The Truth About Big Pharma

Bill Gates' $10 Billon Vaccine Scam

2010-02-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.rense.com/general89/gates.htm

By Thomas C. Mountain
Online Journal
2-26-10

ASMARA, Eritrea -- The "richest man in the world," Microsoft's Bill Gates, recently announced that he was making a $10 billion donation towards finding vaccines to prevent some of the world's worst diseases.

Malaria is the number one killer in Africa. From what I'm hearing about $1 billion of Bill Gates donation/tax write-off is for research to find a vaccine to prevent malaria.

The African country of Eritrea, where I live, has reduced malaria mortality by 85 percent in the last seven years. How? By using basic public health methods. By distributing pesticide treated mosquito nets and organizing the pesticide retreatment every three months of mosquito nets. By habitat eradication. And by community medical clinics for immediate treatment.

Malaria is a parasite-based disease noted for its variety and quick development of resistance to medication. Any "vaccine," if even a billion dollars is able to produce such, would have a limited lifetime and new, patented medications would have to be bought by Africa's poor every few years.

So "donating" a billion dollars to develop a malaria "vaccine" could turn into tens of billions of dollars in drug sales in Africa alone, and Bill Gates, through his drug company investments, will quietly pocket more African blood money.

All the while a very successful malaria mortality reduction program is operating, effectively, safely and affordably, in Eritrea.

Why isn't this being publicized internationally? Could it be that such a program is not going to put billions into the pockets of the drug lords of Western finance?

Bill Gates and other assorted financial terrorists through their control of the Western media and "aid" organizations are suppressing implementation of a successful malaria mortality program while investing in a malaria drug addiction for Africa's people.

These financial terrorists are perfectly willing to see millions die in Africa while they search for their next highly profitable "wonder drug" to cure malaria, all the while deliberately ignoring, worse, engineering a white out/cover up of what could prevent millions of deaths, let alone uncounted suffering.

And HIV/AIDS, Africa's N0.2 killer? Bill Gates is said to be providing over a billion dollars for research into developing an AIDS vaccine. AIDS, a virus based disease, has already shown to have varieties and to have developed resistance to the medications developed to treat it. Like the flu vaccine, a new AIDS vaccine would most likely have to be developed every few years to combat the latest strain of the AIDS virus; another gold mine of new, patented medications for sale to Africa's sick.

Eritrea has reduced HIV/AIDS infection rates by 40 percent, according to Physicians for Peace, and is the only country in Africa to reduce HIV/AIDS. How? By using public health education promoting condom use everywhere in the country. Over a billion for a "vaccine" that may never work while an effective program that can reduce HIV/AIDS infection by 40 percent, safely and affordably can be immediately implemented?

Remember, Western billionaires didn't get that way by being out to really help anyone. Millions die in Africa as the Western drug lords and their financial terrorist stockholders reap their billions in blood money. All the while real heroes in the Eritrean public health service struggle to save people's lives.

So don't believe that Bill Gates is up to any good when he donates $10 billion to vaccine research, just the opposite. And don't forget that as far at the USA is concerned in Africa, no good deed goes unpunished, and, once again, Eritrea is subject to UN Security Council sanctions.

Stay tuned to Online Journal for more news from Africa's Horn that the so called free press in the west refuses to cover.

Thomas C. Mountain was, in a former life, an educator, activist and alternative medicine practitioner in the USA.
Email thomascmountain at yahoo.com.

Pharmaceutical Pillage

2010-02-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/02/24/pharmaceutical-pillage

Pharmaceutical Pillage
02/24/10
Joel S. Hirschhorn

Business ethics has become an oxymoron. Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown. So, everyone has many reasons to hate the banking and financial sectors that dumped our economy, and the general corruption of American politics by corporate interests. There are good reasons to detest the pharmaceutical industry. Besides raping people with onerous prices for prescription drugs, corporate greed coupled with ineffective government regulation and oversight is actually killing Americans through unsafe drugs.

Enter the newest fiasco, that sweetly named diabetes drug Avandia, so heavenly sounding, yet now revealed to be just another in a long history of drugs that get government approval but turn out to be lethal. According to Bloomberg News: “Safety reviewers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urged the agency to take GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s diabetes drug Avandia off the market in 2008 because they said it was causing 500 additional heart attacks per month.” A month! The drug was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009, which implies many thousands of deaths to date.

Consider these depressing developments. In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have committed acts that forced them to pay the largest criminal fines in American history. In cases involving Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb and four other drug companies, these fines and penalties have totaled over $7 billion since May 2004. That is an amazing number, but in comparison to drug industry profits, merely a pittance.

In particular, Pfizer has been fined multiple times in the past 6 years for illegal off-label promotion of their drugs. In its latest plea agreement, which took place last September, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion in fines and penalties for off-label promotion of Bextra. This settlement was the largest criminal fine in US history. Clearly, this kind of corporate behavior requires diligent oversight by the Food and Drug Administration to protect Americans and to ensure the safety of American medicine. Yet this newest Avandia outrage proves, yet again, that the federal government is failing people.

The Senate Finance Committee has just released a report and a letter to the FDA. They have revealed that the FDA itself estimated that the drug caused approximately 83,000 excess heart attacks between 1999 and 2007. “Americans have a right to know there are serious health risks associated with Avandia and GlaxoSmithKline had a responsibility to tell them. Patients trust drug companies with their health and their lives and GlaxoSmithKline abused that trust,” said Senator Max Baucus.

The Senate committee started their investigation after the New England Journal of Medicine published a study in May 2007 warning of the possible cardiovascular risk of Avandia. Avandia entered the market in 1999 and reached annual revenue of $3 billion by 2006, including sales of a combination drug that includes Avandia. Sales plummeted to $1.2 billion in 2009, two years after that study was published which linked Avandia to a 43 percent increased risk of heart attack. Before that the drug was the company’s second best selling drug, and they did everything to protect sales, rather than users of the drug.

The Senate report provides incredible details on how the drug company pursued countless awful tactics to thwart many efforts to reveal to the public and the medical community just how unsafe Avandia is. The report notes: “The totality of evidence suggests that GSK was aware of the possible cardiac risks associated with Avandia years before such evidence became public.… Based on this knowledge, GSK had a duty to sufficiently warn patients and the FDA of its concerns in a timely manner. Instead, GSK executives intimidated independent physicians, focused on strategies to minimize findings that Avandia may increase cardiovascular risk, and sought ways to downplay findings that the rival drug ACTOS (pioglitazone) might reduce cardiovascular risk.”

The company continues to fight to keep its drug in the market. You can imagine the army of lobbyists being used to safeguard the interests of drug companies. Other industries exhibit the same behavior, giving us widespread corporate pillage.

I and millions of other owners of Toyota vehicles cringe because, like so many other companies, it lost the capacity for telling the truth and protecting their consumers, and the federal government failed its oversight function. With 31 lobbyists in Washington last year, Toyota has spent nearly $25 million on federal regulatory and legislative lobbying matters in the last five years, much more than any other foreign automaker. Toyota’s registered lobbyists include at least eight former officials from Congress and the executive branch and it employs former engineers and officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the regulatory agency that failed to detect a pattern of safety problems at Toyota.

Put aside the anti-government rhetoric of the Tea Party movement. The critical need is not for less government but for better government that really works in the public interest, especially protecting consumers from dastardly corporate powers. Until that happens it is not surprising that the recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied or angry about the federal government. Nearly 75 percent of independents feel this way. If you think that electing either Democrats or Republicans will fix broken government, think again. Both major parties are corrupted by corporate interests.

Paxil Birth Defect Litigation - First Trial A Bust For Glaxo

2010-02-20T12:52:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Paxil-Birth-Defect-Litigat-by-Evelyn-Pringle-100216-915.html

February 18, 2010
By Evelyn Pringle

Glaxo Smith Kline has paid out close to $1 billion to resolve lawsuits involving Paxil since the drug came on the market in1992, according to a December 14, 2009 Bloomberg report. But the billion dollars does not cover the more than 600 Paxil birth defect cases currently pending in multi-litigation in Pennsylvania.

Glaxo has settled about 10 birth defect cases, according to Sean Tracey, a Houston attorney who represented the family of a child victim in the first jury trial that decided in favor of the plaintiff on October 13, 2009, Bloomberg reports. The settlements in those lawsuits averaged about $4 million, people familiar with the cases told the new service.

First Trial A Bust for Glaxo.

The first trial, in the case of Kilker v Glaxo, ended with a jury in Philadelphia finding that Glaxo "negligently failed to warn" the doctor treating Lyam Kilker's mother about Paxil's risks and the drug was a "factual cause" of Lyam's heart defects. The jury awarded the family $2.5 million in compensatory damages.

After the trial, juror Joe Mellon told Bloomberg that Glaxo did not conduct adequate studies on Paxil. "There were a couple of what I thought were safety signals and what the plaintiffs presented as safety signals that they should have maybe looked into further," he said.

On October 14, 2009, the American Lawyer reported that the plaintiff's lead attorney, Sean Tracey, had quizzed the jurors about what swayed their decision. "They said the fact that GSK never adequately studied their own drug was a big deal," Tracey said. "The animal testing they did showed that they had a potential problem, and they didn't follow up with adequate studies on animals or humans."

Glaxo's lead attorney in the Kilker trial was King & Spalding partner, Chilton Varner.

Over 600 Trials To Go.

A number of birth defect cases are set for trial in 2010. Andy Vickery, who practices at the Houston firm of Vickery, Waldner and Mallia, is handling several cases, with the Novak trial set to start first. The case is unique in that it involves an infant born with heart birth defects to Derek and Laura Novak on April 4, 2002, after Laura was prescribed Paxil during pregnancy for the off-label treatment of migraine headaches.

"Although one might worry that this would cause a jury to blame the prescribing doctor," says Vickery, "in this case, we can show that GSK encouraged this use, by sending out over 1500 "medical information" letters touting the benefits of Paxil for migraine headaches, and by leaving "approved WLF reprint" articles with the prescribing doctors."

Delaney Novak underwent open heart surgery on April 29, 2002, and again on February 21, 2003. Cardiac catheterization procedures were performed on December 4, 2002 and May 25, 2006. She will likely need repeated heart surgeries as she continues to grow.

In December 2005, the FDA reclassified Paxil from a pregnancy Category C drug to a Category D. Category D means studies in pregnant women have demonstrated a risk to the fetus. An advisory to healthcare professionals specifically stated that the "FDA has determined that exposure to paroxetine in the first trimester of pregnancy may increase the risk for congenital malformations, particularly cardiac malformations," and advised:

"Despite this categorization," says Vickery, "in numerous lawsuits across the country, Glaxo has continued to deny that Paxil causes birth defects."

"Hopefully that issue has now been laid to rest by the jury verdict in Philadelphia," he notes.

Case of the Dead Rats.

During opening statements in the first trial on September 15, 2009, Sean Tracey told the jury they were "going to see documents in this case that have never seen the light of day before."

"You will see internal GlaxoSmith documents that the FDA hasn't seen, that the United States Congress hasn't seen, and that no jury has ever laid their eyes on before," he said. "They have been under seal for over three years."

Many of the sealed documents related to the Paxil studies conducted on rats and rabbits. The world-renowned expert from the UK, Dr David Healy, testified on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Paxil was originally owned by a Danish company called Ferrosan, and that company did the preliminary animal studies on rats and rabbits to look at teratogenicity around 1979 and 1980.

Healy explained that a teratogen is an agent that will cause birth defects and "it could be a drug or maybe a virus or maybe an illness."

In addition to birth defects, he said, a teratogen can cause a fetus to be born dead or cause a miscarriage, which is death before birth.

The jury heard about studies 295, 296 and 297, with the most damning being study 295, in which three groups of pregnant rats were given Paxil at doses of 5, 15, and 50 milligrams. The pregnancy outcomes at birth, and 4 days beyond, were then compared to rats born to mothers who received no Paxil.

The rat pups born to mothers who did not receive Paxil were all born alive. Of the 415 pups born to mothers who were given Paxil, 47 were born dead.

In the group of rats exposed to 5 milligrams of Paxil, 65 percent were dead by day four. In the 15 milligram group, 92 percent had died by the fourth day. Of the pups exposed to 50 milligrams, 100 percent were dead by day 4.

Eighty-eight percent of the pups born to mothers who received no Paxil were still alive at day four.

Autopsies were not performed on all the rats to figure out why they died or whether they had birth defects, and specifically heart defects.

After Tracey described the study in his opening statement, in regard to the product information that Glaxo was providing in April 2005, during her opening statement, Glaxo attorney, Varner, told the jury, "GSK in its label reported on the animal studies, including the death of the rat pups that you have heard so much about this morning."

"I would like you to note three things about the discussion in the product information about the animal studies," she said.

"First, there were no birth defects in the study," she told he jury. "That is, there were no malformations or difficulties, structural difficulties, with the animals."

"Second," she said, "the rat pups who died shortly after birth were dosed at something like ten times the normal dose."

"And, third, the dosing occurred not in the first trimester, the dosing occurred in the third trimester and continued throughout lactation," Varner told the jury.

"You will hear expert testimony that the death of the rat pups is believed to have been due to a lactation problem," she said, "it was during the lactation period that these pups died."

While Healy was testifying, Tracey read part of a summary on the study that directly contradicted Varner's claims in stating: "Females were dosed for 14 days prior to pairing, throughout the pairing period, during gestation and for those females allowed to litter during lactation."

He then asked Healy whether the female rats were exposed to Paxil for more than just the third trimester. "Yes, they were," Healy said. "They were actually exposed throughout the pregnancy and for a period of time before the pregnancy and after."

He also told the jury that there were three major malformations in the Paxil exposed group, and "there may well have been more."

"The figures from the studies do give grounds for concern that there were, in fact more," he said, "far more."

The fact that the more Paxil they got the more they died, "indicates that the drug has played a part ... in whatever the cause of death is," Healy told the jury.

"It's clearly the drug that has caused the death," he said. "What we aren't clear from here is just what actually happened. Why they died."

In 1980, Glaxo had a doctor by the name of John Baldwin review the Ferrosan rat and rabbit studies. In a March 20, 1980 memo to the company, Baldwin discussed the studies and further dispelled Varner's claim that the rats received 10 times the normal dose.

"At first the examination of individual litter data, et cetera, supports the possibility of embryo lethality then this observation at nonmaternally toxic dose levels which are only three to six times the proposed human dose could contraindicate the use of Paroxetine in pregnancy," Baldwin wrote.

"That means that this appears to be grounds for concern from the work that Dr. Baldwin has reviewed," Healy told the jury.

"That Paxil is a drug that if it comes on the market, may cause birth defects," he said. "So that it would be classified with the drug like Accutane where the drug would have to come on the market contraindicated."

Which "would mean in this case," Healy said, "do not use the drug in women of childbearing years unless, for instance, they're using some form of birth control."

Another portion of Baldwin's memo stated: "On the other hand, if the embryonic death is unrelated to treatment, we would have to repeat the study at higher dose levels to produce some maternal or embryonic/fetal effect. There remains the possibility of this compound could be teratogenic at higher dose levels."

"This means that Dr. Baldwin is saying there is a real risk here from the data that we have that this drug may cause birth defects," Healy told the jury. "We need to do more work to actually before it's out, does the drug come with this risk or not."

"He says we need to check and see if the company that has made this drug has conducted this extra research or are in the process of doing the extra research or not," Healy said. "The implication being that if they haven't done it, we should."

In reviewing the documents for the case, Healy found nothing to show that Glaxo ever did the studies that Baldwin was talking about. "I know they did further studies, but I don't think they did anything to address the issues that were raised by 295, 296, 297," he said. "Or if they did, they kept it well hidden it would seem."

Yet nine years after he wrote the memo, Baldwin published a 1989 paper on the reproductive toxicology of Paxil in a journal called, "Active Psychiatric Scandinavia," and stated: "There appeared to be no selective effect on the embryo or any signs of teratogenicity."

Baldwin "appears to be saying here that there is no evidence that the drug causes birth defects," Healy told the jury. "That appears to me to be incompatible with the data that we reviewed earlier."

Baldwin's paper was published the same year the new drug application for Paxil was submitted to the FDA on November 10, 1989.

Incriminating Data Destroyed.

During the trial, the jury saw an exhibit showing minutes from a teleconference for a Paxil project team meeting, at which Anne Bell and others were present, on March 26, 1998. Page eight of the minutes stated: "It has already been discovered that raw data from four of the original Ferrosan sponsored toxicology studies conducted at Huntingdon Life Sciences were destroyed by HLS in 1993."

Healy told the jury that he had done studies for Glaxo and other major pharmaceutical companies and he still had the raw data 15 or 20 years later. "From my work on the serotonin system back in the early '80s, almost 30 years ago," he said, "I still have the raw data."

"The idea that I would destroy the data is almost inconceivable," Healy stated.

People may be concerned about a particular study and want to go back and look at the books, he said. "It's a bit like auditing a major company like Enron."

But it's "even more important actually in science," Healy told the jury. "People with a different point of view need to be able to say, look, show me the data."

They may "even suspect that I didn't do the study," he said, "so a defense for me is to be able to say here are the notebooks, here are the clinical records."

So you have to "be prepared to have all sorts of challenges," he told the jury. "But for that to happen, the notebooks, the clinical records, the lab notebooks must be there."

Healy testified that he did not believe the raw data from the original four Ferrosan studies had ever been located. "I believe there were efforts to try and find the microfilms, but they have not been found," he said.

Healy explained that when studies are done, there are a set of procedures called "good laboratory practice," or GLP.

"And it is hoped these days when a company brings a drug to the market," he said, "that the animal work that they do and the human work they do will conform to good laboratory practice and good clinical practice."

"And part of the requirements here of good laboratory practice is that the raw data is maintained," he told the jury.

Later in Healy's testimony, Tracey showed the jury that Study 295 itself, in regard to raw data, under "maintenance of records," stated "this material will be stored," and the "material will not be discarded or released from these laboratories without the sponsor's prior consent."

Initially, Paxil was FDA approved in 1992, with a Category B rating for pregnant women, meaning animal studies failed to demonstrate a risk to the fetus.

During the trial, it came out that the FDA employee who signed off on a Category B rating, a Dr Evoniuk, went on to work for Glaxo in the marketing department that sells Paxil.

A former FDA scientist, Doctor Suzanne Parisian, also testified as an expert for the plaintiffs. Adam Peavy, of the Houston firm of Bailey, Perrin and Bailey, handled her testimony.

Parisian testified that Doctor Sparenborg, a toxicologist at the FDA, raised a concern that there might be a problem with Paxil being a teratogen in 1995, when the pregnancy rating was changed from Category B to Category C.

When the company applied for approval of Paxil to treat Panic Disorder, Sparenborg suggested that the company "do a cross-fostering study to see if the adverse effect is occurring before the baby is born or after the baby is born," she said.

"Cross-fostering is ... taking rats from treated mothers and putting them with a control rat that didn't receive the drug," she explained to the jury. "So you are looking at whether the effect in the rat that could be produced in the pup was due to the mother herself or if it was something that was due to the rat before it was born."

The FDA asked Glaxo to submit a protocol for the study, "for our concurrence," before initiating it. But to her knowledge, Parisian said, Glaxo never submitted a protocol and never conducted a cross-fostering study.

She testified that such a study "would have helped to address where the negative effects were coming from."

While Parisian was testifying, the jury was shown the label for Paxil as it appeared in early January 2005, when Lyam's mother was prescribed Paxil as a Category C drug, with a discussion about the death of rat pups that implied the pups only died if the mothers received Paxil during the last trimester.

The label stated: "in rats there was an increase of pup deaths during the first four-day lactation when dosing occurred during the last trimester."

Parisian told the jury that there were deaths in pups born to mothers exposed to Paxil in the first and second trimesters as well. This Paxil label "implies to a physician that the animal studies support that it is safe to give the drug to the woman in the first and second trimester; that you need to be concerned about it in the last trimester," she testified.

The label is saying "there is no evidence of teratogenic effects," she said, "that means that it's safe for the first trimester. "

"If a physician were to read this, they would be more likely to prescribe it early in pregnancy," she told the jury.

Big Pharma Researcher Admits to Faking Dozens of Research Studies for Pfizer, Merck

2010-02-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

THIS GUY IS A PSYCHOPATH!!!!

http://www.naturalnews.com/028194_Scott_Reuben_research_fraud.html

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00 EST

It's being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer's speakers' bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals.

Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. His research, which was published in a medical journal, has since been quoted by hundreds of other doctors and researchers as "proof" that Celebrex helped reduce pain during post-surgical recovery. There's only one problem with all this: No patients were ever enrolled in the study!

Dr. Scott Reuben, it turns out, faked the entire study and got it published anyway.

It wasn't the first study faked by Dr. Reuben: He also faked study data on Bextra and Vioxx drugs, reports the Wall Street Journal.

As a result of Dr. Reuben's faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 "scientific" papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.

After being caught fabricating research for Big Pharma, Dr. Reuben has reportedly signed a plea agreement that will require him to return $420,000 that he received from drug companies. He also faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

He was also fired from his job at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. after an internal audit there found that Dr. Reuben had been faking research data for 13 years.

Business as usual in Big Pharma

What's notable about this story is not the fact that a medical researcher faked clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry. It's not the fact that so-called "scientific" medical journals published his fabricated studies. It's not even the fact that the drug companies paid this quack close to half a million dollars while he kept on pumping out fabricated research.

The real story here is that this is business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Reuben's actions really aren't that extraordinary. Drug companies bribe researchers and doctors as a routine matter. Medical journals routinely publish false, fraudulent studies. FDA panel members regularly rely on falsified research in making their drug approval decisions, and the mainstream media regularly quotes falsified research in reporting the news.

Fraudulent research, in other words, is widespread in modern medicine. The pharmaceutical industry couldn't operate without it, actually. It is falsified research that gives the industry its best marketing claims and strongest FDA approvals. Quacks like Dr Scott Reuben are an important part of the pharmaceutical profit machine because without falsified research, bribery and corruption, the industry would have very little research at all.

Pay special attention to the fact that the Anesthesia & Analgesia medical journal gladly published Dr. Reuben's faked studies even though this journal claims to be a "scientific" medical journal based on peer review. Funny, isn't it, how such a scientific medical journal gladly publishes fraudulent research with data that was simply invented by the study author. Perhaps these medical journals should be moved out of the non-fiction section of university libraries and placed under science fiction.

Remember, too, that all the proponents of pharmaceuticals, vaccines and mammograms ignorantly claim that their conventional medicine is all based on "good science." It's all scientific and trustworthy, they claim, while accusing alternative medicine of being "woo woo" wishful thinking and non-scientific hype. Perhaps they should have a quick look in the mirror and realize it is their own system of quack medicine that's based largely on fraudulent research, bribery and corruption.

You just have to laugh, actually, when you hear pushers of vaccines and pharmaceuticals claim their medicine is "scientific" while natural medicine is "unproven." Sure it's scientific -- about as scientific as the storyline in a Scooby Doo cartoon, or as credible as the medical license of a six-year-old kid who just received a "let's play doctor" gift set for Christmas. Many pharmaceutical researchers would have better careers as writers of fiction novels rather than scientific papers.

For all those people who ignorantly claim that modern pharmaceutical science is based on "scientific evidence," just give them these three words: Doctor Scott Reuben.

Drug companies support fraudulent research

Don't forget that the drug companies openly supported Dr. Scott Reuben's research. They paid him, in fact, to keep on fabricating studies.

The drug companies claim to be innocent in all this, but behind the scenes they had to have known what was going on. Dr. Reuben's research was just too consistently favorable to drug company interests to be scientifically legitimate. If a drug company wanted to "prove" that their drug was good for some new application, all they had to do was ask Dr. Reuben to come up with the research (wink wink). "Here's another fifty thousand dollars to study whether our drug is good for post-surgical pain (wink)."

And before long, Dr. Reuben would magically materialize a brand new study that just happened to "prove" exactly what the sponsoring drug company wanted to prove. Advocates of western medicine claim they don't believe in magic, but when it comes to clinical trials, they actually do: All the results they wish to see just magically appear as long as the right researcher gets paid to materialize the results out of thin air, much like waving a magician's wand and chanting, "Abra cadabra... let there be RESEARCH DATA!"

Shazam! The research data materializes just like that. It all gets written up into a "scientific" paper that also magically gets published in medical journals that fail to ask a single question that might exposed the research fraud.

I guess these people believe in magic after all, huh? Where science is lacking, a little "research magic" conveniently fills the void.

The whole system makes a mockery of real science. It is a system operated by criminals who fabricate whatever "scientific evidence" they need in order to get published in medical journals and win FDA approval for drugs that they fully realize are killing people.

What is "Evidence-Based Medicine?"

The fact that a researcher like Dr. Reuben could so successfully fabricate fraudulent study data, then get it published in peer-reviewed science journals, and get away with it for 13 years sheds all kinds of new light on what's really behind "evidence-based medicine."

The recipe for evidence-based medicine is quite simple: Fabricate the evidence! Get it published in any mainstream medical journal. Then you can quote the fabricated evidence as "fact!"

When pushers of pharmaceuticals and vaccines resort to quoting "evidence-based medicine" as their defense, keep in mind that much of their so-called evidence has been entirely fabricated. When they claim their branch of toxic chemical medicine is based on "real science," what they really mean is that it's based on fraudulent science but they've all secretly agreed to call it "real science." When they claim to have "scientific facts" supporting their position, what they really mean is that those "facts" were fabricated by criminal researchers being paid bribes by the drug companies.

"Evidence-based medicine," it turns out, hardly exists anymore. And even if it does, how do you know which studies are real vs. which ones were fabricated? If a trusted, well-paid researcher can get his falsified papers published for 13 years in top-notch science journals -- without getting caught by his peers -- then what does that say about the credibility of the entire peer-review science paper publishing process?

Here's what is says: "Scientific medicine" is a total fraud.

And this fraud isn't limited to Dr Scott Reuben, either. Remember: he engaged in routine research fraud for 13 years before being caught. There are probably thousands of other scientists engaged in similar research fraud right now who haven't yet been caught in the act. Their fraudulent research papers have no doubt already been published in "scientific" medical journals. They've been quoted in the popular press. They've been relied on by FDA decision makers to approve drugs as "safe and effective" for widespread use.

And yet underneath all this, there's nothing more than fraud and quackery. Sure, there may be some legitimate studies mixed in with all the fraud, but how can we tell the difference?

How are we to trust this system that claims to have a monopoly on scientific truth but in reality is a front for outright scientific fraud?

Keep up the great work, Dr Reuben

Thank you, Dr Scott Reuben, for showing us the truth about the pharmaceutical industry, the research quackery, the laughable "scientific" journals and the bribery and corruption that characterizes the pharmaceutical industry today. You have done more to shed light on the true nature of the drug industry than a thousand articles on NaturalNews.com ever could.

Keep up the good work. After paying your fine and serving a little jail time, I'm sure your services will be in high demand at all the top drug companies that need yet more "scientific" studies to be fabricated and submitted to the medical journals.

You may be a dishonest, disgusting human being to most of the world, but you're a huge asset to the pharmaceutical industry and they need you back! There are more studies that need to be fabricated soon; more false papers that need to be published and more dangerous drugs that need to receive FDA approval. Hurry!

Because if there's one place that extreme dishonesty is richly rewarded, it's in the pharmaceutical industry, where poisons are approved as medicines and fiction is published as the truth.

Corruption of physicians by Big Pharma now "limited" to $500 an hour

2010-02-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028168_Big_Pharma_corruption.html

February 16 2010
by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Congressional investigation over the unethical relationships between doctors and drug companies has led to a change in policy at Partners HealthCare, a Boston based hospital system affiliated with Harvard Medical School, that prohibits its physicians who sit on the boards of various biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies from receiving company stock and unlimited fees for their presence. They are now limited to only $500 an hour, or $5,000 a day, for their services which include things like attending board meetings.

The fact that about 25 vice presidents, clinical department heads, and other top executives in the system will be affected by this new rule illustrates the degree to which the medical system has been influenced by pharmaceutical interests. Physicians from top medical centers, including academic ones, often join the ranks of drug companies and are paid top dollar to push various drugs and treatments. They are even paid with company stock.

This blatant conflict of interest is not isolated to Partners, as many different organizations and academic institutions have come under fire by state regulators, Congress, and even hospitals themselves for allowing this practice to occur. Nationally, there has been a heavy push to stop the drug industry's control over doctors whether it be through perks, incentives or comfortable board positions.

The new policy at Partners prohibits doctors from touring the nation as paid drug company spokesmen, a practice commonly utilized by drug companies to promote their products. Partners will not, however, ban its physicians from working for drug companies altogether. They will still be allowed to sit on their boards and receive compensation - it will merely be "reduced" to $500 per hour.

It is virtually impossible for a physician to be both a physician and an executive for a drug company. For the drug company, he will be responsible for helping it achieve financial success, while for the hospital, he will be responsible for objectively treating patients. A physician cannot objectively treat a patient while at the same time be paid to use a company's drugs to treat that patient.

According to Dr. Dennis Auseillo, chief scientific officer at Partners and cochairman of drug-giant Pfizer's science and technology committee, all drug companies have at least a couple physicians on their boards. After being named a director of Pfizer in 2006 himself, Auseillo has received over $700,000 in company stocks and compensation. He plans to continue working for Pfizer under the new rules.

Over Half a Million U.S. Kids Per Year Suffer Health Reactions From Drugs

2010-02-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028143_children_side_effects.html

February 11 2010
Over Half a Million U.S. Kids Per Year Suffer Health Reactions From Drugs
by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) More than half a million children suffer adverse reactions every year in the United States from prescription drugs, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Children's Hospital in Boston and published in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers examined data on emergency room and clinic visits between the years of 1995 and 2005 by children under the age of 18. The average number of children receiving treatment for adverse prescription drug effects each year in that time period was 585,922. The number fluctuated very little from year to year.

Adverse drug events included accidental overdoses, side effects and wrong prescriptions.

Prior research has found that another half million children suffer adverse prescription drug reactions every year while in hospitals, bringing the total annual number of adverse drug effects in children up to more than one million. These numbers do not include negative reactions to over-the-counter drugs.

Researchers in the current study uncovered no reports of deaths caused by adverse drug reactions, but 5 percent of children did require hospitalization. Forty-three percent of the adverse reactions occurred in children under the age of five, with another 23 percent occurring in those between the ages of 15 and 18.

The most common causes of adverse effects in young children were prescription antibiotics. Some of the more common side effects were diarrhea, rash and stomach ache. Birth control pills were a common cause of side effects in teenagers, producing problems such as nausea, vomiting and disrupted menstrual cycles.

Drugs for depression and cancer were also significant causes of negative reactions.

According to lead author Florence Bourgeois, doctors need to inform parents of the possible side effects of any drugs children are given. Parents should watch their children especially carefully when a new drug is taken, she said, because "first-time medication exposures may reveal an allergic reaction."

Sources for this story include: www.foxnews.com; healthfieldmedicare.suite101.com.

Gets Cozy With Congress, Spends $100 Million in Advertising to Cash in on Health Reform

2010-02-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

Pharma Giant Gets Cozy With Congress, Spends $100 Million in Advertising to Cash in on Health Reform
By Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight Foundation
February 16, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145685/

More than a million spectators gathered before the Capitol on a frosty January afternoon to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, who promised in his campaign to change Washington’s mercenary culture of lobbyists, special interest influence and backroom deals. But within a few months of being sworn in, the President and his top aides were sitting down with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry to hash out a deal that they thought would make health care reform possible.

Over the following months, pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives met with top White House aides dozens of times to hammer out a deal that would secure industry support for the administration’s health care reform agenda in exchange for the White House abandoning key elements of the president’s promises to reform the pharmaceutical industry. They flooded Congress with campaign contributions, and hired dozens of former Capitol Hill insiders to push their case. How they did it—pieced together from news accounts, disclosure forms including lobbying reports and Federal Election Commission records, White House visitor logs and the schedule Sen. Max Baucus releases voluntarily—is a testament to how ingrained the grip of special interests remains in Washington.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama declared his intention to include all stakeholders as he sought to reform the nation’s health care system, but also supported key Democratic health reform policies. Among these were several that targeted the pharmaceutical industry: Allowing re-importation of drugs from first world countries with lower drug prices and providing Medicare with negotiating authority over prescription drug prices in the recently enacted Part D program. These weren’t just promises, Obama had already voted for both of them as a senator in 2007. (Roll Call Vote 132 and Roll Call Vote 150.)

Set to carry out this agenda were two Capitol Hill veterans, schooled in the monied Washington culture, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina. Emanuel was a former fundraiser, Clinton administration official, investment banker and member of the Democratic leadership in Congress. Messina was the former campaign manager and chief of staff to the powerful Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus. Both were known for their unparalleled legislative abilities.

Because of Obama’s decision to develop a plan operating through the legislative process, members of Congress also played key roles. Early on, the pharmaceutical companies were told to deal directly with Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus. Baucus would be the vehicle for the deal worked out behind the scenes by the White House and PhRMA.

Central to this effort was PhRMA president, CEO and top lobbyist Billy Tauzin, a longtime Democratic member of Congress who switched party affiliations after Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994. By switching parties Tauzin was able to maintain his influence and even rose to be Chairman of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. Tauzin became the poster child of Washington’s mercenary culture. He crafted a bill to provide prescription drug access to Medicare recipients, one that provided major concessions to the pharmaceutical industry. Medicare would not be able to negotiate for lower prescription drug costs and reimportation of drugs from first world countries would not be allowed. A few months after the bill passed, Tauzin announced that he was retiring from Congress and would be taking a job helming PhRMA for a salary of $2 million.

Tauzin’s job change became fodder for a campaign ad that then presidential candidate Barack Obama ran in the spring of 2008 simply titled “Billy.” It featured the candidate, sleeves rolled up, talking to a salon of gasping Americans about the ways of Washington. “The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies. And you know what, the chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year.” The screen fades to black to inform the viewer that, “Barack Obama is the only candidate who refuses Washington lobbyist money,” while the candidate continues his lecture, “Imagine that. That’s an example of the same old game playing in Washington. You know, I don’t want to learn how to play the game better, I want to put an end to the game playing.”

Aiding PhRMA in their outreach to Congress would be a squadron of lobbyists to push their health care reform priorities. Over the course of 2009, the drug industry trade group spent over $28 million on in house and hired lobbyists. Aside from PhRMA’s massive in-house lobbying operation, the trade group hired 48 outside lobbying firms. The total number of lobbyists working for PhRMA in 2009 reached 165. Some 137 of those 165 lobbyists representing PhRMA were former employees of either the legislative or executive branches. Of these dozens were former congressional staffers including two former chiefs of staff to Max Baucus.

