http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/_newsgrabs.htm en-us sepp@lastrega.com Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:40:44 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2012/01/15/despite_safety_of_supplements_fda_insists_on_regulation_health_supreme_newsgrabs_15_january_2012.htm America's Largest Database Confirms: No Deaths from Vitamins The new 203-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published online here, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin. Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or dietary mineral supplement. Three people died from non-supplement mineral poisoning: two from medical use of sodium and one from non-supplemental iron. On page 131, the AAPCC report specifically indicates that the iron fatality was not from a nutritional supplement. USA: The FDA is closing in on supplements More telling about the FDA’s strategy for more heavy-handed regulation is the statement that “If you look at the numbers of NDI submissions versus the number of supplements introduced to the market since 1994, it would appear there is a significant lag in compliance.” On its face, the marketplace has changed over the last seventeen years. But who is responsible for this 17-year lag in compliance? The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) required manufacturers to submit pre-market notification applications for supplements and new ingredients when there is a history of use or other evidence establishing that an ingredient is safe when used as directed. The FDA has 75 days to accept or reject the application. A non-decision by the FDA means that the Agency accepts the evidence and that the product has complied, is approved, and can be marketed to the consuming public. Alternatively, a formal petition for a review and FDA issuance of an order prescribing the conditions under which a new dietary ingredient can be used and reasonably be expected to be safe, with the FDA having to respond within 180 days, can be filed. Again, shouldn’t a non-decision on a petition be considered as final Agency approval? If the Agency does not issue a decision either way, or if it cannot find a decision that was issued over the previous seventeen years, has it been the industry or the FDA itself who has not been in compliance with DSHEA? Apparently, the FDA believes that manufacturers and suppliers have not met the FDA’s own self-interpreted DSHEA burden of proof standard to show to the FDA that there is reasonable evidence that supplements and new ingredients in supplements are safe. I wish the FDA were that efficient on pharmaceuticals... Some more details on this story and an action link... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:40:44 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/12/27/painkillers_killing_more_than_pain_health_supreme_newsgrabs_27_december_2011.htm The Champion of Painkillers The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared the overdoses from opioid drugs like OxyContin an "epidemic." And a growing group of experts doubts that they work for long-term pain. But the pills continue to have an influential champion in the American Pain Foundation, which describes itself as the nation's largest advocacy group for pain patients. Its message: The risk of addiction is overblown, and the drugs are underused. What the nonprofit doesn't highlight is the money behind that message. The foundation collected nearly 90 percent of its $5 million funding last year from the drug and medical-device industry -- and closely mirrors its positions, an examination by ProPublica found. The disturbing reason why a growing number of parents are being falsely accused of shaking their babies to death After the case, the Wrays’ lawyer Jenny Wiltshire said: ‘These parents have been through hell. They can now grieve for the son they loved and cherished.’ Yet theirs is a case which has profound implications for all families. For it serves to highlight a growing medical problem — one which is not only leading to false allegations of abuse against innocent parents, but which is endangering the health of children right across Britain. As Jenny Wiltshire said: ‘The real criminality here is that if the money spent on bringing this case had been used to tell all breastfeeding mothers to take vitamin D supplements, Jayden’s death wouldn’t have occurred.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:20:26 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/12/18/evidence_based_medicine_is_a_fraud_health_supreme_newsgrabs_18_december_2011.htm Evidence Based Medicine Is a Fraud - Here’s Why Evidence Based Medicine, EBM, is the current calling card of conventional medical treatment. Just the sound of it carries the cachet of high quality medicine. Who wouldn’t want health treatments to be based on evidence? The reality, though, is that EBM is fraudulent. It gives the impression of proof for efficacy of medical treatment, but is largely a smokescreen designed to sell medical products. We should first take a hard look at the reality behind so many of the studies evoked to support EBM treatments. It’s becoming a well-known scandal that much of what passes for science in medical journals is at best useless, and at worst is devastatingly harmful—as demonstrated in the mass drugging of women going through the natural process of menopause. American Association of Physicians and Surgeons Says Influenza Vaccine for Health Care Workers Should be Voluntary Fewer than half of American Health Care Workers choose to be immunized annually against influenza. We believe that the professional judgment of these workers should be respected. The proposed Colorado policy requires that facilities inform workers of the benefits and risks of influenza immunization. It does not specify what these are. What is the purpose of this information if workers are not allowed to make a