Health Supreme NewsGrabs - 5 March 2007
Sepp Hasslberger's News Grabs - a selection of alternative health news and related bits of information ...
In this issue:
Keep Basmati rice areas GM free -
GM Crops Illegal, US Federal Courts -
Mobile Headache -
Antioxidant analysis hard to swallow -
FDA Overrides Antibiotic Warnings -
Yucca Mountain: Nuclear Waste in a Volcano -
- - -
Indian commerce ministry: Keep Basmati rice areas free from GM crop trials
The Union commerce ministry has decided to intervene and ask the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) not to approve field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops in Basmati rice growing states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and western Uttar Pradesh.
The consensus emerged at a recent meeting of stakeholders convened by the commerce ministry. The meeting also decided to ask GEAC not to approve field trials of GM crops in all the 60 agri export zones.
Approval of GM Crops Illegal, US Federal Courts Rule
In a surprising development that may well stump the further approval of GMOs, Federal Courts in the US have ruled against the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in three successive cases for failing to carry out proper environment impact assessment, making the original approvals of GM crops illegal.
Disappearing bees disease baffles keepers
Honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate from 24 US states, threatening the production of numerous crops. The cause of the losses, which range from 30% to more than 70%, is a mystery, but experts are investigating several theories. The mystery disappearances highlight the important link that honeybees play in the chain that brings fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables. The crisis threatens numerous crops, from avocados to kiwis and California almonds - one of the most profitable in the US.
The Ecologist: Mobile Headache
In the 1990s, several cell phone companies commissioned Dr. Carlo to research the relationship between wireless radioactive waves, such as those in cell phones, and human health. The research determined a direct correlation between tumors and radio waves, and eventually led to the foundation of the Safe Wireless Initiative. However, despite the fact that the findings of Dr. Carlo were peer reviewed by the Harvard Medical Journal, the cell phone industry rejected his papers. It was claimed that the research was ‘non-conclusive’ on the basis of its theoretical approach.
Analysis of antioxidant pills' benefits may be hard to swallow
Balz Frei, a biochemist who studies antioxidants at Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says Gluud's technique inherently was biased against antioxidants. "The high-bias papers show a 9% decrease in deaths, and the low bias papers find a 5% increase. The scientific way would have been to include all the studies they reviewed."
The big vitamin scare: American Medical Association claims vitamins may kill you
Faking a vitamin study to show supplements as harmful is extremely easy to pull off, by the way. All you have to do is use synthetic forms of the vitamins and avoid using natural, food-sourced vitamins. These synthetic vitamins – which are really just industrial chemicals – may be called "Vitamin E" or "Vitamin A" or even "Vitamin C" but they have no functional resemblance to the real vitamins that occur in nature. Every single study over the past two decades that has sought to discredit Vitamin E, for example, focused on using synthetic Vitamin E in order to show harm. It is curious that no researcher from the world of conventional medicine will ever test the natural, full-spectrum vitamins, nutrients and phytochemicals that appear in nature. You know why? Because they would discover a universe of natural medicine that makes patented prescription drugs obsolete.
Taking back the FDA - By Marcia Angell
But in 1992, Congress put the fox in the chicken coop. It passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorizes drug companies to pay "user fees" to the FDA for each brand-name drug considered for approval. Nearly all of the money generated by these fees has been earmarked to speed up the approval process. In effect, the user fee act put the FDA on the payroll of the industry it regulates.
Activists Take on Eli Lilly Over Off-Label Sale of Zyprexa
On February 23, 2007, a new grass roots advocacy group issued a press release to rally support for attorney, Jim Gottstein, in his legal battle with Eli Lilly over his role in providing secret company documents obtained in litigation to the media to alert the public about the health risks associated with Zyprexa that were kept hidden since the mid-90s. One of the documents that Lilly fought to keep secret, is a November 12, 1999, letter from a psychiatrist at the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department, Dr Albert Marrero, to Lilly's medical director, and describes the blood sugar problems occurring specifically with Zyprexa patients stating: "We have had eight patients out of possibly thirty-five patients on Zyprexa show up with high blood sugars."
FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug
The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people. The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals. The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.
Human Papilloma Virus may not be the Cause of Cervical Cancer
The rush to mandate an HPV vaccine to prevent Cervical Cancer, may not even make sense as a preventive measure. Is Human Papillomavirus the Real Cause of Cervical Cancer? Gary Krasner thinks there may be other causes and that vaccinating every girl would be a waste, if not a danger because the real cause - antibacterial douches that tend to destroy the natural balance of flora in the vagina - tends to get covered up.
AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty
AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty combines the insights of economics and biology to explain the spread of HIV/AIDS and delivers a telling critique of AIDS policy. Drawing on a wealth of scientific evidence, Stillwaggon demonstrates that HIV/AIDS cannot be stopped without understanding the ecology of poverty. Her message is optimistic, with pragmatic solutions to the health problems that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Global Warming on Mars & Cosmic Ray Research Are Shattering Media Driven "Consensus"
According to National Geographic: "Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,' Abdussamatov said."
The causes of global warming and climate change!
There are two competing theories for the current global warming trend.
The first theory, which is the generally accepted one, is that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels and from land use are responsible for the temperature increase.The second theory is that the suns magnetic field and the solar wind modulates the amount of high energy cosmic radiation that the earth receives. This in turns affects the low altitude cloud cover and how much water vapor there is in the atmosphere and thus regulates the climate.
Yucca Mountain: Concentrating Nuclear Waste in a Volcano?
A friend in the US recently said: "I notice that you are posting relevant issues, but am surprised that you have not mentioned the Yucca Mountain project, which I consider the greatest threat to our existence."
This might be considered a problem limited to the US, but for the fact that apparently, Yucca Mountain is in a volcanic area! Granted, the last known eruption in a crater some ten kilometers distant from the proposed site was 80,000 years ago, but change does happen, and an earthquake or other natural disaster could re-activate the site and blast the concentrated US nuclear waste into our atmosphere, making it spread around the planet. Talk about insanity.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Monday March 5 2007
updated on Friday December 10 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/03/05/health_supreme_newsgrabs_5_march_2007.htm