The AIDS Vaccine "Challenger Disaster" - NewsGrabs 23 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 News Grabs.
Here is this week's selection for you:
AIDS Vaccines: A ‘Catastrophe’ Like The Challenger
The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may actually have put them at increased risk of becoming infected.Both field tests were halted last September, and seven other trials of similarly designed AIDS vaccines have either been stopped or put off indefinitely. Some may be modified and others canceled outright, the paper reports. Numerous experts are now questioning both the scientific premises and the overall strategy of the nearly $500 million in AIDS vaccine research funded annually by the US government.
“This is on the same level of catastrophe as the Challenger disaster” that destroyed a NASA space shuttle, Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, and head of the Institute for Human Virology in Baltimore, tells the Post.
New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods
This is the first major, indepth review of the published scientific literature on the nutritional benefits of organic food completed since 2003.
Vitamins Reduce the Duration and Severity of Influenza
Vitamins fight the flu by boosting the body's own immune response and by accelerating healing. Individuals can be better prepared for an influenza epidemic by learning how to use vitamin supplements to fight off ordinary respiratory infections. The most important vitamins are vitamins C, D, niacin, and thiamine...
POTASSIUM QUESTIONS INTENSIFY
While not exactly news, this article asks a legitimate question: Why is it, considering humans have a daily need for potassium somewhere between 3.5 and 4.7 grams, we can only buy supplemental potassium at less than 100 milligrams, that is, less than one thirtieth of the quantities that are recommended to be contained in our foods daily.
California Proposition 65 - Regulating Beneficial Nutrients
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is preparing to regulate vitamins and minerals as you would toxic chemicals."Certain chemicals or compounds such as vitamins and minerals are necessary to promote human health or to ensure the healthy growth of food crops. Excessive exposures to these same chemicals or compounds can cause cancer or adverse reproductive effects. OEHHA is seeking a way to balance the need for these nutrients with the necessity for providing Proposition 65 warnings for exposures to listed chemicals in foods."
Are they taking their cues from the European Union and Codex Alimentarius?
New Zealand: Phoenix Organics Calls For Aspartame Investigation
Phoenix Organics’ CEO Stefan Lepionka has committed $2000 to help send Abby Cormack to the U.S. to undergo a series of SPECT scans aiming to prove aspartame consumption has an effect on brain function, and wants Govt and Coca Cola to do the same.“$2000 for Coca Cola would represent a fraction of the amount they recently paid for full page advertisements asserting the safety of this chemical,” said Stefan Lepionka. “It would be a small price to pay to put to rest global concerns that aspartame is dangerous.”
History of Aspartame and Stevia
This is a College biology report prepared by Tom Theimer, who brought together a lot of the background on the artificial sweetener Aspartame and how, in the US, the natural sweetener of the Stevia plant was kept off the market by FDA intervention in order to protect Aspartame from competition. Not really the job an official food control agency should be doing, but unfortunately money, political influence and plain corruption distort things in a bad way, even in a country that is praised for its promotion of "free enterprise".
Instability of transgenes puts patentability of GM in doubt
Arguing that genetic modification is a less-than-exact science, and that genetically modified plants or other organisms are subject to changes and rearrangements in subsequent generations, ISIS says that there is no ground to grant patents for GM seeds and/or animals.
Book: Shedding Light on Genetically Engineered Food
"It is easy to see how unsuspecting consumers in America have been kept in the dark about GE food and why the biotech industry has grown significantly, even though evidence or scientific consensus that GE food is safe for human consumption has never been established. Americans are risking their health in return for non-existent and largely unproven consumer benefits; yet U.S. taxpayers unknowingly prop up the biotech industry and multinational corporate profits by massively funding GE crop and dairy subsidies, state initiatives, tax breaks, foreign aid, and other biotech support doled out by the U.S. government."
'Brain fog' hinders independence of elderly
Nearly one of four people over age 70 experience mild forgetfulness that can disrupt the ability to carry out daily routines, a study reports today.These people don't have full dementia or Alzheimer's, but they do have symptoms of mild cognitive impairment, such as confusion and some memory loss, says Brenda Plassman, a psychologist at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
Wonder how many of those people are on Lipitor or another statin drug to "prevent heart attacks". Memory loss is a common side effect of these drugs.
