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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Corrida
Blood on the sand: Female matador, four others gored by enormous bull in Mexico City
Published December 30, 2014
·         Mexico bullfighter crop.jpg
In this Dec. 28, 2014 photo, Karla de los Angeles, one of Mexico's few female bullfighters, is gored by a bull during a bullfight in Mexico City. The 26-year-old bullfighter who suffered a pair of gashes to the thigh and buttock when she was gored twice by the bull says she is determined to return to the ring by mid-January, two days after she and several others were gored by what she described as a "very smart" bull. (AP Photo/Gabino Acevedo, Cuartoscuro.com) MEXICO OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN MEXICO - MANDATORY CREDIT - CREDITO OBLIGATORIO

A female Mexican bullfighter had a rough day in the ring after being gored twice by an angry bull during a corrida in the Plaza de Toros, the world's largest ring, on Sunday in Mexico City.
As the pint-sized Karla de los Angeles was preparing to deliver the killing blow on the 1,090-pound bull named Gamusino, he caught her upper body with his horn and lifted her over his head. 
A video taken at the bullfight shows de los Angeles wincing in pain on the dirt before being treated by the ring’s medical staff.
Soon after receiving medical treatment, she was in the ring again when Gamusino gored her a second time. In all, de Los Angeles, 25, suffered cuts of 4.7 inches and 3.9 inches on her thigh and buttockshttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png.
"It was [a very bloody run], there were many mishaps. Thank God, so far as it goes, we're fine," de Los Angeles told a local radio station afterwardhttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png. "You have to accept it as it is."
Gamusino also gored assistant Federico Dominguez who tried to help de los Angeles. The bull proceeded to injure two different assistants along with a farmer after he jumped out of the ring and went into a walkway. One of the assistants reportedly had a concussion and is in serious condition.
To top off a day of bloodshed, one of the 5,000 or so spectators was also hurt when the fourth bull of the afternoon jumped the wooden barrier surrounding the ring.
Female bullfighters – three of whom competed in Mexico on Sunday – are a controversial topic among aficionados of the spectacle. For decades under the regime of General Francisco Franco in Spain, women were prohibited from performing as matadors, and, while the ban was soon lifted after the dictator’s death, there are still very few female matadors.


Terror Threat
December 24, 2014 at 13:00


Posted by newsdesk
strong terrorist infrastructure in France
France is a hub of diverse terrorist activity, just waiting for a chance to perpetrate terrorist attacks. This, according to Israeli counterterrorism experts.
These experts cite French authorities’ long active ignorance of clear signs of organized terrorist efforts in several cities within France. “It is already too late to deal with the problem. What remains to be done, is to handle the outcome,” says one counterterrorism expert, and adds “there were demonstrations with a clear message, but the French authorities turned a blind eye and a deaf ear towards them.”
Major terror alert was called in France ahead of Noël (Christmas).
Yesterday evening, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced security forces shall be stepped up, and added another 300 armed combat soldiers, to be deployed in shopping centers, city centers and public transport.
The local newspapers are also expressing the tense atmosphere. “Anxiety ahead of the Christmas Holiday” ran one headline in Le Parisien, whereas the national newspaper Le Figaro published an op-ed entitled “Enemies from Within”.
The wave of violence began last Saturday, when a man shouted “Allah Akbar” as he walked into a police station in the center of Joué lès Tours, attacked three officers with a knife and was shot dead. Two of the police officers he stabbed suffered severe injuries.
The following day, a driver stormed into pedestrians making their way in Dijon, wounding 13 people while shouting similar Islamic chants.
Two days ago, another person ran his car into a Christmas market in Nantes, wounding 10 people. The perpetrator then stabbed himself several times before he was arrested. One of the people he had injured died in hospital yesterday.
The French police is investigating a shooting at a synagogue in Paris’s 19th arrondissement.
The attacks are very different from one another, but they are also troublingly similar. Whereas French Prime Minister Valls already announced the three incidents are unrelated, the persistent threat of ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks is a source of grave concerning among the authorities.

