The Hemp Cure - NewsGrabs 2 March 2008

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and (mostly) related sectors. Find what trends you may have missed - watch out for the weekly NewsGrabs.

Here is this week's selection for you:

Video: The Hemp Cure
In a series of seven short videos, Rick Simpson tells the story of a cure that is based on the hemp plant.

Since hemp got in the way of DuPont's Nylon in the early part of the 20th century, the plant has been demonized, classified as dangerous, called a drug, and growers have been punished for seeding it. Apart from obvious uses of hemp as a source of fiber and seeds as a nutritious food, the flower buds can be processed into an extract that has - according to Simpson and many who tried - curative properties. Yes, those flowers can also be smoked and - like with tabacco and alcohol - there are effects on your mental state. Hardly enough of a reason though to prohibit the use of a cure and the cultivation of a plant of many merits!

Vitamin Supplementation Prevents Anorexia
Anorexia is an acknowledged clinical marker of beriberi, the disease specifically caused by a deficiency of vitamin B1 (thiamine). Anorexia is also commonly observed as an early symptom of pellagra (niacin deficiency) and is a known complication of scurvy, vitamin C deficiency. Prevention is especially important, because beriberi/anorexia often does not respond well even to treatment with high doses of thiamine for months, and sometimes does not respond at all. But as a rule, high potency vitamin supplements are an effective cure for the loss of muscle mass caused by beriberi and the skin lesions caused by pellagra.

South Africa: Traditional medicines not subject to clinical trials
Medicines used for thousands of years should not become "bogged down in clinical trials", said South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. She was speaking during a meeting with traditional healers to discuss a draft policy to regulate the practice. "We cannot use Western models of protocols for research and development," said the minister, although she added that she was not against clinical trials per se.

JOURNAL OF ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NOW ONLINE
The archives of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine are now posted online. Past issues from 1967 through 2002 are available for downloading, at no charge.

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has led the way in presenting, in advance of other medical journals, new health concerns and treatments including niacin therapy for schizophrenia and coronary disease; vitamin C for cancer; and the nutritional treatment of behavioral disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. The JOM was also the first medical journal to publish papers on the nutritional treatment of allergies, autism, and AIDS. JOM published pioneering research on candiasis in 1978, mercury amalgam toxicity in 1982, and chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988. The Journal has published over 100 papers on nutritional medicine and cancer, and over 400 articles on schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses. JOM is peer-reviewed.

Curiously, and as I reported before, after over 40 years of continuous publication, JOM is still not indexed on MEDLINE.

Hawaii: Senate's Plan to Ban Aspartame 'Deferred': Health Committee Passes The Buck to the FDA
(link from stephentvedten.blogspot.com - blog censored by Blogger)
James Turner, renowned consumer attorney fought the approval of aspartame with world famous neuroscientist Dr. John Olney and explained: "The toxicity of this deadly carcinogen is well known. The FDA not only refused to approve aspartame for years, but asked the Department of Justice to indict G.D. Searle, the manufacturer, for submitting fraudulent test reports to get the poison approved.

The evidence was overwhelming and Searle's case was impossible to defend, so their attorneys seduced the federal prosecutors, Sam Skinner and Wm. Conlon, who negotiated for jobs with Searle's lawyers while they were supposed to prosecuting Searle! Before switching sides they stalled until the statute of limitations was about to run out so Searle couldn't be prosecuted in the future. Justice died, as have thousands of aspartame victims in the 25 years since.

Non-GM Breakthroughs Leave GM Behind
Does the mention of allergen-free peanut, salt-resistant wheat, beta-carotene rich sweet potato, and virus-resistant cassava make you think of GM? If so, you’ve missed the great unpublished story of 2007 – all the non-GM answers to precisely the problems (drought-resistance, salt-resistance, biofortification, etc.) that proponents claim only GM can solve.

Compost Can Turn Agricultural Soils into a Carbon Sink
Applying organic fertilizers, such as those resulting from composting, to agricultural land could increase the amount of carbon stored in these soils and contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research published in a special issue of Waste Management & Research.

