Psychiatric drugs, Engineered Insects and Phone masts - NewsGrabs 20 May 2007
Health Supreme's News Grabs are a weekly selection of links to articles, alternative health news and related bits of information. Keep your finger on the pulse of health trends - watch out for NewsGrabs ... every weekend.
In this issue:
Films: "Sicko" debuts in Cannes and We'll Take Care of YOU - Vitamin D to ward off TB - Macular degeneration - HEALTH FREEDOM - US/EU single market - The FDA's new powers - BAD CHOCOLATE - HPV and Corporate Welfare - US health system ranks last - How to Stop the Bird Flu - OxyContin Fine - Psychiatrists Undermine Children's Health - Psych meds drove my son crazy - Prozac - Bees Dying From GM Crops? - Genetically Engineered Insects? - Town to save bees - UK: mobile phone mast review - Microwave Sickness - Drowning in a Sea of Microwaves - Cancer from depleted uranium - Video: Girl addressing UN meeting on future generations
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"Sicko" is Completed and We're Off to Cannes!
Michael Moore is taking his new film "Sicko" to the Cannes festival for first screening this week. The winners will be announced during the festival, which will start on 17 June. The US authorities are investigating whether Moore violated any laws by traveling to Cuba during the filming ... apparently there is great nervousness in the pharmaceutical camp over what the film might show. Says Michael Moore:
I was floored when our lawyers told me this. "Are you saying they might actually confiscate our movie?" "Yes," was the answer. "These days, anything is possible. Even if there is just a 20 percent chance the government would seize our movie before Cannes, does anyone want to take that risk?" Certainly not. So there we were last week, spiriting a duplicate master negative out of the country just so no one from the government would take it from us. (Seriously, I can't believe I just typed those words! Did I mention that I'm an American, and this is America and NO ONE should ever have to say they had to do such a thing?)
We'll Take Care of YOU
The world premiere of the documentary film titled "We'll Take Care Of You" was on Saturday, 19 May in Flint, Michigan. The documentary, by Italian film makers Lattanzio Firmian and Alberto Baudo is an Enronesque exposee' of the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA and the US health care industry. It exposes the key players of the Vioxx scandal and uses Vioxx as the example of the modus operandi of Big Pharma.
Vitamin D 'may help ward off TB'
A study of 131 people found the vitamin helped to boost the ability of the body to inhibit the growth of bacteria that causes the respiratory disease. The study appeared in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Vitamin D was originally used to treat TB in sanatoriums before antibiotics came in to use. But until now no study has evaluated the effect of vitamin D on the body's immunity to mycobacteria, the family of bacteria that cause TB.
Higher intake of fish and vitamin D levels linked to lower risk of age-related macular disease
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) occurs when the macula, the area at the back of the retina that produces the sharpest vision, deteriorates over time. It is the most common cause of blindness among older adults in the United States, affecting more than 7 million individuals older than 40 years, according to background information in the articles. The prevalence of AMD is likely to increase as the population ages. There is currently no known way to prevent the condition, but research has begun to identify potentially modifiable risk factors and nutrient-based treatments.
HEALTH FREEDOM PROTECTION ACT H.R. 2117
A bill introduced by Representative Ron Paul to allow truthful, health-related information about supplements to be included in food supplement labels. The National Health Federation asks consumers to participate in a lobby/letter writing campaign to support this bill.
See also AAPS news: Ron Paul introduces bill to rein in the FDA
US and EU agree 'single market'
The United States and the European Union have signed up to a new transatlantic economic partnership at a summit in Washington. The pact is designed to boost trade and investment by harmonising regulatory standards, laying the basis for a US-EU single market. The two sides agreed to set up an "economic council" to push ahead with regulatory convergence in nearly 40 areas, including intellectual property, financial services, business takeovers and the motor industry. The aim is to increase trade and lower costs. Some reports suggest that incompatible regulations in the world's two richest regions add 10% to the cost of developing and producing new cars.
A little-reported development that could have implications for the health food area as well as for the larger industries...
