Lawsuit claims PCBs found in 10 fish oil supplements; product l...

Stormwater run-off from roads, drains and parking dumps the equivalent of more than a dozen Exxon Valdez tankers of oil directly into US rivers each year, in addition to dangerous levels of heavy metals, pesticides, bacteria and industrial pollutants.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov...

PCB's in your fish oil? This is in large measure how it's done!

BTW, omega 3 oils are available from other sources...do a search

So you are 60+ years old and have cardiovascular disease and use fish oil to reduce cholesterol, what are your choices? Are you going to die faster from the trace amounts of PCB in fish oil or the high levels of cholesterol in your blood?

Take the pills and keep the blood flowing, you will die from something else well before you will from taking the fish oil...

I have a jar of gummi-type fish, with Omega-3 built into the candy. The fish oil comes from sardines and anchovies. So not only does it look like little fish, it contains little fish. Got it at Trader Joe's, but I imagine that similar products are available elsewhere. The alternative source of such oil is flaxseed, otherwise known as linseed; I had imagined that such oil (regardless of purification) might be worse, but maybe I'm wrong.

"Canola" oil, widely used in cooking, was known as rapeseed oil when I lived in Canada years ago. It was the cheapest oil (and tasted like it), being a special form of something that otherwise humans couldn't eat. Now, it supposed to be good for you!

I expect that someday, some researcher will show that folks who get large fries with their Big Mac live longer, healthier lives. You never know.

RobtA wrote:

I have a jar of gummi-type fish, with Omega-3 built into the candy. The fish oil comes from sardines and anchovies. So not only does it look like little fish, it contains little fish. Got it at Trader Joe's, but I imagine that similar products are available elsewhere. The alternative source of such oil is flaxseed, otherwise known as linseed; I had imagined that such oil (regardless of purification) might be worse, but maybe I'm wrong.
"Canola" oil, widely used in cooking, was known as rapeseed oil when I lived in Canada years ago. It was the cheapest oil (and tasted like it), being a special form of something that otherwise humans couldn't eat. Now, it supposed to be good for you!
I expect that someday, some researcher will show that folks who get large fries with their Big Mac live longer, healthier lives. You never know.

Eating a big mac every day will help you live longer than eating nothing at all.

The fish oil lawsuit attornies sound like snake oil salesmen.

This is one of the major problems with so-called dietary supplements: there is no regulation of content or efficacy. Coupled with the criminally outrageous claims made on their bottles, one is forced to wonder why any reputable business would market this toxic sludge.

Codex Part 2

HOW CAN IT BE POSSIBLE?
Americans gasp at the thought. It goes against everything America stands for. Many believe this can’t be possible. The truth is, it’s not only possible, it’s required by the Codex Alimentarius agreement.
In fact, under the terms of the Uruguay Round of GATT, which created the World Trade Organization, the United States agreed to harmonize its domestic laws to the international standards. This includes standards for dietary supplements being developed by the United Nation’s Codex Alimentarius Commission’s Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use.
The Uruguay Round Agreements carry explicit language clearly indicating that the U.S. must harmonize to international standards:
“Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all provisions…. members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms in support of the observance of the provisions…. by other than central government bodies.”[WTO TBT Agreement at Article 3.5]”
In other words, the federal government must NOT ONLY CHANGE FEDERAL LAW, but must ALSO require state and local governments to change their laws as well to be in accordance with international law.
Not only that, but Codex Alimentarius is now enforceable through the World Trade Organization (WTO). If a country disagrees with or refuses to follow Codex standards, the WTO applies pressure by withdrawing trade privileges and imposing crippling trade sanctions. Congress has already bowed to this pressure several times and so have the governments of many countries.
While the exemption clause (USC 3512(a)(1) and (a)(2) was created to supposedly protect our laws from harmonization to international standards, it has proven to be totally ineffective. The United States has already lost seven trade disputes despite the exemption clause. Due to the enormous pressures put on them by lobbyists from multinational corporations (who contribute millions to congressional campaigns), Congress bowed to pressure and changed U.S. laws.
It appears our government (as well as al others) is being manipulated one way or another to serve the goals of the UN, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization. Food control equals people control — and population control. Is this beginning to sound like world government and one-world order? Could this be the real goal behind Codex Alimentarius?
The United States, Canada, the Europeans, Japan, most of Asia, and South America have already signed agreements pledging total harmonization of their laws including food and drug laws to these international standards in the future.

