2012-04-28 Complaints Officer questions, including “Did you ever see (Statement of Defence) before? Did you agree to it?”
Apr 282012
Sandra Finley
Apr 262012
Re: Dental amalgam, “Silver” fillings (which are really 50% mercury).
“Amalgam – Facts, Fiction and Manipulation”
Presentation by Dr. Nestor Shapka, President and Dr. David Warwick, IAOMT (International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology)
Part 1 – unedited proceedings of the Mercury Jamboree, Saskatoon March 30-31, 2012.
The higher resolution video is at: http://youtu.be/2hVbe1bBGww. If you email or embed links use this one.
(The lower resolution video is at http://youtu.be/qu9n9WsWbE4)
The videotapes of the remainder of the presentations will be uploaded as they are ready.
On behalf of all of us, many thanks! to Daeran Gall and to Rod Gibson for shooting the Citizens’ Assembly to figure out how to stop the use of mercury fillings (“dental amalgam”). Any number of people, anywhere, can now access the information provided by Drs. Shapka and Warwick.
Daeran has woven the visual and audio recordings from his camera, from Rod’s camera, and from an additional microphone into this one video. It represents a huge amount of time, which is in addition to the time that he and Rod spent recording.
Drs Shapka and Warwick gave freely of their time and costs.
As did our other presenters whom you’ll see in the videos that are yet to come.
Wow! Great work, everyone!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – –
Would you like?
- It would be helpful to others if someone would write up a summary for posting, of the main topics covered in the video. Please get in touch if you would like to do that. Don’t be shy! It won’t be done, if you don’t volunteer!
- A DEDICATED BLOG, MERCURY FILLINGS, FOR CANADIANS?!
I have not found a Canadian blog on mercury fillings. … READ MY MIND!! … Would you like to set up such a blog?!
We could transfer info onto it.
With many thanks to Grant (majority) and others, we currently have 57 postings on my blog (www.sandrafinley.ca) under the “Category” HEALTH, Mercury poisoning, dental amalgams. (right-hand sidebar).
Apr 262012
The history of the “go softly” approach in Canada is this:
– 1996, Health Canada issues a request to every dentist in Canada: don’t use mercury fillings in children and pregnant women.
Since then, more than a million children in Canada have had mercury fillings inserted.
As a consequence of the 1996 action Canada has sometimes been cited as a “leader” in stopping the use of amalgam.
The figures for use of mercury fillings in Canada show a decline, but then a re-bound.
Today, those who know the state of affairs in Canada say that we are WAY behind other countries. And it is the case that Canada is seen as obstructionist in the amalgam part of the negotiations on the international treaty to stop the use of products that contain mercury (going into 4th round of negotiations in June).
If we don’t apply sufficient pressure, Health Canada will not change its position. Peter Cooney, Chief Dentist, is working for the amalgam industry. They have more money and influence than we do, and a whole lot at risk.
We should work very hard in the next 6 weeks: the 4th Round of international negotiations is in June and the final 5th round in Feb. The use of “silver” fillings (50% mercury, they should be labelled as what they are – “mercury fillings”) is unconscionable. The science is there to know it.
Mercury toxicity is known. It is a liquid at room temperature. Like water, it vaporizes when it is heated. Our inside body temperature is warmer than the air around us. It is known that mercury vaporizes inside the body and that it metholates in the body. We know very well that it bio-accumulates. (Why do we think we are different from fish in this regard?)
The use of mercury fillings has to be stopped for ALL people. The use of mercury in the face of the alternatives is indefensible.
I just posted Ten Reasons to Support Mercury-Free Dentistry It’s another compelling document (and succinct).
To me, the “go soft” approach may ensure that white middle- and upper-class people aren’t exposed to mercury. However, others will continue to be less fortunate. I do not understand: cannot people see that if mercury fillings are used ANYWHERE, mercury goes into the environment, in large amounts? It is deadly stuff.
“Go soft” was used in 1996. It didn’t work. I am sorry, given what I know the time is past for “Go soft”.
Apr 262012
Dear Ministers Kent and Aglukkaq,
Canada’s Chief Dental Officer Dr. Peter Cooney appears to be in a serious conflict of interest by not only representing the Canadian government at the United Nations environmental treaty on mercury conference, but by also simultaneously representing the European-based World Dental Federation or Fédération Dentaire Internationale (FDI), a private trade group funded by its “corporate partners”– major amalgam manufacturers and distributors Dentsply, Henry Schein Inc., and Ivoclar Vivadent.
