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If you want to know the risks of aspartame (spoiler alert: there are none unless you've been diagnosed with phenylketonuria), consult legitimate scientific bodies, like the NHS or Health Canada.

Links supporting that statement: Health Canada, UK NHS or UK Food Standards Agency, FDA.

Usually fewer than one in five men will die before the age of 70, but that jumps to nearly one in three for the moderately obese, and eight in 10 for the morbidly obese.

I'm 47-YO, 5'-11" and 350 pounds (see pic link below). According to BMI and the experts on Slashdot, I'm morbidly obese and should have dropped dead three years ago.

http://www.cdreimer.com/images/cdreimer_350.jpg

You're arguing against a bit of a strawman. No one claims that BMI is a perfect indicator of health for everyone, it's just a decent estimator for people with average body composition. You look to have an unusually high percentage of muscle so BMI doesn't really apply to you.

Why? Because I take care of myself. I eat a 150g carbs/1,500-calorie diet, I walk 20 minutes daily and work out at the gym on weekends.

Are you sure you're calculating that correctly? 1500 per day is extremely low for a woman, just to maintain an average sedentary male physique you're looking at 2350.

I also maintain a positive attitude and don't allow fat shamers to bully me. I'll probably live longer than my hard-drinking, chain-smoking relatives who are dropping like flies these days. Although I haven't been to a doctor in 15 years, I'm in better health today than I ever was before.

You're not obese but you still have a decent amount of body fat, just feeling healthy doesn't mean you don't have undiagnosed health problems. Anyone your age should go once in a while just to ensure there aren't any issues, and if those calorie numbers are accurate there's definitely something weird going on.

...is crap. We can afford our *current* system, but not a complete socialist-style healthcare system applied to the general population. It will either destroy the federal budget, or the resulting healthcare for individuals will be far worse than what we see now.

Would you like evidence? No problem: Google for "Veterans Administration" if you want an example of what US-government run healthcare looks like.

As someone whose spouse has had to ensure that travesty of an organization, I can tell you first-hand that you most emphatically do not want to go to a government-run hospital or doctor.

So how about a system wherein the provision of health care services isn't a government monopoly, but you have, for example, either a national insurance system paying for the provision of health care services from private and public entities or a mixture of legally-required insurance provided by regulated non-profit insurance organizations or, for some, private insurance organizations, paying for the provision of health care services from private and public entities?

There are two major reasons why people incorrectly think aspartame causes cancer:

1. In 1975 a bad study was released saying aspartame caused brain and other cancers. This study became “legend”, and is what everyone thinks about aspartame, but it is not true. There is even an article on Wikipedia specifically about this controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
2. In 1998, a hoax was released saying aspartame caused all sorts of serious diseases, and people believed it: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blasp.htm. It’s also on snopes http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

Due to the 1975 study, studies were launched and FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut" (http://web.archive.org/web/20071214170430/www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_sugar.html)

1. The European Food Safety Authority concluded in its 2013 re-evaluation that aspartame and its breakdown products are safe for human consumption at current levels of exposure (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm)
2. As do other independent studies (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408440701516184)
3. The national cancer institute has cleared aspartame as having no links to cancer (http://web.archive.org/web/20090212130028/http://cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/AspartameQandA)

There are many more scientific studies on it by national governments showing it’s safe as well:

• UK https://www.food.gov.uk/science/additives/aspartame/
• Canada http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/addit/sweeten-edulcor/aspartame-eng.php
• Australia / New Zealand http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/aspartame/pages/default.aspx

There's definitely a problem that we've been fed a lot of misinformation, but those problems are generally facilitated by lack of scientific data. I think the case of multivitamins is a good example. The creation of multivitamins was spurred by the realization that there are different types of compounds that we must consume in certain amounts in order to maintain health. Then someone saw an opportunity to pack all that stuff into one little pill and sell it at a huge mark-up. There hasn't historically been a lot of evidence supporting multivitamins as a maintainer of good health. Instead there's been a lot of evidence that we need the stuff that is in multivitamins. Just because a multivitamin contains what you need doesn't mean your body can access those resources. Now that there's finally research coming out about the effects of multivitamins, the studies are proving that in many cases multivitamins at best have no effect on health.

