European Regulators Contested by Health Alliance - Health Supreme NewsGrabs Thursday, 1 July 2010
Health Alliance contests European regulators in Brussels
Basil Mathioudakis, head of the EU Commission's Food Law Unit
The occasion of this unusual coincidence of views was a lunchtime seminar convened by Irish (North West constituency) independent Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Marian Harkin. The debate’s title, “Towards a scientifically and legally rational regulatory approach to natural health products in Europe” ensured that polarised viewpoints would be aired. The audience in Brussels was a mix of other MEPs, their assistants and a sprinkling of stakeholders who were there because of their concerns over their futures as consumers, retailers or distributors of natural health products.
Not surprisingly, Mr Mathioudakis’ talk centred around the ‘what’ of the situation, with a specific focus on food supplements. There was no attempt to explain ‘how’ the legislation had come into being. An even greater omission was the failure to explain ‘why’ this complex framework of legislation affecting natural health was needed.
In exposing the nonsensical nature of the legal framework that has been proposed by the Commission and supported by EFSA, Dr Verkerk homed in on three main areas: the proposal to harmonise EU-wide maximum levels of vitamins and minerals, the fact that the simplified medicinal licensing system for ‘traditional herbal medicinal products’ which comes fully into force in April 2011 was not fit for purpose and the wayward health claims process that was set to infringe the ability of individuals and companies to inform consumers about the health properties of food and supplement products.
Call to action: Calling all European citizens: have you corresponded with or spoken to your MEP recently about these issues? Find out what you can do on the Get Involved page.
Flashback to November 2003: Mathioudakis says nutrition and prevention of illness have no connection
The other major player [in Codex Alimentarius Nutrition Committee meetings] is Basil Mathioudakis, the EU "Observer", representing a solid block of nations whose officials attend the meetings but have practically lost any possibility of independent action.You will also find out that for these two officials, nutrition has "nothing to do with prevention" and that prevention "is the province of medicine". Let us stop and think for a moment: International legislation, which will deeply affect our health choices, not to speak of the laws and health expenditures of a multitude of countries, is being formed by an obscure Committee of government bureaucrats, which in turn appears to be controlled or "steered" by a very small number of individuals who think that health and nutrition are complete strangers!
Considering the view that "nutrition has nothing to do with preventing illness", is it any wonder that health expenditures in most countries are on the rise, while health of the population seems to be at an all-time low?
Orthorexia: You are Sick if You Want to Eat Right
First of all, we are not making this up. "Healthy food obsession sparks rise in new eating disorder: Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder" was an actual article headline from UK's The Observer, founded 1791, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.And now, eating right has an official disease name, too: orthorexia nervosa.
It is our time to make salt - People’s Movement Assembly on Food Sovereignty
Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt-in defiance of the British Empire's monopoly on this resource critical to people's diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain's rule over India. The act of "making salt" has since been repeated many times in many forms by people's movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement- one that spans the globe-seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse.It is our time to make salt.
Honey as an antibiotic: Scientists identify a secret ingredient in honey that kills bacteria
Sweet news for those looking for new antibiotics: A new research published in the July 2010 print edition of the FASEB Journal explains for the first time how honey kills bacteria. Specifically, the research shows that bees make a protein that they add to the honey, called defensin-1, which could one day be used to treat burns and skin infections and to develop new drugs that could combat antibiotic-resistant infections.
Gauging Magnesium Deficiency Symptoms
Lately people have been asking me how much magnesium to take. Serum magnesium blood tests are no great help, because only 1% of the body’s magnesium is in the blood, so I made a list. I found 100 factors that are associated with magnesium deficiency and I put them in my book, The Magnesium Miracle.
The Doctor of the Future
When Dr. Sinatra first met me he immediately called me the doctor of the future because he was very impressed that I had both an MD and an ND degree.“With the understanding that knowledge empowers, our mission at [Dr. Sinatra's] Heart MD Institute is to educate patients and medical professionals alike about integrative medicine, with a special focus on metabolic cardiology. Heart MD Institute aims to inspire a restructuring of the doctor/patient relationship where together, both actively participate in the patient’s healing process. The pervading philosophy at Heart MD Institute is “prevention is easier than cure.”