King Health
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_of_Saudi_Arabia
Report: Saudi King Abdullah admitted to hospital for medical tests
By Laura Smith-Spark and Nic Robertson, CNN
December 31, 2014 -- Updated 1148 GMT (1948 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
 (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was admitted to a hospital Wednesday for medical tests, according to a statement from the royal court cited by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The King is in the National Guard Hospital in the capital, Riyadh, the statement said. It gave no further details of his health.

According to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, Abdullah, 90, was born in Riyadh in 1924.
He was named crown prince, or heir to the throne, in 1982 and succeeded King Fahd, his half-brother, on his death in 2005.

He had in effect been running the country since Fahd had a stroke in 1996 -- and in nearly a decade of ruling on behalf of his brother, he began opening the door to reform.
Since ascending to the throne, he has taken steps toward broader freedoms and has invested some of the country's vast oil wealth in large-scale education and infrastructure projects.

However, resistance from conservative factions has hindered some of his efforts, leaving many women in particular disappointed by a lack of progress toward greater independence.
Under Abdullah's leadership, the country has, though, slowly squashed al Qaeda, capturing or killing its leaders in the kingdom, forcing the remnants underground and sidelining radical preachers.

It has also taken a more prominent role in international affairs and is a key U.S. ally in the region.

Earlier this year, it became the lead Arab nation in a U.S.-led coalition to eradicate the ultra-radical ISIS group in Iraq and Syria.



Health
December 26, 2014 at 07:00


Posted by newsdesk
2013-03-18 05.46.07
This unique invention is being used for many applications: an electrical wire that is woven into normal fabric. This wire is made of carbon-coated threads woven into a flexible fabric that radiates heat. Thus, the fabric heats up.
ThermoSiv’s fabric is made of strong nylon/polyester yarn threads that are coated with its proprietary carbon-based compound. The semi-conductive carbon threads are woven with additional metallic conductive threads to make an all-in-one robust and at the same time extremely thin and flexible heating fabric.
The strong and flexible threads can be woven using existing industrial textile facilities, enabling it for high volume production at low cost and fast delivery.
The fabric radiates Far Infra-Red heat (FIR) between 8-14 microns. These are the same invisible spectrum of rays that are the healthy therapeutic rays that the sun radiates
After several years of development, and joint R&D projects companies, such as Du Pont, Peugeot, HoMedics and others, the company is now entering its commercialization stage. Approximately 1.6M$ has been invested in the development of the various applications and products thus far. The special fabric is marketed under the name ThermoSiv.
Brig. General (Ret.) David Agmon, has developed the unique system and it is being used in many countries for different applications. A very popular one is to make light clothes radiating heat, allowing ease of movement.
2013-03-18 05.37.07
The recent application creates great interest, since a major cause of death after battlefield injury is hemorrhage: soldiers died in potentially survivable cases, because they did not timely receive medical treatment. The new application will help detect, identify, locate and report wounds to soldiers, in real time.
In other words, if only wounded soldiers were located on time, the bleeding wounds were diagnosed on time and the soldier timely received proper treatment, the number of casualties could be significantly reduced. Zohar Dvir told i-HLS. Dvir, an engineer that has realized the potential of the special cloth has developed a wounded soldier detection and location based on the ThermoSiv.
The solution, which is called WounDetect, is integrated in clothing will monitor and report wounds to a medical team. The system includes means for calling for rescue while precisely reporting the identity of the wounded soldier, the part of his body which was hit, number of hits, soldier’s location, etc.
The detection is based on measuring the electrical parameters of the cloth and physiological parameters of wounded soldiers body and using changes in that parameters as indices of wounds incurred by the soldier.

