Positive Health Online

EU Supplement Directive

Thank you for your excellent coverage of the EU's vote to restrict the UK people's long-standing right to buy the health supplements of their choice.

The EU may restrict them to tiny, almost useless amounts and they have prepared an 'allowed' list and if your favourite supplement is not on the list you won't be able to buy it. As you said, we could lose hundreds of supplements – NOT for safety reasons but for 'harmonization!'

Yet every few weeks new reputable studies show their benefits. On 2nd November '01 a study of over 12,000 families showed that vitamin D supplements can reduce the incidence of Type 1 diabetes by 80%.

In October '01 it was found that high dose vitamin supplements reduce the risk of macular degeneration of the eyes by 25% in those at high risk.

Folic acid and vitamin B12 were found to reduce homocysteine, which is a metabolic waste involved in coronary heart disease. This can be cheaply and effectively lowered with B vitamins (J Am Med Assoc).

These studies stated that you cannot achieve these benefits from food alone.

Pine bark extract, on sale at health food shops, was recently reported in orthodox medical journals to reduce diabetic bleeding into the retina of the eyes and save sight. A consultant at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (Dr Robert Ritch) recommends his patients with Glaucoma to take the herb Ginkgo Biloba to help protect the blood supply to the optic nerve.

Doctors in many EU countries prescribe vitamins for their patients. German doctors write 10 million prescriptions a year for Ginkgo Biloba, but UK GPs would probably not have the time, money or knowledge to prescribe natural remedies. So if we cannot buy supplements or be prescribed them, then all these benefits could be lost.

One of the UK MEPs who fought to save vitamins wrote to me saying that on dosage "There will be some discretion for national governments and so it is certainly worth briefing your MP and asking him/her to press the British Government for the most liberal regime possible." So write to your MP at House of Commons, SW1A 0AA, who may not be aware that the UK government has some discretion in this.

Ann Wills
Ruislip Middx.
  CWILLS@btinternet.com

EU Supplement Directive

I wholeheartedly agree with your Editorial in April's issue of Positive Health. Is it not time for supplement manufacturers to put aside their competitive trading patterns and unite for the course of justice in health! If they were to pool their resources, knowledge, evidence and technical expertise surely they could afford to licence the main substances between them and fight the drug companies head on. This is a worldwide issue not just UK and Europe. America too is going through the mill and it is nothing to do with health; it's all about power, control and money.

We are supposed to be free to choose our lives, that means our health too!

However we are becoming mutated biological organisms in the name of scientific ego. We allow science and politics to control our lives to the point where we have no longer any control or freedom to live as we choose.

Hitler was 'evil' because he wanted a perfect race and created a holocaust.

However what we are experiencing now is no different, just more sophisticated and done in the name of Science. We are given daily doses of death in the form of pesticides,. polluted rivers and seas, vaccines, chemicals and preservatives in our food, drugs for this and that which cause more serious disease long term. I have watched my mother, father and sister become 'victims' of medicine and science and my grandparents before them. I chose the alternative approach and have managed my own health now for over 12 years. I heal others too. Without the tools to do my job, I will no longer be able to give others the chance I have had for real health.

We are witnessing the destruction of generations of culture, folklore and real medicine; it's about to be destroyed because science can't control it.

Drug companies can't make money out of it and if we are all healthy we will have life and passion to fight back. Centuries ago religion was used to control the masses, now it's science and medicine. We've put our life and death into the hands of ego, control and power.

To free ourselves we must all fight now hard, mean and dirty if we have too. The media should use its power to inform and educate and cite the people to show their power. There is no other way to stop the dictatorship we now have. Lets us all support CHC and write to MPs, MEPs, MCA, Dept. of Health etc etc. If we have to march let's march, but above all it is time for us to stop our fear of the drug barons and unite to break the structure down. This is the 21st century where humanitarian issues are our prime concern. We must stop the war on health and once again allow ourselves to co-exist with the earth and each other in health, peace and harmony.

Hilary Canto
  hilary@cantospirito.com

EU Supplement Directive

I have just come across information on this matter, and I am incensed.

I am incensed at the arrogance of the EU to presume to tell us what we may and may not take as food supplements and in what dosages. How dare they!

