needless to say, that development led people to wonder whether DARPA had anything to do with the NSA's efforts to snoop on Gmail accounts.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Think of DARPA as a huge octopus, with too many tentacles to count --
you can't really tell what it's doing unless you focus on it. If you
truly want to know the scope of its countless projects, you can follow
the agency on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, where it not only reports newly signed contracts, but also posts updates to older ones.
[Image credit: DARPA (BigDog); DEKA (Prosthetic arm); AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki (Brain implant); Breaking Defense (Heads-up display)]
for generating high-altitude E1 electromagnetic pulse
by Jerry Emanuelson
There are two possible classes of weapons that may be described as
enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons. One is based on commonly known physics,
and I will describe it briefly below. This first type, although never
tested above ground, almost certainly exists now in the arsenals of
several countries.
The second type is often claimed to exist, often by very reliable
sources, but virtually nothing has been made publicly known about this
novel type of weapon. This makes most of what can be said about this
second type mostly speculative. What is written elsewhere on this site,
including what is written below about the first type of enhanced EMP
weapons, is based on known physics or on de-classified documents from
military services or national laboratories.
We know about the first type of enhanced EMP weapons because the
nuclear weapons tested before 1963, including those that caused
significant EMP damage, may be considered to be suppressed-EMP
weapons. If one were trying to minimize the EMP from those weapons,
particularly the E1 component, they could hardly have done a better
job. The E1 pulse arises from gamma rays, and from the effect of those
gamma rays hitting the mid-stratosphere in the presence of a strong
geomagnetic field.
If you wish to minimize the E1 component:
(1) Use a very thick and dense layer of chemical explosive around the nuclear material to trigger the reaction.
(2) Use a very thick and dense steel casing on the entire exterior of the weapon.
(3) Set off a very small fission explosion microseconds before the major (mostly fusion) thermonuclear explosion.
(4) Detonate the device where the geomagnetic field is relatively weak. The numbers in parenthesis in the comments below refer to the numbered statements immediately above.
In above-ground nuclear testing, they did (1) because they had to
with the technology that existed then. They did (2) because they were
trying to maximize the explosive power of the weapon, so they had to
have a thick steel casing that would hold things together for as many
milliseconds as possible. What little they knew then about EMP was
mostly regarded as a nuisance.
They did (3) whenever they were testing thermonuclear weapons (also
known as "hydrogen bombs") because it was the only way to trigger the
second (thermonuclear) stage. It didn't occur to anyone that this first
fission explosion would ionize the upper half of the stratosphere, and
minimize the EMP from high-altitude explosions. Even if they had known
this, it is very unlikely that they would have done more single-stage
testing since (at that time) they still regarded EMP as mostly a
nuisance (but something possibly useful for detecting nuclear explosions
in another country).
For the most part, they did (4) because much of the U.S. testing was
in the near-equatorial regions of the mid-Pacific. (It was a convenient
location for many reasons, and especially for doing tests of very large
weapons.) Actually, 3 of the first 6 high-altitude nuclear tests of
the United States were done in the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the
geomagnetic field is at its very lowest. Although the majority of the
United States tests were in Nevada, they were all smaller tests and none
of them were done at high altitude. Except for the those Nevada tests
and the very first test (which was done in New Mexico), all of the other
tests on the U.S. mainland were done underground (including a 5 megaton
underground test in Alaska).
Soviet high-altitude testing was done at higher latitudes, including one 40 kiloton high-altitude nuclear test (the Thunder
test) in 1961 high above Stalingrad (now Volgograd) that would surely
have produced a large EMP. This may be why the Soviets seemed to know
about high-altitude EMP before the U.S. knew about its unusual
intensity. (Soviet scientists have released details about their 1962 nuclear EMP tests, but nothing about the EMP from their earlier tests.) So the simplest way of making an enhanced-EMP weapon is simply not to do (1), (2), (3) or (4).
Simply using more modern materials to avoid (1) and (2), even if the
casing has to be so thin that it sacrifices some of the explosive power
of the weapon, could easily increase the number of gamma rays emitted
from the weapon by a factor of 10. A huge increase.
To avoid (3), use only a single stage weapon, not a two-stage
thermonuclear. To maximize the nuclear reaction, you probably would
want to use a boosted fission method. In other words, use some of the
lithium deuteride that is generally used as the "thermonuclear" part of
the weapon, but use it only within the concentric shells of the
single-stage weapon in order to get as much of the fissionable material
to fission as possible. For the same reason, use a lot of precisely
timed high-output neutron guns at the instant of detonation.
With some basic physics knowledge and our current knowledge of
high-altitude EMP, a weapon could easily be made that generates
dramatically more gamma radiation, and that is far more efficient in
turning that gamma radiation into electromagnetic pulse. In other
words, any nuclear weapons state could easily create a weapon
that would produce more than 25,000 volts per meter across the entire
continental United States if it is detonated 250 miles (400 kilometers)
above the approximate center of the continental United States.
In addition, there are ways to generate an even larger amount of
gamma rays with a two-stage thermonuclear weapon using a well-shielded
primary (fission) stage and a carefully designed secondary. The design
and deployment of an optimal weapon of this design is much more
complicated than the single-stage weapon, but the knowledge necessary to
design these more sophisicated weapons is becoming increasingly well
known. One cannot keep the laws of physics a secret.
Now, we will leave the realm of commonly known physics and enter an
area that is somewhat speculative. There have been many claims about
the existence of what are called super-EMP nuclear weapons that can
generate electric fields of 200,000 volts per meter. The open
scientific literature only describes the operation of first or second
generation nuclear weapons which are capable of producing a maximum EMP
field strength of about 50,000 volts per meter on the ground (slightly
to the equatorial side of the detonation point). Maximum field
strengths near the horizon would be limited to about half of this value,
or 25,000 volts per meter. The reason that the maximum field strength
is slightly to the equatorial side of the detonation point (in other
words, south of the detonation in the northern hemisphere) is that this
is where the high-energy Compton electrons start to move through the
Earth's magnetic field at nearly a 90 degree angle.
