Health Empowerment with Croft Woodruff

Fw: This Is Your Brain on Margarine

2010-03-23T11:46:00.001-07:00

Health Empowerment News 015 | Health Empowerment News – The Vitamin D Connection

Al Sears, MD
11903 Southern Blvd., Ste. 208
Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411

March 23, 2010

Dear ted,

There’s now another reason to avoid margarine. It can make you stupid.
According to researchers at the University of Auckland, children who ate margarine every day had significantly lower IQ scores by the age of three-and-a-half than those who did not.1
And children who were underweight at birth had scores that were even lower by the time they were seven.
The tragedy here is that margarine was sold to us as a “healthier” alternative to butter. In fact, it may be the unhealthiest “food” ever created.
You sure wouldn’t know this by reading the labels. They have statements like “100% Natural” and “Mother Nature’s Own” and “Heart Healthy” and the like all over them. But they are really nothing but chemical concoctions made in a laboratory.
The vegetable oils used in most margarine are hydrogenated to make them solid. This turns the oil into highly unhealthy trans-fatty acids.

These man-made fatty acids have been shown to raise “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lower “good” cholesterol (HDL). They have also been linked to inflammation, one of the major causes of heart disease.2

I came across another gem of a study the other day. It’s titled, “Margarine Intake and Subsequent Coronary Heart Disease in Men.”

This study is backed up by the world-famous Framingham Heart Study. They tracked people for 20 years and recorded the number of heart attacks suffered.
The results were eye-opening.
As margarine consumption increased, heart attacks went up. As butter consumption increased, heart attacks declined.3
And that’s not all…
During the second decade, the group eating the most margarine had 77% more heart attacks than the group eating none!
Avoiding margarine may not only make you smarter, it could prevent you from having a heart attack or stroke.
Butter is a much healthier choice. But don’t settle for just any type of butter. I recommend organic butter from grass-fed cows.
It contains short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which are easily converted to energy. This means that the fat in butter is less likely to be stored as fat in your body.
Plus, it’s packed with vitamins and essential nutrients your body needs.
And here’s a little tidbit you probably wouldn’t know: Butter contains more vitamin A than carrots.
It also contains vitamin E and selenium. These three nutrients help protect your heart from free radical damage.4

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD
1 Theodore, RF., Thompson, JMD., et al. “Dietary patterns and intelligence in early and middle childhood,“ Intelligence. 2009; 37(5):506-513.
2 C. Oomen, M. Ocke, et al, “Association between trans fatty acid intake and 10-year risk of coronary heart disease in the Zutphen Elderly Study: The Lancet, Volume 357, Issue 9258, Pages 746-751.
3 Matthew W. Gillman, L. Adrienne Cupples, et al. “Margarine Intake and Subsequent Coronary Heart Disease in Men” Epidemiology, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Mar., 1997), pp. 144-149.
4 Price, Weston, DDS. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 1945, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc., La Mesa, California.

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HELP DRIVE MCCAIN FROM OFFICE & KILL HIS TERRIBLE BILL S.3002 "DIETARY SUPPLEMENT SAFETY ACT OF 2010" WHAT TO DO:

2010-03-02T11:18:00.001-08:00

(L-R) Senator McCain, Challenger JD Hayworth,.....John Hammell in the IAHF Office

IAHF List:

For the past couple of weeks I've been probing deeply into a number of issues surrounding Senator McCain's bill S.3002 (The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010), and on Thursday I'm going to the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus Ohio where 700 dietary supplement companies selling sports nutrition products will have booths. I'll be there through the weekend. I'm hoping some of these companies can assist in my making additional trips to DC to kill this dangerous bill. Your donations are badly needed to help pay for this trip to Ohio.

My purpose in going to "the Arnold" will be to urge these companies and the public to help kill S.3002, and to drive Senator McCain, its sponsor, from office by assisting JD Hayworth who is running against him. (Hayworth is a strong supporter of DSHEA and opposes S.3002) I have flyers reading to pass out to the 700 booths where I'll ask them to distribute them to thousands of attendees.

I'll also be asking Sports Nutrition Companies to assist IAHF in self policing the dietary supplement industry because the excuse for McCain's bill is that some criminals have been operating in our midst selling illegal synthetic steroids masquerading as "dietary supplements" which they're NOT. They've been brazenly selling illegal steroids on bodybuilding websites mixed in with legitimate legal supplements. The FDA has more than ample power to deal with these criminals, something they've already been doing, so theres no reason to make sweeping changes to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. (More on this.)

Durk Pierson, formulator of several cutting edge dietary supplements, urges us to think of the absurdity posed by S.3002 this way:

"Remember Richard Reid, the terrorist shoe bomber?

Did his attempt mean that the US needed to register shoe stores and shoe salesmen? Did it mean that the US needed to create more regulations on shoe manufacturers? Did it mean that all new shoe designs had to be approved before sale by a shoe design czar?

No, of course not! It simply meant that more testing needed to be done at airports to make sure that people were not walking on board airplanes with bombs on their feet disguised as shoes rather than legitimate shoes.

That's it. If McCain wants to pass a bill giving the FDA $10,000,000 to purchase products advertised to increase muscle and test them for anabolic properties, that shouldn't interfere with legitimate dietary supplements.

How do you test for new synthetic anabolic steroids? Put out a bid for a test that measures activation of a human testosterone receptor that has been coupled to jellyfish green fluorescent protein expression in bacteria. Simple routine genetic engineering of bacteria. Add an anabolic substance to the culture, and it will soon glow green under long wave UV. There are at least a dozen US biotech firms that could deliver such tests in less than a year. Anything that would activate the human receptor for testosterone would be detected. End of problem."

(Several attempts to communicate Pierson's message to Senator McCain's office went nowhere hence my strong feeling that he must be driven from office- he is an enemy of dietary supplement consumers.)

HOW S.3002 POSES A THREAT TO GUT THE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT HEALTH & EDUCATION ACT AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO STOP IT

Right now, under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, supplement companies have broad leeway allowing thousands of products to be sold, but under S.3002, a so called "Positive List" would be created by the FDA, and if one or more ingredients in a supplement companies product is not on this list, they'd be blocked from selling it unless they filed an "NDI" or "New Dietary Ingredient" application with the FDA, and the FDA approved it.

The World Anti Doping Agency and the US Anti Doping Agency have a list of over 400 different ingredients currently found in dietary supplements that they've banned athletes from using. Most of these ingredients are legal, but a few are not under current law. It is not reasonable for these organizations to impose their will on the public at large, but thats what they're trying to do, under false pretenses.

FDA has a very poor track record of approving NDIs. Since passage of DSHEA, they've hardly approved ANY NDIs, moreover, despite frequent requests from the supplement industry for the FDA to provide a guidance document to facilitate approval of NDIs, the Agency has failed to act on this request. This illustrates FDA's longstanding bias against dietary supplements. They don't want to do anything to help our industry bring products to market. If a company were to sell a product containing even one ingredient not on FDA's "Positive List", it could be raided, charged with misbranding, and heavily fined. This would cause thousands of products to be removed from the market very quickly including many of your favorite products.

S.3002 would also require supplement manufacturers to report even minor Adverse Event Reports to the FDA, a very impractical requirement considering that FDA has very limited resources with which to review these AER reports and that would prevent the SERIOUS Adverse Reactions that are WORTH looking at from being properly examined making consumers LESS safe, not MORE safe.

Whats totally outrageous about this is that supplements, which are much safer than either prescription or OTC drugs, or than food in common form, would be subject to a much more restrictive requirement when none is needed!

S.3002 would also give the FDA automatic recall authority over dietary supplements, a higher standard than is imposed on prescription drugs which are far more dangerous!

It would also impose a registration requirement of all supplement companies, their products and ingredients, imposing yet another layer of red tape that will drive small companies under while increasing costs to consumers- doing nothing to improve safety.

THE EXCUSE DRIVING S.3002: ILLEGAL STEROIDS

MASQUERADING AS "DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS" (FDA Already has all the power they need to take these illegal products off the market)

See this FDA press release about Bodybuilding.com's voluntary recall of 65 dietary supplements that may contain illegal steroids. Several different manufacturers were named in the recall.

From this we see that FDA has ample enforcement power under the Anabolic Steroid Control Act to address this problem of illegal steroids being sold as "dietary supplements" (which they are not).

The solution is to not give the FDA more power which they have a long history of abusing when it comes to dietary supplements, the solution is for the FDA to do its job properly by making more of an effort to enforce the law!

Its also not a bad idea for the supplement industry to do more to police itself by reporting companies selling these illegal products to the FDA. Consumers can also help with such an effort.

The US Anti Doping Agency is pushing McCain's bill by disseminating anti dietary supplement propaganda from its website.

In an attempt to influence congress to pass S.3002, they've built this special site. Several calls and emails IAHF sent to USADA ceo Travis Tygart have not been returned. Its clear to me that Tygart is no friend of health freedom, he'd like to see DSHEA be repealed, and he won't listen to reason on this issue.

IAHF's EFFORTS TO SELF POLICE THE INDUSTRY

I found several bodybuilding product websites that are openly selling illegal synthetic steroids, and I sent each of them variations on the following letter which I cced to the FDA. I don't TRUST the FDA to do their job in instances like this (since they want McCain's bill to be driven through congress and it helps them do that when these illegal products remain on the market)

I also cced my letters to the Inspector General's office at the Department of Health & Human Services. (The IG serves as an internal policeman inside HHS, and FDA is under that umbrella. The IG's office has forced FDA at times to do their job, and I hope that happens here if FDA fails to act.)

In my letters I quoted the law to them showing them that DSHEA forbids them from selling products containing ingredients that are not found in food and which have been chemically altered. I sent them the urls of pages on their site that I wanted them (and the FDA) to review since it appeared that they were selling illegal synthetic steroids. I will follow up to insure that either these companies act, or that the FDA takes action. If FDA fails to act, I'll go to the IG to demand that they MAKE FDA take action!

In my letters said: "Do not sell ANY of these items or ANY chemically altered hormonal products from ANY manufacturer":

List of Alleged Chemically Altered Steroids STILL on sale at several bodybuilding product sites

These has been on the market for over 5 years. 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
4-chloro-17a-methyl-androst-1, 4-diene-3-17b-diol
4-chloro-17a-methyl-androst-4-ene-3-17b-diol
Anti-estrogenic steroid. 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
6-bromo androst-4-ene 3, 17 dione
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
2a,3a Epithio-17a -methyl-17b-hydroxy-5a-androstane
MATD: 100% Chemically Altered - not in food
17a-methyl-5a-Dehydro-Etiocholan-4, 6-Dien-3-One-17-ol
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
17-a-methyl-etioallocholan-17b-ol-3-hydroxyimine
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
2,17-dimethyl-5-androstan-17-ol-3,3'-azine
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
5a-etioallocholan[2,3-c]furazan-17b-tetrahydropyranol ether
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
3,2-c]pyrazole-5alpha-etioallocholane-17beta-tetrahydropyranol
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one
100% Chemically Altered - not in food
Methyl-1-Etiocholenolol

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO KILL MCCAINS BILL

You'll find a form letter here that you can send with one mouse click to your Senators. Please forward this alert to as many people as you can, and urge them to also take action! Urge them to sign up for IAHF alerts by by going to the IAHF website.

Do anything you can to assist JD Hayworth's campaign to unseat McCain who badly needs to be driven from the Senate. Hayworth is running against him in the Republican primary. McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and the only reason he wasn't thrown out was that his father was an Admiral. He also crashed a jet on the flightdeck of a carrier killing a huge number of people, causing a fire that took 24 hrs to put out, and he should have been court martialled. Again, the only reason he wasn't was his father was an Admiral. We don't need this idiot messing with our lives by pushing this moronic bill, he doesn't belong in the US Senate.

Hayworth has been a Congressman in the past, and he's a staunch supporter of DSHEA. I've spoken with his staff and they're fully embracing the health freedom issue. McCain has a huge campaign warchest though and incumbents aren't easy to drive from office. Please donate to Hayworth's campaign at his website.

IAHF NEEDS YOUR HELP TO GET TO OHIO & TO DO THIS WORK

Please help me make this trip to the Arnold Bodybuildng Products trade show, I'm leaving Thursday, return monday and will be passing out thousands of flyers on the show floor to the public via as many companies booths as I possibly can. Your generous donations make it possible for me to run IAHF, and no one is working harder to defend your access to dietary supplements!

Please donate via paypal at this site or via check or money order to IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd., Point Roberts WA 98281 USA. Thanks for your support! Please forward this to as many people as possible and urge them to join you in taking action against S.3002!

For Health Freedom, John C. Hammell, President International Advocates for Health Freedom 556 Boundary Bay Road Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA http://www.iahf.com jham@iahf.com 800-333-2553 N.America 360-945-0352 World

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Proven Neurotoxin Aspartame has been Renamed to AminoSweet

2010-02-22T10:32:00.001-08:00

Aspartame has been Renamed and is Now Being Marketed as a Natural Sweetener

Filed Under Food Toxins, Future of Food
by Drew Kaplan

Artificial sweeteners especially aspartame has gotten a bad rap over the years, most likely due to

studies showing they cause cancer. But not to worry Ajinomoto the company that makes Aspartame has changed the name

to AminoSweet. It has the same toxic ingredients but a nice new sounding name.

And if you or your child happens to be allergic to Aspartame, well don’t take it personally it’s just business.

Despite the evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market .

In continues to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage,

cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.

Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that Aspartame was invented as a drug but upon discovery of its’ sweet taste

was magically transformed from a drug to a food additive. HFA wants to warn our readers to beware of a wolf dressed

up in sheep’s clothing or in this case Aspartame dressed up as AminoSweet.

Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of

most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the

general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health.

The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener

as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

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How to Learn More about Nutritional Medicine

2010-02-18T09:55:00.001-08:00

This article may be reprinted free of charge provided 1) that there is clear attribution to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, and 2) that both the OMNS free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and also the OMNS archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml are included.

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, February 16, 2010

How to Learn More about Nutritional Medicine
Information Archive and Locating a Practitioner

(OMNS, Feb 16, 2010) We would like to take this opportunity to welcome our many new readers. We appreciate your interest in learning more about the proven benefits of nutritional medicine. Naturally, no information source can take the place of a physician.

The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service cannot answer individual readers' emailed health questions. OMNS also does not have a directory service or provide referrals to physicians. However, readers have so often asked for additional information on both of these topics that we offer the following:

Locating an Orthomolecular Doctor

If you need to locate a physician near you that uses orthomolecular (nutritional) medicine, you may wish to first try an internet search. Many practitioners have websites. Additional thoughts and cautions on obtaining a natural healing doctor will be found at http://www.doctoryourself.com/subcontractor.html and at http://www.doctoryourself.com/naturedoc.html

There is a doctor search tool at the American Holistic Medical Association (AHMA) website: http://www.holisticmedicine.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=49

The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) physician search tool will be found at http://www.naturopathic.org/

The www.orthomolecular.org website also has a self-service practitioner listing at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/pract.shtml and a partial listing of orthomolecular practitioners or treatment centers at http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/centers.shtml

More links to practitioner directories may be found at http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp/Practitioner%20Directory

Your internet search will likely find others. None of these websites, nor this article, are in any way offering a recommendation for specific practitioners. It is up to you to personally inquire and specifically ask about their credentials and orthomolecular approaches to treatment as may concern you.

For further health information online, by topic:

Cardiovascular Disease
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n10.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n02.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n01.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n22.shtml

Alcoholism
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n06.shtml

Alzheimer's Disease
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n25.shtml

Anorexia
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n02.shtml

Asthma
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n08.shtml

Bipolar Disorder in Children
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n15.shtml

HIV
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n09.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v02n03.shtml

Influenza
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n04.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n12.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n17.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n05.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n06.shtml
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n09.shtml

Multiple Sclerosis
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v02n08.shtml

Shingles
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n05.shtml

Additional articles are posted for free reading at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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The Depressing News About Antidepressants

2010-02-04T10:27:00.001-08:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/232781

The Depressing News About Antidepressants

Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse.

By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK

Published Jan 29, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Feb 8, 2010

Although the year is young, it has already brought my first moral dilemma. In early January a friend mentioned that his New Year's resolution was to beat his chronic depression once and for all. Over the years he had tried a medicine chest's worth of antidepressants, but none had really helped in any enduring way, and when the side effects became so unpleasant that he stopped taking them, the withdrawal symptoms (cramps, dizziness, headaches) were torture. Did I know of any research that might help him decide whether a new antidepressant his doctor recommended might finally lift his chronic darkness at noon?

The moral dilemma was this: oh, yes, I knew of 20-plus years of research on antidepressants, from the old tricyclics to the newer selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that target serotonin (Zoloft, Paxil, and the granddaddy of them all, Prozac, as well as their generic descendants) to even newer ones that also target norepinephrine (Effexor, Wellbutrin). The research had shown that antidepressants help about three quarters of people with depression who take them, a consistent finding that serves as the basis for the oft-repeated mantra "There is no question that the safety and efficacy of antidepressants rest on solid scientific evidence," as psychiatry professor Richard Friedman of Weill Cornell Medical College recently wrote in The New York Times. But ever since a seminal study in 1998, whose findings were reinforced by landmark research in The Journal of the American Medical Association last month, that evidence has come with a big asterisk. Yes, the drugs are effective, in that they lift depression in most patients. But that benefit is hardly more than what patients get when they, unknowingly and as part of a study, take a dummy pill—a placebo. As more and more scientists who study depression and the drugs that treat it are concluding, that suggests that antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs.

Hence the moral dilemma. The placebo effect—that is, a medical benefit you get from an inert pill or other sham treatment—rests on the holy trinity of belief, expectation, and hope. But telling someone with depression who is being helped by antidepressants, or who (like my friend) hopes to be helped, threatens to topple the whole house of cards. Explain that it's all in their heads, that the reason they're benefiting is the same reason why Disney's Dumbo could initially fly only with a feather clutched in his trunk—believing makes it so—and the magic dissipates like fairy dust in a windstorm. So rather than tell my friend all this, I chickened out. Sure, I said, there's lots of research showing that a new kind of antidepressant might help you. Come, let me show you the studies on PubMed.

It seems I am not alone in having moral qualms about blowing the whistle on antidepressants. That first analysis, in 1998, examined 38 manufacturer-sponsored studies involving just over 3,000 depressed patients. The authors, psychology researchers Irving Kirsch and Guy Sapirstein of the University of Connecticut, saw—as everyone else had—that patients did improve, often substantially, on SSRIs, tricyclics, and even MAO inhibitors, a class of antidepressants that dates from the 1950s. This improvement, demonstrated in scores of clinical trials, is the basis for the ubiquitous claim that antidepressants work. But when Kirsch compared the improvement in patients taking the drugs with the improvement in those taking dummy pills—clinical trials typically compare an experimental drug with a placebo—he saw that the difference was minuscule. Patients on a placebo improved about 75 percent as much as those on drugs. Put another way, three quarters of the benefit from antidepressants seems to be a placebo effect. "We wondered, what's going on?" recalls Kirsch, who is now at the University of Hull in England. "These are supposed to be wonder drugs and have huge effects."

The study's impact? The number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled in a decade, from 13.3 million in 1996 to 27 million in 2005.

To be sure, the drugs have helped tens of millions of people, and Kirsch certainly does not advocate that patients suffering from depression stop taking the drugs. On the contrary. But they are not necessarily the best first choice. Psychotherapy, for instance, works for moderate, severe, and even very severe depression. And although for some patients, psychotherapy in combination with an initial course of prescription antidepressants works even better, the question is, how do the drugs work? Kirsch's study and, now, others conclude that the lion's share of the drugs' effect comes from the fact that patients expect to be helped by them, and not from any direct chemical action on the brain, especially for anything short of very severe depression.

As the inexorable rise in the use of antidepressants suggests, that conclusion can't hold a candle to the simplistic "antidepressants work!" (unstated corollary: "but don't ask how") message. Part of the resistance to Kirsch's findings has been due to his less-than-retiring nature. He didn't win many friends with the cheeky title of the paper, "Listening to Prozac but Hearing Placebo." Nor did it inspire confidence that the editors of the journal Prevention & Treatment ran a warning with his paper, saying it used meta-analysis "controversially." Al-though some of the six invited commentaries agreed with Kirsch, others were scathing, accusing him of bias and saying the studies he analyzed were flawed (an odd charge for defenders of antidepressants, since the studies were the basis for the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the drugs). One criticism, however, could not be refuted: Kirsch had analyzed only some studies of antidepressants. Maybe if he included them all, the drugs would emerge head and shoulders superior to placebos.

Kirsch agreed. Out of the blue, he received a letter from Thomas Moore, who was then a health-policy analyst at George Washington University. You could expand your data set, Moore wrote, by including everything drug companies sent to the FDA—published studies, like those analyzed in "Hearing Placebo," but also unpublished studies. In 1998 Moore used the Freedom of Information Act to pry such data from the FDA. The total came to 47 company-sponsored studies—on Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Serzone, and Celexa—that Kirsch and colleagues then pored over. (As an aside, it turned out that about 40 percent of the clinical trials had never been published. That is significantly higher than for other classes of drugs, says Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco; overall, 22 percent of clinical trials of drugs are not published. "By and large," says Kirsch, "the unpublished studies were those that had failed to show a significant benefit from taking the actual drug.") In just over half of the published and unpublished studies, he and colleagues reported in 2002, the drug alleviated depression no better than a placebo. "And the extra benefit of antidepressants was even less than we saw when we analyzed only published studies," Kirsch recalls. About 82 percent of the response to antidepressants—not the 75 percent he had calculated from examining only published studies—had also been achieved by a dummy pill.

The extra effect of real drugs wasn't much to celebrate, either. It amounted to 1.8 points on the 54-point scale doctors use to gauge the severity of depression, through questions about mood, sleep habits, and the like. Sleeping better counts as six points. Being less fidgety during the assessment is worth two points. In other words, the clinical significance of the 1.8 extra points from real drugs was underwhelming. Now Kirsch was certain. "The belief that antidepressants can cure depression chemically is simply wrong," he told me in January on the eve of the publication of his book The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Anti-depressant Myth.

The 2002 study ignited a furious debate, but more and more scientists were becoming convinced that Kirsch—who had won respect for research on the placebo response and who had published scores of scientific papers—was on to something. One team of researchers wondered if antidepressants were "a triumph of marketing over science." Even defenders of antidepressants agreed that the drugs have "relatively small" effects. "Many have long been unimpressed by the magnitude of the differences observed between treatments and controls," psychology researcher Steven Hollon of Vanderbilt University and colleagues wrote—"what some of our colleagues refer to as 'the dirty little secret.' " In Britain, the agency that assesses which treatments are effective enough for the government to pay for stopped recommending antidepressants as a first-line treatment, especially for mild or moderate depression.

But if experts know that antidepressants are hardly better than placebos, few patients or doctors do. Some doctors have changed their prescribing habits, says Kirsch, but more "reacted with anger and incredulity." Understandably. For one thing, depression is a devastating, underdiagnosed, and undertreated disease. Of course doctors recoiled at the idea that such drugs might be mirages. If that were true, how were physicians supposed to help their patients?

