Will Electronic Tattoos Replace Internet Passwords And All Other Forms Of Identification?

Would you wear an electronic tattoo if you couldn’t log on to the Internet without one? That may sound crazy to many of you, but the technology for such a system already exists. RFID tattoos have existed for quite some time, and they are already being used on animals. But now an entirely new generation of electronic tattoos are being developed that can monitor your vital signs, interact with your mobile phone and even communicate directly with your mind. These new electronic tattoos are thinner than a human hair, and they are going to fundamentally transform the way that we think about human identification. Right now, the Internet is being absolutely plagued by hackers and identity theft has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine if someone is actually who they say that they are. And as even more of our commerce gets conducted through the Internet, identity security is going to be absolutely critical. Without a doubt, there will continue to be a push for more secure forms of identification than we have today. But there is also a very dark side to this kind of technology. What if someday a tyrannical government decides to make a permanent electronic tattoo for identification purposes mandatory for all citizens? What if you are not able to buy, sell, get a job, have a bank account or log on to the Internet without “proper identification”? What if the price for receiving your tattoo is to swear absolute allegiance to that tyrannical government? The truth is that technology is always a double-edged sword. It always brings with it the promise of progress, but it also always has a dark side that could potentially be abused.

The latest generation of electronic tattoos is quite remarkable. They are called “Biostamps”, and they were originally developed for medical purposes. However, as a recent Daily Mail article detailed, Motorola believes that these Biostamps could potentially replace passwords and make the Internet a much more secure place…

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Internet monitoring system to stalk social media users who question safety of vaccines

If you post articles to your Facebook wall that warn others about the dangers of vaccines, or Tweet links to the latest studies tying vaccines to autism through Twitter, the vaccine pushers of the world could soon know about it in real time. According to new reports, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed scientists in both the United States and Great Britain have jointly developed a computerized global monitoring system capable of tracking all social media activity around the world that defies mainstream vaccine dogma, and reporting it directly to authorities.

This brave new exercise in multinational, Big Brother spying is being hailed as a solution to the rapid spread of so-called "rumors" and "lies" about vaccines via the internet, which basically constitute any online free speech that questions the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. According to mainstream authorities, vaccines are completely safe and effective in every way, and anything that defies this unsubstantiated proclamation is now officially considered to be misinformation by the global police state.

According to Heidi Larson from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the U.K., and author of the new tracking system, free speech on the internet has "speeded up the global spread" of what she and others consider to be "unchecked rumors and misinformation about vaccines." People thinking for themselves, in other words, and discussing legitimate vaccine safety concerns with others online is a threat to the establishment, thus the need for a virtual all-seeing eye, of sorts, to monitor all this chatter and report it directly to health officials.

Bill Gates, vaccine industry desperately trying to maintain vaccine myth through intimidation

The real motivation behind the development of this new tracking tool, of course, is to increase vaccine compliance by intimidating people into silence. Since the Gates Foundation-backed vaccine pushers do not have the capacity to completely prohibit online free speech as it pertains to vaccines (at least not yet), they are instead resorting to underhanded intimidation and manipulation tactics that they hope will give them a new platform to spread their propaganda more quickly and thwart efforts that defy the vaccine status quo.

This is all openly admitted by those who developed the new tracking platform using Gates Foundation funds, and it speaks for itself as to the true intentions of this sadistic cohort. An increasing number of people, for good reason, are avoiding vaccines, as study after study shows them to be toxic and largely ineffective. In fact, vaccines have been shown to be the cause of disease outbreaks, not the solution to them as claimed by Larson and others. So to stem this massive departure, the vaccine industry is seeking new ways to embed itself in the global discussion on vaccines in order to convince more people to get them.

Just in case you were wondering, virtually all of the disease outbreaks in recent years that authorities claim were caused by unvaccinated individuals were actually most prominent among the vaccinated. In other words, the data shows that vaccinated individuals are actually more likely to contract diseases like mumps, measles, and polio than are children who have not been vaccinated, which completely debunks the myths that vaccines "save lives," and that not getting vaccinated puts one's health at serious risk.

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Japan halts imports of U.S. wheat after USDA's shock finding of genetic pollution from GMOs

It has already begun: Japan has just cancelled a large contract to purchase U.S. wheat. "We will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat effective today," Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, told Reuters.

