European Food Rules and the FDA - NewsGrabs 20 January 2008
Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and related sectors. Find what you may have missed - watch out for NewsGrabs.
Here is this week's selection:
Fruit, Veggie Eaters Have Fewer Strokes
Low Vitamin C Levels Linked to Stroke Risk
In one of the largest studies ever to examine the issue, albeit indirectly, University of Cambridge researchers measured vitamin C levels in more than 20,000 people, who were then followed for roughly a decade. Blood vitamin C levels tend to be much higher in people who eat lots of fruits and vegetables than in people who do not. When the participants were divided into four groups based on vitamin C levels, those with the highest concentrations of the vitamin in their blood were found to have a 42% lower stroke risk than those with the lowest concentrations.
Iodine for Health
There is growing evidence that Americans would have better health and a lower incidence of cancer and fibrocystic disease of the breast if they consumed more iodine. A decrease in iodine intake coupled with an increased consumption of competing halogens, fluoride and bromide, has created an epidemic of iodine deficiency in America.Comment from a friend: MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THIS RESEARCH IS THAT IODINE REMOVES ALL FLOURIDE FROM THE BODY, THIS GETS RID OF YEARS OF BUILD UP FROM THE NWO SECRETION OF IT INTO WATER AND IT ELIMINATES THE EFFECTS OF MIND CONTROL.
Selenium: The Moon Goddess’ Role in Human Health
The proteins that selenium seeds have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune enhancing properties that altogether foster a long, healthy life, akin to what Selene sought for Endymion (if in sleep) in Greek mythology. Selenium blood levels tend to fall as people age. In one study, investigators followed 1,300 people age 60–71 years for 9 years and found that those with the greatest decrease in blood selenium had the highest likelihood of cognitive decline.
Europe: New regulations for novel foods proposed
The European Commission has adopted a proposal revising the Novel Foods Regulation so that new and innovative foods have better access to the EU market, while consumer protection is guaranteed. 'Novel foods' include those which are produced using new techniques and technologies, and those that have no history of consumption within the EU, but have been consumed elsewhere.One of the indicators of a novel food, according to the proposal, is the use of emerging technologies in breeding and food production processes. These may have an impact on food, and thus food safety.
'Novel food should therefore include foods derived from plants and animals, produced by non-traditional breeding techniques, and foods modified by new production processes, such as nanotechnology and nanoscience, which might have an impact on food,' states the paper. 'Food derived from new plant varieties, or animal breeds produced by traditional breeding techniques, should not be considered as novel foods,' it adds.
European Food Safety Authority consultation on botanicals
EFSA has just launched a public consultation on the draft approach it proposes for assessing the safety of botanicals used as food supplements. Botanicals and derived preparations made from plants, algae, fungi or lichens, have become widely available on the EU market. Examples include ginkgo, garlic, St. John’s Wort and ginseng.All interested parties are invited to submit feedback on the proposed approach, as well as additional sources of information for the compendia by responding to the consultation by 15 February 2008. Comments should be submitted by means of the electronic form available on the EFSA website.
7-year plan aligns U.S. with Europe's economy
Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015. The Transatlantic Policy Network – a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels – is advised by the bi-partisan congressional TPN policy group, chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.Bennett also confirmed that what has become known as the "Merkel initiative" would allow the Transatlantic Economic Council to integrate and harmonize administrative rules and regulations between the U.S. and the EU "in a very quiet way," without introducing a new free trade agreement to Congress.
The FDA is among the agencies that are "harmonizing" the rules and this should have quite some effects on the way health foods are treated on both sides of the Atlantic...
The FDA Attacks Women – Declares Estriol Illegal
In a shocking and blatant attack on women, the FDA has declared estriol illegal. This move is designed to stop compounding pharmacies from making bio-identical hormone creams and will also stop over-the-counter estriol-containing creams from being sold to women. The FDA has no report of any problem from these creams. It is acting on a complaint from Wyeth (the makers of estrogen-containing horse urine extract and Centrum vitamins). Millions of women are adversely affected.
FDA Ignores Consumer Opposition & Approves Cloned Food
"The agency announced today that it has finalized its risk assessment on eating meat and milk from cloned animals, the final step before a voluntary moratorium on selling these products is lifted. FDA's draft risk assessment relied on only a handful of studies conducted by the cloning industry and included little long-term evidence. Even the agency's own science board released a report last month stating that FDA has a 'lack of expertise in risk/benefit assessment.'The FDA is not alone in this. Also the European Food Safety Authority is chiming in with noises of approval. Looks like cloned meat will be forced on us in the name of more profits for AG business.
FDA to declare cold meds too risky for tots
Parents may be left with only love and lots of liquid to give their sniffling babies and toddlers now that the government is declaring over-the-counter cough and cold medicines too risky for tots.Actually, in an earlier article the same paper said that honey seems to work just fine for kids' coughs.