decision based upon it? What provisions are made for indemnifying workers who experience an adverse effect, some of which can lead to death, hospitalization, or long-term disability? In the age of “evidence-based medicine,” it is shocking that there is so little evidence that the influenza vaccination program is effective. Indeed, there is evidence that it may be ineffective (http://www.jpands.org/vol11no3/geier.pdf). Safety data are reported in very few studies: only five randomized studies with 2,963 observations extending only one week after the injection. In fact, the coordinator of the vaccines section of the Cochrane Collaboration called for an urgent reevaluation of the UK’s influenza vaccination program (Jefferson T, Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence. BMJ 2006;333:912-915). In particular, the safety of many repeated similar vaccinations is not addressed. Allergic, anaphylactic, hyperimmune, and dysimmune reactions are possible.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:16:17 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/12/11/too_big_to_prosecute_health_supreme_newsgrabs_11_december_2011.htm Merck—Too Big to Prosecute? There is a surprising reason why the [US] government won’t go after drug companies for serious crimes. It is because government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration would then be barred from doing business with them! In 1999 the FDA approved Vioxx, a drug created by Merck and Co. to treat arthritis. Vioxx was pulled off the market in 2004 because evidence showed it greatly increased the risk of heart attack in the 25 million Americans who had taken the drug. Some 50,000 patients sued, and 27,000 of the plaintiffs received $4.85 billion in settlement of their claims. Last week the Department of Justice announced that Merck has agreed to pay a $321 million criminal fine and plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of illegally introducing a drug into interstate commerce. Merck also is paying $426 million to the federal government and $202 million to state Medicaid agencies. Those payments will settle civil claims that its marketing caused doctors to prescribe and bill the government for Vioxx they otherwise would not have prescribed. Please note that these settlements are for rather minor infractions—not for deliberately concealing the danger of a killing drug from patients, the medical community, and their investors. Despite the serious consequences of Merck’s actions, the government won’t prosecute them for any serious charges—because, if they did and won, it would mean they would have to stop doing business with Merck in the future! Federal law makes it illegal for Medicare and Medicaid to do business with “an excluded or debarred entity resulting from serious criminal charges.” Well with banks too big to fail and pharmaceutical companies too big to prosecute, no wonder small is beautiful! European Parliament Faces Major Test Over EU Health Claims A European Commission standing committee agreed to pass a proposal for a regulation to the European Parliament that will, if approved, authorise European food suppliers to use 224 health claims linked to just 70 foods and ingredients, EU-wide. Additionally, around 2,500 other claims that did not receive positive opinions from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), will be banned. The European Parliament will now have 90 days to scrutinise the proposal before making its decision. Alliance for Natural Health International (ANH-Intl), a non-governmental organisation campaigning for the right to natural health and consumer freedom of choice, believes that the European Parliament should reject the European Commission’s proposal in its present form. Explaining ANH-Intl’s position, Dr Robert Verkerk, its executive and scientific director, said, “Ensuring consumers are not given false and misleading claims, the key objective of the regulation, is laudable. But removing the majority of claims, some 92% of those evaluated, on the basis of scientific methods that are derived from a pharmaceutical rather than nutritional science model is simply madness.”... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:20:28 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/12/04/ten_tips_to_boost_immunity_naturally_health_supreme_newsgrabs_4_december_2011.htm 10 Natural Tips To Boost Immunity This Winter Flu season is headed our way and in a few weeks many will suffer, but you don't have to be one of them if you start boosting immunity now. Here are 10 simple ways to prep your body so it's strong enough to repel viral invaders all winter long. Best wishes for a flu-free winter! 1) Adequate levels of Vitamin D are essential for our immune systems to function the way it is designed to. Unfortunately, there are no significant dietary sources of Vitamin D -- most of our intake comes from exposure to sunlight. To optimize your Vitamin D levels, you'll need to take a Vitamin D3 supplement daily. This is the most important step you can take to prevent the flu! 2) A strong immune system relies heavily on having a healthy, well-functioning gut -- and probiotics help keep your gut engine humming... A reader and friend on facebook added an 11th tip, which we might consider, in addition to the ten in the Huffington Post article: Vitamin C - The Healing Factor and she added: "A good boost of vitamin C will also help. Humans do not make their own vitamin C, unlike most other animals, so we have to make sure it is part of our diet. We may no longer suffer from scurvy but there is evidence of health problems related to subclinical scurvy." Is there an important advantage in actually getting the flu? The paper suggests that people with preexisting antibodies to different H1N1 strains had more immunity to swine flu H1N1 than those without. Getting a flu infection (whether or not you actually get sick... since the