~*Online WACOC News*~
DGSaba
The survivor cancer movie takes a few minutes to load but it is well
worth the loading time.
The survivor movie
http://www.thesurvivormovie.com/
Enjoy the sunsets and sunrises,
Diana Saba
Retired Nurse
FM ME/CFIDS
Related Neurological Disorders
CDC's Wm Reeves Must Go
Bring Back the GAO
Please Support NCF's Research Plans
http://www.ncf-net.org/
Please Sign Petitions
http://www.petitiononline.com/MEitis/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com.cfs2004/
May 12th Awareness Day
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4277/
The One Campaign
http://www.one.org/
The HHV-6 Site
http://hhv6.freeservers.com/
Reading, Researching, Posting
1997-2005
http://hometown.aol.com/dgsaba/myhomepage/profile.html
"What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters,
compared to what lies within us" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
DGSaba
DGSaba
finally be getting some respect and cutting -edge science
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/05/CMG3NCLBC81.DTL
by Dorothy Wall
Sunday, June 5, 2005
~
June 9, 2005
Please note that it has been previously reported that the CFIDS
Association of America (CAA) is not the largest patient advocacy group.
Patients from many many other patient advocacy groups applied intense
pressure, as well. I see no reason why the CAA should attempt to take
credit or be given credit for the particular intense pressure from the
patient advocates.
DGSaba
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25910
DGSaba
people with fibromyalgia
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0506b&L=co-cure
DGSaba
The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) will be meeing here in Rome for
a week-long conclave from 4 to 9 July, and one of the agenda points is
the final approval of new world-wide vitamin guidelines that are
expected to restrict availability of nutrient-containing supplements to
consumers the world over. The text of the guidelines was finalized last
November in Germany, by the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for
Special Dietary Uses. I will be reporting from the CAC meeting,
attending as part of a delegation of the National Health Federation,
one of the very few voices that argue the side of consumer freedom of
choice inside the meetings, albeit without a vote. These types of
international regulation are elaborated without public input and even
without the consent of national parliaments of the participating
countries. Each country entrusts its vote, which will eventually
determine national laws as well, to one person, the head of the
national Codex delegation. And Codex delegations are typically headed
by relatively low level administrative employees of national health
ministries. So we are having what amounts to international laws being
developed over the heads of and without input from national legislative
authorities, let alone the public that will face the consequences.
Democratic procedure has been officially abolished in the name of
globalizing the economy and "removing barriers to trade". Investigative
journalist Peter Byrne introduces his article The Fate of Vitamins with
the following words:
A low-profile organization created by the United Nations is about to
ban global trade of many essential nutrients - and there may be nothing
you can do to stop it...
DGSaba
The CFSAC website is no longer responding
http://www.hhs.gov/advcomcfs
The AACFS website still works
http://www.aacfs.org/
DGSaba
infections
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25898
DGSaba
DGSaba
The CFSAC website still does not have all the transcripts posted and
there is no posted statement as to why the CFSAC June 2005 meeting was
cancelled, by Dr. Zucker or anyone else.
CFSAC
DGSaba
receiving their weekly medical news newsletter. It is one of the best
ones I have found via the internet.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
DGSaba
DGSaba
DGSaba
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/vaccines/index.htm
"The only safe vaccine is one that is never used."
Dr. James R. Shannon, former director of the National Institute of
Health.
DGSaba
http://www.geocities.com/sezar99q/ExerciseCapacity.html
Want to read more - follow the links at:
http://www.geocities.com/sezar99q/
DGSaba
refuse pneumonia shots as well. When working in high risk areas in the
field of nursing many of us were given different types of
vaccinations...do some follow up research on hep b vaccinations and
then ask yourself, why is this being asked at most dr's visits...and
being documented...
Basic facts to know about vaccinations
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/201004basicfacts.htm
DGSaba
NOT,MED: U.S. FDA requests labeling changes for all NSAID drugs
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0506c&L=co-cure
DGSaba
RES,MED: Gene Research: A Scientific Signature' for ME/CFS?
DGSaba
Deadly Immunity
When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have
caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal
the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their
role in the epidemic.
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Deadly Immunity
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm
Thanks*!
DGSaba
JUST SAY NO TO DRUG SAFETY BOARD
"The new drug safety board established by the Food and Drug
Administration to restore confidence in the nation's drug supply
will actually set back efforts to improve the safety of the
medications Americans take and will not make it any easier to
take dangerous drugs off the market," the Washington Post
reports. FDA safety officer David Graham criticized the Drug
Safety Oversight Board (DSB) for being "severely biased in favor
of industry." He told the Post, "Ironically, drug safety in the U.S. is
worse off today than it was in November." Senator Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa) sentva letter to the FDA critical of the agency's
decision that the DSBvwill have private deliberations, requesting
improved transparencyband accountability and for the FDA to
"explain in detail how it will ensure that the DSB is truly
independent and objective."
SOURCE: Washington Post, June 8, 2005
DGSaba
PLAIN TALK ABOUT DRUG COMPANY PR
GlaxoSmithKline is undertaking yet another effort to improve its
reputation - "an extensive state-by-state media blitz." Michael
Pucci, GSK's vice-president of "external advocacy," told PR Week
that local reporters were easier for the drug company to deal
with.
"These folks are hungry for news," he said. "They'll print
everything we say ... without the political spin." GSK hired two PR
firms for the campaign, but is not naming them. The media work
"parallels grassroots outreach" that GSK began last year,
sending "sales representatives to deliver its message in front of
the religious, fraternal, and other community groups to which
they belong." GSK also launched the plaintalkaboutmeds.com
website with WebMD, "to address issues ranging from the cost
of developing drugs to patient assistance programs."
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd.), June 6, 200
DGSaba
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4696609
"I didn't realize how powerful the drug companies thought they
were," said health policy professor Lisa Bero, regarding Merck's
campaign to silence a prominent physician critical of their
painkiller Vioxx. According to documents obtained by NPR,
Merck first approached Stanford University's Dr. Gurkirpal Singh
in 1998.
The drug company paid Singh up to $2,500 for each talk he gave
to other physicians about Vioxx. But when Singh became
concerned about a 2000 study suggesting Vioxx increased the
risk of heart attacks, the relationship turned sour. Merck tracked
Singh's public comments on Vioxx, eventually contacting his
bosses at Stanford and hinting "there would be repercussions ...
if Singh's statements didn't stop." Merck provides significant
research funding to Stanford, a common arrangement between
drug companies and universities.
SOURCE: National Public Radio, June 9, 2005
DGSaba
DGSaba
Scottish scientists find 'key to curing ME'
IAN JOHNSTON
SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
A REMEDY for the debilitating condition ME, once derided as
"yuppie flu", could be available in as little as a year after
groundbreaking Scottish research.
A Glasgow University team has discovered a malfunction in
sufferers' genes which appears to prompt their immune system
to "work overtime", making patients extremely tired.
The lead scientist, Dr John Gow, said a cocktail of drugs could
be used to "turn off" the genes, allowing patients to live "a fairly
normal" life.
The university has already patented the genes involved as a
means of diagnosing the condition, also known as chronic
fatigue syndrome (CFS), quickly and cheaply.
The disease has gradually gained acceptance and in 2002,
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for
England and Wales, said that "CFS/ME should be classed
alongside other diseases such as multiple sclerosis and motor
neurone disease".
Dr Gow, a senior lecturer in clinical neuroscience at the
university, mapped all 33,000 genes in CFS sufferers and then
compared them with the genes of healthy people.
Dr Gow, who works at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital,
said they found CFS sufferers had a particular kind of "unusual
gene expression".
"This means the genes are switched on or off at an
inappropriate time. We have identified a number of genes that
are wrongly switched on," he said. "It looks like the immune
system is working overtime when it shouldn't be, making the
patient tired."
Every cell in the body contains the same 33,000 genes, but only
about 10 per cent are actually doing anything at any one time.
There are genes related to the production of liver proteins in
brain cells, for example, but these should be "switched off"
because liver protein is not required in the brain.
Drugs can be used to control chemical pathways that act on the
genes and Dr Gow said he had identified ones that could be
used to regulate the over-active genes in CFS.
These drugs are already on the market for other conditions and
could be given to CFS sufferers within a year if tests prove
positive.
Dr Gow stressed that the drugs had to be tested in practice.
"This is not a major breakthrough yet, but it is a big step forward,"
he said.
A prototype diagnostic testing kit has already been developed
which would give doctors "a yes or no answer" about whether
someone had the condition. Currently it takes about six months
to make a diagnosis.
However, Dr Gow said he was currently "going nowhere"
because his funding had run out.
Dr Neil Abbot, of medical research charity Merge, which works on
ME, said: "This is very exciting work. The analysis of genes is
one of the most interesting modern areas of research which has
the potential to come up with a cure, but this may be in the long
term."
John Breward, 51, of Bruntsfield in Edinburgh, contracted ME
after a severe case of viral pneumonia 20 years ago.
The former research scientist is now housebound and on bad
days bedridden, suffering from extreme exhaustion, pain in his
muscles and joints and migraine-like headaches.
"The possibility of a cure... that would be absolutely wonderful,"
Dr Breward said.
"We have had false dawns before with people saying they've
diagnostic tests and treatments which haven't panned out - so
I'm cautiously optimistic."
TAKING ACTION
LYNNE Mackay loved swimming and skiing and never missed a
day at school. But at 13 she changed: she languished in bed,
missed entire weeks of school and was prone to sudden
tantrums.
The reason for this transformation was unclear - she was close
to being expelled - until she was finally diagnosed as suffering
from ME. Lynne, now 16, who lives in Penicuik near Edinburgh,
said the prospect of a diagnostic test and even a cure for ME
was exciting.
"I was ill all the time, but people thought I was making it up to get
attention or get off school, so to get the diagnosis was just
amazing, really. Then you know it's not just in your brain and
you're not going mad," she said.
She has learned not to exert herself too much and this enabled
her to continue her schoolwork. She is studying for eight
Standard Grade exams.
"My symptoms are very mild now. I used to get lots of
headaches, earache, sore throat, feel very tired, aching muscles
and flu-like symptoms," Lynne said.
"It just drains you. I didn't want to do anything, couldn't do
anything. But I've learned to pace myself. I have had to not sleep
during the day and keep my sleep patterns regular.
"If I feel a wee bit tired to do something, I don't do it. If I did, I
know
it will push me back.
"I'd been a really active kid. I don't really want to sit around and do
nothing. I don't want to watch a DVD on my bed - I want to go out
and muck around with my friends. You have to learn to take a
step back, but there's always a chance of a wee infection that will
knock you back."
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=550752005
DGSaba
Molecular Expressions Pharmaceuticals Collection
The history of pharmaceutical agents is as old as that of man
himself. Since the dawn of time, man has used a wide variety of
substances to alleviate pain, fight disease, and improve health.
Early remedies were often ineffective and sometimes very
dangerous and potentially lethal. Today, there are thousands of
natural and synthetic drugs that constitute the pharmaceutical
palette of modern physicians.
The Molecular Expressions Pharmaceuticals Collection contains
over 100 drugs that have been recrystallized and photographed
under the microscope. Many of these are presented here and we
hope that you enjoy your visit.
The Pharmaceutical links below lead to progressive JPEG
images of the drugs that range in size from about 35 Kb up to
about 85 Kb.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/pharmaceuticals/index.html
Thanks*! Tis interesting, indeed!
DGSaba
DGSaba
Note: The following is the New York Times abstract of this article,
which is a very good summary.
2003 Medicare bill is object lesson in how special interests hold
America's health care system hostage; says law subsidizes
private health plans, which have repeatedly failed to deliver
promised cost savings, and creates unnecessary layer of
middlemen by requiring that drug benefit be administered by
private insurers; says it specifically prohibits Medicare from
using its purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices; notes
that Rep Billy Tauzin, who shepherded drug bill through
Congress, now heads all-powerful drug-industry lobbying group,
and Thomas Scully, former Medicare administrator, negotiated
for future health industry lobbying job at same time he was
pushing drug bill; calls Medicare bill corrupt deal created by
corrupt system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/opinion/06krugman.html
Thanks*!
Enjoy the sunsets and sunrises,
Diana Saba
Retired Nurse
FM ME/CFIDS
Related Neurological Disorders
CDC's Wm Reeves Must Go
Bring Back the GAO
Please Support NCF's Research Plans
http://www.ncf-net.org/
Please Sign Petitions
http://www.petitiononline.com/MEitis/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com.cfs2004/
May 12th Awareness Day
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4277/
The One Campaign
http://www.one.org/
The HHV-6 Site
http://hhv6.freeservers.com/
Reading, Researching, Posting
1997-2005
http://hometown.aol.com/dgsaba/myhomepage/profile.html
"What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters,
compared to what lies within us" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
--
DGSaba
strokes...
