By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

A small sample of Afghan civilians have shown "astonishing" levels of uranium in their urine, an independent scientist says.

He said they had the same symptoms as some veterans of the 1991 Gulf war.

But he found no trace of the depleted uranium (DU) some scientists believe is implicated in Gulf War syndrome.

Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.

We are taught to believe that vaccines are very safe and very effective in preventing diseases. We are shielded from reports that come to opposite conclusions. Here is a collection of lesser-known data on vaccines in general. On various vaccines.

Betty Martini's debate with Dr. R. Fink on Brain Tumor List: Scientific Evidence For Aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal, Canderel, etc.) Triggering Brain Tumors

n 1985 Monsanto (My-Satan) purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame's clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it "might induce brain tumors."

3. "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity" O.W. Holmes, (Prof. of Med. Harvard University)

A revolution has occurred. It's taken place in the Central Alternative High School. The kids now behave. The hallways aren't frantic. Even the teachers are happy.

Dear President: I am writing to you as a consumer who still has a few teeth left in his mouth, lots of "hard stuff" between the gums and teeth (my dentist just told me), and bad breath on occasion (don't ask!). I am seriously considering using your product, Colgate Toothpaste, but after looking at the many boxes on the shelves of my local Duane Reade for nearly an hour, and taking detailed notes, I am somewhat confused about which "version" of Colgate to buy. I also have some questions I'd like you to answer, based on what I read on your boxes, so that I may decide whether to become a loyal Colgate user or consider some sort of action against you and your company on behalf of all brain-functioning consumers who use or have ever used your successful product.

Minute amounts of ''gender bender'' chemicals found in food and the environment are affecting the behaviour of pre-school children, new research shows.

The inclusion of fluoride in toothpastes and mouthwashes for the purpose of inhibiting the development of caries [cavities] does, at the same time, accelerate the process of chronic, destructive periodontitis.

Because of health concerns, Belgium banned the sale of fluoride supplements to prevent tooth decay, France removed sodium fluoride from the market for the treatment of osteoporosis and Ireland plans to lower water fluoride levels. And, because poor quality research has been carried out on fluoride and health, British scientists called for more research into the health effects of adding fluoride to drinking water in a report published by the Medical Research Council.

Healthy people with stressful jobs who work long hours but get little satisfaction from what they do have twice the risk of dying from *heart disease as satisfied employees, according to a study.

Reason 2. For each million people vaccinated with the smallpox vaccine, as many as 250 could die, according to the American Medical Association. Multiply 250 times 285 (millions of Americans) and the possible deaths from universal smallpox vaccination could equal 71,250.

"Death is outstripping life in africa. The study below says death will outstrip births by 2010, but by that time it will be too late, as it is close to too late already. Africans would get more attention on endangered species list..."

As an Air Force weapons controller, Capt. Gregory Armand served his nation in such far-flung parts of the world as Alaska and the Persian Gulf. But Armand, a 36-year-old San Antonian, said his decadelong career ended after he took a shot not from a bullet, but from a syringe filled with anthrax vaccine. Once a ground and airborne weapons control officer who tracked up to 80 planes at a time, Armand's ability to concentrate is so bad now he can't even fill out a check. "It makes me sound very stupid," he said. "I am not, really."

There are a growing number of clinicians and basic scientists who are convinced that excitotoxins play a critical role in the development of several neurological disorders, including migraines, seizures, infections, abnormal neural development, certain endocrine disorders, specific types of obesity, and especially the neurodegenerative diseases; a group of diseases which includes: ALS, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and olivopontocerebellar degeneration.

A computer analysis of the data from the largest dental survey ever done - of nearly 40,000 school children - by the National Institutes of Dental Research revealed no correlation between tooth decay and fluoridation. In fact, many of the non-fluoridated cities had better tooth decay rates than fluoridated cities. The city with the lowest rate of tooth decay was not fluoridated. Of the three with the highest rate of decay, two were partially fluoridated.

Have you ever wondered why, despite the billions of dollars spent on cancer research over many decades, and the constant promise of a cure which is forever "just around the corner", cancer continues to increase?

Billions of people are now Aspartame victims or their friends. Individual answers to questions are now an impossible approach. The following article is meant to fill in that gap, to meet that need. As you read it you will master the medical knowledge you need to cope in a correctly intuitive manner.

During a lecture I said "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss-you probably have ASPARTAME DISEASE!" People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I've got this, is it reversible?"

Some 50 years after the United States authorities began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children's teeth, recently discovered declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still-controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between the use of fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age.

"That any so-called 'doctors' would persuade a civilized nation to add voluntarily a deadly poison to its drinking water systems is unbelievable. It is the height of criminal insanity. It is criminal insanity - treason!" - Dr. E.H. Bronner, Mfg. Research Chemist, Los Angeles.

What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially of a complication of treatment.

Government-mandated vaccinations are coming front and center again as parents around the nation notice that after supposed "immunization" their kids develop other illnesses, if not the very ones they were vaccinated to prevent.

The biotechnology industry continues to aggressively pursue the development of genetically modified seeds engineered for sterility...

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Chinese have discovered something alarmingly close to what we now know as SARS, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, in "exotic" animals some of the probably more affluent Chinese like to eat.