Sunday, December 30, 2007

Ilena quoted in RedWood Age: Resolutions That Go Beyond Losing Weight

Excerpt from Redwood Age:

#6 Become a better health advocate

Ilena Rosenthal, a women's health advocate, cautioned boomers not to be swayed by advertising, and to be mindful of subsequent perks some physicians receive to tout products.

"Learning to follow the money behind the massive number of medical messages we receive daily may well lead us to realize that modern medicine has little to do with health and everything to do with business," Rosenthal said."

… full article here

Visit Ilena's Blog

Monday, December 17, 2007

Let's stop the Increasing Numbers of Murders of Whales ...


This year, 1,400 whales, including 50 humpback whales, could die in another senseless annual hunt.

Please sign the petition to the Ambassador of Japan today >>

In the past 15 years, Japan has increased its catch five-fold. More than 30,000 whales have been killed for commercial purposes since the ban on global whaling in 1986.  

The Japanese government attempts to defend its whaling program by calling it "scientific" whaling.

Killing whales under the guise of conducting research, when the real purpose is to sell their meat for a profit, is deceitful and illegal under international law.

Please join us in sending a strong message to Japan: stop the illegal killing of all whales, including the humpback, immediately.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

For Women of a certain age ...



Women of a certain age will fully appreciate this true story.


If you don't, ask your Mom ... for sure she will.

A Michigan woman and her family were vacationing in a small new England town where Paul Newman and his family often visited.

One Sunday morning, the woman got up early to take a long walk. After a brisk five-mile hike, she decided to treat herself to a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone.

She hopped in the car, drove to the center of the village and went straight to the combination bakery/ice cream parlor.

There was only one other patron in the store.
Paul Newman, sitting at the counter having a doughnut and coffee.

The woman's heart skipped a beat as her eyes made contact with those famous baby-blue eyes.

The actor nodded graciously and the star struck woman smiled demurely.

Pull yourself together! She chides herself. You're a happily married woman with three children, you're forty-five years old, not a teenager!

The clerk filled her order and she took the double-dip chocolate ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. Then she went out the door, avoiding even a glance in Paul Newman's direction.

When she reached her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty.
Where's my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store? Back into the shop she went, expecting to see the cone still in the clerk's hand or in a holder on the counter or something. No ice cream cone was in sight.

With that, she happened to look over at Paul Newman.
His face broke into his familiar warm friendly grin and he said to the woman,


'You put it in your purse.'

(Thanks to my precious friend, Gail. Please let me know if you find the source.)


--

Saturday, December 8, 2007

"Here's to the crazy ones !!!"


Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.
(Advertisement for Apple Computer)

Monday, September 10, 2007

Common Dreams: Six Years of 9/11 as a License to Kill

Common Dreams NewsCenter




It evokes a tragedy that marks an epoch.

From the outset, the warfare state has exploited “9/11,” a label at once too facile and too laden with historic weight — giving further power to the tacit political axiom that perception is reality.

What happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was extraordinary and horrible by any measure. And certainly a crime against humanity. At the same time, it was a grisly addition to a history of human experience that has often included many thousands killed, en masse, by inhuman human choice. It is simply and complexly a factual matter that the U.S. government has participated in outright mass murders directly — in, for example, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq — and less directly, through aid to armies terrorizing civilians in Nicaragua, Angola, East Timor and many other countries. more here.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Tribute to Luciano Pavarotti



Ilena Rosenthal & The Humantics Foundation celebrate the brilliance of Luciano Pavarotti with this amazing clip from a concert in his hometown of Modena, Italy. Miss Sarajevo, with Pavarotti and U2, is one of the most moving clips I've ever experienced.


(more Pavarotti at our Humantics Foundation website)








Lyrics follow.