Two other factors are at work in the widespread rejection of Kirsch's (and, now, other scientists') findings about antidepressants. First, defenders of the drugs scoff at the idea that the FDA would have approved ineffective drugs. (Simple explanation: the FDA requires two well-designed clinical trials showing a drug is more effective than a placebo. That's two, period—even if many more studies show no such effectiveness. And the size of the "more effective" doesn't much matter, as long as it is statistically significant.) Second, doctors see with their own eyes, and feel with their hearts, that the drugs lift the black cloud from many of their depressed patients. But since doctors are not exactly in the habit of prescribing dummy pills, they have no experience comparing how their patients do on them, and therefore never see that a placebo would be almost as effective as a $4 pill. "When they prescribe a treatment and it works," says Kirsch, "their natural tendency is to attribute the cure to the treatment." Hence the widespread "antidepressants work" refrain that persists to this day.

Drug companies do not dispute Kirsch's aggregate statistics. But they point out that the average is made up of some patients in whom there is a true drug effect of antidepressants and some in whom there is not. As a spokesperson for Lilly (maker of Prozac) said, "Depression is a highly individualized illness," and "not all patients respond the same way to a particular treatment." In addition, notes a spokesperson for Glaxo-Smith-Kline (maker of Paxil), the studies analyzed in the JAMA paper differ from studies GSK submitted to the FDA when it won approval for Paxil, "so it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the results. This study contributes to the extensive research that has helped to characterize the role of antidepressants," which "are an important option, in addition to counseling and lifestyle changes, for treatment of depression." A spokesperson for Pfizer, which makes Zoloft, also cited the "wealth of scientific evidence documenting [antidepressants'] effects," adding that the fact that antidepressants "commonly fail to separate from placebo" is "a fact well known by the FDA, academia, and industry." Other manufacturers pointed out that Kirsch and the JAMA authors had not studied their particular brands.

Even Kirsch's analysis, however, found that antidepressants are a little more effective than dummy pills—those 1.8 points on the depression scale. Maybe Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and their cousins do have some non-placebo, chemical benefit. But the small edge of real drugs compared with placebos might not mean what it seems, Kirsch explained to me one evening from his home in Hull. Consider how research on drugs works. Patient volunteers are told they will receive either the drug or a placebo, and that neither they nor the scientists will know who is getting what. Most volunteers hope they get the drug, not the dummy pill. After taking the unknown meds for a while, some volunteers experience side effects. Bingo: a clue they're on the real drug. About 80 percent guess right, and studies show that the worse side effects a patient experiences, the more effective the drug. Patients apparently think, this drug is so strong it's making me vomit and hate sex, so it must be strong enough to lift my depression. In clinical-trial patients who figure out they're receiving the drug and not the inert pill, expectations soar.

That matters because belief in the power of a medical treatment can be self-fulfilling (that's the basis of the placebo effect). The patients who correctly guess that they're getting the real drug therefore experience a stronger placebo effect than those who get the dummy pill, experience no side effects, and are therefore disappointed. That might account for antidepressants' slight edge in effectiveness compared with a placebo, an edge that derives not from the drugs' molecules but from the hopes and expectations that patients in studies feel when they figure out they're receiving the real drug.

The boy who said the emperor had no clothes didn't endear himself to his fellow subjects, and Kirsch has fared little better. A nascent collaboration with a scientist at a medical school ended in 2002 when the scientist was warned not to submit a grant proposal with Kirsch if he ever wanted to be funded again. Four years later, another scientist wrote a paper questioning the effectiveness of antidepressants, citing Kirsch's work. It was published in a prestigious journal. That ordinarily brings accolades. Instead, his department chair dressed him down and warned him not to become too involved with Kirsch.

But the question of whether antidepressants—which in 2008 had sales of $9.6 billion in the U.S., reported the consulting firm IMS Health—have any effect other than through patients' belief in them was too important to scare researchers off. Proponents of the drugs have found themselves making weaker and weaker claims. Their last stand is that antidepressants are more effective than a placebo in patients suffering the most severe depression.

So concluded the JAMA study in January. In an analysis of six large experiments in which, as usual, depressed patients received either a placebo or an active drug, the true drug effect—that is, in addition to the placebo effect—was "nonexistent to negligible" in patients with mild, moderate, and even severe depression. Only in patients with very severe symptoms (scoring 23 or above on the standard scale) was there a statistically significant drug benefit. Such patients account for about 13 percent of people with depression. "Most people don't need an active drug," says Vanderbilt's Hollon, a coauthor of the study. "For a lot of folks, you're going to do as well on a sugar pill or on conversations with your physicians as you will on medication. It doesn't matter what you do; it's just the fact that you're doing something." But people with very severe depression are different, he believes. "My personal view is the placebo effect gets you pretty far, but for those with very severe, more chronic conditions, it's harder to knock down and placebos are less adequate," says Hollon. Why that should be remains a mystery, admits coauthor Robert DeRubeis of the University of Pennsylvania.

Like every scientist who has stepped into the treacherous waters of antidepressant research, Hollon, DeRubeis, and their colleagues are keenly aware of the disconnect between evidence and public impression. "Prescribers, policy-makers, and consumers may not be aware that the efficacy of [antidepressants] largely has been established on the basis of studies that have included only those individuals with more severe forms of depression," something drug ads don't mention, they write. People with anything less than very severe depression "derive little specific pharmacological benefit from taking medications. Pending findings contrary to those reported here … efforts should be made to clarify to clinicians and prospective patients that … there is little evidence to suggest that [antidepressants] produce specific pharmacological benefit for the majority of patients."

Right about here, people scowl and ask how anti-depressants—especially those that raise the brain's levels of serotonin—can possibly have no direct chemical effect on the brain. Surely raising serotonin levels should right the synapses' "chemical imbalance" and lift depression. Unfortunately, the serotonin-deficit theory of depression is built on a foundation of tissue paper. How that came to be is a story in itself, but the basics are that in the 1950s scientists discovered, serendipitously, that a drug called iproniazid seemed to help some people with depression. Iproniazid increases brain levels of serotonin and norepinephrine. Ergo, low levels of those neurotransmitters must cause depression. More than 50 years on, the presumed effectiveness of antidepressants that act this way remains the chief support for the chemical-imbalance theory of depression. Absent that effectiveness, the theory hasn't a leg to stand on. Direct evidence doesn't exist. Lowering people's serotonin levels does not change their mood. And a new drug, tianeptine, which is sold in France and some other countries (but not the U.S.), turns out to be as effective as Prozac-like antidepressants that keep the synapses well supplied with serotonin. The mechanism of the new drug? It lowers brain levels of serotonin. "If depression can be equally affected by drugs that increase serotonin and by drugs that decrease it," says Kirsch, "it's hard to imagine how the benefits can be due to their chemical activity."

Perhaps antidepressants would be more effective at higher doses? Unfortunately, in 2002 Kirsch and colleagues found that high doses are hardly more effective than low ones, improving patients' depression-scale rating an average of 9.97 points vs. 9.57 points—a difference that is not statistically significant. Yet many doctors increase doses for patients who do not respond to a lower one, and many patients report improving as a result. There's a study of that, too. When researchers gave such nonresponders a higher dose, 72 percent got much better, their symptoms dropping by 50 percent or more. The catch? Only half the patients really got a higher dose. The rest, unknowingly, got the original, "ineffective" dose. It is hard to see the 72 percent who got much better on ersatz higher doses as the result of anything but the power of expectation: the doctor upped my dose, so I believe I'll get better.

Something similar may explain why some patients who aren't helped by one antidepressant do better on a second, or a third. This is often explained as "matching" patient to drug, and seemed to be confirmed by a 2006 federal study called STAR*D. Patients still suffering from depression after taking one drug were switched to a second; those who were still not better were switched to a third drug, and even a fourth. No placebos were used. At first blush, the results offered a ray of hope: 37 percent of the patients got better on the first drug, 19 percent more on their second, 6 percent more improved on their third try, and 5 percent more on their fourth. (Half of those who recovered relapsed within a year, however.)

So does STAR*D validate the idea that the key to effective treatment of depression is matching the patient to the drug? Maybe. Or maybe people improved in rounds two, three, and four because depression sometimes lifts due to changes in people's lives, or because levels of depression tend to rise and fall over time. With no one in STAR*D receiving a placebo, it is not possible to conclude with certainty that the improvements in rounds two, three, and four were because patients switched to a drug that was more effective for them. Comparable numbers might have improved if they had switched to a placebo. But STAR*D did not test for that, and so cannot rule it out.

It's tempting to look at the power of the placebo effect to alleviate depression and stick an "only" in front of it—as in, the drugs work only through the placebo effect. But there is nothing "only" about the placebo response. It can be surprisingly enduring, as a 2008 study found: "The widely held belief that the placebo response in depression is short-lived appears to be based largely on intuition and perhaps wishful thinking," scientists wrote in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. The strength of the placebo response drives drug companies nuts, since it makes showing the superiority of a new drug much harder. There is a strong placebo component in the response to drugs for pain, asthma, irritable-bowel syndrome, skin conditions such as contact dermatitis, and even Parkinson's disease. But compared with the placebo component of antidepressants, the placebo response accounts for a smaller fraction of the benefit from drugs for those disorders—on the order of 50 percent for analgesics, for instance.

Which returns us to the moral dilemma. In any year, an estimated 13.1 million to 14.2 million American adults suffer from clinical depression. At least 32 million will have the disease at some point in their life. Many of the 57 percent who receive treatment (the rest do not) are helped by medication. For that benefit to continue, they need to believe in their pills. Even Kirsch warns—in boldface type in his book, which is in stores this week—that patients on antidepressants not suddenly stop taking them. That can cause serious withdrawal symptoms, including twitches, tremors, blurred vision, and nausea—as well as depression and anxiety. Yet Kirsch is well aware that his book may have the same effect on patients as dropping the magic feather did for Dumbo: without it, the little elephant began crashing to earth. Friends and colleagues who believe Kirsch is right ask why he doesn't just shut up, since publicizing the finding that the effectiveness of antidepressants is almost entirely due to people's hopes and expectations will undermine that effectiveness.

It's all well and good to point out that psychotherapy is more effective than either pills or placebos, with dramatically lower relapse rates. But there's the little matter of reality. In the U.S., most patients with depression are treated by primary-care doctors, not psychiatrists. The latter are in short supply, especially outside cities and especially for children and adolescents. Some insurance plans discourage such care, and some psychiatrists do not accept insurance. Maybe keeping patients in the dark about the ineffectiveness of antidepressants, which for many are their only hope, is a kindness.

Or maybe not. As shown by the explicit criticism of drug companies by the authors of the recent JAMA paper, more and more scientists believe it is time to abandon the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of not digging too deeply into the reasons for the effectiveness of antidepressants. Maybe it is time to pull back the curtain and see the wizard for what he is. As for Kirsch, he insists that it is important to know that much of the benefit of antidepressants is a placebo effect. If placebos can make people better, then depression can be treated without drugs that come with serious side effects, not to mention costs. Wider recognition that antidepressants are a pharmaceutical version of the emperor's new clothes, he says, might spur patients to try other treatments. "Isn't it more important to know the truth?" he asks. Based on the impact of his work so far, it's hard to avoid answering, "Not to many people."

With Sarah Kliff

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/232781

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012 | Health Empowerment News – Raw Milk

2010-01-30T18:45:00.001-08:00

via foodsarenotdrugs.com

Since this episode was published, Michael Schmidt of Glencolton Farms won his court case allowing him to continue distributing Raw Milk under his cow share program.

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Magnesium makes rats smarter!

2010-01-29T09:08:00.001-08:00

http://www.gizmag.com/magnesium-boosts-brainpower/14022/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=efab49cdb4-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Increasing magnesium intake can boost brainpower - at least in rats

By Jeff Salton

02:08 January 29, 2010 PST

Researchers have discovered that higher levels of magnesium in rats enhanced their le

Your mother was right – eating your “greens” (which contain magnesium) is good for you. In fact, according to neuroscientists at MIT and Tsinghua University in Beijing, rats who were fed a new compound that increased their brain magnesium demonstrated enhanced learning abilities, working memory, and short- and long-term memory. The dietary supplement also boosted older rats’ ability to perform a variety of learning tests. Great, if it’s not hard enough getting rid of the rodents now, imagine trying to remove smarter rats!

Magnesium, an essential element, “hides” in dark, leafy vegetables such as spinach and some fruits. Health professionals say people who get less than 400mg a day are risking allergies, asthma and heart disease, and possibly other conditions. In 2004, Guosong Liu and colleagues at MIT discovered that magnesium might also have a positive influence on learning and memory. They developed a new magnesium compound — magnesium-L-threonate (MgT) — that they say is more effective than conventional oral supplements at boosting magnesium in the brain. They then tried it out on lab rats.

“We found that elevation of brain magnesium led to significant enhancement of spatial and associative memory in both young and aged rats,” said Liu, now director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University. “If MgT is shown to be safe and effective in humans, these results may have a significant impact on public health.” Liu is a co-founder of California-based company, Magceutics, that develops drugs for prevention and treatment of age-dependent memory decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Half the population of the industrialized countries has a magnesium deficit, which increases with aging. If normal or even higher levels of magnesium can be maintained, we may be able to significantly slow age-related loss of cognitive function and perhaps prevent or treat diseases that affect cognitive function,” Liu said.

The researchers found that MgT increased the plasticity in connections among neurons, called synapses, in young and old rats. They also found that after increased levels of MgT were introduced to the rats, the density of synapses increased in the hippocampus, a critical brain region for learning and memory.

This study not only highlights the importance of a diet with sufficient daily magnesium, but also suggests the usefulness of magnesium-based treatments for aging-associated memory decline, said Susumu Tonegawa at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, who helped carry out the initial behavioral experiments. Clinical studies in Beijing are now investigating the relationship between body magnesium status and cognitive functions in older humans and Alzheimer’s patients.

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Health Empowerment News - Episode 11 | Bill C-6 and Natural Health Product Regulations

2010-01-08T00:10:00.001-08:00

This week on Health Empowerment News Croft and Andrew discuss Bill C-6 and Canadian Natural Health Product Regulations

http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/podcasts/henews/011-health-empowerment-news-bill-c-6-and-natural-health-product-regulations.php

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New Podcast Episode: Natural Cancer Cures

2009-12-07T18:29:00.001-08:00

Natural Cancer Cures discussed in Episode 10

The Hoxely Protocol
The Coche Remedies
Dr. Nicolas Gonzalez protocol
Dr. Andrew Ivy
Careseng SG2
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy HBOT
Dr. Berzinski
Salvestrols
Cannabis – Medical Marijuana
The Rick Simpson Story
and more…..

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Italian doctor may have found a cure for MS!

2009-11-26T19:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.gizmag.com/ccsvi-multiple-sclerosis-ms-cure-zamboni/13447/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=56b5873ed9-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

An Italian doctor has been getting dramatic results with a new type of treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, which affects up to 2.5 million people worldwide. In an initial study, Dr. Paolo Zamboni took 65 patients with relapsing-remitting MS, performed a simple operation to unblock restricted bloodflow out of the brain - and two years after the surgery, 73% of the patients had no symptoms. Dr. Zamboni's thinking could turn the current understanding of MS on its head, and offer many sufferers a complete cure.

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, has long been regarded as a life sentence of debilitating nerve degeneration. More common in females, the disease affects an estimated 2.5 million people around the world, causing physical and mental disabilities that can gradually destroy a patient's quality of life.

It's generally accepted that there's no cure for MS, only treatments that mitigate the symptoms - but a new way of looking at the disease has opened the door to a simple treatment that is causing radical improvements in a small sample of sufferers.

Italian Dr. Paolo Zamboni has put forward the idea that many types of MS are actually caused by a blockage of the pathways that remove excess iron from the brain - and by simply clearing out a couple of major veins to reopen the blood flow, the root cause of the disease can be eliminated.

Dr. Zamboni's revelations came as part of a very personal mission - to cure his wife as she began a downward spiral after diagnosis. Reading everything he could on the subject, Dr. Zamboni found a number of century-old sources citing excess iron as a possible cause of MS. It happened to dovetail with some research he had been doing previously on how a buildup of iron can damage blood vessels in the legs - could it be that a buildup of iron was somehow damaging blood vessels in the brain?

He immediately took to the ultrasound machine to see if the idea had any merit - and made a staggering discovery. More than 90% of people with MS have some sort of malformation or blockage in the veins that drain blood from the brain. Including, as it turned out, his wife.

He formed a hypothesis on how this could lead to MS: iron builds up in the brain, blocking and damaging these crucial blood vessels. As the vessels rupture, they allow both the iron itself, and immune cells from the bloodstream, to cross the blood-brain barrier into the cerebro-spinal fluid. Once the immune cells have direct access to the immune system, they begin to attack the myelin sheathing of the cerebral nerves - Multiple Sclerosis develops.

He named the problem Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency, or CCSVI.

Zamboni immediately scheduled his wife for a simple operation to unblock the veins - a catheter was threaded up through blood vessels in the groin area, all the way up to the effected area, and then a small balloon was inflated to clear out the blockage. It's a standard and relatively risk-free operation - and the results were immediate. In the three years since the surgery, Dr. Zamboni's wife has not had an attack.

Widening out his study, Dr. Zamboni then tried the same operation on a group of 65 MS-sufferers, identifying blood drainage blockages in the brain and unblocking them - and more than 73% of the patients are completely free of the symptoms of MS, two years after the operation.

In some cases, a balloon is not enough to fully open the vein channel, which collapses either as soon as the balloon is removed, or sometime later. In these cases, a metal stent can easily be used, which remains in place holding the vein open permanently.

Dr. Zamboni's lucky find is yet to be accepted by the medical community, which is traditionally slow to accept revolutionary ideas. Still, most agree that while further study needs to be undertaken before this is looked upon as a cure for MS, the results thus far have been very positive.

Naturally, support groups for MS sufferers are buzzing with the news that a simple operation could free patients from what they have always been told would be a lifelong affliction, and further studies are being undertaken by researchers around the world hoping to confirm the link between CCSVI and MS, and open the door for the treatment to become available for sufferers worldwide.

It's certainly a very exciting find for MS sufferers, as it represents a possible complete cure, as opposed to an ongoing treatment of symptoms. We wish Dr. Zamboni and the various teams looking further into this issue the best of luck.

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Dr. Chris Shaw interview - Vaccine Adjuvants

2009-11-15T20:20:00.001-08:00

“H1N1 | Vaccine Adjuvants – Dr. Chris Shaw, PhD Interview”

This week on Health Empowerment News Croft and Andrew talk with Dr. Chris Shaw, PhD about his research on vaccine adjuvants and degenerative neurological disorders.

http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/podcasts/henews/009-health-empowerment-news-h1n1-vaccine-adjuvants-dr-chris-shaw-phd-interview.php

The controversy over the Swine Flu ( H1N1 ) Vaccines have focused primarily on the safety of the adjuvants and preservatives used in the vaccines. Adjuvants are used to cause a hyper immune reaction in order to make the vaccine more effective. Many experts are questioning the safety of vaccines and their adjuvants but the mainstream media has been portraying these professionals in a negative light. Dr. Chris Shaw joins us on Health Empowerment News to talk about his research results on squalene and aluminum vaccine adjuvants.

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Health Canada demands medical marijuana payment in advance

2009-11-02T08:47:00.001-08:00

The Canadian Press

Date: Saturday Oct. 31, 2009 3:08 PM ET

Health Canada is getting tough with patients who use government-certified medical marijuana, demanding full payment in advance before shipping the weed.

The move, effective Nov. 30, is designed to halt the rising number of accounts in arrears -- and force more patients to pay off old debts that now total more than $1.2 million.

"This change to a purchase-in-advance system will streamline the order and payment process and will prevent further increases to the debt load of the department," says a recent Health Canada letter issued to users.

More than 4,600 people in Canada are licensed to use medical marijuana to treat a wide range of conditions, including chronic pain, that may not be resolved by standard prescription drugs.

Several court rulings forced a reluctant Health Canada to get into the marijuana business in 2003 so that bona fide patients would not have to rely on the black market for supplies.

Most authorized users grow their own pot or have someone else grow it for them, all under licence, but some 800 are currently buying their medical marijuana from Health Canada.

The government sells dried marijuana for $5 a gram -- about half the price of street marijuana -- or 30 seeds for $20, plus GST and provincial taxes.

The marijuana, which has received poor reviews from many users for being harsh and ineffective, has a THC content of about 12.5 per cent. THC is the main active ingredient of the cannabis plant.

Previously, users could order and pay later. But hundreds of patients -- who are often seriously ill, unable to work and on welfare or disability pensions -- could not keep up with their Health Canada bills and built up large debts.

Beginning Nov. 30, Health Canada will require a money order, certified cheque, Visa, Amex or MasterCard before medical marijuana is shipped, normally by courier.

And those customers with accounts currently in arrears must agree to a payment plan with Health Canada before receiving any more product. Interest accrues on overdue accounts at 3.5 per cent, and Health Canada has sent 31 stale accounts to collections agencies.

Almost 1,100 customers have fallen behind in payments so far, forcing Health Canada to carry some $1.2 million in accounts overdue for more than 30 days. About half of the accounts have been overdue for a year or more.

"This change (in policy) does not alter Health Canada's commitment to providing fair and equitable access to marijuana for medical purposes and . . . will have no impact on the current authorization process," spokeswoman Christelle Legault said in an email.

"Health Canada is committed to working with persons whose accounts are in arrears, and will work with them through the department's accounts receivable to establish a payment arrangement plan."

A few users have their bills picked up by taxpayers.

Last year, Veterans Affairs reversed previous policy and said it will now pay for medical marijuana for any veterans licensed by Health Canada. At least eight veterans have benefited from the new policy.

Most users, though, cannot recoup the cost of their cannabis from governments because medical marijuana has never been assigned official drug status under the Food and Drug Act and is therefore not covered by any provincial pharmacare programs. The costs, though, can be deducted as medical expenses when filing annual income-tax forms.

One Health Canada customer in Surrey, B.C., says he will never be able to pay his $4,200 accumulated bill -- and argues he should not have to.

"This is something that's already paid for by the taxpayer and I shouldn't be paying it again," Tim Davison said in an interview.

Davison, 41, was cut off from Health Canada's weed about 18 months ago, and now must go to the black market for some of his marijuana, which he uses to control pain and nausea.

"I could incur a smear in my credit report," he says about his worries over speaking out. "I could aggravate Health Canada (and) they could come at me harder."

Health Canada has hired Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems to produce and ship the marijuana to authorized users. For years the company grew the dope in an abandoned underground mine at Flin Flon, Man., but left the facility in the summer for an undisclosed location.

Department officials have said they will eventually phase out all personal production, forcing patients to order all their dope from the government, perhaps through pharmacy distribution.

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Happy Halloween - Sugar Addiction and Health | The Swine Flu Vaccine

2009-11-01T13:23:00.001-08:00

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 8

“Happy Halloween! Sugar Addiction and the Swine Flu H1N1 Vaccine”

This week on Health Empowerment News Croft and Andrew talk about Sugar Addiction and more on the Swine Flu Vaccine!

