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The GM health study they dont want you to know about
http://patrick.net/?p=1227981
For centuries, birthwort has been used in traditional medicine in China
Who would eat a plant that looks like a penis and is called birthwort?
Just another example of misinformation meant to build the case for eliminating herbal therapies. When WESTERN drug companies take Aristolochia and use it out of context from traditional chinese formulas, they are creating problems. Many chinese herbs (and western herbs) are TOXIC in large doses. That is why you don't take them in large doses, and instead mix them in with other herbs which work synergistically together.
This is going the same way as ma huang, or ephedra, which is now banned in the U.S. because some idiot diet pill company put too much of it in their unhealthy diet pills. Chinese herbalist in the U.S. are now unable to use ephedra which has been used safely for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese medicinal formulas.
How about we talk about how western pharmaceutical drugs KILL the people that are taking them? Or the debilitating side effects? Why isn't there a big news story about that?
Just another example of misinformation meant to build the case for eliminating herbal therapies
Of course it is, just like Walnuts, Fish Oils and any other alternative to big pharma.
What about genetically modified birthwort: does it or does it not cause cancer?
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2013/08/common-herbal-supplement-linked-cancer?rss=1
For centuries, birthwort has been used in traditional medicine in China (and ancient Greece before that) to treat arthritis and ease childbirth, among other conditions. (The flower is shaped like a uterus.) Today aristolochic acid—pronounced "a-ris-to-LOW-kickâ€â€”is found in supplements for weight loss, menstrual symptoms, and rheumatism. It’s widely used in Asia, where it’s added to medicinal wine, ointments, and diet pills.
Warnings about the herb first emerged in the early 1990s, when a scandal involving dozens of women in Belgium who had inadvertently taken it for weight loss surfaced. As reported in The Lancet in 1993, several of the patients developed severe kidney failure.
Soon after, scientists discovered a link in the rural River Danube region between kidney damage and wheat that had been contaminated with birthwort when seeds from the two plants mixed during the harvest. In 2001, the Food and Drug Administration issued a consumer advisory note about dietary supplements and other products containing aristolochic acid, calling for its use to be discontinued. By 2003, many countries—including Taiwan—had banned the substance. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified herbal compounds derived from birthwort as Group 1 carcinogens, which means there’s sufficient evidence that it causes cancer in humans, not just animals.