A Genuine Website to earn extra

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All the programs we list have been thoroughly checked out and are guaranteed to pay. We use these programs daily to make ourselves a monthly paycheck. These are all simple and easy ways to stay at home, and make a great income. Some people do it part-time for the extra $250-$500/month to pay their car payment. Others work full-time and make enough to quit their jobs! It's your choice.

No Boss, No Noisy Alarm Clocks, and Definately No Schedules!

You will make the decisions now. Earn Up to $500-$3500 Every month making a better than average income for doing what you want when you want. Nobody to tell you what to do, nothing to tell you when to wake up, and the day now becomes yours! You get to decide because you have the freedom of working for yourself. Look at yourself as a Consumer Professional!

We aren't Filthy Rich, But We Sure Enjoy What We Do !
We are ordinary people, we don't flaunt our money, dine expensively every night, we just enjoy ourselves and what we do. We have never released this information out until now, and there has been an overwhelmingly successful response from it!

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How companies Pay You To Take Surveys

Its really simple. Companies like to find out what the consumer (you) like to spend your money on, and more importantly what you like to spend your time doing. They pay millions of dollars every month in advertising budget to hire people like us to show you how to take these surveys and focus groups. Its really quite simple to understand that these companies MAKE millions just buy knowing more about you.

Somtimes they even pay for your dinner, and sometimes even pay you to get with groups of people to try products in controlled areas they invite you too! ( These are called focus groups.)

Pretty soon you might find yourself getting Paid:

$5-$100 To Drive Brand New Released Cars
Free Meals + $40 to Try out a New Restaraunt in Your Area!
$20 for filling out a short 10 minute email survey
Get Paid $100-$200 an hour for offline surveys
Get Paid $50-80 for online surveys
Over $200 an hour for focus groups!
Get Paid $90 just for previewing a Movie Trailer!
Up to $3500 a month just for driving a car around!

People Didn't Believe Us Either When We Started, Now We are Practically Retired!
Nobody believed us when we started, and we hardly believed ourselves. But the money starting pouring in, We were getting paid by MULTIPLE companies somtimes MULTIPLE times a week. We are now making a living from our homes, working a couple of hours a week. Microsoft, Coca Cola, Sears, and many more LARGE corporations are paying you and I for the extremely valuable customer information that they pay the BIG BUCKS for! We are the source between you and these very generous and high paying companies.

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Testimonies

Personally I love it! I take my son to school, come home and start taking surveys. Work for maybe an hour or two, then head off to the gym. Come home and do a few more surveys. Run out to do a few errands and pick up my son from school. Do a focus group or a few more surveys before dinner and I'm done for the day. I fit my work in whenever I can. The part I like best is I can do it for 5 minutes or a few hours .. I can fit it in whenever I have time and I'm not tied down for long periods of time and I never have to leave the house!

Of course now everyone I know does online surveys for pay too! My mom is retired and really needs the extra money. My sister is just out of college and has a great job .. but really needs a few hundred extra a month for the extras we all enjoy. My best friend just had a baby and when I told her what I was doing and how much I was making she tried it out before going back to work.

She is so happy she did .. now she stays home with her daughter and makes great money .. and she spends wonderful quality time with her child. This is such a great job I know you will just love it.
Now you can get started making great money filling out online surveys too. You will receive instant access and can be working by tomorrow! You will have access to hundreds of companies that will pay you to sit home and give your opinion!

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NOTE: There is a Limited Number of Openings. If you hurry, you can Guarantee Processing of Your New Application Through.

earnmoneyatnet.com - Instant Access

Instant Lifetime Access to our members area containing:

FREE BONUS: "Get Paid to Shop & Eat!"
FREE BONUS: "Get Paid to Drive!"
FREE BONUS: "Over 300 Additional Work at Home Opportunities!"

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Work at home India is India's first work at home company, Work at home India has pioneered the work at home concept in India. Way back in 2000 work at home India started distributing home based work to Individuals, Now work at home India features a lot more work from home jobs both online and offline home jobs then any other company, We are providing home jobs such as data conversion, data processing, email processing, ad placing, data entry, medical transcription, data entry, editing work, paid SMS, paid survey, home webmaster jobs, Free Internet business and many other home jobs. Work at home India is known for its effective customer care and efficiency in the home business field. Work at home India provides high quality work for corporate and firms in the ITES business. We accept Data-conversion, Data Entry, Internet Research. MT, LT, HTML to XML and various other kind of ITES work. We also provide search engine optimization and Online marketing service at par with the industry standards. We also provide a lot more options in the online advertising industry. We sub outsource BPO projects to individuals and bulk customers we also provide telecommuting jobs to home jobs seekers.

If you want to outsource your projects to us we can offer the Most competitive and accurate service. Contact us to outsource your projects.

New Projects in Data conversion and Data entry Updated for Home Jobs and Bulk Outsourcing.

We offer only genuine work at home opportunities, no marketing, no forced matrix, no click based, no paid emails or paid to surf programmes.

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2008-02-03T03:16:00.004-08:00

We are introducing paid SMS service in INDIA for the first time.

For Individuals

Make money by receiving SMS from us and our affiliates. You can earn 20 paisa per sms and also on the referrals you make for receiving promotional offers and advertisements on your mobile. Now make money on the go.

Visit: www.earnmoneyatnet.com Contact at 9989485265, 9949040265

For Advertisers & Corporate Customers

Now the best form of targeted advertising is at your finger tips. we have a database of 1 Million subscribers spanning all major GSM and CDMA networks.

All our members have agreed to receive promotional offers so no chance of rejection of your message.

Members classified under various sections consisting location, Age, Sex, Marital Status and other groups. Customers sorted out under various preferences and customer taste.

Now earn maximum attention and generate advertisements into sales through our advanced system of converting advertisements into sales directly. Now interact with your customer on the go. know their preferences through our interactive feedback system.

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Booking for the work opened for a limited period.

The last lot of work has been successfully completed by a group of 200 home workers with average accuracy of 98%.

We would like to congratulate our members for successfully completing the project 2 months before the dead line. The dedication of our members has earned us reputation with our clients and they are satisfied with our accuracy and management which has led to timely completion of our project.

On this occasion we are making a bonus payment to all the members who have helped us achieve this feat.

Booking now open for new lot of work 2000 home workers needed.

Our experience in the past has proved that working with home workers is a profitable venture and has resulted in significant cost benefits to us and our clients. We have been able to provide the most accurate results at the most competitive rates by saving on floor space, assets, & overhead cost.

People having a computer at home, preferably with an internet connection with good typing speed can apply for this home based data entry job..

Join us now to get the most out of this opportunity. Click below for home based data entry work and other offline jobs.

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We are now offering Online jobs to suit the needs of every individual.

The jobs we are offering is not marketing or click based, we totally discourage forced advertising and hits based earning opportunities.

Ad placing - Earning per ad placed.

We are offering currently ad placing work.

The work involves placing of the advertisement snippets which we will provide to various directories, classified sites, blogs, forums and others sites.

We are paying on per ad placed and not like other companies who pay only if the link is clicked.

You can earn any where between 50 paise to 5 rupee for per ad placed in directories and classifieds. You have to submit your report weekly of the sites you have placed the advertisements in, after verification we will pay you according to work done by you.

Payment is made on monthly basis.

You cant use link submission softwares or sites offering mass submission service.

The work is not limited by any means.

A person with average speed can post around 50 to 70 ads or links per hour.

You can earn around 700 to 1000rs per day depending on your speed and efficiency.

You also get paid on referrals joining under you. You will be paid 500rs per member joining under you.

You will be given your own link which you have to promote. You can promote that link anywhere you want. You will get paid for posting the same link and plus you will also get paid for referrals joining through your link.

You will be able given a personal page at www.workathomeindia.com/yourname.htm . you will be able to post your personal message or if you are promoting any other home jobs opportunity then you can post the same there on your personal page. So you can promote all your jobs on the same single page plus you get paid for promoting your own page.

will get a page similar to this.

The advertisements can be of ours or any of our clients or affiliates. You cant add your personal ads or links along with ours else your payments will be with held.

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We are now offering Online jobs to suit the needs of every individual.

The jobs we are offering is not marketing or click based, we totally discourage forced advertising and hits based earning opportunities.

Ad placing - Earning per ad placed.

We are offering currently ad placing work.

The work involves placing of the advertisement snippets which we will provide to various directories, classified sites, blogs, forums and others sites.

We are paying on per ad placed and not like other companies who pay only if the link is clicked.

Payment is made on monthly basis.

You cant use link submission softwares or sites offering mass submission service.

The work is not limited by any means.

A person with average speed can post around 50 to 70 ads or links per hour.

You can earn around 700 to 1000rs per day depending on your speed and efficiency.

You also get paid on referrals joining under you. You will be paid 500rs per member joining under you.

The advertisements can be of ours or any of our clients or affiliates. You cant add your personal ads or links along with ours else your payments will be with held.

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2008-02-03T03:15:00.003-08:00

A Complete India Travel Guide Launched

Your wait is finally over. A complete Travel Guide, www.travelgoindia.com that focuses completely on India has been launched. The days of scratching about for information on India before you embark on a tour of this beautiful country is passé. Learn more about the beauty of this enchanting land from this exhaustively informative website www.travelgoindia.com. This travel guide has quite a few useful tools that enable it to become a traveler’s best friend.

Are you ready to pack your bag but not very sure about your destination? At TravelGoIndia.com you will get to know about some tourist locations, whose existence you were never aware of. No wonder, this is by far the best India Travel Guide that you will find in the Internet. Rich in information, this exclusively India centric travel guide is surely destined to become a tourist’s best pal.

TravelGoIndia.com is conceived to provide travelers with enough information on travel so that it becomes easier for them to take decisions. The website enables you to book hotels in more than 150 Indian cities. You also have the choice to book a luxury hotel or a budget hotel. One added advantage that this complete India Travel Guide has is its ability to book hotels real time through partners and give instant confirmation facility. It has more than 500 hotels of all categories throughout India in its database. You can, therefore, be pretty sure of getting a hotel room anywhere in the country.

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2008-02-03T03:15:00.001-08:00

Tropical Vacations Introduce You to Nature’s Glory

Tropical Vacations Introduce You to Nature’s Glory

A tropical vacation usually evokes images of images of sultry summer days lounging on the beach and soft breezes caressing you in the evenings while you sip a drink in the evenings. There are so many wonderful tropical vacation packages that give you just that in Mexico, but if you’d like to take it to the next level, consider traveling to the interior as well and experience the full spectrum of nature’s glory. Tropical also means exotic plants, gorgeous birds and chattering monkeys, mountain cliffs and amazing wildlife!

Jungle and Tropical Rainforest Vacations

Ecotourism is one of the most incredible adventures you can embark on in Mexico and other tropical areas of the world. These eco adventures give you the opportunity to see and hear things you would never be able to experience outside of a zoo or museum. In tropical regions of the world there are jungles and rain forests that shelter an amazing array of plants and animals that are colorful, unique and exotic.

Traveling with an experienced guide through the interior of a rainforest or jungle will bring you into a world where time has stood still for thousands of years. Imagine trekking along a stretch of sandy beach your first day, then heading spending the next few days in a rainforest where brilliantly plumed parrots fly overhead, calling to one another and flashing feathers of emerald, ruby and gold. The chatter of monkeys as they swing overhead will delight your group as your guide explains the delicate balance of Mexico’s ecosystem.

There are coral reefs to explore, natural springs and underwater rivers with stunning rock formations and always the crystalline waters of the Caribbean Sea.

In the evenings you’ll view glorious sunsets from atop majestic Mayan ruins or high natural ridges, all part of the protected heritage of the Mexican people. The warm breezes will sweep away the humidity of your jungle day as you relax with your small group of fellow travelers, suspended in time under a brilliant blanket of stars.

Challenge Yourself in the Tropics

If you’re up to something a bit more physical, tropical vacations offer a vast range of topographies for every activity from mountain biking to scuba diving. The mountains of the Yucatan Peninsula offer extremely challenging mountain biking trails and hiking opportunities for solo or group trekking.

Check out some of the stunning vistas you can see from various mountain locations, including views of several of the largest volcanoes in Mexico like Pico De Orizaba, Iztaccihuatl and the still active Popcateptl (which erupted spectacularly less then ten years ago, causing the evacuation of two villages). Near Mexico City you can visit the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, another spectacular example of early Mayan culture.

If you’re a fan of scuba diving, there’s nothing more exhilarating than a tropical vacation for scuba. Cancun offers a variety of packages for exceptional open water diving and cave or cavern diving. Even experienced scuba divers agree that there’s always something new to discover in the elaborate underwater caverns along the tropical beaches of the Mexican shore.

Did you know that the second largest coral reef in the world, the Great Belize Coral Reef, is in Mexico? This tropical reef system

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Best Hotels are Found Here

Best Hotels are Found Here

Need help? Need a place to stay? Try Hotelslocator.com

Whether you're on your vacation, in for a conference in the city, or just visiting, nothing beats going back to a nice hotel after the day is done. A good night's sleep and nice stay can recharge and invigorate you, getting you ready for the next day.

Standard hotels usually have basic accommodation like a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table. Washstands have been largely replaced by rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Other features found may be a TV, a telephone and an alarm clock. Food and drink may be supplied in a small refrigerator which is usually referred to as "mini-bar", containing snacks, drinks and tea and coffee making facilities like cups, spoons, an electric kettle and sachets containing instant coffee, tea bags, sugar, and creamer or milk. Aside from these, food and drinks may also be ordered through room service, some hotels even offer specialty cuisine which they are famous for.

However, in Japan the capsule hotel supplies minimal facilities and room space. The cost and quality of hotels are usually indicative of the range and type of services available. Due to the enormous increase in tourism worldwide during the last decades of the 20th century, standards, especially those of smaller establishments, have improved considerably. For the sake of greater comparability, rating systems have been introduced, with the one to five stars classification being most common.

But sometimes hotel availability can be a problem. This is where a hotel directory comes in handy. A hotel directory, either on the Internet or in a magazine type publication, is a list of all hotels/motels/places of lodging in a certain area. Typically it also includes reviews

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Experiencing Natural Wonders with Ecotourism

Ecotourism

Coined by Héctor Ceballos-Lascuràin in 1983 the term Ecotourism was used to describe nature centric travel to relatively undisturbed areas with an emphasis on education. Today ecotourism consists of cultural tourism, nature tourism, leisure tourism and a good dose of adventure. Sound ecotourism involves travel to natural destinations, minimizes impact, builds environmental awareness, provides direct financial benefits for conservation, provides financial benefits and empowerment for local people, respects local culture, and supports human rights and not exploitation. It is an enlightening, participatory travel experience to environments, both natural and cultural which produces viable economic opportunities for the tourism industry and host communities, and makes the use of these resources through conservation beneficial to all tourism role players.

Global Ecotourism

According to the World Tourism Organisation Ecotourism is the fastest growing market within the ever expanding global tourism industry. Eco-travel is a serious player within the global tourism market and is fast becoming the preferred option in vacationing. We are a society trademarked by a heightened environmental consciousness not known in past eras. This combined with easy accessibility to exotic locations is what has drawn so many to eco-travel. Countries have begun to promote their natural resources, unique locals and tourism facilities in a bid to capture the interest of intrepid eco-travellers. Businesses are constructing camps and lodges and trails and tours are being designed to facilitate the wants and needs of the eco-tourists.

Ecotourism in Africa

Africa is synonymous with the concept of ecotourism, its multitude of game parks and reserves conserve some of the world's most magnificent creatures. The bird life throughout the continent is remarkable, natural wonders are scattered throughout the continent and the cultures and traditions of past eras mystically intertwine with modern day. Each country on this diverse continent offers its own unique appeal to eco-travellers and no eco-traveller would be complete without a trip to Africa.

A Jewel at the Tip of Africa

When the path of tourism began to diverge to ecotourism; nature, heritage and recreational destinations became more important than before and South Africa is a haven for these three cornerstones of eco-tourism. Lying at the very tip of Africa, South Africa is home to some of the most magnificent vistas, sunsets and natural resources one could hope to encounter. It is near impossible to separate SA from a nature experience and the strongest

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amaica's underwater wonders

Over the years many songwriters have referred to the beauty of this green pearl in the string of Caribbean islands, and today it is known throughout the world for its lush vegetation, reggae music, rum and coffee. One of the most overlooked attractions is, however, that part of the island that lies below the surface of the ocean that surrounds it. Divers typically do not think of Jamaica as a prime diving destination, except for those who have explored its reefs and have found it to be the best destination of all. Where else can you do a breathtaking wall dive in the morning, enjoy the sea life on a shallow reef at noon, and have plenty of time left in the afternoon to go river rafting, horseback riding, play golf, visit a great house or indulge in any manner of activities. Jamaica as one of the largest islands in the Caribbean has many excellent diving and snorkeling sites: shallow and deep, reefs and walls, wrecks and caverns, home to all manner of sea life: spectacular coral, exotic sponges, spiny lobsters, moray eels, sea turtles and multitudes of colorful fish, big and small. Below we have selected by region some of the unique diving opportunities available to you based on your level of experience. All dives offered by commercial operators in Jamaica are guided dives. The dive guides must have, according to regulations, at least a dive master certificate from an internationally recognized association and be licensed by the Jamaica Tourist Board. Although this limits your freedom to dive wherever you like, this regulation increases the safety and fun of diving in an unfamiliar area. The dive classifications employed below were assigned based on the following principles: Novice divers: Persons who are recently certified, or who have done only a limited number of dives with considerable gaps in between; this could include divers with as many as 20 dives. Dives in this category will tend to be less than 60 ft (18 m) or will not require advanced diving skills. Intermediate divers: Persons who have been diving on a regular basis but lack further training beyond certification, also those with advanced training who have not been diving for the past several months. The environment of this category of dive necessitates greater experience. Advanced divers: Persons with training beyond the open water diver certification that have been diving regularly in the last several months. This requirement will apply to most sites deeper than 80 ft (24 m) because those dives require a mastery of buoyancy and a thorough knowledge of the dive tables. These dives may also be accessible to the less experienced diver after a couple of refresher dives.

MONTEGO BAY Rose Hall Reef Depth: 20-45 ft (7-14 m) Class: Novice Named for the famous great house that overlooks the sea just a couple of miles east of Montego Bay, this shallow reef is teaming with marine life. At this location you'll discover "Fairy Castle", a massive colony of pillar coral, and "Fairy Bridge", a coral formation that connects two sections of reef over a sandy "river". The reef forms an intricate system of tunnels that are home to squirrelfish, goatfish, porcupinefish, bar jacks and grunts.

The Spanish Anchor Depth: 50-90 ft (15-28 m) Class: Intermediate Located on the west side of the marine park, the shallow reef drops to a sandy bottom at 50 ft. The site derives its name from the large anchor, undated but of Spanish origin, that rests on the sandy bottom. Within the reef wall one can explore tunnels and caverns with abundant sponge colonies. Sightings of eagle rays are quite common here, and in the deeper water large mutton snappers- and sometimes a docile nurse sharkmay pass by.

Widowmaker's Cave Depth: 40-80 ft (12-24 m) Class: Advanced A deep dive along a wall with a vertical, narrow crack which forms the entrance to Widowmaker's Cave. Inside the tunnel leading to the cave, there is wire coral with, in the beam of your dive light, red polyps, and the walls are covered with multicolored sponges. On this dive you'll likely encounter schools of silvery blue bogas, glassy sweepers, schoolmaster snappers, balloonfish, trumpetfish, hamlets, wrasses and parrotfish.

NEGRIL The Throne Room Depth: 40-70 ft (12-21 m) Class: Novice The entrance to the Throne Room, a fairly wide but low cavern, is a crack in the reef about 25 feet long and 8 feet wide. The walls on the inside are covered with colorful sponges and on the bottom near to the exit you can see a large orange elephant ear sponge for which the site is named. Ceros, cruising along over the sandy bottom, are a common sight, as are small groups of yellow tail snapper.

The Caves Depth: 40-70 ft (12-21 m) Class: Intermediate This site is named for the two caverns, one small and one slightly larger, with a narrow tunnel connecting the two. You can find a variety of sponges here along with soft gorgonians. On the sand flat you will see the usual occupants: furry sea cucumbers, stingrays, jacks and some lane snappers.

Kingfish Point Depth: 80-90 ft (24-27 m) Class: Advanced Among the elephant ear sponges and yellow tube sponges, you may

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2008-02-03T03:13:00.003-08:00

Equitours: Worldwide Horseback Riding Adventures Change World Perceptions of the American Traveler

If you’re weighing the pleasures of tourism against the discomfort of going abroad at a time when our country seems widely abhorred, you might want to consider savoring a new way of traveling: on horseback

If you’re weighing the pleasures of tourism against the discomfort of going abroad at a time when our country and culture seem widely abhorred, you might want to consider savoring a new way of making an entrance into that picturesque Provence village. Leave the trains, cars and tour buses to others. What really elicits a warm welcome from locals abroad is arriving in town on horseback.

“Anywhere in the world – Iceland, Tierra del Fuego; France, India – local people greet riders in an overwhelmingly open and friendly way; there’s an instant rapport,” says Bayard Fox, the founder of Equitours, the oldest and largest riding vacation company in the United States. “Horses aren’t just a great passport to some of the most beautiful spots in the world, they are a passport to the hearts of people everywhere.”

Fox, who, with his wife, Mel, has spent the better part of twenty-five years taking Americans to every part of the globe on equestrian vacations, is no stranger to chilly foreign relations. A former CIA operative from the Cold War era, he’s spent years living in Paris, riding with nomadic tribes in Iran, and posing as a big game hunter in Central Africa, all to gather information for the U.S. during the 50s and 60s. His knowledge of foreign cultures is enormous; and his experience has been invaluable in carefully choosing the world’s best riding tours in places that highlight natural beauty,

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Life is an Adventure, Live It

Costa Rica is Central America's jewel. It's an oasis and an Ecotourism heaven, making it one of the best places to experience the tropics with minimal impact. It's also mostly coastline, which means great surfing, activities and beaches galore with a climate built for laziness.

Deep Sea Fishing Would you like to hook a sailfish on a fly, catch and release a marlin, fight a giant tuna, reel in dolphin fish, take a swim with a porpoise, and catch a few snappers to take back for your dinner? The North Pacific Coast of Costa Rica is a World-Class sport fishing paradise. More than 40 world records have been registered within an 80-mile radius. Sailfish, black marlin, blue marlin, striped marlin (sails and marlin are catch and release), yellow fin tuna and Wahoo are found in abundance. Inshore species include large concentrations of roosterfish and snapper. Billfish are the favored target of most visiting anglers. There are many charter boats on the west coast of Costa Rica. They can accommodate an individual, a couple, a family or a group of any size.

Canopy Tours Swing like a monkey thru the trees on a zip line canopy tour. Guides are professionals in the area of Canopying and most have years of previous experience. The canopy tour offers any adventurous tourist the opportunity to ascend into the forest canopy and see jungle life from a perspective available previously to only a select few researchers and photographers. This is an Adventure for all ages that should not be missed.

Sailing Experience a day of sailing and exploring the impressive Costa Rican coast. While sailing you could encounter dolphins, whales, turtles, manta rays and bat rays. Anchored in a bay you can snorkel coral and rock formations, swim, or simply enjoy the secluded beaches. The best way of relaxing on your vacation is to enjoy a beautiful Guanacaste Sunset Cruise. Sit-back and watch the colorful sunset, while sipping a cold beer, rum punch or soft drinks and enjoying the light snacks.

Volcano's, Hot Springs, Mud Baths and Waterfalls Arenal volcano is well known for its exploding lava shows. Shop at the road side gallery's and gift shops. Visit the rain forest. Lake Arenal, a beautiful 22-mile long lake is great for freshwater fishing. It's home to the hard-hitting rainbow bass, or quapote: five to six pounders are common. Take your swimsuits to bathe in the pools of naturally warm thermal waters amid tropical gardens at Arenal Volcano National Park. For the sports enthusiast you can windsurf one of the premier windsurfing destinations in the world. Due to the area's irregular topography the wind is constant, providing excellent windsurfing conditions, especially in the dry season between December and April.

Buena Vista Hot Springs Canopy tour, hot springs, horses, water slide, waterfall and mud bath. The thermal waters, steam bath, and natural spa are located at the foot of Volcano, Rincon de la Vieja. At the hot springs, you will relax unconditionally as you enjoy pleasurable and rejuvenating treatments with volcanic mud and warm spring waters. This "spoil me" atmosphere makes it easy to forget the hustle and bustle of modern life. By

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2008-02-03T03:12:00.004-08:00

Ngorongoro Crater

Maybe it was Mark Twain who said there are lies, dammed lies and statistics. This seems to be the case concerning statistics for Ngorongoro crater. As I checked my figures for accuracy for this article I could find no two sources that agree. So I will endeavor to keep statistics to a minimum.

This aside Ngorongoro Crater is a true marvel and I believe unique in Africa; it is located between the lake Manyara National Park and the Serengeti. It was formed from an ancient volcano that erupted and then collapsed into the craters we see today. This is called a caldera and Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest [unbroken] caldera. It is thought that this volcano, before it erupted and collapsed, stood taller than its close neighbor Mt Kilimanjaro.

The crater floor is spread across one hundred square mile and is home to many thousands of animals. Ngorongoro Crater enjoys a year round water supply and so nearly all animals remain here as permanent residents. It has the densest population of game in the whole of Africa; and it is possible to see the big five in one day. It is often referred to as a mini Serengeti as it shares many of the habitats of this huge neighbor. Although rich with game the crater has no giraffe, impala or topi. There are only a small number of tall acacia trees, this lack of grazing can explain the absence of the giraffe but the absences of impala and topi is a mystery; especially as they are present in large numbers in the nearby Serengeti.

There are five habitats on the crater floor, which as mentioned have echoes of the habitats of the Serengeti. In the south west is the Lerai Forest which gets its name from the tall yellow barked acacia. This Forrest is home to baboons and vervet monkeys. There is also a small population of giant tusker bull elephants. These elephants are the biggest you will see in Tanzania. There are no breading herds of elephants here; in fact there are no female elephants in the crater. If you are lucky you may also catch a glimpse of the shy leopard lying along the branches of the acacia trees in this forest.

The best time to visit this forest is early in the morning. We recommend a 6h30 start, if you are up to it, to be amongst the first into the crater. The animals are at their most active in a morning and an early start will be well rewarded. The Ngorongoro

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Find Serious Romance at Oregon B&B

On Oregon's northern coast, the tiny town of Wheeler sits at the edge of a pristine bay that cloisters all sorts of wonders, which stay even more secret because they often get passed over by the major tourist publications. A mere few blocks long, if you blink you may miss this diminutive gem, where antique shops seem to be the number one industry (there are four such shops, yet only two lodgings and two restaurants). All of this looks out over the Nehalem Bay, where mysterious Neahkahnie Mountain hovers in the distance, looming over the immaculate beaches of Manzanita, some four miles away.

Another spot from which to get a stunning view of the bay sits at the center point of Wheeler: the Old Wheeler Hotel. At the corner of Highway 101 and what is called "Artisans Row," Old Wheeler has five cozy and luxurious rooms, all of which have windows to the always-unforgettable bay.

Beauty and romance resonates and oozes from this place, with soothing, Tuscan-inspired color schemes, hardwood floors and a classical décor that's warm, inviting and imparts luxury.

The best of modern conveniences - and a few surprises - await you. The common room serves up breakfast in the morning, and comes with a microwave and high-speed Internet access. Walk down chandeliered and candlelit hallways to the "piano lobby," decked out in a lush, warm pepper-red, stuffed with oversized comfy couches and containing a nifty hammock-like seat. There's also a vintage Wurlitzer piano.

Each room has a vibrant charm to it that's the result of a myriad of nice little details - from the bedspreads and the art on the walls, to the light fixtures and the stuffed animal you may find on your bed. Some rooms have a Jacuzzi and some have a claw foot bathtub.

There's also a masseuse in residence.

On top it all, enjoy free popcorn and movies - thanks to owner Winston Laszlo's history with the film industry. His father was a screenwriter in Los Angeles, so Winston grew up with the world of movies

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Staying healthy while traveling

Your good health is paramount while traveling and taking simple precautions can drastically reduce your chances of falling ill.

Health Insurance
An insurance package that covers your health, possessions and cancellations is imperative.

Immunizations
Immunizations are critical – especially if you are planning to visit 3rd world countries. Many immunizations require a specific time period to take effect or require certain follow-up shots – so plan well ahead. You should record any immunization shots received on an official health certificate as this is often a requirement of visa applications.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can advise you on the current recommendations for your intended destination.

General
Food and water are one of the leading causes of illness for travelers. These simple tips can drastically reduce your chances of illness:

- If the water is suspect, don’t take the risk. This includes ice, food washed and prepared in the water and swimming pools. Buy bottled water or boil/sterilize existing water.

- Only consume fruit and vegetables that can be pealed or are protected by an outer skin (bananas, oranges, pineapple etc)

- Wash you hands thoroughly before all meals.

- When purchasing meat and seafood, look for प्रोपेर

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When should you talk to your preteen about sex? Most experts would agree, there's no time like the present.

Talking to our youngsters about the birds and the bees is one thing when they're preschoolers, it's quite another when they're preteens. Chances are that at this age you'll get a lot of squirming and looks of disgust when discussing sexual health. But those reactions of embarrassment are pretty normal with preteens, says sexual health educator Kim Marsden. "When they're in the pre-pubescent age, they go into the gross-me-outter stage. Painful for parents, but it's a really important time to persevere and keep talking to them about their bodies."

However kids aren't the only ones who squirm. Many parents find sexual health difficult to discuss and find themselves continually postponing a frank discussion with their child. If this is the case with you, the best bet is to pick up a book, do some reading and then stop procrastinating.

Now is the time to sit down and talk with your child because according to Meg Hickley, author of "Speaking of Sex", "children in grades 4 to 7 have the greatest needs for information and this is the most crucial time to talk. They've been exposed to television and school yard gossip about sexuality and this is your last chance to talk. They need to know about breast development, for boys as well as for girls, that some children gain weight during puberty and it's totally unfair to tease someone about being skinny or fat, and they need to know about body hair and daily washing."

Marsden acknowledges that when it comes to discussing sexual health with children "it's difficult to get the conversation going because they're so embarrassed. So lock them in the car, take a long drive, get talking and keep talking. Then ask them to return the information and see how much they've actually picked up."

