THE GAIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- Holistic Natural Health & Health Freedom -
Stuart A. Thomson, Director
PO Box 2147, Knysna, South Africa
(27+) 044-532-7765/7695

director@gaiaresearch.co.za
hhtp://www.gaiaresearch.co.za

Anthea Torr                                                                                                        By E-Mail

Editor, Biophile Magazine &                                                                              16 February 2005

Proprietor, Enchantrix Organic Products                                                     

Dear Anthea

Thank you for your e-mail titled "BIOPHILE Environmental magazine".

Thank you for your offer to advertise my Colloidal Silver Generator in your magazine, Biophile. Perhaps you don't know, but Gaia never advertises. We sell by word of mouth, since this way no one is ever in any way "tricked" into purchasing a Gaia Organics or Gaia Research product.

This topic does however lead me to an issue of considerable concern to me regarding the unethical, indeed fraudulent manner in which you miscontextualise information in your magazine and on your website and advertise your Enchantrix product range, which is affiliated to said magazine, both of which it appears are being used to prejudice other players in the marketplace, myself (Gaia), a sector pioneer and leader, included, for your own financial gain.

·        I refer you firstly to the article on pages 32 & 33 of the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of "Biophile" titled

 "rub a dub… danger in your tub?" by Trevor Steyn, where the personal care product ingredient, "Sodium lauryl sulphate" is demonised via irresponsible urban myth style reporting, leading me to the impression that rather than appraise consumers of the actual virtues of your own products, you choose instead to market these by fraudulently demonising those of others.

I hope you will swiftly prove me wrong in what at the outset appears to be an attempt to eliminate legitimate market competition via the use or abuse of either negligent, reckless or intentional misinformation and false innuendo to cast suspicion on products offered in competition to yours. If you have acted out of ignorance, rather than malicious intent, you will have ample opportunity to express the necessary corrective goodwill via the same media used to spread said misinformation. Journalism and public marketing both require personal and corporate responsibility, which if abused, carry severe criminal and civil penalties that cannot be averted in the name of freedom of expression, which right pertains only to honest truths, not lies and iro which there already exist several legal precedents confirmed as fully constitutional.

If like the company Neways, you are purposely choosing false demonisation of your competition as your marketing strategy, then you and I are heading for certain conflict, since I have dedicated my life's work to determining and upholding the truth in natural health reporting and marketing and will not allow such despicable malicious operators a free reign in my local community. Rest assured, if this is the case with Biophile and Enchantrix, you have some very embarrassing and costly times ahead, since you have clearly overstepped the ethical boundary.

Let's take a look at the outright lies and half-truths that you have either caused or allowed to seriously lower the integrity of your magazine and website to below well-established socially acceptable norms of commercial and journalistic decency. These infringements are even more despicable in the light of your high-flying ‘Mission Statement’ as follows: “to impart knowledge with truth and integrity for the highest good of all” and also your ‘From The Editor’ invitation to “join us (you) in our (your) search for truth and justice” which offer I am taking you up on here.

Your Biophile article, “rub a dub… danger in your tub” starts with a boldly asserted, even bold fonted quote attributed to Dr Keith Green from the Medical College of Georgia” and attributed to “Research to Prevent Blindness”, which source is not clearly referenced, probably because your writer has never reviewed the actual document from which your mischief claims to launch. Interestingly, Green’s actual published paper makes no reference to any of the claimed harms sensationalising the article. Dr Green simply made the not surprising observation that if there is already injury to the cornea, a long-term high concentration of SLS will slow down healing.

In this study, pieces were first shaved off the outer surface of the eyes of rabbits and it is not surprising that repeatedly adding SLS to these lesions for 3 days interfered with their healing. Dr Green’s study determined that if SLS is applied repeatedly in high concentrations to injured eyes for several days, approximately only 1/1000th could be absorbed into the eye and so retard healing. It also proved that within 96 hours after even such extremely unlikely conditions, healing had occurred and that no trace of SLS could be found anywhere in the test animals bodies. Of the eye itself (other than the lesions) Green stated: "The eye stayed pristine. There was no redness and no irritation. These were not toxic effects." (Chapman J et al, Lens & Eye Tox Res, 6:37-41, 1989)

Paula Begoun, a well-respected cosmetics industry watchdog and certainly not a cosmetics apologist (www.cosmeticscops.com), in an article titled “Myth Busting”, addressed the intensely circulating Internet and e-mail concerns over sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulphate (SLES) as follows: “I believe this entire mania was generated by several Neways Websites, and has been carried over as fact into other so-called ‘all natural’ cosmetics lines”.

Begoun tracked down the most insidious and misleading part of what was passed around as truth relating to SLS and SLES, based on the incorrect reporting of a study done by Dr. Green, who both conducted the research and delivered the final report. Green, Regents Professor of Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Georgia, told Begoun way back in 1997 already: "My work was completely misquoted. No part of my study indicated any development or cataract problems from SLS or SLES. The body does not retain those ingredients at all. We did not even look at the issue of children, so that conclusion is completely false, because it never existed.”

Dr Green continued: “Neways took my research completely out of context and probably never read the study at all. The statement like 'SLS is a systemic' has no meaning. No ingredient can be a systemic unless you drink the stuff and that's not what we did with it. Another incredible comment was that my study was 'clinical,' meaning I tested the substance on people, but these were strictly animal tests. Furthermore, the eyes showed no irritation with the 10-dilution substance used! If anything, the animal studies indicated no risk of irritation whatsoever!"

When Begoun enquired as to whether any follow-up studies concerning SLS/SLES had been undertaken, Dr. Green, staking his considerable scientific reputation, pertinently replied: "No- one has done this because the findings were so insignificant." Begoun was also curious as to whether Dr Green had changed shampoo and to this enquiry, Dr Green answered: "No one in my family has changed shampoos and they all contain either SLS or SLES. You may find it interesting to tell your readers that SLS and SLES have a natural source. The sulphates have been used for over 20 years by millions of people daily and weekly with no adverse effects”. 

Whilst it is true that SLS is used in a model for cataract formation, these experiments actually immersed the transparent lens proteins in concentrated solutions of SLS (J. Biol. Chem. 262: 8096-102, 1987). It is not surprising that these lens proteins were rendered translucent. In real life however, the lens is deep within the eye, and won't be exposed to SLS even if you splash the concentrate directly into in your eyes. Whilst it is not unreasonable to caution against the use of shampoos based on alkyl sulphate surfactants around the eyes if corneal lesions are present, the same considerations would also apply to common soap, which is a very strong caustic alkali and yet is also widely used for similar purposes to SLS/SLES, though the latter are now more commonly chosen for studying the physiology of cataract formation studies due to its being more readily standardised and hence more consistent in composition and potency.

To put the irritancy and toxicity of SLS into perspective, consider that it is reliably classified as being equally as toxic as common table salt, which substance too comes into regular intimate contact with human skin and mucous membranes, in fact far more so than SLS, so why does only the latter get such a bum rap from some quarters? Both are also classified as mildly irritating to the skin and as moderately irritating to the eye. Both are classified as moderately toxic by ingestion and both are classified as teratrogenic and mutagenic. (Lewis R, Sax’s Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials, Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY, 1992)

Following your abuse of the “Green Hoax” and some unreferenced and unsubstantiated generalised trashing of SLS, including already debunked claims of systemic retention, the Biophile “rub-a-dub” article proceeds to attempt to trash also the most comprehensive report ever published on SLS, the “Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate”, apparently because your target competitors, who you disparagingly refer to as “cosmetics apologists” also often quote from said report that the fear-mongers are so fond of selectively reporting from to suit their own agenda and furthermore, because the alternative detergent to SLS most commonly used by the fear-mongers themselves just happens to be the other chemical covered by said report, with a near identical skin and eye irritant  potential and toxicological profile, both substances being characterised as"having not evoked adverse responses in any other toxicological testing” (J Am Coll Toxicol, 2(7), 1983).

This report does list several studies where SLS irritated the skin, but these used very high concentrations that were left un-rinsed off for prolonged periods, often under a patch, under which conditions SLS would be expected to alter the lipidic barrier and cause local irritation. More telling are omissions from said report, which would undermine the fear-focused agenda:

      In a study measuring skin absorption: “It was found that up to 24 hours after contact, no measurable penetration of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate occurred”.

      In a study measuring irritancy to eyes: “mildly irritating at 1 hour and decreased to practically non-irritating during the seven-day observation”.

