Health Supreme by Sepp Hasslberger

 

 

December 09, 2007

Organics, Shoddy Science and Monsanto's GM War - NewsGrabs 9 December 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 these NewsGrabs on weekends.


Here is another week's worth of interesting stories and links collected for you:

European Commission Accused Of Pushing Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals -

Honey seems to calm coughs in kids -

USDA Proposes Rule Undermining Organics And Small Farms -

How to talk to a doctor -

Scandal of the Alzheimer’s victims given 'zombie' drugs -

Diabetes drug Avandia may raise risk of osteoporosis -

Mystery encephalitis strain in India has killed 484 kids in '07 -

Suicide Data Regarding Prozac Buried -

Omaha Shooter Robert Hawkins Had Been "Treated" For ADHD, Depression -

Prescription Abuse In U.S. Nursing Homes -

FDA's Shoddy Science Puts Public Health at Risk -

YouTube is "Full Of One-Sided Anti-Vaccination Videos" -

The Many Faces of Big Pharma’s Disease Mongering -

Big Pharma Faces Grim Prognosis -

Aids: Gurus in White Coats -

Noteworthy Successes Against Aids in Africa -

Woman misdiagnosed with HIV sues Doctor -

Video: Brave New World Aldous Huxley on Population Control -

Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeks Non-Regulated Status for GM Soybean -

Is Monsanto Winning the War for GM? -

Fear of Chavez is Fear of Democracy -

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch -

- - -

European Commission Accused Of Pushing DTC
Several associations have accused the European Commission of supporting pharma companies in trying to make direct-to-consumer advertising for medicinal products legal. Four groups representing complementary health insurers, independent medical bulletins and patient advocates have issued a joint press release claiming: “The European Commission is supportive of the industry’s moves: its ‘consultations’ are little more than an attempt to sway public opinion.”

The International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB), the Medicines in Europe Forum, Health Action International (HAI) and the Association internationale de la mutualité (AIM) charge that the EC is trying to overlook the “underlying risks to health” and ignore “the likely impact on the financial sustainability of Member states’ public health systems.”

A note to the European Commission: Look at the abominable health statistics of the USA and their expenditures per capita for achieving these "results", and ask yourselves whether the profits of the pharmaceutical industry are worth ruining people's health all over Europe.


China's Anti-Aging Revolution
One of the most ancient medical systems on Earth is embracing the most modern and advanced, as China rushes to adopt the anti-aging medical paradigm. The dramatic thrust is being driven by the Chicago-based American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, and culminated just weeks ago in a huge medical show, as Shanghai hosted over 20,000 physicians and medical industry specialists at the World Anti-Aging Congress and China Pharma Exposition. Chinese investors expect in the next five years to build over 10,000 anti-aging hospitals, elite medical spas, Olympic-level sports medicine facilities, and anti-aging out-patient health check clinics.


Honey seems to calm coughs in kids
A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms. The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said. "Many families are going to relate to these findings and say that grandma was right," said lead author Dr. Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine.

Contrast that with: "There is limited evidence that new formulations of over-the-counter cold medications actually relieve nasal congestion, according to FDA medical reviewers," in this post of Pharmalot.


USDA PROPOSES RULE UNDERMINING ORGANICS AND SMALL FARMS
The USDA is accepting public comments until December 3 on a new proposed rule that would force small farms growing green leafy vegetables, such as spinach and lettuce, to put into place industrial-style sterilization measures that reduce biodiversity and soil fertility. The proposal follows in the wake of the USDA's recent controversial crackdown on raw almonds, continued interference with raw milk production, and bans on the sale of locally produced organic meat directly to consumers.

The proposed rules basically cover up the fact that e-coli contamination in lettuce and spinach crops comes from feedlot or industrial livestock-contaminated irrigation waters or contamination in large processing plants.

A comment on this new rule: Speak Your Piece: Let's Toss Green Leafy Laws


How to talk to a doctor
"The old technique of having a conversation is 99% of what a successful doctor's visit is about," says Peter Salgo, a professor of medicine and anesthesiology at Columbia University in New York and host of the PBS medical series Second Opinion. We hear a lot, of course, about doctors who don't listen, don't answer questions or don't remember their manners. But communication is a two-way endeavor. And sometimes it's patients who fail Communication 101...