Nuclear Security

Russia says Ukraine deal to buy U.S. nuclear fuel poses safety risks
Ukraine nuclear fuel deal
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at a Dec. 14 memorial honoring those who lost their lives trying to contain the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. (Mykola Lazarenko / AFP/Getty Images)
Ukraine signs a deal to buy nuclear plant fuel from the U.S. company Westinghouse instead of Russia

Russian Foreign Ministry says Ukraine is risking public safety with switch to a U.S. supplier for nuclear fuel
Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of endangering public safety in Europe with its decision to buy nuclear fuel for its Soviet-built nuclear plants from a U.S. supplier, saying Ukrainian leaders had failed to learn anything from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster about safe nuclear energy usage.
"Moscow was somehow alarmed" over the deal announced earlier in the day by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk for Kiev to buy fuel for its nuclear plants from U.S. company Westinghouse through the year 2020, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
"Consequences of possible accidents and meltdowns will be the full responsibility of the Ukrainian authorities and U.S. suppliers of the fuel,” the statement added. 
The shift in supplier for the Ukrainian plants that produce 44% of the country's electricity was part of an effort across Eastern Europe to diversify fuel supplies currently sourced almost exclusively from Russia's monopoly Rosatom.
Westinghouse, majority-owned by the Toshiba Group and the builder and operator of more than half of the nuclear plants around the world, noted it "has been working in the Ukrainian market since 2003, and brings diversification of suppliers, global best practices and technology to the Ukraine market.
"Westinghouse fuel is currently operating safely and efficiently at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant without any defects in performance,” the company noted in a statement from its global headquarters near Pittsburgh.
The Russian Foreign Ministry statement was carried in full by the country's state-controlled media and appeared to signal Rosatom's pique over erosion of its once-captive market.
"It seems that the Chernobyl tragedy did not teach Kiev authorities any lessons concerning a scientifically feasible approach to the [peaceful] use of nuclear energy," the statement said. "In fact, it might be that nuclear safety is sacrificed for the sake of political ambitions."
Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine near the Belarus border, was the scene of the world's worst nuclear disaster when an explosion and fire destroyed the No. 4 reactor at the four-unit plant and sent up a radioactive cloud that circled the planet.
Russia has been chafing at Ukraine's pivot toward economic and security alliance with the West and away from its traditional integration with Russia. The Security Council revised Russia's military doctrine last week to label the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization the greatest threat to Russian security and earlier in the week blamed the alliance for Ukraine's decision to renounce its nonaligned status.

Spy Story
Barely Anyone Watched The Best Spy Show Of 2014

DEC. 30, 2014, 4:39 PM
The Assets
YouTube Aldrich Ames, as played by Paul Rhys.
From 1985 to 1987, the spy war between the US and the Soviet Union reached a bizarre fever pitch.
CIA assets inside the KGB were rounded up and executed, and no one could figure out why. A disgruntled ex-CIA agent evaded an FBI surveillance dragnet and fled to Moscow, partly by using a human-sized dummy to throw off his trackers. A US Marine guard fell for a KBG honeypot and allowed a Soviet operative into the American embassy in Moscow. To top it all off, a KBG colonel defected to the US and then re-defected to the Soviets after fleeing his CIA handler while they were eating at a French restaurant in Washington, DC's posh Georgetown neighborhood.
Events that could shift the balance of Cold War were coming hard and fast, and one man was in some way connected to all of them: Aldrich Ames, a CIA veteran currently serving a federal life sentence for espionage.
The hunt for Ames — who was perhaps the most damaging mole in the agency's history — and the events surrounding his betrayal of the United States was the subject of "The Assets," an 8-part miniseries that ran on ABC in early 2014. The show's pilot was the lowest-rated premier for a primetime drama in history. No matter: the whole thing's on Netflix Instant Watch. And if you have any interest in the Cold War, intelligence, or the darker regions of human nature the show belongs on your to-do list.
Plot-wise, "The Assets" is broadly similar to "Zero Dark Thirty." Both are about hard-charging female CIA agents fighting the agency's institutional inertia (and male-dominated hierarchy) while hunting a menacing, arrogant, and almost hopelessly concealed enemy. In "The Assets," that agent is Eastern Europe analyst Sandy Grimes, and the enemy is a suspected CIA mole responsible for exposing as many as 10 high-level assets that the KGB caught and executed in the mid-80s.
Grimes, played by Jodie Whittaker, is one of the few inside of the agency who's convinced of the mole's existence and continues hunting him even after the Soviet Union's fall. She's one of the few in the CIA bold enough to argue that the KGB was playing America's premiere intelligence agency for fools or to grasp the implications of such a breach. Her persistence pays off, but only after the mole hunt becomes a personally all-consuming side-note within the larger, mostly unseen history of the 1980s spy war.
Unlike in "Zero Dark Thirty," we actually meet the target of the hunt. "The Assets" doesn't try to soften Ames, played by Paul Rhys. He's an image of pure venality, in it for money and material advancement, though possibly driven by other, deeper motives that he's too afraid to fully confront. Maybe the most remarkable thing about "The Assets" is that it's able to make an objectively villainous figure complicated and human without using glorification as a crutch. 
Screen Shot 2014 12 30 at 3.52.53 PM
YouTube The real Sandy Grimes — the CIA agent who caught Aldrich Ames — speaks at the International Spy Museum in September of 2013.