There's still a lot more to be researched on this issue, but that's the point, the scientific community never knew a lot of this stuff in the first place. It's been both the media trying to sell newspapers and companies trying to create new products without actually researching what those products do.

Another great example of this is the inclusion of vitamin A in topical products like moisturizers and sunscreens. Companies started putting vitamin A in these products because vitamin A is important for healthy skin, so they assuming that slathering it on your body would benefit your skin. Now that research has finally been done on these products, it is now believed that using this product can increase risk of sunburn for as much as a week afterwards!!!!

We should stop blaming science and start blaming those who either manipulate scientific studies for profit or rush products to market without actually using scientific methods to test that the product is safe and does what it is intended to do.

Yes there is laws against this. Anyone who lives in Canada, and is a part of the experiment but did not receive informed consent may contact Health Canada/federal crown about it. It's illegal here.

I would think you could get some assistance from one of these resources.

UK: Treatment for Gambling Addiction
UK: Mental health helplines

US: USA Local Problem Gambling Hotlines
US: Mental Health

CA: Problem Gambling Institute
CA: Mental Health

AU: Problem Gambling
AU: Mental Health Services in Australia

I hope you get well soon.

Just came back to this. I'm curious, do you know of anyone who's published such tests? I'd be really interested to see something like that.

http://www.expertfoods.com/FAQ/labelaccuracy.php
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/action-plan/food-safety-regulatory-forum/presentations/discussion-paper/eng/1369936679236/1369936805623
http://www.cspinet.org/foodlabeling/
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/label-etiquet/nutrition/res-rech/index-eng.php
http://www.healthline.com/health-blogs/diet-diva/are-food-labels-accurate
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/nutrition/news/study_food_labels.aspx
http://www.livescience.com/26799-calorie-counts-inaccurate.html

Most of this is about the misrepresentation of calorie counts, but there are links to other studies and references to other nutritional discrepancies too. The amazing thing is that these studies have been going on since 1998, have been published, and yet nothing seems to be improving yet.

Nothing new. In Canada and many other nations in the world for *years*. All tobacco advertizing is banned. High cigarette taxes too. Heck, in entire province it is illegal to spoke in public spaces too.

Smoking rates are dropping so making smoking difficult and disgusting works, but still, too many smoke.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tobac-tabac/research-recherche/stat/ctums-esutc_2011-eng.php

Uh no.

There's nothing in the constitution act that dictates healthcare. Technically the CA predates minus small revisons the CHA. You might want to go read the Canada Health Act. which is what defines who is responsible. The provinces, not the feds. Unless the a 3rd party determines that the province is grossly negligent to the point where the federal government is required to take over under the CHA.

People are healthier in Germany? Maybe because Germany has universal health care.

Which, of course, no English-speaking country has. (And if you want to quibble about those being English-speaking countries, either you're being snarky about the variants of English spoken there, in which case you should be ignored, or you're talking about the second of the countries listed there, where English is one of the official languages, and the other one is also a "strong-FTR" language, to use Chen's terminology, just as English is.)

So, if you insist that your posts are legit, then follow through on your extraordinary claim that a diet consisting solely of rice, milk, canola oil and the occasional carrot is sufficient. I asked you to name a single country, hospital, or clinic that will state as much. You haven't.

On the other hand, here are several countries official guidelines.

And is the one from the World Health Organization

Not one of them agrees with your claims. The diet you proposed is deficient and unhealthy.

without regulated and mandatory GMO labeling they could introduce this milk into your corner store (certainly in Canada anyway) and you wouldn't even know about it.