MEDICALLY CAUSED DEATH IN AMERICA
The pharmaceutical giants stand back and carve up the populace into "promising markets." They seek new disease labels and new profits from more and more toxic drugs. They do whatever they can--legally or illegally--to influence doctors in their prescribing habits. Some drug studies which cast new medicines in a negative light are buried. FDA panels are filled with doctors who have drug-company ties. Legislators are incessantly lobbied and supported with pharma campaign monies.Nutrition, the cornerstone of good health, is ignored or devalued by most physicians. The FDA continues to attack nutritional supplements, even though the overall safety record of these nutrients is good, whereas, once again, the medical drugs the FDA certifies as safe are killing 106,000 Americans per year.
Physicians are trained to pay exclusive homage to peer-reviewed published drug studies. These doctors unfailingly ignore the fact that, if medical drugs are killing a million Americans per decade, the studies on which those drugs are based must be fraudulent or, at the very least, massively incompetent. In other words, the whole literature is suspect, unreliable, and impenetrable.
UN Calls Shock Treatment at Mass. School 'Torture'
The Boston-area's Judge Rotenberg Center educates and treats enrollees ages 3 to adult, all of whom are struggling with severe emotional, behavior, and psychiatric problems, including autism-like disorders. And for about half of the 250 students here, undesirable behavior means getting hooked up to a special machine and administered an electric shock."To be frank, I was shocked when I was reading the report," said Manfred Nowak, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture. "What I did, on the 11th of May, was to send an urgent appeal to the U.S. government asking them to investigate."
Psychiatric Drugs Proven To Cause Suicide
The purpose of this investigation has been to find data about the preceding psychopharmacological treatment for all persons who committed suicide in Sweden 2007.The conclusion is that a large percentage of the persons who committed suicide in Sweden in 2007 had received extensive treatment with psychiatric drugs within a year of and close to the suicide.
This is a report about suicides committed in Sweden (with around 9 million citizens) in 2007 and the psychiatric drug treatment that preceded these suicides.
Video: Sara Carlin, Paxil And Drug Safety In Canada
There have been numerous claims that a medication caused a suicide, but few lead to sweeping changes. In Canada, however, the suicide of 18-year-old Sarah Carlin, who had taken the Paxil antidepressant, is a clear exception. Following a coroner’s inquest, Canada’s provincial and federal governments were told to ensure patients are better informed about drug risks, tighten regulations on drugmakers and establish an independent agency to regulate medications.
100,000 Americans Die Each Year from Prescription Drugs, While Pharma Companies Get Rich
The industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars on physicians every year. In one survey, 9 out of 10 doctors said they had recently taken something of value from the drug industry. And some of those doctors take hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the industry. The drug companies pay doctors to be their so-called consultants. They also pay them to sit on corporate advisory boards and to give lectures to other doctors. They pay for up to 80 percent of the continuing medical education that doctors need to maintain their licenses. If you ask a doctor if this is a problem, they will more than likely tell you no...
When is a drug too risky to stay on the market?
Drug safety questions arose again this week, as calls mount for the diabetes pill Avandia to be withdrawn. Surprisingly, the Food and Drug Administration has no firm rules for deciding such cases - just a murky guideline of "when the risks exceed the benefits."
Jumpin’ Jupiter: When Should Statins Be Prescribed?