WHAT CODEX WILL BRING
What can we expect under Codex? To give you an idea, here are some important points:

* Dietary supplements could not be sold for preventive (prophylactic) or therapeutic use.
* Potencies would be limited to extremely low dosages. Only the drug companies and the big phytopharmaceutical companies would have the right to produce and sell the higher potency products (at inflated prices).
* Prescriptions would be required for anything above the extremely low doses allowed (such as 35 mg. on niacin).
* Common foods such as garlic and peppermint would be classified as drugs or a third category (neither food nor drugs) that only big pharmaceutical companies could regulate and sell. Any food with any therapeutic effect can be considered a drug, even benign everyday substances like water.
* Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding (escape clauses would be eliminated).
* All new dietary supplements would be banned unless they go through Codex testing and approval.
* Genetically altered food would be sold worldwide without labeling.

Codex Alimentarius Part 3
According to John Hammell, a legislative advocate and the founder of International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF), here is what we have to look forward to:
“If Codex Alimentarius has its way, then herbs, vitamins, minerals, homeopathic remedies, amino acids and other natural remedies you have taken for granted most of your life will be gone. The name of the game for Codex Alimentarius is to shift all remedies into the prescription category so they can be controlled exclusively by the medical monopoly and its bosses, the major pharmaceutical firms. Predictably, this scenario has been denied by both the Canadian Health Food Association and the Health Protection Branch of Canada (HPB).
The Codex Alimentarius proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an Echinacea tincture, which is being sold there as an over the counter drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs, and only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores or pharmacies.”
It is now a criminal offence in parts of Europe to sell herbs as foods. An agreement called EEC6565 equates selling herbs as foods to selling other illegal drugs. Action is being taken to accelerate other European countries into ‘harmonization’ as well.
Paul Hellyer in his book,“The Evil Empire,” states:“Codex Alimentarius is supported by international banks and multinational corporations including some in Canada, and is in reality a bill of rights for these banks and the corporations they control. It will hand over our sovereign rights concerning who may or may not invest in our countries to an unelected world organization run by big business. The treaty would make it impossible for Canadian legislators either federal or provincial to alter or improve environmental standards for fear of being sued by multinational corporations whether operating in Canada or not.
This will create a world without borders ruled by a virtual dictatorship of the world’s most powerful central banks and multinational companies. This world is an absolute certainty if we all sit on our hands and do nothing.”
This is the future the FDA and FTC are striving to bring us via Codex harmonization. Is this a future we are going to willingly accept or prevent?

Codex Alimentarius Final Part 4

WHY TARGET THE INTERNET?
It is no accident that the FDA and FTC are targeting Internet health sites through Operation Cure-All. We are standing in the doorway of an unprecedented revolution — the information revolution brought about by the Internet.
Now all people everywhere have the ability to learn about anything that interests them with just a few clicks. History has shown that informed, educated people change civilizations — they change the flow of thought and they change the flow of money. They can even change the direction of a country. When similar transitions have happened in the past, the powers that existed did not give up willingly. The Catholic Church fiercely protected its practice of selling ‘indulgences’ as a forgiveness of sin. When the practice was abolished, the Catholic Church lost a great deal of power and money.
When the printing press was invented, books were banned and printers were imprisoned by the authorities, who feared an educated public could not be governed. In the same way, the medical monopoly (and the UN) now fears that a public educated in health and privy to the shortcomings of modern medicine could not be controlled. Loss of control means loss of revenue and loss of power. And they are doing everything they can to stop progress so they can contain their losses and strengthen their power.
The printing press changed the world. Can you imagine what life would be like today if the book banners had their way? But because the printing press won out, society progressed and freedom was embraced. The Internet is changing the world in an equally significant way. While the entire Internet can hardly be suppressed, the pharma-cartels and their backers are looking to protect their interests by restricting as much information as they can on the Internet.
Will we, the people, win out again — or will the UN and the World Health Organization agenda and the pharmaceutical cartel change the course of history and take us back to the “dark ages” of medicine?
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Step number one is learn as much as possible about this issue. Here are some websites where you will find a great deal of information:
John Hammell’s International Advocates for Health Freedom website: http://www.iahf.com/
“The Health Movement Against Codex Alimentarius”– article from Dr. Rath’s website:
http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUT...
U.S. and European Leaders Agree on Principles to Harmonize Dietary Supplement Regulations:
http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html
Federal Register where the FDA states its intention to harmonize with Codex standards:
http://iahf.com/codx-fda.txt
Read,“WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION? Corporate Globalization and the Erosion of Democracy” by By Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza,
Public Citizens Global Trade Watch:
http://www.citizen.org/trade/index.cfm/public...