From my own experience as lacto-ovo veggie for 10 years, lentils provide just as much or more proteins as meat

I respect your choice to be a lacto-ovo veggie but even my most basic of investigations into the vegetarian "protein substitutes" also tend to show they are monstrously high in carbohydrates. As a diabetic on a restricted diet of 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal I could have a single scoop of Lentils and then be hungry and risk snacking, or I can have a balanced diet that includes grains, meats & fish, milk and milk products, and vegetables that is more filling and provides a better mix of nutrition providing a more stable blood sugar level while allowing me to feel "full" between meals.

From the same page:
"A product known as LEAR (for low erucic acid RAPESEED) derived from cross-breeding of multiple lines of Brassica juncea is also referred to as canola oil and is considered safe for consumption."
(allcaps highlighting by me)

Safe? Who considers this safe? I guess I'll just follow the Wikis reference to this statement. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/appro/low_erucic-faible_erucique-eng.php
            Wherein we find a "Novel Foods" report. This means "Hey,we tested this machine oil over here by the worldwide accepted standards of some bureau somewhere and it turns out you can eat it."
        Feel any safer? It goes on to say "This opinion is based upon the comprehensive review of information SUBMITTED BY THE PETITIONER according to the Guidelines for the Safety Assessment of Novel Foods." O.K., so you will say canola is ok because Monsanto tested their product and say it's O.K. Well, Whew, you can trust Monsanto, can't you? Well O.K. I know Canola has had a rough time in the past and had a lot of nasty rumors so let's go let Snopes debunk this and see what we can find out . http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp
Here we find the concerns about Eurcric acid causing heart leisions. So Canola has been bred, not genetically altered to have 1-2% eucric acid rather than the 30 to 60% in the Bulldozer lubricant Canola. Well gosh, do we feel any safer? How about we just limit lead levels instead of excluding it? Just how much mercury should we tolerate in food? Have a swordfish, someone official says it's o.k.
      Hmmm, this Canadian health site http://www.alive.com/3963a2a2.php?subject_bread_cramb=635
Seems to be spilling the beans that it is now indeed genetically modified and there are health concerns and some amount of hiding the truth about some genetically altered plants.
        Well from personal experience as someone who gets horribly ill all through my gastrointestinal system everytime I eat something(accidentally)made with canola, I can assure you I will continue to avoid it like the plague. I originally fell prey to the bit that Snopes debunked when researching my appearant allergies to it( which the Novel Foods Report assures me doesn't exist and isn't a concern.)
With the tin foil hats making up crap on one side and the Bureaucrats and Monsanto making up crap on the other side, who will ever know the truth?
Certainly not the moron who modded my original post down.

(Same anon)

Yes, you're asking them to prove a negative.

At first, let's remember that no test may exist for "GM food". There are tests for every specific modification made. And if you believe no such tests are made, you're wrong. You can see high level overview of the process here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/sr-sr/pubs/biotech/reg_gen_mod-eng.php (this is for CA, equivalent process for US do exists but I can't find a link right now).

If you have a specific doubt about the qualifying process please post it. I'm very interested to hear. But scaremongering asking for "tests should be made" is ludittism or - in the literal sense of the word - ignorance.

We don't need more proof... The govt of Canada isnt doing anything good with our healthcare... why would the US do any better?

You must have a personal problem with the Canadian health care. The Canadian government does not directly control the health care. What they do have is a Canadian Health Act, which stipulates the minimum required coverage per province. The individual provinces then create their own modifications to the Canadian Health Act to utilize the tax money allocated for that purpose. The provinces have to give at least the minimum care required.

What's interesting is Canada has an average increased life expectancy of ~2 years more than the U.S..

In addition, the individual tax burden for Canada, as a whole is lower than the cost for health care in the US paying piece meal.

I appreciate your cynical view of Canadian health care, however, I would still rather get seriously sick (or be seriously injured) in Canada as a Canadian citizen than in the US as a US citizen.

Canadians love to complain about our health care system, but the numbers show that it does very well compared to other systems.