United Nations Environment Programme Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 2) has convened a series of five conferences to put together the environmental treaty on mercury, a treaty that represents a chance for the world to rid itself of amalgam, and rid dentistry of mercury.
Dr. Cooney attended the second of these conferences, held in Japan in January 2011. Upon rising to speak, Cooney actually announced, “I am wearing two hats”! The fact that Canada’s Chief Dental Officer spoke on behalf of FDI also gives the organization undue authority, implying that it is government-backed when it is not. Cooney also used his title and influence to secure prime time slots for FDI presentations that private entities do not get.
Representing DI at INC 2 in Japan last year, Dr. Cooney participated in a disgusting example of FDI double-speak. According to FDI’s web site [I have highlighted questionable statements in red below],
“The FDI’s team is working in close co-operation with members of the International Association for Dental Research to articulate to the INC that dental amalgam currently constitutes an important element in maintaining and protecting global public health, as reflected in FDI General Assembly Resolution on Dental Amalgam (GA 2009) and Dental Amalgam Motion (GA 2010).
“Importantly, FDI made an intervention at the INC 2 plenary session highlighted strategies that phase up effective prevention for dental caries and associated health programmes that we believe will result in the phase down of restorative materials, including dental amalgam. This will lead to the reduction in the use of all dental restorative materials and ensure optimal oral health, particularly for those most disadvantaged and in need of treatment.”
This FDI statement undermines the more progressive stance of the Canadian government position, endorsed by Health Canada and in Environment Canada, which already indicates that dentists here should stop using amalgam on our children and our pregnant women. The fact that Canada’s Chief Dental Officer spoke on behalf of FDI gives the organization undue authority, implying that it is government-backed when it is not. Dr. Cooney also used his title and influence to secure prime time slots for FDI presentations that private entities do not get.
Along with many others, I request that you
- address the problems raised by Dr. Cooney’s use of his government position to lobby for FDI and to undermine stakeholders opposed by FDI.
I also need assurances that with respect to future FDI negotiations:
- that Dr. Cooney will not participate in the FDI delegation’s decision-making
- that he will not be permitted to attend future conferences to put together the environmental
treaty on mercury and in intersessional meetings with his incompatible “two hats,” and - that the damage he has already inflicted will be redressed.
We taxpayers do not know – but would like to know:
- if Cooney drew his government salary during these FDI negotiation sessions.
- Did he forfeit his salary?
- If not, why did we the taxpayers pay a man to lobby against the interests of his own government, all the time using his public position to maximize his impact?
- Who paid for this trip.?
- Was Cooney at this comfortable Japanese resort as a guest of the World Dental Federation?
- If so, how could this not be “accepting economic benefit,” prohibited in the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service?
D’Arcy Hande
(contact information)
Apr 262012
For the “Top Ten Reasons”, click on: www.toxicteeth.org (also copied below)
Consumers for Dental Choice
Top Ten Reasons to Support Mercury-Free Dentistry
1. Amalgam pollutes our environment
Amalgam pollutes 1) water via dental clinic releases and human waste; 2) air via cremation, dental clinic emissions, sludge incineration, and respiration; and 3) land via landfills, burials, and fertilizer.[i] Once in the environment, dental mercury converts to its even more toxic form: methylmercury and becomes a major source of mercury in the fish people eat.[ii] Dental mercury in the environment can cause brain damage and neurological problems, especially for children and the unborn babies, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.[iii]
2. Amalgam endangers our health
Amalgam emits mercury vapor even after it is implanted into the body. This mercury is bioaccumulative, and it crosses the placenta to accumulate in fetuses as well. Dental amalgam’s mercury is a known health risk, especially for children, fetuses, nursing infants, and people with impaired kidney function especially.[iv] Even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concedes that the developing neurological systems of children and fetuses are more susceptible to “the neurotoxic effects of mercury vapor” – and that there is no evidence that amalgam is safe for these populations.[1]
3. Amalgam damages teeth
Placing amalgam requires the removal of a significant amount of healthy tooth matter. This removal, in turn, weakens overall tooth structure which increases the need for future dental work.[2] On top of that, amalgam fillings – which expand and contract over time – crack teeth and once again create the need for still more dental work.[3]
4. Amalgam endangers dental workers
Due to mercury exposure from amalgam in the workplace, studies have shown that dental workers have elevated systemic mercury levels.[4] Few of these dental workers – mostly women of child-bearing age – are given protective garb or air masks to minimize their exposure to mercury; many are not aware of the risks of occupational mercury exposure. As a result, dental workers have reported neurological problems, reproductive failures, and birth defects caused by amalgam in the workplace.[5]
5. Amalgam is frequently implanted without informed consent
Most dentists do not inform consumers that amalgam contains mercury. As a result, over 76% of consumers do not know that amalgam is mainly mercury according to Zogby polls.[6] But once they are informed, 77% of people do not want mercury fillings – and they were even willing to pay more to avoid this unnecessary source of mercury exposure.[7]
6. Amalgam perpetuates social injustice
While middle class consumers opt for mercury-free filling materials, people in developing nations, low-income families, minorities, Native Americans, military personnel, prisoners, and people with disabilities are still subjected to amalgam. In his testimony before Congress, former Virginia state NAACP president Emmitt Carlton described this injustice as “choice for the rich, mercury for the poor.” A recent study shows that while African-American and white numbers are comparable, a disproportionately high percentage of Hispanics and Native Americans still get amalgam. Of course, any child still getting amalgam is too many.
