Health Supreme NewsGrabs - 18 December 2006
Health Supreme's News Grabs - selected health news and bits of related information ...
In this issue:
Big Pharma wins legislative battle - Byron Richards explains background of recently passed US anti-supplement Adverse Events Reporting legislation; breast cancer rates drop as less women use hormone replacement therapy; new HIV cases decline in San Francisco; Vitamin D deficiency causes depression; UK health police ensnare vitamin seller; artemisia to treat malaria; UK medical cannabis conviction; sudden (unexplained) deaths are more than thought in UK; ten Canadians die of Tamiflu; Berkeley regulates nanotechnology; cell phones hazardous, says whistleblower; biofuels have serious drawbacks; Monsanto patents under review for harrassment of US farmers; torture systematic in war on terror; US says no space weapons ban is needed.
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BIG PHARMA JUGGERNAUT ROLLS TO VICTORY - HEALTH FREEDOM REELS
Part 2
Byron Richards gives the background to understanding the recently passed Adverse-Events Reporting legislation for food supplements. The bill was passed by Congress in the middle of the night just before retiring for their Christmas recess. Richards explains who pushed this through and why, and how this legislation links in with international efforts to curb supplement use for the benefits of pharmaceutical producers.
U.S. breast cancer rates drop dramatically
Breast cancer rates fell 7% in 2003, the year after millions of older women abandoned hormone-replacement therapy based on the findings of a government report.
Scientists don't know if that drop will continue in the future, and some experts question whether such a big change could be caused by a single factor.
Hormone Replacement Therapy was found to cause cancers and other trouble for the women but the constant pressure from pharmaceutical manufacturers kept the artificial hormones on the market despite the dangers having been known for years and the treatment having been dubbed "hormone heresy" by its opponents. Naturally, a bio-identical substitute for the artificial hormones has been under attack from hormone manufacturer Wyeth, who asked the FDA to intervene to "protect women's health".
New HIV cases in San Francisco on decline since 2001
San Francisco HIV "infection" rates are steadily decreasing, and have been since 2001, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health 2005 Annual Report of HIV/AIDS Epidemiology. It is curious that among all the horrid news reports this past World AIDS Day, of a pandemic gone wild the world over, this bright spot at ground zero of the AIDS era has gone unnoticed.
Vitamin D deficiency is an important cause of depression
An important new study was published several day ago. Dr. Consuelo Wilkins of the Washington University School of Medicine found that elderly patients with the lowest vitamin D levels were 11 (eleven!) times more likely to have symptoms of depression than were patients with the highest vitamin D levels. Her group also found that some measurements of dementia were higher in patients with the lowest 25(OH)D levels.The newsletter continues with discussion of a number of other health implications of vitamin D. Interesting.
Vitamin seller made a criminal
This is a story of how health authorities work hard to actually make people break the law and then entrap them. A health food store owner in Wales was entrapped first by a team of BBC reporters filming him delivering products, and then by agents of the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Authority. While technically they succeeded in getting a judge to issue a condemnation, the case shows how morally bankrupt our system is, persecuting providers of natural products while their "controlled" medicines kill hundreds of thousands every year with perfect impunity.
Herbal Treatment That Really Works For Malaria
Hard to believe, it took so long for conventional medicine to accept the herbal drug artemisia was such an effective treatment for malaria. Chinese herbalists have used leaves from the sweet wormwood shrub for more than 1,500 years to treat malaria, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that scientists finally accepted artemisia as a bona fide treatment.
Cannabis chocolate trio convicted
Three people have been found guilty of supplying thousands of cannabis-laced chocolate bars to multiple sclerosis sufferers for pain relief.After the hearing Lezley Gibson said: "The maximum sentence for what we've been found guilty of is 14 years in jail. If you were a child pervert your maximum sentence is only 12. "I think there's a mistake in the law, and I think they really, really really need to re-think the law on cannabis and medicinal use. Bringing ill people to court and torturing them like this isn't what you do. You look after ill people, and you try to make them better. You do not torture them and drag them back and forward to a court of law."
More mystery deaths than thought
The rate of sudden unexplained deaths in England is around eight times higher than previously thought, warn experts.
The assumption in the article is that the cause could be genetic because in a fifth of the cases, other family members died of similar unexpected deaths. Could it also be a question of a family consuming the same (aspartame containing) "light" beverages?
Ten Canadians die after taking bird flu vaccine
Mon, 4 Dec 2006
Following reports that patients taking Tamiflu can exhibit dangerous behaviour, news has surfaced that ten Canadians have died and at least 74 had adverse reactions after taking the flu drug. Health Canada has been criticised for not issuing a public update about the drug sooner. Reportedly, the public update eventually came more than two weeks after international warnings were posted of adverse reactions to the medication among children and youth.
Berkeley to Regulate Nanotechnology
The City Council is expected Tuesday to amend its hazardous materials law to compel researchers and manufacturers to report what nanotechnology materials they are working with and how they are handling the tiny particles."This actually is a groundbreaking ordinance," Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said during the city's Dec. 5 meeting, when the issue received unanimous support during its preliminary introduction to the City Council. "The EPA and the federal government have basically not looked at nano particles."
Cell phones Invisible hazards of the wireless age
Few people would be surprised to hear that cell phones are unhealthy. But how many of us actually know the degree of damage they cause, the extent of the cover-up by the industry, or that there is a viable solution? Dr. George Carlo, a mobile phone industry whistleblower, recently presented a talk in Vancouver about how electropollution from wireless technology can cause brain damage, cancer and an array of mental illnesses. I checked his facts against recent, peer-reviewed scientific papers and the results were startling. Dr. Carlo explained why the industry’s user manuals don’t warn of these health hazards: currently, there are pending class action lawsuits against them, which threaten to expose the entire industry, similar to the cases brought against “Big Tobacco”, and the asbestos and silicone breast implant industries...
Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits
Europe’s thirst for biofuels is fuelling deforestation and food price hikes, exacerbated by a false accounting system that awards carbon credits to the carbon profligate nations. A mandatory certification scheme for biofuels is needed to protect the earth’s most sensitive forest ecosystems, to stabilise climate and to safeguard our food security.
Feeding the Beast: It's Time for a Real 'Food vs. Fuel' Debate
Monsanto Vs American Farmers in Seed Battle
In response to requests filed earlier this year by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), the United States Patent and Trademark Office will undertake a comprehensive review of four patents related to genetically modified crops held by Monsanto Company that the agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers. In its Orders granting the four requested reexaminations, the USPTO found that PUBPAT had submitted new evidence that raised "substantial questions of patentability" for every single claim of each of the four patents.
Routine and systematic torture is at the heart of America's war on terror
After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators, we now discover, have found a new way of destroying a human being.
A friend in the US sent this article with the words "this is chilling. read it and wonder what our nation has become."
US defends its opposition to ban on weapons in space
"Given the vital importance of our space assets, foreclosing technical options to defend those space assets in order to forestall a hypothetical future arms race in space, is not in the national security interest of the United States," he said. While the US space policy does not direct the development or deployment of weapons in space, it does not close that option, Joseph said after the speech.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Monday December 18 2006
updated on Thursday December 16 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/12/18/health_supreme_newsgrabs_18_december_2006.htm