Scandal of the Alzheimer’s victims given 'zombie' drugs
More than 100,000 people in Britain suffering from dementia are being prescribed drugs by doctors and care homes that at best offer few benefits and at worst are lethal, according to shocking new research.

Professor Clive Ballard from King's College, London, investigated the effects of anti-psychotic medication, which is given to nearly half of dementia patients in care homes at an annual cost of £80million.

Professor Ballard said: "People who weren't taking the anti-psychotic drugs had a 62 per cent chance of being alive by the end of the study while the people who were taking the drugs had only a 36 per cent chance of being alive.


Diabetes drug Avandia may raise risk of osteoporosis
Avandia recently was labeled with warnings about the risk of heart failure in some patients. GlaxoSmithKline, which markets the drug, already has acknowledged that a study found a higher risk of fractures among women who take the drug. But this report is the first to attempt to explain the link between the drug and fractures. The finding "has led to a better understanding of the challenges associated with long-term treatment of patients with Type II diabetes," said Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., lead author of the report.


Mystery encephalitis strain in India has killed 484 kids in '07

I suppose no one is seriously looking at the vaccines these kids received just before developing this "mysterious" encephalitis. Couldn't be the vaccine - Noooooo!


Suicide Data Regarding Prozac Buried
"I couldn’t talk about it because it was proprietary."

In other words, GSK owned the data, so he could not mention the negative information unless he had their permission. In my humble opinion, this gives the impression of Emslie not being a scientist, but rather a sock puppet for the drug industry. Back to the X065 study. Why wouldn't Emslie, lead author of the study insist that the suicide attempt data be included in the X065 study publication? NIMH theoretically owned the data, as they funded the study, so why wouldn't they make sure to publish such important information? It's one thing to exclude data from two patients on Prozac who had, say, treatment-emergent flatulence, but it is quite another to exclude data on a much more troubling treatment-emergent event such as suicide attempts.


Omaha Shooter Robert Hawkins Had Been "Treated" For ADHD, Depression
It's a little known fact that antidepressant drugs have never been tested on children nor approved by the FDA for use on children. It is well established in the scientific literature, however, that such drugs cause young men to think violent thoughts and commit violent acts. This is precisely why the U.K. has outright banned the prescribing of such drugs to children. Yet here in the United States -- the capitol of gun violence by kids on depression drugs -- the FDA and drug companies pretend that mind-altering drugs have no link whatsoever to behavior.


Prescription Abuse In U.S. Nursing Homes
In recent years, Medicaid has spent more money on antipsychotic drugs for Americans than on any other class of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, AIDS drugs or medicine to treat high-blood pressure. One reason: Nursing homes across the U.S. are giving these drugs to elderly patients to quiet symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Comment by Vera Hassner Sharav of AHRP: If the governments in the US and UK have adopted a public policy for dealing with the elderly by shortening their lives with antipsychotics, then let them disclose that policy -- i.e., Euthanasia. If not, laws need to be enacted to stop the government supported abuse under the guise of "care."


FDA's Shoddy Science Puts Public Health at Risk
The U.S. Congress passed more than 100 laws expanding the FDA's authority since 1988, but has not increased the funding appropriately, the report found. Among its recommendations, the panel suggested hiring more scientific talent, naming a chief scientific officer and reorganizing how the agency handles science issues. The panel "was extremely disturbed" at the state of the agency's information technology infrastructure, calling it the "weakest but most critical link."


YouTube "Full Of One-Sided Anti-Vaccination Videos"
According to research done at Toronto University, YouTube has many videos that portray vaccination in an unfavorable light. Those videos apparently "are getting significantly more viewing traffic" than others praising vaccination. The concern is that many of the videos available on YouTube "contradict recommendations contained in the Canadian Immunization Guide".

The study's co-author, Sayid Wilson says that "public health officials should consider how to effectively communicate their viewpoints through Internet video portals".

It seems the health authorities are fighting a losing battle here. After decades of suppressing information about the damaging effects of vaccinations, the official line is rapidly losing credibility.

The Many Faces of Big Pharma’s Disease Mongering
As long people ask themselves, “I wonder if I have Restless Legs Syndrome?” “Excessive Sleepiness?” “Intermittent Explosive Disorder?” they’ve taken the bait. As long as people derive more of a thrill out of dosing and experimenting on themselves – in spite of the dangerous side effects and sometimes because of them – than having a life in which they define the problems and answers, Big Pharma has its living room lab animals.


