Free Republic

Edward F. Bachner IV spent years prowling dark corners of the Internet, where he sought a hit man to carry out the "permanent retirement" of an unidentified woman, according to a federal complaint filed Tuesday. Bachner, who was accused this week of buying a dangerous pufferfish toxin, suggested in one e-mail that payment for the murder would be an AK-47 assault rifle and $8,000, the complaint alleges. "If we have an agreement, I can send you specific info that will get you within 5 yards of mark on . . . any weekday," Bachner wrote, according to the court record....

Chemical allegedly found in FBI-led search can cause muscle paralysis in humans ~~~~~ A Lake in the Hills man was charged Monday with possession of a powerful neurotoxin found in species of puffer fish and octopus after agents with the FBI-led counter-terrorism task force raided his home. Edward Bachner, 35, was charged in a criminal complaint with one count of illegal possession of tetrodotoxin. He was arrested Monday and appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney in Rockford and was being held pending a detention hearing Wednesday morning, authorities said. Tetrodotoxin is an extremely powerful neurotoxin that in...

Deadly Immunity Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and...

FDA should take closer look at Thimerosal When you think of the Food and Drug Administration, what image comes to mind? For some, it is a bloated bureaucracy that tries to regulate every substance entering our bodies. For others, it is a necessary administration that keeps us safe and healthy. Taking the latter into consideration, did you know that the FDA has issued 87 product recalls, market withdrawals and safety alerts since January? Almost daily, some food or drug is either mandated or voluntarily recalled by the FDA, often without a single case of a health problem. The FDA just...

Maybe you really are what you eat. This would solve the long-time mystery of why so many of Guam's Chamorro people – up to a third per village -- suffered a devastating neurological disease. A new study suggests that they gorged on flying fox bats that in turn had feasted on neurotoxin-laden cycad seeds. "Through the consumption of cycad-fed flying foxes, the Chamorro people may have unwittingly ingested large quantities of cycad neurotoxins," say Clark Monson of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Sandra Banack of California State University, Fullerton, and Paul Cox of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo,...