It's easy to see why "The Assets" was a ratings bust. There aren't any shootouts and few chase scenes. The tension builds through the endless drudgery of spy work: the meetings and bureaucracy, the boxes of fading documents, the slow-burning suspicions and constantly frayed nerves. In FX's "The Americans," the KGB station in Washington has a frat house vibe to it, while the Russian spies are relatable and even sort of hip. In "The Assets," the KGB offices are austere and menacing places. The men working in them them are hard and unrepentant, but oddly pathetic as well. 
"The Assets" also has none of "The Americans'" appetite for relativism either. Much of the latter show's drama comes through the way in which the value system and internal lives of the FBI agents and the KGB operatives they're hunting begin to closely resemble and even blur into each other.
In "The Assets," the CIA is imperfect and even negligent. But there's no attempt at drawing cheap equivalencies with the KGB. There's no comparing the way Ames is eventually treated with the Soviet agency's brutal and extra-legal methods for weeding out its own traitors. And there's no comparing their essential purposes, either. In "The Assets," the CIA is out to protect the American way of life against a determined enemy — even if it can fall captive to fatal stretches of dysfunction in the process.
That might explain another reason "The Assets" didn't catch on. The show is capable of exposing the sometimes appalling shortcomings of the US intelligence community while also affirming the essential virtue of its mission. After the Snowden disclosures and the CIA torture report, the public discourse has had difficulty holding both of these thoughts simultaneously.
Something as grounded as "The Assets" might have introduced more realism and cognitive dissonance than a popular audience can handle around intelligence-related matters at the moment. At the opposite end of the spectrum from "The Americans" is "Zero Dark Thirty" itself, a film whose narrative was shaped through authorized leaks and consultations with the CIA.
That's why a show like "The Assets" is so important. It uses the intrigue of the late Cold War to strike a middle ground that's vital in the present day.

Intelligence

United States Capitol west front edit2.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress
Intel bill's passage was a low point, says GOP's Amash