As many readers well know, I predicted precisely this scenario just yesterday in a Natural News article warning about the consequences of genetic pollution. There, I wrote, "All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized -- and possibly even rejected -- by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture."

Now we're already seeing the result: the ditching of U.S. wheat by world nations that want nothing to do with GMOs.

Monsanto is a ticking time bomb for U.S. agriculture

This proves, without any question, that Monsanto's genetic experiments which "escaped" into commercial wheat fields are now going to devastate U.S. wheat farmers. Expect the floor to drop out on wheat prices, and watch for a huge backlash against the USDA by U.S. farmers who stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this.

As the USDA has now admitted, Monsanto's GMO experiments from 1998 - 2005 were held in open wheat fields. The genetically engineered wheat escaped and found its way into commercial wheat fields in Oregon (and possibly 15 other states), causing self-replicating genetic pollution that now taints the entire U.S. wheat industry.

"Asian consumers are keenly sensitive to gene-altered food, with few countries allowing imports of such cereals for human consumption," writes Reuters. It continues:

Asia imports more than 40 million tonnes of wheat annually, almost a third of the global trade of 140-150 million tonnes. The bulk of the region's supplies come from the United States, the world's biggest exporter, and Australia, the No. 2 supplier.

Another incredible Monsanto achievement: the genetic contamination of the U.S. wheat supply

Nice job, Monsanto. You've managed to spew your genetic pollution across the fields of innocent U.S. farmers who are now going to lose huge sums of money due to the reject of U.S. wheat by all the other world nations that refuse to feed their populations GMO.

And a big thumbs up to the USDA, too, for screwing U.S. farmers by green-lighting open-field GMO experiments that we all warned were going to result in runaway genetic pollution. The USDA, of course, is the official cheerleading squad for Monsanto's criminal "science" that we all know is a total fraud. How do these scientists now suggest this self-replicating genetic pollution be put back into the black box from which it emerged?

It can't be done, of course. So now the entire future of the U.S. wheat supply is at risk thanks to Monsanto and the USDA. Nice one, folks. Score another victory for the scumbag destroyers in Washington D.C. and the greed-driven executives at our favorite corporation, Monsanto.

And remember: Genetically modified wheat is only the beginning. Monsanto has no doubt unleashed genetic pollution across many other crops as well. We're now living in an age where Monsanto is essentially ejaculating its patented seed across all the farms of America, then claiming to "own" the contaminated crops. What a wonderful image of corporate responsibility and service to humankind. I can't wait to see what other U.S. crops will be rejected by world nations due to Monsanto's genetic pollution.


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South Korea joins Japanese ban on U.S. wheat imports after shocking GMO contamination announcement by USDA

News about the GMO contamination of U.S. wheat crops seems to be spreading faster than the GMOs themselves. On Friday, South Korea joined Japan in announcing a halt on imports of U.S. wheat due to the USDA's recent announcement that commercial wheat grown in the USA is contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered wheat.

Some Americans may still not realize this, but GMOs are outlawed or shunned nearly everywhere around the world. Only in the USA have GMOs managed to avoid being labeled or outlawed -- and that's primarily due to Monsanto's financial influence over lawmakers.

Monsanto shares plummeted 4 percent on Friday following the announcement by South Korea. This is completely in line with predictions made here at Natural News, where I said earlier in the week, before Japan and South Korea announced their wheat boycotts:

All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized -- and possibly even rejected -- by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture.

How much of the U.S. wheat supply is now contaminated with GMOs?

"...the mysterious appearance of the Monsanto wheat has raised questions about how the strain traveled there and whether it is lurking in the commercial wheat crop," reports the Washington Post.

WashPo goes on to report that Monsanto, "is still testing strains of gene-altered wheat in Hawaii and North Dakota."

In truth, nobody knows how much of the wheat is contaminated. Every more shockingly, food companies don't bother testing wheat for GMOs, either!

Until now, that is. All of a sudden, food importers all around the world are wondering whether they are inadvertently buying U.S. wheat that's contaminated with GMOs. Consumers, too, are asking the question, "Have I been eating GMO wheat without even knowing it?" These Monsanto wheat experiments, after all, have been taking place since 1998.

Is Monsanto lurking in your Wheaties?

U.S. farmers suddenly seeing the economic damage that Monsanto can do

The real issue in all this, however, is an economic issue. Suddenly U.S. farmers are seeing the kind of economic destruction that can be caused by Monsanto's genetic engineering experiments.

