[Leslie Carol Botha: The HPV vaccine travesty continues all around the world. Over 25,000 girls and their families have reported adverse reactions from the HPV vaccines to VAERS. And that is only 1 to 10% of the vaccine injured reporting.  There is no such thing as a 'mystery illness.'  Journalist Christina England writes about this eloquently in a recent article titled: Doctors Change Names of Diseases When Vaccines Do Not Work - they also call vaccine damage a 'mystery illness.' How can this be a mystery illness when in the FDA documents regarding the clinical trials on Gardasil it was documented that 73.3% of girls developed "new medical conditions."  I have this document if anyone is interested in reading it.]

Mother links daughter’s mystery illness to vaccine

Adelaide Now
Andrew Dowdell  From: Sunday Mail (SA)
May 05, 2012 10:00PM

Jessica Lock, 13, and her mother Shelley at their Aberfoyle Park home. Picture: Nigel Parsons

TWO months ago, Jessica Lock was a typical 13-year-old – outgoing, healthy and happy.

Yet now she is a stranger in her own home, racked by an array of mysterious ailments.

A week after being administered in February with the anti-cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil at her school, the teenager began fainting and experiencing strong head pains – and her parents say she has lapsed into a semi-permanent, child-like state.

Mother Shelley Lock believes her daughter suffered a severe and extremely rare reaction to Gardasil but said public hospital staff had been unwilling to examine a link, with one doctor inferring Jessica’s condition was psychosomatic.

“It is frustrating because she was completely healthy before this, she had no stress, had just started Year 8 and was meeting new friends, has a good family, so to have it inferred that it was just stress or psychological was very frustrating,” Mrs Lock said.

Exhaustive tests ruled out other potential causes such as brain tumours. However, Jessica’s condition continued to deteriorate.

“She had an episode where she didn’t know we were mum and dad, she was hysterical and screaming and we rang Flinders while she was in that state and they said there was nothing they could do to treat her and to not bother bringing her in,” Mrs Lock said.

“Every now and then she comes lucid. Like on Monday morning, she woke up and sat and cried for five minutes because she couldn’t remember the whole weekend, so she has her moments where she is aware that things are not right.”

Mrs Lock said she found online testimonials from the US and Australia by women and girls who say they have experienced similar symptoms after being given Gardasil.

Jessica is now being treated by a toxicologist, who has said she suffered neurological damage because of an inherited susceptibility to metals contained in the vaccine, which has been administered to about 23,000 South Australian schoolgirls as part of a government program since 2008.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Australian Mother Realizes Daughter’s Mystery Illness Related To Gardasil

[Leslie Carol Botha: Honoring the Goddess. Honoring Cycles. How exciting. The Divine Feminine rises in the midst of the war on women.]

Cirque du Soleil unveils Amaluna A new touring show directed by Diane Paulus in Montreal’s Old Port Starting April 19

Press Release
April 4, 2012

Montreal, April 4, 2012 – Cirque du Soleil unveiled Amaluna today in Montreal, a new creation presented by Desjardins Group. Directed by Diane Paulus, a renowned theatre director from New York, Amaluna will be presented under the Big Top at the Old Port of Montreal as of April 19, and at the Port de Québec as of July 25.

The Show
 Amaluna invites the audience to a mysterious island governed by Goddesses and guided by the cycles of the moon. Their queen, Prospera, directs her daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony in a rite that honours femininity, renewal, rebirth and balance which marks the passing of these insights and values from one generation to the next.

In the wake of a storm caused by Prospera, a group of young men lands on the island, triggering an epic, emotional story of love between Prospera’s daughter and a brave young suitor. But theirs is a love that will be put to the test. The couple must face numerous demanding trials and overcome daunting setbacks before they can achieve mutual trust, faith and harmony.

The name
Amaluna is a fusion of the words ama, which refers to “mother” in many languages, and luna, which means “moon,” a symbol of femininity that evokes both the mother-daughter relationship and the idea of goddess and protector of the planet. Amaluna is also the name of the mysterious island where the story unfolds.

A tribute to the work and voice of women

For the first time at Cirque du Soleil, the cast of a show is 70% female and the band, 100%. “Amaluna is a tribute to the work and voice of women,” explains Director of Creation Fernand Rainville. “The show is a reflection on balance from a woman’s perspective,“ he adds. Show Director Diane Paulus says: “Amaluna is less about feminism and more about reconnecting to our world in a different way.”

Amaluna has a cast of 50 artists hailing from 15 different countries.