      In studies measuring the effects of ingestion: “SLS in the diet for 90 days produced no increase in chromosomal aberrations” and was determined to be “not tumorigenic or carcinogenic.”

Highly selective and miscontextualised extracts make up the rest of the Biophile “rub-a-dub” article, which is virtually in its entirety plagiarized from the equally despicable malicious ramblings of David Lowell Kern and which has been used by several unscrupulous commercial operators copying Neways’ dirty business strategy. Your article states that “there are many alternatives to SLS” and that “the only reason it is still in circulation is that it is very cheap”.  You are challenged to list these alternatives and divulge the chemical names of the detergents used in your personal and household cleansing products for my scrutiny in view of Enchantrix’s safety claims. Just because you may to pay more to escape the likely public backlash caused by said mischief, does not render SLS/SLES inferior to any alternatives, if indeed there are any legitimately safe and efficacious alternatives. Indeed, the main cleanser is always the water to which the detergent is added and you would not reject this ingredient merely due to its low cost.

·        I refer you secondly, to another article in the “Articles” section of the Enchantrix website titled

“Are you poisoning your family?” and attributed to Karen and Douglas Gibbens. In addition to your Biophile article, you continue your mischief here in another sensationalised fear-based propaganda piece, where you again attempt to demonise several ingredients used by your competitors by stating: “Some especially potentially harmful ingredients you should check your labels for are: Sodium Lauryl Sulphate, Sodium Laureth Sulphate, Mineral oil, Glycerine, and Propylene Glycol”. The use of the word “especially” effectively neutralises the effect of the otherwise modulating word “potentially”, so the intent again is clearly to cast doubt on integrity.

Again the logic is flawed, but still achieves its aim of demonising the target substances and as a result, also your competitor’s products. The fact that industrial grades of SLS and SLES might be used as degreasers, garage floor cleaners and car wash soaps, does not diminish the integrity and utility of cosmetic grades of these agents for personal care applications any more than does the use of water to clean garage floors and wash cars diminish the integrity of water.

The intention is clearly to smear by association and again continues throughout this malicious article. Again, there is no regard for accurate reporting and the “Green Hoax” too is once again rehashed. Also abused is a deliberately miscontextualised reference to the Material Safety Data Sheet, which has nothing to do with real-life consumer concentrations and applications of the substances under discussion. Material Safety Data Sheets are intended for employer’s of chemical workers, for industrial hygienists and other occupational safety professionals who may need such information pertaining to the bulk storage, transportation, handling and processing of often thousand-fold chemical concentrates, in order to conduct effective occupational safety programs in industrial, pharmaceutical and consumer goods manufacturing settings. Understandably, suppliers always overstate such risks in their Material Safety Data Sheets to effectively maximise their own indemnity from accidents with and abuse of their products.

Using sodium chloride, common table salt as an example, consider how ridiculous it would be to convey the following Material Safety Data Sheet information on a salt shaker or packet of salt:

SODIUM CHLORIDE (COMMON TABLE SALT)

HEALTH HAZARD DATA
Inhalation: May produce irritation of the mucous membranes. Silica particles present are capable of causing silicosis over an extended period of time, leading to dry cough, shortness of breath on exertion, decreased lung function and pulmonary fibrosis.
Skin Contact: May cause irritation. Repeated or prolonged contact could lead to dermatitis.
Eye Contact: May cause irritation and conjunctivitis.
Ingestion: May produce nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort and central nervous system depression.

EMERGENCY AND FIRST AID PROCEDURE
Inhalation: Remove from exposure. Immediately seek medical aid.
Skin Contact: Wash thoroughly with soap and water. Seek medical aid.
Eye Contact: Flush immediately with large amounts of water. Ingestion: Give 1 -2 large glasses of water or milk. Induce vomiting.  Immediately seek medical aid.

SPECIAL PROTECTION INFORMATION
Respiratory: Respiratory protection should be used to avoid inhalation. 
Skin: Clean, body-covering clothing should be worn to prevent irritation in situation where direct contact with product may occur.
Eyes: Wear chemical safety splash goggles in situations that may result in eye contact.

SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS
DO NOT store near food or feed. Keep out of reach of children and pets.

Might I remind you that the above has been abstracted from the Material Safety Data Sheet of common table salt? Do you see how ridiculous it is to miscontextualise such information? The effect, if not the intention, of such abuses is to demonise and defile what are perfectly acceptable substances when used correctly at the appropriate concentration/dilution. I am not going to further analyse each instance of such abuse at this stage. You have already wasted more than enough of my time. Suffice it to say that virtually all the information is actionable if not immediately and thoroughly corrected. Unfortunately, damage has already occurred and hence such material needs not only to be removed, but a detailed rebuttal posted for a reasonable period of time at each locus of such misinformation so as to afford an adequate opportunity for such corrective information to filter through and effect redress to an acceptable degree.

As I have stated before, I and my Gaia products range are pioneers and leaders in the natural health and personal care sector in South Africa and your reckless behavior as outlined and illustrated above will have already have unfairly prejudiced both me and my business in your own favour. If it is your intended strategy to cowardly and fraudulently damage my reputation so as to unfairly acquire a portion of my hard-earned market share in what is a very tough and competitive ‘big business’ sector, then you are headed for serious conflict on several fronts.

The fact that you have word-for-word adopted my ten-year-old slogan, namely “Earth, People and Animal Friendly” as your own to promote your Enchantrix range affords me certain reason to be concerned that you might have just such a strategy in mind. If this is the case and I am forced to start placing advertisements and undertaking other activities to undo your mischief, then you would do well to factor the cost of these expenses in addition to the costs of my taking this matter to the courts, when deciding whether or not to continue with these prejudicial activities, and if not, then to what extent you will take corrective action to remedy said mischief. 

All said and done, I do hope that you have acted purely out of ignorance, realise the error and harm caused and are fully prepared to make amends for your magazine, website and any other educational and promotional media equating to said prejudicial effect as yet unknown to me.

I look forward to an early positive, constructive and comprehensive response to these issues.  

Yours sincerely

Stuart Thomson

----- Original Message -----

From: anthea

To: gaia research

Cc: Desiree Du Plooy; Des du Plooy; Wendy Lilje; Trevor Steyn

Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:38 PM

Subject: Fw: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief

Dear Stuart,

My first reation to your was a feeling of utter dismay and then sadness, that somebody such as yourself could get caught up in "sweating the small stuff" when our planet is dying, the people are dying of toxic overload causing an epidemic of unnecessary diseases, the animals and plant species are leaving the planet at an unprecidented rate and generally we are in a crisis.

My intentions with regard to Enchantrix and now Biophile have always been of the utmost integirty, purity and transparency.  We are out there to give the people a chance to learn what has been happening to them and give them  the choice to lead a life that is not laden with toxic chemicals,  and my attitude towards people trying to make a difference whether they be in the same business (hence our advertisment of Esse in the latest Biophile) or other businesses that are not anti-life, is one of encouragement and genuine gratitude that there are others who also care about what happens to our planet and those who live on her.  I agree that advertising for the sake of making money when the product is not pro-life, is not something that we want to part of, but if the product is to allow people to make a choice that will ultimately benefit them, it is an important means of communication. We are not fearful of competiton the more people that bring out harmless products the better.  Competition is of the old paradigm of fear and greed consciousness. Bring on Lever Brothers and let them start to make products that don't poison our plant and the people.  There is not a person alive who should not be aware of what the toxic chemicals have done to us and the planet,  and that is our motivation with both Biophile and Enchantrix.  I am sorry if you misconstrued our intentions but I have aboslutley no interest, or time to waste in slating others who are also trying to do their best. 

With regard to your accusation that my intentions are purely money motivated, I would like to inform you that this is not the case.  A good example of this is our decision not to export.  Even through we have had numerous people approach us, we have taken a decision not to export unless the products cannot be made in the country.  Why send anything to a place when they can make it there, creating jobs and not adding to already excessive global warming emissions.  We will compromise our integrity for the sake of money.