Bad Break For Merck - Fosamax associated with unusual fractures
Researchers report that long-term use of its Fosamax osteoporosis drug is associated with unusual fractures of the thigh bone. The fractures were low-energy fractures, meaning that they all occurred from a fall from standing height or less, and the bone cracks were in an unusual horizontal pattern. About one-third of women with these types of fractures were on long-term therapy to prevent osteoporosis, and of these women, two-thirds were taking Fosamax for an average of more than seven years.
BRANDING PREGNANCY AS MENTAL ILLNESS
The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs. It is a great example of how the Big Pharma lobby controls Congress to the detriment of health, as well as needlessly and dramatically inflating the costs of our health care system for everyone. Like any piece of legislation it purports to address a troubling issue – in this case the mood distress of mothers following birth known as postpartum depression. It is true that 10% - 15% of women need some assistance in dealing with this topic – but the majority of them sure don’t need it from Big Pharma.Video: If you have any doubts about this proposed legislation, here is a case story that illustrates why it is a bad idea to give mothers psychiatric drugs...
Media Perpetuates Unsubstantiated Chemical Imbalance Theory Of Depression
"The media's presentation of the theory as fact is troublesome because it misrepresents the current status of the theory," Lacasse said. "For instance, there are few scientists who will rise to its defense, and some prominent psychiatrists publicly acknowledge that the serotonin hypothesis is more metaphor than fact. As the current study documents, when asked for evidence, reporters were unable to cite peer-reviewed primary articles in support of the theory."
Curbing Conflicts of Interest in Medicine
One hypothesis this committee might consider is that excessive financial entanglements between physician-researchers and the private sector is actually harming innovation by channeling scarce scientific resources into medically insignificant research endeavors; inhibiting scientific collaboration; fostering a culture of secrecy; and creating an anti-commons effect through the extensive early-stage patenting of basic science insights and research tools.
Zyprexa Judge: FDA Can’t Police Safety Problems
Without lawsuits like the one the State of Alaska brought against Lilly over Zyprexa marketing, claims that drugs cause health problems “might well go unaddressed,” Anchorage Superior Court Judge Mark Rindner said from the bench this week. He made his remarks while the jury was out of the room, after the state had rested its case and Lilly asked for an immediate verdict in its favor, a routine step at that point in a trial.As part of the proceeding, Lilly’s lawyer, George Lehner, argued that drug regulation is a matter for the FDA, not any state, and that Alaska’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act shouldn’t apply to drugs. Rindner disagreed. Evidence presented by the state over the past two weeks established that the FDA “isn’t capable of policing this matter,” he told the courtroom...
Sweden: Adverse Drug Reactions Are A Big Killer
More than 3 percent of all deaths seem to be caused by adverse reactions to medical drugs, according to new research, according to a report in Nature. If substantiated by further work, this would make fatal adverse drug reactions the 7th most common cause of death in Sweden, where the research was done.Adverse drug reactions are known to be responsible for between 3 percent and 12 percent of hospital admissions, and fatal drug reactions account for about 5 percent of deaths of those patients in US hospitals, the mag notes.
Who's Bankrolling Your "Trusted" Medical Journals?
"So, just how much money is the integrity of a medical journal (not to mention, the mental and physical well-being of its readers) worth a year? According to The Social Policy Research Institute, the New England Journal of Medicine receives approximately $18 million a year from pharmaceutical companies, while JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association receives around $27 million."
Solving the drug price crisis
“Drug prices in the United States are higher than anywhere else in the world. Right now, the revenues from those drugs finance research and development of new drugs. We propose to reduce prices, not at the expense of innovation, but by changing the way innovation is financed,” said Temin, also the author of “Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the US.”“Nationally, if we keep the current structure, in 50 years only hedge fund managers will be able to afford prescription drugs. Drug development will focus on therapies for those small groups of people who can pay a thousand dollars a pill.
How far off the mark can you get?High prices pad drug company bottom lines and finance marketing, much more than just financing research and development of new drugs.
