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From Examiner.com

A scathing new report on Celestial Seasonings teas and parent company Hain Celestial, shows 91% of the samples of Celestial Seasonings teas tested contained pesticides in levels that exceed U.S Federal limits.

High pesticides in 91% of samples

10 out of 11 varieties of Celestial Seasonings teas, one of the largest specialty tea manufacturers in North America, were found to contain excess pesticides in Antioxidant Max Blood Orange and Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape among other varieties.

From great beginnings...

Started in 1969, Celestial Seasonings was "founded on the belief that all-natural herbal teas could help people live healthier lives."

However, the tests conducted by EuroFins, an independent analytic testing company, determined that many varieties of Celestial Seasonings teas contained potentially dangerous levels of multiple pesticides.

The tests were part of a larger report by investment company Glaucus Research, which is highly critical of Celestial Seasonings parent company Hain Celestial.

READ THE FULL PESTICIDE REPORT

Read the full Glaucus report on Hain Celestial here. (Copies of the Eurofins pesticide test results begin on page 29, Appendix 1).

Hain Celestial responds, sort of

Celestial Seasonings through a spokesperson responded with a mostly cut and paste from the "values" page of their website about how they employ a "rigorous testing protocol" and that they are "confident that all Celestial Seasonings Teas deliver on...high quality, safety and taste..."

UPDATE: Celestial Seasonings has responded to customer inquiries based on this article on their Facebook page by saying the story "is based on a report issued by a “short seller,” an investment firm which stands to gain financially if our parent company’s stock declines."

This is true, but it distorts the fact that the report was actually created by an international independent testing lab, Eurofins, and that the short seller says they never touched the samples at any time.

CS added; "we strongly disagree with the misleading information contained within the report...We sent the same teas mentioned in the report for testing to the National Food Lab (NFL), an industry-leading third-party lab...NFL’s independent testing reaffirmed that Celestial Seasonings teas are safe and follow the strict guidelines established by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

We continue to reassure you now that Celestial Seasonings teas are still...safe...quality products."

Celestial Seasonings has samples tested by its own consultants

National Food Lab (NFL) however, proudly lists Celestial Seasonings as one of its clients on its website. Saying of its clients, "Somewhere along the line, we have had a hand in their success." NFL declined to comment on its report, citing "confidentiality."

A spokesperson at the Eurofins lab where the original testing took place says, "we stand behind the results we report to our tea clients."

Celestial Seasonings has not sent me their own report.

END UPDATE

How can Celestial Seasonings be so confident?

I wanted to believe Celestial Seasonings teas and Hain Celestial, I really did. So I asked them again if they had read the Glaucus report. Indeed they had they said.

So I asked, if you employ a "rigorous testing protocol" and are "confident" in the safety of your products, 'what went wrong? And are you planning to make changes and improvements to your process?'

The company had no further comment.

A poor track record for Celestial Seasonings teas

In 2009 Kay Wright, a botanicals purchaser for the company for over 30 years, was interviewed by TLC Cooking and claimed, "we do pride ourselves all the time on being very natural. It's company standards—not industry standards. We test absolutely everything, and not very many companies do that extensive testing."

Can short sellers be trusted?

Glaucus Research is an investment firm that specializes in short selling. Short selling is betting money that a stock price will go down.

Glaucus is "short" Hain Celestial and would benefit from bad news about the company, but their report is extremely well researched. And Glaucus runs the risk of being sued for fraud if it knowingly put out a false report.

In the report, released February 21, 2013, Glaucus says, "it is important to note that at no time did we take custody of, touch or handle any of the tea samples. Rather, we had the products shipped directly to Eurofins from the Company’s website and other online retailers."

Glaucus said it encourages others to repeat their tests. Glaucus further said, "the only way for consumers to make good food choices is if food producers are held accountable for the marketing and labeling of their products."

So, who can you trust for actually good sustainable tea? Twinings.

A report by rankabrand.org gives an A to Twinings teas, their highest rating for sustainability.

Incidentally, Celestial Seasonings got an 'E,' the lowest sustainability ranking.

The list of the Celestial Seasonings teas tested

The following were the teas that were tested by Eurofins. Only the Rooibos Safari Spice turned up zero pesticides, the rest exceeded Federal safety and/or California safety limits:

-Green Tea Peach Blossom
-Green Tea Raspberry Gardens
-Authentic Green Tea
-Antioxidant Max Dragon Fruit
-Green Tea Honey Lemon Ginger
-Antioxidant Max Blackberry Pomegranate
-Antioxidant Max Blood Orange
-Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape
-Sleepytime Herb Teas
-English Breakfast Black K-Cup
-Rooibos Safari Spice

A better way to solve this?

Perhaps the best way to settle this, is to have a Consumer Reports or Environmental Working Group type of organization buy samples off the shelves and send them to a lab.