"An increase of just 0.15% in organic carbon in arable soils in a country like Italy would effectively imply the sequestration of the same amount of carbon within soil that is currently released into the atmosphere in a period of one year through the use of fossil fuels," write Enzo Favoino and Dominic Hogg, authors of the paper.

"Furthermore, increasing organic matter in soils may cause other greenhouse gas-saving effects, such as improved workability of soils, better water retention, less production and use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, and reduced release of nitrous oxide."

Cancer and the bacterial connection
Today, some scientists think [that] germs can teach our bodies how to fight back against tumors. Dr. John Timmerman, a cancer immunotherapy expert at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, says this revolution has produced "the most exciting sets of compounds in cancer immunology." New studies are revealing that certain cancers may be reduced by exposure to disease-causing bacteria and viruses.

The studies also imply that our cleaner, infection-free lifestyles may be contributing to the rise in certain cancers over the last 50 years, scientists say, because they make the immune system weaker or less mature. Germs cause disease but may also fortify the body, a notion summed up in a 2006 report by a team of Canadian researchers as "whatever does not kill me makes me stronger." In the 1980s, dermatologists began noticing that patients with severe acne, which is caused by another type of bacterium, have reduced rates of skin cancer, lymphoma and leukemia.

According to a paper by Dr. Mohammad Namazi at the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran, studies showed that these bacteria, when injected into animals, appear to stimulate the immune system and shrink tumors. In reports published in the last two years, Harvey Checkoway, a University of Washington epidemiologist, has found that female cotton workers in Shanghai have a 40% to 60% lower risk of lung, breast, and pancreas cancer than other factory workers.

Other recent studies by Giuseppe Mastrangelo at the University of Padua in Italy found that dairy farmers exposed to high levels of manure dust are up to five times less likely to develop lung cancer than their colleagues who work in open fields.

Nitric Oxide and Silica: Smart Antibacterial
Mark Schoenfisch and his lab of analytical chemists at UNC have created nano-scale scaffolds made of silica and loaded with nitric oxide (NO) – an important molecule in mammals that plays a role in regulating blood pressure, neurotransmission and fighting bacterial infections, among other vital functions.

“There was evidence that nitric oxide kills bacteria, but the difficult part involved storing it in a manner such that it could be delivered to bacterial cells,” said Evan Hetrick, a doctoral student in Schoenfisch’s lab and lead author on a paper in the February issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal ACS Nano.

FDA undermines Public Safety: Congressman Calls for FDA Commissioner to Resign
Congressman Stupak called on Dr. von Eschenbach to step down because he has demonstrated "a total lack of leadership."

Underscoring FDA officials' disregard for the agency's mission--which is to protect the public health, and ensure that scientifically validated information is disseminated about prescription drugs - the agency has just issued proposed guidelines that would overturn the prohibition against drug manufacturers disseminating information to encourage doctors to prescribe their drug for "off-label" unapproved uses.

Georgia Surgeon Describes Aspartame-Induced Hand Tremors
I am a physician and truly disturbed by the continued availability of Aspartame in our food supply. As a resident physician I developed tremors in my dominant hand (right). These tremors affected my surgical performance to the point of having one of my professors inquire as to whether or not I had an alcohol problem. I can assure you that I do not, nor have I ever had a substance abuse problem of any kind.

My tremors persisted beyond my postgraduate training. I then had friends comment on noticing my hand shaking at rest outside of a clinical environment. After removing Aspartame from my diet, the tremors have been absent for over two years.

I have researched the issue and found that there is a plethora of scientific evidence to substantiate the claim that Aspartame should have never been allowed to enter our food supply.

One Woman's Astonishing Experiment With Aspartame

Victoria Inness-Brown’s family was addicted to diet soda. After researching the effects of aspartame, she strongly believed the artificial sweetener might one day lead to their illness or even their early deaths.