These are not drugs – they are foodstuffs! And as for the remedy aspect of Nature and her products: This is not 'wise counsel', to be taken into consideration when making our consumer choices (many of whom know more about these things than allopathic doctors do, for the latter's lack of training in the field of nutrition, and lack of time to read in the field); this is restraint of trade, for giving big industry monopolistic control of the health food and supplement market. Indeed, this is not primarily about safety. This is primarily about control. If it isn't, then eliminate the controlling interest of the pharmaceutical industry on the committee deciding these things, and let us see what happens to the recommendations ensuing therefrom.

Perhaps more awareness would, then, be given to such perspectives as:

* This major infringement of human rights. If the EU and its parent 'company' the pharmaceutical industry are allowed to dictate (and I use the word advisedly) the levels of vitamins etc we consumers are allowed to buy, next it will presume to dictate which alternative health treatments we are allowed to have access to. For the principle is precisely the same: dictatorial control over our decisions as adults. I repeat: HOW DARE THEY!
* The inherent weakness in any 'standardisation' process. For example:
a) Different geographical groups have different needs. Someone living in the far north has vastly higher needs for supplementation with vitamin D than someone living in the Mediterranean area;
b) Different individual needs. Height, weight, metabolism, absorption, genetics, state of health, specific health problems – the list goes on. WE ARE INDIVIDUALS, NOT SHEEP;
c) Nutrients in the soils of different areas vary;
d) Nutrients in different individuals' diets vary, and in different cultures, and whether rural or urban, etc etc.

I'm going to stop right here, and summarize a vast number of reasons why these proposed directives are to be rejected:

* Because they are too draconian. This sort of thing is fit for a police state mentality, not a democratic process. I for one will have none of it.

Get the pharmaceutical industry out of its controlling position in these sorts of matters, and then we will talk. Not before.

Please pass my feelings on to the appropriate parties. And please keep me informed about the return to a democratic process in this matter of directives from on high.

Stan Stanfield
Cluny Hill College
Forres, Scotland IV36 2RD
  edudept@findhorn.org

EU Supplement Directive

Please add my name to the list of protestors against the EU directive to stop us buying high dose vitamins and minerals. We no longer get these things from food and water and to stop us preventing ill health is an infringement on our human right of freedom of choice.

Kath Morrell,
teacher and reflexologist
  kathmorrel@yahoo.co.uk

EU Directive and Other Follies

Some 2500 years ago the great Greek philosophers of Athens laid down the foundations of logical thinking and taught the importance of linking cause and effect. Unfortunately our political masters are incapable of understanding that link and as a result make one catastrophic decision after another. Here are some examples: The NHS is in permanent crisis, despite more and more money channelled into it. Nobody seems to wonder why there is so much ill health among the general population, at a time of growing affluence.

If the relevant people asked that question, they might discover that the nation's poor diet is largely responsible, and that therefore something should be done about that. Instead, it was recently decided to divert some funds, originally earmarked for agricultural improvements, to – you've guessed it – the NHS. Yet farming equals food, and the quality of food makes all the difference between good or ill health.

We are made ill by junk foods, which in paranoid moments I regard as weapons of mass destruction, but the food industry isn't regulated when it comes to essentials – mustn't upset big business. We are sickened by toxic pesticide residues, but the Government's monitoring programme is pathetically lax, and the way new pesticides are approved serves the interests of the agrochemical industry, rather than those of public health. Mustn't upset, etc.

Massive research over the years has shown that, owing to modern farming methods, fruits and vegetables have lost an alarming amount of essential nutrients – vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and so on. Hence the need for supplements, to maintain health. More and more responsible, thinking people are taking them, paying for them out of their taxed income (no drain on the NHS) and as a result are less likely to require medical care (ditto). Cause and effect, I should have thought, pretty clear to see.

But I must have been wrong, for our masters, both here and in Brussels, have now decided to ban a wide range of supplements, or reduce them to a useless potency. To protect the public. And this at a time when a great many hospital beds in this country are occupied by patients suffering from iatrogenic, i.e. doctor-caused illness, dentists are free to put highly toxic mercury-amalgam fillings into patients' mouths, and so-called soft drugs are decriminalised, as if they were harmless, which they aren't.

Unscientific? Certainly. Undemocratic? Absolutely. We seem to be returning to a feudal system, last seen before the French Revolution, when all we can do is touch the old forelock and mutter "Aye, aye". Or are we?