Diane Paulus
Diane Paulus is the Artistic Director of the A.R.T. (American Repertory Theatre). Her recent work with A.R.T. includes The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, a new production adapted by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and OBIE-winning composer Diedre Murray, playing on Broadway; Prometheus Bound; Death and The Powers: The Robots’ Opera, a new opera by Tod Machover in collaboration with MIT Media Lab, which world premiered at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo; The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which ran for six years Off-Broadway and toured internationally; Best of Both Worlds, and Johnny Baseball.

Diane’s other recent theatre credits include the Public Theatre’s Tony-Award winning revival of HAIR on Broadway and London’s West End and, as an opera director, The Magic Flute (Canadian Opera Company), Il mondo della luna at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Turn Of The Screw, Cosi fan tutte, and the Monteverdi trilogy Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Orfeo at the Chicago Opera Theatre.

Diane is a Professor of the Practice of Theatre in Harvard University’s English Department and was recently named one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Boston by Boston Magazine. She is a recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Boston Conservatory. This is Diane Paulus’ first collaboration with Cirque du Soleil.

Read the complete article and related information at Amaluna – a Play About Goddesses and Cycles Unveiled by Cirque du Soleil

Tracee Sioux and her daughter Ainsley from Fort Collins, CO – have started two new businesses -  a blog, the Girl Revolution, with a mission to “revolutionize the way we think about, treat and raise girls,” and the accompanying T.G.R. Body line of sunscreens and lotions marketed to tweens and described by Tracee as “natural, organic, craptastic-free products.” Both have gone viral since the New York Times article.

Puberty Before Age 10: A New ‘Normal’?

The New York Times Magazine
By ELIZABETH WEIL
Published: March 30, 2012

One day last year when her daughter, Ainsley, was 9, Tracee Sioux pulled her out of her elementary school in Fort Collins, Colo., and drove her an hour south, to Longmont, in hopes of finding a satisfying reason that Ainsley began growing pubic hair at age 6. Ainsley was the tallest child in her third-grade class. She had a thick, enviable blond-streaked ponytail and big feet, like a puppy’s. The curves of her Levi’s matched her mother’s.

“How was your day?” Tracee asked Ainsley as she climbed in the car.

“Pretty good.”

“What did you do at a recess?”

“I played on the slide with my friends.”

In the back seat, Ainsley wiggled out of her pink parka and looked in her backpack for her Harry Potter book. Over the past three years, Tracee — pretty and well-put-together, wearing a burnt orange blouse that matched her necklace and her bag — had taken Ainsley to see several doctors. They ordered blood tests and bone-age X-rays and turned up nothing unusual. “The doctors always come back with these blank looks on their faces, and then they start redefining what normal is,” Tracee said as we drove down Interstate 25, a ribbon of asphalt that runs close to where the Great Plains bump up against the Rockies. “And I always just sit there thinking, What are you talking about, normal? Who gets pubic hair in first grade?”

Fed up with mainstream physicians, Tracee began pursuing less conventional options. She tried giving Ainsley diindolylmethane, or DIM, a supplement that may or may not help a body balance its hormones. She also started a blog, the Girl Revolution, with a mission to “revolutionize the way we think about, treat and raise girls,” and the accompanying T.G.R. Body line of sunscreens and lotions marketed to tweens and described by Tracee as “natural, organic, craptastic-free products” containing “no estrogens, phytoestrogens, endocrine disrupters.”

None of this stopped Ainsley’s body from maturing ahead of its time. That afternoon, Tracee and Ainsley visited the office of Jared Allomong, an applied kinesiologist. Applied kinesiology is a “healing art” sort of like chiropractic. Practitioners test muscle strength in order to diagnose health problems; it’s a refuge for those skeptical and weary of mainstream medicine.

Read Full Article…
(Readers may have to subscribe to The New York Times to peruse the entire article…and the 308 comments.)

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Tracee Sioux
970-443-7052
www.tgrbody.com
www.thegirlrevolution.com

NYT Magazine Highlights TGR Body & The Girl Revolution in Fort Collins

Dear Editor,

TGR Body and The Girl Revolution were highlighted in New York Times Magazine, Puberty Before Age 10: A New Normal. The article, and the two Fort Collins companies have gone viral, creating quite a stir. Girls are entering puberty earlier than previous generations, Tracee Sioux and her 10-year-old daughter Ainsley courageously shared their personal experience.