Obtaining field strengths that are higher than this is difficult due
to saturation effects that completely ionize the mid-stratosphere where
the electromagnetic pulse is generated. Basically, the process of
generating the EMP in the middle of the stratosphere very quickly causes
this region to become a fairly good electrical conductor, and therefore
incapable of generating any additional EMP.
The E1 EMP from a nuclear weapon is generated from gamma rays emitted
by the weapon within the first microsecond after the nuclear
detonation. One way of enhancing the EMP is simply to make sure that
the weapon is constructed so that as much of the gamma radiation as
possible escapes from the weapon and is radiated into the upper
atmosphere in a wide area below the detonation. This can be done as
described in the first section above. The (relatively)
gamma-ray-transparent casing only needs to be on the lower side of the
weapon. The gamma radiation that is emitted upward into outer space is
wasted.
The high-explosives on the earliest known nuclear weapons was quite
thick, as was the very heavy outer casing. Even in the case of the 1952
super-oralloy fission weapon, which was quite sophisticated for its
time, the chemical high-explosive surrounding the spherical shell of
U-235 was 44 centimeters thick.
When most people talk about super-EMP weapons, though, they are
generally talking about nuclear weapons that can generate field
strengths of much more than 50,000 volts per meter. This would require a
much different design than "ordinary" nuclear weapons. Staff
members of the United States EMP Commission have stated that there are
nuclear weapons in existence that can generate 200,000 volts per meter
below the detonation and 100,000 volts per meter near the horizon.
This would have to be done by generating gamma radiation with energy
levels that are far in excess of the energy levels (of about 2 million
electron volts) generated by nuclear weapons described in open
publications -- and by also generating a pulse of these gamma rays very
rapidly.
In first and second generation nuclear weapons, the prompt gamma
radiation reaches its peak a few tens of nanoseconds after the nuclear
detonation begins. In super-EMP weapons, it is likely that the gamma
radiation would reach its peak output within a nanosecond or two of the
beginning of the nuclear reaction. One consequence of this is that
the frequency components in these super-EMP weapons would be much
higher, making the problem of shielding and transient protection much
more difficult than simply protecting against higher field strengths.
The references to open literature describing super-EMP weapons
outside of the United States can be found in a publication called "The
Emerging EMP Threat to the United States" by Dr. Mark Schneider of National Institute for Public Policy (November 2007). It can be downloaded at: http://www.nipp.org/Publication/Downloads/Publication Archive PDF/EMP Paper Final November07.pdf
The problem with the important references in Dr. Schneider's paper is that they are available at the Open Source Center, at http://www.opensource.gov,
which is only available to employees or contractors of the U.S. federal
government who have a specific need to access these documents. The
referenced documents are not secret or otherwise classified
documents in the normal sense, but they are nevertheless very difficult
for the average citizen to obtain.
Also available are a number of documents about the super-EMP weapons
designed and built by the United States. The weapons produced by the
United States are known as High-Power Radio Frequency (HPRF) nuclear
weapons. (Adding to the confusion, though, the phrase "high-power
radio frequency" weapons has also been used to describe certain kinds of
non-nuclear weapons.) A number of documents about this nuclear HPRF
program have actually been released; but, for obvious reasons, the bulk
of the content has been deleted before the documents were released to
the public. There is just enough content there to likely confirm the
existence of super-EMP weapons produced by the United States, or at
least a former program to produce such weapons. For example, see: http://www.futurescience.com;emp/RR00092.pdf
The most worrisome aspect of these super-EMP weapons is the
possibility that the construction process might be rather
straightforward. Beyond the rather complex industrial capacity that it
takes to produce a basic nuclear weapon, it may be that the only
additional thing required to produce a super-EMP weapon is the knowledge
of how to do it. If this is the case, then any country with a nuclear
weapons program may be able to produce a super-EMP weapon without too
much additional difficulty.
Although no details about super-EMP weapons are given in open
publications by anyone who knows about these weapons, there is a strong
implication in the statements of those who have studied the reports
about those weapons that the enhanced gamma radiation weapons would have
a comparatively low total energy yield. This means that weapons with
an unusually intense E1 output would not cause a large E3 output. If this is the case, then they would be very destructive to electronic devices, but would not
produce the large DC-like currents that would be likely to destroy
large numbers of the largest transformers in the electrical power grid.
There is a possibility of a separate class of advanced super-EMP
weapons that can be made using multi-stage thermonuclear techniques. In
1987, a former highly-skilled Los Alamos nuclear weapons designer wrote
an article in Scientific American in which he stated that some types of
thermonuclear weapons can be designed where up to 20 percent of the
weapon yield would be in the form of gamma radiation. (Theodore B.
Taylor, "Third-Generation Nuclear Weapons", Scientific American. April
1987. Vol. 256, No. 4. pages 30-39.) This Scientific American article
implies that it is possible to make weapons that are capable of causing
both a very large E1 and and a very large E3 component of the EMP." Go to: http://www.futurescience.com/emp/super-EMP.html
The Breton press are reporting that in France's regional boundary
changes proposals there will be no Breton reunification, the current
Breton region will stay the same while it is proposed that southern
Brittany/ Loire Atlantique is retained by the Pays de Loire region.
However, the debate is not over. Apart from numerous negative economic
side effects the move will act to undermine the growth of Breton-medium
education in Loire Atlantique.