10 Year Survivial After Minor Stroke Established
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26198
~ VA and AR ~ Pay close attention :-)
Govenors Present Medicaid Plan That Would Allow More Felxibility in
Administering Program, USA
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26309
Student designs home screening kit for MRSA super bug
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26321
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
TeenScreen, a program to screen America's school children for "mental
illness" to be treated with often addictive drugs prescribed by a
pharma-driven treatment algorithm, is making waves. The parents of a
girl who was given a questionaire and subsequently diagnosed with
obsessive compulsive and social anxiety disorder are up in arms about
the testing and say they will take all legal remedies available to
them. Evelyn Pringle discusses the case and the screening program's
backgroundhere. According to a recent message of Vera Hassner Sharav of
the Alliance for Human Research Protection, the parents have found a
good lawyer to take on the case:
The high profile civil libertarian Rutherford Institute has taken up
the case of Mike and Teresa Rhoades whose15-year old daughter was
screened in her Indiana school for mental illness -- without their
permission. John Whitehead, the founder of the Institute who is a high
profile constitutional lawyer believes that there are "clear
constitutional and privacy violations involved." The aggressive tactics
of TeenScreen and its blatant disregard for the rights of parents to
make decisions for the minor children is being watched across the
nation. The Coles County (Illinois) Leader reports that the school
by-passed parental rights, side-stepping federal laws that empower
parents to give permission for their children for medical and
psychological issues. Instead the school had the minor child sign an
"assent form" whose legitimacy and legal standing will, no doubt, be
argued in court -- since parents, not children have the responsibility
of making decisions affecting their welfare. Whitehead, who called
mandatory screening an "Orwellian Nightmare" said he considers the
opposition to be formidable foes," because of the financial backing of
pharmaceutical companies and the Bush administration's support through
the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health."
In a previous comment, Hassner Sharav also says that Senators Chuck
Grassley and Max Baucus are looking into the pharmaceutical funding, by
"educational grants", that seems to have influenced the drafting of the
treatment guidelines.
~
DGSaba
Fm ME/CFIDS IBS Diverticulosis/itis
My own account of irritable bowel syndrome is something I wish to share
so others will not make the same mistake.
I began having painful bloating of my abdomen back in the early 90's.
My GI specialst discovered by endoscopy and colonoscopy necrotic
polyps, which he removed, and biopsied. The polyps were benign. I was
told then to follow up with repeat endoscopy and colonoscopy every few
years, in which I did and modified my diet accordingly.
As the years went by this painful bloating became worse and just last
year it was discovered that diverticulosis is present. This means small
pockets can form and food particles such as seeds from strawberries,
okra, pickles, and so on, including spices can become trapped in these
pockets. They then fester and cause an infection that can cause
diverticulitis which can form an abcess and even turn into a condition
known as peritonitis, which can be fatal and require a section of the
colon to be removed and a temporary colostomy.
This past sunday I was admitted to the hospital through the emergency
room and underwent three days of intensive IV antibiotics, cipro and
flagyl were both given intravenously and today when discharged I was
given prescriptions for cipro and flagyl - to be taken by mouth,
indefinately, at this time. I have no idea if the three days of
intensive antibiotics will be enough plus now the po antibiotics I'm
taking at home to clear this all up. Time will tell.
My body did not run a tempature, in fact, my tempature most of the time
remained below normal but no lower than 97 degrees.
If you have a history of GI conditions it is MOST important to pay
close attention to the pain signals, especially, if you too do not run
a tempature.
My doctor told me this morning that if I had waited even just 8 to 12
hours longer to come to the er, I may have well been too late.
Because I did NOT run a tempature and because I'm so use to my painful
bloating I nearly overlooked a serious health issue, one that could
have taken my life. It was the intense pain each time I felt the need
to go to the bathroom that alerted me into action.
So pay close attention to YOUR pain. It can save your life!
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
In an article titled Deadly Immunity, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exposes the
US government's cover-up of the scandal around widespread poisoning of
children by mercury-tainted vaccines. The article was first published
in Rolling Stone Magazine and - unprecedented in publishing history -
at the same time is posted on Salon.com. The scandal, not really new to
those who are following Big Pharma's misdeeds, is getting the exposure
it deserves. Others have picked it up, see here and here. There is
great urgency to do something stop the poisoning of children in America
and in several developing nations including China, India, Nicaragua and
Argentina, that have adopted American vaccine programs. Kennedy, in his
concluding remarks, describes the extent of the disaster, alluding to a
growing loss of confidence in pharmaceutical medicine, not only in the
First World, but also in those developing countries that have
incautiously followed America's lead in pushing poisonous vaccinations
for a whole generation of their kids:
I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a
moral crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our
public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry
to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions
arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of
American medicine. "The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross
negligence," says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a
nonprofit organization concerned about the role of mercury in
medicines. "The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It's
bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you've
ever seen." It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to
the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third
World nations come to believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid
initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict
how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad. The
scientists and researchers -- many of them sincere, even idealistic --
who are participating in efforts to hide the science on thimerosal
claim that they are trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting
children in developing nations from disease pandemics. They are badly
misguided. Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will come back
horribly to haunt our country and the world's poorest populations.
DGSaba
recognition of self-glycolipids
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26439
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center and New York
Presbyterian Hospital failed to obtain and evaluate whether they had
proper consent, information and safeguards for foster children, said
the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Human Research
Protections, according to an article by Associated Press writer John
Solomon. The investigation followed a scandal that broke when Liam
Scheff investigated the New York Incarnation Childrens' Center's use of
orphans or rather kids that had been taken away from their mothers, in
AIDS drug tests. The toxic drugs "tested" on the orphans were
forcefully given - compliance ensured by surgically inserting feeding
tubes directly into the stomach of the kids who, most of them, refused
to swallow the pills that made them violently sick. In a new article on
GNN.TV, Scheff asks why research centered around two of the most toxic
drugs in the entire pharmaceutical arsenal, instead of some more humane
but less researched methods of dealing with immune deficiency:
"What would life have been like for the orphans at Incarnation
Children’s Center if they hadn’t been in used in drug trials? If they
hadn’t received AZT and Nevirapine? If they had, instead, been enrolled
in progressive, micronutrient studies? If instead of having drug tubes
surgically inserted for reasons of compliance, they had been well-fed,
well-schooled and nurtured? Would it have been more or less responsible
than the current state of affairs?"
We might remind ourselves that there is money in drug testing and there
is little or no money in researching nutrition or in saving lives. We
need a paradigm change in health.
~
More and more many of us find ourselves asking just who do we trust
when it comes to our health?
DGSaba
the National CFIDS Foundation.
Anyone experiencing seizures, please, be sure to read:
Autopsy Findings from a Special PWC
by Alan Cocchetto, NCF Medical Director Copyright 2005
This PWC also had fibromyalgia so pay close attention to what is
written about what the medical examiner wrote in the autopsy and death
certificate.
Another article to be watching for is "Who is Dr. Zucker."
DGSaba
The summer edition of The National Forum will be mailed out within
days.
The current issue includes all the regular columns such as "Just Ask,"
"Media
Watch," "Ask Bernie the Attorney," "The Biblio File," "Medical Journal
Summaries," "National News Bits," "Fibro Forum," "Young People's
Voice,"
"President's Message," "Back to Basics," "In Memoriam," and "Forum
Feedback". The issue
also includes:
•Autopsy Finding from a Special PWC/ME
•CFAC Elephant Appears
•Superior Court Reverses Dr. Martin's Motion
•Who is Dr. Zucker?
•Have You Had Cancer?
•Clusters vs. Sporadic, Gradual vs. Abrupt Onset
•The Truth About CFIDS/ME
•The Heart and CFIDS/ME
•Caregiver's Kudos
•Coping With CFIDS/ME
•Memorial List History
•M.E. & C.B.T.
•More Medical Research......and more!
For patients who decide to join, this issue will be mailed out to them
via
first class postage. Membership may be accomplished via our website at
Gail Kansky
President, National CFIDS Foundation, Inc.
103 Aletha Rd.
Needham, MA 02492-3931
~
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
The Alliance for Natural Health, a European activist and campaign
organization dedicated to the preservation of natural health options
has commissioned a scientific study that will provide an in-depth
examination of Europe's legislative approach to food supplements. The
EU food supplements directive, which is being gradually implemented in
all member states, could severely unsettle the market for nutritional
supplements from 1 August 2005. It is feared that consumers will be
unable to obtain the most effective natural supplements after that
date, unless the European court of justice, due to announce a decision
on 12 July, follows the recommendations of its advocate general
Geelhoed, who has stated that at least a part of the supplement rules
are "as transparent as a black box", recommending that the directive go
back to the drawing board. It is anticipated that the EU court may
follow the recommendations, sending the directive back to the EU
Parliament and the EU Commission and Council to re-think some of its
provisions. Consumers are hoping for such a turn of events if only to
be able to continue to take currently available supplements for some
more years. The study, as announced by the Alliance for Natural Health,
will be executed by the "Heidelberg Appeal" group of scientists in the
Netherland, under the direction of Dr. Jaap Hanekamp and Prof. Aalt
Bast. It will examine the broader implications of the regulation of
natural substances for health in the European Union, including not only
the risks but also the benefits of using supplements. So far the
equation has been very one-sided. At the first sign of a problem, a
natural product can be completely removed from the market, as happened
for instance with Kava Kava, a traditional South-Sea island drink with
anti stress properties. Kava, made from the roots of piper methysticum
was accused of causing liver trouble, and without a proper
investigation was removed from the market over most of Europe, leaving
the field wide open for pharmaceutical antidepressants which remain on
the market, despite widespread reports of suicides connected to their
use. Similarly, the EU supplements directive is heavy on the "risk"
part of its assessment of natural products. However it seems to
completely overlook the tremendous advantages that the use of these
vital nutrients has over the consumption of pharmaceutical drugs which
merely treat symptoms, while nutrients, more often than not, go to the
root of the problem. Perhaps this study can help restore some balance.
DGSaba
DGSaba
You were an inspiration for me to quit ~ 10 years, come this November!
Cold turkey, is the only way it worked for me.
TOBACCO INDUSTRY LET OFF HOOK
The tobacco industry was given a major break last week by the
U.S. Justice Department. During the closing statements of a
six-year-old lawsuit that was on the verge of fining the tobacco
industry $130 billion, Justice Department lawyer Stephen D.
Brody unexpectedly announced the U.S. Government wanted to
reduce the fines by 90%. Sources close to the case, including
government officials, say trial lawyers reduced their demands
due to pressure from the Bush Administration's Attorney
General's office, which has recently held several closed door
meetings with the tobacco industry.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/tobacco060905.cfm
Thanks*!
DGSaba
The EPA is now allowing chemical companies to conduct toxic
chemical studies on low-income Americans. An analysis of 24
such studies found that 22 involved ethically questionable
practices. A new related congressional report states that "nearly
one-third of the studies reviewed were specifically designed to
cause harm to the human test subjects or to put them at risk of
harm." The report said scientists conducting the experiments
"failed to obtain informed consent (and) dismissed adverse
outcomes," adding that the tests "lacked scientific validity." One
study involved paying college students $15 an hour to sit in
enclosed chambers while having insecticide vapors sprayed at
them. The Bush Administration recently announced the EPA's
new policy, which allows these types of human studies for the
first time in decades. Chemical companies have welcomed this
announcement with the goal of generating studies that would
allow their products to be considered "safer" than originally
thought. Congress is currently discussing whether or not this
process should be alowed to continue. Take Action:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/epa5.htm
DGSaba
It's one thing to lose everything due to unexplained etiologies of
neurological disorders but to have it just taken away, is just beyond
ME!
Diana Saba
~
For Release Monday, June 27 to New Hampshire media
For Release Tuesday, June 28 to all other media
Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned
by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme
Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow
it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a
hotel on Souter's land.
Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision
allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it
to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other
economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.
On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany
the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire
seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley
Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.
Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare
will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a
hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature
the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public,
featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America.
Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn
Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular
piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone
largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.
"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five
people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the
power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin
our hotel development."
Clements' plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty
investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be
used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that
regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the
Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among
others.
# # #
Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC
Phone xxx xxx xxxx
lo...@freestarmedia.com
http://www.freestarmedia.com
DGSaba
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0506e&L=co-cure&F=&S=&P=1187
~
DGSaba
USA Today Examines Preparations for Next Year's Flu Season
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/
But did you know ~
Mutated H5N1 Hits US Dogs - Thousands Killed
Feds Impose Censorship Orders Under
New Quarantine Provision Laws
By Sorcha Faal
6-11-5
Reports have reached today that the mysterious illness killing dogs in
the United States has been identified as a mutated form of the Bird
Flu,
and as we can read as reported by the Boston Herald News Service in
their article titled "No grey area: canine flu killed Mass. dogs" and
which says;
"The mystery killer that has dropped greyhounds at a Revere racetrack
is
part of the deadly canine flu ripping through racetracks across the
country, test results reveal. State regulators initially downplayed as
``kennel cough'' the malady that eventually killed 18 greyhounds at
Revere's Wonderland track. But test results just back from a University
of Florida lab prove what activists argued from the start: that the
mystery plague is canine influenza - the same killer canine flu that
has
infected an estimated 10,000 dogs across the country.
Meanwhile, some activists contend that confirmation that the canine flu
has infected Massachusetts racing greyhounds raises new dangers for
domestic dogs and even possibly for humans. Federal researchers this
summer are also expected to test racetrack workers in Florida for signs
of the canine flu. Given the stakes, some activists contend the state
should be taking stronger measures."
One of the worlds leading viral scientists, Harvard Universities Dr.
Henry Niman, had previously guessed that the cause of these dog deaths
was related to the Bird Flu, and as we can read from his report titled
"Bird Flu Killing Greyhounds Throughout the United States?" and which
states;
"The fatalities in greyhounds this season appear to parallel the deaths
in Florida last year, but the scope of the infections is markedly
greater this season. Last season dog racing tracks were closed in
Florida, but this season the closings are nationwide and the number of
fatal infections has increased markedly. Last season H3N8 avian
influenza was isolated in Florida. This was the first reported
isolation
of influenza virus from dogs. H3N8 has been previously associated with
equine influenza. There have been H3N8 outbreaks in horses in Florida,
Wisconsin, and Kentucky, which may be related to the outbreak in racing
dogs.