7. Amalgam costs taxpayers
Taxpayers foot the bill for the environmental clean-up of amalgam and the medical care associated with mercury-related health problems. Meanwhile, the dentists who dump their mercury into our environment and our bodies are not held financially responsible.
8. Amalgam is diverted to illegal gold mining
Amalgam is commonly shipped to developing countries labeled for dental use, but then it is diverted to illegal use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining.[8] Not only are the miners exposed to the risks of mercury poisoning, but the dental mercury they use to extract gold is released into the environment.[9]
9. Amalgam can be replaced by mercury-free filling materials
Amalgam is interchangeable with numerous other filling materials – including resin composites, compomers, and glass ionomers – that have rendered amalgam completely unnecessary for any clinical situation. In fact, the mercury-free alternatives have made amalgam so non-essential that entire nations, such as the Scandinavian countries, have banned the use of amalgam.[10]
The American Dental Association spreads the myth that amalgam costs less, but according to the dental cost calculator recommended by the ADA itself, http://www.ada.org/news/6028.aspx , it is always cheaper to get resin in front teeth and only slightly more (and sometimes less) to get resin in back teeth. http://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/ Developing nations have benefitted from modern mercury-free techniques, such as atraumatic restorative treatment (ART), which costs but half as much as amalgam and can be done by trained non-dentists, hence making dental care more accessible for children.[11] The ADA, fearful of losing its monopoly position, opposes it. The beneficiaries of amalgam are not patients or parents, but the dentists who get quick and easy profits.
10. Amalgam drives up the price of mercury-free alternatives
The continued use of amalgam keeps the price of mercury-free filling materials high by decreasing demand for these alternatives. As use of mercury-free materials increases, their price is expected to decrease even further.[12]
[1] Final Rule for Dental Amalgam, http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/DentalProducts/DentalAmalgam/UCM174024.pdf
(p.32).
[2] Terry L. Meyers, When less is more — Technology increases minimally invasive procedures, Dental
Economics, http://www.dentaleconomics.com/index/display/article-display/6295266301/articles/dental-economics/volume-100/issue-5/columns/when-less_is_more.html (explaining that “with the resins and composites developed over the past 30 years, we don’t have to remove nearly as much tooth structure as we did when using amalgam. Before these new materials with their bonding capacity came along, in some cases dentists had to take out the whole back side of the tooth to get enough amalgam in there to work.”).
Economics, http://www.dentaleconomics.com/index/display/article-display/6295266301/articles/dental-economics/volume-100/issue-5/columns/when-less_is_more.html (explaining that “with the resins and composites developed over the past 30 years, we don’t have to remove nearly as much tooth structure as we did when using amalgam. Before these new materials with their bonding capacity came along, in some cases dentists had to take out the whole back side of the tooth to get enough amalgam in there to work.”).
[3] Davis MW, Nesbitt WE. The wedge effect: structural design weakness of Class II amalgam. AACD J 1997;13(3):62-8, http://www.smilesofsantafe.com/pdfs/WedgeEffect.pdf.
[4] Marcelo Tomás de Oliveira et. al., Effects from Exposure to Dental Amalgam on Systemic Mercury Levels in Patients and Dental School Students, Photomedicine and Laser Surgery (October 2010, Vol. 28, No. S2: S-111-S-114), http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/pho.2009.2656
[5] See Mercury Policy Project, Neurotoxic Effects of Mercury in Dental Nurses (7 September 2006), http://mpp.cclearn.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/fdadentalmppnorwayfinal0907061.pdf
[8]U.S. Geological Survey, Peru Mercury Inventory (2006), p. 18, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1252/ofr2007-1252.pdf
(describing how dental supply shops in Peru sell amalgam to customers without any professional documentation, noting that several gold shops are nearby).
