statism watch

Flashback: BPA in womb linked to aggression in girls | Air freshener chemicals could impact fertility: study | Reduce fetal exposure to BPA and phthalates, experts say | Bisphenol A traces found in baby food: Health Canada | Elevated BPA levels in people drinking out of plastic bottles, study finds | Tests find Bisphenol A in majority of soft drinks | Chemical ban targets toys, rubber duckies | As in Canada, gender-bending chemicals in UK rivers grow more potent | Chemicals feminizing males, study suggests | Major report to reveal male gender under threat from pollutants | CBC broadcasts “The Disappearing Male”, an expose of hormone-disrupting plastics | Plastics ingredient linked to feminization in children | Health Canada adds bisphenol A to list of toxic substances | Scientists Note Hormones in Water, Feminization of Fish Downstream of Montreal | New study raises concerns Bisphenol-A could be related to heart disease | Air freshener chemicals could impact fertility: study | Bisphenol tied to lower brain function | Chemical Industry Source of Hyped FDA Study ‘Exonerating’ Plastic Bottles

Owen Bowcott, The Guardian
November 6, 2009

EU council urged to look at cumulative effect, campaigners fear controls will not be tough enough

Two-year-old children are being exposed to dangerous levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals in domestic products such as rubber clogs and sun creams, according to an EU investigation being studied by the government.

The 327-page report says that while risks from “anti-androgen” and “oestrogen-like” substances in individual items have been recognised, the cumulative impact of such chemicals, particularly on boys, is being ignored.

The EU’s environment council of ministers is due to agree on a regulatory approach to the use of so-called “gender-bender” compounds before Christmas. On Monday, EU officials will try to work out a strategy for creating risk assessments of products causing concerns. Environmental campaigners fear controls will favour industry and not be sufficiently robust.

Phthalates, one of the main anti-androgen chemicals, which are used as softeners in soap, rubber shoes, bath mats and soft toys, have been blamed for blocking the action of testosterone in the womb and are alleged to cause low sperm counts, high rates of testicular cancer and malformations of the sexual organs.

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Dr. Schabas is in the position of being at a remove from the public health industry – and make no mistake, it is an industry, with a marketing arm. That’s why he is able to get away with saying things like “A healthy child in Canada is about 20 times more likely to be killed by a car than by the H1N1 virus” while the nation’s chief public health officer is out selling the thing to the media.

Flashback: Ask military to help with H1N1: Ottawa councillor | Special H1N1 vaccine for pregnant women now here | Elite Council Recording Suggests Creating False Scarcity To Drive Up Demand For H1N1 Vaccine | WHO pandemic definition too broad, doctor contends | Vaccine scarcity claims don’t add up | ‘No reason’ to delay seasonal flu shots, global health panel says | Flu Season Has Already Peaked in US, Little Benefit to H1N1 Jab: Study | Flu vaccine shortage expected to last a week | Washington Man Paralyzed After Routine Flu Vaccination | Mass Rejection Of Swine Flu Vaccine Continues Throughout Europe | GlaxoSmithKline profit rises on flu drug | Swine Flu Scam Reaches New Heights With Obama’s Emergency Declaration | Deaths Associated With Swine Flu Vaccine Reported In Europe | US Government Hijacks Kids TV To Propagandize For Swine Flu Shots | Swine flu vaccine approved in Canada | German Government to get special swine flu vaccine | Harper’s hedge on H1N1 shot sparks confusion | Higher instance of severe H1N1 cases in natives, women | UK: National Health Service frontline staff shun H1N1 vaccine | US: Hospitals fear ‘Flumist’ H1N1 nasal vaccine could spread swine flu | New swine-flu wave hits GTA: Provincial Health Official | Canadian taxpayers on hook for any H1N1 vaccine damages | Second wave of swine flu pandemic begins to hit US | Seasonal flu shots delayed for non-seniors on fears of increased H1N1 risk | Seasonal flu shot may increase H1N1 risk | Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu: expert | Swine flu unlikely to become superbug | UK: Half of all pregnant women will refuse swine flu jab, poll reveals | Flu vaccine plan will be too slow: CMAJ | Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Canada to order 50.4 million H1N1 vaccine doses – with adjuvant additive | Genetically modified Swine Flu hybrid may provide vaccine yield solution | Washington Post: Swine Flu Vaccine Will Contain Mercury | UK Government Swine Flu Advisor On Vaccine Maker Payroll | Fast-tracked swine flu vaccine will be safe, officials insist | Swine flu: How scared should we be? | Top Epidemiologist Slams Swine Flu Fearmongering | Legal immunity set for swine flu vaccine makers | Swine flu ‘related’ to 1918 pandemic virus – survivors exhibit resistance | Did leak from a laboratory cause swine flu pandemic? | Swine Flu May Be Human Error; WHO Investigates Claim | Lessons of 1976: swine flu, fear, mass vaccinations, wasted millions | ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible | Officials investigate how bird flu contaminated vaccines in Europe | Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic

CBC News
November 6, 2009

‘It amazes me that Evan’s death has captured a nation trying to find answers to a disease that is currently wearing the face of our beautiful son,’ his father, Paul Frustaglio, said in his Facebook eulogy for the 13-year-old Toronto boy.