According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, drug makers contributed huge sums to congressional campaign committees during the same period—from January to the end of October (4th quarter numbers are still being totaled), industry political action committees, employees and their family members flooded lawmakers with over $8 million. Those contributions tilted heavily to Democrats over Republicans by a 57 to 42 percent margin—the first time in any election cycle going back to 1990, the first year that the Center for Responsive Politics began tracking industry giving, that Democrats were so favored. Given their majorities on Capitol Hill, and the new President’s intention to reform America’s health care system, the new tilt was perhaps not surprising.

***

On March 5, the White House held a meeting with major health care industry leaders to try to bring them to the table and see what could be done to gain their support. In attendance were Billy Tauzin, president, CEO and top lobbyist for PhRMA, Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler, America’s Health Care Plans (AHIP) Chairman Karen Ignani, Tom Donohue of the Chamber of Commerce and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations’ Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. A day before the White House meeting Tauzin appeared on CNBC touting health care reform and promising to work closely with the Obama administration. In the interview he touted it as an “optimistic plan”, acknowledging that the industry did have a few problems but was glad to have a chance to discuss these. Some were caught dumb-founded by this apparent change of heart on behalf of an industry long adverse to health care reforms.

On April 15, Jim Messina and Jon Selib, chief of staff to Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, convened a meeting at the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) with leaders of organized labor and health care groups, including PhRMA. At the meeting, the groups decided to form two nonprofit entities to promote reform efforts, Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care, that would be almost entirely funded by PhRMA. The two groups spent $24 million on their advertising campaigns; the contract to produce and place ads went to White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod’s former firm, AKPD, which owed Axelrod $2 million.

In the next month, CEO’s from pharmaceutical companies would meet with Baucus and administration officials at least four times. These talks preceded a major public event at the White House, one critical to its strategy to promote health care reform. On May 11, PhRMA and other trade industry groups pledged cost cutting measures to the White House that would save, they claimed, upwards of $2 trillion over the next decade. President Obama announced the deal in the State Dining Room, flanked by leaders of the various trade groups; the administration followed up with a media blitz in the press and on the White House Web site.

The next day, Healthy Economy Now’s PhRMA funded ad campaign ran their first advertisement in support of the health care reform process calling for the government to finally “fix” the nation’s health care cost problems. While many elements of the $2 trillion cost cutting pledge fell apart, the drug industry remained committed to the process in the hopes that they could ultimately win out and defeat the provisions they most feared in closed-door meetings with the White House.

The first occurred on June 2. White House visitor logs show PhRMA’s top executives, including Tauzin, and industry CEOs met with Sarah Fenn from the White House Office of Health Care Reform. On the same day, the publicly available schedule of Senator Max Baucus shows Tauzin and the same industry CEOs met the Senate Finance Committee chairman. What ultimately resulted from these coordinated meetings would be revealed by Baucus on June 20.

In a press release featuring a statement by Tauzin, Baucus revealed that the pharmaceutical industry had accepted $80 billion in cost cutting measures to be included in the Senate Finance Committee version of the bill. According to news reports, Baucus initially proposed $100 billion in cost cutting measures, but the executives and lobbyists meeting on June 2 were able to win the lower figure.

The terms of the initial cost-cutting deal included $30 billion go directly towards closing the “donut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage. The “donut hole” is a term for the gap in coverage that occurs within the Medicare prescription drug coverage. For those purchasing prescription drugs through the Medicare program coverage cuts off at $2,700 spent and does not pick back up again until $6,154 is spent by the participant. The amount proposed in the deal, 50 percent coverage for drugs within the coverage gap, however, would not completely close the “donut hole.”

In Baucus’ press release, Tauzin is quoted as saying, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and, working together, we can make this hope for a better tomorrow a reality today.” This “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity also extended to the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to blunt the long-term Democratic agenda of lowering prescription drug prices through Medicare negotiations, re-importation and quicker release of generics onto the market. After making such a grand statement of support through cost cutting proposals it was time for the pharmaceutical industry to finally force the White House and Democrats to take certain chips off the table.

Baucus proceeded with a plan to convene a bipartisan group in an effort to craft the bill desired by the White House. These participants included Democrats Kent Conrad and Jeff Bingaman and Republicans Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi and Olympia Snowe. Baucus’ decision and the need to solidify deals with groups like the pharmaceutical industry – which were reliant on Baucus producing a bill – slowed down the legislative process making it impossible for Congress to meet the White House’s announced August recess deadline for passing health care reform.

Soon after, PhRMA’s big guns and industry lobbyists paid the White House another visit on July 7 and this time met with Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina (Baucus’ chief of staff Jon Selib is also listed in White House visitor logs for this meeting). In August, The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reported on an internal memo that was drafted at that meeting that outlined the policies that would not be allowed into any final version of health care reform. These included Medicare prescription drug negotiations, drug re-importation, and the lowering of prices for drugs available through Medicare Part D and Part B. The deal would be $80 billion in cost cutting and absolutely no more.

***

While the $80 billion deal was cut with Baucus’ committee, other congressional committees continued to mark-up their own versions of health care reform without the knowledge that the White House was relying on Baucus to produce the final product. In the House of Representatives, the House Energy & Commerce Committee leveled a direct threat to the $80 billion deal. Energy & Commerce Chair Henry Waxman sought to include all of the provisions that PhRMA had gotten the White House and Baucus to cut out of the reform bill. These included drug reimportation, Medicare negotiating power and speedier release of generics to the market. According to previous analysis of the measures proposed by the committee, these measures would have totaled hundreds of billions in cost cuts, far exceeding the $80 billion cap agreed to by the White House, Baucus and PhRMA.

The cost cutting measures passed in the Energy & Commerce bill spooked the board of PhRMA, which included all of the CEOs involved in the deal-cutting meetings with the White House and Baucus. The board pressured Tauzin to go public with the deal to ensure that the White House would recognize it and not renege. On August 4, the Los Angeles Times, in an exclusive report, featured quotes from Tauzin claiming that a deal between the White House and PhRMA existed and that, as Tauzin put it, “The White House blessed it.” Tom Hamburger wrote in the article, “For his part, Tauzin said he had not only received the White House pledge to forswear Medicare drug price bargaining, but also a separate promise not to pursue another proposal Obama supported during the campaign: importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe.”

The White House’s Jim Messina later confirmed Tauzin’s claim, stating, “The president encouraged this approach … He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform.”

Democratic lawmakers were furious. Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the Progressive Caucus, asked, “Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?”

***

On September 7, Baucus’ bill made a private circulation on the Hill; pharmaceutical industry cost-cutting did not exceed $80 billion. Five days later, the New York Times reported that PhRMA planned to spend up to $150 million in an advertising blitz in support of Baucus’ bill. The Times noted that the ad spending “…would be a follow-up to the deal that drug makers struck in June with Mr. Baucus and the White House.” On September 16, Baucus released the full text of his legislation to the public.

The White House, PhRMA and Baucus still had to fight a few battles to keep the deal intact. The key amendment targeting the PhRMA deal in committee mark-up came from Sen. Bill Nelson from Florida, which has one of the largest Medicare participant populations in the nation. The pull of constituent needs clearly put Bill Nelson into a position to push for further cost cutting in Medicare prescription drug pricing. His target: closing the “donut hole” completely.

Nelson claimed that his amendment would generate $106 billion in revenue, or from PhRMA’s perspective increase their cost-cutting to $186 billion. That would be unacceptable to PhRMA, to Baucus, to the White House and to the pharmaceutical industry who had made the deal. Other Senate Democrats, Tom Carper and Robert Menendez voted with Republicans and Baucus on the committee to defeat the amendment. It is little surprise the Carper’s Delaware is home to AstraZeneca and Menendez’ New Jersey is home to Merck and Bristol-Myers-Squibb, all of which lobbied for the $80 billion cap.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the final bill, with the cap in place, on November 19. Debate began on Dec. 3, and with it come one more attempt by members to change the terms of the deal. Senator Byron Dorgan introduced an amendment that would allow for drug re-importation, but as the date for voting drew near, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) released a letter objecting to the proposal that echoed pharmaceutical industry talking points: “…as currently written, the resulting structure would be logistically challenging to implement and resource intensive. In addition, there are significant safety concerns.” Dorgan’s amendment was defeated with numerous Democrats previously in support of reimportation switching to “no” votes.

On Christmas Eve, the bill passed the Senate with the PhRMA deal fully intact.

***

New Year’s Eve passed with no further action on health care reform. Public opinion regarding the health care reform bill had been slipping throughout 2009. It reached a fulcrum in the special election to replace the deceased senator Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts on January 19, 2010. Newly minted senator Scott Brown campaigned that he would be the senator to provide Republicans with the votes to filibuster the final health care reform bill. Democrats ran for cover. Despite having the largest majorities of any party since the 1970s, Democrats put the brakes on their agenda, particularly health care reform.

In the end, the pharmaceutical industry’s support for health care reform would be left up in the air. After spending $100 million in advertising in support of legislation that Tauzin and key executives hoped would be a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry, the legislative process had flat-lined. In February, the board of PhRMA, split over the deal cut by Tauzin, pushed Tauzin to resign his post.

In an interview with Diane Sawyer, President Obama owed up to failures in the process of passing health care reform, “[T]he health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters that we just don’t know what’s going on … And it’s an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.”

Paul Blumenthal is the Senior Writer at the Sunlight Foundation.

Rösler vows high drug prices to fall

2010-02-11T11:21:00.000-08:00

NOW LET'S HOPE OTHER COUNTRIES FOLLOW!!!

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100210-25179.html

Rösler vows high drug prices to fall
Published: 10 Feb 10 18:26 CET

Big pharmaceutical firms have been put on notice that the government plans to crack down on high drug prices, with German Health Minister Philipp Rösler vowing Wednesday to bring prices “under control.”

“The Health Ministry will put forward a co-ordinated plan to get average drug prices permanently under control,” he said after meeting with statutory health insurers.

Rösler said this applied even to new and innovative drugs for which manufacturers insist they have to charge heavily in order to recoup the high cost of research and development.

The cost-benefit analysis the government uses to appraise drugs would play a role in this, according to the minister.

The shot across the bow of Big Pharma was surprising because Rösler's party, the Free Democrats (FDP), are traditionally close to the pharmaceutical industry as well as doctors and pharmacies, meaning cost-savings in the health sector are not normally core issues for the party.

On the contrary, the FDP reportedly played the key role in forcing out Peter Sawicki as head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care because he had been a tough critic of the industry.

After hospitals and general practitioners, drugs are the third biggest cost to the health system.

Many common drugs in Germany are more expensive than elsewhere in Europe or even in the United States.

Rösler met on Wednesday in Berlin with the heads of some of the statutory health insurers, who made concrete proposals about how to save money on pharmaceuticals.

Thomas Ballast, head of the Association of Health Insurers, said: “It is now the policy to bring this discussion process to an end and to take up some suggestions.”

The goal above all is to ensure that the pharmaceutical firms are no longer so free to set the price for their products. The health funds agreed on the need for a greater legally mandated discount from companies along with lower sales tax.
DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

Cheap B vitamin beats Big Pharma's Zetia cholesterol drug

2010-02-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028080_Zetia_cholesterol.html

February 3 2010
by E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) A recent study found that niacin, a form of vitamin B, is far more beneficial to heart patients with high cholesterol than is the popular cholesterol drug Zetia. Dr. Anthony DeMaria, a leading cardiologist and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology stated that the findings will eliminate Zetia from the preferred treatment options list.

Though Zetia is touted as being highly effective at reducing the levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), often called "bad cholesterol", niacin is much more effective at boosting the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), commonly termed "good cholesterol".

Evidence reveals that niacin significantly reduces plaque buildup on arterial walls, improving blood supply to the brain, while Zetia, also known generically as ezetimibe, can slightly increase arterial plaque buildup. For this reasons, doctors and experts agree that niacin is the preferred choice in maintaining proper cholesterol levels and a healthy heart.

In addition to being more effective, niacin is also a much more affordable option. Though the trial utilized a time-released prescription form of niacin, quality niacin supplements are available over the counter that work equally as well if not better than the prescription form.

Zetia is often prescribed to lower bad cholesterol and maintain heart health, yet its track record seems to indicate the opposite effect for some. Out of the 208 participants who engaged in the study, nine of the patients on Zetia experienced heart attacks, stroke, or they died from heart disease. Only two on niacin bore such an outcome.

Dr. Jim Stein of the University of Wisconsin was one of several who emphasized over-prescription of Zetia, stating that doctors fail to practice evidence-based medicine when using the drug. He recommends utilizing safer, more effective alternatives like niacin that are proven to reduce incidences of heart attack, stroke, and death.

Studies consistently show that therapeutic doses of niacin alone can raise HDL levels by up to 35 percent and lower LDL levels by 20 percent. When incorporated into a well-balanced diet with regular exercise, the benefits increase even more. Proper diet and exercise will actually cause arterial plaque to dissipate over time, unlike statin drugs which have never been proven to break up arterial plaque.

Niacin is naturally found in dairy products, lean meats, fish and poultry, nuts, eggs, and whole-grain or sprouted breads. Diets rich in plant-based sterols, soluble fiber, and balanced sources of omega-3 and omega-6 oils will also contribute significantly to maintaining proper cholesterol levels and a healthy heart.

Mainstream Drugs are Neither Safe nor Effective, Part III

2010-02-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028077_drugs_side_effects.html

February 3 2010
Mainstream Drugs are Neither Safe nor Effective, Part III
by Tony Isaacs, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Over 95% of the 24,000 plus FDA approved medicines have side effects. In many instance those side effects lead to further conditions requiring still more drugs with more side effects in a never ending cycle. Millions of serious adverse reactions are reported each year and over 140,000 deaths in hospitals and homes happen each year even when the drugs have been properly prescribed and administered.

We are told that there is always risk versus reward to be considered. But it appears that often a great deal of the "reward" is drug company profits regardless of risks. Such was the case when the makers of Vioxx (Merck) reaped billions of dollars of profit while the body count piled up even higher than all the lives we lost in the Vietnam War. The same thing appears to be happening now with Paxil:

http://www.naturalnews.com/027962_P...

Meanwhile, major side effects caused by natural herbs are rare and deaths almost non-existent.

Often we see the supporters of mainstream medicine refer to natural healing as "woo" and sometimes they liken belief in natural herbs as more akin to some kind of religion instead of "real science". Yet, true science is based on observation and mankind has observed nature to work and has used nature for healing for thousands of years. Most of the people around the world continue to rely on such observation and history of us to make herbal and natural healing their top choices for addressing health issues. Among those countries are several countries ranked above the U.S. (the world`s most medicated country) in health rankings, including two of the top three ranked countries. Our life expectancy ranks below 40 plus other countries and is closer to that of Mexico than it is the top 10 countries.

To claim that nature, from whence life itself came, is "woo" is patently absurd. Of course most of us would like to see scientific proof that anything we take is safe and effective, but when medical science has been sold off to the highest bidder far too often, choosing what others have observed to work time and again through the ages often appears to be a safer bet than taking the word of what medical science tells us will work and is safe.

History has taught us over and over that the science of today has but a fraction of the answers and is often overturned tomorrow. When you combine the record of safety and effectiveness of approved drugs with the lessons of history, one might well conclude that blind belief in mainstream medicine is much more of a religion than belief in nature.

Granted, just because something is natural does not mean that it will work or even that it is safe, but the fact that something has been approved by medical science provides no assurances either. According to Doctor Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline and academic geneticist from Duke University, "The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people."

Despite the conflicting and incomplete studies on herbs, natural remedies, vitamins and minerals, studies largely agree on one thing: a great many of our health problems can be traced to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. On the other hand, no one ever became ill due to a deficiency in pharmaceuticals.

Mainstream Drugs are Neither Safe nor Effective, Part II

2010-02-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028079_drugs_side_effects.html

February 3 2010
by Tony Isaacs, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Mainstream medicine assures us that their drugs are more effective than nature and that they have been scientifically proven to be both effective and safe. What mainstream medicine does not tell us is how they have rigged studies, withheld evidence of harm and paid doctors to prescribe their drugs.

The drug industry has been riddled with scandal again and again - including faked studies, rigged studies, hidden evidence of dangers, ghostwritten articles, fake medical journals, sex scandals, and much more. Merck, Vioxx. Pfizer, Avantis, GlaxoKilineSmith, Baxter Labs, the list goes on and on and on and leaves virtually no major pharmaceutical company untouched:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/f...

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extr...

All one has to do to get an idea of how riddled with scandal the drug industry has been is to do a simple internet search for "drug company scandals". Absolutely shameful!

The latest example:

http://www.healthiertalk.com/pfizer...

Another problem with mainstream drugs is the influence peddling of the pharmaceutical companies to get doctors to prescribe their medicines. Many doctors receive incentives for prescribing drugs - such as honorariums, free lunches and other gifts, and even free massages and cruise trips, to name a few. There have been a number of scandals concerning drug companies essentially bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs, and there have been many cries for reform to insure that drugs are prescribed according to the patient's best interests and not the financial interests of doctors and drug companies.

Besides all the incentives, some doctors make profits directly from the drugs they prescribe, often with unhealthy consequences for their patients. In an article that appeared in the New York Times in May 2007 it was revealed that two of the world's largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.

The same article noted that:

"Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs, which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors purchase price."

See: http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/...

No wonder a Harris Poll found that only 13% of Americans believe that pharmaceutical companies are "generally honest and trustworthy".

Mainstream Drugs are Neither Safe nor Effective, Part I

2010-02-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028081_drugs_side_effects.html

February 3 2010
by Tony Isaacs, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) For generations we have been told by mainstream medicine that their drugs are safer and more effective than natural alternatives such as those man has used for healing for thousands of years. Similarly, we have been told that herbs and other natural alternatives are unproven, usually of little or no value and often may be dangerous. History tells us an entirely different story.

Proponents of mainstream drugs and critics of natural healing usually cite the lack of scientific studies proving the effectiveness or safety of herbs and natural alternatives. Likewise, mainstream drug advocates point to the wealth of studies which prove the effectiveness and safety of patented mainstream drugs. However, relatively few comprehensive studies have been conducted on herbs other than to find a compound that can be synthesized or uniquely isolated so it can be patented and profited from by the drug companies. Drug companies are by far the largest source of funding for medical studies and the cost of such studies is a huge barrier for natural alternatives. The FDA trial process costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one can afford to get a natural item approved that they cannot control. Whole herbs and extracts of herbs that contain multiple compounds found in nature cannot be patented.

Despite the complicated, expensive and time consuming process of getting FDA approval, many point to all the harmful drugs that have been approved as an indication that the system is deeply flawed and rigged in favor of those who have the money. It has been shown that studies tend to return positive results for the funders up to eight times more often than independent studies on the same item.

The FDA approval process did not prevent us from having rigged studies on Vioxx. Nor did it prevent rigged studies for decades on the safety - and even claimed health benefits - of smoking cigarettes. Those are just two examples in a very long list of drugs and other items mainstream science told us were safe but weren`t. For example: thalidomide, heroin, opium, cocaine, Avandia, Fosamax, Prozac, Paxil, Aleve, Bextra, Aspartame . . the list goes on and on.

Another problem with mainstream medical studies is the apparent lack of quality standards employed by pharmaceutical companies in selecting doctors who oversee drug testing. A New York Times investigation in 2007 found that in Minnesota alone at least 103 doctors who had been disciplined or criticized by the state medical board received a total of $1.7 million from drug makers between 1997 to 2005. The median payment over that period was $1,250; the largest was $479,000.

One such doctor was Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab, whom the Minnesota Medical board accused of a "reckless, if not willful, disregard" for the welfare of 46 patients, 5 of whom died in his care or shortly afterward. The board suspended his license for seven months and restricted it for two years after that. One of Dr. Abuzzahab`s patients was David Olson, whom the psychiatrist tried repeatedly to recruit for clinical trials. Drug makers paid Dr. Abuzzahab thousands of dollars for every patient he recruited. In July 1997, when Mr. Olson again refused to be a test subject, Dr. Abuzzahab discharged him from the hospital even though he was suicidal, records show. Mr. Olson committed suicide two weeks later.

arning! Don't Take Another Drug Until You Read How You're Being Conned...

2010-01-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/28/Did-Merck-Trick-You-Into-Buying-Fosamax-With-an-Imaginary-Disease.aspx

Warning! Don't Take Another Drug Until You Read How You're Being Conned...
Posted by: Dr. Mercola
January 28 2010 | 15,599 views
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become thinner, more porous and break more easily. Osteopenia is different from osteoporosis -- it is a slight thinning of bones that occurs naturally as women get older and typically doesn't result in disabling bone breaks.

Osteopenia is a condition that only recently started to be thought of as a problem that required treatment. Until the early 1990’s, only a handful of people had even heard of the word. But osteopenia has transformed from a rarely heard word into a problem that millions of women swallow pills to treat.

The term “osteopenia” was never originally meant to be considered as a disease -- it was a research category used mostly because some thought it might be useful for public health researchers who like clear categories for their studies.

But in 1995, a man named Jeremy Allen was approached by the drug company Merck. The pharmaceutical giant had just released a new osteoporosis drug called Fosamax. Since osteoporosis is a serious problem that affects millions of women, the potential market for Fosamax was enormous. But the drug wasn’t selling well.

Allen persuaded Merck to establish a nonprofit called the Bone Measurement Institute. On its board were six of the most respected osteoporosis researchers in the country.

But the institute itself had a rather slim staff: Allen was the only employee.

In 1997 the institute and several other interested organizations successfully lobbied to pass the Bone Mass Measurement Act, a piece of legislation that changed Medicare reimbursement rules to cover bone scans. More and more women got bone density tests (at Merck’s urging), and the very existence of the word "osteopenia" on a medical report had a profound effect.

Millions of women were worried by the diagnosis. And when clinicians saw the word 'osteopenia' on a report, they assumed it was a disease. Merck did not disabuse them of the notion.

There are no long-term studies that look at what happens to women with osteopenia who start Fosamax in their 50’s and continue treatment long-term in the hopes of preventing old-age fractures. And none are planned.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

I don’t believe for a minute that Merck’s motivation for pushing the label “osteopenia” was to make it convenient for the researchers. It’s very clear that Big Pharma has one overriding goal—a handsome sales report at the end of the quarter.

Since 2003, annual sales of osteoporosis drugs have about doubled to $8.3 billion, and $3 billion of that was from Fosamax alone.

Convincing you that you have a disease when you don’t is nothing short of medical molestation. It’s unethical, self-serving, and demonstrates the upside-down priorities of the pharmaceutical giants.

But it isn’t surprising, I’m sorry to say.

Manipulating Research and Massaging Data

The manufacturers of osteoporosis drugs exaggerate the benefits and downplay the risks of so-called bone-strengthening drugs, according to a report in the January 2008 issue of British Medical Journal (BMJ)[i].

The paper states that the strongest single risk factor for fracture is falling, not osteoporosis.

Authors emphasize that “drug treatment is not a panacea,” and that women with osteopenia have such a low risk of fractures that drug treatment provides no benefit at all—but comes with all of the risks.

The paper states:

“What the drug makers do is argue that the effect of treating pre-osteoporosis (osteopenia) and osteoporosis is similar. This move to treat pre-osteoporosis raises serious questions about the benefit-risk relationship for low-risk individuals and about the costs of medicalizing and potentially medicating an enormous group of healthy people.”

The paper also states that all four studies cited by drug companies to substantiate the benefits of giving osteoporosis drugs to women with osteopenia were exaggerated[ii]. For example, one study claimed a 75 percent reduction in the risk of fracture, but the real risk reduction was only 0.9 percent.

These same studies also downplayed the potentially harmful side effects of these drugs. In one, they simply “forgot to mention” that raloxifene (Evista by Eli Lily) increased your risk for blood clots.

The BMJ article also mentions that many of the authors of the four studies were employees of the pharmaceutical industry, not surprisingly.

New Tools for Calculating Your Fracture Risk

In response public concern about the risks of these drugs, the World Health Organization recently developed an online tool meant to help physicians and patients determine when treatment for deteriorating bones is appropriate. It’s called FRAX (Fracture Risk Assessment Tool), and it claims to take into account risk factors other than bone density alone.

Before you get too excited about this handy new tool, it turns out that FRAX is proving to be as controversial as osteopenia.

It just so happens that FRAX was developed by the same people who came up with the faux-disease osteopenia in the first place! It’s no surprise, then, that the advised threshold for medication is too low.[iii]

There is some promise, however, offered by another tool called the FRISK (Fracture Risk Score), which was developed by an independent group of scientists[iv]. The FRISK score is based on multiple-site bone mineral densities (BMDs) and other risk factors such as likelihood of falling, bone mass, body weight, and other variables.

What You Risk With Fosamax

Merck tried to hide the fact that Fosamax is causing jawbone death, a disease now known to oral surgeons as Bisphosphate-Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (BRONJ) or “Fossy Jaw,” a nasty side effect of Fosamax and related drugs that is difficult to treat.

Essentially, the condition causes your jawbone to rot and decay—quite ironic considering the drugs are primarily taken by people looking to strengthen their bones.

In addition to BRONJ, bisphosphate drugs have also been associated with:

Serious eye inflammation and possible blindness

Liver damage

Atrial fibrillation

Increased risk of ulcers

Esophageal cancer

Renal failure

Skin reactions

Hypocalcemia (blood calcium levels are too low)

With a resume like this, it’s not surprising that Merck may have intentionally tried to keep the side effects of Fosamax under wraps—what drug representative would want to share this information with potential clients?

Merck did the same thing with their tragically dangerous painkiller, Vioxx.

Fosamax: Works on Bone Cells AND Soap Scum

Bisphosphonate drugs like Fosamax, Actonel and Boniva, are problematic because they stay in the bone indefinitely and disrupt the normal bone regeneration process.

Healthy bones maintain their strength from a continual process of bone breakdown and bone rebuilding. Osteoclasts are the cells that break down your bone, and osteoblasts are the cells that rebuild it.

Fosamax and similar drugs poison your osteoclasts, permanently killing them—the normal bone repair process is halted. So, your bones will indeed get denser. However, denser bones are NOT stronger bones, which is the part they don’t tell you. In fact, eventually your bones become weaker and more prone to fracture.

Why?

Because bone is a dynamic structure that requires the removal of unhealthy bone and REPLACEMENT with new bone to stay strong. Fosamax does NOT build any new bone. It only kills the cells that break bone down, so your bone is not benefitting from its natural regenerative process.

But don’t throw out that Fosamax just yet!

It’s in the same chemical class (phosphonate) as the cleaners you use to remove soap scum from your bathtub. So, maybe you can make use of it in your bathroom after all.

Osteoporosis MYTHS: Calcium and Protein

I have already busted the myth that you need to use a bisphosphonate drug to keep your bones healthy. But there are two other myths that need dispelling:

Osteoporosis is caused by calcium deficiency: Bone is composed of at least a dozen minerals, and if you focus exclusively on calcium supplementation you are likely going to worsen your bone density and actually increase your risk of osteoporosis.

Overconsumption of calcium creates other mineral deficiencies and imbalances, which then increase your risk of heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, obesity, opportunistic infections and type 2 diabetes.

A high-protein diet leads to osteoporosis: The myth that eating a high protein diet will cause calcium loss through the urine is simply false. Consuming plenty of high quality protein, like free-range eggs and grass-fed meats, ensures that you’ll have the amino acids your body needs to form a strong bone matrix.

My Prescription for Bone Health

These simple guidelines will help you maintain or increase your bone strength safely and naturally, without the use of drugs:

Increase your consumption of vegetables based on your body's unique nutritional type. If you find it difficult to eat the recommended amount of vegetables you need daily, you can also try vegetable juicing. Make sure your veggies are fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables that are not genetically modified.

Consume a healthy balance between omega-6 and omega-3 fats, and reduce or eliminate the amount of processed vegetable oils such as corn, canola, safflower, and soy.

Eat according to your nutritional type. This will ensure that you’re getting enough nutrients for your bones, as well as helping to correct your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

Avoid gluten, a grain protein that has been shown to decrease bone density. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt.

Avoid soda and sugar, which increase bone damage by depleting your bones of calcium.

Avoid steroids, especially if you have asthma or any other autoimmune disease. Steroids increase your risk for osteoporosis.

Consider supplementing with vitamin K2 if you are not getting enough from food alone. Vitamin K2 serves as the biological "glue" that helps plug the calcium into your bone matrix. The dose is about 185 mcg per day.

Get enough vitamin D, ideally from proper amounts of sun exposure. Vitamin D builds your bone density by helping your body absorb calcium.

Exercise. Studies show that exercise is just as important to your bone health as eating a calcium-rich diet. Strength building exercises like weight training are especially helpful here.

Consider natural progesterone[v], which can increase your bone strength. It does this by serving as a growth promoter for the osteoblasts (the cells that build bone). For more on progesterone, please review Complications Regarding Progesterone Cream

[i] Jarvinen T.L.N., Slevanen H., Khan K.M., Heinonen A., and Kannus P. “Shifting the focus in fracture prevention from osteoporosis to falls” BMJ (January 19, 2008) 336:124-126

[ii] Edelson E. “Bone strengthening drugs may be overprescribed” (January 18, 2008) The Washington Post

[iii] Murphy K. “Splits form over how to address bone loss” (September 7, 2009) New York Times

[iv] Henry J.H., BSc(Hons), Pasco J.A., Sanders M.S., Nicholson G.C., and Kotowicz M.A. “Fracture risk (FRISK) score: Geelong osteoporosis study” (October 2006) Radiology 241:190-196

[v] Dr. John R. Lee website, Osteoporosis Page

Truth of the MMR vaccine scandal

2010-01-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6999713.ece

January 24, 2010
Truth of the MMR vaccine scandal
After an epic misconduct hearing, the doctors who caused panic over the vaccine are about to learn their fate. A report on the greatest health scare of recent times
The MMR vaccine is recommended by the government but for years parents feared side effects
Brian Deer

They travelled to London in the mid-1990s, each carrying or pushing a child. A dozen anonymous families with 11 boys and one girl, who were to trigger the health scare of our time. The children had brain disorders. Some had autism; others, Asperger’s or epilepsy. And nearly all of the parents had come to believe that the cause was the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

I think it was I who later dubbed them “the Lancet 12”, after the medical journal from which they leapt into the headlines. Written up in February 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield and other doctors at the Royal Free hospital, in north London, their cases at first appeared to provide credible grounds for the panic that took off over the vaccine.

Whether or not I named them, the moniker has stuck. And over the past 2½ years, in a central London committee room, their numbers have been called like pedalos in the park during the longest medical misconduct inquiry ever held.

“Now, sir, Child 5 ... If the panel would turn to Child 9 ... We’ll resume with Child 4 after lunch . . .”

With each call of a number, at the West End offices of the General Medical Council (GMC), lever-arch files have been yanked from cardboard crates. Front covers have been lifted. Tabs pulled. And then five QCs, five disciplinary panel members, the three doctors under investigation and a witness have together located a page — say, a GP’s note from 1996 — to be read aloud.

“Mum taking her to Dr Wakefield, Royal Free hospital, for CT scan, gut biopsies, query Crohn’s. Will need ref letter. Dr Wakefield to phone me.”

Throughout 29 widely spaced weeks of evidence and submissions, such notes have been pored over like the Dead Sea scrolls. What was wrong with these children? Why were they brought to the Royal Free? How did their medical problems end up in The Lancet?

I can answer all of that. I can name the 12 from memory. They’ve been part of my mental landscape for half a decade. As the reporter whose investigations exposed the flaws in Wakefield’s research and sparked this unprecedented inquiry, I’ve sometimes felt that these kids and I were mysteriously in it together, like the passengers on the Orient Express.

Most of their parents would be outraged by the idea: some of the mothers have grown to hate me like satan. I’m the man who pulled the rug from under the idea that, however painful, helped them to make sense of their world, and I feel for their grief.

This week, more of the saga of MMR will unfold, with “findings of fact” on who did what at the hospital. After nearly 200 days (the trial of OJ Simpson lasted 134), a panel of three doctors and two lay members will open the latest, but not the last, chapter in the story, with rulings on a raft of extraordinary charges of professional misconduct.

Strenuously denying them are three of the men whose Lancet report set off a tsunami of anxiety in 1998. That report claimed that within days of receiving MMR, eight of the 12 children showed the first signs of what was called “regressive autism”, and 11 later developed bowel disease.

At the time, the three doctors were consultants at the Royal Free, where the kids were brought for a battery of investigations. John Walker-Smith, now 73, was the most senior. He was professor of paediatric gastroenterology. Short and white-haired, with his voice betraying Australian origins, he has seemed to age as each lever-arch file has flopped open.

To his right at the hearing was Simon Murch, 53, a paediatrician whose speciality was colonoscopies. Tall and languid, he’s now a professor at Warwick University and, as the mammoth hearing has progressed, he has written and selfpublished a novel about old chums going boating on the Thames.

The sharpest spotlight was on Andrew Wakefield, 53, who sat to their left, amid a phalanx of barristers and solicitors. In the 1990s he was a researcher in the Royal Free’s medical school. And for two years before the Lancet report, at £150 an hour, he had been helping a Norfolk lawyer to gather evidence about MMR for a planned lawsuit against its manufacturer.

A former trainee gut surgeon and champion amateur rugby player, Wakefield had double Walker-Smith’s presence. He was quizzed for 22 days but called no witnesses. Then he flew to Austin, Texas, where he now runs an autism clinic, and arrived back in London last Wednesday morning.

I suppose I might call them “the MMR Three”. But, after breaking innumerable stories on how the vaccine scare was contrived, I found the doctors — like the hearing room’s dry air and ochre carpet — less memorable than the stories of the 12.

The first, Child 1, was a little boy from Lincolnshire. His mother brought him to the hospital in July 1996, when he was just 3½ years old. He was autistic, like his brother. After being admitted to a sixth-floor ward, he endured five gruelling days of tests, in what appears to have been a hunt for vaccine damage.

The other 11 kids were brought in over the following seven months: a sporadic, sad procession of broken dreams. Some were severely retarded and irrevocably autistic. None was from London. Two were brothers. One was American. Two were registered at the same GP surgery on Tyneside. Three were patients at another hospital clinic.

I’ve met many of their parents, and even some of the children. The most memorable was the American: Child 11. Now a dark-haired teenager, he recently came over for Wimbledon fortnight.