And when you've finally had the big talk, pat yourself on the back. According to Hickley the open communication you've created around sexual health will pay off for many, many years. "If you've talked to your kids from preschool through to primary years, I can promise you are going to have a teenager who is filled with joy and optimism about their future adult sexual lives, and who is extremely easy to talk to."

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Social Skill Repair: Creative Methods To Build Students' Peer Skills

Peer interaction problems can make any school or agency site chaotic, loud, unpleasant or unsafe. There are no quick fixes to instantly turnaround all your peer problems, but here are some fun ways to begin the process.

The more you can use creative, unexpected and humorous methods, the more success you may achieve repairing poor peer skills. Rely on methods that catch your resistant, oppositional, depressed, withdrawn and defiant youth off-guard and powerfully engage them in learning despite themselves. The interventions below offer those benefits.

** Who You Gonna Call? Gropes Busters! Here's a fun multiple choice quiz that teaches while your students are laughing. Permission is granted to you to print out the quiz for use with students.

The Gropes-Busters Quiz

1. When standing near other kids, it is very important to stand: a) Nose to nose b) On their toes c) About one arm length away

2. When other students say "No," it really means: a) "Yes" with an attitude b) The "n" and "o" are silent c) Stop!

3. When touching others, a guideline to follow is: a) Grope first, ask second b) Ask first, grope second c) Ask first and comply with the answer

4. When watching pro sports like football and hockey, it is important to remember that a) Slapping people's backsides is a universal greeting b) Violent contact is welcomed everywhere c) No one should ever behave as badly as misbehaved pro athletes

5. When touching others, it is always best to a) Never touch anything labeled "radioactive" b) Never touch anything you can't reach c) Never touch until receiving permission first

**BONUS INTERVENTION
To generate a dialogue about interacting with peers who are ethnically, culturally, or otherwise different, use this group experience exercise: Divide students into two groups. Each group will be given the task of either buying or selling items. Privately provide separate instructions to each group on how they may behave, and have these instructions conflict. For example, one group may talk only to blondes; the other group may not permit blondes to talk to others from outside the group. The resulting conflict will mirror real-life clashes and can be followed by a discussion on identifying, understanding and managing cultural, ethnic and interpersonal differences.

**BONUS INTERVENTION
"Problem hands" can be a big problem. It is important to teach youngsters who are being victimized, how to avoid additional problems. But, in addition, remember to teach the victimized kids that they are not to blame. Victims sometimes don't report problem touching by peers for reasons that relate to self-blame. Teach these youngsters that they were not to blame regardless of their dress, demeanor, reputation or personal history. Self-blame issues can be especially important for girls and young women.

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Online education and the challenge of motivation

Getting an online education is both a very thrilling proposition and a challenging one as well. It is quite exciting to learn through a very new and non-traditional form of education and it offers a set of new challenges that would compel individuals to really immerse themselves in what they are doing.

Unfortunately, even with an educational format as new as online education, the same old problems that plague students would usually crop up. The most common difficulty a student encounters is losing the motivation to continue studying. This feeling is further exacerbated by the unique environment that a student must contend with in an online education course. Being alone with no real classmates to act as real-time sounding boards and given the free rein to handle your time it becomes a challenge to really get into the groove of studying. Since online education classes are a new education format, it also does not possess many of the known support systems that we can find inside a traditional school structure. These support systems are what helps keep students motivated. The lack of social interaction can also be a significant contributing factor for online education students easily losing the motivation to study.

Losing motivation is quite difficult because it could become difficult to stay focused on what needs to be done. Losing the impetus to study will make it very difficult to prepare for exams or tests, complete assignments and finish projects. Motivation is what drives a person to study through the boredom, the tedium and the difficulties. Without motivation, the whole purpose of taking online education classes loses meaning. It would be just so easy to quit and stop taking the classes at the risk of losing the tuition paid for the online classes.

For those who may be worried that they may lose their motivation, the good news is that it can be restored or reinforced. Below are some tips given by many education experts as a way of keeping motivated.

* One way to stay motivated is to identify a goal and work towards its attainment. Try to focus on small goals that can be easily fulfilled. You can mark off a calendar with daily and weekly goals that you are required to accomplish. As you fulfill each goal cross it out with a pen. This process helps you build up your pride in your accomplishments.

* Try to talk to other people about what you are learning in your online classes. This process is usually done with your classmates in a traditional school system but because of the nature of online education, you really do not have classmates in the traditional sense. What you can do is talk to family members and friends about what you have learned in your online classes. One other thing you can do is to try to arrange a chat with your instructor so that you can have some time to discuss the subjects and/or curriculum with him.

* Try to be active in forums related to your course or classes. Even though there are no real physical ways of meeting fellow students in an online course most educational institutions that offer online education provide chatrooms or forums where you can chat with other people taking the same courses. These chatrooms or forums provide ample opportunity for different kinds of interactions with fellow students. You can use it to get to know other students personally and if you find one that lives near you, then you can probably arrange to meet with them regularly to discuss your subjects. You can set up online study groups that other students who taking the same course can use.

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Adult Learning Disabilities

You have to deal with a number of issues if you have a learning disability, even if that disability was diagnosed in the childhood. The issues will be different and many more in adulthood than they were in your childhood years. Hence you will have to find new ways to cope with these challenges and issues posed by the learning disability.

Most children plan on marrying, having children, and being a productive member of their society. If you have a learning disability, you will have to incorporate it into your life-plan. You will need to learn ways of handling the milestones in your life and still deal with your disability. You can lead a successful life with a little by taking some small steps.

Learning disabilities come in many forms, but usually affect how a person thinks, talks, hears, reads and writes. These problems impact how you process thoughts and perform tasks such as mathematics. Since we use these skills everyday, you will have to find ways of coping with daily tasks.

It can be extremely difficult to be an adult with a learning disability. Other adults expect you to have the same skill sets that they do and may become angry and frustrated when they have to repeatedly explain something to you. They don't realize that you need extra time to make sense of certain things. You may even drop out of classes you're taking because others don't understand your needs. Doing this will most likely jeopardize your career plans.

You need to find the balance between having a disability and changing your goals. You do need to know your limitations but at the same time there is no reason for you not to live a full and happy life. You should be able to enjoy relationships and being a parent, even with your learning disability.

Being a parent with learning disability can be tough and stressing. To reduce the stress of being a disability parent, you can do a number of things like take care of your time and manage it properly.

One of the many tricks that you can implement so that you don't forget important family information is to have a calendar prominently displayed in the kitchen or other room in your home. Keep track of dates and times when you and your children need to be somewhere. This way you have a constant visual reminder to refer to so that you don't miss appointments and pick up times.

Keep your home as organized as possible so that when you need to find something it will be in a permanent location inside your home. This ensures that you don't spend unnecessary time searching for something that you need since this can often lead to your frustration and anger.

Remember that it is very important to remain calm and patient even when things are not going the way you may want them to. Everyone, even those who don't have a learning disability will have moments that are frustrating and trying. Do not blame everything that goes wrong on your learning disability.

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"When Reading is Stupid; the Why, How and What to Do About It"

As we are about to embark on a teaching career we as English teachers need to be aware that our students will not always share the same enthusiasm and passion we have for reading. Jeffrey Wilhelm's article "When Reading is Stupid; the Why, How and What to Do About It" is therefore of particular relevance as it discusses the issue of how teachers can motivate their students to read more.

Wilhelm conducted research surrounding various students and adults' reading experiences, both meaningful and frustrating. After interviewing over five hundred participants Wilhelm confirmed that relevance, competence and agency were the key factors that entice people, especially students, to read. Using these key factors, he devised the notion of "contact zones".

Reading need not be seen merely as homework or a set task, yet so often teachers present reading material in such a way. "Read pages 40 - 70 before next Tuesday" or "Write ten lines describing the themes explored in this novel".

According to the Chief Review Officer for ERO certain students, in particular Pacific Islanders, Maori and another group referred to as 'the tail' are currently unsuccessful within the educational system. They say that the percentage could be as high as 25% . Many leave school without a formal qualification and usually this also means that a number of them will be fairly illiterate. From the time they leave school, these students therefore have a disadvantage in the world as they do not have access to the vast amount of knowledge that can be found within literature. Their knowledge of the world will be limited to their own life experiences and cultural boundaries. Whether these experiences are positive or negative will influence a student's opinion about what they have to read. If the material does not fit their own experiences or culture, they will probably fail to understand the relevance or point of being 'forced' to read it.

According to Wilhelm the key to encouraging the students, in particular those that are having difficulties with reading, is therefore about making connections. Their life experience and culture should be the very foundation from which teachers should be choosing material to read. Wilhelm states that reading should be seen as a choice that is 'personally relevant and socially significant'. Students should therefore, under close guidance, with a clear purpose and carefully explained procedures, be given increased responsibility in what and how they read in order to develop an understanding of themselves and the world outside of their own life and cultural experiences.

Wilhelm suggests that teachers should use the technique of 'contact zones'. This is where each student feels connected to learning the material in some way. They need to be able to see the relevance of committing their own precious time on something they do not necessarily deem important. With the increasing competition of computer games, films, DVDs, music and so much more, ensuring that texts are 'relevant' becomes more important than ever before. As there is so much information and choice available to our students we need to be able to recreate the same amount of choice and connection for them within the classroom, especially when it comes to the context of getting them to read! Reading has to be as exciting as the next episode of the Simpsons or Missy Elliot video or as action charged as winning the first fifteen game.

Over my two-week observation period on placement I noticed the concept of contact zones being put into practice. My year 9 English class had just completed reading the Duncan Stuart's novel Whole of the Moon. The female and male characters in the book are about the same age as the students in the class.

"He's smart, good-looking, rich - he's just won the speed-skating champs and has a terrific girlfriend. Kirk Mead has it all...including cancer. Now he has to tough it out in the biggest battle of his life."

Although The Whole of the Moon is about fictional characters the students were encouraged to close read the novel in such a way as to imagine that they themselves could be one of the Kirk Meads of the world. It turned out that one of the students had actually battled two years of chemotherapy himself. The student was very open about the experience and his perspective on Kirk's story in relation to his own made reading could possibly have made the text more relevant and socially significant for the rest of the class. Discussing common elements about the characters in relation to themselves, such as a love for skateboarding, helped them to connect to the story in a way that recognized its parallels within their own world. An after reading activity encouraged the students to find their own quote from the book which they thought conveyed a theme and were then asked to do a static image. Although this was not linking the story to direct personal experience the students were able to convey visually their own interpretation of the characters of the story. Following that the students were then asked to do a speech as if they were one of the characters that had lost their leg. Becoming the character like this encouraged the students to step outside of their comfort zone and be disabled for a moment. They were able to describe how they felt both physically and psychologically. The students themselves brought up discussions about how the school was equipped for wheelchairs and extra-curricular activities for the disabled.

In comparison my year 13 class had been studying short stories in a way that resonated from my bursary days. They were the same stories and the same themes regurgitated - bullying, relationships, death and so forth. Although wonderful stories, of which I had great pleasure in studying I wonder just how the students see any relevance of the stories other than to learn the quotes and write the essay. In comparison to the Year 9 novel study the short stories required much more in-depth analysis and discussion with little time to find personal connections. Perhaps it may have been useful for the students themselves to vote on their own themes at the beginning of the year and then the teacher to ensure that material studied, including the short stories, incorporated those themes? Short stories written by fellow secondary school students such as 'Surrender' by Maria Belich could possibly be good to use as it may reflect their own personalities and encourages them to see attitudes from a different perspective.

So when faced with the importance of relevance, competence and agency we would need to address the following questions before implementing Wilhelm's 'contact zones' . Firstly we would need to take into the account the nature and personalities of the classroom. What issues interest them? What are their favorite hobbies? Sports? Crafts? Once these have been identified then areas of literature that has relevance can be investigated. Inquiry also need not be fake. A teacher should not be hesitant of leaving it up to the students to find out the answers for themselves. Once students are using their own knowledge to make useful and intelligent connections, they will feel a sense of accomplishment. This sense of achievement and call to action will then lead to increased self esteem and competency in reading. Through making texts accessible to students in a way that is relevant students will understand that knowledge is created and that in all things in life, a position must be taken.

Time is precious in a teenager's world, as it is in ours. Potential topics worth exploring would then need to be around things that would be topical for them. Perhaps for the boys it may be cars, music or girls. Maybe they have a favourite actor or actress? A favourite sport or sportsperson? For the girls it may be fashion and boys. If I look back my interests were probably in the narrow realms of boys, music, theatre and photography. Maybe we could look at the impact of technology or media on our lives utilizing materials such as video games, films, mp3 players which could then be connected to relevant texts or literature. Topics that could be interesting in exploring could be about artificial intelligence or genetically modified foods. In fact one book that has been recommended to me is Daniel Keye's novel 'Flowers for Algernon', about a mentally retarded boy who is used for an experiment where he and a mouse become mentally superior. The book has an opportunity to tackle all sorts of everyday issues such as bullying, the ethics scientific research or the lengths people go to for popularity. The overall theme could be 'acceptance'. By using varying texts such as newspapers, magazines, World Wide Web, radio interviews, video clips and so forth we can explore these issues in depth in relation to how it could affect the students. E.g. the ear grown on the mouse, girls in Asia lengthening their legs or operating on their eyes to become 'more western', recent infant killing milk powder in china. If the literature they read is linked to things that could have potential consequences within their own lives, then the reading will become that much more interesting for them. Another interesting topic could be that of the body beautiful. How women and men are portrayed in the media and within certain literature. Further opportunities could exist to explore eating fads historically and to date, such as the Aitkens diet. The everyday realities can be drawn into classroom teaching and the literature that we expose them to should have similar themes or connections to these realities.

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Prostitution, AIDS, Social Evils, Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam appears to be on the edge of a devastating AIDS epidemic. The official figure for the number of HIV-positive people, 3,706 (with 148 deaths since the first case was recorded in 1990), is almost certainly underestimated by several orders of magnitude. Aid workers from non-governmental organizations say that estimates by the World Health Organization of 100,000 HIV-positive people in Vietnam are much closer to reality. More ominous are WHO reports that estimate 500,000 people in Vietnam will be HIV positive by 1998 unless massive education efforts slow the epidemic.
Vietnam still has time to prevent becoming another Thailand, with its one million HIV-positive citizens. Vietnam's only hope is through decisive and aggressive action: it must not only educate prostitutes and drug users--traditional sources for AIDS infection-- but must also create massive, active education and outreach programs directed at the mainstream population. The Vietnamese government has decided to fight the epidemic through an extensive if passive AIDS prevention campaign using television and billboards that explain HIV transmission, and by urging morality and monogamy.
The government is also setting up small programs for high-risk groups using the "harm-reduction" model of AIDS education, a hands-on method that uses outreach workers. Harm-reduction education teaches sex workers to use condoms and to avoid high-risk sexual activity. Intravenous drug users are also taught to use clean hypodermic needles and not to share injection paraphernalia with other users. Government AIDS policy also focuses on educating government employees like police officers and medical workers about HIV transmission. There is some education in the schools, but it is only on HIV and AIDS transmission; no sex education courses exist. Moreover, there are no special hospitals for AIDS patients. In the destitute Vietnamese medical system, where a patient's family must go to the black market to buy medicine, the AIDS drug AZT is given only to pregnant women.
In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the government and Save the Children both run similar programs using peer outreach workers, employing former sex workers to teach safe sex to prostitutes, and using former intravenous drug users to educate present drug users on how to avoid AIDS. Although the programs have the same goal--to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS--the way that they are run says a lot about the attitudes toward the sex workers and drug users whom they attempt to help.
The Vietnamese government has set up pilot syringe-exchange programs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Save the Children has created pilot AIDS education and outreach programs with the hope that locally supported versions will eventually be run in other provinces in Vietnam. The government is now hopeful that more nongovernmental organizations will come into Vietnam to set up more projects.
Ho Chi Minh City is the epicenter of Vietnam's AIDS epidemic, with half the reported HIV cases coming from the city. Police figures estimate 33,000 prostitutes and 150 brothels there, though these figures are at least three years old. An estimated 10,000 IV drug users and 30,000 children live alone or with their families in the streets. In the past five years, more than a million people have come to Ho Chi Minh City to try to escape the crippling poverty of the countryside. Some women from the provinces inevitably wind up working as prostitutes.
Dr. Thue Vinh is a member of the District One AIDS Committee in Ho Chi Minh City. "When we first set the program up, in 1993, we had some resistance from the police officials. They did not understand why we gave condoms to sex workers; they said we were helping them to be prostitutes," Vinh explained. Attitudes are better, according to Vinh, because of the massive government AIDS education campaign. Among the general population, the knowledge about HIV transmission is high.
But the government campaign has some big holes. "We have classes in the schools on how HIV is transmitted," said Vinh, "but no sex education programs." Efforts to reach prostitutes who work in hotels are hampered by the hotels' refusal to accept free government condoms. Accepting the free condoms, the hotel managers reason, is the equivalent of pleading guilty to charges of promoting prostitution. They fear the police will shut them down.
Last February the AIDS committee also restarted their needle exchange, shut down two years ago because of conflicts with the police. The exchange has 87 clients out of the 500 users in the district. Estimates for IV drug users are bleak--the HIV infection rate may be as high as 80 percent. According to Aaron Peak, an American AIDS policy consultant in Vietnam, the addicts of Ho Chi Minh City frequent "shooting galleries," where they buy the opium they shoot and where one person injects all the clients, often with the same needle.
The District One Women's Union runs the government's peer outreach program to sex workers. At a recent meeting, eight former sex workers were gathered around a long table. The meeting was led by Hoa Hong, a Women's Union official who has never worked as a prostitute, and the mood was very serious. Hong asked each woman to make a report. Several women said the new law against social evils, known as Local Law 87, has forced prostitutes off the street because it is easier for the police to arrest them for vagrancy. Many of the sex workers now work inside, and some have resorted to having an accomplice drive them around on a scooter, allowing for quicker propositions with less danger of being arrested. Local Law 87, which cracks down on gambling, prostitution, and drug use, was passed last winter to appease Communist Party hard-liners in preparation for June's Party conference. It has put a damper on safe-sex education and condom distribution.
At Save the Children, the atmosphere was much more relaxed. The offices were in a large house and the sex workers' meeting was held on the floor, with the half-dozen women volunteers, all present and former sex workers, sitting and discussing their work while exchanging lively banter.
Truong is a former sex worker and staff member. Although more than 100,000 Saigon bar girls and prostitutes were sent to communist "reeducation" camps in 1975, that's when Truong's career as a sex worker started. Her father, who had worked with Americans in Vietnam, was sent to a reeducation camp where he spent 11 years. To support her mother and brother, Truong sold her virginity at the age of 21 and spent 16 years as a prostitute. She stopped after she was recruited to do outreach for Save The Children four years ago.
"I'd say about 70 percent of the commercial sex workers start because of poverty," Truong said. "Most come from the provinces and are very poor; they have a low education level and no stable job. The Women's Union hates commercial sex workers. They don't try to determine the reasons why women sell themselves. They just say it is a social evil without knowing the reasons why."
Harm-reduction education has to be done without moral judgment, to actively address the needs of high-risk groups while appealing to their ability to take care of themselves. This flies in the face of abstinence models of HIV-prevention: don't have sex until you are married, don't have sex outside of marriage, don't do drugs ever.
Harm reduction is still controversial in the United States because it involves teaching members of groups at high risk for HIV infection how to protect themselves from AIDS, and to prevent those who are already infected from spreading the disease. Giving out needles and condoms acknowledges that drug addicts and prostitutes exist and are a part of society in Vietnam (as well as in just about every country); they cannot be simply disposed of by arresting them and sending them off to prison or reeducation camps.
Most AIDS education outreach efforts in Ho Chi Minh City are directed at high-risk populations. Besides drug users and sex workers, Save the Children also has projects doing HIV-prevention work with street children and gay men. In Vietnam, homosexuality is illegal.
Vietnam should be aware that the country has already entered a crisis. To slow the spread of HIV, the Vietnamese government should not merely wait for increased spending on the part of nongovernment organizations; it should itself increase spending on HIV prevention. For example, with new joint ventures between the government and foreign corporations being formed every week, the government could impose a small corporate tax to pay for increased AIDS spending.
The Save the Children program is small, with a staff of just 24 in addition to its 50 outreach workers, but it is vital. By approaching the sex workers with respect, they gain their confidence and give them tools with which to protect themselves. Though some sex workers still have unprotected sex despite knowing about AIDS, the outreach workers have changed attitudes, raised self-esteem, and helped sex workers convince their clients to use condoms.
As a first step, the Vietnamese government should expand the education and outreach toward high-risk populations. For example, the needle-exchange program in Ho Chi Minh City should be expanded to include all addicts interested, not just the five percent now involved. These education and outreach programs should also be set up on a smaller scale in the capital of each province: as affluence spreads through the country, attendant social problems such as prostitution will also become an issue in the smaller cities and town.
The European nongovernmental organization Medicins Du Monde has set up a "Condom Coffee Shop" in the city's youth center to educate young people about HIV and AIDS. "We are targeting the heterosexual population with education, trying to get to them before HIV spreads even further to the general population," said Martine David, the 23-year-old Canadian who runs the program. The coffee shop is staffed with young volunteers trained to discuss HIV and AIDS prevention with their teenage and young adult clientele. They stage puppet shows and dramas that address HIV and AIDS and distribute free condoms with names like Trust and OK. David said they hope to start inviting high school classes to the coffee shop. "There is no condom education in the schools," she said. "Mainly, the teachers are too shy."
"The government does a good job on AIDS education with TV and radio, but the attitudes don't change," said David. "People tell me 'I go out with good girls,' or 'I'm a university student.' They see AIDS as a problem for prostitutes and drug users."
Programs like the Condom Coffee Shop, though minuscule, are effective because they appeal to people's intelligence, as well as to their fear of AIDS. Programs like these need to be expanded and set up in different areas of Vietnamese society, such as bars catering to businessmen or farmers.
Government billboards and television announcements that warn of the risks of HIV and AIDS are necessary, but this passive form of education is not as effective as the more active, individual education that changes attitudes. In Ho Chi Minh City, a married man who has unprotected sex with a prostitute may read a billboard on his way home urging him to be faithful to his wife to avoid AIDS. But it is only by changing sexual practices and ways of drug use that AIDS in Vietnam will be curtailed.
While the first part of Vietnam's AIDS strategy should address high-risk populations, the second phase should deal with mainstream society. A comprehensive sex education program should be set up for high school and university students. If the teachers are too shy to teach it, specially trained instructors should be used. Outreach programs promoting discussions of safe sex should then be developed and used with groups such as labor unions and other professional bodies.
It is essential that the control of these programs not be limited to "official mass organizations" such as the Women's Unions and the Youth Union. There must be mass participation on a local level to promote active education, not just the passive education from billboards and television. It is as necessary to reach the farmer in the countryside with AIDS education as it is to reach the doctor or government clerk in the city.
Although cultural practices that prevent the candid discussion of sex and AIDS remain strong in Vietnam, it is necessary to try to change these traditions; it's also best if these changes are done by the Vietnamese themselves and not by foreign nongovernmental organizations. Unfortunately for Vietnam, HIV and AIDS do not respect cultural traditions.

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Irish and Living with AIDS in New York

“I found out I had AIDS in 1994 when I took the blood test for the Morrison visa in Galway,” said Tomais O Saoire, a 31-year-old Irish house painter living in New York. “I felt that the ground had opened up and swallowed me whole. Everything I had worked for had been destroyed.”
Devastated and barred from returning to the United States, O Saoire snuck back into New York and started a two-year downward spiral of hard-drinking and two suicide attempts, with a seeming death sentence hanging over his head and all dreams of a legal status being crushed. But now with new medicines giving him hope for a long future, O Saoire has thrown himself into AIDS activism, co-founding a group called Irish AIDS Outreach to combat the still-pervasive ignorance in New York’s Irish community about AIDS. In a West Village cafe in Manhattan, O Saoire told his story.
“I come from a Galway farming family, one of nine children,” he said. “My parents were religious, but we still had our freedom.” After finishing high school in 1982, O Saoire traveled around Ireland and Europe. He started his sexual involvement with men after he began work as a painter. “In the 1980s, when I became sexually active, there was no knowledge in Ireland about HIV. There were loads of gay people, but people were still scared of opening up a gay bar or club. There was no protection, no idea of safe sex.”
In 1989, looking for a place to fit in, O Saoire moved to the United States illegally, settling in the Bronx. “Through word of mouth, I found work painting, doing fine finishes and trompe l’oeil work for businesses,” he said.
New York had been one of the world epicenters for the AIDS epidemic for about nine years when O Saoire moved to New York. “There was no education about the AIDS in the New York Irish community then and there still isn’t,” he said. He was still dating women as well as men when he moved to New York, but he eventually lived with a series of men.
In late 1993, while many of his friends had been called back to Ireland for their Morrison interviews, O Saoire was tense that he wasn’t going to get his visa. “When I finally received my notice, I celebrated for weeks on end.”
Back in Ireland that March, O Saoire found himself waiting in a clinic at the University College Galway for the results of his visa medical exam. “The doctor told me to sit down. I thought to myself, ‘Ah geez, I’ve got TB,’” the other medical reason for being rejected for a green card. The doctor told O Saoire that not only was he HIV-positive, but he had full-blown AIDS.
In a state of shock, O Saoire went to the U.S. Embassy in Dublin for his Morrison interview. “There were 300 people waiting, and they kept seven of us waiting for five hours while the rest of the people were processed. Several of the other people in this group were crying. I’m sure some others were in my position.
“When I went into the interview, the woman said, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve been refused [the visa] because you are IV-positive,’ meaning that I couldn’t return to the U.S.”
O Saoire asked the embassy official about the fact he had a job, his possessions and his life in New York to go back to. “I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do,” she said.
Back in Galway, a devastated O Saoire told his parents that he was HIV- positive. “They stuck by me. My father insisted that it was not the end for me.”
A friend referred O Saoire to an Irish head nurse named Seamus working at an AIDS facility in London. “Seamus demanded that I come over and he took care of me, running a battery of tests. I took the blood test four more times, not believing I had AIDS. I thought I was going to be dead in six months time.”
Knowing he was going to be excluded from the United States, O Saoire flew to Toronto, Canada, and called some friends in the Bronx. The friends told him to go to Niagara Falls and rent a hotel room. In less than 12 hours, his friend Mary and her husband John picked him up.
“Through a hard rain wedrove across Canada to a place near Detroit. John dropped me off near two train tunnels and handed me a torch. He told me it was a two-mile walk through the abandoned tunnel along the train tracks to the United States.
“The tunnel was dark and filthy. Halfway through, a train came by in the tunnel next to me, filling my tunnel with diesel fumes. Though I was terrified, I remember laughing to myself that the headlines would read, ‘Irishman Found Smothered to Death Coming Back to America.’”
O Saoire, however, survived. “I came out into an old trainyard. My jacket was ripped and I was shaking, but I knelt down and said three prayers for my safe return. I waited in the rain with some homeless people, giving out my cigarettes, until my friends picked me up. I noticed the American flag was a half mast. I found out later Richard Nixon had died on that day.”
Back in New York, O Saoire’s life fell apart. “The next two years were mental hell,” he said. “I fell into a deep depression. I hit the bars and developed a heavy drinking problem.”
The irony of O Saoire being infected in New York in the early 1990s in that by then, the larger gay community in New York had made tremendous strides in AIDS prevention. Back home in Ireland, groups like the Dublin AIDS Alliance were forming to spread information about HIV and AIDS. The New York Irish immigrant community had seemingly been overlooked by these advances. “There is a lack of education in the Irish community about AIDS,” said O Saoire. “There has to be a rude awakening.”
O Saoire was terrified of being discovered as an illegal immigrant if he went to seek proper medical care. A friend, however, fixed up O Saoire with a false name and social security number, which allowed him to enter the U.S. government program that provides medication to people with HIV and AIDS.
In November 1994, O Saoire tried to kill himself. “I took 100 tablets of AZT [an AIDS medication] and whiskey. I called my friends and told them I’d had enough and good-bye. One of my friends who had my keys got into my house, pulled me out of bed and ran me around the apartment. At the hospital, they forced me to drink gallons of charcoal.” O Saoire allowed himself to be put under psychiatric observation for two weeks. “When I got out, my father and brother came over from Galway. It was their first time to the United States, so I insisted that we go sightseeing.”
Life improved for O Saoire until January 1996, when his friend Hessie was killed by a police officer in the Bronx. “Hessie had been there for me when I was in the hospital. He’d told me at the time, ‘Tommy, there is no need to hurt yourself. There are many people who care for you and their hearts are ripped to pieces by what you do to yourself.’”
O Saoire dove back into the alcohol and started smoking cigarettes and marijuana. He tried to kill himself again, swallowing twice as many pills as the first suicide attempt. Saving his life wasn’t so easy this time. “I was really sorry about what they put me through that time -- they pumped me out.”
O Saoire found the right psychiatric help and was put on the anti-depressant Prozac for a few months. He also joined an HIV support group named Body Positive. “My group is all gay, composed of decorators, architects and news reporters. Many of them are long-term survivors -- some have had HIV for the past 10 years.”
Medical advances against HIV also boosted O Saoire’s morale. Though he has never suffered any of the destructive opportunistic infections common with AIDS, he is taking the new protease inhibitors, which have knocked the presence of HIV in O Saoire’s blood down to undetectable levels. The drug therapy costs roughly $15,000 a year, but is paid for by the U.S. government. “For the Irish who have HIV, I urge them to stay in New York and not to go home,” he said. “This is the place where all the medical advances are.”
Optimism abounds in the American press over the new AIDS drugs. AIDS is not seen as a death sentence anymore, for those who can afford the new drugs. In fact, O Saoire’s own HIV support group has moved from weekly to monthly meetings because the members need less emotional support and want to get on with their own lives. Only time and medical results will tell if the rosy outlook is accurate.
O Saoire got involved with AIDS activism when he heard that Brendan Fay, an Irish gay activist from Drogheda, was setting up an AIDS group in the Irish community in New York. Fay was one of the founders of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, a group that has tried to march in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade since 1991, but has been excluded by the Ancient Order of Hibernians who run the parade. After Fay received publicity for his involvement with ILGO, he was fired from his job as a Catholic school teacher.
“I know of dozens of Irish and the children of Irish immigrants who have died of or are living with AIDS,” said Fay. “We are getting together so that people living with AIDS do not have to live in isolation.
“It is not just a gay problem,” said Fay. “We have young Irish immigrants going into the bars and taking off their wedding rings. We also want to deal with women and children living with AIDS. Our goal is to give people the information they need to live happy and healthy lives in New York.”
Founded in September, Irish AIDS Outreach [IAO] now has 14 members. The group is composed of Irish and Irish-American men and women living with AIDS, social workers and several relatives of Irish who’ve died of AIDS. “We’ve set up a phone line and I am getting referrals about young Irish who are HIV-positive with no support, “ said O Saoire. “I tell them, for God’s sake, we are here for you.”
Irish AIDS Outreach has set up a men’s and a women’s support group. The group also plans to coordinate HIV education campaigns and the organize volunteers to help people living with AIDS, and will take part in events around World AIDS Day on December 1st. IAO has planned a community meeting entitled “Stories of Hope in the Time of AIDS” for December 5th at Flannery’s, a West Village bar. “It will be a relaxed environment, with tea and scones, and pints,” said Fay.
Fay said that though he has received a lot of verbal support for the new AIDS group, representatives from the Irish immigration organizations and church groups have yet to attend IAO meetings. One notable exception is Sister Edna McNicholas, an Irish-born nun who works with at-risk teenagers in the Bronx. “One of the Irish immigration leaders said that AIDS is not an immigration issue,” said Fay. “What about Irish immigrants being barred from the U.S. because they are HIV-positive?”
Recently up in the Bronx on Bainbridge Avenue, O Saoire went to the bar D.O’D.s, to speak with the owner Regina and to put up posters for Irish AIDS Outreach. Regina is from Cavan and has known O Saoire since he came to New York. “When I saw him after he came back from Ireland, he was very pale and had lost a lot of weight. I didn’t have to be told it was HIV. I kinda knew,” said Regina. “But he has friends here who don’t care if he is HIV-positive, if he’s gay.”
Regina said that many of her customers still scoff at the AIDS issue. “Men come into the bar, construction workers, and they think AIDS is a big joke,” she said. While Regina is talking, simultaneously serving the lunchtime crowd and dodging beer salesmen, an older customer reads the Irish AIDS Outreach poster on the wall. He makes an obscene comment and sits down at the bar.
To gain more medical benefits, O Saoire has taken part in the voluntary departure program of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, where he is supposed to permanently return to Ireland next year. He plans, however, to stay in New York.
O Saoire is still upbeat about his future. He wants to take his new boyfriend Des back to Ireland for his brother’s wedding in the near future. “My parents don’t know that I’m gay yet,” he chuckled. “Though after what I’ve been through the past two years, I am not afraid of anything.”