Croft follows up on his CBC Early Edition Debate with Dr. Bowie on the value of the H1N1 Vaccine.

Health Empowerment Show Notes:

Sugar is an addiction far stronger than what we see with heroin. It is the basic addictive substance from which all other addictions flow. Refined sugar and all refined foods such as polished rice, white flour, and the like, are nothing less than legalized poisons.
– Dr. Abram Hoffer

The trick is in the treat.
Happy Halloween!

Swine Flu Vaccine hysteria continues as the vaccine is made available to Canadians considered at high risk. The vaccines are being promoted by the mainstream media (infomercial programming?) and with the vaccine supply running short people are starting to panic over the perceived risk of the H1N1 virus. But is there really much to worry about? What is the truth behind the H1N1 Marketing Campaign? Is the Swine Flu vaccine safe? Are there any swine flu vaccine alternatives?

Listen to Health Empowerment News to find out!

Please leave your comments about this episode below!

Every week Croft will talk about the latest news and research in the Natural Health World.

Listen NOW! Health Empowerment News Podcast Episode 8- Right click to download!

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‘Poisoning attempt’ charges filed against French H1N1 campaign

2009-10-30T10:36:00.001-07:00

French, as usual, take the high road and file CHARGES against H1N1 campaign.... lol

http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1662.html

‘Poisoning attempt’ charges filed against French H1N1 campaign

24 October, 2009 05:17:00 Michael Cosgrove

(This is supposed to be H1N1

In what is being seen as the first of many such actions to come, nine individuals have filed formal charges claiming that the H1N1 campaign is a deliberate attempt to poison the French population.

These charges, which were filed yesterday, could not come at a more inopportune moment for the government and health specialists. The vaccination campaign got underway last Tuesday in a climate of national skepticism as to the vaccine’s safety and efficiency, and this news will surely boost the morale of the increasing number of anti-vaccine lobbyists who are beginning to organize their resistance to any attempt to vaccinate the population against H1N1.

Nine inhabitants of the Isére region of France are cited as joint plaintiffs in the case, including a health sector worker, a teacher and a radio talk show host. They met each other at various public meetings held to denounce the vaccine’s alleged health risks.

The charges take the form of a ‘plainte contre X’ which means that the perpetrator of an alleged crime or felony is not known, or is not named, in the charge sheet. This is a commonly used manner of filing complaints in France, particularly where the charges relate to supposed government implication in alleged breaches of the law. In cases where those trials proceed after prior examination of the facts, the specific persons or organizations concerned are designated and charged as the trial proceeds.

Jean-Pierre Joseph, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, describes the vaccination campaign as “A veritable attempt to poison.” He confirmed that the charges were filed at the High Court in Grenoble before the court’s senior examining magistrate. He said other court cases involving other plaintiffs would begin soon

The various charges filed included one of “Attempting to administer substances…of a nature which could result in death.”

“The aim is to put a stop to what we consider to be an act of poisoning,” according to Joseph. “The interest of this action is that people in France now have a means by which to express their concern as citizens by saying publicly “We are aware that the vaccination campaign is a swindle.”

Similar court actions are planned in other areas of the Isére, as well as in Paris, Pau and Nantes, and several hundred vaccine opponents are beginning to organize themselves on the internet with a view to filing class action charges.

The government and health authorities are currently battling to persuade people to get vaccinated against increasingly difficult odds. Opposition to the campaign has been increasing steadily, and various polls taken over the last few days put the figure for those who do not intend to get vaccinated as high as 70 percent.

Their task is being made even more arduous by the fact that while authorities believe on the one hand that vaccination is essential despite negative public reaction, the French have traditionally proved to be very quick to condemn and file charges in cases where not enough was said to be done to prevent other medical mishaps such as the Mad Cow outbreak and an AIDS contamination case, in which several people died and many more became HIV positive after receiving AIDS-contaminated blood transfusions in hospitals.

That signifies that the authorities have very little room to maneuver and are more or less obliged to continue the campaign in order to avoid similar charges should they decide or be forced to abandon the campaign and high numbers of people die as a result of not being vaccinated.

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H1N1 Vaccine product information

2009-10-30T10:21:00.001-07:00

Product Information Leaflet Arepanrix™ H1N1 AS03-Adjuvanted H1N1 Pandemic Influenza Vaccine

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 7:00 PM

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodpharma/legislation/interimorders-arretesurgence/prodinfo-vaccin-eng.php#a42

Product Information Leaflet Arepanrix™ H1N1 AS03-Adjuvanted H1N1 Pandemic Influenza Vaccine

This information has been prepared by another organization and is provided as a service to health professionals, consumers and other interested parties.

Version 1 approved October 21, 2009

Health Canada has authorized the sale of Arepanrix™ H1N1 based on limited clinical testing in humans under the provision of an Interim Order (IO) issued on October 13, 2009. The authorization is based on the Health Canada review of the available data on quality, safety and immunogenicity, and given the current pandemic threat and its risk to human health, Health Canada considers that the benefit/risk profile of the Arepanrix™ H1N1 vaccine is favourable for active immunization against the H1N1 2009 influenza strain in an officially declared pandemic situation.

As part of the authorization for sale for Arepanrix™ H1N1, Health Canada has requested the sponsor agree to post-market commitments. Adherence to these commitments, as well as updates to information on quality, non-clinical, and clinical data will be continuously monitored by Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

This leaflet will be updated accordingly.

Please consult the Health Canada website for the most up-to-date information for this product.

Recommendations made by the Public Health Agency of Canada should also be taken into consideration.

Table of Contents

1.0 Pharmaceutical Form

2.0 Qualitative and Quantitative Composition

3.0 Clinical Particulars

Indications

Dosage and Administration

Contraindications

Warnings and Precautions

Interactions

Effects on Ability to Drive and Use Machines

Adverse Reactions

Clinical trials

Overdose

4.0 Pharmacological Properties

Pharmacodynamics

Pharmacokinetics

Pre-clinical Safety Data

5.0 Pharmaceutical Particulars

List of Excipients

Incompatibilities

Shelf Life

Special Precautions for Storage

Nature and Contents of Container

Instructions for Use/Handling

Consumer Information

1.0 Pharmaceutical Form

Arepanrix™ H1N1 (AS03-adjuvanted H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine) is a two-component vaccine consisting of an H1N1 immunizing antigen (as a suspension), and an AS03 adjuvant (as an oil-in-water emulsion).

The H1N1 antigen is a sterile, colorless to slightly opalescent suspension that may sediment slightly in a 10mL vial. The antigen is prepared from virus grown in the allantoic cavity of embryonated hen's eggs. The virus is inactivated with ultraviolet light treatment followed by formaldehyde treatment, purified by centrifugation and disrupted with sodium deoxycholate.

The AS03 adjuvant system is a sterile, homogenized, whitish emulsion composed of DL-α-tocopherol (synthetic vitamin E as an anti-oxidant to prevent the squalene from rancidity), squalene (derived from shark liver oil) and polysorbate 80 in a 3mL vial.

Immediately prior to use, the full contents of the AS03 vial is withdrawn and added to the antigen vial (mix ratio 1:1). The mixed final product for administration is an emulsion, containing enough product for 10 doses.

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2.0 Qualitative and Quantitative Composition

After combining and mixing the two components, 0.5mL of the resultant emulsion is withdrawn into a syringe for intramuscular injection. The final composition of each vaccine component per 0.5mL dose is as follows:

Antigen:

Split influenza virus, inactivated, containing antigen* equivalent to:

A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v-like strain (X-179A) 3.75µg HA** per 0.5mL dose

* isolated from virus propagated in eggs

** HA = haemagglutinin

Preservative content is 5µg Thimerosal (49% mercury) USP per 0.5mL dose or 2.5 micrograms organic mercury (Hg) per 0.5mL dose

Adjuvant:

DL-α-tocopherol 11.86 milligrams/0.5mL dose

Squalene 10.69 milligrams/0.5mL dose,

Polysorbate 80 4.86 milligrams/0.5mL dose

The suspension and emulsion vials, once mixed, form a multidose vaccine in a vial. See section Nature and Contents of Container for the number of doses per vial.

For a full list of excipients, see section List of Excipients under 5.0.

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3.0 Clinical Particulars

Indications

Arepanrix™ H1N1 Vaccine is indicated for active immunization against H1N1 influenza strain in an officially declared pandemic situation.

(see section 2.0 Qualitative and Quantitative Composition).

Dosage and Administration

There is currently limited clinical experience with Arepanrix™ H1N1, and limited clinical experience with an investigational formulation of another AS03-adjuvanted vaccine containing the same or a slightly higher amount of antigen derived from A/California/7/2009 (H1N1) (see section Pharmacodynamics) in healthy adults aged 18-60 years and no clinical experience yet in the elderly, in children or in adolescents. The decision to use Arepanrix™ H1N1 in each age group defined below should take into account the extent of the clinical data available with a version of the vaccine containing H5N1 antigen and the disease characteristics of the current influenza pandemic.

The dose recommendations are based on:

safety and immunogenicity data available on the administration of AS03-adjuvanted vaccine containing 3.75 µg HA derived from A/Indonesia/5/2005 (H5N1) (Arepanrix™ H5N1) at 0 and 21 days to adults, including the elderly

safety and immunogenicity data available on the administration of the adult dose and half of the adult dose to children aged from 3-9 years with anotherAS03-adjuvanted vaccine containing 3.75 µg HA derived from A/Vietnam/1194/2004 (H5N1) at 0 and 21 days

limited immunogenicity data from 2 studies obtained three weeks after administration of a single dose of an investigational formulation of another AS03-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine containing either 5.25 µg or 3.75 µg HA derived from A/California/7/2009 (H1N1) (Pandemrix™) to healthy adults aged 18-60 years. See section Pharmacodynamics.

Adults aged 18-60 years:

One dose of 0.5mL at an elected date.

The need for a second dose is currently unknown. However, preliminary immunogenicity data obtained at three weeks after administration of an investigational formulation of another AS03-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine containing either 5.25 µg or 3.75 µg HA derived from A/California/7/2009 (H1N1) (Pandemrix™) to a limited number of healthy adults aged 18-60 years suggest that a single dose may be sufficient in this age group. See section Pharmacodynamics.

If a second dose is needed, it should be given after an interval of at least three weeks.

Elderly (>60 years): No clinical data are available for Arepanrix™ H1N1 in this age group. One dose of 0.5mL at an elected date may be considered.

The need for a second dose of vaccine is unknown. If a second dose is needed, it should be given after an interval of at least three weeks. See section Pharmacodynamics.

Children and adolescents aged 10-17 years: Flying blind!!!~No clinical data are available for any influenza vaccines with AS03 in this age group. Consideration may be given to dosing in accordance with recommendations for adults.

Vaccine Roulette = Children aged 3-9 years:

Based on limited clinical data available for AS03-adjuvanted H5N1 vaccine containing 3.75 µg HA derived from A/Vietnam/1194/2004 in this age group, 0.25mL of vaccine (i.e. half of the adult dose) at an elected date and a second dose administered at least three weeks later may be considered sufficient. See section Pharmacodynamics.

Children aged from 6-35 months: Flying blind! No clinical data are available for influenza vaccines with AS03 in this age group. Consideration may be given to dosing in accordance with the recommendation in children aged 3-9 years.

Children aged less than 6 months:

Vaccination is not currently recommended in this age group. Why the cut off at 6 months?They don't know!! They're flying blind!

For further information, see section Pharmacodynamics.

Method of administration:

Immunization should be carried out by intramuscular injection preferably into the deltoid muscle or anterolateral thigh (depending on muscle mass).

Contraindications

History of an anaphylactic reaction (i.e. life-threatening) to any of the constituents or trace residues of this vaccine.

See also section Warnings and Precautions.

Warnings and Precautions

Caution is needed when administering this vaccine to persons with a known hypersensitivity (other than anaphylactic reaction) to the active substance, to any of the excipients and to residues. How will they know on such short notice??? Will they look???Flying blind!!!

As with all injectable vaccines, appropriate medical treatment and supervision should always be readily available in case of a rare anaphylactic event following the administration of the vaccine.

If the pandemic situation allows, immunization shall be postponed in patients with severe febrile illness or acute infection.

Arepanrix™ H1N1 should under no circumstances be administered intravascularly or intradermally.

Antibody response in patients with endogenous or iatrogenic immunosuppression may be insufficient. (iatrogenic??? = physician caused!!!)

A protective immune response may not be elicited in all vaccinees (see section Pharmacodynamics). (Again!!!Flying blind!!!)

Pediatric

There is very limited experience with AS03-adjuvanted H5N1 vaccine in children between 3 and 9 years of age, and no experience in children less than 3 years of age or in children and adolescents between 10 and 17 years of age. See sections Dosage and Administration, Adverse Reactions and Pharmacodynamics.<are the parents informed of this fact???>

Pregnancy and Lactation

No data have been generated in pregnant women with Arepanrix™ H1N1 nor with the prototype AS03 adjuvanted H5N1 vaccine. Data from vaccinations with seasonal trivalent influenza vaccines in pregnant women do not indicate that adverse foetal and maternal outcomes were attributable to the vaccine.

Consideration should be taken of any recommendations made by the Public H ealth Agency of Canada.

Animal studies have not demonstrated harmful effects with respect to fertility, pregnancy, embryonal/foetal development, parturition or post-natal development (see also the section Non-clinical information). (How long were these studies conducted - Or were they cut off just before any adverse reactions cut in???

No data have been generated in breast-feeding women. No Data??? The S.O.B.'s are Flying blind!!!

Interactions

No data are available on the concomitant administration of Arepanrix™ H1N1 with other vaccines, including seasonal trivalent influenza vaccines. Such data are in development, and this document will be amended to include them as soon as available. However, if co-administration with another vaccine is indicated, immunization should be carried out on separate limbs. It should be noted that the adverse reactions may be intensified. The S.O.B.'s are Flying blind!!!

The immunological response may be diminished if the patient is undergoing immunosuppressant treatment. The S.O.B.'s are Flying blind!!!

Following influenza vaccination, false positive serology test results may be obtained by the ELISA method for antibodies to HIV-1, Hepatitis C, and especially HTLV-1. These transient false-positive results may be due to cross-reactive IgM elicited by the vaccine. For this reason, a definitive diagnosis of HIV-1, Hepatitis C, or HTLV-1 infection requires a positive result from a virus-specific confirmatory test (e.g, Western Blot or immunoblot). The S.O.B.'s are Flying blind!!! You could conceivably be falsely diagnosed as HIV + and have to fight that stigmata for the rest of your life!!!

Effects on Ability to Drive and Use Machines???

No studies on the effects on the ability to drive and use machines have been performed. The S.O.B.'s are Flying blind on assumptions!!!

Adverse Reactions

H1N1 Studies:

Preliminary reactogenicity (solicited local and general adverse events reported within 7 days of vaccination) are provided for 2 studies which evaluated the safety of another AS03-adjuvanted vaccine containing HA derived from A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v-like (Pandemrix™) in healthy subjects aged 18-60 years. In one study, the vaccine contained a higher amount of antigen (5.25 µg HA). In both studies, a group of subjects received the vaccine without the AS03 adjuvant. Solicited local and general symptoms were generally reported more frequently in the H1N1+AS03 group compared to the H1N1 group. Pain at the injection site was the most frequently reported solicited adverse events (AE). The frequency of ''related' Grade 3 symptoms was low and did not exceed 1.6%.

D-Pan H1N1-021 (Day 0 to Day 6 solicited adverse events following a single dose of 5.25µg HA + AS03 H1N1 vaccine [Pandemrix™] versus a single dose of 21 µg HA unadjuvanted H1N1 vaccine) - Adverse Events with a causal relationship

Adverse reactions H1N1/AS03

N=63 H1N1

N=66

Pain 88.9% 59.1%

Redness 31.7% 4.5%

Swelling 30.2% 1.5%

Fatigue 15.9% 10.6%

Headache 14.3% 7.6%

Arthralgia 14.3% 3.0%

Myalgia 15.9% 4.5%

Shivering 3.2% 4.5%

Sweating 6.3% 4.5%

Fever 0.0% 0.0%

D-Pan H1N1-007 (Day 0 to Day 6 solicited adverse events following a single dose of 3.75 µg HA + AS03 vaccine [Pandemrix™] versus a single dose of 15 µg HA unadjuvanted H1N1 vaccine) - Adverse Events with a causal relationship

Adverse reactions H1N1/AS03

N=62 H1N1

N=62

Pain 90.3% 37.1%

Redness 1.6% 0.0%

Swelling 6.5% 0.0%

Fatigue 32.3% 25.8%

Headache 14.3% 7.6%

Arthralgia 11.3% 4.8%

Myalgia 33.9% 8.1%

Shivering 8.1% 3.2%

Sweating 9.7% 8.1%

Fever 0.0% 0.0%

A total of four serious adverse events (SAEs) have been reported with the H1N1 studies. Three of them were considered by the investigators to be unrelated to the study vaccine (how would they know??) One reported case of hypersensitivity was considered by the investigator to be related to vaccination.

H5N1 Studies:

Clinical trials

Adverse reactions from clinical trials conducted using the mock-up vaccine are listed below.

Adults:

Clinical studies have evaluated the incidence of adverse reactions listed below in approximately 3,500 subjects 18 years old and above who received Influenza Virus Vaccine containing A/Indonesia/05/2005 (Arepanrix™ H5N1) with at least 3.75 µg HA/AS03.

The reactogenicity of vaccination was solicited by collecting adverse events using standardized forms for 7 consecutive days following vaccination with Arepanrix™ H5N1 or placebo (i.e., Day 0 to Day 6). The average frequencies of solicited local and general adverse events reported within 7 days after each vaccination dose are presented below:

Percentage of Doses Followed by Solicited Local or General Adverse Events Within 7 Days of Any Vaccination With Arepanrix™ H5N1 (Total Vaccinated Cohort*)

Local AREPANRIX™ H5N1 Placebo

N=6647 doses N=2209 doses

Pain 73.1 12.0

Swelling 6.7 0.4

Redness 5.25 0.4

General N=6639 doses N=2210 doses

Muscle Aches 33.3 11.8

Headache 23.4 17.6

Fatigue 23.3 14.1

Joint Pain 16.4 7.4

Shivering 9.8 6.0

Sweating 6.3 4.4

Fever, ≥38.0°C 2.4 1.9

* Total Vaccinated Cohort = all subjects who received at least one dose of vaccine and for whom any safety data were available.

Pain at the injection site was the most commonly reported solicited local symptom in both Arepanrix™ H5N1 and placebo groups and was reported at a 6-fold higher frequency (i.e. following 73% of doses) in the Arepanrix™ H5N1 group. Despite the high incidence of injection site pain, the incidence of severe pain was low, with reports occurring after 2.7% of Arepanrix™ H5N1 doses and 0.4% of placebo doses. Overall, severe solicited or unsolicited adverse events of any type occurred in the 7 days after 6.4 to 7.0% of Arepanrix™ H5N1 doses and 3.6% of placebo doses. The most common severe solicited adverse event was local injection site pain; all severe general solicited adverse events occurred after <2% of doses.

Other/Additional adverse reactions reported are listed according to the following frequency classification:

Very common (≥1/10)

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Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz

2009-10-30T09:19:00.001-07:00

Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz

To Counter Growing Criticism from Scientific and Medical Community

by Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null

Global Research, October 29, 2009

President Obama and his top health officials are engaging in a major public relations effort to divert attention away from whether its swine flu vaccine is effective and safe – to whether there is enough of it to go around. And the media, as always, is cooperating fully. This echoes the way media debate was manipulated during the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. Instead of debating whether we should even be fighting those wars, the media debated only whether we were using the correct military strategy.

Increasing numbers of scientists and doctors are issuing harsh criticisms of the Government’s plan to vaccinate (forcibly if necessary) virtually the entire U.S. population with what they claim is a poorly tested vaccine that is not only ineffective against swine flu, but could cripple and even kill many more people than it helps.

The CDC’s public relations campaign has been running “scare” ads that portray swine flu as a full-blown “pandemic” responsible for snuffing out countless lives, and which, unless stopped by universal vaccination, could kill millions of American citizens. But scientists and health officials throughout the world have called the governments claims unjustified and deliberately misleading.

For example, Dr. Anthony Morris, a distinguished virologist and former Chief Vaccine Office at the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA), states that “There is no evidence that any influenza vaccine thus far developed is effective in preventing or mitigating any attack of influenza” and that “The producers of these vaccines know they are worthless, but they go on selling them anyway.”

And in November 2007, the UK newspaper The Scotsman, made public warnings by the inventor of the “flu jab,” Dr. Graeme Laver. Dr. Laver was a major Australian scientist involved in the invention of a flu vaccine, in addition to playing a leading scientific role in the discovery of anti-flu drugs. He went on record as saying the vaccine he helped to create was ineffective and [that] natural infection with the flu was safer. “I have never been impressed with its efficacy,” said Dr. Laver.

We hear the assumption being made by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that the number of deaths from the H1N1 virus is at pandemic levels and now a “national emergency.” One would assume that with all of its resources, the New York Times’ October 26 front page story on the CDC’s statistics would be accurate: 20,000 hospitalizations and 1,000 deaths due to the swine flu. However, this is all fiction. And it is a fiction solely based upon the CDC’s own contradictory statements and actions.

Our independent investigations into the clinical trials and statistical studies of influenza vaccines reveal glaring discrepancies. Let us not forget that it is this same New York Times, with its “star” reporter Judith Miller, who led America into believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, tried to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger, and had dealings with al-Qaeda. And let us also remember that it is the same CDC and health officials in Washington, including President Ford and his top health advisor Joseph Califano, who pushed through and propagandized an untested vaccine during the 1976 swine flu scare, which resulted in thousands of severely neurologically damaged Americans and about 500 reported deaths. Aside from permanent paralysis, many of these vaccine victims also underwent torturous processes for many years to get the government to recognize their illnesses and help cover their costs. Not only was the CDC’s prediction and vaccination campaign for the 1976 flu season a total disaster, it also turned into a deadly scandal, witnessed across the United States on 60 Minutes when Dr. David Sencer, then head of the CDC, confirmed that the vaccine was never field tested, that there were only several reported incidents of H1N1 infection and none of these had been officially confirmed, and then lied about the CDC having no prior evidence that the swine flu vaccine could cause severe and permanent neurological damage. The end result from the 1976 debacle cost the government $3.5 billion in damages, two-thirds were for severe neurological injury and death directly due to the CDC’s vaccination campaign.

Therefore, being anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine is not the most urgent issue. What is critical is whether or not there is legitimate, sound science to support either position; in this regard, the vaccine manufacturers and our federal health agencies have failed in the past, and continue to fail today. And they fail dismally. There is absolutely no evidence for sound-scientific protocol or anything resembling a gold-standard behind the swine flu infection statistics and vaccine efficacy and safety clinical trials to support Obama’s and his health advisors’ claims. Instead, the reports on hospitalizations and deaths due to the H1N1 virus are grossly distorted. What we are really witnessing is “official” science and statistics that are little more than propaganda.

