United States: MAHA Commission Report Addresses Chemical Toxins But Falls Short on EMFs

MAHA Commission Report Addresses Chemical Toxins But Falls Short on EMFs
ehtrust.org/, May 29, 2025

The initial report of the president’s MAHA Commission (Make America Healthy Again) was released last week, offering an assessment of the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis, along with potential contributing factors and strategy recommendations. The MAHA Committee, chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., includes the heads of departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and the NIH, among others. The 14-member panel of presidential advisors offered this 70-page report “supporting gold-standard scientific research.”

The commission’s report addresses many important issues, including biochemical toxins and toxicants in the food supply and environment; electromagnetic pollution, however, did not get any significant attention. We at EHT were hoping to see emphasis given to research into the health impact of electropollution from wireless devices and networks on children, but unfortunately this initial report offers only a single bullet point on the topic.

“And in that short bullet, there is a glaring error,” says EHT Vice President of Scientific and Clinical Affairs, Dr. Robert Brown. “Specifically, the statement says that ‘some studies have linked EMR exposure to reduced sperm counts and motility but not quality.’ Certainly, by affecting sperm counts and motility, sperm quality is affected. Indeed, the authors of the paper cited specify in their abstract that sperm quality data includes sperm density, motility, viability, morphology, and DNA fragmentation. I wonder who added this erroneous phrase and find it interesting that it was added in the same document in which a separate section discusses corporate capture and the revolving door.”

David O. Carpenter, MD, Top Public Health Physician, Joins NTEF'S Advisory Board

NTEF’s (National Toxic Encephalopathy Foundation) core purposes are to provide education and services to the growing segment of the population who are adversely affected by everyday chemicals and toxins in our environment.

It has been proven that chemicals/radiation have a direct effect upon the brain whether during pregnancy, childhood or in adults. Chemicals such as pesticides, cleaning/disinfectant products, building materials, vaccine preservatives, perfumes, air fresheners, fragranced products, mold, along with electro-magnetic radiation/smart meters are most likely causing harm to your health and/or to the health of those around you.

David O. Carpenter, MD, Top Public Health Physician, Joins NTEF'S Advisory Board
prlog.org, 10 January 2019

LAS VEGAS - Jan. 10, 2019 - PRLog -- The National Toxic Encephalopathy Foundation (NTEF) is pleased to announce that David O. Carpenter, MD, has become a member of the NTEF'S Advisory Board.

Dr. Carpenter is a world-renowned research physician, recipient of numerous awards; Leon Resnick, Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator, Homer N. Calver, and Albion O. Bernstein.

Dr. Carpenter received both his undergrad and medical degrees from Harvard. After graduation from medical school, Dr. Carpenter chose to study brain function rather than to practice clinical medicine. Even as a medical student he graduated with a number of first-author publications on neural control of movement. He went on to study basic mechanism of synaptic transmission, first in invertebrate neurons and then using mammalian brain slices. His recent work is entirely focused on environmental causes of human diseases.

United States: Sidelined Children's Health Official, Dr. Ruth Etzel, Says EPA Inaction Means "Kids Are Disposable"

Sidelined children's health official says EPA inaction means "kids are disposable"
cbsnews.com, 15 October 2018

Dr. Ruth Etzel, the EPA's top pediatric
expert, was sidelined by the Trump
Administration.  CBS News

Making sure children are protected from environmental toxins has been Dr. Ruth Etzel's job at the Environmental Protection Agency. She's the agency's top pediatric expert – the author of textbooks and policy handbooks on children's environmental health. As director of the Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP), it was her job to determine the impacts of regulations on children.

"I often think of the Office of Children's Health as the conscience of EPA, because, you know, we're kind of nagging at them: 'Is this okay for children? Are you sure this is okay for children?'" she told correspondent Anna Werner.

But from the beginning of the Trump administration, Dr. Etzel says it seemed those above her no longer wanted her advice. "Our message is no longer welcome. The message that children are not little adults and they need special protections is not welcome," she said.

Continue reading:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-childrens-health-official-ruth-etzel-epa-kids-disposable/

IQ Scores Are Falling and Have Been for Decades, New Study Finds

"It's something to do with the environment"... These environmental factors could include changes in the education system and media environment, nutrition, reading less and being online more, Rogeberg said.

IQ scores are falling and have been for decades, new study finds
by Rory Smith, CNN, 14 June 2018

Story highlights:

• The research suggests that genes aren't what's driving the decline in IQ scores
• "It's not that dumb people are having more kids than smart people," researcher says

(CNN)IQ scores have been steadily falling for the past few decades, and environmental factors are to blame, a new study says.

The research suggests that genes aren't what's driving the decline in IQ scores, according to the study, published Monday.

Why Is Our Society So Sick?

