Pharma's herbal roots - Health Supreme NewsGrabs 17 July 2011
Pharma History: Roman-era shipwreck reveals ancient medical secrets
A wooden chest discovered on board the vessel contained pills made of ground-up vegetables, herbs and plants such as celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa and chestnuts – all ingredients referred to in classical medical texts.
The tablets, which were so well sealed that they miraculously survived being under water for more than two millennia, also contain extracts of parsley, nasturtium, radish, yarrow and hibiscus.
The pills are the oldest known archaeological remains of ancient pharmaceuticals. They would have been taken with a mouthful of wine or water, or may have been dissolved and smeared on the skin to treat inflammation and cuts.
So here we have it ... the origins of pharmaceutical science are steeped in the purest herbal tradition, something pharma despises today. Even to the extent of trying to eliminate it - witness the various laws that enable chemical medicines and practically forbid herbal medicine. Latest example: the disastrous EU herbal medicines directive.
European Medicines Agency reports on progress of EU herbal directiveAcross 27 Member States, in European countries that use hundreds – if not thousands – of herbal species as the basis of traditional medicinal systems, a mere 83 species are used as the basis for products registered until the end of December 2010. All of these species are European herbs. This means, unless a given Member State is prepared to exempt a herb from medicinal licensing – as is being considered under the proposed statutory regulation of herbalists in the UK – or the form of the herb delivered to consumers is regarded as a food or food supplement, all herbs associated with the great non-European traditions become illegal in the EU. This includes includes Ayurveda, TCM and all African and south American traditions. Relatively, very few polyherbal products are being registered, with fewer registrations seen as product complexity increases.
What is just as tragic, however, is a list of therapeutic indications for herbal products that is incredibly short and highly restricted. Without any attempt to justify itself, the THMPD restricts indications for herbal products to minor, self-limiting conditions.
Codex Adopts Stevia as a New Food Additive... during the Codex meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland, the Codex Alimentarius Commission adopted all the proposed draft maximum levels for steviol glycosides as submitted for adoption by the Codex Committee on Food Additives ...
Commenting on the adoption by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, PureCircle CEO Magomet Malsagov said, “This has been an important week for approval and adoption of stevia as a mainstream food ingredient around the globe. Early this week, we had a positive vote by the EU Standing Committee recommending steviol glycosides in Europe. We now welcome this week’s Codex adoption which will help to open all remaining new markets for PureCircle’s high purity stevia products around the world.”
This is a welcome bit of news.After all the reported damage of chemical sweeteners, especially aspartame, perhaps we are finally seeing a turn towards a more natural approach in the business of satisfying people's sweet tooth without worsening diabetic tendencies in those sensitive to excess sugar ...
CODEX AVOIDS IMPLOSION - BY FIVE VOTESBut the most hotly debated standard of all was the one in which the Western Hemispheric countries wanted to force virtually the entire rest of the World to accept its ractopamine-tainted meat.
Ractopamine is a beta-agonist drug given to pigs and cattle to promote protein and weight gain before slaughter. There is no “wash-out” period so drug residues remain in the meat that is then sold to market. The United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Australia all contend that this ractopamine residue is safe for human consumption; yet studies and reviews conducted in other countries and regions, such as the European Union, China, Taiwan, and Russia, reveal significant health concerns about its use in both animals and humans. For this important reason some 160 countries do not allow ractopamine-doped meat to be imported into their jurisdictions.
IADSA Praises Recent Codex Alimentarius Commission Decisions“This week’s meeting has seen significant developments," said IADSA’s regulatory affairs director David Pineda Ereño. “We are pleased the CAC has accepted our scientific and technological justification for the retention of steviol glycosides, and in terms of nutrient reference values, the agreed text includes changes consistent with IADSA position..."
USA: New FDA guidelines may knock down supplementsThe entire 47-page document issued by the FDA is so overwhelming as to throw a mortal blow to the supplement industry. It is not known whether public outcry will influence the FDA as it is an aloof organization that is obviously responsible for protecting America's pharmaceutical industry to the point of recklessly approving prescription drugs that, like Vioxx, have killed thousands.