The question is whether the pharmaceutical paradigm of western medicine is viable as a health care model. Certainly it is viable in financial terms, but more and more analysts are starting to look at outcomes rather than just the hype.
... and it's doubtful there will be any hedge fund managers around in 50 years to buy the thousand-dollar-a-pill drugs.
Judge Quashes Pfizer Bid For Peer Review Files
A federal judge in Chicago last Friday denied Pfizer’s efforts to obtain confidential peer review documents related to Celebrex and Bextra from the New England Journal of Medicine, according to Science magazine.In January, Pfizer filed a motion asking for peer-review documents it had subpoenaed from 11 studies on the drugs published by the NEJM, and also sought rejected studies, arguing the manuscripts might contain data that could be useful for its defense.
The Devil Made Him Do It. Or Was It Paxil?
An Indiana man charged with beating another man in the head with a metal bar told police the devil made him do it, The Indianapolis Star writes. But according to a police report, Leo Wantuch III, 37, of Mishawaka told police the devil only began controlling him after he started taking the Paxil antidepressant drug about six years ago.
MERCURY IN FLU VACCINES - LES INCOMPETANTS
In an impassioned open letter addressed to the American Academy of Pediatrics and published on Dan Olmsted's AGE OF AUTISM, K. Paul Stoller, M.D. shows how the use of mercury in childrens' vaccines continues unabated, notwithstanding a promise to remove the toxic metal 'preservative' from the vaccines."They never made good on their 1999 pledge to have Thimerosal eliminated from vaccines and almost a decade later joined in the protest against a fictitious TV show (Eli Stone) because it was critical of mercury being in vaccine.Out of 132 million doses of the worthless1 flu vaccine for the 2007-08 flu season, 8 million doses are Thimerosal free. That means 94% contain the full amount of Thimerosal."
Mom Says HPV Vaccine Caused Paralysis in 12-Year-Old
"She was walking through my house and collapsed. She told me she couldn't feel her leg. We went right to the hospital," says Christina Bell, Brittany's mom. Bell says there were no answers at first, but then she started to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Two weeks before her daughter's collapse, Brittany received her first injection of a vaccine called Gardasil.Brittany's doctors have diagnosed her with Acute Demyelinating Encephalomyelitis or ADEM. It is an inflammation of the brain that has been associated with a vaccination.
The Danger of Excessive Childhood Vaccinations
The medical establishment has created a set of terms, which they use constantly to boost their egos and firm up their authority as the unique holders of medical wisdom -- the mantra is “evidence-based medicine”, as if everything outside their anointing touch is bogus and suspect. Yet a careful examination of many of the accepted treatments reveals that most have little or no scientific “evidence-based” data to support it. One often repeated study found that almost 80 percent of medical practice had no scientific backing.In the early 1980s, the incidence of autism was 1 in 10,000 births. By 2005, the incidence had leaped to 1 in 250 births, and today it is 1 in 150 births and still climbing. One of the strongest links to this terrible set of disorders was a drastic change in the vaccine programs of the United States and many other countries, which included a dramatic increase in the number of vaccines being given at a very early age. No other explanation has been forthcoming from the medical elite...
Tamiflu recommendations for children disregard scientific evidence
"There have been postmarketing reports (mostly from Japan) of delirium and abnormal behavior leading to injury, and in some cases resulting in fatal outcomes, in patients with influenza who were receiving Tamiflu."
NEW LABOUR, THE VACCINE SCANDAL AND THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD (PDF)
by Martin J Walker
The fitness to practice case before the General Medical Council (GMC) against Dr Andrew Wakefield and Professors Murch and Walker-Smith, which is to be heard on 27 March in London, appears to involve an analysis of the scientific research and clinical practice of these doctors.However, almost all of the case and the attacks that have taken place against Dr Wakefield since the mid 1990s are politically inspired. They are a part of the government’s drive to produce a single multiple vaccine containing hundreds of viral strains and also a key part of the government’s co-ordinated policy for health care that has been resolved in negotiation with the pharmaceutical companies since New Labour came to power in 1997.
The analysis of Dr Wakefield’s ‘road to the GMC’ by Martin Walker is divided into two parts, the political background and the scientific side of the debate.