Is there a time for keeping your distance
A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day

Is there a time for kohl and lipstick
A time for curling hair
Is there a time for high street shopping
To find the right dress to wear

Here she comes
Heads turn around
Here she comes
To take her crown

Is there a time to run for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colours
Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion
A time for East Seventeen
Is there a time to turn to Mecca
Is there time to be a beauty queen

Here she comes
Beauty plays the clown
Here she comes
Surreal in her crown

Dici che il fiume
Trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
Giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
E le terre assetate
Dici che come fiume
Come fiume...
L'amore giungerà
L'amore...
E non so più pregare
E nell'amore non so più sperare
E quell'amore non so più aspettare

[Translation of the above]
You say that the river
finds the way to the sea
and like the river
you will come to me
beyond the borders
and the dry lands
You say that like a river
like a river...
the love will come
the love...
And i don't know how to pray anymore
and in love i don't know how to hope anymore
and for that love i don't know how to wait anymore

[End of Translation]

Is there a time for tying ribbons
A time for Christmas trees
Is there a time for laying tables
And the night is set to freeze

O lijepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo,
[dar u kom sva blaga višnji nam bog je do...]

(thanks to Sing365 for the lyrics)

Saturday, August 11, 2007

The Politics & PR of Cervical Cancer While Gardasil Reactions and Deaths on the Rise

Thank you to Dr. Mercola for this vital information for anyone who is considering putting themselves or someone they love at risk for these side effects (as industry flacks like to call them) that include:

  • death,
  • spontaneous abortion,
  • permanent disability,
  • amidst a myriad of 2,207 "incidents" as of July, 2007.

Please read down further to the links to an outstanding expose on the Politics & PR of Cervical Cancer ... a revealing and balanced 4-part series of the vast disinformation machine the Vaccination Industry is tied to.

The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer

Many people don't yet realize that there is a gigantic vaccination industry who pools public relations millions with the silicone, chemical, cell phone, tobacco and other Goliath Industries funding www.junkscience.com and www.ACSH.org and their miscellanous front groups.

If you go to either of these sites, you will see linked together the "junk science" or "quackery" public relations teams under varying names and disguises, claiming to be "experts" and selling the industry viewpoints on: vaccinations, breast implants, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), homeopathy, genetically modified seeds, aspartame, alternative medicine, and cell phones, to name but a few.

The center of this network is Stephen Barrett, who runs Quackwatch, NCAHF.org, and has waged an aggressive legal war against several of us.

He's been an active part of industry backed ACSH.org for decades,especially in regards to writing industry-sided books and articles blaming everything in the world for MCS but chemicals.

He and his teams label me 'anti-vac' ... this is untrue.

One of Barrett's spokeswomen fills usenet with their opinion that I am "mentally unstable."

I'm not that either.

I am an active woman nearing 60, who loves life and loves full medical disclosure on on-going human clinical trials uch as breast implants and vaccinations.

Vaccination Science is highly funded and controversial ... and Barrett is using the legal system to attack with aggressive legal assaults Dr. Tedd Koren, myself, and Dr. Joseph Mercola, (to name just three) who have vastly different opinions on the topic. Please see Dr. Mercola's report followed by the PR Watch's outstanding series on this raging controversy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click here for over 1,600 adverse reports after Gardisil.

Click here for the first 3 unnecessary death reports.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gardasil Reactions and Deaths on the Rise by Dr. Joseph Mercola

In May 2007, it was reported that over 1,600 adverse reactions,
including three deaths, had been linked to Gardasil, Merck’s new
vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV).

Among those reactions, 371 were classified as serious, and, of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 experienced side effects including spontaneous abortion and fetal abnormalities.

It appears those reactions, and deaths, are steadily rising. A review of the National Vaccine Information Center revealed the following statistic about this vaccine: 2,207 adverse reactions to Gardasil have been reported. Among them:

5 girls died

31 were considered life-threatening

1,385 required a visit to the emergency room

451 of the girls have not recovered as of July 2007

51 of the girls were disabled

Gardasil “may be more dangerous than consumers have been led to believe,” according to one public-interest group, and an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine has also raised questions about the vaccine's effectiveness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer

A four-article series by CMD's Associate Director, Judith Siers-Poisson.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

"Quackbusters" Have Giant Court Losses on Two Continents: Holland, Pennsylvania & California Courts Rule Against Them

(also published here)

by Ilena Rosenthal

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

Recent rulings in Amsterdam, Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of California are heavy blows to the Quackwatch anti-chiropractic and anti-alternative medicine organizations.