The article you link to seems pretty shady. It's clearly looking for reasons why the US should not change their private health insurance model. The first paragraph talks about how Erbitux (cetuximab) "... targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body" even though standard treatment with cetuximab is used in conjunction with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, in patients who do not respond to chemotherapy alone. Did she already fail a course of chemotherapy? She went to a cancer clinic in a foreign country (the US) and was surprised that it was hard to get reimbursed? Finally, cetuximab is only used in cases of colorectal cancer where there's EGFR expression. If her tumor was not this kind then treating her with cetuximab would indeed be unproven. It also appears that cetuximab has not yet completed it's phase III trials, which again makes it experimental. Nevertheless, it has been approved by Health Canada for patients who meet the criteria above.

You can read the Health Canada Summary Basis of Decision on cetuximab here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodpharma/sbd-smd/phase1-decision/drug-med/sbd_smd_2007_erbitux_088225-eng.php

Oh humans would, like other animals, plants and coral reefs did, "survive" 4000 ppm CO2 just fine. You've got 800 ppm easily indoors in a normal environment: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/air/office_building-immeubles_bureaux/co2-eng.php

My point was that the earth survived it as well. No positive feedback loops spiralling out of control.

Yes, medicare is considered extremely radical in the UK and Canada.

You guessed wrong.

It's a bit more complicated than that. The byproducts of pulp production are a problem. Pulp mills vent small particles that are bad for the health and must be removed. They also vent a number of chemicals including some nasty smelling sulfur compounds. This is locally referred to as "the smell of money". The official view here in Canada is that these smell bad but are not toxic, but a lot of people question that. When I lived in central part of the city, I noticed a strong correlation between days when I woke up feeling crummy and days when the pulp mill smell was strong. I made a point of moving uphill to the outskirts where the odor is not as strong. We have three pulp mills and air quality is a major local issue. Levels from air quality monitors at three sites are reported every day on the news.

Pulp mills also produce really nasty liquid effluent. Even with the current treatment, studies here show that it causes mutation in the genes of the salmon. Some information from Environment Canada is here.

There was a fairly conclusive study taken in Canada where the levels of a lake were maintained at a few parts per trillion of the chemicals in birth control to simulate the effects of urinating birth control. The effects were remarkable.

While there were no effects of the synthetic estrogen on tadpole growth, development and sex ratios, we did see a low incidence of males with eggs in the treated lake. After estrogen additions, one of the more predominant species of zooplankton had lower proportions of males, and females from several species of zooplankton produced fewer eggs.

The entire study is here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/sr-sr/finance/tsri-irst/proj/endocrin/tsri-94_e.html

It would appear that you might be intolerant to soy or even have an allergy . Should allergies be blamed on the allergen or on the immune system's inability to distinguish a real threat? Personally, I am intolerant to several fruits: apples, pears, cherries and fennel to name a few. I can only have a bite, any more will put me in bed.
I think labelling should be as accurate as possible to at least help identify potential allergens.

1. Buy a scale precise to at least the nearest 10 grams.

2. Download an energy density table for food. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/alt_formats/hpfb-dgpsa/pdf/nutrition/nvscf-vnqau_e.pdf

3. Every time you eat something, calculate the total calories.

4. Do that for a week, eating as per normal, so that you can calculate your equilibrium daily calorie requirement.

5. Eat to lower your daily caloric by 10%, check scales/mirror after 1 week.

6. If that doesn't work, lower it again.

The most important thing is to MEASURE calories. Otherwise you will ASSUME, which as all good engineers know, makes an ASS out of U and ME.

In the short term, there is water and muscle weight (including water involved with glycogen storage, bowel contents etc) that will throw you out, which is why you should only pay attention to weight/mirror over longer intervals.

There are a few tricks. Protein has an appetite suppressing effect, so increasing protein makes dieting easier. Also take a look at a table of exercise calorie burn rates.
http://health.utah.gov/lhd/tooele/Community_Health/CVD/Calories_Burned.html

Note that the MOST caloric intensive activity is 850 calories per hour, which is more than most people do when they exercise, and is difficult to maintain. Jogging is 600, and that's enough of a PITA.