All 12 underwent similar procedures. They had an ileocolonoscopy under anaesthetic — a method of inspecting the bowel. It is a rare investigation in children, listed in ethical guidelines as “high risk”. Nearly all had lumbar punctures, MRIs and EEGs.

What was going on here? The Royal Free had no department of, and little expertise in, children’s development disorders. The GMC’s case is that the 12 were enrolled in unapproved medical research. It says Wakefield’s mission was to find evidence, in gut tissue and brain fluid, to prove a theory about how MMR could cause autism.

That theory, now discredited, proposed that autism and bowel disease were caused by the measles virus, found in the vaccine. And to show this, the council says, Wakefield wanted to examine children’s bowels and other organs.

“No one doubts or has questioned the tragedy of these children’s disorders, nor the love of their parents,” Sally Smith QC told the panel last March, closing the council’s submissions. “But this case is about the nature of the doctors’ duties towards their patients. And, of course, it is the child who is the patient in every case.”

In addition, she said, the hearing was about the reporting of research: the “accuracy and honesty and transparency” of the Lancet report. And third, she told the panel, chaired by a GP, Dr Surendra Kumar, it was about “conflicts of interest” on Wakefield’s part. “It’s a case about breaches of some of the most fundamental rules in medicine,” she said.

These are among the gravest professional charges any doctor can face, striking at the heart of medical ethics. After Germany’s experience in the second world war, volumes of regulations have evolved to protect patients, especially children, from any possibility of being treated as guinea pigs.

Against the council’s case, Wakefield and his colleagues say the tests on the 12 were solely in the children’s interests. Although no Royal Free witness or document verified this narrative, the doctors each assured the panel that every investigation, every blood test, was part of the children’s normal clinical care.

“Dr Wakefield had a profound interest in, and concern for, these children, many of whom were known to him as a result of initial contact by the parents,” said Kieran Coonan QC, Wakefield’s lawyer, closing his remarks.

Only one parent sat in the witness chair: the mother of Child 12, who had spoken of her grief on being persuaded, in the summer of 1996, that the child’s condition could be due to the vaccine. She gave evidence to the hearing back in August 2007, although she stressed that her six-year-old son was kindly treated. She had originally gone to Wakefield after contact with an MMR campaigner and the Norfolk lawyer Wakefield was working with, four years after the boy received his shot.

On Thursday this week the panel is expected to give its judgments. Vaccine safety will be back in the news. Not the old chestnut about whether MMR causes autism: this time the debate will be about the extent to which those who proposed the link can or cannot be trusted.

As for the Lancet 12 themselves, they are now young adults. Only one came, briefly, to listen. Others are in institutions, either full-time or during the week. Just a handful might comprehend their place in history.

What was reported on these children in 1998 triggered an epidemic of fear. But there have been other — forgotten — victims of the scare: the parents, who for years believed it was their own fault that a son or daughter had a brain disorder. The debate over MMR stalks their souls.

Before vaccination, their children appeared healthy and happy. Some time afterwards, there were signs of a problem and parents were led to believe it was caused by the vaccine. “I had this perfectly normal child,” said Mrs 12, giving evidence. “It was like a jigsaw puzzle that seemed to fit into place.” More of the picture will be visible on Thursday.

Antidepressant Pills May Help Only Most Severe Cases

2010-01-26T10:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a.W9T38Tmwi4

Antidepressant Pills May Help Only Most Severe Cases (Update2)
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January 6, 2010
By Simeon Bennett

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Antidepressants such as those made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc may be no better than dummy pills for people with mild or moderate depression, according to a study that suggests 70 percent of patients wouldn’t benefit from the drugs.

In a review of six trials of antidepressants involving more than 700 patients published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers led by Jay Fournier at the University of Pennsylvania found the drugs helped only those patients with the most severe depression. Most trials excluded patients with milder forms of the disorder, the authors said.

About 70 percent of patients have a form of depression below the level at which they would benefit from medication, Fournier and colleagues wrote, citing a 2002 study. Doctors, policy makers and sufferers should be made aware that there’s little evidence to show the treatments will benefit patients with less severe symptoms, the authors said.

“This important feature of the evidence base is not reflected in the implicit messages present in the marketing of these medications to clinicians and the public,” they said.

The researchers combined data from six trials, including three of paroxetine, the main ingredient in London-based Glaxo’s Paxil and Seroxat pills, and three of imipramine, an older generic medicine. The drugs had a “nonexistent to negligible” effect on patients with mild, moderate and severe symptoms, compared with those who took a placebo, according to a commonly used scale used to measure the disorder. The pills had a large effect on patients with very severe symptoms, the study found.

‘Important Option’

“The studies used for the analysis in the JAMA paper differ methodologically from studies used to support the approval of paroxetine for major depressive disorder, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the study results,” Glaxo spokeswoman Claire Brough said in an e-mail. “Antidepressants are an important option, in addition to counseling and lifestyle changes, for treatment of depression.”

The findings of the study are “probably going to have some beneficial impact on doctors who may be less experienced” in treating depression, said Michael Baigent, an associate professor of psychiatry and clinical adviser to Beyond Blue, a Melbourne, Australia-based organization that seeks to raise awareness of the disorder. “It may also filter through to consumers, and help them in their understanding of depression,” Baigent said in a telephone interview today.

Almost 16 percent of people in the U.S. had been diagnosed with depression at some time in their lives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a 2006 survey of 35 states. Worldwide sales of antidepressants reached $20.3 billion in 2008, according to IMS Health Inc.

Debate

The study is the latest to challenge the health benefits of antidepressants since the drugs became available in the 1950s. Research has linked antidepressants with suicidal thoughts, birth defects and a life-threatening neurological disorder. Studies have also shown the medicines can impair male fertility, curb female libido and interfere with a breast cancer drug.

In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring a black box, the most serious type of warning for prescription drugs, to be added to labeling of all antidepressants to warn about the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents being treated with the medications.

The study was funded by the Bethesda, Maryland-based National Institute of Mental Health.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

GE Attempts to Silence Doctor Who Warned About Dangers of Medical Imaging Drug

2010-01-22T05:26:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028001_medical_imaging_radiology.html

January 22 2010
by E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) GE Healthcare, a British subsidiary of multinational giant General Electric, is suing Henrik Thomsen, a senior radiologist and professor of radiology, for sounding the alarm about the dangers of the company's medical imaging drug, Omniscan. After witnessing kidney patients who had received the drug develop potentially fatal conditions, Thomsen publicly exposed the drug's dangers which caused a firestorm of controversy.

In an effort to muzzle Thomsen, GE Healthcare has already spent more than 380,000 British pounds, or about $610,000, in legal fees pursuing litigation against him. Utilizing loopholes in Britain's libel laws, the company is alleging that Thomsen falsely accused GE of suppressing sensitive information about the drug's risks at an Oxford scientific congress presentation in 2007.

Investigation into these claims has shown that Thomsen accurately described his clinical experience and that no such misrepresentation took place. When questioned about this fact, GE spokesmen had no response other than to suggest that Thomsen indirectly slandered the company through insinuation.

Many in the scientific community have expressed outrage over the blatant misuse of British libel laws to silence honest and open debate and dissemination of unbiased information about medical procedures and drugs. Scientists and clinicians who act on behalf of patient safety by highlighting the facts rather than corporate talking points should not be gagged by powerful corporations who leverage their influence and money to manipulate the legal system for their own gain, say those who support libel reform.

Hundreds of people in both the U.K. and the U.S. have died from the side effects of Omniscan and two other similar medical imaging drugs. Filled with toxic contrasting agents like gadolinium, a toxic heavy metal, Omniscan is implicated in causing nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, a skin condition that can cripple a person and possibly cause death.

Legal action is being taken against the companies that produce these drugs by patients in both the U.S. and the U.K. ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit news organization in the U.S. whose purpose is to serve the public interest, has been closely watching the effects of medical imaging drugs, divulging the truth about the dangers they pose.

Nevertheless, GE Healthcare is holding its ground in the fight against Thomsen. As it stands, the company has achieved success in silencing Thomsen as he now refuses to discuss the risks associated with Omniscan in public forums. Until libel reform is enacted, officials believe that companies will continue to misuse the courts to silence the truth and achieve their own ends.

H1N1 swine flu hoax falls apart at the seams

2010-01-21T10:04:00.001-08:00

Notice how the author says that this pandemic hoax was a bailout and gift of public money for Big Pharma!!!

http://www.naturalnews.com/027984_swine_flu_vaccines.html

January 20 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The great swine flu hoax of 2009 is now falling apart at the seams as one country after another unloads hundreds of millions of doses of unused swine flu vaccines. No informed person wants the injection anymore, and the entire fear-based campaign to promote the vaccines has now been exposed as outright quackery and propaganda.

Even doctors are now calling the pandemic a complete hoax. As reported on FoxNews, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a leading health authority in Europe, says that drug companies "organized a 'campaign of panic' to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic. He believes it is 'one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,' and he has called for an inquiry." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933...)

H1N1 swine flu was never dangerous, and it never should have been escalated to a level-six pandemic in the first place. It was all a big marketing scam whose purpose was to simply sell vaccines. (And the CDC and WHO were in on it...)

And it worked! Big Pharma made out with billions of dollars in profits for a useless vaccine that's now being dumped by the truck load. These vaccines were, of course, paid for with taxpayer dollars, making the Great Swine Flu Hoax of 2009 nothing more than an elaborate financial scam whose goal was to transfer wealth from the People to the shareholders of Big Pharma.

In just the fourth quarter of 2009, GlaxoSmithKline shipped $1.4 billion worth of vaccines. (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS...)

That's $1.4 billion worth of taxpayer dollars, by the way. Dollars that could have been spent on nutrition or real health education. $1.4 billion worth of free vitamin D supplements would have done far more to protect public health than vaccines could ever hope to accomplish.

A bailout for Big Pharma
Wall Street hucksters have nothing on Big Pharma, the CDC and the WHO, all of which conspired to mislead the public and generate irrational fear in order to make money selling people vaccine shots they never needed in the first place.

The drug companies raked in billions of dollars in revenues while providing a product that offered absolutely no net reduction in mortality. In fact, as the long-term side effects of the vaccines remain unknown, it could turn out that the vaccines actually result in a net increase in mortality.

Meanwhile, countless people were harmed by the swine flu vaccine frenzy (it's "countless" because nobody's counting). In addition to those who were nearly paralyzed after receiving the vaccine shots, grade school students in Massachusetts who lined up to receive swine flu vaccine shots were instead injected with insulin. (Insulin injections can put you into a coma.) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...)

The school sent a letter home to students blaming the mishap on the school nurse. But if they weren't injecting these kids with a useless vaccine for a non-pandemic, none of this would have happened in the first place.

Total swine flu deaths for 2009 were far lower than the number of deaths from regular seasonal flu. And yet it turns out that thousands of Americans who died from the swine flu had been previously injected with the vaccines (http://www.naturalnews.com/027956_H...). In fact, according to calculations derived from official CDC estimates, thousands of vaccinated Americans died from swine flu anyway. The vaccines, it seems, don't really work after all. You're just as safe doing nothing.

Actually, getting the vaccine may harm your health. Outspoken Dr. Wodarg even says that the full extent of the damage from the insufficiently-tested vaccines may not be known for years. "The vaccine developed by Novartis was produced in a bioreactor from cancerous cells, a technique that had never been used until now," he says.

Just what we need, huh? Cancer cells being injected into the population as part of a vaccine campaign.

Cancelling vaccine orders
The Swine Flu hoax has fizzled out, and countries like Greece, France and the UK have cancelled orders for vaccines that they now realize won't be needed (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS...) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8...). But even the fizzling of this hoax doesn't mean it was a failure from the point of view of Big Pharma.

The swine flu hoax was a huge success not only for drug company profits, but also for certain influential individuals including Dr Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC who has now accepted a high-paying job as the president of Merck's global vaccine operations. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027789_D...)

One minute you're running the CDC, warning the country about a pandemic while urging everybody to get vaccinated, and the next minute you're running the for-profit vaccine division of the world's largest drug company. Amazing how that works, huh?

Flu pandemic plans cost a billion

2010-01-21T09:52:00.003-08:00

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100118/thl-flu-pandemic-plans-cost-a-billion-d831572.html

Flu pandemic plans cost a billion
Monday, January 18 09:09 pm

The Government spent more than £1 billion in preparation for a flu pandemic, it has been disclosed. Skip related content

Health minister Gillian Merron said spending to date on "pandemic influenza preparedness - not swine flu specific" was about £500 million.

"Additional spend committed around the time of the start of the swine flu pandemic takes the amount to over £1 billion," she said in a Commons written reply to Labour's Paul Flynn.

Only last week, Mr Flynn (Newport W) challenged Health Secretary Andy Burnham directly over the build-up, which some have criticised as an over-reaction.

"Was the threat of 65,000 British swine flu deaths an unscientific exaggeration that has cost the country dearly, not only financially but in terms of stress and distorted NHS priorities?" he asked at question time then.

Mr Burnham defended the Government's response, saying: "We had to take every possible step to keep the country safe through what was declared a world health pandemic, not by this Government but by the World Health Organisation.

"We saw the events in Mexico in the spring, followed by the exceptional spike in flu cases in this country in the summer.

"There were understandably high levels of public concern, and I make no apology for making all the necessary preparations to keep the public safe through that. We have come through the pandemic because of the strength of the plans and preparations that this Government put in place."

In another written reply, Ms Merron said nearly 29 million doses of swine flu vaccine had been delivered to the UK by January but refused to put a cost on them as it would "violate confidentiality clauses" with the makers.

Flu pandemic plans cost a billion

2010-01-21T09:52:00.001-08:00

Johnson & Johnson engaged in elaborate drug profit kickback scheme, says Dept. of Justice lawsuit

2010-01-21T09:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027994_Johnson_&_kickbacks.html

January 21 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Drug maker Johnson & Johnson paid tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks to nursing home pharmacies in order to boost the sale of its drugs, says a Justice Department lawsuit.

The payments were often disguised as grants or "educational funding," says the lawsuit, and they were directed to Omnicare, a prominent nursing home pharmacy company.

The elaborate kickback scheme caused sales of Johnson & Johnson drugs to skyrocket. Sales of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, for example, helped J&J drug purchases from Omnicare nearly triple from $100 million to $280 million a year.

An email released by the Justice Department shows an Omnicare executive writing:

"WE ARE SELLING MORE HIGH PRICED DRUGS (read Risperdal here) FOR THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY!!"

Omnicare is already steeped in other accusations of fraud. The company agreed to pay the U.S. government $98 million in a settlement reached a few months ago (while admitting no guilt, of course). (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009...)

Drugging the seniors
Today's nursing home patients are often treated much like prisoners, mentally shackled with chemical restraints known as pharmaceuticals. The mass-drugging of senior citizens in nursing homes has now reached criminal proportions. Rather than actually treating patients in ways that make them healthy, nursing home staff in some facilities have discovered it's much easier to just drug patients into a zombie-like state where they don't ask questions or cause trouble.

Johnson & Johnson medications are used as part of this "chemical restraint" recipe, which is actually a form of chemical abuse of senior citizens. J&J and Omnicare, of course, are far more concerned with selling medications than actually improving the quality of life for nursing home patients, so the more drugs are sold and consumed, the more "success" these companies think they have.

But what's the cost in human lives? What is the real human impact of drugging our senior citizens to the point where they're barely human?

Companies like Johnson & Johnson only seem to care about their own profits. They appear to have no compassion whatsoever for the lives of the people impacted by their patented chemical pharmaceuticals. They also appear to have no respect for the law: Bribing Omnicare with kickbacks, if proven by the Justice Department, is a felony crime.

But as usually happens in these cases, Johnson & Johnson will probably get off with a slap on the wrist: An affordable fine and a bit of bad press. Then, like most other pharmaceutical companies, they'll likely go right back to violating the law in order to sell more high-profit medications. Why? Because it works.

Pharmaceutical companies rarely face any real consequences for their crimes, even when they're caught red-handed. It's a curious thing, really. In any other industry, companies engaged in such blatant fraud would be shut down, their CEOs arrested and prosecuted in federal court. But when it comes to Big Pharma, all they have to do is pay a small fine, after which they're free to continue committing crimes.

It's nice to see the Justice Department finally going after these corporate crooks. Just last year, Pfizer was hit with a record $1 billion settlement with the Justice Department for engaging in fraudulent drug advertising. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027276_P...)

It was a rare victory, however. Most of the time, drug companies get away with their crimes and face no real consequences for bribery, corruption, marketing fraud, scientific fraud, intimidation of scientists or elaborate financial kickback schemes that put extra dollars into the hands of doctors or pharmacies that push their drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry, in case you haven't noticed, is a criminal world where those who commit the boldest and most egregious crimes generate the highest profits. The risk of getting caught is so low -- and the financial rewards for committing crimes are so great -- that drug companies fully realize it pays to break the law.

That's why they'll keep breaking the law until something changes. As I've said before, I think it's time the Justice Department marched into the offices of these drug companies with pistols drawn and arrested the top CEOs for their crimes against humanity. Only by showing these drug companies that their executives are going to be prosecuted for their crimes can we hope to put an end to the criminal activities that have now become routine across the pharmaceutical industry.

Teen abuse of ADHD drugs skyrockets

2010-01-21T07:15:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027988_drug_abuse_ADHD.html

January 21 2010

by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Inquiries to poison control centers about teenage abuse of drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increased by 76 percent over the last eight years, indicating a surge in rates of the abuse itself, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Memorial Center and published in the journal Pediatrics.

"It's more bad news on an entrenched problem," said Steve Pasierb, head of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, who was not involved in the study.

The researchers reviewed data collected by the American Association of Poison Control Centers between 1998 and 2005. They found that the number of calls by parents, emergency room doctors and others about teenagers abusing ADHD drugs increased from 330 per year in 1998 to 581 per year in 2005, far outpacing the rate of increase in calls about other forms of teenage substance abuse. The majority of teenagers involved in the calls ended up being treated in emergency rooms, and 42 percent suffered moderate or severe side effects. Four of the teenagers died.

Far more teenagers are probably experiencing side effects, the researchers noted, since most cases of abuse don't end in calls to poison control.

During the time period covered by the study, prescriptions for ADHD drugs rose 86 percent in children between the ages of 10 and 19, from roughly four million to almost eight million.

Pasierb said that many teenagers do not understand that abuse of prescription drugs can lead to potentially fatal side effects. In the case of ADHD drugs, these can include agitation, rapid heartbeat and dangerously high blood pressure.

"They say, 'It's FDA approved, how dangerous could it be?'" he said.

Research by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America suggests that 19 percent of U.S. teenagers have abused prescription drugs, or nearly one in five.

Unbelievable Mark Ups of Pharmaceutical Drugs

2010-01-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Costco--Unbelievable-by-the-web-100119-253.html

January 19, 2010
By theWeb

Story verified @ http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp

Make sure you read to the end. You will be amazed.

Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington, DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold inAmerica .

Celebrex:100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin:10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex:250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor:20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc:10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid:30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44..77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin:50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec:10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax:1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809%

Zithromax:600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor:40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft:50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this.

It pays to shop around! This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug prices gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. So often we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills.

The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are saving $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience I had to use the drug Compazine which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a 'membership' type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in.

I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

Check out This site for price comparison:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050326070849/web.wxyz.com/extras/040205-drugchart.html

Sharon L. Davis
Budget Analyst
U.S. Department of Commerce
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458

Most hospital patients are unaware of what drugs they are given

2010-01-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027961_hospital_patients_drugs.html

January 18 2010
Most hospital patients are unaware of what drugs they are given
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) A recent study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine has revealed that nearly all hospital patients do not know what drugs are being administered to them. The research revealed that nearly half think thought they were receiving one type of medication when they were actually receiving another and only four percent were able to identify at least one drug they received during their time there.

Researchers from the University of Colorado at Denver's School of Medicine conducted the study to evaluate whether or not hospital patients understood what treatments they were receiving while under professional medical care. Each participant claimed to be aware of his or her outpatient medications and all were coherent and reasonably informed. What the study revealed was that most patients do not know what drugs they are being given and the few that care to or believe they know are often misinformed.

About one in five hospital medication treatments was also found to be wrong, with either an improper dosage or an incorrect drug being administered. Since the patient is the last stop before a drug is administered, researchers are stressing the importance of patient awareness concerning drug therapies in order to avoid grave errors that could inflict serious harm.

Once out of the hospital, less than 15 percent of patients over age 65 could identify the medications they were told to take. Only 40 percent of those under 65 could properly identify theirs.

Study authors believe that increased patient responsibility and awareness about given and prescribed treatments is necessary in order to prevent medical errors and their potential for serious injury.

Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
This research reveals the sad, sad state of western health care. The statistic that one in five medication treatments were incorrect is nothing short of astounding. That means 20% of the drugs patients are given in the hospital are either the wrong drugs or the wrong doses.

Astonishing. No wonder so many people die in hospitals!

The other part of this research is just as startling: Most patients didn't even know what drugs they were being given! This speaks to the incredible dis-empowerment of patients in a western medical setting. When patients don't even know what medicines they're being given, it puts all the power in the hands of doctors and medical staff. And this study demonstrates that even medical staff all too frequently make mistakes that can be deadly.

The bottom line is obvious: Don't go to a hospital except as a last resort. Hospitals are dangerous places where frequent mistakes can easily lead to you being harmed or killed by carelessly-administered pharmaceuticals.

And don't expect to be kept informed of what's happening to you at the hospital, either. Real communication between doctors and patients is virtually nonexistent (because they're too busy to spend more than about two minutes with each patient).

More Bad News for Paxil: New Study Says Antidepressant Drugs Next to Worthless

2010-01-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027962_Paxil_antidepressants.html

January 18 2010
by Tony Isaacs, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the antidepressant drugs paroxetine and imipramine do not help patients with mild, moderate and even severe depression much more than an inactive placebo.

"They would have done just as well or just about as well with a placebo," concluded Robert DeRubeis, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia who performed the meta-analysis along with colleagues.

The meta-analysis combined data from six studies with over 800 combined patients. Those with initial depression scores of 23 or below dropped an averaged 8 points when given antidepressants compared to a drop of 7 points for those given a placebo. According to DeRubeis, the study should give pause to doctors and patients weighing antidepressants, and he suggested that consideration be given to other alternatives such as exercise, psychotherapy, and even "self-treatment".

Paroxetine is one of a widely sold class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and is better known as the brand name sold by GlaxoSmithKline: Paxil. Imipramine is an older tricyclic antidepressant drug which was developed in the 1950s.
Glaxo spokeswoman Sarah Alspach responded by saying that the study "contributes to the extensive research" into antidepressants, noting that Paxil received U.S. government approval in 1992. She continued to maintain that Paxil has helped "millions of people battling mental illness".

The study is the latest in a long string of bad news that has been reported about Paxil. Since Paxil`s introduction on the market in 1993, the potentially dangerous drug has been plagued with complaints of serious adverse medical events including an increase in suicide rates and attempts, addiction, and birth defects.

In 2005, after Glaxo had denied repeated reports of Paxil causing addiction and severe withdrawal effects, a federal judge ordered the maker to stop all television commercials nationwide that say the drug is not habit-forming. The ruling came after a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 35. According to the judge`s ruling, the commercials were "misleading and created inaccurate expectations about the ease of withdrawal from the drug". It is reported that Glaxo has settled nearly 3,200 cases involving addiction-related complaints and complications.

Glaxo has also reportedly settled 150 Paxil-related suicide cases and 300 Paxil-related suicide attempts thus far. In most instances, Glaxo attempted to blame the suicides on the underlying depression and not the drug itself. Paxil has also been linked to severe birth-defects in children whose mothers took the antidepressant while pregnant. Last October, a Philadelphia jury found that Glaxo negligently failed to warn doctors of Paxil`s risk to pregnant women and awarded $2.5 million to the parents of a three year old boy. According to reports, this case was the first of some 600 lawsuits against Glaxo for failing to warn of Paxil`s dangers to pregnant women. Reports also indicate that Glaxo has settled at least 10 other birth-defect cases to date.

Paxil lawsuits and settlements have been estimated to cost Glaxo a staggering $1 Billion in settlements thus far, an amount that is nevertheless dwarfed by the many billions of dollars in profits Glaxo has received from Paxil sales.

Meanwhile, despite all the deaths, injuries and lawsuits, Paxil continues to have FDA approval, continues to downplay harmful side effects and continues to be highly promoted, the same as happened in the Vioxx scandal and with other harmful drugs. The Associated Press reported in August of last year that GlaxoSmithKline commissioned sales reps to recruit doctor-authors for ghostwritten articles supporting Paxil use. Glaxo even named the program after everyone`s favorite friendly ghost and called it the "CASPPER" program..

Tylenol Arthritis Recall 2009 Caused by 2,4,6-Tribromoanisole; Do You Know What That Is?

2010-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2536651/tylenol_arthritis_recall_2009_caused.html?cat=5

December 29, 2009 by Sylvia Cochran Single
More topicsTylenol Recall | Fungal
What is Paecilomyces Variotii and What Does it Have to Do with the Tylenol Recall?

At the core of the Tylenol Arthritis Recall 2009 is a musty odor caused by 2,4,6-tribromoanisole. What is more concerning is what led to the formation of the chemical to begin with.

Tylenol Arthritis Recall

The FDA announces that McNeil Consumer Healthcare is expanding its Tylenol Arthritis recall to include all Tylenol Arthritis Pain Caplet 100 count bottles that come with the easy to recognize red "EZ-Open" cap. Previously,

Tylenol Arthritis Recall 2009 Caused by 2,4,6-Tribromoanisole; Do You Know What That Is?
only five batches of this painkiller were subject of the recall, but now the company has chosen to include all batches of this product.

You Have A Bottle Implicated in the Tylenol Recall in Your Medicine Cabinet: Now What?

Stop using the Tylenol product immediately. Consumers may inquire about refunds and credits by using the company's online email contact - referencing the Tylenol Arthritis recall 2009 - or calling 1-888-222-6036 from eight in the morning to eight at night (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday, and nine to five on the weekends.

2,4,6-Tribromoanisole: Behind the Tylenol Recall

McNeil Consumer Healthcare reveals that an uncharacteristic musty smell led to the initial -- and now expanded - product recall. Reports of nausea, vomiting, stomach pains and diarrhea were eventually traced back to 2,4,6-tribromoanisole, a metabolite of a chemical fungicide associated with the treatment of wood used in pallets. These pallets, in turn, were used to transport the packaging materials that would later be used for bottling the Tylenol caplets.

According to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2,4,6-tribromoanisole is high on the list of probable mustiness causing agents that taint packaged foods. It is interesting to note that an interaction of the fungus Paecilomyces variotii with the fungicide 2,4,6-tribromophenol leads to the creation of 2,4,6-tribromoanisole. McNeil Consumer Healthcare advises that all the complaints it received pointed to a short-lived discomfort but acknowledges that the effects of this metabolite on the human organism have not been fully studied.

More evidence emerges that Americans are drugged out of their minds

2010-01-17T03:46:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027932_polypharmacy_psychiatric_drugs.html

January 13 2010
More evidence emerges that Americans are drugged out of their minds
by S. L. Baker, features writer

(NaturalNews) As NaturalNews has previously reported, the U.S. is a nation seemingly hooked on mind-altering drugs (http://www.naturalnews.com/027054_d...). A study released last fall in the Archives of General Psychiatry documented a dramatic increase in the use of antidepressant drugs like Prozac since l996. In fact, these medications are now the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S.

Think Americans are maxed out on the number of psychiatric meds that huge numbers of them are taking? Think again. A new report says U.S. adults are increasingly being prescribed combinations of antidepressants, anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medications -- and they could be experiencing serious side effects as a result.

The study, published in the January edition of Archives of General Psychiatry, investigated patterns and trends in what is known as psychotropic polypharmacy, meaning the prescribing of two or more psychiatric drugs. Ramin Mojtabai, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, examined data gathered from a national sample of office-based psychiatry practices. In all, the researchers looked at the medications prescribed between 1996 and 2006 during more than 13,000 office visits to psychiatrists by adults.

The results showed a significant increase in the number of mind impacting drugs prescribed over these years. The percentage of doctor visits which resulted in two or more medications being prescribed increased from 42.6 percent to 59.8 percent. What's more, the percentage of visits at which three or more drugs were prescribed soared from 16.9 percent to 33.2 percent. And the median number of medications prescribed at each appointment with a psychiatrist increased on average by of 40.1 percent.

The combinations of drugs being prescribed with increasing frequency include antidepressants with sedative-hypnotics (the most prescribed combination), antidepressants given along with antipsychotics and combinations of several kinds of antidepressants. But at least the doctors prescribing these mixed drugs are only doing so based on solid research showing the combos are safe and effective, right? Wrong.

"Because scant data exist to support the efficacy of some of the most common medication combinations, such as antipsychotic combinations or combinations of antidepressants and antipsychotics, prudence suggests that renewed clinical efforts should be made to limit the use of these combinations to clearly justifiable circumstances," the authors wrote in their paper. "At the same time, a new generation of research is needed to assess the efficacy, effectiveness and safety of common concomitant medication regimens, especially in patients with multiple disorders or monotherapy-refractory conditions."

In other words, drugs are being given to patients in all sorts of combinations without sound science showing they even work well together -- much less that these drug cocktails are safe to take. In fact, the researchers point out specific dangers of taking multiple psychiatric drugs.

"While the evidence for added benefit of antipsychotic polypharmacy is limited, there is growing evidence regarding the increased adverse effects associated with such combinations," they concluded. A case in point: some combinations cause increases in body weight and total cholesterol level. Others have been associated with an increase in fasting blood glucose level.

Netherlands tries to sell excess flu vaccine

2010-01-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/01/netherlands_tries_to_sell_exce.php

Netherlands tries to sell excess flu vaccine
Wednesday 13 January 2010

The Netherlands is to try to sell 19 million doses of swine flu vaccine which are now surplus to requirements because the epidemic is almost over, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

But a spokesman for the health ministry declined to say which countries have been approached and what price the government wants for the vaccines, the paper says.

Other European countries, such as Germany, Britain and Belgium are negotiating with drugs manufacturers to have their orders reduced. Germany, for example, has negotiated a 30% discount with GlaxoSmithKline on its order of 50 million doses, according to a Bloomberg report.

GlaxoSmithKline is joint producer of the Netherlands' 34 million vaccines.

Two doses

The health ministry ordered enough to provide two doses for every man, woman and child in the country because it orginally planned to vaccinate the entire population. In the end, only the elderly, young children, health workers and people with other health problems were given the double dose as the epidemic waned.

By January 8, 54 people in the Netherlands had died of swine flu, or variant H1N1, and 2178 people had been taken to hospital. The government had been expecting up to 10,000 deaths from the virus.

Drugs manufacturers

Earlier this week, Wolfgang Wodarg, health director at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare swine flu pandemic.

This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease, he said.

In the Netherlands, it emerged last year that the country's chief virologist Ab Osterhaus, who advised the government to buy a double dose of the vaccine, has close links to drugs firms. He denied any conflict of interest.

Remember ''Swine Flu''? President of the Council of Europe declares it a scam to pillage public purse

2010-01-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html

Fiona Macrae
UK Daily Mail
Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:44 EST

The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare, a leading health expert has claimed.

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.

This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease.

A resolution proposed by Dr Wodarg calling for an investigation into the role of drug firms has been passed by the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based 'senate' responsible for the European Court of Human Rights.

An emergency debate on the issue will be held later this month.

Dr Wodarg's claims come as it emerged the British government is desperately trying to offload up to £1billion of swine flu vaccine, ordered at the height of the scare.

The Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given out without prescription and told health and local authorities to prepare for a major pandemic.

Planners were told to get morgues ready for the sheer scale of deaths and there were warnings that the Army could be called in to prevent riots as people fought to obtain drugs.

But with fewer than 5,000 in England catching the disease last week and just 251 deaths overall, Dr Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'.

He said: 'We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic.'

He added the seeds of the scare were sown five years ago, when it was feared the much more lethal bird flu virus would mutate into a human form.

The 'atmosphere of panic' led to governments stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu and putting in place 'sleeping contracts' for millions of doses of vaccine.

Dr Wodarg said: 'The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility.

'In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks.

'So they just wait, until WHO says "pandemic" and activate the contracts.'

He also claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations.

He added that their influence could have led the WHO to soften its definition of a pandemic - leading to the declaration of a worldwide outbreak last June.

Dr Wodarg said: 'In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide.

'They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.'

He does not name any Britons with conflicts of interest.

But last year, the Daily Mail revealed that Sir Roy Anderson, a scientist who advises the Government on swine flu, also holds a £116,000-a-year post on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.

GSK makes anti-flu drugs and vaccines and is predicted to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic.

The Department of Health says that although the disease appears to be on the wane, it cannot rule out a third surge and urges all those entitled to the jab to have it.

Professor David Salisbury, the Government's head of immunisation said there were 'no grounds whatsoever' for Dr Wodarg's claims, saying people with conflicts of interest were kept out of the decision-making process.

A GSK spokesman said: 'Allegations of undue influence are misguided and unfounded. The WHO declared that H1N1 swine flu met the criteria for a pandemic.

'As WHO have stated, legal regulations and numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest.'

The company, which still employs Sir Roy, said he had declared his commercial interests and had not attended any meetings related to the purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the Government or GSK.

Drugs in Drinking Water a Growing Problem

2010-01-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/16592

NewsInferno
Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:07 EST

The problem of pharmaceutical residue turning up in water supplies is one we've written about before. It's a serious and growing problem, and right now, no one really knows what health risks the public might face from exposure to drugs in drinking water.

In 2008, the Associated Press published the results of its own five-month long investigation into drug residues in public water supplies. The probe revealed that 46 million Americans were being exposed to pharmaceutical ingredients via drinking water. The Associated Press also found that many y communities do not test for drugs in drinking water and those that do often fail to tell customers they have found medications, including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, and sex hormones.

At that time, such drugs were found in drinking water supplies in 24 major metropolitan areas. The report pointed out that water providers are not required to test for pharmaceuticals and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget for the testing of endocrine disruptors in America's waterways had been cut by 35 percent.

The Associated Press investigation prompted federal and local legislative hearings, brought about calls for mandatory testing and disclosure, and led officials in at least 27 additional metropolitan areas to analyze their drinking water. Following the reports publication, positive tests were reported in 17 cases in locations that include Reno, Nevada; Savannah, Georgia; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama.

