Europe to curb citizens' petitions - Health Supreme NewsGrabs Sunday, 13 June 2010
Brussels EU calls for curbs on citizen petitionsUnder the plans, citizens’ proposals that go "against the values of the union" – which, let’s not forget, are actually determined by the Brussels EU itself – will not be accepted.
By setting burdensome rules such as each signatory of a petition being required to provide a wide variety of personal data – including name, street address, email address, date and place of birth, nationality and personal identification numbers (passport; ID card; and social security) – it can be seen that the real intention of the Brussels EU in making this announcement is to set severe limits on the ability of European citizens to exert their democratic will. This is further proven by the fact that all petitions are to be subjected to an admissibility check once they reach a total of 300,000 signatures, with officials being given powers to stop any petition they decide does not meet the requirements.
If anyone still thinks that the EU has anything to do with a democratic form of government, this development should give them serious pause to re-think.
European Agency Criticized For Withholding Data
For the second time in two months, the European Medicines Agency has been criticized by its ombudsman for refusing to release data about drugs. Last month, Nikiforos Diamandouros chastised the EMA for refusing to release documents containing suspected adverse reactions caused by Accutane.This time, he upbraided the agency for not allowing outside investigators access to clinical trial data on two obesity pills - Acomplis, which was withdrawn by Sanofi-Aventis, and orlistat, which is sold as Xenical by Roche and as Alli, an over-the-counter med marketed by GlaxoSmithKline. Researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre wanted to conduct an independent analysis given that, in their view, biased reporting on drug trials was common, according to Diamandouros. But the EMA refused to provide the data, citing disclosure would undermine commercial interests.
WHO's Handling of Swine Flu Deeply Marred by Conflict of Interest with Drug Companies, Top Medical Journal Accuses
The World Health Organisation's handling of the swine flu pandemic was deeply marred by secrecy and conflict of interest with drug companies, a top medical journal said on Friday.The British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that WHO guidelines on the use of antiviral drugs were prepared by experts who had received consulting fees from the top two manufacturers of these drugs, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
In apparent violation of its own rules, the WHO did not publicly disclose these conflicts...
Epicyte, Calif. Biotech Co., Made Corn Containing Spermicde
A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile.
USA: Search Underway for Leading Integrative Doctor
Which integrative physician will be appointed to the powerful new federal research institute? ANH–USA is currently working with Congress to be sure that he or she will be the real thing.
The Medicine that Dare not Speak its Name
What is the scientific distinction between drugs and supplements? Scientifically, the distinction is entirely arbitrary, the distinction between what is a drug and what is a supplement relates to intellectual property law.There is very little money in getting and keeping people healthy, if it doesn't also happen to be a novel patentable approach. And so while the FDA is making the beast with two backs with every very large pharmaceutical company it meets, it does not simply leave "natural" un-patentable drugs alone rather it jealously attempts to stifle all free speech on the researched health benefits relating to these "red-headed step-children."
Polyphenols in Red Wine and Green Tea Halt Prostate Cancer Growth
In what could lead to a major advance in the treatment of prostate cancer, scientists now know exactly why polyphenols in red wine and green tea inhibit cancer growth. This new discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal, explains how antioxidants in red wine and green tea produce a combined effect to disrupt an important cell signaling pathway necessary for prostate cancer growth. This finding is important because it may lead to the development of drugs that could stop or slow cancer progression, or improve current treatments.If polyphenols, instead of being natural constituents of food, were a drug, we wouldn't hear the end of how medicine is saving lives. Since they aren't ("...it may lead to the development of drugs...") the discovery will be kept low key until someone has figured out how to make big money out of a pharmaceutical version of the molecule that can be patented...
Female Sexual Dysfunction Is…. Hot
Next week, an FDA advisory committee will meet to review a Boehringer Ingelheim pill to tackle FSD, or female sexual dysfunction. This would be the first such drug for the US market and you will see a lot in the media next week. However, a growing group of psychologists, academics and public health advocates contend FSD isn’t an authentic medical condition, or at least not the sort of problem that should be treated with drugs (one critic is about to publish a book). Bandied about but never proven is the statistic that 43 percent of women suffer from this affliction. So we spoke with Leonore Tiefer, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, who heads the NewViewCampaign, a grassroots effort devoted to challenging the ‘medicalization’ of sex…
Challenging the Medicalization of Sex
The goal of the New View Campaign is to expose biased research and promotional methods that serve corporate profit rather than people's pleasure and satisfaction. The Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life.Pharmaceutical companies are looking for business. With the male sexual dysfunction market saturated by viagra and similar drugs, they are now setting their sights on women. The word is that women are sick if they don't enjoy sex, and that a drug can help ... and of course the hope is that women will turn out to be a gold mine - for pharma's next blockbuster drug.
USA: Rethinking Psychiatric Care
During the past 20 years, the number of adults in the United States on federal disability rolls due to mental illness has more than tripled, rising from 1.25 million people in 1987 to more than four million in 2007. The number of children receiving a federal disability check due to severe mental illness increased 35-fold during this period, rising from 16,200 to 561,569.This disability data necessarily begs a question, one that our society desperately needs to investigate. Could our drug-based paradigm of care, in some unforeseen way, be fueling this epidemic of disabling illness?