Contrast that with the calorie intake side of the equation. I could easily eat 3 snickers bars in 5 minutes when I'm hungry, and that's restraining myself. That's 900 calories, very enjoyable, and more than 12 times the rate at which the body can burn energy over a reasonable length of time. Which is why attention to exercise alone is never a sufficient requirement to lose weight but attention to diet is, since you need at least 60 calories per hour to "idle", i.e. sleep or rest. Maybe less in starvation mode, but it's still sure as heck greater than zero.

Heather Crowe (born April 23, 1945 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, died May 22, 2006 in Ottawa, Ontario) was a former Canadian waitress who became the public face of Canada's anti-smoking campaign. She contracted lung cancer in 2002, allegedly from second-hand smoke encountered at her workplace of over forty years, and later appeared in numerous television public service announcements. The last place she worked was the well-known Newport Restaurant in Ottawa.

She famously claimed to have "never smoked a day in her life". In 2002, she submitted a successful claim relating to second-hand smoke exposure in the workplace to the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board for lost earnings and health care benefits.

Thanks in large part to her lobbying, the province of Ontario passed a tough anti-smoking bill which came into effect four days after her 2006 death of lung cancer at the age of 61.

Crowe was the first person to win a claim with the Ontario Workers Safety and Insurance Board for full compensation because her cancer was caused by occupational exposure to cigarette smoke.

Second-hand smoke is what smokers exhale and what rises from an idle burning cigarette. You can see smoke in the air but what may not be so obvious is that there are 4,000 chemicals in the smoke.

More than 50 of these chemicals are carcinogens: they cause cancer. The chemicals also contribute directly to other diseases, such as asthma, heart disease and emphysema. And that's for smokers and non-smokers alike.

Heather Crowe (born April 23, 1945 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, died May 22, 2006 in Ottawa, Ontario) was a former Canadian waitress who became the public face of Canada's anti-smoking campaign. She contracted lung cancer in 2002, allegedly from second-hand smoke encountered at her workplace of over forty years, and later appeared in numerous television public service announcements. The last place she worked was the well-known Newport Restaurant in Ottawa.

She famously claimed to have "never smoked a day in her life". In 2002, she submitted a successful claim relating to second-hand smoke exposure in the workplace to the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board for lost earnings and health care benefits.

Thanks in large part to her lobbying, the province of Ontario passed a tough anti-smoking bill which came into effect four days after her 2006 death of lung cancer at the age of 61.

Crowe was the first person to win a claim with the Ontario Workers Safety and Insurance Board for full compensation because her cancer was caused by occupational exposure to cigarette smoke.

Second-hand smoke is what smokers exhale and what rises from an idle burning cigarette. You can see smoke in the air but what may not be so obvious is that there are 4,000 chemicals in the smoke.

More than 50 of these chemicals are carcinogens: they cause cancer. The chemicals also contribute directly to other diseases, such as asthma, heart disease and emphysema. And that's for smokers and non-smokers alike.

" This case only one such example of the WTO is trying to override US sovereignty. The World Trade Organization backed Codex Alimentarius food rules will soon make it illegal to purchase high dosage vitamins from health food stores in the U.S. when the rules go into effect globally December 31, 2009. It's Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG), only permits only ultra low doses of vitamins. You will then no longer be able to buy significant dosages of most vitamins and minerals from your local heath food store because they will become illegal in the U.S. "

You're like, hosed eh.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/intactivit/codex/activit/vit_min_sup_e.html

Section 1.3 of the Guidelines stipulates that they are for use only in those countries that regulate vitamin and mineral supplements as food. As Canada regulates vitamin and mineral supplements as natural health products, the Guidelines are not applicable to the Canadian regulatory system. The manufacture, importation and sale of vitamin and mineral supplements and other natural health products in Canada will not be affected by the Commission's adoption of the Guidelines. Such products will continue to be regulated in Canada by the Natural Health Products Regulations under the Canadian Food and Drugs Act.