Thanks to Monsanto and the USDA -- which approved the open-field experiments -- every U.S. farmer who grows wheat is now at high risk of losing enormous sums of money on a food crop that's increasingly being rejected around the world. This means Monsanto is pushing U.S. farmers toward bankruptcy while harming America's exports and GDP. Monsanto has become a force of economic destruction in America.

Will Monsanto reimburse all these farmers who suffer an economic loss? Not without being sued, of course. Perhaps it's time for a nationwide class-action lawsuit against Monsanto, supported by all commercial farmers who hope to be able to protect their crops from market-crushing GMO contamination.

Nobody wants GMOs except Monsanto!

Consumers don't want GMOs, farmers don't want GMOs, foreign nations don't want GMOs and food companies don't want to deal with the hassle of GMOs either. The only entity that still wants GMO in America is the very company making money off GMO: Monsanto.

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Russian ‘Ghost Ship’ Vanishes Without A Trace

Well, this is spooky. An abandoned and possibly toxic cruise ship, lost somewhere in the North Atlantic, seems to have vanished from the high seas.

The Russian-made Lyubov Orlova left Canada bound for a scrapyard in the Dominican Republic on Jan. 23, according to the Agence France-Presse. After only one day, however, a cable snapped, leaving the ship adrift. The so-called “ghost ship” was located briefly in February as it floated aimlessly about 500 miles off the coast of Ireland. Then, in March, the Canadian Coast Guard reported that one of the ship’s emergency radio beacons, which activate after hitting the water or another object, flashed a location almost 800 miles off Newfoundland, according to the Vancouver Sun.

With no further sightings, some speculate that the ship has sunk.

Canada, for its part, doesn’t seem too broken up over the loss, as the boat had been abandoned in Canadian waters in 2010 after a reported financial dispute between the owner and a charter company, per Fox News. Once the ship drifted into international waters, the Canadian government largely washed its hands of the issue. As The Globe and Mail reported back in February, Canada’s transportation department said in a statement it was “very unlikely that the vessel will re-enter waters under Canadian jurisdiction.”

The boat’s whereabouts have received a good deal of attention in the international press, and the mystery surrounding the vessel has even spawned a website, “Where is Lyubov Orlova?”

On a sobering note, however, if the boat has wrecked somewhere, it could be leaking toxic fluids into the water, according to French environmental organization Robin du Bois.

“In case of a collision or sinking or any accident, the Lyubov Orlova will immediately release fuel … other toxic liquids, asbestos … mercury and other non-degradable floating waste,” the group declared in a statement, according to LiveScience.

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Climate Change Will ‘Make Millions Homeless’

Carbon dioxide levels indicate rise in temperatures that could lead agriculture to fail on entire continents.

It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Massive movements of people are likely to occur over the rest of the century because global temperatures are likely to rise to by up to 5C because carbon dioxide levels have risen unabated for 50 years, said Stern, who is head of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.

“When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence. It could become a permanent feature of life on Earth.”

The news that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 400ppm has been seized on by experts because that level brings the world close to the point where it becomes inevitable that it will experience a catastrophic rise in temperatures. Scientists have warned for decades of the danger of allowing industrial outputs of carbon dioxide to rise unchecked.

Instead, these outputs have accelerated. In the 1960s, carbon dioxide levels rose at a rate of 0.7ppm a year. Today, they rise at 2.1ppm, as more nations become industrialised and increase outputs from their factories and power plants. The last time the Earth’s atmosphere had 400ppm carbon dioxide, the Arctic was ice-free and sea levels were 40 metres higher.

The prospect of Earth returning to these climatic conditions is causing major alarm. As temperatures rise, deserts will spread and life-sustaining weather patterns such as the North Indian monsoon could be disrupted. Agriculture could fail on a continent-wide basis and hundreds of millions of people would be rendered homeless, triggering widespread conflict.

There are likely to be severe physical consequences for the planet. Rising temperatures will shrink polar ice caps – the Arctic’s is now at its lowest since records began – and so reduce the amount of solar heat they reflect back into space. Similarly, thawing of the permafrost lands of Alaska, Canada and Russia could release even more greenhouse gases, including methane, and further intensify global warming.

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Harvard Creates Cyborg Flesh That’s Half Man, Half Machine

Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.

These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they’re just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.

