Health Supreme NewsGrabs - 27 September 2006
Health Supreme's News Grabs - alternative health news and other interesting bytes of information ...
In this issue:
GM contaminated rice in the UK, Mental Health conference, acne medicine causes depression, vitamin C and multiple sclerosis, uranium dust kills soldiers, bird flu and dioxins, insane drug company profits from medicare, HIV testing recommendation, Jack Nicholson on Aids, ephedra ban implications, FDA botching drug safety, fluoride poison touted as wonder nutrient, Frankenstein food experiment on unsuspecting US public.
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Legal challenge plan over GM rice
Friends of the Earth has said it will start a legal challenge against the Food Standards Agency (FSA) over the sale of GM rice in UK supermarkets. It claims the agency privately told retailers they did not need to test for contamination of rice by GM products. GM rice is banned in the EU because of fears not enough research on possible health risks has been carried out.
Mental Health and the Law
This is the ninth annual conference of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology which will be held on 7, 8 and 9 October 2006 in Bethesda, Maryland.
"The ICSPP Annual conferences serve as unique thought provoking forums to exchange critical ideas about the impact of contemporary mental health ideologies on personal and community values, and to disseminate models of therapeutic intervention that disavow all coercion and the compromise of ethics, rationality and scientific principles."
Jim Gottstein, one of the speakers and co-chair of the conference, says that psychiatric survivors may ask for a special discount on the attendance fee - 150 $ instead of the normal 300 or 325.
Research shows link between acne treatment and depression
The first scientific evidence of a link between a drug for severe acne and depression was unveiled yesterday, following years of denials by the manufacturer that the prescription medicine could be in any way responsible for suicides. Roaccutane has been linked to more than 100 suicides and attempted suicides worldwide.
Vitamin may prevent MS disability
Vitamin shots may help protect multiple sclerosis patients from severe long-term disability, a study suggests. Currently, there is no effective treatment for the chronic progressive phase of MS, when serious disability is most likely to appear. Researchers cut the risk of nerve degeneration in mice with MS-type symptoms by giving them a form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide. The Children's Hospital Boston study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.
WHEN WAR MAKES SOLDIERS SICK
...lawyers for the former soldiers argued that the Army caused their illnesses when it violated its own safety protocols and exposed them to radioactive dust. Army doctors also covered up information about their exposures and failed to provide proper medical treatment, the lawyers claimed.
What's Really Behind the Bird Flu Outbreaks?
...an in vestigation into the immunosuppressive effects of environmental chemicals, particularly dioxins, may shed light on the seemingly scattered and disconnected outbreaks of bird flu around globe. The association between dioxin and influenza may explain the high death rate in Indonesia. ...the combination of influenza viruses and dioxin caused so much inflammation in the lungs due to a massive cytokine storm that normal lung tissue was destroyed, thereby killing the mice.
Drug Company Profits Skyrocket $8 billion (27%) After New GOP Medicare Law Takes Effect
The Democratic "Truth Squad" of progressive House Democrats has released a report showing that pharmaceutical industry profits have skyrocketed since the Republican Medicare drug plan went into effect at the beginning of this year. The study found that the ten largest drug companies made over $8 billion more in the first half of 2006 than in 2005 - a total increase of 27%. The biggest gainer, Pfizer, gained 73% in sales from last year by raking in more than $6.5 billion through June.
CDC: Make HIV tests part of routine medical care for all Americans 13-64
AIDS virus testing should be offered regularly to everyone ages 13 to 64 in every hospital, doctor's office and clinic to speed diagnosis and help curb the epidemic, federal health officials recommended Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations are not legally binding, but they are designed to make HIV testing as routine as tests for high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes.
One can only wonder why the CDC is recommending to make a test universal which, according to its manufacturers, is not apt to determine HIV infection in individuals (the test was originally developed only to screen donated blood). More people will be subjected to a deadly regime of toxic retroviral drugs, perpetuating the 'pandemic' rather than ending it.
Bareback Jack (Nicholson) Sets Me Straight on Sex
Interviewer Erik Hedegaard: ”[W]hen the AIDS crisis started, he [Nicholson] tried wearing condoms, but they prevented him from feeling the “full catasrophe” of the sex act, so he went to a doctor, who told him not to worry about getting AIDS, so he no longer wears condoms.”
APPEALS COURT BACKS FDA BAN ON EPHEDRA – WHAT ARE THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS?
Essentially, if in future the FDA decides, when conducting a risk-benefit analysis, that a dietary supplement's benefit is non-significant, then any level of risk could now seemingly qualify as "unreasonable risk of illness or injury".
IOM Report Faults FDA Drug-Safety Process
A report by the Institute of Medicine is sharply critical of FDA's drug safety monitoring system: "The report’s conclusions are striking and often damning – particularly when discussing the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
Fluoride - Even Worse Than We Thought
In 1998 EPA scientists, whose job and legal duty it is to set the Maximum Contaminant Level, declared that this 4ppm level was set fraudulently by outside forces in a decision that omitted 90 percent of the data showing the mutagenic properties of fluoride.The world's largest study on dental caries, which looked at 400,000 students, revealed that decay increased 27 percent with a 1ppm fluoride increase in drinking water. In Japan, fluoridation caused decay increases of 7 percent in 22,000 students, while in the US a decay increase of 43 percent occurred in 29,000 students when 1ppm fluoride was added to drinking water.
...fluoride is proclaimed as the "wonder nutrient," the "deficiency" symptom being increased dental caries. It boggles the mind that a cumulative toxin and toxic waste product can be described a "nutrient."
Gene-Engineered Food From the Kitchen of Dr. Frankenstein
Another hope was that gene tinkering would help end world hunger. But the dream of concocting drought-tolerant, insect-resistant, nutrient-dense supreme species ignores the reality of global markets already awash in food. Hunger and malnutrition result from poverty, not a lack of food in the world.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday September 27 2006
updated on Sunday November 21 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/09/27/health_supreme_newsgrabs_27_september_2006.htm
