Perspectives on the Future - NewsGrabs 30 December 2007
Health Supreme's NewsGrabs are a selection of contrary and underprivileged news. Find what you may have missed in your everyday reading - watch out for NewsGrabs on weekends.
Wishing all readers a good year to come, and with some of my personal predictions in the first two links, here are this week's contrary health news, collected and posted for you:
Genova, the Azores and our Common Future
... imagine people linking up all over the place pushing things along towards a common goal - what they could do! We felt we were at the very forefront of an important movement being born. Indeed, many others were already at work, imagining our common future just like we did and even starting to build it, as we since found out. But then and there, we just had to wrap our minds around that idea and work out where such a movement would likely have to go. That was the origin of the document I am appending here, describing the interconnected areas that we believe need attention.
This is from the time I started the Health Supreme site - the article gives an overview of changes needed in our society and the important areas to be addressed. There are some recent updates, so I am re-linking it here.
New Media Technology Future Trends and Renewable Energy Predictions for 2008
My contribution to Robin Good's Masternewmedia site
"I have noticed a distinct change on visitors of my blogs, coming from sites that allow anyone to say "hey, I saw this and I liked it", and as these services grow in number, they make a difference taking some of the steam away from the traditional search engines.""We will generate our own energy and feed part of it into the grid, reversing the top-down energy supply model into an interconnected one where each node on the network is stable, self sufficient and contributing to the efficiency of the whole."
Action:
(link no longer active)
Don't Nuke our Supplements
The American Association for Health Freedom opposes the irradiation of dietary supplements and supports the American Herbal Products Association letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to request that the agency deny a food additive petition that would allow the use of ionizing irradiation on dietary supplements and dietary ingredients.Irradiation may inactivate or destroy some of the active ingredients in supplements.
Phoenix Organics: ‘Think Before You Drink’ Aspartame
Phoenix Organics has launched a campaign urging people to find out more about aspartame, the controversial artificial sweetener contained in many ‘diet’ drinks and foods and beverages marketed as containing zero calories.The company has turned 20,000 bottles of Phoenix Organic Cola into mini-billboards carrying its ‘Think Before You Drink’ message, and highlighting the concerns that have been raised about aspartame. The bottles will be given away to consumers over the summer.
Is your Diet Sweetener killing you?
by Dr Woodrow Monte - Review 1 - November 2007
A Deadly Experiment
by Dr Woodrow Monte - Review 2 - Published December 2007
The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression
The cause of mental disorders such as depression remains unknown. However, the idea that neurotransmitter imbalances cause depression is vigorously promoted by pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession at large. We examine media reports referring to this chemical imbalance theory and ask reporters for evidence supporting their claims. We then report and critique the scientific papers and other confirming evidence offered in response to our questions. Responses were received from multiple sources, including practicing psychiatrists, clients, and a major pharmaceutical company. The evidence offered was not compelling, and several of the cited sources flatly stated that the proposed theory of serotonin imbalance was known to be incorrect. The media can play a positive role in mental health reporting by ensuring that the information reported is congruent with the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
UK: Drug reactions 'kill thousands'
Almost 3,000 people have died in the past three years after suffering serious side-effects or allergies to their medicines, say official figures. More than 13,000 others in the same period had an "adverse drug reaction", but survived with hospital treatment. The figures are drawn from "yellow card" scheme, run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) to gather reports of all adverse reactions from both clinicians and patients.
Notoriously, only a small percentage of adverse reactions is actually reported, so the real figures will be multiples of the thousands found in the reports.
Seroquel Side Effects
Between 2004 and 2006 the FDA MedWatch program received 4,466 Individual Safety Reports naming Seroquel (quetiapine) the Primary Suspect Drug for 1,656 distinct adverse reactions ranging from akathisia and blindness to xanthoma and yellow skin.
All 1,656 Seroquel side effects are listed below in alphabetical order."This is not a complete list of possible side effects." You've heard those words many times, but have you wondered what a COMPLETE list of side effects would look like? Well now you can see for yourself...
'Oil for Food' and Pharma Corruption
Two drugmakers - Glaxo and Astra Zeneca - are being investigated over bribes allegedly paid to Saddam Hussein’s deposed Iraqi regime, Agence France-Presse reports. Both were asked to hand over documents by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, which is probing allegations of bribes paid to secure contracts in violation of the oil-for-food program that ran from 1996 to 2003.According to a 2005 UN report, Glaxo allegedly paid $1 million in kickbacks to win an $11.9 million contract. AstraZeneca allegedly paid $162,000 to win $2.9 million in contracts.
Nigeria orders arrest of Pfizer defendants
A Nigerian court on Monday ordered the arrests of three of the defendants in a trial over a drug test conducted by Pfizer in 1996 which Nigerian authorities say killed 11 children and left others disabled. The northern state of Kano is suing Pfizer for $2 billion in damages and pressing criminal charges over the testing of the antibiotic Trovan on children in Kano during a meningitis epidemic that killed 12,000 children in six months. The federal government is suing for an additional $6.5 billion and also pressing criminal charges.
Aids or "HIV Disease"?
The trouble is that testing HIV-positive can result from a large number of conditions; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has kept expanding the list of “AIDS-defining” diseases, to include just about any medical condition if an appreciable number of people suffering from it have tested HIV-positive. Thus cervical cancer became an AIDS-defining illness in 1993, even though that is said to be caused by human papillomavirus, not by HIV, and even though the incidence of cervical cancer has been decreasing throughout the AIDS era; and tuberculosis now comes in two forms, identical in clinical diagnosis and symptoms and differing solely in “HIV” status—one is tuberculosis, the other is “HIV disease” or “AIDS”.
DRUGS OR FOOD?
A modest proposal:
Billions of dollars have been promised to provide antiretroviral drugs to Africans, and some of those promises have even been met. Do an experiment. Divert a small percentage of that money—say 10%—to buy food and vitamins. Allow Africans to choose between nutrition and antiretroviral drugs. Compare, over time, the health of those making the different choices.
Birds, Bees and Mobile Microwaves
Our natural world is under assault from human activity. The trouble is, to recognise damage to nature reveals also the risk to ourselves. ‘Progress’ is in the hands not of individual people, nor their elected representatives and politicians. It is in the hands of the free market, the large corporates who set the direction of our world through creating profit streams however they can. We don’t have to identify this as evil; rather it is almost inevitable. We are persuaded of the benefits of convenience and consumerism, and we are the source of the profits and the stimulant to corporate behaviour and the setters of social trends. What we must do is to observe, to ask questions, and be honest enough with ourselves to recognise that nothing we do is without consequence. If we are custodians of our children’s futures, we must accept individual and joint responsibility for the condition of our planet.
A brain tumors epidemic in Medellin
The Neurosurgery Department at San Vicente de Paul University Hospital (a fourth level complexity hospital) is alarmed because of the rocketing numbers of brain tumors in the city. Twenty years ago, Medellin could count 1 or 2 tumors (at the most) a year of the astrocytoma type. "Just in this clinic (Rosario clinic), I have had four this month, not counting the others that I have in different hospitals in the city", stated Dr. Cumplido.The valley where Medellin is located has around 650 cell phone masts according to city authorities and more than 3,000 microwave sources including cell phone telephony according to the National Ministry of Communications.
Has global warming stopped?
With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months. But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.
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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.vialls.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 30 2007
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/12/30/perspectives_on_the_future_newsgrabs_30_december_2007.htm