(describing how dental supply shops in Peru sell amalgam to customers without any professional documentation, noting that several gold shops are nearby).
[9] Norimitsu Onishi, In Rush to Find Gold, Indonesians Defy Dangers, New York Times (7 July 2011), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/world/asia/08indo.html
[10] See Bio Intelligence Service/European Commission, Review of the Community Strategy Concerning Mercury (p.229), 4 October 2010, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/mercury/pdf/review_mercury_strategy2010.pdf
[11] Pan American Health Organization, Oral Health of Low Income Children: Procedures for Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (PRAT) (2006), 53, http://new.paho.org/hq/dmdocuments/2009/OH_top_PT_low06.pdf (“The costs of employing the PRAT [procedures for atraumatic restorative treatment] approach for dental caries treatment, including retreatment, are roughly half the cost of amalgam without retreatment.”).
[12] United Nations Environmental Programme, Mercury-Containing Products Partnership Area Business Plan (2008) (noting that “it is certain that the cost of alternative dental fillings will continue to decrease.”).
[i] See Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project, Facing Up to the Hazards of Mercury Tooth Fillings: A Report to the U.S. House of Representatives Government Oversight Subcommittee on Domestic
Policy (8 July 2008), http://mpp.cclearn.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/finalreportfrommpptestimony0707082.pdf
(provides a description of the multiple pathways by which dental mercury reaches our water, air, and soil).
[ii] See United States Environmental Protection Agency, News Release (27 September 2010), http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/a640db2ebad201cd852577ab00634848!OpenDocument
Policy (8 July 2008), http://mpp.cclearn.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/finalreportfrommpptestimony0707082.pdf
(provides a description of the multiple pathways by which dental mercury reaches our water, air, and soil).
[ii] See United States Environmental Protection Agency, News Release (27 September 2010), http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/a640db2ebad201cd852577ab00634848!OpenDocument
[iii] See United States Environmental Protection Agency, News Release (27 September 2010), http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/a640db2ebad201cd852577ab00634848!OpenDocument
[iv] Health Canada, The Safety of Dental Amalgam, http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/md-im/applic-demande/pubs/dent_amalgam-eng.php; U.S. FDA transcript, amalgam advisory panel meeting, 14-15 December 2010, http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/MedicalDevices/MedicalDevicesAdvisoryCommittee/DentalProductsPanel/UCM242363.pdf
[16] United Nations Environmental Programme, Mercury-Containing Products Partnership Area
Business Plan (2008) (noting that “it is certain that the cost of alternative dental fillings will continue to decrease.”).
Business Plan (2008) (noting that “it is certain that the cost of alternative dental fillings will continue to decrease.”).
Apr 252012
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Earth+march+fills+Montreal+streets+with+video/6500400/story.html
By Susan Semenak, The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Earth+march+fills+Montreal+streets+with+video/6500400/story.html#ixzz1t7XbSo3R
MONTREAL – A crowd of 250,000 people or more inched its way through downtown and onto Mount Royal Sunday afternoon in what was Quebec’s largest-ever Earth Day march.
This time it wasn’t students wearing red squares, waving red flags and clashing with police. Capping a week of raucous student demonstrations, Sunday’s event was a peaceful, family-oriented rally that drew activists from around the province, who had come with a variety of complaints about the federal and provincial governments’ handling of environmental issues. They waved Quebec flags, carried banners that read “La terre n’est pas à vendre” and “Harper = dictateur”and blasted Quebec Premier Jean Charest for his Plan Nord project for oil and gas exploration in the north. There were plenty of Montreal families in the crowd, too: parents with little children in strollers who stopped in busy Place des festivals to eat picnic lunches, and senior citizens who came by the busload. Many said they had never before attended an Earth Day event.
Montreal police don’t provide official crowd estimates, but individual officers said they thought numbers had topped 200,000. Earth Day organizers themselves were stunned, pinning the number of participants at 250,000 or 300,000, given that for a solid 2½ hours marchers packed Bleury St. and then Ave. du Parc as they inched their way along the kilometre-long stretch from Ste. Catherine St. toward Jeanne Mance Park, where they formed a massive “human tree” to be photographed from above. For hours, downtown streets remained closed to traffic and there were lineups to get into the métro.