The supplement industry is recoiling, ready to make pleas to politicians. In other words, beg for mercy. The supplement industry could be forced to take 17 steps backward in time, to 1994, and utilize only those molecules and processes that were in existence then. The fact that the FDA dropped this guidance upon the industry like a bomb instead of gaining their input prior to its writing suggests the FDA knows what it is doing – creating a doomsday document.
USA: FDA Guidelines a Perversion of Congressional IntentThe FDA is trying to turn a simple notification system for new supplements into a totally arbitrary approval system. Let’s tell the FDA that supplements are not drugs and ask Congress for help!
USA: GOVERNMENT KILLING NATURAL HEALTH
(by Jon Rappoport)The new approach to killing natural health is through the bogus issue of “safety.”
There are three vectors in the attack—the recently passed Food Safety Law, new FDA regulations, and a bill now in committee sponsored by Dick Durbin.
They are all draconian. They use the issues of “good manufacturing practices” and “potentially unsafe ingredients.” The intention is to drive nutritional companies into the ground via a bureaucratic nightmare that involves inspections, charged fees, red tape, denying the use of many nutrients, and prosecutions.
EU Regulators and Monsanto Hide Glyphosate ToxicityA damning report co-authored by an international group of scientists and researchers for non-government organisation Open Earth Source (OES) reveals that studies from industry including those from Monsanto since the 1990s showed glyphosate caused birth defects and the European Commission approved the herbicide in full knowledge of those finding.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and over a hundred other commercial formulations. It is the cause of great concern as evidence of its harmful effects keep piling up from independent scientific studies in recent years, including endocrine disruption, DNA damage, reproductive and developmental toxicities, neurotoxicity, cancer, and birth defects
Wait, Did the USDA Just Deregulate All New Genetically Modified Crops?In an innocuous-sounding press release titled "USDA Responds to Regulation Requests Regarding Kentucky Bluegrass," agency officials announced their decision not to regulate a "Roundup Ready" strain of Kentucky bluegrass—that is, a strain genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate, Monsanto's widely used herbicide, which we know as Roundup. The maker of the novel grass seed, Scotts Miracle Gro, is now free to sell it far and wide. So you'll no doubt be seeing Roundup Ready bluegrass blanketing lawns and golf courses near you—and watching anal neighbors and groundskeepers literally dousing the grass in weed killer without fear of harming a single precious blade.
Long story short, it means that the USDA theoretically regulates new GMO crops the same way it would regulate, say, a backyard gardener's new crossbred squash variety. Which is to say, it really doesn't. But that's absurd. GM crops pose different environmental threats than their non modified counterparts. The most famous example involves the rapid rise of Roundup Ready corn, soy, and cotton, which were introduced in the mid-late 1990s and now blanket tens of millions of acres of US farmland. Spraying all of that acreage every year with a single herbicide has given rise to a plague of Roundup-resistant "superweeds," forcing farmers to apply more and more Roundup and also resort to other, far-more-toxic products. Crops that aren't engineered to withstand an herbicide could never have created such a vexation.
Scientists discover new role for vitamin C in the eye -- and the brainNerve cells in the eye require vitamin C in order to function properly — a surprising discovery that may mean vitamin C is required elsewhere in the brain for its proper functioning, according to a study by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
"We found that cells in the retina need to be 'bathed' in relatively high doses of vitamin C, inside and out, to function properly," said Henrique von Gersdorff, Ph.D., a senior scientist at OHSU's Vollum Institute and a co-author of the study. "Because the retina is part of the central nervous system, this suggests there's likely an important role for vitamin C throughout our brains, to a degree we had not realized before."
Book Review: Dirty Medicine — The Handbook by Martin J WalkerFor many reasons, natural healthcare finds itself on the back foot in 2011, and in a big way. Make no mistake: we are in a titanic struggle for the preservation of all healthcare modalities that don’t fit the mainstream view. Nowadays, that view amounts to a straitjacket borne of ideology, commerce and a desire for control both of the individual and society by a narrow group of vested interests.