The widespread nature of this season's outbreak indicates this year's
etiological agent is quite infectious. Although the H3 in H3N8 isolates
is distinguishable from H3 in human H3N2 isolates, a highly infectious
fatal avian influenza that affects mammals is cause for concern. Recent
false negatives for H5N1 in Vietnam and WSN/33 H1N1 in Korea raise
serious avian influenza monitoring issues."
The Boston Herald News Service had also previously reported on these
events in their article titled "Race flu may kill your pet: CDC probes
possible link to humans" and which said, "The devastating and shadowy
malady that is claiming the lives of greyhounds at Revere's Wonderland
racetrack may have even deadlier ambitions: lovable Fido and perhaps
even his master. The federal government's top scientists are exploring
whether a deadly dog flu that has ..."
But where that story ends another more ominous one begins in that
according to Russian FSB sources the United States has ordered all news
of these massive dog deaths to be censored so as not to cause
widespread
panic among its citizens. Numerous new laws passed in the United States
since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have given to the
central government unlimited powers to suspend information releases
regarding the Bird Flu Pandemic and to arrest and quarantine any of
their citizens who violate these draconian new measures.
Even more disturbing is that when the United States triggered these
censorship measures they did so under the guidance of the World Health
Organization, and who's sweeping powers we had previously reported on
in
our report titled "Chinese Government Admits To Massive Epidemics as
World Health Organization Granted Sweeping New Powers over All Nations
and Peoples on Earth" and wherein we had said;
"Not known to the Western peoples is that the World Health
Organization,
WHO, has been given new and extraordinary powers this past week over
all
of earth's peoples in preparation for the battle against this
unstoppable new disease, and as we can read as reported by the
Financial
Times News Service in their article titled "WHO gains new powers to
tackle disease" and which says;
"The 192 members of the World Health Organisation yesterday approved
international rules giving the WHO sweeping powers to tackle disease
outbreaks and other health threats. The WHO said the need for new
international health regulations had been underlined by the 2003
outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and the more
recent
bird flu epidemic in Asia. The current regulations, introduced half a
century ago before the days of mass air travel and global mobility,
cover only cholera, plague and yellow fever."
Perhaps most to be affected by these 'sweeping' new powers of the WHO
are those peoples living in the United States, and who during the
aftermath of the events of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
allowed themselves to be shackled with some of the most draconian laws
against freedom ever devised by the passing of laws known as "The Model
State Emergency Health Powers Act" (PDF document), of which a part of
it
states;
"The public health authority may isolate or quarantine, pursuant to
Section 604, any person whose refusal of medical examination or testing
results in uncertainty regarding whether he or she has been exposed to
or is infected with a contagious or possibly contagious disease or
otherwise poses a danger to public health.
The public health authority may isolate or quarantine, pursuant to
Section 604, any person whose refusal of medical examination or testing
results in uncertainty regarding whether he or she has been exposed to
or is infected with a contagious or possibly contagious disease or
otherwise poses a danger to public health.
To prevent the spread of contagious or possibly contagious disease the
public health authority may isolate or quarantine, pursuant to Section
604, persons who are unable or unwilling for reasons of health,
religion, or conscience to undergo vaccination pursuant to this
Section"
Lost to these American peoples also was their Presidents signing of an
Executive Order authorizing quarantine for the United States when this
deadly flu hits their country, and as we can read as reported by the
News Target News Service in their article titled "Bush authorizes bird
flu quarantine order" and which says, "President George W. Bush signed
an executive order on April 1, 2005, authorizing a quarantine to be
imposed on the nation in the event of a bird fl outbreak. Bird flu is
currently found in Southeast Asia, where it has been contracted by at
least 69 people since January of 2004. The current bird flu strain has
a
mortality rate of 70 percent."
The significance of the 'sweeping' new powers given the World Health
Organization, coupled with both the American Presidents signing of the
Executive Order and the various American States enacting The Model
State
Emergency Health Powers Act, is that the complete sovereignty of the
United States, and its peoples, will be turned over to the World Health
Organization, and operating under their laws called the International
Health Regulations (IHR), and to which every nation on earth has agreed
to abide by.
No longer in effect when these things happen will be their current
American laws or their much cherished Constitution. Never in history
has
such a plan been devised to so effectively, and quickly, destroy the
freedoms of so many people."
Not just the United States has been affected as China is currently
battling against the Bird Flu Pandemic too, and as we can read as
reported by Malaysia's Star News Service in their article titled "China
culls 13,000 geese after discovering bird flu in far northwest" and
which says, "China confirmed on Thursday that an outbreak of bird flu
in
its far northwest had killed 460 geese and said the case had been
contained. The announcement by China's agriculture ministry came a day
after authorities in Hong Kong released the news, having been informed
by Beijing. The ministry said it culled more than 13,000 geese at a
farm
in the Xinjiang region after discovering that about 460 had died from
the H5N1 avian flu virus strain. Fears of bird flu in China were
rekindled after Beijing reported in late May that more than 1,000 wild
birds, including geese and gulls, were killed by the H5N1 flu strain in
Qinghai, also in the country's remote west."
What is perhaps the most disturbing about these events is that in
suppressing and censoring news and information relating to the Bird Flu
Pandemic to their citizens, the United States is losing the chance to
have its citizens prepared for the massive amount of deaths to come,
birds first, animals second then human beings. Where the majority of
the
worlds nations are warning their citizens and preparing their citizens
for what is about to occur they instead turn to secrecy, instead of
openness like one of their very own allies, Australia, who just became
the latest of the worlds nations to put its citizens on alert, and as
we
can read as reported by the Australian National Nine News Service in
their article titled "Australia on alert over flu pandemic" and which
says;
"Revealing a plan to deal with the crisis Tony Abbott said Australia is
at greater risk than ever from a deadly new strain which could kill
thousands of people. According to the federal government, the WHO,
which
has been carefully monitoring the spread of bird flu in Asia, believes
the world is closer than it's ever been to a new pandemic outbreak. It
has been calling on all governments to develop or refine pandemic
plans.
The government has put on alert all emergency health workers, viral
surveillance laboratories, and GPs, issuing 35,000 kits on how to fight
the expected flu pandemic. If Australians aren't prepared, then just as
the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 wiped out thousands, we could expect
the same. It is estimated that a major influenza pandemic could lead to
2.6m Australians seeking medical attention, 58,000 needing
hospitalisation and 13,000 deaths."
Speculation among Russian Intelligence Analysts is that the greatest
fear among the US Government Military Leaders is their citizens
becoming
aware of how deficient their food supplies are of nutritional value and
how massively their entire food supply is permeated with genetically
modified 'things', and that are so depleted of value to the human body
that they are actually destroying the American citizens ability to
restore their depleted immune systems.
So serious have these genetically modified foods so affected the
Americans that their Centers for Disease Control has begun to treat the
obesity epidemic caused by these GM foods as a serious disease, and as
we can read as reported by the New York Times News Service in their
article titled "C.D.C. Team Investigates an Outbreak of Obesity" and
which says;
"For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
sent a team of specialists into a state, West Virginia, to study an
outbreak of obesity in the same way it studies an outbreak of an
infectious disease. Kerri Kennedy, the program manager at the West
Virginia Physical Activity and Nutrition Program, said the state had
requested the agency's investigation. "We were looking at our data,"
Ms.
Kennedy said, and saw that "we are facing a severe health crisis."
Not just to our warnings are these American peoples not heeding, but
even to the many of their own fellow citizens, such as the Network of
Concerned Farmers who have also warned of these dangers, and as we can
read as reported by them;
"According to a March 2001 article in the New York Times, "The CDC
(Centre for Disease Control) now says that food is responsible for
twice
the number of illnesses in the United States as scientists thought just
seven years ago... At least 80% of food-related illnesses are caused by
viruses or other pathogens that scientists cannot even identify." The
reported cases include 5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 76
million illnesses per year. This increase roughly corresponds to the
period when Americans have been eating GM food. In addition, obesity
has
skyrocketed. In 1990, no state had 15% or more of its population in the
obese category. By 2001, only one state didn't. Diabetes rose by 33%
from 1990 to 1998, lyphatic cancers are up, and many other illnesses
are
on the rise. Is there a connection to GM foods? We have no way of
knowing because no one has looked for one."
Today as the Bird Flu Pandemic grows ever larger, our efforts must
remain to educate and warn as many of these Western peoples as we can.
Towards this effort our labors must not cease.
(c) June 10, 2005, EU and US all rights reserved.
DGSaba
hypothesis for toxin-induced pathology, immune dysregulation, and
transactivation of herpesviruses
http://www.ncf-net.org/library/Mitchell-PDF.htm
DGSaba
Drug makers' trade group makes the industry's priorities U.S. trade
policy
WASHINGTON, July 1, 2005 - The Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers
of America, which represents 67 parent companies and subsidiaries that
develop and make prescription and over-the-counter drugs, listed
contacts with the government's top officials overseeing international
trade agreements on more lobbying reports than it did for contacts with
the Food and Drug Administration, which directly oversees the
industry's
products.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the cabinet-level office
which develops and coordinates the country's international trade policy
and oversees negotiations on bilateral and multilateral trade
agreements, has incorporated many of the concerns of PhRMA and the
companies it represents into official U.S. trade policy.
To read the full report log on to http://www.publicintegrity.org
~
DGSaba
Think I'll just mosey on down my yellow brick road...
When I was just a little girl
I saw a movie I hope to never forget
It was about the Wizard of Oz
Along lifes paths I've learned courage
I found I have a heart
My brain is broken
And I can still be scared pretty easily
I've followed my own yellow brick road
Only to meet others on this long journey
I've done just about all I can do - them too
So now its all up to you
Follow your own yellow brick road
Don't listen to those who taunt an goad
Find your own true spirit
Find yourself - not what others want you to be
Theres good and bad in everyone
Learn to accept positives
Do not dwell on the negatives
Exposing it helps the cause
But most of all - follow your own yellow brick road
Don't let the worst of it - get to you
Knowledge is the key to all things
All your decisions are all your responsibility
Think I'll just mosey on down my yellow brick road...
July 2, 2005
DGSaba
Tens of Thousands of Anti-Poverty Demonstrators March Through Edinburgh
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0702-07.htm
Hoping to see the Live 8 Concerts on PBS!
DGSaba
Has met your kind before
You're petty and jealous
Ignorant beyond belief
And so much more
You're weak and so insecure
You never learned how to be decent
You're good times - are by hurting others
Try your best - but you will never measure up
Write your most private intimate moments
Cry yourself a river - when he's gone
You have no class at all
You're so ignorant and angry
Foul is just another word
Until it comes to you
Take your stick shots
Curse your life away
You're pathetic and have no clue
Then again - maybe you do
Laugh and the world laughs
Cry and the world cries
You're tactics have been discovered
We've all set back and watched
Some will forever remain silent
But then there are those who won't
July 2, 2005
DGSaba
DGSaba
I wrote to Billy Ray Cyrus's fan club regarding the young lady, Candita
who is now spending most of her hours on a LP6 Vent and suffers with
Spina Bifida and then followed up with her family.
I was contacted and so were Candita's legal guardian and family, by the
director of the Billy Ray Cyrus fan club. Candita received a letter and
and enclosed was a autographed picture of Billy Ray.
It's my understanding Billy Ray is out to the east coast yearly so
we're all hoping he can make it to Falmouth Virginia to see her.
Her grandmother tells me Candita's not able to be up and off the vent
hardly at all now and when she tells her I have called she still smiles
and knows who I am and we all went ahead and told her all about how
I've been working to get Billy Ray to her bedside. She's very excited!
We all are!
Hope everyone has had a safe and happy fourth.
DGSaba
Children in chronic pain need better support, say researchers
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26933
DGSaba
Globalisation is Harming Children's Mental Health
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26939
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
4 July 2005 - The Codex Alimentarius Commission has voted to adopt
potentially restrictive guidelines for vitamin and mineral supplements
proposed by the Codex Nutrition Committee. In its 28th session here in
sun dried, heat plagued Rome, the planet's supreme food regulator has
given a nod to industry in approving guidelines for food supplements
over the strenuous opposition of consumer representatives. Several
associations representing consumers and health practitioners were
present under the banners of the National Health Federation: Friends of
Freedom from Canada, the Europe-based Alliance for Natural Health,
Danish MayDay, La Leva from Italy, the US Health Freedom Coalition as
well as the Dr. Rath Health Foundation. The question is really, whether
freedom of choice in healthcare will be respected. Although the
guidelines are not in themselves restricting supplement sales, they do
prohibit information about diseases and nutrition and they call for
future dosage restrictions to be set after scientific evaluation of the
safety of nutrients contained in pills and capsules. Consumer
representatives who attended the meeting are concerned that the
guidelines, in conjunction with the European Union's directive on food
supplements, may be a first step towards heavy controls on nutrition
that would favor the pharmaceutical approach to disease over active,
consumer-driven prevention. Flaws and some unclear points that should
have sent the guideline back to the Nutrition Committee for
reconsideration were pointed out by Scott Tips of the National Health
Federation. Industry representative David Pineda of IADSA, the
International Food/Dietary Supplements Alliance said instead that after
more than 10 years of discussion in the Committee, the consensus that
was reached was a positive step and should be adopted...