“The student protests seem to have sparked a larger feeling of malaise, of protest, among Quebecers,” said Claudine Allaire, a senior citizen from the Laurentians, who drove into Montreal with her partner for her first Earth Day protest.
“I am not any kind of activist, but I am fed up with the government, about how it is handling the environment and how often I hear about corruption when I turn on the news.”
Gregory Pratte came with his school-aged children, along with a group of 10 families from Laval and the north shore who had used Facebook and Twitter to enourage others to come, too. Standing in a sea of people at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Jeanne Mance Sts., Pratte said he had a feeling the protest was “the start of something big.”
“It’s cold and miserable, and still all these people came out. We came for the future of our children. We came to make ourselves heard,” he said. “Maybe, just maybe, we are ready to rise up. Maybe I will tell my children 25 years from now that we were here when a new social movement began.”
Turnout for the three-hour event was 10 times what Earth Day organizers had anticipated, said Yves Lanctot, one of more than 800 volunteers who kept marchers along the official route.
The crowd was a mixed group of environmental activists denouncing the Quebec government’s Plan Nord northern exploration plans and shale gas exploration, as well as the federal government’s axing of the Katimavik youth environmental program and Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. Lanctot said activists from as far away as Rimouski, Sept Îles and Trois Rivières had rented buses and come to join the Montreal Earth Day march.
“We are a quarter-million strong and we have big ideas,” said well-known activist and co-founder of Equiterre Steven Guilbault, addressing the crowd on a giant screen set up at Jeanne Mance Park. “We want to be heard.”
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
Apr 252012
Apr 252012
Sorry – I am behind on getting important information to you!
I think what you see below is that the nuclear/uranium industry no longer controls the information feed.
Which makes it possible for people to see the gulf between what their local media is reporting about Fukishima, for example, and what is actually happening in Japan. People are connected and there are lots of people to translate Japanese to English and back.
Consequently, events like the one below are being organized.
The advancement of the nuclear agenda in Saskatchewan (“small” nuclear reactors and high-level radioactive waste disposal), with the University as the vector, runs contrary to sanity.
Saskatchewan media is silent on the issues around nuclear (like Fukishima), for obvious reason. It does not mean that the population is completely unaware.
In my experience, people working to stop the poisoning of the planet are honorable and exceptionally well-informed. They are a joy to work with.
ISIS message on behalf of IndependentWHO – 25/04/12
Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection, From Chernobyl to Fukushima
May 12-13, 2012 – Geneva Organised by IndependentWHO
There will be a meeting in Geneva to discuss the catastrophes at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The topics will include both the actual consequences of the explosions and how governments and international agencies have attempted to cover them up. Among the speakers will be Alexei Yablokov and Alexei Nesterenko, the two surviving authors of the detailed report on Chernobyl.
There will also be a press conference on Friday morning 11 May for journalists, including those from electronic and alternative media.
Entrance is free but you are requested to register in advance.
Information, registration, accommodation: . . .
Press Contact: George Gordon-Lennox Gordon.lennox AT wanadoo.fr
Tel: +33(0)4.50.42.44.67
Why organize such a forum?
For more than half a century, the health consequences of nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl and
Fukushima, and of nuclear activities in general, have been hidden from the public. A high-level international cover-up, involving governments, the nuclear industry, and international public institutions, has been coordinated by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), one of whose mandates is to promote peaceful use of the atom in the world.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is an accomplice to this cover-up. In fact, according to the agreement signed on May 5, 1959 between WHO and IAEA, WHO is not allowed to disseminate
information, undertake research, or provide assistance to populations affected by nuclear accidents, without the approval of the IAEA which itself reports to the UN Security Council. For the past two years, WHO no longer even has a “Radiation and Health” department. This unacceptable situation was confirmed during a meeting between Independent WHO and Dr Chan, WHO Director-General, on May 4, 2011. It is clear that WHO has abdicated all responsibility in the critically important field of radiation and health.
International radiological protection standards were introduced in 1950 by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and its recommendations are followed by States and international organisations. But the ICRP model that is used to determine doses and risks of ionising radiation to human health fails to distinguish between the effects of internal contamination and those of external irradiation : with, as a direct consequence, denial of the morbidity and mortality rates observed among the people who live in contaminated areas.