If it is the human right of an incurable patient to refuse medical treatment in order to die, then surely it is also my human right to decide on the best way to stay healthy in order to live. But that again is logical, and therefore probably unacceptable to those who run our lives.I think it was Goethe who said that even the gods fight in vain against stupidity. I am afraid he was right.

Beata Bishop
  beatabishop@clara.co.uk

EU Supplement Directive

I wish to add my voice to those expressing their fury and frustration at the impending changes to our freedom to buy supplements.

Topping the list of reasons for my anger, is the double standards that are applied. On the one hand we have massive evidence of the harm caused to virtually all bodily systems, by smoking and alcohol, with massive cost to our health service, yet these are freely available, and on the other hand we have nutritional supplements, for which there is evidence of positive support for the physiological systems, and these are being severely limited or withdrawn.

Why? One does not need to be paranoid to suspect a conspiracy theory here. Or are our politicians so weak that they are unable to take a stand which does not fall easily into place with other EU countries?

Removing a freedom of this nature which has been operating in the UK is likely to contravene a Human Rights statute. So perhaps we can fight this EU madness with its own weapon, in Brussels?

In the meantime I am photocopying information and views from Positive Health, since they are so clearly expressed, and sending them to my MP, Christine Russell. Perhaps others could do the same.

PS Thank you for your excellent editorial and magazine. Despite the many frustrations that you encounter, we value your work greatly.

Sue Simon Ellis
  Sue.simon.ellis@ic24.net

Freedom of Choice?

There are now three directives that together pose the greatest threat to the continued availability of natural health products that there has ever been.

1. The Food Supplements Directive – established;
2. The Traditional Herbal Products Directive – Subject of MLX 283;
3. Proposed amendments to the Pharmaceutical Directive (2001/83) – subject of MLX 282

The NAHS is now commencing the beginnings of a campaign to try and preserve our freedom to choose in the UK – a freedom that is now under threat throughout Europe and around the world.

An NAHS/CHC leaflet is being distributed to all health food stores in the UK, as well as practitioners and other health professionals. We ask the following,

If you are a UK based recipient of this message, please distribute this leaflet as widely as you possibly can;
If you are within the EU, please feel free to use the content on this leaflet to do something similar in your own countries;
If you are outside of the EU, consider how you may help us in this battle. If you manufacture products, do you want trade barriers in place that will prevent access to 380 million potential customers, i.e. the European Union?

We have also recently sent a letter to every single UK MP, Peer and MEP about these directives. As above, we ask that you consider using this letter in whatever way you can. The letter is formatted for a mailmerge. If you want to send this type of letter to MPs MEPs etc, please request the database by return and we will be pleased to provide it. We have left it off this message due to the size of it, as we didn't want to inconvenience the non-UK recipients with unnecessary download time.

This is just the beginning of a massive campaign that has become necessary, and we will need all the help that we can get.

As always, please pass this onto anyone that you think might be interested. As always, please advise if you wish to be removed from this mailing group.

Ralph A Pike, Director
National Association of Health Stores
PO Box 1455, Sheffield South
Yorkshire UK S7 2YD
Tel/Fax: 0114 249 5345
Tel: 0114 236 3043
Mobile: 07866 317760
  info@nahs.co.uk

EU Supplements Directive

I would like to thank you for publishing the excellent article by Dr Mike Abrahams on the European Food Supplements directive in your March issue. Abrahams explains the pitfalls of this 'pork barrel; legislation in a very clear and systematic manner, and the list of 'missing ingredients' is impressive. Of course the problem is tackled from a predominantly UK viewpoint, which is correct for your magazine and for the National Association of Health Stores, the association that Abrahams presides.

My aim in writing you is to give an international connotation to the problems this new EU legislation will bring, as well as to give testimony that there are efforts to counter the restrictive provisions of the directive not only in the UK, but in a number of other member states of the European Community as well. I am writing as a member of an Italian association – La Leva di Archimede – which has for some years working here in Italy to raise awareness regarding issues of free choice in nutrition, natural health and poisonous substances in our environment and food supply. Our viewpoint on these matters and much of what we have been saying is publicly available on our website (www.laleva.cc). On that same site there also is a petition signed by more than 28.000 individuals who express their concern over restrictions envisioned by both Codex Alimentarius and the European Union on the availability of food supplements.