Click here for rest of article.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

One of my favorite places in the World ~ Volcan Arenal




Volcanic activity at Arenal soon celebrates 39th anniversary

By Donna Lynn Norton
Special to A.M. Costa Rica Photo by Phil Slosberg


The 29th of this month Volcán Arenal will have achieved 39 straight years of continuous, daily volcanic activity.

It already has the record for the longest-running, continuously active volcano in the world. After 400 to 500 years of dormancy, Volcán Arenal woke up with a deadly eruption of 1,292-degree gas, ash and rocks that poured downhill July 29, 1968.

Evacuations take minutes and eruptions take seconds. Bus size rocks of lava instantly crater the ground. click here for more

Saturday, June 30, 2007

My Favorite Videos of the Day

This video brought back exquisite memories. God's blessings on Amelia Earhart, Joni Mitchell, Suzanna, Christine, my new friend, Amelia... and all my sisters who are touched by this.

Joni Mitchell-Amelia





Amelia (in Spanish) by Roxana Amed & Pedro

Thursday, June 28, 2007

'Sicko' by Michael Moore ~ BRILLIANT ~ Must See!!!

Bravo to Michael Moore for taking on and exposing the Medical Industrial Complex!

This movie opened in the US on June 29th ... hope everyone sees it soon! Here's a site for buying tickets ahead.

We got to see it on Google Video before it got removed a couple of weeks ago.

Here's the official homepage clip.

Click here for an outstanding interview ... Bill Maher and Michael Moore talk about how corporatized healthcare is not working for the benefit of the patients.

Most women who believe the industry rap that breast implants are safe, sign up for a lifetime of surgery and medical care ... increasingly with no medical insurance.

Personally, I have had thousands of stories of American healthcare failing women from our breast implant group shared with me ... and I highly recommend this sensational ... hopefully pivotal film.

Michael Moore's Website discusses the corporate backlash against this film .... some industry flacks are going to get way rich spinning this documentary wonder.

Here's an earlier article from the International Herald Tribune: "Sicko" offers new talking points on health care.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Freedom Writers ... Inspirational & Amazing!

Just watched an incredible movie ... Freedom Writers, and feel very inspired to encourage the women and their families in my international support group ... to write and share their stories even more.

Please visit our homepage, Breast Implant Awareness.org to meet several brave women who have shared their breast implant related stories.

More to come.

With love from Ilena

Friday, June 22, 2007

"Quackbusters" Have Giant Court Losses on Two Continents: Holland, Pennsylvania & California Courts Rule Against Them

by Ilena Rosenthal

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

Recent rulings in Amsterdam, Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of California are heavy blows to the Quackwatch anti-chiropractic and anti-alternative medicine organizations.

After years of being labeled a"quack," and defamed and ridiculed professionally, Dr. Maria Sickesz won a great victory in Amsterdam, Holland early June 2007.

The Netherlands Appeals Court ordered the "Vereniging tegen de Kwalzalverij" (Association Against Quackery, which is the Dutch version of the so- called "Quackbusters" ) to cease and desist from using the demeaning, subjective and pejorative term "quack." This group is linked extensively on their website with the American "quackwatch" headed by Stephen Barrett, who also has suffered several legal defeats recently.

The Justices recognized that this group's affinity for giving demeaning labels to doctors with whose practices they disagreed was a way of shutting down emerging science.

They were also ordered to publish a public retraction in two widely circulated newspapers. It has been estimated this will cost them around thirty thousand euros (~US$40,350) and has been written that this will bankrupt this highly controversial association whose work is attempting to destroy alternative practioners in Holland.

Dr. Sickesz developed a kind of healing called orthomanual therapy which integrates chiropractic practices. For several decades the quackbuster organizations around the world have waged legal and public relations wars against chiropractors and other non traditional practitioners, demonizing them with their biased campaigns.

In June, for the second time, Barrett lost a case in a Pennsylvania Appeals Court against a local and respected chiropractor in his hometown of Allentown, PA.