This is a very good - and long - article on what is making us ill:  radiofrequency radiation, GMOs, chemtrails, vaccines, conventional medicine...   Many of us know this, but the article seems to go deeper.  It is a reflection on the way in which we are living in the very sick environment we created, far from the harmony of nature (if such still exists)...

"There was never anything wrong with who we were, or the way that we were meant to live. We became too smart, too greedy and too caught up in our minds to see where we were heading. Now we see, and now we know."

Why Is Our Society So Sick?
By Hilde Larsen, Contributing writer for Wake Up World, 16 May 2018

As someone who suffered from long term chronic illness, I found that looking for health became much easier once I understood why I was sick. When I realized what I had been doing to myself, it became crystal clear to me why I was suffering. While everything is perfect in nature, what we have become by moving away from it is not. It has created suffering. WE have created suffering.

Being sick is not natural, being healthy is. It is what we are designed to be. There is nothing natural about having a body that is imbalanced, tired, sick and in pain.

Pollution: A Crime against Health

Pollution:  A Crime against Health
Bulletin no. 85 (October 2017), ARTAC (Association for Research on Treatment against Cancer)
(President, Professor Dominique Belpomme) (translation)

The legal group formed within ARTAC on June 2, 2017, aimed to continue the discussion on the tabling of an amendment to the Rome Statute to have pollution recognized as a health crime at the International Criminal Court (ICC). In this regard, several topics were discussed: asbestos and its consequences on health (cancers); pesticides as endocrine disruptors; electromagnetic pollution. Note that Professor Stefania Negri (Italy) has joined us.

(Photo):  Professor of International Law at the University of Salerno, specialist in procedural and penal international law, in health and environmental law, Stefania Negri is particularly interested today in the environmental health point of view of European law. She holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European Law on Health, Environment and Food Safety. 

Composition of this Think Tank 

Antonino Abrami (Italian judge), Dominique Belpomme (President of ARTAC), Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy (former magistrate and lawyer at the TGI of Paris), Olivier Cachard (Professor of International Law at the University of Metz and lawyer), Christine Campagnac (project director at ARTAC), Anaïs Français (lawyer), Franck Laval (president of Ecologie Sans Frontières), Stefania Negri (see description above), Etienne Riondet (lawyer at the Bar of Paris), Michèle Rivasi (Member of the European Parliament), Kathleen Rueff (Founder of RightonCanada.ca, NGO specialized in the field of asbestos), Jean-Paul Teissonnière (environmental lawyer), Louise Vandelac (sociologist and professor at the University of Montreal).

Summary of French TV Program "C à vous" : Interview with Professor Dominique Belpomme

We have had a request for a transcript of the interview with Professor Dominique Belpomme during the French TV program, "C à vous" which aired on 6 April 2016 on the theme "Taking better care of ourselves".  The entire program is not available to us in Switzerland, however, we have access to a 10-minute segment which includes the interview with Prof. Belpomme. (View segment in French.)  Following is a summary of this segment by the Editor of "Towards Better Health".

Anne Sophie Lapix, presenter of the program, refers to Prof. Belpomme's newest book, "Comment naissent les maladies" [how do diseases arise?] where he says 70-90% of cancers are linked to the environment.

Prof. Belpomme replies that especially now, there is molecular proof.   He refers to "epigenetics": the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression. Radiation, chemical substances, microbes modify proteins in the cell and gene expression which explains why cancers in particular are linked to the environment.

Interview with Dominique Belpomme, Oncologist: "70% to 90% of Cancers Linked to the Environment"

View of Mt. Blanc from the heights of the city of Lyon.
Photo:  Konrad K./ Spia

Dominique Belpomme, cancérologue : “70% to 90% of Cancers Thought to be Linked to the Environment”
Interview by Weronika Zarachowicz, telerama.fr, 6 April 2016
(translated from French - see translator's note at end of article)

Cancer, obesity, allergies, behavioral disorders... The increase in these maladies is to a great extent  due to the degradation of our environment, warns the oncologist, Dominique Belpomme.  Staggering, frightening, however possibly reversible.

What is the share of environmental factors in the continued increase in cancer? What is the role of ecology in contemporary medicine? For over ten years, the oncologist Dominique Belpomme, former member of the "Cancer Committee" of public assistance, and now director of ECERI (European Cancer and Environment Research Institute) in Brussels, makes us aware of the links between health and environment. In his new book, published 6 April, How Diseases Are Born (Comment naissent les maladies, ed. Les liens qui libèrent), he broadens even more the scope of his research and calls for a profound change in our health system (and thinking!) . For now, he says, there is no doubt about the environmental causes of most modern diseases, be it cancer, obesity, allergies, behavioral disorders or emerging diseases such as electrohypersensitivity ...

