Monsanto, Depakote and the North American Union - NewsGrabs 6 May 2007

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's News Grabs are a weekly selection of links to stories, alternative health news and related bits of information. Keep your finger on the pulse of health news - watch out for the NewsGrabs ... every weekend.

In this issue:

S 1082 FDA Reform Bill - Vitamin D and cancer prevention - Selenium combats HIV - Supplements could save $24b - Monsanto's Soybean Monopoly - Consumer Products Safety Commission - Doctors' Financial Relationships With Pharma - Mentally ill die earlier - 24% of Children of Mothers on Depakote Mentally Retarded - Health effects of mobiles - HIV, HPV, AIDS, & cervical cancer - Stop AIDS with glutathione, selenium - Greg Palast on New Orleans - Video: North American Union

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S1082 Update – Tuesday’s Activity. Fight Erupts on Senate floor
As the Senate continues to debate the Big Pharma-friendly sweeping reform of the FDA a new problem for Big Pharma’s prize Senators has erupted and quickly turned into confrontation on the floor of the Senate. At stake is at least 10 billion dollars per year in exorbitant Big Pharma profits. In one corner is Big Pharma-puppet Orrin Hatch (R-UT), representing the Kennedy/Enzi drug cartel. In the other corner is a majority of Senators lead by Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

S1082 - THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IS BEING HEARD
Bill S1082 is a bill that helps fund the FDA with Big Pharma money. It is known all over Capital Hill as Big Pharma-designed legislation. It is running into all sorts of credibility problems. A vote is likely on Monday – delayed due to all the opposition flooding the Senate by “we the people.”

Missing the ball - Proposed Legislation to reform the FDA
We have given much thought to the proposed legislation S1082 by Senators Edward Kennedy and Michael Enzi --and we reject it because it not only continues to make the FDA dependent on drug industry cash. FDA's dependency will be even more pronounced. The bill was formulated together with FDA's current dysfunctional management and legal team. Under this bill FDA fees for service will increase to $380 million in 2008, well over 50% of the FDA budget for new drug approvals. The pressing concern for Americans is the safety of drugs. Yet, the FDA lacks an agreed upon safety standard for evaluating drugs-both prior to and post-marketing.

Vitamin D casts cancer prevention in new light
A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

Selenium pills 'may combat HIV'
The University of Miami found a lower HIV viral load in patients who took selenium supplements for nine months. Selenium deficiencies have been recorded in HIV patients, and evidence suggests the mineral can improve the function of the immune system.

Supplements could save $24b in healthcare costs
A recently released study supports what the dietary supplement industry has been saying: the industry could save the nation billions of dollars in healthcare expenditure. The study was commissioned by the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance (DSEA) and outlined how over the next five years, a strategic use of certain dietary supplements could improve the health of Americans and save over $24b in healthcare.

Monsanto's Soybean Monopoly Challenged in Munich
At an appeal hearing at the European Patent Office in Munich, civil society organizations will argue that Monsanto's patent (European Patent No. 301-749) on all genetically engineered soybeans - unprecedented in its broad scope - must be revoked. "No patent symbolizes the brokenness of the patent system better than Monsanto's species-wide patent on genetically engineered soybeans," said Hope Shand of ETC Group. "Monsanto's patent is both technically flawed and morally unacceptable," said Shand.

European Patent Office Revokes Monsanto´s Species Patent On GE Soy Beans
"This is an important step against patents on seeds, because it shows that civil society will keep on fighting and can finally succeed even against powerful multinationals." It is about time that this perversion of the patent law and others such as the extension of patent times from 20 years to 70+ years, started in the US who purports to be the defender of democracy, is finally being put in its place...

Corporate Lobbyist to head US Consumer Products Safety Commission
President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody - one of Corporate America's leading anti-consumer henchmen - to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) - our top government agency protecting millions of Americans from injury and death from unsafe products. For the past 13 years, Michael Baroody has served as Executive Vice President at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) - a K Street lobbying behemoth devoted to helping big manufacturers evade accountability for their wrongdoing.

I am linking this story to show that when we talk about official representatives for "consumer matters" we are only talking about a part of the corporate-led bueraucracy. Unfortunately, the term "consumer" has been hijacked to create the apparency of representation, where there is really none. This is true also for Europe as shown in this earlier post.

Most Doctors Have Financial Relationships With Pharma
Industry Influence on Physicians
"Almost every doctor in the country has some type of relationship with pharmaceutical manufacturers, whose clear goal is to influence physicians to prescribe the company's newest, most expensive drugs. The companies offer physicians everything from scratch pads to trips worth thousands of dollars to attend medical conferences."

Marinading lawschools in pharma money
"For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has marinated the medical profession in millions of dollars of free samples, lunches, trips, and fees.The goal - influence, power, profits. Now, the industry has another target - the legal profession. notes that Seaton Hall has been showered with a $9.1 million."

Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average
Adults with serious mental illness treated in public systems die about 25 years earlier than Americans overall, a gap that's widened since the early '90s when major mental disorders cut life spans by 10 to 15 years, according to a report due Monday. "We're going in the wrong direction and have to change course," says Joseph Parks, director of psychiatric services for the Missouri Department of Mental Health. He thinks [these] drugs are contributing to deaths from cardiovascular disease.

24% of Children of Mothers Prescribed anticonvulsant--Depakote-are Mentally Retarded
24 percent of the children of mothers who took valproate (Depakote) during pregnancy showed an IQ in the mental retardation range. That alarming finding was presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 - May 5, 2007.

Germans worried about the health effects of mobiles
This national angst has been fuelled by frightening new findings by the renowned Max Planck Institute revealing that mobile phone emissions do appear in fact to have a deleterious effect, at least on synthetic cell membranes. Researchers say that longterm exposure to low-level phone emissions at very close range resulted in an elevation of membrane temperature to the boiling point of water.

The woman who needs a veil of protection from modern life
"Wi-Fi, or wireless broadband networks, seem to be the worst thing," she says. "Closely followed by mobile phones - particularly if they're being used in a