We have been in communication with other associations and individuals in other EU countries, who agree with both Dr Abrahams and ourselves, that the EU's efforts to harmonize trade will eventually lead to restrictions for millions of consumers across Europe to access safe nutritional supplements. But let me first correct a common misconception, the one that consumers in the UK are kind of special, being the only ones who currently have access to a great variety of higher dosed vitamin and mineral supplements. This concept was also touched upon by Commissioner David Byrne in his recent 'message to EU citizens on food supplements', published on the Internet. Byrne states:

"The rules on food supplements existing today in the different countries of the European Union are very different. In many cases they are rather restrictive. As a result many consumers, who would like to buy food supplements, are simply not able to do so. In other cases the choice available is restricted. So one of the aims of the Directive is to allow consumers across the European Union to have a wide range of products from which to choose."

This is somewhat misleading because even in countries where food supplements are officially considered medicines if exceeding certain dosages, say 150% or 300% of the RDA, supplements such as those found in the UK are generally available and are tolerated by the authorities. As an example, you may purchase several different brands of vitamin products in Italy's health food stores, which are either herbal or biological food stores, of say 1000 mg of vitamin C, 400 mg of vitamin E and high dose B complex formulations with 50 or even 100 mg of the various B vitamins. The same is true for multivitamin products containing these and other ingredients. It is one thing to look at the law and say 'poor Italians, they have no access to food supplements' and it is quite another to go and investigate what is actually on the market and what consumers do routinely buy.

Even in such 'officially' restrictive countries as Denmark, Greece, Spain or Portugal, vitamin products of high dosage are being sold in both health stores and pharmacies and are in some way tolerated by the health authorities. Germany, Austria and France, probably the most restrictive markets in Europe, make no exception. Let's for instance examine Germany, where health authorities seem determined to 'stomp out all illegal health products' even if that means raiding companies that import them and confiscating their stocks and records. Despite heavy handed police actions against vitamins by the German police, tens of thousands of German consumers of vitamin products order their healthy supplements from companies that sit in England, in the US, or even just a few kilometers across the border in the Netherlands. Their supplements arrive in individual post packets, much to the chagrin of the German pharmacists and the associations especially set up by the pharmaceutical industry to 'take care of' the competition of unapproved products.

So it is definitely not true that consumers in Continental Europe have no way to obtain their supplements, and the EU Commission as well as the Council of Ministers would do well to take a closer look at the actual situation in the member states before rushing into issuing and enforcing a directive that on the surface looks like a 'liberalization' for many countries, but which, on the ground, will be perceived as an intolerable blow to the freedom of choice of millions of European consumers. When Commissioner Byrne states in his message that "it is expected that as a result of the adoption of the Directive, many products that are currently sold as medicines in certain member states will become available as food supplements", he is of course talking of the 'official' situation that has little to do with the reality of the market or with what consumers are actually buying. Byrne is either not telling the truth, or he has been very much misled about the situation in the (continental) member countries of the EU.

Reference is made in Commissioner Byrne's statement to "a large number of letters from citizens who are concerned about the proposed Directive on food supplements", stating that the arguments that have induced these people to write the Commission were "false and misleading". We believe that rather than the arguments of who is protesting, misleading are the false assurances of the Commission that nothing will change or that things will get better after the directive. Basil Mathioudakis, the Commission official responsible for the food supplements directive, stated during a discussion of the directive in the European Parliament's Environment Committee that "we will not take any products off the market". That is clearly false, one need only examine the list of substances that are to be allowed as sources of vitamins and minerals, and the list of 'missing' substances published by Positive Health in the article of Mike Abrahams. The argument that "industry will just have to prove these substances are safe", made by the same Mr Mathioudakis in the presence of this writer, is little consolation, when the approval depends on the submission of an exceedingly expensive dossier of scientific studies and toxicological evaluation, including animal tests, normally reserved for potentially toxic additives that are by no means essential in the way vitamins and minerals are.

The heavy handed (although softly spoken) attitude of the Commission has spawned a pan European protest movement, which threatens to grow, as the Commission's intentions become more widely known. There is already another EU Directive in the works that will attempt to extend the very restrictive German system – in Germany herbal products are sold only as registered medicines – to the rest of Europe. Also, an existing directive on medicinal products is to be amended and the proposed new definition of a medicine will put the very existence of the natural products sector in doubt. Although these pieces of EU legislation are separate from the food supplements directive, they form, together with it, a thread which permits us to predict what is to come.

