SAY NO TO TOBACCO! by Sharon Leontine Wallenberg

The World Health Organization has urged governments to stop subsidizing deadly tobacco farming and support more sustainable crops that could alleviate hunger and starvation.

“Tobacco is responsible for 8 million deaths a year, yet governments across the world spend millions supporting tobacco farms,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “By choosing to grow food instead of tobacco, we prioritize health, preserve ecosystems, and strengthen food security for all.”

More than 300 million people globally face acute food insecurity while more than 3 million hectares of land across more than 120 countries are being used to grow deadly tobacco, even in countries where people are starving!  This priorities the economic benefits of a few over the lives of many that are lost either through hunger and starvation or lung and other tobacco related cancers.

A new WHO report, “Grow food, not tobacco”, highlights the detriments of growing tobacco versus the benefits of growing sustainable food crops for farmers, communities, economies, the environment, and the world at large. The report also exposes the tobacco industry for trapping farmers in a vicious cycle of debt, propagating tobacco growing by exaggerating its economic benefits and lobbying through farming front groups.  For more in depth knowledge of this and other exploitative practice, I recommend “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins.

Tobacco farming causes diseases to the farmers themselves. More than 1 million child laborers are estimated to be working on tobacco farms, missing their opportunity for an education.   In addition, countless others perish from tobacco related disease.  This includes my own Mother, who perished from cigarette induced lung cancer when I was pregnant and in my 20’s.

“Tobacco is not only a massive threat to food insecurity, but health overall, including the health of tobacco farmers. Farmers are exposed to chemical pesticides, tobacco smoke and as much nicotine as found in 50 cigarettes – leading to illnesses like chronic lung conditions and nicotine poisoning,” according to Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO.

Tobacco growing is a global problem.  The focus has so far been in Asia and South America, but the latest data show tobacco companies are expanding to Africa. Since 2005, there has been a nearly 20% increase in tobacco farming land across Africa.

It is time to proactively oppose the exploitation and death promoted by tobacco!  SAY NO TO TOBACCO!

Epilogue of the World Health Summit, Berlin, October 2022

 Epilogue of the World Health Summit, Berlin, October 2022

Almost everything discussed, health, sustainability, and planetary issues, were related to animal exploitation.  This was never mentioned.

Only one Speaker in the entire Summit, at the Closing Ceremony, mentioned the word ‘Justice’.  Injustice to non-humans is the cause of everything discussed in the Summit.

Zoonotic pandemic was foremost, followed by the NCDs of diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, mental health including suicide, responsible for more human deaths than the entire pandemic.  All are related to exploitation and eating non humans.

Another concern was Anti-Microbial Resistance, the focus of copious amounts of research, but not on the copious amounts of anti-biotics fed to unjustly incarcerated individuals slaughtered and eaten by humans. 

To their credit, the Hotel served Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks which were mostly plant-based.  Items were elegant, imaginative, and delightful.  No one complained that there was no meat, and very little dairy.

The buffets at the World Health Summit taught more of a lesson than many of the high-level meetings.  The simple answer to the complex problems of health and environmental issues is a Plant-Based lifestyle.

 

 

Where Is Volodymyr Zelensky? By Sharon L. Wallenberg

President Volodymyr Zelensky, the most courageous, creative, and determined leader of our time, has not been seen recently.  

Concerned individuals are speculating if Zelensky has been assassinated as threatened by the Russians.  Ukraine has prudently made plans for government continuity in that event. 

International Representatives investigating War Crimes in Ukraine have recently uncovered mass graves of men, women, and CHILDREN dressed in civilian clothes, their hands tied behind their backs, and bullet holes in their heads.  

NATO nations seem to have decided to stop sending weapons to Ukraine in case they need those weapons themselves.  The United States supplies non-long-range weapons carefully designed not to inflict too much damage on the Russians, presumably to avoid retaliation to the US.

Does this remind of you Hitler’s attempt to capture then Czechoslovakia?  The Nazi aggression could have easily been stopped there.  However, nations found it easier to acquiesce to a bully then to prevent future bloodshed.

We are now in the next stage of acquiescing to the bully Putin, and it is becoming bloodier, and bloodier.  This is a replay of the appeasement of World War II that did not work.  Too many lives have been lost already which could have been prevented if nations had been willing to provide fighter jets and other necessary long-range support to Ukraine.

The blood of these innocent Ukrainian individuals is not only on the hands of the instigating and complicit Russians, but also on the nations which could have done more and did not.

 

 

 

When Will NATO Stand Up to Russia? by Sharon Leontine Wallenberg

The courage and creativeness of Ukrainian President Zelensky is in stark contrast to the lack of fortitude, and decisiveness of the leaders of the NATO nations.  President Biden could learn a lesson from his predecessor, President Kennedy’s response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Direct confrontation and zero tolerance is the only effective means to solve a problem like the one the world now faces.

