No Deaths From Vitamins or Minerals

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 14, 2009

(OMNS, October 14, 2009) There was not even one death caused by a vitamin or dietary mineral in 2007, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S. National Poison Data System. The 132-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers published in the journal Clinical Toxicology shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin. (1)

Furthermore, there were zero deaths in 2007 from any dietary mineral supplement. This means there were no fatalities from calcium, chromium, zinc, colloidal silver, selenium, iron, or multimineral supplements. There was one death from chronic overdose of magnesium hydroxide, commonly known as the laxative/antacid milk of magnesia, and it was inappropriately listed in the "dietary supplement" reporting category. Nutritional supplements do not contain magnesium hydroxide.

read on...

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The ingredients came from slaughterhouses

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

read on

Da Flu...

Pregnant women, children and everyone should be put on an IV sodium ascorbate while the Doctors ponder a diagnosis.

from the wayback time machine:
in 1949 the worst of the worst cases of polio took 72 hours to cure.

The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, MD states that cases of influenza, encephalitis, and measles were easily cured with vitamin C injections and oral doses.

Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 1999 found that vitamin C in megadoses administered before or after the appearance of cold and flu symptoms relieved and prevented the symptoms in the test population compared with the control group.

Orthomed.com – Dr. Robert Cathcart, MD, also offers personal case studies where intravenous administration of vitamin C turned out to be lifesaving in cases of acute flu complications.

“It is not really a matter of medicine; it is a matter of chemistry. Doses of ascorbate which are massive enough to force a reducing redox potential into tissues affected by the disease will always neutralize the free radicals,” Cathcart says.

Got questions?
get answers at http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/

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Autoimmune Disease explained in 10 minutes

Dr. Trevor Marshall - My presentation at the 4th Asian Congress on Autoimmunity is now online there. This is the first time I have attempted to explain everything in only 10 minutes, yet you will see new elements - like the bug-to-disease mathematics and Borrelia/EBV.

We're Number 37

LOL good beat easy to dance to

New Jewish organ theft gang busted

via Press TV Link.

New reports have surfaced on the arrest of yet another Jewish organ trading gang in the United States involved in the abduction of Algerian children.

Dr. Mustafa Khayatti, the head of the Algerian National Committee for the Development of Health Research, revealed on Sunday that the New York city police have arrested members of a Jewish gang who abducted Algerian children for their organs.

Khayatti said the arrests came after Interpol found that children in western Algeria were abducted and taken to Morocco to have their kidneys harvested.

Their organs were later trafficked to the United States and Israel and sold for $20,000 to $100,000 each.

The group is said to be connected to Israeli rabbi Levi Rosenbaum, who was recently arrested in New Jersey for the direct involvement in importing human organs.

Following Rosenbaum's arrest, US authorities detained some 44 others, including rabbis and mayors in New Jersey, who were prosecuted for money laundering and human organs trade.

Last month, a report published in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, accused Israeli soldiers of kidnapping Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip for their organs, indicating a possible link between the Israeli military and the mafia of human organs detected in the US.

Some Arab countries have called for an international inquiry into the allegations.

FF/AKM

New York Rabbi Arrested As Head of International Organ Trafficking Ring

Israeli MP backs organ theft reports
Committee formed to investigate 'organ harvest'
Family of organ-theft victim wants probe


So they steal children from third world countries, sometimes right in front their parents.
Take them away to a foreign land just to farm their organs for ca$h.What a effing world.



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10 Reasons to Give Up Grains

Link





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Pfizer whistleblower's ordeal reaps big rewards...

inspiring, ain't it?

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Taking on corporate giants can feel like tilting at windmills, but John Kopchinski's six-year legal battle against Pfizer Inc just made him a rich man.

The Gulf War veteran and former Pfizer sales representative will earn more than $51.5 million as a result of his whistleblower lawsuit against the world's biggest drugmaker and the record penalty the company must pay the U.S. government for its massive marketing transgressions.

The unassuming Texas resident celebrated his windfall by having a family portrait photograph taken Wednesday morning.

"We're going to be staying right here in San Antonio in the same house, and my wife tells me when we go to the movies we're still getting one tub of popcorn -- the large tub," Kopchinski said in a telephone interview.

Kopchinski, appalled by Pfizer's tactics in selling the pain drug Bextra, filed a "qui tam" lawsuit in 2003, sparking federal and state probes that led to Wednesday's agreement by the company to pay $2.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties and plead guilty to a felony charge for promoting Bextra and 12 other drugs for unapproved uses and doses.

"In the Army I was expected to protect people at all costs," Kopchinski said in a statement. "At Pfizer I was expected to increase profits at all costs, even when sales meant endangering lives.

"I couldn't do that," added Kopchinski, 45, who was fired by Pfizer in March of 2003, two years before the company pulled Bextra from the market over concerns it raised the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

At the time of his dismissal after raising his concerns with the company, Kopchinski had a baby son and his wife was pregnant with twins. He went from earning about $125,000 a year to living off his retirement fund before landing a job with an insurance company for $40,000 a year.

"It was a lot of stress on the family. I pretty much depleted my entire 401(k)," he said.

"The last six years have been pretty hard, so going forward it's going to be pretty much easier," said Kopchinski, noting that college for his young children "is taken care of."

Erika Kelton, Kopchinski's lead attorney from the firm of Phillips & Cohen LLP, said large rewards are justified because of what whistleblowers must endure, often for many years, after complaints within the company go unheeded.

"Particularly in pharma, it's no secret that it's an industry that can blackball former employees," Kelton said, "so the reward is important both to encourage people to step forward and to recognize that their contributions are huge."

Kopchinski and five other whistleblowers will earn more than $102 million in payments from the U.S. government under the False Claims Act through which individuals can reap rewards for exposing corporate wrongdoing.

"The use of whistleblowers has really opened up the keys to the kingdom in terms of what's going on in these companies," said Dean Zerbe, senior counsel for the National Whistleblower Center and a partner at the law firm of Zerbe, Fingeret, Frank and Jadav in Washington.

"You'd never find out what's happening without this kind of reward structure," Zerbe said.

Kopchinski was hired by former Pfizer CEO Edward Pratt in 1992 after carrying out a correspondence with him while serving as a platoon leader in a military police company on the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border during the Gulf War.

Under a later Pfizer regime, he was selling the epilepsy drug Neurontin when a previous whistleblower suit was filed against the company over similar illegal promotion tactics that led to stiff penalties and a form of corporate probation.

At the time he was told by managers that the Neurontin suit would be in the news and any physicians who asked questions should be told it was just complaints from a disgruntled former employee, Kopchinski said. Ironically, after filing the Bextra suit, "I was the disgruntled former employee," he said.