So she decided to perform her own aspartame experiment -- with 108 rats for 2 years and 8 months. Daily, she fed some of the rats the equivalent, for their body weight, of two-thirds the aspartame contained in 8-oz of diet soda.

Eleven of the females who took aspartame -- 37 percent -- developed tumors, some of massive size.

Thanks to Dr Mercola's health blog for the link to the site reporting this experiment.

Video: Saturday Night Live Goes After Direct-To-Consumer Drug Ads
Glad to see the female cast members of SNL, plus guest Tina Fey, having some fun with the DTC ads for those period-reducing drugs now on the market. I've always watched those ads and thought, "Ewwww." The pink axe in the skit is classic...

Journal Publications Are Nothing But Marketing
In any event, many big drugmakers view the publication of clinical trials primarily as a marketing tool, not just a way to get the word out to docs about meaningful findings. That’s the result of a recent survey by Best Practices, which queried scientific directors at 14 big drugmakers - Glaxo, Pfizer, Biogen, Human Genome Sciences, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, NPS, Abbott Labs, Shire, Amgne, Genentech, Lilly, AstraZeneca and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

In discussing the findings, the research firm notes that “scientific publications are an essential tool for both clinical and commercial purposes, as they are intended to influence the target audience by raising both awareness of the disease and awareness of a company’s product.”

So much for "scientific" publications. I knew you'd like that one...

Beyond Advertising: The Pharmaceutical Industry's Hidden Marketing Tactics
It's not surprising that profit-driven, cutting-edge marketing techniques have outstripped the government agency established to guide them. What is surprising is that public health advocates haven't made pharmaceutical rebranding and off-label promotions of drugs and medical devices major issues. In December, the advocacy group Consumers Union sent a letter to the FDA requesting tighter DTC advertising regulations on medical devices. That's a good first step, but much more must be done.

Straight to the Point : The time to end drug patents is now
Of course, the multi-national drug companies who make huge profits from their patented drugs will argue that drug patents are needed to support the costs of research into new life-saving drugs for the global population. Is this assertion convincing?

The fact is that a large proportion of the most important global research and development of new drugs is not actually funded by drug companies, but by taxpayers. An internal study in 2000 by the US government's National Institute of Health (NIH) showed that 55% of the research that led to the discovery and development of the five top-selling drugs in 1995 was paid for by US government funding, while 30% was funded by foreign academic institutions.

An earlier study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research found that public funding played a role in the development of 67% of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965-1992.

Are Antidepressants Useless? Researchers Say Yes
Almost 50 clinical trials for four drugs, including Prozac, Effexor and Paxil, were reviewed by university psychologists, who found that the latest generation of antidepressants worked no better than a placebo for mildly depressed patients. Even the trials that suggested some clinical benefit for the most severely depressed patients didn’t produce convincing evidence. The study was published in the latest PLoS Medicine.

“The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great,” Irving Kirsch, a psychology professor tells the paper. “This means that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments."

Are Antidepressants Faith-Based Treatment?
On Jan. 17, 2008, the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed both published and unpublished antidepressant studies registered with the FDA between 1987-2004. Examining 12 antidepressants, Dr. Erick H. Turner, a former FDA medical reviewer, and his research team included data gained via the Freedom of Information Act.

Dr. Turner discovered that most studies with negative results were never published in journals, and so doctors had no way of knowing how poorly antidepressants have actually fared. While 94 percent of antidepressant studies published in journals show antidepressants to be more effective than placebos, only 51 percent of all registered studies were determined by the FDA to show antidepressants superior to placebos.

Why are most negative results not published in journals? Drug studies are routinely funded by the drug's manufacturer, which has no interest in the publication of negative results. Also, medical journals are increasingly dependent on advertising revenue from drug companies, which results in a disincentive to publish negative results.

Take The Anti-Depressant Poll
What with all the news around anti-depressant efficacy in recent weeks plus a complete lack of wise commentary on the same, I thought it would be interesting to run a poll to see where our heads are at on this issue. BTW, I will be back later today with what I hope are some intelligent thoughts on anti-depressants. But for now, I am curious what you all think...