To create cyborg flesh, you start with a three-dimensional scaffold that encourages cells to grow around them. These scaffolds are generally made of collagen, which makes up the connective tissue in almost every animal. The Harvard engineers basically took normal collagen, and wove nanowires and transistors into the matrix to create nanoelectric scaffolds (nanoES). The neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels were then grown as normal, creating cyborg tissue with a built-in sensor network.
Cardiac cells, with a nanoelectroic electrode highlighted

So far the Havard team has mostly grown rat tissues, but they have also succeeded in growing a 1.5-centimeter (0.6in) cyborg human blood vessel. They’ve also only used the nanoelectric scaffolds to read data from the cells — but according to lead researcher Charles Lieber, the next step is to find a way of talking to the individual cells, to “wire up tissue and communicate with it in the same way a biological system does.”

A computer chip, containing a sample of nanoES tissue

Suffice it to say, if you can use a digital computer to read and write data to your body’s cells, there are some awesome applications. If you need a quick jolt of adrenaline, you would simply tap a button on your smartphone, which is directly connected to your sympathetic nervous system. You could augment your existing physiology with patches — a patch of nanoelectric heart cells, for example, that integrates with your heart and reports back if you experience any problems. When we eventually put nanobots into our bloodstream, small pulses of electricity emitted by the cells could be used as guidance to damaged areas. In the case of blood vessels and other organs, the nanoelectric sensor network could detect if there’s inflammation, blockage, or tumors.

Realistically, though, we’re a long way away from such applications. In the short term, though, these cyborg tissues could be used to create very accurate organs-on-a-chip — lab-grown human organs that are encased within computer chips and then used to test drugs or substance toxicity, without harming a single bunny or bonobo.

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Teleportation as a Way of Traveling to Parallel Worlds?

Stories about mysterious travels to parallel worlds are not uncommon. However, these reports often make us think whether these “journeys” to another world have some substance.

It is interesting that for a long time, the scientists have been developing a theory of teleportation, the phenomenon when an object is moved from one place to another in the shortest amount of time. And in 2011, this mysterious phenomenon started manifesting itself again.

In the beginning of 2011, a French scientist Luc Montagnier, who received the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine, has shocked the scientific world. He managed to beam a DNA sample from one test tube to another. Two separate test tubes were placed next to each other. One had pure water, and the other contained a DNA molecule. The test tube containing the DNA molecule was irradiated. Incredibly, after less than a day, the DNA was found in the test tube with water! Montagnier is convinced that this is only a first step in developing the theory of teleportation.

Interestingly, in addition to radiation, a lot of stress or negative circumstances experienced by a person can have similar effect. And most stories about mysterious travels are related to these events.

One of the ancient Mexican manuscripts contains a story about a sudden appearance of an unknown soldier on October 25, 1593 in Mexico City. According to his story, it was found that his regiment was stationed in the Philippines, 9 thousand miles from Mexico! The soldier claimed that in just a few seconds before his mysterious travel he had been on guard duty at the palace of the governor of the Philippines in Manila and incidentally became a witness to the murder of the governor. The man could not explain how he ended up in Mexico. The Inquisition has sentenced the man to be burned alive. Just a few months after his execution, the soldier’s story was confirmed by merchants who arrived from the Philippines.

Another mysterious event occurred in the Belorussian Military District in 1982. During the flight of the MiG-21 aircraft which took off to monitor the weather, it disappeared from radar screens. The search for the missing aircraft produced no results. But, to the astonishment of aviators, the next morning the fighter had safely landed on the runway of the airfield. It was a complete mystery, but for the pilot the scheduled flight lasted 12 assigned minutes.

In early May of 1968, near the town of Chaskomus (Argentina) right in front of many witnesses, the car with Dr. Gerardo Vidal and his wife had vanished into thin air. Friends and relatives began searching for the car. But neither the doctor nor the car could be found. Two days later, the man made a call himself. He was calling from the Argentine Consulate in Mexico City, which is located 6,400 miles away from the place where his car had disappeared. The Vidals could not explain their mysterious disappearance. However, they recalled a very bright light flashing before their eyes and moments later discovering themselves on a completely unfamiliar route.