One unfortunate development over the years is the notion that there is such a thing as a “flu season.” The truth is that we move annually into periods where there are dramatic increases in flu-like causing pathogens, however, the majority of these are unrelated to any strain of influenza virus. There can between 150 and 200 different infectious pathogens—adenovirus, rhinovirus, parainfluenza, the very common coronavirus and, of course, pneumonia—that produce flu-like symptoms, and worse, during a “flu season.” For example, how many people have heard of bocavirus, which is responsible for bronchitis and pneumonia in young children, or metapneumovirus, responsible for more than 5 percent of all flu-related illnesses? This is true during every flu season and this year is no different. Furthermore, all flu vaccinations, including the swine flu, are useless for protecting people from these many prevalent infectious organisms.

If we take the combined figure of flu and pneumonia deaths for the period of 2001, and add a bit of spin to the figures, we are left believing that 62,034 people died from influenza. The actual figures determined by Peter Doshi, then at Harvard University, are 61,777 died from pneumonia and only 257 from flu. Even more amazing, among those 257 cases only 18 were confirmed positive for influenza. A separate study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics for the flu periods between 1979 through 2002 revealed the true range of flu deaths were between 257 and 3006, for an average of 1,348 per year.

The recent CBS Investigative Report, published on October 21, is one example. After the CDC refused to honor CBS’s Freedom of Information request to receive flu infection data for each individual state, the network performed independent outreach to all fifty states to get their statistics. Their report contradicts dramatically the CDC’s public relations blitz. For example, in California, among the approximate 13,000 flu-like cases, 86 percent tested negative for any flu strain. In Florida, out of 8,853 cases, 83 percent were negative. In Georgia and Alaska, only 2.4 percent and 1 percent respectively tested positive for flu virus among all reported flu-like cases. If the infectious-rate ratios obtained by CBS are accurate, the CDC’s figures are significantly reduced and agree with earlier predictions that the H1N1 virus will be simply an unwelcomed annoyance. So we are in the midst of an enormous medical hoax, a design and purpose that has yet to unfold completely, that will nevertheless reap huge revenues for the vaccine industrial complex.

Another example is a recent alarmist report issuing from Georgetown University, also usurped by federal health officials and their multimedia comrades to fuel a campaign of fear and panic. The report announced that over 250 students were infected by swine flu when in fact none of these students were tested for H1N1 infection. The university’s figure was based solely on a count of student visits to the health clinic and calls into an H1N1 hotline.

This is not the first time the CDC’s predictions for influenza strains have been overstated and miscalculated. In an interview on Swedish television, Dr. Tom Jefferson, head of vaccine studies at the prestigious international Cochrane Database Collaboration, after reviewing hundreds of influenza studies and statistical analyses, has said the WHO’s and CDC’s “performance is not very good.” And in an ITN News interview last month, Jefferson called the swine flu pandemic a “juggernaut they [the WHO, government agencies and vaccine makers] created.” For the 1992-1993 season, the prediction was off by 84 percent. For the 1994-1995 season, it was off 43 percent for the primary strain and off 87 percent and 76 percent for two other strains. The Laboratory Center for Disease Control’s study comparing vaccine strains with the strains appearing during the 1997-1998 season found the match was off by 84 percent. Again Dr. Jefferson in a Der Spiegel interview remarked,

“there are some people who make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. None of them so far have come about, and these people are still there making these predictions. For example, what happened with the bird flu, which was supposed to kill us all?.... Swine flu could have even stayed unnoticed if it had been caused by some unknown virus rather than an influenza virus… An influenza vaccine is not working for the majority of influenza-like illnesses because it is only designed to combat influenza viruses. For that reason, the vaccine changes nothing when it comes to the heightened mortality rate during the winter months.”

Our review of all clinical trial studies conducted by the H1N1 vaccine makers for pre-licensing in the American market—CSL, Novartis, Sanofi-Pasteur, Medimmune and now GlaxoSmithKline—reveals they were poorly designed and feebly executed. Any professor in molecular biology or virology would fail a graduate student who presented a paper relying on research conducted in the manner of the studies the vaccine corporations submit to the FDA. Nevertheless, it is this lack of sound randomized, double-blind controlled placebo studies, particularly for inactivated virus vaccines, that our government is declaring definitive and is using to justify mass vaccination of our population.

Last week, Switzerland’s health authorities rejected Novartis’ new swine flu vaccine, Celtura, being targeted for women and children, because the company’s studies were insufficient to guarantee its safety. In addition, the new Novartis vaccine, which uses a cell base from dogs, was found to be contaminated with canine-specific bacteria. The Swiss newspaper, Tagesanzeiger, also noted there remains some suspicion that Novartis’ new vaccine may be a repackaging of an earlier 2008 vaccine responsible for killing almost two dozen homeless people during an illegal clinical trial in Poland. This is the same Novartis whose Fluvirin H1N1 vaccine being distributed in the US relied only on a hasty clinical efficacy and safety trial enrolling only a small number of health adults. Novartis likely remains unperturbed. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant has reported a $6.1 billion profit so far this year and expects to boost sales for the final quarter with is swine flu vaccine.

In July, the CDC announced it would cease testing and counting H1N1 virus infections. Their public reason was simply that they are convinced there is a pandemic and, therefore, accurate monitoring was unnecessary. On August 30, the CDC declared the states should report influenza and pneumonia-associated hospitalizations and deaths together, not singling out actual cases of H1N1 infection if there happen to be any actually confirmed from a laboratory. This has always been the CDC’s policy, and the 36,000 figure of annual flu deaths repeated ad nausea on their website and spewed from the media’s health pulpits for several years straight, does not distinguish between pneumonia, influenza and other flu-like pathogenic deaths. Perhaps it would make very little difference because the current rapid diagnostic tests for the H1N1 virus can range in only 10-50 percent accuracy.

Elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe, civilians are increasingly rejecting the H1N1 vaccine. Recent polls in Germany and Austria show only 13 and 18 percent respectively willing to take the shot. In Sweden, four vaccine related deaths have been announced and almost 200 healthcare workers have reported becoming more seriously ill from the vaccination than they might have from a flu infection. In the US, anywhere from 90-99 percent of adverse events go unreported.

If people would simply shut off the CDC’s supported propaganda noise being blasted across the airwaves and newspapers— the spectacle of newscasters being inoculated, interviews with government health officials or private doctors and academics receiving consultation fees from drug makers, and the drivel of the New York Times—and simply do their homework, Americans would wake up and realize the hoax behind the swine flu pandemic. All of the information is before us. Nothing is hidden. All the contradictions and hypocrisies are contained within the massive vaccine industrial complex—including the government health agencies and professional medical associations. The lie is too large for them to not expose themselves if we simply look.

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Vaccine Nation and Autism: Made in the USA. Dr. Null is also the plaintiff on a law suit against the FDA to prevent the launch of the swine flu vaccine until safety studies have been thoroughly conducted.

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Press Release: Truehope Challenges Health Canada in Federal Court

2009-10-26T16:05:00.001-07:00

http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/health-freedom/press-release-truehope-challenges-health-canada-in-federal-courts.php

Press Release
Oct. 26, 2009

Truehope Challenges Health Canada in Federal Courts Claiming Constitutional Breach

Calgary, AB
A small Alberta vitamin and mineral company called Truehope will finally have its day in court beginning Monday, November 2 when the Federal Court in Calgary will determine the legality and constitutionality of Health Canada’s 2003 seizure of a vitamin and mineral combination (EMPowerplus) being used by thousands of Canadians for the prevention of bipolar symptoms.

Years of court battles over the seizure that left hundreds of desperate Canadians caught in the middle of a regulatory battle have, thus far, amounted to nothing but a huge waste of tax payer dollars. In 2006 Health Canada charged Truehope owners with the illegal sale of a drug, but the courts found them innocent of all wrong doing and demanded the Truehope vitamin and mineral supplements continue to be made available to Canadians. Furthermore, in his final judgment, Judge G.M. Meagher concluded that even as Health Canada agents were denying access to the supplement they were fully aware that their actions would result in harm or danger to those who depended on the product for their health.[1]

Truehope co-founder Anthony Stephan claims that if the constitutional challenge is successful Health Canada will no longer be able to remove a product from the market without first proving in court that the removal will not harm Canadians who use it for their health. “Canadians are harmed when viable natural treatments or preventions are taken away. Drugs should not be the only option for Canadians who choose health. The judgment will extend protection to all Canadians and to all natural health products.”

Current Health Canada regulations allow bureaucrats to remove natural products at will without any accountability to Canadians for their actions.[2] “We think this kind of unconstitutional free-for-all opens the door for corruption and for big pharma lobby, and closes the door on individual freedom and choice in personal health care,” says Stephan.

The Federal Court Review is open to the public daily from 9:30 – 4:30 and commencing November 2-20 at the Calgary Federal Court 635 8th Ave. S.W. Calgary, AB.

-30-

For full court documents or further comments please contact:
Anthony Stephan, (403) 634-8772

[1] Citation: R. v. Synergy Group of Canada, Inc. , 2006 ABPC 196, pg 11-12 [45]

[2] Food and Drugs Act, sect. 23 (1)(d) and 26

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Health Empowerment News - Episode 7 | Diabetes

2009-10-24T00:37:00.001-07:00

Diabetes: Complications, Treatments and a Nutritional Protocol to Reverse it!
New Health Empowerment News Episode
http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/food-is-medicine/007-health-empowerment-news-diabetes-disease-complications-and-therapy.php

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Seasonal Flu Shot Damage

2009-10-22T22:11:00.001-07:00

If the usual flu shot can do this - what can the "kept press" expect from an untested H1N1flu vaccine containing two brain central system irritants - squalene and Thimersol (49% mercury) while the public health shills are telling the public the mercury is as innocent as eating a tuna fish sandwich. Why do they tell pregnant moms not to eat tuna fish. -- Croft Woodruff

October 22, 2009

Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey Reach Out to Disabled Redskin's Cheerleader

Click

HERE to read the full story and how you can help at Fox 5.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There are new developments in the story FOX 5 first brought you about a Redskins cheerleader left disabled by a seasonal flu shot. Now, Desiree Jennings is adding a boost of star power to her cause.

An organization founded by actors (Generation Rescue*) Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey is so touched by Desiree's story that they have reached out to offer not only words of encouragement, but the organization's support.

Desiree Jennings' struggle is getting worldwide attention.

"It's been unreal," Jennings told FOX 5. "I didn't think anyone would even care about my story. People are sitting there crying and I can't understand why..."

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Listen to Croft Woodruff on CBC Radio

2009-10-22T19:14:00.001-07:00

Croft Woodruff on CBC Radio

Croft Woodruff was in studio on CBC’s Early Edition to debate the soon to be released H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine.

Croft pointed out that the vaccine contains mercury and an adjuvant called squalene which is thought to be an excito-toxin and brain irritant. He also asked to see the peer reviewed literature demonstrating that the H1N1 Vaccine is safe and effective.

To listen to the segment click on the link below:

http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/natural-health-news-feed/croft-woodruff-on-cbc-radio.php

You can hear more from Croft Woodruff by listening to Health Empowerment News. Croft and co-host, Andrew McGivern, discuss topics such as: vaccines, alternative medicine, chelation therapy, nutrition, health freedom and the politics of health.

New episodes are available every week at foodsarenotdrugs.com!

Or you can subscribe in i-Tunes, Zune or with an RSS Reader.

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Reversing Diabetes Naturally

2009-10-22T10:43:00.001-07:00

RAW for 30 Days DVD - Reversing Diabetes Natuarally!!!

Click Here to Read About "There is a Cure for Diabetes" by Gabriel Cousens

So what happens when you bring together 53 experts
from the raw food world in support of The Movement
to Reverse Diabetes Naturally?

YOU get a lot of cool stuff!

Raw For 30 Days

These 53 experts are giving away a TON of goodies
in support of Reversing Diabetes Action Day and the
film "Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days."
There are 11 E-books, hours of audios, hundreds of
recipes, an entire magazine, valuable coupons and
more!

This film is a must see for diabetics AND non-diabetics.
If you haven't yet seen this film NOW is the time!
Just click on this link to learn more about the film
and all of these goodies:

Raw For 30 Days

If you have picked up a copy already then get another
copy of the film for a friend, neighbor or your local
library so that you can get all of these bonuses for
yourself! :)

This film is SO powerful in opening up people, both
diabetics and non-diabetics, to the importance of
raw and living foods and we need to get it out to
more people!

Raw For 30 Days Documentary DVD

You don't want to miss these bonuses! Check it out right
away and make sure to support The Movement to Reverse
Diabetes Naturally. It is doing some important and
powerful work!

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Croft Woodruff may be on CBC Vancouver tomorrow morning at 6:20am

2009-10-19T21:40:00.001-07:00

For those interested in listening to Croft Woodruff, PhD, MH discuss the Swine Flu Fiasco on CBC Radio remember to set your alarm clock to catch the show at 6:20 AM on CBC Vancouver 690 AM or 88.1 FM. Or listen online at the link below:\

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/bc/

Listen live to CBC Radio 690 AM/ 88.1 FM Vancouver

For the benefit of those who live within the listening range of CBC RADIO VANCOUVER over
690 AM or 88.1 FM - I am, so far, scheduled to be an on air guest on CBC Radio's 'Early Edition' at 6;20 AM or later on Wednesday morning, the 21st of October, to discuss the Swine Flu vaccine fiasco - then & now.
Croft

Best Regards,

Andrew McGivern
604.816.0356

Contact Me

Health Empowerment News Podcast

006 | Health Empowerment News | The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 & Corporate Front Groups

--- @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Suzan Somers - "Knockout"

2009-10-19T16:07:00.001-07:00

http://bolenreport.com/feature_articles/feature_article080.htm

Will Suzanne Somers New Book on Alternative Cancer Therapies Start the Cancer Revolt?...

Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Watch Larry King tonight. He's interviewing Suzanne Somers about her new book "Knockout," which talks about REAL treatments, ones that actually work, for cancer. 9:00PM EST

The longest running war conducted by the United States is not the war in Iraq, nor the war in .Afghanistan. It is the "War on Cancer" started, with great fanfare, in 1972, thirty-seven years ago, by President Richard Nixon. It is a complete failure. The enemy, cancer, continues to gain ground.

In truth, the only people who benefit from this war are those in the huge, for profit, cancer industry - certainly not cancer victims or their families. The accepted therapies, those claimed to be "proven," are, in actuality, worthless. The statistics generated, even though the industry massages them, clearly show that 97.9% people who go the chemotherapy therapy route are dead five years later. That's correct - chemotherapy only has a 2.1% success rate over five years. Put in a 2.5% "margin of error" and you've got a big fat zero.

More, the government apparatus we've created to help with this war is no more than a huge "welfare for scientists" program with absolutely nothing to show for their thirty-seven years of existence except higher percentages of cancer deaths.

The mechanism created by the plan, amounts to the biggest rip-off ever conducted against the American people. The people running the "War on Cancer", had this been a US military operation, would long ago been fired for incompetence. US casualties of this war are shocking. More Americans have died in this war, during this period (thirty-seven years), than during the total of ALL of the wars ever fought by the people of the US. Cancer now tops the charts in the US as the largest annual health problem - ahead of heart disease.

President Obama, and his people, want to reform US health care. This is the place to start - for it is here that every problem, every wrong thing in the US healthcare system is exemplified.

Suzanne Somers's new book "Knockout," an examination of cutting-edge Alternative Cancer treatments, will be on the stands October 20th, 2009. Larry King interviewed her about the book yesterday October 13th, 2009 in his Los Angeles studio. The show will Air at 9:00 PM EST on October 19th, 2009 on CNN. The interview is about the book not the problem of the "War on Cancer."

I haven't seen Suzanne's book yet, but I've heard from someone who has read it that it is terrific. Featured in it is the work of some of the finest cutting-edge scientist/cancer therapists in the US: Nicholas Gonzalez MD, Stanislaw Burzynski MD PhD, James Forsythe MD, and more.

The US has lost the "War on Cancer" started by President Richard Nixon, in 1972. Hundreds of billions of dollars has been spent, in essence, developing a cancer industry that has never intended to do anything about cancer - in fact, they do the opposite. It also created a huge, bloated bureaucracy of "cancer scientists" who, simply, get all dressed up, go to a meeting in a city far away, stay overnight in a five-star hotel, drive a Mercedes Benz - and accomplish absolutely nothing. Never have, never will.

Stay tuned...

Tim Bolen - Consumer Advocate

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Simply Raw

2009-10-16T23:17:00.001-07:00

SIMPLY RAW: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days

DVD Chronicles Six Diabetics Taking the Raw Food Challenge

For Reversing Diabetes Naturally & Documents Remarkable Results

Gabriel Cousens M.D, Anthony Robbins, Woody Harrelson, Rev. Michael Beckwith, Morgan Spurlock, David Wolfe & More Discuss the Healing Power of Raw Foods in New Film

BETHEL, CT (January 27, 2009)-A fascinating, independent film follows the remarkable journeys of six diabetics (Type 1 and 2) for 30 days as they take the “Raw Challenge” to reverse their disease naturally without prescription drugs by eating only organic, vegan, uncooked, ‘raw foods’ despite the American Medical Association’s claim that “Diabetes is a chronic disease that has no cure.” Their physiological and emotional transformations are featured in a new DVD entitled Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days (March 2009).

Set at The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona founded by Gabriel Cousens, M.D., the film follows the participants as they are challenged to give up their traditional, American diets consisting of meat, dairy, sugar, processed foods, and cooked foods, as well alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, as they continue to reduce their dosages of insulin and prescription medications. The results are astounding.

“One of the most potent, pandemic diseases is Type 2 diabetes affecting 246 million people worldwide. We need to wake up to the possibility that simply changing our diet can significantly reverse and even cure this disease. The results of the participants in this documentary offer evidence of that,” states Dr. Cousens. The author of There’s a Cure for Diabetes and founder of The Tree of Life, Gabriel Cousens, MD is a well-known holistic medical doctor for 35 years and published authority on alternative healing and raw living food nutritional therapies. He has helped thousands heal myriad diseases through the power of raw foods.

A diet consisting of plant-source only, raw foods is rapidly gaining worldwide recognition for its power to heal and rejuvenate, as well as maintain health at a high energy level. The raw diet mostly consists of fruits, vegetables, grains, sprouts, nuts and seeds. It is a vegan diet (no meat, cheese, eggs or milk), but with one caveat: It is prepared at temperatures less than between 118 degrees Fahrenheit to preserved the natural enzymes, nutrients and the food’s life-force energy from the sun. When food is cooked, 50 percent of the protein is lost, 70-80 percent of the vitamins and minerals are lost, and close to 100 percent of the phytonutrients are destroyed.

Simply Raw chronicles the transformation of six “real life” participants - with no prior knowledge of a plant-source only, raw food way of life - all struggling with diabetes. Their inspiring transformations are documented over 30 days. Upon arrival at the Tree of Life, the group receives physical exams and medical tests under the care of Dr. Cousens and his staff. Daily medical discussions and support group meetings teach the participants about food selection and preparation as well as exercise, meditation and yoga. Throughout the film, we witness moments of struggle, support, and hope. Remarkably nearly all of the participants were able to attain normal blood sugar levels and eliminate their insulin and prescription drug intake they depended on for decades.

The Simply Raw film has inspired a movement www.rdnmovement.com, to bring together people from around the world to reverse diabetes naturally through the spreading of educational resources on nutrition such as the Simply Raw film and “The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle”. An RDN Action Day is slated for April 25, 2009.

The Simply Raw DVD is available for purchase at simplyrawmovie.com or at amazon.com. Running time: 88 minutes.

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Diabetic Leg Wounds

2009-10-16T21:38:00.001-07:00

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy- Article from the Globe & Mail, March 26, 2005

Diabetics are losing legs unnecessarily

by Christie BlatchFord

Most of the physicians interviewed by The Globe say the demand for HBOT is primarily patient-driven. "Why isn’t there more usage?" the OMA’s Dr. Sosiak asked rhetorically. "Physician ignorance, no training [in HBOT] in our universities; patient ignorance; a culture of antagonism."

Canadian diabetics are losing feet and legs at an alarming rate every year despite a growing body of scientific evidence which shows that a treatment already available can potentially prevent amputation in about 70 per cent of cases.

In Ontario alone, conservative estimates are that 2,100 diabetics suffer below- or above-the-knee amputations every year due to foot ulcers, with some doctors quietly putting the number at twice that and a recent British study finding that amputation rates themselves are often unreliable and underestimated.

Statistically, every year about 2.5 per cent of the more than two million Canadians with diabetes develop foot ulcers - the disease often causes poor circulation and nerve damage in the extremities, with the result that such minor problems as calluses and cuts can quickly become infected before the patient realizes it - with about a quarter of those eventually going on to amputation.

Most are older people, if not elderly, their bodies worn down after decades of the disease's insidious effects.

Yet though the treatment called hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT - is, on paper, available in most major Canadian cities, its controversial history of overblown claims, combined with ignorance about its legitimate efficacy in more than a dozen conditions and a pharmaceutical-driven medical establishment, has resulted in the therapy being relegated to the sidelines.

"It's got no champion," Dr. Wayne Evans, chair of the Ontario Medical Association’s hyperbaric medicine division, said sadly of HBOT.

"It gets lost in the shuffle. It's not glamorous. The profession sees it as boring stuff involving yechy wounds mostly in old, smelly people."

Calgary hyperbaric physician Ross Harrison says the lack of information and widespread reluctance of doctors to refer their diabetic patients for HBOT is tantamount to a conspiracy of silence.

"That's definitely true," he told The Globe and Mail in a telephone interview from his office at HBOT Clinics Inc., a private facility that treated 12 diabetics last year.

"Diabetics are losing legs unnecessarily," Dr. Harrison said. "There's no question. We run into a great deal of resistance, from several different quarters," and mentioned one local health authority that flatly refuses to approve the treatment.

HBOT is long-established as a remedy for divers suffering from decompression illness and fire-fighters with carbon monoxide poisoning.

But since 1976, when the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society first formed a committee to review research and clinical data, other therapeutic uses for HBOT have been added, with the recommended "indications" now refined to 13, including delayed radiation injuries (which may show up years after cancer treatment) and so called problem wounds, the broad category into which diabetic foot ulcers fall.

Whether for treatment of "the bends" or a foot ulcer, patients enter a treatment chamber where they breathe 100-per-cent oxygen at a pressure typically 21/2 to three times that of sea level. With diabetic wounds, what this hyper oxygenation does is kick start a number of healing processes, chief among them the growth of new blood vessels.

Since 2001, there have been four randomized, controlled clinical trials of HBOT on diabetic ulcers the gold standard in evidence based medicine - though the patient numbers were small, ranging from 30 to 70.

All the studies found either markedly fewer amputations with patients who received HBOT compared to those who didn't, or enormously improved healing.

Yet the Canadian Diabetes Association, which defines one of its functions as "effective advocacy for diabetics, makes not a single mention of the therapy on its website. Indeed only last month did the CDA announce it will soon begin an independent technical review of the HBOT literature, with recommend-ations expected this summer.

The agency was responding to a letter from Bill Roman, president of the Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, urging the group to "take a leadership role and provide this information to patients, physicians and the [Ontario] minister of health and flatly describing the loss of limbs in Ontario as "a carnage."

