|
|
|
Alternative Medicine in the News
August 2010 edition 85
published weekly
|
|
Australian courts rule that Vioxx should never have been approved for sale
Australian courts recently ruled that Vioxx, a popular prescription
painkiller, should never have been approved and allowed on the market.
The case represents the world's first successful class action lawsuit
against a drug company for damage caused by its drugs.
Merck,
the drug giant that produced Vioxx, was deemed by the courts as
negligent for failing to properly inform doctors who were prescribing
the drug about the dangers and health risks associated with the drug.
As a result, thousands of patients around the world have suffered
severe injury or death because of Vioxx.
Graeme Peterson, a
59-year-old man represented in the case, was awarded the equivalent of
about $266,000 for injuries inflicted upon him by Vioxx. He suffered a
heart attack from the drug in 2003 that has left him unable to work
since. He took the drug for more than four years, and still keeps a
Vioxx tablet with him as a reminder of what almost killed him.
Though
great for Australians, injured patients in the U.K. have not had the
same success. Norman Lamb, a member of the British Parliament,
explained that he and others have been trying to convince Merck for
years that it should compensate the many British citizens who were
injured by the drug. But Merck continues to deny liability and the
British government has failed to successfully negotiate a settlement.
"Ministers
made promising noises then after a meeting between the Government and
the company they weakened their position. I believe that the ministers
came under pressure from the company and their own civil servants to
shut up," explained Lamb in a U.K. article.
Unfortunately, this
is typically the case with most drug company lawsuits. The Australian
case is a landmark victory that should typify how class action lawsuits
against drug companies are handled and hopefully a similar victory will
one day be achieved for the many British cases of Vioxx injuries.
One
such case involves Raymond Eaton, whose wife died from heart problems
that were likely caused by Vioxx. Mrs. Eaton, who had been suffering
from a severely debilitating form of rheumatoid arthritis, was
immediately prescribed Vioxx upon its release. The drug helped her
pain, but four years later, she suffered a coronary from which she
never recovered. Since she never had any heart problems prior to taking
Vioxx, Raymond is convinced that the drug was responsible.
Over
80 million people around the world were taking Vioxx prior to its being
pulled from the market, and many lawyers from other countries have been
awaiting the outcome of the Australian litigation. The success of the
case established a precedence for Merck's liability due to negligence,
providing a way for the thousands, if not millions, of injured patients
around the world to receive restitution for damages caused by Vioxx.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...
|
|
Yoga & Meditation at Abha Light House
YOGA
Mondays - Wednesdays
5:30 - 6:30
Cost: Ksh 300
4 classes for Ksh 1000
MEDITATION
Tuesdays
6:30 - 7:30
Cost: free!
Welcome!
Call for information: 0710-620323 / 0733-895466
|
|
Quick Links
:: :: ::
We source our articles from the below links. There's a lot of information out there, perhaps you'd like to subscribe directly to these links free e-zines.
Natural News
Emaxhealth.com
Ray Collins Good Life Letter
Hpathy.com
Zeus Info Service
What the Doctors won't Tell You
:: :: ::
Did you miss an earlier edition?
You can visit our archive of previous mini-e-zines. click here
:: :: ::
Why not forward this mini-ezine to a friend or two?
|
|
|
Dying Cancer Patients are Milked for Every Last Dollar
Recent studies and reports have revealed that terminal cancer patients
are frequently given harsh chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatments
long after they have been diagnosed as hopeless. In many instances such
treatments continue until the moment of death. As a result, many cancer
patients are subjected to needless expense and suffering and little
time is left for alternative treatments that otherwise might have saved
their lives.
This March The Oncologist reported that
about one in five dying cancer patients are given chemotherapy within
14 days of their deaths. The report also stated that one-third of
terminal cancer patients are not sent to a hospice until they have less
than three days left to live. Last year, Virginia Commonwealth Massey
reported that 25% of Medicare expenses for terminal cancer patients are
spent in their final month.
A study published last September in the journal Cancer
found that radiation treatments were given to 91 percent of dying
cancer patients. Half of those patients spent more than 60 percent of
their remaining lifespan undergoing radiation treatments and most were
unable to complete their treatments because they died. The study also
found that rather than reducing pain, most often the treatments
actually increased pain.
