Melb baby dies of whooping cough...

I eat very well, thanks for your concern. I've been a vegetarian for the last 10 years, make most of my meals from scratch and take a lot of care with what we eat despite being busy. I don't think I'm poisoning my DD despite the WHO reccomendations.

I do eat sultanas and drink wine but I don't eat macdonalds. I consider myself and family balanced.

People in third world countries I've asked tell me they have extra children because some are likely to die. It's awful but a reality.
Lower disease burden means a different lifestyle. We plan for our children to outlive us, dont we? Education programs usually come with Health programs and they (education) result in better health and lower birth rates.

:dunno: I don't get you and my statements weren't personal, so you don't need to take it personally and get offended. I wasn't having a go at your particular diet (how would I know what you eat - and yes it is very balanced, not everyone is) but the inconsistent attitude which you've only just seemed to make even more inconsistent by revealing you're vegetarian - vaccines and the side effects are acceptable, but meat and harming animals isn't, and additives/preservatives are okay but I don't really eat them. Talk about a head spin!

Anyway, I didn't say anything about a lower birth rate in third world countries, but a lower population. These are not the same thing. Logically, if that one child isn't dying from disease, the birth rate may drop by 1 per family, but the population would stay the same, or even grow because more females might reach the age of fertility because they're not dying. Considering most of these countries have high muslim populations, they're not going to be overly keen on certain contraceptions (if at all) so I believe education will make very little difference to their population. The only way I could see a massive drop in population would be from war, famine, natural disaster or fertility issues.

I did say that I prepare most of my meals from scratch. I do eat some foods with preservatives and I'm not offended.

Education means that parents are busier and children more expensive and intensive to bring up, that results in lower birth rates and a change to a more appropriate population usually.

Perhaps, but many of these countries have some very set ideas on the roles of women. Would they even be allowed to be educated, and if they were, would they be able to be employed in jobs that would differ so greatly from what they already do? Education, in itself is expensive, and I'm pretty sure that unless you are part of the "nobility", only sons, and generally only the oldest gets educated. I can't see this social culture changing quickly. It took us 500 years and we were the world powers at the time too. Having lower mortality rates because of vaccination might not make that big of a difference, if not make them stronger.

The problem is not a lot of research has been done regarding vaccines effect on fertility. I've only been able to find one study on mice, it was very short term and only involved male mice. Not really a full picture.

As for the preservatives/additives, I think it is mainly the companies that are lazy. I can understand many consumers getting the "can't be bothered's" to go preservative and additive free because the companies have made it so hard. Most preservatives are there because they can't be bothered cleaning properly in between batches, preservative 282 comes to mind. Additives are normally added because the food has been bleached and stripped of the bulk of it's goodness, so it has to be artificially put back in. The current milk war in particular ticks me off. People might only be paying $2 but the bulk of what is in that container in cheese byproduct, not milk, but that is a case of greed more than laziness and our health is what they sacrifice to make their $$$. But I think the same thoughts about the flu jab.

Goodness, really off topic now!!

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BTW peanuts cooked at higher temperatures are more allergenic but taste better. Modern day peanuts are cooked at higher temperatures to improve taste and therefore sales.

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Firstly, that doesn't make any sense, least of all business wise. How is improving the taste by making the product deadly to a portion of the population going to 'improve sales'. When I was a kid, we took peanut butter sandwiches to school. My kids aren't allowed to. That is a massive consumption base wiped out in an instant, which means less is eaten, no matter how it tastes, so sales would not only not be improving, but getting worse. I loved peanut butter, none of my kids are allergic to peanuts and can eat them when on offer, but they can't take nut products to school and one of my good friends (who is younger than me, yes) is allergic to nuts so we just don't have them in the house. It doesn't even have to be us that is allergic to stop me buying it. Prior to that we always had PB because my DH loves it. Its just not safe to have it in the house anymore with my friend and my kids friends that it is just not worth buying it.

If they could stop that from happening by cooking it at a lower temp, I am pretty sure they'd think bugger the taste, just add some flavouring additives and boom shanka, everyone can buy it again. It is financial suicide otherwise.

But - I will remain sceptical about that as the actual cause because I am fairly certain that if it were and proven to be so, the government would have stepped in long ago to fix that. Additive 320 is not safe for children. It is banned by law from childrens products. So yeah, if roasting peanuts at a higher temp than they were 20 years ago suddenly started killing children, the government WOULD have made a law against it.

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I eat very well, thanks for your concern. I've been a vegetarian for the last 10 years, make most of my meals from scratch and take a lot of care with what we eat despite being busy. I don't think I'm poisoning my DD despite the WHO reccomendations.