~
DGSaba
This fourth of July I felt the saddest I've ever felt when it comes to
how I feel about my country. Maybe, its lab rat syndrome...
What brought up my spirits was watchig the Great 8 Concerts on MTV and
the fireworks of the Boston Pops, haven't had time to see if PBS will
be carrying the concerts, yet. Sure do hope so!
In case you haven't been aware of it - there are changes taking place -
for the good - so we were able to enjoy food, friends in person and
loved ones via long distance and emails.
I thought Democracy Now did a great presentation regarding the fourth
of July!
Democracy Now!: Radio and TV News
http://www.democracynow.org/
DGSaba
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26987
DGSaba
AOL Music: Live 8 on AOL
http://music.channel.aol.com/live_8_concert/home
Not sure if non AOL'ers can open this one :-(
DGSaba
http://www.eurekalert.org/pubnews.php
DGSaba
Notice: National Fibromyalgia Association President/Founder selected
for FDA workshop
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0507a&L=co-cure#20
DGSaba
To: X NCF Executive Director
Jill McLaughlin:
Please post in public all facts indicating the NCF has hurt their own
cause. If it were not for the NCF - the research being done by Dr.
Hokama - would still be in shuffled papers sitting on someones desk or
in a box - unresearched.
The NCF is made of up of patients. You are not a patient. Your
daughters are patients. When you become ill, then you will be a
patient. You quit, this means you turned your back on patients. Your
last meetings as executive director in washington dc - you spoke these
words, "the patients" - very well, as a patient represenative but it
takes more than merely stating these words, "the patients" in
washington dc or for that matter in your posts. What followed is
recorded. See your email files.
It was I who asked you to start speaking at the CFSAC meetings in the
name of the patients - as a patient representative - besides speaking
as a NCF executive director.
See your email files. I'd like to reconsider my decision and would
appreciate it Jill if you would not resort to merely just using these
words "the patients" as if you are still a patient represenative for us
patients.
Many of us have all become accustomed to your tactics and your attacks
on the NCF since quitting - on this list and various other lists. I've
been busy and ill so I'm just catching back up. You can rest assured -
I make up my own mind about what was recorded and all the other
happenings Jill that landed you in wahington dc as a patient
representative and a x executive director of the NCF.
I need no one to make up my mind about you or your actions. You have
done all that quite well all on your own Jill. No need to further blame
the NCF for my reaction to your deeds.
I look forward to further NCF research efforts, either by Dr. Hokama
and or other researchers.
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
“Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription
drug abuse and addiction,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s
chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare. “While America has been congratulating itself in recent
years on curbing increases in alcohol and illicit drug abuse, and in
the decline in teen smoking, abuse of prescription drugs has been
stealthily, but sharply, rising." It would appear that something in
wrong with the war on drugs highly touted by the United Nations and
almost all member states. The target isn't right. In fact, prescription
drugs quite legally produced by pharmaceutical companies seem to
outsell the illegal variety by far. But then perhaps, there is
something wrong with prohibition - period. Certainly prohibition seems
to exacerbate the problem - or so say the experts. Prohibition is what
makes drugs profitable. Organized crime will fill the demand that
cannot be legally filled - and since to do so is profitable, the bosses
will find ways to "stimulate" business by hooking ever more souls to
their deadly business. Pushers do the dirty job. Compare that with the
epidemic of controlled prescription drugs CASA is denouncing. Here we
have a different kind of prohibition - the suppression of alternatives
to pharma's drugs. But we have pushers at work all the same:
Psychiatrists push for pharmaceutical drugging. Psychiatric drug
prescription algorithms have been put in place, financed by big pharma.
There is even a program to test every man, woman and especially the
children for their need to undergo drugging at the hands of the state.
It's called TeenScreen and is being pushed - always with pharma money
and psychiatric backing. Psychiatrists are the pushers for pharma's
addictive drugs. But everything is legal - it's got presidential
approval. Just how much prescription drugs have legally replaced street
drugs is amazing. See the comment on CASA's report by Vera Hassner
Sharav of the ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION:
~
DGSaba
Apparently we've all
got lab rat syndrome
It steals your health away
even when you're looking!
DGSaba
Please accept my heart felt sympathy for the loss of your 23 year old
son who suffered with ME/CFIDS.
May time ease your pain,
DGSaba
Diabetes 2 risk determined mainly by your adult lifestyle
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27225
Enjoy the sunsets and sunrises,
Diana Saba
DGSaba
The immune system in hemochromatosis - more than meets the eye?
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27271
My liver functions are all wnl again!
DGSaba
by Pat Fero
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0507b&L=co-cure
With careful research, I prepared and presented a report in March of
2004
to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee. I asked for
investigation. With 6 million dollars a year, not much more than in
1995,
funding levels have declined. I do not have a problem with that. NIH
never
has enough money to go around. What I do have a problem with is that
millions of dollars appear to be spent in the name of CFS, but not on
CFS
specific studies.
I continued my research through 2004 to look at the grant review
panels, to
keep track of grants funded and I am still left with this question:
Where
is the CFS money?
Therefore, I prepared another report. Please find this at
http://www.wicfs-me.org/whats_new.htm#action%20alert .
[AOL: <a
href="http://www.wicfs-me.org/whats_new.htm#action%20alert">Click
Here</a>]
The file is PDF. You will find a cover letter and a list of appendices
with
pages of lists. My point is to show that IT IS NOT MY OPINION that
something is wrong with how CFS grants are funded. It is in the numbers
and
in the lists.
What is to be done? Who holds the NIH personal accountable to the
estimated
800,000 people in the US who have CFS? I can't file a report and call
it a
day. I am not important enough. So, despite feeing horrid, despite
obstacles, we all have to take this information to our senators and our
congress people. This is our backyard to clean up and no one will do it
for us.
I am pleading with you to take action. Please open the ACTION ALERT
file
and print. The web addendum file includes more supporting documents for
your reference.
Call the LOCAL office of your congressperson and senator. Ask to talk
to
the health aide. Explain the problem in a few sentences and that you
have a
one-page letter plus lists of supporting information. Our ultimate
goal is
to ask that the 1999 -2000 Government Accounting Office (GAO)
investigation
of NIH be reopened.
Please remember that staffers get hundreds of calls a day, so keep it
short. Someone will tell you where to send the report. Most often, if
you
send to the local offices, that mail is more easily forwarded than if
you
send to offices in Washington DC.
If only 10 people in each state went to their representatives with the
report and the GAO request, it would make a huge difference. Might you
be
the person that tips the scales? Please e-mail Pat Fero at
<bp....@verizon.net>. Just put your state in the subject line. Name
the
senator or congressperson who received the information.
Remember, if we do not have better research, we can never change the
CFS
mythology. With continued bias and bigotry, people suffer beyond the
illness. Right now, we are not asking for a cure. We are not asking for
our
doctor a mile down the road to have better treatments tomorrow. We are
asking for a fair deal. Hundreds of CFS researchers care and we need to
help clear a pathway so that they can continue their work.
Last of all, we are asking others to do right by us and by our
children. I
lost my son Casey July 4th. He was 23 with an ME-CFS illness onset at
age
nine. Casey's very peaceful death was directly or indirectly related to
this illness. As a mother, I do not have to be scientific and no one
dare
make me prove what I know in my heart is true after living with this
boy
ill for 14 years.
I feel good with all of you understanding pain... I have enough to
share.
Thank you so much for the cards. I leave for a month vacation soon.
This
will be good. Know that I am the best I can be at this time.
With much respect and love,
Pat FERO - WISCONSIN CFS ASSN
~
DGSaba
Allegations of Fake Scientific Research Hit New High
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050711220809990005
Not sure if non Aol'ers can open this one :-(
I'll look for it elsewhere and if I find it I'll post a link.
DGSaba
I once knew a little boy
who has now become a man
You know I love you deeply
Do the very best you can
I'm here to help you so call me
Let me know you're safe
I did a bunch of research for you
Damages can't be reversed
I'm just a phone call away
We'll start a brand new day
Meth is Death
http://www.methisdeath.com
DGSaba
All the good news too
Beating meth is something
I knew he could do
Theres still a rough patch ahead
Reality's one step at a time
Keeping unconditional lifelines
Is what helps many get through
These hard times are not over
He knows that for sure
When all is behind him
Restitutions... expunging
He will be fighting for his health
Why meth has spread across the USA
Is just beyond ME!
DGSaba
Grist Magazine: Enviromental News and Commentary
A Beacon In the Smog
EPA failing to get health data on scads of potentially harmful
chemicals
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2005-07-12-toxics-usat_x.htm#
~
Makes one wonder which unregistered chemical is the one that will prove
to be the culprit to be causing fibromyalgia...
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
LUXEMBOURG, 12 July 2005 - The European Court of Justice has delivered
its judgement today in a legal case that challenged the restrictive
provisions of the EU's food supplements directive. The judges confirmed
the validity of the supplements directive. The verdict states that:
"Examination of the question referred to the Court has revealed no
factor of such a kind as to affect the validity of Articles 3, 4(1) and
15(b) of Directive 2002/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 10 June 2002 on the approximation of the laws of the Member
States relating to food supplements."
The decision comes as a surprise to activists and observers, because
the court's advocate general had previously expressed serious doubts as
to the validity of at least some of the provisions of the directive,
which require expensive "proof of safety" to be supplied to the
European authorities for ingredients, even if they have been used
safely for years. For a copy of the full judgement, go to this page on
the EU Court's site and follow the "Judgement" link.
~
DGSaba
roid+extract&meta=
-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.theendocrinologist.org/pt/re/endocrinologist/fulltext.00
019616-200101000-00001.htm;jsessionid=CWOgzTZ15Wq0h8y
wCET2FMBw1fbhrHkoQvrbKI626Hix7mVr7LwS!-710276437!-94
9856032!9001!-1
The Endocrinologist: Volume 11(1) January/February 2001 pp
1-3
The Invention of Thyroid Therapy in the Late Nineteenth Century
Sawin, Clark T. M.D.
Office of the Medical Inspector, Veterans Health Administration,
Washington, DC 20420.
Address correspondence to: Clark T. Sawin, M.D., Office of the
Medical Inspector (10MI), VHA, 810 Vermont Ave. NW,
Washington, DC 20420.
About the photograph: before and after photographs of George
Murray's second patient treated with thyroid extract (there are no
extant photographs of his first patient) (see BMJ 1892; 2: 449).
Courtesy of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
In July, 1891, George R. Murray (1865-1939), then a young
physician 26 years of age in Newcastle-upon-Tyne without a
hospital or medical school appointment, reported his successful
treatment of a single case of a woman with myxoedema, a
previously incurable disorder, to the British Medical Association
assembled in Bournemouth, England. He told them of what was
to them a revolutionary new approach, the injection of sheep
thyroid extract, and of the conspicuously clear-cut improvement
in the patient's condition (Murray, 1891).
Murray had good reason to try this apparently odd therapy-the
injection into a human of a glycerine-phenol extract of a common
farm animal. His mentor, Victor Horsley (1857-1916), had helped
show that it was the lack of the thyroid gland that produced the
myxoedematous condition-we now, of course, call it
hypothyroidism-and that the condition was common to patients
with cretinism, those who had had thyroidectomy, and patients
with spontaneous myxoedema with an atrophic, fibrotic thyroid
gland.
Horsley had investigated the problem of the causation of
myxoedema through much of the 1880s and had done the first
experimental thyroidectomies to show that clinical
hypothyroidism follows upon the removal of the thyroid gland.
His work then was done as part of a multi-faceted investigation
instigated by the Clinical Society of London. The result of the
investigation, done by a committee whose work took 5 years to
complete, became the famous Myxoedema Report (more
properly, chaired by William Ord (1834-1902), the Report is
entitled the Report of a Committee of the Clinical Society of
London nominated December 14, 1883, to Investigate the
Subject of Myxoedema) (Ord, 1888).
The Committee's findings were presented on Friday, May 25,
1888, to the Society at its last meeting of that academic year.
Usually sparsely attended, there was a crowd as the results had
been suspected for some time by those who were following the
problem. The interest the cause of myxoedema was not just
local. This peculiar adult disease, though clinically rare, aroused
interest not just because it resembled in some ways the ancient
disease, cretinism, but also because its understanding might
shed some light on the role of the thyroid gland, heretofore an
organ with no known function. The results had even been bruited
in the United States 3 years before when William Osler
(1849-1919), the preeminent diagnostician of his time, wrote
anonymously in the Medical News that It seems reasonable to
attribute these various conditions-cretinism, myxoedema…, and
cachexia strumipriva [the name that had been given to the
clinical state following thyroidectomy]-to disturbance or arrest of
the functions of this gland. ([Osler], 1885). There was further
interest from the United States: present in the audience on that
day in 1888 was Fordyce Barker (1818-1891), a peripatetic New
York gynecologist who travelled to Europe every year to learn the
latest in medicine and surgery.
<snip>
~
Thanks*!
DGSaba
be checked and not just your blood sugar levels.
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
The recent decision of the European Court of Justice in a case brought
by the Alliance for Natural Health, the Health Food Manufacturers
Association and the National Association of Health Stores in the UK,
will effectively preserve consumer choice for supplements, according to
Dr Robert Verkerk of the Alliance for Natural Health. While the Court
upheld the directive in its overall structure, there are some important
points that the Luxembourg judges have clarified in their decision.