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Powers of Examples; An Interview with Pearl Johnson

In the morning of our interview, Pearl Johnson canceled on me because of a family emergency of the best kind. "I can't meet you today," she said. "My daughter is going into labor right now." So, early last month, Johnson's third grandson entered this world crying and healthy. "The baby smelled sweet," she said.
"I'm blind, so I had to feel his features. He was strong and not as tiny as my first grandson. "When I first tested positive," said Johnson, "there was not a lot of hope. I didn't think I'd see my kids get old enough to have their own kids. Now I hope to see my grandchildren grow up."
Johnson, 41, has moved on from her brutal experiences as a battered spouse, has battled substance abuse and has weathered an HIV diagnosis. She has changed her life on her own terms and is beginning work as a peer counselor, hoping to educate adolescents in AIDS prevention.
In Johnson's comfortable apartment in Canarsie, the walls are covered with pictures of her eldest grandson Yakim, who lives there with his mother. "He's the man of the house, all bubbly," she said with a chuckle, flashing a bright smile.
Johnson grew up in Greenpoint and raised her two daughters. "I was in an abusive marriage," she said. "It was a blow from my husband that cost me my eyesight." She was completely blind by the time she was 26. In 1992, after years of drug use, Johnson tested positive at a methadone clinic. "At the time, I felt it was a death sentence. The post-test counselor told me I had maybe two years to live." It is now five years later, and Johnson has much more hope.
"What saved me was that I'd started seeking recovery through a 12-step program. Before I'd tested, I heard people share about being HIV-positive. After my diagnosis, I continued with the program, and that helped me." Johnson started using Body Positive for its support groups. "I still use Body Positive for its socials." Now she attends a support group sponsored by the People With AIDS Coalition (PWAC) called Sister To Sister. "We are women of color living with HIV," she said. Johnson also acts as a facilitator of another Sister To Sister group, which meets in East New York.
Johnson volunteers four hours a week at the PWAC hotline. "We get a lot of people calling about their family members and also adolescents calling for information on HIV. Many people also want information on the new drugs - the protease inhibitors. Everybody wants the cure and they get their hopes up."
Johnson noted that now the doctors are giving people the drug cocktails when they first test positive. "After they start taking the medications, they call us up with questions. People learn that they have time and can make choices. Working on the hotline is rewarding, but can sometimes be stressful. We get people who call from other states, from out in 'the sticks,' where they don't know the services available to them, or there are no services at all. Sometimes, [the hotline] is all they have."
As a visually impaired person with HIV, Johnson noted that there is a shortage of up-to-date recorded materials about AIDS. She receives the newest information from friends at the various AIDS groups. After her diagnosis, Johnson made major changes in her personal life. "Before, I did not handle anything well. I now live life to the fullest. I changed how I handle my anger. I stopped smoking, got into therapy, and learned how to get support from my friends." Johnson found that at the time she had to break up with a lover who refused to change some dangerous practices in his own life.
When Johnson is not volunteering, her hobbies are many and varied. "I love going to plays and movies, and going dancing and swimming. Like a kid, I still love jumping rope and going on rides, like the Cyclone at Coney Island."
This month, Johnson starts a new job as a peer counselor teaching safe sex and AIDS prevention for the Brooklyn Project of Hope, which will work in shelters, drug programs, and homes for pregnant teens. "I am scared and excited," admitted Johnson. "It is a new program, so our ideas are being accepted and put into the program. My hopes are to reach more young people, adolescents, and people who have not tested yet. I want to do prevention before people test positive."

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A Support Group Thrives in Brooklyn

"If I wasn't in the group, I would be having fights on the street," said Lydia, a fresh-faced 12-year-old who belongs to Project Hope, a Brooklyn support group for teenagers whose parents have HIV. "I was getting arrested all the time. People would step up to me and I would have to fight."
Project Hope is part of the supportive counseling services of the Special Treatment and Research [STAR] Program, an HIV clinical and research project run out of the State University of New York at Downstate in Flatbush. The program runs 10 support groups, serving 250 Brooklyn residents living with HIV, as well as adolescents who have family members with HIV. These HIV support groups are the main source of HIV groups in north and central Brooklyn, including East New York, Bushwick and Brownsville.
The support groups have been funded by federal Ryan White Title I monies totaling $240,000 a year for the past eight years. Along with 24 other Brooklyn AIDS projects, the project was told in November that they would not be refunded, effectively shutting down all 10 support groups.
The prospect of the groups being shut down was a shock to its members. Clients signed petitions in support of the program, wrote their local politicians and spoke at hearings on Ryan White funding. The threats to end the funding brought the group members face to face with what their support groups meant to them, as well as the value of their fellow members in their newly formed communities.
Fortunately, an additional $5 million in Ryan White Title I funds were found in late January. Out of this money, Project Hope and the Brooklyn Group Support Project, the adult support program, were refunded. Though the crisis has passed, the men, women and teenagers who make up the program had a lot to say about their support groups. This is their story.
"When I found out I had HIV 18 months ago, I thought I was going to die soon, I thought I should take a lot of drugs and call it a day," said Altamease Whetstone, a plain-spoken woman in her 40s. "This group is my home away form home. We can talk about stress and depression. We love our group - it is a safe haven."
In a roundtable discussion in a nondescript conference room at SUNY Downstate, Altamease and four other members of the Tuesday co-ed support group bared their feelings. In turns serious and humorous, the members explained how they survive HIV and gain strength from each other.
"I look to the future positively after being in this group," said Simon, a former property manager of Indian descent. Simon tested positive in July 1996, and lost his lover of 10 years several months later. "If I wasn't here, I'd be staring at two walls in my apartment," he said with a faint smile.
"I was very naive when I found out I had HIV in 1991," said Gracie. "I was visiting my boyfriend in the hospital, he had TB. Somebody said to me, 'You know, this is an AIDS ward.' I never went back.
"When I was diagnosed, I was still getting high," said Gracie. "Now I don't drink, I don't get high. Here I can express my feelings. Nobody in my family has HIV."
"My five brothers died of AIDS," said Altamease matter-of-factly. With horrifying effect, her brothers all died in the early 1990s.
"I distrusted people," said Sidney, a quiet man with a dry wit, after he found out his status. Sidney said that a deacon in his church was jealous ofthe fact Sidney could speak in tongues, so he told other parishioners that Sidney had HIV.
"I agreed to come to group," said Sidney, "and I get to know a bit about each person. I still don't talk that much in group, but I've been sober for four months now."

Railing against HIV Stereotypes

Sidney railed against the stereotypes that people with HIV come in contact with everyday. "I eat at my family's house and I wash my own dishes. Then they wash them over again. It hurts when your own mother does that." Sidney said that he was able to bring that pain to group, discuss it, then resolve the issue with his family. "It is sort of like Narcotics Anonymous," referring to the 12-step program, "but it is our own group."
"I haven't disclosed to my family yet," said Nefertiti, a young woman who wore a stylish hat and kept her sunglasses on indoors. A four-year veteran of the group, Nefertiti didn't say much, but kept a watchful eye on the conversation.
Very often, the group's collective wisdom about living with HIV and dealing with the social service bureaucracy is priceless. "The people in this group gave me good information on housing," said Gracie, who is presently staying at a women's shelter while she looks for permanent place to live. Recently, one advocacy group was offering apartments. "The members told me that I had to show up at 7 a.m. and that only 13 people were taken a day," she said. They gave me the information that I needed."
"Margo and Cathy are good for information too," said Altamease of the two staff members who run the group. "If they don't know something, they will find it and relay the information. Many people don't take the time to do that."
"You know, it's not all problems," said Simon. "We have fun here, too." Simon recounted how he didn't know what common gynecological problem, pelvic inflammatory disease [P.I.D.], was, and how with much humor the group educated him.

Honorary Cross-Dressing Man

Margo St. John, a facilitator for the group, also is the target of barbs. "I run both the men's and the women's groups," she said. "The men accept me, but they tell me that I am an 'honorary cross-dressing man.'" The members broke out laughing at Margo's comment.
The group also addresses issues like sexuality. "At first, I was not comfortable coming out as a gay man to the other members," said Simon. "Now I feel accepted sexually."
"In the group, everybody respects each other," said Gracie. "I learned about gays from Simon and I am more tolerant, and Simon accepts me as a female."
At one point, Altamease addressed her old heroin habit. "I'd made myself a pin cushion long enough, so I went on methadone maintenance." Several years ago, she kicked her heroin habit and kicked out her drug-using boyfriend when he wouldn't quit.
"I look at the world differently now... I want to do something constructive." Old associates still invite Altamease to get high, but she has no time for them. "I spend time watching my grandchildren...I've got 15 of them and I love them all. I don't consider myself sick," she said of her HIV. "Sick is lying in a hospital bed."
"A lot of people here would have problems going to support groups in Manhattan," said Sidney, of the possibility that the group was going to be shut down. "There are mothers and grandmothers here that have to pick up kids. There are sick people who can't handle the stress of the trains."
For Sidney, the sheer size of other support groups was a turn off. "I went to this one group, you see. They said to me, 'Hey, sit over here.' We were in a circle of 200 people."
"For me with a new group, I would have to start all over," said Sidney. "I don't think I would open up again. I think that if our group shut down, some members would start getting high again." Many of the adults in the support groups have battled drug and alcohol addiction.

"Only Crazy People Need Therapists"

Margo is also the assistant coordinator of the adult support programs. She said that when the groups seemed doomed in the fall, she scrambled to make a list of alternative programs for people with HIV in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Margo found that most other support groups were connected to a larger program or were for very specific populations.
"At other groups, there services are often linked -- you might have to see the program's therapist. Our program is just group support -- you don't have to commit to a clinic or to other parts of a program."
In the list of other programs that Margo compiled, there are specific HIV support groups for gays and lesbians, ex-offenders and Latinos. Very few support groups seemed to meet the broader needs of the Brooklyn African Americans and West Indians that make up the STAR Program.
Margo, a native of Grenada, has noticed that there are some cultural differences in the way West Indians and African Americans address their HIV status. "I find West Indians to be more trusting and there is more shame when it comes to looking for help -- they think they are begging. They tend not to seek proper services because they think they are not entitled." West Indians also have problems with therapy and counseling. "The idea is that only a crazy person would see a therapist.
"There is a lot of shame --West Indians tend not to tell there family members. HIV is a total secret. Their main release becomes the group."
Amanda is from a small African country that has been torn apart by civil war. She showed up at the office with her two-year-old son in tow. She handed him an apple and sat down to be interviewed. The boy was beautiful, with shining brown eyes and a winning smile that he has gotten from his mother. Amanda and her boy were dressed in their Sunday best.
"I've been in the women's group for two years," she said. "It really keeps me going on with my life. I know I am not alone."

Fighting Isolation and Finding Strength

Amanda came to the United States four years ago with her year-old first child to be with her husband, who is from the same country. She found out then she was HIV positive. Her life is made very difficult by constant strife with her husband. Amanda is isolated outside the group because she has no family here and there very few people from her home country in Brooklyn.
"I've been admitted to the hospital twice. Both times I had nothing, but people from my group came with necessities like underwear and a toothbrush," said Amanda.
"Mom!" said her son suddenly. He handed her the apple, she turned it over and he started chewing on the other side. "In my group," said Amanda, briefly showing her brilliant smile, "sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are crying. Other times everyone is confused if someone is in pain.
"When you sit in the house with nothing to do, you don't know where you are going. When you go back to group, it makes you feel strong."
By going to the group in the hospital, Amanda has been able to coordinate medical visits there as well. In the support program, she has also discussed her options of who will care for her two children if she can't.
"I don't feel comfortable in Brooklyn," she said. "I feel most comfortable in the Star Program and at this hospital."
Sheila Crandles is the social worker who supervises both the adult and adolescent support group programs that are under the STAR Project. "The support groups started in 1988, with a group for the caregivers of children with HIV," said Crandles. More groups were added as needed, including two groups in Creole, men's and women's groups, a co-ed group and Project Hope, the program for teenagers.
"The best thing about the group being refunded was that the members helped do it themselves -- they traveled long distances to hearings in Harlem, the wrote letters," said Crandles. The loobying of wo Brooklyn politicians -- Congressman Ed Townes and State Assemblyman Vito Lopez - were essential in restoring funding to the support groups.
Project Hope consists of three different afternoon programs-Teen Talk, Art Therapy and the Homework Group and has core group of 12 adolescent members. "We meet in the student lounge of the [ Downstate] medical school, so there is no stigma on the kids," said Marianne Gunther, a licensed art therapist and the program coordinator of Project Hope.
"Art therapy provides the kids with another medium to express their emotions," she said.
Recently, using shadow puppet techniques, the kids in art therapy made a video, a kind of "Star Wars" tale, where a young man was fighting evil. "In the end, it turns out that the boy's mother is sick," said Marianne.
The Homework Program consists of help with homework and games for kids nine to 17. "We do some homework, if we are lucky," chuckled Marianne.

Rough Banter and Feelings

On a recent Tuesday, seven teenagers got together for Teen Talk with two adult facilitators. The kids range in age from 12 to 18 years old. Cookies and juice were passed around and the conversation started flying. Topics range from a parent's health to music to dating.
"In this group, I can talk about how my father gets on my nerves," said Taline, a 13-year-old who often comes to group with her sister. "I am glad to get that off my chest."
"I don't feel alone with Teen Talk," said Aaron, a tall, sensitive 16-year-old from Bushwick. Both his parents are HIV positive and he has been attending the group for three years. He talked of the frustration he has with his mother, "She's always in bed and she doesn't have any energy."
The group picks up speed and gets more animated. Mike, a teenager with his hat turned backwards, talked of the group's social element. "We take trips to Great Adventure and have parties."
Mike smiled. "What we talk about depends on how honest SOME people are," shooting a look at Verne, an 18-year-old girl who is the group elder.
Verne took his jab in stride. "We talk about music, fashion, AIDS."
"Or racism and discrimination," said Taline.
"We talk a lot about killing and fighting people," said Richard, a gangly youth wearing a wool hat.
"Some of us EXAGGERATE, and we know who they are," said Mike. The laughter was good-natured.
"Verne is like a sister to me," said 12-year-old Darnell. "Sometimes she chases me."
Aaron asked one of the most important questions of the end of the 20th century: should he continue to pay for his girlfriend on dates, even if he is now broke? His parents gave him some money, but he has spent it all on her.
"Well," said Verne, "sometimes I want to pay for myself," talking of her own dating. "Other times, he better pay."
Teenagers relate better to other teenagers," said Gillian Williams, one of the adult facilitators of Teen Talk. "I'm a combination of a referee and a mediator. I keep the group going."
"The group has really grown together in the past two years," she said. "There is a definite pecking order, though, with the older members commanding more respect." Gillian said that she and the other counselors follow up on individual teenagers who may be in crisis.
"In our group, there are real extremes -- there are kids with psychiatric diagnoses and some pretty well-adjusted kids." Gillian said that one kid was thrown out of junior high school for hitting a teacher, while another kid goes to a prestigious Brooklyn high school.
The family situation of the teenagers is on a case-by-case basis, said Gillian. "About half have no other relatives they can live with." The counselors have talked to some of the parents about permanency planning, what happens if the parent dies. "Some parents have not told their families they have HIV," she said.
For Lydia, Project Hope keeps her off the rough streets of Cypress Hill, where she lives. She usually shows up to all three days of the teen groups, and sometimes she shows up on the other days to talk to the counselors. "My friends say they understand, but they don't. Their parents are not sick."
"For two years before I came to group, I told no one about my problems," said Aaron. "I think if I wasn't here, I would have committed suicide. I know my life doesn't suck. I don't feel like my life is cursed anymore."

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Death of the California Suites

An evening walk down the filthy hallways of the Death of the California Suites, a rough and ready SRO housing AIDS patients on 111th Street on the Upper West Side, shows shattered sheetrock piled in the empty rooms and floors ripped up revealing unstable and dangerous subflooring. The remaining 10 tenants out of the original 100 stay locked inside listening to blaring televisions and ignoring knocks on their doors.
The hotel is being gutted and rehabbed, with the remaining residents being forced out, bought out for tiny sums or mercilessly harassed, charged a tenant still in the hotel.
"Presently, strong-arm tactics are being used to harass the remaining tenants," said David Frank, a five-year resident of the hotel. "The fire exits have been locked. Construction debris blocks the lobby and the regular garbage hasn't been picked up for weeks." Frank has filed a six-page affidavit with the SRO Law Project, an Upper West Side advocacy group, charging a repeated pattern of abuse by management, including assault and destruction of his personal property. He as also accused the managers of barring client advocates from visiting the building.
Through the 1990s, the California housed clients from the Division of AIDS Services and Income Support [DASIS] in brutal circumstances. Two years ago, garbage was piled in the halls, menacing drug dealers roamed the stairways and the rooms were filthy, all with the knowledge of the indifferent owners, who collected up to $1100 per month for each single room.
Last year, however, DASIS stopped referring new clients to the hotel after it was established by the Law Project that the eventual owner of the California was Jay Pedalsky, an infamous SRO slumlord who owns at least five brutal hotels all over the West Side.
In mid-February, the California night manager expelled a City Limits reporter and photographer who were visiting a legal resident in the hotel. Another resident had told the managers that the reporter had visited the hotel previously.
"Refusal to allow guests of legal residents into the building can amount to harassment," said Adrian Di Lollo a community liaison for the SRO Law Project.
California Suites has often run afoul of city government. In 1996, the Hotel got in trouble for illegally subdividing its 84 rooms into 99 units. Last November, the hotel received 52 violations of the building maintenance code for illegal construction from inspectors from the city's Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.
HPD is responsible for monitoring potential harassment in the city's SROs. Any plans for major construction by SRO owners must receive "Certification of No Harassment" by the HPD before Department of Building work permits will be issued. After an investigation, HPD issued the California such a certificate on December 26, 1996. The DOB issued construction permits in November 1997. Major construction in the hotel had begun three months before then.
HPD is now investigating charges of harassment at the California. "The agency is aware of recent allegations of harassment at 610 W. 111th St., "said a staement from HPD. "The SRO unit will closely monitor the situation and take appropriate action, including revocation the Certification of No Harassment, if necessary."
Revocation of the certificate could be disastrous for the California owners. The construction permits would be revoked, and the Dept. of Buildings could stop some or all construction in the hotel.
Di Lollo said that he filed Frank's affidavit with the HPD to encourage them to investigate strong evidence of harassment at the hotel. His view of what could be done was pessimistic. "In 14 or 15 years the law project has existed, we are not aware of a Certificate of No Harassment being rescinded from an SRO."
The two managers, Amir Mohammed and Ali Mohammed, gave conflicting stories on the future of the hotel. "We will probably give the building back to Columbia," aid Ali Mohammed, saying that it would be used as a dorm.
"Our real estate manager has heard this before," said Anne Canty, a Columbia spokeswoman of the California conversion, "but this not something that Columbia is doing."
"There are no residents for you to interview," said Amir Mohammed. "Come back in three months and there will be one hundred residents -- the same ones who lived here before."
Reality has not proved Amir Mohammed's statements true. A non-profit worker familiar with the California said that its residents had wound up in other SRO, apartments or "had gotten lost in the system. The remaining tenants have been offered other places to go, but there leaving is based in their willingness and capability to do so." All the remaining tenants are DASIS clients, the worker added.
Frank, however, is no passive victim. "I called the Fire Department about the locked fire exits and broken sprinklers," he said. "Ali Mohammed then called my cable company, told them I'd died two day before, and they turned off my cable."
"Ali Mohammed has given the keys of empty rooms to several nasty drunks, former tenants who harass the present ones. There is drug dealing and prostitution going on in here."
Ali Mohammed vehemently denies any harassment. "Nobody actually gets harassed," he yelled at City Limits. "Conditions have improved. What people told you this?" he demanded to know.
Recently, Frank faced down the two Mohammeds and brought the same City Limits reporter into the hotel. "I know my rights," he told them flippantly. "You can only bar people who are a danger to me, themselves or to the hotel. I will walk him out myself."
In his affidavit, Frank said that Ali Mohammed offered him $250 to move out. He also told Frank that DASIS had ordered him to move out in 48 hours, which turned out to be untrue."
Two thirds of the hotel had been gutted and renovated. Frank gave a tour of the new room he has been moved to. The bathroom was tiled in cheap fake marble, but there were exposed wires all over the room and construction dust on the floor.
Despite the hardships of the California, Frank plans to stay. "This is A great neighborhood. I've lived here for 15 years and all my friends are here. At this time in my life, I don't want to start over."

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There are a number of different that you can buy today. These include the manual, semi automatic and the full or super automatic. Below I will be taking a closer look at just what each of these machines are capable of doing.

1. Manual Espresso Coffee Machine

This type of machine requires the person using it to carry out all the various procedures involved in order to brew a great cup of espresso coffee. You will need to add both the water and the coffee grinds as well as controlling the frother if you are making cappuccinos

2. Semi Automatic Espresso Coffee Machine

With this particular machine you will need to start the process by turning the machine on and then pressing a button. Then once the espresso has been made, you will then need to turn the machine off. However with this machine you will be required to ensure that they water reservoir is filled and that there is sufficient beans within the grinder (as some models come with an internal coffee grinder).

3. Full or Super Automatic Espresso Coffee Machine

This machine will produce a great espresso coffee without you having to participate in the process at all. These types of machines come with a fully integrated water system (which is attached directly to a water supply) and a grinder for grinding the beans. With this particular machine all you need to do now is push a button and then the machine takes over and at the end will produce a great cup of espresso coffee. During each process, once the beans have been ground and used they will then be ejected and placed in an internal bin which can then be taken out and the contents removed.

When it comes time for you to find the perfect espresso coffee machine, you will need to determine just how convenient you want it to be. So if you are someone who wants to be involved in every process of making your own great cups of Coffee, then the manual espresso coffee machine is the ideal choice for you.

However if you are someone who just wants to sit back and relax before they start drinking a great cup of coffee then the semi or super automatic espresso coffee machines may be your preferred choice. Also you will need to take into consideration the cost, unfortunately both the semi and super automatic machines can be quite expensive, plus they are quite large as well so may take up more space than you have available.

A great way of learning more about these various types of espresso coffee machines is by going online. There are lots of sites that can offer you reviews as well as offering great discounts on some of the more well known brands available today.

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2008-02-03T03:07:00.003-08:00

Endowmax Review - Information about Endowmax Herbal Male Enhancement

Men have often wondered if it is possible to increase the size of the penis naturally. Thousands of men are using natural male enhancers, and their answer is yes. Natural male enhancers do lead to better performance, increased self confidence and greater satisfaction of both partners.

easy and safe with Endowmax, a unique formula approved by doctors. Endowmax users have experienced improved sexual performance, sex drive and erection size. Most men have reported a 28% increase in erection size and firmness.

Endowmax is an herbal supplement, totally natural, safe, and recommended by doctors everywhere; it has been used by thousands of men with a high success rate.

The most important ingredient used is L-Arginine, a natural amino acid; it has been scientifically tested to increase genital blood flow and improve sexual performance. The discovery of L-Arginine in connection to penile blood flow represents a break through in sexual enhancement research. Endowmax uses this ingredient along with other advanced ingredients and powerful herbs which has made it one of the most effective products of its kind available.

How does it work? Endowmaxs formula stimulates blood flow into the erectile chambers of the penis at the time of arousal. With time, this large increase in blood flow causes the erectile chambers to expand, which creates larger and stronger erections that last longer.

Although it takes about three months of usage for Endowmax to produce full results, many users have experienced more powerful erections within a few days. Others have seen an increase in penis size within a few weeks. They have also reported greater sexual desire and stamina.

Endowmax may take from three months up to six months at the longest, to produce the desired results. After this period, the chambers in the penis that hold blood, called corpora cavernosa, become expanded and create stronger erections. It is not necessary to continue taking the product after this period.

With Endowmax natural male enhancer, you do not have to bother with time consuming exercises, painful pumps or risky and expensive surgery. It is totally safe and risk free; moreover, the company offers a full money back guarantee if a consumer is not satisfied with the penis enlargement pills for some reason.

Moreover, the quality of erection declines as a result of stress, age and other ailments. Endowmax natural male enhancer addresses these shortcomings in an effective and convenient way.

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It can be very difficult to obtain if you have no credit. The paradox is that you need credit to obtain a credit card or loan, so there’s no real way for you to build the credit that you need. However, there are certain steps that you can follow to build when it is non-existent.

There are a few factors that will help you to look good in lenders’ eyes. The first is your bank account or accounts. You don’t need to have credit to obtain a, so if you don’t have a current account, get one right away. If at all possible, get a savings account as well. By maintaining your bank accounts, you are proving that you can manage money responsibly. Your bank account history can be a vital factor that look at before approving or denying a loan request.

Your employment and residence history are also factors that go into being approved for a loan. If you have a steady job history and have been able to hold down a job for an extended amount of time, this will reflect favorably on lending companies. Likewise, if you don’t move around frequently and have a stable residence, then lending companies will look upon your application favorably. Owning your home, even if you jointly own it with a spouse, looks good to lenders as well.

Having different utilities in your name carries some weight with lending companies. You don’t need a credit history to sign up for different utilities under your own name. This can include an electric or gas bill, telephone, cable, internet, or water service. Having your name on these utility bills won’t improve your credit score but will look good for first-time borrowers.
For those of you who have bad credit, you may want to look into a bad credit secured loan through Totally Money. A secured loan is a loan that is secured against one of your valuable assets; typically, the asset that those applying for a secured loan use is their home. By offering security, you are lowering the risk that lenders take by approving you for a loan, especially if you have bad or no credit. The amount of money you will be able to borrow and your interest rate depends greatly upon the value of the asset that is securing the loan. Secured loans should be used carefully, especially if you pursuing one for debt consolidation purposes. Make sure that you don’t use your secured loan to free up your credit cards only to max them out again. If you aren’t able to repay your secured loan, the asset that you took that loan out against can be sold by the lender to repay your loan.

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2008-02-03T03:06:00.004-08:00

A Guide For Planning Memorable Wedding Details, Your Own Way

Congrats to you, beautiful bride! Are you ready for the big day? Of course you're not - you just got engaged last weekend and you've only slightly recovered from the excitement of showing off that new princess-cut rock on your hand. You've stumbled across this article because you're overwhelmed and you don't know where to begin. You're thinking, "I'm not a bridezilla! I want my to be happy!" but at the same time, you want everything to be perfect, unique, and memorable.

The details of a wedding are what make its guests think back on it for years to come. Some particular details like save-the-date cards, engagement party/wedding shower/bridal shower invitations, Wedding invita, and thank you cards are particular items that can set your wedding apart from all the others that your friends are planning, regardless of the budget.

Save the date cards: These charming little reminders should be sent out in the mail approximately 4 months before your wedding, if not sooner. They are important if you are planning a destination wedding, if your wedding date is near a holiday, or if you are expecting many people to travel in order to get to your wedding. Save the dates are a convenient, advanced-notice option, and are much classier than an e-mail or a phone call.

Engagement party/wedding shower/bridal shower invitation: The first invitation that will go out is typically for the engagement party (if your family chooses to have one for you). This is usually a simple invitation, chosen by someone other than the bride or groom. Similarly, any wedding shower or bridal shower that might be thrown before the wedding might be entirely planned by someone other than the bride.

Look down at your pretty ring and take a deep breath - no one is going to judge you on your mom's tacky decorations, or your best friend's choice of appetizer. If you can't seem to get your input into the planning of one of your other parties, there is no need to worry about a foiled wedding. The big day is still under your control. If you're truly afraid of what might be planned for you, make sure the planner agrees with you on invitation and party guidelines because although the party may be a surprise, it is still a celebration of your upcoming wedding.