This explains that the official Chernobyl death toll, of 5 September 2005, co-signed by UN agencies, is around 50 directly linked to the catastrophe, and 4000 potential deaths in the long term….. At the end of 2009, however, the book “Chernobyl: consequences of the catastrophe for people and the environment” by A.V. Yablokov and V. and A. Nesterenko, so far the most complete review
on the subject, was published under the aegis of the New York Academy of Sciences. Based upon thousands of studies from all over the world, the authors estimate that there have been hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe. They also document a significant increase in morbidity, particularly in children, 80% of whom are ill today compared to 20% prior to the accident.
These huge discrepancies in estimates of the number of victims must be investigated. With the Fukushima catastrophe – which is certainly as serious as the Chernobyl disaster – it is all the more
urgent and essential today, to critically examine the information that is provided to populations on radioactive contamination and to consider possible radioprotection measures.
In the face of the inadequate response of international institutions, Japanese researchers and citizens have approached independent experts of other countries to request information and advice. The
aim of the Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection is to share knowledge and experience concerning the Chernobyl and Fukushima catastrophes.
The question of “standards” will be addressed through a comparison of official data with experience and with other theoretical models supported by independent scientists. Radioprotection itself will also be addressed and its field of application and limitations, defined. A radioprotection handbook produced by the Belrad Institute, Minsk (Belarus) has recently been translated into Japanese. The French version of the handbook is in preparation and will be launched at the Forum. We know, since Fukushima, that no country or citizen is free from the risk of such an accident.
The Forum is organised by IndependentWHO (IW), a group of individuals and associations (founding associations: Brut de Béton Production, Contratom Genève, CRIIRAD (Commission d’Informations et de Recherches Indépendantes sur la Radiation), IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War), Enfants de Tchernobyl Belarus, Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire, SDN Loire et Vilaine, People’s Health Movement), supported by a broad coalition of NGOs. IW’s major concern is that the World Health Organisation, through its alliance with the IAEA, is unable to fulfil its constitutional mandate “to act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work” and “to assist in developing an informed public opinion among all peoples on matters of health”. IW addresses all citizens of the world and urges international organizations to apply the principles on which they are founded.
Since April 26, 2007, every working day, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., IndependentWHO Hippocratic Vigils stand in front of the WHO Headquarters in Geneva to demand the independence of WHO so that it may fulfil its duty to ensure “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”, including in the area of radiation and health. This Forum will also allow exchanges of experiences between IW Vigils, independent scientists, others partners and concerned citizens.
The schedule of events is as follows:
1) A PRESS CONFERENCE on FRIDAY, 11 May 2012 from 10 to 12 a.m. at the Swiss Press Club, Geneva (open to all journalists, including those from electronic and alternative media)
2) The FORUM on SATURDAY, 12 May 2012 at the Ecumenical Centre of Geneva (please see the attached programme)
3) SUNDAY MORNING, 13 May 2012, scientists and citizens discuss Joint action, now and in the future. Meeting between speakers, Hippocratic Vigils, elected representatives, journalists and the public
Website of IndependentWHO: www.independentwho.org
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Scientific_Forum_Radioprotection_May_2012.php
Apr 252012
Obama threatening to use Presidential veto. He needs to! See the bolded text below. /S
Friends,
This is HUGE: President Obama just threatened to veto CISPA if it makes its way through Congress.
CISPA is up for a vote this week. It would obliterate any semblance of online privacy in the United States, giving the government — including the military — broad new powers to spy on Internet users.
The White House’s letter expresses precisely the concerns that we’ve been highlighting over recent weeks — and is a result of the public pressure against CISPA:
- The White House says that any cybersecurity legislation must preserve “Americans’ privacy, data confidentiality, and civil liberties and [recognize] the civilian nature of cyberspace.”
- It says that, “The bill also lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes.”
- And the letter goes on to assert that:
The American people expect their Government to enhance security without undermining their privacy and civil liberties.
Without clear legal protections and independent oversight, information sharing legislation will undermine the public’s trust in the Government as well as in the Internet by undermining fundamental privacy, confidentiality, civil liberties, and consumer protections.
This is an amazing development. Let’s make the most of it:
Just click here to urge Obama to stand strong and to tell your lawmakers to oppose CISPA.
Thanks.
-Demand Progress
PS- We only have a few days left to kill CISPA. Please tell your friends to get involved by forwarding this email or using these links:
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Apr 252012
Input – thanks:
http://podcast.yorku.ca:8080/itc/2011/EVENTS/Commercialization_of_the_University_Fou305_April25_2012.mp4 and the link to the group that put the conference together.
They have a lot of good materials: http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/the-university-is-ours/
This link may be useful, too. I’ve been thinking that we should have a meeting dedicated to this: http://www.countercartographies.org/