Public health officials and journalists have overstated the importance of the swine flu, a former Ontario chief medical officer of health says.

Dr. Richard Schabas, chief medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in eastern Ontario, said the H1N1 influenza outbreak needs to be put into proper perspective.

About 200,000 people die in Canada every year from all causes combined, including about 4,000 from seasonal flu.

“By the time all the dust has settled on H1N1, somewhere between 200 and 300 people will have died in this country,” Schabas said Thursday during a panel on media coverage of H1N1 on CBC News The National.

Schabas criticized the media for not trying to put the story into perspective, and for being “a little too easy to spin sometimes” by public health officials.

“I’m not letting the media off the hook totally, but I think the real villains of the piece here have been those public health officials who have consistently overplayed and overstated the importance of what is happening,” he said.

“By the time all is said and done, this is not a major public health event, but you’d never know that from what some people are saying.”13-year-old’s death

The panel also looked at the front-page coverage given to the death of Evan Frustaglio, a 13-year-old hockey player from Toronto. Evan died on the eve of the H1N1 vaccine becoming available, and demand for the vaccine jumped overnight, catching health officials by surprise.

“It was very clear when we were reporting the lines that most of the people in there did say, ‘We came because we saw the story about that little boy,’ ” CBC reporter Ioanna Roumeliotis said.

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Because it’s such a massive crisis and all: Who you gonna call? Hopefully, our Forces laugh this one off. Could you imagine the optics of such a move? Alternative media sites would simply melt down in paroxysms of sinister. There are so many other possibilities to swell the ranks of front line staff dispensing vaccines (medical students come to mind, it’s not that difficult to give a needle) that one really has to question why the councillor would even float this idea, why it’s given widespread coverage versus being dismissed, and who the constituent was that approached him. Because, remember, the US has already announced that their military would work with FEMA in case of ‘a significant swine flu outbreak’, and Canadian reservists are training to lock down quarantined areas. Our conditioning to think the military is the answer to domestic problems continues.

Flashback: Public Safety Canada’s emergency plan not implemented: Auditor General | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | Maximum Alert: U.S. Troops Now Occupying America | More troops on the streets: U.S. terror alert expands to transit and stadiums | Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex | Military helicopters over downtown Montreal for exercise | US Military To Work With FEMA During Swine Flu Pandemic | British Army to Police Medicine Hat During Urban Warfare Drills | Urban warfare drills coming to Medicine Hat | Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Military may patrol bar zone in Barrie |British Secret Service, Army Alert on Bank Riots | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage | Military and police practice integration during Olympic security exercises | Canadian military getting 1,300 new heavily armoured trucks for ‘domestic use’ | Army ‘Strategic Shock’ Report Says Troops May Be Needed To Quell U.S. Civil Unrest | Troops in the Streets: Army Brigades Standing By to Assist in Disasters, Help Quell Dissent | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies | Harper pledges to boost military presence in cities |Ontario Police Chiefs travel to Israel to study police tactics

CBC News
November 6, 2009

An Ottawa city councillor wants to call in the Armed Forces to help conduct swine flu vaccinations.

Coun. Bob Monette said Thursday he has written to federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq asking if doctors, nurses and medics from the Canadian Forces could be deployed in cities across Canada to help with the H1N1 vaccinations.

Monette said the idea came to him after speaking with a constituent who’s a member of the Forces.

“Why not think of all the possibilities?” Monette said.

“This was one more possibility that I found was worthwhile looking into, and let’s see if anything comes from it. If we can get one or two doctors, a nurse, to help out, then it’s worthwhile,” he said.

Ottawa-Orleans MP Royal Galipeau has endorsed Monette’s idea. He said he’s also written to the health minister and to the minister of defence.

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Flashback: Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | Plentiful paper currency buffing gold’s shine | Gold continues record-breaking run | Gold price rises to all-time high | Fisk: Nations to hasten demise of dollar in new world order | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | Gold regains $1,000 | Gold toys with $1000/oz | Industrial demand for silver sharpens bullish view | Global demand for gold investment soars 38% in past year | The search for the mint’s missing gold | Royal Canadian Mint’s ‘lost’ gold worth a mint | Bullion and Bandits: The Improbable Rise and Fall of E-Gold | Has the Mint’s gold vanished? | Bank crisis spawns new kind of gold rush | Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Recession Deepens | Manipulation Of Gold And Silver Prices Further Exposed | Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil to $300 | Ottawa warns on gold-backed Web trades

Carole Vaporean and Pratima Desai, Reuters
November 6, 2009

Investors seek safe haven after bleak jobs data in U.S. raises doubts about economic recovery

Gold (GC-FT1,095.706.400.59%) surged to a record high above $1,100 (U.S.) an ounce Friday as investors sought safety after data showed the U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 10.2 per cent in October.

