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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