Drug for anemic cancer patients raises risk of death
Millions of cancer patients take drugs to boost their red blood cells and health when they become anemic after chemotherapy. But a new study by Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine shows these drugs, called erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), actually raise patients' risk of death, possibly by stimulating the growth of cancer cells.

“It’s troubling that 15 years after the drug came out, we finally came to this realization," said Bennett, who also is a hematologist and oncologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.

Anemia in cancer patients is of course a side effect of chemotherapy. So a drug that is intended to counteract a side effect is actually increasing the death rate by introducing a new hazard unrelated to the original illness. Typical for our pharmaceutical paradigm.

Wyeth & Pfizer Lose HRT Breast Cancer Case
Hormone-replacement drugs made by Wyeth and a Pfizer unit caused an Arkansas woman’s breast cancer and a jury decided she deserves at least $2.75 million in damages, Bloomberg News reports, noting this is the first loss in federal court for the drugmakers. Jurors in Little Rock, Arkansas, deliberated 12 hours over two days before finding the combination of Wyeth’s Premarin and Pharmacia & Upjohn’s Provera menopause drugs helped cause Donna Scroggin’s cancer. The former factory worker had a double mastectomy after taking hormone-replacement drugs for about 10 years.

AstraZeneca ordered to pay $215 million
AstraZeneca PLC must pay Alabama $215 million after a state court ruled the company inflated prices for drugs it sold to the state's Medicaid system.

AstraZeneca, which has its U.S. headquarters in Fairfax, called the lawsuit "legally and factually unfounded" in a statement Thursday and said there were important legal errors during the course of the trial, which started Feb. 11.

"It's obvious the pharmaceutical industry has been taking advantage of federal and state governments, and this jury backs up what we've been saying -- they've been cheating," said Jere Beasley, a lawyer for the state of Alabama. "It was time for the jury to straighten them out."

U.S. Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court - Now What?
In its written concession, the government said the child had a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder that was "aggravated" by her shots, and which ultimately resulted in an ASD diagnosis. "The vaccinations received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder," the concession says, "which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of ASD."

This statement is good news for the girl and her family, who will now be compensated for the lifetime of care she will require. But its implications for the larger vaccine-autism debate, and for public health policy in general, are not as certain. In fact, the government's concession seems to raise more questions than it answers...

Israel: Military Medical Experiments
The army tested the experimental anthrax vaccines on elite combat soldiers in secret without knowledge of their commanders. When soldiers suffered adverse symptoms they were told the ill effects were unrelated to the experimental vaccine, and they were denied treatment.

Bird Flu: EU regulators support pre-pandemic vaccine
The European Medicines Agency has recommended the approval of a vaccine designed to help people build immunity against the deadly bird flu virus.

A "pre-pandemic" vaccine leaves many questions open.

First of all, how can we expect to make a vaccine for an unknown (as yet non-existent) virus. Let us remember that the bird flu is an illness that infects birds, not humans. No human-transmissible form is known yet. The only humans to have been affected are those in close contact with birds bred by humans, like chickens or ducks.

Secondly, how can the effectiveness of such a vaccine be monitored. Since the virus is unknown, of course any "antibodies" developed after vaccination could not be specific to a future virus.

Last and not least, is the danger that the vaccine itself may kick off an epidemic. Clearly, to make a vaccine at all, a virus has to be artificially created before it can be used in a vaccine. There are always cases where people get sick "despite having been vaccinated". In this case, they would clearly get sick because they have been vaccinated.

We are playing with fire by engineering a virus to make a vaccine against a virus that does not yet exist. I would put this in the same category as the infamous Tuskeegee experiment: giving people syphilis without telling them so we can study how the illness affects them. Definitely a bad idea.

HIV IS NOT SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED
The rates at which people in the United States test HIV-positive have remained at about the same level, and have remained distributed geographically in the same manner, for two decades. The rates also vary with age, sex, and race in the same manner in all social groups. Those demographics are characteristic of something endemic, not of something contagious that causes epidemics; thus “HIV” is not something that’s sexually transmitted.