majority of people with influenza infections show few if any symptoms) leaves you with long-lived antibodies, and many more of them, than someone has who got vaccine. And they protect against similar strains, which flu vaccine usually fails to do. This might explain the data from Canada and Hong Kong (that I have blogged about several times) which showed that receiving flu vaccine in 2008 led to almost double the likelihood of getting sick from swine flu in 2009. In other words, the unvaccinated from the previous flu season fended off swine flu much better than the previous season's vaccinated people did. Insane Science: Man-made flu virus with potential to wipe out many millions is created in research lab A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation. The deadly virus is a genetically tweaked version of the H5N1 bird flu strain, but is far more infectious and could pass easily between millions of people at a time. The research has caused a storm of controversy and divided scientists, with some saying it should never have been carried out. The current strain of H5N1 has only killed 500 people and is not contagious enough to cause a global pandemic. But their are fears the modified virus is so dangerous it could be used for bio-warfare, if it falls into the wrong hands. Australian journalist wins prestigious award for exposing flu vaccine scandal Natasha Bita, a journalist for The Australian has just won a Walkley Award (the Australian equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize) for an in-depth article series on the CSL Afluria flu vaccine, a shot that caused convulsions in one percent of Australian infants who received it. To put this vaccine scandal in perspective, the CDC states that ‘seizures can occur after vaccination,’ 33% of infants who have a first seizure will have more seizures and 10% of infants who have one seizure can develop epilepsy. According to the Merck Manual (the largest-selling medical textbook), seizures are a symptom of encephalitis, which the Merck Manual defines as a vaccine adverse reaction. Vaccine-induced encephalitis can leave a spectrum of permanent brain damage in its wake – post-encephalitic syndrome (aka epilepsy and autism). In other words, kids that have convulsions from Afluria can have lifelong neurological disabilities. Incredibly, the defective CSL flu vaccine Afluria is still on the market in the US: FDA-approved and CDC-recommended.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 4 Dec 2011 12:12:38 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/11/26/underground_health_health_supreme_newsgrabs_26_november_2011.htm UNDERGROUND HEALTH by Jon Rappoport The (health) movement has gone mainstream because people have a choice. They can think for themselves. They can act on their thoughts. There is that freedom. Of course, we have health dictators in government who know what they want. And choice isn’t it. They want you to bow down and grovel and obey. It’s that simple. They’re criminals. The FDA, for example, is a criminal agency. It has institutionalized its crimes. Made those crimes part of government. The FDA can look the other way while the medical system kills 225,000 people a year, 106,000 from the effects of approved and certified drugs. (Starfield, July 26, 2000, JAMA, “Is US health really the best in the world?”) The FDA can also, at the same time, try to decimate the nutritional-supplement industry, whose products kill virtually no one every year. Is the USA setting itself up to squeeze out dietary supplements like in Europe? Natural healthcare, most especially herbal medicine, is under the cosh in Europe at the moment. Anyone keeping an eye on our website for any length of time knows how a slew of inappropriate legislation, masterminded by large companies in cahoots with the European Commission and powerful member state governments, is slowly engulfing many forms of natural medicine. The losers in this process are the smaller players who have long been at the forefront of providing the most therapeutically relevant natural products. They simply get squeezed out, less so by direct bans, but more as a result of regulatory burdens they simply can’t negotiate through lack of cash. But the FDA has been getting ever closer to the European authorities. They have worked together as the two most powerful entities in the Codex Alimentarius for many years... Time to ‘Occupy the FDA’? Regulators worldwide are working increasingly closely together, so it’s no surprise that we can expect increasing convergence in the different regulatory systems. This is what globalisation is about, and it’s all about making the environment as cosy as possible for the biggest corporate players out there. Big Pharma, Big Food and Big Bitech are among the masterminds of this system, and they don’t like to see a bunch of us out there looking after our own health using natural substances, failing to get ill, not seeing doctors, not taking drugs and being vaccinated, growing our own organic food — basically operating outside the system they created. USA: House Bill Would Spare Thousands of Dietary Supplements From Being Removed Last July, the FDA stunned supplement manufacturers with its proposed Guidance that would require all dietary ingredients introduced into the marketplace since 1994 to undergo drug-like safety testing prior to marketing. The tests could cost millions of dollars per each new ingredient, and that includes each variation on that ingredient too. These requirements would not make supplements any safer than they are today and would require supplement makers to lay aside 20 years of profits to conduct the tests. To make matters worse, tens of thousands of workers could lose their jobs as the supplement industry would be forced to remove products from store shelves.