That Amazing Bubblegum

This news item from Japan got me thinking - but not what you're thinking.

Chewing gum can 'enhance breasts'

A chewing gum which the makers say can help enhance the size, shape and tone of the breasts has proved to be a big hit in Japan. B2Up says its Bust-Up gum, when chewed three or four times a day, can also help improve circulation, reduce stress and fight ageing.

The gum works by slowly releasing compounds contained in an extract from a plant called Pueraria mirifica.

In theory, this helps to keep the muscle tissue in good order.

The plant's underground tubers contain a number of chemicals called phytoestrogens - natural compounds which mimic the effects of the female sex hormone oestrogen.

These include miroestrol and deoxymiroestrol, which are believed to exert a particularly strong effect, as they are very close in chemical structure to oestradiol, the main human oestrogen.

B2Up says that it is the effect of these two chemicals, coupled with a third phytooestrogen isoflavone, which makes its gum so effective.

It cites tests carried out by Thailand's Chulalongkorn University which found Pueraria mirifica therapy was able to enhance breast size by 80%.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4361563.stm
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So, what was I really thinking?

Well, the chewing gum recalled to me when Pals. tried to pillory Israel,
claiming that Israel was causing trouble by handing out chewing gum to unsuspecting Arabs.

The two stories appear below but I am sure that a majority of those who read the Japanese report and thought it just plain silly, are more than willing to believe the Pal. version and probably did when it first made headlines then.

1.
Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger
by Robert S. Wistrich
Anti-Semitic Falsehoods: From Food Poisoners to Child Molesters

The examples of anti-Semitic falsehoods are truly numberless and consistently outrageous. Thus, Israel is repeatedly alleged by Egyptian (and Jordanian) news sources to be distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy, intended to make women sexually corrupt and to kill children
http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=503&pid=1201

2.
Raphael Israeli Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints April 15, 2004
An Epidemic on the West Bank

On the morning of March 21, 1983, one week before Pesach, in a high school in the town of Arrabeh in the Jenin area of the West Bank, Palestinian girls (between the ages of 15 and 17) were sitting in several classrooms when they suddenly began to faint, one after the other. They were taken to hospital and checked, but no medical reason was found for their fainting. Yet they had fainted, so a search began in order to find the reason. Then other girls of the same age began fainting in other villages on the West Bank, in Bethlehem, and afterwards in Hebron and Halhul, Tulkarem and Nablus. Over a period of a few days approximately 1,000 girls ended up in hospital at the same time, seemingly victims of an epidemic. Since all this occurred just before Pesach, the motif of blood libel and mass poisoning was raised. The rumors began that it was the Israelis who had poisoned the girls.

In 1997 the Palestinians exposed yet another Israeli "plot to suppress Arab population growth." They claimed to have tested packets of strawberry-flavored bubble gum which were found to be spiked with sex hormones and sold at low prices near schoolhouses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was claimed that the gum aroused irresistible sexual appetites in women, then it sterilized them. According to Palestinian Supply Minister Abdel Aziz Shaheen, it was capable of "completely destroying the genetic system of young boys," as well. In this case, Palestinians allege, Israel came with chewing gum laced with progesterone, one of the two hormones of femaleness. The hormone, they say inaccurately, drives women wild with desire and serves as a contraceptive, too -- corrupting Arab women while ensuring they cannot reproduce. The story was reminiscent of a furor over Israeli chewing gum a year earlier in Egypt. The story grew with the retelling. Shaheen contended that the gum was sold "only at the gates of primary schools or kindergartens," because Israelis "want to destroy our genetic system" by giving sex hormones to children before their bodies can cope with them. By the time the story reached Hebron in the West Bank, local health official Mahmoud Batarna claimed to have captured 200 tons of gum. The Washington Post commissioned a test of allegedly contaminated chewing gum provided by Palestinian health officials. Dan Gibson, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at Hebrew University and a member of the left-wing lobby group Peace Now, said that, using a mass spectrometer capable of detecting as little as a microgram of progesterone, he found none in the gum.

http://www.ourjerusalem.com/opinion/story/opinion20040825a.html