Suing Dr. Tedd Koren has definitely backfired on the longtime head of the quackwatch empire. During this case, Barrett had to reveal that he had failed his psychiatric medical board tests and was never board certified for the decades he practiced.Board certification protects patients. Shortly thereafter, Barrett made a public announcement that after 40 years, he was leaving Allentown.

Barrett Vs Rosenthal was decided in November, 2006 against Barrett and his co-plaintiffs, Terry Polevoy and Christopher Grell. Though Barrett had claimed he was defamed and libeled, the Supreme Court Justice's final words in the decision were, "As the lower courts correctly concluded, however, none of the hostile comments against Dr. Barrett alleged in the complaint are defamatory."

In May, 2007, Barrett and Polevoy were ordered to post bonds of over $433,000 in this case.


In an earlier court loss, Barrett and fellow "National Council Against Health Fraud" member, Wallace Sampson, were ruled to be biased and unworthy of credibility in a case they lost against King Bio, a homeopathic remedy company.

In 2003, they also lost to Botanical Laboratories, and were ordered to pay a significant judgment. The Judges understood the NCAHF mission and wrote: Appellant (NCAHF) believes that no one should be allowed to market homeopathic remedies.

Soon thereafter, NCAHF's California license was suspended for nearly 4 years, until early, 2007.


Sources:
Dutch Newspaper Report

Barrett Vs Rosenthal - Links to court documents & history of case

NCAHF Vs King Bio Documents

Court Victory for Chiropractors Against Quackbusters

Ilena Rosenthal Blog

Monday, June 11, 2007

Welcome to My New Blog

Back in 1995, when I began to speak out on the dangers of breast implants ... I had no idea where this path would lead me.

I knew that women needed to connect with each other ... and so I began the first internet newsgroup dedicated to supporting women with breast implant difficulties.

I got smack dab in the way of the multi-billion dollar breast implant industry.
They had decided that they ... and those they chose ... would control the information on the internet and amongst the groups of implanted women.

From almost the first moment on Usenet ~ "The Wild West of the Internet" I was pushed head-on by an anonymous bully "mplnt" ~ who turned out to be the Vice President, then President of McGhan / Inamed, aggressively marketing implants.

Attaching himself with insiders is the exact modus operandi discussed in this excellent expose The Public Relations Industry's
Secret War on Activists
by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton.

Since that time, my personal, professional and advocate life has been scrutinized, attacked, lied about, intruded upon, misrepresented, and re-written. Their version of me has been google bombed beyond imagination.

No comment has been too untrue or too personal or too made up to be posted as "facts" repeatedly. I have had private investigators stalk me and people close to me. My personal and unique name has been highjacked and viscious propaganda spread by the very people who lost to me court.

We never had a Humantics Foundation website until the Quackbuster Regime sued me in late 2000 in a massive legal and smear attack against scores of their critics. Because of the massive amount of lies and attempts to harm my good name, we created our first website in September, 2001. After all three plaintiffs lost in June, 2001, anyone searching for my name, would be greeted with the losing plaintiffs upside down and backwards version of me. After the Supreme Court of California ruled in my favor against them in this ultimate Industry Vs Activist SLAPP suit ... they upped their attacks on every level possible.

To believe their version of me ... I am the oldest, fattest, ugliest, most fraudulent, greediest, stupidest, useless, woman on earth ... my only goal to hurt the breast implant cause and the women.

Google has been bombed and then bombed by them attempting to redefine who I am, filling Usenet, Wikipedia, the blog world with their version. Having been ordered to post bonds of over $400,000 for my lawyer's fees ... they've gone beserk with their smears.

This page explains the lawsuit ... and what it means to internet law and free speech protection.

This page describes a portion of the smear campaign against me and those who have made careers out of attempting to destroy me ... and mine.

To take back my identity ... I have created this blog ... to tell you more about the real Ilena, what is important to me, and why I refuse to be silenced.

You are welcome to visit our homepage, Breast Implant Awareness.org.

Blessings to you from me from somewhere on God's Green Planet.