Ruth James Ruth James rjames@therealessentials.com

CTM Comment: Codex is of course the single most virulent assault on human freedoms in recent times. The desire to control of vitamins, minerals, herbs and other nutritional factors has ironically come about as a result of the inability of orthodox medicine to destroy the practice of the public practicing health without drugs. Now government and the chemical industry will seek to control and profit from that which was available directly to the public in times gone by.

I would rather take safely farmed fish oil ( look it up), then take the nasty blood thinner that will end up on a class action recall commercial, months later after you have been taking the pharma poison. No thanks..

Somebody call Dr. Joel Wallach

This article makes the following statement: "Many of them say their supplements have been 'treated' to remove or reduce PCBs. Since they don't say how much PCB contamination is still left, even consumers who choose 'treated' supplements can't know what PCB levels they're swallowing."
As I write this, I am looking at a bottle of Nature Made 1200 mg fish oil softgel capsules. The label says, "State-of-the-art molecular distillation is used to remove PCBs and dioxins..." Footnotes then list the PCB concentration to be less than 0.09 parts/million and the dioxin concentration to be less than 2 parts/trillion. Assuming Pharmavite LLC is being truthful in their labeling, consumers of Nature Made fish oil do know how much contamination is left over.
The article then goes on to say, "Nature Made cod liver oil was high in terms of the toxicity measure and lower in terms of daily exposure if taken as directed."
what does that really mean?
Does it mean that the PCB levels listed on the label are unsafe or are they suggesting that the labeling on Nature Made bottles is not truthful?

The mania for fish-sourced omega-3 is responsible for a collapse in the food chain in fisheries where menhaden is harvested. Sea mammals are dying because Dr. Ox told all of Oprah's followers to wolf down fish oil tabs. You can get the same oil, without the pollutants and without raping the ocean, by taking supplements made with algae and phytoplankton sourced omega-3s. That's where the fish get it, btw.

but algae and phytoplankton are not a good source it takes too much raw material to extract very little amounts, and it still needs to go though a conversion process.

Coulrophobia wrote:

The mania for fish-sourced omega-3 is responsible for a collapse in the food chain in fisheries where menhaden is harvested. Sea mammals are dying because Dr. Ox told all of Oprah's followers to wolf down fish oil tabs. You can get the same oil, without the pollutants and without raping the ocean, by taking supplements made with algae and phytoplankton sourced omega-3s. That's where the fish get it, btw.

I take it because my personal doctor told me to do so, not because I saw it on Oprah.

Quick, somebody get 1970 Resident a tin foil hat before the UN zaps his brain.

Whoa '70! Enough caffeine for today dude!

Anyone hear anything about "Finest Natural" fish oil distributed by Walgreens?

Unfortnately The Sentinel showed a photo of the best and highest quality fish oil company next to this article. Nordic Naturals is the gold standard by which this industry should adhere to avoid what is a valid controversy among other fish oil companies, not Nordic Naturals. Alerting the public to a potential health hazards is responsible; however this is an example of misleading the public, and basically poor unprofessional journalism. The Sentinel has an obligation to set the record straight, which includes an apology to Nordic Naturals, and the publication of a much more accurate article that distinguishes and clarfifies, not just scare tactics from the latest studies.

Hmmm... why not just get UCSC to test a bunch of different fish oil samples for you? They must have some experts in organochlorine analysis up in Earth & Marine Sciences, right?

Wrong. Studying organochlorines in marine mammamls is not good for the corporate partners of the UC, like GE and so on. Hence, the one person they had doing that kind of work was denied tenure and forced out of UCSC.(Wally Jarman, that would have been)

So, you can't get a UCSC lab to analyze your fish oil for DDT, PCBs, etc.- but there was a time when you could.

Yes, that's deliberate.

A combination of flax seed oil and borage oil supplies all those key omega fatty acids, by the way. The problem is that PCBs do accumulate in fish oil, and they've even been found in the remote Arctic. Skip them entirely.

P.S. The story should have included this information:

"Five fish oil supplement producers including Nature Made, Twinlab Norwegian, Now Foods, Solgar, and GNC, were named in the suit."

www.justicenewsflash.com/2010/03/04/lawsuit-f...

As far as our shady local supplement manufacturers? They're no different from the pharmaceutical companies - they're just out for a buck. They get a lot of their raw materials from China at cut-rate prices, don't they (and aren't they on the Westside now, not in Scotts Valley?). They also produce shark cartilage pills to push on gullible cancer victims - etc. Are those organic herbs they're putting in those $35 bottles? Hardly.