Immunity Resource Foundation On Line
Through twenty years of investigative television programmes, Meditel Productions in London has collected a unique archive—the Meditel Archive—of the science and law surrounding AIDS and injury from prescribed drugs. The resource of 120,000 of Meditel’s research documents plus the 8 year archive of specialist magazine Continuum, plus 20 Meditel videos, and video footage, demonstrates in incomparable detail, debates that have taken place behind the closed doors of a scientific community.

For anyone trying to understand the history of Aids and how we came to be so far off target in our efforts to "fight Aids", this would be a good place to start.

The Six Components of the 2008 Quackbuster Operation...
Do not, for even a second, think that the US "Quackbuster" operation, a plot to stop anyone, and everyone, from changing the broken US health care system, is run, or even maintained, by delicensed MD Stephen Barrett out of his 2421 West Greenleaf Street, Allentown, Pennsylvania address, or his condo at 287 Stoneview, Pittsboro, North Carolina. It would be foolish to assume that this bitter, nasty, old man, who stumbles through life, tripping from one professional failure to another, is running a cleverly set up plot. He's just the "front man"...

Tim Bolen has been investigating the "quackbuster" black PR operation against non-pharmaceutical advances in health care for some time. He describes its operation and identifies those behind this modern day dirty tricks campaign against natural medicine. Interesting reading, and as the investigation proceeds it will become clear who is behind the killing of hundreds of thousands at the hands of modern medicine.

You can find a lot of information about the "quackbuster" operation on Tim Bolen's site.

Fertility study builds buzz around cellphones
Are men speed-dialing infertility by talking for hours a day on their cellphones? A new study suggests that might be the case, but before potential papas ditch the devices, they should know that lead author Ashok Agarwal says the data are "quite preliminary."

Cellphones emit radiofrequency electromagnetic waves. Scientists have reported potential adverse effects of the waves on the brain, heart, endocrine system and DNA, Agarwal, director of the andrology lab at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and his co-authors write in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

ELF EMF increases other cancer risks as significantly as childhood leukaemia
Professors Mike O'Carroll and Denis Henshaw have now published their paper looking at aggregated statistical associations on the evidence of health effects from extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields. Whilst the methodology is designed to be "indicative" and not "conclusive", it shows quite clearly that the evidence supporting an increase in risk for cancer other than childhood leukaemia is particularly strong.

What no one is really pointing out and few even know is that although mobile phones and wireless phones in your home operate in the microwave band, which is an extremely high frequency, their radiation ALSO falls into the ELF or extra low frequency band by virtue of the phones and base stations sending "packets" of data causing an on/off tact at a low frequency of 100 to 200 hertz, quite comparable to the cancer causing power line A/C frequency of 50 to 60 hertz or cycles per second.

Cancer in EU at 'epidemic' levels
Cancer is at epidemic levels with a million people dying of the disease across the EU every year, according to British MEP John Bowis.

Bowis, EPP-ED spokesman on health, said, that "a million of our fellow citizens in the EU die each year from cancer."

"An average of only three per cent of health budgets are spent on cancer prevention. The links are clear. We have a major epidemic. We could save 330,000 lives a year."

"We need to get our act together and invest in cancer prevention."

Well I have an idea.

Let's start with the environment. Cut out or drastically limit pollution, both chemical and electromagnetic.

Then look at our foods. Get the poisons and chemicals out of the food chain and start growing organic veggies. Raise healthy animals (if we really need to eat the poor things).

By paying attention to the environment and our foods, we could prevent a lot of illness. But of course chemical and communications industries would have to change and the pharma crowd would have to look for better products to sell. We would cause some disruption to industry, but then ...

What is our health worth?

- - -

More information out there...

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

Dr Mercola's health blog and Mike Adams' Natural News have great health information.

The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is a place where you can discuss and exchange information on what is happening in the world of natural health.

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 necessarily find on your tv or in the papers:

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."

 

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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday March 2 2008
updated on Wednesday December 8 2010

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