Perhaps those figures help explain some
other disconcerting figures about cancer treatment in the United
States. For example, the United States spends twice as much per person
for cancer care for the same results as other countries that spend
less. Another example is the fact that oncologist salaries have
increased 86% in the past 10 years even though the number of patient
visits has increased by only 12%. Notably, the large majority of most
oncologists' income is derived from markups on chemo drugs.
Far
too often there may be an even darker side to doctors hanging on to
cancer patients they had given up on besides the needless suffering and
expense: preventing the chance of a cure outside mainstream treatments.
Though not recognized by mainstream medicine, natural and alternative
cancer treatments are often successful when mainstream medicine has
admitted defeat. However, the longer a person is kept on mainstream
treatments the less chance they have of finding success with
alternative treatments.
Radiation destroys the immune system,
especially the bone marrow that lies at the very heart of the immune
system. It is the immune system which heals cancer and keeps it at bay
- not radiation or chemotherapy drugs which merely treat the symptoms
(tumors) of cancer. Radiation and chemo alike often inflict major
damage on healthy cells and organs, further weakening the body and in
many instances causing damage so severe that it ends up killing the
patient. In many forms of cancer more patients die of liver and heart
failure than are saved by chemo or radiation.
Part of the
problem is oncologists' reluctance to tell patients if and when they
have been diagnosed as terminal. Instead, many patients continue to
hear optimistic reports about "response rates", "tumor reductions" and
"cancer control", as they have from the outset. Left untold is that
their oncologist has determined that their cancers are beyond their
ability to control or cure.
Another problem is the willingness
of insurance companies and Medicare to pay for hopeless treatments long
after the doctors have given up hope. The biggest problem, however, is
doctors and the cancer industry failing to treat cancer patients as
human beings. People need and deserve to be told the truth and given
proper care instead of treated as profit centers to be milked of every
dollar possible.
Sources included:
http://theoncologist.alphamedpress....
http://www.tbyil.com/VCU_Cancer_Cen...
http://www.naturalnews.com/028764_c...
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/...
http://www.naturalnews.com/023286_c...
|
Nutrition More Important than Exercise for Weight Loss, Suggests Study
Women who rely on exercise to lose weight are destined to fail, so says a study that appears in the Journal of American Medical Association. Researchers found that exercise alone was useful in maintaining the weight for women, but it had no effect on heavier women.
The
study analysed almost 35,000 women over a period of 15 years. The
scientists found that for women whose BMI was less than 25 kg/m2, there
was a clear dose-response correlation between activity levels and
weight gain. It took one hour's moderate-intensity exercise each day to
avoid the gaining of weight. Exercise did not, however, reduce weight
and did not even maintain weight among women with a BMI from 25 to 29.9
kg/m2 or in those with a BMI of 30.0 kg/m2 or more. This was true
regardless of how much exercise the participants did, with both
exercise and nutritional interventions required to successfully reduce
weight.
"Among women consuming a usual diet, physical activity
was associated with less weight gain only among women whose BMI was
lower than 25," said the study authors. "Women successful in
maintaining normal weight and gaining fewer than 2.3 kg over 13 years
averaged approximately 60 minutes a day of moderate-intensity activity
throughout the study. These data suggest that the 2008 federal
recommendation for 150 minutes per week, while clearly sufficient to
lower the risks of chronic diseases, is insufficient for weight gain
prevention absent caloric restriction."
The findings, while far
from providing an answer to Western society's battle of the bulge, act
as confirmation of what many observers have known for a long time: more
sweat on the treadmill does not necessarily equate a smaller waistline.
Conclusions that exercise has little effect on weight loss are also
premature, as the study did not make any distinction between aerobic
exercise, which can inhibit weight loss through increased cortisol
release, and resistance training, a preferred option for many personal
trainers in improving body composition.
More than anything, the
study backs the importance of a nutritional program in any efforts
relating to bodyweight management. Women who wish to lose weight should
work smart by addressing their nutritional needs before adding exercise
related to their goal. Working smart, it appears, is highly preferable
to working hard.
References:
http://www.nutri-online1.co.uk/Defa...