"What you see here is a company which essentially had a culture of corruption," said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, a U.S. nonprofit organization that helps connect whistleblowers with attorneys on False Claims Act cases. He called the $2.3 billion settlement "a jaw-dropping amount of money."

The size of the whistleblower rewards announced Wednesday are already having an impact.

"I'm seeing it first-hand myself. I've gotten phone calls this morning," said Zerbe, who was approached by an employee of a hospital who claimed that it was overbilling the government, including charging for products it had received for free.

Despite the potential for huge rewards, however, life can be hellish for whistleblowers.

"If this was so easy everyone would be a millionaire," Burns said.

Link

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Pfizer agrees to record 2.3 Billion $ drug dispute settlement

WASHINGTON — Pfizer agreed Wednesday to pay out a record 2.3 billion dollars to settle a high-profile fraud case, pleading guilty to a criminal charge for marketing its painkiller Bextra illegally.

The settlement by the world's biggest drugmaker was trumpeted as a major victory by President Barack Obama's administration in its efforts to cut down fraud as part of a major overhaul of America's health care system.

Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a press conference to announce the settlement, which will end criminal and civil proceedings against Pfizer over the allegations it illegally marketed drugs for off-label purposes.

"This historic settlement will return nearly one billion dollars to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government insurance programs, securing their future for the Americans who depend on these programs," she said in a statement.

The agreement with Pfizer is divided into several parts, the largest of which is a 1.195 billion dollar fine -- the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States for any matter, according to the Justice Department.

The company will also forfeit 105 million dollars and pay an additional one billion dollars "to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs."

The case arose from allegations that Pfizer illegally marketed Bextra, the anti-psychotic drug Geodon, the antibiotic Zyvox, and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug, for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Justice Department had alleged that Pfizer's inappropriate marketing "caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs."

The settlement also ends civil proceedings over "allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to healthcare providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs," the Justice Department said.

Assistant Attorney General Tom Perrelli said the investigation into Pfizer's activities illustrated that combating healthcare fraud "is one of this administration's top law enforcement priorities."

"This case is a great example of the department's commitment to fiscal accountability, combating fraud, and returning much-needed dollars back to the US Treasury and state treasures," he said.

Amy Schulman, senior vice president and general counsel for Pfizer, said the drug company welcomed the settlement, which it had agreed to pay in principle back in January.

"These agreements bring final closure to significant legal matters and help to enhance our focus on what we do best -- discovering, developing and delivering innovative medicines," Schulman said, adding that the company did "regret certain actions taken in the past."

Pfizer shares were down 1.16 percent in midday trading.

The agreement was announced amid continuing efforts by the Obama administration to advance a healthcare reform package that faces stiff opposition.

The administration has countered that a key provision of the reform package is an effort to reduce waste and fraud.

"Illegal conduct and fraud by pharmaceutical companies puts the public health at risk, corrupts medical decisions by health care providers, and costs the government billions of dollars," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division.

"This civil settlement and plea agreement by Pfizer represent yet another example of what penalties will be faced when a pharmaceutical company puts profits ahead of patient welfare."

Got an illness?.. Get Divorced..Quickly

Until Medical Bills Do Us Part

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Critics fret that health care reform would undermine American family values, not least by convening somber death panels to wheel away Grandma as if she were Old Yeller.

But peel away the emotions and fearmongering, and in fact it is the existing system that unnecessarily takes lives and breaks apart families.

My friend M. — you’ll understand in a moment why she’s terrified of my using her name — had to make a searing decision a year ago. She was married to a sweet, gentle man whom she loved, but who had become increasingly absent-minded. Finally, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

The disease is degenerative, and he will become steadily less able to care for himself. At some point, as his medical needs multiply, he will probably need to be institutionalized.

The hospital arranged a conference call with a social worker, who outlined how the dementia and its financial toll on the family would progress, and then added, out of the blue: “Maybe you should divorce.”

“I was blown away,” M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required long-term care, the costs would be catastrophic even for a middle-class family with savings.

Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid — but by then their children’s nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.

A complicating factor was that this was a second marriage. M.’s first husband had died, leaving an inheritance that he had intended for their children. She and her second husband had a prenuptial agreement, but that would not protect her assets from his medical expenses.

The hospital told M. not to waste time in dissolving the marriage. For five years after any divorce, her assets could be seized — precisely because the government knows that people sometimes divorce husbands or wives to escape their medical bills.

“How could I divorce him? I loved him,” she told me.

“I explored a lot of options with an attorney here in town,” she added. “The attorney said, ‘I don’t see any other options for you.’ It took about a year for me to do the divorce, it was so hard.”

So M. divorced the man she loves. I asked him what he thought of this. He can still speak, albeit not always coherently, and he paused a long, long time. All he could manage was: “It’s hard to say.”

Long-term care constitutes a difficult and expensive challenge in any health system. But the American patchwork, full of cracks through which people fall, has a special problem with medical expenses of all kinds bankrupting couples.

A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

M. still helps her husband and, quietly, continues to live with him and care for him. But she worries that the authorities will come after her if they realize that they divorced not because of irreconcilable differences but because of irreconcilable medical bills. There were awkward questions from friends who saw the divorce announcement in the newspaper.

“It’s just crazy,” she said. “It twists people like pretzels.”

The existing system doesn’t just break up families, it also costs lives. A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That’s one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.

In short, it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of “death panels” could — even if they existed, worked 24/7 and got around in a fleet of black helicopters.

So, for those of you inclined to believe the worst about President Obama, think it through. Suppose he is indeed a secret, foreign-born Muslim agent who is scheming to undermine American family values while killing off as many grandmothers as possible.

If all that were true, why on earth would he be trying so hard to reform our health care system? We already know how to prod families into divorce and take a life unnecessarily every 30 minutes — all we need to do is reject reform and stick with exactly what we have.

Link

J&J - Procrit: whistleblower suit revived

Appeals court revives whistle-blower suit alleging J&J paid doctors to sell anemia drug

GOOD!

snip:

"We knew what Ortho Biotech and Johnson & Johnson were doing was wrong and we risked our careers to stand up to say so," said Duxbury, the lead plaintiff. "I am glad to see the appeals court realize we are entitled to whistle-blower protection and hope the Justice Department sees fit to intervene" in the case.

Pro-Quit-living was never tested for safety in cancer patients only in canines, poor puppies.

A 2003 study published in the Lancet showed cancer patients who received "Pro-Quitliving" shots died 339% faster than those who did not receive the shot.