Now, a “critical reappraisal” has appeared in The Archives of Internal Medicine that calls the trial “flawed,” because there were all sorts of methodological problems and that a “strong commercial interest” may have resulted in biased outcomes. Why? Nine of 14 Jupiter authors have financial ties to AstraZeneca and the principal investigator, Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is a co-holder of the patent for the CRP test, which was known previously, and the head of the Data Safety Monitoring Board. And a second article also questions the veracity of the trial (see here).Thanks to Vince Boehm, who sent the article and referred back to an earlier post on this site that gives his view on statin drugs: Cholesterol Drugs for Kids? Pharma - Quo Vadis
Statins and Myoglobin: How Muscle Pain and Weakness Progress to Heart, Lung and Kidney Failure
Myoglobin is a unique protein specially adapted for muscle cells to help them with their enormous needs for oxygen.Myoglobin exists in at least three distinct forms, which can be characterized as Mg+2 (Ferrous), Mg+3 (Ferric), and Mg+4 (Ferryl), depending upon the amount of charge that is present on the central Iron atom. As Mg+2, its healthy state, it will readily take up oxygen and store it, whereas, when converted to Mg+3 by the addition of a proton, it becomes inert. However, with the addition of yet another proton, it becomes Mg+4, a highly toxic reactive agent that will begin to break down the fatty acids contained in the outer cell wall of the muscle cell (so-called peroxidative damage), and go on to destroy the cholesterol in the cell wall as well. Myoglobin becomes Ferryl myoglobin in the presence of excess amounts of free radicals, i.e., under oxidative stress induced by highly reactive oxygen compounds like hydrogen peroxide. Recall that, with statin therapy, hydrogen peroxide is generated in the mitochondria because the process of breaking down oxygen and converting it to water is incomplete -- due to the insufficient supply of coenzyme Q10.
US: FDA Suggests Limits on Antibiotics in Animals Because of Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria
Giving animals antibiotics in order to increase food production is a threat to public health and should be stopped, the FDA said today.The federal agency says it has the power to ban the practice, but it's starting by issuing "draft guidance" in hopes the food industry will make voluntary changes. After a 60-day public comment period, the guidance will become FDA policy.
The FDA is a bit late, there. It has been known for years that antibiotics in animal feed are problematic and cause anitbiotic resistant bacterial strains to develop. What made them change course and act now?
Norway: Merck Paying Experts to Recommend Gardasil
According to the Norwegian newspaper the VG NETT in their report Fikk betalt av vaksineprodusent – VG Nett om Helse og medisin the Norwegian experts received money from Merck and then advised their government on the HPV vaccine Gardasil, which at the time was only in it’s experimental stages, thus putting their own financial gain above the lives of the innocent children of Norway.“Four of the experts who advised the government to vaccinate all 12-year-old girls with the HPV vaccine Gardasil have received money for research from the U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck.
A fifth expert, senior research worker Ellen Nilsen, went directly from the group which gave Health Minister Sylvia Brustad advice, to a position with the company that markets the vaccine in Norway.
There are 13 persons in the expert group."
The Marvellous Health of Unvaccinated Children
(article from imcv.info - pulled)
As a concerned, compassionate and considerate paediatrician, I can only arrive at one conclusion. Unvaccinated children have by far the best chance of enjoying marvellous health. Any vaccination at all works to cripple the chances of this end.
AIDS - What everyone should know: like about gut bacteria
A continuing revelation for me is the importance of the bacteria in our gut, which I first learned about from Tony Lance [What really caused AIDS: Slicing through the Gordian Knot, 20 February 2008]. Apparently I’m not the only one for whom this was a revelation, because the media keep mentioning pertinent new aspects, all of which have so far confirmed and extended Lance’s insights about the connections between the gut microflora and “AIDS” and testing “HIV-positive”.
Airport body scanners 'could give you cancer', warns expert
But scientists say radiation from the scanners has been underestimated and could be particularly risky for children.They say that the low level beam does deliver a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin - one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body - that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.
Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University's centre for radiological research, said although the danger posed to the individual passenger is 'very low', he is urging researchers to carry out more tests on the device to look at the way it affects specific groups who could be more sensitive to radiation.
He says children and passengers with gene mutations - around one in 20 of the population - are more at risk as they are less able to repair X-ray damage to their DNA.
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Thursday July 1 2010
updated on Thursday January 26 2017URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2010/07/01/european_regulators_contested_by_health_alliance_health_supreme_newsgrabs_thursday_1_july_2010.htm