Those points happen to be what the legal action contested to begin
with. The food supplements directive mandates that sources of vitamins
and minerals must be evaluated and be listed when approved. An initial
list was published in annex ii of the directive. The court's decision
has clarified that the procedure for a substance to obtain listing
...must be accessible in the sense that it must be expressly mentioned
in a measure of general application which is binding on the authorities
concerned. It must be capable of being completed within a reasonable
time. An application to have a substance included on a list of
authorised substances may be refused by the competent authorities only
on the basis of a full assessment of the risk posed to public health by
the substance, established on the basis of the most reliable scientific
data available and the most recent results of international research.
If the procedure results in a refusal, the refusal must be open to
challenge before the courts.
Another contested point was, whether substances that are normally found
in foods and are perhaps extracted to make them a concentrated source
of a vitamin or a mineral would have to go through the same tough
approval process as their "chemical" cousins. Here the court says that
...if the various recitals in the preamble to Directive 2002/46 are
read together, it is apparent that the directive concerns food
supplements containing vitamins and/or minerals derived from a
manufacturing process using ‘chemical substances’...
the corollary of which is of course that vitamins and minerals that are
in a form normally found in foods are not covered by the food
supplements directive in its current incarnation. It does not mean that
there will not be an attempt to extend the directive to cover other
substances. Indeed a review is scheduled for the year 2007 that would
have to make recommendations on how to approach such things as amino
acids, essential fatty acids, fiber and various plant and herbal
extracts. But that is another chapter and, as a friend once said, "when
we get to that creek we'll roll up our pant legs and figure out how
best to cross it". The upshot? For the first time in some years, there
is hope that perhaps the implementation of the directive will indeed
pass without hardly a change for the consumers of food supplements.
Much of this is still up to national health authorities, which can
grant "derogation", meaning they can accept the continued presence of
nutrient sources in supplements, until they are either fully approved
or are proven too dangerous to allow on the market. Many substances
have "applied for their place on the annex ii list" in the last moment.
The UK's Food Standards Agency, 'stimulated' by the Health Food
Manufacturers Association, offered encouragement and even some
financing to make and file as many dossiers as possible before the 12
July deadline. According to their website, over 500 such dossiers have
been filed in the UK. If we consider the clarifications the court has
given regarding the procedure for the acceptance or rejection of such
dossiers, we may be looking at an extremely positive development. Here
is the Alliance for Natural Health's take on the meaning of the
judgement
~
DGSaba
without secure health insurance, USA
http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27539
DGSaba
Co-Cure Archives
See July 2005 Week 3
http://listserv.nodak.edu/archives/co-cure.html
NOTICE: NIH Inquiry Reveals Many Scientists Worked for Drug Industry
Without Agency Permission, Had Other Ethical Violations
NIH Inquiry Reveals Many Scientists Worked for Drug Industry
Without Agency Permission, Had Other Ethical Violations
Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=31379
More than half of NIH scientists examined in an internal
review violated the agency's previous policies or
recommendations on drug company consulting payments, according
to excerpts from the ongoing review provided recently to
Congress by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, the Los Angeles Times
reports. The review examined whether 81 NIH scientists had
consulted for drug companies without first receiving required
permission from the agency, whether the scientists disclosed
company payments on annual forms and whether they performed
services for drug companies on "government time," the Times
reports. NIH has since issued revised interim
conflict-of-interest rules for scientists, which Zerhouni has
said are still provisional and might be changed. According to
the review, 44 scientists were found to have "violated policies
or regulations and were recommended for administrative action."
According to NIH, eight of the scientists cited have left the
agency and are not subject to administrative action. Nine
others, who were not named, have been referred to the HHS
inspector general for further investigation. In a letter dated
Friday to three members of Congress, Zerhouni wrote, "We
discovered cases of employees who consulted with research
entities without seeking required approval, consulted in areas
that appeared to conflict with their official duties, or
consulted in situations where the main benefit was the ability
of the employer to invoke the name of NIH as an affiliation."
Review History
In March, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Joe Barton
(R-Texas) and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) in a letter to
Zerhouni posed questions about the agency's consulting
practices. In spring 2004, after the committee was "unable to
obtain documentation" of such arrangements, the committee wrote
to 20 drug company executives requesting that they voluntarily
identify consulting fees paid to NIH scientists, the Times
reports. The companies provided 81 names that were not on a list
of scientists NIH had delivered to the committee. Barton said
Wednesday that the findings show the "ethical problems (at the
NIH) are more systemic and severe than previously known." NIH
spokesperson John Burklow said that officials had sought to
respect employees' rights to due process and privacy (Willman,
Los Angeles Times, 7/14).
~
DGSaba
The One Campaign ~ Excerpt
Only 24 Hours: Act now to save Aids Programs
Please call the two Senators from your state TODAY, let them know where
you're calling from and ask them to support the Santorum-Durbin
Amendment for global AIDS funding.
To make sure your voice is heard, ONE has set up a toll-free number
that will connect you directly to your Senators' offices in Washington,
DC. After talking to one Senate office, be sure to call the number
again to connect to your OTHER Senator.
We've seen the difference we can make when we act as ONE - and we've
only just begun.
Thank you!
The ONE Team
I - 800 Number
http://www.one.org/talkingpoints.html
DGSaba
and fathers having their sick ME/CFIDS children removed from their
homes and blamed for their deaths ...
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050715/325/fnfr0.html
Friday July 15, 05:00 PM
Leading doctor struck off over dead baby case
LONDON (Reuters) - A leading paediatrician who testified at the
trials of several women wrongly convicted of murdering their
babies was banned on Friday from practising as a doctor
because he gave "misleading" evidence.
The General Medical Council (GMC) found Professor Sir Roy
Meadow guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck
his name from the medical register. He has 28 days to appeal.
Meadow was an expert witness in the trials of Sally Clark, Angela
Cannings and Donna Anthony, who were all freed by the Court of
Appeal after serving years in prison after they had been
wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
"You are an eminent paediatrician whose reputation was
renowned throughout the world, and so your eminence and
authority carried with it a unique responsibility to take meticulous
care," the GMC said.
The panel said his interpretation of statistics may have
"seriously undermined the authority of doctors giving expert
evidence."
The father of Sally Clarke, who brought the case, told reporters
after the judgement he hoped he and his family would be able to
put the last seven years of "hell" behind them.
An emotional Frank Lockyer said the ruling showed the current
system of expert witnesses needed to be reviewed.
"The GMC has applied the ultimate sanction to the doctor who
played such a huge part in my daughter's conviction," said
Lockyer who was close to tears.
"I think he deserved to be taken off the medical register for what
he did for my daughter."
Cannings told BBC television it was "fantastic" Meadow had
been banned and called for him to apologise.
The GMC considered evidence he gave at the 1999 trial of Clark,
a solicitor accused of killing her two sons, Christopher and
Harry.
She was found guilty of murder, but freed by the Court of Appeal
in 2003.
Meadow had argued at the trial that the chance of two babies
dying of cot death within one family was "one in 73 million", an
assertion later disputed by experts as having no statistical basis.
A GMC panel on Wednesday concluded Meadow's evidence at
Clark's trial was both "erroneous" and "misleading".
However, it found that Meadow had not intended to mislead in
the evidence he gave.
~
Parents demand gag on cot death doctor's lectures
Outrage at international acclaim for Meadow
Jamie Doward, social affairs editor, Observer, January 16, 2005
The paediatrician whose discredited scientific evidence resulted
in the wrongful jailing of Angela Cannings for murdering two of
her children is continuing to promote his controversial theories
about child abuse to the medical community.
News that Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who is to face a General
Medical Council hearing into his conduct next month, is
continuing to influence medical thinking about child abuse
issues has sparked outrage among families wrongly accused of
killing their children on the strength of his evidence.
Cannings, who was wrongly jailed for killing her two babies,
partly on the basis of Meadow's evidence, last week discovered
she would not be entitled to compensation. Tomorrow she will
have a private meeting with the Attorney General, Lord
Goldsmith, at which she will raise concerns that Meadow is
continuing to discuss his controversial theories at medical
seminars in the UK and the United States.
Medical experts fear doctors have been too ready to diagnose on
the basis of Meadow's theory about Munchausen syndrome by
proxy (MSBP), which suggests that parents harm their children to
draw attention to themselves. As a result parents have been
accused when their children's injuries have been due to other
factors.
In Australia, the Queensland Court of Appeal has ruled that
MSBP can no longer be recognised as a psychiatric disorder.
Meadow's principal claim about cot deaths - that one child's
death in the same family is a tragedy, two is suspicious and
three is murder, which became known as 'Meadow's Law' - has
also been rejected by the British courts.
Despite the huge controversy generated by Meadow's theories,
he continues to be a big draw on the lecture circuit. Later this
month he will lecture to a 1,500-strong audience of
child-protection workers from 30 countries at a conference in
San Diego in the United States. The 'Quest for the Best'
conference is billed as a platform for health workers to learn
'best practices'.
Meadow is to give a lecture entitled 'The Medical Diagnosis of
MSBP - Warning Signs and Strategies for Diagnosis'. In a
separate lecture, he will also discuss how the backlash against
MSBP has affected the paediatrics profession. When Meadow
addressed British doctors last November, they were awarded
'personal development points' on their CVs for attending.
Penny Mellor, who campaigns on behalf of parents wrongly
accused of suffering from MSBP and will attend Canning's
meeting with Goldsmith, said: 'Given the concerns about the use
of expert medical evidence which were raised in the Attorney
General's review of hundreds of criminal cases, many of which
involved Meadow, I don't understand how he can be allowed to
continue lecturing.'
Meadow was unavailable for comment last night, but his
supporters have in the past accused his critics of conducting a
vendetta against him. They say the actions of a handful of
campaigners have damaged the image of paediatricians to the
extent that many doctors are turning away from the profession.
The appeal court ruled that Cannings' conviction, made on the
basis of the testimony of an expert witness, was unsafe. The
ruling prompted the Attorney General to announce a review of
almost 300 cases in which parents had been convicted of killing
their children. The government also instructed local councils to
look into almost 30,000 cases in the family courts where
children had been separated from their parents.
Meadow also gave prosecution evidence in two other murder
trials which were overturned on appeal. Sally Clark's conviction
for murdering her two sons was quashed after she had spent
more than three years in jail. Trupti Patel was also cleared of
suffocating her three babies.
Charles Pragnell, an expert defence witness in child prosecution
cases, has said previously that MSBP allegations have been
made 'with no attempt having been made to thoroughly
investigate possible causes of the child's illness from genetic
disorders, vaccine damage, effects of prescribed medications,
exposure to toxic substances, or severe allergic reactions'.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
DGSaba
DGSaba
David S Bell, MD Lyndonville News
Volume 2, Number 3: July 2005
http://www.davidsbell.com/index.htm
Cerebral Atrophy
Cognitive Sumptoms
Abnormal Cerebral Perfusion
and more...
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
The controversial artificial sweetener Aspartame is making headline
news, after a recent Italian study linked the common ingredient in diet
drinks to lymphomas and leukemias. Aspartame was approved in a highly
politicized maneuver involving pressure from Donald Rumsfeld, the
former CEO of Searle, the Aspartame manufacturer. The recommendations
of the FDA's own scientific board of inquiry were overridden by a
political appointee to the FDA's top job, Arthur Hull Hayes, who
over-ruled that board of inquiry and soon after went to work for the PR
Agency of Searle, Burson-Marstaller. Aspartame critics have pointed to
the FDA's own adverse events data and asked that the sweetener be taken
off the market, but since the "forced" approval of Aspartame, the
agency has been extremely reluctant to revisit the science or to even
acknowledge the presence of apparently numerous reports of the
sometimes severe side effects, such as sudden cardiac death, vision
degradation and multiple sclerosis. The recent Italian study linking
the sweetener to cancers, has forced the issue into view again. The
European Food Control Agency has announced that it will initiate an
urgent review in the light of new data. A detailed comment from Betty
Martini, referencing much of the previously collected information about
adverse events calls for schools to prohibit the sale of aspartame
laced diet drinks in the ever present vending machines. (7/18/2005
11:34:03 PM)
The Codex Alimentarius, an agency under the aegis of the World Health
Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organisation, has recently
decided to approve and publish "guidelines on vitamin and mineral
supplements", elaborated by its committee on Nutrition and Foods for
Special Dietary Uses. The guidelines prospect measures to control and
limit allowable ingredients as well as dosages of vitamins and minerals
and to warn people against supplements, saying that "we get all our
needed vitamins from the normal diet". The committee acts as if
supplements were a dangerous category of products that must be
controlled and limited. Indeed, during the discussions of the
guideline, both the chairman of the Nutrition Committee Rolf Grossklaus
and the representative of the European Union, Basil Mathioudakis,
agreed that food and prevention of disease "have nothing to do with
each other". Prevention, they said "is the province of medicine". This
would appear to be an abdication of responsibilities - at least for a
committee engaged in the discussion of guidelines on "nutrition and
foods for special dietary uses". Of course it is not very clear what is
the mandate of Codex: the facilitation of international trade or
improving the health of the population. It appears that international
trade may be the overriding consideration in Codex deliberations, with
health a distant second. If it was otherwise, we would see Codex
promoting, rather than limiting, the use of nutrient supplements for
active prevention. Someone in the World Health Organization seems to
have recognized that something's amiss. During the recent meeting of
the Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome, the matter was discussed.