DISCLOSURE: I have no investment position in HAIN.


 
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From Greenmed.info

Newly published research reveals that more frequent statin drug use is associated with accelerated coronary artery and aortic artery calcification, both of which greatly contribute to cardiovascular and all-cause mortality.

Published Aug. 8th, 2012 in the journal Diabetes Care, researchers studied patients with type 2 diabetes and advanced atherosclerosis and found that coronary artery calcification "was significantly higher in more frequent statin users than in less frequent users." [i]

Furthermore, in a subgroup of participants initially not receiving statins, "progression of both CAC [coronary artery calcification] and AAC [aortic artery calcification] was significantly increased in frequent statin users."

What is perhaps most alarming about this new finding is that statin drugs have already been shown to significantly increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, prompting the FDA on Feb. 27th, 2011, to add "diabetes risk" to the warning label of all statin drugs marketed in this country. 

Now, with this latest discovery, it is safe to say, not only do statins likely induce type 2 diabetes in susceptible populations, but they also accelerate the cardiovascular complications associated with the disease -- a painfully ironic and highly concerning fact, considering that statins are supposed to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, not accelerate it.

As we have explored in previous articles, this is probably only the tip of a massive iceberg of statin-associated adverse effects. Our ongoing database project has linked statin drugs to over 300 documented adverse health effects, not the least of which is the ability to weaken the heart muscle, or to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by 48% in postmenopausal women.

If you know someone on a statin drug, especially someone who also has diabetes or is at risk of developing it, please distribute this information to them, and expose them to the peer-reviewed and published research that already exists on potential naturals alternatives: Health Guide: Statin Drugs.

[i] Aramesh Saremi, Gideon Bahn, Peter D Reaven, Progression of Vascular Calcification Is Increased With Statin Use in the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial (VADT). Diabetes Care. 2012 Aug 8. Epub 2012 Aug 8. PMID: 22875226


 
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(NaturalNews)

If you post articles to your Facebook wall that warn others about the dangers of vaccines, or Tweet links to the latest studies tying vaccines to autism through Twitter, the vaccine pushers of the world could soon know about it in real time. According to new reports, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed scientists in both the United States and Great Britain have jointly developed a computerized global monitoring system capable of tracking all social media activity around the world that defies mainstream vaccine dogma, and reporting it directly to authorities.

This brave new exercise in multinational, Big Brother spying is being hailed as a solution to the rapid spread of so-called "rumors" and "lies" about vaccines via the internet, which basically constitute any online free speech that questions the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. According to mainstream authorities, vaccines are completely safe and effective in every way, and anything that defies this unsubstantiated proclamation is now officially considered to be misinformation by the global police state.

According to Heidi Larson from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the U.K., and author of the new tracking system, free speech on the internet has "speeded up the global spread" of what she and others consider to be "unchecked rumors and misinformation about vaccines." People thinking for themselves, in other words, and discussing legitimate vaccine safety concerns with others online is a threat to the establishment, thus the need for a virtual all-seeing eye, of sorts, to monitor all this chatter and report it directly to health officials.

Bill Gates, vaccine industry desperately trying to maintain vaccine myth through intimidationThe real motivation behind the development of this new tracking tool, of course, is to increase vaccine compliance by intimidating people into silence. Since the Gates Foundation-backed vaccine pushers do not have the capacity to completely prohibit online free speech as it pertains to vaccines (at least not yet), they are instead resorting to underhanded intimidation and manipulation tactics that they hope will give them a new platform to spread their propaganda more quickly and thwart efforts that defy the vaccine status quo.

This is all openly admitted by those who developed the new tracking platform using Gates Foundation funds, and it speaks for itself as to the true intentions of this sadistic cohort. An increasing number of people, for good reason, are avoiding vaccines, as study after study shows them to be toxic and largely ineffective. In fact, vaccines have been shown to be the cause of disease outbreaks, not the solution to them as claimed by Larson and others. So to stem this massive departure, the vaccine industry is seeking new ways to embed itself in the global discussion on vaccines in order to convince more people to get them.

Just in case you were wondering, virtually all of the disease outbreaks in recent years that authorities claim were caused by unvaccinated individuals were actually most prominent among the vaccinated. In other words, the data shows that vaccinated individuals are actually more likely to contract diseases like mumps, measles, and polio than are children who have not been vaccinated, which completely debunks the myths that vaccines "save lives," and that not getting vaccinated puts one's health at serious risk.

You can read more about how vaccines do not prevent disease outbreaks by visiting:
http://vactruth.com/2013/02/23/17-examples-of-vaccine-failure/

Sources for this article include:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au

http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/Vaccines/39060

http://vactruth.com/
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040571_Gates_Foundation_vaccine_monitoring_dangers.html#ixzz2V1OT1oc8