Wedding invitations: The invitation to your actual wedding is going to be a classy yet eye-catching number that allows your personality and the strength of your and your fiance's relationship to shine through, right? Easier said than done. Some people match the colors of their invitations to the color theme of their wedding, while others chose to stay classic with all white or ivory invitations despite the fact that their upcoming wedding might include a rainbow of color coordinates. With invitations, it's easy to keep it simple yet unique - there are hundreds of options available for backgrounds, and once that has been chosen, the font and wording that you pick will complete your distinctive invitation. When choosing an invitation, keep in mind that it will be hanging on the refrigerators of your guests homes for 2 months before the big date - what would you want on your fridge?

Thank you cards: It is proper etiquette to send a thank you card to anyone who attended the wedding, sent you a gift, or both. Also, you don't want to wait very long before writing and sending them. How long did it take you to cash their checks? You've got plenty of time to get away on that honeymoon and relax post-wedding, but when you come home and start ravaging the cards and gifts, be sure to keep track of everything. Standard rule is that you have three months to write and mail those thank you cards with your gifts and guest list fresh in your mind.

Well Bridezilla, I hope these tips helped to calm your nerves a bit. Planning a wedding can be a very lengthy process, but the details that you have full control over happen to be the most fun to shop for and personalize. Throughout your wedding process, there will likely be between 3 and 5 invitations or notifications sent out in the mail to select guests, and these tailored items are what they will look at the most before and after your tasteful and elegantly prepared soiree. Once dates and locations have been chosen, it will take a weight off your shoulders if you order all the invitations and stationary in advance. Plus, you've got more important things to worry about bride-to-be. Good luck in your planning!

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Totally Money is a popular financial comparison site that provides you with a comprehensive tool that will help you to save time and hassle. This website has the most up-to-date information and news regarding lenders based in the United Kingdom, so it’s a great resource to use to find out everything you need to know about obtaining a secured loan in the UK. After you fill out a short, simple form requesting information about one of the many loan comparisons available on the site, Totally Money will perform its own research among the UK lending market and pass the information and comparisons on to you. This process helps to ensure that you get the best and least-expensive loan possible for your particular financial background. That’s not all, though. This company will also connect you with an independent specialist for a separate, parallel quote so that you’re sure to have all of your bases covered. This way, you’re armed with all of the necessary information and can make your decisions wisely.

Totally Money is able to provide you with comparisons between Black Horse and all other UK lenders. Black Horse Loans specialize in affordable unsecured loans that are geared towards those with no or bad credit. Black Horse Loan’s products are geared towards those who have had issues with their credit in the past. While other loan companies can be stringent regarding a history of defaults, Black Horse Loan has a more flexible attitude. The best way for you to keep your loan rate low is by applying for a secured Black Horse Loan. This is especially true if you have bad credit. However, if you don’t want to risk losing your home or whatever personal asset you secure the loan against, you may want to consider a Black Horse unsecured . With Black Horse unsecured loans, your repayments will not change for the duration of the loan. If you’re thinking about applying for a loan through Black Horse Loans, go to Totally Money and get a free comparison today.

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2008-02-03T03:06:00.001-08:00

Student Loans

Taking out a loan is a serious commitment with long term consequences, especially if you choose a secured loan deal, and so it's important that you only deal with reputable loan providers and brokers. But how can you tell if a particular site is trustworthy? While it's impossible to be 100% sure, the following pointers will give you a very good idea of whether you should proceed with an application or look elsewhere.

Firstly, you should never be asked to pay a fee up front, merely for making an application. These kind of loan sites are often scams, promising more than they can deliver, and you may well find that you pay the fee and get either nothing in return, or an offer of a loan that's so expensive that it's pointless taking it out. You might however be charged an arrangement fee once your loan has been agreed and you've signed on the dotted line - this is perfectly okay and normal, especially where there's an element of bad credit or self certification involved.

You should also avoid dealing with sites who insist on you telephoning a premium rate number as part of the application process. In these cases, it's very likely that you'll be kept hanging around listening to pointless but official sounding messages, all the while racking up a hefty bill. If you need to phone the loan arranger, it should ideally be on a freephone number, or at least a standard rate one.

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2008-02-03T03:05:00.004-08:00

Paid Surveys Tips to Work From Home and Make Secondary Income

Paid Surveys - Make Secondary Income

Participate in paid surveys and earn secondary or primary income with minimal effort and without leaving your house. It's amazing how much money you can make and also the prizes you can win by filling out simple surveys. Of course when something is too good to be true there is a risk. We have been doing research on Internet fraud for three years and found out there are a lot of scam survey and work at home providers. A lot of survey websites offer people a database with a fee for paid surveys which turns out to be scam surveys. Also, survey sites offer free access to their survey database but require you to register with their site. Again, this is a scam. They keep your information and sell it to third party companies.

Why should you take online surveys?

Influence the development of new products and services
Make money....Easily be paid from $1 to $100 for 20 minutes of your time
Work from the comfort of your home
It's free to join, No cost what so ever
It's are fun and interesting...you learn a lot about current product and product in the near future
It's Easy....all you need is a computer
Earn great rewards and prizes...some survey companies send product to keep and only ask for feedback
You make a difference by expressing your opinion

Sample Questions: (95% are multiple choice questions)

What cereal do you prefer? A) Raisin Brand B) Frosted Flakes C) Chex
Have you heard of the Tom-Tom Navigation System? A) Yes B) No
What vacation destination would your prefer? A) Beach B) Mountains C) City
What airline do you prefer? A) Delta B) American Airlines C) Air Tran

Survey Tips:

Register only with online survey panels that list a privacy policy on their website
Look for panels approved by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and that have privacy policies reviewed by eTRUST or features the WebTrust for Online Privacy Seal of Assurance.
Beware of 'survey websites' asking you to receive information for special offers and other survey panels during registration - these websites may sell your name and information to other companies that will send you spam.
Always set up a separate e-mail account exclusively for survey invitations. This will make it easier for you to see how many surveys you have received, and will avoid spam being sent to your personal e-mail address, should you make a mistake and register with an unreputable surveys website.
Beware of 'survey websites' that ask for overtly personal information such as your bank account information, credit card numbers, full names of family members, etc. A real online market research company would never ask you to provide this type of information.
Be cautious of 'get rich quick' websites. You cannot get rich taking online surveys. However, you can make a decent amount of cash on the side participating in surveys.
Legitimate online survey e-mail invitations will provide information on the type of study being conducted, the survey length, and the incentive for completion. Do not respond or click on e-mail 'survey invitations' that feature ads to win products, cash, etc. These e-mails are not coming from legitimate market research companies!
Some research companies will ask you to download software after registration. This software usually tracks your web browsing habits and the information is then sent to marketers. It is ok to download this software if you can verify a legitimate market research firm is running the site - do your homework to make sure that this is indeed the case.
Look for mentions of marketing association memberships on survey panel websites. Reputable associations include CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) and the AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research).
Your opinion counts! Marketers truly are interested in what you think, enough to reward you with cash and prizes just for sharing your thoughts. Stay cautious when registering with online survey panels, but when you've found a reputable panel - have fun and reap the rewards of being a panelist!

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2008-02-03T03:05:00.003-08:00

Data Entry Jobs Uncovered The Truth about Data Entry

Traditional data entry requires one to either copy-paste certain text over and over again, continue to fill out simple forms, or something along those lines. It requires simple work that does not require much thinking, but rather a lot of repetitive tasks. You usually will not be asked for your opinions as you are in surveys or asked to "Tell Us What You Think". Data Entry jobs are plain and simple manual labor jobs. Hence, there are some people who will not mind doing them and can earn a lot of money quickly, while others will be miserable doing data entry. It is not for everyone.

New Trend in Click Bank Product Data Entry Jobs

Recently, there has been a growing trend in using click bank to find and advertise data entry programs. These programs say that they will teach people how to make money through data entry, and as a result, many people visit these web sites looking to learn more about the business. Those new to data entry are especially likely to visit and even purchase the products advertised.

Click Bank Data Entry Truth

Click Bank data entry jobs are usually e-Books or other materials that tell you how you can make money using AdWords and selling affiliate links to Click Bank products. Not only are these programs misleading as you actually do not make money for the data entry, you only get money if you sell a product, these programs are also fraud and contain false information. They claim that after purchasing the e-Books there are no more expenses; however, you will have to pay AdWords hundreds or thousands of dollars to advertise. Hence it is recommended to stay away from Click Bank data entry jobs.

Finding a Reliable Data Entry Job

The key is to find an honest and reliable freelancing or part time / full time data entry job. This will take some time but we will outline some of the best ways to secure long term high paying data entry jobs and where they can be found.

Webmaster forums are a great place to look for online data entry jobs. Many webmasters are constantly looking to save time by hiring other people to do manual labor so they can focus and advertising and updating their web site. Hence, there is a huge demand for data entry and freelancing jobs for webmasters and many are able to make thousands each month through data entry for webmasters alone. It can be difficult to track down webmasters, so visiting webmaster forums with large marketplaces can help you find jobs and advertise your services. Some of the largest and most popular forums with active marketplaces are Digital Point and Site Point. Note: There is a charge of $10 to $20 to advertise your Service at the Site Point forums. Digital Point Forums, which are equally active, are free.

Craig's List is also a great place to find data entry job. Craig's List has grown to become the largest online classified web site on the Internet and although they focus and buying and selling goods in every state and many countries world wide, they also have a section for "Writing Gigs" where a few people are always looking for someone to do a data entry job. Other job sites such as Yahoo! Hot Jobs or Monster are also good places to find a data entry job in your area.

Finally, there are some organizations that need a lot of data entry done and you can visit their web sites and sign up for their programs to have a constant stream of work and revenue. These are usually the most stable way to make money through data entry jobs, but to be successful with these programs you need to insure that you are signing up with a reliable program so that you do not get scammed.

How You Can Protect Yourself from Scammers

Many people who purchase the click bank data entry product fail and give up with data entry jobs. It takes some time to realize that they were actually scammed and lost their time and money. Do not let this happen to you. There are scammers in every industry so it is important that you do your research and stay away from scam programs.

Search Engines are the best way to protect yourself from scammers. There are billions of web sites on the Internet today and thousands of them contain unbiased reviews of data entry programs. You can use search engines to find this information quickly to insure that you are not being scammed and to find the program that is best for you based on real user views and experiences.

Forums are also a great place to find this information. Finally, to be sure that your information is unbiased and accurate, be sure to double check the program you selected with the BBB or Better Business Bureau that has official information and customer praise/complaints about most businesses.

There is a lot of potential to earn a high income using data entry jobs. There are always people who are looking for data entry services, the key is to finding jobs and making sure that the jobs you find are not run by scammers so you won't waste your time and money. This article contains a lot of useful information that should assist you greatly in making money online and being successful through data entry jobs. Be sure to visit some of the web sites that were mentioned as they contain a lot of very useful information and can help you earn a lot more money.

Data entry is one of the best ways to make money from home online, but like everything else, be sure to do your homework and put in the effort required.

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2008-02-03T03:05:00.001-08:00

Genuine Work At Home Opportunities So You Can Quit Your Day Job

Although, many may be skeptical about how one can make money online, there are a few options that one looking to work online can choose from।

Freelancing as a writer or programmer and designer can often earn one tens of thousands of dollars annually, especially if you are well trained and have the skills and the marketing "know how" so that you can constantly find clients.

Affiliate programs where you are paid to promote the products of many companies are also another great way to earn money online. Obviously, if you can create your own product and promote it, that would be the ideal situation as you would be able to keep all revenue that you earn rather than just 10% or 20% of the total sale value.

Still, the most popular way that those who work online are earning a stable income is through the creation of web sites and the sale of advertisement space and the use of programs such as Google AdSense or the Yahoo Publisher network.

CONTEXT FREELANCING

For those who have worked to hone their skills in writing or web site design and creation, freelancing is probably the best online job opportunity. It allows them to run all aspects of their business from finding clients, completing the work, and/or subcontracting the work. Although this may be more work than if you worked in a team with a group of people, as a solo freelancer, you keep all of the money you make, rather than splitting it among the members/employees of your company. There are a numbers of freelance opportunities available today.

Content Writing
If you love to write and have strong writing skills, you should seriously consider offering a content writing service where you provide articles for magazines and web sites to publish.

Forum Posting
Forum posting is also another option. It involves contacting the owner of a new forum and to see if they are willing to pay for posts to help get their forum off the ground and boost activity. The best way to get a steady job forum posting is to visit webmaster forums where many of these owners are often searching for posters.

Webmaster forums are also a great place to find content writing jobs, but there are many other web sites that offer an up to date list of the latest content writing opportunities and thus these sites should be utilized as well. A content writer or forum poster who puts the time required to be successful into working can earn up to six figures annually.

Article Submission Service
Article Submission and Directory Submission is also a way that many freelancers can earn some extra money on the side. It involves submitting a web site to numerous web directories or submitting an article to many article directories. The purpose of this service is to help webmasters gain links to their web site.

Link Building Service
Direct link building is a great way that those who either own a large network of web sites or know someone who does can earn thousands online. Link building requires one to obtain back links to their client's web sites on other 3rd part sites. Link builders are usually paid at a flat rate per link that they secure and payment can range from $2-$10 a link and beyond.

Web design and Programming
Finally, for those who are familiar with web site design and programming, freelancers in the web site creation industry can get paid anywhere from $500 to $10,000 and more for a project depending on the amount of work required. This is one of the most lucrative online opportunities available, but to be successful, you will need to get the proper training so that clients are satisfied with your work and you are hired to take on larger, better compensating projects.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate programs are another very popular way to make money online. One can create a web site and put utilize space on their web site by advertising a certain product. The advertisement will be a link to an eStore where the product is being sold, and if an affiliate is able to drive a customer to the eStore, the owner of the eStore will pay the affiliate a certain percentage of the sale. Many major companies, such as eBay, Sears, Wal-Mart, and hundreds of others that sell products online have affiliate programs.

To sign up for one of these programs, you should visit and sign up with Click Bank and Commission Junction. These are the two web sites that most companies who have affiliate programs use to keep track of earnings, and to be able to participate in affiliate programs, you will have to be a member of one of these two web sites. Recently, many affiliates are using pay per click advertising program such as Google AdWords where they pay a certain amount of money for each visitor who clicks on the advertisement. The advertisement is an affiliate link so if the one clicks on the link makes a purchase, you can earn money through affiliate programs without even creating a web site.

RUNNING WEBSITES

Finally, we reach the most popular way of making money online, running web sites. The key to building a successful web site is coming up with a new fresh idea so that you will draw traffic.

Once you have got an idea, the first thing you need to do is secure hosting at a popular and reliable web host, such as GoDaddy or BlueHost. You can sign up for an account and pay for a certain hosting plan. The more you pay, the larger a web site you can create and the larger your bandwidth is. If you are unsure about all the technical aspects of running and hosting a web site, you should check with your web hosting provider what plan is best for you and your needs. Your host will also help you get a domain and transfer all files to get your site up and running.

Once you have a site live on the Internet and you are marketing it and drawing traffic, it is time to think about monetization. With a web site, you can either sell your own products that customers can purchase online or create a website for a service, such as the ones mentioned above. Those who may not have as much time, often opt to create a web site, get traffic, and use a program such as Google AdSense where they are paid each time a visitor clicks on an advertisement. Webmasters may also sell links to advertisers directly to earn more revenue from their web site.

There are a lot of great online opportunities available on the Internet, and if you are willing to put in the time and effort requires, you can make enough to quit your regular full time job and work from home online.

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2008-02-03T03:04:00.003-08:00

Pay Per Click for Beginners - "The Cinderella Opportunity"

There are so many so called gurus out there 'with their every statement, their nose grows longer.' Regardless of what you may here out there, there are 2 very important facts you need for you to succeed in Pay- Per-Click.

Good Resources and
High Paying Products That Pay Well to Offset Your Costs Period!

Pay-Per-click advertising is a great way to make money with affiliate programs.

Unfortunately not every Pay-Per-Click engine is really effective. Sometimes you can get a lot of traffic but very few buyers. The best PPC advertising is Google Adwords.

If you prepare your campaign properly you will get targeted visitors within hours coming to your site.

There are 2 sources that Google uses for these ads. Their search engine and different related websites (content). The most targeted is their search engine. From content you will get a lot of traffic but not as many actual buyers. Whether you include content or not, bear this in mind and consider your targeted market.

Steps for starting a Google Adwords campaign

Make your account and watch for the confirmation link needed to activate it.
Start a new campaign by clicking the link "Keyword-Targeted" campaign.
Name the campaign.
Name your ad group.
Name the area, country, territory, regions, cities, or customized.
Make your ad - it needs to have a high CTR (click through ratio). Take care to do this well.

Tips to improve your campaign

Monitor your campaigns well and carefully
Join high paying affiliate programs to offset costs and make this campaign really effective
Use as many keywords as you can to attract all the people in your market.

Google Adwords is very cost effective. It only takes a $5 deposit to start off your campaign. Read the entire tutorial that Google provides very carefully before you begin. Start with low bids and work up.

Understand that some keywords will have high bids and others low ones. You will need to watch your campaign very well to ensure it is not going over your budget.

This campaign hinges on using targeted keywords. You can get keywords for your site at http://wordtracker.com. Google will also supply you with some basic ones based on your web address.

You can then further define and narrow down the options by [ ] for Exact keywords i.e. [cars] and ' ' i.e. 'cars' for Phrase keywords etc.

As i had said above, you need to find good resources and high paying products that pay well to offset costs and make your campaign really effective.

You may take a little time to get the hang of this but once you do you will find affiliate programs and Google Adwords are indeed a match made in heaven.

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2008-02-03T03:04:00.001-08:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - An Overview

Run a search on any of the 200 major search engines, and the results will come up in similar orders on quite a few of them. How a website owner/operator gets their website to the top of a list is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Optimizing a website involves many of the same techniques, whether the aim is to optimize for Google adwords, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or others. There is a list of what not to do as well, and that list is applicable to all engines, as it mostly refers to tricks and hacks unscrupulous designers use to try to trick the engines. These kind of pages generally get removed by automated tools and don't generally last very long, so they are not recommended to bother with.

Website optimization starts with content. If the content is irrelevant, the website will not last long in the rankings, no matter how many keywords are included. The best way to get relevant content is to get an expert to write the content. General content may be more friendly to beginners, but in the search optimization arena, content is what is going to keep readers coming back and webmasters linking to the page. Many search engines use link counters to rank sites. If enough people like and value the site, they will link to it from their own site as an example of expert help for visitors seeking more detailed information than they can provide, or are willing to provide. Often, general-interest sites will link to expert sites, thereby also driving their own traffic up as the initial portal to those expert sites and improving their own rankings in the optimization listings. The quality of the sites linked is also a major factor in the rankings, as quality sites such as Microsoft and Google are going to be more effective 'heavy hitters' than a link to Bob's House of Website Optimizing.

When the content is being created, keywords are the 'anchors' that search engines hook onto, but just filling your content with keywords risks being dismissed as a spam site, as many spammers merely fill a page with keywords, hoping to hook anyone searching for anything. These kind of pages are usually removed quickly, but they exist nonetheless. Specific keywords are the key--instead of Search Engine, use Search Engine Optimization for Google, or combinations of the key words or phrases. Optimization for Search Engines in one area, then Optimizing for higher Search Engine rankings in another increases the chances of an engine ranking your website content a little higher than it may have otherwise.

The guidelines for content also go for Meta tags such as the title. Title is very important, as it is one of the bigger spots for an engine to catch, as well as the hook that draws a surfer in once the rankings have been displayed. A recommended length is 50-80 characters (including spaces), with keywords located near the beginning in case the window is resized on the screen. A good example would be 'Search Engine Optimization tips and tricks for Google', instead of 'How to do important SEO for websites.'

Search Engine Optimization--what to avoid: Don't use huge strings of keywords without relevant content--you may be labeled as a spammer and blacklisted off the engine(s) you're trying to climb. Stay away from pop-ups, excessive load times (by keeping the page clean and using fast hosting servers), and lots of flash animation, as this takes time to load and also detracts from the readability of the site.

More specific information can be found by typing 'Search Engine Optimization' into any major search engine like Google or Yahoo and following the links. Good luck!

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Getting noticed on the Internet - Digital Marketing for Small Business

The Internet has grown from a small network of academics needing a way to trade research into a world spanning, ubiquitous marketplace and repository for nearly every possible kind of information and knowledge. How does a small business avoid being washed away in the constant tide of buying, selling and marketers hawking every conceivable item (and some difficult to conceive...)?

The Internet provides advantages for both customer and proprietor in that one can search for exactly what is desired, without the bother of endless phone calls, driving to malls, or poring over mail-order catalogs. A quick keyword or 3, and hundreds of results vie for attention on the screen. Making sure your company is one of those results near the top is a combination of factors: specificity in product offerings, Search Engine Optimization of web content and linking to and from related topics and sites.

The only way to get noticed on the Internet is to have a listing or presence, whether a dedicated website, ads on relevant sites, or by word-of-mouth. Oftentimes ads on online journals, informative sites, or e-zines (online magazines) are cheaper than space in a print publication, as well as being available to a wider audience than a dedicated website may be. Rates are often available for daily, weekly, or monthly terms, increasing flexibility and allowing a tight budget more leeway. Word-of-mouth advertising can be very cheap, but the returns may be difficult to quantify. Sponsoring web shows such as podcasts or webcasts can be a great and cheap way to gain word-of-mouth exposure. Many times, a podcaster will be so thrilled to gain sponsorship that rates can be negotiated for very little, but make sure to approach a podcaster that has a show related somehow to your business. Don't overlook resources like Google's Adwords either, as they can be slightly pricier than similar options like banner ads, but they are shown to be far more effective than pop-ups, banners, or pay-per-click ads due to their specific targeting.

When a potential customer decides to look up a product that you sell, is he or she going to find your site or listing? Being specific in the terms used on your site or listing is key, as keywords are what drive the search engines like Google and Yahoo. If your company sells shoes, it's not enough to put the word 'shoes' on your site--it has to be anticipatory to the searches that potential customers are doing. Most customers have an idea of what they are looking for when doing a search, so instead of 'shoes,' a customer will search for 'imported Italian leather shoes.' Specific focusing of terminology and product listings are involved in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as SEO is driven by specific keywords and their repetition or location on a page. If the term 'Italian Leather Shoes' is used 15 times on a website, it will pop up higher on the rating listings than one with the same words, but only as a page heading or title. It would be easy to go overboard on this if it were the only criteria, but it is only one of many different methods search engines use to list websites by relevance. Our article on Search Engine Optimization, located here, is a great reference to optimizing your site for maximum Search Engine Performance.

With a clear idea of where you want to go with Internet marketing, it can be a valuable tool to expand your business into the digital realm, but be careful not to go overboard, as all marketing eventually crosses into the zone of limited return. Customers are looking for what they want--it's up to you to make sure they run into you, and the only way they will is for you to make sure your business is at the places they are going to go.

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Selling your Business – Step by Step Process

So finally the time has come to sell the business. After investing years of your time and uncounted thousands of dollars, it has become successful, providing for your needs and wants, and it's time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Where do you start?

A good time to start thinking about selling a business is right after startup, when it shows signs of beginning to succeed and become self-sustaining. Even if you are planning on bequeathing it to your progeny or a partner, it's never too early to think about what will happen afterwards.

The first step is to take your time--selling a business is a complex process and you will only do it once. Confidentiality is a necessity at this point, as word of an impending sale can cause repercussions among employees and business partners (suppliers, customers, etc.) alike.

Your position in the business is also a point to consider. If you are the sole proprietor, the decision is yours alone. However, if you are a partner or board member, selling your part of the business will involve more considerations.

Finding a good broker is worth any amount of time needed to locate one you are comfortable with. Check the Better Business Bureau for any investigation history, and get referrals from fellow business owners or from industry associations like the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA). This is a non-profit 'trade association of business brokers providing education, conferences, professional designations and networking opportunities' (IBBA), as well as professional certifications and boasts over 1300 members.

Next, a professional appraiser should be consulted, as just like selling a home, a professional appraisal will give a fair value to begin negotiations with. Keep in mind though, an appraisal is an estimate of the fair value of a business' hard assets, and the market value of the business may be higher or lower, as a business is only worth what someone else is willing to pay.

Determining major terms and price are issues that you are going to have to work out with your broker, but a few basic factors come into play: what do you want to get out of the sale? Continuing salary? Lump sum? Stock options? This is a step often overlooked until late in the negotiations, often to the detriment of the seller.

Financing the sale is usually about 90% left to the seller. If you can't or won't be willing to cover the costs of the sale, it may not be a good time to sell.

Once you and your broker have located a buyer and agreed on a price, a Letter of Intent is drafted. This letter outlines the terms and tentative price in a non-binding document and allows the buyer time to thoroughly investigate the business. This process is subject to Due Diligence, as the onus of discovery is placed upon the buyer and buyer's agent.

After the discovery process is completed to both parties' satisfaction, the Purchase Agreement is drafted. This set of paperwork creates a formal agreement between buyer and seller regarding purchase price, terms, and other legal details. Once the respective lawyers have finalized the details and complied with state law requirements regarding the sale, the Purchase Agreement is signed, closing documents finalized, and the sale is complete. If everything has gone well, it's time to breathe a sigh of relief and start planning what to do with all that free time!

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Web Site Graphic Design

A picture is said to be an expression of a 1000 words. Yes, this may work for an artist. However, a Overland park website designer has to reconsider this while creating a website. A picture may express certain things that need to get to the audience but that may be for websites with humour as their theme.

As a Kansas web designer, you need to meet the demands of your audience and your organisation through quality information and content presented on a website rather than images that slow down the uploading of a website. You need to attract the visitor and not distract him. The Webmaster who realizes these little facts can gain huge success. He needs to remember that, fancy and alluring items do not always attract the customers.

Additional keep-in-mind features

ALT text is important
Including ALT text to a page can be helpful while adding an image on the same page. The ALT characteristic in the HTML tag provides substitute text when a person cannot view an image. The textual information will be displayed if the browser of the user does not allow him to see the images or if the user had disabled the visuals option. The ALT text can contain information on the company apart from a site map and then company's logo.

Handy height and width tags
These tags help the browser to track the size and resolution of the image and the browser automatically decides where to place and adjust the text that is available on the page. This helps to catapult the speed of the page and uploads it easily and more swiftly. This will also allow the users and visitors to access the page textual information on the page without displaying the images nearby. Therefore the webmaster has to keep in mind that the use of height= and width= attributes can be helpful incase the pictures are not viewable.

Interlaced images
These images can help a web page to load in a quicker fashion and bring
convenience on the users end. These are the GIF type of images and are easy to use. The image may appear a bit blurred at the start but it catches up with the browser after some time and comes as an attractive and useful image. These tricky images actually make the user feel that the page uploads fast when it does not in actuality.

Reuse images
The image that is put up on your website gets loaded to the browsers cache of a visitor when he logs on to it. This area of a hard disk stores files that may be needed again for viewing. Therefore, theimages on your website will load onto the users' computer and he can feel the website uploading faster. Thus, you can use one image throughout your site without causing any speed disturbances.

David vs. Goliath images
Several small images instead of one big image can be useful as they download more easily than big images. They can also express the organisations values, products and offerings. They are far faster than normal big size images.

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2008-02-03T03:01:00.005-08:00

Various Techniques of Search Engine Optimization

SEO techniques are effective procedures to put a website on the first page of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN for your targeted keywords. These techniques directly help in raising the SERPs (search engine result positions) of the site, increase site traffic and acquire relevant quality links.
If you want people to find your site via a search engine easily, the site will require a high SERP. This means when users search on specific keywords or phrases, they will find your site on the first page generated by the engine. Having the site on the 10th page of search engine results will not give you satisfactory traffic and you can potentially lose thousands of customers and sales.

Let's discuss the techniques that can help you towards achieving a high SERP

1. Domain & File Names
Select a domain name of your site that contains words from your main keyword phrase/query. The domain name should also be easy to spell and easy to remember. Ideally it should only contain alpha-numeric characters and no hyphens for optimum results.

2. Easy to think Keywords
Such keywords are to be used which are searched for in excess on the net. Add keyword synonyms to your content. Make sure you use your keywords from the page you are linking to.

3. Density of placing Keywords
Keyword density is related to the number of times the keyword appears in the text on a particular page. High keywords density is considered spamming by the search engine and can get your site blacklisted. Your keywords should be toward the top of your page and in either every paragraph or every second paragraph depending on your paragraph length.

4. Misuse of SEO Techniques
Misuse of search engine optimization techniques may get your site blacklisted from a search engine. Some techniques that are considered spam are cloaking, invisible text, tiny text, identical pages, doorway pages, refresh tags, link farms, filling comment tags with keyword phrases only, keyword phrases in the author tag, keyword density too high, mirror pages and mirror sites etc. These are all termed as Black Hat SEO techniques. While these techniques might work to give you a higher ranking for a short time, however in the long run they will slow down your progress and can have detrimental and very damaging consequences.

5. Construction of Titles and Description
Each page should have a different title with two or three of your keyword at the beginning. When search engine results are displayed the title is the first thing people observe and therefore enough time should be spent on constructing a fully optimized and well thought title. Your description should also have at least two or three of your keywords at the beginning as so should your first sentence on the page. There should be a different title, description and first sentence on each page.

6. Authors Biography
At the end of the page place an author biography or company name. This technique will help you to improve the branding of your site and get good rankings for your company name.

7. Website Design
In what way the website is designed is also important. Text content should balance the HTML text. The pages of the site should validate and be accessible in all browsers and from anywhere.

8. Links on the Site
There should always a navigation menu present on the site from where you link to all the important pages of the site. The idea is not trying to optimize the home page alone, but each and every page of the site. The secondary and tertiary pages of the site will only be recognized and indexed by the search engines if the spider can reach those pages. There should not a single broken link on any page of the site especially the index/home page.

9. Links to the Site
This involves ascertaining links that point to your site. The online world is not much different as compared to offline world. The celebrities in the real world are all famous and rich people i.e. have high SERPs. The reason they are famous is because so many people are familiar with them and know about their lives. The same principal applies to web-sties. The more the sites link to your site, the higher it will rank on search engines. This is an ongoing task and therefore a lot of effort should be spent in obtaining links from other sites. In an ideal world you should have all the sites linking to yours and your site not linking out at all. However this is not possible, but the idea should always be kept in mind when trying to acquire links. Also the quality of incoming link plays a big role in determining the overall benefit derived and its effect towards increasing the SERPs. The better the quality the better the result and so on so forth.