Rima Laibow of the Natural Solutions Foundation, who has attended the
meeting, reports:
DGSaba
The world at your fingertips...
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to,
with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the
present."
Atoninus 200 A.D.
DGSaba
Lyme - disease lookalike baffles CDC
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/18/Tampabay/Lyme_disease_lookalik.shtml
DGSaba
International Medical Veritas Association
All over the world, in every household, in every organization
and governmental agency we have a problem with listening.
Listening is the world's problem in a nutshell. It's a problem with
most all of us. Listening Psychology
http://www.worldpsychology.net/WorldPsychology/OriginalCore
Pages/virtuaps.htm is the basis not only for all other
psychologies and their practice but it is the key to human
intelligence, empathy and compassion. Basically, the less we
listen the more insensitive and cruel we become toward others.
In medical practice listening is crucial and as we all know,
arrogance destroys real listening, so many doctors are in trouble
in this regard. Worse are medical and health officials who totally
close themselves off to others, even when these others have
basic science and medical reason on their side.
A prime example was provided by Michael Easley, national
spokesman for the American Dental Association (ADA), who
said in 1996, "Anti-fluoride cultists will not be dissuaded by the
truth. Let them spew their garbage, ignore them, and go on with
your discussions as if they weren't there."
All over the medical world we have attitudes like this. Behind
these Jericho type walls of non-listening it becomes perfectly
normal to poison people with mercury or any other chemical
substance that companies make money with. The fluoride
situation gives us a prime example. When the American
Academy of Allergy and Immunology, the American Academy of
Diabetes, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes
Association, the American Nurses Association, the American
Psychiatric Association, the National Kidney Foundation, and the
Society of Toxicology[i] <#_edn1> all pulled their support away
from the fluoridation of water what happened? Nothing! The ADA,
AMA, the CDC, FDA and the WHO did not listen and thus these
central medical authorities continue to have the nation's people
poisoned. That companies like US Steel, Dupont, Alcoa, Alcan,
Reynolds Metals, Kaiser Aluminum, Pennsalt Chemicals (now
ELF Atochem), Allied Chemical, and the Florida phosphate
fertilizer industry[ii] <#_edn2> are able to profit by selling
155,000 tons of fluoride byproducts per year for water fluoridation
instead of having to dispose of them as toxic waste at great
expense[iii] <#_edn3> is a great reason not to listen. Basic
science tells us clearly that government officials are poisoning
its own citizens and getting away with it.
Tomorrow is the march on Washington to protest the use of
mercury in medical products. Today the CDC announces a
surprise press conference to communicate the importance of
infants and children receiving their recommended vaccinations
on time, and reassure parents that vaccines are safe even
though they contain neurological chemical poisons, which when
injected into infants will cause problems that all neurological
poisons do. Robert Ferguson at the Center for Science and
Public Policy in Washington also weighed in today on the side of
chemical terrorism by attacking Senator Susan Collins from
Maine. Senator Collins, along with many others, is taking a tough
stance against mercury pollution from the country's 1000 coal
fired power plants. Ferguson casts aside any kind of common
sense and speaks quite eloquently to those who get rich off the
suffering of others. Certainly he and others on the chemical dole
will be living as far away as possible from one of these mercury
polluting smoke stacks no matter what they say. There is really
no limit to the madness that mercury provokes in medical men
and women. This was clearly depicted by Reuters Health News
in September of 2004 when they reported, "Immunizing infants
with vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal may
actually be associated with improved behavior and mental
performance, according to two British studies published in the
medical journal Pediatrics."
The CDC is now medically up a creek without a paddle for all
of vaccine science and safety has just gone out the window with
the announcement that all babies are born chemically poisoned.
No one at the CDC knows what the added detrimental affects
are of adding vaccines with their own long list of chemicals in
them to an already badly polluted blood stream and cell
environment. No one has tested for this but we can safely
assume that the mixing of poisonous chemicals in children's
bodies is not what medicine wants to be doing.
We cannot anticipate any kind of civilized humane attitude from
the CDC at this point. They threw away all caution these past 20
years and even promote the use of vaccines to immune
compromised populations even though it was always
contraindicated to use vaccines on sick people. A blood stream
filled with hundreds of foreign toxic chemicals and metals in
newborn babies destroys all concepts and assumptions about
what the effect will be when vaccines are administered. Though
no one has had the time to start analyzing this catastrophic
information but surely we will find a degree of immune
suppression in these infants. Thus our ultra safe vaccine
program, which has led to thousands of deaths and millions of
neurologically compromised children, is only going to bring
more disaster to our children as the environmental problems get
even worse. According to the McCarton Foundation for
Developmental Disabilities nearly two million people in the U.S.
are living with autism.[iv] <#_edn4>
Robert F Kennedy Jr. was recently interviewed by Sheryl Atkinson
of CBS News who asked him if he could name some of the high
ranking medical officials who he consulted with in public health
field. Kennedy responded saying, "Well, Marie McCormick, who
is the chair of the IOM committee that exonerated thimerosal,
Kathleen Stratton that is the chief of staff of the committee that
exonerated thimerosal; Steve Goodman who is on that
committee, Paul Offitt and many others. I was talking to the top
people and found that when you really questioned them about it
they would say, `well even if it is true these kids are part of the
national sacrifice. We have to sacrifice these kids, in order to
make sure that all of us stay healthy.'"[v] <#_edn5>
Non-listening is quite lethal, first on a soul level, then
psychologically. Any police officer can tell you they will shoot
when a criminal does not listen to an order to put down his gun.
In medicine non-listening has been taken to an entirely new level
of nastiness while our children are being sacrificed. Modern
medicine is seriously hurting children and adults alike and the
doctors in the mainstream medical establishment simply do not
care. They are protected from any kind of empathy or human
compassion for they are not listening to anyone but their fellow
non-listeners in the medical industrial complex. Listening is love
and without it doctors leave a swath of death and destruction
millions of people long. Listening has never been a strong suit
for humanity. We simply have not made it important. But now we
are letting corporations and the medical establishment harvest
our young for profit. Medicine was never meant to become
malicious but we live with the particularly sad reality that it has
become a nightmare of despair.
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Director International Medical Veritas Association
http://www.detoxchelationclinic.com
http://www.imva.info
http://www.worldpsychology.net
i] Groves B. Dublin, Ireland: Newleaf; 2001.
[ii] Kauffman, Joel. Water Fluoridation: a Review of Recent
Research and Actions. Journal of American Physicians and
Surgeons Volume 10, Number 2 Summer 2005
[iii] Bryson C. The Fluoride Deception New York, N.Y.: Seven
Stories Press; 2004
[iv] NEW YORK, July 19 /PRNewswire. Multimedia News
Release - 1 in 166 Children Diagnosed With Autism.
[v] http://www.peakwriting.com/cheezyfour.mp3
~
Thanks*!
DGSaba
Big Pharma's Best Friends
Ari Berman
Tue Jul 19,10:28 AM ET
The Nation -- Ethics and science are two areas Republicans in
power display notable contempt toward. The intersection of the
two has proved particularly troubling.
Last year the House Committee on Energy and Commerce
discovered that 81 scientists at the government's National
Institutes of Health (NIH) were secretly on the payroll of
pharmaceutical companies as consultants. Between 1999 and
2004, the fees ranged from $5 to $517,000.
The revelations prompted an internal NIH investigation, which
the House Committee recently made public. Of the 81 scientists
under scrutiny, 44 violated NIH rules by either failing to disclose
income from private work, failing to receive NIH permission for
private consulting or conducting private research on government
time. Nine scientists are being referred to the Department of
Health and Human Services' Inspector General for possible
criminal charges.
The individual violations first reported by the Los Angles Times
included:
** Dr. P. Trey Sutherland--an NIH Alzheimer's disease
researcher--accepted $500,000 from Pfizer without receiving
permission or disclosing the income.
** Dr. William Paul--head of the NIH's Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases--accepted $380,000 between 2000 and
2004 from Suntory Pharmaceuticals Research Lab and Novartis
AG.
** Dr. Howard Young--section chief of the National Cancer
Institute's experimental laboratory--accepted 500,000 shares in
stock options from Advanced Viral Research Corp.
Amidst widespread conflict-of-interest allegations, NIH Director
Elias Zerhouni issued sweeping ethics changes last February
prohibiting consulting deals between NIH scientists and the
pharmaceutic industry. Top scientists were told to sell their
shares in such companies. "I will not compromise on
institutional integrity," Zerhouni told the Baltimore Sun. "That's
the No. 1 goal. Everything else is extraneous."
But Zerhouni faces internal opposition, especially from an
18-member executive board whose members took $400,000
from big pharma--and has resisted making the new ethics
guidelines permanent. The latest Congressional hearings may
finally spur action.
"These findings indicate that the ethical problems are more
systematic and severe than previously known," said Committee
Chairman Joe Barton, no great ally of science. "They also
demonstrate the need for NIH to issue the final ethics rule as
soon as possible."
Reigning in the pharmaceutical industry, which has spent $800
million in federal lobbying and campaign contributions over the
past seven years--more than any other industry, won't be easy.
But it's about time the government tried.
~
DGSaba
International Medical Veritas Association
"Standing and screaming NO MORE LIES in front of the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for 15
minutes straight was really therapeutic. I highly recommend it. I
think we should do it once a week. It was so cool to hear my
daughter, who is normally so nonpulsed by life, screaming her
freaking head off all day!!!!!" wrote Jon Stewart of the Power of
Truth Rally in Washington. History was made yesterday as
parents and their children stood up to the high and mighty halls
of the western medical establishment who are committing
crimes against humanity and feeling quite justified about it. With
a child falling to autism every 20 minutes in the United States,
and possible every five minutes or less in the world we have a
disaster that merits attention that finally the media is
begrudgingly beginning to give it.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. is accusing the medical establishment
in Washington and Atlanta of a cover-up. He is accusing them of
crimes against children and there is nothing worse in civilized
society. So great is the crime that it threatens the very
government and even financial institutions for the costs of this
disaster projected over the future lifetime of these hurt children
runs in the trillions. So the code word of the government is
denial. It's happening they say, `yes autism and its related
disorders are happening but we had nothing to do with it. You
have to believe us, we are the good guys!'
Dr. Murray Lumpkin, the acting deputy director commissioner
at the Food and Drug Administration urges people on both sides
of the issue to focus on uniting in the war against autism, not a
war on vaccines. But what if vaccines are causing autism? From
everywhere we are hearing cries for more research into the
causes of autism and we have serious medical officials looking
into cameras trying their best to express perplexity over the
mystery of what is autism and the epidemic of other neurological
disorders. There really is no mystery and a fifth grade student
can understand these kids are being poisoned from birth and
even from conception. It is beyond most doctors today and
certainly beyond the medical establishment to comprehend that
neurological poisons like thimerosal that contain ethyl-mercury
would cause neurological problems.
The cause of autism is known. The answer is right there for
anyone with eyes to see and a heart to feel the truth. Mercury of
course is not the only culprit but it is the principle one made
worse by lead, aluminum, and fluoride which all combine into a
`devils triangle' to increase the uptake of each other and their
toxicity. Fluoride in the water increases the uptake of lead and
lead increases mercury toxicity by a factor of about 100. Mix in a
little aluminum, which they do in vaccines, and you have a
supercharged poison that miraculously does not kill all the
children it is given to.
It is a little strange expecting anyone from inside the medical
industrial complex to do anything that contradicts the lockstep of
pharmaceutical based thinking. When it comes to autism
parents are out of luck for it is not in the best interest of the
medical establishment to find a cause that will expose the
scientific and medical immorality of organizations like the CDC,
FDA or the HHS. Certainly they will resist the truth of autism if it
means losing hundreds of billions of dollars in law suits.
Medical officials told reporters recently that they are worried
that concerns over possible connections between autism and
the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal are discouraging
parents from vaccinating children against a host of infectious
diseases. "The science tells us very clearly that vaccines save
lives and protect our children," CDC Director Julie M. Gerberding,
MD, told reporters. So even if vaccines are a principle cause of
autism it is not in the best interest of public health to stop the
autism epidemic. Gerberding and other officials stress that
childhood vaccines have virtually erased diseases like polio,
diphtheria, and measles, that once killed thousands of U.S.
children. So it is really worth it to sacrifice hundreds of
thousands of children to a disease like autism as long as these
ancient plagues are kept at bay. This is the voice of medical
immorality speaking.
Our nation cannot afford to allow another generation to face the
vaccine risks that changed our children's lives and our lives
forever.
Barbara Loe
Fisher
The anti thimerosal people are telling the anti vaccination
people to shut up and back off. "Save it for later-mercury out
first." But the thimerosal people are easily cut off with statements
like `Thimerosal has only been used as a preservative in one
vaccine since 2003.' There are doctors and public healthcare
officials who have absolutely no problem lying about such things
and the truth is that there are still plenty of vaccines with full
doses of mercury and only this year are all the childhood
vaccines (minus the flu vaccine) with full doses of mercury
disappearing off the shelves in the United States because of
their expiration dates. Yes the disgusting truth is that they left the
old vaccines on the shelves. There was no recall. Why should
there have been since the medical establishment only said there
"might" be a problem. Officially there is no problem so they left
the thimerosal vaccines on the shelves and they are just now
finally running out.
We trusted you and you betrayed our trust.
Barbara
Loe Fisher
Many lawmakers around the country now feel it necessary to
FORCE the medical establishment to take the mercury out of
vaccines because they will not admit that a poison is a poison.
