ADHD/Ritalin: Stop Drugging Our Children - NewsGrabs 18 November 2007
Health Supreme's NewsGrabs are a selection of alternative health and other underprivileged news. Find what you may have missed in your everyday reading - watch out for NewsGrabs on weekends.
Here is another week's worth of interesting stories collected for you:Beta carotene may help prevent cognitive decline -
Video: Ask Your Undertaker If Avandia Is Right For You -
Acne drug linked to depression and suicide -
Video: Antidepressant Backlash: Choose Your Weapon -
Skepticism about HIV and AIDS -
ADHD drugs could stunt growth -
The Politics Behind the ADHD/Ritalin Movement -
Lilly Makes Billions Off Zyprexa -
Video: Maryland: Parents Must Immunize Their Children Or Go To Jail -
Oil Price Rise Causes Global Shift in Wealth- - -
Long-term beta carotene supplementation may help prevent cognitive decline
The long-term group included 4,052 men who in 1982 had been randomly assigned to take placebo or 50 milligrams of beta carotene every other day. The long-term participants were treated for an average of 18 years and the short-term participants for an average of one year. Men in the short-term group displayed no differences in cognition regardless of whether they took beta carotene or placebo, but men in the long-term group who took beta carotene had significantly higher scores on several of the cognitive tests compared with men who took placebo.
GM-Free Europe Beginning?
For the first time since GM crops hit Europe, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas proposed on 25 October 2007 to ban two genetically modified (GM) maize because of the risks they pose to the environment. He could have mentioned the risks to animal and human health as well.
The two GM maize are Syngenta’s Bt11 and Pioneer/Dow 1507. Bt11 was found to be genetically unstable, and expresses the biopesticide protein Cry1Ab from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, known to toxic to many non-target species including humans. The maize 1507 contains another Bt toxin, Cry1F, which is totally untested, and is also engineered to be tolerant to glufosinate, a herbicide linked to birth defects and neurotoxicity.
It is time for a reversal of the widespread policy of allowing GM cultivation without control, at least until industry can prove, by actual feeding studies, that the changes induced in vegetables do not cause harm to humans and animals, and that genetic changes are no danger to the environment. After all, we survived just fine on the naturally developed plants throughout human history. The only real advantage of GM crops is patentability which increases industry profits.
The Rise and Fall of Pharmacracy
The true revolution, however, is not in seeking different techniques for treating disease. It is the emergence of a different perspective on the human condition. This is the distinction between “alternative treatment” and “wellness.” People have realized that valuable as medical treatment may be in its proper context, it does not address vital, core issues concerning the human condition.Legendary economist Paul Zane Pilzer has written, “What we call the ‘health care’ business is really the sickness business. The $1.4 trillion we spend on medical care is concerned with treating the symptoms of sickness. It has very little to do with being stronger or healthier.” Pilzer predicts that wellness is destined to become a trillion dollar industry.
Video: Ask Your Undertaker If Avandia Is Right For You
The sarcastic Bill Maher was in rare form when he spent a few minutes poking fun at big pharma.
Acne drug 'linked to depression and suicide'
The new study suggests the drug may disrupt serotonin production in the brain, leading to feelings of despair. Roaccutane (Acutane in the US) has been linked with at least 15 deaths in the UK and more than 200 in the United States, and bereaved parents have previously called for the drug to be taken out of use.
Video: Antidepressant Backlash: Choose Your Weapon
Scientific Terrorism
These terrorists, though, are not just content with subjecting us to their brand of medieval medicine. They also seemingly want to make sure that we are vulnerable to diseases and medical problems, which in turn will require increased use of their medicines and hospitals. Why do I say this? Because every time that any of us use effective preventative measures to protect ourselves, they try to suppress them – through the media, through doctors, and, above all, through their coercive enforcement tool – the government.
Skepticism about HIV and AIDS
Everything about HIV/AIDS depends on one central point: Do HIV tests detect infection by a deadly retrovirus? There is no published proof of it.Indeed, manufacturers’ pamphlets point out that their tests have never been approved for diagnosis of HIV infection. “HIV tests” detect either antibodies said (but not proven) to be specific to HIV antigens, or they look for pieces of RNA or DNA said (but not proven) to be specific for HIV. However, since whole particles of “live”, infectious HIV have never been isolated from AIDS patients or from HIV-positive people, these “HIV tests” have never been validated, never been proven to detect the human immunedeficiency virus, HIV.
ADHD drugs could stunt growth
But the report's co-author from the University of Buffalo, Professor William Pelham, said he now believed the findings were overstated."I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study," he said yesterday. "We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn't happen to be the case. The children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth so they weren't growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and in terms of their weight. And the second was that there were no beneficial effects - none."
Comments Vince Boehm: Stunted growth?Hmmmmm. I thought this was common knowledge. And this is obvious to anyone who deals with children on these drugs. Stimulants have been used for years for weight loss.
From study leader: "We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes".
They don't deal with outcomes in these studies. They talk in terms of hypotheticals and efficacy.
Efficacy has little relation to outcomes, except in theory.
Why, then, the shocked innocence?
Stop drugging our children
The workings of the human mind are still almost as much of a mystery to psychiatrists as they are to the general public, so it is hardly surprising that the treatment of psychological problems is often controversial. But handing out drugs like Smarties to thousands of children with behavioural difficulties is reckless beyond words. An estimated 8,000 young people are being given anti-psychotics, according to a BBC Panorama report, even though they are linked to numerous side-effects.
The Politics Behind the ADHD/Ritalin Movement
Our society has institutionalized drug abuse among our children. Worse yet, we abuse our children with drugs rather than making the effort to find better ways to meet their needs. In the long run, we are giving our children a very bad lesson--that drugs are the answer to emotional problems. We are encouraging a generation of youngsters to grow up relying on psychiatric drugs rather than on themselves and other human resources.
Lilly Makes Billions Off Zyprexa
Evi Pringle analyzes how a drug approved for a relatively very small population of patients suffering from what is considered the most "severe" mental problems has become a blockbuster, a drug that sells so well it rakes in billions of dollars a year. The secret: illegal promotion that induces doctors to prescribe the drug way beyond its intended use, proliferating its appalling side effects.
Video: Maryland: Parents Must Immunize Their Children Or Go To Jail
1,600 school children and their parents have been ordered to appear in circuit court this Saturday where health workers will immediately force them to receive required shots. Parents who don't bring their children to court for the shots are to be jailed.
Oil Price Rise Causes Global Shift in Wealth
High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone.In the United States, the rising bill for imported petroleum lowers already anemic consumer savings rates, adds to inflation, worsens the trade deficit, undermines the dollar and makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to balance its competing goals of fighting inflation and sustaining growth.
- - -More information out there...
There is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.
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The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is another great place to get information on what is happening in the world of nutrition and other natural health options.
For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.
If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News.
Some more sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't find on tv:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.stratfor.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/And remember ...
"The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition."
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday November 18 2007
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/11/18/adhdritalin_stop_drugging_our_children_newsgrabs_18_november_2007.htm