Monday, June 4, 2012
Getting the lead out of Mexican Pottery
FROM Ben Barber
Getting Toxic Lead Out of Mexico's Pottery
Thousands of Mexican potters have been unwittingly poisoning their families and customers with toxic lead for 400 years by using lead-based ceramic glazes which lend a lustrous glow to pots, cups and plates.
A team of U.S. and Mexican health and other experts has now launched the first skirmish in a war on lead: 100 pottery-making families have replaced the lead glaze with lead-free glazes newly created by Mexican researchers.
But tens of thousands of potters are still reluctant to change their old ways and many continue to use lead, saying: "It was good enough for our ancestors so it should be good enough for us."
The effects of lead are subtle -- mainly felt on people who suffer a loss of 10 to 20 points on their IQ when their blood lead levels reach around 35 micrograms per deciliter.
The United States on May 16 cut the acceptable limits for lead in children from 10 micrograms to five per deciliter of blood -- the first change in 20 years. But children in pottery-making families have blood lead up to 10 times higher than the new U.S. limits.
"It's hard to explain to them," said Bret Ericson with the Blacksmith Institute, which is carrying out the $120,000 program to end the use of lead glaze in Mexico. "The challenge is people have a cultural attachment to lead glaze. We need to educate people on the dangers."
He noted that after the United States removed lead from gasoline in the 1970s and 1980s, the average IQ score rose around 10 points.
Some 50,000 potters in Puebla, Michoacan, Oaxaca and other states were using lead glazes when the Mexican government asked Blacksmith to tackle the issue about four years ago. Their combined households total 250,000 people -- all at risk from acute exposure to lead.
Children and adults get lead through dust at the kilns and home workshops. They also ingest lead from food stored in lead-glazed pots, especially acidic foods such as salsas which release lead from ceramics.
The effort to get lead out of pottery, funded by the Annenberg and Vista Hermosa Foundations, is just the start of a long war to help millions of people at risk from lead pottery in Latin America and the Middle East. Once a successful model is created in Mexico, it will be applied in other countries.
Four years ago, lead-free glaze cost more than the leaded glaze. Then researchers cut the cost of lead-free glazes below leaded ones. But the new glaze needed higher temperature than the traditional kilns produce -- meaning it would require $10,000 to rebuild each kiln. Last year, researchers produced a lead-free glaze that works at the same low temperature as lead glazes, eliminating the need to rebuild kilns.
The goal is to convert potters to lead free boron-based glazes developed by Mexican universities and industries. The Mexican government asked Blacksmith to get lead out of pottery after the NGO came down to work on the problem of lead pollution in car battery recycling operations.
At one news conference, blood was taken from a potter and from a journalist: the potter had nearly 35 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood -- seven times as much as the journalist.
If a ceramics maker switches to non-lead glazes, the project cleans up the home and the kiln, removes contaminated soil, and may apply concrete or paint over contaminated surfaces. It is also good business to get rid of lead - the non-lead glaze was more appealing in color and appearance than lead glazes when shown to shoppers.
The project helps potters market lead-free ceramics in the United States by listing them on a website -- alfareria.org -- set up by Blacksmith and its Mexican government partner, Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanias (FONART).
About 30 percent of Mexico's urban population use glazed ceramics for cooking and food storage, meaning the risk of lead poisoning goes far beyond the 250,000 families engaged in pottery production. Blood-lead concentrations are 30 to 40 percent higher in families using glazed ceramics.
But where the project has begun its work of community education, blood monitoring, kiln replacement, and removal of lead, blood-lead levels have dropped by half in three months.
Ben Barber is a freelance journalist and communications consultant for Blacksmith Institute.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Cracked: Health secrets of walnuts... They are loaded with antioxidants that fight disease
By Louise Eccles
12th January 2012
The festive season may be over, but there is at least one Christmas treat worth making a habit of eating throughout the year – walnuts.
Scientists have discovered they are the healthiest nuts to eat as they are loaded with antioxidants.
Snacking on as few as seven a day could help ward off disease and lower cholesterol, they claim.
Healthiest: Walnuts contain more antioxidants than any other kind of nuts, scientists have discovered
Healthiest: Walnuts contain more antioxidants than any other kind of nuts, scientists have discovered
Walnuts contain very high levels of polyphenol, an anti-oxidant which can protect the body from molecules which damage tissue.
Walnuts contained the most polyphenol out of a list of nine commonly eaten types of nuts, tests revealed.
Brazil nuts and pistachios were close behind, and cashews and hazelnuts had slightly lower levels of antioxidants.
Professor Joe Vinson, from the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, said walnuts inhibit the growth of ‘bad’ cholesterol.
He said: ‘Walnuts rank above Brazil nuts, pistachios, pecans, peanuts, almonds, macadamias, cashews and hazelnuts.
‘Walnuts had the highest free and total polyphenols in both the combined and roasted samples’.
Despite the ‘superfood’ potential of walnuts, peanuts are the favourite with consumers and account for 45 per cent of the nuts bought in Europe.
Popular: Peanuts are Europe's most widely eaten nut, accounting for 45 per cent of the continent's nut market
Popular: Peanuts are Europe's most widely eaten nut, accounting for 45 per cent of the continent's nut market
The antioxidants in peanut butter were considerably lower than in roasted peanuts, the study found.