While doubts about an economic recovery boosted gold, other precious metals with an industrial component fell, their demand outlook dented.

“Gold rallied early on the unemployment numbers being higher than expected. It fuelled thoughts of additional stimulus and reinforced the concept that the Fed will not be able to raise rates any time soon,” said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader at Integrated Brokerage Services in Chicago.

U.S. employers cut 190,000 jobs in October, greater than the 175,000 fewer jobs forecast, and the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 per cent, a 26-1/2-year high that was above average forecasts of a 9.9 per cent rate. Dealers said gold still enjoyed support from prospects of central banks buying the yellow metal to diversify reserves.

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“The group may also look at proposals for creating a common pool of reserves to dissuade emerging market countries from accumulating massive foreign exchange reserves that could instead be used to boost growth.” So the G20, as the de-facto governing economic council, wants to create international reserves – possibly in reaction to the US Treasury Secretary’s suggestion that national central banks should boost reserves. Any shared fund would likely be handled by the IMF, newly flush with cash from its gold reserve sale. In the meantime, the G20 wants everyone to continue inflating the money supply in tandem. It occurs to this journal that if hyperinflation kicks in on a global scale, it will be that much easier for the IMF to assume control of the money supply as the differences in valuation between national currencies are erased in a race to the bottom.

Flashback: G20 Meet To Finalize Dumping Of Dollar This Weekend? | Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Central Banks Shift Reserves | IMF chief wants global bank tax | G20 decides to become world’s new ruling economic council | Carney says G20 must stay the course on stimulus | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’

Sumeet Desai, Reuters
November 6, 2009

Meeting this weekend will focus on new scheme for balancing world growth

The Group of 20 leading nations will agree this weekend it is too early to pull the plug on emergency support for the global economy and launch a new system of checks to help rebalance world growth and prevent future crises.

British finance minister Alistair Darling is hosting the third meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers this year in St Andrews, Scotland from later on Friday, aiming to put flesh on the bones of agreements made at a leaders’ summit in Pittsburgh in September.

Since then there have been growing signs that the world is finally coming out of the deepest downturn in decades and that things may be getting back to normal after a crisis that wiped out some of the biggest financial institutions.

The European Central Bank on Thursday took a first small step towards easing out its crisis steps – ultra-low interest rates and cash injections for the economy – by signalling one-year loans to banks will not be repeated next year.

But Mr. Darling said it would be premature to declare victory over what has been the worst financial crisis since the 1930s and the extraordinary stimulus countries all around the world had thrown into their economies had to stay in place for now.

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Flashback: Economy was a dud in July | Stephen Harper trumpets economic report card | Ottawa’s deficit plan would hike EI premiums | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Flaherty sees deficit, debt, and timetable to return to surplus all expanding | Federal deficit hits $7.5B in April-May | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Stimulus cash is flowing – down a hole? | Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Federal deficit to top $50B | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Flaherty eyes sale of Canadian government assets | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

Canadian Press
November 6, 2009

Canada’s battered manufacturers and exporters are still not convinced the end of the recession will dramatically improve their prospects.

The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters say a survey of members shows that conditions are only improving in the margins and that many still report falling orders and plans to lay off workers.

The survey of 727 companies conducted this month found 38 per cent reporting orders continued to fall in the past three months, an improvement from the 50 per cent reported in September.

But firms also complained that the high dollar is adding to their woes, and a quarter of them plan to lay off workers in the next three months.

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Flashback: No way to escape Afghan combat post-2011, Hillier says | Troops get non-combat role in Afghanistan after 2011 | Conservatives claim ‘no decision’ made on leaving some troops in Afghanistan past 2011 | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay

John Ibbitson, The Globe and Mail
November 16, 2009

Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk has ordered commanders to begin plans for 2011 troop pullout

Preparations have begun for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, as the 2011 deadline for that withdrawal draws closer.

A government official confirmed media reports that General Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has ordered preparations to get under way that would involve the return of the thousands of troops and their equipment from the troubled country.

“A Chief of Defence Staff directive has been issued to begin planning preparations for the 2011 end of combat mission,” the official told The Globe and Mail Friday.

Parliament has mandated that the military component of the mission end in 2011, and the Conservative government has promised to honour that mandate.

However, many observers expected that U.S. President Barack Obama would ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep troops in the field, as the Americans ramp up their efforts to contain the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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