Breton leader Christian Troadec said: "This
is a new blow to the reunification of Brittany.. political courage
would have been, under the land reform, to have an immediate end to this
separation decided by the Vichy regime and Marshal Petain. Nantes in
Brittany... has been claimed and reaffirmed by the Bretons in the five
departments at every visit, every survey!
"The
future of Britain has again been decided by technocrats in an office in
Paris... Paris has once again butchered Brittany.. With 5 departments,
we would have counted more than 4.5 million people and could talk to
other European states or countries like Scotland, Catalonia, the German
landers ... Our economic development capacity would have seen a tenfold
increase. Our jobs and our standard of living too."
Equally you can contact the collective 44=BZH and ask how you can help: http://44breizh.com/
...and from the same site....
Quote: "
Independence Cymru: The Case for Brittany
Independence Cymru: The Case for Brittany
: Independence and national identity are emotive issues, but the
arguments in favour of a greater level of autonomy for Brittany are very
strong and rest upon historical, geographic, cultural, and economic
considerations.
Economic Arguments
The myth that has been taught to
schoolchildren for the past one hundred years is that Brittany is an
intrinsically poor country, hampered by poor soil and bad weather. The
real truth, however, is that for most of its history Brittany has been
extremely prosperous, and that it only started to go into economic
decline once it became united with France.
During the Middle Ages Brittany
was one of the wealthiest areas of Europe: the interior was home to a
thriving textile industry, and the coastal areas maintained a merchant
fleet that was one of the most successful of the age, trading salt,
textiles, fish and agricultural products across Northern Europe and down
to Spain and Portugal.
The wealth accumulated by these
activities attracted the jealousy of neighbouring countries, which is
the reason why the King of France forced Anne of Brittany to marry him
in 1491, a marriage which eventually led to a union of the two states.
Brittany remained semi-autonomous and reasonably prosperous until the
Revolution, when it was finally amalgamated into the rest of France. The
next hundred years of its history were marked by famines and widespread
destitution – giving rise to the short-sighted idea that Brittany has
always been impoverished.
Although outwardly prosperous,
the modern Breton economy is now dependent on agricultural subsidies and
funding from central government – which, in economic terms, is
disastrous.
A clear argument can be made
that Brittany would be more successful in diversifying its economy and
creating wealth, if its people had a greater level of control over their
own affairs.
Cultural Arguments
The Breton language has survived
to the present time; there is still a tradition of Breton music; and
there is a wealth of stories and traditions which are specific to this
part of the world. These are the sorts of cultural ingredients which are
required to support the sense of identity and common purpose required
for a successful unit of government. The idea of an autonomous Brittany
makes a lot more sense than many other administrative regions that have
been created in Europe and around the world in recent times.
Geographical Arguments
People disagree as to where the
eastern border of Brittany ought to lie – for most of the past thousand
years Nantes and the ‘Loire Atlantique’ have been part of Brittany – but
even a cursory glance of a map of Europe marks the Breton peninsular
out as a distinctive geographical area, easily distinguished from the
rest of France. Many aspects of life in Brittany are dictated by the
weather and the sea, which makes it have more in common with places such
as Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall than with mainland Europe.
Historical Arguments
It is, perhaps, history that provides the strongest reasons in favour of a change in the way that Brittany governs itself.
Over the years the people of
this region have had many different relationships with the rest of
Europe, and there is no reason to suppose that the present arrangement
should be regarded as permanent.
In ‘pre-historical’ times,
Brittany was inhabited by people about whom we know very little except
that they erected the menhirs, dolmens, and covered alleyways that are
so common in the Breton countryside. These monuments are quite distinct
from remains found in other parts of mainland Europe, but do bear a
resemblance to sites in the UK, in India, and in China. This would
suggest that, in those days, Brittany was an outward-looking country,
more closely allied to countries across the ocean than to its neighbours
on the mainland.
Immediately prior to the Roman
occupation, Brittany was inhabited by Gallic tribes, each of which was
autonomous but loosely linked to other Gallic people by Druids who
travelled freely throughout France, Britain, Belgium, Switzerland and
northern Italy. The Druids did not constitute a form of government, (or a
religion in today’s sense of the word) but do seem to have provided
training and spiritual guidance which knitted the Gauls together into a
unified nation: it seems unlikely that a tribal chief could have
maintained power without the support of the Druids.
Julius Caesar ruthlessly
suppressed this civilisation – in modern parlance his ‘campaigns’ would
be termed genocide – and Brittany, along with the rest of Gaul, was
incorporated into the Roman Empire.
All sense of self-determination
was lost over the course of the next four centuries, and, when the
Western Empire finally collapsed, the people living in this area had no
more idea of how to govern themselves than anyone else in Rome’s former
dominions.
But, whereas most of the
continent was overrun by tribes from the east (Visigoths, Ostragoths,
Huns, Franks, etc.) something unusual happened in Brittany. The Romans
had left Britain a few years previously, and it had been settled by
people from Saxony: the Saxons. For a time, harmony was established
between the native Celts and the newcomers and, consequently, Britain
could enjoy a time of peace and prosperity just as chaos was engulfing
the rest of Europe. (It is to this period that the legends of King
Arthur and Merlin are often dated.)
‘Saints’, or wise men, crossed
over from Britain to Brittany and set up sanctuaries in which they
taught and helped the local people. The names of some of these men have
become legendary and include the ‘Seven Founding Saints’ of Brittany –
Malo, Samson, Brieuc, Tugdual, Pol Aurélien, Corentin and Patern.
Towns built up around where they
settled (St Brieuc, St Pol de Leon, St Malo, etc.), composed of local
people, plus Britons who came to join them. It is only since this time
that this region has been known as Brittany and that its people have
spoken Breton. It would seem that it is to these founding saints that
Brittany owes its traditional love of freedom and independence: Brittany
was the only part of modern France which did not fall under the control
of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently Brittany
succeeded in resisting a Norman invasion of the type that overwhelmed
Britain.