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Ah, that explains your comments about needing the additives put into some foods. As an omnivore, I don't have the same problem. The food pyramid worked just fine when I was a kid, and we didn't have nut allergies, obesity epidemics and Autism rates like there is today.

WE stuffed it up somewhere. These issues are man made and it is time we accepted that, stop defending every little thing, and start holding those in charge of our food and medicines accountable.

Don't look at me, I don't own a peanut company. Anyway since when has a large company looked after the long term viability of it's market, sometimes, occasionally?

I think the health department has bigger fish to fry, look how far they've gotten with cigarettes, fast food, sugary drinks etc.

Yeddi: I think if we all had plenty of time, money and energy the world would be a much happier place! Good luck with that!

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Don't look at me, I don't own a peanut company. Anyway since when has a large company looked after the long term viability of it's market, sometimes, occasionally?

I think the health department has bigger fish to fry, look how far they've gotten with cigarettes, fast food, sugary drinks etc.

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A food product that can kill an allergic person in One Bite is not "Big Fish"?? Are you kidding?

So far the government has fast tracked the introduction of epipens.
Managed the rollout of "Allergy Emergency Kits" in all public schools and government daycare centres.
State governments are creating policies to make schools "Allergy Friendly"
The FSANZ - the people too busy to do anything about nut allergies apparently - have enforced the need to display the potential for nuts inside ALL food products in large bold font.
They are funding researchers to find allergen inhibitors to try and prevent the reaction in the first place.

But they are too busy to make one rule against roasting temperatures.

Highly doubtful.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11398088

Interesting. According to this study dry roasting can sometimes create proteins that can't be processed by enzymes. There's those pesky enzymes again...

This may explain some allergies, but in order for this study to be relevant, wouldn't it only apply to those who ate the peanuts? What about those who practically smell the peanut vapours to react, like that case of the girl dying after kissing her boyfriend and he had a peanut butter sandwich 5 hours earlier?

That's the immune system, complex, amazing and confused as it sometimes is.

I've got a bad feeling vaccines are to blame for allergies too? Is there any evil they aren't responsible for? Poverty, Charlie sheen, Gadaffi? Lol!
(I'm sure someone is going to list them now)

I've always said that vaccines were behind the rise in auto-immune disorders due to the effect they have on enzymes. Allergies are linked to auto-immune disorders. They are related to enzymes. Same topic we've always been talking about really.

Connection Between Allergic Diseases And Autoimmune Diseases

The same enzyme system - CY450 - is required to process both vaccines and peptides. If their inefficiency is due to low production for instance which is gene based and genes control ALL enzymes it will affect all enzymes, however a person's body may not be highly effected by lower enzyme production until it is piggy backed with something else, like yeast for example. Yeast produces a highly toxic metabolite called gliotoxin. Among its toxic mechanisms it inactivates a number of important enzymes, mainly those that are required to process things in the gut - the main home of yeast, which would effect those with allergies, diabetes etc. Also, Gliotoxin also induces apoptosis [cell death] in a variety of immune cell types and is highly immunosuppressive, so would also affect those enzymes that are responsible for processing vaccines and their toxins.

It is a known fact that autistic children normally also have food allergies even if there is no history of food allergy in the family. My DD for instance, is allergic to peanuts. However, I don't think she is allergic to the peanut itself but the YEAST in today's modern peanut - yes, they are full of yeast!

Thinking how vaccines might effect fertility, it is a known fact that women who miscarry often have very high antibodies. Vaccination stimulates immune system to create antibodies, antibodies attack anything they see as foreign or a threat, baby's are foreign by having their own DNA... Is it really that much of a stretch?

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BTW peanuts cooked at higher temperatures are more allergenic but taste better. Modern day peanuts are cooked at higher temperatures to improve taste and therefore sales.

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Effects of cooking methods on peanut allergenicity. [J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2001] - PubMed result

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CONCLUSION: The methods of frying or boiling peanuts, as practiced in China, appear to reduce the allergenicity of peanuts compared with the method of dry roasting practiced widely in the United States. Roasting uses higher temperatures that apparently increase the allergenic property of peanut proteins and may help explain the difference in prevalence of peanut allergy observed in the 2 countries.

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Ok, So that wasn't actually what you said. Peanuts were roasted here when I was a child too. This does not say that the roasting temperature is higher than it was 30 years ago, and it certainly does not say that roasting tastes better than boiling or frying and so that is why they do it.

So the question still stands. Why are Peanut Butter Sandwiches not safe anymore? They were made with roasted peanuts then and they are made with roasted peanuts now.