These are some of the techniques, which if used effectively can directly help in increasing not only traffic, potential customers but also the rankings on all search engines. In the end it's not only about what you know but how you act. Hard work, dedication and patience is always a recipe for success, whether working online or offline.

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Steps involved in making your Business Competitive

These are the fundamental steps that lead a business to a path of progress and competitiveness enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of the business. There are 7 steps that are discussed below:

1. Finding the Gaps
It includes the skills and knowledge your company possesses and is a major determinant of your success. In this step you need to identify your strengths, areas needing further study and areas of concern that could seriously affect your ability to stay competitive. Once you are through with this step, you would have access to practicable online information and other references that will help you bridge any knowledge and skill gaps. Filling these gaps will help in making your organization better prepared and to ascertain benefit from valuable information relating to the various management functions.

2. Pre-Planning
Pre-Planning is the process by which the management of an organization foresee its future and develop the necessary measures and operations to achieve the goals of future. It includes development of the purpose, mission, vision, and value statements of the managing teams; communication of these documents and suggestions for improvement, culture survey to create a base against which change can be compared and last but not the least celebrating achievements and learning from mistakes. After Pre-Planning the team needs to formulate strategies and, clearly identify an action plan on which implementation is to be performed. As part of this phase, you will also need to repeat your mission and restate your company's vision. Although there are many kinds of strategies but in this situation basic strategy should not change much in the short term, whereas sub-strategies can change rapidly in reaction to competitive situations.

3. Financing
Financing plan is developed to increase the business competitiveness through an improved knowledge of the techniques and methods of funding available. Equity and debt are two types of financing available to business. Equity is the money that you put into your business and Debt is what you borrow from others to invest in your business.

4. Involvement of Technology
The businesses are becoming more dependent on technology. By optimizing the use of technology, the business may maintain progress, improve its customer services, and gain a competitive edge over those businesses that are not utilizing their technology. In the modern world the change of information technology has become a vital part in competition with the real world. Now the Question is that why do we use technology in business? The answer is simple that it enhances customer service, can decrease cost, can improve communication, can facilitate research, can increase productivity, efficiency as well as effectiveness in the business.

5. Improvement in Human Resource
Using this resource to its best advantage is a means to maximize the effectiveness of the other entire systems and procedures already in place. The business or an organization having skilled and competitive employees is considered as the most competitive business. Proper human resource management is needed to increase effectiveness in work and to smoothly achieve the goals and accomplish tasks.

6. Marketing strategy
Marketing and related activities in a business, small or large, ensure that your business gets information from its customers, develops and markets the services to satisfy their needs and gets feedback on their satisfaction levels. Marketing acts as an interface between the enterprise and its markets. Marketing can be defined as the function that encompasses most activities between the producer of a good or the supplier of a service and the consumers. It is also a set of business development activities which starts with the consumer from whose needs, the business gets its service ideas and to whom it will sell its services.

7. Process of Quality Assurance
The Process of Quality Assurance in a business refers to planned, and step-by-step activities that determines that testing is being carried out correctly, results are accurate, and mistakes are found and corrected to avoid undesirable outcomes. Quality assurance is a constant set of activities that help the business to ensure that the test results provided are as accurate and reliable as possible. Maintaining quality assurance leads to customer retention, and an image as a competitive business in the minds of clients.

Conclusion
Competition in businesses is now found everywhere and in such a competitive world it is difficult for any new business or start-ups to survive and thrive. Implementation of the above steps can definitely help towards effectively competing in any market.

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Affiliate Programs - A Reliable Online Marketing Strategy

Affiliate programs can be a great strategy of Internet marketing and add additional income to your business. Internet marketing through affiliate programs may be easier if you are marketing your own products and have established customers or a stable list of potential customers. However, if you market products that are not your own through an affiliate program, then the following tips can assist in developing an effective marketing strategy.

Buy Them First
Common sense will state that it may not be wise to market products over the Internet especially when the ownership is not yours. You can't really sell something you know little about nor can you guarantee the product will deliver to your customers' expectations. It is advised to sample the product before you sell it. Educate yourself and learn the benefits of the product before you market on the Internet. Bottom line is to test the product!

Get Them While Their Hot
It is important to get hold of the product in its launch phase or when the demand is very high and not many people are aware of the product. Ideally you should start promoting the product when 99% of the market is not aware of it. This will help you to maximize your efforts and generate higher commissions. Make sure to grasp the information of your customers which you can always use to up sell or cross sell your own products in the future.

Set up 'Redirect' Web Pages
You probably already know that having your own website and domain name is a very important strategy of Internet marketing. Having your own website is a critical element to the success of your business. Use your domain to 'mask' the affiliate URL that was issued to you when you signed up. Customers are use to seeing affiliate URL's. There is a drawback however: When the product begins to gain popularity it is harder to sell with long URL's. By using a redirect and bringing customers to your site, gives you a great lead over the other affiliates selling the product.

Devote Your Web Site to One Product/Service
One thing that may have caught your eye that most web site owners share alike is that they will congest their website with thousands of different products on one web page. For more reasons than one this never works. Instead, avoid making this mistake and take your main page, the one that gets the most traffic, center it on your most profitable product or service. Try to focus towards a single product and even if you want to sell more products then ensure that the products are related to each other in terms of their offerings and value. The idea is to develop pages based on themes and then sell relevant products related to those themes. For e.g. if your page is developed to sell plasma tvs then you could always list products from different companies selling these tvs but placing other products like cameras and dvd players will not be a good idea as the customer who landed on your page was looking for tvs alone.

More Time To Online Marketing

You should have time to market online, instead of setting up several web sites, unlimited forms, handling questions after questions (you will get some, not many though), or any other administrative tasks. You can spend your time with what makes money, advertising and Internet marketing and getting your site visited. This is your main priority and should stay that way for the success of your business.

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Sole proprietorship as a business structure - Advantages & disadvantages

Do you know what sole proprietorship is? A sole proprietorship is a business which has only one owner. It is a 'sole' proprietor in the sense that the owner has no partners. A sole proprietorship essentially means a person does business in his own name and there is only one owner. A sole proprietorship is not a corporation, it does not pay corporate taxes, but rather the person who organized the business pays personal income taxes on the profits, making accounting much simpler.

Most sole proprietors will register a trade name 'Doing Business As'. This allows the proprietor to do business with a name other than their legal name and also allows them to open a business account with banking institutions.

A sole proprietorship has an authority to hire any number of employees because the law makes no distinction between you, the sole proprietor, and the business. Sole proprietorship has also an authority to hire independent contractors of their own choice.

Whether the proprietor has zero or 100 employees or independent contractors, it doesn't make any difference. If you are the sole owner, your business will still be a sole proprietorship.

There are several advantages associated with operating as a sole proprietor. Starting a business as a sole proprietor brings two tax advantages. The first advantage is avoidance of double tax.

Double tax can occur if you carry out your business through a corporation. Corporations are considered as separate entities consisting of many partners or owners. As a result the corporation owners will pay tax on their individual income and the corporation will pay tax on any profits made by the company. As a sole proprietor, you will not pay double tax on your business income because the law makes no difference between you, the sole proprietor, and your sole proprietorship and the business income is treated as your personal income.

The second tax advantage of sole proprietorships is that you can deduct your business losses to the extent of your total income that you may have from all sources, including interest, dividends, and profits.

Operating as a sole proprietor also has some drawbacks. A business organized as a sole proprietorship faces difficulty in raising own capital since shares of the business cannot be sold. Hiring employees may also be difficult. This form of business will have unlimited liability, therefore, if the business is sued, it is the proprietor's who will be responsible.

The second disadvantage is that as a business grows, the risks accompanying the business also tends to grow. To minimize those risks, a sole proprietor has the option of forming a limited liability company.

The principle disadvantage of sole proprietorships is that you are personally responsible for all the debts and the reason for this is that the law makes no distinction between you, the sole proprietor, and your sole proprietorship authorities.

Another disadvantage of sole proprietorship is that you may have to pay high income taxes. You cannot take any tax deduction for your health or life insurance whilst operating as a sole proprietor. A full deduction for your health insurance and a deduction of life insurance policy are offered to corporations, so long as all employees of the corporation are offered the insurance.

In this competition of different businesses, every business is different from each other i.e one thing giving advantage to you may be a disadvantageous thing for the other business. Selecting the best business structure will depend on the factors including your type of business, tax situation, and industry liability among others. Your selection of business structure will have legal and personal applications and therefore it is always advisable to seek professional help in such matters. Getting on the track from day one will take you further and ease your problems in the long run.

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Work at Home Reviews: Affiliate Marketing Home-Based Business

We are living in an amazing time in history! Technology has given us the ability to communicate, be productive, and work wherever we have internet access. But how do you get an employer to agree to let you work from home? That is tricky. Most companies are still uncomfortable allowing employees to telecommute. One big reason is that businesses who allow employees to work offsite have to make investments and be vigilant about security breaches into the company intranet. Some companies now allow for an occasional telecommute, but that barely impacts the issues driving the desire to work from a home office, such as high fuel costs, long commutes, expensive child care costs, and global warming.

Another way to make money online is to set up your own virtual business. But trying to build your company from scratch is expensive and risky. A quick internet search will present a plethora of home-based business options. So, how do you know which ones are legitimate? The answer is to look at the business model. A solid opportunity provides benefits to all parties involved. Affiliate marketing programs have attracted a lot of attention lately. This type of program is successful because companies need help getting the attention of consumers who have may have an interest in buying from them.

Businesses have long known that referrals from a friend, or another influential authority, such as a trusted business or an association are much more likely to make a purchase than those who come in arbitrarily. This recommendation breaks the initial barrier of distrust between vendor and prospective customer. However, before the internet age, companies had a hard time obtaining enough referred business to sustain their profitability goals. So, they also used expensive media ads to bring in additional customers and build their brands. With the proliferation of internet usage, businesses began shifting some money away from traditional advertising venues to website development and internet advertising. This was a successful strategy when the internet was still small. Now-a-days, there is an overload on information and advertising on the web. So, how does a business stand out to customers who are interested in what they have to sell? They first start by improving their search ranking in an effort to land on the first page of results from searches on major engines like Google and Yahoo. They can do this by optimizing keywords and paying to be listed as a sponsor when people search with pre-specified keywords. This is a necessary tactic, but any good marketer knows that relying on only one stream of leads is short-sighted and risky.

A second tactic is to partner with other websites that provide content which interests their best prospects. This alliance is called an affiliate marketing program (or performance marketing in some circles). It is designed to create a network of targeted lead generators. The concept is simple: companies advertise related products and services to the targeted audience of a website. The owner of that site is rewarded for generating business for referring business to the company. Example: I am interested in cats and build a site with cat tales. Cat food manufacturers, veterinaries, and stores who sell pet food advertise on my site. When my readers click-through to the vendor's sites or make a purchase, I receive a commission. Although there are several affiliate program models the most popular by far is revenue sharing, also known as Cost-per-sale (CPS) or Pay-per-sale (PPS). First a customer must reach the merchant site by clicking on an ad from the publisher's website. When that customer makes a purchase, the publisher of the original site receives a percentage of the sale. Another commonly used affiliate marketing program pays a set dollar amount per referral who performs a given action, such as signing up to the merchant site, subscribing to a newsletter or filling out a form. This is called Pay-per-lead (PPL), Cost-per-lead (CPL), or Cost-per-action/Cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

According to Marketing Sherpa, in 2006, affiliate programs paid out approximately $6।5 billion US dollars in commissions. If there is so much money to be made, why can't you be a part of this growing industry? Perhaps you're thinking you need to be a web designer who is adept at internet marketing strategies. Once again, technology comes to the rescue! The internet allows you to be in business for your self without having to do it by yourself. But how does it work? Where can you go for good advice? Work at Home Enterprises can provide you with in-depth guidance on how to structure an affiliate home business and run it successfully.

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You might think you already know everything about search engine optimisation process. Well, think again. Some of the things you know may just be myths. There are several SEO myths that webmasters and search engine optimisers still fail to recognise. What are the SEO myths? Here are the top 25:

1. Search engine optimisation can be performed just by anyone.
2. SEO is only for those websites who sell products online.
3. SEO companies can give their clients a guaranteed top ranking position.
4. SEO gives an overnight result. You can optimise a website today and expect it rank high tomorrow.
5. Build more links irregardless of the quality.
6. It is fine to copy content from other websites and paste it on your own website.
7. There is no need for you to write unique content for your website since you can just syndicate articles from directories.
8. There is no need for further work after you have optimised your website.
9. Search engine ranking is all that matters.
10. The more links the better, quantity matters and not quality.
11. There is no need for a website to be submitted to web directories.
12. A website doesn't need updated content.
13. The search engines won't know if you use black hat SEO techniques.
14. Do it yourself SEO is better than hiring SEO professionals - can be true if you are an expert yourself.
15. Web design doesn't need to be optimised.
16. The navigability of the website has no effect on its search engine ranking.
17. The search engines must be prioritised than the target market.
18. There is no need for testing, once a website is already optimised let it stay that way.
19. Site visitors already know how to browse a website so don't worry about usability.
20. Flash is the best way to present your message.
21. You can write anything that you want in your website content.
22. There is no need for you to add keywords on the website content.
23. Adding more large-file images on the website makes the site more appealing.
24. It doesn't matter if the website is slow to load, after all, there are now more broadband users than dial ups.
25. Why still optimise a website when it can still be indexed by the search engines no matter what?

These are the top 25 search engine optimisation myths that both webmasters and search engine optimiser must be aware of. Some of them seem to be like a fact rather than a myth, so be very careful.

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You may have seen or heard people, claiming websites to be indexed within 48 hrs. Believe it or not, it is not miracle and this can be accomplished by some marketing tactics.

What should not be done?

Search engines provides the url where a website can be submitted for indexing. Do not waste your time in submitting your site there. According to their statement they may take up to 6 weeks for a website to be indexed. It's just a long time and wastage of your effort.

Before you know the way for a website to be listed within 48 hrs, you need to know how search engines find websites.

Search engine visits a website that is already indexed. On that site it will find all the links and follows it. Now search engine will move to next website from that list and will find further links. This is termed as crawling. By this way new websites can be included in search engine.

Now where the link of new website can be placed? For this you need to find websites that is already indexed by search engines.

1) Go to a search engine and search the keywords you are using for your website. Note down the websites whose page rank is 5 or above. Once enough links are found, try to get their contact information. Write down an email and send it. In your mail ask them to link their websites in return give them a back link to their websites. They should get good reasons to add your link in their websites. If you can manage 1 PR5 website have a link of your website, the website can be indexed within 5 days. If you get 1 PR6, your website can be indexed within 3 days. If you get 1 PR7 website, your website can be indexed within 48 hrs.

Sometimes persuading the higher rank website owner is tough. So you can purchase link from higher rank website.

2) If you have lower budget for marketing a brand new website our recommendation is go for another way which is absolutely free. With little effort and without any expense you can get lots of one way back links. All you need to do is write an article related to your website. If your website is doing job related to painting, sculptures and artists, you should write an article related to that. Once an article is written search for popular article directory and submit your article. When the article is submitted and approved, search engine will follow all the links in that website. The more articles are submitted more the website will have links pointing to your website and the more times the search engine will crawl your website.

This way you will be able to manage your website to be indexed within 48 hrs.

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2008-02-03T02:57:00.000-08:00

How To Use Blogs As A Powerful Advertising Tool

There are three main factors that comprise a good online business. One is excellent products and services. If the products are good, there will be more customers. The same thing is true with the services. A satisfied customer will be a repeating customer. More than just becoming a repeating customer, he will also be a source of referrals.

The second main factor that comprises a good online business is the staff. When good people work for a company, the end result is positive. Between two businesses, it is always the one with good customer service that excels. Customers appreciate the feeling of importance. They want their needs to be served. Thus, having good staff makes a business more attractive.

The third factor, which is crucial for an online business, is online visibility. No matter how good the products or services are and no matter how excellent the customer service is, if there is no good online visibility, the business will still on the pit of failure. With the web, only the visible sites get visitors. If your website is nowhere to be seen on the web, how can you get visitors and customers?

Blogs Are The Next Big Thing In Online Advertising

How can you make an online business visible on the web? The solution is web marketing. An online business needs to be marketed on the web. There are several web marketing methods that web marketers and business owners can use. The most popular ones are article marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine marketing and blog marketing.

Among them, the latest is blog marketing. Blogs are quiet new in the web but they have soared high and are now dominating the web. There are blogs everywhere on the internet. What makes blogs phenomenal is its interactive nature.

Because blogs are everywhere and more online users visit blogs, advertising on them is a practical marketing move. There are three ways by which you can advertise on blogs. One is through targeted ads. With this kind of blog advertising, the advertiser creates the ads and the blogger decides when to present the ad. The decision is based on the relevance of the ads with the blog content.

The second way is through text links. The blog readers can visit the advertiser's site when they click on the text links. The third way is through sponsored posts. With this kind of blog advertising, the blogger is paid to post a product or service review then provide a text link pointing to the advertiser's site.

Blog advertising has attracted many advertisers because of its promising results. More and more online users are visiting blogs. This means that ads on blogs have more chances of being viewed.

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2008-02-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Yoga for Fatigue

We all have experienced common bouts of fatigue as a normal response to over-exertion, emotional stress, boredom, or lack of sleep.This common experience of low energy and/or motivation can usually be alleviated through proper rest, exercise, stress reduction and nutrition. Yoga is an especially effective treatment for fatigue as it combines movement, rest and stress reduction with the cultivation of prana (life force energy) and the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and renew response). The remedy for some cases of fatigue can be quite obvious, while other types of fatigue will require much more self-observation and self-inquiry to find the proper mode of treatment. Yoga is an optimal healing modality for fatigue not only because it addresses the physical, emotional and energetic causes of fatigue, but also because it fosters and facilitates the self-observation and self-inquiry required to understand the roots of this disharmony.

Physical Causes
While the physical causes of fatigue are the most obvious, they are also the least common. A lack of sleep will certainly cause fatigue, and while getting more sleep is the obvious solution, yoga can also help. Yoga is not a substitute for sleep, but yoga’s calming and regulating effects can help you get a longer and deeper night’s rest. A deep sense of rest can also be experienced from extended holdings of restorative poses, such as child, supine bound angle, knee down twist, and shavasana. Physical over-exertion can deplete the body’s energy and cause muscle fatigue. Gentle yoga poses will help to regulate, nourish and replenish the energy and muscles of the body. The restorative poses mentioned above will also provide rest and renewal to these centers. The poor circulation of blood, oxygen and nutrients can also create fatigue. Yoga’s whole body movements and stretches increase the flow of blood, oxygen and nutrients through the body, helping the cells of the body to access the proper materials for producing energy. Flowing movements and sequences, such as the sun salutations, as well as inversions will be the most effective in improving circulation. A nutritionally poor diet can also be the blame of physical fatigue. A yogic diet of simple, fresh, and organic foods will allow the body to easily digest and assimilate all of the proper nutrients that the body needs to produce energy. Overeating should be avoided as this can overtax the digestive system, reducing its ability to assimilate nutrients, making one feel heavy and sluggish.

Emotional and Energetic Causes
While yoga has a strong effect on the physical body, it has an even stronger effect at regulating the emotions and subtle energies of the body. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) excessive emotions are seen to adversely affect the organ systems responsible for the creation and regulation of prana or qi. In TCM, the Kidneys are seen as the foundation of all of the energy of the body and act like batteries to store prana for future use. Fear is said to constrain the energy of the Kidneys, causing them to dysfunction and for their energy reserves to become drained. The Chinese believe the Spleen is responsible for converting the food we eat into energy for the body to use. Excessive worry and over thinking weaken the Spleen’s ability to transform nutrients to produce abundant prana, resulting in fatigue. The Lungs also play a role in producing prana in the body. The Lungs transform the air we breathe into prana and also help circulate this prana in the chest. When excessive sadness or melancholy is present, this function of the Lungs is depressed and this may manifest as fatigue in the body. The Liver in TCM is responsible for the free flow of energy through the entire body. Excessive anger, frustration and irritation all cause the Liver to constrict and stagnate the flow of prana, which in turn can lead to fatigue.

The meditative and mindfulness practices of yoga are excellent tools to bring awareness to our emotional states and to experience and process them completely. Yoga poses can be used to target the Kidney, Spleen and Lung areas to encourage the release of held emotions and to tonify and regulate these organ energy centers. As the Kidneys are located in the low back, back bending poses are the best to activate the Kidneys and to tonify their prana. Low back bending poses such as Bridge, Cobra, Boat and Bow will be the best targeted for this area. As the Liver and Spleen are located on the sides of the abdomen, side bends and twists will activate these energy centers. Both the meridians of the Liver and Spleen travel down the insides of the legs, so hip opening poses like Pigeon, Bound Angle and Seated Angle will also activate these organ systems. Physical movement helps the Liver in moving the energy through the body, so vinyasa based sequences like the sun salutations will be beneficial as well. To activate and tonify the Lungs, use chest opening upper back bending poses such as fish, camel, sphinx and crab.

When working with the emotional and subtle bodies, it is important to keep the focus rooted inside the body on the sensations that arise while holding these poses. If sensations arise that have an emotional component to them, it is important to fully express and release the emotion, and to not repress any feelings if they arise.

Pranayama (yogic breathing techniques) are a very direct method to cultivate prana and energize the body. With a multitude of these techniques, there is a coresponding range of energetic effects for these practices: Dirga pranayama is a very gentle and easy pranayama to learn and use, while Kapalabhati and Bastrika are much more powerful and intense. Pranayama is considered a powerful yogic practice, so be cautious in your exploration and move carefully through the exercises, noting their effects on your energy levels. While Pranayama may be used with any of the physical or emotional causes of fatigue, it will not be very effective unless the root causes of fatigue are reduced or eliminated.

All regular exercise will reduce fatigue, but yoga has the unique ability to provide exercise that is multi-dimensional in nature: effecting the body, mind, energy and emotions. Yoga also allows the practitioner to moderate the level of activity based on his/her current state of energy to avoid further exhausting or depleting one’s energy. While fatigue is often a normal response to daily life stressors, it can also be a nonspecific sign of a more serious psychological or physical disorder. If your fatigue is not relieved by the above methods please seek a further evaluation from a qualified medical professional.

A complete lists of Yoga Poses for Fatigue is available in our Premium Membership website's Yoga Therapy section.

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2008-02-01T06:07:00.002-08:00

The Four Ashramas of Yoga

The traditional Indian culture promoted four Ashramas, or stages of spiritual life, that provided a simple framework of life planning for the spiritual aspirant. Each Ashrama defined a level of spiritual practice based on the duties and responsibilities required at each stage of life. The four Ashramas allowed the Indian culture to participate in and actively support a rich spiritual life, as well as gave the individual comfort and clarity to progress along the path of Self-realization. These four stages need not be practiced in a sequential order, and while they were traditionally discussed as lasting 21-25 years, the duration of the Ashramas will vary with the individual.

Brahmacharya (Student)
The first quarter of spiritual life is spent as a celibate student, closely studying with a spiritual teacher (guru). In this stage the focus is on yogic training, mental discipline, and learning about spiritual, community, and family life. This Ashrama creates the foundation and overview of spiritual practice that follows in the three other stages.

Grihasta (Householder)
The second quarter of spiritual life is spent as a householder, creating and supporting a family and fulfilling one’s worldly interests and duties. The most appropriate path of yoga for this stage is Bhakti and Karma Yoga, and other practices that can be performed in the context of worldly life and service to others. During this Ashrama one utilizes the training, discipline and knowledge gained from the Brahmacharya Ashrama to live a complete life and to enjoy worldly pleasures. The Householder’s challenge is to “Live in the world but allow not the world to live in you.” He or she must view life as a great teacher and strive towards a spiritual life in the midst of worldly temptations and distractions. The Householder path is also considered the most important Ashrama as it supports all of the other three Ashramas.

Vanaprasthya (Hermit)
In the third Ashrama, one begins to withdraw from the world to establish a state of hermitage. This is a transition stage, moving away from fulfilling the needs of the family and society to deepening the practices started as a householder in preparation for the forthcoming renunciate stage. A quiet living space is sought, a simple yogic lifestyle is practiced and the close ties with family and community are reduced to the role of a detached counselor.

Samnyasa (Renunciate)
In this last Ashrama, the yogi/ni retreats from all involvement in all worldly pursuits and seeks only the attainment of the unitive state of Self-realization. Becoming a Sannyasin requires committing to a set period of practice and the taking of spiritual vows, usually including a vow of poverty and the abandonment of physical possessions. In order that all their time, energy and focus could be expended on spiritual practices, the Sannyasin cannot stay in a household, he has to stay in a temple or live in forest or ashram, relying on charitable donations for food.

The structures and meanings of the Ashramas have changed over the years due to the loss of caste system and through the influence of Western culture. The distinctions between the Ashramas have over time become blurred, and their overall importance has become diminished. The deeper yoga practices, once only taught to renunciates, are now becoming available to Householders who wish to practice a hybrid path. Unfortunately, these changes have produced a level of confusion and misunderstanding in the modern world of yoga, as the levels and types of yoga practices are missing an overall context. Reviving the idea of the Ashramas will not only provide this missing context, it will also give modern yoga practitioners a valuable long–term plan for their progress along the path of yoga.

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2008-02-01T06:07:00.001-08:00