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle...
|
Fosamax: Bone up on drug dangers and alternatives
The breaking news is that Fosamax, the popular drug for supposed bone
strength, may cause "spontaneous fractures." That means you could end
up like Sandy Potter, 59, of Queens, New York on ABC News who claims she was in excruciating pain when she broke her femur due to jumping rope. Who knew?
Well,
the signs were there: hidden in plain sight. "Fractures" are listed
right on the package insert as a side effect, or in Merck's words, "Low
energy femoral shaft and subtrochanteric fractures." Yeah, we all know
what that means.
"We are seeing people just walking, walking
down the steps, patients who are doing low-energy exercise," said Dr.
Kenneth Egol, professor of orthopedic surgery at NYU Langone Medical
Center. "Very unusual, the femur is one of the strongest bones in the
body."
Egol adds that some of his patient's X-rays from a
minimal fall look more like they came from a car accident and he's
seeing this more frequently.
In my book, Nature's Secret Messages: Hidden in Plain Sight,
I write about "prescriptions for trouble." Here are facts that require
careful consideration before or when taking medications.
1. As Fosamax shows, we don't know the long-term effects of drugs.
It
took 30 to 40 years before we could see the link between cigarette
smoking and lung cancer. Doctors used to endorse cigarettes, along with
some "miracle" drugs that were later discovered to be dangerous and
even deadly.
2. Side effects could be confused as a symptom.
An article published in April 2009 in USA Today
called "Drugs Cause Confusion in Elderly" stated that medications, both
prescribed and over the counter, could impair the elderly. A patient
could actually be given a wrong diagnosis because doctors don't always
recognize the symptoms as a side effect of a drug.
3. Combining meds may lead to a combination of problems.
Researchers
have done very little testing on the effects of combining a variety of
drugs and the serious complications -- even death -- that may follow.
You can probably name several celebrities who died as a result of
combining painkillers, antidepressants, and sleeping pills. But how
often do you hear about celebrities overdosing on herbs?
4. Studies can be unreliable.
The New York Timess
published a lengthy feature article in 2007 about the many ways in
which clinical studies can be seriously flawed. In the words of Karl
Menninger, M.D.: "One of the most untruthful things possible, you know,
is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many
different ways."
5. What about the side effects to the planet?
The
more drugs we take, the more drugs our bodies excrete in waste, and the
more they make their way into sewers and eventually into the
environment. Research2 suggests that some of these drugs (as well as
toxic substances in cleaning materials, shampoos, cosmetics and other
personal-care products) can harm fish and other animals living in our
waterways, which in turn can affect us.
Too often, our default
is to pop a pill instead of trying a natural remedy first -- even
though certain foods and herbs are quite often just as effective as
drugs (if not more so) and may not have the nasty side effects.
A
50 year-old colleague took a bone scan for the last four years and her
doctor was shocked to see that her bones were becoming stronger each
year while she was growing older. Her secret? Was she on medications?
No. Was she eating a lot of milk and cheese? No. She actually went off
of all dairy products. She went on an internal cleanse, eliminated junk
foods, and started eating nature's foods. Make bones about it -- when
the body is nourished, active, and working well, it can have more
energy to repair and rebuild itself.
I offer a bone growth
supplement system on my web site because the company, Garden of Life,
gives a "grow bone challenge" for stronger, healthier bones or they'll
give double your money back if you qualify! They make you this amazing
offer because they're so confident in the Grow Bone System's ability to
build bone density by using natural whole food minerals to create bone growth.3
Also
consider using acupuncture, which originated in ancient China, and is
now widely used in the West as well as chiropractic, massage, Qigong,
Healing Touch and yoga. These all have side effects that activate the
natural healing processes of the body and restore physical and
emotional well-being.
Nature's food and natural remedies can be
powerful drugs -- hidden in plain sight. You and your health care
practitioner may want to consider nature's four billion years of wisdom
to help you in all areas of your life, and then decide if medication is
truly needed.
Sources:
1. Taubes, G., "Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?" The New York Times, September 16, 2007.
2.