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Arachnoiditis is A Gift That Keeps On Giving

Thanks For The Pain!

Arachnoiditis - The Deep Dark Secret of the Medical System

by Heidi Stevenson

André Gorz, founder of the French magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, the most popular Paris news magazine today, and a brilliant journalist and philosopher, died in a suicide pact with his wife on September 24, 2007. They committed suicide because she could no longer bear the pain her disease, called by the strange name of arachnoiditis, caused and he could not live without her.

On Lawyers and Settlements, Zana G. describes her life with arachnoiditis like this: It has "decimated my personal and professional lives, eradicated my hobbies, killed my love life, laid waste to my ability to travel and vacation with family and friends, made me a prisoner to my house, and my bed, driven my friends and family away."

This strangely-named disease is the deep, dark secret of the medical system. Virtually everyone with this condition would give an equivalent description of his or her life.

Arachnoiditis. It sounds like something to do with spiders, not the name of a disease that produces never-ending pain. But that's what it is—one of the most horrible conditions that can be imagined. It produces paralysis, numbness, weird sensations, loss of bowel and bladder function, memory loss, spasticity. Inability to sleep. Vision loss. The list of symptoms goes on, but let's not forget death—though its sufferers may see it as a release. There is no treatment, at least not from the medical system.

Okay, arachnoiditis is bad—but what exactly is it?

Caused by foreign substances entering, or damage to, the spinal canal, arachnoiditis starts as a massive inflammation of nerve roots and the arachnoid, one of the three meninges (membranes) that surround the central nervous system. This is where the disease's funny name comes from: arachnoid for the name of the membrane initially inflamed and -itis for "inflammation of". The inflammation is chronic. It literally never ends and produces constant burning pain in the spine. This, though, is only a partial description of the damage done.

Scar tissue grows in the cerebrospinal fluid, which then impinges on nerves, even choking them completely. It pushes nerve roots aside and can ultimately fill an entire area of the spinal canal. This causes a multitude of symptoms, which can affect any area of the body. Any organ can be affected. If the nerve root that supplies an organ is damaged, then that organ malfunctions.

This is not all! There is also an autoimmune element to the disease, which can result in an array of problems, including fevers, nausea, vomiting, and rashes. Most arachnoiditis sufferers develop spasticity, often to the point of feeling like their joints are being pulled apart—something like being on the rack. Loss of ability to walk and even the use of hands and arms can result.

Other problems that may result from arachnoiditis include syringomyelia, which is a cyst in the spinal cord, cysts of the arachnoid membrane, and hydrocephalus, which is water on the brain. Bowel and bladder dysfunction are common. Memory is often badly affected. Weird sensations, like a buzzing feeling all over, ants crawling under the skin, or electric-like shocks are common. As you can imagine on reading this, depression is a typical companion.

Anyone with arachnoiditis will tell you, though, that the single most significant issue is pain—ongoing, neverending, unbearable pain.

What causes arachnoiditis?

Who gets this horrible condition with the laughable name? Though it can be the result of disease, such as meningitis, or severe injury to the spine, the vast majority of cases are caused by doctors. Any procedure that invades the spine can cause arachnoiditis. That's right, any procedure. That includes any spinal surgery. Myelograms. Epidurals for any purpose, including childbirth anesthesia or steroid injections for back pain. Spinal taps to diagnose disease. Blood patches to cure spinal headaches, themselves caused by invasive spine procedures.

Epidurals

This is a treatment by doctors that involves injecting substances into the epidural space immediately outside the spine. Officially—meaning according to members of the modern medical system—there is very little risk of arachnoiditis from epidurals.

However, DepoMedrol, a steroid drug manufactured by Pfizer used extensively and routinely for epidural steroid injections, is known to cause arachnoiditis, among other severe problems. It is so well known that Pharmacia, the original manufacturer of DepoMedrol, issued a warning that it should never be used for either epidural or intrathecal (inside the spine) use and named arachnoiditis as a potential outcome. A copy of the letter sent to doctors by Pharmacia can be seen on Depo-Medrol-Did-It-Harm-You.

Nonetheless, DepoMedrol and other equivalent toxic chemicals are routinely used by doctors. Whenever you hear of an epidural for back pain, what's being done is injection of toxic materials.

To add insult to injury for all those people who are put at risk of arachnoiditis from epidural steroid injections, a metastudy reported in the April 2001 issue of The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, shows no benefit from steroid injections for back pain. In other words, doctors routinely give and pressure patients into having epidurals, in spite of the grave risk of a life-shortening, horrifically painful, and debilitating disease.

How many women would agree to having epidural anesthesia during childbirth if they knew that one risk is a disease that can produce pain as severe as that of giving birth every day, all day, for the rest of her life? That is, quite literally, the risk she's taking. Yet, what woman is ever warned?

Dr. Lewis E. Mehl-Madrona and Morgaine Mehl-Madrona state, ". . .these complications are not extremely rare. . . women are not receiving adequate informed consent about what these complications are and their accompanying frequency." Their paper, "The Medical Risks of Epidural Anesthesia" outlines these risks and includes arachnoiditis. Tellingly, they refer to six women who had gotten arachnoiditis from epidurals during childbirth, adding, "3 were permanently confined to a wheelchair three years after their initial evaluation."

Spine surgery

Spine surgery is likely the most common cause of arachnoiditis. More than half a million spine surgeries are done every year, most by neurosurgeons or orthopedic surgeons.

There are no requirements that doctors keep track of the number of surgeries that have gone wrong. Indeed, many that have gone bad are considered successful by the doctors who performed them. As they see it, if what they set out to do was accomplished, then the surgery was successful. What happens to the patient seems to be irrelevant.

Myelograms

Several years ago, this was the most common arachnoiditis cause. The dyes injected into the spine are extremely toxic. Because of this, there has been a change in the dyes. They've been made more dilute. Of course, this means that toxic materials are still being injected into the most delicate and sensitive area of the body, an area where anything from outside can be toxic, even blood. The result is only a reduction of arachnoiditis cases caused by myelograms. How much of a reduction? Who knows? The medical system doesn't do studies on arachnoiditis.

What are the odds?

What are the odds of getting arachnoiditis? That's a very good question. It seems that no one keeps records on it. Doctors avoid diagnosing it, often using clever terms, like Failed Back Surgery Syndrome, which gives the impression that the surgery simply wasn't successful. This often hides the fact that the patient was left with a completely new and incurable condition.

Diagnosis, which can usually be done quite easily via MRI, is often evaded with terms that describe the disease, such as fibrosis or nerve root clumping, but fail to use the term arachnoiditis itself.

