Recently in Pharma Category

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights v. Matsutani, et al.

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is suing individual psychiatrists, their employers, pharmacies, state officials, and a medical education and publishing company for their roles in submitting fraudulent claims to Medicaid.

The Complaint points out the lack of science supporting the practice and the methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to induce psychiatrists to improperly prescribe these drugs.

"Even though the drug companies have been using these methods to induce psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs, it is the psychiatrists' responsibility to base their decisions on the facts, not drug company marketing," said Mr. Gottstein, continuing, "the uncritical acceptance of pharmaceutical company hype represents a massive betrayal of trust by the psychiatrists prescribing these drugs to children and youth."

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.

The suit is a whistleblower suit which means, not only is there a chance of putting a stop to psychiatric overprescribing under false premises which, at times, is responsible for tragic deaths, but there is also a good possibility that the growing anti-psychiatry movement will gain some financial means to make its campaign to stop psychiatric abuses more effective.

In the US, a lawsuit can be brought under the federal False Claims Act, which authorizes private parties to bring fraud actions on behalf of the Government. These cases are also called "whistleblower suits" or "qui tam," actions. Those who file them are entitled to a share in the recovery, which means a percentage of court-mandated fines is usually designated to go to those who bring the action.

The Huffington Post
December 14, 2009
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
Posted: December 8, 2009 04:31 PM

On November 24, 2009, Novartis officially opened its first, large-scale vaccine manufacturing facility in the U.S. Located in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The project is a collaborative effort between Novartis and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which contributed $457M for the design, construction, and licensing of the facility.

For its part in the deal, Novartis is required to provide two commercial-scale lots of "pre-pandemic" vaccine annually for a minimum of three years. In addition, the government has the right to exercise options to purchase influenza vaccine over the next 17 years. (1) Currently, 191 employees work at the plant but that will increase to 350 persons when fully operational, anticipated to be sometime in 2011. The Holly Springs facility will be able to roll out 150 million flu shots per year.

Even though its use has not been approved by U.S. regulators, the plant will be producing MF59 as early as December 2009.(2) MF59 is Novartis' proprietary and controversial adjuvant composed of squalene and a surfactant called Tween80, also known as polysorbate 80. Back in July, 2009, the department of HHS purchased over $343.8M of "oil-in-water" adjuvant from Norvartis.(3) It looks like the government may want to take delivery on its purchase some time soon.

Posted by: Dr. Mercola

December 10 2009 | 6,348 views

Health officials across Canada are being asked to hold back a batch of swine flu vaccine that appears to be causing higher rates of severe allergic reactions.

The vaccine's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, is asking governments to stop using vaccine doses from one particular lot shipment issued in late October.

Bloomberg reports that Glaxo advised Canadian doctors to hold off on using a batch of the vaccine while the company probes reports of higher-than-expected occurrences of a side effect known as anaphylaxis.

The batch of 172,000 doses of Arepanrix was linked to more cases of acute allergic reactions, including swollen tongues, throats and respiratory distress, than is expected, spokeswoman Gwenan White said.

According to Manitoba health officials, severe allergic reactions from the batch in question was seen in one of 20,000, which is far higher than the typical rate of one in 100,000.

Sources:

CBC News November 19, 2009

Bloomberg November 24, 2009

HealthZone.ca November 20, 2009

ecPulse.com November 25, 2009

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
DR. BARBARA STARFIELD:
By Jon Rappoport
www.insolutions.info
www.nomorefakenews.com

On July 26, 2000, the US medical community received a titanic shock to the system, when one of its most respected and honored public-health experts, Dr. Barbara Starfield, revealed her findings on healthcare in America.

The landmark Starfield study, “Is US health really the best in the world?”, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, came to the following conclusions:

Every year in the US there are:

12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;

7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;

20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;

80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;

106,000 deaths from FDA-approved correctly prescribed medicines.

The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is 225,000.

This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer.

by Tom DeWeese
December 1, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

As the battle over government-controlled health care continues, many Americans simply want out of the whole mess. They instead seek a plan of wellness based on healthy eating and natural supplements.

That approach, however, is the opposite of the health care agenda of the American Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical industry. Those forces, which literally control America’s health industry, are based on sickness. The sicker you are, the more drugs you will buy.

In addition, insurance companies, working hand in hand with the AMA and the drug companies, refuse to provide coverage for the wellness approach. Most won’t pay for natural supplements nor will they pay for visits to homeopaths or chiropractors. The only thing most Americans can do when sick (and unable to afford to pay for natural treatment out of their pockets) is to stick with the big pharma/AMA game plan. In short, it is cheaper to be sick than to try to stay well.

However, in spite of a stacked deck in favor of the sickness agenda, more Americans are going for wellness and the natural supplement industry is growing. In response, and to preserve their dominance over health care, big pharma is lobbying hard to get the Food and Drug Administration to make many natural supplements available only by prescriptions issued by AMA licensed doctors. In other efforts, they seek to drastically reduce the dosage of natural supplements sold over the counter, making them useless. Again, only a prescription would allow a workable dosage.

Vaccines Cause Autism, News From Scientific Think Tank States.
Curtiss Lee Linderman Sr
November 20, 2009
American Chronic

Sound and Reproducible Science Implicates Vaccines in the Autism Epidemic

In 2003, The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes LLC, began researching the neuroscience of business and how applying this tactic could possibly enhance business practices. What they found during their research has possibly shaken the very foundations of vaccine science and toxicology.

This New Jersey based think tank sent out a press release on the seventeenth of November 2009 that states that their studies, which implicate vaccines as the cause of autism, are "Grounded on a solid foundation of the laws of physics and chemistry." One of the aspects of this research that I find most notable is that this is a non-conflicted think tank that was not even looking into these issues for the purpose of obtaining information regarding the causation of autism. This was, for all intents and purposes, an accident.

By mid 2005, two years into their research, The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes LLC had gained great knowledge and made some very substantial findings. They began by researching brain chemicals (neurohormones) that were seemingly involved in logic and emotions. These are of course two areas that have a direct link to productivity in the workplace. With their findings however, they were forced to take two very different paths in the study. One was of course continuing the business model aspect of their research; the other is the reason for this article.

When 210 children die from ordinary flu, it does not hit the mainstream media. When 21 children die from H1N1, it is prime news. When 67 navy crew die within a few days of taking the H1N1 flu shot before leaving a port in the US, it hides in small bylines. Beware the Chameleon in the garb of science and mainstrean media.

ONLY SWINE FLU DEATHS LEAD TO HYSTERIA
Beldeu Singh

The mainstream media has gone nuts and remains in overdrive in whipping up a hysteria relating to swine flu and the need for H1N1 vaccinations. Some governments have been enlightened by the facts surrounding the H1N1 and will not buy it nor force their people to take the shots.

One of the very special facts is that it is a virus with an "odd mixture of genes" from viruses such as the bird flu virus and human influenza virus. It was never found in swine and such a virus could not have evolved or mutated in the swine biological system. Later, health authorities in the US stated on TV that is a laboratory artifact see: VIRUSGATE: http://www.laleva.org/eng/2009/09/virusgate.html

WHO is also a central figure that helped created a scare when, to the amusement of many, raised its alert level from pandemic level 3 to pandemic level 6, its highest pandemic alert level. The politics of disease is never too difficult to understand, if you care to look at the basic facts. So, let's just consider the facts as enumerated below that have been properly highlighted by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor (MANewsEd):-

1. The CDC stopped testing for H1N1 sometime ago as its symptoms are close to a mild seasonal flu, but strangely lumps all cases of flu as H1N1!

2. The CDC now reports that nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed by H1N1 swine flu. This number is supposed to sound big and scary, motivating millions of people to go out and pay good money to be injected with untested, unproven H1N1 vaccines. But let's put the number in perspective: Did you know that more than four times as many people are killed each year by common NSAID painkillers like aspirin? (MANewsEd).

Why is the CDC playing this game together with WHO?

"Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone" (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, "Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy", The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)

"So for every person the CDC claims was killed by H1N1 swine flu this year, common painkillers like aspirin have killed four! Yet you don't see the CDC, FDA, WHO or mainstream media running around screaming about the extreme dangers of aspirin, do you? All those deaths apparently don't matter. Only swine flu deaths lead to hysteria" (ref: MANewsEd).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service,
November 1, 2009
by Dr. Damien Downing

(OMNS, November 1, 2009) 2009 may be the year of the vaccine show-down, the moment when enough of us start questioning all we're being told about vaccines. A survey published in the BMJ in August (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/339/aug25_2/b3391) reported that less than half of healthcare workers in Hong Kong were willing to accept "pre-pandemic" flu vaccination. And that was before a letter from the Health Protection Agency to 600 United Kingdom neurologists on July 29th warning them to be on the alert for an increase in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome following the vaccination campaign.

If nurses and doctors start questioning vaccination for themselves, sooner or later we'll have to advise patients to make their own minds up. They seem to be doing so anyway. A poll by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/08/26/think-greater-risk/ ) , often described as a right-wing channel, found that 51% thought taking the H1N1 vaccine carried a greater risk than not being vaccinated.

Yet both in the USA and the UK, this year's swine flu vaccine will be rolled out without adequate safety testing. What's going on? Two things: profits and power.

The Atlantic

Just after 6 p.m. on a warm Friday evening in July, Dr. David Newman is only minutes into a 10-hour shift in the emergency room of New York City’s St. Luke’s Hospital, and already he has assumed responsibility for 11 patients. The young Italian tourist sitting on the bed in front of the doctor has meningitis, and through an interpreter, Newman tells him he almost certainly has the viral form of the disease, which will do nothing more than make him feel ill for a few days. There is a tiny chance, says Newman, that the illness is caused by a bacterium, which can be deadly, but he is almost positive that’s not what the tourist has. He says to his patient, “I can’t tell you with 100 percent certainty that you don’t have it, but if you do, you’ll begin to feel worse and you’ll need to come back.” The tourist, on learning that he might be infected with a potentially lethal disease, looks down at his feet and confesses that he is much more worried about another illness: swine flu. Newman smiles patiently. “It would be nice if you had swine flu,” he says. “Compared to bacterial meningitis, swine flu is safe.”

Late last spring, as headlines and airwaves warned of a possible pandemic, patients like Newman’s began clogging emergency rooms across the country, a sneezing, coughing, infectious tide of humanity more worried than truly sick, but whose mere presence in the emergency room has endangered the lives of others. “Studies show that when there is ER crowding, mortality goes up, because patients who need immediate attention don’t get it,” says Newman, the director of clinical research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the hospital, which is affiliated with Columbia University. In an average year the ER at St. Luke’s, a sprawling 1,076-bed hospital on 113th Street, takes in 110,000 patients, some 300 a day. At the height of the summer swine flu outbreak, that number doubled. The vast majority of panicky patients who came in the door at St. Luke’s and other emergency departments didn’t actually have the virus, and of those who did, most were not sick enough to need hospitalization. Even so, says Newman, when patients with even mild flu symptoms show up in the hospital, they vastly increase the spread of the virus, simply because they inevitably sneeze and cough in rooms that are jammed with other people.