Diabetes in Ontario, published in 2003 by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and considered a top-level "practice atlas," devotes an entire chapter to peripheral vascular disease (the underlying problem that causes nerve damage and leads to amputation) without any reference to HBOT.

'All of them deserve the right to have a say in it, and to know that there are options.'
Dr Michael Garey

Federally, Health Canada devotes two pages on its website to HBOT and lists 11 recognized uses of the therapy - but none for problem wounds like foot ulcers.

Indeed, Health Canada’s "A-Z" on-line information guide has four listings about dengue fever, hardly the equal of the health crisis posed by diabetes, which experts universally estimate to be increasing by about 10 per cent a year due to the aging baby boomer generation and what is euphemistically called “over-nutrition."

Yet there is only one reference, currently unavailable, on the Ottawa website for hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

As Michael Garey, a hyperbaric doctor at Lakeview Hospital near Salt Lake City, Utah, says: "For some people, amputation is the best way to go. It’s a good surgery. But a lot of people, we can save. And all of them deserve the right to have a say in it, and to know that there are options."

It was more than two years ago that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that administers the Medicare plan and helps states administer Medicaid, issued a “national coverage decision” expanding approved use of HBOT to specifically include coverage for "diabetic wounds of the lower extremities."

Starting in April of 2003, U.S. diabetics with serious ulcers failed to heal within a month using standard treatment were eligible for HBOT as an "adjunctive therapy," a decision described OMA’s Dr. Evans as "a very logical but gutsy move."

Dr. Evans, a hyperbaric doctor of 14 years at Toronto General's small unit and a University of Toronto assistant professor, noted that "the U.S. decision isn’t the only piece of information. There’s tonnes of scientific material that supports it [HBOT}. Admittedly, a large body of the older work is lower-quality evidence," he said, “but the recent work is pretty substantial evidence. It just doesn’t get headlines that a study of 5,000 patients gets. A huge study may be required to show a slight difference but a smaller one can still show a statistically significant difference.

As Dr. Ted Sosiak, secret the OMA’s committee on hyperbaric medicine, told The Globe, because "there's no patent [to be had] on oxygen and no financial incentive, there's no one coming in to do research with $20-million.

Yet Dr. Sosiak says, "the evidence is there" - not only that HBOT works "about 75 per cent of the time," but also that it's cost effective. "Amputation in Canada using the CDA’s own figures, costs about $74,000," he said, while an average course of HBOT treatment- 30 or 40 are usually needed to fully heal a diabetic ulcer - costs between $8,000 and $12,000.

The situation in this country is complicated by provincial health insurance plans, which cover HBOT. But some, like Ontario's, pay only for physician consultation, using archaic codes that were developed in 1968 when hyperbaric oxygen was used primarily with divers. In other plans, such as Alberta, clinics are also compensated with a “facility fee” which is billed to the local health region.

Because the Ontario style of funding pays no facility or technical fee, it means there's little incentive for hospital-based HBOT clinics, such as the one at Toronto General Hospital - the only hospital clinic serving the country's largest city - to treat elective patients such as diabetics, or to expand. The TGH's so-called "standalone" budget is but $285,000, hospital spokeswoman Gillian Howard said, emphasizing that the clinic is meant to function as "an emergency service."

Ms. Howard said that in a given year, the clinic treats between 100 and 125 cases; there are about four elective patients a day, only two of whom, The Globe has learned from other sources, are diabetics. These sources say this has translated to a waiting list of about a year at TGH, and about eight months at the province's other hospital clinics, located in Ottawa and Hamilton.

With TGH treating only about 15 diabetics a year, and the other hospitals together averaging about 35 annually, it means, Dr. Sosiak said, that not more than 50 of the thousands of Ontarians with deteriorating leg ulcers are able to take advantage of HBOT.

According to the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, there are 23 HBOT clinics - a mix of hospital, private and military facilities - across Canada. And diabetics who resist amputation and learn about the therapy will dig into their own pockets if necessary and travel to get the treatment.

Mary Svitek, a 64-year-old from Windsor, guesses she spent about $ 1 0,000 for travel and accommodation while getting HBOT from a private Toronto clinic more than two years ago.

"Within two months," she told The Globe, the ulcer on her right foot healed, and even grew new skin. "That's still fine." But in early 2003, she developed three new sores on the bottom of the foot, and had to return for more treatment. "Two of them healed," Mrs. Svitek said, "but one is still open."

Yet she continues to walk, and remain active. "To me, it would be very, very difficult to lose my leg. I'm a very active person."

Mrs. Svitek learned about HBOT on the Internet, where, as the OMA’s Dr. Evans said, "You have to be a very good Googler, and have an obsessive-compulsive" persistence to unearth information.

"None of the doctors in Windsor seemed to be aware of it," Mrs. Svitek said. When she asked her family physician for a referral, she said his attitude was, "'Well, you can go ahead but I don't know if it's going to work.' He was very impressed when he saw how it healed."

"It's made a believer out of me," Toronto private investigator Jack Hunter said. "I'd never heard of it, but it worked wonders."

At 66, Mr. Hunter's journey through surgery is typical of the slippery slope that for many diabetics begins with a minor amputation and, several agonizing procedures later, ends in death.

First, the big toe on his right foot became discolored, then went black with gangrene; he had it amputated; then the adjacent toes went the same way, and on March 1 1, last year, the leg was amputated below the knee, and he walked out of hospital five weeks later on a brand-new prosthesis.

But three months later, informed enough now to be panic-stricken, Mr. Hunter noticed "a little black spot" between the toes on his left foot, and ultimately lost two toes and a piece of the sole. He credits HBOT, which he received at Toronto General Hospital from Dr. Evans, with saving his leg. "At the end of eight weeks, it's really doing well. It's almost healed. It's just amazing," he said.

Dr. Ted Sosiak, secretary of the Ontario Medical
Association’s committee on hyperbaric medicine,
says the therapy is not only effective, it’s also more
cost-effective than resorting to amputation.

I'd never heard of it, but it worked wonders.
JackHunter

As Dr. Garey of Utah’s Lakeview Hospital said sadly, "Part of it is politics; part of it is that doctors are not exposed to it in residency and what they're not exposed to, they're leery of. I run into that when I lecture at the university ... I always reply, 'How many of the 39,000 articles have you read?' "

He said that in his six years of hyperbaric medicine, he has treated "dozens of people who were told they need amputation, and we were able to save their limbs." Given that most diabetics facing amputation are older, Dr. Garey said, saving their legs "is a tremendous quality-of-life issue. Rehabilitation is not a fast thing, not any faster than wound care. Prostheses are much better now, true, but most of the elderly can never successfully use them. Almost 50 per cent [of those who undergo amputation] die within months."

Dr. Garey said hyperbaric doctors often make the black joke that only when they develop a "scratch ‘n’ sniff panel for our pictures" will HBOT get the recognition it deserves.

In June, he will present a paper at the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society conference in Las Vegas. The title of his paper? "Limb salvage." Who would have thought that in 2005, such a discussion would be necessary.

cblatchford@globeandmail.ca

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Flu Remedies

2009-10-15T14:30:00.001-07:00

www.foodsarenotdrugs.com

Natural Swine Flu Remedy

May 1st, 2009 | By admin | Category: Cold and Flu | Edit

The Swine Flu hysteria is sweeping North America and around the world, much like it did several years ago with the Avian Flu. Almost all media sources are focusing on this story and many people are concerned. Watching the news can increase anxiety even without an impending pandemic added to the mix. But is it really a pandemic or has it been blown out of proportion? Keep reading and learn about a natural remedy that can protect you against the Flu or the Common Cold.

The Flu Virus:

The flu (Influenza) is a contagious disease caused by viruses that affect birds and mammals. The common symptoms of the disease include chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Fever and coughs are the most typical of these. In serious cases the flu causes pneumonia which is more dangerous, especially for the very young and very old.

The Flu may cause vomiting and nausea but is much more common in gastroenteritis which is unrelated to the flu virus but is commonly referred to as The Stomach Flu. The Flu is often confused with the less dangerous illness, the common cold, which is caused by a different type of virus.

The Flu can be spread through the air by coughs or sneezes. Bird droppings, saliva, nasal fluid, feces and blood can also spread the disease. Contact with these substances or contaminated objects such as door handles, counter tops or writing utensils can spread the flu.

Composition of the Swine Flu:

Contains DNA of Bird Flu, Human Flu and two different strains of Swine Flu. The genetic code in the virus is for the most part made up of human flu and therefore is unlikely to be transmitted between animals. Because of the complexity of the origins of the swine flu some websites and conspiracy theorists are claiming that The Swine Flu is not natural and has been manufactured in a laboratory. This is an entertaining idea and would make a great movie but until there is proof lets leave it at that for now.

The Swine Flu seems to have low mortality rates compared to the Avian Flu which is approximately 90%. With the Swine Flu we appear to have less than a 6% mortality rate. If there is going to be a pandemic it won’t be as devastating as an Avian Flu outbreak.

What is a pandemic? The term brings images of bodies piled up in school gymnasiums but this isn’t the case. A pandemic is simply an infectious disease that is spreading throughout the world. It doesn’t have any meaning associated with a certain level of damage caused by the virus.

So far the virus has claimed one life out of 141 confirmed cases in the United States and the majority of the cases have been mild. In Mexico, there were initial reports of 150 deaths from the Swine Flu but the Mexican Health Minister could only confirm 12 verified deaths from the Swine Flu as of April 29^th.

Drugs or Vaccines for the Swine Flu?

As of yet there is no vaccine against the Swine Flu.

Tamiflu and Relenza are anti-viral drugs that prevent viral replication. They are available by prescription and this class of drug is the only pharmaceutical defense against the Swine Flu.

As a result of the Avian Flu scare, governments purchased billions of dollars worth of Tamiflu three years ago. Unfortunately, the tamiflu expires after three years so the current stockpile is expired or about to expire.

The 1976 Swine Flu

The last Swine Flu scare was in 1976 and health officials rushed through the process of developing a vaccine. The anti viral for this Swine Flu resulted in 1 out of 100,000 vaccinated Americans developing Guillain-Barre paralysis. The US government paid out $93 million in compensation. Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius announced at a press conference that the swine flu vaccine development is in full gear, “The process is more speedy than it’s ever been before”.

She stated that although they are working quickly they are keeping safety their top priority. She acknowledged the fears of the 1976 swine flu scare and the increased rates of Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Prevention:

Washing your hands with soap and water, or using an alcohol-based hand gel if soap is not available. A Nano-Silver Gel is highly effective at killing viruses and bacteria as well.
Avoiding close contact with sick people.
Not touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
Staying home if you are ill.
Covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and throwing the tissue in the trash afterward, then washing your hands.

Treatment:

In addition to the prescription anti-viral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, there are a number of natural treatments for influenza infection.

One natural flu remedy that I have personally used is the Flu Stop. A Vancouver area company, Trinity Healthy Living Products is the manufacturer of this proprietary herbal blend. The Flu STOP formula was discovered by a virologist in China during the SARS epidemic. His formula effectively killed the SARS virus and also effectively deactivates the flu and certain types of Cold Viruses (Rhino Virus).

FluSTOP has been clinically proven via WHO standards to inactivate the Hemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA) in “type A” viruses. The Swine Flu is of this type. When HA and NA are inactivated the virus is unable to infect healthy cells and replicate.

The Flu STOP product comes packaged in a spray bottle with an easy to use applicator. It is very important to spray the FluSTOP directly to the back of the throat because this is where the Flu virus replicates. The sooner you begin using the FluSTOP the better. As soon as symptoms appear the protocol is five sprays to the back of the throat and one to each nostril, five times per day. After spraying do not eat or drink tea or coffee for at least half an hour to ensure exposure of the virus to the formula.

I have used this product for two years now and when flu symptoms start, I immediately start using FluSTOP. Usually, the symptoms fade away quickly and I don’t get sick. And if I do get a flu it is much milder than it would have been and certainly less potent than other people I know here in Vancouver who didn’t want to try the FluSTOP for whatever reason.

Listen to the Health Empowerment News Podcast for more information on Natural Swine Flu Remedies

Best Regards,

Andrew McGivern

Contact Me

Health Empowerment News Podcast

006 | Health Empowerment News | The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 & Corporate Front Groups

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

006 | Health Empowerment News | The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 & Corporate Front Groups

2009-10-07T18:44:00.001-07:00

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 6

“The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 and corporate front groups”

This week on Health Empowerment News, Croft and Andrew talk about the Swine Flu ( H1N1 ) Body Bag fiasco and Health Canada’s response. Bill C-6 is currently under review at the Canadian Senate. This is the last chance to stop Bill C-6 before it gets royal assent. Also, Croft warns listeners to be aware of corporate front groups.

Health Empowerment Show Notes:

Stevens-Johnson Sydrome

The following quote is from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15357044

A 19-year-old male military recruit developed erythema multiforme 20 days after receiving a triad of vaccinations: smallpox (vaccinia virus), anthrax, and tetanus. Over the course of a few days, the erythema multiforme evolved into Stevens-Johnson syndrome, associated with widespread bullae, stomatitis, conjunctivitis, and fever. After 7 days of conservative management, the patient’s signs and symptoms improved. This case serves as a timely reminder of a severe and potentially life-threatening complication of smallpox vaccination.

Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis after vaccination: reports to the vaccine adverse event reporting system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens%E2%80%93Johnson_syndrome

SENATORS
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/senmemb/senate/isenator.asp

CHIV CHOPRAS BOOK

Corrupt To The Core, Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistle Blower

Please leave your comments about this episode below!

Every week Croft will talk about the latest news and research in the Natural Health World.

Listen NOW! Health Empowerment News Podcast Episode 3- Right click to download!

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Bill C-6 being overturned by the people

2009-10-01T10:54:00.001-07:00

PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERY CANADIAN

Check out this site http://www.faxthegovernment.ca. This is a grassroots Canadian movement that is gaining a lot of steam. It lets you send emails and web-faxes about Bill C-6 right from the website, to the desk of the Senators who are currently reviewing this horrid legislation. The site makes it so simple to fax or email (in about 3 minutes, with a selection of pre-written templates to choose from)... that our Senators are starting to respond. Several Senators are in the debates fighting for the Canadian people, but they truly need our support. We only have a couple of weeks left before it goes to vote in the Senate…! It’s already passed the House of Commons…

If you’re not familiar with Bill C-6, it’s basically the resurrected Bill C-51/52, which threatens totalitarian measures in the area of food and health, including fines in the millions of dollars(!) for providing anything that isn’t on their “list” – and allowing agents to trespass, confiscate and fine anything they want. THIS IS SERIOUS...!!

We need EVERY CANADIAN TO TAKE A MINUTE and go to this site, http://www.faxthegovernment.ca. Canadians overturned Bills C-51 & 52, by the sheer volume of our voices… let’s axe this as well, and protect our rights!!

PLEASE KEEP THIS EMAIL GOING - THANK YOU!!!

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Digestion and Malabsorption

2009-09-28T16:22:00.001-07:00

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 5

“Digestion and Malabsorption”

This week on Health Empowerment News, Croft and Andrew talk a little more about “Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion” and this weeks topic is Digestion and Malabsorption.

Ever suffer from acid reflux? The problem may not be what you think! Learn about digestion and malabsorption and how you can take control of your health through nutrition and dietary supplements.

Click here to listen to this weeks Health Empowerment News episode!

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Swine Flu H1N1

2009-09-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

Dr. Frank Lipman

Integrative Physician

Posted: September 25, 2009 08:40 AM

Swine Flu: What To Do?

Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, "what do I do about Swine flu?" My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!

From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.

From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.

This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine

1) At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.

Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It's not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who've been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there's no need for mass vaccination.

2) We don't know if the vaccine will be effective.

Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.

3) We don't know if the vaccine is safe.

The FDA has authorized an expedited approval process for the swine flu vaccine but we don't know yet if it is safe. Even GlaxoSmithKline, one of the vaccine manufacturers has said, "The total population studied in clinical trials will be limited, due to the need to provide the vaccine to governments as quickly as possible. Additional studies will therefore be required and conducted after the vaccine is made available."

In other words, the only thing that is safe, is to say that no one knows. Since it's never been used before and they have not had time to conduct any sufficient human testing, by getting vaccinated you are being a human guinea pig.

4) Vaccine manufacturers have been insulated from liability by the government.

The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has granted legal immunity not only to the makers of the 2 drugs being used to treat swine flu, Tamiflu and Relenza, but also to the swine flu vaccine makers, for damages due to their use against swine flu. By effectively manipulating the legal system, the Pharmaceutical Industry through their powerful lobbyists have acquired almost complete and total insulation from any liability for their vaccines and adjuvants, which are additives added to generate a stronger immune response. It is believed that it is these adjuvants which often cause the problems. The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu was in 1976. Thousands filed claims for side effects such as paralysis caused by the vaccine and a number of people died. I am sure that the researchers know more now than they did last time and no one can say for certain that bad things will happen again or that you will suffer dire consequences if you get vaccinated. But this time you have no legal recourse even though this vaccine involves new factors, which makes it therefore experimental and unpredictable.

By shielding the manufacturers from any responsibility for any harm caused, the pharmaceutical firms have no financial incentive to make the safest product. In fact, they have a negative incentive to test it for safety, because if they are aware of problems, then they could potentially be held liable for willful misconduct.

Instead I advise my patients to build up and strengthen their immune systems to prevent viral infections.

Here are my top 10 recommendations:

1) Optimize your vit D level

Adequate levels of Vitamin D are essential for our immune systems to function optimally. Unfortunately there are no significant dietary sources of Vitamin D, most of our intake comes from exposure to sunlight. If you live far from the equator, you simply don't get enough sun through Fall and Winter to make all the vitamin D you need. So unless you supplement during this period, your innate immunity will be compromised. Vitamin D plays such a crucial role in so many aspects of your body's functioning, that supplementing with it makes sense whether you decide to get the flu shot or not.

We know that influenza always gets worse during the winter months. Now there is good evidence to suggest that this is because as sunlight hours lessen during the winter, the people living in the northern hemisphere become vitamin D deficient and are susceptible to influenza infections of all kinds. Here's a great article available at NIH pertaining to this topic.

There is also some evidence that supplementation with a sufficient amount of vitamin D can help to prevent the onset of a flu or cold.

The current recommendations from the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S. Institute of Medicine: from 200 to 600 IU/day depending on one's age, are way too low. These values were originally chosen because they were found to prevent osteomalacia (bone softening) and rickets. It is now recognized that vitamin D has many additional physiological functions, for which these levels are totally inadequate. A number of scientists are therefore calling for the Food and Nutrition Board in the U.S. and its counterparts abroad to reassess their current recommendations.

To optimize your vit D levels, you will need to

Take at least 2,000 IU of a Vitamin D3 supplement daily.
Get your 25 hydroxy Vitamin D level checked by your doctor (if that is not an option, you can self test your level with ZRT labs)

Although the current normal range is between 20 and 50ng/ml, this is much too low for optimal health. You want your level to be between 50 and 70ng/ml. This is the most important step you can take to prevent the flu!! It may require a number of months taking 5,000 to 10,000 IU of Vit D3 daily (especially during winter) under a doctor's supervision, to optimize your blood level. Monitor your 25 hydroxy vitamin D status every 3 months until you are in the optimal range, then cut back to a maintenance dose of at least 2,000 IU a day.

2) Get adequate sleep, this is an indispensable requirement for a strong immune system.

3) Get adequate exercise, this keeps you robust.

4) Take actions to lower your stress levels

Do breathing exercises, meditate, practice yoga, spend time doing something that makes you happy. Feeling spent, overwhelmed, and/or mentally run down has a causal relationship to your physical health.

5) Wash your hands frequently but not excessively

It decreases your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don't use antibacterial soap because of the risk of creating resistant bacteria. Rather use a simple chemical-free soap.

6) Avoid sugar and processed foods as they decrease your immune function dramatically.

7) Eat phytonutrient rich meals (lots of colorful salads and dark greens)

8) Eat lots of garlic, it works as a broad spectrum antibiotic.

9) Take a probiotic daily (look for one with 10-20 billion organisms).

A strong immune system relies heavily on having a strong foundation in the gut.

10) Keep a supply of antiviral herbal supplements on hand.

As opposed to antiviral drugs, antiviral herbs do not cause resistant strains because they are multifaceted and contain literally thousands of different medicinal compounds. Thus they are able to attack viruses with a full spectrum of synergistic substances. Andrographis, Olive leaf extract, Grapefruit seed extract and Elderberry extract, all have antiviral properties. Use one or a combination of some of them as a prophylactic measure, for ex.whenever you travel (airports) or enter a potentially compromised environment such as a large office, auditorium, stadium, theater etc.

And if you really want to go all out, here are 4 more tips:

11) Take 1-2 grams of fish oils daily, its beneficial for immune function.

12) Take 2 grams of Vitamin C daily, yes it does help.

13) Stock your home pharmacy with an immune building formula.

Look for one that contains Cordyceps and Astragulus. Take it throughout the flu season.

14) Keep homeopathic Oscillococcinum on hand

Take it at the earliest sign of a cold or flu. Early intervention is essential. If you are exposed to someone with the flu directly, you can take one dose twice a day for two days. You can also take one vial once a week throughout the winter, and two or three times a week during flu season, as a preventative measure.

Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).

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5 Harvard researchers accept the Vitamin D theory of autism

2009-09-23T13:09:00.001-07:00

The Vitamin D Newsletter

New Harvard Paper on Autism

September 23, 2009

Five Harvard researchers accept the Vitamin D theory of autism.

Last month, Dr. Dennis Kinney and four of his colleagues at Harvard University accepted the Vitamin D theory of autism and then expanded it by adding five usual suspects. While I was thrilled to see the Vitamin D theory accepted, appreciate them crediting the theory to me, and loved seeing their paper in the same journal that published the original theory, Medical Hypotheses, their five additions are all toxins, the usual suspects. The authors imply these toxins are delivered to our genome by air or water pollution, such as mercury contaminated seafood, where these toxins selectively damage the genome of those silly enough to be Vitamin D deficient.

My problem with the paper is the same problem I have with any of the air and water pollution autism theories, why now? Certainly, if a toxin was causing autism, evidence exists that exposure to that toxin has increased part and parcel with the epidemic of autism.

For awhile, that was one of the strongest arguments for the mercury in vaccines theory; administration of more and more mercury-containing vaccines paralleled the increase in autism. The problem with the vaccine theory is that when they took the mercury out of vaccines, the incidence of autism went up, not down.

What about air and water pollution? Any self-respecting environmentalist will tell you pollution in the USA is at record levels today; that is, American air and water has never been dirtier. However, I am older than sixty, so that nonsense won’t work on me. I remember acid lakes, burning eyes and blazing rivers.

As a child, I remember thinking God wanted me to see the air I breathed. That is, I remember the USA before the clean air and clean water acts of the 1960s. If air and water pollution caused the autism epidemic, then that epidemic began in the late 1940s, climbed dramatically in the 1950s, peaked in the 1960s and then decreased in the late 1970s. Just did not happen.