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:09:14 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/11/20/europe_approves_stevia_health_supreme_newsgrabs_20_november_2011.htm European Commission approves stevia based sweetener The European Commission said it gave approval of the natural sweetener for use in the food industry from December 2 on the recommendation of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). 'Clandestine' Stevia - all we could find some years ago in a health fair in Italy were little stevia plants - no sweetener. Stevia rebaudiana, sometimes known as sweatleaf or sugarleaf, is part of the sunflower family. Its steviol glycoside extracts can be far sweeter than sugar, making it attractive for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar foods. Stevia is widely used in Asia and South America. Stevia is also a natural substitute for the controversial amino-acid and methanol based artificial sweetener aspartame that was forced onto the market by Donald Rumsfeld three decades ago. Perhaps now, with an alternative sweetener available, aspartame will finally be phased out. USA: Don't Let the FDA Outlaw New Supplements! The Life Extension Foundation says: "FDA just issued draconian proposals as to how it intends to regulate what it now calls “new dietary ingredients.” If implemented, some of the most effective nutrients you are taking will be removed from the market. This includes many fish oil formulas and natural plant extracts. These oppressive rules are exactly what the 1994 law (DSHEA) sought to prevent. The FDA is using its authority in direct violation of congressional intent. In order for these ingredients you are using today to return to the market, the FDA will require manufacturers to conduct outrageously expensive studies using absurdly high doses, in some situations multiplied by a “safety factor” up to 2,000 times the recommended dosage on a per product basis." USA: Thanks to the FDA, You Really Have No Idea What's In Your Food For years, polls have shown that about 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMO). That's about as close to a consensus as you're going to get in this country. But amazingly, in this supposed bastion of freedom and democracy we're denied the fundamental right to know what's in our food -- a right that more than 50 other nations, including China and Russia, offer their citizens. In the U.S., it's estimated that 60-70 percent of processed food may contain some GMO, but the food is not required to be labeled.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:52:40 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/11/14/biopiracy_india_sues_monsanto_health_supreme_newsgrabs_14_november_2011.htm Indian Government Files Biopiracy Lawsuit Against Monsanto Representing one of the most agriculturally bio-diverse nations in the world, India has become a primary target for biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Cargill to spread their genetically-modified (GM) crops into new markets. However, a recent France 24 report explains that the Indian government has decided to take an offensive approach against this attempted agricultural takeover by suing Monsanto for “biopiracy,” accusing the company of stealing India’s indigenous plants in order to re-engineer them into patented varieties. Consumers Speak Up Against Monsanto’s GE Sweet Corn In response to Monsanto’s release of the company’s first genetically engineered sweet corn for human consumption, a coalition has collected more than 264,000 petition signatures from consumers who refuse to purchase the corn and are asking retailers and food processors to reject it. Two major national food companies, General Mills and Trader Joe's, have already indicated that they will not be using the Monsanto GE sweet corn in their products, according to replies the companies sent to a request from the Center for Environmental Health. Peru bans GMOs for 10 years The Peruvian parliament has just approved a 10-year moratorium on cultivation or importation of GMOs. The justification: to protect the country’s biodiversity. How often do we see ecological priorities put ahead of economic or political ones? The proposed ban, that awaits final sign off by President Ollanta Humala, will prevent the importation for cultivation of GM seeds, livestock, and fish.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:29:11 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/11/06/system_d_the_new_economic_superpower_health_supreme_newsgrabs_6_november_2011.htm Economy: The Shadow Superpower This is about the submerged market, sometimes called "black" or "grey", the market where people arrange and make a living despite all the rules and regulations. System D, as the French call it, is the system of the smart, those who make things go right in the teeth of poverty and stifling red tape. To say a man is a "débrouillard" is to tell people how resourceful and ingenious he is, hence ... System D. It used to be that System D was small -- a handful of market women selling a handful of shriveled carrots to earn a handful of pennies. It was the economy of desperation. But as trade has expanded and globalized, System D has scaled up too. Today, System D is the economy of aspiration. It is where the jobs are. In 2009, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a think tank sponsored by the governments of 30 of the most powerful capitalist countries and dedicated to promoting free-market institutions, concluded that half the workers of the world -- close to 1.8 billion people -- were working in System D: off the books, in jobs that were neither registered nor regulated, getting paid in cash, and, most often, avoiding income taxes. In many countries -- particularly in the developing world -- System D is growing faster than any other part of the economy, and it is an increasing force in world trade. Just how big is System D? In the developing world, it's been increasing every year since the 1990s, and in many countries