A similar case occurred in 1999 with a young Italian man, who was described by American police as mad, and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in New York. The young man was not dressed for the weather and “intimidated” subway passengers by talking to them in an unknown language. However, further investigation revealed that the young man was sane and healthy, but very frightened. The young man claimed that a few minutes earlier, he was coming down the trail to the Tiber River. When he looked at the water, instead of his reflection he saw a bright light, and a moment later he was lying on the cold floor of the American subway.

hese stories are not unique. People were confused and had no clue about what was going on in the past, but today many scientists are inclined to believe in involuntary teleportation. Researchers have come up with a number of theories to explain this phenomenon. The first one was created in 1899 by a science fiction writer Ambrose Bierce from the U.S.

He explains his theory by saying “our space is like a knitted sweater: it can be put on, although, when you look closer, a sweater is full of holes. Suppose, an ant has ended up on the sleeve of the sweater. When it accidentally falls in between the loops, it will find itself in a completely different world, where it is dark and stuffy, and instead of the usual fir needles there is warm, soft skin … “

The second theory, developed by Albert Einstein, relies on the existence of a fourth spatial dimension - time. According to this explanation, the space periodically opens the black holes, through which objects from other worlds can penetrate into our universe.

Einstein’s theory has long been utilized by other experts, the ufologists. They claim that this is how mysterious alien aircraft objects appear on our planet. Ufologists often associate mass human abduction and disappearance events with teleportation. Scientists believe that extraterrestrials have long mastered this technique, if not the ability to open black holes at will, or at least their detection.

According to the third theory by Ralph Harrison introduced in 1938, teleportation follows the laws of meteorology. For example, in the area of Bermuda anomalous zone, the teleportation areas move under the influence of the Gulf Stream. “These events can occur in the atmosphere. When the channels open between worlds, living beings and objects travel through them to a parallel world and come back. Imagine yourself … being a caterpillar that has fallen on a man’s shoe.

Suppose you need to get to the other shoe, a journey through the leg, pelvis, and the other leg which will last at least a day, and it is also dangerous because you can easily fall off. But here is a man who accidentally crossed his legs so that you ended up on the other shoe, having made an instant journey in a matter of a day! “- explains Ralph Harrison.

However, although it is too early to draw any conclusions, recent scientific developments have brought us considerably closer to unlocking the world of one of the greatest mysteries. Perhaps, in the near future mankind will be able to master the art of teleportation.

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Arsenic Being Intentionally Added to Conventional Chicken

The old saying, "You are what you eat," poses troubling implications for public health in light of a new study on chicken meat, which found that most of it contains dangerously high levels of toxic arsenic. And the worst part is that industrial chicken producers are directly responsible for causing this, as they intentionally add arsenic-based pharmaceutical drugs to chicken feed in order to bulk them up quickly and improve the color of their meat, which in turn poisons you and your family.

You can thank researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Maryland for exposing this little-known fact in a recent paper published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. As it turns out, virtually all commercial chicken, including certified organic and "antibiotic-free" varieties, contain some level of inorganic arsenic. But it is the conventional chicken fed arsenic-based drugs that have the highest levels.

As reported by GRACE Communications Foundation Senior Policy Advisor Chris Hunt, writing for Ecocentric, Johns Hopkins researchers collected a variety of chicken samples from grocery stores in 10 cities across the U.S. Some of the meat samples came from conventional sources, while others were U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified organic or "antibiotic-free." All the samples were tested side-by-side with each other, including in both raw and cooked form.

Upon analysis, the team discovered that the conventional chicken meat samples had the highest levels of inorganic arsenic overall, containing up to four times as much arsenic as the organic chicken samples. These same conventional chicken meat samples contained up to three times more arsenic than the maximum levels proposed, but later retracted, as a safety standard by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) back in 2011.

"The levels of inorganic arsenic discovered in chicken are cause for concern, especially since many of us are already exposed to the carcinogen through additional dietary and environmental paths," writes Hunt. "But unlike these other sources of exposure, which typically result from natural arsenic deposits, industry or residual contamination from the days of widespread arsenical pesticide use, as noted in the study, 'arsenical poultry drugs are deliberately administered to animals intended for human consumption.'"


FDA currently allows Big Pharma to lace chicken feed with arsenic to boost profits

What the study is referring to, of course, is the common practice, at least up until 2011, of industrial chicken producers adding a pharmaceutical drug known as roxarsone to chicken feed. The Pfizer, Inc.-manufactured drug was in heavy use between 2010 and 2011 when the Johns Hopkins study was conducted, and researchers found traces of this chemical in a significant percentage of the conventional chicken meat tested.