Australia: Concerns over govt's nanotech strategy
Nanotechnology is the precision engineering of materials at a scale of one ten-thousandth of the width of a human hair. The technology could be worth $US1 trillion ($A1.13 trillion) by 2020, a government-commissioned report found in 2006. But concerns have been raised about unexpected side effects which have the potential to slip through the human body's usual defences to conventional chemicals.
EU Raids Drugmakers In Antitrust Probe
“We have launched this inquiry because pharmaceuticals markets are not working as well as they might. Patent protection has never been stronger, but the number of new pharmaceuticals coming to market is declining. Patents can sometimes be invented around and will always expire eventually, but generic manufacturers are not jumping into the markets as quickly as we would expect.”
United Kingdom: NHS performance 'kills thousands'
The TaxPayers' Alliance compared World Health Organization data for five leading European countries. It found the NHS had 17,157 extra deaths in 2004 compared with the other countries' average when taking into account age and burden of disease.
Scientific Study Finds Fluoride Horror Stories Factual
Industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans lowers IQ, causes cancer The establishment media will have to find a new tactic with which to ridicule those who oppose the fluoridation of water after a major new Scientific American report concluded that "Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift" as new evidence emerges of the poison's link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ.
Kevin Miller's New "Generation Rx" Documentary To Expose Mass Betrayal of Children by FDA, Big Pharma
Not many films have the potential to radically reshape the understanding of an entire nation and create positive change for the health of future generations, but this is one that clearly qualifies. "Generation Rx" delivers a devastating blow to the psychiatric drug pushers, FDA puppets and Big Pharma marketing fraudsters who have sold an entire nation on an absurd idea that turns out to be a grand medical hoax: that millions of children have "chemical imbalances" in their brains requiring treatment with patented, profitable pharmaceutical drugs like Prozac and Ritalin.
Hormone Replacement Therapy increases Cancer Risk after only 3 years
Postmenopausal women who take combined estrogen/progestin hormone-replacement therapy for three years or more face a fourfold increased risk of developing various forms of lobular breast cancer, according to new findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Popular osteoporosis drugs triple risk of bone necrosis
The research is the largest study of bone necrosis and bisphosphonates, a class of drugs used by millions of women worldwide to help prevent bone fractures due to osteoporosis. It is also the first study to explore the link between bone necrosis and specific brands of bisphosphonates, such as Actonel, Didrocal and Fosamax. Researchers found that all three brands had similar outcomes. Bone necrosis, a relatively rare disease diagnosed in approximately 1 in 20,000 people per year, leads to permanent loss of blood supply to the bones. Without adequate blood supply, the bone tissue dies and causes the bone to collapse. The disease primarily affects shoulders, knees and hips at the joints, causing severe pain and immobility.
Bad News Day for Big Pharma
The Supreme Court this morning turned down the Abigail Alliance's claim that dying patients have a constitutional right to investigational drugs. Also, Merck and Schering-Plough released the data from the long-delayed Vytorin trial (the pill combines a drug from an unproven class of cholesterol lowering agents with a generic statin) that showed the pricey combo pill was no better than the generic alone."Whether it’s worth treating high cholesterol is a common enough question. No one who sees the charts and listens to the sales pitch would doubt it—but numbers are open to being spun."
Drug trials under pressure
AstraZenica has launched a daring study — a battle of cholesterol goliaths. Called Saturn, the trial will pit Crestor against the world's best-selling drug, Lipitor, in the coronary arteries of 1,300 patients. The way trials are conducted has come under scrutiny since recent research showed the more expensive Vytorin had nothing on Zocor.Finally, we're starting to get a whiff of the great scam cholesterol lowering medications are, apart from causing incredible suffering for those who take them. Just read the comments on two articles on this site - Lipitor the Human Cost and Lipitor Side Effects - if you have difficulty believing.
Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?
(Business Week's January 08 cover story)
Research suggests that, except among high-risk heart patients, the benefits of statins such as Lipitor are overstated
Air Pollution May Cause Heart Disease; Nano-Sized Particles Most Damaging
A new academic study led by UCLA revealed that the smallest particles from vehicle emissions may be the most damaging components of air pollution in triggering plaque build-up in the arteries that can lead to heart attack and stroke. The scientists also identified a way in which pollutant particles may promote hardening of the arteries – by inactivating the protective qualities of HDL cholesterol, known as the “good cholesterol.”
Clinical Trials Exaggerate Antidepressant Benefits
How is this possible? A review of unpublished studies submitted to the FDA by drugmakers found many of the meds have little or no effect on patients, according to a new review of the previously unknown results, which was published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (subscription may be required). The upshot is that docs and patients are getting a distorted view of the effectivness of such drugs as Effexor, Zocor, Cymbalta and Paxil.
Video: Fox News Big Story with Doug Kennedy on Big Pharma's Lie
Fox News Big Story with Douglas Kennedy on how Big Pharma leaves out the bad studies and downplays the nasty side effects of their highly addictive drugs.