Big Pharma Faces Grim Prognosis
"The era that created the modern pharmaceutical industry is in fact over," said Richard Evans, a former Wall Street analyst and now a pharmaceutical consultant.

To be sure, the pharmaceutical industry is still highly profitable. Sales will continue to benefit from the Medicare drug benefit for the elderly and from growth in overseas markets. The industry will continue to produce new drugs, though at too slow a rate to sustain its size and cost structure...


GURUS IN WHITE COATS
There is no impersonal “scientific method” that automatically makes reliable whatever a researcher does. The “scientific method” consists of the interaction among scientists. Medicine is not science. It’s related to science rather like engineering is related to science. It’s concerned with what works, not why it does. Corollary: Medical doctors are trained to apply existing agreed-on knowledge, they are not taught to question it. Scientists are trained to question existing knowledge in order to contribute to correcting it and expanding it. Caveat: Some MDs do become first-rate researchers.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that a high proportion of HIV/AIDS researchers are MDs–for example, the statistically illiterate ones mentioned in the “LIES” post. Among those who question whether HIV = AIDS there is a high proportion of research-trained PhDs.


NOTEWORTHY SUCCESSES AGAINST AIDS IN AFRICA
The global concern has been almost hysterical over these last couple of decades, about Africans dying from AIDS and the need for antiretroviral treatment that is only lately beginning to be met. Yet for all this time, in virtual absence of treatment against the raging epidemic, Africa’s population has been growing at a few percent per year. This is beginning to pose a tangible threat to already overburdened economies: “Recent reports from Uganda, Kenya and Burkina Faso show that rapid population growth is once again becoming a matter of public concern”.

The world’s official left hands are telling us that Africa is being decimated by a fatal, incurable disease that in some countries like Botswana has infected a third of the population. The world’s official right hands are wondering how to cope with the population explosion in Africa.

When will acknowledgment of reality, or just plain common sense, put an end to this nonsense? Instead of wasting money on antiretroviral drugs, will we ever address the need for food, clean water, and vitamins? Will officialdom ever concede that “HIV tests” don’t detect HIV?


Woman misdiagnosed with HIV sues Doctor
Audrey Serrano received HIV treatments for almost nine years before receiving a stunning diagnosis: She never actually had the virus that causes AIDS. Serrano, 45, is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit she filed in 2003. The original lawsuit named several medical providers but was amended to include just Dr. Kwan Lai, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester's HIV clinic.

"I believed she had HIV from the detailed history we took" and the fact that her blood had abnormal amounts of cells used to fight infections, Lai said. Under cross examination, Lai said she never saw a document that proved conclusively that Serrano was HIV positive.

Truth be told there has never been and there IS no conclusive proof that someone is infected with HIV - ever. Liam Scheff comments this case in his article Fighting the Crime Known as “Hiv Testing”.


Video: Brave New World Aldous Huxley on Population Control
Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and brother of Julien Huxley gave a speech in Berkeley in 1962, shortly before his death. He admitted that his best-selling book Brave New World, written in 1932, was based not on fiction, but on what the elite were actually planning to implement.

"... we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy that always existed and presumably always will exist to get people actually to love their servitude where people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which, by any decent standard, they ought not to enjoy. And these methods, I think, are a real refinement on the older methods because they combine methods of terror with methods of acceptance. But within the various other methods I can think of there is for example the pharmacological method. This was one of the things I talked about in Brave New World. And the result would be - you can imagine for instance a euphoric which would make people happy even in the most abominable circumstances, I mean these things are possible."


Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeks Non-Regulated Status for GM Soybean
Soybean 356043 involves a novel, untried technique called DNA- or gene-shuffling to create a synthetic gene that inactivates the herbicide glyphosate ten thousand times more effectively. In this process, many variants of a DNA sequence from a gene or a portion of a gene are chopped into small fragments and allowed to reassemble at random to generate numerous recombinants. The original variants are created using directed mutation of selected codons, or error prone gene replication. The numerous recombinants resulting from DNA shuffling are cloned into a vector and introduced into bacteria or virus for rapid screening. Using this technique it has been possible to produce genes for enzymes, regulatory proteins or antibodies with laboratory performance far superior to the natural proteins obtained from living organisms. Unfortunately, the technique is inherently dangerous, as it is likely to produce variants with unexpected and unknown toxicity or immunogenicity. As DNA shuffling can produce billions of recombinants in a matter of hours, it is unlikely that most of the recombinants will be characterized or identified.