Not giving Ukraine the fighter jets needed is resulting in an extremely bloody and destructive war.  The mortality, morbidity, torture, and displacement resulting from this protracted war is inexcusable, not only for the Russians, but for those nations which have not given the needed fighter jets, while making outward shows of ineffective support.

In addition, the billions of dollars spent on sending band aid weapons to a patient fighting for life, not only causes extended suffering, but also unnecessary future economic hardship for the United States and other donor nations.

Poland, Moldova, Romania, and other nations hosting the countless Ukrainian refugees are among the few heros in this conflict besides the super-human Ukrainians.

While attention is on the unjustly incarcerated US citizens in Russia, where is the concern for the thousands of Russians also unjustly imprisoned in Russia?  Or those people forcibly ‘filtrated’, tortured and relocated?  Or the children forced to watch their Mothers gang raped and murdered?  Or the ten-year old Ukrainian boy ‘conscripted’ into the Russian army to kill his own people?  Not to mention the thousands of innocent peopled killed in a conflict not of their making?

I pray every night for peace and justice in Ukraine.  But right now, prayers are not enough!  Where is the courage of the NATO nations?

CHOLESTEROL by Sharon Leontine Wallenberg

Cholesterol is a white, waxy substance, not found in plants – only in humans and animals.  It is used in the membranes that coat cells and is the main ingredient in some hormones.  It is also in the thin cell membranes that surround each cell in the body.  The liver sends particles containing cholesterol from digestion into the bloodstream for the cells to use.  Cholesterol also acts as a kind of glue that holds the membranes together. Cholesterol is the basic ingredient of the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen.  

Human bodies need cholesterol and manufacture it on their own.  When humans consume other individuals in the form of meat, poultry, fish, and other non-plant-based foods, such as dairy and eggs, they take in excess amounts of fat and cholesterol.  Additionally, although it seems counterintuitive, eating fat and cholesterol causes the human body to manufacture even more excessive amounts of cholesterol of its own.  This is why vegans who eat oil, plant butter, vegan cheese, and non-dairy ice cream, can also exhibit excess cholesterol.  

The best, most healthful, sustainable and kind diet is the low fat vegan diet, and it is also delicious!

Social Media Intelligence Enriches Corporations Who Exploit the Defenseless by Sharon Leontine Wallenberg

The UN World Health Organization purchased services from social media intelligence to “listen” to billions of daily exchanges and conversations among social media users on digital platforms, websites, forums, Facebook, and monitor for key words, phrases, and gather, organize, analyze it on immoral and illegal marketing practices of multi-national formula milk manufacturers exploiting parents, mothers, infants.   

Formula milk companies pay social media platforms and influencers for access to pregnant women and mothers who are targeted with personalized social media content not recognizable as advertising.  Content is posted approximately 90 times a day, reaching 229 million users - three times those reached by informational posts with evidence that breastfeeding improves health for Infants and Mothers,

If current formula milk marketing strategies continue, that proportion could fall still further, while boosting companies’ profits of more than $55 billion per year globally.

“The promotion of commercial milk formulas should have been terminated decades ago,” said Dr Francesco Branca, Director of WHO Nutrition and Food Safety Department. “The fact that formula milk companies are now employing even more powerful and insidious marketing techniques to drive up their sales is inexcusable…”

 

 

 

Dairy in Chocolate directly related to Deadly Infection Outbreak by Sharon Leontine Wallenberg

The United Kingdom recently notified WHO of monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium infections linked to dairy in chocolate and distributed to 113+ countries. 

The United Kingdom National Focal Point reported a cluster of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium.  Evidence linked the outbreak to chocolate products.  Monophasic S. Typhimurium was identified in buttermilk tanks used to make chocolate.  Products included all Kinder products including Kinder Surprise, Kinder Mini Eggs, Kinder Surprise Maxi 100g and Kinder Schoko-Bons.

According to the United Kingdom Health Security Agency, the outbreak strain is resistant to six types of antibiotics: penicillins, aminoglycosides (streptomycin, spectinomycin, kanamycin, and gentamycin), phenicols, sulfonamides, trimethoprim, tetracyclines.

Salmonellosis causes fever, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea (sometimes bloody).  Symptoms occur 6–72 hours after eating food or water contaminated with Salmonella; illness lasts 2–7 days.  In children and elderly, the associated dehydration can become severe and life-threatening.

Salmonella bacteria are found in animals and their secretions, eaten as food including poultry, eggs, cattle, dairy, and pigs, and can be life threatening in some cases.  Don’t eat animals or their secretions!