One could accurately say that cleaner American air and water is associated with increasing rates of autism, but with a significant lag time. Perhaps air pollution from Eastern Europe, India and China, which has been increasing in the last 20 years, has engendered the current crop of autism, the “foreigners did it” theory of autism. However, why would foreign coal-burning air pollution of today do what good old American coal-burning air pollution of the 50s and 60s could not?

Take mercury in seafood, terrible right? As mercury is one of the autism-causing toxins he listed, I assume Dr. Kinney predicts mercury-containing seafood consumption during pregnancy would increase risk of autism. However, I predict the opposite, that is, consumption of mercury-containing seafood during pregnancy would improve the offspring’s mentation, the benefits of Vitamin D in fish overwhelming any detriments of mercury.

Consistent with that prediction, the three largest studies found higher maternal consumption of mercury-containing fish was associated with better, not worse, infant cognition with the greatest benefit for infants whose mothers consumed the most mercury-containing fish. Do not misunderstand me; the three studies below show mercury is bad, Vitamin D-rich fish and mercury is better, and Vitamin D-rich fish without mercury is the best.

Oken E, et al. Maternal fish consumption, hair mercury, and infant cognition in a U.S. Cohort. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Oct;113(10):1376-80.

If you think the beneficial effect was from omega-3 fats, you’d be wrong. In another Harvard study, the benefits for the child of mother’s fish consumption again overwhelmed the harm from mercury. Omega-3 fats consumption could not explain the beneficial effects of mercury-containing seafood, that is, neither total maternal intake of omega-3, nor omega-3 content of mother’s red blood cells, was associated with the child’s cognition.

Oken E, et al. Maternal fish intake during pregnancy, blood mercury levels, and child cognition at age 3 years in a US cohort. Am J Epidemiol. 2008 May 15;167(10):1171-81.

In yet a third study, NIH researchers found benefits for mothers who ate mercury-containing seafood during pregnancy. Benefits of fish consumption again overwhelmed the harm of toxins in fish. More importantly, low maternal seafood consumption (and thus low seafood mercury consumption) resulted in children with lower verbal IQs and suboptimal outcomes for pro-social behaviors, fine motor, communication, and social development, that is, autistic symptoms.

Hibbeln JR, Maternal seafood consumption in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood (ALSPAC study): an observational cohort study. Lancet. 2007 Feb 17;369(9561):578-85.

So I heartily recommend seafood to expectant mothers and give my highest endorsement to vitamin D-rich, mercury-poor fish like small salmon. (By the way, the omega-3 literature is hopelessly confounded by Vitamin D.) However, the essence of Dr. Kinney and colleagues’ addition to the Vitamin D theory is that at least some of the autism generating toxic genetic damage is done to the father’s sperm, not the mother’s egg.

That is, toxins ingested by Vitamin D deficient men causes oxidative damage leading to genetic mutations in sperm. The authors’ suggestion is to give Vitamin D to men, before they go around impregnating women, to prevent genetic damage by toxins and thus prevent autism. While I certainly agree men should take Vitamin D before they impregnate anyone (and I suspect they will be more successful in their mission if they do), I doubt healthy men will take Vitamin D any time soon.

Even if the new Food and Nutrition Board recommends 5,000 IU/day for healthy adults – and they won’t – healthy men will ignore any new FNB recommendation because most men will not take supplements, unless they think it prevents hair loss, increases sexual abilities or improves athletic performance (Vitamin D has no effect on the first two but certainly improves the third).

However, unlike men, pregnant women will take a supplement, and almost always do so, a prenatal vitamin. Currently, that prenatal contains a meaningless 10 micrograms of Vitamin D (400 IU). Say it contained a physiological amount, say 125 micrograms (5,000 IU). If it did, I predict the incidence of congenital autism (obvious in the first few months of life) would dramatically reduce almost immediately and the overall incidence would begin decreasing in several years. However, it would not affect the autism caused by the severe childhood Vitamin D deficiency that occurs when toddlers are weaned from Vitamin D rich formula to my favorite toxin, natural organic fruit juice.

All in all, I liked Dr. Kinney and colleagues’ paper; I hope Dr. Kinney can wake someone up at Autism Speaks, which funds Dr. Kinney. (If Autism Speaks doesn’t hurry and help fund the Vitamin D Council, they won’t be able to get any credit at all for helping discover the cause of autism.) The authors also listed evidence that strengthens the Vitamin D theory of autism, evidence I discussed in the original paper.

That evidence is: 1) autism is more common in cloudy and rainy areas; 2) dark-skinned immigrants have much higher rates of autism; 3) there are more cases in the northern US than in the South, and 4) autism is more common in urban than rural areas, just like rickets. The authors forgot to add a fifth fact, the NIH found widespread bony abnormalities in autistic kids, abnormalities that look like the effects of chronic low-grade rickets to me.

Also, if Dr. Kinney and colleagues are correct in their revision of my theory, then Vitamin D should not have a treatment effect in children with autism, unless Vitamin D can repair genetic defects. I predict the opposite: Vitamin D will be found to have a treatment effect in autism, as Vitamin D acts quickly to prevent further oxidative brain damage and increases brain glutathione, which promptly dispatches the usual suspects.

John Cannell, MD

This newsletter is now copyrighted but may be reproduced for non-economic reasons as long as proper attribution to its source is clearly stated in the reproduction. Please reproduce it, post it on Internet sites, and forward it to your friends.

Remember, we are a non-profit and rely on your donations to publish our newsletter, maintain our website, and pursue our objectives. Send your tax-deductible contributions to:

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Best Regards,

Andrew McGivern
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Contact Me

Health Empowerment News Podcast

004 Health Empowerment News – Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion

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Conservative Think Tank recommends abolishing Natural Health Product Regulations

2009-09-23T11:39:00.001-07:00

http://www.pr-inside.com/print1474107.htm

The Fraser Institute: Time to Abolish Costly Regulation of Natural Health Products and Professional Licensing

2009-09-10 12:14:04 -

CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/10/09 -- The government agency that monitors natural health products has been an expensive flop, producing no discernable benefits for Canadians, and should be abolished recommends a new study from the Fraser Institute, Canada's leading economic think tank.

The peer-reviewed study, Unnatural Regulation: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy in Canada : www.fraserinstitute.org/researchandpublications/publications/690 .. , also criticizes provincial licensing regimes for health care practitioners. It found licensing does little to safeguard consumers and instead creates protected monopolies and drives up prices. It recommends the current licensing system for all health care providers-including physicians-be replaced with a competitive certification process overseen by non-governmental agencies.

"With more people using natural health products and complementary and alternative medicines, governments claim they need to increase regulations covering these products and therapies. However, the data do not support a public safety argument for government regulation of either natural health products or complementary and alternative medicines," says Cynthia Ramsay, a Vancouver-based consultant specializing in health economics, and author of the report.

Government regulation of natural health products and complementary and alternative medicine practitioners will also be examined and discussed during a conference : www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/events/6751.aspx on Saturday September 26 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver.

According to Health Canada, Canadian sales of natural health products were estimated to amount to about $4.3 billion and to number around 40,000 to 50,000 products in 2004. A 2006 survey on the use of complementary and alternative medicine found that more than one-half of Canadians had used at least one alternative therapy in the year prior to the survey, a four percentage-point increase over the rate of use in 1997. Yet reports of adverse events are rare, and legislation already exists to protect Canadians from malicious or unsafe providers.

Regulating Natural Health Products

The federal government implemented natural health product regulations, overseen by the Natural Health Products Directorate at Health Canada, in 2004 but has yet to offer any evidence showing how its regulations have improved safety or provided Canadians with access to safe, effective, and high quality natural health products, Ramsay said.

"Since the launch of the Natural Health Products Directorate, thousands of natural health products are now off the market and more than $90 million dollars has been spent creating the directorate, drafting regulations, and beginning the regulatory process," Ramsay said.

"Money that could have gone towards other much-needed health care or public services has instead been used to create another cumbersome and ineffective bureaucracy that has thus far only managed to reduce choice for consumers."

Licensing Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practitioners

The study found myriad differing regulatory environments for health practitioners across the country that not only impose barriers on the ability of a practitioner trained in one province to work in another, but that also result in higher costs for health care consumers. The study also notes a growing trend across Canada of licensing complementary and alternative practitioners, which means that practitioners work with defined scopes of practice and have the exclusive use of a specific title-midwife or acupuncturist, for example-if they have met certain standards. Licensure also makes it illegal for someone else to perform the tasks within a licensed group's scope of practice, no matter how skilled they might be.

"Dozens of complementary and alternative medicine provider groups have become licensed in the past 20 years, and still many others are fighting for it on the basis that more education translates into greater quality. Yet there is no evidence of a discernible improvement in patient care outcomes," Ramsay said.

"The increased number of licensed health professions has likely only secured health providers higher wages and reduced the availability of health care to Canadians."

Ramsay examined the argument that public safety is better protected by government licensure and found that stricter licensing of a profession is most often used to limit entry to others and drive up wages while providing little or no safety or quality benefit to consumers. The stricter requirements created by licensure, relative to voluntary certification or registration with competing governing bodies, also reduce the number of entrants into a profession, increase prices, and reduce access to care.

The study recommends that all current health practitioner licenses be replaced with voluntary certification, and various organizations should be given the opportunity to become certifying agencies. Certification is similar to licensure in that an examination or other process is administered by an authority which attests a worker has achieved a certain level of skill, knowledge, and/or ability, and reserves a title for them to use. Unlike licensure however, certification permits others to perform the same type of work a certified worker does.

The voluntary certification of all health care practitioners-including physicians-would give consumers more choice when selecting a health care provider. Consumers could pay a higher fee for a practitioner with government-sanctioned skills (i.e., through a professional college) or a practitioner who is considered qualified in certain skills by an independent certifying organization or competing professional associations, or they could pay a lower fee for a practitioner without such certification.

"Competition among many providers and certifying agencies will make it difficult for any single or group of providers to achieve above-normal profits or economic rent," Ramsay said.

"Quality would likely be more actively monitored and standards more aggressively maintained because of the competition between certifying organizations and professional associations. This would encourage higher quality providers than if a monopoly licensing organization was created by the government."

Follow the Fraser Institute on Twitter : www.twitter.com/FraserInstitute | Become a fan on Facebook : www.facebook.com/pages/The-Fraser-Institute/123235041462

Check out our latest videos on YouTube : www.youtube.com/user/FraserInstitute

The Fraser Institute is an independent research and educational organization with offices across North America and partnerships in more than 70 countries. Its mission is to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare of individuals. To protect the Institute's independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org : www.fraserinstitute.org/ .

Contacts:
The Fraser Institute - Media Contact
Cynthia Ramsay
604-689-1520
cramsayfi@gmail.com : cramsayfi@gmail.com

The Fraser Institute - Media Contact
Nadeem Esmail
Director of Health System Performance Studies
403-216-7175; ext 222
nadeem.esmail@fraserinstitute.org : nadeem.esmail@fraserinstitute.org

The Fraser Institute
Dean Pelkey
Director of Communications
(604) 714-4582
dean.pelkey@fraserinstitute.org : dean.pelkey@fraserinstitute.org
www.fraserinstitute.org : www.fraserinstitute.org

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Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 4

2009-09-15T21:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.foodsarenotdrugs.com/podcasts/henews/004-health-empowerment-news-drug-induced-nutrient-depletion.php

“Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion – Are you affected?”

This week on Health Empowerment News, Croft and Andrew talk about Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion.

Ever wondered why prescription and over the counter medications often have many side effects? One of the culprits is the nutrient depleting effects of synthetic chemical drugs.

In episode 4 of Health Empowerment News, Croft talks about one of his favourite books, “The Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook”, by Ross Ross Pelton. This book outlines the fact that over 1000 commonly prescribed drugs and OTC medications may be depleting one or more nutrients from the body. Is it possible that our medications are making us sicker by depleting us of essential nutrients? Could some medications be depleting nutrients which are supporting the very organ or organ system the drug is supposed to help? Listen to the show to find out…

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Two thousand schoolgirls suffer suspected ill-effects from cervical cancer vaccine

2009-09-15T10:38:00.001-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6178045/Two-thousand-schoolgirls-suffer-suspected-ill-effects-from-cervical-cancer-vaccine.html

Thousands of schoolgirls have suffered suspected adverse reactions to a controversial cervical cancer vaccine introduced by the Government.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Published: 9:00PM BST 12 Sep 2009

Doctors' reports show that girls of 12 and 13 have experienced convulsions, fever and paralysis after being given the vaccine, which is now administered in schools as part of efforts to prevent women developing cancer.

Others suffered nausea, muscle weakness, dizziness and blurred vision, according to a special report drawn up by drug safety watchdogs.

A support group says it has received dozens of calls from parents who believe their daughters have been damaged by the vaccine.

The parents of one teenage girl given the jab last autumn believe it was to blame for repeated seizures which have left her with brain damage and psychosis.

The immunisation programme for teenage girls is controversial because it protects them from the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus which causes 70 per cent of cervical tumours.

When the Government introduced the Cervarix vaccination programme last year, some campaigners dubbed it a "promiscuity jab".

Campaigners and families said the new figures showed the vaccination should not have been introduced via a mass programme.

More than one million girls have already been given the jab, which is offered to all as they enter their teens.

Until 2011 it will also be administered to older girls, so that all female teens below the age of 18 will be covered by the programme.

Ministers say that ultimately the scheme will save 700 lives a year, while drug safety experts insist the number of suspected reactions are outweighed by the benefits from the jab.

Most of the more than 2,000 suspected reactions recorded by drug safety watchdog Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) were mild, with dozens of girls recording rashes, pain in the arm, and allergies.

But the report prepared by the MHRA earlier this month also discloses cases in which teens have suffered convulsions, eye rolling, muscle spasms, seizures and hyperventilation soon after being given the jab.

The analysis by the MHRA, drawn up this month, found 2,107 patients had reported some kind of suspected adverse reaction to Cervarix. Several reported multiple reactions, with 4,602 suspected side-effects recorded in total.

Jackie Fletcher, founder of Jabs, a support group for families whose children have fallen ill after immunisation, said she had taken dozens of calls from parents who believed their daughters had been damaged by the cervical cancer vaccine.

She said: "We have spoken to parents whose daughters have had seizures, paralysis, blurred vision, severe headaches and the loss of feeling in parts of their body.

"Doctors will try to convince parents that these problems are in their child's mind, or have nothing to do with the vaccines, but we don't think there is sufficient evidence to show Cervarix is safe."

Medical safety experts insist the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.

They say many of the patients who experienced an "adverse" reaction to the jab since April 2008, including some who took part in drug trials or bought the drug privately, only suffered short-term side effects from the injection process, not as a result of the drug.

There was no evidence to suggest "isolated cases of other medical conditions" were actually caused by the vaccine, and not just a coincidence, the regulator's report said.

Cancer charities urged parents to continue allowing their daughters to have the jabs, saying the numbers were well within what would have been expected for a large-scale programme, and that most of the side effects were minor.

Robert Music, director of cervical cancer charity Jo's Trust said: "I can understand why parents would feel cautious, but this programme could reduce 70 per cent of cervical cancers.

We need to keep reviewing the evidence, but we would really urge parents to make sure their daughters have the vaccination."

Stacey Jones is one of those who believes she has suffered side effects from the vaccine. She was 17 when she had her first Cervarix injection.

Her parents Julie and Kerry, from Bilston, West Midlands, noticed her becoming increasingly emotional in the weeks following the first two jabs, but feared their "happy-go-lucky" girl had finally succumbed to adolescent moodswings.

Within four days of the third injection in March of this year, Stacey suffered an epileptic seizure, followed by 17 more in the following week.

She has now been diagnosed with a brain injury, caused by inflammation of the brain, and is being treated in an NHS rehabilitation unit in Birmingham, which helps her with basic tasks like making a sandwich.

Seizures are minimised by five types of medication, but her memory is badly damaged.

The family has been given no explanation for how the damage occurred. Mrs Jones, 44, said: "She was such a lovely, happy go-lucky girl, now she is just a shell.

"When we go to see her, she can't remember what she has just eaten for tea. The impact on her and all of us has been absolutely devastating. I feel she has been used as a guinea pig."

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Cervarix, said the drug had to undergo rigorous testing, with over 70,000 doses used in trials before a licence was granted.

He said: "The UK medicines safety agency has reviewed all reported adverse events relevant to Cervarix and there is no evidence to suggest that the vaccine carries any long-term side effects.

"The symptoms this girl has experienced are clearly upsetting and it is understandable that the girl and her parents want to uncover the cause."

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New Podcast Episode --> Health Empowerment News – GMO Foods and Your Health!

2009-09-09T13:59:00.001-07:00

003 Health Empowerment News – GMO Foods and Your Health!

Sep 9th, 2009 | By admin | Category: Health Empowerment News | Edit

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 3

“Genetically Modified Organisms – How GMO Foods Affect your Health!”

This week on Health Empowerment News, Croft and Andrew talk about Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO Foods and how they may affect your health. What are the solutions. Listen to find out more…

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Welcome to a New Era of Health Freedom for Canadians!

2009-09-09T13:43:00.001-07:00

Charter of Health Freedom

On September 10, 2008, the Natural Health Community of Canada joined forces to launch the Charter of Health Freedom. The Charter of Health Freedom will bring about a new era in Health Care Freedom in Canada.

This proposed legislation will create a fair health care system that respects our ancestral legal rights. We envision this health care system to be fully sustainable, culturally diverse and encompass natural, traditional and conventional medicine. The Charter of Health Freedom has the potential to set us apart as one of the most progressive countries in the world introducing it’s visionary proposal:
The Ministry of Wellness.

Charter of Health Freedom

The Charter of Health Freedom is a bold initiative that moves us in a new direction. It protects Canadians’ rights to unhindered access to safely regulated natural health products. It protects our freedom of choice from over-regulation by the Health Canada. Since the January 2004 implementation of the Natural Health Products Regulations, Canadians have already lost 20,000 safe and effective natural health products.

This Charter will put an end to the devastating trend of unreasonable restriction in our natural health community.

This new federal legislation serves to include all natural medicines, therapies and treatments. It is built on the fundamental belief that every person has the right to choose what form of health care they and their family wish to receive.

It’s your life. It’s your body. It’s your choice.

Ministry of Wellness

The Ministry of Wellness has been put forward as an alternative, and an adjunct, to the current Ministry of Health/Health Canada. Given the track records and differences between conventional medicine and natural medicine, it is quite evident that they should be regulated separately.

The Ministry of Wellness would therefore oversee natural medicines, therapies and treatments and all natural healing arts while the Ministry of Health/Health Canada would oversee conventional medicine.

This concept is unique to Canada and would serve as a solution that would accomodate all parties and honour the multiple Supreme Court of Canada decisions which consistently reinforce the notion of sovereignty over one’s body.

With a new Charter and a new Ministry we can expect a broad-based health care system in which Canadians would be free to choose what form of health maintenance, prevention or treatment they would like to receive and could have confidence in knowing that both are being properly regulated.

Our goal is to bridge the gap between conventional medicine and natural medicine. We believe that all forms of medicine have their time and place and should be respected.

To download a copy of the Charter of Health Freedom and sign the petition please click here!

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Anybody Using NetVibes ???

2009-09-09T11:11:00.001-07:00

http://www.netvibes.com/andrewmcgivern

Netvibes is a global community of users who are taking control of their digital lives by personalizing their web experience. Netvibes is also a widget platform that is used by thousands of publishers around the world. Netvibes pioneered the personalized homepage as alternative to traditional web portals. Netvibes lets individuals assemble their favorite widgets, websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, and everything else they enjoy on the web - all in one place.

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IV Vitamin C Used to Recover Terminal Swine Flu Case

2009-09-09T09:40:00.001-07:00

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
September 08 2009

www.mercola.com

Dr. Thomas Levy sent me a report on a case where vitamin C was used to completely cure a case of swine flu. He says that adequately dosed vitamin C, to his knowledge, has never failed to cure an acute viral syndrome. According to information he received from a colleague in New Zealand, John Appleton, the following occurred:

A Waikato farmer went to Fiji for holiday, and started developing flu-like symptoms, but decided to tough it out. He arrived back in New Zealand very sick with swine flu. Tauranga Hospital was not able to treat him (what was not known at the time is that he has leukemia -- he didn't know either.) They sent him to Auckland Hospital, but he continued to deteriorate, despite the use of Tamiflu and antibiotics.

His brother-in-law (who knows a bit about vitamin C) contacted Dr. Thomas Levy in the U.S., who referred him to Dr. Appleton. Dr. Appleton provided a lot of info on vitamin C and referred the family to CAM (Centre for Advanced Medicine), www.camltd.co.nz in Auckland.

The family pushed to get him some IV vitamin C, but the hospital refused. CAM doctors encouraged the hospital to try vitamin C.

The patient deteriorated further and was on life support. The family was told nothing more could be done and life support would be switched off. His lungs were not functioning. The family said NO -- not until everything has been tried.

The hospital was pushed hard to give him IVC and reluctantly agreed, saying if there was no improvement by Friday that's it.

The patient showed signs of improvement by Wednesday, to the hospital’s surprise. Concerns were expressed about his kidneys, and a new specialist wanted to stop the vitamin C use -- the family was told his liver was failing, “caused by vitamin C”. Dr. Appleton gave them lots of data showing the liver is more likely to be affected by antibiotics.

Patient recovery continued to the point where he could be transferred to Waikato (closer to home); he was on a ventilator and NG tube feeding. The doctors there were more receptive to vitamin C, but wouldn't agree to continue the treatment. The family got a high profile lawyer involved who wrote a letter about patient rights and called the hospital to recommend that they sort it out with the family.

The hospital continued with IVC, albeit at a much lower dose. A CAM doctor traveled to Waikato to endorse the treatment and recommend IVC at higher doses. The patient continued to recover -- he was now conscious. The hospital staff was stunned -- they had never seen anything like this

The patient was told by his brother-in-law that IVC had saved him. The patient’s wife had not lost her husband and children have their father. The patient was by this time fully 'with it' and talking normally with family and taking Lypospheric vitamin C (6 grams daily).

For those doctors wondering about doses, Dr. Levy communicated directly with the brother-in-law to find out. On the Tuesday following the initial "deadline" 25 grams were given intravenously. On Wednesday, 25 gram infusions were again repeated twice. Thursday the patient received 75 grams, and starting on Friday he received 100 grams intravenously and stayed at this dose daily for another 4 to 6 days. Then the new consultant had the vitamin C discontinued completely. One week later, the IVC was restarted at only one gram twice daily.

Dr. Levy encourages everyone to resend this case history to any and all who you think could benefit, including your friends and contacts in the government. Obviously, a reasonable daily dose of vitamin C could be expected to do an even better job at preventing H1N1 while having no downside relative to the mass vaccinations getting ready to take place.

