AlterNet
By Scott Thill
February 14, 2008

The media pounced on his admitted love of weed and coke but did little to investigate the prescription drugs that did him in.

"This would have never happened with weed."

I made that declaration for back in May 2007, when Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma pled guilty to criminal charges of misleading customers about the lethality of their product, promising to pay $600-plus million and be real good people going forward. But with the accidental overdose of Heath Ledger, the first sentence of this article is proving to be a tag line with serious staying power.

Last year was the latest in a series of banner years for Oxycontin, which kicked heroin and cocaine to the metaphorical curb to become one of the most popularly abused substances of the 21st century. Of course, it has been joined by painkillers like Vicodin, sleeping pills like Restoril, anti-anxiety poppers like Valium and Xanax, and even antihistamines like Unisom, all of which were found in Ledger's system during his autopsy. The official verdict, sent in written form by medical examiner spokeswoman Ellen Borakove, avoided marketing buzzwords in favor of designations more scientific, which is to say obscure: "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine. We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications."

What's in a name, you ask? Oblivion. Wait until you hear the numbers.

OpEdNews
January 23, 2008
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research
December 4, 2007

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can't be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world's richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

In 2006 when most people in such a situation might think of retiring to a quiet Pacific island, Bill Gates decided to devote his energies to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest 'transparent' private foundation as it says, with a whopping $34.6 billion endowment and a legal necessity to spend $1.5 billion a year on charitable projects around the world to maintain its tax free charitable status. A gift from friend and business associate, mega-investor Warren Buffett in 2006, of some $30 billion worth of shares in Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway put the Gates' foundation into the league where it spends almost the amount of the entire annual budget of the United Nations' World Health Organization.

Global Research
December 4, 2007
By F. William Engdahl

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can’t be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
April 5, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Americans are up in arms that our pets are being injured and killed by a toxin sent to America by a Chinese company. Melamine, a toxic fertilizer used in China, is the suspected culprit behind the deaths and injuries to potentially hundreds of thousands of our pets. The FDA assures us that this toxin has not entered the human food supply – does anyone believe in the competence of the FDA? It is only a matter of time before this type of problem happens to humans, as the inept FDA has no control over imported food intended for humans, let alone pets.

Melamine was used to help grow wheat, a practice that is legal in China and illegal in the U.S. This poison ended up in wheat gluten used as a protein source and thickening agent in pet food. Why were all these pet food companies, many claiming to be producers of fine quality pet food, buying wheat gluten from China when the U.S. is one of the top producers of wheat in the world? These companies sacrificed the health of your pet to make a profit, buying the cheapest source of wheat gluten they could find. This is the new way of the global economy, find the cheapest price and forget about health implications.

NewsTarget.com
April 4 2006
By Mike Adams

This is an article about the disease economy. That's a term I coined because I could find no other existing term to describe what I'm observing in our economy today. I call it the disease economy because such a huge percentage of the economic activity and economic growth I see in this country is based on the manufacturing, marketing and selling of products and services based on disease. That is, products and services that either cause diseases or "treat" those diseases.