Most drug residues end up in municipal water supplies through normal bodily functions. But some end up there because people often dispose of unused medications by flushing them down the toilet. According to an article on Slate.com, most government organizations now recommend that you dispose of old medications in the trash, rather than the toilet. In 2007, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the EPA, and the Department of Health and Human Services issued the first set of federal guidelines for proper disposal of prescription drugs. According to Slate.com, these guidelines recommend taking unused medications out of their original packaging, mixing them with other items in the trash that are "undesirable" (for instance, used cat litter), placing the concoction in a zip lock bag, and throwing it in the trash.

The Slate.com article does point out that there are a few drugs, such as certain narcotics, that the guidelines say should still be flushed. A list of those medications can be found here. Also, the guidelines aren't binding, and state and local authorities may mandate different procedures.

Finally, the Slate.com report said consumers may want to utilize "take back" programs that are popping up now. Generally, these programs involve turning in unused medications to a pharmacy or other organization for disposal. Also, there may be opportunities to donate unused medications to charity, depending on state laws.

Wyeth Is As Contrite As AIG

2010-01-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Wyeth-Is-As-Contrite-As-AI-by-Martha-Rosenberg-100108-974.html

January 8, 2010
By Martha Rosenberg

Like Wall Street firms bestowing bonuses weeks after government bailouts, Premarin and Prempro maker Wyeth, recently merged with Pfizer, is unbowed.

Months after a Sen. Charles Grassley-led investigation into its ghostwriting and the unretracted falsified science it planted in medical journals--1,500 documents are found on UCSF's Drug Industry Document Archive http://dida.library.ucsf.edu/ detail the con--the hormone giant is behind new articles in the Journal of Women's Health and Menopause.

And even after the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) found in 2002 that hormone therapy (HT) increases breast cancer by 26 percent, heart attacks by 29 percent, stroke by 41 percent and doubles the risk of blood clots and dementia, Wyeth still thinks it's a neat idea. (see: Iran-Contra scandal; Oliver North.)

Women "who are reluctant to take combination hormone therapies because of the publicity after WHI," writes Michelle P Warren, MD in the journal Menopause (Volume 16, Number 6) as if cancer were a PR problem, might find "improvement in their quality-of-life scores, including that for sleep" by adding another Wyeth drug, bazedoxifene which just happens to be up for FDA approval. The selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), says the Wyeth speaker and "advisory board member" according to the journal, would replace the "bad guy" progestin which is causing all the problems in hormone therapy. And replace revenues.

In fact bazedoxifene is such a potential pipeline saver, JoAnn V. Pinkerton, MD, also a Wyeth advisory board member according to Medscape, wrote three articles about it this fall and is "teaching" a Continuing Medical Education (CME) course on it called Controversies in Menopausal Hormone Therapy: Evaluating the Evidence with other pharma-funded doctors on Medscape.

CMEs, required by state boards for doctors to keep their licenses, are often undisguised pharma commercials and also being probed by Sen. Grassley. A CME on Medscape funded by a vaccine maker promises participants on completion of the "educational activity" they will be able to "specify the currently recommended age" for the vaccine. Gentlemen--start prescribing! An osteoporosis CME offered by the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine unabashedly tells participates to "lobby your legislators" to restore reimbursement for bone density testing, a lucrative pharma racket.

Wyeth's ghostwriting firm DesignWrite introduced seven "corporate-sponsored" CMEs on postmenopausal hormone therapy in 2004--two years after WHI was discredited--in addition to establishing the $12 million Council on Hormone Education at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health which closed in 2008.

Though the 20 million women who quit hormone therapy since 2002 and pulled down breast cancer rates in the process, didn't do so because it "wasn't cost effective" (or because of the "publicity" as Warren says) a Wyeth-funded article in the Journal of Women's Health (Volume 18, Number 10) discovers that hormone therapy is cost effective.

The article compares the financial and quality of life costs of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and blood clots linked to HT with the hip, vertebral and wrist fractures and colon cancer HT might prevent and finds hormone therapy is cost effective--at least for Wyeth. "Some of the data used in the model were based on assumptions that introduce uncertainty to the results," the text admits perhaps referring to the fact that when colon cancer is found in women on HT, it tends to be more advanced. And HT's osteoporosis benefits require long term use, which is discouraged.

But the cleverest hormone therapy spin is the emerging proposition that a therapy that causes breast cancer and also makes mammograms harder to read, it is now known, is somehow good.

In a Menopause editorial (Volume 16, Number 6) about a breast density study which included women unwilling to discontinue hormone therapy for one to two months to improve readability of their mammograms, we're told in an ebullient aside "They might have intuitively made the right decision, albeit appearing unwise!" (Exclamation mark the editorial's.)

Even though density improved in hormone quitters their "recall" mammogram rate was not better than non-quitters, says the editorial, implying no immediate benefit to stopping. Of course women who remain on hormone therapy "may face higher mortality from breast cancer in years to come," the editorial concedes but an "existing body of knowledge" indicates it is "good prognosis" cancer.

Continuing the good cancer spin is Wyeth-funded doctor Leon Speroff, MD who taught CMEs at the now discreditedCouncil on Hormone Education and who is also a bazedoxifene fan.

In an article in last year's Menopause, "Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy And The Risk Of Breast Cancer: A Contrary Thought," (Volume 15, No. 2) Speroff submits that even though "more tumors in hormone users are detected" than in non-hormone users, they are better tumors--"more ductal in situ tumors" and "more node-negative." Moreover, since the cancers might pre-exist, hormone therapy, by accelerating them, could actually have a "beneficial impact, leading to earlier detection." A public service--like AIG's.

Gardasil side effects

2010-01-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

Go to URL to see all 300+ letters.

http://www.medications.com/se/gardasil

January 10th
2010
10:36 AM
our 17 year old daughter,jessica ericzon had a side affect from her Gardasil vaccines. SHE DIED INSTANTLY. AFTER WEEKS OF HEADACHES, SORE MUSCLES AND JOINTS AND ALWAYS BEING TIRED HER HEART STOPPED. we are devastated. we read all the other girls and there families stories and cry. what kind of world is this that would allow such a thing to happen. the united states government killing its own. allowing Merck to kill young women and mame thousands of others for life.
-- By killedbymerck | Reply | Private Message me

January 8th
2010
11:07 PM
Anyone who has experienced negative side effects from this shot most likely has "heavy metal poisoning"! Alot of the ingredients in this shot are filled with metals like aluminum and mercury which are EXTREMELY toxic to the body. Thankfully, there are ways to rid these metals from your body and detoxify. I am a 17 year old girl and know first hand how damaging Gardasil can really be. After getting all 3 shots I had began experiencing all kinds of unexplained health problems and felt hopeless like I'm sure all of you do, but once I began detoxifying this crap from my body I slowly began to feel better and better until I was completely back to my normal self! Here is my recovery story.

Last June I had gotten my last shot and was as sick as a dog. I had horrible migraines, excruciating lower stomach pains, crazy irregular menstrual cycles, was losing hair, was always tired, had constant arthritis like pains all over my body, and had occasional episodes of rapid heartbeat and trouble breathing. I was convinced I was dying of some type of cancer or something, but after going to the doctors numerous times and getting tested for everything under the sun I was told I was perfectly healthy. Of course, I knew that I was NOT perfectly healthy and continued to feel worse. I became extremely depressed and was just miserable all the time. One night in August my mom and I had been watching the news and saw a story on gardasil and how it possibly caused dangerous side effects. As soon as I saw that I hopped online and sure enough I found website after website filled with complaints of girls like me who have gotten extremely sick from this shot.

Thank god for my neighbor who is a holistic doctor. She was wonderful and I owe my recovery to her. After my mom and I realized that all of my health problems were most likely caused by the gardasil shot, we marched straight to the doctors who pretty much laughed off our theory and sent us packing. With no one else to turn to my mom had gotten talking to our neighbor who is a holistic doctor. She explained that alot of shots are made up of ingredients that taken in high amounts are extremely toxic and damaging to the body and put me on a heavy metal detox cleanse. At this point I was desperate and willing to try anything. The cleanse consisted of:

- cutting out all dairy, sugar, gluten, and soy from my diet

- alot of vitamin c, b complex, zinc, fiber, and magnesium vitamins.

- a good chlorella supplement (google for more info)

- drinking lots of water and getting as much rest as possible

After 3 months of sticking to this regimen, by December I was almost completely recovered. All of my symptoms had either gone away completely or diminished considerably. Now, its been about a month since I've been off the diet and supplements and I finally feel like my old self. I'm a senior in high school this year and am so relieved that I can now actually enjoy myself and look forward to my future. This detox cleanse may seem pretty intense, but for anyone who has developed side effects as bad as mine or worse this is definitely the way to go! I gaurantee that by sticking to this diet for several months you will notice a huge improvement in your overall health and hopefully eventually be back to your normal self like me!

Also, I definitely reccomend finding a holistic doctor that will help you with your diet along the way. This way you can ensure that your going about this process correctly and ridding as much toxins from your body as possible. Unfortunately as most of us on here have learned, normal doctors seem to have no clue what this shot is doing to us teens so for in this case, holistic doctors and detox regimens seem to be the way to go!

I wish everyone luck and pray that this has helped many people out there battling serious health problems due to the gardasil shot. Stay strong guys, and heres to a much happier and healthier new year!

Much love,

Allie

-- By gardasilistoxic | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
January 5th
2010
1:17 AM
My daughter had Gardasil and started losing her hair, going through menopause, migraines, dehydration, etc. Please join our group at Truth_About_Gardasil@yahoogroups.com ... to learn more and get support. Another helpful site is TRUTHABOUTGARDASIL.org ... there are lots of stories and lots of parents trying to get this vaccine pulled. Make certain you file a VAERS report - it's the best way for us to make this vaccine go away. Thanks and God bless you all. BB

-- By nyminnow | Reply | Private Message me
December 30th
2009
1:32 PM
My daughter, age 15, received the 3 doses of Gardasil on December 28th, 2009. Within 10 minutes after the injection into her left arm she felt extremely dizzy, her eyes rolled back into her head several times, her head wobbled like a newborn baby who can't support their head, she broke out in a sweat, her legs were like rubberbands and down she went!! Passed out even before reaching the exit door of her pediatricians office! She lay there twitching and shaking with seizure movements and the nurse took her blood pressure which was 92/30!! Nurse said this was very low, and that this is happening to a LOT of their patients that are receiving Gardasil! Tell me why and how this vaccine is considered to be safe and neccessary when it is slowing girls heart rate down so low that they are passing out and not getting enough oxygen to their brain?!?! My daughter is extremely healthy, and active in sports, never fainted or had seizures in her life, came into the office walking on her own two feet and wound up on the floor shaking and twitching with seizures!! I am highly concerned and angry with this topic!! Why isn't this being looked into more and possibly pulled off the market? The doctors office said they do NOT need to report this to the FDA because it's listed as a possibly side effect. BULL!!!!!! How is anyone going to know what's happening with our girls if nothing is being documented and reported! Mom's and daughters out there, please get online and report this yourselves to the website VAERS. This needs to be addressed. It's killing girls! Go onto the internet and research side effects of Gardasil, up to 30 some women have died shortly after receiving this vaccine! The heart is something we should not be messing with, would the drug company Merck & Co. want to have a vaccine injected into their arm that drops them to the floor and have seizures?? And possibly DEATH!!!! My e-mail is wlandis65@yahoo.com

-- By wlandis65 | Reply | (5) replies | Private Message me
December 25th
2009
10:46 AM
Okay, so I am a 15 year old girl and I have had all three of the shots. The shot burns like they are putting fire directly into your arm for one. I have had two shots in my left arm and one in my right. I had to do this because the first two made my arm muscle sore. Its been months since the first shots and my arm screams at the touch. I talked about it to my doctor but she said that that was normal and it may or may not go away. Great, right? So a few days ago (2 days) i got my last shot. It still hurts to the touch but I was expecting that. Yesterday, (1 day after the shot) I woke up at the unusual hour of four in the morning with the worst stomach ache I have ever had. Thinking it was just a random stomach ache i tried to squeeze my stomach and go back to bed but that didn't work. I realized that it hurt worse when I was on my side and if I was lying on my back it felt better but it didn't go away. I was upset that I had to get up that early on Christmas Eve just because of this. Soon my body took on more and more signs of the flu. These included, extreme nausea, fever, headache, muscle numbness, the same stomach ache, weakness, a lot of dizziness, fatigue and many other things that made me want to heal over and die, no joke. At one point I just broke down and started to cry. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced.

So it is now Christmas morning at 4:40 am and I am up (as I have been for two hours). Not because my little brother came into my room and woke me up at a ridiculous time so he could open presents, which he hasn't yet, but because the stupid shot has made me feel like I'm dying. I wish I would have never gotten it. This stupid shot has me on the internet searching for people that are experiencing this same thing. I have also considered a tapeworm because that is just how bad I feel... If you are wondering if you should get it or not i would definitely say no. It isn't worth it in the long run and my sister says it could cause depression and I am starting to feel that. Stupid, stupid shot. Not worth it.

-- By stephaniesevin | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
December 22th
2009
11:09 PM
My healthy, active 15 year-old daughter had her 2nd Gardasil shot on Nov. 7th, 2008. On Jan. 7, 2009 she started having seizures with complete memory loss. Her other symptoms were hair loss, joint pain, severe headaches, stomach pain and insomnia. When she did sleep, she would have seizures for hours. We have taken her to numerous doctors but they have no idea what is wrong with her. She continues to struggle on a day to day basis and is on the 504 Disability Plan at school.

-- By dmacarthur | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
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December 21th
2009
10:02 PM
My daughter got the Gardasil vacine,She has came down with type one Diabetes. Has this happened to anyone else? We are devastated.She is 18 years old.

-- By velmarigsby | Reply | Private Message me
December 18th
2009
6:59 PM
I am 16 years old and i got the two shots of the Gardasil. Since that shot, I have been getting irregular periods, chest pain, lower abdominal pain, back pain and have been feeling really depressed. I have been to the hospital three times from this august till December, with symptoms of the flue, a rash on my face, 102 degree fever, bloody nose, ear infection, and the list goes on. I am happy to know I am not the only one going through these pains and i was worried about my periods because now they are always irregular and i don't know when i get them now... can someone please tell me what i going on with me?

-- By aureliasings | Reply | Private Message me
December 18th
2009
10:03 AM
I just took my daughter in Monday for a physical. She had some booster shots updated, and the doctor gave her a gardasil shot without really asking me. I did not know of these stories at the time. It is Friday now, and she has been vomiting since the middle of the night, for six and a half hours now. Has anyone else started with side effects like this that have gotten worse?

-- By boop31 | Reply | Private Message me
December 11th
2009
5:17 PM
Yes, I see now that my daughter probably also has been adversely affected by this vaccine. She had all three shots at the urging of our doctor. Shortly after, she came down with Epstein Barr which has not become chronic fatigue. She had months where she could hardly stay awake long enough to get her homework done. She has gained approx. 25 lbs and as the rest of you have indicated..... she has lost lots of hair. She previously had the most gorgeous thick hair and now it is terribly thin. When she sleeps I notice that she shakes.... kind of like a tremor. She has always been so healthy and after the guardasil vaccinations, she is a totally different child. She is 18 now and struggles with fatigue, weight gain, irregular periods. She was also diagnosed with Poly cystic Ovary syndrome via ultrasound. I want to know.... Has anybody looked into how we can as a group take legal action against Merck???

-- By hlatos1 | Reply | (3) replies | Private Message me
December 1th
2009
8:55 PM
My otherwise healthy, beautiful and very active 15 yr. old began having the following symptoms/side effects following her one and only Gardasil shot on July 30, 2009: headaches, fatigue, dizzy spells, numbness and tingling in legs and feet, fainting, hyperventilation, apnea, nonepileptic seizures, orthostatic intolerance, pain in legs, temporary paralysis of legs/feet, temporary blindness. She has had a myriad of tests, all of which come back normal. She's been to the ER 5 times and hospitalized once since October. She is currently unable to attend school and participate in her favorite activities. Please report any similar side effects from Gardasil injury to VAERS and nvic.org. Also, if you need more info., there is a fabulous Y. support group.

-- By millllm01 | Reply | (5) replies | Private Message me
November 11th
2009
9:08 AM
I am 17 years old and i got the three vaccinations of the Gardasil and ever since than i have experienced a lot of pain in my lower stomach area all the time like i have cramps. I have lower back pain all the time. Migraines run in the family and i usto to get them once in a while and now i get them at least four times a month. I dont know if this has anything to do with it... but im in pain all the time and, my mom wont talk to me because she thinks im lying and i dont know what to do.

-- By kwilsonmonkey | Reply | (4) replies | Private Message me
November 2th
2009
11:34 PM
One of the newest thing my daughter is experiencing is, her joints in her body hurt alot. Mostly in her knees and ankles. Anyone experiencing this?

-- By lorinda | Reply | (3) replies | Private Message me
October 24th
2009
11:00 AM
ive taken all three Vaccine for the Gardasil. Yes I'am losing my hair. I take beyond excellent good care of my hair, its my favorite body part, at 4"11 my hair reaches my bottom. I never dye, over heat, add chemicals, but since this shot my hair is no longer on my head, its in the shower drain. What am i too do? continue to let my hair fall out? its not growing back. Nioxin is expensive and my life is in risk if i don't take the shot.
Something should be done about this.
- C. S.

-- By neca22chey | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
October 20th
2009
3:00 PM
Today the FDAapproved gardasil for its use in boys,it is a mans world so maybe as men start to suffer the consequences of this shot somebody will start to listen

-- By flindy | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
October 20th
2009
2:27 AM
My daughter received her second gardacil shot in August and has been steadily losing about a handful of hair each day. She has had bloodwork done and her thyroid checks out okay as does her complete blood count so we know she is not anemic. The doctor feels that her hair loss is stress related.There have been many other times in her life that have been stressful and she has never lost hair. I feel the gardacil vaccine plays an important role in her hair loss. I fear that she will become bald and that her hair may not regrow. If anyone has had a similar experience and your hair has grown back, please reply. Thanks. ******

-- By msurace | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
October 19th
2009
12:24 PM
My 16 yr old daughter had her series on Gardasil shots completed in March 09. I don't recall any major side effects right away. In the past three months, she has been throwing up after taking a few bites of food. She drinks a lot of Pepsi and has a lot of stress, so I thought she was developing an ulcer, so I told her to stop drinking pop for awhile to see if that helps. The symptoms have subsided, but now that I am reading this website, I am worried. Before the shots she had headaches or migraines, they run in our family, but I have noticed that she has them more often now. Another thing is her hair is everywhere. I thought she was damaging her hair with the straight iron, but geeze, now I don't know. All these problems might be tied to the Gardasil shot.

-- By cosmic1009 | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
October 13th
2009
5:24 PM
I just got my second shot a week ago and have felt like absolute shit ever since! I have horrible migraines, a lot of head pressure, am extremely dizzy, really tired and weak.. basically feel like I have a bad case of the flu that just won't go away. Not to mention the arm I got the shot in this time is still extremely sore. Seeing all of these side effects is scaring me to death! Do they ever go away?? I seriously don't know how much longer I'll be able to function like this, in fact every day I seem to feel worse. I really can't afford to be sick right now.. I have a 6 month old to take care of, work full time, and am trying to get through high school. What a nightmare. My heart goes out to all of you that have experienced life threatening side effects from this shot. I will definitely NOT be going back for the third one!

-- By mackenziem | Reply | Private Message me
October 8th
2009
1:31 PM
For any person that got the Gardasil vaccinations and did NOT have any side effects or symptoms, PLEASE go and have a pap test done immediately! We are getting reports of these girls that had no side effects to the vaccine that are now getting cervical lesions and cervical cancer. So if you know of anyone that received Gardasil with NO side effects, PLEASE tell them to get a pap test done immediately!

My 16 yr old daughter was also injured by Gardasil. She had 2 of the 3 injections (Jan 9th and March 9th, 2009). Before Gardasil, she was a happy, healthy and vibrant teenager. Since Gardasil she is sick every day of her life. She has dizziness, overall weakness, numbness and tingling in both legs and left arm, back pain, neck pain, pressure headaches, vision problems, breathing problems, chest pains, racing heartbeats, brain fog, stomach problems, nausea, diarrhea, weight loss, hair loss, jerking all over spells...the list goes on and on.

She was an A/B student but failed her 10th grade year because she was too sick to retain what she was trying to learn (brain fog). She no longer has the energy to go off with her friends. Most days she lays in bed, in pain.

This just doesn't happen to a healthy teenager!! And it just doesn't happen to THOUSANDS of other girls with no connection except they all had the Gardasil vaccine.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Please educate yourself as much as you can before you allow anyone to push this unproven and unsafe vaccine on your daughter! The guilt is overwhelming from a mothers' standpoint! I thought I was doing something to protect my daughter. Instead, I allowed the doctor to inject poison into my child and take away her life!

These 'side effects' are NOT rare! They are happening every day to literally hundreds of thousands of young girls after receiving Gardasil. The numbers in VAERS is estimated to only be between 1-10% of the true numbers! Try asking some of us moms who have to deal with these horrible side effects every day if we consider it to be RARE!

Everyone should look at the other side of the fence and research this. There are thousands of girls that are coming down with strange illnesses, paralysis, gran mal seizures, etc. after receiving Gardasil.

We are now getting reports of girls as young as age 9 that are breaking out with genital warts and severe cases of cervical cancer AFTER receiving Gardasil. Some of these girls/women did not initially have any side effects from the vaccine.

There are perfectly healthy girls all of a sudden come down with all of these strange sicknesses (some that I cant even pronounce) after getting jabbed with Gardasil. All within hours/days/weeks?

Just like Merck's 'wonderful' Vioxx...what will it take? How many dead/injured before someone takes notice?

The doctor that literally pushed this vaccine on us at a routine doctor visit told us that there were no side effects except for soreness or redness at injection site.

She also told us that it would protect her from a whole LIST of things! I had seen the commercials but had not researched it.

As a matter of fact, I never really THOUGHT about vaccines until my daughter suddenly started having all of these strange health issues.

She was ALWAYS a healthy child, happy and outgoing, active and just a joy to be around.

Now, she is a totally different child. She is always sick..always in pain..and cries a LOT, so scared that she will die in her sleep from the breathing problems. She describes it as breathing through a blanket or that an elephant is sitting on her chest.

She has SO many of the exact same symptoms as all of the other girls that have been injured.

It is NOT a coincidence! All of these Gardasil girls have the same symptoms, some worse than others, but the bottom line is the one thing they all have in common is Gardasil.

These symptoms are NOT in their heads!

My daughter started having dizziness, overall weakness, pain and numbness in both legs and left arm BEFORE we found out about any of these other girls having the same issues.

When I called her doctor that gave her the vaccine (as soon as she started with these symptoms) she said it was NOT the Gardasil vaccine that is causing it. How could she be so sure? This is such a NEW vaccine...a DANGEROUS and UNNECESSARY vaccine!

HPV is not an STD (research this!).

Cervical cancers have gone down 70% since the PAP smear came along.

This is NOT an epidemic! Why are they mandating this vaccine for as young as 9 year old girls for a vaccine that doesnt even do what they claim it will do?

Girls are now coming down with cervical lesions and HPV AFTER receiving Gardasil! I'm talking about healthy young girls that did NOT have these things BEFORE getting Gardasil.

Young girls dropping dead within hours of getting the vaccine and they think we are all stupid enough to believe it was a huge tumor that was in her heart and had spread to her lungs? (I'm speaking of the 14 yr old that just recently died after receiving Cervarix).

If that young and healthy and active young girl really DID have this so called huge tumor, she would have had symptoms. A tumor like that doesnt just up and kill it's host without a 'wasting away and painful period'.

That is a complete cover-up!

Just like the young girl that has been paralyzed and hospitalized for the last year, Ashleigh Cave. Because her mother was trying to speak out and find out what exactly happened to her daughter, they have now placed that child under protective orders! To shut the mother up?

This is all about $$$$$ at the expense of our young daughters (and now sons) health and lives!

It is an outrage!!!

Please see my posts at ******

And this website:

******

There, you can see other girls' stories and their pictures..there is also a memorial document with pictures and stories of young girls that have died after receiving Gardasil.

Educate Before You Vaccinate!!

-- By mstyrayn | Reply | (6) replies | Private Message me
October 8th
2009
12:47 AM
I have had electrical feelings in my body since the first day of the first shot.
The first one was a shooting of electricity almost like I stuck my finger in an outlet. I was vacuuming the floor and I threw the vacuum out of my hand it was so intense. I thought that was weird since the handle is all plastic. Then I got another one brushing my teeth and they just kept happening. Now I have electric tingly sensations on the tops of my hands, in the bottoms of my feet, in the crease of my arms and down my forearms, and behind my knee and on the backs of my legs. It sometimes feels like a bug is crawling on me. I slapp it realizing nothing is there. Also have the sensation of an itch that I can't seem to find. I have these sensations all the time.. my face itches and my head itches.

-- By tklocke | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
October 7th
2009
10:31 PM
My daughter just turned 19 years old yesterday. She is a Christian and has kept herself pure and plans to until marriage. She attends a Christian University. She had her last gardisil shot in May. Since this shot she has been complaining of severe fatigue, dizziness and has had no menstrual cycle. My first thoughts were concerns that this was caused by the gardisil shot.She just saw a doctor at her University last week. All the test run were negative and the doctor wants to further test for osteoporosis and place her on birth control pills to regulate her periods. She does not want this.The doctor did not perform a pap smere due to her being a virgin.I have contacted our local doctor and was informed that there was no way to tell if any of her symptoms could be side affects of the gardisil shots she received. My husband decided to investigate the side affects of gardisil and came upon this web-site. I am just wandering if this should be legally investigated and how could someone find out if there are legal ratifications for this problem. I am just praying that these are temporary symptoms and my daughter will recover and be able to have a children after marriage. Please pray with me and I will for each of you as well.

-- By mmrice | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
October 2th
2009
11:28 AM
I am the mother of a teen daughter and have refused to get her this shot, after reading these effects I'm grateful she did not get it nor will she ever. Thank you

-- By chrisml | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
September 29th
2009
2:06 PM
a 14 year old British school girl died on Monday after a vaccination, not of
Gardasil but of Cervarix, it's me-too competition.
now that these drug companies have seen how lucrative it is to scare parents into inoculating their children, they'll all come out with their version of the vaccine, which means there will be more commercials and a harder sell as they compete for business.

just opt out, people

-- By propsguy | Reply | Private Message me
September 22th
2009
10:13 AM
My daughter has periods of not being able to eat. She feels as if she can't swallow the food. She has terrible time breathing. She had to go to the doctor three times in one week because she couldn't breath. Within an hour of her last visit she had her first Grand Mal Siezure. After her last shot she had another seizure within the week.

She continues to complain that she just wants to feel better. Other symptoms include no energy, lethargy, rash, vertigo, aggression, irritability.

-- By mlbk | Reply | (3) replies | Private Message me
September 14th
2009
4:37 PM
My doctor pretty much forced this thing on me and made me feel like i would be stupid not to get it. I had found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks prior which is why I had reservations about getting this shot but my doctor assured me that it would not effect my baby in any way. Almost approximately a week later I miscarried. Coincidence or not?

-- By nycgirl109 | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
September 11th
2009
3:54 PM
severe abdominal pain, colitis, inflamed colon, arthritis, staphylococcal, scarlet fever (which is the advanced stages of strep throat)hair loss, severe headaches.
2 E.R visits, 1 hospital stay of 4 days. When I informed doctor of the possibilities of gardasil vaccination -within MINUTES released daughter to go home and make an appointment with a gastrologist

-- By psychosexy7 | Reply | Private Message me
September 9th
2009
11:14 PM
My daughter is now 20 years old. she received her 1st gardasil shot in 3/08 and the second in 8/08. She didn't get the last one and will not be getting it. From the day she got the first shot we should have known something. She nearly fainted immediately after both shots and complained of weakness and flu like symptoms. Started feeling poorly in the days and weeks to come. It was the end of her senior year the doctor tested her for mono. and it was negative but she had an extremely heavy schedule at high school. He chalked it up to the stress of that. Between the two shots she started having numbness and pains in her hands,elbows and arms. She continued to feel poorly and terribly irritable in the upcoming months. We saw a orthopedic doctor for her pains in her arms. He referred us to a neurologist. She was beginning her first year of pharmacy school and we put off the neurologist because she didn't have much time until spring break. During her 1st year of school after her 2nd shot. Her personality changed completely. Became insecure, moody, very anxious , constantly complaining of flu symptoms, bladder infections and had a hard time urinating. When my daughter returned home from her first year away at college I knew immediately that she had changed. She had been a very bright, intelligent, independent daughter and came home the daughter from hell. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She was miserable, disliked pretty much everything. I had been talking with the doctor and friends over the course of the year and they all said that she was in a very stressful field (pharmacy) and college life takes some time to adjust. Then just a few weeks home from college she was complaining of dizziness, light headedness, headaches and saying she was having an episode. I thought maybe low blood sugars.....until I witnessed one. She was having Myoclonic seizures. She could feel them coming on but couldn't move or react. By the time I witness one of them she hadn't slept in 3 days. She was diagnosed within a week seeing a neurologist and having 50 to 60 a day. It took 4-5 weeks to get them under control in and out of the hospital . She has been on many seizure medicines it seemed like if it worked to stop the seizures she had crazy side effects. She was diagnosed with Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. No one in our family has ever had seizures. I asked about the shot right away everyone said no and it was dropped. Since last July 08 we have been trying to help our daughter get her life back and it has been the worst year of our lives. She was unable to return to pharmacy school. The first fall 08 she was completely disabled. It looked as if she had had a stroke. They were saying it was the meds or maybe she had a breakdown of some kind. I am learning that it was side effects of this horrible shot. This is why I am posting this lengthy message because I wanted to let other people know that you and your daughter are not crazy!! We just started 2 weeks ago investigating the possibility of the gardisil shot being the reason for this madness. We have learned many things and are very sure that it was the shot that change our daughter.. I was contacted by a friend of a friend about a similar girl having the same pains in her arms and the focal seizures. I am learning more and more everyday about similar situations.. If this information can help one person it was well worth the time to jot it down. I will be praying for all of your families out there dealing with side effects from this vaccination.. I will let you know what we hear when we visit the neurologist at the end of the month. Any comments or information that may help us help our daughter can be sent to ******

-- By tdrich | Reply | (3) replies | Private Message me
September 2th
2009
4:34 PM
My 13 year old daughter was injured by Gardasil and completely disabled for the past year. Merck got it right when they used the slogan "One Less" for Gardasil. Because of Gardasil, my daughter was "One Less". She was "One Less Student", "One Less Active Child", "One Less in every aspect of her life". Take it from a mother who has spent the past year sitting by my child's bedside wondering if she would die in her sleep. INVESTIGATE BEFORE YOU VACCINATE. DO NOT trust your doctor to make this decision. If you want to understand Merck's role in the medical community, investigate some of their former wonderdrugs such as VIOXX and then marvel at how many people died from it before it was pulled off the market. The CDC AND FDA need to do their job and get this off the market before more children are harmed. The public is not aware of VAERS and the #'s are grossly understated. I have had to tell my child's doctors about VAERS and make them file reports or she would not be one of the current statistics in VAERS. Even then, her information has not been entered correctly so I know that VAERS is not what it should be. Please do not let this happen to your child.

-- By rdmathis2 | Reply | Private Message me
September 2th
2009
2:08 PM
My daughter had Gardasil and has been detoxing ... she's doing better but still is on the mend. Please see the posting under Gardasil questions at medications dot com. Hope this is helpful.

Also - please ask your doctor for a PKD test and a NAD test (it will test anemia and niacin deficiency).

-- By nyminnow | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
September 1th
2009
12:05 PM
Heart Palpitations, Unable to Concentrate, Bloated Face and Abdomen, Bad Acne, Menstrual Periods that Last for Weeks, Weakness and Difficulty Breathing with any Exertion, Anaphylactic like Reactions to Citric Acid & Citrates leading to Digestive Troubles and Muscle Weakness, Heavy Painful Muscles especially in Arms and Legs, Throat Swelling from Strong Smells, Insomnia, Lip Swelling, Painful Raised Spots on Tongue

-- By mcmommywright | Reply | Private Message me
August 30th
2009
11:57 PM
My daughter is 21 and full of life, active, and athletic. Since her second Gardasil shot this past June 2009 she has passed out 9 times. The doctors call in neurocardiogenic syncope. It is where the brain and the heart are not communicating. They say they don't know why this happens and what kind of a life style change have you made. Hummm well got the shots, but no one has put two and two together wonder why? I just hope that this nightmare stops soon before it poisons more girls like mine. LOUISE366

-- By louise366 | Reply | Private Message me
August 30th
2009
10:41 AM
I received my gardasil shots almost a year ago. my mother insisted that i have them, in the past couple months i have experienced painful urination and irregular periods, i have also developed asthma. I have been to the doctors about the painful urination, the first time i went, they said, your fine go home. the second time the pain was unbearable and i went back to them, they said ummm it might be a yeast infection or a urinary tract infection, so take these pills, i took the pills, nothing changed. the third time i went back they said oh your fine, go home...still no change so i went back again and they give me meds for a bladder infection. i am now done with the meds for my "bladder infection" and i still feel pain. other woman have reported feeling painful urination and suddenly having asthma. i am scared....i am so scared, i have plans for myself. i never wanted this. and to all you woman out there now experiencing pain....i feel for all of you. because now i have a serious case of asthma, cant even walk up the stairs with out getting dizzy and feeling like i'm gonna pass out, and i cant go pee with out crying because the burning.

-- By faithsimpson | Reply | Private Message me
August 27th
2009
11:04 PM
My 15 year old daughter has been complaining of a burning feeling in her back/shoulder area (on and off for a year). Was wondering if anyone else had these symptoms after getting the Gardasil shot?

-- By chachie003 | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
August 24th
2009
9:50 AM
I am 21 years old and had my third shot last December. Since then I have been suffering from dizzy spells, bad anxiety and irregular periods. I am not completely sure that all these are because of my shot, but i really wish i had never had that last dose. My anxiety has been absolutely horrible, and lasts for days or weeks on end. My last few periods lasted for several weeks, and there seems to be no other explanation for the way i have been feeling since the end of last year. My friend works at a local hospital in cancer cell research, and amongst some of the papers she has read she has told me over 1000 girls have appeared with psychotic symptoms for no apparent reason, all after having gardasil. I hope we can all do something about this and get the word out, because i know it is affecting so many people in such a horrible way.