There are no statistics on arachnoiditis patients. Those with the disease often feel like they are the medical system's deepest, darkest secret. All too often, they are treated accordingly. A look at some online support groups will quickly show the utter lack of support that many, if not most, of these patients receive, from evasiveness to outright lies about whether they have the condition. They are often not told for years, if at all, that they have the disease.

Then, when patients do get a diagnosis, they are often refused services from doctors. Many tell stories of being refused care simply because of their diagnosis, or as an unstated, but obvious reason for it. Others have tales of self-styled specialists, members of the medical profession who take their money—often thousands of dollars. If they're lucky, these doctors return nothing for the money. If not, then they are sometimes subjected to further invasive procedures. None of these can help and all can make the condition even worse.

Why aren't people informed of this risk when invasive spinal procedures are proposed? The standard response of doctors is that it's so rare there's really no point—but try telling that to its thousands of victims.

The majority of cases today appear to be caused by spine surgeries. According to a report in PubMed, as many as 40% of all back surgeries result in Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. Different reports from the medical system offer numbers ranging from 10% to 40%. How many of these cases are actually arachnoiditis is unknown, but that is only because the medical system does not keep records. They appear to avoid knowing. One brave doctor, Antonio Aldrete, who has dedicated his practice to victims of arachnoiditis, estimates that 15-20% of back surgeries result in Failed Back Surgery Syndrome.

Even if the number is the lowest estimated, it means that well over 50,000 cases of Failed Back Surgery Syndrome are created every year: 10% of more than half a million back surgeries, as reported by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2002.

Here is an example: Eight years ago, 15 people were surgically treated for a condition called Tarlov's cyst. Many gained relief for a time. Now, though, all are worse than they were before the surgery. All have been "diagnosed" with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome, 12 of them officially diagnosed with arachnoiditis, and the other three are permanently confined to wheelchairs.

Is this an extreme case? Who knows? The medical system refuses to do studies or cooperate in any way with finding out the extent of the disease—though doctors continue to say that it's so rare, it's not worth considering. But what are they basing this statement on?

So, why don't doctors tell people who are being offered or, as often happens, pressured into invasive spine procedures that they stand a significant risk of ending up with an incurable, debilitating, and horribly painful new disease? That is a good question—one that this author believes can only be ascribed to the idea that the current medical system is utterly corrupt.

There seems no legitimate answer other than that doctors operate and do other risky back procedures primarily to fatten their wallets, without consideration for the lifelong risks their victims face. Certainly, the concept of informed consent is a joke when it comes to invasive spinal procedures.

How do you protect yourself?

Every person who is told that an invasive spine procedure is needed should first say, "No."
Don't worry. If you live in the United States, it's unlikely you'll have trouble getting the doctor to agree to the procedure later if you decide to take the risk. However, the single most important thing to realize is that the only person who must live with the effects of arachnoiditis is you, the person inside your skin. No one else must suffer with the pain and debility. Remember that, in exchange for a chance of improvement, you are risking spending the rest of your life in even worse pain and debility.

References:

"Life after Depo-Medrol—Sheer Hopeless Hell", March 10, 2006, Lawyers and Settlements

PubMed, January 2007

"Understanding Failed Back Surgery Syndrome", The Nurse Practitioner, September 2003

Dr. Aldrete's website

"Medical Risks of Epidural Anesthesia During Childbirth", by Lewis E. Mehl-Madrona and Morgaine Mehl-Madrona

"AANS Neurosurgical Statistics Report—1999 Procedural Statistics"

Letter to doctors from Pharmacia, Depo-Medrol manufacturer, stating that it is not approved for epidural or intrathecal use

For a good discussion of drugs in labor, with a focus on epidurals, see this article, originally published in Mothering Magazine in 1999

What the Death and Disease Industry Doesn't want you to know

Ian's Voice
Free webinar: The Life of Ian Larsen Gromowski: Our Baby's 47 Days, presented by Deanna Gromowski. Hosted by Medical Voices Vaccine Information Center and Mayer Eisenstein, MD, JD, MPH

warning: Pictures on this site may be difficult to view. This was our son Ian's reality, though, once he received the hepatitis B vaccine. We encourage you to see all of what Ian endured to grasp the depth of pain that characterized most of his life.
http://iansvoice.org/default.aspx

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This is the Cliff Notes Version of Jack's Medical History

BORN: SEPTEMBER 4, 2002 7LBS. 0OZ. 19 ½ INCHES

OVERALL DIAGNOSIS: FOOD PROTEIN INDUCED ENTEROCOLITIS SYNDROME

SEVERE MILK & SOY PROTEIN ALLERGY, ADHESIVES (??), LATEX (??)

NO KNOWN DRUG ALLLERGIES

VAGINAL DELIVERY, 37 WEEKS GESTATION

MOTHER – PRECLAMPSIA, HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE, BED REST JULY - SEPTEMBER

09/04 – 09/08 – N.I.C.U. LOW BODY TEMPERATURE AND JAUNDICE

TREATMENT – UV LIGHTS & INCUBATOR

09/08 – CIRCUMCISED AND DISCHARGED

HOPITALIZATIONS

2002

10/14 – 12/10 – DEHYDRATION/MALNUTRTION, HYPOALBUMINEMIA,

HYPOPROTEINEMIA, PNEUMOTHORAX, FAILURE TO THRIVE, CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE, EDEMA, SEPSIS

TREATMENT: PARENTAL INFUSION, ENTERAL INFUSION, EGD, DOUBLE LUMEN CATHETER, BROVIAC CATHETER, I.V. ANTIBIOTICS –

VANCOMYCIN, GENTAMYCIN, ALBUMIN, IG’S, PLATLETS, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, VANCOMYCIN – ORAL

FEEDING: NEOCATE

P.I.C.U. 3 WEEKS, PEDIATRICS 5 WEEKS

12/12 – 12/23 – GASTROENTERITIS W/DEHYDRATION, CLOSTRIDIUM

DIFFICILE, ROTOVIRUS ENTERITIS, EDEMA

TREATMENT: ENTERAL INFUSION, PARENTAL FEEDING

PEDIATRICS APPROX 2 WEEKS

FEEDING: NEOCATE

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Quotations and Poetry - Health/Medicine

Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.
Ivan Illich (medical historian), on Swiss television, Lugano, 1975.

The medical establishment has become the major threat to health.
Ivan Illich, in Limits to Medicine, 1976

Doctors prescribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of which they know nothing.
Voltaire (1694-1778)


Via: IVU link






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HAARM.org - Fire Care

Fun Stuff!

from HAARM ( Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine)

shades of Billionaires For Bush

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Senate Report Says: Health Insurers Scammed Patients out of Billions

Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released yesterday by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health-care reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.