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Challenging the Statin Drug Dogma Vitality September 2009 Features sept_08_drzoltanronapicDrugs You Don’t Need – And the Best Natural Alternatives by Dr. Zoltan P. Rona, MD, PHD Cholesterol lowering statin drugs are a $26 billion a year industry in N

2009-09-04T16:57:00.001-07:00

Challenging the Statin Drug Dogma

http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/sept09_pg32feat

Vitality

September 2009 Features

Drugs You Don’t Need – And the Best Natural Alternatives

by Dr. Zoltan P. Rona, MD, PHD

Cholesterol lowering statin drugs are a $26 billion a year industry in North America. The commitment by mainstream doctors to these drugs, in fact, is so powerful that many physicians themselves take statins, even though their cholesterol levels may be normal. In the past year alone, I have seen at least two dozen patients who were prescribed statins by other physicians, even though the patient’s blood levels of cholesterol were normal. In many cases, the physicians prescribing the drugs boasted that they were taking the same prescription.

Few conventional MDs ever question the validity of taking statins. Ask anyone over 50 and there’s at least a 50% chance they take a statin of some kind. (That’s all provided they are not a regular reader of this magazine.) In my opinion, statins may well be the biggest scam perpetrated upon an unwary public and the medical profession. Big Pharma spends big bucks to make sure all doctors continuously prescribe these money makers, and great efforts are also made to minimize the significance of side effects.

The most common statins include: Lipitor (atorvastatin); Zocor (simvastatin); Pravachol (pravastatin); Lescol (fluvastatin); Mevacor (lovastatin); Crestor (rosuvastatin).

Side Effects of Cholesterol Lowering Drugs

Statins are believed to be “preventive medicine” against heart disease, but are they really? If one looks at actual statistics in the prevention of a first heart attack, statins only prevent 1% of first heart attacks over a period of 10 years. For every life saved by a statin, an equal number of deaths occur that are caused by adverse reactions to statins in the form of accidents, infections, suicide and cancer (also 1% over 10 years). As a form of first heart attack prevention, statins are an ineffectual waste of money. The evidence for reduction of mortality is, at the very least, highly debatable.

All statins work primarily by blocking an enzyme (HMG CoA reductase) in the liver that helps manufacture cholesterol. Unfortunately, this is the same enzyme the body uses to manufacture coenzyme Q10, the most important antioxidant for the cardiovascular system. Consequently, coenzyme Q10 tissue levels are lowered by statins and numerous side effects occur.

If you suffer from Fibromyalgia, statins are definitely not for you. These drugs have been proven to turn on the gene that causes muscle damage leading to atrophy (shrinkage) and wasting. It’s a given. Everyone (that’s 100% of the time) taking statins gets muscle damage – it’s just a question of the degree. You may not have muscle pain or weakness now from taking a statin, but you definitely have microscopic muscle damage.

The most serious form of muscle damage is called rhabdomyolysis (major muscle cell death) and is said to occur in only 1% of statin users. This damage is permanent and only partial relief is seen when the statin is stopped. At least 5 to 7% of statin users report varying degrees of muscle pain or discomfort. That percentage goes up to 10% in those who use higher doses and the percentage climbs to 25% in those engaged in regular vigorous exercise. These are facts based on research done using muscle biopsies. Let’s not forget that the heart itself is a muscle. Statin use has been shown to worsen the signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure, perhaps through this muscle wasting effect.

Cardiomyopathy is a known but under-reported side effect of statins, and is thought to be due to a combination of statin induced coenzyme Q10 deficiency and the gene activation of muscle damage. Unfortunately, we cannot do biopsies as readily on the heart, so heart muscle damage caused by statins can only be proven at autopsy.

The nerve damaging effects of statins are also well documented. Memory and cognitive loss, neuropathy, anemia, cataracts, sexual dysfunction, liver dysfunction, fatigue, immune system weaknesses and mental depression side effects have often been reported. If you suffer from cancer and use statins, it’s time to rethink that statin prescription.

The Many Benefits of Cholesterol

Cholesterol has become synonymous with evil, disease and death, yet at least 85% of the cholesterol in your blood comes from your liver’s own manufacture of it. If you consume high cholesterol foods, your cholesterol blood levels do go higher temporarily, but the liver then manufactures less and eventually the blood levels go lower. Eliminate cholesterol entirely from your diet and the liver starts manufacturing more of it.

Cholesterol blood levels can change significantly from one time of the day to another. In northern latitudes especially, higher levels of cholesterol are seen in the winter than summer, possibly because of the cholesterol lowering effect of vitamin D from the sun. Cholesterol goes high after an injury, such as can occur with surgery. It can also go higher as a response to mental stress, an infection, as well as during and after a heart attack.

Why does the body go to such lengths to maintain cholesterol levels if it’s something that is so horrible? Are there good reasons to have adequate amounts of cholesterol in the body? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes. Cholesterol is a healing or repair agent. The body makes more of it as a response to oxidant stress from numerous sources. For example, if you smoke cigarettes, your cholesterol level is likely to be high because the body needs protection against the toxins found in tobacco smoke.

We are all exposed to toxins from food, water and air on a regular basis. The greater the toxin exposure, the more the body needs to protect itself. One of the mechanisms by which this occurs is the production of more cholesterol by the liver. Suppress that function with a statin and you risk developing degenerative diseases more easily.

Half of all heart attacks occur even though cholesterol levels are well within the normal range. This “normal” range has changed frequently over the past 30 years, going lower and lower, thus accommodating the hypothesis that just about everyone has ‘too high’ cholesterol levels.

Cholesterol is an integral part of the structure of every cell in the body, including the cells of all our blood vessels, so life would cease to exist without cholesterol. It is used by the body to manufacture testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, cortisol and DHEA. Low levels of cholesterol can lead to deficiencies in these hormones and subsequent acceleration of aging.

Cholesterol insulates nerves and is responsible for healthy nervous system function. Many diseases of the brain and nervous system (such as Parkinson’s disease, depression and suicide, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis) can be aggravated, if not caused by, low cholesterol levels.

Cholesterol deficiency can lead to numerous digestive system problems because bile salts are made in the liver from cholesterol and these salts are important for proper digestion.

The body also manufactures vitamin D from cholesterol, and if cholesterol levels are low a vitamin D deficiency could result. As we now know, low levels of vitamin D can increase the risk of cancer by as much as 60%. Could this be one of the mechanisms by which statin drugs increase cancer incidence? Low levels of vitamin D have been proven to weaken immunity.

The brain accounts for approximately a quarter of all the cholesterol in the body. The myelin sheath that covers every nerve in the body is made of at least one-fifth cholesterol. Communication between nerves and the integrity of messages between neurons is partially dependent on adequate cholesterol levels. The brain functions abnormally without adequate cholesterol because receptors for serotonin require cholesterol to work properly – so depression, violence, memory impairment and suicide are all more likely to occur.

It has never been conclusively shown that lowering cholesterol levels saves lives. Certainly, its efficacy in preventing a first heart attack is unproven. Lowering cholesterol can, in fact, be related to a greater death risk, especially from cancer.

Since the correlation between total cholesterol and heart disease is practically non-existent, a stronger correlation was sought many years ago. Hence the myth of a “good” (HDL or high density lipoprotein) and a “bad” (LDL or low density lipoprotein) cholesterol was created. The truth is that cholesterol is just cholesterol. In the blood, it combines with other things such as proteins, simply because fat and water do not mix well and proteins are good carriers of fat molecules.

The real cause of heart disease is inflammation – not the levels of any cholesterol sub fraction. There are many causes of inflammation triggered by environmental, dietary, emotional, and genetic influences. And there is growing evidence of an infectious disease source, amongst many other theories.

Natural Alternatives to Stains

We are now being told by Big Pharma and their puppets that statins are also anti-inflammatory, and the real reason they work in preventing heart disease is through their anti-inflammatory effect. Yet curcumin, omega-3 oils, vitamin E, vitamin C, digestive enzymes such as pancreatin and bromelain, and many other natural remedies are also anti-inflammatory – and at a significantly lower price. Further, none carry any of the outrageous side effects seen with the statins.

Abnormally high cholesterol levels are a response by the body to a variety of physical toxins and mental stress. Heredity also plays a part, but can be overcome naturally. The first thing to do is find out what is really going wrong in the body? Is there an infection? Is something causing inflammation? What are the toxins that could potentially be involved? Is there a low thyroid condition? Does the person smoke cigarettes? Is blood sugar control out of balance? Is there little or no physical activity? Is there obesity?

The next step is to understand that eating a diet rich in antioxidants and low in toxins can reduce high cholesterol levels naturally, without significant side effects. In 2003, a study by the University of Toronto showed that a vegetarian diet (Ape Man Diet) was every bit as good at lowering abnormally high cholesterol levels as any drug.

Also interesting is that most supplemental nutriceuticals, antioxidants and herbs shown to lower cholesterol do so by neutralizing the toxic agents that stimulate high cholesterol levels in the first place. Below is a list of strategies that can be used through diet and supplements to lower cholesterol naturally. A natural health care professional can help direct you in any changes you may want to make.

Cholesterol Lowering Diet

The so-called Ape Man Diet (primarily vegan, as demonstrated by what gorillas eat) has been shown to lower cholesterol as effectively as any statin. If you cannot fancy yourself as an ape, at least consume two or more servings of each of the following proven cholesterol lowering foods every day:

• Organic fermented soy products such as tempeh and miso contain saponins, which prevent the absorption of excess cholesterol from the gastrointestinal tract.

• High pectin fruits such as pears, apples, grapefruit and oranges also prevent cholesterol absorption. And drinking pomegranate juice lowers cholesterol because of its antioxidants and polyphenols.

• Garlic, onions, carrots, walnuts, almonds, oat bran cereal, milled (ground) flax seed, and seaweed products such as kelp, dulse and kombu lower cholesterol via their content of fiber, antioxidants and trace minerals.

Cholesterol Lowering Supplements

Cholesterol lowering with most of these natural remedies can take three months or longer to achieve. But unlike drugs, side effects of such products are minimal.

Soluble fibers – such as psyllium, guar gum and pectin (15 grams or more daily).

Milled flax seed – 15 grams or more daily.

Curcumin – 1000 mg, 3 times daily – strongly anti-inflammatory and liver protective. It works to lower inflammation, tissue damage and ultimately high cholesterol levels.

Omega-3 oils – 2000 mg twice daily – prevent abnormal blood clotting and reduce the risk of heart disease. Higher doses may be required by some individuals.

Garlic – 1000 mg or more daily – eating real garlic cloves is preferred but social interactions may necessitate the alternative use of supplemental capsules.

Coenzyme Q10 – 200 mg twice daily – a strong multi-purpose antioxidant with especially good cardiovascular protective properties.

Niacin – 1000 – 3000 mgs daily (N.B. niacin can cause a red or flushing reaction, which is usually temporary and harmless and lessens with regular use; may cause liver irritation.)

Inositol hexaniacinate – 600 to 1800 mgs daily – a compound of niacin and inositol which does not produce flushing or liver toxicity but costs more than regular niacin.

Tocotrienols – 600 mgs or more daily – a form of vitamin E originating from rice bran oil which blocks the cholesterol synthesizing enzyme in the liver. Most vitamin E complex formulae include tocotrienols as part of the complex.

Vitamin C – 3000 to 6000 mgs – lowers cholesterol, regenerates and reactivates vitamin E. Vitamin C protects the body from oxidant stress, thereby lowering cholesterol.

Beta Sitosterol – (500 mg daily) More than 50 human and animal studies published in scientific journals since the 1960s show that beta-sitosterol has a powerful hypocholesterolemic effect in humans. It has a similar chemical structure to cholesterol. Beta-sitosterol interferes with cholesterol absorption, which prevents the rise in serum cholesterol. In one study (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) there was a 42% decrease in cholesterol absorbed when taking beta-sitosterol before eating scrambled eggs. Beta-sitosterol is also believed to reduce serum cholesterol by inhibiting the intestinal re-absorption of circulating cholesterol, which is secreted in the bile.

Berberine – 1000 mg three times daily – an extract of several herbs used for their antibiotic properties, plus cholesterol- and triglyceride-lowering ability. It also has antioxidant benefits.

Artichoke leaf extract – 1000 mg three times daily – works to enhance bile acid production by the liver from cholesterol.

Guggulsterones – 1000 mg daily – a resin from the Guggul tree with antioxidant properties; also able to lower cholesterol by regulating bile metabolism.

Ferulic acid – 1000 mg daily – lowers cholesterol by an as yet unidentified mechanism; known to be a strong antioxidant.

Green tea extract (Theaflavin) – 500 mg three times daily – a polyphenol derived from catechins found in green tea that has both cholesterol-lowering and antioxidant effects.

Red Yeast Rice – 1000 mg twice daily – if you are between 50 and 75 years old and have proven coronary artery disease or have had a heart attack you may want to take this naturally occurring statin as an anti-inflammatory preventive remedy. Side effects are minimal according to a 2005 study.

Dr. Zoltan P. Rona practices Complementary Medicine in Toronto and is the medical editor of The Encyclopedia of Natural Healing. He has also published several Canadian best selling books including Return to The Joy of Health. For more of his articles, see the website:www.mydoctor.ca/drzoltanrona

REFERENCES

• Krumholz HM and others. Lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity and all-cause mortality in persons older than 70 years. Journal of the American Medical Association 272, 1335-1340, 1990.

• Ravnskov U. High cholesterol may protect against infections and atherosclerosis. Quarterly Journal of Medicine 96, 927-934, 2003.

• Rauchhaus M and others. The relationship between cholesterol and survival in patients with chronic heart failure. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 42, 1933-1940, 2003.

• Horwich TB and others. Low serum total cholesterol is associated with marked increase in mortality in advanced heart failure. Journal of Cardiac Failure 8, 216-224, 2002.

• Muldoon MF and others. Immune system differences in men with hypo- or hypercholesterolemia. Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology 84, 145-149, 1997.

• Jun-ichi Hanai1, Peirang Cao1, Preeti Tanksale1, Shintaro Imamura2,3, Eriko Koshimizu3,4, Jinghui Zhao5, Shuji Kishi3, Michiaki Yamashita2, Paul S. Phillips6, Vikas P. Sukhatme1 and Stewart H. Lecker1 The muscle-specific ubiquitin ligase atrogin-1/MAFbx mediates statin-induced muscle toxicity J. Clin. Invest. 117(12): 3940-3951 (2007). doi:10.1172/JCI32741.

• Jackson PR, Wallis EJ, Haq IU, Ramsay LE. Statins for primary prevention: at what coronary risk is safety assured? Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2001 Oct;52(4):439-46.

• Vrecer M, Turk S, Drinovec J, Mrhar A. Use of statins in primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke. Meta-analysis of randomized trials. Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2003 Dec;41(12):567-77.

• Markus G. Mohaupt, MD, Richard H. Karas, MD PhD, Eduard B. Babiychuk, PhD, Verónica Sanchez-Freire, Katia Monastyrskaya, PhD, Lakshmanan Iyer, PhD, Hans Hoppeler, MD, Fabio Breil and Annette Draeger, MD. Association between statin-associated myopathy and skeletal muscle damage. CMAJ • July 7, 2009; 181 (1-2). http://www.ecmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/181/1-2/E11

• Huang CF, Li TC, Lin CC, Liu CS, Shih HC, Lai M. Efﬁcacy of Monascus purpureus Went rice on lowering lipid ratios in hypercholesterolemic patients. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil. 2007 Jun;14(3):438-40.

• Ziajka PE, Wehmeier T. Peripheral neuropathy and lipid-lowering therapy. South Med J 1998;91:667-68. Gaist D, Jeppesen U, Andersen M, Garcia Rodriguez

• LA, Hallas J, Sindrup SH. Statins and risk of polyneuropathy: a case-control study. Neurology 2002;58:1333-7.

• Lin CC, Li TC, Lai MM. Efﬁcacy and safety of Monascus purpureus Went rice in subjects with hyperlipidemia. D Eur J Endocrinol. 2005 Nov;153(5):679-86.

• Ragi E. Neuropathy from statins. BMJ 2001 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/322/7293/1019#17446

• Golomb BA, Kane T, Dimsdale JE. Severe irritability associated with statin cholesterol lowering. QJM 2004;97:229-35.

• Edison RJ, Muenke M. Central nervous system and limb anomalies in case reports of first-trimester statin exposure. N Engl J Med 2004;350:1579-82.

n Oliver MF. Doubts about preventing coronary heart disease. Multiple interventions in middle aged men may do more harm than good. British Medical Journal 1992;304:393-394.

• Ardiansyah, Ohsaki Y, Shirakawa H, Koseki T, Komai M. Novel effects of a single administration of ferulic acid on the regulation of blood pressure and the hepatic lipid metabolic profile in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Apr 23; 56 (8):2825-30. 

• Englisch W, Beckers C, Unkauf M, Ruepp M, Zinserling V. Efficacy of artichoke dry extract in patientswith hyperlipoproteinemia. Arzneim.-Forsch. Drug Res. 2000; 50: 260-265.

• Maron DJ, Lu GP, Cai NS, Wu ZG, Li YH, Chen H, Zhu JQ, Jin XJ, Wouters BC and Zhao J. Cholesterol-lowering effect of a theaflavin-enriched green tea: a randomized controlled trial. 2003. Arch Intern Med; 163(12): 1448

• Urizar NL and Moore DD. Gugulipid: a natural cholesterol lowering agent. 2003. Annu Rev Nutr; 23: 303-313. Yin J, Xing H and Ye J. Efficacy of berberine in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Metabolism. 2008; 57(5): 712-717.

• Sinatra, Stephen, MD. Clearing Up the Cholesterol Confusion

http://www.townsendletter.com/June2009/clearingcholesterol0609.htm

• Joseph Mecola.The Dangers of Statin Drugs (a 3-part article) http://www.mercola.com/2004/jul/28/statin_drugs.htm

• Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. How Statins Work http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/statin.html

• The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) (links to papers) http://www.thincs.org/

• Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Dr. Ron Rosedale.http://www.drrosedale.com/resources/pdf/Cholesterol%20is%20NOT%20the%20cause%20of%20heart%20disease.pdf

• Can drinking pomegranate juice help lower my cholesterol?

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pomegranate-juice/AN01227

• Curcumin's cholesterol-lowering mechanism proposed

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Curcumin-s-cholesterol-lowering-mechanism-proposed

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Health Empowerment News – Episode 2 - foodsarenotdrugs.com

2009-09-03T19:21:00.001-07:00

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 2

“The Swine Flu (H1N1), mandatory vaccinations??? and natural alternatives!”

This week on Health Empowerment News, Croft and Andrew talk about The Swine Flu pandemic, the swine flu vaccine, and natural alternatives. Also, the link between vaccinations and autism, why the World Health Organization can not be trusted and the right to abstain from the vaccination program.

Every week Croft will talk about the latest news and research in the Natural Health World.

via foodsarenotdrugs.com

Listen to this weeks Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff

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Federal Reserve made $14 billion on turmoil loans: report

2009-08-31T12:23:00.001-07:00

http://networkedblogs.com/p10429096?ref=nf#

LONDON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has made $14 billion in profits on loans made in the last two years, The Financial Times reported on Monday, citing officials close to the matter.

The U.S. central bank also earned about $19 billion from interest and fees charged to institutions that tapped liquidity facilities during the global financial crisis, the report said.

If the Fed had invested the same amounted loaned out in three-month Treasury bills since August 2007, it would have earned $5 billion in interest, the FT said.

This estimate excludes company bailouts and purchases of long-term assets as well as unrealized gains or losses on the Fed's portfolio of mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries purchased as part of the $1.75 trillion asset purchase program.

The Fed was not immediately available for comment on the report.

Original article here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57U0BF20090831

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N.Y. doctor invites peaceful H1N1 solution

2009-08-31T11:51:00.001-07:00

Invitation to historic, groundbreaking event
NY Doctor wants open minds to prevail in Vaccine Issue!

http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Peace-Studies-Examiner~y2009m8d30-NY-doctor-invites-peaceful-H1N1-solution

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Check out this site I found on StumbleUpon!

2009-08-28T15:25:00.001-07:00

Home News Photos Videos

Hi,

Raw People

HOME - Raw People
rawpeople.com

- Andrew

Reply now! >

About StumbleUpon
Discover great web content recommended by your friends and like-minded stumblers just by clicking the Stumble! button - learn more.
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A couple of quotes :)

2009-08-28T13:52:00.001-07:00

When you seek a new path to truth, you must expect to find it blocked by expert opinion.
-------> Dr. Albert Guerard

The person you says it can't be done should not attempt to interrupt the person who is doing it!

------> Unkown Author

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Statins Cause Serious Structural Muscle Damage

2009-08-27T22:24:00.001-07:00

via naturalnews.com

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Podcast Answer Man > Podcast Consultant & Podcast Equipment Sales > Cliff J. Ravenscraft > 123 Podcast Answer Man – A Patent For Podcasting?

2009-08-27T20:41:00.001-07:00

via podcastanswerman.com

Swine Flu Panic - Learning from History… or NOT! 1979 60 Minutes Segment on the Swine Flu of 1976

2009-08-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

via foodsarenotdrugs.com

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The Fuel Film

2009-08-27T13:23:00.001-07:00

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the theatrical trailer for FUEL, coming to theaters next month! http://ow.ly/lB5d

Unveils a curtain of deception covering America's dependence on foreign oil as it explores one possible solution to the coming energy crisis. Made from vegetable oil, 'biodiesel' fuel is an economically sustainable, environmentally sound alternative already widely used in Europe. It has the potential to reduce dangerous green house gases, boost America's sagging economy, and reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

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Sunscreen implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

2009-08-27T13:06:00.001-07:00

http://www.worldhealth.net/news/sunscreen_implicated_in_alzheimers_and_p

Sunscreen implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

Posted in Longevity and Age Management, Alzheimer's Disease, Brain and Mental Performance, Parkinsons Disease on Thu August 27, 2009

A worldwide project called NeuroNano seeks to explore the role of human-engineered nanoparticles found in sunscreen and in an additive in some diesel fuels, investigating their connection to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

The study being conducted at the Biomedical Sciences Institute in Coleraine aims to better understand the ability of toxic nanoparticles entering the body intravenously or via lungs to reach the brain. Nanoparticles found in the chemicals titanium dioxide and cerium dioxide will be looked at specifically.

The brain is highly vulnerable to long term low-dose toxicity and lacks efficient clearance mechanisms to remove nanoparticles that may lodge there. The research carries significant implications in the growing concern about neurodegenerative disease.

News source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jvQp7EWK__wnNylx2wWFmxLSQcaw http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=16014

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Genetically Modified Bacteria produces insulin - Medical Miracle or Pandoras Box?

2009-08-27T10:58:00.001-07:00

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Drink a smoothie to treat your diabetes

By Jeff Salton

23:52 August 26, 2009 PDT

Engineering edible bacteria: researchers engineered friendly bacteria (dots in the gray area of the image) to produce a protein that triggers intestinal epithelial cells (top, highlighted in blue) to produce insulin.

A yogurt-based treatment for diabetes that uses non-harmful bacteria is being tested on diabetic mice. Gut microbes that have been engineered to make a specific protein are helping regulate blood sugar in the rodents, according to research presented at the American Chemical Society conference in Washington, D.C. Scientists hope the treatment might one day provide an alternative for people with diabetes.

The research, which is still in its early stages, represents a new take on age-old supplements – probiotics – which are composed of non-harmful bacteria. Often found in yogurt, these live microorganisms are ingested to promote health. New understanding of these microbes is allowing them to be engineered to help alleviate specific ailments such as diabetes, cholera and even tooth decay.