But when medicine and politics mix we have kids getting hurt for
politicians have not the guts yet to see that by not calling for an
investigation and not stopping this tomorrow more kids are
going to get hurt. Who is crying for the children who are going to
fall today and tomorrow and next week? You know the allies
never did bomb the concentration camps; they let the death terror
go on to the last minute.
The pharmaceutical companies who built and ran the
concentration camps have managed to continue their fine work
and today many children around the world will be injected with
neurological poisons. This is a fact. The only thing the medical
establishment can say is, "Well it's just a little bit of poison, what
are you worried about?" We let the doctors off the hook by letting
them hide behind `the dose makes the poison' charade. To
them just a little is 75 thousand trillion molecules of thimerosal.
There are not that many stars in the entire universe yet they have
the audacity to suggest that's a little. Even with today's
thimerosal free vaccines there is a trace and that might mean
only 500 billion molecules of this deadly neurological poison.
The truth is we cannot have vaccines in the world unless we
poison the children. What a wonderful state of medical affairs we
have come to. To take thimerosal out of vaccines completely
would destroy the entire vaccine industry and put a lot of people
out of work. Certainly it would reduce the income of many
doctors. "So let's continue the poisoning," is the party line of the
medical establishment, "better to poison the kids then let them
get the flu."
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Director International Medical Veritas Association
http://www.detoxchelationclinic.com
http://www.imva.info
http://www.worldpsychology.net
Barbara Loe Fisher's speech at today's Power Of Truth rally in
Washington, DC
Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-Founder & President National Vaccine
Information Center
POWER OF TRUTH RALLY July 20, 2005 Washington, D.C.
Mothers and fathers of vaccine injured children, we have
gathered here today to stand shoulder to shoulder with each
other in a united call for our Government to tell the American
people the truth about vaccine risks. And we are making history.
Because we are standing up and giving notice that we are not
going to allow our children, who have no voice and have no
choice, to be written off as necessary sacrifices in a war on
disease that has left far too many bodies on the field.
We know that it doesn't have to be like this. We know that, if
public health officials and drug companies would care more
about protecting the life of every child than protecting a tragically
broken mass vaccination system, so many of our healthy
children would not continue to be hurt by vaccines that are
supposed to keep them well.
Those of us with grown DPT vaccine injured children, who
launched the vaccine safety and informed consent movement
nearly a quarter century ago, knew then that if the Government
and Industry did not listen to our pleas, someday we would be
here, looking out at the faces of a third generation of parents who
have watched their healthy children regress after vaccination.
Our nation cannot afford to allow another generation to face
the vaccine risks that changed our children's lives and our lives
forever.
Public health officials, unwilling to properly regulate the
pharmaceutical industry, have failed to do their job and clean up
the vaccines they force our children to take. Drug companies,
eager for larger markets, have not taken responsibility for the
safety of the vaccines they sell for profit. Doctors, who give
vaccines, have turned a blind eye to vaccine reactions, forgetting
that their first duty to patients is to do no harm.
Mothers and fathers raising children who will be the future of
America have the right and the responsibility to ask Government
and Industry this question: why, when we have given our children
the many vaccines you told us would keep them well, why is it
that now 1 in 6 American child is autistic or developmentally
delayed? In the 25 years that the numbers of doses of vaccines
you tell us to give our children has doubled, our nation has seen
a doubling of learning disabilities, ADHD, and asthma; a tripling
of diabetes; and a 200 to 7,000 percent increase in autism in
every state.
It doesn't matter what your published studies say. It doesn't
matter what your press releases say. What matters is the real
life experience of parents all over this country and all over the
world. And that experience is, that we took our healthy, bright
babies into a doctor's office for routine vaccinations and watched
our precious children regressed physically, mentally and
emotionally and be left autistic, hyperactive, learning disabled,
epileptic, asthmatic and suffering with other brain and immune
system disorders.
We trusted you and you betrayed our trust.
And that is why we are here today. And that is why we are not
going away until the last vaccine on the last shelf in the last
doctor's office is mercury free. And we are not going away until
you do the credible scientific research that will tell us why and
how vaccines can injure and kill and who is at high risk. And we
are not going away until we know we can trust that what you tell
us about vaccines is the truth.
The power of truth is on our side and we will not be silent until
it is known. This is the legacy that we can leave to our children
who have been hurt by vaccines and those who have yet to be
born. It is a legacy that will be as grounded in scientific truth as it
is in our abiding love for them.
We will go from this place back to our homes and our families
and do the hard work that needs to be done. And you will see us
everywhere: in the schools and town halls; in the state
legislatures and in the courts; in Congress and on the evening
news and on your doorstep whenever you hold meetings behind
closed doors. You will hear our voices raised in a great public
witnessing of what has happened to our children after
vaccination.
Listen well. The world is watching.
DGSaba
Does this mean you're going to start shooting everyone who doesn't
listen to you? Sounds like terrorism.
~
I believe Barbara Loe Fisher's closing words explains their intentions:
I have reposted them for you.
The power of truth is on our side and we will not be silent until
it is known. This is the legacy that we can leave to our children
who have been hurt by vaccines and those who have yet to be
born. It is a legacy that will be as grounded in scientific truth as it
is in our abiding love for them.
We will go from this place back to our homes and our families
and do the hard work that needs to be done. And you will see us
everywhere: in the schools and town halls; in the state
legislatures and in the courts; in Congress and on the evening
news and on your doorstep whenever you hold meetings behind
closed doors. You will hear our voices raised in a great public
witnessing of what has happened to our children after
vaccination.
Listen well. The world is watching.
~
DGSaba
Notice: Primate virus jumps species barrier to humans for 1st time in
Asia
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0507c&L=co-cure#27
DGSaba
DGSaba
http://www.grist.org
Body Count
Americans' bodies harbor numerous toxins, big study finds
The largest-ever study of human chemical exposure shows that Americans
are carrying dozens of potentially harmful toxic compounds in their
bodies. Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control tested some
2,400 people in 2000 and 2001 and found more than 100 worrying
compounds, many with known links to health threats, many present in
larger doses in children than in adults. Some news is good:
Dramatically reduced child lead levels are an "astonishing public
health achievement," according to CDC Director Julie Gerberding. Some
results are mixed: Lower overall amounts of cotinine, a chemical found
in second-hand smoke, are credited to antismoking laws; however, levels
in African-Americans are roughly twice those in whites and Hispanics.
Some findings are just grim: The study found that 5 percent of those
tested have doses of three kinds of phthalates exceeding those
associated with genital abnormalities in boys, and 76 percent of the
population tested carried potentially neurotoxic pyrethroid pesticides.
Says a specialist in children's environmental health, "We have fouled
our own nest."
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 22 Jul 2005
straight to the source: Mercury News, Lisa M. Krieger, 22 Jul 2005
straight to the source: The Wall Street Journal, Peter Waldman, 22 Jul
2005 (access ain't free)
©2005. Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Gloom and doom with a
sense of humor®.
~
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
"Pineapple stem may combat cancer" is the title of an article published
today on BBC News. Researchers say that two components found in the
stem of the pineapple may be active anti-cancer agents. "In searching
for these components, we discovered the CCS and CCZ proteins and found
that they could block growth of a broad range of tumour cells,
including breast, lung, colon, ovarian and melanoma."
I am always flabbergasted to see how things that have been known for
years or even decades are "discovered" by pharmaceutical research
without so much as a word of mention that the reviled "quacks" have
been using enzymes to cure cancer for decades. It seems like there is
an impenetrable wall between two worlds of medicine. The "official"
world of pharmaceutical medicine and the "alternative" world of those
who use natural methods and a comparatively light touch in their
attempts to support the body's own healing mechanisms. So it is good to
see that recognition seems to be dawning. "The origin of many
anti-cancer drugs can be found in nature", the article quotes Dr Julie
Sharp, at Cancer Research UK. My comment: That's right Julie, and I
might add that many of the "alternative" doctors are already using
these same substances that pharmaceutical medicine is just now
discovering: Dr Michael T Murray on Proteolytic Encymes in Cancer
Therapy WholeHealthMD.com enzyme therapy Healingdaily.com Cancer
Prevention Measures Focus-On-Nutrition.com Enzymes
MikesBrain
>
> Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
>
> "Pineapple stem may combat cancer" is the title of an article published
> today on BBC News. Researchers say that two components found in the
> stem of the pineapple may be active anti-cancer agents. "In searching
> for these components, we discovered the CCS and CCZ proteins and found
> that they could block growth of a broad range of tumour cells,
> including breast, lung, colon, ovarian and melanoma."
> I am always flabbergasted to see how things that have been known for
> years or even decades are "discovered" by pharmaceutical research
> without so much as a word of mention that the reviled "quacks" have
> been using enzymes to cure cancer for decades. It seems like there is
> an impenetrable wall between two worlds of medicine. The "official"
> world of pharmaceutical medicine and the "alternative" world of those
> who use natural methods and a comparatively light touch in their
> attempts to support the body's own healing mechanisms. So it is good to
> see that recognition seems to be dawning.
Interesting subject, but the reason Pharma-Corps "ignore"
traditional remedies is because they can't patent them if
they are recognised as already "public" existing treatment
procedures.
Block/ignore/refute until "officially" non-existent, then
"discover" patentable elements, and huge profits await.
Most huge Mega-Corps have dedicated teams working just on
patent aquisition projects, and, most having key spooks in
positions of influence within the regulatory organisations,
can block stuff they can't/don't influence until they can
establish "ownership".
A bit of searching into Monsanto's rBGH and how they placed
an agent within the FDA to get it passed will show how this
process works.
Google "Monsanto" "fda" "bovine" "tumour"
...for more.
EOF
--
----
* Another squeaking wheel @ http://tinyurl.com/6bf56
* Mike's (curious) Brain @ http://tinyurl.com/4872c
- Have a nice day, it really does do you good! :)
DGSaba
Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
June 30, 2005 - Representative Susan Davis has introduced House
Resolution 3156, also called the "Dietary Supplement Access and
Awareness Act". The bill is co-sponsored by John Dingell and Henry
Waxman and requires constant notification of new supplements put on the
market, similar to the notification introduced by the European Food
Supplements Directive. The stricter rules, which echo a previous bill
(H.R. 3377) are directed at supplements that contain herbs and herbal
extracts as well as any other substances that are not strictly vitamins
and minerals. In an apparent attempt to pre-empt a recent court ruling
that held ephedra may be sold as long as the dose is lower than 10 mg,
the bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
require reports of adverse events and to determine the fate of any
supplement by assessing the risks against the benefits. Even a small
risk may lead to removal of a supplement from the market, as it would
be up to the Secretary to assess whether there is sufficient benefit.
In a sane world, this would be acceptable, but the trouble is that the
FDA usually acts to remove a whole class of supplements, regardless of
dose, source of the ingredient or combination with other ingredients.
This happened with ephedra, leading to a de-facto complete ban of any
supplement containing the herb. Except, of course, prescription and
over-the-counter medicines that contain the extract, and that, in my
book, is an unjustifiable double standard. The Secretary is also
directed by the bill and given funding to promote the reporting of side
effects. Now if supplements are to be evaluated, controlled and taken
off the market at the first hint of trouble, I would like to see the
same treatment be reserved to food additives, such as aspartame, and to
pharmaceutical drugs that have been shown to kill people by the
thousands routinely as well as any other things we routinely ingest, be
they foods, drinks or meds. While it is quite reasonable to demand
supplements be safe, why not demand that food additives and medicines
be just as safe? And why not start with the ones that have shown the
biggest safety problems? Perhaps the Davis-Dingell-Waxmann bill should
be extended to cover not only supplements but all the substances we
routinely ingest. We could then prioritize intervention where it serves
most. According to the statistics compiled by Ron Law, risk analysis
expert and policy analyst from New Zealand, supplements are the
absolutely safest category of products in existence. I would certainly
welcome all other ingestable products be brought to the same level of
safety. Here is a call for action issued by the Weston A. Price
Foundation, forwarded by Chris Gupta of "Share the Wealth":
~
DGSaba
DGSaba
http://cjr.org/issues/2005/4/lieberman.asp
Bitter Pill
By Trudy Lieberman
Excerpt:
Last December, Sepracor, a company in Marlborough,
Massachusetts, whose core business is concocting slight
variations of the world's best-selling drugs, got the go-ahead
from the Food and Drug Administration to sell Lunesta, a new
sleeping pill that could be used for months without losing its
effectiveness. To prime Wall Street for the drug's potential
profitability, Sepracor's chief executive officer, Timothy Barberich,
told analysts that insomnia is "one of the most prevalent and
growing medical needs in our society," while David Southwell,
the company's chief financial officer, described insomnia to the
media as "underrecognized" and "undertreated," and estimated
the U.S. market for sleep aids at $3.5 billion a year and growing.
Following the industry's modern marketing script (create a need,
then a drug to fill it) Sepracor soon began selling Lunesta to the
public — with the help of the press.
As with most launches of drugs, Sepracor and one of the
academic medical centers involved in testing the drug (in this
case, Duke University) offered journalists sources they could
call, including those with financial links to Sepracor. And the
company got results. For example, some of the nation's most
respected newspapers peppered their stories with quotes from
Dr. Andrew Krystal, who conducted the Duke clinical trial of
Lunesta and was the lead author of the study that reported the
results. Krystal had designed and conducted other studies for
Sepracor, and had also served on a company advisory board.