The Hygiene Theory is starting to carry some weight in some scientific circles though.

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Anyway, I didn't say anything about a lower birth rate in third world countries, but a lower population. These are not the same thing. Logically, if that one child isn't dying from disease, the birth rate may drop by 1 per family, but the population would stay the same, or even grow because more females might reach the age of fertility because they're not dying. Considering most of these countries have high muslim populations, they're not going to be overly keen on certain contraceptions (if at all) so I believe education will make very little difference to their population. The only way I could see a massive drop in population would be from war, famine, natural disaster or fertility issues.

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Que? Are you for real? Last time I checked South and Central America had very low populations of Muslims (in fact it was mainly Catholic) and large swathes of Africa were Christian and Animist. Many areas of Asia are populated mainly by Hindus and Buddhists and the Pacific has a very high Christian population.
I'm not 100% sure on the current Catholic guidelines on contracption but I think that it is forbidden. Whilst I'm not au fait with Christian proscriptions on contraception I can assure you that Islam does not forbid contraception. I do hope your knowledge of vaccinations is more accurate than your knowledge of '3rd world' demographics or Islamic Shariah.

I'll admit I was mainly thinking of Indonesia, Malaysia and northern Africa, which have quite large muslim populations actually, and I didn't say that they forbid ALL contraception, I said:

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They're not going to be overly keen on certain contraceptions

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For instance, more permanent options like getting the snip or tubes tied is generally frowned upon unless for lifesaving reasons, and some sects do discourage contraception altogether. But your right, I didn't sit there working out what percentage of different religions there was in every 3rd world country around the world and how those beliefs would effect their social culture and therefore their ideas of sex and contraception, because it would be different for every country. So I picked the most general one to focus on, Islam (@21%), the one that was most consistent in view and widely spread amongst ALL the countries that normally come under the banner of the 3rd world, even if it wasn't always the highest in one particular country here or there. I could have just as easily have picked Christianity (@33%) but the thing with that is that there are so many denominations that teach such different things regarding sex and contraception it was an inconsistent example. Catholicism, for instance does discourage ALL contraception where protestant denominations have very different views, but of course then someone would find issue with me focusing on that socio-religious influence too I guess. All this however, misses my fundamental point, which was that population rates are certainly more complex than simply educating people on sex and contraception - social and religious ideals play a big part because they affect culture.

Educating women in itself, going to school and learning, lowers birth rate. Not because of increased awareness about sex and contraception.

As far as allergies go, the part of the immune system which is unnecessarily acting in an allergy is primarily responsible for acting against parasitic infections, not the part which acts against viral or bacterial infections. So it would seem that improved hygeine and living conditions may be responsible for allergies.

The antibodies created by vaccinations are the same as those that would be produces if you were exposed to the disease, so there is so how is there more antibodies?

Sorry, I don't quite get the last question... Are you asking why do women who miscarry generally have higher antibodies?

High prospective fetal loss rate in untreated pregnancies of women with recurrent miscarriage and antiphospholipid antibodies

Elsevier

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Autoantibodies, particularly β2 glycoprotein I antibodies and antinuclear antibodies, are associated with IVF implantation failure as well as with recurrent spontaneous abortion, although the mechanism is still unclear. The high seroprevalence of antibodies to β2 glycoprotein I suggests that it may have an important role in autoimmune reproductive failure that needs to be explored further.

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Interestingly, food allergy and miscarriage have links too: Screening for coeliac disease in women with a history of recurrent miscarriage or infertility - Kolho - 2005 - BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology - Wiley Online Library

While this has been fun, I've actually got work I need to do. If anyone what's to explore more about these topics, look them up, I've given plenty of references to start with. ;)

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All this however, misses my fundamental point, which was that population rates are certainly more complex than simply educating people on sex and contraception - social and religious ideals play a big part because they affect culture.

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I guess you could have made the point by typing exactly that rather than making a grossly misleading generalisation.

Everything I have ever read on the subject indicates that the most effective way of lowering birth rates is educating women.

From the link you just posted Yeddi: " We could not demonstrate a higher frequency of coeliac disease in women with infertility or recurrent miscarriage, but suggest that undiagnosed coeliac disease is common in women."

You are undoubtedly very well researched but I'm becoming more convinced that's the extent of your knowledge, in research. Your generalising about very specific effects in very complex systems and making provocative statements that you can't back up.

It's not enough to make wild statements and back them up with wordly sounding studies. You need to understand the systems a bit more. Maybe you need to change the focus of your studies a bit?