For several centuries Brittany
had the status of an independent Duchy, recognised by the Pope in Rome
but not allied to any particular kingdom. This independence was lost
when Brittany was united with France in 1532. Some modern historians
blame this union on the greed of Breton nobles who preferred to accept
gifts from the French court than to defending their independence; others
have maintained that some form of union was inevitable given the state
of European politics at the time. Whatever the case, the young heiress
to the Duchy, Anne of Brittany, found herself helpless and besieged by a
French army in Rennes and was forced to agree to marry the French king,
which signalled the end of Breton independence.
Brittany retained separate
institutions (in much the same way as Scotland retained its own legal
system after it was united with England), but these were swept away in
the French Revolution. Since then Brittany has, administratively, simply
been part of France.
The late 1800s and early 1900s
were a difficult time for Brittany because the government in Paris had
little understanding of the region and no empathy with its history and
culture: a legacy with which people are still trying to come to terms
today.
The Future
The arguments in favour of
Breton devolution are so overwhelming that it is almost inevitable that
the region will acquire a greater level of control over it own affairs
at some point in the future. The question is when and in what form? Many
people are fearful of the phrase ‘Breton independence’ because it
conjures up an image of militancy, but, if it is true that Brittany does
need a greater degree of autonomy before it can move forward, then it
would be those people who defend the status quo that posed the greatest
threat to its future."
Quote: "Yann Fouéré: Breton militant and European federalist*
Yann Fouéré set out on a collision course with the centralist,
unitary French State from the moment he began taking an interest in
Breton affairs as a schoolboy during the inter-war years.
The crash came in 1945 when he had to leave Brittany in a
hurry, first for Wales and then Ireland, to escape a sentence of 20
years' hard labour handed down for his part in the Emsav (as the Breton
movement is known).
He was accused of collaboration with
the Germans when all he had done was take part in the activities of
Breton cultural circles in Paris. Before the war, however, he had been
one of the founders of Ar Brezhoneg er Skol, a society for the teaching
of Breton and Breton history, and Vice-President of L'Union Régionale
Bretonne. He also launched, in 1942, two newspapers, La Bretagne and La
Dépêche de Brest, in which he argued for a greater degree of autonomy
for Brittany.
It was this latter activity, partly funded
by the collaborationist Vichy regime, that was held against him: to
have questioned the concept of the Republic as "une et indivisible" was
enough to condemn him. He was tarred with the same brush as nationalist
leaders who had actively collaborated with the Nazis and who, as the
Allies advanced, had returned with them to Germany.
In
Wales, where he assumed the alias Dr Moger, suggested by his wife's
maiden name, he was given refuge at the home of Gwynfor Evans, the
leader of Plaid Cymru. After being deprived of his job as a French tutor
at University College, Swansea, and at a Catholic College in Llandeilo,
he moved to Ireland to avoid arrest, and there settled with his wife
and young children, assuming the name Sean Mauger. In Connemara he set
up a successful lobster farm, and continued writing, editing and
organising for the Breton cause. The French Government exonerated him of
all charges in 1958, after which he was allowed to return to Brittany.
A
prolific writer, he wrote an influential book, L'Europe aux Cents
Drapeaux (1968), translated as Towards a Federal Europe: Nations or
States? (1980). He argued eloquently in favour of "a third Europe" or "a
Europe of the peoples", in which Bretons, Basques, Catalans, Occitans,
Galicians, Flemings, Frisians, Scots and Welsh would be among the
minorities granted self-determination in a federal Europe.
Jean-Adolphe
Fouéré, as he was known to the French civil state, was born in 1910 at
Aignon, in Gascony, the son of a Breton senior civil servant. He was
educated in St Brieuc and the Lycée Montaigne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand,
two of the best secondary schools in Paris, later taking degrees in Law,
the Humanities and Political Science at the Sorbonne. His passion for
all things Breton was awakened when, as a schoolboy, he read Breiz Atao
("Brittany for ever"), the newspaper of the Parti National Breton which
commanded the support of many nationalists and was later to be accused
of collaboration. He followed his father into the Ministry of the
Interior but, with his political opinions constrained, soon opted for
the life of a journalist in Brittany.
After the war hewas
Secretary General of the Comité Consultatif de Bretagne and edited its
newspaper, La Bretagne, which later became L'Avenir de la Bretagne, the
organ of the Mouvement pour l'Organisation de la Bretagne (MOB). I first
met him in 1961 shortly after he had co-founded the Breton branch of
the Celtic League. Innocuous though this initiative was, he still had a
reputation as a militant and, in the eyes of the authorities, he was a
dangerous separatist. In October 1975, together with some 50 others, he
was arrested on suspicion of involvement in preparations by the Front de
Libération de la Bretagne (FLB) for a bombing campaign against building
nuclear power stations in Brittany. He spent 105 days in La Santé
prison in Paris but was released under a general amnesty.
In
1972 he founded Strollad ar Vro (SAV) and in 1981 led the formation of
Parti pour l'Organisation d'une Bretagne Libre (POBL), both groups on
the right of the political spectrum, neither of which met with any
electoral success. His autobiography, one of a dozen books he wrote over
the years, appeared in two parts: La Patrie Interdite in 1987 and La
Maison de Connemara in 1995. But his most important initiative was the
creation in 1999 of Institut de Documentation Bretonne et Européenne,
which now houses his invaluable archive of material relating to the
history and social life of Brittany. In the absence of a Breton national
library it will serve as his monument. Yann Fouéré (Jean-Adolphe Fouéré), Breton activist and
European federalist: born Aignan, Gers, France 26 July 1910; married
1939 Marie-Magdeleine Mauger (two sons, three daughters); died Saint
Brieuc, Brittany 21 October 2011." Go to: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/yann-four-breton-militant-and-european-federalist-6261734.html
* How ironic now it's "The Feds" we've got to worry about!