The FDA is Acquiring New Powers to Suppress Alternative Health
UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT TO DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS - PART 1
Your right to have free access to safe and highly effective dietary supplements is under an intense multi-pronged FDA attack. On May 14, 2007 the Supreme Court sided with the FDA by deciding not to hear the case of Nutraceutical v FDA, letting stand a federal appeals court ruling that permits the FDA to use drug-related risk/benefit analysis to determine if a nutrient is safe. This is the exact same point the FDA is trying to get put into law through Senate bill S.1082 and HR.1561, which consumers have flooded the Senate on over the past few weeks. And it is the same point the FDA is seeking to help implement on an international basis through Codex.
UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT ... PART 2
HEART ATTACK CHOCOLATE
The chocolate cartel covertly petitioned the Food & Drug Administration [FDA] to "modernize food standards" [i.e., modify the "legal language" to better suit them]. Specifically, the petition asked the FDA to change the labeling of chocolate so companies like Hershey and Nestle can make chocolate without using as much—or, in some cases, any—cocoa butter in their end product and still call it chocolate. Instead, the chocolate makers have figured out how to capture the essence of the chocolate taste using milk, artificial sweeteners and the same hydrogenated vegetable trans fats that elevate your bad cholesterol and cause heart disease.
HPV and Corporate Welfare
Almost as soon as the FDA approved the new vaccine, legislators immediately began drafting bills to create new state mandates requiring the vaccination of 12-year-old girls with the HPV vaccine Gardasil before being admitted to school. The vaccine, produced by Merck & Co. costs $360 for the series of three shots, and, if it becomes mandated by states, Merck has stated that it hopes to generate as much as $3 billion in annual sales from Gardasil. The politicians who have been bringing the legislation forward naturally present the state mandate as a women's health issue, using the usual nanny-state rhetoric about saving the masses from themselves while providing us all with a valuable public health lesson. Such rhetoric, unwelcome and authoritarian as ever, was this time worthy of added condemnation in that it is part of a massive corporate welfare scheme on an unprecedented scale.
US health system ranks last compared to other countries
... even though the US spends the most on publicly and privately financed health insurance, its citizens had the most potential years of life lost due to circulatory and respiratory diseases as well as diabetes. "This study blows a lot of myths about the US health system," Davis said. "We spend three times what the average country spends on a day of hospital care and we also spend twice what the average country spends on prescription medication."
How to Stop Bird Flu - Instead of the Vaccine-Antiviral Model
We've had twenty years of the same vaccine-antiviral model for the current AIDS pandemic, with little sign of progress. The multibillion-dollar global initiative to combat AIDS has created expensive patented drugs with very toxic side effects that poor countries cannot afford anyways, and vaccines that are ineffective at best and at worst, unsafe. The policy is not working because the root causes of the pandemic, indeed any pandemic - poverty and malnutrition - have not been addressed. There have been serious abuses of this flawed approach that have come to light...
Maker of OxyContin Fined $634.5 Million
OxyContin, a trade name for oxycodone, is an extremely powerful time-released narcotic that at the time of its approval was known to be potentially highly addictive. The drug was designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours. However, the pills can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted or injected. "The guilty plea - by Purdue Frederick, an affiliate of Purdue Pharma - is the latest of a number of cases brought by the Justice Department against pharmaceutical makers accuseing them of misbranding, a broad statute that makes it a crime to put false or misleading information about a drug on its label or in ads, or to promote it for unapproved use."
Psychiatrists Retained by Drug Industry Undermine Children's Health
"Psychiatrists, Troubled Children and Drug Industry's Role," a front page-center report in The New York Times, blows the lid off psychiatry's commercially compromised clinical practice which is governed by the psychotropic drug industry. The most irresponsibly prescribed drugs in psychiatry are the antipsychotics-a.k.a. neuroleptics which are undermining the mental and physical health of children. Indeed, children prescribed antipsychotics suffer drug-induced permanent harm on a massive scale.
Psych meds drove my son crazy
I'd fought for 17 years to keep him drug-free. But the psychiatrist and the psychologist and several family members insisted: He'd become unhappy, his routines were getting in the way of his developing a social life. This pill, they said, would help him.
Instead, he gained 30 pounds and began to lose his mind.