Most of the news stories did not disclose his financial ties to the
drugmaker.
To humanize their stories about Lunesta, the Los Angeles
Times and The Washington Post both featured Terri Bagley, a
forty-three-year-old owner of a North Carolina cleaning business
who had been paid to participate in the Duke trial, and who was
offered to the press by Duke p.r. officials. Bagley told the Times
that Lunesta could reduce "road rage" since "there'll be a lot
more well-rested people out there." In the Post she said she
was counting the days until she could get a prescription. A story
headlined sleepless at duke find cure, appearing in the Raleigh
News & Observer, a paper near Bagley's hometown, devoted
several paragraphs to her sleeping problems.
The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Good Morning
America did offer an independent opinion. Dr. Gregg Jacobs, an
assistant professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School,
said that other treatments for sleep disorders, such as talk
therapy, may work better than sleeping pills. Jacobs himself,
though, was amazed at the tone of the coverage. "You would
think that, the way the media covered it, it was a new miracle
drug," he says. "It's not even close."
Americans have always been obsessed with all things
health-related, but today a drug can move almost
instantaneously from medical research to miracle cure through
news media that too often seem more interested in hype and
hope than in critically appraising new drugs on behalf of the
public. The problem has grown dramatically in recent years as
direct-to-consumer advertising has increased, delivering
ever-higher ad revenues to the nation's media. Instead of
standing apart from the phenomenon and earning the public's
trust, the press too often is caught up in the same drug-industry
marketing web that also ensnares doctors, academic
researchers, even the FDA, leaving the public without a reliable
watchdog.
Consider the case of the National Sleep Foundation's annual
poll to promote National Sleep Awareness Week. The poll,
released in March, found that 75 percent of adult respondents
said they had frequent difficulty sleeping, a problem serious
enough, they said, to affect their sex lives. "It was an important
story," says Richard Gelula, the foundation's chief executive
officer. "The poll gets treated as news, and this year it got good
news coverage" (at least twenty-four stories by CJR's count). As
the poll gathered headlines, Sepracor was dispatching 1,250
sales representatives to physicians' offices to educate them
about Lunesta, part of a $60 million advertising push. The
foundation's mission, Gelula says, is to tell people what good
sleep is, how to get it, how to recognize the signs and symptoms
of sleep disorders, and to talk to their doctors if they have any of
them. It is a message that dovetails with Sepracor's advertising
pitch, which like all direct-to-consumer advertising instructs
patients to talk to their doctor.
Virtually all the news stories about the poll failed to identify the
National Sleep Foundation's ties to the drug industry. According
to Gelula himself, nearly $1 million of his $3.6 million budget
comes from makers of sleeping pills, including Sepracor, which
gave the foundation a $300,000 grant to produce a series of
"Sleep Medicine Alerts" — brochures designed to educate
doctors about insomnia. Sepracor, along with other companies
that make competing products, is also a $250,000 platinum
sponsor of National Sleep Awareness Week. The foundation's
own Web site reveals that the group is funded by drug
companies, physicians, patients, medical centers, and makers
of sleep aids, most of which have an interest in new drugs and
treatments. But with the exception of CBS Evening News, the
press did not disclose the financial link between the foundation
and the companies that would benefit from the poll's results.
"The media are victims of the same problem as doctors and
patients," says Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at the
Harvard Medical School. "Too often they get industry-sponsored
sources of information that look like they are from unbiased,
scientifically driven public-interest groups when in fact they are
thickly veiled marketing activities."
In its public comments, Sepracor contends that Lunesta is safe
because the older drugs from which it is derived have generated
no safety problems. Like all drugs, though, Lunesta has side
effects. For example, it apparently lingers in the body: the
professional product label, written for physicians and
pharmacists and not routinely seen by patients, warns users not
to engage in any hazardous occupations that require complete
mental alertness or motor coordination, such as driving a car or
operating machinery, after taking the drug, and also to be
cautious of "potential impairment" in performing such activities
on the day after taking the pill. Most of the press coverage did not
discuss this drawback, which might make it problematic for
patients to get to work the next day. Meanwhile, evidence is
accumulating of problems with all sleep drugs, which reporters
could have examined but did not. In a meta-analysis of all
available research on sleep medicines, the Canadian Medical
Association Journal noted that users of a drug similar to Lunesta
were at increased risk of traffic accidents. The National Institute
for Clinical Excellence, a British government watchdog for health
spending, found no consistent difference in safety or
effectiveness between the class of drugs Lunesta belongs to
and older sleeping medications. What's more significant, an
editorial in the British Medical Journal observed that no sleeping
drug has yet to be shown more effective than placebos for
improving the quality of life and daytime functioning, or for
avoiding such outcomes as falls and fractures. Terri Bagley's
testimonials that Lunesta made her feel better hardly count as
medical evidence. The British Medical Journal editorial placed
Lunesta within the overall scientific knowledge about insomnia
and its treatment — vital context absent from U.S. press
accounts, where the science of a new drug comes last, if at all.
Press acquiescence to industry public relations stems in part
from an American cultural belief in the inherent goodness of
medicine and its corollary — that every new pill, every new
treatment, works and should be treated as safe and effective
unless proven otherwise. In his landmark 1982 book, The Social
Transformation of American Medicine, Paul Starr explains how in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the medical
profession benefited from the cultural and social upheaval —
including the embrace of science — to establish itself (and thus
its money-making medicines) as the unquestioned authority on
matters of health, a position it has enjoyed ever since.
Even without that cultural baggage, though, the pharmaceutical
beat is a challenge. For one thing it is huge. The American
pharmaceutical industry logs more than $250 billion in annual
sales. Drug spending has been doubling roughly every five
years; an increasing number of Americans will be taking
medicines daily for the rest of their lives. And the public has a
growing appetite for news about drugs. It's an industry,
meanwhile, that produces many medicines that improve and
extend lives, and sometimes save them, such as diuretics for
high blood pressure, and drugs that mitigate the symptoms of
Parkinson's disease or prevent blindness from glaucoma.
But not all the medicines these companies produce are
beneficial, and some of them are dangerous. "The public is
being allowed to believe that drugs are safer and more effective
than they really are," says Dr. Marcia Angell, who for two decades
was editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine.
"Journalists, as well as the public and physicians, have bought
hook, line, and sinker the idea that these drugs are getting
better."
In reality, she says, based on research for her 2004 book, The
Truth About the Drug Companies, of the 415 drugs approved
between 1998 and 2002, only 14 percent were truly innovative, 9
percent were drugs that had been modified in some way, and 77
percent were simply "me-too" drugs, copies of medicines
already on the market, created not necessarily to improve health
but to fill a spot in a company's product portfolio.
The news media have tended to see drug coverage as fitting into
two discrete compartments. The pharmaceutical industry is
covered in the business pages and, sometimes, in the health
sections. But a vast middle ground between business coverage
and consumer health reporting and advice remains largely
unexplored by the press — the territory of corporate marketing
and sponsored scientific research that connects the bottom line
to the latest "breakthrough." Reporters who want to write about
this middle ground must be wary not only of the companies'
sophisticated marketing techniques, but also of other competing
interests that try to use reporters to pitch their journals and
university medical centers, or spin their political positions about
drug policy. "Everyone is in cahoots," says a woman who spent
several years conducting medical-education activities for
pharmaceutical companies. She asked to remain anonymous
because she is currently consulting in the health-care industry.
"The money spent is outrageous."
On the drug beat, the stakes are high, and sometimes they
involve life and death. This is evident in an examination of the
coverage of Vioxx and the other Cox 2 pain relievers, once hailed
in the media as "super aspirin." In the case of Vioxx, thousands
of people have died from heart attacks while taking the drug,
making Vioxx the biggest drug disaster in U.S. history. In
hindsight, few would argue that the public was well served by
media coverage of any of the Cox 2 drugs, from the beginning
when a Vioxx researcher told The Buffalo News it was
inappropriate to provide precise statistics on side effects, to the
end, last February, when reporters missed the point made by an
FDA advisory committee whose thirty-two members
unanimously concluded that all the Cox 2 drugs cause heart
attacks. Reporters, instead, focused on a recommendation,
narrowly approved by the committee, that Celebrex and Bextra
remain on the market; some speculated that Vioxx might soon
be back. Seven weeks later the FDA ordered Bextra off the
market and issued the strongest possible "black box" warning
for Celebrex, effectively curtailing further advertising for the drug.
Four years before Merck, the maker of Vioxx, pulled the drug from
the market on September 30, 2004, reporters could have
discovered signs of trouble by reading about the Cox 2 drugs in
the medical journals. In November 2000, for instance, the New
England Journal published results of the VIGOR (Vioxx
gastrointestinal outcomes research) study, which questioned
the cardiovascular safety of Vioxx. Several months later The
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a
study that examined all the research that had been done on the
Cox 2 drugs and concluded that the "available data raise a
cautionary flag" about the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Dr.
David Graham, the associate director of the FDA's Office of Drug
Safety, who testified before the Senate Finance Committee about
the FDA's failure to protect the public from unsafe drugs,
calculates that from the time Vioxx came on the market until its
withdrawal 61,000 people died from heart attacks associated
with the drug, and another 79,000 had nonfatal heart attacks. As
the timeline on pages 46 and 47 shows, the press barely paid
attention. In fact, as the chart demonstrates, the media missed a
number of warning flags that might have led to stories that saved
lives.
Rita Rubin, who covers the pharmaceutical industry for USA
Today, tried to sound the alarm on Vioxx in a story published in
early February 2001. Her story drew on the VIGOR study cited in
the New England Journal, which found that patients taking Vioxx
had five times more heart attacks than those taking the pain
reliever naproxen, sold under the brand names Aleve and
Naprosyn.
xxxxxcut xxxxx see: http://cjr.org/issues/2005/4/lieberman.asp
Trudy Lieberman is a contributing editor to CJR. The magazine
gratefully acknowledges support for this article from the Fund for
Investigative Journalism.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (© ) material
the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by
the copyright owner. Such material is made available for
educational purposes, to advance understanding of human
rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice
issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any
such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed
without profit.
~
Thanks*!
DGSaba
This really doesn't sound too good :-(
RES: Symptom overlap and comorbidity of irritable bowel syndrome with
other conditions
http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0507d&L=co-cure#27
The EBV son who's been on 6MP Asocal and Prednisone since last
christmas is now off all medications, he is in a remission of sorts!
We are all just estatic!
DGSaba
July 25, 2005
Stephen Drake XXX XXX XXXX ext 29
Diane Coleman XXX XXX XXXX
Disability Activists Blast PBS for ADA Anniversary Promotion of
Better
Dead than Disabled Film
In an all-too-common feat of cultural insensitivity, PBS has
chosen
July 26th, the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) to air "POV: The Self-Made Man." The
documentary features the videotaped statements of Bob Stern,
an elderly man deciding to commit suicide rather than face
possible disability, medical uncertainly or complications.
"The choice of this particular air date is an affront to people with
disabilities in this country," says Diane Coleman, president of
Not
Dead Yet, a national disability rights group based in Forest Park,
IL.
"It's the 15th anniversary of the signing of the ADA, a law that is,
for
people with disabilities, the nation's largest minority, what the
Civil
Rights Act of 1964 is for people of color. Not only is it being
ignored
by PBS, but the network is featuring and promoting a program
about
a person so terrified of aging and disability that he commits
suicide.
In terms of sensitivity to diversity issues, this puts PBS in the
same
league as the Fox News Channel. And, no, that is not a
compliment."
Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, notes that the
film is a slanted portrayal of the broader issues. "Normally, we
don't
comment when a rich, privileged guy decides to take his own
life.
We didn't comment when Hunter Thompson shot himself. After
all,
Thompson wasn't asking for a change in the law, a permission
slip,
or help from anyone."
Drake says the situation is different with "The Self-Made Man."
"It's
being promoted as a tool for adding to the public discourse in
regard
to assisted suicide, an issue confronting the U.S. Supreme
Court
and legislators in California. Whether society will treat some
suicidal people differently than others is a public policy issue.
The film, however, frames the issue as a dispute between
religious
conservatives and those who "believe in autonomy."
Coleman and Drake say this ignores the fact that secular
disability
rights groups have been at the forefront of opposing legalization
of
assisted suicide. Twelve national disability groups filed an
amicus
brief supporting the Attorney General in the Gonzalez v. Oregon
case currently before the Supreme Court.
Moreover, disability opposition is well known to the official
"advisors"
to the documentary. Three out of the four credited advisors to the
program are long-time assisted suicide/euthanasia advocates:
Paul Spiers, former board Chair of "Compassion and Choices;"
Margaret Battin, advisory board of the Death with Dignity National
Center; and Dennis Kuby, former regional director (California) of
the
Hemlock Society. These "advisors" could have advised a truthful
portrayal of the policy debate, including disability opposition.
"Obviously, balance is one thing producer Susan Stern wasn't
looking for," says Drake.
Not Dead Yet
XXXX Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130
XXX XXX XXXX
http://www.notdeadyet.org
Thanks*!
DGSaba
fibromyalgia
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=28288
~
DGSaba
DGSaba
Interactive Continuing Medical Education
http://www.medilexicon.com/linkfwd.php?link=http://www.ecme.com
I wish!
DGSaba
'Good' bacteria help ease pain of colitis
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=28066
Colorectal Cancer - A Colonoscopy Is The 'Gold Standard' For Early
Detection
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27942
So many of us have gastrointestinal troubles - its so very important to
address any and all changes.