Quote: "
Why independence ?
With
the passing of years, we largely showed that our combat is firstly that of our
Breton compatriots which fight in their companies for their employment and
justice social, which mobilize for development economic of our country with
service of all and in respect of our inheritance natural, which fights for the
defense of our language and our culture, which militate with the daily newspaper
for the right to live decently on their premises, in Brittany. We always
indicated our adversaries: the French State centralizer and denier of the People
and the capitalist system with its misadventures productivist néo-liberals.
That
known as without putting our " Gwenn ha du " in our pocket we were not
those which claimed that it is enough to change flag so that the men and the
women of Brittany are finally free in the individual and collective plan. And if
it is true that we line up in the independence camp, we never located the
political debate in Brittany on that only ground.
Independence is legitimate.
If one admit that the Brittany exist as people and
nation distinct, it be legitimate that one fight for its sovereignty with the
instar some many other people of world which have know preserve their
independence during their history or that they have obtain it after a fight of
release national. The fact of being Breton should not deprive to us of the
rights that the others have or in other words, we are not Bretons but
undoubtedly French alive in a geographical space called Brittany.
Moreover,
is it necessary to point out that we knew already independence, that one even
which was confiscated to us after a military defeat? The centuries will not
change anything with this historical truth.
Independence is realistic.
From
the economic point of view, it is not contestable by anybody that Brittany has
all the assets of a country able to be managed in all independence. Our country
is well more than the " pantry " of France. Its size is comparable
with that of the Netherlands, of Belgium, of Denmark, of Israel. Its
geographical situation with the point of Europe east one of best of the world.
Its climate, its maritime frontages, its agricultural potential, are at the same
time the allies and the fruits of People whose rooting, dynamism and opening are
not any more to show.
Realism
is statement " Brittany cannot manage without France " without never
saying why. But the lack of realism be well to justify the situation of
dependence current which we make believe that we be offset in a State centralize
which in more we deprive of fifth of our territory and, therefore, of third of
our potential economic! Famous " the Breton problem " does not exist.
Only exists a French problem in Brittany.
Independence
is possible.
Whereas
much at one time considered the access to an unspecified independence, like a
dream suitable to occupy the ends of banquets, never the history with put to us
this dish so close with the range of the hand. Without speaking about did the
Algerian independence of 1962, how much country and people acquire it since the
last war and sit since at UNO? More close to us, in Europe, the recent events
showed that there was nothing final and that the lead covers of the most
totalitarian empires ended up yielding. From the Ukraine in Latvia, from
Slovaquie in Slovénie, several tens of " small " nations come during
these last years if not of these last months, often against any waiting, to
release themselves and to be recognized like populates independent within the
International Community. This historical movement which points out another end
of century curiously, XIXème century, soon will touch people even closer to us.
The Basques who express per tens of thousands, behind streamers claiming
self-determination, the Scot which claim independent Scotland in Europe, the
Catalans who affirm themselves openly walks from there towards independence, the
Corsicans who henceforth put ahead the principle of national sovereignty,
without forgetting the Flemings who soon will forget that they had been Belgian
once!
The
Bretons ones do they may find it beneficial not to seize this historical
opportunity which is offered to them?
independence is necessary.
To
change of framework institutional in pass of statute of community regional with
four department and a super prefect with that of country independent equip of
its clean government indicate by the people, be enough not in oneself to modify
like by a waving of a magic wand de magic wand the reality socio-economic and
cultural of our country, nor the daily newspaper of Breton. The abrogation of
the unemployment and the precariousness of employment, the end of the social
injustices are not issued more than the economic revival or the cultural alarm
clock. Undoubtedly. Remain that it would be more effective to decide on our
premises measures to be taken in all the fields than to wait than Paris wants to
lend the ear to it well. The principal reason holds in the fact that we do not
have the same interests and that they are often contradictory. The emigration of
the young people, low wages, all-tourism, the disappearance of our farmers and
maintaining our fishermen, as many disasters which are not inescapable. They are
the consequence of political choices which serve the interests of the French
State and the multinationals.
Independence
would enable us to defend to us same the interests of our people in the European
and international authorities instead of entrusting them to ministers who serve
only the " higher interest " of France. In les field of agriculture
and some fishing, one see well how what make our potential economic be sell off
on the furnace bridge of the interest common with Brussels and elsewhere,
whereas the people which lay out some representative to them defend arrive to
draw their pin of play in obtain some mode special or derogatory.
What
is true from the economic point of view is true as much within the framework of
the fight against unemployment and exclusion social, the defense of our coasts
and our natural inheritance, the cultural and linguistic policy. That would have
avoided us going to whine for a statute of official language or by the
ratification of a European charter!
Independence what it is not.
Independence is not autonomy. This concept, which lost
its original direction, is related to a situation of dependence which maintains
people under the political domination of a State, which grants certain rights to
him intern all while depriving it of essence: freedom. Autonomous Brittany is a
lure insofar as France is not historically a community of people which
voluntarily agreed to gather as in a federation, but a state resulting from a
monarchical system denier of these same people. Autonomy is very often only one
stage transitory which falls like a ripe fruit at the time of the functioning of
people towards his independence. If it can be good to take, it can of nothing
constitute a long-term objective.
Independence is not autarky. Brittany, maritime
country, are sufficiently open on the world never not to be tempted to fold up
itself on itself. Its prosperity of formerly and its development (unequal)
current, it owes them with its exchanges with outside. Independence would enable
us to increase these international relations towards the west and the south
whereas the current dependence locks up us in economic relations almost only
turned towards France and always supervised by Paris.
