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Michael Phelps has signed a lucrative deal to promote Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes.

Basically, he will be using his celebrity status to push sugary, processed foods onto a generation of young people who already suffer from skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes.

Kids today need healthy role models who will not sellout to junk food promoters who have no problem trading fame for unethical profits.

Question: Does Phelps have a moral obligation to more carefully consider the consequences of his endorsements?

My opinion? Yes. I like Phelps as much as anyone else. He’s an extremely likeable guy who we all enjoyed watching succeed in Beijing. However, by endorsing Frosted Flakes cereal, he has now proven himself to be basically no different than anybody else who pushes unhealthy substances on American kids. Why couldn’t Phelps have found a healthy food product to endorse instead? I’ll tell you why…because cereal companies have much higher markups and have a lot more money to throw at celebrity endorsements.

We could even go so far as to say that Phelps has put his own profits ahead of the welfare of his millions of fans. While his fans get fat, Phelps gets rich.

Will the day come when Phelps realizes his mistake? Perhaps so. When his swimming days are done if he’s still eating and promoting junk food he will join his fans in experiencing a host of health problems. Hopefully, he’ll realize that processed sugar is not the “breakfast of champions.”

This does not take away from the fact that Phelps earned those eight gold medals. He is an amazing swimmer but not such a good role model. It’s too bad because he could have been a true champion on a whole new level by promoting some healthy products instead.

CT scans are now being shown to expose patients to a massive and cancer-promoting blast of radiation.

Full-body CT scans expose patients to approximately 100 times the radiation of a standard chest X-ray. Any radiation exposure is known to increase the risk of cancer, in particular, radiation in high doses. The report says that for every 2,000 people getting a full-body CT scan twice a year, one person can be expected to contract a fatal form of cancer.

A new report is recommending that patients who are exhibiting symptoms that they want diagnosed with a CT scan should instead be referred back to their general practitioner for treatment.

When Tim Russert suffered a fatal heart attack and died Friday at the age of 58 he was taking prescription medications to control coronary artery disease.

The mainstream media is reporting that Russert died from a “heart attack…but why?

Almost 100,000 Americans die every year from FDA-approved pharmaceuticals (according to the American Medical Association). Almost none of these deaths are reported as actually being caused by pharmaceuticals. Instead, the media reports that the victim died of whatever biological malfunction was most at issue at the time of death.

Instead of healing health conditions, pharmaceuticals “control” the symptoms of disease by artificially affecting numbers on a blood test. This then creates an illusion of health when no fundamental health improvements have happened at all.

Pharmaceuticals that are used to treat heart disease really just promote the continuation of the disease. They discourage patients from taking more proactive steps to resolve their health problems.

Unfortuantely, Tim Russert believed in using pharmaceuticals and did not make changes to his diet and lifestyle in a way that would have eliminated his need for that medication. According to Russert’s internist, Michael A. Newman, Russert knew he had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease but erroneously though he was “controlling” it with medication and exercise.

In looking at Russert we can see he wasn’t really controlling much with exercise. This means he was relying mostly on medication to solve his coronary heart disease problems. This may have been a fatal mistake.

Tim Russert learned the hard way what four generations of Americans are also learning.

You cannot medicate yourself to good health. When you try to do so, you may end up dying from the very medicine you thought was saving your life.

Unfortunately, Tim Russert was not heart attack proof. And we need to realize that his medication did not make him heart attack proof either.

Two young women died shortly after receiving Merck’s Gardasil, a vaccine against several varieties of human papillomavirus (HPV).

Gardasil and Glaxo SmithKline’s Cervarix protect against the two strains of HPV that are responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil also protects against two HPV strains that cause 90 percent of genital warts.

The names and ages of the women who died and the cause of death were not released. Their deaths were described as “sudden and unexpected.”

These deaths mark the fourth and fifth to occur shortly following vaccination with Gardasil and the first in Europe. Previously, three young women, aged 12, 19 and 22, died in the US within days after receiving a Gardasil shot. Also, 1,700 cases have been reported of patients suffering non-lethal adverse reactions.

It is believed that adverse effects of this medication are widely underreported.

In the United States, three states have passed laws mandating HPV vaccines for school-age girls, and 38 others have considered similar laws.

I will just say that personally, as a mother of four girls, three of which are still minors…I will NEVER encourage my daughters to receive the HPV vaccine. In fact, I will go blue in the face discouraging them from receiving it.

There is nothing dry about dry cleaning. A wet solvent is used instead of water thanks to a discovery in the 1800s in which kerosene was spilled on a tablecloth. It was noticed that it made it cleaner. An industry of dangerous cleaning solvents was born.

Cleaning fluids were mostly petroleum-based up until World War II but they would sometimes explode if they got too hot. They could also cause dizziness or neurological problems. Perchloroethylene arrived on the scene and was thought to save the day. You couldn’t smell it, it was nonflammable, and was the most reliable solvent for removing dirt. However, PERC is a synthetic, volatile organic compound and poses a health risk to humans. It is also a threat to the environment. According to Greenpeace, 70% of PERC winds up in the air or in ground water. The EPA says that it is during the cleaning, purification, and waste disposal phases of dry cleaning that these hazardous toxins can get into our air, water, and soil.

PERC is used by 3 out of 4 dry cleaners nationwide. California has banned the entire state from its use. Massachusetts, New York and Texas are also considering a ban.

It’s frightening to hear that you can be breathing PERC and not even know it. The EPA says that breathing PERC for short periods of time can adversely affect the human nervous system with symptoms ranging from dizziness, fatigue, headaches and sweating, to lack of coordination and unconsciousness.

There are several good alternatives, however. DF-2000 is a good solvent for small family-owned dry cleaners because it is inexpensive and easy to use. Unfortunately, it is only marginally better in terms of health and the environment. Better techniques would be using carbon dioxide and just plain water. These processes cost more money, however.

A licensing fee is often required to use the carbon dioxide method where expensive machines put liquid CO2 under high pressure. Nearly all garments labeled “dry clean only” can be cleaned with water through a process called wet-cleaning. This takes time and skill on the part of the professional, so the cost is higher; but, gratefully, both these methods are toxic-free.

Be careful even if your cleaner claims to be earth-friendly. Ask about the specific methods and chemicals being used. Some will advertise as “green”, “organic,” or “environmentally friendly” even when they are not. Watch out for hydrocarbon cleaning. Hydrocarbons are petroleum-based and carry all the environmental concerns of petroleum. They are a major source of greenhouse gases also.

The GreenEarth method is not perfect either. It uses a silicone-based solvent called siloxane or D-5 which is a common ingredient in deodorant and shaving creams. Although it’s chemically safe, Dow Corning (D-5’s creator) did a study that revealed it increased the risk of uterine cancer in exposed rats.

Additionally, it’s been discovered that when D-5 is manufactured chlorine is a part of that process. When chlorine is manufactured the carcinogen dioxin is released.

Silicones Environmental Health and Safety Council has responded to this report and released a statement saying that their industry has determined that D-5 is safe for its intended uses based on all of the available science. It’s up to you to decide what is an acceptable risk for you and your family.

If you still opt to dry clean your clothes, when you get home from the cleaners unwrap your clothes and air them outside or in the garage. If you immediately bring them inside the house PERC will float into the air and last up to a week without any noticeable detection.

Also know that most clothes labeled “dry clean” can be hand washed or put in the gentle cycle of your washing machine with a mild soap.