High Fructose Corn Syrup contains mercury by new study

jkleman79

Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury

MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.

In the first study, published in current issue of Environmental Health, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.
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And in the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.

But an organization representing the refiners is disputing the results published in Environmental Health.

"This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance," said Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, in a statement. "Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years. These mercury-free re-agents perform important functions, including adjusting pH balances."

However, the IATP told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that four plants in Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia still use "mercury-cell" technology that can lead to contamination.

IATP's Ben Lilliston also told HealthDay that the Environmental Health findings were based on information gathered by the FDA in 2005.

And the group's own study, while not peer-reviewed, was based on products "bought off the shelf in the autumn of 2008," Lilliston added.

The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.

"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said in his prepared statement.

More information

The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry has more about mercury and health.

SOURCE: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, news release, Jan. 26, 2009

JeninBelgium

makes you wonder about all food not just that containing hfcs- afterall sugar is obtained from sugar beets or canes somehow, and this study like many otehrs does make me wonder about the processing of all foods

for example carrots are anticarcinogenic but if they are are grown in potentially carcinogenic pesticides does that make them carcinogenic neutral or ...

MysticMaiden22

"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said in his prepared statement."

Or the food companies could stop using HFCS altogether.

Lots of companies are becoming savvy to this, such as PepsiCo, which now makes Sierra Mist Natural with real sugar, and has made Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback regular items. They are giving us a choice. I notice more and more commercials advertising products that have the "No High Fructose Corn Syrup" slogan attached.

Plain and simple, HFCS is horrendous and processed too much to even be considered good for our bodies. The only reason why it exists is because they have to do something with all of the extra corn that the subsidized farmers produce. I don't want to eat something that was created in a lab. Gross.

helthymom6

It is amazing to me that people are still amazed by what is in thier foods. Try looking up gm food some time, it will make you want to go back to growing everything yourself. The only thing these people are interested in is the bottom line and how much money they can make. If we the consumers don't make a stink and STOP buying the products with garbage in them these companies won't bother to change. I am SURE if it were widely known how many chemicals( including mercury and femaldahyde) were in all the vaccines that people give to thier children and they stopped giving them to thier kids. These big drug compaines WOULD FIND something safer to use as a presevative.

sonjavon

Thanks for the article. We've been trying to reduce HFCS in our home for a long time now. About the time we think we have it licked... we find that it's in something else. We recently found Heinz Ketchup that is now made without HFCS - it's called Simply Heinz... and it tastes good.

hydrochloric acid and caustic soda -
hydrochloric acid removes rust from steel... imagine what it does to your body???
Caustic Soda - The first thing that comes to my mind is..., "Do I want to eat something that has 'caustic' in it's name?" The answer is no. Caustic Soda is Lye. Lye has been used to liquefy animal remains. It breaks down tissues.

It never ceases to amaze me what the FDA will approve for human consumption. And it scares me to think how lax I've been in the past. I mean - as a dog owner, I have done a better job of scrutinizing what I feed my dogs than I have scrutinizing what I feed my family. Unreal....

kendallan

besides the mercury WHY ON EARTH would you eat anything with HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP? My sister asked me what she wished she could send her daughter to school with fruit with the fructose syrup..I AM LIKE YOU CAN...FRESH FRUIT. i PACK MY sons lunch for school and wont let him eat the govt funded sysco food at his school. I packed at least two fresh fruits like blueberries and either a orange or an apple. Then carrots too. The teacher has tro peel the orange for him but idc i am not getting my son high on sugar . . .

JeninBelgium

It is amazing to me that people are still amazed by what is in thier foods. Try looking up gm food some time, it will make you want to go back to growing everything yourself. The only thing these people are interested in is the bottom line and how much money they can make. If we the consumers don't make a stink and STOP buying the products with garbage in them these companies won't bother to change. I am SURE if it were widely known how many chemicals( including mercury and femaldahyde) were in all the vaccines that people give to thier children and they stopped giving them to thier kids. These big drug compaines WOULD FIND something safer to use as a presevative.

Sorry but that touched a sore point- I would NEVER NOT give my kids vaccines- do you have any clue how many MILLIONS of lives have been saved due to vaccines and now, in some places such as the US the herd immunity is so low that children are dying from illnesses that cuold be prevented if only the population has been vaccinated- several whooping cough deaths this year alone - whooping cough! a virtually unheard of illness 10 years ago because then the vaccination level was higher

fact thimerasol has been nearly elimated from all vaccines
also fact you will get plenty of heavy metal exposure from the air you breath from the pollution of our cars and yet som many of us still drive

helthymom6

actually it has not been illiminated. It is still in the vaccines only the fda raised the levels that were approved. Also they say it is safe if you give them one vaccine at a time which no one does. They pump four to six at a time. Did you know until a few years ago the U.S . was the ONLY country that vaccinated before 2 years old. We are also the only country with very high incidents of autism and nerological disorders. A few years ago japan started their vaccines at birth and thier rate of autim went up by 400%. Also there has been NO case in the US of whooping cough EXCEPT for kids who had already been vacinnated. I am sorry but when they put aside BILLIONS of dollars every year to pay to parents when they get sued for reactions to thier vaccines you have to think there is something wrong. Also if you every read the list of what goes into each vaccine you would be horrified. Now I am not saying that vaccines NEVER did anything I believe they do. I as a parent can't reconcile putting that stuff into my child with the stastics taht are out now. Vaccines now a days often do more harm then good. If I were living inAfrica would I vaccinate, I think I might. But here in the Us they are killing our childrens immune syatem by trying to vaccinate them from every sniffle. The chance of a child contracting a serious illness in the US if they are not vaccinated is about 1 in 100,000. The chances of them developing Autism from a shot 1 in 150. Nobody would bet money on those odds. If vaccines are so great why do 80 % of pediatritions that have children NOT vaccinate thier own kids? What do they know that they are not telling us?

merzback

HFCS changed their name to Corn Sugar- to fool everyone- they even have a web site saying how "safe" they are-
www.sweetsurprise.com which is such a joke!