Psychiatry's Unapproved Experiment on Children
Medicines' precautionary ethical principle, "First, do no harm" is largely violated by psychiatrists who expose patients to serious harm caused by faith-based, invasive biological interventions--be they pharmacologic, magnetic, electric, or surgical. In the absence of scientific evidence to support them, such prescribing practices are unethical.
VACCINATION TOXICICITY CAN CAUSE INJURY
Questions you need to ask yourself before considering vaccinations: Have I thoroughly researched all the ingredients in the shot and do I understand the toxic risks? Is there a history of auto immune problems in the family because many researchers believe children may be genetically hyper sensitive to the adjuvants in the vaccines? Do I understand the difference between natural immunity and vaccine immune response? Is my child at risk for the illness I am vaccinating for? Is that illness really a health threat?
Shock therapy making a comeback
In the last 25 years, the number of U.S. patients undergoing the treatment -- formally known as electroconvulsive therapy -- has tripled to about 100,000, Te Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported Sunday.
He was bad, so they put an ice pick in his brain...
At the age of 12, Howard Dully was given a lobotomy, one of thousands performed by the notorious Dr Walter Freeman in the 1940s and 1950s. Now Dully has written a forceful account of his survival and sheds light on the man who subjected him to one of the most brutal surgical procedures in medical history
Poor diets 'kill 3.5 million children'
Zinc and vitamin A supplements as well as encouraging women to breastfeed for at least six months would cut deaths and the loss of years through disability by a quarter, the researchers concluded. But the international response to child deaths from poor nutrition has been "fragmented and dysfunctional", experts warned.Breast feeding is important and the global food industry is not helping here - witness their lobbying of Codex Alimentarius - but also, sending anti-retroviral drugs to Africa to "fight AIDS" should be a distant second after helping to take care of the basic nutritional needs of these people.
HIV HAS NEVER BEEN ISOLATED FROM AIDS PATIENTS
How can we best help Africa? How can we set priorities aimed at bringing under control what is described as an AIDS epidemic? For twenty years, all AIDS research has been based on the HIV hypothesis. Do we now have reasons to question this hypothesis? Yes, because there is a major problem with isolation and purification of HIV. The major problem being that, in spite of innumerable claims to the contrary, this retrovirus has never been isolated nor purified in a scientifically acceptable manner that would satisfy the classic requirements of virology.
PURIFY? WHO NEEDS THAT? (SO SAYS ROBERT GALLO)
The astonishing, well-nigh incredible yet inescapable conclusion is this: The “HIV” that researchers work with is a motley mixture of various kinds of intracellular particles (vesicles) and bits of cellular debris, in which there may or may not be present some particles of a putative human immunodeficiency retrovirus, and possibly other viruses as well.
Questioning HIV/AIDS: Morally reprehensible or Scientifically Warranted? (PDF)
An article about the barriers to honest discussion of AIDS and the associated virus, by Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies and Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences at the Virginia Tech.
Bauer also has a very interesting blog where he comments on current isues to do with HIV and Aids.
Experts Call for Rethinking AIDS Money
"If we look at the data objectively, we are spending too much on AIDS," said Dr. Malcolm Potts, an AIDS expert at the University of California, Berkeley, who once worked with prostitutes on the front lines of the epidemic in Ghana.Problems like malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria kill more children in Africa than AIDS.
"We are programmed to react quickly to small children with AIDS in distress," Potts said. "Unfortunately, we don't have that same reaction when looking at statistics that tell us what we should be spending on."
Gambia: The Aids Breakthrough(link no longer active)
When President Yahya Jammeh made his historic revelation twelve months ago on the hitherto incurable disease, it was like raining hell on earth. The sheer response of sceptics was appallingly terrifying. But it was also revealing. What was stunning was not the spree of criticism, but rather it was the myopic nature and racist tone it took in certain quarters. The impression you got was that some people do not expect that there should ever be any cure for the disease. Presumably not until poor Africa is rid of half of its population. And for others, it was just too much to contemplate the possibility of an African discovering the cure.
Monsanto's Latest Court Triumph Cloaks Massive Market Power
Somehow, a single corporation has managed to use patent law to gain de facto control of the nation's two biggest crops -- and managed to annul the age-old right of seed-saving over a broad swath of farm country. Monsanto may have airtight logic on its side for patent law, but it has clearly run afoul of a much less-enforced branch of legal code: antitrust law.The time has come to bust up this giant seed trust.
This article gives some good background to the recent move of Google to get into the field of renewable energy and social concerns. It's lengthy, but well worth the read. The equations for future development change when a giant like Google weighs in with money and resources ... and some ideas that aren't quite what we might call conventional.
- - -
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/
"The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition."
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday January 20 2008
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2008/01/20/european_food_rules_and_the_fda_newsgrabs_20_january_2008.htm