Shutting down vaccine 'conspiracies' - NewsGrabs 28 September 2008

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Group With Big Pharma Ties Wants to Shut Down Vaccine “Conspiracy Theories”
While the corporate media continues to hype reports that contend the evidence for links between mercury laden vaccines and autism are not concrete, there are scores of studies and testimony from credible figures asserting the exact opposite, some of which we have previously covered in depth.

However, it is little wonder W3C considers such information to be “damaging” given that Eli Lilly and Merck & Co., Inc. are both paid up and approved members of the Consortium!

USA: Dietary supplements cause 600 'adverse events'
The Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling and Dietary Supplements in the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition acknowledged receiving 368 mandatory reports from supplement manufacturers and 236 reports from consumers or health care professionals.

An adverse event can be anything from a concern that a supplement isn't working to a serious illness that follows consumption. FDA spokesman Michael Herndon said five deaths and 85 hospitalizations were reported through April 15, the most current numbers available. "Some of these deaths were likely due to underlying medical conditions," he says.

Wow - 600 events, but as many of the comments on the article say - "what about the hundreds of thousands of adverse events from prescription drugs?" ... It rather seems that 600 adverse events from supplements are miniscule.

Five deaths? "Some of them due to underlying medical conditions"? Now let's have some real data. Was the supplement responsible for the death or wasn't it?

Dead rats don’t lie, says sweetener critic
Dr Magnuson, a recent corporate-sponsored visitor, and her ilk, are happy to use rat studies as a gold standard to ‘prove’ chemical food additive safety – when it suits them – but when a comprehensive series of studies come out from a prestigious, non-industry aligned research institute like Italy’s Ramazzini Institute showing dangers in aspartame, then these food industry apologists quibble over whether the rats used in the study were sufficiently upper class or went to the right school.

Aspartame Consumption Again Linked to Degeneration of Brain Neurons
High intake of the artificial sweetener aspartame may lead to the degeneration of brain cells and various mental disorders, according to a research review conducted by South African scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"We propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders, and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning," the researchers concluded.

UK: Should we fear fluoride in water?
Tooth decay is a big problem among children in Southampton. So the city's primary care trust wants fluoride added to water supplies to improve dental health. But the plan, currently at consultation stage, has sparked strong opposition from campaigners who claim it could cause tooth discolouration and other health problems.

Fierce debate over fluoridation in some UK cities. Why did most of the other European countries that tried fluoridation abandon it ... perhaps the UK could learn from that experience? Fluoride is a drug in the water supply, and a poisonous one at that. But at least the BBC article airs both sides of the debate.

'Friendly' bacteria protect against type 1 diabetes
In a dramatic illustration of the potential for microbes to prevent disease, researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago showed that mice exposed to common stomach bacteria were protected against the development of Type I diabetes.

"Understanding how gut bacteria work on the immune system to influence whether diabetes and other autoimmune diseases occurs is very important," Li said. "This understanding may allow us to design ways to target the immune system through altering the balance of friendly gut bacteria and protect against diabetes."

Studies show more links between vitamin D and MS
Children later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis had far lower levels of vitamin D than other youngsters, Canadian researchers reported on Friday in studies showing more links between the "sunshine" vitamin and disease.

These were the first studies to show the effects in children, although others have shown that adults who live in northern latitudes, who get less sun exposure, may have a higher risk of MS.

They also support a growing body of studies that link low vitamin D levels with disease, including breast and colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes and tuberculosis.

Plant antioxidant may protect against radiation exposure
Resveratrol, the natural antioxidant commonly found in red wine and many plants, may offer protection against radiation exposure, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. When altered with acetyl, resveratrol administered before radiation exposure proved to protect cells from radiation in mouse models.

Acupuncture As Good As Effexor
I ran across a fascinating study today showing that acupuncture is as good as Effexor in treating breast cancer patients experiencing hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms, the primary advantage being a lack of side effects...

Doctors told to curb use of Ritalin in hyperactive children
Ritalin is the most common ADHD drug, with 461,000 prescriptions filled in England in 2007. This compares with 199,000 in 2003, 26,500 in 1998 and 3,500 in 1993. The growth has alarmed some observers, concerned that some doctors are turning to medication too quickly to control a disorder that often responds well to other treatment strategies.

Ritalin and Concerta can have side-effects that include nervousness, insomnia, appetite loss and weight loss. Strattera can cause nausea, dizziness, fatigue and mood swings.

Attention deficit and hyperactivity are not signs of illness but of different behaviour. Diagnosing this as an illness is a way of selling drugs.

Look at the growth of those figures. If kids got that much worse off with prescriptions exploding from 3,500 to 461,000 in just a decade and a half, there is either some external cause that is not being looked at or schools are falling blindly for pharma's propaganda! Either way, it's not the drugs that are going to resolve the situation.

Senator questions doctors' ties to drug companies
In a letter to the UT chancellor's office, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said the two researchers, both of whom have received federal grants, have failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in income they received from drug companies.

According to Mr. Grassley's research, Dr. Wagner, who is on the faculty at UTMB in Galveston, was paid more than $160,000 from GlaxoSmithKline between 2000 and 2005, though she reported just $600 to the university. In 2000 and 2001, she worked on a major study on the company's drug Paxil – research that has been widely criticized for over-promoting positive findings while downplaying heightened suicidal thoughts and behavior in adolescents.

Mr. Grassley's letter said Dr. Wagner, who has led NIH-funded studies involving Eli Lilly's drug Prozac, also failed to report $11,000 in income from that drug company in 2002.

Lipitor Ads and Women: Grounds For A Lawsuit
A review of existing studies of statins was unable to find clinical evidence indicating the drugs - and in particular, Pfizer’s Lipitor - reduced the risk of heart attacks for women, even though huge sums are spent each year to lower cholesterol in women, according to the meta-analysis published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

Moreover, the review found Lipitor ads fail to report clinical trials were statistically significant for men, and results were inconclusive for women - even though such info appears in product labeling. The FDA, therefore, failed to properly regulate Pfizer promotions, according to the authors, who say the misleading ads are a persuasive argument in favor of allowing state-court lawsuits against the drugmaker.

Statins increase risk of postoperative delirium in elderly patients
"Our results suggest that this association was more than a coincidence, particularly among patients who received higher doses of statins and had longer duration noncardiac surgeries," state Dr. Redelmeier and colleagues. "The association between statins and risk of delirium was distinct and was not observed with other lipid-lowering medications, cardiovascular medications or common drugs that reflect underlying chronic diseases but have no major effects on the cardiovascular system."

Most Failed Clinical Trials Are Never Published
Trials with statistically significant results were nearly twice as likely to have been published as those without statistically significant results, and pivotal tri