The Four Ashramas of Yoga

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A staggering 1.37 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in calendar 2005. That statistic was taken straight from the American Cancer Society's own reports. Given the crushing impact of cancer on public health, coupled with the ineffectiveness of measures like chemotherapy and radiation, you'd think that agencies like the American Cancer Society (ACS) would clamor for the chance to investigate new methods for preventing and combating the disease. Unfortunately, you might be wrong.
In this article, we'll explore how agencies like the ACS have an eye for their own financial interests. Why does the ACS reportedly put far greater financial emphasis on chemotherapy and radiation research than on life-saving prevention techniques? Why does the ACS appear to discredit physicians researching and practicing effective alternative cancer-fighting techniques? A closer look at the American Cancer Society reveals the agency's ties to the cancer industry.
Conflicts of Interest: Why the ACS stresses treatment and screening over prevention
So what are the American Cancer Society's strategies for fighting cancer? Innocent Casualties author Elaine Feuer comments that the ACS is more intent on developing cancer treatments than preventing the disease. Feuer argues, "Instead of allotting money towards the prevention of cancer, the medical establishment prescribes chemotherapy and radiation (which can be very expensive and even toxic)."
Also contentious is the agency's emphasis on screening. Samuel S. Epstein, author of The Politics of Cancer, argues that the society's "priorities remain fixated on damage control -- screening, diagnosis, and treatment." Sure enough, the ACS' 2005 Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Facts and Figures report focuses primarily on screening. While screenings are valuable in helping people fight cancer, they do not prevent the disease. If decreasing the number of cancer fatalities is the first priority, why not prevent the disease before it starts?
Many critics of the American Cancer Society are quick to suggest its "vested interest" in the cancer industry, especially in chemotherapy and pharmaceutical treatments. Dr. Samuel Epstein, former head of a Congressional committee on cancer, has accused the ACS of foul play for years. Epstein claims that the ACS' "longstanding conflicts of interest with a wide range of industries, coupled with a systematic discrediting of evidence of avoidable causes of cancer" preclude many powerful life-saving initiatives.
In a debate this year, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society did not deny the agency's connection to corporate interests. “The American Cancer Society views relationships with corporations as a source of revenue for cancer prevention,” said Dr. Thun. “That can be construed as an inherent conflict of interest, or it can be construed as a pragmatic way to get funding to support cancer control.”
So it is in fact true that the ACS' 22-member board was created in 1990 to solicit corporate contributions. It's also true that board members include Gordon Binder, who is the CEO of Amgen, a biotechnology company that sells chemotherapy products. Another board member, David R. Bethune, is president of Lederle Laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical company and a division of American Cyanamid Company. In fact, many board members seemingly stand to make more money by treating cancer than preventing it.
But as Thun said, these relationships are "pragmatic" ways to garner funding. Money, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, is the name of the ACS' game. The Chronicle of Philanthropy is a watchdog organization that monitors major charities. After analyzing the ACS' budgets and programs, they concluded the agency is "more interested in accumulating wealth than saving lives."
Epstein argues that the ACS's financial ties with industry also skew its policies pertaining to environmental causes of cancer. In his new book, Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing War Against Cancer, Epstein claims the agency is willfully suppressing information about the environmental causes of cancer. Carcinogens can be found in pesticides, industrial pollution, materials used in plastic or reconstructive surgery, the water supply and many other everyday materials.
Corporations – some of which contribute to the American Cancer Society – profit handsomely while they pollute the air, water, and food with a wide range of carcinogens, endangering the lives of millions of people. Why is the ACS silent? Epstein says they are more interested in inflating their budget than waging war against industrial pollution.
See the video: We've made available a short segment (3 minutes) from a must-see DVD called The Corporation, in which Dr. Epstein explains much more about the American Cancer Society and the cancer establishment in general. It's a large download (37MB), and it's a Windows .avi file format, compressed in a .zip archive. To download it, right-click here, then save the file to your computer. Once the download is complete, double-click the file on your computer to view it.
Full credit for this video belongs to The Corporation film, which is strongly recommended. This short segment from the supplementary interviews is used under Fair Use as a commentary on the film and the cancer industry. Special thanks to Dr. Epstein for his courage and dedication in standing up to the cancer industry.
Preventing Smoking: The ACS' unidirectional attack
After heavy criticism in the 1980s, the American Cancer Society did step up some of its preventative measures. To date, the ACS' anti-smoking campaign is the most effective action ever taken by the agency. With states like New York prohibiting smoking in all businesses – bars and restaurants included – and a decrease in adult and adolescent smoking, the fight against Big Tobacco appears to be paying off. Even in this case, however, the American Cancer Society nevertheless stands to gain in some fashion from its unidirectional preventative action against smoking.
In the past few years the ACS has taken corporate "sponsorship" money. Here's how it works: Sponsors pay the ACS to have the society's logo donned on certain products. SmithKline Beecham, producer of NicoDerm CQ and Nicorette anti-smoking aids, paid the ACS $1 million for the right to use the American Cancer Society name.
But does taking money from these companies decrease the number of cancer fatalities caused by smoking? Given the already exorbitant price of anti-smoking aids in addition to the amount Beecham pays for the rights to the ACS logo, few smokers (who are statically lower-income) are enticed to quit smoking. These sponsorships also create an even more startling question: Does the ACS endorse these products? The American Cancer Society says no, claiming that the use of their logo represents a "partnership," although representatives of the ACS seem slow to articulate just what a partnership is. No extra ACS money goes into research for these products, nor are Beecham's products part of a long-term anti-smoking initiative.
Conservative Medicine: The ACS' Committee on Unproven Methods of Cancer Management
Many alternative health doctors and providers charge the American Cancer Society with blackballing effective, albeit non-traditional, treatments. Critics claim the ACS attacks non-patentable, natural treatments in an effort to protect the interests of pharmaceutical companies. The main target of criticism: The ACS' controversial "Committee on Unproven Methods of Cancer Management." This Committee reviews unorthodox or alternative therapies, putting many of these treatments on the "Unproven Methods" list. Appearing on this list can mean literal ruin to any health practitioner. Dr. Stanislaw R. Burzynski, M.D., Ph.D., felt the full weight of just such an appearance. He was refused research money and raided by the FDA, which seized 200,000 documents from his clinic. But Dr. Burzynski stands by his method of treating cancer with antineoplastons, treating hundreds of patients a year with a relatively high success rate.
In Alternative Medicine, Burton Goldberg claims many of the treatments on the "Unproven Methods" list have never been demonstrated ineffective or dangerous. In fact, Goldberg states, "[These treatments] may not have been subjected to any tests at all -- neither by the American Cancer Society nor by any other agency, public or private. They merely seem ineffective in the light of prevailing theories of cancer etiology and therapy." Unfortunately, any practitioner assigned to this list is automatically considered a dangerous quack. Funding usually vanishes and the treatment fails before it has even undergone rigorous testing.
In fact, more than 100 promising alternative non-patented and nontoxic therapies have already been identified and discredited by the American Cancer Society in this way. Included among these are Tumor Necrosis Factor (originally called Coleys' Toxin), hydrazine sulfate, laetrile, Gersons therapy and Burzynski's antineoplastons. Practitioners, activists and cancer survivors are likening the "Unproven Methods" tactic to witch hunts that unfairly target natural therapies over toxic chemical therapies. Many have even called for a boycott of the ACS.
The American Cancer Society's mission statement says it is "dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and service." Unfortunately, the ACS' corporate entanglements, slippery priorities, and lack of vision may constrict this public agency from making any meaningful strides in the war against cancer.
The experts speak on The American Cancer Society
The American Medical Association (AMA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Cancer Institute (NCI), and American Cancer Society (ACS), as well as certain large corporations profit from the cancer industry. It is important to emphasize that this confederation of interests known as organized medicine consists principally of medical politicians and business interests, not practicing doctors. Physicians themselves have often objected to the unscientific rejection of alternative therapies and to restrictions on their own freedom to research or administer them.
When Healing Becomes A Crime by Kenny Ausubel, page 445
Having made his decision, Burzynski proceeded to experience, as his Baylor department chairman had predicted he would, the full-scale legal and regulatory terror of county, state, and national authorities. He was investigated by the Board of Ethics of the Harris County Medical Society on the charge of using unapproved medications; he was refused research money by mainstream funders who had previously funded him. Subsequently, he was to have his offices raided by the FDA, which seized 200,000 medical files and documents, and he was placed on the American Cancer Society's "unproven methods" list. He was sued by an insurance company and investigated by a Federal grand jury.
Choices In Healing by Michael Lerner, page 614
Corporate sponsors currently have formed "partnerships" with a number of leading nonprofit organizations, which allows them to pay for the right to use the organizations' names and logos in advertisements. The American Cancer Society reeled in $1 million from SmithKline Beecham for the right to use its logo in ads for Beecham's NicoDerm CQ and Nicorette anti-smoking aids.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 149
In spite of the almost universal experience of physicians to the contrary, the American Cancer Society still prattles to the public that their statistics show a higher recovery rate for treated patients as compared to untreated patients. After all, if this were not the case, why would anyone spend the money or accept the pain and disfigurement associated with these orthodox treatments? But how can they get away with such outright lies?
World Without Cancer by G Edward Griffin, page 146
Corporate sponsors have formed "partnerships" with a number of leading nonprofit organizations in which they pay for the right to use the organizations' names and logos in advertisements. Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, paid $600,000 to the American Heart Association for the right to display the AHA's name and logo in ads for its cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol. The American Cancer Society reeled in $ 1 million from SmithKline Beecham for the right to use its logo in ads for Beecham's NicoDerm CQ and Nicorette anti-smoking aids. Although the nonprofit organizations involved in these deals deny that the use of their names and logos constitutes an endorsement, the corporate sponsors have no such illusions. "PR pros view those third-party endorsements as invaluable ways to build goodwill among consumers for a client's product line," notes O'Dwyer's PR Services Report. For propriety's sake, however, a bit of discretion is necessary. "Don't use the word 'endorse' when speaking to executives from non-profits about their relationships with the private sector," O'Dwyer's advised. "The preferred non-profit vernacular is: recommended, sponsorship, approved, or partnership."
Trust Us We Are Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, page 16
It is natural for the careerist to gravitate into such apparently humanitarian organizations as the American Cancer Society. Not only does this provide him with the aura of status among his approving friends, but it also provides some pretty nice employment in a low-pressure field devoid of competition or of the economic necessity to show either a profit or even tangible results. In fact, it is the very lack of results that adds stature to his position and importance to his work.
World Without Cancer by G Edward Griffin, page 331
These are the best examples the American Cancer Society spokesman can come up with as proof that there is no suppression of innovation by the medical establishment! Nothing in the history of these innovations, nor of any of the other examples cited in this book, contradicts the view that new ideas often have a difficult time getting established and must face the indifference—and even the hostility—of vested interests.
The Cancer Industry by Ralph W Moss, page 438
…a 60 percent five-year survival rate, but Hodgkin's disease represents only about 1 percent of all cancers. Table 1.4 reflects the best available data on historical trends in cancer patient survival from the NCI Cancer Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program.8 (Results are much less encouraging than those claimed by the American Cancer Society on the basis of the same NCI Data.) This is the case despite the vast sums of money spent over the last 30 years, despite the high priorities for cancer research set by Congress, despite devotion of an entire federal agency (the National Cancer Institute) to the cancer problem, and in the face of continuing misleading and optimistic reassurances by the American Cancer Society.
The Politics Of Cancer by Samuel S Epstein MD, page 15
Each year, thousands of Americans travel to Mexico and Germany to receive Laetrile therapy. They do this because it has been suppressed in the United States. Most of these patients have been told that their cancer is terminal and they have but a few months to live. Yet, an incredible percentage of them have recovered and are living normal lives. However, the FDA, the AMA, the American Cancer Society, and the cancer research centers continue to pronounce that Laetrile is quackery. The recovered patients, they say, either had "spontaneous remissions" or never had cancer in the first place.
World Without Cancer by G Edward Griffin, page 22
It is clear that the American Cancer Society—or at least someone very high within it—is trying to give the American people a good old-fashioned snow job. The truth of the matter is—ACS statistics notwithstanding—orthodox medicine does not have "proven cancer cures," and what it does have is pitifully inadequate considering the prestige it enjoys, the money it collects, and the snobbish scorn it heaps upon those who do not wish to subscribe to its treatments.
World Without Cancer by G Edward Griffin, page 152
"The ordinary observer might assume that the treatments on this list have been demonstrated to be ineffective," continues Dr. Coulter. "That is not the case: they have not been subjected to any testing at all—neither by the American Cancer Society nor by any other agency, public or private. They merely seem ineffective in the light of prevailing theories of cancer etiology and therapy." Dr. Coulter doubts that any procedure on the "Unproven Methods" list will ever obtain the financing or bureaucratic approval needed to establish its therapeutic value. "Hence," he says, "characterizing a cancer therapy as 'unproven' is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the truest sense of the word. Competition by maverick researchers is effectively suppressed."
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 51
Predictably, spokesmen for the cancer establishment deny that the suppression of new ideas even takes place. "As a result of the medical profession's insistence upon reliable standards of proof of cure," according to the American Cancer Society's book Unproven Methods, "the proponents of unproven remedies are prone to charge that they are being persecuted by the 'medical trust' or 'organized medicine' " (ACS, I97ib:i8).
The Cancer Industry by Ralph W Moss, page 435
Another propaganda film with a similar approach was produced by the American Cancer Society and is called Journey Into Darkness. Featuring guest star Robert Ryan as the host, the film is a masterpiece of scripting and acting. Weaving several stories into one, it portrays the mental torture experienced by several cancer victims as they grapple with having to decide whether they should take the advice of their wise and kindly doctor and pursue proven orthodox treatments, or allow their fears and doubts to overcome their judgment and seek the unproven treatments of a medically untrained quack who promises miracle cures but whose only real interest is in how much money the patient can afford to pay. In the end, some make the "right" choice and resolve to follow the guidance of their doctor. Others make the "wrong" choice and begin their long and tragic journey into darkness.

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A cute, animated ball bounces around very sadly until he takes a magic potion; suddenly, it becomes happier than ever. No, that isn't the plot of a new children's movie. On the contrary, it's the storyline of a Zoloft commercial – yes, Zoloft, a powerful antidepressant drug. In the 1990s, direct-to-consumer advertising like this increased at a compounded-annually rate of 30 percent, according to Ian Morrison's book, Health Care in the New Millennium. In fact, by 1995, drug companies had tripled the amount of money they formerly allotted to consumer-directed advertising, writes to Gary Null in Death by Medicine. Since then, pharmaceutical advertising has grown to an entirely new, pop culture-savvy level.
These days, it's hard to tell the difference between pharmaceutical commercials and car commercials. Both are almost always intended to look "cool." Car and pharmaceutical commercials use the same hooks -- popular music, good acting and lofty promises -- to hook consumers and reel them in. Falling prey to car commercials results in little more than hefty car payments; however, becoming seduced by pharmaceutical companies can result in the consumer willingly taking powerful drugs, at the risk of serious illness and even death. In spite of this tremendous risk, pharmaceutical advertisements are becoming increasingly common and, unfortunately, increasingly effective.
In 2000, pharmaceutical companies spent $2.5 billion on mass media pharmaceutical advertisements, according to Mike Fillon in Ephedra: Fact or Fiction. This number increased to over $3 billion in 2003, according to Dr. John Abramson's book Overdosed America. In his book, Death by Prescription, Ray D. Strand looks at these high figures and poses the question: "Why?" Why do pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars on direct-to-consumer advertising, when consumers can only obtain prescriptions for these drugs through a doctor? Wouldn't it seem that consumers have no influence whatsoever on the success of a prescription drug, so advertising should be directed entirely toward doctors?
That makes sense, but it's not the way things work. Pharmaceutical companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars on direct-to-consumer advertising if it didn't work. In fact, the advertisements are working … too well. Fillon writes, "The average number of prescriptions per person in the United States increased from 7.3 in 1992 to 10.4 in 2000. Along with this increase in demand, there has been a shift towards the use of more expensive medications. It's more than a coincidence that many of the most expensive medications happen to be those medications that are most heavily advertised." In fact, between 1999 and 2000, prescriptions for the 50 most heavily advertised drugs rose six times faster than prescriptions for all other drugs, according to Katharine Greider's book, The Big Fix. So, how is direct-to-consumer advertising so effective in a system in which doctors write out the prescriptions?
Telling clever stories with misleading ads
Well, first, let's explore direct-to-consumer advertising, namely the television commercial. Most prescription drug commercials follow the same script progression: First, the commercial shows how bleak life was for a person or character before taking whatever prescription medicine the commercial is advertising. Then, the protagonist demonstrates or tells how wonderful life is while on the drug. Finally, a voiceover obligingly lists the side effects, often speaking as quickly and inaudibly as possible.
Take, for example, a Paxil commercial that was recently popular. At the beginning of the commercial, the typical 30-something-year-old woman is standing outside a house, looking through the window at the happy party going on inside. She looks so lonely and depressed that it must break nearly every consumer's heart. "What's wrong with her?" we compassionate humans gasp in unison. The voiceover answers our question as we think it: The woman has social anxiety disorder, a condition that can be treated with the prescription drug Paxil.
Suddenly, the now-medicated woman rings the doorbell and, with a huge smile on her face, joins the party. We see how much fun she is having and we are so happy for her! Of course, the voiceover quickly goes through the list of Paxil's potential side effects, but how can we concentrate on that, when we're so busy rejoicing at the woman's new happiness? Whoever wrote that commercial should write Hallmark movies. After seeing it a few times, I was convinced that most of my non-immediate family had social anxiety disorder and I even called one relative up to suggest that she take Paxil. I'm not even a gullible person, yet I was persuaded by pharmaceutical company advertising.
Doctors prescribe whatever the patient names
We are what Strand calls a "self-medicated" society. Consumers do not actually write their own prescriptions, but they practically do, based on whatever drugs they see advertised on television. Strand writes, "Surveys reported in our medical literature reveal that when a patient comes into a doctor's office and requests a specific drug that he has seen advertised in the media, the doctor writes the exact prescription the patient requested more than 70 percent of the time!"
So, let's say that a consumer who has been feeling a little sad lately sees a commercial for the antidepressant drug Zoloft. The commercial demonstrates the symptoms for depression and the consumer identifies with them. Suddenly, he or she thinks, "I'm not just sad. I'm depressed, which is a 'medical condition that can be treated by the prescription drug Zoloft.'" With this in mind, the consumer goes to a medical doctor and says, "I've been really depressed a lot lately. I've been [the consumer recites the depression symptoms listed in the Zoloft commercial]. I think I need Zoloft." So, according to Strand, there's a 70 percent chance the doctor will prescribe Zoloft, the exact prescription the consumer requested. That's how pharmaceutical commercials really work. They directly influence consumer behavior, yet drug companies claim they only "educate" patients, but don't persuade them to do anything.
Doctors are easy to manipulate, drug companies discover
You may be wondering why doctors base their prescriptions on the requests of their patients, who usually have no medical training whatsoever. That's a good question with a simple answer. The pharmaceutical-advertising machine seduces doctors, too.
According to Burton Goldberg's book, Alternative Medicine, paid pharmaceutical advertisements are the main source of the Journal of the American Medical Association's revenues. The American Psychological Association is equally under the pharmaceutical companies' spell, as 15 to 20 percent of the American Psychological Association's (APA) income comes from pharmaceutical advertisements in its journals.
In Innocent Casualties, Elaine Feuer calls these advertisements "intentionally misleading" because they promote the pharmaceutical by "exaggerating a drug's benefits while downplaying its hazards in small print in the addendum." This is very similar to the obligatory "side effects" voiceover recited at the end of a pharmaceutical television commercial; neither consumers nor doctors pay much notice to the "final voiceover" or "fine print."
Just in case advertisements in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) haven't properly seduced doctors, pharmaceutical companies take an extra promotional step by aggressively "detailing" doctors, which involves promoting drugs through door-to-door giveaways of free information and samples, according to Health Care in the New Millennium. Morrison writes that "Pfizer alone has 4,500 people in its sales force," but these employees' salaries are small change compared to the increased revenue they encourage.
The next time you watch television or read a magazine, pay special attention to pharmaceutical advertisements. Notice their promotional hooks and be grateful that you, unlike most consumers, are no longer susceptible to their influence. That's what knowledge, unlike naiveté, brings you.
The experts speak on pharmaceutical advertising:
In the pharmaceutical area, DTC advertising has been increasing in the late 1990s at a rate of around 30 percent compounded annually. Once prevented by regulation from advertising aggressively, pharmaceutical companies now see DTC advertising as a major source of stimulating demand for their product; they spent $1.3 billion on DTC advertising in 1998 alone. This has had two key effects: (1) it has built brand awareness and product awareness in the minds of end users (consumers), who are increasingly taking medications for chronic conditions in increasingly crowded and competitive therapeutic categories—cholesterol management, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, allergy, and other forms of respiratory ailments; and (2) more directly, it has encouraged users to visit their doctors and ask for the product by name.
Health Care in the New Millennium by Ian Morrison, page 44
In order to reach the widest audience possible, drug companies are no longer just targeting medical doctors with their message about antidepressants. By 1995 drug companies had tripled the amount of money allotted to direct advertising of prescription drugs to consumers. The majority of the money is spent on seductive television ads.
Death By Medicine by Gary Null PhD, page 13
In 2000, pharmaceutical companies spent $2.5 billion on mass media ads for prescription drugs. Admittedly, this is a small portion of the $101.6 billion spent on advertising of mainstream consumer products in the United States.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 75
The stage could not have been set more perfectly for prescription drug advertising to become a major force in American medicine. And so it did. In 1991 the drug companies spent a paltry $55 million on advertising drugs directly to consumers. Over the next 11 years, this increased more than 50-fold to over $3 billion in 2003. The ads appeal to viewers as independent decision makers—capable of forming their own opinions about which drugs they need—and resonate with the growing concern that HMOs and managed care plans tend to withhold the best care to save money.
Overdosed America by John Abramson MD, page 81
While $3 billion in advertising may seem like an awful lot, rest assured that the drug companies aren't worried. Why? Americans are expected to spend over $500 billion on drugs this year—not including the extra $100 billion estimated for the Medicare drug benefit program. Spending on prescription drugs is now the fastest growing portion of healthcare spending in the United States.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 176
Many of us don't find the amount of money spent on marketing prescription drugs to physicians surprising, but when considering the billions of dollars spent on marketing prescription drugs to the public, don't you wonder why? After all, you can obtain prescriptions only through a doctor. Pharmaceutical companies are willing to spend this kind of advertising money on only their most recently approved medication.
Death By prescription by Ray D Strand, page 48
The average number of prescriptions per person in the United States increased from 7.3 in 1992 to 10.4 in 2000. Along with this increase in demand, there has been a shift toward the use of more expensive medications. It's more than a coincidence that many of the most expensive medications happen to be those medications that are most heavily advertised.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 77
According to a report prepared by the National Institute for Health Care Management, a nonprofit research foundation created by the Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plans, the fifty most-advertised prescription medicines contributed significantly last year to the increase in the nation's spending on drugs. The increases in the sales of the fifty drugs that were most heavily advertised to consumers accounted for almost half the $20.8 billion increase in drug spending last year, according to the study. The remainder of the spending increase came from 9,850 prescription medicines that companies did not advertise, or advertised very little. The study attributed the spending increase to a boost in the number of prescriptions for the fifty drugs, and not from a rise in their price.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 77
Pharmaceutical companies are in business to make money; with the exception of over-the-counter medications that will be sold in great numbers, the only way a pharmaceutical company can make lots of money is by developing medications that can be patented. Natural herbs and foods as well as medications that can no longer be patented won't be "pushed" in advertising because there's no real money to be made on them.
Attaining Medical Self Efficiency An Informed Citizens Guide by Duncan Long, page 11
Not surprisingly the "super aspirin" have received lots of favorable press on the TV since there's money to be made. With the dollars pharmaceutical companies make, translating into greater advertising revenues for broadcasters and publishers, the rush is push the super aspirin and play up the "dangers" of common aspirin.
Attaining Medical Self Efficiency An Informed Citizens Guide by Duncan Long, page 13
The cheap-but-effective medications that can't be patented are also kept out of the limelight by the big companies paying for advertising and the mass media intent on making money through advertising.
Attaining Medical Self Efficiency An Informed Citizens Guide by Duncan Long, page 19
When you go into a pharmacy to get a prescription filled, you can often pay considerably less by choosing a "generic" drug over a brand name. The generic drugs are often made by the same manufacturer as the name-brand medication — the extra price is in the packaging and advertising. Even when a different company makes the generic medication, it is every bit as good as the brand name because it is required to meet certain standards before it can be sold in the US.
Attaining Medical Self Efficiency An Informed Citizens Guide by Duncan Long, page 183
In contrast, most physicians are unaware of the considerable risks and limited benefits of commonly used prescription cholesterol-lowering agents. In addition, since niacin is a widely available "generic" agent, no pharmaceutical company stands to generate the huge profits that the other lipid-lowering agents have enjoyed. As a result, niacin does not enjoy the intensive advertising that the HMG CoA reductase inhibitors and gemfibrozil enjoy. Despite the advantages of niacin over other lipid-lowering drugs, niacin accounts for only 7.9 percent of all lipid-lowering prescriptions.