Book Review: "No Family History" by Sabrina McCormick

Re-posted on 1st November 2015:  The book discusses the environmental links to breast cancer, with a personal testimony from a resident of Long Island, New York State, which has the second highest breast cancer rate in the United States.  The book is also an excellent resource for advocacy.

[For years, I have been living my life between Long Island and Geneva, Switzerland, which also has a very high rate of breast cancer.  I was treated for breast cancer in 2004.  The latest statistics from Switzerland are alarming:  one in 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer is under age 40.  The prognosis is less favorable for young women.]

“NO FAMILY HISTORY” by Sabrina McCormick (2009) (www.nofamilyhistory.org).

The author discusses the environmental links to breast cancer, focusing on Long Island in New York State, which has the second highest breast cancer rate in the United States after Marin County in California. She says we must rethink advocacy which is currently concerned with detection, treatment, research and support groups. Associations advocate better treatment options for women and raise more awareness about the disease. In fact, these actions generate more profits for the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industries instead of focusing on prevention.

For instance, AstraZeneca, a producer of drugs for chemo and hormonal therapies, created the National Cancer Awareness Month. As is often the case with these corporations, there is a conflict of interest, since on the one hand, they are helping to raise money for research through organizing “pink” events to generate awareness of breast cancer, while on the other, polluting the environment with very toxic chemicals which cause cancer. AstraZeneca, formerly the Imperial Chemical Industries, used to manufacture personal care products and food ingredients which have been found to be harmful to health.

Why Modern Life is Making Dementia in Your 40s More Likely

An MRI scan of a human brain:  dementia sufferers
are becoming younger.  Photo:  Alamy

Why modern life is making dementia in your 40s more likely
by Colin Pritchard, The Guardian, 

7 August 2015

From background radiation to chemicals in the food chain, environmental changes are contributing to a rapid global rise in neurological disease

My interest in neurological disease was triggered by a second friend dying of motor neurone disease (MND), which in purely statistical terms was exceptional. It is suggested there is an incidence of about one in 50,000 who are affected by MND and most die. No one knows 50,000 people, so was it a statistical fluke?

This raised the question of whether there were increases not only in MND, but in neurological disorders as a whole, including the dementias. Using World Health Organisation mortality data, which – while not perfect – is the best information available as it is collated in a standard and uniform way, myself and colleagues at the faculty of health and social sciences at Bournemouth University set out to investigate this.

Our first study, focusing on the changing pattern of neurological deaths from 1979 up to 1997, found that dementias were starting 10 years earlier – affecting more people in their 40s and 50s – and that there was a noticeable increase in neurological deaths in people up to the age of 74. In a follow-up study, taking us to 2010 and across 21 western countries, these increases were confirmed.

The Story of Silent Spring

Rachel Carson
(Photo:
Alfred Eisenstaedt / Time Life Pictures)

"Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement...

"The threats she had outlined -- the contamination of the food chain, cancer, genetic damage, the deaths of entire species -- were too frightening to ignore. For the first time, the need to regulate industry in order to protect the environment became widely accepted, and environmentalism was born."

The Story of Silent Spring -
How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind's impact on nature.

Summary by the Natural Resources Defense Council

Although their role will probably always be less celebrated than wars, marches, riots or stormy political campaigns, it is books that have at times most powerfully influenced social change in American life. Thomas Paine's Common Sense galvanized radical sentiment in the early days of the American revolution; Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe roused Northern antipathy to slavery in the decade leading up to the Civil War; and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement.

Our Responsibility Towards Mother Earth and Mankind

Chief Arvol Looking Horse

REPOSTED, AS OUR CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY - 5 JUNE:

In 2001, I attended a talk given by Chief Arvol Looking Horse , 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Great Sioux Nation. During the talk, he said, “Many of you dreamed about the white buffalo in 1994.” The words stunned me, for I had had such a dream that year. I was standing on the edge of a very wide, deep pit, torn out of the earth by a huge machine. Looking into the distance, I saw a white buffalo on a hill. I took this to mean that we are desecrating the earth. The white buffalo appeared to us as a warning. The following from the “Native American” site tells the story of the white buffalo. The birth of one in 1994 had a very significant meaning for the native peoples. It signified “a time of profound change upon the planet and a new level of responsibility for mankind.”   

This is my message for the New Year.  Each and every one of us has a responsibility to care for Mother Earth and humankind.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse reminds us of our responsibility towards the earth and mankind:

The Globalization of Cancer

RE-POSTED 21 June 2014: The number of cancers being diagnosed in the world each year has leaped to more than 14 million, says the World Health Organization.  Developing countries are disproportionately affected by the increasing numbers of cancers. More than 60% of the world’s total cases occur in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, and these regions account for about 70% of the world’s cancer deaths, a situation that is made worse by the lack of early detection and access to treatment.