Clearly the whole field of natural and nutritional products, the natural alternatives to pharmaceutically dominated medicine as well as freedom of choice of consumers with regard to nutrition and prevention are not the first things on the Commissioners' minds. It seems that rather the natural health alternatives might be secondary in importance to the profits of the pharmaceutical giants. The accusation of favouring the multinationals over small indigenous business has been levelled at the Commission several times before. It has even been decided that legislation that affects trade and production must carry what is known as an SME impact assessment, a statement of what kind of effect the legislation will have on the operating environment of small and medium sized enterprises. Perhaps not surprisingly, no such assessment was done when the EU Commission proposed the food supplements directive.

The recently formed Natural Health Alliance (NHA-Europe) is ready to take the Commission to task on its intentions and actions. The Alliance was formed in the UK and was active in protests against the food supplements directive. The name NHA goes back to the early nineties where another NHA (Nutritional Health Alliance) was an integral part of the successful popular uprising which pre-empted the FDA's attempts of reducing supplement dosages to RDA levels. Public pressure and unprecedented lobbying eventually resulted in the passage of modern dietary supplements legislation in the USA, the Dietary Health and Education Act. NHA-Europe has 'organised' support in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Portugal and Spain and has individual members in still other EU countries. It is destined to grow unless the EU decides to take into account the very serious grievances of the natural health sector.

There are consumers in many of the member states who currently do use high dosed supplements, either because of having made a conscious decision based on available information, or because they have been told to integrate their diet by nutritional and orthomolecular practitioners. They obtain these supplements either legally or by tolerance of the authorities, or even against the will of governments such as in Germany, Austria and France. If the number of letters and e-mails received by the Commission and the members of the European Parliament was any indication, we may expect a groundswell of public protest once the first products start disappearing from the market.

Once we see some more of the small and medium sized producers wake up to the very real threat to their existence, and once nutritional and orthomolecular therapists get to grips with the fact that they are being deprived of an important instrument of their work, we may see the start of an extended popular uprising against what has been variously called 'nanny statism' or an insensible 'meddling of the EU bureaucracy' with natural health.

What is a riddle difficult to fathom is, why the EU would pass by such a golden opportunity for strengthening, rather than weakening as they seem set to do, the public health potential of prevention through natural medicine and through the widespread use of natural and nutritional products. They could potentially 'turn around' the trend of ever increasing health spending by putting the emphasis where it should be: An ounce of prevention – to paraphrase a popular saying – would certainly be better than a pound of cure.

Josef Hasslberger
www.hasslberger.com
La Leva di Archimede, Italy
www.laleva.cc http://consumers.laleva.cc
Natural Health Alliance Europe
c/o Dr Robert Verkerk
Tel: 01252 377931; Fax: 01252 371275
 rhjverkerk@aol.com

US Government Confused About Mammograms

Health Sciences Institute e-Alert, March 4, 2002

"Women are confused."

That's what US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said last week when he announced the government's new guidelines for mammography use. He meant his words to be reassuring. But it seems to me that Mr Thompson has only added to the confusion.

You see, thanks to the work of Mr Thompson's agency, the US government is now recommending that all women age 40 and older have a mammogram "every year or two". That's a step up from the previous guidelines that advised starting regular mammograms at age 50. But here's the confusing thing: the new recommendations aren't based on any scientific reasoning – in fact, they fly in the face of mounting evidence that mammograms don't save lives at ANY age.

The rest of the world is questioning mammography – why is the US still championing the cause?

In the December 18, 2001 e-Alert I wrote to you about the work of two Danish scientists who had concluded that "screening for breast cancer with mammography is unjustified". Their initial study, released in 2000, drew sharp criticism from the medical mainstream, who has long considered any questioning of mammography as heresy. So the scientists put their data through the ringer a second time – and came out with even stronger results. As they wrote in their commentary in The Lancet, the second analysis "confirmed and strengthened" their previous findings, and, in fact, suggested that mammograms may actually harm women, by leading to dangerous and unnecessary follow-up treatment.