it's growing faster than the officially recognized gross domestic product (GDP). If you apply his percentages (Schneider's most recent report, published in 2006, uses economic data from 2003) to the World Bank's GDP estimates, it's possible to make a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the approximate value of the billions of underground transactions around the world. And it comes to this: The total value of System D as a global phenomenon is close to $10 trillion. Which makes for another astonishing revelation. If System D were an independent nation, united in a single political structure -- call it the United Street Sellers Republic (USSR) or, perhaps, Bazaaristan -- it would be an economic superpower, the second-largest economy in the world (the United States, with a GDP of $14 trillion, is numero uno). The gap is narrowing, though, and if the United States doesn't snap out of its current funk, the USSR/Bazaaristan could conceivably catch it sometime this century. I do recommend reading the whole article if you're interested. My excerpts may catch the essence, but there is much more...... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 6 Nov 2011 17:27:05 GMT http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/10/30/vaccination_linked_to_increase_in_disease_death_health_supreme_newsgrabs_30_october_2011.htm Big Study: Vaccinated Kids Have 2-5 Times More Diseases Than Unvaccinated A German study released in September 2011 of about 8000 UNVACCINATED children, newborn to 19 years, show vaccinated children have at least 2 to 5 times more diseases and disorders than unvaccinated children. The data was collected from parents with vaccine-free children via an internet questionnaire by vaccineinjury.info and Andreas Bachmair, a German classical homeopathic practitioner. Each one of the 8000 cases are actual cases with medical documentation. Three other studies had similar results according to Bachmair... No study of health outcomes of vaccinated people versus unvaccinated has ever been conducted in the U.S. by CDC or any other agency in the 50 years or more of an accelerating schedule of vaccinations. Most data collected by CDC is contained in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. The VAERS is generally thought to contain only 3 to 5 percent of reportable incidents. Infant mortality rates increase with number of required vaccinations Prior to contemporary vaccination programs, ‘Crib death’ was so infrequent that it was not mentioned in infant mortality statistics. In the United States, national immunization campaigns were initiated in the 1960s when several new vaccines were introduced and actively recommended. For the first time in history, most US infants were required to receive several doses of DPT, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. Shortly thereafter, in 1969, medical certifiers presented a new medical term—sudden infant death syndrome. It appears as though some infant deaths attributed to SIDS may be vaccine related, perhaps associated with biochemical or synergistic toxicity due to over-vaccination. The US childhood immunization schedule requires 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year, the most in the world, yet 33 nations have better IMRs. Using linear regression, the immunization schedules of these 34 nations were examined and a correlation coefficient of 0.70 (p less than 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants. When nations were grouped into five different vaccine dose ranges (12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, and 24–26), 98.3% of the total variance in IMR was explained by the unweighted linear regression model. These findings demonstrate a counter-intuitive relationship: nations that require more vaccine doses tend to have higher infant mortality rates. Scientists fear MMR link to autism New American research shows that there could be a link between the controversial MMR triple vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children. The study appears to confirm the findings of British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who caused a storm in 1998 by suggesting a possible link. Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease - and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus. "Caused a storm" is just the kind of understatement you'd expect from the British. If you remember right, they fairly crucified Wakefield for even implying there might be something wrong with that 'triple jab' MMR vaccine. A pharma inspired press smear campaign implied Wakefield was nothing short of an unethical and even criminal scare monger and they ruined his career and that of a few professors who had worked with him... Scandal Exposed in Major Study of Autism and Mercury Documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show that CDC officials were aware of Danish data indicating a connection between removing Thimerosal (49.55% mercury) and a decline in autism rates. Despite this knowledge, these officials allowed a 2003 article to be published in Pediatrics that excluded this information, misrepresented the decline as an increase, and led to the mistaken conclusion that Thimerosal in vaccines does not cause autism. In Denmark, Thimerosal, a controversial mercury compound used as a preservative in certain vaccines, was removed from all Danish vaccines in 1992. The well-publicized Danish study published in Pediatrics 2003 claimed that autism rates actually increased after Thimerosal was phased out. This study subsequently became a cornerstone for the notion that mercury does not cause autism. However, one of the FOIA documents obtained from CDC clearly indicates that this study omitted large amounts of data showing autism rates actually dropping after mercury was removed from Danish vaccines.... NewsGrabs Sepp Hasslberger Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:45:22 GMT