We have never even mentioned Gaia, and would never do so.  So your perception regarding my intention to compromise your products is unfounded and purely a reaction of fear.  I have no idea what you are using in your products.  But I assume it must be SLS or there would have been no reaction from you.  With regard to SLS I shall get Trevor to answer your queries as he is more qualified to give a up to date scientifc explaination for our reasons of alerting people to the dangers of using products that contain it.  I would like to add however that both Sodium laureth/laurel sulphate are banned substances by the German organization Eco-cert and Soil Association and they do not ban substances unless they have good reason to do so. Furthermore, they are not classified as "natural" by these organizations, one of the many reasons for this is that  they do not readily bio-degrade.  In 1996 Warwick university in the UK did a test on the fatty cells of the wild salmon off the Alaskan coast and they found traces of SLS - a pretty good indication of the bio-degradeability of the substance I would say.   Tons and tons of SLS go into our waterways and wetlands and eventually out to sea, no wonder they are finding so many fish with cancer.  If SLS is acceptable why are all the "natural/green" companies out there not using it?  You will not find it in Dr Hauschka, Ren, Green People, Living Nature, Bert's Bee's to name a few.  Maybe you should relook at the ingredients in your products, if your are to live up to the "poineer" in the field that you claim ot be.

That brings me onto the "Earth. animal and people friendly" that we are using on our products.  Firstly I did not know that you use this, but even if I did, there is no other way to say it - we are Earth, animal and people friendly - and delighted about that you should be!   The more of us out there that live up to our truth and make the planet a  safer place the better.  Find me a better way to say it if it offends you, and we will change our labels next time we print.

The last time I received anything from you was when I was copied in on a vicious attack on Sally Ann Creed, I dont remember the issue, although I think I was in agreement with you, but what I do remember is thinking how unnecessary and energy ineffecient the whole thing was.  It could have been done with kindness and concern, quietly to her.  There are enough battles being fought out there and the more peace people can have in their lives the quicker we will change the group consciouness of the planet. Is that not what we all ultimately want?

I will get Trevor to contact you directly.

May you be surrounded by peace and light,

Anthea Torr
083 227 0269
ENCHANTRIX Organic Products  021 706 9847 www.enchantrix.co.za
BIOPHILE   021 706 6749   www.biophile.co.za

 "Be the change you want to see in the world"  Ghandi

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea

Cc: Desiree Du Plooy; Des du Plooy; Wendy Lilje; Trevor Steyn

Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:50 PM

Subject: Re: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief

Dear Anthea

Thank you for your prompt reply.

The undertaking however, to have Trevor contact me directly, though admirable, does not in any way address the issue of your publishing misinformation, in conflict with your stated high ethics and hence I regret that I do not believe that you are sincere in your mission. To alter my perception on this issue and to avoid a certain conflict, I do expect you to publish retractions of the obvious fraud that you have perpetrated in the name of knowledge with truth, integrity and justice.

The issue is not whether I do or do not use SLS or whether you use one or another chemical. The issue is whether you have spread obvious lies in ignorance or out of malice and having either had the facts pointed out or having been caught out, whether you have the integrity to live your high mission by honest action or false lip-service, specifically as regards this issue. We can both work together and independently in service of Mother Earth, but what of the Truth in as far as that precious principle is within our power?

I am still hopeful that you will use the previously abused resources to correct the wrongs you have disseminated as truth. The means does not justify the end if we have to lie to achieve that end, however noble it mat be, if we have become untruthful in the process.

I am driven to uphold truth when I encounter untruth masquerading as high and noble truth. Once such a campaign falls to me, I do not relinquish it until the truth is victorious. Only my first and second approach is diplomatic. Its now over to you to display your true nature.

Sincerely

Stuart

----- Original Message -----

From: anthea

To: Stuart Thomson

Cc: Desiree Du Plooy; Des du Plooy; Wendy Lilje; Trevor Steyn

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 9:27 AM

Subject: Re: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief

Dear Stuart,

While I appreciate your concern for the purity of my intent and integrity, the issue here is whether the information we have printed in the magazine is correct.  Hence Trevor' s information that he will be forwarding to you. 

There is a lot of information coming to light now regarding the use of chemicals in cosmetics, and it is time the public knew the truth.

If your products have some chemicals that are on the banned list with the various organizations you may want to look at the integrity and truth that you are purporting  with your lables being  "earth, animal and people friendly" 

There is a huge amount of light coming onto the planet at the moment and if foundations are not of truth and integrity they will simply crumble.

Please wait for Trevor's information before replying.

Light and peace to you,

Anthea Torr
083 227 0269
ENCHANTRIX Organic Products  021 706 9847 www.enchantrix.co.za
BIOPHILE   021 706 6749   www.biophile.co.za

"Be the change you want to see in the world"  Ghandi

----- Original Message -----

From: anthea

To: gaia research

Cc: Trevor Steyn; steve@biophile.co.za; Desiree Du Plooy; Des du Plooy; Wendy Lilje;

Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 9:29PM

Subject: Fw: Gaia and mischief!!

Dear Stuart,

In view of what has transpired over the last couple of days we have come up with a solution that we feel will satisfy your gripe regarding our  "fraudlent and misleading" information in both the magazine and our Enchantrix website and our urgent desire to inform and educate the public of the dangers in cosmetics, personal care products and cleaning products with truth and integrity and give them the options and choices available to them.  We are going to a full article in Biophile putting the dabate out there for the public to ingage in and contribute to. 

We will publish your letter and the relevant research from Dr Green - I would like to know who funds his research, so if you have that information please forward it to me.  Biophile is not there to dogmatically put a view forward and then not take the consequences if we have erred, we will be the first to apoligise publically if this is the case.  But if SLS is a dangersous substance for both the environment and the people who use it on a daily basis, which is the view of many of the independent researchers, then let the truth be known.  Furthermore if you have any information on the bio-degradeability and toxicity of SLS please forward it to us.  We have quite a bit of research from Pat Thomas, Dr Samuel Epstein, Green People chemist ( cant remember her name) Tom Mower to mention a few. 

We are also going to do a comparision of different products out there.  The thrust of this will be how "Earth, Animal and people" are you really.  This will also include the packaging as well and the ingredients.  As Gaia will be in the headlines so to speak, we will need the ingredients of a couple of your products, we will let you know which ones, and what they are packaged in - whether they are recycable etc.  We probably will do a Gaia, Dr Hauschka,  Lever Bros product and  Enchantrix.  I recently saw this done in an overseas magazine - it was very interesting! 

We have been fed misleading information in virtually every area of our lives for the last 50 + years by the governments/corporates around the world who make millions from it and we have not had  the freedom of speech or knowledge for the truth to be revealed.  Quite simply, we have been duped!  

I think it is important that this is left for the public to decide for themselves, I am sure you will agree with this.

May peace and light surround you

Anthea Torr
083 227 0269
ENCHANTRIX Organic Products  021 706 9847 www.enchantrix.co.za
BIOPHILE   021 706 6749   www.biophile.co.za

"Be the change you want to see in the world"  Ghandi

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea

Cc: Trevor Steyn; steve@biophile.co.za ; Desiree Du Plooy; Des du Plooy; Wendy Lilje

Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2005 11:04

Subject: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief

Dear Anthea

Thank you for your responses to my second communication. I wish to apologise for the delay in replying, due to prior commitments

I am pleased to note that our respective reactionary times were but brief and that we are quickly progressing to constructive dialogue and more importantly, that you agree with me that the issue is indeed the correctness or otherwise of the information that you have printed.

I am in principle agreeable to your correcting the mistakes of the past by publishing my letter and I hope to be able to help you avoid making similar mistakes in the future. I would like to see and approve any editing you may wish to do. If you wish, I will edit it for you, by removing the personal stuff which is redundant in the light of your offer to put things right. I do however require that we finalise the details of such a settlement in the very near future, with an arrangement for both the website and magazine articles, since both continue to prejudice all others in the market due to suspicions automatically cast on all but your own products and those allied to you. My advice would be that you not only reappraise your past and future strategy by way of the magazine and website, but also your printed promotional material. By way of example, your "body range" pamphlet states (abbreviated): "More common toxins used in everyday products are DEA, MEA, TEA, Petrolatum, SLE/SLES and the Parabens. The parabens are used for their preservative properties and are highly toxic". For Petrolatum, SLE/SLES and the Parabens, this is simply not true and hence I must insist that you undertake to withdraw this pamphlet. The pamphlet "Are You Cleaning Yourself to Death" demonises PABA and SLS, even though it partly describes earlier contamination problems of SLES, but since these errors are but a small part of an otherwise good effort, I could ignore it if you undertook not to reprint it.