What? You don't believe these labels that the tobacco companies willingly print on their cigarette packages?
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/tobac-tabac/legislati on/label-etiquette/graph/index_e.html

Health Canada used to advertise that arsenic was one of the toxins present in tobacco until I told them why it was present. (The FDA allows tobacco to be grown on lands banned for food agricultural use because of contamination from old arsenic based pesticides.) They pulled those ads pretty quick. They still advertise the remaining toxins they are sure of however, even though smoking sawdust will produce all the same contaminants. It has nothing to do with tobacco.

Additionally, I proved time and time again that smokers are a net contributor to health care in Canada through the excessive taxes applied. Check the stats, its true. It is the extremely health conscious and hypochondriacs that cost the system. I have paid over $10000 in tobacco taxes in the last ten years and have not visited a doctor or a hospital even once, yet somehow I am supposed to be a burden on the health care system? Yeah sure.

People eat propaganda right up, especially if it makes them feel righteous and superior.

Hemp was "legalized" in Canada a few years ago. Unfortunately, you have to have a license to grow it. I'm not sure on exact numbers, but I have a bucket of shelled hemp seeds on my desk right now that I snack on (for every 42g serving there's 15g protein and 15g polyunsaturated fats, as well as 2.7g monounsaturated and 2.1g saturated fats)

The only production numbers I was able to find for Canada were from 1999, and in that year, 14200 hectares (~35000 acres) of hemp was cultivated.

As far as current production numbers, I was unable to find any, but it looks like most of Canada's hemp production is for food, cosmetics, and clothing, not paper or ethanol.

This is my favorite ad:

They work in Canada , but the US has not moved ahead with their graphic warning campaign.

On the other hand, there is evidence that more mundane cooking methods are more dangerous. Barbecuing meats or any other organic matter can create benzopyrene which is a potent mutagen and carcinogen. Even burning toast (like in a toaster) has been found to produce the dangerous chemical. Now, none of the scientists involved in these studies are telling people to stop grilling food, and stop having burnt toast for breakfast. Of course, some groups have taken those results and used them to further their agendas. I've seen a repeated claim that a grilled steak contains as much benzopyrene as 300 cigarettes (which is supposed to make you believe that a grilled steak is as dangerous as 300 cigarettes, except the soundbite never mentions that cigarettes contain many other toxins and carcinogens). While it's strictly true, it's neither useful, or helpful.

Even vegetables that are cooked to higher than 120 degrees Celcius can form the carcinogen acrylamide. No one calls for us to renounce bread, nuts, french fries, and coffee. At least I didn't find any immediate results for that (I guess militant vegans [as opposed to the sane ones who can accept other people's food preferences] aren't eager to lose some of the few foods they are willing to eat).

Now, microwave cooking can not cause the first toxin to form (because it requires incomplete burning of fat and oils at 300 to 600 degrees C), and it's unlikely that it can cause the second to form either (deep frying and roasting tend to cause it). That must make microwaves safer than conventional cooking, right. :-P

On the other hand, there is evidence that more mundane cooking methods are more dangerous. Barbecuing meats or any other organic matter can create benzopyrene which is a potent mutagen and carcinogen. Even burning toast (like in a toaster) has been found to produce the dangerous chemical. Now, none of the scientists involved in these studies are telling people to stop grilling food, and stop having burnt toast for breakfast. Of course, some groups have taken those results and used them to further their agendas. I've seen a repeated claim that a grilled steak contains as much benzopyrene as 300 cigarettes (which is supposed to make you believe that a grilled steak is as dangerous as 300 cigarettes, except the soundbite never mentions that cigarettes contain many other toxins and carcinogens). While it's strictly true, it's neither useful, or helpful.