Eternal sunshine - 20 things you need to know about Prozac
Did you know? Prozac was first tested as a treatment for high blood pressure, which worked in some animals but not in humans. Plan B was as an anti-obesity agent, but this didn't hold up either. When tested on psychotic patients and those hospitalised with depression, LY110141 - by now named Fluoxetine - had no obvious benefit, with a number of patients getting worse. Finally, Eli Lilly tested it on mild depressives. Five recruits tried it; all five cheered up. By 1999, Prozac was providing Eli Lilly with more than 25 per cent of its $10bn revenue.
Proof Bees Dying From GM Crops?
Research by a leading German zoologist has shown that genes used to genetically modify crops can jump the species barrier, newspapers reported here on Sunday. A three-year study by Professor Hans-Heinrich Kaatz at the University of Jena found that the gene used to modify oil-seed rape had transferred to bacteria living inside honey bees. The findings will undermine claims by the biotech industry and supporters of GM foods that genes cannot spread.
Genetically Engineered (GE) Insects?
"Besides making a fast buck, what these morons don't understand is that in the diverse natural order of things there always is a delicate balance. One advantage often offsets others. For example these supposedly new insects could very well be more efficient carries carriers of disease or deadly to other beneficial plants, insects etc...."
Town rejects mast to save bees
Council chiefs are rethinking plans for mobile telephone masts because of fears that their radiation may be causing bees to disappear. Eastbourne's planning committee has refused permission for a new mast unless and until it is convinced there is no danger to the insects, and Bolton council has launched an investigation into the threat. Last month, The Independent on Sunday reported exclusively that exploratory research at Germany's Landau University suggested the radiation interferes with bees' navigation systems.This was supported yesterday by Ferdinand Ruzicka, emeritus professor at the University of Vienna. He revealed that two-thirds of the beekeepers he surveyed who had a mobile phone mast within 300m had suffered "unexplained colony collapse". Professor Ruzicka believes the radiation may increase the insects' vulnerability to disease.
Health concerns over mobile phone masts prompt review
Originally promised three years ago, and then shelved, the review follows articles in The Independent on Sunday about possible effects of the radiation on children and bees. The Government will take account of new scientific and medical evidence, and consult experts and campaigners, as part of a wider review of planning guidelines which ministers send to local authorities. More than 47,000 "base stations", like masts, have already been erected in Britain to service its 50 million mobile phones, often in defiance of intense local public opposition. Successive governments have made extraordinary concessions to the companies to ensure that coverage was rolled out across the country as quickly as possible.
Do you have Microwave Sickness?
Dr. George Carlo, who used to run a multi-million dollar research program for the cell phone industry and went public regarding the dangers posed by cell phones, uses the analogy of putting a frog in water. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. However, if you put a frog in cold water and gradually heat the water, you can cook the frog because the frog's body will adjust to the slight changes in temperature and it will not notice it is being cooked. Well, the same thing might be happening to an unsuspecting public - a public that has not been informed about the real dangers of microwave radiation from cell phones, WiFi and other high-frequency-radiation emitting devices and antennas. The truth of the matter, your cell phone and your WiFi might very well indeed be making you and those around you sick!
Drowning in a Sea of Microwaves
The increasing popularity of wi-fi comes on the heels of the explosive growth in wireless mobile telephones, and amid heightened concerns over the health hazards of saturating levels of electromagnetic radiation. Microwaves at current exposure levels are linked to brain damage, DNA damage, brain tumours, cancers, microwave sickness, impairment of cognitive functions, impairment of reproduction and fertility, affecting humans, rodents, birds, and bees.
Study suggests cancer risk from depleted uranium
Depleted uranium, which is used in armour-piercing ammunition, causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer, according to a study of the metal's effects on human lung cells. The study adds to growing evidence that DU causes health problems on battlefields long after hostilities have ceased.
Video: Severn Suzuki, a 12-year-old Canadian girl, addressing the UN.
Her remarks about her generation's and future generation’s future – now at stake - in the hands of “adults” are well worth watching…
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday May 20 2007
updated on Tuesday December 21 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/05/20/psychiatric_drugs_engineered_insects_and_phone_masts_newsgrabs_20_may_2007.htm