By Mario Trujillo - 12/30/14 10:03 AM EST
Passage of an intelligence bill at the end of the 113th Congress was a low point that enhanced the executive branch's ability to collect and retain data, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said Monday.
Amash, who has repeatedly denounced the Intelligence Authorization Act, said its passage was a huge disappointment because it gives unprecedented authority to the spy community. 
"When you look at the bills that were passed, they were some of the worst pieces of legislation that I've seen in my four years of Congress," he said in an interview with Mlive.com published Monday. 
"We had an Intelligence Authorization Act where they, the intelligence committee or community, whoever wrote it, snuck in language that would authorize the executive branch to collect data, retain it, disseminate it, basically regardless of what type of data is it." 
Amash touted his effort to force a roll call vote on the authorization, which was opposed by 100 House members but passed nonetheless.  
He also mentioned the passage of the omnibus spending bill and the defense authorization bill as low points.  
While Amash came out hard against the intelligence provision, the intelligence community and civil liberty advocates disagree that it grants the executive branch unprecedented authority. 
The provision is meant to restrict the government from keeping communications collected without a court order for more than five years, if that collection could have swept up information from an American.
But Amash claims the provision tacitly gives Congress's approval to a type of collection, which has so far only been authorized by executive order.


Intelligence
New Zealand Spy Agency Has New Cyber Warfare Defence System

By Reissa Su | December 30, 2014 11:50 AM EST

New Zealand's spy agency, Government Communications Security Bureau, has a new cyber attack defence system. GCSB director Ian Fletcher has revealed the intelligence agency will invest in the system to protect New Zealand from cyber warfare.

Reuters/Brendon Thorne
New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key speaks at a luncheon in Sydney February 7, 2014.

According to Stuff.co.nz, Fletcher said he cannot say how Project Cortex works or which organisations will be under its protection. The spy boss has also refused to discuss the cost of the new system. The existence of Project Cortex was on the spotlight when Prime Minister John Key revealed the information following Kim Dotcom's "moment of truth" event in September.

The New Zealand government is scheduled to review the country's intelligence agencies and their legalities in 2015. Fletcher said GCSB is currently experiencing recruitment challenges amid a tight labour market.
He warned that the "barriers to entry" have become lower in spreading serious malware on the Internet as resources can be found either in the commercial or black market. Fletcher believes there is more critical infrastructure that would be vulnerable to an attack as the phone lines, power and banking systems are being controlled by internet protocol devices.
When asked more about Project Cortex, Fletcher only said that it is a set of tools rather than one product designed to protect crucial organisations and private sector from cyber attacks originating overseas. He has also declined to reveal the criteria organisations will have to meet before they will be protected by Project Cortex.
Fletcher has previously clarified that GCSB is not trying to be another cybersecurity company as it attempts to deal with the threats against a well-managed commercial organisations. The GCSB head said that the National Cyber Security Centre figures have shown an increase in the number of reported serious incidents every year. He believes the consistent rise in the number of reported incidents reflected the organisation's willingness to report the cyber attack. Radio NZ had reported a 60 percent increase in cyber attacks every year. 

Compared to other countries, Fletcher said the number of cyber attacks in New Zealand remains at normal levels. When asked if Cortex could protect New Zealand organisations from the serious malware reportedly produced by North Korea, Fletcher said he genuinely does not have any idea but it remains a relevant issue.