This March 2012 post is based on an article by Dr. Annie Sasco about the globalization of cancer.  I wish to thank “SOS pour un Monde Meilleur” for having shared this information with me. 

“Dr. Sasco has been a cancer epidemiologist for 25 years and has worked for 22 years at the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer).  She is currently at the University Victor Segalen, Bordeaux, France, where she directs an INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) epidemiological team for the prevention of cancer.  Founding member of an equitable coffee trade group several years ago, she defines herself as a feminist and world citizen, a mix of ’68 and Harvard.    She has done an immense and remarkable work informing the population on the disaster and explosion of cancer that we cannot stop without mobilization of the public.   Our toxic, harmful carcinogenic products and out-dated medicines are being exported to less favored populations.   How can we still tolerate that these products, which have been declared “toxic” in our industrialized countries, continue to be distributed on the African continent and elsewhere notably by saying, “this is going to treat you, it is good for you …”  

Each of us can react and is partially responsible. 

European Environment Agency: Pay Attention to Early Warning Signs on Technology Health Risks

"In the absence of more solid scientific evidence on potential harmful effects caused by new technologies it would be prudent to take a precautionary approach, so as to avoid damage to human and ecosystem health…We cannot ignore the past lessons which tell us that the costs of inaction are often higher and more tragic than those of early action," warns the European Environment Agency’s Executive Director, Professor Jacqueline McGlade.  Here is the link to the report.

Europe: Pay attention to early warning signs on technology health risks 
by Emily Beament, Independent.ie, 23 January 2013

MORE attention should be paid to early warnings that technology ranging from mobile phones to pesticides could be harmful to health and the environment, it was urged today.

Danger signals of the potential risks of different technologies often go unheeded or suppressed until they are causing death, illness or environmental destruction, according a new report from the European Environment Agency.

Trees

Trees

 I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

-        Joyce Kilmer

As we come to the end of another year, tribute is paid to those who have made the world a better place.  Whether they are poets, environmentalists, health-givers, all these persons have healed the world in some way.

The European Cancer and Environment Research Institute (ECERI) has been Created

( by Alain Geerts July 27, 2011. This article appeared on the site "Health and Environment" - Belgium.)

The European Cancer and Environment Research Institute has been created. ECERI - that's its name - has its headquarters in Brussels. This independent scientific organization was founded by the former French Minister of the Environment, Corinne Lepage, former Ecolo MEP Paul Lannoye, and Professor Dominique Belpomme, President of the Association for Research and Treatments against Cancer ( ARTAC ) . The Brussels initiative follows on the Paris Appeal proclaimed in 2004  which concluded that there is "a disturbing upward trend of cancers caused by environmental pollutants." The implementation of this statement about the dangers of chemical pollution has resulted in the creation of a totally independent research institute for the study of environmentally-related cancers, treatment and prevention.

The initiator of the Paris Appeal, Dominique Belpomme, oncologist and professor at Paris V, argues that "a large number of cancers are caused by the physical, chemical and biological degradation of the environment." He does not hesitate to assert along with the Director of ECERI, biochemist Philippe Irigaray, who is known to have established links between pollution and obesity, that two-thirds to three- quarters of cancers are due to the environment.

Third Paris Appeal International Congress: "Women and Children First"

This article was written by the NGO, Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), April 14, 2011. 

It is with the phrase, "women and children first", that Professor Dominique Belpomme, initiator of the first Paris Appeal Congress on the theme of children and the environment, concluded the two-day conference which brought together scientists, physicians, representatives of civil society, and politicians from 12-13 April 2011, as a prelude to a three-day intensive course in environmental medicine for health professionals.

This is confirmation of the need for a new approach to environmental health. The Third Paris Appeal International Congress on Children's Health and the Environment confirmed the extent of changes necessary to deal with the new health risks associated with environmental exposures, bringing together leading experts known for their in-depth analysis of the problematic subject of health-environment.

Third Paris Appeal International Congress on Children's Health and the Environment: The Foetus, First Victim of Pollution

This article was published by Metro France, April 12, 2011 and is translated from French.

Diseases related to the environment originate from pregnancy. Explanations and prevention tips:

Cancer, reduced fertility, diabetes, asthma ... most of the diseases that affect adults originate at the fetal stage, and are linked to environmental pollution, according to studies presented at the third congress of the Paris Appeal on children's health at UNESCO (12-13 April 2011).

The Paris Appeal, signed by thousands of scientists and citizens in 2004, establishes the link between development of cancer and environmental degradation.  Although the conference targeted chemical pollution (pesticides, phthalates, bisphenol, etc.), it was also interested in electromagnetic waves and radioactivity.