Canadians Defeat Government Natural Health Proposal - NewsGrabs 20 July 2008

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Natural Health Advocates Defeat Canadian Government Power-Grab
In a surprising victory for natural health proponents, Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement has agreed to the key demands of a grassroots campaign against restrictions on homeopathic medicines and herbal remedies in new legislation.

In the proposed new law's original language, natural medicines were lumped in with pharmaceutical drugs, raising concerns they would be subject to the same type of oversight. Some believed it could mean that a product as common as vitamin C would be unavailable without a prescription.

The government has now proposed to insert a definition of natural health products into the Food and Drugs Act to "clearly recognize" that they are distinct from foods and drugs under the law.

Large Scale Study Finds Vitamin B6 Deficiency Common in the U.S.
Researchers at Tufts University have discovered that vitamin B6 deficiency is much more common than previously thought. The National Institute of Health has long held that vitamin B6 deficiency is rare in the U.S. and in 1998 the Recommended Daily Allowance was set in a range, depending on age and gender from 1.3 mg to 2 mg daily.

For about 10 years now the RDA for Vitamin B6 has largely been assumed to be adequate to maintain plasma levels of B6 at 20 nmol/L in most people. The Tufts study has shown that instead, the RDA may be too low for at least four specific, large population groups.

Dutch Health System Rated Best, U.S. Worst
In the United States a third of Americans believe their system needs to be completely overhauled, while a further 50 percent feel that fundamental changes need to be made.

In the Netherlands, where health care is financed by mandatory health insurance, 42 percent of people think their system works well and needs only minor changes. And only nine percent of the Dutch think a complete overhaul is necessary...

Interesting how the Dutch system comes out best. The Netherlands are one of the very few western countries where alternative medicine is accepted and integrated by law.

'Breakthrough' in malaria fight
The malaria parasite produces the "glue" when it infects target red blood cells, enabling them to stick to the walls of blood vessels. This stops them being pased through the spleen, where the parasites would usually be destroyed by the immune system.

Professor Alan Cowman, a member of the research team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, said targeting the protein with drugs could be a key to fighting malaria. "If we block the stickiness we essentially block the virulence or the capacity of the parasite to cause disease," he said.

Of course more research is needed on how best to block the protein, which protein to block, and to find out about potential side effects - but this is the kind of basic research that brings new hope for medicine...

Childhood diarrhoea: Treat with zinc
"Zinc is clearly of benefit to children with diarrhoea," says lead researcher Marzia Lazzerini, who works at the Unit of Research on Health Services and International Health in Trieste, Italy.

Diarrhoea is a common cause of death for children in the developing world, occurring most often in children aged between six months and five years. It is estimated that two million children die every year as a result of the disease. Zinc is a micronutrient that plays a critical role in physical growth as well as in gastrointestinal and immune function.

12 Babies Die in GlaxoSmithKline Vaccine Trials in Argentina
Pediatrician Ana Maria Marchese, who works at the children's hospital in the provincial capital where the studies are being conducted, was highly critical: "because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States, they come to do it in third-world countries. Colombia and Panama were also chosen by GSK as staging grounds for trials of the vaccine against the pneumococcal bacteria."

Epilepsy Study Incriminates Aspartame in Medications
The Pacific Epilepsy Society in affiliation with the Epileptic Foundation of Maui has completed a seven year study on Epilepsy and Seizures, finding that epilepsy is at an all time high in Hawaii and the western states and Pacific Ocean Territories. There has been a 100% increase over the two previous years.

Brazil Probes Formulary Scheme
The text of the letter outlined a scheme by which the drugmakers (Wyeth, Abbott, Novartis, Serono and the drug wholesaler Benatti) were financing patients lawsuits against the government health system to force state agencies to pay for expensive and imported meds not on the government formulary.

The scheme was allegedly being done indirectly with drugmakers giving wholesalers either substantial discounts or extended payment plans, in exchange for the wholesalers paying law firms for legal services on behalf of patients seeking specific high-cost drugs. In Brazil, citizens can take legal action against government health systems to require they provide meds not on formularies.

Barack Obama and John McCain go to war with Big Pharma
According to polls, healthcare costs are a bigger issue than Iraq for most Americans, hardly surprising given that it affects a greater number. Still, it is alarming for the pharma bosses to hear the Republican candidate bashing their industry, even supporting the direct importation of cheap drugs from abroad.

Senator Obama also supports imports, but he wants to go further and grasp the nettle of pricing. He wants Medicare to negotiate directly with the drug giants, much as the NHS fixes drug prices in Britain.

This would be a disaster for Big Pharma - a federal agency setting discounted drug prices for senior citizens, the disabled and the poor. According to the Obama camp, it might save $30 billion (£14.9 billion) for the nation's taxpayers, a huge bite out of the industry's earnings - and it would not end there.

Generic Drugs, an Endangered Commons
The bad news is that proprietary drug makers are using all sorts of subterfuges to extend the life of their patents in order to prevent their high-cost drugs from entering the generic marketplace. It is a rank ripoff of consumers that reneges on the patent-monopoly deal that the public makes with drug makers in the first place: the patent term is limited, after which it belongs to any safety-certified competitor.

Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system
Speaking ahead of his lecture, Pogge said: "The main responsibility for change lies with politicians and citizens. But pharmaceutical companies are also citizens, and they play a significant role in the political process of most societies. They lobby a lot. And here I do see fault. They lobby for holding the line on a status quo that is simply morally unacceptable.

Judge Reverses Preemption Ruling In Paxil Case
US District Court Judge David Hamilton has reversed his prior opinion in which he had dismissed a Paxil suicide case based on preemption, which says that FDA approval supersedes state law claims challenging safety, efficacy, or labeling. The FDA and drugmakers argue preemption exists by maintaining agency actions are the final word on safety and effectiveness. The case is now re-opened.

In his 28-page opinion, Hamilton wrote that, in his prior ruling, he “failed to appreciate the significance of the fact that the ongoing ability, authority, and responsibility to strengthen a label still rest squarely with the drug manufacturer.”

Is American Psychiatric Association too Tight with Drug Industry?
“I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions,” Grassley said in a letter to the association. In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association’s $62.5 million in financing, with half that money going to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting; the remainder sponsored fellowships, conferences, and industry symposiums at the annual meeting.

Comment by Vince: From this article Sen. Grassley is hot about the "AstroTurfs®" and not just the AMA.

This discussion is getting very interesting.

These pretend "grassroots" non-profits are watered by Pharma money. Groups such as these pervade the entire health system and influence public policy and reinforce reductionist ideology in favor of the industry.

The mental health sector easily gets the lions share of the loot.

Dedicated to the drugging of America´s children?
As to the AAP, in response to a reporter´s question regarding the fact that there are no long-term data on statin use in children, a member of the academy´s nutrition committee was quoted in the July 8th New York Times as saying: "We extrapolate from the information we have in adults."

That statement brazenly flies in the very face of the academy´s founding principles.

According to th