TGR Body is a mother-daughter company, a natural, organic, craptastic-free skincare line of sunscreens and lotions containing no estrogens, phytoestrogens or endocrine disrupters. While the cause of early puberty is not definitively known, skincare products containing toxins and phytoestrogens are widely suspected to play a part in the earlier development of girls. Equally important, TGR Body advertising and labels feature girls participating in powerful activities: playing, running, hiking and snowboarding rather than the typical sexualized images of today’s beauty marketing.

“I wanted to prove that powerful and respectful beauty marketing can and should be done, added to a safe product that protects and nurtures girls’ skin as well as their identities and body image,” says Sioux, founder of TGR Body and publisher of The Girl Revolution.

The Girl Revolution is leading the discussion on femininity in today’s culture. The Girl Revolution confronts the tough gender issues that impact women and their daughters, granddaughters, students and neighbors. Saturated with minimizing and demoralizing depictions of women and girls in advertising, media and marketing, girls must navigate a completely different world than previous generations.

Tracee Sioux is a national expert on femininity and parenting daughters. She began The Girl Revolution when her she noticed her daughter was bombarded with sexualized images of girls everywhere she looked. In her book, Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories, Sioux takes a critical look the Disney Princess Culture explores how the messages encourage a media distortion of love and what girls should (not) give up for it. She birthed TGR Body in 2011 to combat the media’s Beauty Ideal and give girls and women an alternative to possibly dangerous beauty products.

To find out more about TGR Body or The Girl Revolution call Sioux to arrange an interview at 970-443-7052 or email at traceesioux@gmail.com.

Read the complete article and related information at Is the New ‘Normal’ Puberty Before Age 10?

Modern Mom
Parenting

October 3, 2011

Somewhere during the first week of school, I noticed that my daughter was not acting like herself. “Herself” is usually (not always, but usually) a bubbly, happy, confident, energetic kid who generally tends to let things roll off her back.

But during that first week of school, she seemed more sensitive than normal; she was getting upset at little things and she was crying a lot. I mentioned it to a few of my friends, but nearly everyone had the same response: it’s the first week of school, it’s a lot of change, they’re all tired, she probably misses camp, it’s an adjustment period.

Okay, I thought. I can live with that. Even though she’s never tired. Even though it’s never taken her more than five minutes to adjust to anything. Even though camp ended nearly three weeks ago. I tried not to over-analyze, though. My plan was to just see what happens.

What happened was not much. The second and third weeks of school were more or less the same as the first. It wasn’t anything alarming, mind you – I wasn’t worried that she was on drugs or anything like that – it was just subtle changes in her behavior. Where last year, a joke about her hair being messy in the morning would have gotten a laugh, now it got watery eyes and a shuffle off to her room to fix it. Where last year an accusation of meanness by her brother would have solicited an eye-roll, now it caused tears and a slammed door.

I tried talking to her. Is anything going on at school? Are you having problems with your friends? Do you feel like you’ve got too much on your plate? Is fourth grade homework too overwhelming? Through tears, she insisted that everything was fine. Then what’s wrong? I finally asked her. How come you’ve been crying so much lately? Her answer: I don’t know why I’m crying.

Well.

If there were ever six words in the English language that resonated more with me, I don’t know what they could possibly be. Okay, maybe “I need a drink right now.” Or, “I must buy some new shoes.” Then again, “I’m not answering to ‘mommy’ anymore” could be another. But anyway, the point is, with “I don’t know why I’m crying,” the kid was definitely speaking my language. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I utter those very words at least once a month, and usually around the same time each month, if you catch my drift.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Holy Hormones – Handling My Tween’s Pre-Puberty Crying Jags

Women’s eNews

By Suzanne Braun Levine
WeNews guest author
Sunday, January 8, 2012

Despite conventional wisdom dictating that intimacy ends at midlife for women, Suzanne Braun Levine says this is untrue in her new book “How We Love Now.” In this except, she describes how love actually changes and deepens.

Suzanne Braun-Levine

(WOMENSENEWS)–Being in love knows no age limits. The kinds of love we can experience in a lifetime are limited only by our imagination and our circumstances.

Every love, whenever and however often it strikes, is unique and mysterious. Yet for too many women the notion of experiencing that unique and mysterious intimacy at midlife seems preposterous; they have bought into the conventional wisdom that menopause is the last stop on the road to loneliness and decline.

An increasing number of other women know different; they are living–and defining–a totally new love narrative. Love as they are experiencing it is not a replay of earlier relationships; there is something fresh and surprising about it. At the same time that her aging body is continuing its lifelong production of dopamine, the hormonal reward of feeling love, a woman in this convention-defying group is not experiencing love in the ways she did earlier in her life. Her wants and needs are different, and she is fulfilling those unfamiliar desires–in both flesh and spirit. Not only are women still lusting and loving as they age, they are enjoying it more than ever.