I am not sure whether you realise just how serious your actions have been. I was due to meet with my lawyer yesterday to consider a possible urgent interdict against you, the magazine and the website, an application that would be made "with costs" and I have already applied for complaint forms from the Advertising Standards Authority, Competitions Board and Consumer's Council. These formal approaches stem not only from the aforementioned media, but also from your printed promotional literature, which is seriously predudicial to other market players, myself included. I have broached the subject with the CTFA (of which I am not a member due to a spat with them years ago, which led to my being coerced into destroying 10,000 "bus-ticket" recycled paper catalogues - I bought up all the old unused bus-ticket paper - and ended in an unresolved dispute,  which case, at my instigation, remains open with the Public Protector's office, since the CTFA brought the might of several arms of government down on me for no good reason). Seeing as the CTFA are morally in my debt, one possibility being considered, though I prefer operating alone, is an industry-wide class action suit to be able to afford not only setting a definitive legal precedent within South African commercial law, but also nip in the bud such unethical business practices and serve to seriously deter others from even considering engaging in similar activities. Personally I hate bureaucracy, but this is the most definitive solution.

I have no intention to defend the rest of the industry, especially those formulating products with synthetic chemicals and then adding a few token catch-phrase natural ingredients for marketing purposes. I do however take serious exception to your generalised pronouncement of toxicity upon Petrolatum, SLES and Parabens, which I deliberately make use of, fully informed of their relative toxicological status. In fact, even with an unlimited budget, I would not do things any differently, since my formulae are amongst the most reasoned and toxicologically advanced in the world and any alternatives from nature's formulary would actually have the effect of introducing an element of unacceptable element of risk to the products. I do not expect you to understand this statement at the outset, since you have not been a toxicologist for 25 years like I have been. Amazingly you do not seem to even grasp the central axion in toxicology, namely that the dose maketh the poison. Everything, including water, sunlight, even oxygen is toxic at some dosage. The key is to know that dose and the physiology of the target organism and make provision for a buffer safety zone that will not be breached in even cumulative worst case real-life scenarios. Your generalised characterisation of selective substances to the exclusion of those that you use as toxic are an affront to my intelligence, my integrity and my compassion for all higher life-forms.

I have attached two documents that I prepared for clients for whom I formulate, who happen to be one of the largest and most prestigious suppliers of natural health products in Germany, in response to problems stemming from Neways' mischief over there. These have been adapted as educational pieces in anticipation of similar problems here, which shoe you just happen to have put your foot in. I am convinced that you and your team will learn more in one hour from these documents than you would otherwise collectively learn in a decade.

It should serve to put an instant end to your shit, but if it doesn't, you will at least know the degree of knowledge, intellect and futility that you are up against if you continue to put profit before truth and try to implement the Neway's strategy in my local community.  

Before you read these, perhaps a one paragraph personal history to briefly illustrate the dusty activist road travelled might help to establish the depth or rather height at which my concern in this matter arises. Back in the early 80's I worked as a volunteer administrator with Odyssey. I had my first article published in Odyssey magazine in Feb/March 1984, titled "Vitamin B12: a look at the facts" (defending vegetarianism, at which stage I was strict fruitarian). I was a research associate with Koeberg Alert at this time and left Cape Town when the Nuclear power-station became operational, which coincided with my running from PW Botha's Millitary Police to escape compulsory reservist township harassments. My wife and I spent 10-years living off the land (milch goats, bees and organic fruits and vegetables), growing herbs and harvesting the seeds for an income, out of which Rainbow Organics was born in the late 80's. The early 90's saw my first Sunday Times Magazine Earth Day Feature (April 22, 1990), my first published Pesticide Exposé (The Green Pages, November 1990) and the foundation of the Gaia Research Institute along with the birth of Gaia Organics, its funding arm before the close of a manic activist year. I then formed the Garden Route branch of Earthlife Africa, placing animal rights on the agenda for the first time at its National Convention, in spite of a leadership dominant anti-bunny-hugger faction determined to avoid these issues.

I formed PHARMAPACT (Peoples Health Alliance Rejecting Medical Authoritarianism, Prejudice and Conspiratorial Tyranny) in 1994 to defend natural health substances from restrictive legislation, succeeding in holding back legislation to this day. I even enjoyed the honour of being evicted from Parliament on national television (Parliamentary Channel) in the heat of battle. I was able to head the first dissident anti-HIV/AIDS debate against the pharma-cartel on national television (Future Imperfect) and spear-head several health freedom topics on the popular "Options" programs. The highlight was my first peer-reviewed published paper, "The Toxicity of Callilepsis laureola, a South African traditional herbal medicine" (Popat A et al, Clinical Biochemistry, 34:229-236, 2001), co-authored with Canadian researchers, which established for the first time in the international scientific literature, the horrendous fact that 10-20,000 Africans die each year in South Africa from traditional African medicines.

I have just passed the 50-year mark and have been engaged full-time in wholistic natural healing research for the past 25 of these. Only in the last 10 years, did I manage to ruthlessly test my belief systems empirically and as a result, ended up jettisoning almost all that I had previously invested in airy-fairy new-age and other esoteric belief systems, making wonderfully liberating room for new open-ended understandings that are not only dynamic and testable, but more importantly, almost obligatorily revisable on a daily basis. Today I am proud to fearlessly walk the path of truth irrespective of which side of the polarised track it finds itself, be it orthodox or alternative.

Getting back to the purely non-insulting/non-emotive factual, or rather the lack thereof, aspects of your initial response to my first challenge. You state: "Sodium laureth/laurel sulphate are banned substances by the German organization Eco-cert and Soil Association" and "Furthermore, they are not classified as "natural" by these organizations".  Frankly, I fail to see what these certification bodies have to do with SLS/SLES from a personal care product perspective. The use of the word "banned" has only emotive, not judgement value, since compliance with said body's arbitrary criteria is voluntary in turn for certification and non-compliance is certainly not criminal.

The appropriate body's position to consider in this regard would in fact be the BIDH Bundesverband deutscher Industrie- und Handelsunternehmen für Arzneimittel, Reformwaren, Nahrungsergänzungsmittel und Körperpflegemittel), which certifies all natural cosmetics. Only products that meet the BDIH's strict standards as set in it's guidelines are legally entitled to display the "Certified Natural Cosmetics" seal. You mention Hauschka, but interestingly omit to mention Weleda. Both are BIDH certified. Weleda use SLES, even though the guidelines list ethoxylated ingredients not as "banned", but rather as "unacceptable". As I stated before, these standards are arbitrary, in fact they are often paradoxical, as is well illustrated in this very example. In terms of the BIDH's current standards, SLS falls within the natural cosmetics standard, but SLES, the ethoxylated form thereof is expressly listed as "unacceptable". 

Currently Weleda are disputing the arbitrary restriction. Whilst not publicising the dispute on their German website, which has web-pages merged with those of BIDH, this is what they have to say on their USA website in defence of their decision to use SLES (http://usa.weleda.com/products/faq.asp):

"Sodium Laurel Sulfate is a common ingredient used by many shampoo manufacturers as a cleansing and foaming agent. However, at WELEDA we have chosen not to use it. We have found from our research that Sodium Laurel Sulfate (SLS) has a relatively high irritant level, especially for people with sensitive skin. "At WELEDA our goal is to create personal care products that are in harmony with nature and the human being. We use a very mild cleanser and foam enhancer derived from coconut called Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES), which we have been found to be safe, and effective with a very low level of irritation. The main purpose of this ingredient is to keep oils and minerals in suspension during the hair washing process. This is especially necessary in hard water areas.

Our research and development team has chosen this particular ingredient as the best available at this time to meet our customer's expectations of a shampoo. While the two ingredients Sodium Laurel Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate may sound similar they are indeed different. We can assure you that we would never knowingly use a raw material that would be harmful. WELEDA strives to create products and uses raw materials that are not only effective but also safe and natural. We continually research and improve both our products and ingredients. Over the past 80 years Weleda has established the highest standards for gathering, processing, and preparing every ingredient used."> 

Personally, as you shall see, I have quite strong contrary views as to what constitutes a good personal care product and I certainly do not reject the use of processed natural substances, which rejection on some certification criteria is far more philosophically based than any quality, safety or efficacy based consideration, rendering such criteria more akin to religious dogma than any deep meaningful value system, though the attempt is admirable nevertheless, even if just for its romantic value.

Your proposals of debating these issues in Biophile is a good one and I would encourage this. I suspect however, that you will have substantially modulated views on the subject after reading my synoptic scientific material outlining my views on these subjects. I am not saying that I cannot learn from the process, since that would be extremely arrogant. We will have to look afresh at your proposals, which in all likelihood would be drastically reorientated once you have appraised yourself of my alternate integrative paradigm. I shall in the meantime put on hold any formal complaints and legal action against you in the hope that you will urgently rethink your marketing strategies in depth, which must however also involve the recall of all your offending body range pamphlet within an agreed time-frame if I am to extend you the benefit of the doubt and not also insist that you circulate a rebuttal in this form unless you fail to recall, which, given the circumstances and potential prejudice involved, would not be an unreasonable expectation. I just read the rubbish Trevor has written on Parabens in the latest issue of Biophile. Might I suggest that you let him go, or at least appoint me as a reviewer. You can read my position in the attached document and correct same in the next issue, though I would appreciate your undertaking to do so, allowing me to continue to extend to you the benefit of the doubt  for long enough to allow you to make amends and so prove your sincerity.