At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies." The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers )"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health-care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer Cigna.

Potter said he worries "that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."

Insurers make paperwork confusing because "they realize that people will just simply give up and not pursue it" if they think they have been shortchanged, Potter said.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) questioned the government's ability to make matters clearer, saying federal regulation of mortgage disclosures has made the documents that borrowers encounter in real estate transactions "hopelessly complicated."

Potter's successor as spokesman for Cigna said the company strongly disagrees "with the suggestion that, motivated by profits, the insurance industry has deliberately attempted to confuse or unfairly treat covered individuals."

"At CIGNA we are committed to improving the current system," spokesman Chris Curran said by e-mail.

read more

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Medicinal Plant Prohibition...

Very interesting documentary called "The Union"


free to watch at this google video link.






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OU Researchers stop diabetes damage with Vitamin C

By Diane Clay

June 05, 2009 01:33 am

— OKLAHOMA CITY --Researchers at the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center have found a way to stop the damage caused by Type 1 diabetes with the combination of insulin and a common vitamin found in most medicine cabinets.
While neither therapy produced desired results when used alone, the combination of insulin to control blood sugar together with the use of Vitamin C, stopped blood vessel damage caused by the disease in patients with poor glucose control. The findings appear this week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and will be presented at the upcoming American Diabetes Association international conference in New Orleans.

"We had tested this theory on research models, but this is the first time anyone has shown the therapy's effectiveness in people," said Michael Ihnat, Ph.D., principal investigator and a pharmacologist at the OU College of Medicine Department of Cell Biology.

Ihnat said they are now studying the therapy in patients with Type 2 diabetes.
The goal of the work being done by Ihnat and British scientists from the University of Warwick led by Dr. Antonio Ceriello is to find a way to stop the damage to blood vessels that is caused by diabetes. The damage, known as endothelial dysfunction, is associated with most forms of cardiovascular disease such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic heart failure, peripheral artery disease, diabetes and chronic renal failure.

By reducing or stopping the damage, patients with diabetes could avoid some of the painful and fatal consequences of the disease that include heart disease, reduced circulation and amputation, kidney disease and diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness.

Insulin and many other drugs have long been used to control blood sugar, but Ihnat ? in an earlier project with scientists in Italy and Hungary ? found that cells have a "memory" that causes damage to continue even when blood sugar is controlled. By adding antioxidants like Vitamin C, Ihnat found that cell "memory" disappeared and cell function and oxidation stress were normalized.

"We have speculated that this happens with endothelial dysfunction, but we did not know until now if it was effective in humans. We finally were able to test it and proved it to be true," Ihnat said. "For patients with diabetes, this means simply getting their glucose under control is not enough. An antioxidant-based therapy combined with glucose control will give patients more of an advantage and lessen the chance of complications with diabetes."
While researchers do suggest diabetic patients eat foods and take multivitamins rich in antioxidants like Vitamin C, they warn that additional study is needed. The Vitamin C utilized in their study was given at very high doses and administered directly into the blood stream, so it is unlikely someone would get similar results with an over-the-counter vitamin supplement.

The team is now working to determine how antioxidants work at the molecular level to halt the destructive chain reaction set in motion by high blood sugar levels. In addition, they are evaluating several other antioxidants with an ultimate hope that their work will translate into simple, effective and inexpensive treatments for the control of diabetes.

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology -- Metabolism is the world's leading peer-reviewed journal for endocrine clinical research and cutting-edge clinical practice reviews.
Dr. Ihnat's latest work, which is funded by the VA Medical Center, can be found online at http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/jc.2009-0762v1.

It's Not Just For Diabetics! anyone and everyone needs ascorbic acid to neutralize harmful toxins that lead to endothelial dysfunction.

Nice to see Pauling's twice patented theory of heart disease in action.



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The Study Says: Un-Healthy Americans

via NYT:

Over the last 20 years, the share of Americans 40 to 74 who eat five fruits and vegetables a day has dropped to 26 percent from 42 percent, according to the latest analysis of an authoritative national survey on health and nutrition.

“The results are disappointing and disturbing,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Dana E. King, a professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Dr. King added that because fruits and vegetables are markers of a healthy diet, correlated with consumption of fat and fiber, “not eating them is reflective of a decline in diet over all over 18 years.”

Dr. King focused on middle-age adults because they are at greatest risk for heart disease, but was surprised that even those with diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol were no more likely to adhere to healthy habits.




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Immunization in Primates causes Autism

Infant Primates Given Vaccines On U.S. Children's Immunization Schedule Develop Biomedical And Behavioral Symptoms Of Autism

Article Date: 20 May 2008



A primate model for autism using the U.S. children's immunization schedule was unveiled at the International Meeting For Autism Research (IMFAR) this weekend. The research underscores the critical need for studies into vaccine safety and the immune and mitochondrial dysfunction of autistic children. The National Autism Association (NAA) questions why the government hasn't undertaken these vital studies and why researchers have had to depend on private money to perform this critical science that will surely impact the health of millions of children worldwide.

Using infant macaque monkeys, University of Pittsburgh's Dr. Laura Hewitson, Ph.D., described how vaccinated animals, when compared to unvaccinated animals, showed significant neurodevelopmental deficits and "significant associations between specific aberrant social and non-social behaviors, isotope binding, and vaccine exposure."

Researchers also reported, "vaccinated animals exhibited progressively severe chronic active inflammation whereas unexposed animals did not" and found "many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression profiles between vaccinated and unvaccinated animals." Gastrointestinal issues are a common symptom of children with regressive autism.

NAA calls for the NIH to conduct large scale, non-epidemiological studies into the biomedical symptoms surrounding young children and all vaccines, including those containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal and other additives like aluminum.

This request for further research echoes that of Dr. Bernadine Healy, Former NIH Director in a CBS interview earlier this week. "I think public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as 'irrational,' without sufficient studies of causation...without studying the population that got sick," Healy said. "I have not seen major studies that focus on 300 kids who got autistic symptoms within a period of a few weeks of the vaccines."

Recently the government's vaccine court conceded the case of Hannah Poling, admitting that vaccines triggered her regression into autism by exacerbating mitochondrial dysfunction. "The recent Poling case and this new research provide further evidence that the CDC has fallen down on their job to protect children from harm. The biomedical research to date suggests that parental reports of regression following vaccination is not only plausible, but likely in certain individuals," said Scott Bono, NAA Chairman. "To date, the CDC has conducted no safety testing on the possible harmful effects of simultaneously administering multiple vaccines to infants, and has steadfastly refused to state a preference for mercury-free vaccines to be given to children and pregnant women. It's time for HHS and Congress to step in and take vaccine safety away from the CDC."