Love is never easy, and each stage of life brings its own versions of heartbreak and ecstasy. The landscape of love we are entering at midlife is not without stumbling blocks and dark shadows. We all see long-term relationships foundering around us and widows who are lost and alone for the first time in decades. We know and certainly hear all too much about how hard it is for older women to find companionship, sex, respect.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Intimacy Intensifies in Women’s ‘Second Adulthood’

Yahoo Finance

Boston lawsuit claims link between anti-miscarriage drug and breast cancer in daughters

By Denise Lavoie, AP Legal Affairs Writer

January 10, 2012

In this Dec. 13, 2011 photo, breast cancer survivor Arline MacCormack speaks with a reporter at her home in Newton, Mass. A study has confirmed that the drug DES, which millions of pregnant women took decades ago to prevent miscarriage and complications, has put their daughters at higher risk for breast cancer and other health problems that are showing up now. MacCormack is one of 53 women from around the country who are suing drug companies who made and promoted DES for millions of pregnant women from about 1938 to the early 1970s. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

BOSTON (AP) — Arline MacCormack first heard about DES from her mother when she was 17. Three decades later, MacCormack believes that the drug her mother took to prevent miscarriages caused her to develop breast cancer at age 44.

MacCormack, of Newton, is one of 53 women from around the country who are suing drug companies who made and promoted DES for millions of pregnant women from about 1938 to the early 1970s. In 1971, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told doctors to stop prescribing DES for their pregnant patients after a study found that taking DES during pregnancy appeared to increase the risk of developing a rare vaginal cancer years later for DES daughters in their teens and 20s.

DES, or diethylstilbestrol (dahy-eth-uhl-stil-bes’-trawl), is a synthetic estrogen that was prescribed to millions of women in the United States, Europe and other countries to prevent miscarriages, premature birth and other problems.

The case in Boston is being closely watched by DES daughters around the country. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed since the 1970s alleging links between DES and cervical and vaginal cancer, as well as infertility problems. Many of those cases were settled before trial. The Boston case is believed to be the first major litigation alleging a link between DES and breast cancer in DES daughters over the age of 40.

MacCormack, now 50, said she was stunned when she was diagnosed with breast cancer six years ago after having mammograms every six months since she turned 40 because she had had several benign cysts removed over the years.

“The characteristics of my cancer were for women over 60 typically. It wasn’t the type of cancer a 40-year-old or a 44-year-old woman gets,” said MacCormack.

“When I read the research that’s been done, I found I had more chance of getting it because my mom took DES,” she said.

The women’s lawyers say their case is supported by a recent study that suggests that breast cancer risk is nearly doubled in DES daughters over the age of 40. The average woman has about a 1 in 50 chance of developing breast cancer by 55. The study, led by Dr. Robert Hoover, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute, found that the chance for DES daughters is 1 in 25.

The lawsuit alleges that 14 drug manufacturers — including Eli Lilly and Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.— withheld from doctors and the FDA reports that showed DES did not prevent miscarriages and raised serious questions about the safety of the drug.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Boston lawsuit claims DES-breast cancer link

Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

re: Cycling

November 16th, 2011 by Laura Wershler

Of the growing list of reasons why women might want to reconsider using birth control pills, this could well be the strangest.

Researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto published a study on Nov. 15  in the BMJ Open Journal in which they found a “strong correlation” between the use of birth control pills and the incidence of prostate cancer worldwide.

One of the possible explanations of how the two are related is the potential impact of the estrogen compound – ethinyloestradiol – that women using the pill secrete in their urine. It has been speculated elsewhere that these endocrine-disrupting substances could end up in our drinking water or get into the food chain.

The Pill, introduced in the 60’s, has been widely used for decades. The study suggests that exposure to these substances over 20 to 30 years could have a clinically significant effect. Researchers said further study of this link is needed.

In 2010 the media was full of stories marking the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox, rang the headline of a Time Magazine article by Nancy Gibbs. Could rising rates of prostate cancer be part of this paradox?

Read More…

Read the complete article and related information at Does the Pill Cause Prostate Cancer?

Health News Digest

By Staff Editor
Nov 15, 2011 – 9:37:55 AM

The most common reason U.S. women use oral contraceptive pills is to prevent pregnancy, but 14% of pill users—1.5 million women—rely on them exclusively for noncontraceptive purposes. The study documenting this finding, “Beyond Birth Control: The Overlooked Benefits of Oral Contraceptive Pills,” by Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, also found that more than half (58%) of all pill users rely on the method, at least in part, for purposes other than pregnancy prevention—meaning that only 42% use the pill exclusively for contraceptive reasons.