Now that science has stopped working to benefit humanity and merely works to enrich industry, says Walker, people are realising that many of its technological goodies do not - despite all the breathless propaganda - make their lives better; in fact, often just the opposite happens. This pits the people against the corporate scientists and, by default, our governments, whose policies, beliefs and even personnel are often indistinguishable from those of the corporations.
Spiriva Studies Show Troubling Pattern Of Serious Heart RisksLast month, a widely publicized study raised concerns about the safety of the blockbuster Spiriva inhaler that is used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal found that, when administered in the mist form known as Respimat, there was a 52 percent increase in mortality risk compared with a placebo .
How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugsHas America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.
Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.
Obesity charity paid £50k in secret by Coca-Cola to promote sweetenersA charity which criticised the Government for accepting money from junk food companies was itself secretly paid £50,000 by Coca-Cola to promote low-calorie sweeteners.
The National Obesity Forum signed a deal with Coca-Cola in January, a few months after trustee Tam Fry had said he was ‘horror-struck’ at plans for such companies to provide cash to back public health campaigns.
Louis Pasteur And the Myth of PasteurizationWhat is truth and what is fiction must be determined by the facts. And as "Deep Throat" of Watergate fame said, "Follow the money."
In researching medicine, following the money has always led to the truth. The money, in Pasteur’s case, has led to unnecessary and mandatory vaccination programs. Wouldn’t we all like to own a company that gets support from a government that will enact laws to make the purchase of our product mandatory?
Where to begin? Well, let’s begin with the Germ Theory...
USA: AHRP Leads Opposition to Proposed Anthrax Vaccine Trial in ChildrenThe National Biodefense Science Board, convened a two day meeting of the Anthrax Vaccine Working Group at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services (July 7 and 8). The July 7 meeting was open to the public: the July 8 meeting was closed.
The Alliance for Human Research Protection took the lead in speaking out against this medical travesty. This US government-proposed anthrax vaccine experiment would expose children to a controversial vaccine whose efficacy is unproven but whose risks of harm are serious and even life-threatening.
Video: Barbara Loe Fisher: Meningitis vaccine not safe, effective or necessary for children
Dr. Joseph Mercola and Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, talk about a vaccine that's being seriously considered and recommended on a regular basis for Meningitis.
Low dose naltrexone: Harnessing the body’s own chemistry to treat human ovarian cancerParadoxically, LDN’s ability to benefit so many seemingly unrelated medical conditions has been the greatest criticism from conventional mainstream medicine. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. However, since LDN is an FDA approved drug, off label use is perfectly legal, and is a common practice in mainstream medicine. LDN has virtually no adverse side effects, and based on my own short clinical experience prescribing LDN for Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis, I can report that it is amazingly effective. Even though it may sound too good to be true, in the case of LDN, I can assure you that, yes, it is all true.
The medical system’s domination by the Pharmaceutical industry is clearly apparent by the scandalous and outrageous manner in which LDN has been ignored...
IS THE AIDS INDUSTRY BASED ON SCIENCE?
by Beldeu SinghEducating people on the pseudo-science on which the AIDs industry is based is not easy. Governments will not stand up to the truth. They do not tell people that the test kits used to hand down the HIV diagnosis carry the disclaimer stating that "the test kit cannot be used to diagnose and treat AIDs" and that the cocktail of drugs used are immunosuppressive. AZT is "toxic by inhalation" and it "causes the same symptoms as AIDS"! How nice.
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More information out there...
There is a lot more information out there about natural health and pharmaceutical medicine that I cannot cover ... but fortunately other sources for this kind of information exist.
Dr Mercola has a good health blog
Mike Adams publishes Natural News.
In the UK we have the One Click Group.
The Dr Rath Foundation campaigns for a New Healthcare System.
Natural health and nutrition on La Leva di Archimede
Food, Agriculture and more on the Organic Consumers Association site.And remember...
"The individual is supreme and finds the way through intuition"And since you got to reading so far, here's a little bonus. Check out this YouTube video about the WAYSEER MANIFESTO. For all you troublemakers and revolutionaries out there...
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday July 17 2011
updated on Tuesday December 13 2011URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2011/07/17/pharmas_herbal_roots_health_supreme_newsgrabs_17_july_2011.htm