Independence in Europe of the
People.
Independence will confer on Brittany and to our people
a political and legal framework recognized at the international level and in
very first place on the European plan. Europe that we want is not that of the
referendum on the Treaty of Maastricht which was not subjected to us as people,
like the Danes or the Irishmen (except North) but as a citizen of a state that
we refuse. Europe could be beneficial only insofar as our existence is
recognized like populates freely deciding to join, to cooperate and exchange or
not with others at the international level.
Independence with the Breton
people.
Independence could not be declared by a handle of
individuals who would have self-proclaimed leaders of their people without the
assent of this last. It is on the contrary the fruit of a massive and major
awakening within the whole of our compatriots. It is not an end in itself but a
political objective in a project of individual and collective release. It cannot
be defined as a preliminary in its real contents in measurement or it is not a
group to decide in the place of people. But it is well the vocation of a
political movement to make the proposals which seem to him right so that each
one is determined with complete freedom.
The Innocent Suffer..RIP Laurence Turbec 28 Years Old
Quote; "A
bomb exploded beside a McDonald's in a small town in Brittany today,
killing a restaurant worker. The Interior Ministry suggested that it was
the work of an obscure Breton separatist movement.
A second bomb, outside a post office about 35 miles away in Rennes, the region's chief city, was defused.
The
explosion, in the Dinan area, went off about 10 a.m. near the
restaurant's drive-through window. It hurled the body of the worker, a
28-year-old woman named Laurence Turbec, into shrubbery decorating the
parking lot. Only a handful of customers were in the restaurant at the
time.
No
one took responsibility for either bomb, but the police said three
sticks of dynamite found in Rennes were from a cache of eight tons
stolen at gunpoint from an industrial depot last September.
In January, 2013, I wrote an article entitled, “Psychiatric Drugs, School Violence, And The Big Pharma Cover-up,”
where I discussed the importance of the CYP450 enzymes on the
metabolism of pharmaceutical drugs and the potential for adverse effects
of those drugs if the CYP450 enzyme was not functioning properly.
Studies conducted over the last decade have clearly demonstrated the
link between adverse reactions to Psycho-Pharmaceutical medications and
underactive or underperforming CYP450 enzymes. This has caused some to
wonder whether or not the recent uptick in mass shootings and the
obvious link to many of the perpetrators and prescription drugs could be
related to the performance of the CYP450 enzymes. Additional research,
however, is now causing more questions to be asked in reference to the
connections that chemicals like Glyphosate may have in the inhibition of
proper CYP450 performance and, thus, in the uptick in mass shootings.
For those unfamiliar with the functions of the CYP450
enzymes, CYP450 stands for the Cytochrome P450 enzymes. Scientists
understand these enzymes to be responsible for metabolizing almost half
of all drugs currently on the market. P450 gene variants (polymorphisms)
are implicated in the variability in drug response among a wide range
of individuals.
These polymorphisms, which are essentially structural changes in the
human DNA, might hold the key as to why some individuals do not respond
to high doses of medication and why other individuals may have toxic or
adverse effects to the same medication at very low doses. As the Mayo
clinic Communique, Cytochrome P450 Enzyme Genotyping: Optimizing Patient Care Through Pharmacogenetics explains:
The CYP450 enzymes are a group of at least 57
different proteins that are each coded by a different gene. The CYP450
enzymes, also known as mixed function monooxygenases, are located in the
microsomes of the endoplasmic reticulum in many cell types including
the liver, small intestine, kidney, lung, brain, and skin. In mammals,
the CYP450 enzymes are the primary catalysts for detoxification
reactions that render water-insoluble molecules sufficiently water
soluble to be excreted in the urine . . . Drugs, hormones, toxins,
carcinogens, mutagens, environmental pollutants, and other xenobiotics
are metabolized by CYP450 enzymes.
Of the CYP450 enzyme family,
there are other more specific enzymes such as CYP2C9, CYP2C19, and
CYP2D6, etc. These three enzymes specifically are responsible for
approximately 40% of all CYP450-mediated drug metabolism. The CYP2D6
enzyme itself is responsible for the bulk of drug metabolism at around
20% to 30% of drug metabolism in the CYP450 family.
Again, referring to the Mayo clinic Communique:
The CYP2D6 enzyme is the most extensively
characterized polymorphic drug-metabolizing enzyme. It is responsible
for hydroxylation or dealkylation of over 100 commonly prescribed drugs
such as alpha-blockers, analgesics, anticonvulsants, antidepressants,
antiemetics, antihypertensives, antiestrogens, antineoplastics,
antipsyhotics, antiretrovirals, antitussives, beta- and andrenoceptor
blockers, cardioactive drugs, H1 blockers, opioids, stimulants and
sympathomimetics.
Highly
variable, with more than 160 variants identified to date, the CYP2D6
gene is located on chromosome 22, where crossover events lead to
duplication of this gene.
In relation to the CYP2D6
enzyme, there are four classifications – Extensive Metabolizers (EM),
Poor Metabolizers (PM), Intermediate Metabolizers (IM), and Ultrarapid
Metabolizers (UM).
EM (Extensive Metabolizers) are considered the “normal genotype,” “which
is free of inactivating polymorphisms, deletions, or duplications.” PM
(Poor Metabolizers) are individuals who have “deficient” enzyme
function in terms of CYP450 metabolic processes and, subsequently, have
difficulty clearing certain medications. IM (Intermediate Metabolizers)
are those who have some functioning CYP450 enzymes but are subject to
loss of the function of these enzymes after the “second hit” of
medication, thus turning them into PM. UM (Ultrarapid Metabolizers) are
those who metabolize the drug so rapidly that it clears so quickly that
there is little or none of the desired effect. In medications that
required metabolism to activate, however, UM individuals may produce the
metabolite may be produced too quickly, resulting in toxicity and the
realization of side effects.
