Death by Avandia, Placebo as a Cure - NewsGrabs 13 January 2008

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and related sectors. Find what you may have missed - watch out for NewsGrabs.

Here is this week's selection:

France best, US worst in preventable death ranking
France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday. If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

Canadian Universal Health Care Better and Cheaper than U.S., Says Research
Canada's health care system offers "excellent value for the money" says a British researcher who has studied preventable deaths in 19 industrialized nations. The study looks at "amenable mortality" -- deaths that would not have occurred if effective health care had been available.

Are Google Results Hazardous To Your Health?
The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) is a medical industry thinktank, fronted by former Bush Administration FDA officials. CMPI released a study this week outlining the perils of relying on Google for prescription medication information. “What we found was not only disturbing, but dangerous to public health,” said CMPI vice president Robert Goldberg.

Dangerous for health, or dangerous for the pharma's business, that is the question. What about all those Viagra and assorted drug sellers on the internet who send us spam and offer great discounts? They don't seem to be on the CMPI radar at all. But then ...

"CMPI is partially funded by the pharmaceutical industry, the Lilly Endowment (connected to Eli Lilly) being one of the largest contributors. Patients shying away from pharmaceuticals is bad for business."

Reminiscence on the passing of Senate President Ben Altamirano
The sponsor of a New Mexico bill to institute a nutrition council and ProTem President of the NM Senate has recently passed away. The bill, if passed, would have allowed to get aspartame, the controversial artificial sweetener, off the market in New Mexico. The article is by Stephen Fox, author of the bill.

Low vitamin D heart health risk
Having too little vitamin D has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, a US study has found. Vitamin D is mainly obtained from exposure to the sun, as well as from certain foods such as oily fish and eggs. A lack of the nutrient, already known to cause weakened bones, has also been linked to multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Cranberries really are a miracle cure for women
The remarkable healing property in cranberries stems from a heavy molecule known as non-dialyzable material or NDM. This molecule, isolated by Prof. Ofek and his colleagues, seems to coat some bodily surfaces with Teflon-like efficiency, preventing infection-causing agents from taking root. Surprisingly, NDM appears to have no effect on some of the good bacteria in our bodies, says Prof. Ofek.

Surprise -- cholesterol may actually pose benefits, study shows
“We were not expecting to get these kind of results,” Riechman explains. “We need further research in this area, but what we found could really make us look differently at cholesterol, especially as it relates to a vigorous workout.”

... the researchers found that there was a significant association of dietary cholesterol and change in strength. In general, those with higher cholesterol intake also had the highest muscle strength gain. Cholesterol circulating in the blood also appeared to have contributed to greater muscle gain in the participants, Riechman said. “Needless to say, these findings caught us totally off guard,” he explains.

My comment:This is opening a can of worms but it should not be any surprise at all. Cholesterol is a vital substance for our metabolism, not only for muscle strength. To lower cholesterol or block its manufacture in the liver, as statin drugs do, is pure idiocy. Higher cholesterol levels have been associated with less heart related deaths. Statins tend to dissolve muscle tissue. The heart is a muscle. Go figure.

Brain aging expert challenges the existence of Alzheimer's as a 'disease'
In his provocative and ground-breaking new book, Dr. Whitehouse questions current approaches to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis and treatment and brings a new understanding to everything we thought we knew about brain aging. Dr. Whitehouse and co-author Daniel George, M. Sc., published “The Myth of Alzheimer’s” to expose what they believe to be the unsound clinical, political, and scientific framework of AD and explain why it continues to be so difficult to address a condition concerning so many people as they age.

“AD cannot be biologically or clinically differentiated from normal aging. There is no one profile of AD that is consistent from person to person,” says Dr. Whitehouse. “Alzheimer’s is a heterogeneous process because it reflects the different way people’s brains age over their lifetimes.”

Nalgene Bottles Pulled From Shelves
Worries about the hormone-mimicking chemical bisphenol A (BPA) used in Nalgene plastic water containers have led a major Canadian retailer to remove Nalgene, along with other polycarbonate plastic containers, from store shelves in early December.

CODEX ALIMENTARIUS: THE CONTROL AND DENIAL OF SCIENCE
Paul Anthony Taylor attended the meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses in November 2007 as a delegate of the National Health Federation, the only consumer-orientated pro-natural health organization in the world to have official observer status at Codex meetings. Paul's eye-witness report describes how Codex continues to deny the health benefits of vitamins, micronutrients and nutrition in the battle against today's most common diseases and explains how its key beneficiaries are the large multinational food, biotech and pharmaceutical corporations.

FDA Sued by Citizens
The New Year brings a surprise for the FDA – a lawsuit filed by Public Citizen seeking to force the FDA to do its pretended job of protecting American citizens from the dangers of drugs. Of course, the real FDA job, as prioritized by top FDA management, is to protect the sales of Big Pharma and create new market opportunities for Big Pharma and Big Biotech while using Americans for experimental purposes. The suit revolves around the dangers of toxic fluoride-containing antibiotics. The two brand names involved are Johnson & Johnson’s Levaquin and Bayer’s Cipro.

Nigeria Seeks Arrests In Pfizer Trovan Case
A federal High Court in Abuja yesterday issued a warrant of arrest for eight former directors of a pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer Specialties Ltd, AllAfrica.com reports.

Both the federal and Kano State governments had instituted criminal charges against Pfizer over its alleged role in the deaths of the children who received the drug during a meningitis epidemic in 1996. They are claiming $700 million in damages and restitution from Pfizer. The government alleges Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from crowds in Kano and gave about half of the group an untested anti-biotic, Trovan, without any approval from any authority.

Hot Flash: FDA Warns About BHRT Drugs
The agency sent warning letters to seven compounding pharmacies operations that their claims about the safety and effectiveness of their allegedly bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, or BHRT products, are unsupported by medical evidence, and are considered false and misleading. The move comes, partly, in response to a citizen’s petition filed by Wyeth, which wants to stop compounding pharmacies from making bioidentical versions of Prempro.

FDA Cracks Down on Custom-Made Hormones
"We want to assure that Americans receive accurate information about the risks and benefits of drug therapies," the FDA's chief medical officer, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said in a statement. The agency said it is concerned that the claims for safety and effectiveness mislead patients, doctors and other health care professionals.

Wyeth complained to the FDA some time ago against these unregistered hormone preparations which, apparently, are cutting deeply into the sales of their hormone products. Who did we say the FDA was supposed to be working for? Oh yes, it's all about consumer safety, I forgot!

Big Pharma And Its Presidential Bets
These are the figures as compiled by OpenSecrets. Hillary Clinton received $269,436 from the pharma/healthcare sector, while Barak Obama garnered $261,784. Right behind was Mitt Romney, with $260,535 (please click on the chart to make it bigger). One caveat: this is as of Oct. 29.