Vaccines, Neurodevelopment and Autism Spectrum Disorders
"I find it interesting that there exists an incredible double standard when it comes to our evidence versus theirs. The proponents of vaccination safety can just say they are safe, without any supporting evidence what-so-ever, and it is to be accepted without question. They can announce that mercury is not only safe, but that it seems to actually increase the IQ, and we are to accept it. They can proclaim thimerosal safe to use in vaccines without their having ever been a single study on its safety in over 60 years of use, and we are to accept it.The Simpsonwood conference proceedings, in which over 50 scientists, vaccine pharmaceutical company representatives and representatives from the World Health Organization met secretly in Norcross, Georgia, disclosed that the safety of your children is not their primary interest –their only interest is selling vaccines to the public. A friend of mine, while speaking to an audience of scientists and public health officials in Italy, was rudely told by a public health official that (paraphrased) –We all know that vaccines can cause neurological damage, but we must keep this from the public because it might endanger the vaccine program.
Nerve Cell Damage in Mammalian Brain after Exposure to Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones (PDF)
The possible risk of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields for the human body is a growing concern for our society. We have previously shown that weak pulsed microwaves give rise to a significant leakage of albumin through the blood–brain barrier. In this study we investigated whether a pathologic leakage across the blood–brain barrier might be combined with damage to the neurons.Three groups each of eight rats were exposed for 2 hr to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) mobile phone electromagnetic fields of different strengths. We found highly significant evidence for neuronal damage in the cortex, hippocampus, and basal ganglia in the brains of exposed rats.
Microwave dangers a hot topic in Jamaica
The most compelling evidence supporting the dangers of microwaves comes from a study done by Dr Hans Hertel, a Swiss food scientist, who concluded that microwave cooking significantly altered food. Dr Hertel's findings showed significant and disturbing changes in the blood of indivi-duals consuming microwaved milk and vegetables. Volunteers ate various combinations of these foods cooked in different ways. All foods that were cooked in microwave ovens caused changes in the blood of the volunteers. Haemoglobin levels decreased and overall white blood cell levels and cholesterol levels increased.The Hertel study is one of the cases where industry succeeded in effectively preventing the public dissemination of a damaging research result. Hertel was sued for "harming the reputation" of microwave oven manufacturers. An older article in the Idaho Observer reported in a similar vein.
The End of Money?
That our financial system is fixed to reward a miniscule subset of the global population, the “ruling elite” who control the financial sector, is a realization that could begin to permeate the mass consciousness. This awareness can only increase as the destructive delusions of the dominant ideology become more obvious. With the intermeshed networks of contemporary life, a new realization could spread rapidly, along with techniques to confront a system that has failed to protect the poor and the planet. The incredible mismanagement of the earth’s precious resources – the squandering of oceans, forests, animals, and air – is an indictment against the current order and its leaders.
Extending The Internet: The Peernet OpenMesh
Individuals, like you and me have for now very few tools to influence the laws and regulations that determine how and where new cables or new Internet access technologies are deployed and what ISPs, telcos and our own government decide with our votes and money. But we may possibly be at a turning point. For the first time individuals can start affecting the way the future infrastructure of the Internet will develop.
Conversation Week - How can change be effected?
Conversation week 2008 is the week just after Easter. It is organized by Conversation Cafe and Global Mind-Shift and everyone is invited to contribute their ideas for our future in a civilized, respectful conversation. The principal questions, selected out of many more, are:
1. How can we best prepare our children for the future?
2. What does sustainability look like to you? How do we get there?
3. How do humans need to adapt to survive the changes predicted for this century?
4. How do we shift from "Me" to "We" on both the local and global levels?
5. How can you, as Gandhi said, be the change that you want to see in the world?
6. What kind of economic structures can best support a shift to sustainable living?
7. How should we re-invent the political process so that people feel that they have a voice?
8. What kind of leadership does the world need now?
9. How can we balance our personal needs with the most pressing needs of our community and the larger world?
10. What can we do to reduce or eliminate violence in the world?You can still join the conversation, if you feel like it.
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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.
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."
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday March 23 2008
updated on Saturday December 4 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2008/03/23/the_aids_vaccine_challenger_disaster_newsgrabs_23_march_2008.htm