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Pregnant women plagued by cravings for pickles and ice cream must remember to include plenty of folic acid in their diets. Shown to reduce the risk of miscarriage and birth defects, folic acid – found primarily in leafy green vegetables – is an absolute necessity for any woman who is pregnant or is considering becoming pregnant. In fact, "health officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommend that all women of childbearing age take folic acid (0.4 mg daily) to protect their future newborns from developing a neural tube defect, an anomaly of the spinal cord," writes Burton Goldberg in Alternative Medicine.
However, it's not just expectant moms who could stand to add more leafy greens to their plates. Because it is useful in combating everything from acne and canker sores to osteoporosis and cancer, we could all benefit from adding more folic acid to our diets. Along with pregnant women, elderly individuals and people suffering from depression or nervous system disorders especially stand to gain from the addition of this B vitamin.
Folic acid, the synthetic form of the B vitamin folate, works primarily in the brain and nervous system and is necessary for the synthesis of DNA, the production of red and white blood cells and of norepinephrine and serotonin in the nervous system. Folic acid also aids in the elimination of the amino acid homocysteine from the blood, a breakdown product of animal protein (methionine, actually) that contributes to heart attacks. A lack of folic acid can lead to anemia, insomnia, irritability and far more serious health problems.
Despite its range of health benefits, many Americans are deficient in the vitamin, coming nowhere near the government's recommended daily allowance of 200 micrograms daily. "The average American gets only 61 percent of the old Recommended Dietary Allowance, which is too low anyway," says James Duke, PhD in Anti-Aging Prescriptions. Part of the reason for the shortfall is that more Americans are choosing to eat more animal foods – which are a poor source of folic acid – rather than folic-acid rich plant foods, like dark green vegetables, legumes, root vegetables and whole grains.
Dr. Andrew Weil, in Ask Dr. Weil, recommends the use of supplements to make up for the deficiency. "As many as 90 percent of Americans don't get that protective 400 micrograms in their diet – for example, you'd have to eat two cups of steamed spinach, a cup of boiled lentils, or eight oranges every day. So it's important to take a supplement, especially if you're a woman and considering having children someday." As Dr. Weil suggests, for women who are deficient in this essential vitamin, the health costs can be especially high.
Folic acid is essential for pregnant women. Not only does it protect against cervical cancer, it also aids in healthy prenatal development and can significantly reduce the risk of serious neural tube birth defects and abnormalities that occur in very early fetal development, such as spina bifida. However, experts say most women aren't getting adequate levels of folic acid early enough to offer the best protection against birth defects.
"Very few women of child bearing years are taking folic acid… If a person waits until pregnant, the fetal abnormality is already established. All women of child-bearing age who might become pregnant should be taking 400 mg of folic acid," advises Dr. James Howenstine in A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work. To make matters even more difficult, women who take birth control pills are especially prone to deficiency in the B vitamin since birth control pills actually produce folic acid deficiency.
Men planning to become fathers need to monitor their folic acid intake as well, as low folic acid levels in males has been linked to low sperm count, and some studies suggest deficiency can also damage DNA carried by the sperm. Such damaged DNA could lead to chromosomal damage in a fetus, according to Bottom Line Yearbook 2004. In other words, both men and women who plan to have children should increase their folic acid intake for the sake of their baby-to-be.
Folic acid promotes good health for the mind and body, from the earliest stages of life to the latest. Men and women over 60 who feel fatigued and depressed may simply be suffering from a folic acid deficiency. In fact, folic acid deficiency has been linked to depression in patients of all ages, and according to Gary Null'sComplete Guide of Natural Healing, "the lower the level of folic acid in the blood, the higher the degree of depression."
Folic acid can also help ward off dementia, according to Patrick Quillin in Beating Cancer With Nutrition, who wrote that experts estimate up to 20 percent of senility in older adults is simply the result of a long-term deficiency of folic acid and vitamin B-12, which can be aided by taking supplements. However, when taking folic acid supplements, it is important to remember that folic acid and vitamin B-12 work most effectively together, so you should make sure you are getting enough vitamin B-12, as well. Vegans often struggle with this balance since their diets are very rich in folic acid but not in B-12.
The meager representation of folic acid in the American diet can be increased if we all just take a little more care in planning our meals. One way to up folic acid consumption is to make sure your diet includes raw foods, since heat from cooking easily destroys folic acid. And remember, sources of folic acid are plentiful – soybeans, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, peanuts, asparagus, citrus fruits, brussels sprouts, avocado, sunflower seeds, orange juice and don't forget those leafy greens – we just have to be willing to integrate these foods into our diets.
And who wouldn't be willing? After all, some added folic acid could go a long way in helping keep your nervous and circulatory systems in check, while also protecting your body from cancer and heart problems, as well as promoting healthy fetal development in babies. Folic acid is something we need at all stage of life, so we owe it to ourselves to get enough.
The experts speak on folic acid
General information on folic acid
A study is available from the Washington Council for Responsible Nutrition that reports women taking Vitamin E over age 50 and folic acid and Zinc during childbearing years would save Medicare 11 billion dollars, and overall reduce birth defects and coronary heart disease hospital expenses of 20 billion dollars per year.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 100
WHAT IS IT? Even though your body needs only comparatively minuscule amounts of folic acid, it is a vital nutrient. Folic acid—along with all the other nutrients, of course—is your guarantee of optimum physical and mental health. Your levels of folic acid are dependent on outside sources; your body does not make it on its own. Furthermore, it needs vitamin C to work properly. It works in partnership with B12 and B6, as well as the other B vitamins. Folic acid is essential to the production of norepinephrine and serotonin, chemical go-betweens of the nervous system.
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 284
Folic acid is one of the B vitamins that is crucial for the synthesis of DNA (genetic material) as well as for many other important cell functions. It was discovered in spinach leaves in 1941 and was named "folate," after the Latin word for leaf (folium). The terms folate and folic acid are roughly synonymous. For the sake of simplicity, I will generally use the latter term. Not surprisingly, this vitamin is mainly found in green leafy vegetables. Although folic acid is not an antioxidant, it boosts the antioxidant network and thus has a place in our story.
Antioxidants Against Cancer by Ralph Moss PhD, page 92
WHO NEEDS folic acid? If you are pregnant, elderly, or suffer from any sort of nervous disorder, you may benefit from additional amounts of folic acid in your diet. Pregnant women, for instance, must be wary of folic acid deficiency. Folic acid supplementation has been helpful in preventing abortion and miscarriage. The elderly need additional folic acid, too. If you are over sixty and depressed, withdrawn, and chronically tired, you may be deficient in this vital element. Let's look at the results of a study in which folic acid was added to the diets of elderly individuals: three groups of patients were used, all with varying degrees of circulation problems. The first group, those with the least degree of difficulty, experienced improved vision less than an hour after receiving folic acid. (Among those with circulatory problems, vision is often impaired because of poor circulation to the optical tissues.)
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 284
Folic acid: a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex essential for the synthesis of nucleic acids and necessary for making red blood cells (hematopoiesis), so a deficiency of folic acid results in anemia. After absorption, it is successively reduced to dihydro-folic acid and then tetrahydrofolic acid, the parent compound of the derivatives that act as coenzyme carriers of one-carbon groups in various metabolic reactions.
Building Wellness with DMG by Roger V Kendall PhD, page 216
Red blood cells are built with Vitamins B-12, folic acid, and B6.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 100
And remember, folic acid can be destroyed by exposure to heat and strong light.
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 286
Recommendations on folic acid
Doctors routinely advise women who are pregnant, or thinking of becoming pregnant, to supplement folic acid (a B vitamin also known as folate) as a means of safeguarding against birth defects such as spinal malformations.
Anti-Aging Prescriptions by James Duke PhD, page 219
It is becoming increasingly obvious that food supplementation is necessary to prevent cancer and other diseases. The prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in 1998 called for supplementation with folic acid and vitamin B12.
Antioxidants Against Cancer by Ralph Moss PhD, page 10
If you're concerned that your diet might not provide enough vitamin B6 and folic acid to prevent stroke, Dr. Lieberman suggests taking supplements of both nutrients. Aim for 300 milligrams of B6 and 800 micrograms of folic acid a day Vitamin B6 doses this high, however, should only be taken under medical supervision. Add E for extra protection.
Blended Medicine by Michael Castleman, page 10
Vegetarians owe it to themselves to be extra careful about their diets. As Richard W. Vilter, M.D., of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, warns, "Persons who eat absolutely no animal protein (called vegans) or extreme vegetarians have no source of vitamin B12, but much folic acid in their diets." Frequently in such subjects, neurologic abnormalities develop of the posterolateral column degeneration type. This is a situation analogous to a patient with pernicious anemia who is treated inadequately with a mixed vitamin capsule containing folic acid." There is another danger for those who abstain from animal foods, including dairy products: dietary deficiencies don't show up for five to ten years because the body is able to hold some B12 in reserve. Nerve damage may exist without signs of deficiency until it is too late. The result of degeneration of the nervous system and the spinal cord is so irreparable that death may be the result.
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 283
Benefits and uses of folic acid
Folic acid is important during the aging process because it provides nourishment for the brain. Folic acid supports the production of energy and the production of blood cells. Supplementing with folic acid may help in the treatment of depression.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 321
Three to four hundred milligrams of vitamin B5 and 150 mg of B6 should be consumed on a daily basis, while prescriptions of folic acid can serve as natural hormone replacements. Adequate quantities of essential fatty acids should also be consumed because they act as natural hormone supplements, prevent cancer, and can alleviate the symptoms of aging.
Complete Encyclopedia Of Natural Healing by Gary Null PhD, page 258
Folic acid, the synthetic form of the B vitamin folate, is incredibly important. For one thing, folate is a key regulator of an amino acid called homocysteine, a breakdown product of animal protein. A number of studies have connected high levels of homocysteine in the blood to arterial disease and heart attacks. Folate helps the body eliminate homocysteine from the blood. Recently, Dr. Howard Morrison, an epidemiologist in Ottawa, was able to make a direct connection between folate and heart disease. He looked at folate levels in the blood of 5,056 men who had participated in a nutrition study in the 1970s, and he found that those with low levels of the vitamin were 69 percent more likely to have died from heart problems in the years since. Folate also has been found to prevent neural tube defects (such as spina bifida and anencephaly) in babies, which are caused when this structure fails to form properly. The neural tube is the embryonic tissue that later becomes the brain and spinal cord. Apparently folic acid is essential to its proper development. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration ordered pasta, rice, and flour makers to add folic acid to their foods as protection against birth defects.
Ask Dr Weil by Andrew Weil MD, page 98
Proper nutritional supplementation can significantly improve cardiovascular conditions, as well as prevent them from occurring in the first place. Useful nutrients include beta carotene; vitamins B3 (niacin), Be, B12, C, and E; folic acid; the minerals calcium, chromium, magnesium, potassium, and selenium; the amino acids L-arginine, L-taurine, and L-carnitine; coenzyme Q10; and pycnogenol.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 771
According to some studies, folic acid has been helpful in relieving depression, even when used in dosages as low as 400 meg. It can also enhance cerebral circulation. One study showed that people with low levels of folic acid were twice as likely as people with adequate levels to have narrowed arteries in their necks. Psychiatric symptoms also appear to be much higher in people, particularly elderly people, who have low folic acid levels. In one study, low folic acid levels increased likelihood of dementia by 300 percent. folic acid is especially effective at breaking down the common chemical homocysteine, which is a neurotoxin. An appropriate daily dosage would be 400 meg, the amount found in many multiple vitamins.
Brain Longevity by Dharma Singh Khalsa M.D. with Cameron Stauth, page 247
Folic acid: This is another member of the vitamin B family, found in abundance in liver, kidney, mushrooms, spinach, yeast and green leafy vegetables. It has been used for decades to prevent and treat certain forms of anemia. But folic acid also increases the production of white blood cells crucial in the defense against cancer. In the late 1980s, scientists at the University of Alabama Medical Center found that the folic acid in dark leafy vegetables, oranges and liver could act together with vitamin B to prevent injuries to lung tissue and retard the development of cancer among cigarette smokers. These researchers found that smokers whose lung cells were injured had low levels of both folic acid and vitamin B12. Since these nutrients are necessary to synthesize DNA, a deficiency of one or both of these vitamins could make cells more susceptible to the effects of carcinogens. These vitamins also offered protection against birth defects and cancerous changes in cervical cells.
Cancer Therapy by Ralph W Moss PhD, page 42
Floss one to two times daily and then rinse mouth (for one minute) with several mouthfuls of liquid folic acid (0.1% solution) and then swallow. In one study, 60 individuals with gingivitis rinsed for one minute two times daily and had beneficial results. If you cannot find liquid folic acid, buy folic acid crystals in 800 meg capsules, empty two capsules in water and use this to gargle.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 1055
Lipotropic factors are compounds that promote the transportation and utilization of fats, and help prevent the accumulation of fat in the liver. They include methionine, choline, folic acid, and vitamin B12.
Cancer And Natural Medicine by John Boik, page 140
Folic acid helps against uric acid.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 560
The four B vitamins that are most important for your brain are B12, B6, B3, and folic acid.
Brain Longevity by Dharma Singh Khalsa M.D. with Cameron Stauth, page 246
The body uses 75-99% of its Calcium, with Phosphorus, Boron, Manganese, Silica, Magnesium, Copper, Zinc, Strontium; Protein; the Vitamins A, B-Complex, B6, folic acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K to form bone tissue and teeth.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 800
The primary nutritional building blocks of both neurotransmitters are the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine. To potentiate the action of these amino acids, folic acid, magnesium, and vitamins C and B can be taken.
Brain Longevity by Dharma Singh Khalsa M.D. with Cameron Stauth, page 213
Part of the vitamin B complex, folic acid is necessary for synthesis of nucleic acids and formation of the heme component of hemoglobin in red blood cells.
Britannica Encyclopedia Volume One, page 674
[Folic acid] is especially helpful for patients with a history of breast cancer, cervical dysplasia, and smoking. For smokers, it cuts down on the adverse effects of nicotine on the lungs.
Complete Encyclopedia Of Natural Healing by Gary Null PhD, page 84
Treatments using folic acid
Folic acid is also used in the treatment of cervical dysplasia, a pre-cancerous condition of the uterus, and for this reason is also given to women who take birth control pills or who are pregnant.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 410
Nerves on edge? Folic acid can help. The Lancet, Britain's prestigious medical journal, reports, "In the past decade [however] there has been increasing interest in the role of folate [folic acid] in neuronal metabolism, in neuropsychiatric illness, and in antiepileptic and convulsant mechanisms." When a folic acid deficiency occurs, your nervous system suffers, because there is normally such a high folate concentration in your cerebrospinal fluid. In many psychiatric and geriatric patients with mental dysfunctions, deficiency is common. "This is a promising area for future research," The Lancet adds.
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 285
Dr. Aesoph adds that chromium aids in stabilizing the erratic blood sugar seen in alcoholic hypoglycemia, while choline and folic acid are also commonly cited as important supplements to assist in the body's recovery from addiction.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 480
Homocysteinemia: Persons with elevated levels of homocysteine are at risk for arteriosclerosis. This can and should be corrected with adequate amounts of folic acid, B 12, pyridoxine, and trimethylglycine. The only way you can be sure you are getting adequate amount of therapy is to regularly monitor blood levels of homocysteine. Current estimates are that 30 to 40% of arterial disease is related to high levels of homocysteine.
A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work By James Howenstine MD, page 220
Vitamin B may help for premenstrual or mid-menstrual cycle acne. Coexisting gum problems suggest the need for folic acid.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 988
[For] pins and needles in the legs, take folic acid and B-12.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 1100
Take 5 grams Vitamin C, 1 gram Calcium. 1/2 gram Magnesium, 100 mg. B-Complex, extra B6, B-12. and folic acid (for severe depression, requires Vitamin C for absorption).
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 800
Find relief in folic acid. One study found that women who experienced problems with constipation had low levels of the B vitamin folic acid in their blood. When the women began taking folic acid supplements, all of their symptoms subsided. Try taking up to 5,000 micrograms a day until the condition subsides, advises clinical nutritionist Shari Lieberman, Ph.D. But check with your doctor first, since dosages of folic acid over 1,000 micrograms should only be taken under medical supervision.
Blended Medicine by Michael Castleman, page 11
Herpes may be helped overnight by chewing folic acid with 500 mg. L-Lysine twice daily, and Zinc tablets.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 455
If agitation or hyperactivity is seen, it is recommended that folic acid should be given in the amount of two 800 microgram tablets for each 125 mg of DMG taken.
Building Wellness with DMG by Roger V Kendall PhD, page 116
Disease prevention with folic acid
Folic acid, a B vitamin, is now known to prevent neural tube defects like spina bifida, a serious abnormality of early fetal development. Unfortunately, by the time most women learn they are pregnant, the critical period has already passed. A major source of folic acid is the cooked greens recommended in the program (another is orange juice). If you are contemplating pregnancy or think there is any possibility that you could get pregnant, for insurance take a daily B-complex vitamin supplement providing 400 micrograms of folic acid.
8 Weeks To Optimum Health By Andrew Weil MD, page 222
Women taking 400 mg of folic acid also have a decreased risk of heart attack and protection against Alzheimer's Disease and stroke. After 15 years of 400 mg of folic acid there is a 75% reduction in the number of women who get colon cancer.
A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work By James Howenstine MD, page 19
According to University of Washington researchers, 13,500 to 50,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease could be prevented every year if everyone took folic acid (the supplement form of folate) every day. All you need is 200 micrograms a day.
Anti-Aging Prescriptions by James Duke PhD, page 145
SPINA BIFIDA. Failure of the spinal bones to close over nerves arising from the lower end of the spinal cord. May cause paralysis of the legs and incontinence. Associated with poverty, bad housing and is more common in Celtic races and among the sikhs. Most common cause is folic acid deficiency. Prevention only. A woman of childbearing age should increase her consumption of food rich in folic acid, such as Brussels sprouts, spinach, green beans, oranges, potatoes, wholemeal bread, yeast extract. New evidence suggests health is determined before birth by a mother's condition during pregnancy. The UK Department of Health advises 400 micrograms (0.4mg) folic acid until the twelfth week of pregnancy.
Bartrams Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine by Thomas Bartram, page 25
Perhaps as much as 30 percent of all heart disease is directly caused by high homocysteine levels, he says. That's the bad news. The good news is that three B vitamins—folic acid, B6, and B12—can help convert homocysteine to methionine or cystine, thus protecting your heart. Dr. Baum recommends taking 800 to 1,000 micrograms of folic acid, 400 micrograms of vitamin B12, and 50 milligrams of vitamin B6 daily.
Alternative Cures by Bill Gottlieb, page 337
...Other nutrients may be equally critical to the prevention of osteoporosis. "Vitamin K, silicon, boron, folic acid, magnesium, and manganese all play a role in bone building and need to be consumed through diet or supplements," he says. To prevent osteoporosis, you must get sufficient levels and the proper ratio of these bone nutrients.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 840
Sources of folic acid
Folic acid, a B vitamin found in green leafy vegetables, nuts, and whole grains, can prevent neural tube defects in fetuses.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 866
Greens are high in vitamins and minerals, including iron and calcium in forms that the body can absorb and use more readily than supplements. For example, they are a major source of folic acid (folate), a B vitamin that regulates protein metabolism and offers significant protection against coronary heart disease. ("Folate" and "foliage" share the same root.)
8 Weeks To Optimum Health By Andrew Weil MD, page 141
Eat at least eight servings of fruits and vegetables each day. These high-fiber, low-fat foods are typically rich in folic acid and other B vitamins, which reduce the risk for heart disease by helping to prevent arterial blood clots.
Bottom Line Yearbook 2002 by Bottom Line Personnel, page 331
The leafy green that Popeye made famous is among the best plant sources of folate. All you need is 200 micrograms a day. You can get more than that from 1/2 cup of spinach (or lentils, pinto beans, lima beans, black-eyed peas, or sunflower seeds) or a cup or two of spinach soup. What a pleasant way to stave off stroke and heart attack! Of course, spinach and beans aren't the only great sources of folate. Others include parsley, cabbage, asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, endive, okra, avocado, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and orange juice.
Anti-Aging Prescriptions by James Duke PhD, page 145
A major source of folic acid is the cooked greens recommended in the program (another is orange juice).
8 Weeks To Optimum Health By Andrew Weil MD, page 222
Beetroot is rich in potassium, folic acid, and the antioxidant glutathione.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 173
Legumes: Peas and beans, such as kidney, lima, soybean, navy, black, and lentils, are loaded with protein, folic acid, and amino acids.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 192
Diets rich in folic acid and B vitamins would turn out to have such powerful benefits for the heart that they could outweigh such "sins" as moderate red meat intake. Could the public be blamed for its confusion?
Betrayal Of Trust By Laurie Garrett, page 394
Folic acid—This substance protects against cervical cancer and is necessary for proper synthesis of RNA and DNA. It is found in beets, cabbage, dark leafy vegetables, eggs, dairy products, citrus fruits, and most fish.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 591
Dietary folate sources include leafy and dark green vegetables, citrus fruits, cereals, beans, poultry, and egg yolks, but free folic acid occurs only in supplements.
Britannica Encyclopedia Volume One, page 674
Folic acid [is] found in whole grains, chickpeas, soybeans, spinach, broccoli, and cabbage)…
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 745
Probiotics help suppress the growth of yeast, improve digestion by increasing the production of some enzymes, produce acids that fight bacteria, and manufacture nutrients such as vitamins K, Bi, B2, B3, B12, and folic acid.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 908
Foods rich in folic acid include spinach and other dark green leafy vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, and whole wheat.
Blended Medicine by Michael Castleman, page 10
Many women have also long esteemed certain wild mushrooms, which some thought to be special gifts from Mother Earth. As we now know, naturally grown mushrooms (as opposed to commercial mushrooms grown in the dark) contain folic acid, which helps to prevent birth defects. These delicious and abundant choices, which do not have any poisonous look-alikes, can be eaten when they are underripe.
American Indian Healing Arts by E.Barrie Kavasch and Karen Baar, page 146
Folic acid deficiencies
Folic acid may be the most common vitamin deficiency in the world, since more people are choosing animal foods (poor source of folic acid) over plant foods. The name, folic acid, comes from the Latin term "folium", meaning foliage, since dark green leafy vegetables are a rich source of folic acid. Other good sources of folic acid include brewer's yeast, legumes, asparagus, oranges, cabbage, root vegetables and whole grains. Since folic acid is essential for all new cell growth, disturbances in folic acid metabolism are far reaching, including heart disease (due to more homocysteine in the blood), birth defects, immune suppression, cancer, premature senility and a long list of other conditions. Without adequate folate in the diet, cell growth is like a drunk driver heading down the highway—more likely to do some harm than not.
Beating Cancer With Nutrition by Patrick Quillin, page 180
Birth Control Pills: These pills produce folic acid deficiency. Where there is a lack of folic acid, homocysteine blood levels rise and this is associated with osteoporosis.
A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work By James Howenstine MD, page 130
Men Need folic acid too. Low folic acid levels in men are associated with low sperm count. A recent study has led investigators to hypothesize that low folic acid could also damage the DNA that sperm carry—which could lead to chromosomal damage in a fetus. Self-defense: Eat plenty of folate-rich fruits and vegetables and fortified grain products.
Bottom Line Yearbook 2004 by Bottom Line Personnel, page 334
B12 anemia is often accompanied by folic acid anemia. One of the reasons folic acid is important is that it fosters healthy prenatal development: It aids in the prevention of birth defects, such as those of the neural tube, and is crucial for proper cell production in the growing fetus. Folic acid is easily consumed by heat; hence, diets that consist primarily of cooked foods, with few raw foods included, often result in this type of deficiency. In addition, young children may develop a folic acid deficiency if they are given goat's milk. (Although superior to cow's milk in many ways, goat's milk lacks folic acid.) Teenagers and adults who are vegetarians may also fall victim to this form of anemia if they do not carefully balance their diets. Finally, folic acid anemia can be induced by alcoholism, which completely drains the body of this nutrient, and by the consumption of certain prescription drugs, such as oral contraceptives and anticancer drugs.
Complete Encyclopedia Of Natural Healing by Gary Null PhD, page 32
Experts have estimated that up to 20% of all senility in older adults is merely a long term deficiency of folic acid and vitamin B-12. The RDA of folate is 200 meg for adults and 400 meg for pregnant women, although the Center for Disease Control has recommended that 800 meg of folic acid would prevent most cases of spinal bifida. Without adequate folic acid in the body, there is a buildup of homocysteine in the blood, which probably generates 10% or more of the 1 million cases of heart disease each year in the U.S.
Beating Cancer With Nutrition by Patrick Quillin, page 180
Deficiencies of folic acid and vitamin B12 may cause some cases of recurrent canker sores, says Flora Parsa Stay, D.D.S., a dentist in Oxnard, California. If you have recurrent sores, she recommends taking 400 micrograms of folic acid and 200 micrograms of vitamin B12 daily.
Alternative Cures by Bill Gottlieb, page 142
Persons with AIDS are often deficient in folic acid, selenium, zinc, and iron.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 497
Deficiencies in vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid can trigger such neurological changes as a drop in alertness and memory ability as well as numbness and tingling in the legs.
BioMarkers by Williams Evans PhD and Irwin H Rosenberg MD, page 250
Reduced levels of certain vitamins, minerals, and amino acids have been tentatively linked with Alzheimer's, including folic acid, niacin (vitamin B3), thiamin (vitamin Bi), vitamins Be, B12, C, D, and E, magnesium, selenium, zinc, and tryptophan.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 524
The elderly generally are deficient in Calories, Protein, Iron, Vitamins A and C, Calcium, the B-Complex, especially B-12 and folic acid, and that's with 70% of the elderly in institutions where the diets are carefully planned.
Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, page 315
Low levels of folic acid, vitamin B12, pyridoxine, iron, and magnesium are some of the most commonly implicated nutritional influences on depression.
Beat Depression with St John's Wort by Steven Bratman, page 103
[Folate] anemia resulting from too little folic acid, needed for red-blood-cell maturation (see erythrocyte). White-cell and platelet levels are also often low. Progressive gastrointestinal problems develop. It may result from poor diet or from malabsorption, cirrhosis of the liver, or anticonvulsant drugs; it may also occur in the last three months of pregnancy and in severe hemolytic anemia (in which red cells break down). The blood profile resembles that of pernicious anemia. Taking folic acid causes rapid improvement; an adequate diet cures cases caused by malnutrition.
Britannica Encyclopedia Volume One, page 674

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2008-02-01T06:05:00.001-08:00

The CIA continues a limited number of MKULTRA plans by beginning Project MKSEARCH to develop and test ways of using biological, chemical and radioactive materials in intelligence operations, and also to develop and test drugs that are able to produce predictable changes in human behavior and physiology (Goliszek).
Dr. Henry Beecher writes, "The well-being, the health, even the actual or potential life of all human beings, born or unborn, depend upon the continuing experimentation in man. Proceed it must; proceed it will. 'The proper study of mankind is man,'" in his "exposé" on human medical experimentation Research and the Individual ("Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After").
U.S. Army scientists drop light bulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis through ventilation gates and into the New York City subway system, exposing more than one million civilians to the bacteria (Goliszek).
The National Commission for the Protection of Research Subjects issues its Policies for the Protection of Human Subjects, which eventually creates what we now know as institutional review boards (IRBs) (Sharav).
(1967)
Continuing on his Dow Chemical Company-sponsored dioxin study without the company's knowledge or consent, University of Pennsylvania Professor Albert Kligman increases the dosage of dioxin he applies to 10 prisoners' skin to 7,500 micrograms, 468 times the dosage Dow official Gerald K. Rowe had authorized him to administer. As a result, the prisoners experience acne lesions that develop into inflammatory pustules and papules (Kaye).
The CIA places a chemical in the drinking water supply of the FDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. to see whether it is possible to spike drinking water with LSD and other substances (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).
In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers inject pregnant women with radioactive cortisol to see if the radioactive material will cross the placentas and affect the fetuses (Goliszek).
The U.S. Army pays Professor Kligman to apply skin-blistering chemicals to Holmesburg Prison inmates' faces and backs, so as to, in Professor Kligman's words, "learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process," information which would have both offensive and defensive applications for the U.S. military (Kaye).
The CIA and Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories begin an extensive program for developing drugs that can influence human behavior. This program includes Project OFTEN -- which studies the toxicology, transmission and behavioral effects of drugs in animal and human subjects -- and Project CHICKWIT, which gathers European and Asian drug development information (Goliszek).
Professor Kligman develops Retin-A as an acne cream (and eventually a wrinkle cream), turning him into a multi-millionaire (Kaye).
Researchers paralyze 64 prison inmates in California with a neuromuscular compound called succinylcholine, which produces suppressed breathing that feels similar to drowning. When five prisoners refuse to participate in the medical experiment, the prison's special treatment board gives researchers permission to inject the prisoners with the drug against their will (Greger).
(1968)
Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Central Texas and the Southwest Foundation for Research and Education begin an oral contraceptive study on 70 poverty-stricken Mexican-American women, giving only half the oral contraceptives they think they are receiving and the other half a placebo. When the results of this study are released a few years later, it stirs tremendous controversy among Mexican-Americans (Sharav, Sauter).
(1969)
President Nixon ends the United States' offensive biowarfare program, including human experimentation done at Fort Detrick. By this time, tens of thousands of civilians and members of the U.S. armed forces have wittingly and unwittingly acted as participants in experiments involving exposure to dangerous biological agents (Goliszek).
The U.S. military conducts DTC Test 69-12, which is an open-air test of VX and sarin nerve agents at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, likely exposing military personnel (Goliszek, Martin).
Experimental drugs are tested on mentally disabled children in Milledgeville, Ga., without any institutional approval whatsoever (Sharav).
Dr. Donald MacArthur, the U.S. Department of Defense's Deputy Director for Research and Technology, requests $10 million from Congress to develop a synthetic biological agent that would be resistant "to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease" (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).
Judge Sam Steinfield's dissent in Strunk v. Strunk, 445 S.W.2d 145 marks the first time a judge has ever suggested that the Nuremberg Code be applied in American court cases (Sharav).
(1970)
A year after his request, under H.R. 15090, Dr. MacArthur receives funding to begin CIA-supervised mycoplasma research with Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division and hopefully create a synthetic immunosuppressive agent. Some experts believe that this research may have inadvertently created HIV, the virus that causes AIDS (Goliszek).
Under order from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also sponsored the Tuskegee Experiment, the free childcare program at Johns Hopkins University collects blood samples from 7,000 African-American youth, telling their parents that they are checking for anemia but actually checking for an extra Y chromosome (XYY), believed to be a biological predisposition to crime. The program director, Digamber Borganokar, does this experiment without Johns Hopkins University's permission (Greger, Merritte, et al.).
(1971)
President Nixon converts Fort Detrick from an offensive biowarfare lab to the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center, now known as the National Cancer Institute at Frederick. In addition to cancer research, scientists study virology, immunology and retrovirology (including HIV) there. Additionally, the site is home to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute, which researches drugs, vaccines and countermeasures for biological warfare, so the former Fort Detrick does not move far away from its biowarfare past (Goliszek).
Stanford University conducts the Stanford Prison Experiment on a group of college students in order to learn the psychology of prison life. Some students are given the role as prison guards, while the others are given the role of prisoners. After only six days, the proposed two-week study has to end because of its psychological effects on the participants. The "guards" had begun to act sadistic, while the "prisoners" started to show signs of depression and severe psychological stress (University of New Hampshire).
An article entitled "Viral Infections in Man Associated with Acquired Immunological Deficiency States" appears in Federation Proceedings. Dr. MacArthur and Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division have, at this point, been conducting mycoplasma research to create a synthetic immunosuppressive agent for about one year, again suggesting that this research may have produced HIV (Goliszek).
(1972)
In studies sponsored by the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi gives LSD to mental patients at the University of Missouri Institute of Psychiatry and the University of Minnesota Hospital to study "ego strength" (Barker).
(1973)
An Ad Hoc Advisory Panel issues its Final Report on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, writing, "Society can no longer afford to leave the balancing of individual rights against scientific progress to the scientific community" (Sharav).
(1974)
Congress enacts the National Research Act, creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and finally setting standards for human experimentation on children (Breslow).
(1975)
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare gives the National Institutes of Health's Policies for the Protection of Human Subjects (1966) regulatory status. Title 45, known as "The Common Rule," officially creates institutional review boards (IRBs) (Sharav).
(1977)
The Kennedy Hearing initiates the process toward Executive Order 12333, prohibiting intelligence agencies from experimenting on humans without informed consent (Merritte, et al.).
The U.S. government issues an official apology and $400,000 to Jeanne Connell, the sole survivor from Col. Warren's now-infamous plutonium injections at Strong Memorial Hospital, and the families of the other human test subjects (Burton Report).
The National Urban League holds its National Conference on Human Experimentation, stating, "We don't want to kill science but we don't want science to kill, mangle and abuse us" (Sharav).
(1978)
The CDC begins experimental hepatitis B vaccine trials in New York. Its ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men. Professor Wolf Szmuness of the Columbia University School of Public Health had made the vaccine's infective serum from the pooled blood serum of hepatitis-infected homosexuals and then developed it in chimpanzees, the only animal susceptible to hepatitis B, leading to the theory that HIV originated in chimpanzees before being transferred over to humans via this vaccine. A few months after 1,083 homosexual men receive the vaccine, New York physicians begin noticing cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, Mycoplasma penetrans and a new strain of herpes virus among New York's homosexual community -- diseases not usually seen among young, American men, but that would later be known as common opportunistic diseases associated with AIDS (Goliszek).
(1979)
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research releases the Belmont Report, which establishes the foundations for research experimentation on humans. The Belmont Report mandates that researchers follow three basic principles: 1. Respect the subjects as autonomous persons and protect those with limited ability for independence (such as children), 2. Do no harm, 3. Choose test subjects justly -- being sure not to target certain groups because of they are easily accessible or easily manipulated, rather than for reasons directly related to the tests (Berdon).
(1980)
A study reveals a high incidence of leukemia among the 18,000 military personnel who participated in 1957's Operation Plumbbob (a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob">"Operation Plumbob").
According to blood samples tested years later for HIV, 20 percent of all New York homosexual men who participated in the 1978 hepatitis B vaccine experiment are HIV-positive by this point (Goliszek).
American http://www.newstarget.com/doctors.html>doctors give experimental hormone shots to hundreds of Haitian men confined to detention camps in Miami and Puerto Rico, causing the men to develop a condition known as gynecomastia, in which men develop full-sized breasts (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).
The CDC continues its 1978 hepatitis B vaccine experiment in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis and Denver, recruiting over 7,000 homosexual men in San Francisco alone (Goliszek).
The FDA prohibits the use of prison inmates in pharmaceutical drug trials, leading to the advent of the experimental drug testing centers industry (Sharav).
The first AIDS case appears in San Francisco (Goliszek).
(1981)
(1981 - 1993) The Seattle-based Genetic Systems Corporation begins an ongoing medical experiment called Protocol No. 126, in which cancer patients at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle are given bone marrow transplants that contain eight experimental proteins made by Genetic Systems, rather than standard bone marrow transplants; 19 human subjects die from complications directly related to the experimental treatment (Goliszek).
A deep diving experiment at Duke University causes test subject Leonard Whitlock to suffer permanent brain damage (Sharav).
The CDC acknowledges that a disease known as AIDS exists and confirms 26 cases of the disease -- all in previously healthy homosexuals living in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- again supporting the speculation that AIDS originated from the hepatitis B experiments from 1978 and 1980 (Goliszek).
(1982)
Thirty percent of the test subjects used in the CDC's hepatitis B vaccine experiment are HIV-positive by this point (Goliszek).
(1984)
SFBC Phase I research clinic founded in Miami, Fla. By 2005, it would become the largest experimental drug testing center in North America with centers in Miami and Montreal, running Phase I to Phase IV clinical trials (Drug Development-Technology.com).
(1985)
A former U.S. Army sergeant tries to sue the Army for using drugs on him in without his consent or even his knowledge in United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669. Justice Antonin Scalia writes the decision, clearing the U.S. military from any liability in past, present or future medical experiments without informed consent (Merritte, et al..
(1987)
Philadelphia resident Doris Jackson discovers that researchers have removed her son's brain post mortem for medical study. She later learns that the state of Pennsylvania has a doctrine of "implied consent," meaning that unless a patient signs a document stating otherwise, consent for organ removal is automatically implied (Merritte, et al.).
(1988)
The U.S. Justice Department pays nine Canadian survivors of the CIA and Dr. Cameron's "psychic driving" experiments (1957 - 1964) $750,000 in out-of-court settlements, to avoid any further investigations into MKULTRA (Goliszek).
(1988 - 2001) The New York City Administration for Children's Services begins allowing foster care children living in about two dozen children's homes to be used in National Institutes of Health-sponsored (NIH) experimental AIDS drug trials. These children -- totaling 465 by the program's end -- experience serious side effects, including inability to walk, diarrhea, vomiting, swollen joints and cramps. Children's home employees are unaware that they are giving the HIV-infected children experimental drugs, rather than standard AIDS treatments (New York City ACS, Doran).
(1990)
The United States sends 1.7 million members of the armed forces, 22 percent of whom are African-American, to the Persian Gulf for the Gulf War ("Desert Storm"). More than 400,000 of these soldiers are ordered to take an experimental nerve agent medication called pyridostigmine, which is later believed to be the cause of Gulf War Syndrome -- symptoms ranging from skin disorders, neurological disorders, incontinence, uncontrollable drooling and vision problems -- affecting Gulf War veterans (Goliszek; Merritte, et al.).
The CDC and Kaiser Pharmaceuticals of Southern California inject 1,500 six-month-old black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles with an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. Adding to the risk, children less than a year old may not have an adequate amount of myelin around their nerves, possibly resulting in impaired neural development because of the vaccine. The CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected into their children was experimental (Goliszek).
The FDA allows the U.S. Department of Defense to waive the Nuremberg Code and use unapproved drugs and vaccines in Operation Desert Shield (Sharav).
(1991)
In the May 27 issue of the Los Angeles Times, former U.S. Navy radio operator Richard Jenkins writes that he suffers from leukemia, chronic fatigue and kidney and liver disease as a result of the radiation exposure he received in 1958's Operation Hardtack (Goliszek).
While participating in a UCLA study that withdraws schizophrenics off of their medications, Tony LaMadrid commits suicide (Sharav).
(1992)
Columbia University's New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine give 100 males -- mostly African-American and Hispanic, all between the ages of six and 10 and all the younger brothers of juvenile delinquents -- 10 milligrams of fenfluramine (fen-fen) per kilogram of body weight in order to test the theory that low serotonin levels are linked to violent or aggressive behavior. Parents of the participants received $125 each, including a $25 Toys 'R' Us gift certificate (Goliszek).
(1993)
Researchers at the West Haven VA in Connecticut give 27 schizophrenics -- 12 inpatients and 15 functioning volunteers -- a chemical called MCPP that significantly increases their psychotic symptoms and, as researchers note, negatively affects the test subjects on a long-term basis ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
(1994)
In a double-blind experiment at New York VA Hospital, researchers take 23 schizophrenic inpatients off of their medications for a median of 30 days. They then give 17 of them 0.5 mg/kg amphetamine and six a placebo as a control, following up with PET scans at Brookhaven Laboratories. According to the researchers, the purpose of the experiment was "to specifically evaluate metabolic effects in subjects with varying degrees of amphetamine-induced psychotic exacerbation" ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
Albuquerque Tribune reporter Eileen Welsome receives a Pulitzer Prize for her investigative reporting into Col. Warren's plutonium experiments on patients at Strong Memorial Hospital in 1945 (Burton Report).
In a federally funded experiment at New York VA Medical Center, researchers give schizophrenic veterans amphetamine, even though central nervous system stimulants worsen psychotic symptoms in 40 percent of schizophrenics ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
Researchers at Bronx VA Medical Center recruit 28 schizophrenic veterans who are functioning in society and give them L-dopa in order to deliberately induce psychotic relapse ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
President Clinton appoints the Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), which finally reveals the horrific experiments conducted during the Cold War era in its ACHRE Report.
(1995)
A 19-year-old University of Rochester student named Nicole Wan dies from participating in an MIT-sponsored experiment that tests airborne pollutant chemicals on humans. The experiment pays $150 to human test subjects (Sharav).
In the Mar. 15 President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), former human subjects, including those who were used in experiments as children, give sworn testimonies stating that they were subjected to radiation experiments and/or brainwashed, hypnotized, drugged, psychologically tortured, threatened and even raped during CIA experiments. These sworn statements include:
· Christina DeNicola's statement that, in Tucson, Ariz., from 1966 to 1976, "Dr. B" performed mind control experiments using drugs, post-hypnotic injection and drama, and irradiation experiments on her neck, throat, chest and uterus. She was only four years old when the experiments started.
· Claudia Mullen's testimony that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (of MKULTRA fame) used chemicals, radiation, hypnosis, drugs, isolation in tubs of water, sleep deprivation, electric shock, brainwashing and emotional, sexual and verbal abuse as part of mind control experiments that had the ultimate objective of turning her, who was only a child at the time, into the "perfect spy." She tells the advisory committee that researchers justified this abuse by telling her that she was serving her country "in their bold effort to fight Communism."
· Suzanne Starr's statement that "a physician, who was retired from the military, got children from the mountains of Colorado for experiments." She says she was one of those children and that she was the victim of experiments involving environmental deprivation to the point of forced psychosis, spin programming, injections, rape and frequent electroshock and mind control sessions. "I have fought self-destructive programmed messages to kill myself, and I know what a programmed message is, and I don’t act on them," she tells the advisory committee of the experiments' long-lasting effects, even in her adulthood (Goliszek).
President Clinton publicly apologizes to the thousands of people who were victims of MKULTRA and other mind-control experimental programs (Sharav).
In Dr. Daniel P. van Kammen's study, "Behavioral vs. Biochemical Prediction of Clinical Stability Following Haloperidol Withdrawal in Schizophrenia," researchers recruit 88 veterans who are stabilized by their medications enough to make them functional in society, and hospitalize them for eight to 10 weeks. During this time, the researchers stop giving the veterans the medications that are enabling them to live in society, placing them back on a two- to four-week regimen of the standard dose of Haldol. Then, the veterans are "washed-out," given lumbar punctures and put under six-week observation to see who would relapse and suffer symptomatic schizophrenia once again; 50 percent do ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
President Clinton appoints the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (Sharav).
Justice Edward Greenfield of the New York State Supreme Court rules that parents do not have the right to volunteer their mentally incapacitated children for non-therapeutic medical research studies and that no mentally incapacitated person whatsoever can be used in a medical experiment without informed consent (Sharav).
(1996)
Professor Adil E. Shamoo of the University of Maryland and the organization Citizens for Responsible Care and Research sends a written testimony on the unethical use of veterans in medical research to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Governmental Affairs, stating: "This type of research is on-going nationwide in medical centers and VA hospitals supported by tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers money. These experiments are high risk and are abusive, causing not only physical and psychic harm to the most vulnerable groups but also degrading our society’s system of basic human values. Probably tens of thousands of patients are being subjected to such experiments" ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
The Department of Defense admits that Gulf War soldiers were exposed to chemical agents; however, 33 percent of all military personnel afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome never left the United States during the war, discrediting the popular mainstream belief that these symptoms are a result of exposure to Iraqi chemical weapons (Merritte, et al.).
In a federally funded experiment at West Haven VA in Connecticut, Yale University researchers give schizophrenic veterans amphetamine, even though central nervous system stimulants worsen psychotic symptoms in 40 percent of schizophrenics ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
President Clinton issues a formal apology to the subjects of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and their families (Sharav).
(1997)
In order to expose unethical medical experiments that provoke psychotic relapse in schizophrenic patients, the Boston Globe publishes a four-part series entitled "Doing Harm: Research on the Mentally Ill" (Sharav).
Researchers give 26 veterans at a VA hospital a chemical called Yohimbine to purposely induce post-traumatic stress disorder ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
In order to create a "psychosis model," University of Cincinnati researchers give 16 schizophrenic patients at Cincinnati VA amphetamine in order to provoke repeats bouts of psychosis and eventually produce "behavioral sensitization" (Sharav).
National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) researchers give schizophrenic veterans amphetamine, even though central nervous system stimulants worsen psychotic symptoms in 40 percent of schizophrenics ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
In an experiment sponsored by the U.S. government, researchers withhold medical treatment from HIV-positive African-American pregnant women, giving them a placebo rather than AIDS medication (Sharav).
Researchers give amphetamine to 13 schizophrenic patients in a repetition of the 1994 "amphetamine challenge" at New York VA Hospital. As a result, the patients experience psychosis, delusions and hallucinations. The researchers claim to have informed consent ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
On Sept. 18, victims of unethical medical experiments at major U.S. research centers, including the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) testify before the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (Sharav).
(1999)
Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D. testifies on "The Unethical Use of Human Beings in High-Risk Research Experiments" before the U.S. House of Representatives' House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, alerting the House on the use of American veterans in VA Hospitals as human guinea pigs and calling for national reforms ("Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D.").
Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania inject 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger with an experimental gene therapy as part of an FDA-approved clinical trial. He dies four days later and his father suspects that he was not fully informed of the experiment's risk (Goliszek)
During a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of Propulsid for infant acid reflux, nine-month-old Gage Stevens dies at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh (Sharav).
(2000)
The Department of Defense begins declassifying the records of Project 112, including SHAD, and locating and assisting the veterans who were exposed to live toxins and chemical agents as part of Project 112. Many of them have already died (Goliszek).
President Clinton authorizes the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, which compensates the Department of Energy workers who sacrificed their health to build the United States' nuclear defenses (Sharav).
The U.S. Air Force and rocket maker Lockheed Martin sponsor a Loma Linda University study that pays 100 Californians $1,000 to eat a dose of perchlorate -- a toxic component of rocket fuel that causes cancer, damages the thyroid gland and hinders normal development in children and fetuses -- every day for six months. The dose eaten by the test subjects is 83 times the safe dose of perchlorate set by the State of California, which has perchlorate in some of its drinking water. This Loma Linda study is the first large-scale study to use human subjects to test the harmful effects of a water pollutant and is "inherently unethical," according to Environmental Working Group research director Richard Wiles (Goliszek, Envirnomental Working Group).
(2001)
Healthy 27-year-old Ellen Roche dies in a challenge study at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland (Sharav).
On its website, the FDA admits that its policy to include healthy children in human experiments "has led to an increasing number of proposals for studies of safety and pharmacokinetics, including those in children who do not have the condition for which the drug is intended" (Goliszek).
During a tobacco industry-financed Alzheimer's experiment at Case Western University in Cleveland, Elaine Holden-Able dies after she drinks a glass of orange juice containing a dissolved dietary supplement (Sharav).
Radiologist Scott Scheer of Pennsylvania dies from kidney failure, severe anemia and possibly lupus -- all caused by blood pressure drugs he was taking as part of a five-year clinical trial. After his death, his family sues the Institutional Review Board of Main Line Hospitals, the hospital that oversaw the study, and two doctors. Investigators from the federal Office for Human Research Protections, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, later conclude in a Dec. 20, 2002 letter to Scheer's oldest daughter: "Your father apparently was not told about the risk of hydralazine-induced lupus … OHRP found that certain unanticipated problems involving risks to subjects or others were not promptly reported to appropriate institutional officials" (Willen and Evans, "Doctor Who Died in Drug Test Was Betrayed by System He Trusted.")
In Higgins and Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute The Maryland Court of Appeals makes a landmark decision regarding the use of children as test subjects, prohibiting non-therapeutic experimentation on children on the basis of "best interest of the individual child" (Sharav).
(2002)
President George W. Bush signs the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA), offering pharmaceutical companies six-month exclusivity in exchange for running clinical drug trials on children. This will of course increase the number of children used as human test subjects (Hammer Breslow).
(2003)
Two-year-old Michael Daddio of Delaware dies of congestive heart failure. After his death, his parents learn that doctors had performed an experimental surgery on him when he was five months old, rather than using the established surgical method of repairing his congenital heart defect that the parents had been told would be performed. The established procedure has a 90- to 95-percent success rate, whereas the inventor of the procedure performed on baby Daddio would later be fired from his hospital in 2004 (Willen and Evans, "Parents of Babies Who Died in Delaware Tests Weren't Warned").
(2004)
In his BBC documentary "Guinea Pig Kids" and BBC News article of the same name, reporter Jamie Doran reveals that children involved in the New York City foster care system were unwitting human subjects in experimental AIDS drug trials from 1988 to, in his belief, present times (Doran).
(2005)
In response to the BBC documentary and article "Guinea Pig Kids", the New York City Administration of Children's Services (ACS) sends out an Apr. 22 press release admitting that foster care children were used in experimental AIDS drug trials, but says that the last trial took place in 2001 and thus the trials are not continuing, as BBC reporter Jamie Doran claims. The ACS gives the extent and statistics of the experimental drug trials, based on its own records, and contracts the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct "an independent review of ACS policy and practice regarding the enrollment of HIV-positive children in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s and 1990s" (New York City ACS).
In exchange for receiving $2 million from the American Chemical Society, the EPA proposes the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) to learn how children ranging from infancy to three years old ingest, inhale and absorb chemicals by exposing children from a poor, predominantly black area of Duval County, Fla., to these toxins. Due to pressure from activist groups, negative media coverage and two Democratic senators, the EPA eventually decides to drop the study on Apr. 8, 2005 (Organic Consumers Association).
Bloomberg releases a series of reports suggesting that SFBC, the largest experimental drug testing center of its time, exploits immigrant and other low-income test subjects and runs tests with limited credibility due to violations of both the FDA's and SFBC's own testing guidelines (Bloomberg).
Works cited:
Alliance for Human Research Protection. "'Monster Experiment' Taught Orphans to Stutter.". June 11, 2001.
Barker, Allen. "The Cold War Experiments." Mind Control.
Berdon, Victoria. "Codes of Medical and Human Experimentation Ethics." The Least of My Brothers.
Brinker, Wendy. "James Marion Sims: Father Butcher." Seed Show.
Burton Report. "Human Experimentation, Plutonium and Col. Stafford Warren."
Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair, eds. "Germ War: The U.S. Record." Counter Punch.
"Donald Ewan [sic] Cameron." Wikipedia.
Doran, Jamie. "Guinea Pig Kids." BBC News. 30 Nov. 2004.
Drug Development-Technology.com. "SFBC."
Elliston, Jon. "MKULTRA: CIA Mind Control." Dossier: Paranormal Government.
Environmental Working Group. "U.S.: Lockheed Martin's Tests on Humans." CorpWatch.
Global Security. Chemical Corps. 2005.
Goliszek, Andrew. In the Name of Science. New York: St. Martin's, 2003.
Greger, Michael, M.D. Heart Failure: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student.
Griffiths, Joel and Chris Bryson. "Toxic Secrets: Fluoride and the Atom Bomb." Nexus Magazine 5:3. Apr. - May 1998.
Hammer Breslow, Lauren. "The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act of 2002: The Rise of the Voluntary Incentive Structure and Congressional Refusal to Require Pediatric Testing." Harvard Journal of Legislation Vol. 40.
"Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After." Micah Books.
Kaye, Jonathan. "Retin-A's Wrinkled Past." Mind Control. Orig. pub. Penn History Review Spring 1997.
"Manhattan Project: Oak Ridge." World Socialist Web Site. Oct. 18, 2002.
Meiklejohn, Gordon N., M.D. "Commission on Influenza." Histories of the Commissions. Ed. Theodore E. Woodward, M.D. The Armed Forced Epidemiological Board. 1994.
Merritte, LaTasha, et al.. "The Banality of Evil: Human Medical Experimentation in the United States." The Public Law Online Journal. Spring 1999.
Milgram, Stanley. "Milgram Experiment." Wikipedia. 2006.
New York City Administration of Children's Services. Press release. 22 Apr. 2005.
"Operation Plumbbob." Wikipedia. 2005.
"Operation Whitecoat." Religion and Ethics (Episode no. 708). Oct. 24, 2003.
Organic Consumers Association. "EPA and Chemical Industry to Study the Effects of Known Toxic Chemicals on Children". 12 Apr. 2005.
Pacchioli, David. Subjected to Science. Mar. 1996.
"Placebo Effect." Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine. 2006.
"Project Paperclip." Wikipedia. 2005.
"Reviews and Notes: History of Medicine: Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America before the Second World War." Annals of Internal Medicine 123:2. July 15, 1995.
Sharav, Vera Hassner. "Human Experiments: A Chronology of Human Rsearch." Alliance for Human Research Protection.
Sauter, Daniel. Guide to MS 83 [Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Central Texas Records, 1931 - 1999]. University of Texas Library. Apr. 2001.
"Testimony of Adil E. Shamoo, Ph.D." News from the Joint Hearing on Suspension of Medical Research at West Los Angeles and Sepulveda VA Medical Facilities and Informed Consent and Patient Safety in VA Medical Research. 21 Apr. 1999.
University of New Hampshire. "Chronology of Cases Involving Unethical Treatment of Human Subjects." Responsible Conduct of Research.
University of Virginia Health System Health Sciences Library. "Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study." 2004.
U.S. Department of Energy. "Chapter 8: Postwar TBI-Effects Experimentation: Continued Reliance on Sick Patients in Place of Healthy "Normals." Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) Final Report.
Veterans Health Administration. Project 112/Project SHAD. May 26, 2005.