Even vegetables that are cooked to higher than 120 degrees Celcius can form the carcinogen acrylamide. No one calls for us to renounce bread, nuts, french fries, and coffee. At least I didn't find any immediate results for that (I guess militant vegans [as opposed to the sane ones who can accept other people's food preferences] aren't eager to lose some of the few foods they are willing to eat).

Now, microwave cooking can not cause the first toxin to form (because it requires incomplete burning of fat and oils at 300 to 600 degrees C), and it's unlikely that it can cause the second to form either (deep frying and roasting tend to cause it). That must make microwaves safer than conventional cooking, right. :-P

Uhh, yes. Maybe crawling doesn't produce weird effects, but try walking across the room fast or sprinting if you're brave. It's the change in the magnetic field incident to your head that's key, not the strength of the field per se. The back of the magnet is the best place to produce the visual effect ("phosphenes" -- sparkles or flickering in your vision, caused by stimulation of the retina), since the field there is not as uniform... it's happened to me in our 4.7T magnet. Fast/steep gradient switching can also stimulate phosphenes, another reason there are guidelines on safe parameters. One reference for this effect is here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/ccrpb/publication /87ehd127/print.htm

"VDU WORK AND THE HAZARDS TO HEALTH" is pretty funny but if you want real comedy gold get ahold of some WHMIS documentation. Just remember to bring a change of pants because you will piss yourself laughing at these hilarious docs.

Check it out at:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/whmis/

To quote Health Canada: "people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, anemia, cancer, immune suppression, HIV or kidney disease". Apparently no differentiation is made between someone with a current tumor and someone who, like me, is "under close surveillance".

Part of it - from what I gather - is how nervous they are about my lungs. (Another part of my checkups is a chest x-ray and usually the ol' stethoscope on the back.) One of the carcinomas I had (it was a mixed germ cell carcinoma, one lump with multiple kinds of cancer) is a fast mover and heads right for the lungs. If I come down with the flu and then that little bastard makes an appearance, I'm in trouble. Not only will the symptoms of it be masked by the flu, I wouldn't be able to start the immune-system-punishing chemo right away. It might sound like a longshot - getting the flu and a recurrence of cancer at the same time - but people have wound up dead from longshots before.

Did you get that weird taste in your mouth when they hit you with the radio contrast fluid?

Nope, though they always tell me I will. And that warm gotta-go-to-the-bathroom-right-now feeling doesn't hit me in the bladder like they say. It gets me right in the bowel. Believe me, the longest minute of my life was that first scan I did, where I was simultaneously:

Holding my breath,

gagging on Esophotrast (it'll put you off anything sweet for a day and vanilla for at least a week),

and feeling like my colon was about to explode.

Fortunately, I'm going to a different place now and they don't use the Esophotrast. I'm also used to the minute of sphincter-clenching joy.:)

No your not, that is the point, I am the one paying for it when you can't handle your addiction, or when you breed a bunch of kids so you can get more money on welfare after you lose your job.

Do you have any statistics to back that up? Because Narcotics Anonymous does not accept money from outside of its membership. The leading cause of people going on welfare is divorce. And I have no idea why think pot usage will lead to me losing my job. How many people reading this have ever called in sick with a 40oz flu? I've never ever missed work because I smoked too many joints the night before. Ever.

You are the victim of a somewhat popular misconception. The statistics tell a very different story.

If we were to ban substances based on risk, tobacco would be banned, and booze would be encouraged (in moderation).

And for those who say that people knew what they were doing the first time they lit up, most of them started when they were still minors. Not exactly capable of "informed consent" when subject to peer pressure.

The first step is to make the packaging more unattractive, like in Canada
(warning - this one is rated by smokers as the most visually repulsive)
or this one
or the complete list
or policy paper
or as reported by cnn

If we were to ban substances based on risk, tobacco would be banned, and booze would be encouraged (in moderation).

And for those who say that people knew what they were doing the first time they lit up, most of them started when they were still minors. Not exactly capable of "informed consent" when subject to peer pressure.