"The concept of using bacteria to help perform (or fix) human disorders is extremely creative and interesting," said Kelvin Lee, a chemical engineer at the University of Delaware, in Maryland. "Even if it does not directly lead to a solution to the question of diabetes, it opens up new avenues of thought in a more general sense," says Lee, commenting on the research.

Why diabetes is harmful

People with type 1 diabetes can’t make insulin, a hormone that triggers muscle and liver cells to take up glucose and store it for energy. By using the existing signaling system between the epithelial cells lining the intestine and the millions of healthy bacteria that normally reside in the gut, biochemical engineer John March and his team at Cornell University re-created this missing circuit. Epithelial cells absorb nutrients from food, protect tissue from harmful bacteria, and listen for molecular signals from helpful bacteria.

"If they are already signaling to one another, why not signal something we want?" asks March.

The researchers created a strain of nonpathogenic E. coli bacteria that produces the protein GLP-1. In healthy people, this protein triggers cells in the pancreas to make insulin. Last year, March and his collaborators showed that engineered bacterial cells secreting GLP-1 could trigger human intestinal cells in a dish to produce insulin in response to glucose (though it's not yet clear why the protein has this effect).

In the new research, scientists fed the bacteria to diabetic mice. "After 80 days, the mice [went] from being diabetic to having normal glucose blood levels," says March. "The promise, in short, is that a diabetic could eat yogurt or drink a smoothie as glucose-responsive insulin therapy rather than relying on insulin injections," says Kristala Jones Prather, a biochemical engineer at MIT, who was not involved in the research.

March says creating bacteria that produce the protein has a number of advantages over using the protein itself as the treatment. "The bacteria can secrete just the right amount of the protein in response to conditions in the host," says March. That could ultimately "minimize the need for self-monitoring and allow the patient's own cells (or the cells of the commensal E. coli) to provide the appropriate amount of insulin when needed," observes Cynthia Collins, a bioengineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY.

Protein-based drugs can be very expensive to make and often strike problems as they degrade during digestion. “Probiotics are cheap - less than a dollar per dose," added March. This is especially helpful in third world countries where cheaper delivery methods of treatment (yogurt) could be easily distributed throughout villages, etc.

Mighty microbes - a long way to go

The researchers don't know exactly how or where the diabetic mice are producing insulin or if the treatment has any harmful effects. "The mice seem to have normal blood glucose levels at this point, and their weight is normal," says March. "If they stopped eating, we would be concerned."

March's microbes are just one of a number of new strains being developed to treat disease, including bacteria designed to fight cavities, produce vitamins and treat lactose intolerance. His group is also engineering a strain of E. coli to prevent cholera. Cholera prevention "needs to be something cheap and easy and readily passed from village to village, so why not use something that can be mixed in with food and grown for free?" says March.

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Pimun Non Nocere: First Do No Harm

2009-08-27T09:48:00.001-07:00

PRIMUN NON NOCERE: First Do No Harm

by Judith Acosta
www.opednews.com

Primun non nocere. This is still the sacred promise of every medical school graduate across the country as he or she accepts the diploma, the title and the rank of healer in our culture. It is the core of the Hippocratic Oath.

However, in a world of unreasonable speed, in which new discoveries and new pharmaceuticals are being produced in measures of seconds, not years, it may be more than doctors can promise us anymore.

What Does Do-No-Harm Require?

One, beyond the obvious deliberate misdeeds or malicious negligence being called to “do no harm” requires at the very least a reasonable skepticism. This means that a physician—or any professional providing a treatment, especially a pharmaceutical one—should question whether that treatment has the right stuff to do what it's touted to do. Does it cure what it says it's going to cure? Or do people have one symptom go away only to have another (often more dangerous) one appear? Is there an actual need for the pharmaceutical or is it a drug being sold because of a massive fear campaign? Do the independently financed studies back up what the marketing departments say?

Two, the physician ought to be capable of weighing the risks and balancing the promised benefits against the delivered dangers. Does it reduce the pain of rheumatoid arthritis but give you a statistically significant chance to get cancer? Does it give you a longer-lasting erection but negatively impact your cardiovascular system? Does it give you a shorter menstrual period but lead you towards ovarian cysts?

And finally, the physician MUST ask: Is this safe? Will this product or procedure actually harm my patient?

The Current State of Harm

On July 13th of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) presented the global media with their recommendations on the H1N1 vaccines. A small part of their “guidance” as George A. Ure called it in his piece, Calm Before the (Cytokine) Storm, were three points that are pertinent to this article:

1. All countries are being called upon to forcibly immunize health care workers as a tier-one strategy to guard the infrastructure should a pandemic materialize.

2. Since current production is insufficient, they are recommending a laddered approach to “immunization” starting with pregnant women, children of 6 months old with one of a few specific medical conditions, healthy young adults 15 – 49 years of age, then healthy children, then healthy adults 50 – 64 years of age and finally the elderly.

3. Because some of the pandemic vaccines have been created with new technologies which have not yet been properly studied for their safety in certain population groups, the WHO is strongly urging post-marketing surveillance.

What do these recommendations mean? How does a physician who has promised to do no harm interpret then act on this information?

Let's take the first recommendation: “"should a pandemic materialize.” That is a fair statement on the surface, but our track record on these things is not very good.

CONTINUES .... http://www.opednews.com/articles/PRIMUN-NON-NOCERE-First-D-by-Judith-Acosta-090825-394.html

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Two Events this Friday August 28th in Vancouver - Anti Vaccine Protest and Kevin Annett Lecture

2009-08-25T14:55:00.001-07:00

Reminder of Two Important Events this Friday August 28 in Vancouver - Anti Vaccine Protest, then Lecture by Kevin Annett

1. Protest by the Vaccine Resistance Movement - "We're Not Taking It!"

Friday August 28 at 4:00 pm
South side (Robson st.) of the Vancouver Art Gallery, downtown Vancouver
March and Speakers

There is no Lethal Pandemic, except what will be caused by Vaccinations!

The speakers include: Dr. G. Goddard, Dr. H. Dunn, Kevin Annett, Candice Hill, Croft Woodruff, and Sean Buckley. This will be followed by a march in the downtown area, that will take us to the CBC building to demand objective, honest reporting on H1N1 and vaccines. A second event hosted by Kevin Annett will take place at 7 pm at the V.P.L.

Similar demonstrations are being planned for Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

We hope to have people all across Canada follow up with their own street actions in their own towns on August 29th and 30th to help inform fellow citizens about vaccine dangers. We encourage peaceful, responsible, civil action only. PLEASE JOIN US!

For more information and updates please visit:

FalseFlagFlu. com , VaccineResistanceMo vement.org
HiddenFromHistory. org or the V.R.M. on Facebook.com

If you want to get involved and host a protest or informational event in your town, please let us know where and when.

You do not need hundreds of people to have an effect. Just get out and support us, and help us to build momentum.

We will post all YouTube videos from the national protest on our site.

Sign the online petition

Protest signs (free to download and print) a collection of banner signs and picket signs that you can download, print out, and paste on to signboard. GO HERE to view them

Fliers:
10 Things to Consider Before You Take the Shot - flier.pdf

Pandemic Pushers and Profiteers - flier.pdf

The Truth About the Flu Shot - flier.pdf

(or make your own!)

If you live in the Vancouver area, please help to circulate the attached (pdf) flier.

If you are organizing elsewhere, we can customize this flier for you.

E-mail me if you would like to obtain a set of DVDs to burn and hand out to people
during your local events.

We hope that our friends in the USA and others around the world will get on board with this effort to stop the vaccination madness.

We are in desperate need of funds too for DVDS, T-Shirts, buttons, printing, etc. If you can help in that way, we would greatly appreciate it. Please e-mail me.

Permalink with overview of the issues http://www.falsefla gflu.com/ NGTI.html

Wayne

*************************

Followed by ...

2. Genocide in Canada: Are Healing and Reconciliation Possible? Lecture by Kevin Annett, followed by open discussion on the coming year's campaign

    Friday, August 28 at 7:00 pm
    Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia st., downtown Vancouver
     in the Alma Van Dusen Room (basement

    How can genocide be healed, when it is still happening, and being denied?
    When will the churches and government responsible be brought to justice?
    How can we stop the cycle of death and reclaim our land, our health and our peoples?

Sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry, Vancouver

Information: 1-888-265-1007
www.hiddenfromhistory.org

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Swine Flu Vaccine and Cancer Risk

2009-08-25T12:10:00.001-07:00

Bild.de
07.08.2009
German health expert's swine flu warning
Does virus vaccine increase the risk of cancer?

The swine flu vaccine has been hit by new cancer fears after a German health expert gave a shock warning about its safety.

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg is a politician and a specialist
In lungs, hygiene and environmental medicine.
He is the chairman of the health committee in
The German parliament and European Council

Lung specialist Wolfgang Wodarg has said that there are many risks associated with the vaccine for the H1N1 virus.

He has grave reservations about the firm Novartis who are developing the vaccine and testing it in Germany. The vaccination is injected “with a very hot needle”, Wodarg said.

The nutrient solution for the vaccine consists of cancerous cells from animals and "we do not know if there could be an allergic reaction".

But more importantly, some people fear that the risk of cancer could be increased by injecting the cells.

The vaccine - as Johannes Löwer, president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, has pointed out - can also cause worse side effects than the actual swine flu virus.

Wodrag also described people’s fear of the pandemic as an "orchestration": “It is great business for the pharmaceutical industry,” he told the ‘Neuen Presse’.

Swine flu is not very different from normal flu. “On the contrary if you look at the number of cases it is nothing compared to a normal flu outbreak,” he added.

The chairman of the health committee in the European Council has urged for a careful and calm reaction to the virus.

Up until now, the producers of the vaccine did not know how many orders they would have by the autumn, but the German Government is now a guaranteed customer.

Even the pharmaceutical companies are trying to exploit the fear of the swine flu pandemic.

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mutates

2009-08-25T11:44:00.001-07:00

PHARMA DOES IT AGAIN.... CAUSES POLIO OUTBREAK WITH VACCINE!!

Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mutates

By MARIA CHENG (AP) – 2 days ago

LONDON — Polio, the dreaded paralyzing disease stamped out in the industrialized world, is spreading in Nigeria. And health officials say in some cases, it's caused by the vaccine used to fight it.

In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this vaccine-spread virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year — about twice those afflicted in 2008.

The polio problem is just the latest challenge to global health authorities trying to convince wary citizens that vaccines can save them from dreaded disease. For years, myths have abounded about vaccines — that they were the Western world's plan to sterilize Africans or give them AIDS. The sad polio reality fuels misguided fears and underscores the challenges authorities face using a flawed vaccine.

Nigeria and most other poor nations use an oral polio vaccine because it's cheaper, easier, and protects entire communities.

But it is made from a live polio virus — albeit weakened — which carries a small risk of causing polio for every million or so doses given. In even rarer instances, the virus in the vaccine can mutate into a deadlier version that ignites new outbreaks.

The vaccine used in the United States and other Western nations is given in shots, which use a killed virus that cannot cause polio.

So when WHO officials discovered a polio outbreak in Nigeria was sparked by the polio vaccine itself, they assumed it would be easier to stop than a natural "wild" virus.

They were wrong.

In 2007, health experts reported that amid Nigeria's ongoing outbreak of wild polio viruses, 69 children had also been paralyzed in a new outbreak caused by the mutation of a vaccine's virus.

Back then, WHO said the vaccine-linked outbreak would be swiftly overcome — yet two years later, cases continue to mount. They have since identified polio cases linked to the vaccine dating back as far as 2005.

It is a worrying development for officials who hope to end polio epidemics in India and Africa by the end of this year, after missing several earlier deadlines. "It's very disturbing," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, who heads the polio department at the World Health Organization.

This year, the number of polio cases caused by the vaccine has doubled: 124 children have so far been paralyzed, compared to 62 in 2008, out of about 42 million children vaccinated. For every case of paralysis, there are hundreds of other children who don't develop symptoms, but pass on the disease.

When Nigerian leaders suspended polio vaccination in 2003, believing the vaccine would sterilize their children and infect them with HIV, Nigeria exported polio to nearly two dozen countries worldwide, making it as far away as Indonesia.

Nigeria resumed vaccinations in 2004 after tests showed the vaccine was not contaminated with estrogen, anti-fertility agents or HIV.

Experts have long believed epidemics unleashed by a vaccine's mutated virus wouldn't last since the vaccine only contains a weakened virus strain — but that assumption is coming under pressure. Some experts now say that once viruses from vaccines start circulating they can become just as dangerous as wild viruses.

"The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The oral polio vaccine used in Nigeria and elsewhere contains a mild version of the live virus. Children who have been vaccinated pass the virus into the water supply through urine or feces. Other children who then play in or drink that water pick up the vaccine's virus, which gives them some protection against polio.

But in rare instances, as the virus passes through unimmunized children, it can mutate into a strain dangerous enough to ignite new outbreaks, particularly if immunization rates in the rest of the population are low.

Kew said genetic analysis proves mutated viruses from the vaccine have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.

Though Nigeria's coverage rates have improved, up to 15 percent of children in the north still haven't been vaccinated against polio. To eradicate the disease, officials need to reach about 95 percent of the population.

Nigeria's vaccine-linked outbreak underlines the need to stop using the oral polio vaccine as soon as possible, since it can create the very epidemics it was designed to stop, experts say. WHO is researching other vaccines that might work better, but none is on the horizon.

Until a better vaccine is ready, WHO and U.S. CDC officials say the oral vaccine is the best available tool to eradicate polio and that when inoculation rates are nearly 100 percent it works fine.

"Nigeria is almost a case study in what happens when you don't follow the recommendations," Kew said.

Since WHO and partners began their attempt to rid the world of polio in 1988, officials have slashed the disease's incidence by more than 99 percent.

But numerous deadlines have been missed and the number of cases has been at a virtual standstill since 2000. Critics have also wondered whether it is time to give up, and donors may be sick of continuing to fund a program with no clear endgame.

"Eradication is a gamble," said Scott Barrett, an economist at Columbia University who has studied polio policies. "It's all or nothing ... and there is a very real risk this whole thing may fall apart."

Aside from Nigeria, polio persists in a handful of other countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Chad, Angola and Sudan.

Aylward agreed the Nigeria situation was another unwelcome hurdle, but was confident eradication was possible. "We still have a shot," he said. "We're throwing everything at it including the kitchen sink."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ixeFZYYppO03XDUBudsFjFOItQngD9A2MGL00

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Swine flu vaccine linked to a deadly neurological disorder?

2009-08-25T11:43:00.001-07:00

Swine flu vaccine may be linked to a deadly neurological disorder.

A leaked memo written by health authorities in the U.K. reveals that the swine flu vaccine may be linked to a deadly neurological disorder. So why are worldwide health authorities insisting on injecting children with the swine flu vaccine even before it has been tested on children? Read more in today's eye-opening report:

http://www.naturalnews.com/026866_swine_flu_flu_vaccine_swine_flu_vaccine.html

It's official: Scientists fake their "scientific" study results with alarming frequency. This is the conclusion from a new study that apparently wasn't faked:

http://www.naturalnews.com/026865_natural_health_technology_renewable_energy.html

Posted via email from Natural Health News Feed

Refined sugar and the immune system

2009-08-25T11:33:00.001-07:00

The effect sugar consumption has on the human metabolism and immune function..
Simple sugars (such as table sugar, orange juice, honey, syrups, fructose, glucose, maltose, dextrose, etc) almost instantly depress the immune system. The ingestion of 100 grams (3 oz) of sugar substantially reduces the capacity of neutrophils to envelope and destroy bacteria. This effect begins half an hour after ingestion and lasts for about five hours. At its most pronounced, there is a 40% reduction in neutrophil activity during the period from 1 hour to 3 hours after having the sugar. Since neutrophils constitute about 65% of the total white blood cells in circulation, shutting down that defensive capability will significantly compromise immune competence for a time, each time sugar is consumed [W Ringsdorf, E Cheraskin & R Ramsay. Sucrose, Neutrophil Phagocytosis and Resistance to Disease, Dent Surv, 1976, 52:46-48].
By contrast, a controlled naturopathic fast during the first 48 hours of an acute infectious illness has been shown to be therapeutically beneficial, since it results in a sizeable (up to 50%) increase in the phagocytic index [A Sanchez, J Reeser, H Lau et al. Role of Sugars inhuman Neutrophilic Phagocytosis, Am J Clin Nutr, 1973, 26:1180-1184]. Note: Such a fast must never be continued for an excessive period and should be undertaken under the supervision of your naturopath.

In the industrialized world, sugar consumption is particularly high during the month of December. Not that it isn't far too high all year round, and has been so for many decades. In the USA, the average consumption of sugar for each man, woman and child in one year, was recorded as 45 kg of refined sugar, plus 300 cans of carbonated soft drink, plus 200 sticks of sugar-containing chewing gum, plus 8 kg of sweets, plus 63 dozen doughnuts, plus 22 kg of cakes and biscuits, plus 91 litres of ice cream, plus whatever gets sneaked into prepared savoury foods [P G Linder. 'Junk Foods' and Medical Education, Obes Bar Med, 1982, 11:109]. This excluded other sugar sources such as fruit juice, maple syrup and honey.

Sugars have been clearly implicated in the following seven groups of specific health problems:

1) Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease [S Reif et al. Pre-illness Dietary Factors in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Gut, 1997, 40(6):754-760; and M Pearson et al. Food intolerance and Crohn's Disease, Gut, 1993, 34:783-787];

2) Thrombophlebitis and Peripheral Vascular Disease [J Yudkin et al. Sugar Intake, Serum Insulin and Platelet Adhesiveness in Men with and without Peripheral Vascular Disease, Postgrad Med J, 1969, 45:608];

3) Gastric Cancer [J Cornee et al, A Case-control Study of Gastric Cancer and Nutritional Factors in Marseilles, France, Eur J Epidemiol, 1995, 11:55-65];

4) Gallstones [R M Ortega et al. Differences in Diet and Food Habits between Patients with Gallstones and Controls, J Am Coll Nutr, 1997, 16(1):88-95];

5) Kidney and Bladder Stones [N J Blacklock. Sucrose and Idiopathic Renal Stones, Nutr Health, 1987, 5(1/2):9-17];

6) Elevated Blood Pressure [H G Preuss et al. Effects of High Sugar Diets on Renal Fluid, Electrolyte and Mineral Handling: Relationship to Blood Pressure, J Am Coll Nutr, 1994, 13(1):73-82 ];

7) Myopia [M Bardiger & A L Stock. The Effects of Sucrose-containing Diets low in Protein on Ocular Refraction in the Rat, Proc Nutr Soc, 1972, 31(1):4A-5A].

All of this refers to the effects of simple sugars only, and not to the complex sugars (the carbohydrates).

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Health Empowerment with Croft Woodruff

Fw: This Is Your Brain on Margarine

HELP DRIVE MCCAIN FROM OFFICE & KILL HIS TERRIBLE BILL S.3002 "DIETARY SUPPLEMENT SAFETY ACT OF 2010" WHAT TO DO:

Proven Neurotoxin Aspartame has been Renamed to AminoSweet

Aspartame has been Renamed and is Now Being Marketed as a Natural Sweetener

How to Learn More about Nutritional Medicine

How to Learn More about Nutritional Medicine Information Archive and Locating a Practitioner

The Depressing News About Antidepressants

The Depressing News About Antidepressants

012 | Health Empowerment News – Raw Milk

Magnesium makes rats smarter!

Increasing magnesium intake can boost brainpower - at least in rats

Health Empowerment News - Episode 11 | Bill C-6 and Natural Health Product Regulations

New Podcast Episode: Natural Cancer Cures

Italian doctor may have found a cure for MS!

Dr. Chris Shaw interview - Vaccine Adjuvants

“H1N1 | Vaccine Adjuvants – Dr. Chris Shaw, PhD Interview”

Health Canada demands medical marijuana payment in advance

Happy Halloween - Sugar Addiction and Health | The Swine Flu Vaccine

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 8

“Happy Halloween! Sugar Addiction and the Swine Flu H1N1 Vaccine”

Health Empowerment Show Notes:

‘Poisoning attempt’ charges filed against French H1N1 campaign

‘Poisoning attempt’ charges filed against French H1N1 campaign

H1N1 Vaccine product information

Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz

Press Release: Truehope Challenges Health Canada in Federal Court

Health Empowerment News - Episode 7 | Diabetes

Seasonal Flu Shot Damage

October 22, 2009

Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey Reach Out to Disabled Redskin's Cheerleader

Listen to Croft Woodruff on CBC Radio

Croft Woodruff on CBC Radio

Reversing Diabetes Naturally

Croft Woodruff may be on CBC Vancouver tomorrow morning at 6:20am

Suzan Somers - "Knockout"

Simply Raw

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Diabetic Leg Wounds

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy- Article from the Globe & Mail, March 26, 2005

Diabetics are losing legs unnecessarily

by Christie BlatchFord

Flu Remedies

www.foodsarenotdrugs.com

Natural Swine Flu Remedy

006 | Health Empowerment News | The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 & Corporate Front Groups

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 6

“The Swine Flu Body Bag Fiasco, Bill C-6 and corporate front groups”

Health Empowerment Show Notes:

Subscribe to Health Empowerment News…

Bill C-6 being overturned by the people

Digestion and Malabsorption

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 5

“Digestion and Malabsorption”

Swine Flu H1N1

Dr. Frank Lipman

Swine Flu: What To Do?

5 Harvard researchers accept the Vitamin D theory of autism

Conservative Think Tank recommends abolishing Natural Health Product Regulations

http://www.pr-inside.com/print1474107.htm

The Fraser Institute: Time to Abolish Costly Regulation of Natural Health Products and Professional Licensing

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 4

“Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion – Are you affected?”

Two thousand schoolgirls suffer suspected ill-effects from cervical cancer vaccine

Thousands of schoolgirls have suffered suspected adverse reactions to a controversial cervical cancer vaccine introduced by the Government.

New Podcast Episode --> Health Empowerment News – GMO Foods and Your Health!

003 Health Empowerment News – GMO Foods and Your Health!

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 3

“Genetically Modified Organisms – How GMO Foods Affect your Health!”

Welcome to a New Era of Health Freedom for Canadians!

Charter of Health Freedom

Charter of Health Freedom

Ministry of Wellness

Anybody Using NetVibes ???

IV Vitamin C Used to Recover Terminal Swine Flu Case

Challenging the Statin Drug Dogma Vitality September 2009 Features sept_08_drzoltanronapicDrugs You Don’t Need – And the Best Natural Alternatives by Dr. Zoltan P. Rona, MD, PHD Cholesterol lowering statin drugs are a $26 billion a year industry in N

Challenging the Statin Drug Dogma

Health Empowerment News – Episode 2 - foodsarenotdrugs.com

Health Empowerment News with Croft Woodruff – Episode 2

“The Swine Flu (H1N1), mandatory vaccinations??? and natural alternatives!”

Federal Reserve made $14 billion on turmoil loans: report

How to Learn More about Nutritional Medicine
Information Archive and Locating a Practitioner