Vitamin D, Drug Trials and Monsanto's Terminator - NewsGrabs 10 June 2007

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's News Grabs are a weekly selection of links to articles, alternative health news and related bits of information. Follow health trends with me - watch out for NewsGrabs ... every weekend.

In this issue:

Vitamin D prevents Cancer - China corners vitamin market - Audio: Byron Richards interview - FDA Improvement Act - EU-U.S. Summit - Threats To Natural Health? - Michael Moore Applauds French Medical Model - Funding Greatly Influences Drug Trial Outcomes - Unscrupulous Doctors Earn Big Bucks from Drug Trials - FDA Requests Avandia Warnings - China halts production of IBS Drug - Nigeria sues Pfizer - New Meningitis Vaccine for Africa - When Doctors Strike, Fewer People Die - Managing Statin Damage - Video: The Fluoride Deception - Hijacking Africa's Food Supply - Monsanto to acquire Terminator company - Growth Hormone in Beef Impacts Male Sexual Development - Percy Schmeiser says Go Organic - Wi-Fi Negative Health Effects - Making mobile phones safe? - Solar-powered water heater from beer bottles - Australian scientist says warming overplayed

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Sweeping cancer edict: take vitamin D daily
The cause of the cancer epidemic sweeping the world has long eluded researchers, but the U.S. study being released today found that the 60-per-cent risk reduction is the strongest evidence to date that many cases of the disease are linked to a vitamin deficiency. Over the past few decades, vitamin D levels in the public have likely fallen because of lifestyle changes, such as the use of sunscreen in summer and people spending more time indoors. "It's an important component of cancer prevention," said Joan Lappe, lead author of the study and professor of medicine and nursing at Creighton University in Omaha, who added that there is "overwhelming evidence supporting the need for higher vitamin D intakes in populations throughout the world."

China corners vitamin market
In less than a decade, China has captured 90 percent of the U.S. market for vitamin C, driving almost everyone else out of business. Chinese pharmaceutical companies also have taken over much of the world market in the production of antibiotics, analgesics, enzymes and primary amino acids.

Audio: "Health Law & Politics" - Jonathan Emord interviews Byron Richards
Jonathan Emord, leading health freedom attorney, who has defeated the FDA in court more than any other attorney interviews Byron J. Richards, Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist, author, and health freedom, discuss the threat to dietary supplements posed by S.1082 and the upcoming house legislation HR.1561.

Drug Administration Improvement Act would end close drug industry ties to FDA
“Currently, the FDA has a very cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry that is impeding the agency's ability to be free and independent of outside influences when deciding the safety of individual drugs” claims Hinchey. “The FDA Improvement Act helps to create an arms-length relationship between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that the health and safety of the American people is the first and foremost concern of the FDA."

EU-U.S. Summit Signals New Threats To Natural Health Therapies
Because the European Food Supplements Directive was used as the blueprint for what is now effectively the global standard for dietary supplement regulations – the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements – European regulations are, by definition, already compliant with that standard. As such, it is clear that in order to achieve the goal of transatlantic harmonization, American dietary supplement legislation will have to be harmonized to the restrictive European model, as opposed to the other way around.

Given this reality, one should perhaps not be surprised to discover that regulatory cooperation between the FDA and DG SANCO (the European Commission’s Health and Consumer Protection Directorate) is already well advanced.

The ultimate aim behind the recent increase in domestically-based attacks on supplements in the U.S. can be seen as being to prepare the ground for the eventual dismantling of DSHEA and the harmonization of the U.S. dietary supplement market to the more restrictive legislative regimes that exist in Europe and - via the planned North American Union – Canada and Mexico.

As such, although neither the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements – the global standard – or the Food Supplements Directive – the European standard – have as yet set any maximum permitted doses for nutrients contained in supplements, it would seem reasonable to conclude that whatever levels are announced later this year by the European Commission could - as a result of both European political power at Codex meetings and the trans-Atlantic regulatory cooperation outlined above - eventually be exported to, and implemented in, the United States.

Michael Moore Applauds French Medical Hegemony
Moore's film is clearly praise for the drug industry, masquerading as criticism. It is the total annihilation of true alternative medicine that he is supporting with his campaign to promote universal healthcare. The real face of universal healthcare in France is far less about helping poor people gain access to 'life-saving medical treatment', and far more about forcing mandatory toxic treatments upon all people and preventing them from using natural means and true disease prevention to look after their own health.

France does have a grave problem with prohibition of the natural healing practices and persecution of healers and practitioners. Moore's citing the French system as something the US should emulate evidently does not go down well with the French alt.med community.

Drug Company Funding Of Drug Trials Greatly Influences Outcome
UCSF researchers examined 192 published results of trials comparing one cholesterol-lowering statin drug to another, or to a non-statin drug. Their findings found that two links stood out. If the reported results favored the test drug, the trial was about 20 times more likely to be funded by the maker of the statin rather than the comparison drug company. Even more striking, they say, if the conclusions or interpretation of the drug trial -- which reflect the impressions of the trial investigators -- favored the test drug, the trial was about 35 times more likely to be funded by the maker of that drug rather than the comparison drug.

So much for the scientific "gold standard" of double blind clinical trials to find out what works and what doesn't. No wonder the natural substances, if they ever get included in a clinical trial, rarely come out as effective.

Drug Trials Conducted by Unscrupulous Doctors Who Earn Big Bucks
The Minnesota documents show that PhRMA’s guidelines for clinical trials are largely violated in industry sponsored trials—trials that fall within the oversight authority of the FDA. Indeed, the tainted data from these adulterated trials conducted by unscrupulous psychiatrists who had been disciplined by the state board of medical practice were the basis for FDA approval of dangerously toxic drugs whose life-threatening hazards for consumers, and the absence of documented evidence of a medical /psychotherapeutic benefit, have been subsumed by deceptive marketing. The hazardous drugs approved under these dubious circumstances include many of the most profitable drugs in ps