The study—based on U.S government data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)—revealed that after pregnancy prevention (86%), the most common reasons women use the pill include reducing cramps or menstrual pain (31%); menstrual regulation, which for some women may help prevent migraines and other painful “side effects” of menstruation (28%); treatment of acne (14%); and treatment of endometriosis (4%). Additionally, it found that some 762,000 women who have never had sex use the pill, and they do so almost exclusively (99%) for noncontraceptive reasons.

Menstrual-related disorders and irregular periods are particularly common during adolescence. Not surprisingly, the study found that teens aged 15–19 who use the pill are more likely to do so for non-contraceptive purposes (82%) than for birth control (67%). Moreover, 33% of teen pill users report using oral contraceptive pills solely for noncontraceptive purposes.

“It is well established that oral contraceptives are essential health care because they prevent unintended pregnancies,” said study author Rachel K. Jones. “This study shows that there are other important health reasons why oral contraceptives should be readily available to the millions of women who rely on them each year.”

Read Full Article….

Read the complete article and related information at Many American Women Use Birth Control Pills for Noncontraceptive Reasons

ThirdAge.com

Boomer Health and Lifestyle

Posted by Claire Shefchik on November 12, 2011 1:30 PM

Vaccinating girls for human papillomavirus (HPV) early in life could reduce the need for later screenings, U.S. and Finnish researchers said Wednesday.

“Provided that organized vaccination programs achieve high coverage in early adolescents before sexual debut, HPV vaccination has the potential to substantially reduce the incidence of cervical cancer, probably allowing the modification of screening programs,” Matti Lehtinen from the University of Tampere in Finland told Reuters.

The first study looked at 20,000 healthy women between 15 and 25 years old from 14 countries worldwide. Researchers found GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix vaccine protected effectively against high-grade cervical precancers, early adenocarcinoma, and 12 other types of cancer-causing HPV. The second study showed cross-protection against HPV types 31, 33, 45, and 51. The vaccine partially protects against viruses it is not designed to target, which collectively cause about 85 percent of cases of cervical cancer.

Lehtinen suggested the vaccine could eliminate the need for cervical smear screens every few years in women over the age of 25. In Finland, which implemented an HPV vaccination campaign in 2007, he suggested cutting cervical cancer screening down to just a one test at around age 25.

“You should not have two measures on top of each other if one is already efficient enough,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “This could certainly mean lots of savings in terms of costs of screening.”

The study appeared Nov. 9 in The Lancet Oncology.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Could Eliminate Cervical Cancer Screening Need: Study

Mail Online
United Kingdom

• Lucy Hinks is unable to walk or talk after having injections at school
• Parents warn others to check on potential side effects of Cervarix vaccine

By Lauren Paxman

Last updated at 4:31 PM on 14th November 2011

A schoolgirl has been left in a ‘waking coma’, too exhausted to open her eyes or speak, after having a cervical cancer vaccine. Last October and again a month later, Lucy Hinks joined her classmates at school in Wigton in Cumbria to have the HPV jab Cervarix as part of a country-wide programme.

By Christmas, she had visited the doctor several times with flu-like symptoms, tiredness and joint pain.

After the third injection of the vaccine, in May this year, Lucy began to experience extreme exhaustion.

Her health has now deteriorated to such an extent that for the past seven weeks she has slept for up to 23 hours day.

Lucy is also unable to walk or even talk to her devastated family.

Today, her mother Pauline and father Steve, who works for Pirelli, reveal the stress their family is enduring and their fears that it could be years before she recovers.

They now care for Lucy – who has lost nearly three stone – around the clock and describe their lives as a ‘living nightmare’.

The couple, from Port Carlisle, Cumbria, are urging parents to find out about the potential side effects of the vaccine, Cervarix.

Their warning comes as thousands of year eight pupils prepare to receive the vaccine in schools.

Mrs Hinks said: ‘I would not wish what we’ve been through on anyone.

‘I’ve not seen the whites of Lucy’s eyes for weeks and nobody can tell us when it will turn.

‘I would urge parents to get all the facts, gather as much information as you can. Decide for yourself if it’s right for your child.’

Read Full Article….

Read the complete article and related information at Girl, 13, left in ‘waking coma’ and sleeps for 23 hours a day after severe reaction to cervical cancer jabs