Yes, it is important to allow the public to decide for themselves, but to do this they require full disclosure and correctly contexualised information. It is only on the basis of this that authorities make regulatory decisions, authorities who too have families and friends using these same chemicals. This is not to say that they always get it right, but generally their efforts are sincere. I would not extend the same confidence to the likes of the FDA, who are essentially running protectionistic trade organisations, ignoring off-label and multiple usage of their registered products, though at least the toxicity data appears in compulsory summary form in the package insert, usually accurately, since disclosure offers indemnity for harm accruing from disclosed toxicities and contraindications. 

You ask for additional information to that of the research of Pat Thomas, Dr Samuel Epstein, Green People and Tom Mower to mention a few. I don't know of Pat Thomas, but of the rest, only Epstein is a researcher. I used to have the greatest respect for him, but in his retirement he became Thomas Mower's paid lackey, receiving financial reward for lending his name to what later turned out to be a scam and now he can't extricate himself from Mower's criminal reputation and activities, with the result that his reputation indelibly tainted. It is a shame and Mower is to blame. Mower has been indicted for millions of Dollars of tax evasion, fined nearly 2 million dollars for illegally selling food supplements containing human growth hormone, a prescription drug that can be highly dangerous to adults; has been forced to recall a weight-loss product found to contain potentially dangerous full medicinal doses of the prescription drug furosemide and is under federal investigation for multi-level marketing fraud, besides being under threat of suit from several quarters, including the Medical College of Georgia, for fabricating and fraudulently attributing and disseminating misinformation.

In closing, I would like to thank you for your apparent willingness to resolve these issues amicably. I only enjoy ruthlessly engaging the Darkness in battle, not Light on Light in misunderstandings, or in this case, perhaps the unfortunate Shadows of misinformation. Let us just get this primary dispute settles as soon as possible.

Anthea, I am hoping that shortly you and I, who may very well be kindred spirits, might be the very best of friends rather than adversaries and that we might somehow more constructively pool our resources for the greater good. >

I look forward to further communications.

Sincerely

Stuart

----- Original Message -----

From: anthea

To: Stuart Thomson

Cc: Trevor Steyn; steve@biophile.co.za ; Desiree Du Plooy; Wendy Lilje; Des du Plooy

Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 8:47 AM

Subject: Re: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief: Saturday, February19, 2005 11:04 PM

Dear Stuart,

I was going to email you this morning to say that we received you letter and research and we will be putting something together for Biophile shortly.  sorry to not have come back to you sooner things are very busy this end as we are nearing print date.  We will forward our article through to you as soon as we have it together, and then hopefully all will be happy again.

I would be very interested to see what you have on Permethrin, please send it through.

Many thanks

Have a blessed day,

Anthea

Anthea Torr
083 227 0269
ENCHANTRIX Organic Products  021 706 9847 www.enchantrix.co.za
BIOPHILE   021 706 6749   www.biophile.co.za

"Be the change you want to see in the world"  Ghandi

----- Original Message -----

From: Steve Venter

To: 'Stuart Thomson'

Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:17 PM

Subject: Re: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief: Saturday, February19, 2005 11:04 PM

Hi Stuart

As promised, here is our response to your emails, which will be printed in the next issue of Biophile, due out in the first week of April.

Kind regards

Steve Venter

Co-Editor: BIOPHILE

For the love of our Earth, and all who live on her

steve@biophile.co.za

www.biophile.co.za

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: Steve Venter

Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 6:29 AM

Subject: Re: Biophile & Enchantrix Mischief: Saturday, February 19, 2005 11:04 PM

Hello Steve and Anthea

Thank you for mailing me your article.

My opinion: "A very good malicious hack job".

My thought: "I should have seen it coming".

My position: "Extremely disappointed that you have betrayed my trust in your intentions as honourable".

Why?

You have not taken any corrective action regarding the sensationalised false information published sensationally, eg as being the utterances of Dr Green, where this was half of the crux of my complaint. I find this despicable from a journalistic point of view, since it leaves the lies unchallenged and uncorrected in the forum in which it was made. You also ignore my pertinent contextual reference to the toxicological maxim that "the dose maketh the poison", continuing instead to insinuate that the data that you present (out of context) has application in daily personal care products use, where this is seldom, if ever the case.

You have prejudiced me again by adding further miscontextualised information, to which I once again now cannot expect you to afford me an opportunity to respond to in the forum in which it was made, based on how you have responded here to my previously raised issues, by editing out my exposé of the lies and misrepresentations. You cannot retort that I can debate it on another forum, since the lies and misrepresentations logically need to be addressed in the same forum in which they were raised. You are deliberately avoiding the primary issues by ignoring or glossing over these and raising further issues as deflection from said primary issues. I would be happy to debate new issues with you, but it is unfair of you to use this ploy to deflect debate away from the primary issues which I have raise in response to your misrepresentations.

My suggestion to settling this amicably, is to allow my letter (I offered to edit out my allegations regarding your intentions, which I now regret doing, since they appear to be vindicated by your actions here) to be published (in full, but without the allegations - if you agree to this solution), and without the addition of your further compounding misrepresentations, in this new article (unless you afford me an opportunity to respond thereto in the same article). What you intend to publish additionally as "SLS: chemical information", is sourced from two hypocritical non-experts who happen to engage in the same despicable fraudulent marketing ploy that I am accusing you of.  

You are more than welcome to debate me on these topics, providing that I have an opportunity to respond in full on the same forum, which is why I request that you cancel the "SLS Chemical Information" column and your introductory comments as extracted below and also your additional rebuttal column and run these and my responses on your website, where we can continue ad nauseum if necessary, provided there is no censorship, which open debate should prove enlightening to all interested parties. Clearly we cannot sustain a full exchange in the pages of Biophile (as you have demonstrated by selectively editing my rebuttal) and adding more misinformation in its place). If you publish these lies and propaganda as part of the debate, then you are morally obliged to afford me an opportunity to rebut in this forum.

["Concerning SLS – which seems to be your primary complaint – the body of research relating to its toxicity in an aquatic environment is substantial. LC50 values for SLS are as low as 550 micrograms per litre for some zooplankton and it is classifed as highly toxic to at least  five different aquatic organisms. I am sure that you realise the ecological implications of interfering with the lower levels of an ecosystem. There are seven published references to its mutagenic capacity (DNA inhibition at 100mg/L; mutation in micro organisms at 200mg/L) and at least twelve attesting to its skin and eye irritation. Findings here seem to be that a 0.5% solution has a measurable effect. As I am sure that you are aware most shampoos and bubble baths use SLS at between 20 and 45%. Although exposure times are lower for someone using a shampoo, we (along with the organic certifcation bodies) feel that this ingredient presents too high a risk both to our customers and to the environment. What follows is a summary of some of the research we have come across on the use of SLS and parabens in personal care products."]

It seems to me that you are intent on ignoring your responsibility for honest journalism by allowing lies and misrepresentations expressly brought to your attention to be left uncorrected, indeed as an opportunity to make further commercial mileage as a result of unfounded sensational fearmongering.

I expressly request that you carefully consider the import of my protest, concerns and suggested solutions as outlined above, in respect of which I reserve my rights.

I hope that you will do the honourable thing so that this conflict will not escalate to the point where we find ourselves acting in ways that I expect we would both despise.

Yours sincerely

Stuart Thomson

At this juncture, five e-mails from Anthea to Helmar were forwarded to me as attachments to the above e-mail. This material was off the point aquatic toxicity data and because it was not comparative to any other, let alone an alternative substance, was for all intents and purposes meaningless.  Where I thought there was material worth commenting on, I did so either in the correspondence that follows, or returned the documentation with my annotated comments. These attachments within the original e-mails as well as my comments are all archived in the Winzip file download titled ‘biofilth.zip’ at www.gaiaresarch.co.za/download.