JeninBelgium

actually it has not been illiminated. It is still in the vaccines only the fda raised the levels that were approved. Also they say it is safe if you give them one vaccine at a time which no one does. They pump four to six at a time. Did you know until a few years ago the U.S . was the ONLY country that vaccinated before 2 years old. We are also the only country with very high incidents of autism and nerological disorders. A few years ago japan started their vaccines at birth and thier rate of autim went up by 400%. Also there has been NO case in the US of whooping cough EXCEPT for kids who had already been vacinnated. I am sorry but when they put aside BILLIONS of dollars every year to pay to parents when they get sued for reactions to thier vaccines you have to think there is something wrong. Also if you every read the list of what goes into each vaccine you would be horrified. Now I am not saying that vaccines NEVER did anything I believe they do. I as a parent can't reconcile putting that stuff into my child with the stastics taht are out now. Vaccines now a days often do more harm then good. If I were living inAfrica would I vaccinate, I think I might. But here in the Us they are killing our childrens immune syatem by trying to vaccinate them from every sniffle. The chance of a child contracting a serious illness in the US if they are not vaccinated is about 1 in 100,000. The chances of them developing Autism from a shot 1 in 150. Nobody would bet money on those odds. If vaccines are so great why do 80 % of pediatritions that have children NOT vaccinate thier own kids? What do they know that they are not telling us?

Clearly you have bought into the media hype and not looked at the scientific data for yourself.

First mistake is your statement "Did you know until a few years ago the U.S . was the ONLY country that vaccinated before 2 years old. "

You need to define" until a few years ago"' as I know for a FACT that Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand have been vaccinating infants for years (read decades)

Secondly, Andrew Wakefield - the doctor behind the research on the MMR vaccine and autism link - which was published in the highly respect medical journal the Lancet was found to have fabricated his data- to the extent that the Lancet retracted and apologized for the publication of that article on at least two separate occasions
In February 2010, the General Medical Council in the U.K. recommended that Wakefield be stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U.K. because of scientific misconduct related to his infamous 1998 case series published in The Lancet, even going so far as to refer to him as irresponsible and dishonest, and in May 2010 he was.

The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s 1998 paper; Wakefield was pushed out of Thoughtful House; and his latest attempt to “prove” that vaccines cause autism in an animal study was also retracted. Investigative reporter Brian Deer’s investigation finding that Andrew Wakefield had committed scientific fraud in carrying out his Lancet study joined prior findings that Wakefield had been in the pocket of trial lawyers (to the tune of £435 643, plus expenses)

if you wuold like to read more on the original study, the data that was included and the data the was not included by Wakefiled and the findings of the review board please see this article here http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9552#more-9552


Regarding Whooping cough: the child in particular that I am thinking of (because this was such a sad case and the first whooping coubgh death I had heard of at the time) who died of the illness was not vaccinated, (too young to be vaccinated) normally the herd immunity would have protected the child but because fewer and fewer kids are being immunized the illness was present in the region (California) the infant was exposed and died.

Definition of Autism: Many people are not aware that Autism is not one condition or disease but rather a spectrum of behaviours whose definitions have increased overthe years (for example persons with Aspberger's would generally have not been diagniosed as having a codntion or illnes 10-20 years ago but now the surveillance and diagnosis is more dilligent and Aspbergers is an accepted Autistic Spectrum Disorder) even with increasing inclusions as to the definition of the Autism most researchers do not discount the possibility that there is a real and true increase in autism incidence and more on that topic can be read here http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4726

regarding Pediatricians vaccination of their own children, I foudn this study concerning the varicella vaccine which indicates 88% of Parents who are also pediatricians vaccinate their own children

Link Here
http://cpj.sagepub.com/content/42/7/635.abstract

"A mail survey was sent to 1,762 New York State pediatricians selected randomly from the membership directory of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The response rate was 43% (764/1,762); 63% of responding pediatricians were parents. Eighty-five percent of pediatricians recommended varicella vaccine routinely in practice. Of the pediatricians' own eligible children, 88% (256/291) had been vaccinated against chickenpox. We found a high overall rate of compliance with recommendations for routine use of varicella vaccine. Pediatricians who were parents were just as likely as nonparent pediatricians to recommend the vaccine routinely for their patients. Importantly, pediatrician-parents demonstrated no "double standard"; at the time of the study, 88% of pediatricians' own eligible children had been vaccinated against varicella."

btw Vaccinations do not "kill your immmune system" but rather illicit an immune responsewhich enables your body to recognize the bacteria/ virus or whatever if exposed and be able to attack the bacteria (or virus) in the future- a simple explanation of how a vaccine works can be found here

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_a_vaccine_work

regarding mercury content/thimerasol in vaccines - in the past ten years the amount of thimerasol used in vaccines has been greatly reduced and eliminated in many cases the article below (quite long) includes an updated table of vaccines with thimerasol content/ which ones available thimerasol free that way you can inform your physicial or healthcare provideer that you would prefer using vaccine X over Vaccine Y if available

http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228

I may have forgotten a point or two in your posting - if so please let me know and I will research that area as well