While
there are potentially adverse health effects with any one of the four
classifications, the focus of this article is on those who are generally
PM (Poor Metabolizers). This is because these individuals have a higher
chance of experiencing adverse health effects of pharmaceuticals than
those with “normal” functioning EMCYP2D6 enzymes.
Of course “normal” and “deficient” are misnomers because all of these
genotype categories are normal and none are truly deficient. They are
only deficient in the context of pharmaceutical medication.
While this information might seem new to the general public who have
been subjected to years and years of steady propaganda from the mental
health and pharmaceutical industries suggesting that medication is the
answer for every uncomfortable and natural human feeling or response,
the fact is that these industries, as well as numerous scientists, have
known about it for some time.
Recently published by Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine,
the purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between three
of the enzymes of the CYP450 family (CYP2D6, CYP2C9, CYP2C19),
akasthisia, drugs (legal, illegal, prescription, and non-prescription),
violence, and the diminishing mutations in the metabolizing genes. The
researchers utilized their access to individuals who were diagnosed with
akathisia/serotonin toxicity related to their consumption of
psychiatric medications. Out of this test population, many had a history
of violence and suicidal ideation; some had even committed homicide as a
result.
The results of the study pointed to a clear correlation between
“deficient” CYP450 enzyme activity and the experience of adverse side
effects, including but not limited to: serious violence, homicide, and
suicide. Indeed, the researchers concluded that “prescribing
antidepressants without knowing about CYP450 genotypes is like giving
blood transfusions without matching for ABO groups.”
It is important to note, however, that Big Pharma has been aware of
these connections for some time, yet they, along with the mental health
and medical establishments have continued to push psychiatric
medications at an ever increasing rate. The Lucire researchers comment
on this very aspect when discussing the results of the study. They
write:
In the cases presented in this paper,
concerning subjects with abnormal CYP450 metabolism (ie, ultrarapid
and/or diminished), the antidepressant or its metabolites may have
reached a toxic level in hours or days correlating with onset of intense
dysphoria and akasthisia. The symptoms of toxicity were not recognized,
or were ignored by patient and/or treating doctor and, in many cases,
the dose of the antidepressant was increased while various “antidotes”
to side effects, like sleeping pills, nausea, and pain medications, were
added. They were prescribed by clinicians educated by drug company
representatives, available information, and key opinion leaders who
receive substantial benefits from the makers of these drugs, an issue
that is coming to light with whistleblower (qui tam) cases taken by
attorneys, state and federal, against the makers for fraudulent
promotion. Healy (2006) has documented the details of these fraudulent
promotions, but they remain outside the purview of regulatory agencies
who approve, even subsidise, drugs and sanction ghost-written product
information concerning their use.
This has stunning
implications regarding many of the irrational acts of violence seen in
modern society by individuals who were “in the system” at one time or
another. Specifically, the number of school shootings in the United
States and the numerous cases of children killing their parents or
parents killing their children, as well as other relatively irrational
and, quite frankly, strange acts of violence.
Likewise, these findings also have dramatic implications for the increase in suicide.
These facts and findings raise the question that many learned
individuals have been posing for some time: Are the pharmaceutical
companies liable for the increase in violence, suicide, and
psychological damage among many members of the general population who
have consumed their product?
If the makers of the drugs knew that those lacking “adequate” CYP450
enzyme function would be susceptible to serious side effects such as
those mentioned above, then it would necessarily follow that they would
be guilty of “Failure to warn.”
While some side effects (but certainly not all) are mentioned on the
labels, in medical dictionaries, and “educational” material, nowhere is
it mentioned that someone lacking the corresponding CYP450 family
enzymes might be at higher risk for experiencing these side effects.
Indeed, the question of “Failure to warn” on the part of the
pharmaceutical companies has already arisen in court. Litigation has
already been brought against these corporations -- specifically Eli
Lilly -- alleging that the corporation is guilty of “Failure to warn” in
regards to the side effects of Prozac. In 2002, a lawsuit was brought
against Eli Lilly alleging that the company had “failed to publicize
research showing some people are 'poor metabolizers of Prozac' and a
test can reveal if a patient might be affected.”
If these cases are successful, and if they are allowed to continue, it
is not likely that they will stop with the Big Pharma corporations.
Hospitals, medical practices, psychiatrists, and doctors are all likely
to suffer the harvest of the seeds sown by the pharmaceutical companies.
As Eileen Danneman of Vaccine Liberation Army writes:
An ‘inadvertent’ induction of TSBP or ISS by a
psychiatrist can no longer serve as a credible or legal excuse for
iatrogenic harm to the patient and safety risk to the public at large
considering the wealth of research, science-based evidence and clinical
reports since the mapping of genes and the identification of GENETIC
POLYMORPHISMS OF CYTOCHROME P450 (CYP) 2D6 and other alleles since the
1980s. . .
Soon Hospitals and
Psychiatrists will join the ranks of failed defendants, as medical
malpractice attorneys become educated in the subject of gene testing and
psychiatry, thereby opening up channels for multiple level litigations.
