a drug treatments for ebola with weak or absolutely no clinical data are better than no treatment at all. This was not a case of "making stuff up". The various experimental therapies had good results in lab animals that had been deliberately infected with Ebola and had passed the "Phase 1" trials (that's where you give it to healthy volunteers and see what the best tolerated dose it) successfully. The other therapy - transfusing plasma from people who have had Ebola and recovered - has a long history of actually working against a wide variety of diseases. Tetanus, diphtheria, and rabies treatments currently use a refined version of immunoglobulin therapy. The problem with the essential oils, the probiotics, etc is that they have had absolutely ZERO testing for a protective effect against anything in lab animals ... against anything. There may be a study or two showing they work in a petri dish, but it's a long way from there to working in live animals.

Re-read the article. Main components of Sick Building Syndrome are Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's) not CO2. Apparently those plants listed do well at pulling VOC's out of the air. Another link here: http://www.greendesign.com.au/floor_plants.htm

Posted by silversword (My Page) on Wed, Oct 1, 08 at 14:20 Someone mentioned PAS Syndrome, so I looked it up to see what it is. This is the definition of PAS as described by R.A. Gardner who discovered the syndrome and has become an expert in dealing with the issue.Gardner's definition of PAS is: "The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child's campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent's indoctrinations and the child's own contributions to the vilification of the target parent."(Excerpted from: Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.) Basically, this means that through verbal and non verbal thoughts, actions and mannerisms, a child is emotionally abused (brainwashed) into thinking the other parent is the enemy. This ranges from bad mouthing the other parent infront of the children, to withholding visits, to pre-arranging the activities for the children while visiting with the other parent. http://www.paskids.com/ I don't know very much about it, but this is what my mom used to do with my dad. It really is sad how children get in the middle. Posted by sue36 (My Page) on Wed, Oct 1, 08 at 19:39 A good friend of mine had this happen to him. He had custody and then custody got transferred to his ex-wife after she cleaned up her act. She had basically abandoned the kids (after cheating on her husband, our friend) and after getting custody she set out to systematically eliminate our friend from the children's lives. It got very, very ugly. He now has no contact with the children. Many years ago I dated a guy who was recently divorced and something similar happened to him. While he was in the military, away on deployment, his wife moved out of their on base housing without even telling him (he learned when he got back from a deployment, can you imagine?). She moved back to her home state and they got divorced. They agreed she would have custody (the child was young) and he would have visitation where he would go to her home state until the child was a certain age. She then married a former boyfriend very soon after the divorce. The custody arrangement wasn't worth the paper it was written on. She decided her new husband should be the child's father (not just step father). She would disappear with the kid when he showed up for court ordered visitation (he had to fly there). She wouldn't answer the phone when he called to speak to his child. The court (the court in her home state) wouldn't do anything. He eventually gave up his parental rights and her new husband adopted the child. He couldn't take it anymore. Both of them spent small fortunes fighting to enforce the visitation orders and got nowhere. Â Posted by moonie_57 (My Page) on Wed, Oct 1, 08 at 20:45 And I don't think that PAS is necessarily one parent against another, although I didn't read the link provided. Just from the explanation, I feel like this is what my DD's adult friend has done. She bad mouths DH and I to DD. Even after going to court, and the woman being found guilty of contribution to the delinquency of a minor, DD still has contact with her. I'm just trying to find proof. Â Posted by silversword (My Page) on Thu, Oct 2, 08 at 15:42 Moonie, I didn't think of it like this, but you're right! "And I don't think that PAS is necessarily one parent against another" I have seen this happen as well. It must be really hard to deal with your individual situation because this is probably an older, "cooler" person than your DD and she must look up to them. It's hard to see sometimes, especially as a teenager, that your parents really have your best interests at heart and aren't just trying to keep you away from your "good friend". I remember my mom telling me one of my friends wasn't a nice girl, and I didn't believe her. In retrospect, she was right. I only hope this girl removes her tentacles from your daughter before more damage is done.

Interesting thread- how did I miss this a year ago? My mother and I were talking a few months back about the materials used in new housing construction- after she went to visit my brother in his huge, new house that is all cheapo materials. She complained that everything from doors to counters was plastic. I've been very interested in some of the stuff that's out there lately about various components of plastic being hazardous to the immune system. I got rid of my chronic hayfever about 10 years ago by putting myself on a regimen of vitamins and supplements for a couple of months- said goodbye to a lifetime of hayfever so am convinced that the immune system may play a bigger role than it's given credit for. Who knows how or if all those plastics play into that type of thing. Some of it can also be the landscaping done in new construction areas. Back in the good old days, whatever grew was what grew (think of the farm), now so much of what is planted is well cultivated and is often a male tree that looks prettier than a female tree, or may be less messy, but spends a great deal of time spurting pollen hither and yon. Humidifying is great not just for the linings of the nasal passaged, but also because dust mites don't do well with higher humidity. Rinsing the sinuses with salt water like someone else suggested is also a great thing to learn- I learned to do it with a shot glass and have cleared sinus infections very rapidly that way.