-- By hmg997 | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
August 22th
2009
2:12 AM
My daughter had her 2nd shot in August, 2008, she started having problems November 10, 2008.Since then, she passes out at least 5 to 6 times a month, she has Bradycardia, arythmias, vagal vasal syncope, and Heart Block. She has been in and out of hospitals. The only answer to fix this is a Pace Maker. Shes 18 years old, cannot drive, go onto college (at this time). She could not even go to her graduation ceremony because she was passed out in the bathroom and wouldn't wake up. I cannot find one doctor to connect this to Gardasil, I wonder why it cannot be traced back to the shot. I would love to voice my opinion to the public about her experience since this shot. Out of all the doctors that see her, not a single one can explain why this is happening to her heart, they say she is a difficult but interesting case.

-- By lorinda | Reply | (6) replies | Private Message me
August 21th
2009
6:42 PM
fever, body ache, flu symptoms, anxiety, lack of energy, mood changes.

-- By yecta | Reply | Private Message me
August 21th
2009
10:39 AM
I am 14 and i had my first shit in march 2009..after words i began feeling weak.I was getting sick a lot mainly colds and stuffy noses...Now i have been experiencing hair loss which really frustrated me because i love my hair..now i dont know what to do to get it back..

-- By trishgotstacksduhh | Reply | Private Message me
August 20th
2009
10:10 PM
My daughter had the Gardasil vaccine over two years ago. Pneumonia, migraines, hair loss, menstrual changes, dehydration, etc. etc. you name it ... it's very scary. I learned lots after joining a chat group on yahoo ... let's talk about Gardasil ... there is lots of information on diet, detox, doctors, etc. that might be helpful to you. Please join to see if we can help. We are all in this together and together we are hoping to stop this horrible vaccine.

-- By nyminnow | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
August 20th
2009
6:39 PM
I am so grateful to have found this site and to everyone who has posted. My 20-yr-old daughter received her first dose in Feb. 09. About a week later she began feeling extremely fatigued and weak. She was diagnosed with mono even though the mono test came back negative. She recovered from the fatigue and weakness prior to the 2nd shot in late April/early May. Soon after that she began complaining of hair loss. She was diagnosed with alopecia areata and our doctor put her on a different oral birth control pill. Her hair loss has continued, she has a fairly large bald spot on the back of her head just below the crown and her hair is very thin all over, especially just above her forehead. She will NOT be having the 3rd shot. She is starting to get some regrowth just above her forehead, regrowth on the bald spot on the back of her head is much slower. The hardest part is not knowing if or when her hair will regrow. I had not considered Gardisil as a potential cause for this until after I watched the ABC News story on Aug. 18, 09. I hope that all of you girls and young women will fully recover from your symptoms, and thanks to all who have posted here. Sincerely, B. C, Tualatin, OR

-- By barbaracummings | Reply | Private Message me
August 19th
2009
7:48 AM
My 9 year old daughter got her first shot in Dec. 2008 and her second in Feb. and the last in June. We have have been to the doctor a lot of times due to headaches with the doctor's opinion being that it's "allergies". She is now on allergy shots with still no relief from the headaches. I listened to her pediatrician and got her the shots. I feel so bad now after reading all the problems others are having with this vaccine. She also has had a change in her attitude aggression,moodiness,cries often, and she says she's depressed. If anybody has any suggestions for us please let me know. I love my little girl and know I'm worried.

-- By hlo30 | Reply | (9) replies | Private Message me
August 14th
2009
9:31 PM
My 17 year old daughter received her second vaccination on Mar 10 2009. Four days later she began having headaches and fatigue.Within 2 weeks she was having non-epileptic seizures,tremors,numbness and pain in all her extremities.She has been hospitalized twice with still no answers.She was a healthy energetic cheerleader before Gardasil now she can barely get out of the bed.Her hair is falling out in clumps and she has lost 40 lbs.This has been a nightmare.I was just trying to protect my daughter.Her senior year is now spent hospital home bound.

-- By debco904 | Reply | Private Message me
August 8th
2009
5:30 AM
Warning: I do not know if this is related at all (or if there is anyway to know for sure). I accidentally saw a connection looking up conspiracy theories, and I can't seem to find any "real" information about it at all.

My daughter at 14 years of age had this shot. She didn't feel good after, but I thought "normal" vaccination reaction and haven't thought about it since. Feeling a bit faint, a fever, and such.

However, last September (a few months later) she was diagnosed with autoimmune hemolytic anemia. It started with her heart racing, she looked pale (and sometimes even yellowish), tired all the time, her urine turned a dark color, and fainting. Not knowing anything about this I assumed that she was dehydrated, and had her drink lots of water. Until she started fainting, at which time I took her straight to our family doctor. (Another reason that I wasn't to worried is she actually had been to many doctors who didn't seem to think this was abnormal.)

She started on high doses of prednisone to keep her immune system depressed, and has now moved on to mercaptopurine (as the steroids made her suicidal.)

I plan on bringing this "possible" connection up to her hematologist and I will report back (she has an appointment on the 11th.). However, I think it is better to do a little scare here, and possibly help someone rather than take for granted that I am not sure... (So take this information with a grain of salt.)

Also note that this was sudden onset, they can find no cause, and we have no family history nor any of the other typical reasons (sometimes can be "medicine" induced.) 10 months later she is still testing positive on her combs test though.

-- By terrasears | Reply | Private Message me
July 31th
2009
9:08 PM
I received my 1st gardasil 2 weeks ago. Right after receiving it, i felt very dizzy. I layed in the hospital for 30 minutes before i felt any better. The next day my right elbow started hurting, a couple days later my left elbow. My chest started hurting and it felt very heavy to breathe. My heart beats very rapid at times and makes me feel light headed. My arms feel tingly/numb at times, so i called my doctor yesterday to report this, she said these symptoms had nothing to do with gardasil and i needed to see my primary care physician. I would not advise anyone to get this shot. I will not go back to receive the other 2 shots.

-- By martin0917 | Reply | Private Message me
July 31th
2009
1:00 AM
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the dizzy spells! I don't know if this is Gardasil-related or not, but during the time I was losing weight I had been so dizzy that I had to grab onto a railing to keep from falling down from standing still and have found it impossible to walk in a straight line during these times of dizziness!

-- By hopefullynot1less | Reply | Private Message me
July 31th
2009
12:50 AM
I had the shot 5 times because I didn't finish the first series. Since then, I've lost 20 lbs and may have to have thyroid replacement treatment for the rest of my life! I owe it to PrisonPlanet.tv and PrisonPlanet.com for helping me realize that Gardasil may be the cause of this condition. Visit these sites for more information...

-- By hopefullynot1less | Reply | Private Message me
July 6th
2009
8:53 PM
My 14 year old daughter received her fist Gardasil shot in Sept/Oct 08. Soon after she started losing her hair and thinning. Now it is coming out in handfuls. She is so upset and I believe that she is becoming depressed due to the emotional heartache. She has not received any more shots. Anyone who reads this don't give this to your daughter.!

-- By pswearingin | Reply | (2) replies | Private Message me
June 27th
2009
11:29 PM
My daughter had the Gardasil shots last year. The school nurse talked to these young girls and told them all the dangers of cancer. It is a scare tactic. Doctors tell you to get the shots as well...makes their offices LOTS of money...the insurance companies presently pay for the shots, and the are very expensive. My daughter passed out w/ the first shot. Never has passed out before. (Do not allow your daughter to drive herself to get this shot...for the adult women..have someone drive you if you choose to have this vaccination, although I would strongly recommend NOT.) My daughter, since she was vaccinated with Gardasil, has had multiple ear infections, warts, strep multiple times, flu-like symptoms multiple times...pretty much the immune system took a nose dive. She never missed school before...was exempt from school exams many times because she was never sick. However, after Gardasil, she has missed many days due to all the sicknesses she has experienced. It has been approx. a year and she hasn't been as sick lately. I am hoping the immune system will get back to what it was before the shots but I strongly recommend NOT getting this vaccination. If my daughter gets worse, I am tempted to contact a lawyer. We might should get a count on the women that have been negatively affected by this and go to D.C. This vaccine should have been researched more. Our daughters should NOT be guinea pigs!!

-- By janstew | Reply | Private Message me
June 19th
2009
1:28 PM
My daughter has this vaccine and was severely ill. Migraines, hair falling out, pneumonia, dehydration, you name it ... She was super healthy before this vaccine. You need to detox to feel better. Western medicine cannot help much - unless they understand the eastern side of medicine as well - trust me - I'm in a yahoo group Lets Talk About Gardasil.

You need to go gluten-free/sugar-free/casein(dairy)-free, drink bottled or distilled water and introduce extra vitamins. (B12, D3, magnesium, folic acid, and a liver boost, which you can find at a vitamin shop). There is lots of information at the yahoo group - so please join so you can get healthy. Gardasil is a GMO (genetically made) which has problems all its own - but you need to get the metals out of your body which are in this vaccine and in many foods you eat - start reading labels! No high fructose corn syrup and lots of rest. Please check out the chat group - and please file a VAERS report - that is URGENTLY needed to get this vaccine off the market.

-- By nyminnow | Reply | Private Message me
June 19th
2009
12:32 AM
I am 14 years old, and have had all three Gardasil shots. Now, this may not be much in comparison to what some of you are going through, and im very sorry for you. however, it seems that a very common side effect of Gardasil is a sore arm. I had my first two shots already, and i recently received my third. as the nurse was administering the shot, i heard the words "oops" escape her lips. Needless to say, this worried me. I was also getting another shot that day, so my sore arm on the day of did not worry me. However, in the days after the shot, slowly the bump from the *other* shot went down, as the one from the Gardasil remained. It is as sore as can possibly be, and has recently become quite itchy. I do not want these other side effects to occur, especially since i am going away to camp very soon. Should i be terribly worried?
please respond to this comment or email at ****** (no space... an htm just isn't allowed.)

-- By flute646 | Reply | (1) replies | Private Message me
June 18th
2009
8:31 PM
I'm 25 years old and approx 5 weeks after my second Gardasil injection started feeling sick. It has been 6 months now and still no relief. I have been to the doctor 13 times in the past 6 months, before this vaccine that was how much I was there in 13 years. This experience has been a nightmare and everyday I wake up wishing it was. I have had numerous blood tests, a CT scan, an esophagram, seen multiple doctors and it is so frustrating having them not believe you. I used to be happy, healthy and a social butterfly. Went on a job interview today and felt like I was out-of-body not really knowing what was going on. It is absolutely horrible to know that no one can help and be completely unsure of how long this will last. I just graduated from college and I'm supposed to be starting my life and now it's not knowing if this nightmare will ever end. I have had dizzy spells, chronic sore throat, unbelievable headaches with no relief from any OTC drugs or prescription migraine meds, extreme fatigue, hot flashes, night sweats, dry/itchy/watery eyes, ear pain, side pain, jaw pain. I pray for everyone who is going through this nightmare. ALL I want is to be healthy, feeling like my old self. I would give up everything to just be healthy again, pre-Gardasil.

-- By rdh08 | Reply | Private Message me

The Drug Mafia

2010-01-08T11:20:00.001-08:00

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/771.html

Big Pharma endures big fines and continues business as usual

2010-01-08T10:38:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027892_Big_Pharma_lawsuits.html

January 8 2010
by Paul Louis, staff writer

(Natural News) Donna Kendall was awarded a $6.3 million compensation with $28 million added for punitive damages in her suit against Pfizer this past November. The jury in Philadelphia awarded the punitive penalty after determining that the hormone therapy drugs Premarin, Prempro and Provera caused her breast cancer due to reckless action or inaction by the pharmaceutical companies involved.

Premarin and Prempro were manufactured by Wyeth, which Pfizer purchased recently for $67 billion. In 2003, Pfizer purchased the manufacturer of Provera, Pharmacie & Upjohn. With the help of these acquisitions, Pfizer has become the largest drug manufacturer in the world. According to a Reuters report, Pfizer may have inherited hundreds of more pending cases with those three recently purchased companies.

Before the Kendall case, Wyeth was successfully sued for $79 million in total compensatory and punitive damages. Pfizer seems to take these punches in stride. Of course, they will oppose the decisions and appeal to higher courts. But there was a court decision before these that Pfizer cannot oppose or appeal.

In early September 2009, Pfizer agreed to pay out a total of $2.3 billion, considered a record settlement for a drug company. The civil lawsuits and regulatory fines will be distributed throughout most of the country as a result of a years-long Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.

But the New York Times considers this a sneeze for Pfizer, mentioning that "While the government said the fine was a record sum, the $2.3 billion fine amounts to less than three weeks of Pfizer's sales."

The DOJ was after Pfizer and its subsidiaries for illegal activities and "off label marketing" -- the marketing of drugs for uses other than what the FDA approved. The illegally marketed drugs were the pain killers Lyrica and Bextra, the antipsychotic Geodon, and the antibiotic Zyvox. Zyvox was actually marketed for illnesses on which it had no effect.

In addition to seminars for physicians to promote drugs outside of their approved use, kickbacks were offered to physicians for prescribing drugs outside of FDA sanctioned uses. This is the fourth time Pfizer has agreed to a large settlement over fraudulent marketing since 2002. (Salon, source below)

Since 1999, other drug makers such as Eli Lilly and Merck have also incurred huge settlements. But this doesn't seem to slow Big Pharma down. They just raise prices and create demands for drugs and vaccines even if they harm more than heal.

GOVERNMENTS DON’T LIE, DO THEY?

2010-01-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

http://vactruth.com/2010/01/06/governments-dont-lie-do-they/

GOVERNMENTS DON’T LIE, DO THEY?
06 JANUARY 2010
Christina England
vactruth.com

How many damaged children does the world have to see before the answer to this question becomes obvious? Yes, Governments do lie! They lie every time a child is vaccinated by assuring parents vaccines are completely safe. We have a world of the unhealthiest children ever. The incidence of conditions like Autism, ADHD, GBS, Obesity, Eczema, Asthma and Allergies have never been so high and yet still the Governments around the world tell us vaccines are safe and will help our children to stay fit and well, well they are not working that well then, are they?

Yesterday, I received two emails both telling sad heart wrenching tales of children damaged by these ‘oh so safe vaccines’. One in particular is the story that will make every mother with a young girl about to be vaccinated with the ‘wonder vaccine Gardasil’ think twice .

“My daughter, age 15, received the 3rd dose of Gardasil on December 28th, 2009. Within 10 minutes after the injection into her left arm she felt extremely dizzy, her eyes rolled back into her head several times, her head wobbled like a newborn baby who can’t support their head, she broke out in a sweat, her legs were like rubberbands and down she went!! Passed out even before reaching the exit door of her pediatricians office! She lay there twitching and shaking with seizure movements and the nurse took her blood pressure which was 92/30!! Nurse said this was very low, and that this is happening to a LOT of their patients that are receiving Gardasil! Tell me why and how this vaccine is considered to be safe and necessary when it is slowing girls heart rate down so low that they are passing out and not getting enough oxygen to their brain?!?! My daughter is extremely healthy, and active in sports, never fainted or had seizures in her life, came into the office walking on her own two feet and wound up on the floor shaking and twitching with seizures!! I am highly concerned and angry with this topic!! Why isn’t this being looked into more and possibly pulled off the market? The doctors office said they do NOT need to report this to the FDA because it’s listed as a possibly side effect. BULL!!!!!! How is anyone going to know what’s happening with our girls if nothing is being documented and reported! Mom’s and daughters out there, please get online and report this yourselves to the website VAERS. This needs to be addressed. It’s killing girls! Go onto the internet and research side effects of Gardasil, up to 30 some women have died shortly after receiving this vaccine! The heart is something we should not be messing with, would the drug company Merck & Co. want to have a vaccine injected into their arm that drops them to the floor and have seizures?? And possibly DEATH!!!!”

I would like to bring your attention to the line – “The doctors office said they do NOT need to report this to the FDA because it’s listed as a possibly side effect.” Sadly the doctor is partially right here, seizure like activity has now been listed as a side effect of Gardasil, Merck you see covered their backsides on this, a while ago. This was done by adding ’seizures’ to the list of side effects on their packaging. Of course this was probably due to the high volume of reports of young girls fainting and having so called ‘non epileptic’ seizures after the Gardasil vaccine, however, lets make it quite clear all side effects should be reported.
Merck finally conceded to add seizures to their packaging
Merck finally conceded to include these side effects to their packaging and labelling as from 9th June 2009.
Information Pertaining to Labelling Revision for Gardasil
“On June 9, 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a revised label for Gardasil, a vaccine to protect against cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancers caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18 and genital warts caused by HPV types 6 and 11. In the new label, information pertaining to syncope (fainting) is now also included in the Warnings and Precautions section, and this section has new information noting that individuals who faint sometimes have tonic-clonic (jerking) movements and seizure-like activity.

The addition of syncope to the Warnings and Precautions section emphasizes that healthcare providers and consumers should be alert that fainting may occur following vaccination with Gardasil, sometimes resulting in falling and injuries. To prevent falls and injuries all vaccine recipients should remain seated or lying down and be closely observed for 15 minutes following vaccination.”

Mind you, it only took this giant drugs company a total of three years to achieve and was only due to the high level of girls having seizure like episodes after a Gardasil vaccination.

What has always mystified me and I find extremely confusing, is the difference between “individuals who faint, sometimes having tonic-clonic (jerking) movements and seizure-like activity,” and those who have an actual epileptic seizure. As I understand it a full ‘Grand Mal’ fit is an episode where a person drops to floor which could be described as a faint and begins to jerk uncontrollably. I wonder can someone from Merck please enlighten me to the difference here? The Epilepsy Foundation could not, as they seem to describe a Grand Mal Seizure, in the same way as Merck are now describing them as a side effect on their new labeling.

Many people have become confused and do not understand the difference between the terms “seizure” and “epilepsy”, so let me explain. A person can have a single seizure without going on to develop Epilepsy. A seizure is simply caused by an abnormal electrical discharge in the brain and sometimes happens when a person as a fever. So what is causing seizures in the girls receiving the Gardasil vaccination? Many doctors and professionals fully believe it is the ingredients in the vaccination that are causing young women to have seizures after vaccinations. The papers on Profitable Harm has references from professionals worldwide stating that in their medical professional opinion Gardasil is unsafe and has the full ingredients of Gardasil listed but for clarity I will list them here .

Ingredients in GARDASIL
The ingredients are
proteins of HPV Types 6, 11, 16, and 18,
amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate,
yeast protein,
sodium chloride,
L-histidine, polysorbate 80,
sodium borate,
and water for injection.

Dr Diane Harper speaks out

Dr. Diane Harper says young girls and their parents should receive more complete warnings before receiving the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. She feels that not enough information is offered to parents. Dr. Harper helped design and carry out the Phase II and Phase III safety and effectiveness studies to get Gardasil approved, and has written many of the published papers about it. She has been a paid speaker and consultant to Merck. It is extremely unusual for a researcher to publicly criticize a medicine or vaccine that she has helped get approved however, she is fast becoming well known for her outspokenness and indeed her criticism of the HPV vaccines.
In a recent interview Diane Harper made the following statement:-

Interview with Marcia G. Yerman – An Interview with Dr. Diane M. Harper — HPV Expert
Statement:

“The most important point that I have always said from day one, is that the use of this vaccine must be done with informed consent and complete disclosure of the benefits and harms of Pap screening and HPV vaccines. The decision to be vaccinated must be the woman’s (or parent’s if it is for a young child), and not the physician’s or any board of health, as the vaccination contains personal risk that only the person can value.”

As all of the information in the United States concerned Gardasil, since that was the only vaccine approved in the U.S. from June 2006 until this past October 2009, my comments have been focused on Gardasil.
My points are as follows:
The Benefits of Pap Screening:
• Individual benefit to detect early pre-cancers.
• Public health benefit: Only when 70% of the population has been screened will the population incidence of cervical cancer drop.
• Pap tests do not kill or handicap.
The Harms of Pap Screening:
• Screening must be repeated throughout a woman’s life. One screen is not sufficient to protect her from cervical cancer
• False negative rate of cytology screening: Among the women who develop cervical cancer in the U.S., 30% are women who have been routinely screened, and all their Paps have been normal.
• False positive rate of cytology screening: Women who screen abnormal are psychologically upset, anxious and left doubting the medical process (i.e. Her Pap was abnormal, but her colposcopy and biopsy were normal, with no explanation why her Pap was abnormal).
• Quality of life harms: Women with abnormal Paps have anxiety as high as women diagnosed with cervical cancer undergoing their surgical treatment. The stress of going to colposcopy and biopsy can be high for many women. The contemplation of a cervical biopsy and a scraping of the endocervical canal can lead to fear of pain.
• Relationship harms: Once women are told they have an abnormal Pap and that the Pap is abnormal because of a STD called HPV, most relationships are stressed as the partners attempt to understand who brought the infection to the relationship.
• Excisional treatments for detected precancerous lesions cause preterm deliveries in subsequent pregnancies, with concomitant low birth weight infants (which puts the infant at risk for life). In addition, scarring from the treatments lead to an increased cesarean section delivery method (as the cervix does not dilate normally due to scarring from prior excisions). These reproductive morbidities occur between 70%-300% more often in women with excisions.
• Recurrence of HPV associated cervical/vaginal/anal cancers at a rate of 3-12 times higher than those women who never had a cervical cancer precursor or cancer. These recurrences happen around ten years after treatment with peak recurrences between ten and twenty years from the initial treatment.
The Benefits of HPV vaccination:
• Cervarix protects against five cancer-causing types of HPV, which lead to CIN 2+ (precancers and cancers).
• Gardasil protects against three cancer-causing types of HPV, which lead to CIN 2+ (precancers and cancers).
• Cervarix induces antibody titers for HPV 16 and 18 that are at least ten fold higher than natural infection titers; the antibody titers for the other three cancer causing types (HPV 31, 45, 33) are also significantly higher than natural infection titers, and the titers stay high for at least 7.4 years – lasting the longer of either vaccines.
• Gardasil only maintains antibody titers for HPV 16 (not 18, not 11, not 6) at five years, making the true long lasting (five years) coverage of Gardasil only for one type of cancercausing HPV.
• If vaccination occurs within one year of the onset of sexual activity, there will be 57/1000 cases of all CIN 2+ types and persistent HPV 16/18 infections prevented, as compared to only 17/1000 cases prevented if virgins are vaccinated.
The Harms of HPV Vaccination:
• Duration of efficacy is key to the entire question. If duration is at least fifteen years, then vaccinating 11-year-old girls will protect them until they are 26 and will prevent some precancers, but postpone most cancers. If duration of efficacy is less than fifteen years, then no cancers are prevented, only postponed.
• Safety: There is at least one verified case of auto-immune initiated motor neuron disease declared triggered by Gardasil (presented by neurologists at the 2009 American Neurological Association meeting in Baltimore, Maryland). There are serious adverse events, including death, associated with Gardasil use.
• No population benefit in reduction of cervical cancer incidence in the United States with HPV vaccination as long as screening continues.
• Incidence rate of cervical cancer in the United States based on screening is 7/100,000 women per year.
• Incidence rate of cervical cancer if women are only vaccinated with Gardasil is 14/100,000 per year (twice the rate of cervical cancer if young women vaccinated with Gardasil do not seek Pap testing at 21 years and the rest of their life).
• Incidence rate of cervical cancer with Cervarix vaccination is 9/100,000 per year– better than with Gardasil, but still more than with screening alone.
• Incidence of cervical cancer without screening and without vaccination is nearly 90/100,000 per year. The combination of HPV vaccine and screening in the U.S. will not decrease the incidence of cervical cancer to any measurable degree at the population level. Those women who do not participate in Pap screening, and who are vaccinated, will have some personal benefit for five years for Gardasil and 7.4 years for Cervarix (maybe longer), but they will not affect the population rates.
Boosters for Gardasil after antibodies wane makes the cost of vaccination escalate significantly, and cause implementation challenges to reach those women who might want to be revaccinated.”
I recommend readers read the whole interview. Here we have an expert who clearly says in her first paragraph “ The decision to be vaccinated must be the woman’s (or parent’s if it is for a young child), and not the physician’s or any board of health, as the vaccination contains personal risk that only the person can value.” She later says “There is at least one verified case of auto-immune initiated motor neuron disease declared triggered by Gardasil (presented by neurologists at the 2009 American Neurological Association meeting in Baltimore, Maryland). There are serious adverse events, including death, associated with Gardasil use.”
However the FDA, CDC and the USA Government says that this vaccine is safe and recommends it. This is a lie as how can a vaccine that has death as side effect be safe? How can a vaccine that has seizures as a side effect be safe?
The FDA state the following:-
“Based on the review of available information by FDA and CDC, Gardasil continues to be safe and effective, and its benefits continue to outweigh its risks.”

However when Diane Harper was asked by Marcia the following question :-
Do you believe that the Gardasil vaccine, as it currently stands, could present more risks to a young girl or woman than the possibility of cervical cancer?

She replied, “Pap smears have never killed anyone."

Pap smears are an effective screening tool to prevent cervical cancer Pap smears alone prevent more cervical cancers than can the vaccines alone.

Gardasil is associated with serious adverse events, including death. If Gardasil is given to 11 year olds, and the vaccine does not last at least fifteen years, then there is no benefit – and only risk – for the young girl. Vaccinating will not reduce the population incidence of cervical cancerif the woman continues to get Pap screening throughout her life.

If a woman is never going to get Pap screening, then a HPV vaccine could offer her a better chance of not developing cervical cancer, and this protection may be valued by the woman as worth the small but real risks of serious adverse events. On the other hand, the woman may not value the protection from Gardasil as being worth the risk knowing that 1) she is at low risk for a persistent HPV infection and 2) most pre-cancers can be detected and treated successfully. It is entirely a personal value judgment.”

This indicates to me that Diane Harper believes this vaccine is not only ineffective but in some cases extremely dangerous.

Governments worldwide are lying

It seems Governments worldwide are lying to us, they are doing this by brainwashing us into believing that vaccines are safe.

We were lied to when the told us that the vaccinations do not cause Autism and yet studies show worldwide that more vaccinated than unvaccinated children are Autistic.

Dr Eisenstein has said that Homefirst Medical Services has taken care of about 30,000 to 35,000 unvaccinated children over the years and he does not remember a single case of autism in children who never received vaccines.

Studies over the years have proven that unvaccinated children are healthier.

No Autism in Never- Vaccinated Children quotes:-

“In Chicago, Homefirst Medical Services treats thousands of never- vaccinated children whose parents received exemptions through Illinois’ relatively permissive immunization policy. Homefirst’s medical director, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, told us he is not aware of any cases of autism in never-vaccinated children; the national rate is 1 in 175, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have a fairly large practice,” Eisenstein told us. “We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we’ve taken care of over the years, and I don’t think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines. “We do have enough of a sample,” Eisenstein said. “The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We’re all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there’s no communication. It’s frightening. You can’t touch them. It’s not something that anyone would miss.”

Governments have lied to us when they said that the H1N1 vaccine is safe.

The Local (Swedish News in English) reports of four cases where people have died after receiving the Swine flu vaccine.

The Jerusalem Post reports the death of a 75 year old, who died two days after receiving the Swine Flu vaccine
Bild.com reports on the agonising death of a toddler after the Swine Flu vaccine.

MSNBC News reports that a 14 year old boy has been struck down with GBS after Swine Flu Vaccine

Prison Planet reports that several women are speaking out after they have miscarried after the Swine Flu vaccine

BreakingNews.ie reports two deaths in China after Swine Flu vaccine

Belfast Telegraph reports boy rushed into hospital after Swine Flu Vaccine

Clearly for these and many others it was not.

And Governments are lying to us when they say that Gardasil and Cervarix are safe.

Katherine Kimzey a 14-year-old girl who experienced headaches, fainting, and stiff joints after receiving the second shot of her three-dose Gardasil vaccine battery. A few weeks later, Katherine had a seizure and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. Katherine is one girl of many who has encountered a serious adverse reaction after receiving Gardasil.
Here are a few more I found on Gardasil and epilepsy : Medications.com

1. “Hi, my name is Hannah and I am a senior in college. At the age of 19, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I was a sophmore in college at the time, had a job, and was a completely HEALTHY girl. I have been living with the disease for two year now, and my doctors still can’t come up with the cause for my seizures. Recently my sister called me to ask if I had received the gardasil shot, because on CNN talk radio that people were starting to think that the garasil shot might be linked to paralysis,seizures, and even death. I immediately called my OBGYN to ask the dates in which I had received my shots. My first dose was given on Oct.17, 2006. I had my first set of seizures on Nov. 24, 2006. WOW…I was in shock. I feel like I now have an answer for the cause of my illness. I talked to my Neurologist about this and he said we will have to wait until more research is done. I am convinced that Gardasil was the reason for my epilepsy. I am so sad to think that other girls are going in to receive a vaccine that is suppose to help their lives, and instead they could have crippling side effects that never go away. I can no longer drive, I had to choose between school and a job, and now I have to plan my day around taking my medicine. All because a drug company wanted to make some money before their completely researched their product.”

2. “Hi. My 17 year old daughter’s story is similar. She had her second Gardasil vaccination during the end of January 2008. During the month of February and March, she had abdominal problems. Beginning on March 30th, she had seizures. She had a CT of the head, MRI of the brain, EEG, 24 hour EEG and as I type this note, she are in the epilepsy center at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia and the doctor just came in to tell me that every test is coming back normal and that my daughter is having “stress” seizures. My daughter has no more stress than any other 17 year old girl does.

I related to the doctor my thoughts pertaining to Gardasil and I feel as though he has dismissed my idea.

I have found some many stories similar to yours and my daughter’s but I believe because Gardasil is so new, nothing is coming out yet about it.

If anyone has any other information, please advise!! We are desperate here in Philadelphia.

Jodi

3. “My daughter received her first shot on 6/20/2007 when she was 14 years old and second shot on 12/27/2007. During this time frame she complained of having headaches daily. On 1/8/2008 my daughter had a seizure. She had been a healthy, dancer and scholastic student. Since her shot she has had a total of 12 seizures and has been in and out of hospitals numerous times. She was diagnosed with epilepsy in March of 2008. She has been on Topamax, Keppra, Lamictal and Zonegran and continues to have seizures. The side effects from the medications that my daughter has suffered with along with depression has been tremendous.

We thought we were protecting our daughter and found that we have only hurt her. The doctors need to stop pushing the shot and it needs to be taken off the market. Because of this shot she has to be dependent on more drugs. She has missed so much school, which were important years (freshman & sophmore) that she will never get back. How many more girls need to suffer!”

Girls in the UK have reported epileptic seizures after th UK HPV vaccine Cervarix.

Ashleigh Cave has had a couple of seizures since her vaccination of Cervarix. Ashleigh is now partially paralysed and her mother has been accused of Munchausen by Proxy or making her symptoms up to gain attention.

Carley Steele now has blackouts, since her Cervarix vaccine.

“And that’s when the blackouts started,’ says Amanda. Several times she found Carly collapsed after what she described as a ’split-second blackout’.”

Petit Mal seizures perhaps?

Paige Brennan also has had seizures, her mother says:-
“She was “perfectly normal” until she came home from school with a headache. Within hours she was having seizures and ended up in intensive care.”

In each case doctors have blamed other reasons for these seizures and blackouts but in all cases these children only started to have the problems after the oh so safe Cervarix or Gardasil vaccination.

Clearly our vaccinations are not safe. I will leave you to ponder with a poem written by the mother of a vaccine damaged child.

This Journey…Melissa Saunders
I read the books, I went to classes
I ate good food, and drank 8 glasses.
I took it easy, as my belly grew
I did it all…All for You!

I felt you move, I felt you kick
I forgave you when you made me sick :)
I loved you more with each passing day
I couldn’t wait ‘til you were here to stay.

Well that day came, and I’ll never forget
As that’s the day my world was lit.
Your eyes so bright, your hair so fine
Couldn’t be more proud to call you Mine!

As the weeks flew by, so did the months…
And before I knew it, you had turned ONE!
Up ‘til then, you progressed so well
But that all changed, and you went down hill.

My beautiful girl, as smart as can be
Regressed into Autism after your vaccine
I never questioned, I had no clue
What this needle could actually do.

Now you struggle, with everyday tasks
The simple things, you cannot ask.
It’s taken your words, the one’s you once had
And turned them to screaming, driving you mad!

At times I just lay here, and can’t help but cry
I question God, wondering why?
But the answer’s clear, so plain to see
The people I trusted, had deceived me.

They all should hang, their heads in shame
Admit the truth and take the blame.
They know the danger, but turn away
And continue to injure our kids each day.

But I’ve chosen to put, my anger aside
Along with my hopes and dreams that’s died.
And focus on making more parents aware
Share our story, cuz the proof’s right there!

Although I hate to see you like this
You have fulfilled my life with eternal bliss
We’ll always take, this journey together
And I promise to love you, forever and ever!

The Case for Giving Eli Lilly the Corporate Death Penalty

2010-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

The Case for Giving Eli Lilly the Corporate Death Penalty
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
March 3, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/129709/

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."

Rudolph is not exaggerating. Zyprexa, marketed as an "atypical" antipsychotic drug, has been promoted as having less dangerous adverse effects than "typical" antipsychotic drugs such as Thorazine and Haldol. However, on February 25, 2009, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the rate of sudden cardiac death in patients taking either typical or atypical antipsychotic drugs is double the death rate of a control group of patients not taking these drugs.

Zyprexa -- though not nearly as well known as Lilly's previous blockbuster Prozac -- is today one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world. Zyprexa has grossed more than $39 billion since its approval in 1996, with $4.8 billion of that in 2007 (and it was projected to equal or surpass that gross in 2008 when earnings are reported).

Lilly has had other Zyprexa scandals, but in this current one, Lilly executives matched Charles Dickens scoundrels. Zyprexa is approved by the Food and Drug and Administration (FDA) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but Lilly illegally marketed it for sleep difficulties, aggression, and other unapproved uses. Lilly sales reps aggressively pushed Zyprexa as a wonderful drug to chill out disruptive children and the elderly who were not schizophrenic or bipolar. The lawsuit against Lilly stated, "In truth, this was Lilly's thinly veiled marketing of Zyprexa as an effective chemical restraint for demanding, vulnerable and needy patients."

Doctors can prescribe drugs for unapproved uses (called "off-label prescribing"), but drug companies are not allowed to market drugs for unapproved uses. Many drug companies break this rule, but Lilly broke it with gusto. “The company made hundreds of millions of dollars by trying to convince health care providers that Zyprexa was safe for unapproved uses," said Laurie Magid, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania where the case was prosecuted. Magid said that Lilly was responsible for "putting thousands and thousands of patients at risk."