Due to the ever expanding field of pharmacogentics, and the ever
increasing inclusion of information on Cytochrome P450 in manufacturers’
package inserts, (specifically information on 2D6) there is no question
that psychiatric directors of hospitals, mental health clinic directors
and psychiatrists in general have working knowledge and have, indeed,
had sufficient knowledge of genetic polymorphism of Cytochrome P450 2D6
and other alleles for the past 10-15 years. Clearly disregarding this
knowledge, psychiatrists have ‘failed to warn’ their patients putting
them in harms way and the public at great risk. (Source)
Indeed,
the connection between CYP450 enzymes and the increased risk of drug
side effects is relatively well-known amongst practicing psychiatrists
already. Please see the following links:
This
writer personally asked some within the profession as to the
relationship between CYP450 enzymes and increased potential for side
effects and was surprised to see the level of knowledge was such that
the general response was that no one should be prescribed these
specific types of medication without adequate testing to determine their
risk potential. Certainly, this level of knowledge may not be
representative of the general population of psychiatrists as no
scientific poll was taken, yet it does show that this knowledge has been
circulating amongst those practicing psychiatry today.
Obviously, any pharmaceutical corporation that has knowingly withheld
evidence or research that may point toward a relationship between P450
enzymes and drug side effects should be subject to both prosecution and
litigation. Indeed, there is virtually no doubt that they have done just
that.
Yet there is another aspect to the strange uptick in school shootings
that might possibly be related not only to the CYP450 enzymes and
adverse reactions to Psycho-Pharmaceutical medications, but also to
major corporations like Monsanto.
This is because of the preponderance of chemicals like Glyphosate and
its proven effects on the CYP450 enzyme performance. Glyphosate is the
most widely used herbicide in the United States and the rest of the
world. Its uses are largely focused in the agricultural sectors -
particularly by Big-Agra operations - and in the production of various
Genetically Modified foods which have been engineered to resist its
effects.
Glyphosate, besides an environmental toxin, is also well known to be
toxic to humans and mammals in general. More importantly to this
discussion, however, is the fact that Glyphosate also acts as a CYP450
enzyme disruptor.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®,
is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it
is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues
are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of
sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450
(CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins.
Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time
as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we
show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with
disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria,
as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most
of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which
include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease,
depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We
explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce
disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of
exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by
environmental toxins.[1] [emphasis added]
The authors also write,
Glyphosate from food sources or as a
contaminant in water would be likely to reach the liver in high
concentrations through direct transport from the digestive system via
the hepatic portal vein. It could be anticipated that glyphosate
would disrupt many of the diverse CYP enzymes that are bioactive in the
liver, involved in cholesterol synthesis and metabolism, vitamin D3
synthesis and metabolism, the detoxification of xenobiotics, and
regulation of retinoic acid. Glyphosate would also be expected to travel
throughout the blood stream, disrupting any CYP enzymes it comes in
contact with.[2] [emphasis added]
glyphosate acts as a disruptor of mammalian
cytochrome P450 aromatase activity from concentrations 100 times lower
than the recommended use in agriculture; this is noticeable on human
placental cells after only 18 hr, and it can also affect aromatase gene
expression. It also partially disrupts the ubiquitous reductase activity
but at higher concentrations. Its effects are allowed and amplified by
at least 0.02% of the adjuvants present in Roundup, known to facilitate
cell penetration, and this should be carefully taken into account in
pesticide evaluation. The dilution of glyphosate in Roundup formulation
may multiply its endocrine effect. Roundup may be thus considered as a
potential endocrine disruptor. Moreover, at higher doses still below the
classical agricultural dilutions, its toxicity on placental cells could
induce some reproduction problems.[3]
Yet, while the
inhibition of CYP450 enzymes are an overlooked danger of Glyphosate, the
increased propensity toward adverse effects of psycho-pharmaceutical
drugs is an even more drastically underpublicized effect of the
herbicide. Remember, as stated earlier in this article, it is well-known
that that the disruption of CYP450 enzymes can lead directly to adverse
effects of pharmaceuticals.
With
this in mind, it is also important to note that, according to the
Richard, Moslemi, et al. study, Glyphosate, the active ingredient in
Monsanto’s Roundup, is capable of disrupting CYP450 enzymes at
concentrations 100 times lower than that which is recommended for
agricultural uses.
This is extremely concerning because, in 2014, the majority of the
American food supply is treated with Roundup (Glyphosate) at some point
during growing season. In 2010, the New York Times reported
that “90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton
grown in the United States” are “Roundup Ready” crops, meaning that the
crops have been Genetically Engineered to resist the herbicidal effects
of Glyphosate. This also indicates the same percentage of these
particular crops are sprayed with Roundup during the production process.
In fact, Roundup has been used so much that weeds have adapted
themselves to the chemical and are becoming more and more resistant to
its effects, thus requiring the use of more Roundup to achieve its
intended effects.
With all of this information taken together, it thus justified to ask
whether or not the preponderance of Glyphosate in the American food
supply might be contributing to a vast increase in the occurrence of
adverse effects of pharmaceuticals and pyscho-pharmaceuticals and, as a
result, an increase in mass shootings and otherwise violent behavior.
In the end, Monsanto and companies like it should be held responsible for the environmental degradation they have caused over decades
of predatory and greedy business practices. Monsanto should be help
responsible for all of its corrupt lobbying efforts[4] and bribing of
public officials. It should be held responsible for the countless health
effects[5] caused by both its chemical products and its toxic tasteless
food products. The relentless use and promotion of Glyphosate should
be no exception.
Amphibians
are without a doubt the most endangered group of animals on the
planet: nearly 1/3 of the world's species are on the brink of
extinction. There are six major factors negatively affecting amphibians,
and all are due to human activity: habitat destruction, infectious diseases, pollution & pesticides, climate change, invasive species, and over-harvesting
for the pet and food trades. As the human population spirals out of
control, these threats will continue to grow, unless immediate action is
taken.
Unfortunately,
though national parks and preserves are an integral part of conserving
amphibian populations, they are no longer sufficient in and of
themselves, as airborne pollutants, climate change and infectious
diseases can easily cross any boundaries.