Dr Vinson said many people were put off by the seemingly high fat content of nuts, but they contained only polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats, rather than artery-clogging saturated fats.
He added: ‘Nuts are high in fibre, low in saturated fats, high in beneficial unsaturated fats, and very high in antioxidants.
‘Nuts are a nutritious snack providing both nutrients and bioactive antioxidants which provide significant health benefits.’
Advising consumers to keep the portion size small, Dr Vinson said it takes only about seven walnuts a day to get the potential health benefits.
The antioxidants found in raw walnuts were 15 times as powerful as Vitamin E, which can protect the body against damaging natural chemicals.
Roasted cashew nuts contained just double the level found in Vitamin E.
Nuts have long been promoted as a nutritious snack by health professionals.
Pecans contain around a sixth of the recommended daily allowance for zinc, which is vital for the functioning of white blood cells that fight bacteria and viruses, including colds and flu.
Unshelled: Brazil nuts are a rich source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells and could prevent certain types of cancer
Unshelled: Brazil nuts are a rich source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells and could prevent certain types of cancer
A couple of handfuls of shelled pistachios have more potassium than a banana. This can help control blood pressure, as part of a healthy diet, because potassium blunts the effects of salt.
And the brazil nut is the richest source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells.
Higher selenium levels have been linked with a reduced risk of certain cancers such as bladder and prostate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2085405/Cracked-Health-secrets-walnuts--They-loaded-antioxidants-fight-disease.html#ixzz1jNkrjO00
12th January 2012
The festive season may be over, but there is at least one Christmas treat worth making a habit of eating throughout the year – walnuts.
Scientists have discovered they are the healthiest nuts to eat as they are loaded with antioxidants.
Snacking on as few as seven a day could help ward off disease and lower cholesterol, they claim.
Healthiest: Walnuts contain more antioxidants than any other kind of nuts, scientists have discovered
Healthiest: Walnuts contain more antioxidants than any other kind of nuts, scientists have discovered
Walnuts contain very high levels of polyphenol, an anti-oxidant which can protect the body from molecules which damage tissue.
Walnuts contained the most polyphenol out of a list of nine commonly eaten types of nuts, tests revealed.
Brazil nuts and pistachios were close behind, and cashews and hazelnuts had slightly lower levels of antioxidants.
Professor Joe Vinson, from the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, said walnuts inhibit the growth of ‘bad’ cholesterol.
He said: ‘Walnuts rank above Brazil nuts, pistachios, pecans, peanuts, almonds, macadamias, cashews and hazelnuts.
‘Walnuts had the highest free and total polyphenols in both the combined and roasted samples’.
Despite the ‘superfood’ potential of walnuts, peanuts are the favourite with consumers and account for 45 per cent of the nuts bought in Europe.
Popular: Peanuts are Europe's most widely eaten nut, accounting for 45 per cent of the continent's nut market
Popular: Peanuts are Europe's most widely eaten nut, accounting for 45 per cent of the continent's nut market
The antioxidants in peanut butter were considerably lower than in roasted peanuts, the study found.
Dr Vinson said many people were put off by the seemingly high fat content of nuts, but they contained only polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats, rather than artery-clogging saturated fats.
He added: ‘Nuts are high in fibre, low in saturated fats, high in beneficial unsaturated fats, and very high in antioxidants.
‘Nuts are a nutritious snack providing both nutrients and bioactive antioxidants which provide significant health benefits.’
Advising consumers to keep the portion size small, Dr Vinson said it takes only about seven walnuts a day to get the potential health benefits.
The antioxidants found in raw walnuts were 15 times as powerful as Vitamin E, which can protect the body against damaging natural chemicals.
Roasted cashew nuts contained just double the level found in Vitamin E.
Nuts have long been promoted as a nutritious snack by health professionals.
Pecans contain around a sixth of the recommended daily allowance for zinc, which is vital for the functioning of white blood cells that fight bacteria and viruses, including colds and flu.
Unshelled: Brazil nuts are a rich source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells and could prevent certain types of cancer
Unshelled: Brazil nuts are a rich source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells and could prevent certain types of cancer
A couple of handfuls of shelled pistachios have more potassium than a banana. This can help control blood pressure, as part of a healthy diet, because potassium blunts the effects of salt.
And the brazil nut is the richest source of selenium, a nutrient that helps protect cells.
Higher selenium levels have been linked with a reduced risk of certain cancers such as bladder and prostate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2085405/Cracked-Health-secrets-walnuts--They-loaded-antioxidants-fight-disease.html#ixzz1jNkrjO00
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Bromelain-Effective Cancer Fighter
Sat, December 24th 2011 at 11:0 am by Sayer Ji
by Sayer Ji
Every once in a while a study pops up on the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database known as MEDLINE that not only confirms the therapeutic relevance of natural substances in cancer treatment, but blows the conventional approach out of the water.
Published in 2007 in the journal Planta Medica, researchers found that an enzyme extracted from pineapple stems known as bromelain was superior to the chemo-agent 5-fluorauracil in treating cancer in the animal model. The researchers stated:
"This antitumoral effect [bromelain] was superior to that of 5-FU [5-fluorouracil], whose survival index was approximately 263 %, relative to the untreated control." [view entire study]
What is so remarkable about this research is that 5-FU has been used as a cancer treatment for nearly 40 years, and has been relatively unsuccessful due to its less than perfect selectivity at killing cancer, often killing and/or irreversibly damaging healthy cells and tissue, as well.
As a highly toxic, fluoride-bound form of the nucleic acid uracil, a normal component of RNA, the drug is supposed to work by tricking more rapidly dividing cells -- which include both cancer and healthy intestinal, hair follicle, and immune cells -- into taking it up, thereby inhibiting (read: poisoning) RNA replication enzymes and RNA synthesis.
The material safety data sheet (MSDS) for 5-FU states:
The dose at which 50% of the animals given the drug die is 115mg/kg, or the equivalent of 7.8 grams for a 150 lb adult human.
Keep in mind that a 7.5 gram dose of 5-FU, which is the weight of 3 pennies, would kill 50% of the humans given it. Bromelain's MSDS, on the other hand, states the LD50 to be 10,000 mg/kg, or the equivalent 1.5 lbs of bromelain for a 150lb adult, which means it is 3 orders of magnitude safer!
How then, can something as innocuous as the enzyme from the stem/core of a pineapple be superior to a drug that millions of cancers patients over the past 40 years have placed their hopes of recovery on, as well as exchanging billions of dollars for?
There is a well-known effect associated with a wide range of natural compounds called "selective cytotoxicity," whereby they are able to induce programmed cell death (the graceful self-disassembly known as apoptosis) within the cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells and tissue unharmed. No FDA-approved chemotherapy drug on the market today has this indispensable property (because chemicals don't have behave like natural compounds), which is why cancer treatment is still in the dark ages, often destroying the quality of life, and accelerating the death of those who undergo it, often unwittingly. When a person dies following conventional cancer treatment it is all too easy to "blame the victim" and simply write that patient's cancer off as "chemo-resistant," or "exceptionally aggressive," when in fact the non-selective nature of the chemotoxic agent is what ultimately lead to their death.
Keep in mind that bromelain, like all natural substances, will never receive FDA drug approval. Capital, at the present time, does not flow into the development of non-patentable (i.e. non-profitable) cancer therapies, even if they work, are safe and extremely affordable. This is simply the nature of the beast. Until we compel our government to utilize our tax dollars to invest in this type of research, there will be no level playing field in cancer treatment, or any treatment offered through the conventional medical establishment, for that matter. Or, some of us may decide to take our health into our own hands, and use the research, already freely available on possible natural cancer treatment, to inform our treatment decisions without the guidance of the modern day equivalent of the "priest" of the body, the conventional oncologist, who increasingly fills the description of an "applied pharmacologist/toxicologist" - nothing more, nothing less.
by Sayer Ji
Every once in a while a study pops up on the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database known as MEDLINE that not only confirms the therapeutic relevance of natural substances in cancer treatment, but blows the conventional approach out of the water.
Published in 2007 in the journal Planta Medica, researchers found that an enzyme extracted from pineapple stems known as bromelain was superior to the chemo-agent 5-fluorauracil in treating cancer in the animal model. The researchers stated:
"This antitumoral effect [bromelain] was superior to that of 5-FU [5-fluorouracil], whose survival index was approximately 263 %, relative to the untreated control." [view entire study]
What is so remarkable about this research is that 5-FU has been used as a cancer treatment for nearly 40 years, and has been relatively unsuccessful due to its less than perfect selectivity at killing cancer, often killing and/or irreversibly damaging healthy cells and tissue, as well.
As a highly toxic, fluoride-bound form of the nucleic acid uracil, a normal component of RNA, the drug is supposed to work by tricking more rapidly dividing cells -- which include both cancer and healthy intestinal, hair follicle, and immune cells -- into taking it up, thereby inhibiting (read: poisoning) RNA replication enzymes and RNA synthesis.
The material safety data sheet (MSDS) for 5-FU states:
The dose at which 50% of the animals given the drug die is 115mg/kg, or the equivalent of 7.8 grams for a 150 lb adult human.
Keep in mind that a 7.5 gram dose of 5-FU, which is the weight of 3 pennies, would kill 50% of the humans given it. Bromelain's MSDS, on the other hand, states the LD50 to be 10,000 mg/kg, or the equivalent 1.5 lbs of bromelain for a 150lb adult, which means it is 3 orders of magnitude safer!
How then, can something as innocuous as the enzyme from the stem/core of a pineapple be superior to a drug that millions of cancers patients over the past 40 years have placed their hopes of recovery on, as well as exchanging billions of dollars for?
There is a well-known effect associated with a wide range of natural compounds called "selective cytotoxicity," whereby they are able to induce programmed cell death (the graceful self-disassembly known as apoptosis) within the cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells and tissue unharmed. No FDA-approved chemotherapy drug on the market today has this indispensable property (because chemicals don't have behave like natural compounds), which is why cancer treatment is still in the dark ages, often destroying the quality of life, and accelerating the death of those who undergo it, often unwittingly. When a person dies following conventional cancer treatment it is all too easy to "blame the victim" and simply write that patient's cancer off as "chemo-resistant," or "exceptionally aggressive," when in fact the non-selective nature of the chemotoxic agent is what ultimately lead to their death.
Keep in mind that bromelain, like all natural substances, will never receive FDA drug approval. Capital, at the present time, does not flow into the development of non-patentable (i.e. non-profitable) cancer therapies, even if they work, are safe and extremely affordable. This is simply the nature of the beast. Until we compel our government to utilize our tax dollars to invest in this type of research, there will be no level playing field in cancer treatment, or any treatment offered through the conventional medical establishment, for that matter. Or, some of us may decide to take our health into our own hands, and use the research, already freely available on possible natural cancer treatment, to inform our treatment decisions without the guidance of the modern day equivalent of the "priest" of the body, the conventional oncologist, who increasingly fills the description of an "applied pharmacologist/toxicologist" - nothing more, nothing less.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Drug Research Routinely Suppressed, study authors find
Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2012
By John Fauber | McClatchy-Tribune News Service
MILWAUKEE — Drug research, even from clinical trials sponsored by the federal government, routinely is suppressed, harming patients and increasing health care costs, according to new data highlighting an ethical controversy that continues to plague the field of medicine.
"The current situation is a disservice to research participants, patients, health systems and the whole endeavor of clinical medicine," according to an editorial accompanying the papers published in the British Medical Journal.
Turning up the heat, the journal, in an editorial, posed a remedy that is likely to get the attention of doctors who take part in clinical trial research.
"Concealment of data should be regarded as the serious ethical breach that it is, and clinical researchers who fail to disclose data should be subject to disciplinary action by professional organizations," wrote Richard Lehman of the University of Oxford, and Elizabeth Loder, a BMJ editor.
The BMJ papers are the latest thunderbolts in a gathering storm that has swirled around medicine in recent years. The revelations add to the calls for reform in the field.
"It is grossly unethical and an insult to the integrity of medicine when this is allowed to occur and go unpunished," said orthopedic surgeon Chuck Rosen, president of the Association for Medical Ethics.
From diabetes drugs to spine surgery products, scandals involving concealed data have mounted. Consider the cases of two heart drugs that were the subject of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stories:
For two years, Schering-Plough, the maker of the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin, sat on the results of a clinical trial showing the drug provided no benefit in improving artery health. During that time the drug was heavily marketed to consumers in TV ads. The situation came to light in 2008 after a congressional investigation was launched.
In 2003, a clinical trial of Multaq, a drug that treated irregular heartbeat, was stopped because more patients who were getting the drug were dying than those who were getting a placebo. However, the study was not published until five years later.
In 2007, an independent analysis of the diabetes drug Avandia found that the drug increased heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths.
Steve Nissen, the lead author of the analysis, said 35 of the 42 studies he looked at were unpublished and were obtained only because a court case required the drug's maker, GlaxoSmithKline, to turn over the data.
"Had the medical community known about this hazard, Avandia would likely never have become the world's largest selling diabetes drug," said Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "Our ability to provide the best care for patients is dependent on access to all of the available clinical trial evidence, regardless of whether the study showed favorable results."
While much of the criticism of suppressed medical research has been aimed at drug companies, research data from medical devices also has been delayed, especially when it reflects negatively on a product.
Critics pointed to Medtronic's bone-growth stimulating back surgery product known as Infuse.
Last year, the Journal Sentinel reported that the results of a crucial clinical trial of the product were not published until nearly five years after the trial had to be halted because unwanted bone was growing around the spines of the trial volunteers. The paper was written by surgeons who have received millions of dollars in royalties from other Medtronic spine products.
What's more, the authors of the belated paper downplayed the bone overgrowth, saying it did not harm patients, a claim that was flatly refuted by a doctor interviewed by the Journal Sentinel.
The doctor, an Oklahoma orthopedic surgeon, said two of his patients who were in the trial had to undergo additional surgery because the bone overgrowth was painfully impinging on nerve roots. One of the patients, a man who was in his 50s at the time, needed three operations - one for the implant, a second to remove the unwanted bone formation, and a third when the additional bone grew back yet again.
Independent research and Journal Sentinel stories since have noted that unpublished data showed that Infuse was linked to a variety of serious complications, including sterility in men and cancer.
The failure of the medical literature to report such findings "has been a major failure in our field," said Eugene Carragee, a Stanford University orthopedic surgeon and editor-in-chief of the Spine Journal. Last year, Carragee spearheaded an unprecedented independent analysis showing that Medtronic and a circle of orthopedic surgeons who have received millions of dollars in royalties from the company systematically has failed to report serious complications with the product.
Carragee said the BMJ analysis and its call for disciplinary action against offending doctors is "an important departure from the historical laissez-faire attitude of the recent past."
A surprising finding in the BMJ analysis was that serious lapses occurred even in clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health.
That research showed that less than half of NIH-funded clinical trials were published in a medical journal within 30 months of the completion of the trial and after 51 months, one-third of trials remained unpublished.
While industry-related profit motives may not be a factor in such cases, there are other possible explanations, said senior author Harlan Krumholz, a Yale University professor of medicine and investigative medicine and public health.
Sometimes researchers may get an unexpected finding that contradicts a position they have staked out, he said.
"It is a conflict of their academic beliefs," he said.
At the same time, medical journals may not want to publish negative findings, he said.
A second BMJ paper looked at clinical trials of drugs that already had received at least one Food and Drug Administration approval. In such cases a law requires the reporting within one year of the completion of the trial.
Despite the law, only 163 of 738 such trials, or 22 percent, had reported the results within a year, the paper found.
Lead author Andrew Prayle, a researcher with the University of Nottingham, said he hoped the finding would spur more researchers to post summaries of the work at the NIH site, ClinicalTrials.gov.
John Fauber writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
©2012 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/04/134756/drug-research-routinely-suppressed.html#storylink=cpy
By John Fauber | McClatchy-Tribune News Service
MILWAUKEE — Drug research, even from clinical trials sponsored by the federal government, routinely is suppressed, harming patients and increasing health care costs, according to new data highlighting an ethical controversy that continues to plague the field of medicine.
"The current situation is a disservice to research participants, patients, health systems and the whole endeavor of clinical medicine," according to an editorial accompanying the papers published in the British Medical Journal.
Turning up the heat, the journal, in an editorial, posed a remedy that is likely to get the attention of doctors who take part in clinical trial research.
"Concealment of data should be regarded as the serious ethical breach that it is, and clinical researchers who fail to disclose data should be subject to disciplinary action by professional organizations," wrote Richard Lehman of the University of Oxford, and Elizabeth Loder, a BMJ editor.
The BMJ papers are the latest thunderbolts in a gathering storm that has swirled around medicine in recent years. The revelations add to the calls for reform in the field.
"It is grossly unethical and an insult to the integrity of medicine when this is allowed to occur and go unpunished," said orthopedic surgeon Chuck Rosen, president of the Association for Medical Ethics.
From diabetes drugs to spine surgery products, scandals involving concealed data have mounted. Consider the cases of two heart drugs that were the subject of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stories:
For two years, Schering-Plough, the maker of the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin, sat on the results of a clinical trial showing the drug provided no benefit in improving artery health. During that time the drug was heavily marketed to consumers in TV ads. The situation came to light in 2008 after a congressional investigation was launched.
In 2003, a clinical trial of Multaq, a drug that treated irregular heartbeat, was stopped because more patients who were getting the drug were dying than those who were getting a placebo. However, the study was not published until five years later.
In 2007, an independent analysis of the diabetes drug Avandia found that the drug increased heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths.
Steve Nissen, the lead author of the analysis, said 35 of the 42 studies he looked at were unpublished and were obtained only because a court case required the drug's maker, GlaxoSmithKline, to turn over the data.
"Had the medical community known about this hazard, Avandia would likely never have become the world's largest selling diabetes drug," said Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "Our ability to provide the best care for patients is dependent on access to all of the available clinical trial evidence, regardless of whether the study showed favorable results."
While much of the criticism of suppressed medical research has been aimed at drug companies, research data from medical devices also has been delayed, especially when it reflects negatively on a product.
Critics pointed to Medtronic's bone-growth stimulating back surgery product known as Infuse.
Last year, the Journal Sentinel reported that the results of a crucial clinical trial of the product were not published until nearly five years after the trial had to be halted because unwanted bone was growing around the spines of the trial volunteers. The paper was written by surgeons who have received millions of dollars in royalties from other Medtronic spine products.
What's more, the authors of the belated paper downplayed the bone overgrowth, saying it did not harm patients, a claim that was flatly refuted by a doctor interviewed by the Journal Sentinel.
The doctor, an Oklahoma orthopedic surgeon, said two of his patients who were in the trial had to undergo additional surgery because the bone overgrowth was painfully impinging on nerve roots. One of the patients, a man who was in his 50s at the time, needed three operations - one for the implant, a second to remove the unwanted bone formation, and a third when the additional bone grew back yet again.
Independent research and Journal Sentinel stories since have noted that unpublished data showed that Infuse was linked to a variety of serious complications, including sterility in men and cancer.
The failure of the medical literature to report such findings "has been a major failure in our field," said Eugene Carragee, a Stanford University orthopedic surgeon and editor-in-chief of the Spine Journal. Last year, Carragee spearheaded an unprecedented independent analysis showing that Medtronic and a circle of orthopedic surgeons who have received millions of dollars in royalties from the company systematically has failed to report serious complications with the product.
Carragee said the BMJ analysis and its call for disciplinary action against offending doctors is "an important departure from the historical laissez-faire attitude of the recent past."
A surprising finding in the BMJ analysis was that serious lapses occurred even in clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health.
That research showed that less than half of NIH-funded clinical trials were published in a medical journal within 30 months of the completion of the trial and after 51 months, one-third of trials remained unpublished.
While industry-related profit motives may not be a factor in such cases, there are other possible explanations, said senior author Harlan Krumholz, a Yale University professor of medicine and investigative medicine and public health.
Sometimes researchers may get an unexpected finding that contradicts a position they have staked out, he said.
"It is a conflict of their academic beliefs," he said.
At the same time, medical journals may not want to publish negative findings, he said.
A second BMJ paper looked at clinical trials of drugs that already had received at least one Food and Drug Administration approval. In such cases a law requires the reporting within one year of the completion of the trial.
Despite the law, only 163 of 738 such trials, or 22 percent, had reported the results within a year, the paper found.
Lead author Andrew Prayle, a researcher with the University of Nottingham, said he hoped the finding would spur more researchers to post summaries of the work at the NIH site, ClinicalTrials.gov.
John Fauber writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
©2012 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/04/134756/drug-research-routinely-suppressed.html#storylink=cpy
Cholesterol Drugs Likely Poisoning Patients
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
A growing body of clinical research now indicates that the cholesterol-lowering class of drugs known as statins, is associated with over 300 adverse health effects -- research boldly flying in the face of national health policy, medical insurance premium guidelines, statin drug manufacturer advertising claims, and the general sentiment of the public, with approximately 1 in every 4 adult Americans over 45 currently using these drugs to "prevent heart disease."
The Cholesterol Myth
For well over 40 years, statin drugs have successfully concretized a century-old myth about the primary cause of heart disease: namely, that cholesterol "causes" plaque build up in the arteries, ultimately leading to obstruction of blood flow, and subsequent morbidity and mortality.
Indeed, the medical establishment and drug companies have been singing the praises of this "cholesterol myth," to the tune of 25 billion dollars in statin drug sales, annually.
While it is true that oxidized low-density lipoprotein is found within the atheromatous plaque that is found in damaged arteries, it is less likely a cause than an effect of heart disease. The underlying damage to the lining of the artery, which could be infectious, chemical, stress and/or nutritionally-related, comes before the immune response that results in plaque buildup there. Blaming LDL cholesterol for causing heart disease, is like blaming the scab for the injury that caused it to form, or, like blaming the band-aid for the scab it is covering -- this is, after all, the inborn and fatal flaw of allopathic medicine which focuses only on symptoms of disease, which it then -- fool-heartedly -- attempts to suppress by any chemical means necessary.
Death By Statins?
No one can deny that statins do exactly what they are designed to do: suppress cholesterol production and reduce measurable blood serum levels. The question is, rather, at what price do they accomplish this feat, and for what ultimate purpose?
With the National Cholesterol Education Program Guidelines, having been designed by "experts" on the payroll of statin drug manufacturers, requiring ultra-low levels to obtain a strictly theoretical and numerical definition of "health," statin drugs are guaranteed to receive first-line treatment status in the goal of the preventing and treating heart disease through lipid suppression.
What is at question here, is whether the unintended, adverse effects of this chemical class of drugs are less, the same or worse than the purported "cardiovascular" benefits they provide?
Fundamentally, statin drugs damage the muscles and nerves in the body -- so much so that a dose as low as 5 mg a day can kill a human. There are well over 100 studies demonstrating the myotoxic, or muscle-harming effects of these drugs, and over 80 demonstrating the nerve-damaging effects, as well.
When you consider that a vast proportion of our body is comprised of muscles and coordinating nerve systems, this drug has the potential to cause damage to the entire body, and undoubtedly does so universally, differing only in the matter of degree -- the damage occurring acutely in those at the tip of the iceberg, asymptomatically in the majority of others at the base.
Moreover, statin myotoxicity is not exclusive to skeletal muscle. If you consider that the heart is also a muscle, in fact, is our most tireless muscle, an obvious red flag should go up. It is a remarkable fact that it took over 40 years before the biomedical research and publishing fields were able to produce a human study, like the one published in the Journal of Clinical Cardiology in Dec. 2009, showing that statin drugs, despite billions of advertising/marketing dollars to the contrary, actually weaken the heart muscle.
These results, while disturbing, are to be expected given the well-known problem associated with statin drug use, namely, the inhibition of the mevalonate pathway necessary to produce the heart-essential nutrient co-enzyme Q10. Co-enzyme Q10 deficiency itself may be a major contributing cause to heart disease. There is also research that statin drugs deplete the body of the cardioprotective minerals (and associated mineral-protein complexes) zinc and selenium. This finding may also explain why rates of heart failure may be increasing in the general population given these drugs.
While the discovery that statin drugs, instead of preventing heart disease, likely contribute to it, is surprising and counter intuitive, it should not distract from the more disturbing discovery that they contribute to over 300 disease and/or adverse health effects.
Millions of statin drugs users around the globe are risking their lives on a bad bet that taking a magic chemical pill will reduce their risk of dying of a disease that is not caused by a lack of the drug. What is more likely to happen, however, is that the quality and duration of their lives will be reduced, profoundly, along with billions of dollars of squandered cash that could have been spent on authentically medicinal and cardioprotective foods, nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
In light of these findings, a very serious question is raised: are those who are party to the manufacture, promotion, administration and/or prescribing of this chemical class of drugs, in violation of the medical ethical principle of informed consent? And is this ethical violation, insofar as it results in injury to those who have been mislead and/or coerced to take these drugs, also a legal/criminal one?
Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
A growing body of clinical research now indicates that the cholesterol-lowering class of drugs known as statins, is associated with over 300 adverse health effects -- research boldly flying in the face of national health policy, medical insurance premium guidelines, statin drug manufacturer advertising claims, and the general sentiment of the public, with approximately 1 in every 4 adult Americans over 45 currently using these drugs to "prevent heart disease."
The Cholesterol Myth
For well over 40 years, statin drugs have successfully concretized a century-old myth about the primary cause of heart disease: namely, that cholesterol "causes" plaque build up in the arteries, ultimately leading to obstruction of blood flow, and subsequent morbidity and mortality.
Indeed, the medical establishment and drug companies have been singing the praises of this "cholesterol myth," to the tune of 25 billion dollars in statin drug sales, annually.
While it is true that oxidized low-density lipoprotein is found within the atheromatous plaque that is found in damaged arteries, it is less likely a cause than an effect of heart disease. The underlying damage to the lining of the artery, which could be infectious, chemical, stress and/or nutritionally-related, comes before the immune response that results in plaque buildup there. Blaming LDL cholesterol for causing heart disease, is like blaming the scab for the injury that caused it to form, or, like blaming the band-aid for the scab it is covering -- this is, after all, the inborn and fatal flaw of allopathic medicine which focuses only on symptoms of disease, which it then -- fool-heartedly -- attempts to suppress by any chemical means necessary.
Death By Statins?
No one can deny that statins do exactly what they are designed to do: suppress cholesterol production and reduce measurable blood serum levels. The question is, rather, at what price do they accomplish this feat, and for what ultimate purpose?
With the National Cholesterol Education Program Guidelines, having been designed by "experts" on the payroll of statin drug manufacturers, requiring ultra-low levels to obtain a strictly theoretical and numerical definition of "health," statin drugs are guaranteed to receive first-line treatment status in the goal of the preventing and treating heart disease through lipid suppression.
What is at question here, is whether the unintended, adverse effects of this chemical class of drugs are less, the same or worse than the purported "cardiovascular" benefits they provide?
Fundamentally, statin drugs damage the muscles and nerves in the body -- so much so that a dose as low as 5 mg a day can kill a human. There are well over 100 studies demonstrating the myotoxic, or muscle-harming effects of these drugs, and over 80 demonstrating the nerve-damaging effects, as well.
When you consider that a vast proportion of our body is comprised of muscles and coordinating nerve systems, this drug has the potential to cause damage to the entire body, and undoubtedly does so universally, differing only in the matter of degree -- the damage occurring acutely in those at the tip of the iceberg, asymptomatically in the majority of others at the base.
Moreover, statin myotoxicity is not exclusive to skeletal muscle. If you consider that the heart is also a muscle, in fact, is our most tireless muscle, an obvious red flag should go up. It is a remarkable fact that it took over 40 years before the biomedical research and publishing fields were able to produce a human study, like the one published in the Journal of Clinical Cardiology in Dec. 2009, showing that statin drugs, despite billions of advertising/marketing dollars to the contrary, actually weaken the heart muscle.
These results, while disturbing, are to be expected given the well-known problem associated with statin drug use, namely, the inhibition of the mevalonate pathway necessary to produce the heart-essential nutrient co-enzyme Q10. Co-enzyme Q10 deficiency itself may be a major contributing cause to heart disease. There is also research that statin drugs deplete the body of the cardioprotective minerals (and associated mineral-protein complexes) zinc and selenium. This finding may also explain why rates of heart failure may be increasing in the general population given these drugs.
While the discovery that statin drugs, instead of preventing heart disease, likely contribute to it, is surprising and counter intuitive, it should not distract from the more disturbing discovery that they contribute to over 300 disease and/or adverse health effects.
Millions of statin drugs users around the globe are risking their lives on a bad bet that taking a magic chemical pill will reduce their risk of dying of a disease that is not caused by a lack of the drug. What is more likely to happen, however, is that the quality and duration of their lives will be reduced, profoundly, along with billions of dollars of squandered cash that could have been spent on authentically medicinal and cardioprotective foods, nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
In light of these findings, a very serious question is raised: are those who are party to the manufacture, promotion, administration and/or prescribing of this chemical class of drugs, in violation of the medical ethical principle of informed consent? And is this ethical violation, insofar as it results in injury to those who have been mislead and/or coerced to take these drugs, also a legal/criminal one?
GSK Fined over Illegal Experiments Killing 14 babies
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Anthony Gucciardi
Vaccine and drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been fined 400,000 pesos (around the equivalent of $93,000) by an Argentinian judge for killing 14 babies during illegal lab vaccine trials that were conducted between 2007 and 2008.
In addition to killing the children and experimenting with human beings, the judge asserted that the corporation actually falsified parental authorizations so that babies could participate without legitimate parental permission.
Judge Marcelo Aguinsky made the decision after a report was released on the subject by the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Technology (ANMAT in Spanish). Since 2007, 15,000 children below the age of one from Mendoza, San Juan, and Santiago del Estero have been participating in the illegal research. These babies were recruited by GSK from poor families that attended public hospitals. It was found that of the 14 baby deaths, 7 died in Santiago del Estero; 5 in Mendoza; and 2 in San Juan.
GSK Recruited Doctors, Pressured Illiterate Parents into Signing Over Children
Currently, it is unknown how many babies suffered serious side effects, adverse reactions, or if this is truly the total death count. As with many other vaccinations such as Gardasil, the official death count continues to rise as leaked reports from the FDA and elsewhere continue to surface.
One pediatrician working at the public hospital when GSK began recruiting babies for their illegal human trials said that not only did GSK force illiterate parents into handing over their children, but they also ‘recruited’ several doctors working at the hospital into their cause.
Ana Marchese, a pediatrician at the Eva Perón children’s public hospital in Santiago del Estero, stated:
GSK Argentina set an protocol at the hospital, and recruited several doctors working there. These doctors took advantage of many illiterate parents whom take their children for treatment by pressuring and forcing them into signing these 28-page consent forms and getting them involved in the trials.
It is quite clear that GSK has zero regard for human health, morals, and will go to any length to experiment with their latest jab regardless of the casualties. Of the 15,000 babies that were reported to be a part of the illegal trials, many may suffer from life-altering illness and serious side effects.
Amazingly, many parents had no idea they were signing over the lives of their children to GSK, as they were completely illiterate. Meanwhile, GSK sells their latest shots and pharmaceutical drugs to United States consumers, raking in record profits each year as the second-largest drugmaker
Anthony Gucciardi
Vaccine and drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been fined 400,000 pesos (around the equivalent of $93,000) by an Argentinian judge for killing 14 babies during illegal lab vaccine trials that were conducted between 2007 and 2008.
In addition to killing the children and experimenting with human beings, the judge asserted that the corporation actually falsified parental authorizations so that babies could participate without legitimate parental permission.
Judge Marcelo Aguinsky made the decision after a report was released on the subject by the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Technology (ANMAT in Spanish). Since 2007, 15,000 children below the age of one from Mendoza, San Juan, and Santiago del Estero have been participating in the illegal research. These babies were recruited by GSK from poor families that attended public hospitals. It was found that of the 14 baby deaths, 7 died in Santiago del Estero; 5 in Mendoza; and 2 in San Juan.
GSK Recruited Doctors, Pressured Illiterate Parents into Signing Over Children
Currently, it is unknown how many babies suffered serious side effects, adverse reactions, or if this is truly the total death count. As with many other vaccinations such as Gardasil, the official death count continues to rise as leaked reports from the FDA and elsewhere continue to surface.
One pediatrician working at the public hospital when GSK began recruiting babies for their illegal human trials said that not only did GSK force illiterate parents into handing over their children, but they also ‘recruited’ several doctors working at the hospital into their cause.
Ana Marchese, a pediatrician at the Eva Perón children’s public hospital in Santiago del Estero, stated:
GSK Argentina set an protocol at the hospital, and recruited several doctors working there. These doctors took advantage of many illiterate parents whom take their children for treatment by pressuring and forcing them into signing these 28-page consent forms and getting them involved in the trials.
It is quite clear that GSK has zero regard for human health, morals, and will go to any length to experiment with their latest jab regardless of the casualties. Of the 15,000 babies that were reported to be a part of the illegal trials, many may suffer from life-altering illness and serious side effects.
Amazingly, many parents had no idea they were signing over the lives of their children to GSK, as they were completely illiterate. Meanwhile, GSK sells their latest shots and pharmaceutical drugs to United States consumers, raking in record profits each year as the second-largest drugmaker
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Oral Steroids Linked To Vitamin D Levels
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
Friday, September 30, 2011
HealthDay news image
FRIDAY, Sept. 30 (HealthDay News) -- People taking oral steroids double their risk for severe vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to bone disease or muscle weakness, a new study indicates.
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, in New York City, said steroids might increase levels of an enzyme that inactivates the vitamin, resulting in osteomalacia (softening of the bones), rickets (softening of bones in children) or clinical myopathy (muscle weakness). They recommended that physicians monitor vitamin D levels of patients being treated with oral steroids.
"When doctors write that prescription for steroids and they're sending the patients for lab tests, they should also get the vitamin D level measured," study author Dr. Amy Skversky, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Einstein and Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City, said in a news release from the university.
In conducting the study, published in the Sept. 28 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, researchers examined information compiled on more than 31,000 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2006.
Roughly 1 percent of those examined reported using oral steroids in the past month. Of those taking the drugs, 11 percent had severely low levels of vitamin D (defined as levels below 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood). Meanwhile, the study revealed that only 5 percent of those not taking the steroid had this vitamin deficiency.
The researchers noted the risk was most evident among participants under 18. These children and teens were 14 times more likely to have a severe vitamin D deficiency.
The study authors said that their findings did not apply to those using inhaled steroids.
SOURCE: Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, news release, Sept. 29, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
HealthDay news image
FRIDAY, Sept. 30 (HealthDay News) -- People taking oral steroids double their risk for severe vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to bone disease or muscle weakness, a new study indicates.
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, in New York City, said steroids might increase levels of an enzyme that inactivates the vitamin, resulting in osteomalacia (softening of the bones), rickets (softening of bones in children) or clinical myopathy (muscle weakness). They recommended that physicians monitor vitamin D levels of patients being treated with oral steroids.
"When doctors write that prescription for steroids and they're sending the patients for lab tests, they should also get the vitamin D level measured," study author Dr. Amy Skversky, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Einstein and Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City, said in a news release from the university.
In conducting the study, published in the Sept. 28 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, researchers examined information compiled on more than 31,000 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2006.
Roughly 1 percent of those examined reported using oral steroids in the past month. Of those taking the drugs, 11 percent had severely low levels of vitamin D (defined as levels below 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood). Meanwhile, the study revealed that only 5 percent of those not taking the steroid had this vitamin deficiency.
The researchers noted the risk was most evident among participants under 18. These children and teens were 14 times more likely to have a severe vitamin D deficiency.
The study authors said that their findings did not apply to those using inhaled steroids.
SOURCE: Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, news release, Sept. 29, 2011
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