One marketing effort consisted of the Lilly sales force urging geriatricians to use Zyprexa to sedate unruly nursing home and assisted-living facilities patients. Lilly sales reps distributed a study claiming that elderly patients taking Zyprexa required fewer skilled nursing staff hours than were necessary for patients taking competing medications. Magid stated that Lilly sales reps were "trained to use the slogan five at five, meaning five milligrams at 5 o'clock at night will keep these elderly patients quiet." Illegally marketing Zyprexa for elderly patients was especially troubling for prosecutors because Zyprexa increases the risks of heart failure and life-threatening infections such as pneumonia in older patients.

In addition to targeting the misbehaving elderly, Lilly also targeted annoying kids. New York Times reporters Gardiner Harris and Alex Berenson, who have been covering Eli Lilly and Zyprexa for several years, reported on January 14, 2009, "The company also pressed doctors to treat disruptive children with Zyprexa, court documents show, even though the medicine's tendency to cause severe weight gain and metabolic disorders is particularly pronounced in children ... The children receiving Zyprexa gained so much weight during the study that a safety monitoring panel ordered that they be taken off the drug."

Mainstream reporters were so appalled by Lilly's recent actions that some voiced caustic commentaries about the relatively small price Lilly paid for its transgressions. CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson (January 15, 2009) noted, "Eli Lilly has pled guilty to marketing the sometimes dangerous drug Zyprexa in ways never proven safe or effective ... Lilly has agreed to pay $1.4 billion, including the largest criminal fine ever imposed on a corporation. Ironically, that's about as much as the company's Zyprexa sales in the first quarter last year." However, the mainstream media failed to provide the context of Lilly's horrendous history which goes back decades.

The New York Times 2009 article did at least go back as far as 2006, reminding readers of the Times exclusive on another Zyprexa scandal. In December 2006, a whistle blower handed over to the Times hundreds of internal Lilly documents and e-mail messages among top company managers that showed how Lilly had downplayed Zyprexa's association with weight gain and metabolic disorders such as diabetes.

A Rolling Stone piece earlier this year ("Marketing Lilly's Zyprexa, a Phony ‘Miracle' Drug") details how Lilly minimized Zyprexa's relationship with dramatic weight gain. In 1995, prior to FDA approval of Zypexa , Lilly's own panel of experts concluded that Zyprexa produced an average weight gain of 24 pounds in a single year (one in six patients gained more than 66 pounds); that kind of weight gain can elevate blood-sugar levels and cause diabetes. This data, however, was not submitted by Lilly to the FDA.

Lilly-Zyprexa scandals didn't just start in 2006. A 2003 Lilly-Zyprexa scandal involved Medicaid and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), ostensibly a consumer organization. That year, Zyprexa grossed $2.63 billion in the United States, 70 percent of that attributable to government agencies, mostly Medicaid. Zyprexa cost approximately twice as much as similar drugs, and state Medicaid programs, going in the red in part because of Zyprexa, were attempting to exclude it in favor of similar, less expensive drugs. When Kentucky's Medicaid program attempted to exclude Zyprexa -- its single largest drug expense -- from its list of preferred medications, NAMI bused protesters to hearings, placed full-page ads in newspapers, and sent faxes to state officials. What NAMI did not say at the time was that the buses, ads, and faxes were paid for by Lilly.

The Lilly-NAMI financial connection had already been exposed by Ken Silverstein in Mother Jones in 1999. Silverstein reported that NAMI took $11.7 million from drug companies over a three-and-a-half-year period from 1996 through 1999, with the largest donor being Lilly, which provided $2.87 million. Lilly's funding also included loaning NAMI a Lilly executive, who worked at NAMI headquarters but whose salary was paid for by Lilly.

Beyond Zyprexa, in 2002 fingers were pointed at Lilly for tampering with the Homeland Security Act. On November 25, 2002, soon after George W. Bush signed the Act, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert discovered what had been slipped into it at the last minute, "Buried in this massive bill, snuck into it in the dark of night by persons unknown . . . was a provision that – incredibly – will protect Eli Lilly and a few other big pharmaceutical outfits from lawsuits by parents who believe their children were harmed by thimerosal."

While it was recently revealed that research published in 1998 that linked vaccine use to autism was fraudulent, in 2002 the harmfulness of thimerosal (a preservative that contains mercury and used by Lilly and other drug companies in vaccines) was not clear. Specifically, in 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service had urged vaccine makers to stop using thimerosal, and in 2001 the Institute of Medicine concluded that the link between autism and thimerosal was "biologically plausible." So in 2002, drug companies such as Lilly which had used thimerosal in vaccines were nervous about what scientists and the courts would ultimately determine.

How then did a drug-company protection provision get inserted in the Homeland Security Act? Here's my bet for one of Herbert's "persons unknown." In June 2002, then President George W. Bush had appointed Lilly's CEO, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on his Homeland Security Advisory Council. Ultimately even some Republican senators became embarrassed by the drug-company protection provision, and by early 2003, moderate Republicans and Democrats agreed to repeal that particular provision from the Act.

The year 2002 was a banner one for "Lillygates," with "60 Minutes II" ultimately airing another juicy Lilly scandal. Lilly's patent for Prozac had run out, and the drug company began marketing a new drug, Prozac Weekly. Lilly sales representatives in Florida gained access to patient information records, and, unsolicited, mailed out free samples of Prozac Weekly. Though they primarily targeted patients diagnosed with depression who were receiving competitor antidepressants, at least one such Prozac Weekly sample was mailed to a sixteen-year-old boy with no history of depression or antidepressant use. Law suits followed.

The most cinematic of all Lilly scandals began in 1989 and culminated in1997. One month after Joseph Wesbecker began taking Lilly's antidepressant Prozac, he opened fire with his AK-47 at his former place of employment in Louisville, Kentucky, killing eight people and wounding twelve before taking his own life. British journalist John Cornwell covered the trial for the London Sunday Times Magazine and ultimately wrote a book about it. Cornwell's The Power to Harm is not simply about a disgruntled employee becoming violent after taking Prozac; the book is about Lilly's power to corrupt a judicial system.

Victims of Joseph Wesbecker sued Lilly, claiming that Prozac had pushed Wesbecker over the edge. The trial took place in 1994 but received little attention as America was obsessed at the time by the O.J. Simpson spectacle. While Lilly had been quietly settling many Prozac violence suits, the drug company was looking for a showcase trial that it could actually win. Although a 1991 FDA "Blue Ribbon Panel" investigating the association between Prozac and violence had voted not to require Prozac to have a violence warning label, by 1994 word was getting around that five of the nine FDA panel doctors had ties to drug companies -- two of them serving as lead investigators for Lilly-funded Prozac studies. Thus with the FDA panel now known to be tainted, Lilly wanted a Prozac trial it could win, and it believed that Wesbecker's history was such that Prozac would not be seen as the cause of his mayhem.

A crucial component of the victims' attorneys' strategy was for the jury to hear about Lilly's history of reckless disregard. Victims' attorneys especially wanted the jury to hear about Lilly's anti-inflamatory drug Oraflex, introduced in 1982 but taken off the market three months later. A U.S. Justice Department investigation linked Oraflex to the deaths of more than one hundred patients, and concluded that Lilly had misled the FDA. Lilly was charged with 25 counts related to mislabeling side effects and plead guilty.

In the Wesbecker trial, Lilly attorneys argued that Oraflex information would be prejudicial, and Judge John Potter initially agreed that the jury shouldn't hear it. However, when Lilly attorneys used witnesses to make a case for Lilly's superb system of collecting and analyzing side effects, Judge Potter said that Lilly itself had opened the door to evidence to the contrary, and he ruled that Oraflex information would now be permitted. To Judge Potter's amazement, victims' attorneys never presented the Oraflex evidence, and Eli Lilly won the case.

Later it was discovered why victims' attorneys remained silent about Oraflex. In a manipulation Cornwell described as "unprecedented in any Western court," Lilly cut a secret deal with victims' attorneys to pay them and their clients not to introduce the Oraflex evidence. However, Judge Potter smelled a rat and fought for an investigation, and in 1997 Lilly quietly agreed to the verdict being changed from a Lilly victory to "dismissed as settled."

If Americans want to take on Lilly, they might want to do it during a time when the Bush family is out of power. Sidney Taurel, former Lilly CEO and George W. Bush appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, is not the only Bush family-Lilly connection. George Herbert Walker Bush once sat on the Eli Lilly board of directors, as did Bush family crony Ken Lay, the Enron chief convicted of fraud before his death. Mitch Daniels, George W. Bush's first-term Director of Management and Budget, had actually been a Lilly vice president, and in 1991 he had co-chaired a Bush-Quayle fundraiser that collected $600,000. This is the same Mitch Daniels who is now governor of Indiana, Lilly's home state.

Currently, the public's right to revoke corporate charters is still recognized by the courts, but attorneys general today rarely exercise this option, and then only against small corporations. Loyola Law School Professor Robert Benson, who in 1998 petitioned California's attorney general to revoke the corporate charter of Union Oil of California (Unocal), notes that state attorneys general "don't hesitate to draw this particular arrow from their quivers when the target is some small, unpopular or socially marginal enterprise." But when it comes to egregious large multinationals, Benson concludes, "They don't even want you to know about it because they don't want to appear to be soft on corporate crime."

In his book When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten, former Harvard Business School Professor writes, "In the young American republic, there was little sense that corporations were either inevitable or always appropriate." Early in American history, Americans were very much concerned about any entity achieving too much power, and so in corporate charters there were clear limits placed on: years permitted to exist, borrowing, land ownership, extent of enterprise, and sometimes even on profits. Korten notes that in the first half of the nineteenth century, "Action by state legislators to amend, revoke, or simply fail to renew corporate charters was fairly common."

The Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) was created in 1994, in part to inform Americans that they can in fact revoke corporate charters. In 1890, POCLAD explains, the highest court in New York State revoked the charter of the North River Sugar Refining Corporation in this unanimous decision: "The judgment sought against the defendant is one of corporate death ... the defendant corporation has violated its charter, and failed in the performance of its corporate duties, and that in respects so material and important as to justify a judgment of dissolution."

Giant drug corporations -- especially ones that make a killing selling dangerous drugs by hyper-pathologizing people who can't defend themselves -- get my adrenaline going; and so my candidate to get the ball rolling is Lilly, which has now made themselves vulnerable by getting in so much damn trouble. But with Lilly's man Mitch Daniels currently governor of Lilly's home state, Lilly still has pull; and so I won't be upset if some other giant sleazebag corporation receives the death penalty before Lilly.

Given the fact that Americans already have a history of revoking corporate charters, why shouldn't this practice be continued? Yes we did, yes we still can, and so yes let's do it.

Number of UK Children Put on Obesity Drugs Soars 1500 Percent in Seven Years

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027887_children_obesity.html

January 7 2010
Number of UK Children Put on Obesity Drugs Soars 1500 Percent in Seven Years
by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The number of children in the United Kingdom taking prescription weight loss drugs increased by 15 times between 1999 and 2006, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University College London and published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

"This rise in the use of drugs is a real indictment on society," said Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum. "It seems to me that we are ignoring measures to prevent our children becoming obese and then turning to drugs as a treatment of choice when they should be a last resort. That borders on criminal because it means that all the messages about healthy eating and exercise for reducing weight are just being tossed aside by [doctors]."

As many as 1,300 children under the age of 18 may now be taking the drugs, which are only approved for adults. Adult use exceeds one million.

The study also found that among children who took weight loss drugs, most stopped using them before experiencing any benefit.

"It's possible that the drugs are being given inappropriately, or that they have excessive side-effects that make young people discontinue their use," researcher Russell Viner said. "On the other hand, they could be expecting the drugs to deliver a miracle 'quick fix' and stop using them when sudden, rapid weight-loss does not occur."

Fry said that juvenile use of weight loss drugs will probably increase with the recent approval of Alli, an over-the-counter version of the weight loss drug Xenical, for sale in the United Kingdom. He blamed the childhood obesity crisis on excessive food intake, caused in part by poor regulation of the food industry, combined with a shortage of open spaces where children can exercise and play. Drugs, he said, will not solve the problem.

"It's the failure to regulate the energy in and the energy out," Fry said. "[Children] are failing to exercise enough to maintain the balance."

WHO Advisor Secretly Pads Pockets with Big Pharma Money

2010-01-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/07/WHO-Advisor-Secretly-Pads-Pockets-With-Big-Pharma-Money.aspx

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
January 07 2010 | 13,395 views

A Finnish member of the World Health Organization board, an advisor on vaccines, has received 6 million Euros for his research center from the vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline.

Although WHO promises transparency, this conflict of interest is not available for the public to see at WHO’s homepage.

Professor Juhani Eskola is the director of the Finnish research vaccine program and a new member of the WHO group ‘Strategic Advisory Group of Experts’ (SAGE).

SAGE recommends which vaccines -- and how many -- member countries should purchase for the pandemic.

According to documents acquired through the Danish Freedom of Information Act, Eskola’s Finnish institute, THL, received almost 6.3 million Euros from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for research on vaccines during 2009. GlaxoSmithKline produces the H1N1-vaccine ‘Pandemrix,’ which the Finnish government -- following recommendations from THL and WHO -- purchased for a national pandemic reserve stockpile.

Several other WHO experts also have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry--a double role that notably is not published by WHO.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

The World Health Organization (WHO) proclaims itself to be an agency that “is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.”

If this is the kind of leadership they offer, you should run the other direction!

The more than 6.3 million Euros (equating to over 9 million American dollars) the WHO’s research center received from GlaxoSmithKline represents the vaccine program’s number one income source.

To which they respond, “We are aware that there appears to be a conflict interest.”

NO KIDDING.

And this is on the heels of a major WHO scandal involving accusations by Austrian journalist Jane Burgermeister that the WHO conspired with Baxter International (a vaccine manufacturer) and the United Nations to produce and release live bird flu virus in 2009, in an effort to trigger a pandemic.

Burgermeister has accused them of “planning to commit mass murder.”

WHO’S Who in Government Corruption

As the Flu Case article states, this financial conflict of interest is not an isolated incident with one researcher—the following list of WHO researchers, reported to have financial ties to Big Pharma, suggests a more systemic corruption:

Dr. Peter Figueroa, Professor in the Department of Community Health and Psychiatry in Jamaica, has received money from Merck

Dr. Neil Ferguson has received funding from Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline, and Roche, as well as from some insurance companies

Professor Malik Peiris in Hong Kong has received money from Baxter GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur

Dr. Arnold Monto, advisor to Chiron, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Roche, Novartis, Baxter and Sanofi Pasteur, has received funding from same

Dr. Friedrich Hayden, consultant to MedImmune and Sanofi Pasteur, received money from those companies, in addition to Roche, RW Johnson, and SmithKline Beecham

Introducing Dr. Flu

And then there is Dr. Albert Osterhaus, nicknamed “Dr. Flu” because he is head of the European Scientists Fighting Influenza within the WHO.

Dr. Osterhaus is a Dutch physician who has been very active in promoting mass vaccination through WHO and the Western media[i]. The government of the Netherlands is currently conducting an emergency investigation into the activities of “Dr. Flu” since it was recently discovered that he has been receiving a salary from several swine flu vaccine companies.

Dr. Osterhaus has received funding from Baxter, Crucell, Novartis, Hoffman-La Roche, MedImmune, Nobilon, Sanofi Pasteur, MSD, GlaxoSmithKline, and Solvay.

The WHO is in the powerful position of reviewing and making vaccine recommendations to the world. Tom Jefferson, professor of epidemiology at the Cochrane Center in Rome, aptly states:

“It is disturbing that many of the scientists who sit on various committees of WHO, are presented as ‘independent experts’, but they carefully conceal the fact that they receive money from pharmaceutical companies.”

Dr. Jefferson goes on to tell reporters:

“The WHO is biased in their recommendations. Normal hygiene measures provide much greater effect than these little-studied vaccines, and at the same time WHO refers to the use of masks and hand-washing as a means to combat swine flu only twice in their documents. Vaccines and other medications are referred to 42 times!”

But hand washing never made anyone wealthy.

Dr. Jefferson and several of his colleagues believe that paid advisers of the pharmaceutical companies should be removed from their positions and not allowed to give recommendations to the WHO.

I couldn’t agree more. But the organization itself is in no hurry to carry out such reform.

The Evil Geniuses of Big Pharma

The WHO is not unique in its vulnerability to the influence of Big Pharma.

Washington teems with a thousand industrial lobbyists. They cluster around the band of luxury offices and expensive restaurants that stretches from the White House to the Capitol building--a two-mile axis along which money and power are constantly traded.

In this pantheon of corporate muscle, no industry wields as much power as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), a pressure group renowned for its deep pockets and aggression, even by the standards of U.S. politics.

There is also a perpetual revolving door between government and the pharmaceutical industry—more and more key government positions are filled with people living “double-lives” with drug/healthcare companies:

President Obama’s nominee at the Department of Homeland Security overseeing bioterrorism defense, Dr. Tara O’Toole, has served as a key advisor for a lobbying group funded by a pharmaceutical company that has asked the government to spend more money for anthrax vaccines and biodefense research[ii].

Tom Daschle—the former Democratic senator from South Dakota and Senate Majority Leader—who was President Obama’s first pick for secretary of health and human services. Daschle’s work included being a paid advisor for a lobbying law firm that earned $16 million representing some of the healthcare industry’s most powerful interests.Of course, as you might recall, this nomination didn’t fly.

Senior Advisor David Axelrod is accused of collecting big money from Big Pharma to pass healthcare reform by way of his former partners at a Chicago-based firm called AKPD Message and Media. In fact, he founded the firm, and his son is still employed there.[iii]

These are but a few examples—there are many more to be found.

To quote Democratic congressman Sherrod Brown:

“The PhRMA doesn’t need to lobby. The industry is in the While House already.”

Drug giants not only specialize in influencing government officials, but they also have the ordinary physician in their grips.

The practice by drug companies of lavishing gifts upon doctors—far beyond pens and mugs—including exclusive vacations, “consulting” agreements that involve little work and other freebies—is gaining increased scrutiny and disapproval in the public’s eye.

Even more quietly, another practice is growing in popularity.

This devious ploy involves private-practice physicians setting up tax-exempt charities, which then receive major donations—to the tune of millions of dollars a year—from drug companies and medical device makers. The “charities” then typically conduct medical research or education, which the physicians behind them promote as being legitimate.

Increasingly, Big Pharma spends billions to influence what doctors see, read and hear, often persuading them to prescribe more drugs, just as it spends billions to taint researchers’ decision-making process.

A national survey of physicians published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, well-known and often quoted, found that 94 percent of physicians have a “relationship” with the pharmaceutical, medical device, or other related industries.

This massive conflict of interest has prompted Senators Chuck Grassley and Herb Kohl to introduce a bill called the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which would require physicians to report annually to the government all payments over $100, beginning in 2010, and that information would be made available to the public.

What’s the Cost of Pushing Pills These Days?

Exactly how much does the pharmaceutical industry spend to push its products?

A study in 2008[iv] endeavored to measure those costs, and the results are staggering.

They calculated that Big Pharma spends almost twice as much on promotion as they spend on research and development:

The industry spent $57.5 billion on marketing and promotion in 2004. (This estimate far exceeds the $20 billion estimated by the research firm called Integrated Medical Systems (IMS), which is most often quoted.)

The amount spent on research and development pales in comparison, at $31.5 billion.

Add to that what the industry spends in lobbying, and it adds up to a mind-numbing figure.

These numbers clearly demonstrate the need for redirecting the priorities of the industry toward more research and less marketing, besides the need for quashing the greed and corruption that run so rampant within it.

“Trust Allah, But Tie Up Your Camel”

Until the umbilical cord between Big Pharma and the government is cut, healthcare/health policy reform will remain a dream. Until then, take what your government and your physician tell you with a grain of salt.

Trust but verify.

Remain proactive, educating yourself on these issues rather than simply believing the press releases that are reiterated a hundred times on every cable channel.

With respect to the swine flu, I recommend spending a little time reviewing the vast supply of information available on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) site, if you haven’t already done so.

[i] “World Health Organization “manufactured” the global swine flu scare—suspected of corruption” November 26, 2009, Infowars Ireland

[ii] McElhatton J. “Obama nominee omitted ties to biotch” The Washington Times, September 8, 2009

[iii] Vogel K. P. (August 19, 2009) “David Azelrod’s ties targeted in health fight” Politico

[iv] Gagnon M.A., Lexchin J. (2008) “The cost of pushing pills: A new estimate of pharmaceutical promotion expenditures in the United States.” PLoS Med 5(1)

More Toddlers, Young Children Given Antipsychotics

2010-01-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/634536.html

January 04, 2010, 16:00 EST
Researchers question the 'worrisome' trend
By Jennifer Thomas
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- The rate of children aged 2 to 5 who are given antipsychotic medications has doubled in recent years, a new study has found.

Yet little is known about either the effectiveness or the safety of these powerful psychiatric medications in children this age, said researchers from Columbia University and Rutgers University, who looked at data on more than 1 million children with private health insurance.

"It is a worrisome trend, partly because very little is known about the short-term, let alone the long-term, safety of these drugs in this age group," said study author Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City.

Prescribing antipsychotics to children in the upper range of that age span -- ages 4 and 5 -- is justifiable only in rare, intractable situations in which all other treatments, including family and psychological therapy, have been tried and are not working, Olfson said.

And it's questionable whether 2- and 3-year-olds should ever be prescribed antipsychotics, Olfson said.

The study is published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Presumably, only children with the most severe mental problems would be given the potent drugs. Yet, less than half of children on antipsychotics had received any mental health services, including a mental health assessment or treatment from a psychotherapist or psychiatrist, the study authors noted.

"You don't see the kinds of mental health services you would expect to see if we were dealing with the most profoundly disturbed toddlers," Olfson said, raising the question of whether doctors had done everything they could to help the child before turning to medications.

The overall numbers of children prescribed antipsychotics remains small, at less than one half of one percent of the national sample. But the numbers are rising. In 1999-2001, about one in 1,300 were being treated with antipsychotics. By 2007, that had risen to one in 630, according to Olfson.

For 5-year-olds, about one in 650 were being treated in 1999-2001. That doubled, to one in 329, in 2007, he noted.

Research published online in December in the journal Health Affairs by the same research team suggested children on Medicaid are even more likely than children with private insurance to be prescribed antipsychotics.

The most common antipsychotic drug prescribed to children was risperidone (Risperdal), which accounted for nearly three-quarters of antipsychotic prescriptions. In adults and teens, risperidone is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Risperidone is also approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat unstable mood or irritability in children with autism aged 5 and up.

Children who were most likely to receive risperidone were male and aged 4 or 5, according to the report. The most common diagnosis was pervasive developmental disorder or mental retardation, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder or disruptive behavior disorder.

Previous research has shown children on the drugs may experience metabolic and endocrine abnormalities. Little is known about their impact on the developing brain, Olfson added.

"I don't want to minimize the problems children can have at this age, but there are psychological treatments that have been proven to help parents and the kids that emphasize the quality of the parent-child relationship," Olfson said.

One reason for the uptick may be increasing numbers of children diagnosed with autism and some research showing risperidone may help with autism-related irritability, the researchers noted.

Dr. Peter Jensen, co-director of the division of child psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic, agreed that the trend is concerning. "We have no doubt there are prescribing practices out there that are very, very worrisome," Jensen said.

It's imperative that children receive a full mental health assessment before getting these drugs, to understand the family situation and school environment and if there is a family history of psychiatric problems, as well as undergoing a physical exam to rule out other medical problems.

"These agents should not be used as an adjunct to a family stressed to the max," Jensen said. "With kids who are 2 to 5, most can be managed without these medicines. Rarely a 5-year-old goes on them. But a child of 2 or 3, in my experience, I have never had to put them on [an antipsychotic]. There is so much else that can be done."

The stress and difficulty of coping with a child who has significant mental health issues, the need to have a child behave well enough to be permitted to attend school, as well as lack of adequate coverage for family therapy and mental health services, may push doctors and parents into believing they have little choice other than medicating the child, Jensen said.

More information

The U.S. National Mental Health Information Center has more on children and mental health issues.

SOURCES: Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., professor, clinical psychiatry, Columbia University, New York City; Peter Jensen, M.D., co-director, division of child psychiatry and psychology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; January 2010, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Copyright © 2010 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

Expert Explains the Flu Vaccine Deception and the Swine Flu Hoax

2010-01-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/05/An-Expert-Explains-the-Flu-Vaccine-Deception-and-the-Swine-Flu-Hoax.aspx

Expert Explains the Flu Vaccine Deception and the Swine Flu Hoax
Posted by: Dr. Mercola
January 05 2010 | 39,815 views

Dr. Shiv Chopra was a drug company insider, and also worked for what is now Health Canada -- the Canadian equivalent of the FDA. He is uniquely qualified to explain why no flu vaccine has ever worked, and that swine flu and avian flu are nothing more than hoaxes.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

I met Dr. Chopra while we were both attending the National Vaccine Information Center’s “4th International Conference on Vaccines” in Washington D.C. He was clearly one of the top leading experts there, giving an enormously compelling and effective presentation that got rounds of standing ovations.

Dr. Chopra is an insider; he was hired by the drug companies and worked with vaccine development in Europe. He has also worked for the Canadian government, in the equivalent of the FDA. He was a senior scientific advisor for what is now Health Canada for 20 years, working primarily in vaccines and antibiotics.

So with respect to vaccines, the understanding of them and the history and the regulatory authorities that are involved with them, there are really very few people in the entire world who are more qualified than Dr. Chopra to comment on the issues, specifically swine flu.

And that is why I am so excited to share this interview with all of you.

Swine Flu: True Claims or Mere Hoax?

Is swine flu really a devastating pandemic that may wipe out large numbers of people? Are you doing yourself disservice by not getting the vaccine? According to Dr. Chopra, no and no way.

He states:

“No flu vaccine has ever worked. Swine flu, we don’t even know there is such a thing. It’s a misnomer. Avian [bird] flu, these are all made-up things. The whole thing is a hoax. It has been for the last 10 years. First they started with the avian flu, and then swine flu.”

For those of you who don’t remember, the bird flu epidemic -- predicted to kill some 2 million Americans -- turned out to be a whole lot of hot air, and not much else. This is why I wrote the book The Great Bird Flu Hoax.

Dr. Chopra was really one of the earliest advocates to warn that the bird flu was a hoax, and he explains that nobody really knows to this day what all of the major influenza epidemics of the past really were -- including the 1918 flu epidemic.

“How come they never talked about this influenza in India? We never heard of it. I never heard of it. Remember, this swine flu at that time was originally called Spanish flu, and the Spanish called it French flu because the two countries were on the opposite sides of the war. And then eventually they settled on swine flu. Again, nobody knew if that was really swine flu because we didn’t know how to isolate a virus at that time,” Dr. Chopra says.

“There were no tissue cultures and the viruses didn’t grow outside living cells. We know a lot of people died; exactly what they died of, it could be swine flu, the virus, or pneumonia. We didn’t have any antibiotics at that time. So complications may have killed them. It’s even possible as some people say it was: with influenza you get fairly high fever, with some flu you get higher fever.

The aspirin at the time was a thing to reduce your body temperature. People say too much aspirin -- there were no controls, we didn’t know how aspirin really worked and what damage it did. Some people may have died from internal bleeding, by taking too much aspirin and trying to bring the temperature down,” he continues.

How Did Vaccines Come to be Trusted?

You may remember the 1976 swine flu epidemic, which also never materialized. Dr. Chopra shares the inside story on how it materialized and why so many people jumped on the vaccine bandwagon:

“All of a sudden, a rumor came out: an American marine had died of influenza and it was swine influenza. Nobody compared it to the actual swine influenza … Nobody also revealed that that soldier on that day had run 12 miles. With a fever going, this can happen: he died. This became a reality for America.

They said, “There’s going to be a major epidemic, a pandemic. It’s going to kill millions of people around the world. At least we’re going to take care of America.””

So Merck was contracted to produce a swine flu vaccine for every single American. The American population at that time was 250 million, so 250 million doses were taken care of at that time for the United States.

We were next door in Canada. I was working on these issues, too, and we had a high-powered meeting. What are we going to do? We approached Merck and Merck said, “We don’t have enough vaccine. We only have for the Americans. We don’t have for you.” So Canada ran around to buy the vaccine at that time.

We had a company in Toronto: Canadian company Canada Laboratories, who used to make insulin and so on. They said, “We can’t make it but we can get it for you from Glaxo.” So a contract we proposed for 21 million doses because Canada’s population at that time was 21 million. Now it’s 33.

So we prepared a contract. I was sitting there in this meeting and said, “You know, people, let’s really consider: is it necessary?”

I said that in 1968, I used to live in England. When that epidemic occurred at that time in England, they were saying they don’t have enough vaccine; it will only be given to senior executives and important people. Because I worked in a pharmaceutical company as a senior executive, I was offered the vaccine.

But I didn’t take it. So I left and I said in this meeting in ’76 in Canada that I didn’t take the vaccine. The funny thing is, I was sick only once. People who took the vaccine were sick twice: their first from the vaccine, then from the flu because it didn’t protect them.”

This whole business of vaccines, for a long time, used to be under the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Chopra explained.

“So the government was responsible for doing good to the entire public. Public health was under that area. If the government was doing it, there was no question ever raised that they will do any wrong thing. They’re making vaccines. All over the world, it was the same system. So they were not brought under the regular drug evaluation system,” he says.

“This is the way the politics of vaccines work,” he continues. “What I’m saying categorically is that vaccines have never been tested. Vaccines other than smallpox have never been tested for safety or efficacy, as they should have been.”

Real Scare from the H1N1 ‘Pandemic’

You may recall over the summer when the World Health Organization raised the swine flu threat level from a 5 to a 6, which meant this is a full-blown pandemic. As Dr. Chopra explains, this decision, along with the news that the virus was “mutating,” may have been completely unfounded.

“Who is the Directorate General of the WHO to say that “I’m raising it to pandemic level #6?” Based on what? At the same time, from the same sources, we’re receiving information that we think sooner or later, the virus is going to mutate. We don’t know when but it is going to. How did they know that? How do they come to that conclusion?

Then we hear the new virus H1N1 has components: the bird flu, H5N1, or the other way around. When you use these kinds of numbers and technical words, it frightens people because they don’t understand what H or N stands for. They take people’s words for it and the media picks it up and then starts to say, “This is very different. This is entirely different. This has components of the 1918 flu and the bird flu. It also has the swine flu.”

And you go around in Mexico and you get H1N1 in the swine right now. So you make six, eight or ten different drugs, different vaccines as many as the companies, and then you say, “Some will be live and they’ll be given in the nose, some will be killed, some will have adjuvants like squalene oils.

… And some people are being given nasal vaccine, so that means a live virus. If you’re putting a drop in the nose like you put the drop of polio in the mouth, then those are the portals of entry that obviously mean this is a live virus. If it’s a live virus, then you actually maybe creating a pandemic with whatever you manufactured in the laboratory. If it’s a live virus then that’s what could happen,” he states.

One of the Most Massive Cover-Ups in American History?

Swine flu is quickly becoming exposed for the massive hoax it really is. For more insider information, be sure to listen to my interview with retired neurosurgeon and researcher Dr. Russell Blaylock and stay tuned to the newsletter for the latest news and updates.

Drug Companies Now Pushing Vaccines for All Kinds of Health Conditions

2010-01-06T11:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027878_vaccines_drug_marketing.html

January 6 2010
Just as Predicted: Drug Companies Now Pushing Vaccines for All Kinds of Health Conditions
by E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The growing lull in pharmaceutical sales over the past several years has driven the industry to ramp up its efforts in the vaccine department. Once a dying segment of the drug market, vaccines are back in the limelight as drug manufacturers work tirelessly to make new vaccines for everything from urinary tract infections to Alzheimer's disease. Many of their newest jabs could reach the market in less than five years.

Five years ago there were only two vaccine manufacturers remaining in America after a mass exodus by drug companies from the vaccine business. Today, drug companies are seeing dollar signs as the pendulum swings in favor of shots for all sorts of diseases. The alleged pandemic swine flu threat, among other things, has also given drug companies the green light to begin heavily producing and marketing vaccines thanks to government grants that support such endeavors.

Since prescription drug sales have been steadily declining, Big Pharma has been frantically looking for new avenues to keep raking in massive profits. Vaccines fit the bill as drug companies can work to create one for every type of ailment known to man. Many existing vaccines are being pushed more heavily upon people as well.

Vaccine sales are expected to double in the next five years, leaping from $19 billion in 2008 to $39 billion in 2013. In 2004, vaccine sales were $8 billion. Part of this growth can be attributed to the government's ever-increasing list of recommended children's vaccines. Currently at 17, the list has more than doubled since 1985 and is expected to continue increasing.

Vaccines are also being touted as "preventive medicine," a rhetorical sleight of hand that makes them sound more appealing to the public. Propaganda campaigns aimed at convincing the public to receive vaccines are also utilized to stir up fear and drive up sales.

Amidst the frenzy to increase the vaccine arsenal, few on the receiving end are questioning whether or not vaccines even work. A 1999 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association admitted that vaccines are not effective at preventing infectious disease deaths in children. On top of this, thousands of people are injured or killed every year from vaccines.

A true preventive approach is one that incorporates well-balanced nutrition with supplemental vitamins and superfoods. This is by far the most effective way to fortify a healthy immune system and protect the body from developing disease.

European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal

2010-01-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16667

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, December 31, 2009

The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

The parliament motion was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, former SPD Member of the German Bundestag and now chairman of the Health Committee of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). Wodarg is a medical doctor and epidemiologist, a specialist in lung disease and environmental medicine, who considers the current “pandemic” Swine Flu campaign of the WHO to be “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the Century.”[1]

The text of the resolution just passed by a sufficient number in the Council of Europe Parliament says among other things, “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The "bird-flu"-campaign (2005/06) combined with the "swine-flu"-campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health-budgets, but to the credibility and accountability of important international health-agencies.”[2]

The Parliamentary inquiry will look into the issue of „falsified pandemic“ that was declared by WHO in June 2009 on the advice of its group of academic experts, SAGE, many of whose members have been documented to have intense financial ties to the same pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, who benefit from the production of drugs and untested H1N1 vaccines. They will investigate the influence of the pharma industry in creation of a worldwide campaign against the so-called H5N1 “Avian Flu” and H1N1 Swine Flu. The inquiry will be given “urgent” priority in the general assembly of the parliament.