Since then, the Danish studies have caused quite a stir in the medical community. In a recent article on its website, CBS News called the issue "an international uproar". And in January, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) even admitted that the research raised serious doubts about mammography's benefits. In fact, according to CBS, the NCI plans to change the information on its website to downplay the importance of mammography in light of the new analysis.

Yet somehow, the US Preventive Services Task Force still was able to come up with these new guidelines, telling millions of American women that they should subject themselves to a mammogram a whole decade earlier than before, and to continue to do so nearly every year. And they say that women are the ones who are confused?

The government's "final word" means absolutely nothing

Mr. Thompson proclaimed that this is the US government's "final word" on mammography. But when you peel back the layers, there's little foundation for such a definitive statement. In the CBS News article, Task Force vice-chair Janet Allan acknowledged, there's "no firm age at which to start getting them [mammograms]". The Task Force concluded that "the evidence is strongest for women over 50, but mammograms likely will benefit 40-somethings too". They can't prove that an annual mammogram is better than one every other year, or that self-exams, or physical examination by a doctor, save lives either. That's a lot of soft language and unanswered questions for the "final word" on life-and-death issue.

But there's another issue here – perhaps an even more important one. Why do we need Tommy Thompson to tell us how often we should get a mammogram? Why should the US government spend millions of taxpayer dollars staffing a 'task force' to tell us how we should take care of ourselves?

Thankfully, we haven't (yet) reached the point where the government health police can arrest us for not having our annual mammogram. It's still each woman's choice, based on her individual situation and her own opinion of the information she's gathered through research and conversations with her doctors. But situations like this make you wonder: When government officials can make blanket proclamations with little scientific backing – and announce them to the world as "the final word" on our health, you have to wonder what the future has in store.

To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
www.hsibaltimore.com/ea2001/ea_011218.html
©1997-2002 Institute of Health Sciences, LLC

The Editor Adds

Readers are also referred to the investigative feature Breast Cancer - Detection or Deception? by Sherrill Sellman.

Comment re Editorial Issue 76

Just had to comment on the above! Personally, I don't know of anyone who declines to see me as a practitioner because I have terminal cancer, but then this could be the case without my knowledge! I hope the reverse is true actually; people are inspired by the fact that I have survived with my therapy and other holistic input, whereas this is unlikely to have happened had I entrusted my health to the drug-based disease system which is rampant.

Ironically, just recently a lot of my patients cannot get appointments with their GPs because they are ill with ulcers, lung (smoking!) disease and pneumonia. This does not seem to stop them seeing another doctor in the practice, so maybe it is just slanted at alternative therapists – which is really sad!

Excellent magazine as always!

In support and with my best wishes.

Pat Reeves
Practitioner of Nutritional & Functional Medicine
  pat@reeves-online.fsnet.co.uk
  www.reeves-online.fsnet.co.uk

Aura and Electomagnetism

Thank you for your May edition which contained a great deal of interest.

However, on page 13 in the box you say "Because of its electromagnetic composition, the aura is sensitive to.................."

Certainly it is possible to measure skin resistance in electrical form but this does not prove that the aura is an electromagnetic composition. Since it is possible to extend the aura in many ways without burning the body with the increased flow of electricity I would suggest that it is inaccurate to describe the aura as being of electromagnetic composition.

As you are well aware that if we step outside what is known in conventional medicine we have to justify our statements to retain credibility.

I hope you are all well and making use of our free treatment over the Internet from our web site www.mapertontrust.com www.headlicecontrol.co.uk

All good wishes
Gordon Smith
Maperton Trust
  maperton@aol.com

Thanks for the Info

Fascinated by your web pages. I have just moved from a house that had a sub station at the bottom of the garden. Since moving my 2 year old daughter has slept through the night for 3 months – she never slept longer than 2 hours at a time in the old house, and spent most of her night screaming for no apparent reasons. My husband's hayfever has vanished and I no longer have an urge to 'go out' – I could never stay in the house for very long as I always felt depressed there!!!! Also, the guy who lived in the house before us had lived there for 20 years and suffered from manic depression. Okay, so maybe the house was haunted, but then maybe there is no such thing as ghosts, just EMFs behaving like them. After mentioning my daughter's ability to suddenly sleep to my health visitor, she told me of this possible explanation, thank God I moved. Thanx for the info!!

Lisa Rudman
  3ruds@planetbug.fslife.co.uk