On June 4th, parents of vaccine-injured children will rally for toxin-free immunizations in Washington, DC. For more information about the "Green Our Vaccines" rally or the new primate study visit weblink:www.nationalautism.org.

National Autism Association
weblink:www.nationalautism.org
weblink:www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/107994.php


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Rape of the Medical Peer Review Process in the USA

Sham Peer Review... Lots to read here

from the Semmelweis Society International


I knew it wasn't just me.Heh.






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another Semmelweis...

click on the pic to view it properly


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Combining Statins and CoQ10

Combining Statins and CoQ10

Fortunately, CoQ10 depletion from statin use can be reversed with CoQ10 oral supplements.¹

CoQ10 supplementation does not appear to affect the cholesterol-lowering efficacy of statins, and may even reverse any CoQ10 depletion that results from statin use. According to cardiologist Peter Langsjoen², combining CoQ10 and statins “not only prevents the depletion of CoQ10 but may enhance the benefits of statin drugs by lessening the oxidation of LDL cholesterol."

It is noteworthy that Merck, a major pharmaceutical company, considers maintaining proper levels of CoQ10 so important for people taking statins that it has taken out two patents for combining CoQ10 and statins in a single capsule.³

Bottom line: Statins are an effective way to lower cholesterol. However, if you are taking statins or considering taking them, talk to your doctor about CoQ10 supplements.

¹ Langsjoen, P. and A., “Coenzyme Q10 in Cardiovascular Disease with Emphasis on Heart Failure and Myocardial Ischaemia, Asian Pacific Heart Journal, 1998;7(3).
² Peter Langsjoen, M.D.,FACC, Clinical Cardiologist, East Texas Medical Center
And Trinity Mother Francis Health System, Tyler, TX.
³ Merck & Co.: US Patent 4929437, issued May 29, 1990, and US Patent 4933165, issued June 12, 19900, both titled “Coenzyme Q10 with HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors.”

Statins

Field Title Author Journal

1 Statins and coenzyme Q10. Ellis CJ, et al. Lancet 2003; 361(9363):1134-5 2 ACC/AHA/NHLBI clinical advisory on the use and safety of statins Pasternak RC, et al. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2002; 40(3):567-72 3 Statins and myopathy. Hargreaves IP, et al. Lancet 2002; 359(9307):711-2 4 Biochemical and clinical consequences of inhibiting CoQ10 biosynthesis by lipid-lowering HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins): a critical overview Bliznakov EG, et al. Adv. Ther. 1998; 15(4):218-28 5 Evidence of plasma CoQ10-lowering effect by HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Ghirlanda G, et al. J. Clin. Pharmacol. 1993; 33(3):226-9

Calling Dr. Cheetum...

Doctor Falsified Study on Injured G.I.’s, Army Says

A former surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is a paid consultant for a medical company, published a study that made false claims and overstated the benefits of the company’s product in treating soldiers severely injured in Iraq, the hospital’s commander said Tuesday.

An investigation by Walter Reed found that the study cited higher numbers of patients and injuries than the hospital could account for, said the commander, Col. Norvell V. Coots.

“It’s like a ghost population that were reported in the article as having been treated that we have no record of ever having existed,” Colonel Coots said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “So this really was all falsified information.”

The former Army surgeon, Dr. Timothy R. Kuklo, reported that a bone-growth product sold by Medtronic Inc. had much higher success in healing the shattered legs of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed than other doctors there had experienced, according to Colonel Coots and a summary of an Army investigation of the matter.

Dr. Kuklo, 48, now an associate professor at the Washington University medical school in St. Louis, did not respond to numerous e-mail messages and telephone calls to his office and home seeking comment over the last two weeks. Walter Reed officials say he did not respond to their inquiries during their investigation.

Army investigators found that Dr. Kuklo forged the signatures of four Walter Reed doctors on the article before submitting it last year to a British medical journal, falsely claiming them as co-authors. He also did not obtain the Army’s required permission to conduct the study.

read more.

Dr. Timothy R. Kuklo's Journal Article (pdf)

Journal Retraction (pdf)

Letters to and From Walter Reed (pdf)

Walter Reed Executive Summary (pdf)

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I'll Hold That Two Trillion for ya....

Obama has meeting today to discuss health care

WASHINGTON – Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors are planning to tell President Barack Obama today that they'll voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years in a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.

When President Bill Clinton took on health care reform, industry leaders fought back, killing the White House proposal before it could gain any traction. Now those industry leaders are trying to help Obama find a solution to the problem of uninsured Americans, offering $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years.

read more.

UPDATE...

3 days later they retracted the offer.

I'm shocked, shocked to learn there's gambling going on here!



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In the wake of the first alleged swine flu "death"...

With much fanfare the media have announced the first death in the U.S. alleged to be caused by swine flu. The victim is a 2-year old Mexican toddler who had traveled with his parents to Brownsville, TX.
Of course, to the parents this is an unspeakable tragedy. To us it means that the World Health Operators mean business (to be taken literally). The little boy was taken to a hospital in Houston, where he was treated by doctors with one-track minds. He died in spite of this treatment... Or was it because of this treatment? What exactly did they do to this unfortunate little tyke? Give him toxic "antiviral" medication?

Health Sense Blogger remembers Japans' Smon debacle...

as does

Health Toronto...

The disease, called SMON, was blamed for over ten years on various viruses, until it was discovered that the drug used to fight the disease - Clioquinol (marketed by Ciba-Geigy under the name Entero-Vioform) - was actually its cause. By the time the government finally banned the drug in 1970, 11,000 people had been afflicted by SMON in Japan. Iatrogenic disease due to pharmaceutical drugs may be a far greater problem than we realize. One indication is the fact that 100,000 Americans die each year from adverse reactions to prescription drugs -- the USA's fourth-leading cause of death -- and that is just among hospital patients (JAMA 1998; 279: 1200-05). Estimates suggest that pharmaceuticals are responsible for 199,000 additional deaths among out patients (BMJ 2000;320:774-777).