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar

Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 10:04

Subject: Re: Emailing: Chemical Toxicity Studies for Sodium lauryl sulfate on All Organism Groups Chemical Toxicity Studies

Folks

Everything is toxic. Oxygen is carcinogenic, so is sperm (I meant semen - ST). What is required is perspective, ie under what conditions, in particular, what dosage, is any chemical (everything is chemical) an unacceptable risk relative to other avoidable, yet unavoided risks. One risk, eg small amounts of SLES or parabens in personal care products pale into insignificance relative to the thousands of toxic chemicals in a cup of coffee or piece of toast, or a biscuit, or even a cooked bean or baked potato.

If this lack of perspective is spread as part of a commercial strategy, which it is, then you are as big a scumbag as is Tom Mower or anyone using such an unethical strategy. If organisms did not mutate to changes in their environment, then they would perish. It is because of mutation that we exist as humans today. In fact, the so successful has been our mutation been, that we are in fact the most toxic pollutant, not only on the planet, but also in our solar system. Should we all be incinerated by aliens due to our toxicity ratings?  If there were only 3 of us, the impact of our toxicity would be negligible. Taken as communities, we reach serious toxicity and threaten other life-forms. The same principle applies to other chemicals (we are all chemicals).

Anthea, if you cannot publish my whole letter, leave it out. If you publish them all in their entirety on your website, I will give you weekly lectures in perspective and related sciences.

Anthea, in the meantime, I will build my case against you and when the time is right, do what needs to be done to rid society of fear-mongering commercial strategists like you. You are a fraud, as are your magazine and website are fraudulent. You appear to have no respect for truth and I will expose you for what you are. As for Enchantrix, I challenge you to divulge the full constituents, not just the catch phrase ingredients, so that I can use those to illustrate the comparative toxicology, which would be a meaningful exercise compared to the cheap marketing strategy employed now in the name of public safety. You will be shocked as to how toxic they are.

Sincerely

Stuart

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 1:34 PM

Subject: More perspective

Anthea and Helmar

I am going to comment on some of the crap that Anthea passed onto me through you.

In the meantime here is a legal/sociological perspective on hoaxes such as that being perpetrated by Anthea.

I wonder how it feels to be a social delinquent of this calibre, putting bullshit before brains in the service of money before morality?

The attached "Internet Hoaxes" document has been abbreviated to increase the chances that you might bother to read it.

Anthea, consider yourself "formally served" with this perspective.

The original document is also attached, just for the completeness of the record.

Sincerely

Stuart

One HTML document and a shorter edited MS Word version thereof eliminating the peripheral issues therein accompanied this letter. Both are archived as the original e-mails and attachments therein as a Winzip file download titled ‘biofilth.zip’ at www.gaiaresarch.co.za/download.

The edited version of ”Internet Hoaxes: Public Regulation and Private Remedies” by the Harvard Law School is highly illustrative of the underhandedness of this cowardly marketing strategy and hence is hosted here.

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 3:05 PM

Subject: More aquatic perspective

Hello again

OK, the aquatic data you sent me is for all intents and purposes, useless in the context of our discussion, which is notably entirely one-sided.

Attached is a comparative study of Alcohol Ethoxylated Sulfates (SLES, the milder form of SLS that is generally used in responsibly manufactured personal care products where detectable levels of SLS will remain in the finished product) and Soap, which I believe is what you use for body cleansing (as do I in most instances, but with a potassium rather than a sodium lye, which former is milder and ecologically superior).

Please note that the major concern amongst these comparatives iro aquatic organisms was in fact the soap, not the SLES. 

Give me the precise formulation of your alternative cleansers, lipids and preservatives and and I will provide even more appropriate comparisons. It is far from fair for you to pontificate from behind a veil of chemical ambiguity. The ingredients mentioned in your pamphlets are not the only ingredients used in your claimed non-toxic products. 

If you are not prepared to provide me with the details of "all" your supposedly non-toxic alternative ingredients, I will take that as your tacit admission that you are indeed a fraud who does not possess the pretended courage of your convictions, which refusal I will then add to your refusal to retract the fraud you have now knowingly attributed to Dr Green.

I list "all" my residual ingredients except for water, mineral oil and parabens, none of which are active ingredients, which is why they are not listed, besides the fact that in the concentrations used, all are less toxic to consumers than the actual active ingredients.

Anthea, consider this document to have been "formally served" as rebuttal of your absurd contention that SLS/SLES are unique in their aquatic toxicity. Your products are likely to be at least as toxic as the alternatives you so readily malign, if not actually more so and compared to my maligned inerts, your alternatives are certain to be several orders of magnitude more toxic to consumers. Are you ready to play fair via full disclosure and face counter-exposure, or will I have to force you to come clean.

Sincerely

Stuart

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 4:20 PM

Subject: Green People Nonsense

Hello again.

This is my take on this crap.

Anthea, consider yourself formally served with my pre-publication critique. Go ahead with this, in full knowledge of the fraud about to be perpetrated, at your own peril.

Sincerely

Stuart

One HTML document accompanied this letter, being an edited version of an earlier item from Anthea, which was returned with annotations and both of which are archived as the original e-mail and attachment therein in the Winzip file download titled ‘biofilth.zip’ at www.gaiaresarch.co.za/download.

This document, titled “Inside Network Marketing: How Toxic is Your Spaghetti Sauce?” is quite a good read from an outside perspective and so is hosted in its original form here.

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar Rudolph

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 5:05 PM

Subject: Soap is 14 times more toxic to aquatic organisms than is SLS & SLES

Anthea

Incidentally, the maximum tolerable levels (MTR) and negligible risk levels (VR) for soap was more than 14x lower than for alcohol ethoxy sulphates (AES), meaning that soap was considerably more toxic to aquatic organisms than was SLS and SLES. Any reason you are not telling your readers this when selling soap and slating SLS/SLES?

Table 1: Maximum Tolerable risk level (MTR) and negligible risk levels (VR) for surface waters of four

detergent ingredients.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ingredienta MTR (ug/l)b VR (ug/l)b

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LAS 250 / 2.5

AE 110 / 1.1

AES 400 / 4.0 (SLES)

Soap 27 / 0.27

Sincerely

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar Rudolph

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 7:53 PM

Subject: Helmar will enjoy this read, Anthea not

Hello

Helmar, you will enjoy this read. Anthea, I am afraid your mind is too closed to extend the compliment, but try nevertheless.

Regards

Stuart

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar Rudolph

Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 4:38 PM

Subject: Poison and Perspective

Hello Helmar & Anthea,

Helmar,

I thought you might appreciate the extract pasted under my signature below. Sweet and Simple. Perhaps even Anthea might grasp its elegant simplicity.

Anthea,

You wrote recently: "Here is the article from Dr Samuel Epstein - going into the next issue of Biophile.  take a look at the bottom where there is a little bit about Epstein, just to get the gist of the calibre of person!".

[EDITOR’s NOTE: What follows is all there was. I am sure there is much more, but all his academic science publications and accolades are in the past and the man no longer has any standing in the science world, resorting instead to scaremongering magazine articles and popular books directed at laypersons on the supposed horrors of synthetic carcinogens, to which few are significantly exposed, if at all, to the total exclusion of the at least equal threat from natural carcinogens to which we are all significantly exposed (ST). - Samuel S. Epstein, MD is Professor Emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, and Recipient of the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for Humanitarianism.]

Calibre indeed, that of a scientific prostitute. How can anyone attribute credibility to the author of "The Neways Story">? Anthea, you wanted to know where your personally maligned Dr Green received his funding. How do you live with your conscience knowing where Dr Epstein receives his sponsorship, the filthy millions from the fraudulent fear-mongering Neways empire headed by Tom Mower, your other quoted hero, a multiple indicted criminal for medical fraud and tax evasion? 

On the other hand, my mentor is Professor Bruce Ames, developer of the Ames Test, the tool most frequently used to determine the mutagenicity of any substance. In his laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, Ames, once the darling of the environmental movement, eclipsing Professor Epstein with his own carcinogenic revelations and regulatory campaigns, surprised even himself, discovering that natural chemicals were just as mutagenic (and carcinogenic) as synthetic ones. 

It is particularly pertinent to this conflict, that Ames also happens to have been the scientist who single-handedly toppled Samuel Epstein from his perch, first as an exemplary environmental scientist and later as revolutionary biological scientist, a fall from which Epstein never recovered, in fact, who by his continuing fear-mongering rantings and ravings drove himself into scientific obscurity, eventually resorting to having to prostitute himself by writing popular junk-science as a paid lackey of the Neways empire, that you Anthea, worship to the point of emulation. 