Image via Wikipedia

03 Oct 2009   

A new study in the leading scientific journal NeuroToxicology lends further credence to parents and scientists concerned about an increasingly aggressive childhood vaccine schedule and toxic vaccine components. A team led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that infant macaque monkeys receiving a single Hepatitis B vaccine containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal underwent significant delays in developing critical reflexes controlled by the brainstem. The infant macaques that did not receive vaccines developed normally.

Government vaccine guidelines were expanded in 1991 to include a Hepatitis B vaccine for infants within the first few days of life, even though the disease is primarily transmitted sexually or spread through the use of dirty needles. The introduction of the shot was part of a greatly accelerated vaccine schedule that coincides with the drastic increase in autism, which now affects one in 100 American children. Thimerosal was removed from U.S. Hepatitis B vaccines in 2000 but was not recalled from the market and was administered for approximately two more years. It still remains in other vaccines including all multi-dose shots for both the seasonal flu and H1N1.

By Claus Hancke, M.D.

Regarding the threatening or present H1N1 influenza pandemic, I must call for sober-mindedness.

It is a pandemic – which only means that the disease is highly contagious, and that it is spread throughout the World. It does not mean that everyone will die from it.

The word "pandemic" says NOTHING about how dangerous the disease is.

The H1N1 influenza has calmly spread during the past six months, and globally it has not even closely reached the casualty numbers seen with an ordinary, seasonal flu.

Thus we are dealing with a flu of reasonable progress and of relatively low mortality. On average, we are speaking of three days of moderate fever.

The low mortality is probably due to the illness hitting young and middle-aged people. Elderly people are struck to a much milder degree, as they are likely to have developed some immunity from the last time they either had or were exposed to this flu in the pandemic of the late 1950s.

September 9, 2009
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter # 382
from Russell Blaylock, MD – www.russellblaylockmd.com

An outbreak of swine flu occurred in Mexico this spring that eventually affected 4,910 Mexican citizens and resulted in 85 deaths. By the time it spread to the United States, the virus caused only mild cases of flu-like illness.

Thanks to air travel and the failure of public health officials to control travel from Mexico, the virus spread worldwide. Despite predictions of massive numbers of deaths and the arrival of doomsday, the virus has remained a relatively mild disease, something we know happens each year with flu epidemics.

Worldwide, there have only been 311 deaths out of 70,893 cases of swine flu. In the United States, 27,717 cases have resulted in 127 deaths. Every death is a tragedy, but such a low death rate should not be the basis of a draconian government policy.

Sott.net

Stephen Lendman

stephenlendman.blogspot.com

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:35 UTC

"Swine Flu" - Lab Created

Fact check:

-- no Swine Flu threat exists;

-- reported H1N1 infections and deaths are uncorroborated;

-- WHO predicting a global pandemic affecting "as many as two billion people....over the next two years" is falsified hype unless a diabolical depopulation scheme (by vaccines or other means) plans to create one;

-- vaccines don't protect against diseases they're designed to prevent and often cause them;

-- all vaccines contain harmful toxins, including mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol (antifreeze), and squalene adjuvants that weaken and can destroy the human immune system, making it vulnerable to many annoying to life-threatening illnesses; and

Sherri Tenpenny, DO 　

What’s in the regular flu shot?

* Egg proteins: including avian contaminant viruses

* Gelatin: can cause allergic reactions and anaphylaxis are usually associated with sensitivity to egg or gelatin

* Polysorbate 80 (Tween80™): can cause severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Also associated with inferility in female mice.

* Formaldehyde: known carcinogen

* Triton X100: a strong detergent

* Sucrose: table sugar

* Resin: known to cause allergic reactions

* Gentamycin: an antibiotic

* Thimerosal: mercury is still in multidose flu shot vials

Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine!

Physician's Warranty of Vaccine Safety

I (Physician's name, degree)_________________________, _____ am a physician licensed to practice medicine in the State of ________________. My State license number is _______________ , and my DEA number is _______________. My medical specialty is ________________________

by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins

Global Research, August 21, 2009

Institute of Science in Society - 2009-07-27

The vaccines are far more deadly than the swine flu. Mass vaccinations is a recipe for disaster Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins

This report has been submitted to Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer of the UK, and to the US Food and Drug Administration

A swine flu outbreak occurred in Mexico and the United States in April 2009 and spread rapidly around the world by human-to human transmission. The new type A H1N1 influenza virus is unlike any that had been previously isolated [1, 2], judging from the first data released in May.

It is a messy combination of sequences from bird, human and swine flu virus lineages from North America and Eurasia. A senior virologist based in Canberra, Australia, told the press he thought that the virus could have been created in a laboratory and released by accident [3]. Some analysts even suggest, without corroborating evidence, that it was made intentionally as a bioweapon [4], while others blame the intensive livestock industry and extensive trafficking of love animals over long distances, which provide plenty of opportunity for generating exotic recombinants [5].

But what worries the public most is the mass vaccination programmes governments are putting in place to combat the emerging pandemic, which could well be worse than the pandemic itself.

www.opednews.com
July 15, 2009
by Allen L Roland

During the great Swine Flu scare of 1976 ~ 46 million Americans took the vaccine and 4000 ended up seeking damages which amounted to 3.5 Billion dollars. Most of the problems were neurological and death. Mike Wallace nailed the Center for Disease Control official in a 60 Minutes interview that was only shown once and is eerily similar to the current Swine Flu scare : Allen L Roland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ~ Recently saying the new H1N1 ( Swine Flu ) virus is "unstoppable", the World Health Organization ( WHO ) gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain on Monday and said healthcare workers should be the first to get one.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal government is committing more than $800 million to buy more of the two key ingredients to make the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

Sott.net
S. L. Baker
NaturalNews.com
July 14, 2009

At the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society recently held in San Diego, researchers presented a study showing that the flu vaccine - widely touted as a "must have" for children with chronic illnesses - isn't effective in preventing influenza-related hospitalizations in children, especially ones with asthma. But here's the most damning evidence that flu shots aren't the safe, helpful vaccine the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other government agencies claim: the researchers also found that children who get the flu vaccine are more at risk for hospitalization than their peers who do not get the vaccine.

Scientist Avni Joshi, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told the meeting, "The concerns that vaccination may be associated with asthma exacerbations have been disproved with multiple studies in the past, but the vaccine's effectiveness has not been well-established. This study was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the TIV (trivalent inactivated flu vaccine in children overall, as well as the children with asthma, to prevent influenza-related hospitalization."

Natural News
June 30, 2009
by S. L. Baker, features writer

(NaturalNews) Research just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes a nonprescription, natural supplement -- red yeast rice -- has significant cholesterol-lowering effects. However, one important part of this story is that this isn't really a new discovery at all. Red yeast rice, a bright reddish purple fermented rice cultivated with the mold Monascus purpureus, has been used in Chinese medicine for more than a millennium to treat heart ills and other health problems.

The new study was a randomized controlled trial conducted by doctors at Chestnut Hill Hospital in Flourtown, Pennsylvania. David Becker, MD, and his research team studied 62 patients whose super high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol put them at risk for heart attack or stroke. Why weren't these people already on statin drugs, the supposedly miraculous cholesterol lowering "wonder" drugs? All of them had a history of trying those medications but had to stop them because of severe side effects often reported by statin users, including muscle pain and weakness.

www.opednews.com

May 20, 2009
by Lord Rudi C. Loehwing

Codex Alimentarius – Translation: "Food Code" Originally envisioned and designed by what became the most ruthless and inhumane of 20th century Western European regimes, Codex Alimentarius (Codex) was later organized and officiated mainly by members of an emerging pharmaceutical industry spawned by that very same source.

In its near half-century of existence Codex has emerged as the self-proclaimed international authority on food and nutrition. Intent on dictating or significantly influencing international health and nutritional policies and legislation, and backed by international trade agreements and the United Nations, Codex has done much to accomplish unimpeded protection of chemical and pharmaceutical interests on a global scale – much to the detriment of sustainable health and nutrition. While there are approximately 30 committees under the banner of Codex, the pharmaceutical industry's focus is mainly within the "Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses." The committee's actions and published materials give the impression that their view of the natural health industry is as "an unwanted competitor" as opposed to that of an "adjunct" as it is viewed in the emergent integrated medicine industry.

scotsman.com
June 1, 2009
By Marisa de Andrade

MORE than 150 girls in Scotland have suffered adverse reactions after receiving the cervical cancer vaccine introduced last autumn, The Scotsman can reveal.

Campaigners are calling for the vaccination programme to be suspended, claiming there are unanswered questions about the long-term effectiveness and safety of Cervarix, the drug used for the vaccine. They are concerned that official information refers to mild side-effects, when some girls have reported serious reactions to the jab.

The families of six girls in England are suing GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the maker of Cervarix, after the girls suffered severe reactions resulting in partial paralysis, seizures and chronic fatigue. The Scotsman has learned two more have contacted the same solicitor after suffering severe painful swelling of joints.

Autism Alternative
May 13, 2009

In the light of the recent public scare of the Swine fly pandemic, we desided to post the letter from Dr. Andreas Motitz with the permission of it's owner.

By Andreas Moritz

May 5, 2009

Dear Friend,

In the past few weeks I have received hundreds of inquiries about the recent outbreak of swine flu. My views on the subject may be controversial to some of you, but they may not come as a surprise to those who have read my books.

I do not pretend to know everything about the subject at hand, but I have studied the reasons behind flu outbreaks for many years, and have arrived at some startling conclusions. I would like to share these with you in this piece.

To answer one question many have posed, the Mexican toddler who visited Texas and died there actually suffered from a pre-existing respiratorypandemics2 condition (who knows when he received his vaccine shots, which kill many children). Or did he live in Mexico City? Mexico City has a high concentration of people (over 20 million), poverty, lousy sanitation and substandard health care, and the stagnant air pollution that overhangs the city is one of the worst in world. Nearly every person living in Mexico City has a weak respiratory system. I know firsthand what air pollution can do to you. In 1983, I spent one year in New Delhi (India), and suffered from upper respiratory problems the entire year. You never stop coughing up dark phlegm, day and night, when living in that kind of unhealthy environment. My lungs were filled with black soot produced at a rate of 2,000 tons per day by coal-burning electricity generators.

Farm Wars
By Barbara H. Peterson
May 18, 2008

Monsanto and its cohorts in crime promised us that they would not be using Terminator technology called GURT, or genetic use restricted technology. In fact, the United Nations actually issued a moratorium on the project. So we’re safe, right? Wrong.

As usual, the boys in the little white lab coats have not been idle. In spite of the moratorium, not only are they working heatedly on Terminator technology, but are getting ready to introduce Zombie technology. Terminator, and Traitor or Zombie technologies are just variations of GURT. Whereas Terminator technology produces plants with sterile seeds, Zombie technology carries this a step further by creating plants that could require a chemical application to trigger seed fertility every year. Pay for the chemical or get sterile seed. This is called reversible transgenic sterility. They have been working steadily on perfecting this technology, and are now poised to introduce it to the world as a solution to the current GMO contamination problem. Move over Terminator, here comes the Zombie.