SMON--a model of the iatrogenic disease

Takasu T. The subacute myelo-optico-neuropathy (SMON) was hazard caused by clioquinol, an antiseptic, prescribed for the treatment of diarrhea and other bowel symptoms. Its overdosing and long-term taking led to the occurrence of SMON, for which physicians should be responsible. Clioquinol, originally a disinfectant powder for external use, was diverted later to a drug for internal use to sterilize the bowel where no intestinal absorption or action after absorption was expected. An annotation on the 6th Revision of the Japan Pharmacopoeia (1954) allowed irregular increase in its dosage depending on the severity of illness. An annotation on the 7th Revision (1961) ignoring the 6 papers published in the 1930's, 1940's or 1950's claimed that its metabolism was poorly known, yet neglected significant side effect and substantial absorption from the intestine. Its characterization as a superficial disinfectant helped the annotators be less interested in its absorption and its internal actions and side effects. Attention paid by clinicians to a polyneuropathy-like syndrome that complicated an uncontrollable hemorrhagic diarrhea (1958) and an encephalomyelitis or a paralysis of the lower half of the body associated with diarrhea or other bowel symptoms (1960, 1961) started the recognition of a new disease. During the dispute induced by the mass occurrence of the disease in several instances postmortem examination with neuropathologic expertise, especially of T. Tsubaki, Y. Toyokura and H. Tsukagoshi (1964), characterized SMON as a non-inflammatory new disease of the spinal cord, optic nerve and peripheral nerve with a pseudo-systemic degeneration of posterior and lateral columns and, therefore played a decisive role in establishing the truth of SMON. The discovery of the green hairy tongue (the tongue coated with green hairs) of SMON by T. Takasu, A. Igata and Y. Toyokura (January 1970) aroused researchers' interest in the green color of SMON and thereby began solving the cause of SMON. The discovery of the green urine in SMON patients by A. Igata, M. Hasebe and T. Tsuji (May 1970) especially facilitated the identification of the green substance in SMON that was achieved by M. Yoshioka and Z. Tamura (June 1970). The green color was derived from a chelate compound of clioquinol with ferric iron. The early epidemiological analysis related clioquinol taking to the occurrence of SMON well enough for the Japanese Government to take an administrative measure for the temporary suspension of selling clioquinol containing drugs and the postponing of their use (September 1970). Extensive and intensive multidisciplinary investigations conducted for the subsequent 20 months led to the conclusion by the SMON Investigation and Research Committee (Head: R. Kono) that the neurological disorders of patients who were diagnosed as SMON for the most part were caused by taking clioquinol (March 1972). Close clinical observation of patients opened a way to recognize a new disease and elucidate its cause. Expert specialized technical knowledge and skills established the firm knowledge of the new disease. The study of SMON began as a personal research and after its achievement was exposed to the public a great many investigators in different fields concerted efforts to solve problems. Both steps were indispensable for completing the study.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15152488




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McDonald's aims for a low-pesticide potato for its french fries

from The Daily Green News blog

McDonald's, the largest fast-food chain in the world and the largest buyer of potatoes in the United States, is under pressure from shareholders to do something about pesticide use on the potatoes it buys.

To avoid a shareholder resolution on the subject, McDonald's has agreed to a survey that will determine its potato producers' pesticide practices and recommend those best practices to its global suppliers. It's too early to say whether there would be any impact on price. There wouldn't be any change in taste; a potato is a potato.

Potatoes have been on or near the list of the Environmental Working Group's dirty dozen foods with the most pesticide residue for years. That means, according to a government analysis, that after a typical person buys a typical potato and prepares it in a typical way, it's among the fruits and vegetables most likely to be laced with pesticides. (The government regulates pesticide residue, so any chemical left on food is deemed to pose no health risk; that said, pesticides are designed to kill something -- a bug, worm, fungus, or weed -- and most people don't like the idea of taking each meal with a little drop of poison.)

read more.

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The Many Benefits of (H2O2) Hydrogen Peroxide Therapy

Original title: Hydrogen Peroxide - Curse or Cure? - By Dr. David G. Williams

When it comes to hydrogen peroxide therapy there seems to be only two points of view. Supporters consider it one of the greatest healing miracles of all time. Those opposed feel its ingestion is exceptionally dangerous, and only the foolhardy could think of engaging in such behavior. Before either condemning or endorsing hydrogen peroxide, let's take a real close look at what we're dealing with.

If any substance is interesting, it's hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide should really be called hydrogen dioxide. Its chemical formula is H2O2. It contains one more atom of oxygen that does water (H20). By now everyone's aware of the ozone layer that surrounds the earth. Ozone consists of three atoms of oxygen (03). This protective layer of ozone is created when ultraviolet light from the sun splits an atmospheric oxygen molecule (02) into two single, unstable oxygen atoms. These single molecules combine with others to form ozone (03). Ozone isn't very stable. In fact, it will quickly give up that extra atom of oxygen to falling rainwater to form hydrogen peroxide (H202). (Bear with me: all this chemistry mumbo jumbo I'm going through actually will help you understand the importance of hydrogen peroxide.)

Helps Plants
It is this hydrogen peroxide in rainwater that makes it so much more effective than tap water when given to plants. With the increased levels of atmospheric pollution, however, greater amounts of H202 react with air-borne toxins and never reach the ground. To compensate for this, many farmers have been increasing crop yields by spraying them with diluted hydrogen peroxide (5 to 16 ounces of 35% mixed with 20 gallons of water per acre). You can achieve the same beneficial effect with your house plants by adding 1 ounce of 3% hydrogen peroxide (or 16 drops of 35% solution) to every quart of water you give your plants. (It can also be made into an excellent safe insecticide. Simply spray your plants with 8 ounces of 3% peroxide mixed with 8 ounces of white sugar and one gallon of water.)

read on...




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Studies find mercury in much U.S. corn syrup

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many common foods made using commercial high fructose corn syrup contain mercury as well, researchers reported on Tuesday, while another study suggested the corn syrup itself is contaminated.

Food processors and the corn syrup industry group attacked the findings as flawed and outdated, but the researchers said it was important for people to know about any potential sources of the toxic metal in their food.

In one study, published in the journal Environmental Health, former Food and Drug Administration scientist Renee Dufault and colleagues tested 20 samples of high fructose corn syrup and found detectable mercury in nine of the 20 samples.

Dufault said in a statement that she told the FDA about her findings but the agency did not follow up.

Dr. David Wallinga, a food safety researcher and activist at the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said he followed up on the report to find mercury in actual food.

"When I learned of that work, I said that is interesting but we don't just go out and eat a spoonful of high fructose corn syrup," Wallinga said in a telephone interview.

"We went and looked at supermarket samples where high fructose corn syrup was the first or second ingredient on the label," he said. These 55 different foods included barbecue sauce, jam, yogurt and chocolate syrup.

"We found about one out of three had mercury above the detection limit," Wallinga said.

The Corn Refiners Association challenged the findings.