You want calibre? Check out my expert witness:

Bruce Ames, Professor Of the Graduate School, University of California Berkeley; Director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Center at UC Berkeley; Senior Scientist at Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland. Professor Ames obtained his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Cornell University and his PhD in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. Professor Ames is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (its high honour) and their Commission on Life Sciences. His professional experience includes: Postdoctoral Fellow (U.S.P.H.S.) at NIH, 1953-1954; Biochemist at the National Institutes of Health 1954-1960; Sabbatical year as N.S.F. Senior Fellow in laboratories of F. H. C. Crick in Cambridge, England, and F. Jacob in Paris, France, 1961-1961; Chief, Section of Microbial Genetics, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, N.I.A.M.D., NIH, 1962-1967; Prof. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 1968-2000; Member, Board of Directors, National Cancer Institute & the National Cancer Advisory Board, 1976-1982;Chairman, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 1983-1989; Dir., National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center, U.C. Berkeley, 1979-present; Prof. Of the Graduate School, University of California Berkeley, 2000-present; Senior Research Scientist, Childrens Hospital Oakland Research Institute Oakland CA, 2000-present.

Professional Societies:

·         American Academy of Arts and Science

·         American Aging Association

·         American Association for the Advancement of Science

·         American Association for Cancer Research

·         American Chemical Society

·         American College of Toxicology

·         American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

·         American Society of Nutritional Sciences

·         Environmental Mutagen Society

·         Gerontological Society of America

·         Mitochondrial Medicine Society

·         Molecular Medicine Society

·         New York Academy of Science

·         Oxygen Society

·         Society for Free Radical Research

·         Society of Toxicology

Honors:

·         American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1970

·         National Academy of Sciences 1972

·         Fellow of the Amer. Assoc. for the Adv. of Sci. 1980

·         IBM-Princess Takamatsu Cancer Res Fund Lectureship (Japan) 1984

·         Honorary Degree, Tufts University 1987

·         Honorary Degree, University of Bologna 1989

·         Elected Honorary Foreign Member, Japan Cancer Association 1987

·         Elected Foreign Member, The Royal Swedish Acad. of Sci. 1989

·         Elected Fellow, Academy of Toxicological Sciences 1992

·         Elected Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology 1992

·         Honorary Member, Japan Pharmaceutical Society 1998

Awards:

·         Arthur Flemming Award (Outstanding Young Gov't Employee) 1966

·         Lewis Rosenstiel Award 1976

·         FASEB/3M Award for Research in Life Sciences 1976

·         E.R.D.A. Distinguished Associate Award 1976

·         Environmental Mutagen Society Award 1977

·         Cal. Tech. Distinguished Alumni Award 1977

·         Simon Shubitz Cancer Prize 1978

·         Felix Wankel Research Award 1978

·         John Scott Medal 1979

·         Bolton L. Corson Medal 1980

·         New Brunswick Lectureship Award of A.S.M. 1980

·         Wadsworth Award 1981

·         Charles S. Mott Prize, GM Cancer Res. Foundation 1983

·         Gairdner Foundation Award (Canada) 1983

·         Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement 1985

·         Spencer Award (American Chemical Society) 1986

·         Roger J. Williams Award in Preventive Nutrition 1989

·         Gold Medal, American Institute of Chemists 1991

·         Glenn Foundation Award, Gerontological Society of America 1992

·         Röntgen Prize of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy) 1993

·         Lovelace Award for Excellence in Environ. Health Research 1995

·         Frontiers of Science Award, Society of Cosmetic Chemists 1995

·         Messel Medal, British Society of Chemical Industry 1996

·         Society of Toxicology Public Communications Award 1996

·         Achievement in Excellence Award, Ctr for Excellence in Educ. 1996

·         Honda Prize 1996

·         Japan Prize 1997

·         Kehoe Award, American College of Occup. and Environ. Med. 1997

·         Medal of the City of Paris 1998

·         National Medal of Science 1998

·         Am. Society for Microbiology Lifetime Achievement Award 2001

·     Linus Pauling Institute Prize for Health Research 2001

·         the American Council on Science and Health 25th anniversary award for distinguished service 2003  

Service on Boards and Committees:

·         Program Committee of the Am. Soc. Biol. Chem. 1963-1967

·         Editorial Board, Archives of Biochem. and Biophys. 1964-1969

·         National Research Council (representative of Genetics Society) 1964-1969

·         Editorial Board, Journal of Biological Chemistry 1965-1971

·          Nominating Committee, Am. Soc. of Biol. Chem. 1967-1969

·         Governing Council, Environmental Mutagen Society 1971-1975

·         Advisory Committee, Earl Warren Legal Institute 1971-1975

·         Nominating Committee of the Genetics Society 1971

·         Organizer, 1st Int'l Conf. on Environ. Mutagens, Asilomar, CA 1973

·         Consultative Panel on Hazards of Chemical Pesticides, 1974

·         National Research Council, Natl. Academy of Sciences, 1974

·         Subcluster on Environmental Health & Toxicology of Presidents Biomedical Research Panel, 1975

·         National Cancer Advisory Board (Presidential Appointment) 1976-1982

·         Search Committee for Director of N.C.I. 1977

·         Scientific Advisory Panel, California Safe Drinking Water & Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Prop. 65), 1987-1989

·         Member, Commission on Life Sciences, Natl. Res. Council 1989-1995

·         Board of Directors, American Aging Association 1992-1995

·         Member, Health Matters Advisory Committee 1992-1996

·         Member, International Review Committee, United Medical and Dental School of Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals, 1996-

·        Member, The Nutrition Committee, American Heart Assoc. 1998

Ames is described by those honouring him as "a generous philanthropist, best known as the inventor of the Ames Test — a simple, indirect assay for mutagens — potential carcinogens — that is widely used in research institutes, industry, and regulatory agencies around the world to screen for potentially hazardous environmental chemicals. His 450+ peer reviewed published scientific papers, (twice that of Epstein), (besides his dozens of books and hundreds of articles) have put him amongst the most published and cited scientists in the world.

As one of the worlds's leading cancer experts, Dr. Ames' work has re-shaped the public health debate, dispelling many myths about trace chemicals in the environment as a cause of cancer. Dr. Ames’ research focuses on identifying mutagenic agents that damage human DNA and the defenses against them. He is also working to elucidate the consequences of DNA damage for cancer and aging. Ames has discovered that deficiencies of certain micronutrients–such as vitamins B12, B6, C, E, folate, and niacin, and the minerals iron and zinc–appear to mimic radiation in damaging DNA. He and his group have found that folate deficiency breaks chromosomes due to massive incorporation of uracil into human DNA.

The group’s recent work indicates that deficiency of vitamin B12 or B6, both very common, causes similar high uracil levels and DNA damage. Micronutrient deficiency may explain why the quarter of the population that eats the fewest fruits and vegetables has double the cancer rate for most types of cancer when compared with the quarter that consumes the most fruits and vegetables. The group has found that aging may be caused, in good part, by oxidants produced as by-products of normal metabolism, which alter mitochondrial function. The mitochondria of old rats, when compared to young rats, were found to be impaired in many ways. Feeding old rats the normal mitochondrial metabolites, acetyl carnitine and lipoic acid, reversed much of the impairment. The group is investigating the effect of these metabolites on lifespan and brain function, and is exploring the extension of their studies to humans.

Regards

Stuart

Poison

Richard Girling
The Sunday Times
04.07.04

You don't have to do this. Just imagine it. Take a glass bottle and drop it onto concrete from a height of 2 millimetres. Now take the same bottle and repeat from 2 metres. Note the difference.

What you have done, with childlike directness, is show the critical relationship between dose and response. Low dose, no worry. High dose, catastrophe. It is a perfect analogy for the way chemicals affect the human body. Most substances taken in small amounts are harmless. Almost anything taken in excess will cause worsening damage as the dose increases. One aspirin a day may prolong your life; 30 will end it. A pinch of salt will stimulate the taste buds; three teaspoons will kill a baby. A pint of water will satisfy your thirst; gulping six pints will finish you off. It is all a matter of thresholds. We understand this, and not many of us want to ban aspirin, salt or water.

It is hard not to be sceptical. Chemicals in modern life have been ubiquitous for more than 50 years. Some 100,000 of them are registered for use in the EU, of which around 30,000 are made or imported annually in quantities of over one tonne. In most cases, our knowledge of their environmental and health effects hardly rises above zero. And yet the quickening flow of them into our lives has been accompanied not by an epidemic of withering disease but by steady improvements in health.