The first step is to make the packaging more unattractive, like in Canada
(warning - this one is rated by smokers as the most visually repulsive)
or this one
or the complete list
or policy paper
or as reported by cnn

If we were to ban substances based on risk, tobacco would be banned, and booze would be encouraged (in moderation).

And for those who say that people knew what they were doing the first time they lit up, most of them started when they were still minors. Not exactly capable of "informed consent" when subject to peer pressure.

The first step is to make the packaging more unattractive, like in Canada
(warning - this one is rated by smokers as the most visually repulsive)
or this one
or the complete list
or policy paper
or as reported by cnn

If we were to ban substances based on risk, tobacco would be banned, and booze would be encouraged (in moderation).

And for those who say that people knew what they were doing the first time they lit up, most of them started when they were still minors. Not exactly capable of "informed consent" when subject to peer pressure.

The first step is to make the packaging more unattractive, like in Canada
(warning - this one is rated by smokers as the most visually repulsive)
or this one
or the complete list
or policy paper
or as reported by cnn

Replying to my own post, but I'd be more likely to trust this article than the one you referenced:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/iyh/products/vdt.ht ml

To quote: "If you look directly into the beam from a laser pointer for more than a minute and a half in a very steady manner, or shine the beam into your eyes with binoculars, you could end up with permanent eye damage."

You might be surprised about a lot of Canadian laws, then. People's television habits aren't (or... weren't, now, i guess) the only things the Canadian government restricts. They also tell you what you can and can't say, what kind of insurance you're entitled to purchase with your own money, and what commercials about prescription drugs are entitled to say, for example.

Not to say that Canada isn't a great country, because i think it is. But it isn't the model of libertarianism a lot of critics of the PATRIOT Act make it out to be.

Actually in Canada, cigarettes packs are required to have picture-based health warnings on cigarette packs that depict the devastating effects of tobacco. One of the picture is a lung tumor. This colorfull warning takes about a quarter of the pack. One of these picure appear on every pack.

" Ever heard of methicillin-resistant-S.-aureus (MRSA)? It's fast becoming the major pathogen people get while in the hospital, and it's a bitch to cure. This is the "flesh-eating bacteria" you see on tv."

It's only bad because in Canada it's treated as a national religion.

A recent report on the future of health care basically said that maintaining the status quo would take every spare dollar from the federal budget for the forseeable future. That is, no new spending on any future program, and all we're doing is keeping health care where it is.

Yet if you propose even mild reforms to health care -- such as user co-payments, or private health care delivery (not private insurance) -- the public screams bloody murder. Never mind that many other nations with public health insurance have made such reforms; even Sweden has co-payments.

My favorite is the opposition to so-called "two tier health care". Basically, this means a scenario in which doctors and patients could opt out of the public system, in effect paying extra for faster care. Most Canadians reject this idea loudly. Yet two-tier health care is already with us; it's called "get in your car and drive to the nearest American hospital". Besides, we already tolerate two-tier education (i.e., private schools), and civilization has yet to collapse.

I love socialized medicine, but sometimes it seems like the Canada Health Act is more like a suicide pact: we all die together.

Give it a look at:

Canada's Pandemic Flu Plan

Interesting observation. I've seen videos of the side effects on cows with Posilac. I'm not sure what would be mastitis, per se, but I can tell you that what I saw was cruel and repugnant.

The udders would sometimes be swollen and almost dragging on the ground, impeding the cow's ability to walk, and there would be so much pus around the teats that the milking mechanisms would just slide off. There were an assortment other side effects as well.

Mind you, I do not know how often these things occur in untreated cows. The Canadian drug administration indicated a 25% increase in mastitis, among other symptoms (lameness, infertility, reduced life expectancy), and pointedly indicated a nominal increase in milk production. Indeed, from what I recall, the FDA had similar claims, which were erased from the final document.

There are other affects upon humans, that are equally absent from American publications.

Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets