Free Republic

Mask Burning Will Commence In Cooperation With Law Enforcement... American freedom lovers will gather in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday April 10 to protest for Face Freedom... “You are invited to the Million Maskless March and Mask Burning, Saturday April 10, 2021 at 3pm at the Corner of A1A and Las Olas in Ft Lauderdale!,” writes protest organizer Chris Nelson, who has organized viral flash mobs at chain stores that re-popularized Twisted Sister’s protest anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” “April 10 marks one year of mask tyranny in Broward County and we will mark that date with a celebration...

There are lots of reasons not to use plastic – but this one might come as a shock. Chemicals in everyday items, from household cleaners to food packaging, can damage a man’s penis – and make it smaller. Phthalates, BPA and parabens are to blame for a rise in the number of baby boys being born with genital defects, experts have warned. Dr. Andrew Pask and Dr. Mark Green, from the University of Melbourne, said in Australia penis birth defects have doubled in recent years, due to plastic use. To prove the link, they looked at the results when humans...

Toxic chemicals used in everyday products such as household cleaners, clothing and furniture have been linked to serious illnesses, including cancer, infertility, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Under current law, only a small fraction of chemicals used in these products have been reviewed for safety. A bill that Congress sent President Barack Obama on Tuesday would set new safety standards for asbestos and other dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde, styrene and BPA, that have gone unregulated for decades. The bill would update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate new and existing chemicals against...

The Guardian has been hit by a journalism ethics scandal after the newspaper admitted a reporter fabricated interviews and made up quotes in articles. Lee Glendinning, editor of Guardian US and a former Fairfax Media journalist, said reporter Joseph Mayton also falsely claimed to have been present at events he wrote about. The former deputy editor of Guardian Australia apologised to readers and to the “people whose words were misrepresented or falsified”. The newspaper, which was instrumental in campaigning for a British inquiry into press standards, has now removed 13 of contributor Mr Mayton’s articles from its website. Other articles...

In those moments of late-night cravings, Ramen Noodles seem to be your lifeblood -- the key to survival, exactly what you need to keep going. "Consistent quality and the finest of ingredients." But according to a new study -- they're killing you. OK, not necessarily, or not outright, but the research shows instant noodle products like Ramen can increase the risk of metabolic syndrome for women. And metabolic syndrome can mean increased risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, according to the Mayo Clinic. The study found women who ate instant noodle products more than twice a week were the...

KidsChemicalSafety.org provides up-to-date health information on chemical hazards and safe use of chemicals around children, so we asked Dr. Micheal Dourson, of Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), to comment on a recent article, Eng et al. (2013) that found higher levels of bisphenol A were associated with several measures of obesity in children. Specifically, children exposed to higher levels of bisphenol A had increased odds of having a body mass index in the 95th percentile (i.e., greater than 95% of all children) and a waist circumference to height ratio (WC) greater than a value of 0.5. However, several other...

The media elites have never been less interested in objectivity than they are right now on "gay marriage." They don't wear rainbow flags on their lapels when they appear on television, but the coverage speaks for itself. Even liberals are admitting the obvious. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) studied a sample of almost 500 news stories from March to May and admitted "statements of support dominate" the daily narrative. "The study lends credence to conservative charges that the nation's news media have championed the issue of same-sex marriage at the expense of objectivity," media reporter...

Question marks have been raised over whether the levels of bisphenol A (BPA) that people are routinely exposed to are high enough to cause the diseases that have been linked to the controversial chemical. An analysis by Justin Teeguarden, a systems toxicologist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US, makes the bold claim that many of the animal tests that demonstrate that BPA may be a contributory factor in diseases like type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease have been elucidated using concentrations much greater than those ever found in humans.‘The old saw that correlation is not causation may hold...

Common synthetic chemicals suspected of disrupting the hormone system could be responsible for serious health problems, warns a report released on 19 February by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Nearly 800 chemicals are known or believed to interfere with hormone receptors, synthesis or conversion, according to the report’s authors. But while the vast majority are currently on the market, only a small fraction have been investigated in tests capable of identifying overt endocrine effects, the report concluded. Specifically, the report highlighted associations between exposure to these endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and non-descended...

U.S. researchers report a link between early childhood exposure to bisphenol A -- a chemical used in can liners and store receipts -- and higher asthma risk. Lead author Dr. Kathleen Donohue, an assistant professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Center for Children's Environmental Health, and colleagues tracked 568 women enrolled in the Mothers & Newborns study of environmental exposures. BPA exposure was determined by measuring levels of a BPA metabolite in urine samples taken during the third trimester of pregnancy and in the children at ages 3, 5 and 7....

We in the media rarely lie to you. But that leaves plenty of room to take things wildly out of context. That's where most big scare stories come from, like recent headlines about GM foods. GM means "genetically modified," which means scientists add genes, altering the plant's DNA, in this case to make the crop resistant to pests. Last week, Poland joined seven other European countries in banning cultivation of GM foods. The politicians acted because headlines screamed about how GM foods caused huge tumors in rats. The pictures of the rats are scary. Some have tumors the size of...

The BPA and body weight controversy heated up again yesterday, with a new Journal of American Medicine Association report that kids with lots of the controversial plastic chemical in their urine are more likely to be obese. “Our study found ample evidence that BPA exposure makes fat cells bigger, reduces the function of a protein that protects from heart disease, and it disrupts the functional balance of testosterone and estrogen, which are important in maintaining caloric balance,” said New York University School of Medicine’s Dr. Leonardo Trasande, who traced the levels of Bisphenol A, also known as BPA, in 3,000...

A new study finds that fetal exposure to the plastic additive bisphenol A, or BPA, alters mammary gland development in primates. The finding adds to the evidence that the chemical can be causing health problems in humans and bolsters concerns about it contributing to breast cancer. "Previous studies in mice have demonstrated that low doses of BPA alter the developing mammary gland and that these subtle changes increase the risk of cancer in the adult," says Patricia Hunt, a geneticist in Washington State University's School of Molecular Biosciences. "Some have questioned the relevance of these findings in mice to humans....

WASHINGTON, March 10 (LID) – Federal regulators will decide this month whether to ban use of the synthetic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in all food packaging, officials said.

Ingredient of some plastics and food packaging can interfere with cardiac rhythm Bisphenol A toys with the female heart, a new study finds. And under the right conditions, its authors worry, this near-ubiquitous pollutant might even prove deadly. BPA is a building block of clear hard plastics, dental sealants and the resins lining food cans. Studies have shown that throughout the industrial world, nearly everyone regularly encounters the compound, albeit at trace concentrations. That’s small consolation, says Laura Vandenberg of Tufts University in Medford, Mass.: In the new BPA study, “the most effective dose was very close to — if...

A brewing ethical brouhaha at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel illustrates the hazards of politicized science reporting. In an era of partisan journalism, some have presumed that at least one area of reporting, science, was insulated from blatant bias. After all, there are facts, and it’s presumably easy to identify when data is being cooked. But that's naive, and a brewing ethical brouhaha at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel underscores how the public can be short-changed when ideology, ambition, or hubris takes precedence over a news organization’s public responsibility to report controversies in context.This incident erupted after a comprehensive review of plastic...

Advocacy groups targeting plastic products made with bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates took it on the chin last week.A comprehensive review by the German Society of Toxicology of thousands of studies on BPA concluded, “[BPA] exposure represents no noteworthy risk to the health of the human population, including newborns and babies.” The group, which included several scientists who have advised regulatory caution on BPA, bucked calls by advocacy groups to lower safe exposure levels.This is a huge development in this ongoing saga and a major endorsement of the scientific method. Over the past decade, German toxicologists had been among...

A month before the massive salmonella outbreak in eggs was discovered, one Democratic politician was warning another Democrat of the inherent dangers of holding up the "Food Safety Enhancement Act," legislation which very well could have reduced the harm of such an outbreak. A recall on eggs nationwide was announced after hundreds of people were sickened by salmonella that was found on the shells of the eggs. One benefit of the Food Safety Enhancement Act is that it will allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to order a mandatory recall of foods that are suspected to be tainted. Currently,...

The BPA MythEnvironmentalists are unbendable on plastics.  On Thursday, April 1, Time published a list of the “ten most common household toxins,” focused on plastics. It claimed, “Chemicals in plastics and other products seem harmless, but mounting evidence links them to health problems — and Washington lacks the power to protect us.” Top of the list was Bisphenol A, or BPA for short. BPA is an important ingredient in many of the plastic products that have made modern life inexpensive and convenient. BPA is used to make shatterproof water bottles, CDs, food and beverage cans, sporting equipment, eyeglass lenses, and...

LONDON (Reuters) – Exposure to a chemical found in plastic containers is linked to heart disease, scientists said on Wednesday, confirming earlier findings and adding to pressure to ban its use in bottles and food packaging. > The analysis also confirmed that BPA plays a role in diabetes and some forms of liver disease, said Melzer's team, who studied data on 1,493 people aged 18 to 74. > U.S. government toxicologists at the National Institutes of Health concluded in 2008 that BPA presents concern for harmful effects on development of the prostate and brain and for behavioral changes in fetuses,...