"This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance," the group said in a statement.

Wallinga and colleagues said they believed the mercury got into the food during manufacture, at plants that use mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine plants, although his team was unable to show this.

"Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two reagents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years," Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, said in a statement.

Wallinga said the studies were based on samples taken in 2005, the most recent available.

Many studies have shown that fish can be high in mercury. Wallinga said consumers should know about other potential sources so they can limit how much they eat. "The best mercury exposure is no exposure at all," he said.

"Even at low levels methylmercury can harm the developing brain. The last thing we should intentionally do is add to it," Wallinga added.

He said his team did not test foods that did not contain corn syrup to see if they were also high in mercury.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html




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Doctors Without Morals

Red Cross says Doctors helped CIA "torture"

MIAMI (Reuters) - Health workers violated medical ethics when they helped interrogate terrorism suspects who were tortured at secret CIA prisons overseas, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The medical workers, thought to be doctors and psychologists, monitored prisoners while they were mistreated at CIA prisons and advised interrogators whether to continue, adjust or halt the abuse, the ICRC said in a report based on interviews with 14 prisoners in 2007.

One prisoner alleged that medical personnel monitored his blood oxygen levels while he was subjected to waterboarding, a simulated drowning designed to induce panic and widely considered to be torture, the ICRC said.

Other prisoners said that as they stood shackled with their arms chained above their heads, a doctor regularly measured the swelling in their legs and signaled when they should be allowed to sit down.

The ICRC interviewed 14 men who had been held in secret CIA prisons overseas before being sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006.

The 14 are considered by the United States to be "high-value" al Qaeda suspects who plotted or carried out mass murders, including the September 11 attacks and the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings. They had been held by the CIA, most for more than three years, in extreme isolation and had not been allowed contact with each other when the ICRC interviewed them at Guantanamo in November 2007.

The ICRC said their claims had credence because they gave similar accounts of their treatment, including the actions of medical monitors whose names they never learned.

The ICRC monitors compliance with the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war captives and keeps its reports secret, sharing them only with the detaining government.

The report, written in 2007, was posted on the New York Review of Books website on Monday night by journalist Mark Danner, who has not said publicly how he obtained it.

"VIOLATED ETHICAL DUTY"

He first published excerpts last month, including a portion in which the ICRC concluded the al Qaeda captives' treatment in the CIA prisons "constituted torture" and violated international law.

read more if you have the stomach for it...

The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means





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State Funded Detox for Utah Police Meth exposure

More state funds quietly budgeted to help cops sweat to health

The Utah Legislature continued funding a Scientology-based treatment for police officers exposed to methamphetamine, despite a state-funded study that was unable to find a connection between the drug and officers' illnesses.

As lawmakers were slashing funds for other state programs, they sidestepped public debate and appropriated $100,000 -- enough cash for about 20 police officers to undergo the regimen of exercise, sauna time and large doses of antioxidants.

The funding was added by Senate Republicans in the waning days of the session, with the backing of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

"It didn't come directly through the committee," said Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, co-chair of a committee that would have reviewed the appropriation. "It was just arranged, I guess, through leadership."

Meanwhile, Shurtleff said plans are underway for two "Hollywood stars" to hold fundraisers to treat more Utah cops. He declined to identify the pair.

The detoxification treatment was first devised in 1977 by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. Some of the best-known Scientologists include actors John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Jenna Elfman. Actor Tom Cruise, also a Scientologist, raised money for New York City firefighters to undergo detoxification after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Purging poisons? The public and private money is the latest effort to help officers who believe investigating and dismantling meth laboratories damaged their health.

Thirty-nine current or former Utah peace officers have undergone the treatment, which currently costs about $5,200 per person, said Sandra Lucas, director of the American Detoxification Foundation. It runs the Orem clinic that has contracted with the state to treat the officers.

Five more officers are about to begin treatment thanks to private donations, and Lucas says she has a waiting list of about 80 officers.

Lucas also keeps another list -- the names of 10 Utah drug officers who have died of cancer at an early age or suffered a sudden fatal illness.

During treatment, officers rest in a sauna for hours, exercise and eat a diet high in anti-oxidants and other nutrients that boost the excretory system. The regimen, which aims to purge poisons, consumes up to six hours a day for 36 consecutive days.

read more...

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BAYER AG CORP. (Aspirin) SPREADS HIV WORLDWIDE

Don't buy Bayer Aspirin, Please!

Was Frontline Documentary Edited to Reflect Health Insurance Industry Interests?

By Susie Madrak via C&L:

There was never any doubt in my mind that once PBS was moved by the Republicans to corporate sponsorship instead of full public funding, their content would inevitably grow to reflect the viewpoints of the people who wrote the checks.

It seems that insurance company investments are paying off in the healthcare debate. While this Frontline piece does address corporate abuses of their clients, the journalist who worked on it says it was altered to reflect insurance company interests, according to Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter:

Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled "Sick Around the World."

Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all – UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan – to learn about how they do it.

Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common – none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.

Frontline then said to Reid – okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled "Sick Around America."

So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.

The documentary that resulted – "Sick Around America" – aired Monday night on PBS.

But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.

And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform – don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.

They can sell for-profit insurance for extras – breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.

But not for the basic health needs of the American people.

Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.

And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary – Sick Around the World.

During that segment, about halfway through Sick Around America, the moderator introduces Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead health insurance lobby in the United States.

Moderator: Other developed countries guarantee coverage for everyone. We asked Karen Ignagni why it can't work here.

Karen Ignagni: Well, it would work if we did what other countries do, which is have a mandate that everybody participate. And if everybody is in, it's quite reasonable to ask our industry to do guarantee issue, to get everybody in. So, the answer to your question is we can, and the public here will have to agree to do what the public in other countries have done, which is a consensus that everybody should be in.

Moderator: That's what other developed countries do. They make insurers cover everyone, and they make all citizens buy insurance. And the poor are subsidized.

But the hard reality, as presented by Reid in Sick Around the World, is quite different than Ignagni and the moderator claim.

Other countries do not require citizens buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies – the kind that Karen Ignagni represents.

In some countries like Germany and Japan, citizens are required to buy health insurance, but from non-profit, heavily regulated insurance companies.

And other countries, like the UK and Canada, don't require citizens to buy insurance. Instead, citizens are covered as a birthright – by a single government payer in Canada, or by a national health system in the UK.

The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view – they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game.

TR Reid wants them out.

“We spent months shooting that film,” Reid explains. “I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it.”

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

Why Not?

NPR does the same Corporate Pimp Medical News..would someone please tell me where is this "Librul Media" I hear so much about?



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