In 1961, the year before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, the book that first highlighted the damage caused by pesticides and effectively launched the environment movement, life expectancy in the UK was 67.8 and 73.7 years for men and women respectively. By 2002 it had gone up to 76 and 81. This does not mean that our lives are free from danger, or that the precautionary principle (when in doubt, play safe) is redundant. The real risk is that, amid the forest of red flags, we may lose the ability to distinguish between justified concern and illogical fear. Coffee alone contains more than 1,000 different chemicals, of which some 27 have been assessed for carcinogenicity in rodents. Nineteen of these tested positive. Nobody knows about the rest.

You want to know which retailers are peddling such poisons? Which brands? The answer is short and shocking: all of them. Conventionally grown, organically grown, home-grown, it makes no difference. These toxins are all produced normally by processing and within the plants themselves as part of their evolved defence against fungi, insects, birds and animals. Many are natural pesticides, whose only job in life is to be poisonous. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the chemicals we consume are natural, and are found in fruit, vegetables and bread. They have existed throughout the entire evolutionary progress of vertebrate life, but still cause cancer in mice, rats and — well, who knows?

Literally thousands of such substances are in free circulation, of which only the tiniest fraction — a total at the last count of just 71 — has ever been tested. Thirty-seven of these proved carcinogenic to rodents, to the extent that they would not meet the regulatory criteria laid down for chemicals made by man. Day by day, the natural pesticides in our diet outweigh the synthetic ones by 20,000 to 1. Two-thirds of synthetic chemicals are carcinogenic to rats and mice; so are two-thirds of the natural ones.

Scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health at the University of California at Berkeley calculated that the known natural rodent carcinogens in one cup of coffee are about equal in weight to the synthetic pesticide residues in an average American's annual intake of fruit and vegetables. Every day, each of us consumes some 2,000mg of carcinogenic or mutagenic material — about a quarter of a teaspoonful — created by cooking. In the same time span, according to the US Food and Drug Administration, the average consumption of synthetic chemicals is just 0.09mg — about the weight of a single grain of refined salt.

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea; Helmar Rudolph

Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 11:37 AM

Subject: Mutagenicity

Anthea

You write in your intended text titled "The SLS Controversy" that: "I am sure that you realise the ecological implications of interfering with the lower levels of an ecosystem. There are seven published references to its mutagenic capacity".  

OK, so now you know that your soap is more toxic than SLS/SLES to the lower levels of an ecosystem. Are you going to fairly inform your readers of this fact when you tell them of the (comparatively low) toxicity of SLS/SLES to the same environment? If not, you are a hypocrite and will be publicly exposed as such!

Furthermore, what do you think the implications are of the purported mutagenicity of SLS?

Is mutagenicity like something to be be avoided at all costs to avoid certain calamity?

If you think so, you are seriously deluded.

Earlier mutagenicity tests required substantial concentrations of test substances, much like animal carcinogen tests do, in order to produce a positive result. False positives are also commonplace and confirmatory tests are unlikely to have been conducted due to costs thereof, unless much depended on a required negative outcome for the substance being tested. Incidentally, sodium lauryl sulfates test negative in the Ames Test, the modern industry standard and which test is cost effective enough to be utilised in several laboratories and several times in each laboratory (NICNAS Existing Chemicals Data Sheet, NICNAS, April 2003 :- International Programme of Chemical Safety, International Chemical Safety Card, IPCS, 1997; Cosmetic Ingredient Review, 1983; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Screening Information Data Set, Initial Assessment, OECD, 1997; Hazardous Substances Data Bank; International Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary and Handbook, 1997).

Furthermore, by diverse mutagenicity tests, several natural substances to which humans and the animals that they consume, test positive for and are confirmed as mutagens (appearing in italics if also positive as a carcinogen), including: Acetaldehyde (apple, grapefruit, orange, peach, Concord grape, lemon, pear, pineapple, raspberry, strawberry and ethyl alcohol); Anthraquinone (rhubarb); Auto-oxidisable plant oils (as in your products); Caffeine (coffee, tea, kola & cocoa); Fructose (all fruits); Hydrazine (mushrooms); Linear Furanocoumarins (celery, parsnip, fig & parsley); Malonaldehyde (raisin, wallnut, peanut butter & cheese); Mycotoxins/Aflatoxins (nuts, grains, cereals & legumes including their oils); Nitrate > Nitrite > Nitrosamines - vegetable nitrates convert to nitrite via intestinal bacteria, which in the presence of amines (from proteins) form nitrosamines - (many food combinations); Patulin (apple);  Quercetin (many fruits & vegetables, esp onions); Soybean contains several mutagens and carcinogens; Safrole (nutmeg, mace, ginger, star anise, cinnamon & pepper); Salt (table, sea & rock salts); Sterigmatocystin (wheat).

I shall resist listing all the mutagenic cooked and animal foods. I shall also at this stage, resist the urge to list the hundreds of confirmed natural carcinogens comprising the human food chain. The abovementioned mutagens already pale the alleged mutagenicity of SLS into insignificance. Suffice it to say that virtually all of the ingredients that you partially list as ingredients in the Enchantrix products are confirmed carcinogens, a topic for a later exposé.  Still going to fearmonger over SLS mutagenesis?

Next, parabens as oestrogen mimics. Besides your hypocrisy at referencing "corporate" data only when it suits you (least of all AstraZeneca), consider that the following are also oestrogen mimics (most are also mutagens and also carcinogens): alfalfa, almonds, anise, apple, banana, barley, carrot, cherry, clover, coffee, damiana, fennel, garlic, green bean, hop, licorice, oats, oregano, pea, pomegranate, plum, potato, rice, rice bran, rice, rye, rape, sage, sesame, soybean, thyme, tumeric, verbena, wheat, wheat bran, wheat germ, yam & yeast. Included are also the oils of olive, corn, cottonseed, safflower, wheatgerm, soyabean, rice bran, peanut & coconut.

I have multiple scientific references for all of the above. Do you still believe that traces of parabens in cosmetics (I do not consider parabens deliberately added as a microbicidal agent in deodorants to be traces) to be a horror situation considering its ubiquity in nature and deliberate use in foods as a synthetic preservative? Why do you not campaign against these far greater sources of human exposure? Is it because you have nothing materially to gain by alerting readers to these greater exposures?

This ought to be my last response to all the stuff recently passed on to me. If you believe that I have glossed over or missed any criticism, please alert me to same and I will add a corrective perspective asap. In respect of the above, please consider yourself formally served with this material as specifically corrective information.

Oh, one last thing. I have attached a free e-book for your essential education in an area, that because of your being out of your depth, I have spent some considerable time attempting to educate you for the good of both yourself and your readers. I truly hope that the effort will at least be met by an attempt to assimilate what I have provided. I do not expect you to take my word for all that I have had to say, hence the independent perspective from the most authorative expert on the subject (Ames).

Sincerely

Stuart

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Stuart Thomson

To: anthea;

Cc: Helmar Rudolph

Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 8:14 AM

Subject: Wrap-up

Dear Anthea

Following my letter of 11 March, we have engaged in a remote exchange courtesy of the concerns of Helmar Rudolf that we not work against each others efforts in our somewhat mutually overlapping areas of endeavour in service of society and ourselves. In these exchanges I have addressed you directly and you me only via Helmar, an unsatisfactory means of communication, yet one that is preferable to no communication at all and one that I am thankful to Helmar for facilitating, primarily for his and my concern of how this matter might turn out for you and our common causes, rather than any primary concern for myself.

I have responded to you directly iro the material passed on by Helmar in my attempt to educate your dealing with these issues in the pages of your magazine Biophile, on your two websites and in the marketing of your Bioenchantrix product range. By now, any reasonable person ought to have enlightened by my extensive efforts to this end and I trust that common sense and decency will now prevail over a misplaced toxicological concern for consumers and the environment that does not have correlation in the real world other than on the dark paranoid side of the Internet and a lone paranoid scientist that has unwittingly compromised his professional integrity by association with and collaboration in a massive commercial scam by the Neways direct marketing empire. I shall send you some info shortly on the HGH issue that, as consultant to Neways, must have broken Epsteins heart .

I hope and trust that you will reflect, reanalyse and reorientate your position on those aspects dealt with so comprehensively by me these past few weeks, to the point that we can put this conflict aside and serve our individual and mutual goals without dissipating and wasting our already pressurised resources on negative infighting.

I look forward to receiving word from you shortly to discuss a peaceful way forward, failing which, I regret I will have had my hand forced into actions beyond my control.

Sincerely

Stuart