Air force
The U.S. Air Force Has a Spy Ship — Yes, Ship — in the Persian Gulf

USNS ‘Invincible’ is in the perfect position to track Iranian missiles

by DAVID AXE
The U.S. Air Force quietly keeps a small, inconspicuous spy ship in the Persian Gulf, presumably in order to keep an eye on Iran’s missile launches.
Technically speaking, USNS Invincible—a 224-foot vessel displacing a mere 2,800 tons—belongs to Military Sealift Command, the quasi-civilian branch of the Navy that operates America’s military logistics ship and other specialist vessels.
But Invincible is just a hull—unremarkable, painted white and maintained by 18 civilian contractors. It’s what’s inside and atop the hull that really matters. A sophisticated, dual X- and S-band radar called Gray Star that belongs to the Air Force.
No one says much about Invincible or Gray Star. Military Sealift Commandrefers to the vessel as a “missile range instrumentation ship” whose job it is to “monitor missile launches and collect data.”
The Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, in its official history for 2012, lumps Gray Star in with its sea-based systems that collect “scientific and technical data of foreign military capabilities and systems.”
War Is Boring obtained a copy of the history through the Freedom of Information Act.
The word “Iran” does not appear in any official description of Invincible or Gray Star.
But it’s apparent from the ship’s deployments that she spends most of her time keeping tabs on the regime in Tehran—specifically, Iran’s expanding arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles.
The Air Force ISR Agency admits that Invincible “typically” deploys to Central Command’s area, which includes the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. But there’s not a lot of actual evidence of the ship’s presence overseas. The military seems keen to downplay Invincible’s activities.
In May 2012, Invincible—which has no official home port in the U.S.—passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf in a convoy of U.S. Navy and British vessels. An official photo depicts the transit.
U.S. Navy photos
Another official photo from November 2012 shows sailors from the destroyer USS Jason Dunham riding in a small boat to visit Invinciblesomewhere in the Persian Gulf.
And that’s the last official photograph we have of the Air Force spy ship. Military Sealift Command reveals in its official history for 2013 thatInvincible sailed to the Mediterranean in May of that year.
But an online ship-tracking service shows that on July 27, 2013, Invinciblewas back in the Gulf, sailing 50 miles or so northeast of Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet maintains its headquarters. After that date, the spy ship disappeared from online location databases.
Tehran is 650 miles from Bahrain’s capital Manama.
We can reasonably assert that Invincible is still in the Persian Gulf. One user of the LinkedIn social media Website claims he was part of Invincible’s crew as recently as December 2013. He lists his location at that time as Bahrain.
And in the fall of 2014, Invincible’s crew shipped a one-ton package back to the U.S. via a commercial freighter. The crew gave its home address as Manama. The package arrived back in America in October.
Which is a strong indicator that the Air Force’s spy ship with her high-tech Gray Star radar is still on duty near Iran, apparently still watching for Tehran’s missile tests.

UFO Secrets Revealed

CIA says UFO sightings in past were US spy planes
U-2 spy plane
U-2 spy plane
Wed Dec 31, 2014 10:34AM GMT

The US Central Intelligence Agency has admitted that half of UFO sightings in the 1950s and 1960s were the country’s U-2 spy planes.

"Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the '50s? It was us," the CIA said in a tweet on Monday.

The agency explained that it was testing the spy planes at altitudes of over 60,000 feet. The figure was not believable at that time.

According to the spy agency, the document explaining that scenario was the most widely read document released this year by the CIA from their database.

The U-2 spy plane is flown by the United States Air Force now.

Some 104 U-2 spy planes have been built in total.

The Soviet Union shot down one of the planes in 1960 at 70,500 feet when it was trying to cross the country by going from Pakistan's air space then Norway's air space.

In 1997, The New York Times said in an article that the U-2 planes were developed to photograph targets from secret bases in California and Nevada.