In his official statement to the Committee, Wodarg criticized the influence of the pharma industry on scientists and officials of WHO, stating that it has led to the situation where “unnecessarily millions of healthy people are exposed to the risk of poorly tested vaccines,” and that, for a flu strain that is “vastly less harmful” than all previous flu epidemics.

Wodarg says the role of the WHO and its the pandemic emergency declaration in June needs to be the special focus of the European Parliamentary inquiry. For the first time, the WHO criteria for a pandemic was changed in April 2009 as the first Mexico cases were reported, to make not the actual risk of a disease but the number of cases of the disease basis to declare “Pandemic.” By classifying the swine flu as pandemic, nations were compelled to implement pandemic plans and also the purchase swine flu vaccines. Because WHO is not subject to any parliamentary control, Wodarg argues it is necessary for governments to insist on accountability. The inquiry will also to look at the role of the two critical agencies in Germany issuing guidelines on the pandemic, the Paul-Ehrlich and the Robert-Koch Institute.

Bravo!

F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

Julie Gerberding Primed Big Pharma’s Pump with Flu and HPV Vaccines

2010-01-05T12:01:00.000-08:00

http://vactruth.com/2010/01/04/julie-gerberding-primed-big-pharmas-pump-with-flu-and-hpv-vaccines/

Julie Gerberding Primed Big Pharma’s Pump with Flu and HPV Vaccines
Robert Scott Bell
vactruth.com
01/04/2010

The most recent in a long list of government bureaucrats to leave the public dole and take up the high-paying cause of Big Pharma is none other than former head of the CDC Julie Gerberding. One year and one day from the date of departure from the Taxpayer payroll, Ms. Gerberding takes the reins as president of the vaccine division of the principle descendant of I.G. Farben: Merck Pharmaceuticals.

The revolving door between the Department of Health and Human Services and the pharmaceutical industrial complex is legend – and it swings both ways. Current head of the FDA, Margaret Hamburg, served on the board of directors for Henry Schein, Inc., manufacturer of mercury dental amalgams, in between her stints with the Clinton and now Obama administrations. Therefore it should surprise no one that the FDA, despite mercury’s known neurotoxicity, in 2009 ruled that mercury amalgams are really not so bad.

While Hamburg’s return to the federal bureaucratic oligarchy has already paid dividends to the industry she left, Gerberding’s departure should raise conflict-of-interest concerns for anyone wanting a CDC free of undue influence from Merck and other vaccine manufacturers.

A long time proponent of drug and vaccine intervention, Dr. Gerberding earned the nickname “Chicken Little” during her tenure at CDC for claiming that each successive flu season might be the one that puts the 1918 Spanish Influenza to shame. Yet there has always been a strange cognitive dissonance in her message.

In between vaccine promotional efforts during the H5N1 Bird Flu hype of 2006, The News Tribune in Tacoma Washington caught her admitting on April 15 of that year:

“There is no evidence it will be the next pandemic,” Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said of avian flu. There is “no evidence it is evolving in a direction that is becoming more transmissible to people.”

One wonders, is it fringe to ask why mainstream medical reporters find it uninteresting to follow up on such statements from the head of the CDC? Especially considering this statement, specifically, contradicted most of her other official pronouncements that stressed potential end-of-the-world influenza scenarios. Even paid vaccine advocate Paul A. Offit (Children’s Hospital Philadelphia) admitted at the time that H5 viruses have been around for 100 years and never caused a pandemic and likely never will.

Two newer drugs benefit the most from the annual CDC-sky-is-falling-pronouncements: Tamiflu and Relenza. Due to CDC’s unwavering allegiance to the products of Big Pharma, billions of dollars in Taxpayer funds have been transferred to the drug industry for stockpiling these medicines that may only shorten duration of viral infection by ½ to 1 day. Warnings about delirium and other abnormal behavior (some resulting in fatal outcomes) coupled with limited data proving effectiveness seem to have been ignored by CDC’s leadership.

Outside of those two blockbuster drugs for influenza, it had become apparent that the future profitability of the pharmaceutical industry rests heavily on the growth of its vaccine divisions. Increasingly, that growth had grown incredibly dependent upon government health organizations and their ability to foment fear in the lay populace.

Why would Merck want to hire someone so schizophrenic on the issue of annual influenza outbreaks? One likely scenario has Gerberding helping institutionalize the annual flu hype, which became quite the bonanza for vaccine manufacturers at a time when the new drug pipeline had stalled out. With very few blockbuster drugs on the horizon, existing, more profitable drugs were all too close to having to compete with generics.

Julie Gerberding serves her future master well
Gerberding’s January 2004 Report to Congress “Prevention of Genital Human Papillomavirus Infection” paved the way for eventual approval for Merck’s Gardasil vaccine, guaranteeing billions in profits for her future employer. Perhaps the vaccine presidency is Julie’s reward for cementing the relationship between government and Merck via the CDC, the agency that behaves as the de facto marketing arm of the vaccine industry.

Another gift to Merck under Gerberding’s management has been the CDC’s continual denial that there is any link between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and autism on the small scale; and vaccinations and autism on the large scale. Recent CDC reports place the incidence of autism at 1 in 110 children, four times higher than previous estimates. A major key to the viability of future vaccines in the pipeline is the tacit denial of any link of autism to the heavy metal, or vaccines in general, now or in the future.

Julie Gerberding holds a medical degree and a Masters in Public Health, yet she can’t seem to do the math coinciding with a four-fold increase in the number of mandated childhood vaccines since the time autism estimates were ¼ of what they are now. Although she would likely not qualify for a job requiring statistically relevant analysis, her ability to look away from that which is reasonable in assessing vaccine safety is evidently a vital prerequisite for the presidency of Merck vaccines.

Personnel within federal agencies under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services, rather than protecting the public, behave as if they work on behalf of the interests of BIG PHARMA.

Now that she is out of the vaccine closet since Merck’s hiring, will Julie Gerberding come clean about her unconscionable denials regarding any link between vaccines and autism, much less the link between the CDC and Merck? Or does she believe that the over-two-billion dollars paid out to families of injured and killed children since passage of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act is mere coincidence as well?

Drug Side Effects Blamed for 20 Percent of Hospital Readmissions

2010-01-05T11:43:00.001-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027866_drugs_side_effects.html

January 5 2010
by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) One in every five patients readmitted to the hospital within a year of an inpatient treatment ends up there because of an adverse drug reaction, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The research was presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Manchester and published in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

"While medicines have lots of benefits, they can also have harmful side-effects resulting in re-admission to hospital" researcher Emma Davies said. "Managing this involves checking patients' medicines while they are in hospital and regularly reviewing prescriptions in primary care after patients are discharged."

Researchers examined data from approximately 1,000 patients who had been admitted to a large Liverpool hospital. Among the 290 patients who were readmitted within one year and for whom data were available, 21 percent had been readmitted at least partly because of an adverse drug reaction.

The researchers defined an adverse drug reaction as "an appreciably harmful or unpleasant reaction, resulting from an intervention related to the use of a medicinal product, which predicts hazard from future administration and warrants prevention or specific treatment, or alteration of the dosage regimen, or withdrawal of the product."

After analyzing each case, the researchers concluded that 57 percent of the adverse drug reactions probably or definitely could have been prevented. The most common side effects resulting in readmission were reactions to aspirin (prescribed to prevent heart attacks or strokes) or diuretics (prescribed for the treatment of high blood pressure or heart failure).

Not all drug reactions in the study caused hospital readmission, but all required medical treatment. A total of 73.3 percent were classified as low severity, necessitating only minor treatment; 24.7 percent were classified as moderate, requiring a moderate increase in treatment but causing no lasting damage; 1.91 percent were classified as severe, causing permanent harm, and 0.14 percent were catastrophic, directly leading to a patient's death.

Sources for this story include: www.medicalnewstoday.com; www.healthlinks-events-bpc2009.co.uk.

Before You Take That Antidepressant, Visit This Web Site

2010-01-04T15:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Before-You-Take-That-Antid-by-Martha-Rosenberg-100103-313.html

January 3, 2010
Before You Take That Antidepressant, Visit This Web Site
By Martha Rosenberg

With our national love of drugs, sex, celebrities and violence you'd think SSRIstories.com would be more popular.

The 12-year-old web site lists 3,500 crime related news reports linked to the use of SSRI antidepressants with celebrities like Wynona Ryder, Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, Anna Nicole Smith, Heather Locklear, Glen Campbell, Carrie Fisher, Sharon Osbourne, Phil Hartman, Princess Di's driver, Patrick Swayze's Sister, O.J. Simpson and the Crown Prince of Nepal generously sprinkled in.

You can search and sort stories by drug--Lexapro, Celexa, Luvox, Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil and the related Effexor and Cymbalta--date, location, type of violence and the articles about school shootings, famous cases and legal cases won on SSRI defenses are color coded.

You don't even have to read the whole article.

SSRIstories founder and manager Betty Henderson pulls out and boldfaces the story's drug-related citation like Lynyrd Skynyrd harmonicist Mike Caruso's remark that, "the doctor put me on Cymbalta. That turned me manic," and Oklahoma murder suspect Ronson Bush's remark, "I killed my friend when I took these. I'm not going to take them," when offered SSRIs at the Grady County Jail.

The site even has medical journal credibility, cited in an article in the spring 2009 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in which author Joel M. Kauffman, Ph.D wrote, "Since no clinical trial involving multiple homicides is ever likely to be run, no firmer evidence [of SSRI dangers than SSRIstories] is likely to be found."

Pharma and the FDA may still be agnostic about SSRIs causing violence but 700 murders, 200 murder-suicides and 47 postpartum depression cases, including the 2006 case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five children on Effexor, don't lie.

Nor do 51 school shootings incidents including Columbine, where shooter Eric Harris was on Zoloft and Luvox, Red Lake where shooter Jeffrey Weise was on Prozac, and Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University where the shooters were reportedly affected by antidepressants. Nor do hundreds of suicides--including children--lie and veteran-related violence like the May 11 death of five at a combat stress center near Baghdad allegedly committed by Army Sgt. John Russell who was on antidepressants-- eerily presaging the shootings at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Center.

Of course, there have always been murders, suicides, postpartum depression and veteran despondency. But parents killing children, children killing children, children killing parents and people killing their whole families wasn't news-as-usual before SSRIs appeared in 1988 say anti-SSRI advocates.

"There are two cases of women who stabbed a man close to 200 times and a case of a man who stabbed his wife over 100 times and then went next door to the neighbor's house and stabbed the neighbor's furniture about 500 times," says Henderson, a retired teacher who lives in Texas. "There is also a case of a woman close to 80-years-old who stabbed her husband 56 times and then stabbed herself to death. This kind of energy, rage and insanity was not seen before SSRIs."

Just as startling as the ferocity of the SSRI-related violence is its bizarre, often unprovoked nature: A Midwest City, OK woman who accepted a cup of tea from an elderly nurse she had just met--and then strangled her. A 12-year-old boy left in his cousin's car while she shopped at Target--who killed her 5-week-old daughter for no earthly reason.

SSRIs also produce kleptomania as seen with the Ryder/Zoloft case observes Henderson, pyromania as seen in an English millionaire who burned down his own house and immolation suicides and a "strange kind" of nymphomania. "SSRIstories has 10 cases of women school teachers who molested their minor male students. The O'Reilly Factor has said it's receiving one case a week of this same kind of new crime."

Just as dangerous as SSRIs themselves, is withdrawing from them says the site in a prominent warning. "It is important to withdraw extremely slowly from these drugs, usually over a period of a year or more, under the supervision of a qualified specialist."

Henderson began SSRIstories as a message board in 1997 after experiencing side effects to Prozac, prescribed to her to quit smoking, that were so severe she was hospitalized. Soon she was joined by two other anti-SSRI activists, one whose daughter had killed herself on the antidepressants, and they began posting SSRI stories from news sources. Henderson has spoken on the radio and at FDA hearings and the site has been cited by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

But it plays David to the "Goliath" of pharma funded sites like WebMD, emedicine, Medicinet, Righthealth and Everydayhealth with their ubiquitous "Are You Depressed?" ads. In fact Eli Lilly was a founding partner of WebMD according to the Washington Post.

No, SSRIstories just archives 22 years of important drug related stories that the 72-year-old Henderson researches and verifies as a public service.

More of a public service than the FDA which has yet to withdraw the drugs named in the 3,500 stories--or even call them dangerous.

Depopulation by Medicine

2010-01-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

February 2007

Dee Nicholson,
National Communications Director,
Freedom in Canadian Health Care
http://freedomincanadianhealthcare.com
Email: fchc.ca@gmail.com

When we look at modern medicine, we truly discover the depth of depravity of the so-called "Illuminated Ones" behind this New World Order. Not only are they culling the "herd" mercilessly with increasingly toxic food, water, air, and medicine, they are deliberately using pharmaceutical medicines to make us sick, so as to make more money out of "treating" our illnesses before we succumb, while actively suppressing real, proven natural cures.

In fact, the pharma cartel has virtual control over every aspect of health care, despite thousands of peer-reviewed studies showing that, as double Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling stated, every disease can be traced to a nutritional deficiency.

There is much evidence of their goal of aggressive depopulation. From the proven toxicity of literally all pharmaceutical products, to the mustard-gas and radiation based "treatments" for cancer, to the scandal of FDA-approved Aspartame (one of the best ant-killers on the shelf ) being foisted on dieters and diabetics alike, no other conclusion can be drawn.

By far their most effective depopulation tool for over 150 years has been vaccination. Following a concerted effort to establish control over the practice of medicine they have created a perpetually sickened crop of humans who can be used to produce incalculable wealth from contrived illnesses. All this while hiding the truth about what keeps us healthy, and can heal us of just about anything: proper nutrition.

First they made it their business to fund medical schools and institutions, to create "experts" to fill government agencies and advisory panels, to stack public boards and social programs (through the Rockefeller Foundation, among others) in order to ensure that they became the sole credible authority on health and healing. From that point it was easy to convince the masses that vaccinations were safe and effective, despite the stacks of bodies piling up behind their jab campaigns.

Every day we are regaled with commercials and "expert" opinions advising us to bare our arms for the flu shot, or to make sure our children's vaccinations are up to date. In Ontario, it is recommended that infants receive up to 24 injections before age 1. That's 24 injections hit up on a baby body with a barely-formed immune system, which shots contain formaldehyde, Polysorbate 80, methyl mercury, MSG, foreign DNA from monkeys, decaying chicken embryo matter, and lung tissue from aborted human fetuses.

There's a new kid on the block: Gardasil, the Merck invention currently being foisted on pre-menstrual girls as "protection from cervical cancer caused by HPV, human Papilloma virus", which is spread by sexual activity. Governor Rick Perry of Texas just signed an executive order to mandate vaccination with Gardasil of all 11 and 12-year-old girls in his state, essentially assuming they will all be sexually active before entering high school. As atrocious a concept as this is, Canadian health officials are now mulling over making this vaccine available to young Canadian girls.

What's in it? Lots of the aforementioned stuff, and in addition, 225 mcg. of aluminum per shot, with three shots necessary, making a total of 675 mcg. of aluminum per child. Aluminum causes tangles of nerve fibres, leading to Alzheimer's Disease. In addition, Gardasil contains Polysorbate 80, which is linked to infertility in mice.

One very telling point is contained in proposed legislation copying Texas' mandated Gardasil vaccination program, presently before the state legislature of Virginia (HB2035), in this clause: "G. The Commonwealth waives immunity from tortuous liability if a female who is inoculated with the HPV vaccine becomes incapable of naturally conceiving a healthy child carried to live birth or experiences impaired fertility as a result of the HPV vaccine." This waiver clause was rejected by the House. Now, why would it be necessary to protect the state from liability, if there were not some known, realistic basis of concern?

Do you smell the coffee yet?

The Codex Alimentarius Committee, a committee of the World Health Organization, will play the ultimate role in control of worldwide health care, and the complete suppression of health freedom. Other agreements, such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership between Canada, Mexico and the USA, set the stage for international harmonization of health laws that can force the emergency mass vaccination of the entire population of North America at the whim of the trilateral committee.
Bear in mind that under these agreements, nations lose their sovereignty by agreeing to govern according to the wishes of the group they're signed up with, which means that these foreign, unelected committees will decide what's good for us, and to hell with the opinions of the people. In fact, our whole economy is now governed externally, through these agreements, made without benefit of public oversight or consultation.

Organized medicine has become the tip of the Illuminati iceberg that is sinking us all, while the sleeping masses snore. And while they snore, their numbers are being culled, as directed by former World Bank head Robert McNamara, when he said, "One must take draconian measures of demographic reduction against the will of the populations. Reducing the birthrate has proved to be impossible or insufficient. One must therefore increase the mortality rate. How? By natural means. Famine and sickness."

THE DESPERATION OF PHARMA: GET A FLU SHOT, GET A PIZZA PARTY

2010-01-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

http://vactruth.com/2009/12/19/the-desperation-of-pharma-get-a-flu-shot-get-a-pizza-party/

THE DESPERATION OF PHARMA: GET A FLU SHOT, GET A PIZZA PARTY
19 DECEMBER 2009

Fighting Swine Flu With Pepperoni
7 Action News, Detroit
12/17/09
(WXYZ) – The Detroit Health Department is fighting swine flu with pepperoni. When kids return to school after the holiday break, each class has the opportunity to get a free pizza party – if they sign up for the shots.

It’s a simple fact–kids don’t like vaccinations – even when they can get them in a spray.

Their parents, like Leslie Ethridge however, are often eager to get their kids protected, “Your children get 20 some odd inoculations, this is just another one, so if it’s available you should get the shot.”

But when Detroit schools – both public and private– sent home permission slips for students to get H1N1 vaccine at school, the return rate was only about ten percent.

Dr. Walter Davis, Detroit Pandemic Flu Coordinator, told us, “talking to principals and some parents we find that a lot of them are never receiving consent forms.”

The Detroit Health Department has already been working especially hard to get the vaccine into the community.

For instance, today parents attending the Christmas program at the Foreign Language Immersion School on Outer Drive had the chance to get shots for themselves and their children before or after the program.

Mom, Kimberley Wallace said, “This is the easiest for me. This way I don’t have to take them to the doctor’s office, take them out of school or anything so it works out real well.”

But apparently not well enough. So Dr. Davis and his team came up with an innovative idea. They teamed up with Happy’s Pizza. And each class in the city that has a permission slip return rate of 80-percent or more will get a pizza party for the entire class.

According to Neil Master, Director of Advertising for Happy’s Pizza, “Kids love pizza and we love kids in Detroit and we take care of them whenever we can.”

And while the kids may sign up for the pizza, the parents need to know it’s important to sign the forms because flu season isn’t over just because the number of cases have leveled off.

Dr. Davis told us, “With our flu season, the peak is usually in February and it goes into March. I can tell you we will get hit again. We’re in December now. In January and February, the flu will increase tremendously.”

Another mom, L’Tonya Felder got shots for her children, “I think it’s extremely important. It’s important that the Detroit community come together and realize this is important for our health for our protection and we’re combating the h1n1 as well as the regular seasonal flu.”

A Listing of the Twenty-One Fabricated Studies by Dr. Scott Reuben

2010-01-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z025852_anesthesia_drugs_medical_journals.html

March 15 2009
A Listing of the Twenty-One Fabricated Studies by Dr. Scott Reuben
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The health community is up in arms over the discovery that a highly-respected and influential clinical researcher, Dr. Scott Reuben, fabricated the data used in over twenty pharmaceutical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals. Read the full NaturalNews report on this topic here: http://www.naturalnews.com/025833.html

These studies promoted the safety and "benefits" of drugs like Bextra (Pfizer), Vioxx (Merck), Lyrica, Celebrex and Effexor. The lead researcher on these studies, Dr. Scott Reuben, was being paid by Pfizer and Merck, so there's a verified financial connection between this clinical researcher and at least two of the drug companies that benefitted from his fabricated findings. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/h...)

Note carefully the names of the medical journals that published Dr. Reuben's fabricated data (see below). These so-called "science journals" claim to be peer-reviewed, which means these studies were approved by multiple scientists who agreed with the findings.

What this scandal reveals is that even peer-reviewed medical journals cannot be trusted to publish truthful, accurate information about pharmaceuticals. In fact, they are just as much a part of the Big Pharma / FDA conspiracy as the pill-pushing researchers who fabricate these studies, in my opinion.

The only honest medical science journal I've found is PLoS Medicine (http://medicine.plosjournals.org). Everything else I've seen is just tabloid medicalized fiction sandwiched in between pages of false advertising.

And conventional doctors, for all their self-proclaimed intelligence and scientific skepticism, were universally hoodwinked by this faked data! Apparently the best way to convince doctors that a drug is safe and effective is to just invent whatever story you want and submit it to a medical journal, which then gladly publishes it.

If you're looking for a career as a fiction writer, the heck with authoring books sold in the "fiction" section of the local bookstore... just write for medical journals and drug companies! They pay is better and the fiction is even more outrageous!

Speaking of fiction and false advertising, here's a list of studies authored or co-authored by Dr. Scott Reuben who admittedly fabricated at least twenty-one of these studies. Dr. Reuben was recently a faculty member at Tufts Medical School and co-founder of the Orthopedic Anesthesia, Pain and Rehabilitation Society, by the way. You can read more about his fraud in Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id...).

Medical studies authored / fabricated by the shamed Dr. Scott Reuben
Preventing the development of chronic pain after thoracic surgery.
Reuben SS, Yalavarthy L.
J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2008 Dec;22(6):890-903. Epub 2008 May 7. No abstract available.
PMID: 18834790

A prospective randomized trial on the role of perioperative celecoxib administration for total knee arthroplasty: improving clinical outcomes.
Reuben SS, Buvenandran A, Katz B, Kroin JS.
Anesth Analg. 2008 Apr;106(4):1258-64, table of contents.
PMID: 18349203

Update on the role of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and coxibs in the management of acute pain.
Reuben SS.
Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2007 Oct;20(5):440-50. Review.
PMID: 17873597

The effect of initiating a preventive multimodal analgesic regimen on long-term patient outcomes for outpatient anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery.
Reuben SS, Ekman EF.
Anesth Analg. 2007 Jul;105(1):228-32.
PMID: 17578979

Evaluating the analgesic efficacy of administering celecoxib as a component of multimodal analgesia for outpatient anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery.
Reuben SS, Ekman EF, Charron D.
Anesth Analg. 2007 Jul;105(1):222-7.
PMID: 17578978

Preventing the development of chronic pain after orthopaedic surgery with preventive multimodal analgesic techniques.
Reuben SS, Buvanendran A.
J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2007 Jun;89(6):1343-58. Review.
PMID: 17545440

The efficacy of postoperative perineural infusion of bupivacaine and clonidine after lower extremity amputation in preventing phantom limb and stump pain.
Madabhushi L, Reuben SS, Steinberg RB, Adesioye J.
J Clin Anesth. 2007 May;19(3):226-9.
PMID: 17531734

Chronic pain after surgery: what can we do to prevent it.
Reuben SS.
Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2007 Feb;11(1):5-13. Review.
PMID: 17214915

The analgesic efficacy of celecoxib, pregabalin, and their combination for spinal fusion surgery.
Reuben SS, Buvanendran A, Kroin JS, Raghunathan K.
Anesth Analg. 2006 Nov;103(5):1271-7.
PMID: 17056968

Acute post-surgical pain management: a critical appraisal of current practice, December 2-4, 2005.
Rathmell JP, Wu CL, Sinatra RS, Ballantyne JC, Ginsberg B, Gordon DB, Liu SS, Perkins FM, Reuben SS, Rosenquist RW, Viscusi ER.
Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2006 Jul-Aug;31(4 Suppl 1):1-42.
PMID: 16849098

Postoperative modulation of central nervous system prostaglandin E2 by cyclooxygenase inhibitors after vascular surgery.
Reuben SS, Buvanendran A, Kroin JS, Steinberg RB.
Anesthesiology. 2006 Mar;104(3):411-6.
PMID: 16508386

The incidence of complex regional pain syndrome after fasciectomy for Dupuytren's contracture: a prospective observational study of four anesthetic techniques.
Reuben SS, Pristas R, Dixon D, Faruqi S, Madabhushi L, Wenner S.
Anesth Analg. 2006 Feb;102(2):499-503.
PMID: 16428550

The effect of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition on acute and chronic donor-site pain after spinal-fusion surgery.
Reuben SS, Ekman EF, Raghunathan K, Steinberg RB, Blinder JL, Adesioye J.
Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2006 Jan-Feb;31(1):6-13.
PMID: 16418018

Interscalene block superior to general anesthesia.
Reuben SS.
Anesthesiology. 2006 Jan;104(1):207; author reply 208-9. No abstract available.
PMID: 16394719

High dose nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs compromise spinal fusion.
Reuben SS, Ablett D, Kaye R.
Can J Anaesth. 2005 May;52(5):506-12.
PMID: 15872130

More on current issues in pain management for the primary care practitioner. Acute pain: a multi-modal management approach.
Carr DB, Reuben S.
J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother. 2005;19(1):69-70. No abstract available.
PMID: 15814519

The effect of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition on analgesia and spinal fusion.
Reuben SS, Ekman EF.
J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2005 Mar;87(3):536-42.
PMID: 15741619

The prevention of post-surgical neuralgia.
Reuben SS.
Pain. 2005 Jan;113(1-2):242-3; author reply 243-4. No abstract available.
PMID: 15621388

Surgery on the affected upper extremity of patients with a history of complex regional pain syndrome: the use of intravenous regional anesthesia with clonidine.
Reuben SS, Rosenthal EA, Steinberg RB, Faruqi S, Kilaru PA.
J Clin Anesth. 2004 Nov;16(7):517-22.
PMID: 15590255

Preventing the development of complex regional pain syndrome after surgery.
Reuben SS.
Anesthesiology. 2004 Nov;101(5):1215-24. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 15505459

Evaluation of efficacy of the perioperative administration of venlafaxine XR in the prevention of postmastectomy pain syndrome.
Reuben SS, Makari-Judson G, Lurie SD.
J Pain Symptom Manage. 2004 Feb;27(2):133-9.
PMID: 15157037

Analgesic effect of clonidine added to bupivacaine 0.125% in paediatric caudal blockade.
Joshi W, Connelly NR, Freeman K, Reuben SS.
Paediatr Anaesth. 2004 Jun;14(6):483-6.
PMID: 15153211

The perioperative use of cyclooxygenase-2 selective nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs may offer a safer alternative.
Reuben SS, Connelly NR.
Anesthesiology. 2004 Mar;100(3):748. No abstract available.
PMID: 15109000

An evaluation of the safety and efficacy of administering rofecoxib for postoperative pain management.
Joshi W, Connelly NR, Reuben SS, Wolckenhaar M, Thakkar N.
Anesth Analg. 2003 Jul;97(1):35-8, table of contents.
PMID: 12818939

An evaluation of the analgesic efficacy of intravenous regional anesthesia with lidocaine and ketorolac using a forearm versus upper arm tourniquet.
Reuben SS, Steinberg RB, Maciolek H, Manikantan P.
Anesth Analg. 2002 Aug;95(2):457-60, table of contents.
PMID: 12145071

Preoperative administration of controlled-release oxycodone for the management of pain after ambulatory laparoscopic tubal ligation surgery.
Reuben SS, Steinberg RB, Maciolek H, Joshi W.
J Clin Anesth. 2002 May;14(3):223-7.
PMID: 12031758

Intravenous regional anesthesia with clonidine in the management of complex regional pain syndrome of the knee.
Reuben SS, Sklar J.
J Clin Anesth. 2002 Mar;14(2):87-91.
PMID: 11943518

Preemptive multimodal analgesia for anterior cruciate ligament surgery.
Reuben SS, Sklar J.
Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2002 Mar-Apr;27(2):225; author reply 225-6. No abstract available.
PMID: 11915075

Evaluation of the safety and efficacy of the perioperative administration of rofecoxib for total knee arthroplasty.
Reuben SS, Fingeroth R, Krushell R, Maciolek H.
J Arthroplasty. 2002 Jan;17(1):26-31.
PMID: 11805921

The preemptive analgesic effect of rofecoxib after ambulatory arthroscopic knee surgery.
Reuben SS, Bhopatkar S, Maciolek H, Joshi W, Sklar J.
Anesth Analg. 2002 Jan;94(1):55-9, table of contents.
PMID: 11772800

Facebook crowdsourced investigation exposes vaccine denials of SIGA Technologies

2010-01-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027483_SIGA_Technologies_vaccines.html

November 13 2009
Facebook crowdsourced investigation exposes vaccine denials of SIGA Technologies
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) When you publish a hard-hitting story containing links to lots of little-known documents, you never know what kind of bizarre blow-back you'll receive. The latest episode of reactive strangeness occurred following our publication of the story about SIGA Technologies and the conflicts of interest found in Dr. Mehmet Oz's holding of 150,000 option shares in that company (http://www.naturalnews.com/027451_D...) even while pushing vaccines on TV. Shortly after publishing this article, NaturalNews was contacted by a public relations firm called KCSA Strategic Communications, which represents SIGA as an "investor relations counsel." (http://www.reuters.com/article/pres...)

The Vice-President of this P.R. company rather forcefully informed us that SIGA Technologies had no involvement with vaccines, and that our reporting of such a false statement was potentially "libelous." They demanded we retract parts of our original story to eliminate any idea that SIGA was involved in vaccines in any way.

That's funny, I thought to myself, because in researching the story, I remember very clearly reading the title of this company's own home page, which reads, exactly:

Smallpox Antiviral, Drug Development and Vaccine Development - SIGA Human BioArmor

This is found in the title tag of their home page, www.Siga.com -- or at least it was as of this writing. (They will likely change the title as soon as this story hits the 'net, but I saved a copy for safekeeping.)

I don't know about you, but when I read the title of some company's web page, and it says, "Vaccine Development" in plain English, I sort of figure the company must be involved in -- guess what? -- vaccine development!

But no, I was told. That's completely wrong. SIGA Technologies had nothing to do with vaccine development. They only make anti-virals, we were told. Nothing to do with vaccines. Nothing. Nada.

So I took a moment to search a little deeper into their home page, and within less than five seconds, I found these keywords in their meta keywords tag:

Smallpox Antiviral, Smallpox Drug Development, Smallpox Vaccine Development, Infectious Disease Development, Biological Warfare Terrorism... [and so on]

Now, maybe I'm just seeing things because I haven't yet been vaccinated against H1N1, so perhaps I'm suffering from double vision or something, but when I see "Smallpox Vaccine Development" in a company's home page title tags, I sort of figure that company is somehow involved in -- wait for it -- smallpox vaccine development!

But no. The P.R. consultant for this company said I was totally off base, and that they had nothing whatsoever to do with vaccine development. The exact quote we were given on the phone was, "SIGA Technologies has nothing to do with vaccines..."

Well, maybe not, except for the fact that they claim to develop them right on their home page.

Crowdsourcing more research
In any case, I wasn't waiting around for these people to get their story straight, so I went to my Facebook page (http://facebook.naturalnews.com) where really cool NaturalNews fans hang out and discuss important subjects, and I posed this question to them: "Hey, this company SIGA is claiming they have nothing to do with vaccines. Can you find any additional documents demonstrating they do?"

This "homework assignment" was deemed altogether too easy for the NaturalNews Facebook crowd. It took them mere minutes to come up with all sorts of additional documents proving beyond all doubt SIGA Technologies' involvement in vaccine development.

For example, they found this description of SIGA Technologies on Hoovers.com (http://www.hoovers.com/siga-technol...), a Dunn & Bradstreet company, which says: (emphasis added)

"SIGA Technologies is trying to put itself on the front lines of US biodefense efforts. The drug company has a number of development programs for vaccines, antivirals, and antibiotics for drug resistant infections; however, its main focus is on vaccines for bio-defense. The company's smallpox vaccine ST-246, which is intended both to prevent and treat the disease, has received Fast Track and Orphan Drug designations from the FDA. SIGA is also developing vaccines for use against hemorrhagic fevers and other infectious diseases and biothreats."

NaturalNews Facebook team members also discovered this Yahoo Finance link (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SIGA) which describes SIGA Technologies as "...a biotechnology company [that] engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of anti-infectives, antibiotics, and vaccines for the prevention and treatment of serious infectious diseases."

Continuing with the financial research, this company profile at Morningstar.com (one of the leading financial ratings companies) describes SIGA Technologies as "...developing vaccines that may prevent strep throat and periodontal disease."

Our Facebook group also found this quote from Bloomberg.com, which describes SIGA as follows: (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote...)

"SIGA Technologies, Inc. discovers and develops vaccines and antibiotics for the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of infectious diseases.

Once again, I don't know about you, but when I read that a company "develops vaccines and antibiotics," I sort of figure that those words mean... well, the company develops vaccines and antibiotics. The point of using words, after all, is that they carry some sort of consistent meaning so that when person A says "vaccines" then person B can magically hear "vaccines" and understand what's trying to be communicated.

But maybe SIGA operates in an alternate universe where the word "vaccines" doesn't mean "vaccines" and instead means the opposite of vaccines. Sort of like vaccine antimatter.

Maybe they're developing vaccines in conjunction with the physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, accelerating and smashing vaccine materials in order to find Dark Matter Vaccines that don't exist, and that's what they were really talking about. So when their P.R. person said they were NOT developing vaccines, maybe she really meant they were developing "NOT vaccines." (Get it? Like antimatter vaccines...)

It's tricky to deconstruct their claims, actually. As a bit of a linguist myself, I like to think that words convey fairly consistent meaning, but this SIGA public relations rep was essentially telling me that "vaccine development" doesn't really mean vaccine development. It's difficult to talk to people when they keep changing the definitions of the words they use.

Vaccines, vaccines and more vaccines
About this time, the research results from the Facebook group really started to pour in (yes, what we've printed above is just a fraction of the links we received from Facebook members).

We received these links about SIGA Pharmaceuticals being involved in vaccine patents with the U.S. Army (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1...), and how they developed a cancer vaccine (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1...), and how they have an amazing new vaccine delivery system (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1...). The headline of that story is, "SIGA Technologies Reports Successful Trials for Vaccine Delivery System."

SIGA even received a $3 million research grant from the NIH just two months ago (http://www.globenewswire.com/newsro...). This award is described with the news headline, "Company to Research ST-246 as a Treatment for Adverse Reaction to Smallpox Vaccine." That announcement goes on to describe how ST-246 is used "as an adjunct to the current smallpox vaccine for prevention of smallpox vaccine-related adverse events."