This is what we're supposed to feed to livestock and eat ourselves ... without so much a a study to see whether one of the numerous changed proteins might have bad health effects. "Non-regulated" means that there is no concern of health dangers, because the new genetically modified seed is "substantially equivalent" to soy beans that have been grown previously.


Monsanto: Winning the War for GM?
This interesting article in Business Week argues that Monsanto is making great progress in the introduction of GM as a de-facto food technology. Although the company is taking a high risk, it has made much headway by a strategy of producing seeds for crops that are not directly present on our tables.

"Grant's plan revolved around three big decisions ... the third—the most important one, in retrospect—was to focus that investment largely on just four commodity crops: corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola. All of these crops are harvested mostly for industrial uses, going from the farmer to a processing plant where they become animal feed or biodiesel fuel. The consumer never directly encounters them at the store."

The risk remains high however:

"But if the fears of GMO opponents ever do come true, Monsanto will take a far bigger fall than any of its more diversified rivals. Today, Monsanto gets 60% of its revenue from biotech seeds, in contrast to about 20% at Syngenta, for example, and less than 10% at diverse chemicals company Dow."


FEAR OF CHAVEZ IS FEAR OF DEMOCRACY
In Orwellian Bush-speak and Times-talk, Chavez’ referendum was portrayed before the vote as a trick, a kind of “Saddam goes Latin.” Maybe their real fear is that Chavez has brought a bit of economic justice through the ballot box, a trend that could spread northward. Think about it: Chavez is funding full health care for all Venezuelans. What if that happened here?


The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii and measuring in at roughly twice the size of Texas, this elusive mass is home to hundreds of species of marine life and is constantly expanding. It has tripled in size since the middle of the 1990s and could grow tenfold in the next decade. Although no official title has been given to the mass yet, a popular label thus far has been "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch." As suggested by the name, the island is almost entirely comprises human-made trash. It currently weighs approximately 3.5 million tons with a concentration of 3.34 million pieces of garbage per square kilometer, 80 per cent of which is plastic.

So far, no country has so much as proposed a solution, presumably because no nation wishes to claim responsibility...

An interesting thought: Find a way to use the garbage to construct an actual island. This would involve fishing out the individual pieces, sealing the hollow ones after emptying them of water and fusing them together with other pieces such as bags and foil to form swimming pontoons, which could support ... whatever we want to put there. Anybody got ideas for how to use a huge island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

- - -


More information out there...

There is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.

...

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 December 9 2007
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012

URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/12/09/organics_shoddy_science_and_monsantos_gm_war_newsgrabs_9_december_2007.htm

 

 

 

 


Readers' Comments


Hi -

I wanted to let readers know where to listen to Aldous Huxley's speech at Berkeley, March 1962: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#huxley (search/find ALDOUS HUXLEY).

For further analysis and quotes, go to http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com. European readers can get transcripts and other materials in the tongues of Europe at www.sentientsentinel.com (link no longer active).

This is important because a lot of people are looking for "prophets" and are calling Huxley and others prophets. This is totally wrong: he was one of the elite and was writing about research with which he was intimately involved. He thought that what he was writing about was perfectly acceptable. The chilling part about the Berkeley speech is that this was to a group of psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health workers. Listen to their approving applause and their questions.

Also comment re drugging the elderly or FDA's lack of funding/shoddy science, Byron Richards just wrote this article:
FDA Sleeps While Common Medications Poison the Elderly
The flagrant disregard for human health by the FDA is not news to people who follow the subject closely. The FDA has been mostly dormant while 100,000 Americans die needlessly from drugs every year and another 3 million are injured so seriously they require hospitalization (half of those were already in the hospital!). The FDA management's neglect of duty and follow up on drugs already on the market is unconscionable and has been for a long time.

Posted by: Elisabeth Nobbe on December 10, 2007 11:31 AM

 

" name="comments_form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie.checked) rememberMe(this)">













Security code:


LNE; ?>

Please enter the security code displayed on the above grid


Due to our anti-spamming policy the comments you are posting will show up online within few hours from the posting time.



 

   

 

 

3015