AGB/AGB



Health Security
Half of All Children Will Be Autistic by 2025, Warns Senior Research Scientist at MIT
Posted By ANH-USA On December 23, 2014 @ 6:40 pm In Protect Our Children 
Close up of tractor spraying pesticides on crop
Why? Evidence points to glyphosate toxicity from the overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide on our food.
For over three decades, Stephanie Seneff, PhD, has researched biology and technology, over the years publishing over 170 scholarly peer-reviewed articles[1]. In recent years she has concentrated on the relationship between nutrition and health, tackling such topics as Alzheimer’s, autism, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as the impact of nutritional deficiencies and environmental toxins on human health.
At a conference last Thursday, in a special panel discussion about GMOs, she took the audience by surprise when she declared, “At today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic.” She noted that the side effects of autism closely mimic those of glyphosate toxicity, and presented data showing a remarkably consistent correlation [2] between the use of Roundup on crops (and the creation of Roundup-ready GMO crop seeds) with rising rates of autism. Children with autism have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate, including zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate, seizures, and mitochondrial disorder.
A fellow panelist reported [3] that after Dr. Seneff’s presentation, “All of the 70 or so people in attendance were squirming, likely because they now had serious misgivings about serving their kids, or themselves, anything with corn or soy, which are nearly all genetically modified and thus tainted with Roundup and its glyphosate.”
Dr. Seneff noted the ubiquity of glyphosate’s use. Because it is used on corn and soy, all soft drinks and candies sweetened with corn syrup and all chips and cereals that contain soy fillers have small amounts of glyphosate in them, as do our beef and poultry since cattle and chicken are fed GMO corn or soy. Wheat is often sprayed with Roundup just prior to being harvested, which means that all non-organic bread and wheat products would also be sources of glyphosate toxicity. The amount of glyphosate in each product may not be large, but the cumulative effect (especially with as much processed food as Americans eat) could be devastating. A recent study [4] shows that pregnant women living near farms where pesticides are applied have a 60% increased risk of children having an autism spectrum disorder.
Other toxic substances may also be autism-inducing. You may recall our story on the CDC whistleblower [5] who revealed the government’s deliberate concealment of the link between the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella) and a sharply increased risk of autism, particularly in African American boys. Other studies now show [6] a link between children’s exposure to pesticides and autism. Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit phthalate chemicals, are more likely to have autism. Children whose mothers smoked were also twice as likely to have autism. Research now acknowledges that environmental contaminants such as PCBs, PBDEs, and mercury can alter brain neuron functioning even before a child is born.
This month, the USDA released a study [7] finding that although there were detectable levels of pesticide residue in more than half of food tested by the agency, 99% of samples taken were found to be within levels the government deems safe, and 40% were found to have no detectable trace of pesticides at all. The USDA added, however, that due to “cost concerns,” it did not test for residues of glyphosate. Let’s repeat that: they never tested for the active ingredient in the most widely used herbicide in the world. “Cost concerns”? How absurd—unless they mean it will cost them too much in terms of the special relationship between the USDA and Monsanto. You may recall the revolving door between Monsanto and the federal government, with agency officials becoming high-paying executives—and vice versa! Money, power, prestige: it’s all there. Monsanto and the USDA love to scratch each others’ backs. Clearly this omission was purposeful.
In addition, as we have previously reported [8], the number of adverse reactions from vaccines can be correlated as well with autism, though Seneff says it doesn’t correlate quite as closely as with Roundup. The same correlations between applications of glyphosate and autism show up in deaths from senility.
Of course, autism is a complex problem with many potential causes. Dr. Seneff’s data, however, is particularly important considering how close the correlation is—and because it is coming from a scientist with impeccable credentials. Earlier this year, she spoke at the Autism One conference and presented many of the same facts; that presentation is available on YouTube [9].
Monsanto claims that Roundup is harmless to humans. Bacteria, fungi, algae, parasites, and plants use a seven-step metabolic route known as the shikimate pathway [10] for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids; glyphosate inhibits this pathway, causing the plant to die, which is why it’s so effective as an herbicide. Monsanto says humans don’t have this shikimate pathway, so it’s perfectly safe.
Dr. Seneff points out, however, that our gut bacteria do have this pathway, and that’s crucial because these bacteria supply our body with crucial amino acids. Roundup thus kills beneficial gut bacteria, allowing pathogens to grow; interferes with the synthesis of amino acids including methionine, which leads to shortages in critical neurotransmitters and folate; chelates (removes) important minerals like iron, cobalt and manganese; and much more.
Even worse, she notes [11], additional chemicals in Roundup are untested because they’re classified as “inert,” yet according to a 2014 study in BioMed Research International, these chemicals are capable of amplifying the toxic effects of Roundup hundreds of times over.
Glyphosate is present in unusually high quantities in the breast milk of American mothers, at anywhere from 760 to 1,600 times the allowable limits in European drinking water. Urine testing shows Americans have ten times the glyphosate accumulation as Europeans.
“In my view, the situation is almost beyond repair,” Dr. Seneff said after her presentation. “We need to do something drastic.”