Another press release from 2003 declares, "SIGA Technologies, Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Assets of Plexus Vaccine Inc." (http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms...). This indicates, of course, that SIGA acquired assets of a vaccine company, and those assets -- I'm just taking a wild guess here -- probably have something to do with vaccines.

A search on SIGA Technologies' corporate officers (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stoc...) reveals that the company's Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Dennis E. Hruby, "...specializes in virology and cell biology research, and the use of viral and bacterial vectors to produce recombinant vaccines."

Here's an announcement from 2004, bragging about how high SIGA's stock price has surged due to its smallpox vaccine. From the press release: "The stock of SIGA Technologies Inc. soared Monday after the biotechnology company reported favorable results for a trial of its smallpox vaccine on mice." (http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms...)

That same year, a Marketwatch.com article (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/si...) announces that "Shares of SIGA Technologies rose more than 7 percent... The company said it was named as the prime contractor by the U.S. Air Force to create systems to develop vaccines and therapeutics..."

And then there's SIGA's patent. As this BusinessWire story announces [emphasis added], "SIGA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that a United States patent covering its strep throat vaccine technology has been granted to The Rockefeller University. SIGA is the exclusive licensee to the patent." (http://www.accessmylibrary.com/arti...).

The actual patent text from 2001 (click here to read) cites SIGA Vice President Dennis E. Hruby as one of the inventors. It includes 18 mentions of the word "vaccine" and is all about vaccine-related technologies and processes.

As you can see for yourself -- and there's much more to come, below -- for SIGA to claim they don't have anything to do with vaccines is sort of like PepsiCo claiming they don't have anything to do with soft drinks.

SIGA admits to vaccine development in SEC filing
It gets even better. We've barely scratched the surface of all the fascinating documents to be found on SIGA Technologies and their vaccine research project.

Here's SIGA's own 2003 filing with the SEC: http://investor.siga.com/secfiling....

In this document, they admit in plain English:

"SIGA is a development stage biotechnology company incorporated in Delaware on December 9, 1996. We aim to discover, develop and commercialize vaccines, antibiotics and novel anti-infectives for serious infectious diseases. Our lead vaccine candidate is for the prevention of group A streptococcal pharyngitis or "strep throat." We are developing a technology for the mucosal delivery of our vaccines which may allow those vaccines to activate the immune system at the mucus lined surfaces of the body..."

And then, in another section entitled, "Vaccine Technologies: Mucosal Immunity and Vaccine Delivery," SIGA Technologies goes on to explain:

"Our vaccine candidates use genetically engineered commensals to deliver antigens for a variety of pathogens to the mucosal immune system... Our commensal vaccine candidates use Gram-positive bacteria... We believe that mucosal vaccines developed using our proprietary commensal delivery technology could provide a number of advantages..."

I won't bore you with all the sentences in which SIGA Technologies discusses vaccines in their 2003 SEC filing document. Suffice it to say that I counted the number of times the word "vaccine" appears in the document, and it comes to a grand total of 105.

And just in case you think this particular document is some sort of fluke (or was planted there by the SEC in a conspiracy to fool the world into mistakenly thinking SIGA is involved in vaccine development), here's another SEC filing that includes this interesting sentence: (http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...)

"SIGA Technologies, Inc. is a development stage company with interests in biotechnology and the Internet. Siga Research Labs, (SRL), our biotechnology division, is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of vaccines, antibiotics and novel anti-infectives for serious infectious diseases. SRL's lead vaccine candidate is for the prevention of group A streptococcal pharyngitis or 'strep throat.'"

If you want more examples (believe me, there are hundreds), here's a page from EvaluatePharma.com (a research site for the biotech sector) (http://www.evaluatepharma.com/Unive...) which details SIGA's financials for 2006, 2007 and 2008, then goes on to describe SIGA Technologies as having a "Chlamydia Trachomatis Vaccine Program", a "Periodontal Vaccine", a "Smallpox Vaccine Program" and a "Strep Throat Vaccine."

Again and again... vaccines!
The funny thing is that these published news stories, press releases, research documents and SEC filings all have two words in common: SIGA and Vaccines. There's that pesky word again... vaccines. It just won't go away when you're researching SIGA. In fact, it strangely shows up with a very high frequency for a company that so adamantly claims to have nothing at all to do with vaccines.

Their denials just boggle the mind. It sort of reminds me of President Clinton's slicing and dicing of the English language in the midst of the Lewinsky saga when he actually questioned what the meaning of the word "is" was. (Classic, huh? Gotta hand it to him...)

So we asked the P.R. rep about this, and she actually tells us -- get this -- that "There is no SIGA Pharmaceuticals... only SIGA Technologies!"

Sort of like "there is no spoon" from The Matrix. That's when I pointed out this link that explains SIGA Pharmaceuticals changed their name to SIGA Technologies: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/...

The headline reads, "SIGA Pharmaceuticals Changes Name to SIGA Technologies."

It's fairly straightforward. Not much wiggle room in that statement.

The P.R. rep kept talking. She said that SIGA underwent a management change way back in 2001 and since then they haven't been involved in vaccines.

Plain English translation
Got that? No vaccines since 2001. So why, then, do we find all these articles from 2003 and 2004 talking about vaccines? Case in point: An article in 2003 declares, "SIGA Technologies, Inc. Announces Positive Results in Safe Smallpox Vaccine Development." (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-100...)

The SEC document cited above (http://investor.siga.com/secfiling....), which says, " We aim to discover, develop and commercialize vaccines, antibiotics and novel anti-infectives for serious infectious diseases. Our lead vaccine candidate is for the prevention of group A streptococcal pharyngitis..." was filed in 2003!

Importantly, note that these documents are all written in plain English. The words "Smallpox Vaccine Development" actually mean in English, believe it or not, "Smallpox Vaccine Development."

I know this for a fact because I went to the Google translation tool (http://translate.google.com/transla...), and chose an English-to-English translation, then pasted in the words "Smallpox Vaccine Development."

Astoundingly, the translation results came back as "Smallpox Vaccine Development." (http://translate.google.com/transla...)

This same Google tool also verifies that the word "vaccines" translates to, exactly, "vaccines."

At one point, we were so amazed by the insistent denials from SIGA's public relations firm that we just had to come out and ask the obvious question: "Do you categorically deny that SIGA Technologies has no involvement with vaccines?"

Their answer? They hung up on us.

Strange matter and not-so-clever denials
I'm not sure if the hanging up part was a yes or a no. In fact, I'm not even sure the P.R. rep we were talking to has any idea what their client actually does. It's one thing to say, "Well, we disagree with your article and we'd like to submit a rebuttal" or something along those lines (which we have published from time to time, depending on the request), but it seems completely outlandish out to call us up and claim the company in question has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines when "vaccine development" is right there on the home page, in perhaps the most important piece of text on any home page -- the title!

The whole thing really left me wondering: What's the real story here? Why would they lie about this?

Seriously. What's so important about distancing themselves from the vaccine projects they have obviously been involved with that they would be so insistent in their denials?

It reminds me of a child who just stole cookies out of the cookie jar, and you spot them in the kitchen with their hands behind their back and cookie crumbs on their lips, and you ask, "Have you been eating cookies?" And they say, "No. Not me." So you ask, "Do you know why the cookies are missing from the cookie jar?" and they answer, with an expression of sudden revelation, "Maybe someone took them!"

Let's imagine for a moment that SIGA Technologies doesn't research vaccines. But then why would they lie on their home page and say they do? Why would they file a report with the SEC claiming they're developing vaccines? Why would press releases, announcements and articles across the 'net explain that SIGA was involved in vaccine patents, vaccine testing, vaccine company acquisitions, vaccine research and vaccine technologies?

Here's an even better question: Why make a story out of a non-story by issuing a thinly-veiled denial that can be proven wrong in 8 minutes searching around on Google? I really had nothing more to write about SIGA Technologies until this denial came our way. It was the denial that made the story. Without the bizarre denial... no story!

In my years as NaturalNews editor, I've received some whacky phone calls. I've been threatened with lawsuits and attacked by hackers. I was even impersonated once by some goon trying to break into the NaturalNews offices. But I've never had a company's P.R. firm call me up and point blank lie to my face with such a flimsy, hilarious lie.

SIGA Technologies needs to get their story straight. If they really have absolutely nothing to do with vaccines, why wouldn't they just email us a statement containing these 8 simple words: "We categorically deny any involvement with vaccines or vaccine technologies." (The mathematically inclined among you will notice there are actually ten words in that sentence. But out of respect to SIGA Technologies, we're not counting "vaccine" or "vaccines.")

I sent them an email, by the way, asking these three simple questions:

1) Will you categorically deny any involvement with vaccines?

2) If so, when did SIGA's involvement with vaccines end?

3) Does SIGA have any plans to be involved with vaccines in the future?

The answer to these three questions? Nothing. Zip. Nada.

This is how the vaccine industry works, by the way: When anyone starts to ask questions, just shut them up and cut off all communication. If there's one thing I've learned in my years as a natural health journalist, it's that asking questions about vaccines is a dangerous business. There are simply too many secrets in the vaccine industry that certain companies don't want made public.

But that's my job: To ask questions. To think critically. To demand some answers on behalf of NaturalNews readers. And to ask for help from the NaturalNews Facebook crowdsourcing team, too, because they're great at coming up with amazing information.

Special thanks go to Brad, Carmine, Cassandra, Elaina, Lynnea, Patricia, Stephen, Josephine, Vanessa and especially Jennifer Lewis (http://fortheloveofmybugs.blogspot.com), who did such an amazing job that she should probably be working as an online private investigator.

Last call
By the way, as a matter of due diligence, NaturalNews made one more phone call to SIGA Technologies in an attempt to get clarification on these questions. A NaturalNews reporter called SIGA, identified herself as a NaturalNews reporter, and asked the phone receptionist if we could speak to someone about SIGA's vaccine development.

We were told -- get this -- that we could talk to their "investor relations" people. Yep... the very same people who had already hung up on us once before.

The real story

This crowdsourcing project shows the power of individual action to make a difference. Without the help of our Facebook fans, this article wouldn't have been possible. Thank you all for your amazing help! And keep up the awesome work to expose the blatant lies of pharmaceutical and vaccine companies.

The real story here, by the way, is how a big public vaccine company with Dr. Mehmet Oz on the Board of Directors tried to threaten and intimidate a tiny independent news organization (NaturalNews) into altering our story but got slapped into the corporate liars Hall of Fame by a crowd of volunteer Facebook fans.

Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products Found in New York City Water Supply

2009-12-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027842_water_supply_toxic_chemicals.html

December 31 2009
Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products Found in New York City Water Supply
by E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has issued support for a proposed law that would require the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City to test the city's drinking water supply for personal care product and pharmaceutical residue. Citing numerous studies that have found measurable levels of such contaminants in water supplies around the nation, EWG is encouraging support for measures that would investigate and report contaminant levels to the public.

Reports have found that the nation's water supplies contain various antibiotics, phytoestrogens and estrogenic steroids, and pharmaceutical and genotoxic drugs. New York City's water supply is no exception. Since these contaminants have the potential to inflict widespread reproductive harm, neuro-degeneration, endocrine disruption, and cell destruction in humans, EWG is urging that New York City monitor contaminant levels and issue annual water quality reports that outline the results. Since most of these contaminants are currently unregulated, they are typically not disclosed in existing water quality reports.

Wastewater treatment facilities are capable of removing most contaminants from water, however a small percentage of fragments make their way back into the water supply. When combined with thousands of other fragments, the aggregate mass of contaminant particles can pose serious health risks. The extent to which such contamination causes harm has yet to be fully understood and observed.

As it currently stands, pharmaceutical drugs are not regulated in tap water. Drinking water is usually not tested for them and, when it is, the results are usually withheld from the public. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have failed to set any guidelines for pharmaceutical content in water. Thus any level of pharmaceuticals in water is considered to be legal.

Perhaps the most important call from EWG is for improvements in wastewater treatment facility technology. Current methods work for certain microorganisms and compounds but fail to adequately filter pharmaceutical drugs and other synthetic compounds from water. Ultraviolet treatment, activated carbon treatment, and ozonation are some of EWG's suggestions for updating filter technology.

The goal of EWG is to promote water pollution reduction strategies that include raising public awareness about the issue, gathering and disseminating regular water quality data, and working to implement mitigation strategies both in the short and long terms.

Installing a home reverse osmosis system is a great way to ensure that one's family is receiving clean water. Reverse osmosis is highly effective at purifying water, removing virtually every known particle and contaminant. It also removes chlorine, fluoride, and other toxic substances added to many municipal water supplies that would otherwise pass through most other water filtration systems.

Small Community Cancer Cure Crushed by Big Pharma, Part III

2009-12-31T12:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027835_cancer_cure_remedies.html

December 31 2009
Small Community Cancer Cure Crushed by Big Pharma, Part III
by Paul Fassa, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) The Medical Monopoly rashly marginalizes empirical (observed) cures as anecdotal (just stories). Yet their scientists have been caught often with faulty testing parameters and doctored results. Ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic (India) medicines are still safely efficacious today. They managed without double blind tests or cruel experiments on animals.

After determining certain human and herbal attributes, they observed the results of applications on humans empirically. The same is true of indigenous healers. An American Native medicine man gave the world Essiac Tea for curing cancer 110 years ago.

So what about Rick Simpson's successful cancer cures in Nova Scotia with THC, the banned active ingredient of hemp oil? Several modern medical scientific reports support Rick's empirical evidence of THC for medicinal purposes.

Medical Marijuana Use

Hemp with THC has a medical history of 5000 years. THC extracts were sold in American pharmacies until the 1930's. Then opiate based pharmaceuticals began taking over the market place.

Over the past few decades, medical marijuana has emerged slightly for some medicinal uses. Since 1972, more and more physicians actually promote it. There were many cases of chemo sufferers managing better and glaucoma victims maintaining painless eyesight with marijuana.

Today the Federal Government's harassment makes it very difficult for individual states that want to allow medical marijuana. Many individuals who need cannabis medically have to go underground and risk harsh drug enforcement, or do without and suffer.

Some Scientific Contributions

The American College of Physicians (ACP) recently endorsed non-smoked THC in an effort to reverse the USA Federal Government's stance on medical cannabis. The Philadelphia based ACP is the second largest physician's association in the USA.

Dr. Mark Sircus of Brazil asserted, "THC should be included in every cancer protocol." He cites the fact that cannabinoids of THC are able to penetrate all body barriers, making it effective if taken orally.

Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya also endorses THC for medical purposes. His method of applying hemp oil from a hot air vaporizer avoids the irritating, toxic byproducts of smoking.

Dr. Manuel Guzman's research team at Madrid's Complutense University discovered in animal studies that the less potent synthetic THC can selectively induce cell death in brain cancer tumors while healthy cells remain unharmed. This was reported in the journal Nature Medicine in 2000.

At the University of Milan in Naples, Italy, researchers reported in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics that even non-psychoactive compounds in marijuana inhibited the growth of brain cancer cells, selectively killing malignant cells through apoptosis (cellular suicide).

Other Positive THC Reports

Dr. Robert Ramer and Dr. Burkhard Hinz of the University of Rostock in Germany, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance Access December 2007 that medical marijuana can be an effective treatment for cancer.

Also in 2007, a Harvard Medical School study showed marijuana cutting lung tumor growth in half.

Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine, has determined cannabinoids/THC affect several biological functions positively, and can lead to "... a new road to therapy against lung cancer."

There are even more studies hidden from public awareness. A most revealing irony was from a Virginia study funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system. Instead, what they found was that marijuana slowed the growth of lung cancer, breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) promptly shut down the Virginia study from further cannabis/cancer research.

Antidepressants increase risk of stroke and death

2009-12-31T12:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027841_SSRI_drugs_strokes.html

December 31 2009
New SSRI warning: antidepressants increase risk of stroke and death
by S. L. Baker, features writer

(NaturalNews) As NaturalNews previously reported (http://www.naturalnews.com/027054_d...), the U.S. is a nation on mind altering antidepressant drugs. An astounding number of Americans, some 27 million, are now taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.

As a handful of doctors and researchers tried to warn the medical community and the public over a decade ago when these drugs began to soar in popularity, SSRIs can affect the brain and body in a host of detrimental ways. For example, evidence has accumulated that these drugs can induce suicidal and murderous actions in teens and cause young women to drop dead from heart arrhythmias (http://www.naturalnews.com/025811.html). And now there's another danger to add to the list. A huge study of over 136,000 women concludes SSRIs significantly increase the odds of stroke and death in women after menopause.

Far more likely to suffer strokes when on SSRI drugs
The new findings, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded, multi-institution Women's Health Initiative Study, were just published in the December 14 online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Principal investigator Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., division head of epidemiology and professor of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed data from 136,293 women between the ages of 50 and 79 who were not taking antidepressants when they enrolled in the study. They were followed for about six years.

Data from 5,496 women who were taking antidepressants at their first follow-up visit were then compared with data from 130,797 women not taking antidepressants at follow-up. The researchers found no difference in the rate of heart disease (which they assessed by how many women had fatal or non-fatal heart attacks). However, they did find a troublesome difference in the occurrence of another potentially deadly health problem.

Antidepressant users were 45% more likely to experience strokes than women not taking the drugs. What's more, when the scientists looked at the overall death rates of the research participants, they discovered that the women taking antidepressants had a 32% higher risk of death from all causes compared to non-users.

It wasn't only SSRIs that raised the stroke risk -- so did the older class of antidepressants known as tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). However, the SSRIs appeared to be even more dangerous than TCAs because they carried a higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke. In other words, the postmenopausal women on SSRIs were more likely to have a stroke caused by bleeding into the brain.

Dr. Wassertheil-Smoller and colleagues noted that even small increases in stroke and death rates can have significant implications for large patient populations. And middle-aged women on SSRIs are a huge patient population. The researchers acknowledged in their statement to the media that antidepressants are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S., especially for postmenopausal women. As a matter of fact, Big Pharma has aggressively pushed the use of SSRIs in recent years as a "treatment" for mid-life hot flashes and mood swings as well as late life depression.

Predictably, in a statement to the media, the researchers defended the use of antidepressants as valuable drugs because depression can be "debilitating or even fatal." Dr. Wassertheil-Smoller stated women who may be concerned about taking their antidepressants based on this study should discuss the matter with their doctors.

The researchers also said "it remains unclear" from their data whether antidepressants are solely responsible for the greater mortality rate among users, claiming that depression itself could be related to the increased stroke and death rates. However, if that's so, then it appears the antidepressant drugs aren't working for the women being treated. After all, logic and common sense suggest if depression is linked causally to stroke, then women taking drugs that supposedly alleviate depression would have their stroke risks lowered, not increased.

Everyday Painkillers Become Addictive After Just Three Days of Use

2009-12-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027840_painkillers_addiction.html

December 31 2009
Everyday Painkillers Become Addictive After Just Three Days of Use
by David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Over-the-counter painkillers that are widely popular in the United Kingdom can become addictive with as little as three days of use, the country's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has warned.

"We are really pleased that the MHRA are now sitting up and taking notice," said Brian Iddon, who chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Misuse when it issued a report on codeine and dihydrocodeine abuse. "It is the hidden addiction, but it is affecting many, many more people than we think."

According to government research, roughly 32,000 people across the United Kingdom are addicted to the opiate painkillers codeine or dihydrocodeine, although Iddon's group warned that this was only the "tip of the iceberg."

The drugs are so addictive that many people have become addicted simply through casual use, never having intended to abuse the products. Some addicts take as many as 70 pills a day, risking severe side effects including depression, gallstones, liver malfunction and stomach bleeding.

Under new rules, all products containing the painkillers must now carry "prominently poised" warnings reading, "Can cause addiction. For three days use only." Such medications can only be sold in packets containing 32 tablets or fewer, and advertisers can no longer promote the products for the treatment of colds and coughs. A parliamentary panel had actually suggested that packets be limited to only 18 pills or fewer.

Women are at higher risk of addiction than men, the MHRA said.

The painkillers in question can be purchased without a prescription when combined with other drugs. Some of these combinations are also available over-the-counter in the United States and Canada.

Health professionals have raised concerns that growing numbers of people are purchasing over-the-counter opiates in bulk from Internet pharmacies, and that many doctors and patients are unaware just how addictive the drugs can be.

Small Community Cancer Cure Crushed by Big Pharma, Part II

2009-12-31T11:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027839_cancer_cures_industry.html

December 31 2009
Small Community Cancer Cure Crushed by Big Pharma, Part II
by Paul Fassa, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) After getting shut down while trying to share his miracle cure of hemp oil with THC for cancer and to impress public officials in Nova Scotia to legalize it, Rick Simpson went public internationally. He posted his rather well done home grown YouTube documentary "Running From the Cure".

The documentary ends with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling that stopped the Maccan community's use of the cannabis oil that cures even cancer. The incredibly useful hemp plant is so maligned by greedy vested interests that growing hemp, even without THC, is commonly outlawed.

Nevertheless, Rick Simpson's THC hemp oil cancer cure has fueled a groundswell of support to legalize the hardy hemp for mankind's benefit.

Welcome to Amsterdam

On November 26th, 2009, Rick was crowned the Freedom Fighter of the Year at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. Ironically, the day before he was been notified that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) wanted to see him when he returned. He knew returning home would keep him from using the only medicine that worked for him as he aged. So he decided to stay in Europe.

Rick felt this was primarily a tactic to keep him away because the authorities had already known what he was doing. He had made offers to freely help others with THC hemp oil public on talk radio. Some RCMP personnel were even sending sick people to Rick for cures!

He regretted not being able to return home for his fellow Canadians, but he had no choice. Though now exiled in Europe, Rick has gained allies internationally. Now the world wide cannabis freedom movement has an empirically proven powerful curing agent as their banner for legalizing hemp with THC.

A Few Facts

As late as the 1930's in North America, medicinal hemp tinctures with THC were available in most pharmacies. Even without THC, hemp is banned in the USA. In the 1940's, cultivating an ecologically friendly crop of hemp was phased out and made illegal. Its many useful and economical applications tell something of the suppression's source:

* Inexpensive non toxic Medicinal applications - Big Pharma and Medical Mafia
* Hemp for oils, fuels, and even safer plastics - Petroleum industry
* Farmers would have an easy cash crop that doesn't require pesticides - Pesticide Industry
* Fast growing hemp can be used in crop rotations to enrich soil for other crops - Fertilizer Industry
* Hemp can be used for textiles and other materials - Cotton growers and synthetic fiber manufacturers.
* Paper can be made from hemp - Lumber industry would rather chop down more trees.
* Hemp oils and seeds are extremely nutritious, virtually super foods - Big Agribusiness.

Those industries have succeeded with killing hemp cultivation in the 1940's, and they intend to keep it that way. Amazingly, Canadians recently managed to get cultivating non-THC hemp allowed for some of the purposes listed above. A concerted grass roots effort managed to achieve that. Unfortunately, small farmers in the USA are still not allowed to cultivate this easy cash crop.

One More Part Coming

Reefer madness propaganda and hippie associations have created powerful stigmas associated with hemp. Many accept the notion of using cannabis with THC for any reason as a gateway to drug addiction, while endorsing the widespread use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and toxic pharmaceuticals, which are often opiate based and addictive.

Hopefully, the last article in this series will present enough credible scientific evidence for major medical applications of cannabis with THC to help you release the dogma attached to hemp and cannabis.

Ritalin Linked With Sudden Death of Children

2009-12-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027833_ritalin_sudden_death.html

December 30 2009
Ritalin Linked With Sudden Death of Children
by E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Research from The National Institute of Mental Health has revealed that popular Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) drugs like Ritalin are responsible for causing sudden death in many children. Study numbers indicate a 500 percent increased risk in childhood death from taking such mental health drugs.

For years, many experts, scientists, and health practitioners have speculated that ADD drugs are dangerous and can cause serious injury and death. Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist and author of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges explained in response to the study that drugs like Ritalin actually destroy the neural function in children's brains. As a result, children who have undergone treatment with Ritalin will actually have a much more difficult time processing information and learning new things.

Brown also notes that Ritalin is responsible for causing a permanent tic in the face, neck, and head of many of the children who have taken or are taking it. Ironically, Ritalin is responsible for causing far more serious neurological damage than the problems it is alleged to treat. Comprehensive studies over the years have revealed that while drugs like Ritalin visibly calm children, these drugs destroy their delicate, developing nervous systems and can permanently cripple their ability to function as normal human beings.

Ritalin remains one of the primary drugs prescribed for children with supposed behavioral problems. Rather than be encouraged to modify diet and increase exercise, children are being given drugs by their doctors instead. Increases in behavioral and learning problems among children have been increasing right alongside escalating levels of environmental toxins. Children are also spending more time at home alone while their parents work, eating greater amounts of junk food, and not getting adequate sleep.

Etta Brown, and others, suggest better nutrition, adequate sleep, and increased exercise and physical activity as a proper treatment for children with behavioral and learning disabilities. Nutrition alone is of vital importance since inadequate nutrient intake is arguably the most significant factor in children's inability to behave and learn. Proper brain function cannot be achieved if the brain is not being fed what it needs to process information and grow.

Parental guidance in regulating and maintaining a proper lifestyle for their children is also vital if true improvement is ever to be achieved. Medical professionals, child psychologists, and others will have to come to grips with the fact that drugs are not the answer to childhood developmental problems.

FDA approves Crestor for people who have no health problem to correct

2009-12-30T05:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/027834_Crestor_marketing.html

December 30, 2009
FDA approves Crestor for people who have no health problem to correct
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Big Pharma has been trending this direction for a long time: marketing medicines to people who don't need them and who have nothing wrong with their health. It's all part of a ploy to position prescription drugs as nutrients -- things you need to take on a regular basis in order to prevent disease.

The FDA recently gave its nod of approval on the matter, announcing that Crestor can now be advertised and prescribed as a "preventive" medicine. No longer does a patient need to have anything wrong with them to warrant this expensive prescription medication: They only need to remember the brand name of the drug from television ads.

This FDA approval for the marketing of Crestor to healthy people is a breakthrough for wealthy drug companies. Selling drugs only to people who are sick is, by definition, a limited market. Expanding drug revenues requires reaching people who have nothing wrong with them and convincing them that taking a cocktail of daily pharmaceuticals will somehow keep them healthy.

All this is, of course, the greatest quackery we've yet seen from Big Pharma, because once this floodgate of "preventive pharmaceuticals" is unleashed, the drug companies will be positioned to promote a bewildering array of other preventive chemicals you're supposed to take at the same time. Did you take your anti-cancer pill today? How about your anti-diabetes pill? Anti-cholesterol pill? Don't forget your anti-Alzheimer's pill, too.

Medications are not vitamins
The very idea that these drugs can somehow prevent a person from becoming sick in the future strains the boundaries of scientific credibility. Only natural therapies like nutrition can prevent the onset of disease, not patented chemicals that don't belong in the human body in the first place.

The logical argument of the drug companies who push these "preventive" prescriptions is essentially that the human body is deficient in pharmaceuticals, and that deficiency can only be corrected by taking whatever brand-name drugs they show you on television. Forget about deficiencies in zinc, or vitamin D, or living enzymes; what your body really needs is more synthetic chemicals!

The FDA agrees with this loopy logic. And why wouldn't it? Subscribing to this pharmaceutical delusion is an easy way to instantly expand Big Pharma's customer base by tens of millions. Overnight, the market for Crestor ballooned from a few million people with high cholesterol to the entire U.S. population of 300 million people.

If Crestor can help healthy people be healthier (which it can't, but let's play along with this delusion for the sake of argument), then it's only a matter of time before they start adding Crestor to infant formula. I mean, why not? If it's so good for healthy people, then it must make babies healthier, too, right?

So let's add Crestor to sports drinks. Let's sprinkle it into the iodized salt supply. Let's drip it into the municipal water! (Don't laugh: This idea of dripping cholesterol drugs into the water supply has already been suggested by more than one doctor.) Let's merge the pharmaceutical supply with the food supply and charge people prescription drugs prices for "functional" foods laced with these chemicals!

Pharmaceutical deficiency
That's really where all this is headed. When medicines are approved as preventive "nutrients" for the human body, it's only a matter of time before the industry starts talking about your "pharmaceutical deficiency."

Not taking any medications? You have a pharmaceutical deficiency, and it needs to be corrected by taking more prescription drugs. But don't bother with actual nutrition, because nutrients have absolutely no role in preventing disease, the FDA claims. No nutrient has ever been approved by the FDA for the prevention or treatment of any disease whatsoever.

The message from the FDA is quite clear on this: Nutrients are useless, and you should eat medications as if they were vitamins.

Patented Big Pharma chemicals, after all, provide all the nutrition you'll ever need! [This is cynicism from the author]

Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity killed Brittany Murphy - Could it be killing millions more?

2009-12-28T16:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027817_acute_pharma_toxicity_Brittany_Murphy.html

December 28 2009
Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity killed Brittany Murphy - Could it be killing millions more?
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) The entire pharmaceutical industry is based on the idea that for whatever's wrong with you, there's a patented chemical pill that can make it better. Feeling some anxiety? There's a pill for that. Have high blood pressure? There's a pill for that, too. Suffering from sleepless nights? There's yet another pill for that, too.

Importantly, modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry both believe there is no limit to how many prescription medications you can simultaneously take. If you have ten health problems, they've got ten different pills for you. And when those pills cause twenty different dangerous side effects, they're ready for twenty more prescriptions for you to dutifully swallow.

This idea that health is achieved by taking prescription chemicals is ludicrous from the start. And yet it's the foundation of the pharmaceutical industry. Take as many pills as you "need", they insist. Don't worry: They're all FDA approved!

This is akin to believing that if it's safe to drive 65mph in your truck, and it's also safe to drive 65mph on your motorcycle, then if you load your motorcycle onto your truck, it's now safe to drive 130mph.

The fatal flaw in the theory behind pharmaceuticals
As you already guessed, there's a fatal flaw in this pharmaceutical approach to sick care: Pharmaceuticals have never been tested in combination with other drugs. So all the so-called "gold standard science" is absolutely worthless at knowing what might happen when half a dozen pharmaceutical drugs are combined in a patient's body. Brittany Murphy may have been on as many as TEN drugs!

Despite the fact that no combination testing has ever been done on pharmaceuticals, they are regularly prescribed in combination. Obviously, this creates a whole new realm of unknown risk based on the way multiple drugs might chemically interact in the human body.

The more pharmaceuticals you take, the more dangerous they become. While one pharmaceutical chemical may at first seem harmless (even though just one drug can actually kill you), when you start adding a second, third, fourth and fifth prescription on top of that, you're dealing with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity (APT) that's never even been tested in clinical trials.

Pharmacists are trained to help people avoid the most toxic two-drug combinations, but they rarely have any real knowledge about what happens when you combine three, four, five or more drugs. No one does. The science has simply never been done on that question. It's no wonder: With all the possible combinations and permutations of pharmaceutical toxicity, it would take literally trillions of clinical trials to test them all.

So this whole idea that you can take a drug to treat one problem, then take a second drug to treat a second problem, and a third to treat a third problem... this entire approach to health care, upon which modern medicine is largely based, is flawed from the start. In clinical trials, patients are tested for one drug at a time. Never five or six (or ten).

So all the clinical trials that have ever been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry need to be thrown out the window for patients who take more than one drug. And that's just about everybody! Ask any senior citizen which prescription drugs they take, and most of them (the ones who can still remember, anyway) will rattle off a shockingly long list of toxic chemicals that have never been tested in combination. Just because one drug in isolation seems "safe" in one trial in no way means it's going to be safe when combined with half a dozen other toxic chemicals taken by the patient at the same time.

The list of drugs taken by Brittany Murphy boggles the mind
According to information leaked to the press, Brittany Murphy was found near prescription medications of all the following drugs:

• Topamax (an anti-seizure medication)
• Methylprednisolone (anti-inflammatory drug)
• Fluoxetine (antidepressant)
• Klonopin (anxiety medication)
• Carbamazepine (bipolar medication)
• Ativan (anxiety medication)
• Vicoprofen (pain reliever)
• Propranolol (hypertension drug)
• Biaxin (an antibiotic)
• Hydrocodone (pain medication)

That's a whopping ten medications that Brittany Murphy may have been swallowing all at once.

Now, you can search PubMed, the National Library of Medicine and the archives of the FDA, and you will never find a single clinical trial testing these ten drugs in combination. It's never been done (and never will be). Big Pharma, you see, isn't interested in finding out what happens when their various drugs are combined in the same patient at the same time. Why? Because they know the results would be disastrous.

The result was certainly disastrous for Brittany Murphy. Her FDA-approved, doctor-prescribed, Big Pharma-promoted combination of toxic drugs appears to have cost her her life.

How many other patients are dying from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? (APT)
Brittany Murphy surely isn't the only Big Pharma customer who has been killed by Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity. But no one knows the actual number because no one keeps track!

The FDA simply doesn't want to know. That's why reporting drug side effects and deaths to the FDA remains entirely voluntary. Big Pharma doesn't want anyone looking too closely at this issue, either. Coroners, for their part, rarely ask about pharmaceuticals as a possible cause of death. Typically, they just blame the death on whatever organ failed, calling it a "heart attack", for example, even when the heart attack might have been brought on by toxic pharmaceuticals.

Imagine if police detectives worked the same way. Investigating a crime scene where someone was thrown from a ten-story window and plunged to their death on the street below, imagine if the detective reported the cause of death as being, "Hitting the ground."

That's the way coroners work with the cause of death in patients killed by pharmaceuticals. They routinely ignore the real cause -- the chemical cause -- and just name whatever organ happened to fail first. "Liver failure" is a popular one. But what caused the liver to fail in the first place? It usually has something to do with Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity.

Why celebrities need real nutrition
I've said it before, but celebrities lead extremely stressful lives. Being a movie star is no easy career choice -- it involves long hours, stressful travel and crazy work schedules.

Sadly, many movie stars have turned to pharmaceuticals to try to keep them functioning through the extreme stresses of a movie shoot. This inevitably leads to devastating consequences.

What professional actors need more than medication is nutrition. Only high-density nutrition can help them cope with the enormous stresses their careers demand. That's why I think more movie stars need to be drinking Boku Superfood, or Living Fuel, or Pure Synergy, or other high-quality superfoods every single day.

I continue to believe that if Brittany Murphy had ditched all those dangerous psychotropic drugs and instead turned to superfoods and high-density nutrition, she'd be alive and well today.

The bigger question in all this, though, is: Could millions of people around the world be dying right now from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? If so, how would we even know?