Vitaminespress.com
By Michael leVesque

Perception is everything. So let's look at the influences that help determine it.

Medicine is based upon observation, as the French Philosopher Michel Foucault stated in The Birth of the Clinic, when describing the medical profession.

Observation is Perception

For years the wealthy in northern Europe ate off pewter plates, which have a very high lead content. Tomatoes are very acidic and when placed in contact with the pewter they leached out the lead. When eaten, the tomatoes then produced lead poisoning. Lead poisoning manifests itself in many ways from headaches to delirium to death. Based upon perception tomatoes were considered poisonous in those regions for several hundred years by society and the medical community until the 19th Century when a merchant publicly ate a bushel of tomatoes to prove they were harmless without ill effects.

Miami Herald
April 24, 2009
Editorial

OUR OPINION: Mistakes apparent in death of seven-year-old Gabriel Myers

By the time it becomes necessary for the Department of Children & Families to intervene in a child's life, the youngster almost certainly has already been severely traumatized by neglect and abuse. The agency faces tough, agonizing choices, but the objective never changes: Always act in the best interest of the child. That didn't happen in the depressingly sad case of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, who threw a tantrum last week and hanged himself in the shower of a foster home.

Sott.net
Jeff Donn, Marths Mendoza & Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
April 19, 2009

In this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment Plant in Wilmington, Del. Scientists took samples from the Delaware River nearby and found elevated concentrations of the painkiller codeine that are prompting them to try and track the source of the drug; this treatment plant handles sewage from a nearby pharmaceutical factory that makes codeine

Ajinomoto Seeks Approval of Sweetener, Advantame, a New and as yet Unknown Biochemical NIghtmare

CHICAGO-- Ajinomoto Company Inc., the leading global supplier of proven neurotoxic and carcinogenic aspartame as well as the equally destructive monosodium glutamate, has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of another biochemical monstrosity of to-the-public-unknown constitution, called Advantame, what they call "an innovative sweetener for use in foods and beverages."

My educated-but-still-layman's guess is that is is some mixture of aspartame and neotame, yet another deadly concoction and witch's brew. Ajinomoto was dumb enough to sue ASDA/Walmart for merely saying that Aspartame was "nasty" enough for them to get rid of out of their stores.

see also:

http://www.prlog.org/10070694-uk-supermarket-chain-bans-aspartame-from-own-label-products-japanese-manufacturer-ajinomoto-sues.html

Ainomoto says this: "Advantame has a sweet, clean sugar-like taste. Because it is much sweeter than most low and non-calorie sweeteners currently available, it is anticipated to be a top candidate for food and beverage formulations."

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PsychRights
March 31, 2009

Today, responding to the State of Alaska's admission in PsychRights v. Alaska that it was incapable of protecting the children and youth in its care from improper and harmful psychiatric drugging, the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) told the court it must step in.

PsychRights v. Alaska was filed last Fall to halt the State of Alaska's practice of administering and paying for psychiatric drugs being given children and youth without safeguards being in place to make sure proper decision making occurs. In trying to get PsychRights v. Alaska "thrown out of court" the State admitted it was incapable of protecting the children and youth in its care as follows:

A reading of the Complaint makes obvious that the true subject of plaintiff's grievances is not the Department, but prescribers of psychotropic pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical companies which produce and market them, and the overall culture of pediatric psychiatry. The implication that the Department possesses meaningful authority and control over these matters-or is in any realistic position to administer the relief requested even if the court were to order it-is a fiction.

Health Truth Revealed
Crusador Interviews Book Author & Acclaimed International Vaccine Expert
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
March 20, 2009

Millions of Americans have come to distrust vaccines and mainstream medicine’s vaccine agenda. There is a growing movement in this country and around the world that questions the safety and effectiveness of all vaccines for obvious reasons. Many childhood disorders such as autism, ADD/ADHD, SIDS and others have been linked to vaccines. Thousands of soldiers who served in the military have been severely disabled or in some cases even died after receiving their mandated shots. Vaccines are the most controversial subject in all of medicine.

The standard line heard from most parents once their eyes are open to the risks of vaccines is, “How will I get my child into day care or in school without their shots.” Those working in the healthcare field or soldiers in the military are faced with similar questions.

To help educate the people further about how to legally avoid all vaccines, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny has put together a brand new book that is absolutely necessary to have in your possession if you or a loved one don’t want to vaccinate but are not sure how to get around it. As Dr. Tenpenny says on the back cover of her book, “Saying No To Vaccines is not intended to be a balanced view of vaccination literature. Pro-vaccine information is readily accessible through the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, healthcare and government-sponsored organizations. This book balances the debate.”

Below is a copy of an interview Crusador editor Greg Ciola conducted with Dr. Tenpenny shortly after the release of her new book.

CommonDreams.org
Published on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by St Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
by Jeffrey Tomich

Earlier this month, a blogger named Brad fired a virtual salvo at Jeffrey Smith, the author of "Seeds of Deception" and one of the most vocal crusaders against genetically modified foods.

In a 600-word post, Brad questioned the credibility of an online petition on Smith's website, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to require labeling of biotech foods. He called the petition "sheer political theater" and prodded the activist for purportedly being a yogic flying instructor.

More than 30 comments followed in the next few weeks. On one level, the exchange was just another online debate about GMOs. But this one was notable because of who initiated and hosted it: Monsanto Co.

For years, environmental and food activists have made good use of YouTube video and Facebook to skewer Monsanto in the blogosphere. Now, the biotech giant is turning the tables.

Washington Post
By Shankar Vedantam
March 27, 2009

Long-Term Benefit For Children at Issue

New data from a large federal study have reignited a debate over the effectiveness of long-term drug treatment of children with hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder, and have drawn accusations that some members of the research team have sought to play down evidence that medications do little good beyond 24 months.

The study also indicated that long-term use of the drugs can stunt children's growth.

The latest data paint a very different picture than the study's positive initial results, reported in 1999.

One principal scientist in the study, psychologist William Pelham, said that the most obvious interpretation of the data is that the medications are useful in the short term but ineffective over longer periods but added that his colleagues had repeatedly sought to explain away evidence that challenged the long-term usefulness of medication. When their explanations failed to hold up, they reached for new ones, Pelham said.

Age of Autism
By Kim Stagliano
March 17, 2009

We've learned today that Jenny Tetlock passed away on Sunday. Her neurologists cited an unusual form of childhood ALS. Others point to Gardasil. Our sincere condolences to her family whose blog is HERE. Below is a post we ran last July.

This article on the paralysis of Miss Jenny Tetlock, perhaps from her Gardasil vaccination, is from US News and World Report, a bastion of mainstream, conservative reporting.

Note that her father is a professor at a top university. We wish the Tetlock family, especially young Jenny, well. We wrote about her tragic situation HERE. Did blogs help move this story along? We hope so.

Washington Post
Shankar Vedantam
March 18, 2009

The study would come to be called "cursed," but it started out just as Study 15.

It was a long-term trial of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The common wisdom in psychiatric circles was that newer drugs were far better than older drugs, but Study 15's results suggested otherwise.

As a result, newly unearthed documents show, Study 15 suffered the same fate as many industry-sponsored trials that yield data drugmakers don't like: It got buried. It took eight years before a taxpayer-funded study rediscovered what Study 15 had found -- and raised serious concerns about an entire new class of expensive drugs.

Study 15 was silenced in 1997, the same year Seroquel was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat schizophrenia. The drug went on to be prescribed to hundreds of thousands of patients around the world and has earned billions for London-based AstraZeneca International-- including nearly $12 billion in the past three years.

WDDTY
12 March 2009

A large consignment of seasonal flu vaccine, which was due to be circulated to 18 European countries, has been infected with deadly live avian flu virus. Had the contamination not been detected, the vaccines may have started an avian flu pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The World Health Organization is carrying out investigations at the Austrian research facility of Baxter International, the pharmaceutical company, where the contamination happened. Baxter has confirmed that the consignment contained live H5N1 virus, which causes avian flu.

A researcher in the Czech Republic discovered the lethal contamination when laboratory ferrets that he had injected with the H3N2 flu vaccine suddenly died. The H5N1 virus becomes lethal as an injection only when it is mixed with H3N2, a process known as reassortment.

The WHO investigation team says it doesn’t have evidence to suggest that Baxter had deliberately reassorted the two viruses, but “what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility,” a WHO official said.

The Wall Street Journal
By Sarah Rubenstein
March 11, 2009

We've followed plenty of controversies around drug trials, from ghostwriting to keeping quiet about unflattering results. But the latest news is particularly eye-popping: A prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies involving major drugs. Yikes.

Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., has asked several anesthesiology journals to retract the studies, which appeared between 1996 and 2008, the WSJ reports. The hospital says its former chief of acute pain, Scott S. Reuben, faked data used in the studies.

Some of the studies reported favorable results from use of Pfizer's Bextra and Merck's Vioxx, both painkillers that have since been pulled from the market. Others offered good news about Pfizer's pain drugs Lyrica and Celebrex and Wyeth's antidepressant Effexor XR. Doctors said Reuben's work was particularly influential in pain treatment and that they were shocked by the news.

Age of Autism
March 06, 2009

Spanish girl Managing Editor's Note: In case you missed this report in The New York Times... Gardasil continues to wreak havoc on girls. This story is from Spain where the vaccine was pulled for a short period and then re-instated (perhaps the check from Merck cleared?)

From the website TypicallySpanish.com The families of the two girls from Valencia who have been admitted to the Clínico Hospital in the city after having an adverse reaction to the cervical cancer vaccine, have called for the intervention of the Health Minister, Bernat Soria, after both girls once again suffered convulsions on Wednesday afternoon.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
March 6, 2009

In a stunning and unexpected 6-3 ruling the right-leaning Supreme Court went against the wishes of the last president, took the wind out of the sails of health care reform of the current president, sent irresponsible Big Pharma a major wake up call, and bluntly told the arrogant FDA that they are indeed not above the rule of law. It is a major victory for every American citizen.

Central to the issue is a power struggle between the federal government and states, which in this situation meant the federal government authority to pre-empt your state rights to sue if you are injured by a drug. The FDA, acting on behalf of the Bush administration and on the side of Big Pharma, has helped tie up thousands of drug injury lawsuits across the country. The FDA, who is supposed to be protecting consumers from drug injury and ensuring a correct risk/safety picture for any person taking a drug, was instead trying to shirk their responsibility and simply claim that Americans had no right to sue.

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
March 3, 2009

Eli Lilly & Company's rap sheet as a public menace is so long that for Lilly watchers to overcome the "banality-of-Lilly-sleaziness" phenomenon, the drug company must break some type of record measuring egregiousness. Lilly obliged earlier this year, receiving the largest criminal fine ever imposed on a corporation.

If Americans are ever going to revoke the publicly granted charters of reckless, giant corporations -- well within our rights -- we might want to get the ball rolling with Lilly, whose recent actions appalled even the mainstream media. And with Lilly's chums, the Bush family, out of power, now might be the right time.

On January 15, 2009, Lilly pled guilty to charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses to children and the elderly, two populations especially vulnerable to its dangerous side effect. Lilly plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and agreed to pay $1.42 billion, which included $615 million to end the criminal investigation and approximately $800 million to settle the civil case.

One of the eight whistle-blowers in this case, former Lilly sales representative Robert Rudolph, says the settlement will not completely change Lilly's business practices, and he wants jail time for executives. "You have to remember, with Zyprexa," said Rudolph, "people lost their lives."

The New York Times
By GARDINER HARRIS
March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — Federal health officials and prosecutors, frustrated that they have been unable to stop illegal kickbacks to doctors from drug and device companies, are investigating doctors who take money for using these products.

For years, prosecutors rarely pursued doctors because they believed that juries would sympathize with respected clinicians. But within a few months, officials plan to file civil and criminal charges against a number of surgeons who they say demanded profitable consulting agreements from device makers in exchange for using their products.

“What we need to do is make examples of a couple of doctors so that their colleagues see that this isn’t worth it,” said Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. “We want to send the message to the physician community — particularly surgeons — that you can’t do this.”

The move against doctors is part of a diverse campaign to curb industry marketing tactics that enrich doctors but increase health care costs and sometimes endanger patients. Taken together, the new measures are likely to transform the relationship between medicine and industry.

There's a popular medical thriller novel in which a global pandemic is intentionally set off by an evil plot designed to reduce the human population. In the book, a nefarious drug company inserts live avian flu viruses into vaccine materials that are distributed to countries around the world to be injected into patients as "flu shots." Those patients then become carriers for these highly-virulent strains of avian flu which go on to infect the world population and cause widespread death.

There's only one problem with this story: It's not fiction. Or, at least, the part about live avian flu viruses being inserted into vaccine materials isn't fiction. It's happening right now.

Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
February 28, 2009

Pfizer is planting fake medical articles and issuing unbranded "PSAs" to push pills? Again? Say it ain't so.

Even as new reports surface about alleged fake medical articles Pfizer planted to sell seizure drug Neurontin for unapproved uses from 1995 to 2002, it looks like deja vu all over again.

Pfizer gave nonprofits $2.1 million in grants in 2008 for medical courses about the pain-and-fatigue ailment fibromyalgia for which its Neurontin follow-up pill, Lyrica, just happens to be approved.

Lyrica (pregablin), facetiously called Son of Neurontin at Pfizer, was discovered by Northwestern University chemist Richard Silverman in 1989, earning the university a cool $700 million when it sold royalties in late 2007.

It is funding the $100 million Richard and Barbara Silverman Hall for Molecular Therapeutics & Diagnostics, under construction now, which will employ 245 faculty, staff and research assistants and hopefully lead to other promising molecules.

Like Neurontin (gabapentin), Lyrica (Pregablin) is an antiepilepsy drug (AED) that modulates calcium channels to dampen the excitability of nerve endings and seizure activity. And, like Neurontin which made $3 billion a year from unapproved uses like bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder and restless legs syndrome, Pfizer has high hopes for its "crossover appeal."

Reuters
Pete Harrison
March 2, 2009

Austria and Hungary reaffirmed their sovereign right on Monday to ban growing genetically modified maize after EU environment ministers squashed more attempts by the European Commission to lift the restrictions.

In a stinging rebuff to the EU's executive arm, an overwhelming majority of countries -- at least 21 out of the bloc's 27 member states -- voted against draft orders for Vienna and Budapest to end their GM crop bans within 20 days.

EU law provides for national GMO bans under certain cicumstances if the government can justify the prohibition.

It was the third time that the Commission had tried to get Austria's bans lifted and the second time for Hungary, with all the attempts roundly rejected by ministers in the past.

National GMO bans are the only area of EU biotech policy where countries can muster enough consensus under the bloc's complex weighted voting rules to secure an agreement. On applications for new GM products, for example, they are always deadlocked, leading to default approvals by the Commission.

The New York Times
February 26, 2009
By BARRY MEIER and BENEDICT CAREY

The Justice Department charged the drug maker Forest Laboratories on Wednesday with defrauding the government of millions of dollars by illegally marketing the popular antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved uses in children and teenagers.

In a civil complaint filed by the United States attorney’s office in Boston, federal prosecutors alleged that former top executives at Forest concealed for several years a clinical study that showed that the drugs were not effective in children and might even pose risks to them, including causing some to become suicidal.

From 2001 to 2004, Forest heavily promoted results from another clinical trial it had financed that showed that the drugs were effective, without disclosing the negative study to those researchers, its own medical advisers or its sales representatives, the complaint said.

An official of Forest, which is based in Manhattan, said the company’s lawyers were reviewing the complaint and did not have an immediate comment. Celexa and Lexapro are two versions of the same drug, citalopram. The drugs are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for adults.

OpEdNews
February 25, 2009
By Sandra Thornton

After noticing a change in TV ads for Cymbalta, now only claiming to help with depression, I was led to do extensive research on the internet as well as using valuable input from my fellow victims of fibromyalgia, and what I found was appalling.

Per FDA requirements each potential drug requires three phases of testing. Phase I of testing assesses the safety and tolerability of the drug. Phase II tests the efficacy of the drug, and Phase III tests the effects from long-term use of the drug and builds on the findings of two previous phases to further evaluate safety and effectiveness. These three phases are long and grueling… The company then submits application to the FDA for approval, a process that can take up to 2 ½ years. It takes approximately an average of 12 years to get a new drug from the laboratory unto the pharmacy shelf.

PRESS RELEASE LEGISLATION NEEDING YOUR ACTION

National Health Federation

February 24, 2009

HAWAII & NEW MEXICO ARE LEADING THE WAY
GET YOUR STATE SENATORS
TO SPONSOR A BILL TO BAN ASPARTAME
  ACT NOW

NHF member, Dr. Betty Martini, Founder of Mission Impossible International, and Stephen Fox, Editor of the New Mexico Sun News, are currently working with people in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois to accomplish just this. The bill is now written and Dr. Martini and Stephen Fox have written the resolution. Stephen Fox wrote the important legislation to ban aspartame for both the Hawaii and New Mexico Senate.

In Stephen's words, this legislation was "overwhelmed by corporate lobbyists (eviscerated, might be the better word....), which led to a Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, which genteelly but firmly asked the FDA to rescind the approval for aspartame, and gave about 40 reasons to do so. It can be read at the Hawaiian Legislature's website, as SCR 191. This resolution will be sponsored again in 2009 by Senator Suzanne Chun-Oakland in Hawaii, and by New Mexico Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino. The corporate lobbyists will be out in droves and out for blood, this time . . . ."

"The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen."

"Meanwhile, the study dogs were found good homes, but no long-term follow-up has been conducted. At around the same time, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force initiated several studies to find out why 160,000 cats each year in the USA develop terminal cancer at their vaccine injection sites."

"It is also widely acknowledged that vaccines can cause a fast-acting, usually fatal, disease called autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA). Without treatment, and frequently with treatment, individuals can die in agony within a matter of days."

"However, no one warns the pet owners before their animals are subjected to an unnecessary booster, and very few owners are told why after their pets die of AIHA."

Randeep Ramesh
Guardian.co.uk
February 23, 2009

In the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as "public property" free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a "brand".

The move comes after scientists in Delhi noticed an alarming trend - the "bio-prospecting" of natural remedies by companies abroad. After trawling through the records of the global trademark offices, officials found 5,000 patents had been issued - at a cost of at least $150m (£104m) - for "medical plants and traditional systems".

"More than 2,000 of these belong to the Indian systems of medicine ... We began to ask why multinational companies were spending millions of dollars to patent treatments that so many lobbies in Europe deny work at all," said Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which lists in encyclopaedic detail the 200,000 treatments.

Spectrum
By Barbara Frischkin
February 19, 2009

As an Autism Mom, I spent last week with my head spinning. Ultimately though, I could see that the events - in a conflicted American court, a decimated American home and a misguided British newspaper - were all connected, albeit in a deep, unsettling manner. But one that also illuminates that the debate is far from over.

In America last week, our Vaccine Court very curiously threw a hearty dose of cold water over the widely reported connection between autism and vaccines. I use this phrase -- widely reported-- to emphasize that the connection between autism and vaccines has been spotted by multitudes of front line participants and observers -- parents and physicians who have seen children and patients fall apart after being vaccinated. Ignoring these eyewitness accounts is akin to dismissing testimonies from soldiers until those testimonies are "peer reviewed" by scientists who may have no first hand experience in war zones.

AlterNet
By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
February 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/127393/

Many are outraged that Eli Lilly gave nonprofits $3.9 million in grants last year for medical courses to "educate" doctors about the pain-and-fatigue ailment fibromyalgia--more than it spent for diabetes and Alzheimer's which people already know they have.

But finding new diseases to justify a drug's existence is the normal way pharma operates.

Especially Lilly who agreed to pay $1.42 billion for illegal marketing of its anti-psychotic Zyprexa last month--$615 million for criminally promoting it for dementia--another $62 million to 32 states for illegal pediatric marketing and agreed to resolve Medicaid fraud investigations into "rebates" at the same time. (And how was your year?)

And whose diabetes treatment Byetta is tanking since reports last summer of six deaths, at least two from pancreatitis.

Sott.net
OpEd News
Linn Cohen-Cole
February 16, 2009

[Editors' note: Community-Supported Agriculture or C.S.A., is the distribution system in which people buy shares in return for a weekly allotment of local fresh farm food.]

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton. She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food. Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

NewsWithViews.com
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, DO
February 17, 2009

For nearly a decade, the British General Medical Council (GMC), the equivalent of a U.S State Medical Board on steroids, has been taking Dr. Andrew Wakefield to task for daring to suggest that autism could be caused by the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. This week proved that the inquisition continues. The Times UK published a report written by commissioned journalist, Brian Deer, claiming that “confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses” have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data.[1] Deer claims that Dr. Wakefield’s “misleading and inaccurate” research about the MMR has lead to reduced vaccination rates and a resurgence of measles. And while the bickering about the MMR continues, the number of children who have been lost to autism continues to soar.

Before the 1990s, U.K. researchers estimated four to five cases of autism per 10,000 people in their country. By 2006, the number with autism had escalated to 39 per 10,000 and the number with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) stood at 77 per 10,000, making the total prevalence of all types of ASD 116 per 10,000, or one in every 86 children.[2] Barely one year later (2007), researchers at the Cambridge University's Autism Research Center in London released a report estimating that one in every 58 children in the U.K. (not just boys) suffers from "some form of autism disorder."[3]

People say if farmers don't want problems from Monsanto, just don't buy their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It's a way to make money since farmers can't fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.

Atlanticfreepress
Written by Robert Singer
February 7, 2009

The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), based in Rome, Italy, is an international organization jointly created in 1962 by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations “allegedly” to protect the health of consumers with guidelines for food standards.

Codex Alimentarius may present the greatest disaster for our food supply — and thus for our health — this country has ever seen, and if not stopped is likely to be implemented starting in 2011.

Let me repeat that, the greatest disaster to our health if not stopped, starting in 2011.

The Codex and regulations affecting our food sovereignty go back to 1962. Fortunately, in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which for the moment preserved the definition of vitamins, minerals and herbs as foods.

Without congressional oversight the U.S. will move towards Canada and Mexico where supplements are considered drugs, not foods. Codex if implemented will reverse DSHEA and the U.S. will no longer treat dietary supplements as foods, but as toxins.

Let me repeat that, Codex treats foods as toxins!

Sott.net
David Kirby
Age of Autism
February 4, 2009

All eyes are on Vaccine Court this week, as people await rulings in the autism "test cases" on MMR and thimerosal. But another omnibus proceeding involving Hepatitis B vaccine and autoimmune disorders in adults, including MS, has already been quietly ruling in favor of several petitioners. (HERE)

The most recent case was announced about a week ago. In it, the Court ruled that the victim, an adult female, had contracted a form of demyelinating disease and MS, and eventually died, after receiving the Hepatitis B vaccine series. It was just the most recent case in a rash of rulings in the omnibus proceeding dealing with hepatitis B vaccine and "demyelinating diseases such as transverse myelitis (TM), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease (CIDP), and multiple sclerosis (MS)," according to court papers.

"Petitioner has prevailed on the issue of entitlement. The medical records during decedent's final hospitalization reflect that she died from demyelinating disease. Not only did decedent have a vaccine injury, but also her death was vaccine-related," wrote the Special Master in the case.

Interestingly, the US government chose not to present any expert witnesses, nor to contest the case any further.

Sott.net
Dan Eskelsom
Garden Journal
February 3, 2009

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have become a hot topic among farmers, environmentalists, gardeners and others concerned with food and environmental safety. Some folks believe that GMO technology is "the single most potent technology the world has ever known" and capable of causing incurable damage to our species' well being.

Here is a very simple explanation of the issue: Monsanto, the producer of the infamous chemicals Agent Orange and PCB, has developed a biotechnology that alters the genetic makeup of seeds. The original and ongoing intent of the technology is to allow mass spraying of herbicide over entire fields without hurting the crop.

Seeds are altered to produce plants that are not affected by herbicide, so farmers can broadcast spray huge amounts of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide without affecting the food crop. Did I say not affecting? That is what Monsanto would have you believe, but common sense and the evidence indicates otherwise.

Sott.net
Ryan Wood
Ball State News Online
February 3, 2009

A group of Ball State University students are worried a preservative found in a flu vaccine meant to keep you healthy could lead to harmful side effects.

Tony Farmer, president of Ball State's Truth Movement, has been leading his group in a protest against the use of thimerosal, a preservative found in some flu vaccines. Farmer says multiple studies indicate thimerosal, used in the flu vaccine Fluzone, can lead to Alzheimer's disease and autism.

Farmer believes the evidence found in the study is convincing, but not enough is being done to rid Fluzone of the potentially harmful preservative.

"The problem is, most people don't examine the evidence either because the FDA has convinced them it doesn't exist," Farmer wrote in an e-mail to DayWatch. "Some are putting more trust in their government than in their own eyes."

Fluzone is one of two flu vaccines offered at the Health Center. The other, FluMist, is $13 more expensive.

Rolling Stone
SPECIAL REPORT
By Ben Wallace-Wells
Jan 28, 2009

Zyprexa was created to treat schizophrenia, but it wound up being used on depressed moms and misbehaving kids. How one of the nation's biggest pharmaceutical companies turned a flawed, dangerous pill into a multi-billion-dollar bonanza -- and who paid the price.

In June 1992, not long after the place closed down, a Harvard-trained psychologist named Sergio Pirrotta walked out of Danvers State Hospital for the last time. The psychiatric facility, at this late date, was a baggy old thing, rectangled into a field just north of Boston; whole wings were barely occupied, and vandals had already begun to rip out the mantelpieces and furniture. The hospital had been slowly, incrementally shutting down for a decade, and the patients that remained were the hardest cases, mostly schizophrenics and those with disorders too dense and weird to classify. But now, as Pirrotta took a walk around the campus, even those patients were gone: released into the larger world to fend for themselves or bused to hospitals where the staffs had little psychiatric training.

SOTT.net
Natural News
Mike Adams
January 28, 2009

New research published in Environmental Health and conducted in part by a scientist at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has revealed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury.

That means that many of the products using HFCS may also be contaminated with mercury. Carbonated sodas are sweetened with HFCS, as are candy bars, bread, salad dressings, pizza sauce, fruit drinks and thousands of other grocery items.

Mercury is so highly toxic that it causes severe neurological disorders. It can also result in the loss of hair, teeth and nails as well as muscle weakness, loss of kidney function, emotional mood swings and memory impairment. (P.S. Somebody please update this Wikipedia page with this latest research about HFCS being a source for mercury exposure, too.)

A recent decision of the European Court of Justice has delineated the borderline between food and medicine in a case involving a German pharmaceutical importer and the administrative authorities. The Lueneburg district's administration had challenged Hecht-Pharma that their product called "Red Rice" was a medicine by function, and that it could not be legally sold in Germany. A "medicine by function" is a product presented and sold as a food, that is determined to really be a medicine because its function is that of "restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions in human beings".

Hecht-Pharma, which operates a wholesale pharmaceutical business, marketed in Germany a product composed of fermented red rice under the name ‘Red Rice 330 mg Kapseln [capsules]’.

The capsules were marketed in plastic bottles which stated on their labels, inter alia: ‘Red Rice 330 mg, food supplement with fermented rice. One capsule corresponds to 1.33 mg of monacolin k’. The recommendations for use read as follows: ‘As food supplement, 1 capsule 1 - 3 times daily’.

The Niedersächsisches Oberverwaltungsgericht (Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony) held that the legislation on medicinal products was applicable on the ground that the product in question could come within the scope of the definition of a medicinal product by function. It contained significant levels of monacolin k. That active substance is synonymous with lovastatin, an inhibitor of cholesterol synthesis which is contained, as an active substance, in a number of prescription medicinal products.

The Niedersächsisches Oberverwaltungsgericht concluded that the product at issue in the main proceedings was liable to lower excessively high cholesterol levels and therefore contribute to the realisation of a therapeutic objective. It added that inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis could also have serious, undesirable side-effects on the muscles and kidneys.

Hecht-Pharma appealed on a point of law against the judgment of the Niedersächsische Oberverwaltungsgericht. During the course of the appeal, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the certain questions to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling.

The decision of the EU Court, which no doubt will be greeted with some relief by European supplement manufacturers as well as consumers, sets down a firm marker that helps us understand where the borderline between food [supplements] and medicinal products is to be drawn. A recent revision of European medicines directives had left considerable confusion and uncertainty in that respect. The court intends to limit the application of pharmaceutical law to only those products sold with claims of prevention or cure of illness, and to products which, by their composition, are scientifically proven to be effective in modifying physiological functions.

The full text of the EU Court of Justice decision is available here on the eur-lex site.

Sott.net
Health & Wellness
Salynn Boyles
WebMD
January 26, 2009

Treatment-related hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be more common than previously thought, FDA officials report in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

In an earlier investigation, FDA researchers identified more than 850 separate incidences of hallucinations and other psychotic episodes among children taking stimulants used to treat ADHD.

The investigation prompted federal officials to require new labeling on the drugs, including Ritalin LA, Concerta, Adderall XR, Focalin, Focalin XR, Metadate CD, Daytrana, and Strattera, warning of possible psychiatric side effects.

An estimated 2.5 million children and teens take these and other stimulant-based medications to treat ADHD symptoms.

Nearly half of the cases of hallucination and other psychiatric side effects reviewed by FDA researchers involved children younger than age 11. And in more than nine out of 10 cases, the children had no reported history of psychiatric events.

OpEdNews
January 26, 2009
By Sally Stride

Sixty-four years ago, on January 25, sodium fluoride was poured into Grand Rapids, Michigan's public water supply to prove that fluoridation reduces children's tooth decay. Five years into the experiment, things weren't going as expected. Cavities declined equally in the non-fluoridated control city of Muskegon, too. So, to blur the truth or prove their expectation, Muskegon was fluoridated also.

So what's happening today?

The Liberty Voice
Greenpeace
January 13, 2009

India — New research from Austria shows that a commercial strain of Monsanto-made GE corn causes mice to have fewer and weaker babies. What is this doing to human fertility?

Regulators around the world said Monsanto’s GE corn was as safe as non-GE strains.

It has been approved in many countries and regions including the US, the EU, Argentina, Japan, Philippines and South Africa.

China approved the GE corn for animal feed back in 2005.

Until this research, under the Austrian Ministries for Agriculture and Health, none of the regulators had seriously questioned the safety of Monsanto’s GE corn.

The biotech industry is playing a game of genetic roulette with our food and with our health.

Associated Press
January 8, 2009

Anti-psychotic medications reduce symptoms, but at a high cost, study says

LONDON - Anti-psychotic drugs commonly used to treat Alzheimer's disease may double a patient's chance of dying within a few years, suggests a new study that adds to concerns already known about such medications.

"For the vast majority of Alzheimer's patients, taking these drugs is probably not a worthwhile risk," said Clive Ballard, the paper's lead author, of the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's College London.

"Would I want to take a drug that slightly reduced my aggression but doubled my risk of dying? I'm not sure I would," Ballard said.

The research was published Friday in the medical journal, Lancet Neurology.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and causes symptoms including aggression, delusions and hallucinations. Previous studies have shown anti-psychotic drugs, which can help control the aggression and hallucinations for a few months raise the risk of death in older patients with dementia. There are other side effects, including respiratory problems and stroke.

Fluoride Alert.Org
January 11, 2009

Editor's note: You don't have a right to choose what type of water to drink or use. The majority of drinking water in the U.S. is adulterated with fluoride. The dentists make the decision and lobby the state and local governments to add the chemical into your drinking water because they say it's good for your teeth. But just because they say fluoride is good for the teeth does not mean they have the right to force you to drink it. If fluoride is indeed good for the teeth, people can use supplements or whatever anytime. But why this chemical, which has been found to pose a health risk such as bone cancer in boys, should be added to in the public drinking water systems? Something fishy, but the answer is obvious.

Up until the 1990s, no research had ever been conducted to determine the impact of fluoride on the pineal gland - a small gland located between the two hemispheres of the brain that regulates the production of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate the onset of puberty and helps protect the body from cell damage caused by free radicals.

tv.mpp.org

December 25, 2008

As we say goodbye to the Bush Administration, we’d like to take this opportunity to give the outgoing President and his Drug Czar their final grades.

Natural News
Mike Adams
December 18, 2008

In a truly astonishing betrayal of public safety (even for the FDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today revoked its warning about mercury in fish, saying that eating mercury-contaminated fish no longer poses any health threat to children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants.

Last week, the FDA declared trace levels of melamine to be safe in infant formula. A few weeks earlier, it said the plastics chemical Bisphenol-A was safe for infants to drink. Now it says children can eat mercury, too. Is there any toxic substance in the food that the FDA thinks might be dangerous? (Aspartame, MSG, sodium nitrite and now mercury...)

This FDA decision on mercury in fish has alarmed EPA scientists who called it "scientifically flawed and inadequate," reports the Washington Post. Even better, the Environmental Working Group issued a letter to the EPA, saying "It's a commentary on how low FDA has sunk as an agency. It was once a fierce protector of America's health, and now it's nothing more than a patsy for polluters."

When it comes to ordinary maladies, if you name it they will come

New terms for familiar ailments can result in more people seeking medication, says a study released Monday by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

The study looked at the effect of using impressive-sounding medical terms for common conditions.

Someone who is told she has hyperhidrosis, for instance, may be more concerned than if her doctor calls it excessive perspiration. Similarly, pityriasis capitis sounds a lot scarier than dandruff.

Co-author Meredith Young says that conditions previously considered to be on the fringes of normal health, or associated with the normal aging process, are becoming seen as diseases that need to be treated.

Times of London
Daniel Foggo and Philip Cardy
December 14, 2008

A 12-year-old schoolgirl has been left paralysed from the waist down by a mystery illness that came on 30 minutes after she was given the new anticervical cancer jab.

Ashleigh Cave suffered dizziness and headaches soon after the vaccination at her school and then deteriorated rapidly, collapsing several times over the following days.

A week later she was admitted to hospital after losing all strength in her legs and, two months on, there has been no improvement.

Her mother Cheryl, 37, from Aintree, Merseyside, is blaming her daughter's condition on the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which was introduced in Britain in September as part of a government-funded vaccination programme.

All girls aged 12 and 13 are being offered vaccinations with Cervarix, a drug that stimulates the body to defend itself against HPV, to protect against the later onset of cervical cancer which is linked to the virus.

Telegraph.co.uk
Urmee Khan
December 9, 2008

Men are at risk of being "feminised" by thousands of "gender bending" chemicals that are changing the behaviour of humans and animals, according to a report.

Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen.

The males of species including fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles have been feminised by exposure to sex hormone disrupting chemicals and have been found to be abnormally making egg yolk protein, normally made by females, according to the report by Chem Trust, environmental group.

The authors claim that the chemicals found in food packaging, cleaning products, plastics, sewage and paint cause genital deformities, reduce sperm count and "feminise" males.

WHY IS A NOBEL AWARD BEING GIVEN FOR THIS ON DECEMBER 10TH?

By Janine Roberts

There are two licensed HPV vaccines in the world.

Merck makes Gardasil. It contains proteins said to come originally from four different types of HPV. By early 2008 over 10 million doses had been distributed, three-quarters of these in the USA. It is thought to be earning the company over $1 billion a year – at $360 for a course of three injections, far more than is charged for the common vaccines. The other is Cervarix, made by SmithKline Beecham, which is not yet licensed for use in the USA (as of May 2008). It contains proteins said to come from 2 different types of HPV. Both vaccines contain aluminium adjuvants. Both manufacturers recommend that women are still regularly scanned for cervical cancer – thus the vaccine does not save costs. In fact these scans give women far better protection than does the vaccine.

On December 10th, a Nobel Prize will be awarded for finding HPV and proving its link to cervical cancer to Dr Harald zur Hausen. However there is a missing link in this – for he failed to find a way to persuade cells to make his virus.

Naturalnews
December 2, 2008
by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) For the first time, the FDA has issued a warning that the mercury contained in silver dental fillings may pose neurological risks to children and pregnant women.

"Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses," reads a statement that has been added to the agency's Web site. "Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner."

The warning was one of the conditions that the FDA agreed to in settling a lawsuit filed by several consumer health groups.

"Gone, gone, gone are all of FDA's claims that no science exists that amalgam is unsafe," said Charles Brown, a lawyer for Consumers for Dental Choice, one of the plaintiffs.

"It's a watershed moment," said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project, another plaintiff.

Mercury is a well-known neurotoxin that can cause cognitive and developmental problems, especially in fetuses and children. It can also cause brain and kidney damage in adults.

So-called dental amalgams, or fillings made with a mix of mercury and other metals, have been used since the 1800s. Although it is known that small amounts of mercury are vaporized (and can be inhaled) when the fillings are used to chew food, and though Canada, France and Sweden have all placed restrictions on the use of mercury fillings, the FDA has always insisted that amalgams are safe.

Nancy J. Tock Sarnia
The Sarnia Observer
December 1, 2008

So, the fluoride debate is on again.

The government has come to the conclusion that fluoride levels in drinking water should be no more than 0.7 milligrams per litre. Mike Bradley says any decision "should be based on science and health. It should not be based on politics."

I agree.

I also think the public should have the "new" information. Much of the information is, in fact, not new.

The Danish scientist Kaj Eli Roholm wrote of the dangers of fluoride in the 1930s. Phyllis J. Mullenix, a prominent U. S. neurotoxicologist, warned of its toxicity in the early 1990s. Many other prominent minds worldwide have added their voice.

The Independent
James Woodward
December 2, 2008

A "healthy and robust" baby who died just ten days after being given the MMR jab had earlier suffered a fever fit which can be aggravated by the vaccine, an inquest heard today.

George Fisher, aged 18 months, was discovered dead in his cot in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire by his mother Sarah Fisher just hours after he was heard "chatting away on the baby monitor", a coroner was told.

Mrs Fisher, 44, and husband Christopher, 43, believe the vaccine is "implicated" in their son's death in January 2006 as the temperature-raising effects of the drug on children who have suffered febrile convulsions were not explained to them - knowledge they say might have allowed them to act sooner.

Department of Health guidelines say the jab should be given "with caution" but does not ban child sufferers of febrile convulsions from taking it and recommends temperature monitoring.

Two doctors confirmed that giving MMR to sufferers like George, who contracted the fever four months earlier, was permitted under patient guidelines with careful watches recommended.

Image via Wikipedia

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=69298&cat=10

and Google News: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=strattera&btnG=Search

The manufacturer, Eli Lilly, has now changed the label for Strattera in Europe to include warnings that Strattera CAUSES "hallucinations, delusional thinking, mania or agitation in children and adolescents without a prior history of psychotic illness or mania ... at usual doses".

Stockholm, Sweden 12-01-2008 09:38 GMT (TransWorldNews)

Please note that Strattera is CAUSING these symtoms - that these "symptoms" seen in children are drug induced, that they in actual fact are signs of drug induced brain dysfunction.

It took almost THREE years of foot dragging before the medical authorities in Europe finally decided that Eli Lilly should issue warnings about psychotic reactions in the label for Strattera. But now the warnings are finally out.

The story leading up to these warnings can be read in the following article (see also links in the article to background data): The ADHD drug Strattera - actions needed now, from January 2008, http://jannel.se/letter.mhra.strattera.jan08.pdf (See also article about Strattera death at http://jannel.se/Strattera.death2.pdf )

www.opednews.com

by Mike Adams
December 1, 2008

The results of two new surveys published in the medical journal Pediatrics reveal that many U.S. doctors are abandoning vaccines that don't make them money. Due to low reimbursements from insurance companies and government health care programs (Medicare, Medicaid), many doctors are simply refusing to offer such vaccines to children. About half of the doctors surveyed said they had delayed buying at least one vaccine due to the cost.

These survey results bring several important issues to the surface. First, there's the greed of Big Pharma: If the drug industry is here to serve humankind (as they hilariously claim in their advertisements), then drug companies should make vaccines available at cost rather than at the huge markups on the drugs they have in place right now. And that's only if you believe vaccines are actually good for children in the first place.

The second fascinating issue here is that doctors are increasingly fed up with the monopoly price fixing of Big Pharma, too, and they're not going to keep offering services at a loss just because the drug companies tell them to. As long as the pharmaceutical industry continues to exploit the population for obscene corporate profits, more and more doctors are going to drop vaccine services that don't earn them some cash. Doctors are in business to make money, too, and they're not willing to keep eating losses just to vaccinate children (and we shouldn't expect them to).

The third issue is that this reduction in vaccines may actually result in fewer cases of autism which are, of course, caused by the toxic preservative chemicals and inflammatory chemicals found in vaccines (see http://www.naturalnews.com/024867.html).

Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
November 27, 2008

Public health groups, consumer advocates and members of Congress blasted the Food and Drug Administration yesterday for failing to act after discovering trace amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula sold in the United States.

"This FDA, this Bush administration, instead of protecting the public health, is protecting industry," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA budget. In an interview, DeLauro said she wants the agency to disclose its findings and to develop a plan to remove melamine from formula. "We're talking about babies, about the most vulnerable. This really makes me angry."

The FDA found melamine and cyanuric acid, a related chemical, in samples of baby formula made by major U.S. manufacturers. Melamine can cause kidney and bladder stones and, in worst cases, kidney failure and death. If melamine and cyanuric acid combine, they can form round yellow crystals that can also damage kidneys and destroy renal function.

Sott.net
Sherry Baker
NaturalNews
November 17, 2008

Drugs like Avastin that are used to treat some cancers are supposed to work by blocking a vessel growth-promoting protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. With VEGF held in check, researchers have assumed tumors wouldn't generate blood vessels and that should keep malignancies from growing. In a sense, the cancerous growths would be "starved". But new research just published in the journal Nature shows this isn't true. Instead of weakening blood vessels so they won't "feed" malignant tumors, these cancer treatments, known as anti-angiogenesis drugs, actually normalize and strengthen blood vessels -- and that means they can spur tumors to grow larger.

MailOnline
By Jo Macfarlane
November 2008

Health chiefs have revealed that ten people have committed suicide after taking a controversial anti-smoking drug linked to depression.

The disclosure by the Government's drugs watchdog is the first time officials have revealed the link between Champix and suicide in this country. Earlier this year, US authorities announced they were investigating 37 similar cases there.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) website says a total of 24 people taking the nicotine-replacement have died, of whom ten took their own lives.

A further 213 claimed they had experienced suicidal thoughts and 407 said they were suffering depression.

There is no evidence that Champix has been a factor in any of the deaths. However, some experts are concerned that the drug, used by almost half a million people in Britain, may cause depressive thoughts and mood swings.

www.opednews.com

November 16, 2008

by Institute for Responsible Technology (Posted by sadelaine)

Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety

Advocates Call for Immediate Ban of All GM Foods and GM Crops

IMMEDIATE RELEASE (November 13, 2008)

(Los Angeles, CA.) - A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.

Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.

NaturalNews.com
by Joanne Waldron
November 11, 2008

(NaturalNews) The Gardasil vaccine has been linked to 78 outbreaks of genital warts, according to an article in The Fiji Times entitled "Are our girls guinea pigs?" by Matelita Ragogo. That's right. In addition to all of the other adverse reactions to this controversial vaccine, children who receive it are subject to outbreaks of genital warts. Unfortunately, not too many doctors take the time to educate parents about some of these possible reactions prior to giving little girls this expensive jab.

Deaths, Miscarriages and Other Adverse Events

While genital warts are certainly disgusting, parents who think that genital warts are the worst possible adverse reaction to the vaccine should think again. According to Ragogo, as of August 14th, including the 78 outbreaks of genital warts, there have been 9,748 adverse events reported as per Judicial Watch, a non-profit watchdog group. Judicial Watch also reports that there have been 21 deaths, not including the deaths (by miscarriage) of 10 unborn babies.

November 10th, 2008

By David Gutierrez | A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

"The abuse has reached epidemic proportions," said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. "It's just explosive."

In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121, methamphetamines for 25 and marijuana for zero, for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast, 2,328 people were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin, and 743 were killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants Valium and Xanax.

www.opednews.com
November 5, 2008
by DrTruth

Big business greed, selfishness, power lust, and total disregard for human life and all life in the natural world continues on with its diabolical schemes to control all food production in the world. Monsanto's attempts to patent pig genes, and subsequently, many other life forms through genetically modified organisms (GMO) is as criminal as they come.

It is bad enough that Monsanto's total vanity and ego could believe they own any aspect of the natural world, regardless of what they might do to it, for them to do this for money and control is insult to injury. This is a purely evil agenda and they are a clear example of domestic terrorists at work to subjugate others.

Imagine this: You have a field of corn you are raising cleanly... without GMO corn seed. Your neighboring fields have those GMO seeds and crops. The pollen from those fields cross with your clean corn plants, carrying the genetic material Monsanto's perverted corn contains. Now, your corn crop can be claimed as their property because of their patented gene found in your crop and they can either demand a fee from you for having this gene, or put you out of business with a lawsuit.

NewsWithViews.com

By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
November 3, 2008

For several years the pharmaceutical firm has made aggressive efforts to market the Gardasil human papilloma virus vaccine as a prevention for cervical cancer. The governor of the state of Texas made the administration of this vaccine to young girls mandatory.

What is the truth about this vaccine?

Natural News reporter Mike Adams has uncovered some interesting facts about this vaccine. The FDA has been aware since 2003 that Human Papillloma Virus [1] does not cause cervical cancer. The Gardasil vaccine is unable to eradicate HPV virus from women who have been exposed to HPV(nearly all sexually active women). This makes vaccinating all young women in Texas against HPV virus a very questionable decision.

To make matters even worse it has now been learned that vaccinating women with Gardasil may actually increase the risk that those women harboring a benign cervical HPV viral infection have a 44.6 percent increased risk of having their benign HPV infection converted into a precancerous state by the HPV vaccine administration. Thus women vaccinated with Gardasil not only receive no benefit those who were sexually active before the vaccine administration have become at increased risk for developing cervical cancer.

Google Video

SOTT.net

October 27, 2008

This documentary shows the fraud of psychiatry for what it is. Recent news stories on the uselessness of antidepressants as shown here, here and here. There is also the recent news story on the scandalous, deliberate information blackout by the media/pharmaceutical/psychiatric complex which involve negative test studies/results on antidepressants, see here.

AlterNet

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet

October 19, 2008

Some state legislators are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

They've seen state outlays for controversial antipsychotics like Zyprexa grow as much as twelvefold since 2000, with a corresponding growth in side effects like weight gain, blood sugar changes and cholesterol problems.

In March, Alaska won a $15 million settlement from Eli Lilly in a suit to recoup medical costs generated by Medicaid patients who developed diabetes while taking Zyprexa.

Last year Bristol-Myers Squibb settled a federal suit for $515 million charging that it illegally hawked the antipsychotic Abilify to children and the elderly, bilking taxpayers.

UNCENSORED 8 PAGE SPECIAL EDITION.pdf

By Rob Kampia, AlterNet
September 8, 2008

Twenty years ago, on Sept. 6, 1988, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law judge issued a landmark ruling, but don't expect any celebrations or commemorations in Washington, D.C. Our government has ignored this historic decision since the day it was issued, inflicting needless misery on millions.

Indeed, most Americans don't know it ever happened.

In response to a petition asking that marijuana be moved from Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which bars medical use, to a lower schedule that would permit physician prescriptions, Judge Francis Young held extensive hearings that began in the summer of 1986. He heard from an impressive array of expert witnesses, resulting in thousands of pages of documentation.

opednews.com
July 31, 2008
by David Gutierrez (Posted by Stephen Fox)

(NaturalNews) New Zealand beverage manufacturer Phoenix Organics has launched an anti-aspartame campaign called "Think Before You Drink," to inform people about what it says are serious health risks from the artificial sweetener.

Aspartame is a common zero-calorie sweetener, marketed under brand names including Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel and Tropicana Slim and used in more than 6,000 products worldwide.

Image via Wikipedia

Sott.net
By Thomas Tharp
Lovely Country Citizen
July 2, 2008

I can't even believe that this is an issue again. Our gub-mint "protectors" are yet again trying to get our water supply fluoridated?

I hold in my hand a tube of Crest toothpaste and I quote from the warning on it: "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN UNDER 6 YEARS OF AGE. If more than used for brushing is ACCIDENTALLY SWALLOWED, get medical help or contact a POISON CONTROL CENTER right away. DO NOT SWALLOW."

Sheeple, that should be enough said right there.

Image via Wikipedia

opednews.com

July 23, 2008
by Linn Cohen-Cole

Where does one even begin?

Do you know who Monsanto is? They are a chemical corporation which made Agent Orange and after that, PCBs, with which they drowned the town of Anniston, Alabama for decades, even after knowing for sure that PCBs were highly carcinogenic. They make organophosphates, including glyphosate (Round-up) - which are highly neuro-toxic.

With this background in illness and killing, Monsanto then began "doing" your food. It genetically engineers food.

But before you say "Oh, that's good because genetic engineering is making food better, adding vitamins, growing bigger crops, ..." I have bad news for you. Please go to http://www.responsibletechnology.org and listen to Jeffrey Smith's lecture on how genetic engineering works and what it does to organs.

And as the greater yield PR, I suggest you read: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IBTCF.php about the Bt-cotton fraud in India while Monsanto claims to have increased yield by 160%. http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/news.asp?newsId=nr20070917&yr=2007 What do Indian farmers say? Indian farmers call Monsanto's Bt-cotton seeds, the Seeds of Death. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/indiacotton012406.cfm

Beyond India, there are also problems. http://www.slogefree.org/news07/a-disaster-in-search-of-success-bt-cotton-in

AlterNet
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
July 23, 2008

American psychiatry has been rocked by Congress. Congressional investigators first exposed the financial relationships between high-profile psychiatrists and drug companies. "But now the profession itself is under attack in Congress," reported the New York Times on July 12, 2008.

Specifically under attack is psychiatry's premier professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association. The New York Times stated, "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. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting."

The American Psychiatric Association is, as the New York Times notes, "the voice of establishment psychiatry." It publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the standard diagnostic manual. It also publishes influential professional journals. And it is the primary lobbying organization for American psychiatry.

Opednews

July 23, 2008
by Safe Food Campaign, New Zealand
(Posted by Stephen Fox)

The Committee is hearing submissions on aspartame as a result of a petition which calls for the removal of all products containing aspartame and other artificial sweeteners from schools, as well as warning labels on products to alert pregnant women and mothers of young children.

"The artificial sweetener is the most controversial and complained about additive in history. You only have to google it to see that. It is significant that non-industry funded studies have found various adverse health effects from aspartame, whereas industry-funded studies do not find problems. We cannot underestimate the power and sophistication of industry to maintain and expand its profit and market share, regardless of the health consequences of exposure to this substance."

Opednews.com
July 18, 2008

by Dr. GLEN MABSON, Phd. Epileptic Foundation of
Maui dba Pacific Epilepsy Society (Posted by Stephen Fox)

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. See EFM Survey, Freedom of Info Act 2000-2008 & EFM Survey 1999-03

The most profound reason for the spectacular increase in seizures is the inclusion of the drug ASPARTAME in with the new larger sized anti-seizure drugs: DILANTIN, DEPACOAT, TEGRATOL and several others produced by major pharmaceutical corporations. In 2007 the manufacture of Dilantin changed the description of the 100 mg. Dilantin changed the 100 mg white capsule with red stripe to a much larger white capsule, orange on one end, which contains 100 mg of the drug, plus aspartame. 150 people who took the new Dilantin capsule found the seizure rate increased in every case. The Chemical Pharmaceutical Engineer employee, in fear of his job would not reveal his name, but said they were adding aspartame. He said the new larger orange & white Dilantin is also labeled 100 mg,

AlterNet
By Bruce E. Levine
June 18, 2008

What Dick Cheney is to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, psychiatrist Joseph Biederman is to the explosion of psychiatric medications in American children. Recently, Biederman was nailed by congressional investigators and the New York Times for overestimating just how greedy an elite shrink is entitled to be. Beyond a peek into the corruption of psychiatry at its highest levels, the scandal is an opportunity to reconsider the Big Pharma financed view of why kids become disruptive and destructive.

On June 8, 2008, the New York Times reported the following about Joseph Biederman: "A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful anti-psychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given congressional investigators."

Due in part to Biederman's influence, the number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003, and as Bloomberg News reported (September 2007), "The expanded use of bipolar as a pediatric diagnosis has made children the fastest-growing part of the $11.5 billion U.S. market for anti-psychotic drugs."

Huffington Post
June 24, 2008

Senator Ted Kennedy is putting forward a brave face following his recent surgery but the sad reality remains. Even with successful surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy treatment, gliomas -- a highly aggressive form of brain cancer that strikes approximately 10,000 Americans annually -- tragically claim the lives of 75 percent of its victims within two years and virtually all within five years.

But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?

Sadly, the questions posed above are not entirely hypothetical. Let me explain.

Natural News
June 11, 2008
by David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has reported that two young women died shortly after receiving Merck's Gardasil, a vaccine against several varieties of human papillomavirus (HPV).

Gardasil and Glaxo SmithKline's Cervarix protect against the two strains of HPV that are responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil also protects against two HPV strains that cause 90 percent of genital warts.

The EMEA did not release the names or ages of the women who died, and said the cause of death was still unknown. It described their deaths as "sudden and unexpected."

"In both cases, the cause of death could not be identified. No causal relationship has been established between the deaths of the young women and the administration of Gardasil," the agency said.

Sott.net
wftv.com
June 12, 2008

Childhood vaccinations have become a very controversial topic over the past decade. In 1983, 10 vaccines were recommended for a child from birth to age six by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Today, the CDC recommends up to 36 vaccinations in the first six years of life. More families are stepping up and shunning inoculations. They are opting out for religious, medical or philosophical reasons. Every state has exemption vaccinations laws. Some states allow only medical and religious exemption, while others allow philosophical exemption. Less than one percent of school-age children in each state have exemption from vaccines, but the numbers are going up. The rates of opt out requests have nearly doubled in many school districts across the country. This means more and more kids are in school and are not vaccinated. This has the medical community concerned for general public health.

Why opt out?

Parents are choosing to opt out their children of vaccinations for a number of reasons. Some of the resistance to vaccines is because parents believe there is a link between a vaccine preservative called thimerosal and autism. Scientific studies have failed to find a causal link between the two. Another reason parents choose not to vaccinate is because the diseases vaccinated for are very rare. A study published by the CDC showed that death rates for the diseases that can be prevented by childhood vaccinations are at an all-time low in the United States. Doctors say that these figures show the vaccinations are working, but they are a victim of their own success.

Planet Chiropractic News
June 9, 2008
By Michael Dorausch, DC

Call it a psycho conflict of interest affecting the health and lives of thousands of children, an Iowa senator has discovered 3 Harvard researchers earned millions of dollars in consulting fees from drug companies, for performing research and evangelizing antipsychotic drug use in children.

Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley, a senior United States Senator from Iowa, launched a congressional investigation to determine whether research psychiatrists were receiving drug money payments and failing to disclose that information to the federal government and university departments.

According to congressional investigators, researchers failed to report millions of dollars in income earned while consulting for various drug companies. According to news reports, these were well-known child psychiatrists practicing research out of Harvard University. Among the research doctors were psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, of the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School. Investigators believe the three psychiatrists may have violated federal rules created to vet out potential conflicts of interest in pharmaceutical research, some of which is financed by government grants.

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
June 9, 2008

Today in the United States, 11 percent of women take antidepressants, the use of antidepressants by pregnant women has dramatically increased, and postpartum depression -- rare in those cultures in which women receive high levels of social support following childbirth -- has become so staggeringly common among U.S. women that Congress is legislating increased medical treatment.

Increasing Use of Antidepressants by Pregnant Mothers

Receiving little attention in 2007 was the study "Increasing Use of Antidepressants in Pregnancy," published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Medical records of 105,335 pregnant women enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid from 1999-2003 revealed that antidepressant use during pregnancy increased from 5.7 percent in 1999 to 13.4 percent in 2003.

Among Tennessee Medicaid-treated women in 2003, 10 percent took antidepressants during the first trimester, 6.4 percent used antidepressants during the second trimester, and 5.9 percent used them during the third. White women were four times more likely than nonwhite women to have used antidepressants during pregnancy, and older women and those with greater schooling were also more likely to have used antidepressants while pregnant.

In another study of pregnant women treated at seven health maintenance organizations (HMOs), American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported in February 2008 that "antidepressant use in pregnancy nearly quadrupled from 1996 to 2005" and that nearly 8 percent of pregnant women used antidepressants in 2005.

Sott.net
Melanie Phillips
American Free Press
June 9, 2008

Good to see that the Telegraph of London has picked up on developments I wrote about here in the U.S., where a head of official steam is building behind the perception that there is a troubling relationship between certain childhood vaccines, including MMR (mumps/measles/ rubella), and autistic symptoms and other damage in a subset of particularly vulnerable children. As I have written, this has been prompted by recent U.S. cases in which multiple vaccinations have aggravated an underlying mitochondrial weakness to produce catastrophic effects, leading Dr. Bernardine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, to tell CBS News:

"I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the [autism link to vaccination] hypothesis as irrational."

In addition, the Telegraph reported this: "The vaccine hypothesis was bolstered recently by a five-year study in monkeys who were given the same vaccinations that American children are routinely given. Last week, Dr. Laura Hewitson, a specialist in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, told the International Meeting for Autism Research in London that in the double-blind placebo-controlled study, 13 vaccinated animals showed increased aggression, impaired cognitive skills and developmental delay. The three unvaccinated animals in the study developed normally."

"There was a significant difference between the two groups," said Hewitson. "The vaccinated group had trouble developing reflexes. . . . They also became more insular and more aggressive. There was an increase in aggressive behavior after they had their MMR vaccines, and they stopped exploring their surroundings as much."

Sott.net
aspartame.ca
May 30, 2008

Made by Monsanto, the world's largest manufacturer of poisons and pollutants), Aspartame is not only used in food, per se, but is also used in pharmaceutical products. You might be surprised by the number of products that contain aspartame. A sample research project was initiated in April 1994, with requests to companies that produce pharmaceuticals. A number of companies failed to respond to a request for information. Some companies did respond. Pumping aspartame into children appears to be a priority! Frequently it is not listed on the outside of the package but in the small print on the slip of paper inside the package.

Aspartame is banned in all childrens products in the European Common Market. Why not in the U.S. and Canada?

Because Monsanto pays off the FDA, the American Medical Association, The American Dietetic and Diabetic Associations, Congressmen and Senators and virtually anyone who gets in the way, and in other countries too. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation caught them red handed and aired a program where Monsanto was trying to bribe a couple of Canadian Doctors at Health Canada.

Author Peter Sills writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail said, after a three and a half year court case against Monsanto, brought by railroad workers exposed to dioxin following a train derailment had ended and in which the jury awarded a $16 million in punitive damages against Monsanto, "The evidence of Monsanto executives at the trial portrayed a corporate culture where sales and profits were given a higher priority than the safety of products and it's workers. They (Monsanto) just didn't care about the health and safety of their workers. Instead of trying to make things safer, they relied on intimidation and threatened layoffs to keep their employees working.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
May 29, 2008

The brotherhood of Big Pharma’s weight loss cartel is taking direct aim at your health freedom and natural options to help you lose weight. They have submitted a petition to the FDA requesting that all claims that dietary supplements promote, assist, or otherwise help in weight loss are disease claims. The goal is to eliminate competition for dietician services, drugs, and surgery in the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. It is a blatant attack on health freedom and free commerce – a significant threat that the Big Pharma-friendly FDA is sure to seriously consider.

Immediate consumer action is needed. Steps to take are provided at the end of this article. Defeating this Big Pharma proposal will require an all out grassroots consumer effort. Various health freedom organizations such as the National Health Federation and Citizens for Health have already taken the lead in this effort.

This specific attack is part of an overall campaign in which the FDA plays a major negative role, seeking to reduce your access to dietary supplements. The FDA is actively participating on an international basis (CODEX) and regional basis (FDA Trilateral Cooperation Charter/SPP/North American Union) to circumvent existing U.S. laws (DSHEA) so as to undermine your access to natural health options. In the face of this current attack even the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), who often comes down on the wrong side of regional and international health freedom issues, has stated that it will vigorously defend the dietary supplement industry’s legal right to make factual weight loss claims.

The Guardian/UK
May 24, 2008
by Alison Benjamin

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.

Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC’s Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. “It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe,” he said.

AlterNet.org
By Paul Armentano, NORML
May 23, 2008

In the 14 years I've worked in marijuana law reform, few events have struck me as so needlessly tragic as the federal government's consistent and deliberate stifling of medical cannabis research. Nowhere is the Fed's refusal to allow this science more overt and inhumane than as it pertains to the investigation of cannabinoids as anti-cancer agents, particularly in the treatment of gliomas.

As noted in today's wire stories regarding Sen. Edward Kennedy's diagnosis, glioma is an aggressive form of cancer that affects an estimated 10,000 Americans annually. Standard treatments for the cancer include radiation and chemotherapy, though neither procedure has proven particularly effective -- the disease kills approximately half its victims within one year and all within three years.

But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?

Sott.net
Ben Wasserman
foodconsumer.org
May 13, 2008

The United State Court of Federal Claims began another hearing on Monday to decide whether vaccines containing a toxic preservative known as thimerosal should be responsible for autism in thousands of children who received the vaccines, The New York Times reports. The results of the hearing are not expected until next year.

This hearing was said to be the second in a series of three in which the court is considering whether the government should pay millions to the families of some 4,800 autistic children. Parents in the case are claiming that thimerosal damaged their children's brains leading to development of autism. The toxic preservative was removed from pediatric vaccines starting in 2001. Now in some pediatric vaccines if not all, another toxic preservative, an aluminum compound, is used.

Early studies have showed that vaccines with thimerosal were not linked to increased risk of autism in children although parents, critics and some scientists suspected that the increase incidence of autism in the U.S. has something to do with thimerosal-containing vaccines.

Autism was rare a couple of decades ago. Now one in every 150 children suffer this disease, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. health agency that promotes use of vaccines.

The New York Times
May 13, 2008
By GARDINER HARRIS

WASHINGTON — The United States Court of Federal Claims began another hearing on Monday to decide whether a vaccine additive led thousands of children to become autistic.

The hearing is the second in a series of three in which the court is considering whether the government should pay millions of dollars to the parents of some 4,800 autistic children. In this hearing, parents are claiming that thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury, damaged their children’s brains. Thimerosal was removed from all routinely administered childhood vaccines by 2001.

Every major study and scientific organization to examine the issue has found no link between vaccination and autism, but the parents and their advocates have persisted.

The claims are being heard in a special court set up by Congress 20 years ago when a series of scares nearly crippled the vaccine industry. The hearing is expected to last two to three weeks, and a decision is not expected until next year.

Sott.net
WorldNetDaily
May 5, 2008

Safety debate over public water treatments heats up with release of shocking new studies

Water treatment plant ©WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON - From Pennsylvania to Nebraska and from Europe to New Zealand, there is growing and fierce opposition to plans to fluoridate public drinking water, fueled by a battery of shocking new studies that seriously question a practice routine among U.S. municipalities for nearly the last 50 years.

• In Clearfield, Pa., the municipal authority asked the state Department of Environmental Protection for permission to stop adding fluoride to its water. But before city officials got an answer, they got a lawsuit threat from the Pennsylvania Dental Association, which promised not only an injunction against any plans to stop adding the chemical to drinking supplies but litigation against the individual board members who approved the action. The city backed down and continues to fluoridate water.

BlacklistedNews
April 30, 2008.
Source: Philadelphia Inqurier

Federal inspectors documented unwanted "fibers" on the stoppers of vaccine vials at Merck & Co. Inc.'s vast vaccine plant in Montgomery County.
They also found instances of contaminated children's vaccines and complaints that were not always investigated at the West Point plant.

Inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spent 30 days at the plant between November and January and cited 49 areas of concern, including a failure to follow good manufacturing practices.

The findings are detailed in an unpublished 21-page FDA report obtained by The Inquirer under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Independent experts who reviewed the report say it documents serious concerns in one of the country's premier vaccine plants. They suggested the problems could be a symptom of Merck's cost cutting in the face of rapid growth of its vaccine business.

The manufacturer, Eli Lilly, is to change the label for Strattera in Europe to include warnings about onset of “psychotic reactions, hallucinations, mania and agitation”.

The medical regulatory agency has also concluded that reviews suggest a CAUSAL ROLE for Strattera in inducing homicidal behaviours, aggression and hostility.

I took over two years of foot dragging before for the medical authorities in Europe finally decided that Eli Lilly should issue warnings about psychotic reactions in the label for Strattera. But now it’s finally done.

If Lilly doesn’t cause more delays, the new warning text reflecting “the risk of the onset or exacerbation of serious psychiatric disorders, including psychotic reactions, hallucinations, mania and agitation” (MHRA March 30, 2008), should be issued in some weeks.

Aggression and hostility are already listed harmful effects of Strattera.