Mainstream media's long history of hysterical hoaxes: California wine arsenic is just the latest

(NaturalNews) Be it sensationalism, the need to satisfy advertisers or because editors and reporters merely have an ideological or political motive, today's mainstream media can always be counted on to create, perpetuate and even expand "stories" that turn out to be fabrications, hoaxes or outright lies.

In recent weeks, for example, a number of news outlets -- USA Today, the New York Daily News, CBS This Morning, Fox Business and others -- ran with a "scare story" regarding a lawsuit which claimed that California wines were contaminated with dangerous levels of arsenic.

In this video report by Natural News editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, the suit claimed that the wine industry in the state had cut safety corners and as such inadvertently allowed "dangerously high levels of arsenic" to seep into various wines.

Adams' video report is here:



"This is the same media that has long insisted that mercury in vaccines -- and it is still present in flu shots given to children and expectant mothers in the United States -- the media insists that these flu shots contain a safe level of mercury because the amount of mercury in a flu shot is so small," he said.

Arsenic levels in California wines, by comparison, are being reported by the same media as being dangerously high, even though, as Adams reported, they are not.

"You're being lied to," he stated,

The highest level of arsenic found in California wines, he says, is 50 parts per billion -- a figure that "wasn't even the average level," but rather "just the highest," he said. The average was much lower.

That level is incredibly small, Adams said, even though it's being reported as being incredibly dangerous -- just the opposite of the way the mainstream media reports on mercury levels in flu shots, in which a "small amount" is "harmless," and whose mercury levels, on average, are 50,000 parts per billion (or 1,000 times higher).

What gives?

"Let's punish them over bogus testing parameters"

The answer lies in the widening history of media chicanery, mockery and distortion.

Another example is the manufactured "controversy" surrounding herbal supplements, which have long been derided as "useless" in health by the "scientific" community and the mainstream media. So wedded to their vitriolic hatred of herbal and natural supplements that some enclaves have taken to using punitive measures to silence those who tout them as viable, healthy alternatives to Big Pharma.

In New York state, for example, an investigation into four herbal supplement retailers in an attempt to force them to stop selling their products is being driven by phony DNA "barcode testing."

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the leading trade association for the dietary supplement and functional food industry, said in a February statement that actions taken against the retailers by the New York State Attorney General's Office were not just unwarranted, but ridiculous on their face.

The state AG used DNA barcoding -- a technique that characterizes a species of organisms using a short DNA sequence from a standard and agreed-upon position in the genome -- to test the ingredients of finished herbal products. But the CRN says the testing methods were bogus to begin with and that the AG's office was ignoring "well-established quality control procedures" for such products.

"These actions... by the New York State Attorney General's (AG) office smack of a self-serving publicity stunt under the guise of protecting public health," said the CRN. "Supposed concerns about the products in question are based on a novel testing method that has been roundly criticized by botanical scientists who question whether DNA barcoding technology is an appropriate or validated test for determining the presence of herbal ingredients in finished botanical products.

"Processing during manufacturing of botanical supplements can remove or damage DNA," the group continued, "therefore while a DNA testing method can be useful in some cases, this method well may be the wrong test for these kinds of products."

But the war against herbal supplements is not only being waged in New York; other states have appealed to the U.S. Congress to "investigate" makers of supplements for alleged violations of ingredient labeling -- a cause which the media has readily taken up.

Pills good, natural supplementation bad, equals lots of ad dollars

As reported by Reuters:

A group of 14 state attorneys general on Thursday asked the U.S. Congress to investigate the herbal supplements industry after a New York probe of the products turned up ingredients that were not listed on labels and raised safety concerns.

The group, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Illinois Attorney General Greg Zoeller, also asked Congress to consider giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration more oversight of herbal supplements.

Meanwhile, with the focus on an alleged "violation" regarding herbal labeling, the media largely ignores the death toll that Big Pharma is taking on our teenagers -- the same industry that spends hundreds of millions per year in advertising, to push drugs and products that often have troubling and deadly side effects.

A recent study published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing noted that abuse of prescription drugs by "young consumers" had become "a serious public health problem," especially over the past 10 years.

According to an abstract of the study:

Adolescent prescription drug abuse (PDA) has become a serious public health problem over the past decade, and this this problem is now classified as an epidemic. Further, those abusing prescription drugs are also at greater risk for engaging in other maladaptive behaviors.

The study went on to note that the annual number of teenage deaths from prescription drugs (in many cases, mind-altering "mood elevation" drugs) was roughly double that of overdose deaths from illegal substances like heroin and cocaine.

But still, the mainstream media has no issues with perpetuating the hoax that these medications are actually good for teens and for society in general, all in a bid to keep those Big Pharma dollars coming. Even some industry pros believe that the pharmaceutical industry's advertising is inappropriate and ought to be banned.

Other issues that simply don't get a fair shake in the MSM

And global warming? That "issue" is totally misrepresented by the mainstream media, which publishes story after story quoting alarmists who say the most outrageous things about it, all the while labeling anyone who points out that the science indeed is not settled and that there is no real proof that man-caused activity is causing global warming a "denier" who should be shouted down and punished.

Want more media "fairness"? How about the recent discredited "rape culture" story published by Rolling Stone magazine? The one that claimed a gang rape occurred on the campus of the University of Virginia a few years ago, which has since been completely exposed as phony by none other than the Columbia School of Journalism? As bad as that was, the magazine's editor-in-chief says no one -- not the reporter, junior editors or fact-checkers involved in the months-long investigation and story -- will be fired, since they all did their job of pushing the magazine's political agenda.

There are numerous examples of why it is becoming more and more difficult to trust the mainstream media. Worst of all, they have brought it all on themselves.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com

http://www.crnusa.org

http://www.reuters.com

http://journals.ama.org

http://reset.me

http://www.washingtontimes.com