According to Hunt's analysis, arsenical chemicals like roxarsone have been in use since the 1940s, when chicken producers began adding it to chicken feed to speed up growth, prevent disease, and improve meat pigmentation. But as we now know, these chemicals are pervasive, and are known to cause cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, mental impairment, miscarriage, and other serious human health issues.

"[T]his study provides further evidence that continued use of arsenicals in food animal production poses an entirely unnecessary threat to public health," adds Hunt. "While the practice might boost the profits earned by poultry giants and the manufacturers who supply them with arsenical drugs, it's imprudent and irresponsible. As such, the FDA has no legitimate justification for its ongoing failure to prohibit arsenicals from food animal production."

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Dentist Proves: Diet Soda Can Cause Tooth Decay Like Cocaine

Diet soda addicts, beware: heavy consumption of the highly acidic drinks can cause tooth damage that resembles the effects of methamphetamine or crack cocaine.

Those who drink large amounts of diet soda for long periods of time often experience tooth erosion, rotting, decay and other types of oral damage – in many cases just as bad or worse as the effects experienced by long-term drug users, according to a new study published in the journal General Dentistry.

“You look at it side-to-side with ‘meth mouth’ or ‘coke mouth,’ it is startling to see the intensity and extent of damage more or less the same,” Dr. Mohammed Boussiouny, a professor of restorative dentistry at the Temple University School of Dentistry, told Health Day News.

The study references a woman in her 30’s who drank about two liters of diet soda every day for 3-5 years and suffered from eroded teeth that resembled those of a 29-year-old meth addict who had been taking drugs for three years and a 51-year-old crack cocaine user who had an 18-year-history drug abuse.

The woman’s teeth were soft, discolored and eroded, and dentists were unable to save any of the affected teeth. The woman had no choice but to have every last tooth removed and replaced with dentures.

“None of the teeth affected by erosion were salvageable,” Boussiouny said.

The woman had been drinking diet soda for years because she was worried that regular soda would cause her to gain weight. She was aware of the risks associated with consuming artificially sweetened beverages, but admitted that she hadn’t seen a dentist in years.

The American Beverage Association responded to the results of the study, defending the consumption of diet soda and telling Health Day News that the woman’s lack of dentist visits was the primary cause of her tooth decay.

“The woman referenced in this article did not receive dental health services for more than 20 years – two-thirds of her life,” the group said in a statement. “To single out diet soda consumption as the unique factor in her tooth decay and erosion – and to compare it to that from illicit drug use – is irresponsible…. The body of available science does not support that beverages are a unique factor in causing tooth decay or erosion.”

But Dr. Eugene Antenucci, a spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry, said he has seen the effects of diet soda in many addicts, and explained that some of them experienced “very deep brown stains, where it’s actually eroded into the tooth, and the teeth are soft and leathery.”

Most diet soda consumers will never see such effects, but to ensure clean and healthy teeth, Antenucci advises that they wash away the acidity of the substance with water after drinking soda, brushing their teeth at least twice daily and drinking in moderation.

Diet soda – like crack cocaine and meth – is highly acidic, which wears away enamel and causes teeth to become susceptible to cavities. Colas, for example, have erosive potential 10 times that of fruit juice, according to a previous 2007 study published in General Dentistry. This study found that teeth immersed in Coke, Pepsi, RC Cola, Squirt, Surge, 7 Up and Diet 7 Up lost more than five percent of their weight, due to enamel erosion. The most acidic soft drink studied at the time was RC Cola, which had a pH of 2.387. Cherry Coke had a pH level of 2.522 and Coke had a pH level of 2.525. Battery acid, in comparison, has a pH level of 1.0, and pure water has a pH level of 7.0.

Thomas P. Connelly, a New York-based cosmetic dentist, says that diet soda consumers tend to drink more of the substance than those who consume regular sodas, which is often a factor in their tooth erosion. With many Americans convinced that the sugar-free drinks will prevent them from gaining weight, they can quickly become addicted and self-inflict tooth damage, like drug users.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, ‘I’m addicted to diet coke’ from a patient,” he wrote in a Huffington Post blog. “Even though it has sugar, I’d almost rather see people drink regular pop, because I’m convinced that one or two regular pops are less damaging than seven of the diet version (again, people who drink diet soda tend to drink a lot of it). But truthfully, I’d rather see people drink neither.”

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