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The crimes committed against children define some of the Holocaust's most morally despicable horrors. In It's My Story, Palmer told Handscomb of the abuses she received as a 13-year-old at Auschwitz. As a result of the damage done to her body by the contraceptive drug experiments forced upon her at Auschwitz, she had to undergo several painful surgeries immediately following the war and, even after the surgeries, Palmer remained unable to bear children for the rest of her life. Today, in her 70s, Palmer has cancer.
Now, no one can say for certain whether or not Palmer's cancer is linked to the medical experiments she underwent roughly 60 years earlier, but it is a likely possibility. Exposure to drugs and other chemicals produces extremely negative effects on children, especially those who are even younger than Palmer was during the experiments.
In the April 2004 Pediatrics article "Trends in Environmentally Related Childhood Diseases," Tracey Woodruff, et al. writes, "Children may be particularly susceptible to exposures in utero or during early life because the fetus' or young child’s physiology is undergoing rapid development, such as rapid cell division, changing metabolic activity, and evolving hormonal systems."
With this in mind, running experimental drug studies on children seems especially dangerous and thus horrendous, yet it is still a common occurrence even in modern society. In her Nov. 30, 2004 BBC News article "Guinea Pig Kids" and her subsequent documentary of the same name, Jamie Doran reveals New York City's Administration for Children's Services' (ACS) little-known practice of using HIV-positive children kept in the city's orphanages and foster care homes as human guinea pigs for experimental AIDS drugs. For his documentary and article, Doran interviewed Jacklyn Hoerger, a pediatric nurse who worked at the Catholic Church-run Incarnation Children's Home in Harlem. Hoerger maintains that social work authorities never told her that the drugs she and the other Incarnation employees were administering the orphans and foster care children were experimental. "We were told that if they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection," she said to BBC.
In reality, these symptoms were due to the experimental drugs that the workers were giving them. When BBC asked him his opinion on the experimental drug studies done on New York City's orphans and foster children, University of Berkeley visiting scholar Dr. David Rasnick explained, "We're talking about serious, serious side effects. These children are going to be absolutely miserable. They're going to have cramps, diarrhea and their joints are going to swell up. They're going to roll around the ground and you can't touch them." According to BBC reporter Doran, Dr. Rasnick went on to call the experimental AIDS drugs that were given to the children "lethal." If children refused to take them by mouth, workers at Incarnation force-fed them the drugs through feeding tubes inserted into their stomachs.
It's no doubt that these HIV-positive and AIDS symptomatic children needed medication. The question is why were they given experimental drugs, rather than the same medications that a child living in an expensive brownstone on the Upper East Side would have received? In the words of Alliance for Human Research Protection spokesperson Vera Sherav: "They tested these highly experimental drugs. Why didn't they provide the children with the current best treatment? That's the question we have. Why did they expose them to risk and pain, when they were helpless? Would they have done those experiments with their own children? I doubt it." Furthermore -- when you consider the fact that, according to the BBC article, 99 percent of the children in New York City children's homes are either African American or Hispanic -- issues of race and prejudice also come into play.
Hoerger told BBC that she didn't realize what was going on until she later took two children from Incarnation home as foster children. As a trained pediatric nurse, she decided to take the two children she was caring for in her home off the medications given to them while at Incarnation. This resulted in "an immediate boost to their health and happiness," according to BBC. However, soon after her decision, ACS came to her home and took the children out of her care. She was then labeled a child abuser in court and, after that, she never saw the children again.
Performing medical experiments on children is a serious accusation. Realizing this, while working on his documentary and article, Doran went to Incarnation for its side of the story, but it only referred him to its public relations firm. The expensive Manhattan firm told him that it didn't give comments about what goes on inside the home. In light of these accusations, former ACS Commissioner John B. Mattingly ordered a comprehensive review of all ACS records. By early April, based on the records they had examined, ACS staff members revealed just how common the experimentation Hoerger described at Incarnation was throughout the city:
· Between 1988 and 2001, 465 foster care children and orphans were used in experimental AIDS drug trials.
· Most of these children participated before 1996.
· The majority of HIV-positive children living in New York City were diagnosed from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s.
· The highest number of AIDS-related deaths among New York City children happened from 1990 to 1995.
· The 465 children used in the studies were in approximately two dozen different independent agencies operating under contract to ACS.
Then, on Apr. 22, 2005, ACS sent out a press release stating that it had "contracted with the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct an independent review of ACS policy and practice regarding the enrollment of HIV-positive children in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s and 1990s." It also asserted: "The last child to enter an HIV-related clinical trial while in foster care did so in 2001. There are no ongoing HIV-related clinical trials involving children in foster care in New York City." This directly contradicts the conclusion Doran writes in his 2004 article: "The experiments continue to be carried out on the poor children of New York City."
ACS maintains that it ordered the studies with the best interest of HIV-positive children in mind. "The purpose of the drug trials was to develop effective treatments for pediatric AIDS, at a time when there were no known, FDA-approved medications available to treat children with the disease, and many children were dying," reads the press release. As proof of the gravity of the AIDS crisis ACS faced when conducting the trials, the press release cites the following figures from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene:
· Out of the 13,927 HIV-positive children under age 13 nationwide prior to 2003 (according to CDC estimates), the percentage of HIV-positive children in New York City was "the highest by far of any jurisdiction in the country."
· From 1979 through 2003, 3,634 children living in New York City and under the age of 13 were HIV positive.
Even though ACS believes that its decision to give the experimental AIDS drugs to the 465 foster children and orphans was not wrong, it is nevertheless ordering the Vera Institute to conduct the independent study, so as to assure the public and the media. As Commissioner Mattingly explained, "We are taking this step because, while we believe that the policies in place at the time reflected good practice, we acknowledge the need for transparency in all of our dealings with the public. In order for us to be effective in our mission to protect New York City’s children, we must have a sense of mutual trust with those families we seek to serve." According to the press release, the Vera Institute "will research ACS policies and procedures to ensure that HIV-positive children and children with AIDS who were in the care of ACS were appropriately enrolled in the correct clinical drug trials." This includes finding out whether:
· ACS obtained consent from the children's parents or other guardians before enrolling them in the experimental drug studies.
· The children enrolled in the trials met the medical criteria to do so.
· ACS adequately and properly monitored the children who were enrolled.
· Enrollment was "appropriate based on sound medical knowledge at the time."
As of an Oct. 5, 2005 update to its web site regarding the analysis, the Vera Institute still had not completed its investigation. It writes that it is "assembling an advisory board of medical, child welfare, legal, and community experts to review our findings and assure the public of the independence of our research." Meanwhile, in its description of the project, the Vera Institute acknowledges both sides of the controversy:
"Opponents of involving foster children in clinical trials -- where the risks and benefits are often unknown -- worry that this highly vulnerable population may be too-easily neglected or even exploited. When it comes to children of color, in particular, they point to historic examples where the health care system has acted in discriminatory and prejudicial ways.
"On the other hand, those who favor including foster children in clinical trials argue that enrollment can provide high quality care and cutting-edge medicine to children who otherwise would receive only routine medical services. In this view, excluding foster children unfairly bars them from the best the medical profession has to offer."
It will be very interesting to see the Vera Institute's findings -- which are, according to the Institute itself -- "part of Vera's mission to improve government systems." "We hope that the information we provide will contribute to the public debate that will help shape future policies regarding clinical trials and children in government custody," the site reads. On a national level, between 12,000 and 13,000 children under the age of 13 have participated in National Institutes of Health-sponsored AIDS drug trials from 1986 to 2005.
Even though the Vera Institute's findings are not yet complete, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Apr. 8, 2005 cancellation of its Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) shows what a combination of intense opposition from environmental and public health groups (as well as a little help from Congress) can do to end experimentation on poverty-stricken children.
Child medical experiments at the EPA
In October 2005, the American Chemistry Council gave the EPA $2.1 million to study how children ranging from infancy to three years old ingest, inhale or absorb chemicals. Like IG Farben was for the German pharmaceutical companies of Nazi Germany, the American Chemistry Council acts much like a front group for chemical industry bigwigs like Bayer (which was incidentally also a member of IG Farben), BP, Chevron, Dow, DuPont, Exxon, Honeywell, 3M, Monsanto and Procter & Gamble. Studies have already proven that the chemicals made by these companies have long-term effects on children and adults. A short, two-year study like CHEERS would of course fail to reveal these long-term effects and the American Chemistry Council could then publicize these findings as "proof" that its chemicals were safe.
This represents an ethical problem in itself, but the demographic of the proposed child test subjects worsen the issue, especially in light of the use of foster children (the majority of which were African-American and Hispanic) by both the New York City ACS and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. According to the EPA's original study proposal, portions of which were reprinted by the Organic Consumers Association, test subjects would be chosen from six health clinics in Duvall County, Fla. Given the characteristics of these health centers, page 23 of the study proposal itself highlights that minority children from low-income families would be the likely test subjects: "Although all Duval County citizens are eligible to use the [health care] centers, they primarily serve individuals with lower incomes. In the year 2000, seventy five percent of the users of the clinics for pregnancy issues were at or below the poverty level ... The percentage of births to individuals classified as black in the U.S. Census is higher at these three hospitals than for the County as a whole."
In fact, the health care centers report that 51 percent of their births are to non-Caucasian mothers, and that 62 percent of mothers received only elementary school or secondary school educations. If the EPA were to have proceeded with CHEERS, children born to these health care centers would have been used as human guinea pigs simply because they belong to minority groups and poverty-stricken families. In return for allowing their children to be exposed to toxic chemicals, the families were to have received $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt and a framed certificate of appreciation.
Fortunately, the EPA decided not to go through with CHEERS, once U.S. Senators Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) decided to put their feet down and block President Bush's nomination of Stephen Johnson for head of the EPA. In his Apr. 8 statement, Johnson reversed the EPA's earlier decision to await a report from an independent science advisory panel before making a decision about CHEERS. He explained his decision as being a result of public and media "misrepresentations" of the study:
"Last fall, in light of questions about the study design, I directed that all work on the study stop immediately and requested an independent review. Since that time, many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study.
"I have concluded that the study cannot go forward, regardless of the outcome of the independent review. EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy."
Boxer, who says that she will continue to oppose testing toxins on humans, called CHEERS an "immoral program to test pesticides on children" and "a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom" in her statement to the Associated Press following Johnson's decision. Luckily, unlike Tuskegee, the study was stopped before anyone got hurt.
This story continues in part three.

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(NewsTarget) A recent survey of 2,000 HIV and AIDS patients in Britain found that 69 percent were concerned with the long-term toxic side effects of HIV medications.
The survey, conducted by the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS, also found that HIV patients were concerned about short-term drug side effects as well as the negative interactions of HIV drugs with other medications.
Edinburgh resident Nikk Bowden, who has been infected with AIDS for seven years, says he is concerned about what long-term use of HIV drugs could do to his body: "If you are expected to be on them for 30 to 40 years, as some doctors will tell you, what is going to happen further down the line?"
Bowden questions whether or not research on long-term side effects of the drugs is ongoing, or has been conducted at all. "It is a worry that you could be taking something that isn't fully understood over a period of time," Bowden says.
HIV drug side effects can include muscle pain and muscle wasting, pancreas and liver problems, nerve damage, fat redistribution and diabetes. Today, 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, and at the end of 2005, 1.3 million HIV-positive residents of poor countries had access to HIV drugs.

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A newly redesigned antioxidant may play a critical role in preventing HIV-1-associated dementia, says a University of Missouri-Rolla chemist. Her research will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Experimental Neurology.
“A third of the adults and half of the children with AIDS develop HIV-1-associated dementia,” explains Dr. Nuran Ercal, professor of chemistry at UMR and adjunct associate professor of internal medicine at Saint Louis University. “Cognitive impairment, postural disorders and tremors are among the most common symptoms encountered in patients suffering from AIDS dementia complex.”
Ercal collaborated with Dr. William Banks, professor of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University, to determine whether the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA) could prevent cell death and reverse oxidative stress, a condition associated with many different irreversible neurological degeneration diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
“There’s a beautiful balance in our bodies,” Ercal says. “We have these free radicals -- atoms and molecules with an unpaired electron that attack other molecules. Our bodies have developed a natural antioxidant defense system that includes enzymes and small molecules to overcome harmful effects of these attacks. If the balance is tipped over, then we have oxidative stress.”
The researchers narrowed their study to the blood-brain barrier, a selective barrier that controls the entry of substances from the blood into the brain. They believed two toxic HIV proteins -- the envelope glycoprotein (gp120) and transregulatory protein (Tat) -- could be disrupting the protective barrier and allowing toxic materials to pass through to the brain. If true, the proteins could be inducing oxidative stress in the cells and causing dementia in patients.
Using an artificial model of a rat’s blood-brain barrier, the researchers incubated cells with the viral proteins for 24 hours. Every parameter the researchers then employed to measure oxidative stress described the same scenario: both gp120 and Tat were inducing oxidative stress in the rat brain capillaries.
In previous studies involving lead poisoning and radiation exposure, Ercal had successfully used the originally formulated N-acetylcysteine (NAC), the drug of choice in treating acetaminophen overdoses, to combat the resulting oxidative stress. Unlike NAC, the newly synthesized NACA passes easily through cell membranes, leading researchers to believe NACA could reverse the oxidative stress levels in the blood-brain barrier.
“We found NACA, this new compound, prevented cell death,” Ercal adds. “NACA returned all parameters to their control levels, and it’s not harmful except in extremely high concentrations. Therefore, we determined that while treating AIDS patients, perhaps we should include antioxidants to prevent oxidative stress or prevent possible dementia.”
The researchers are now studying the brain and liver samples from transgenic rats. The animals have been genetically modified to contain gp120, allowing the researchers to further study the effects of this protein.
“If gp120 is causing these free radicals, then we should have lots of free radicals in these animals because they are continuously making this protein,” Ercal adds

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(NewsTarget) The growing impact of AIDS in Africa, Asia and Latin America has prompted the United Nations World Food Program to appeal to donor countries to fund food and nutrition for those afflicted.
At the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Robin Jackson, chief of the World Food Program (WFP) HIV/AIDS Service, said, "It is time to deliver more than drugs."
Although those with HIV/AIDS often list food as one of their most desperate needs, nutritional support for HIV programs is usually not touched upon during international HIV policy debates, Jackson said, which leaves the programs seriously under-funded.
"The prioritizing of AIDS drugs over basic nutrition has been a grievous distortion that deprives AIDS victims of what they need most," says Mike Adams, a holistic nutritionist. "What good are drugs when a person is suffering multiple nutritional deficiencies that suppress immune function in the first place? These people need real nutrition, not false hope from patented synthetic chemicals."
Estimates by the WFP state that roughly 1 million of the 6.4 million people expected to enroll in 2008 antiretroviral programs will need nutritional support at a cost of approximately 65 cents a day per patient. Jackson said that when AIDS develops, nutrition and food security become important partners in treatment.
Currently, HIV patients are usually only given rations for 6 months until they can get back on their feet, but Jackson cited a recent study found that malnourished patients exposed to antiretroviral therapy are six times more likely to die than well-nourished patients; possibly because malnutrition impairs people's ability to absorb the triple-drug therapy and renders them unable to benefit from it.
Poor nutrition may also heighten susceptibility to HIV-related diseases, and an undependable food supply can increase the likelihood of individuals adopting lifestyles that often lead to infection.
Tests for HIV have become cheaper and more obtainable for governments, but this has unfortunately lead to standalone HIV testing programs that the Human Rights Watch has criticized for being coercive, discriminatory, lacking in confidentiality and deficient in prevention information.
These programs -- such as the proposal before government in Punjab, India that would require people to get tested to receive or keep a driver's license -- criminalize HIV transmission, are often applied in an arbitrary manner and are impotent to slow the spread of HIV, the Human Rights Watch said.

A Genuine Website to earn extra

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Social Skill Repair: Creative Methods To Build Students' Peer Skills

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"When Reading is Stupid; the Why, How and What to Do About It"

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Prostitution, AIDS, Social Evils, Ho Chi Minh City

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Irish and Living with AIDS in New York

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Powers of Examples; An Interview with Pearl Johnson

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A Support Group Thrives in Brooklyn

Railing against HIV Stereotypes

Honorary Cross-Dressing Man

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Death of the California Suites

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3 Types Of Espresso Coffee Machines

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Endowmax Review - Information about Endowmax Herbal Male Enhancement

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A Guide For Planning Memorable Wedding Details, Your Own Way

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Paid Surveys Tips to Work From Home and Make Secondary Income

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Data Entry Jobs Uncovered The Truth about Data Entry

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Pay Per Click for Beginners - "The Cinderella Opportunity"

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - An Overview

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Getting noticed on the Internet - Digital Marketing for Small Business

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Various Techniques of Search Engine Optimization

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Affiliate Programs - A Reliable Online Marketing Strategy

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Work at Home Reviews: Affiliate Marketing Home-Based Business

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