The disability numbers also tell us that we need to look to develop new solutions. In Europe, there are providers of psychiatric services that have begun using psychiatric medications in a selective, limited manner and are now reporting very good outcomes. How can we adopt these methods here?
USA: Grassley Probes Nemeroff And University Of Miami
The Charles Nemeroff affair encompasses more people all the time. Now, the University of Miami Medical School has become ensnared in the ongoing probe launched by US Senator Chuck Grassley, who investigated Nemeroff as part of an inquiry into undisclosed financial conflicts of interest among academic researchers who receive federal grants.Nemeroff, who was recently hired by the University of Miami, had departed Emory University after the Senate probe disclosed he was accepting sizeable consulting fees from GlaxoSmithKline at the same time he was the primary investigator on an NIH-funded grant for research into a Glaxo drug.
U.S. Congress Probes Wyeth For Targeting Blacks With Off-Label Prescription
Those former reps contend that Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer, encouraged its sales force to promote Rapamune to doctors practicing heart, lung, liver, pancreas, and islet cell transplants even though the drug was never approved for patients receiving transplants of these organs. Rapamune was only approved to help prevent organ rejection after a kidney transplant.Rapamune is supposed to be administered following a kidney transplant and used in conjunction with cyclosporine and corticosteroids. However, cyclosporine is also supposed to be withdrawn after two to four months, because it can eventually poison the kidneys, although this step is not approved for African-Americans and other high-risk groups. African-Americans are considered high-risk because they exhibit more vigorous immune responses to transplants.
“When patients seek medicinal therapy, they want to know the side effects and that the prescriptions offered to them have been FDA approved to treat their illness. The most egregious problem here is that, unbeknown to the African Americans’ they allegedly targeted, their lives were placed at serious risk for life threatening ailments,” says committee chair Ed Towns in a statement. “Numerous federal indictments have been handed down for pharmaceutical companies’ use of off-label drugs, and if true, this type of irresponsible experimentation is another example of big companies preying on vulnerable consumers. Unfortunately, these marketing techniques are reminiscent of Tuskegee all over again.”
U.S. FDA Warns Pfizer For Failing To Report Side Effects
In a stinging, 12-page letter, the FDA has scolded Pfizer for failing to meet regulatory deadlines for reporting serious side effects with many of its drugs, including Lipitor, Selzentry, Lyrica, Camptosar and Viagra...
Revolutionary urine test for autism could soon diagnose children with the condition
The test, which is still in the early stages of development, builds on research showing that people with autism have different bacteria in their guts from others.Jeremy Nicholson, of Imperial College London, said the urine of children with autism contained a different 'chemical fingerprint', the Journal of Proteome Research reports.
Professor Nicholson, who worked with Australian scientists on the project, said: 'It might seem strange that there's a relationship between autism and what's happening in someone's gut.
This tends to confirm, of course, what Andrew Wakefield found: a correlation between the MMR vaccine and changes in children's gut. Wakefield has been crucified for "scaring people away from vaccination". He was radiated from the UK medical register, at the insistence of pro-vaccine (and pro-pharma) forces in the UK medical establishment. His research paper, published in the Lancet, was withdrawn and disowned. And there is another interesting angle to this (see next item below).
Study: Rise in Autism and introduction of Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines CorrelateDr. Theresa Deisher, founder of the pro-life Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, presented a study revealing the link between autism and aborted fetal DNA in vaccinations at the International Meeting for Autism Research in May.
"The temporal connection between the introduction of aborted fetal DNA and autism rises is found over decades and across continents," Dr. Deisher told LifeSiteNews. "This temporal connection is more compelling than any mercury connection," which, she said, had no temporal connection to rising rates of autism.
As the abstract of the study indicates, autism rates in the US and the UK began to increase around the same time that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine switched from using animal cells to using human cells that had been derived from aborted fetuses.
Diabetes type 3 - the electrosmog connection – Dr Magda Havas
If you have diabetes you are not alone. 350 million people globally are projected to have diabetes by 2025. This is up from 30 million in the late 1980s. What is driving it?The new video by Dr. Magda Havas outlines startling insights into the connection between diabetes and the growth in electromagnetic fields. This video is based on a study published by Dr. Havas in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine (27: 135–146, 2008) called 'Dirty Electricity Elevates Blood Sugar Among Electrically Sensitive Diabetics and May Explain Brittle Diabetes'
- - -You too can contribute to these newsgrabs...
just tell me about a link to an article or a site you think is particularly interesting.
You can email me at (sepp@lastrega.com).
You can also find me on facebook (facebook.com/hasslberger)
and on Twitter
and if you like, check out my site on physics, economy and new energyMore information out there...
There is a lot I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist.
Dr Mercola has a good health blog
Mike Adams publishes Natural News.
In the UK we have the One Click Group.
The Dr Rath Foundation campaigns for a New Healthcare System.
Natural health and nutrition on La Leva di Archimede
Food, Agriculture and more on the Organic Consumers Association site.
"The individual is supreme and finds the way through intuition"
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday June 13 2010
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2010/06/13/europe_to_curb_citizens_petitions_health_supreme_newsgrabs_sunday_13_june_2010.htm