Critser, G., Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering
American Lives, Minds, and Bodies. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
3. http://www.ElaineWilkes.com
|
Natural Birth Control: Use Hot Water and Papaya Seeds
In today's society, much of the burden of birth control involves
chemicals, drugs and often falls upon the women. However, it turns out
the key to birth control might be better placed on men. And the good
news is, you don't have to look any further than hot water and papaya
seeds.
It turns out that sperm don't like heat and by bathing, or simply submerging the testes, in 116 degrees water (just below
the pain threshold) for forty five minutes each day for 21 days, a male
becomes sterile for the next six months. Doing this at 110 degrees
reliably produces sterility for the next four months and either way, it
can be repeated for continued effectiveness when the allotted time is
up. This method dates back to the writings of Hippocrates and derives
its effectiveness from the fact that sperm needs to be several degrees
cooler than body temperature to be viable; this is why they hang
outside the body. Actually, sperm cell death happens at 95 degrees F,
while normal cell death happens at 108 degrees F - so this method
effectively kills the sperm for a limited but extended period of time.
In
addition, papaya seeds have been found to completely remove the sperm
from a male monkey's ejaculation. Rats have also been tested with a
compound from papaya seeds and found to have "significantly reduced"
sperm counts. At higher levels of ingestion, the rats became completely
infertile. The rats' researchers then declared the long term, daily use
of compounds from papaya seeds to be a safe and effective male
contraceptive.
Rabbits have also been studied with extracts from
papaya seeds. After three months of daily use, the rabbits were found
almost completely infertile. The extract showed no effect on their
libido or organs - and the contraceptive effects were completely
reversible after 45 days of non-use.
Traditional cultures in
Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia have long eaten papaya
seeds as an effective and safe contraceptive. It appears a teaspoon of
the seeds per day is what traditional cultures use - and it takes three
months of use to be fully effective. Papaya seeds have been studied
more frequently on males than females as a form of contraception, but
traditional cultures have used papaya seeds for both male and female
contraception.
For a simple papaya seed drink:
Blend 1/2
papaya, 2 or 3 bananas and 20-40 papaya seeds. Add a little stevia for
sweetness, if desired. Other fruit can be substituted, as desired.
Some
Hawaiian papaya these days is genetically modified, so purchase papaya
that wasn't grown in Hawaii or simply buy organic. Papaya seeds are
also antibacterial, help with parasitic problems, and are rich in
enzymes.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_c...
http://www.newmalecontraception.org...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...
http://www.asiaandro.com/archive/jo...
http://www.malecontraceptives.org/m...
|
|
Seventy million expired flu vaccines about to be incinerated as waste
Forty million doses of H1N1 swine flu vaccine are about to go up in
flames, and another 30 million will soon meet the same fate. They've
expired, you see, and despite the CDC's best efforts to push flu
vaccines on the American people, the industry still couldn't find a way
to offload seventy million doses of a vaccine that doesn't even work.
So crank up the incinerators! When it comes to flu vaccines in the USA,
it turns out we all got burned.
I could have told you
this was coming. Actually, myself and a long list of other natural
health authors, doctors and independent journalists did tell you this
was coming. We warned over a year ago that the swine flu pandemic was a
hoax, and that the CDC and WHO were fanning the flames of a this false
pandemic in order to increase demand for H1N1 vaccines that would
inflate the profits of their corporate masters (the drug companies).
What
we didn't know at the time was how deep the corruption at the CDC and
WHO really goes. It turns out that key advisors in both organizations
were on the take from Big Pharma, collecting cash payments even
as they pushed for a global declaration of a pandemic that never
appeared. This was more than a mere statistical error or "guessing on
the safe side" -- this was a planned conspiracy to create
demand for vaccines by scaring the public into taking a drug that the
industry already knows doesn't even work. The WHO still won't release
the names of the discredit scientists who urged it to declare a stage
six pandemic.
Why the secrecy? Because the WHO doesn't want
journalists looking into the financial ties between its advisors and
the drug companies. And that's because they're all on the take. This entire charade was nothing more than pseudoscientific orgy of profit
orchestrated to exploit the fears and health ignorance of the
population for the sole purpose of generating money for powerful
corporations.
Street hustlers of the health world
And it worked. World governments spent billions of dollars
on H1N1 flu vaccines, many of which now need to be incinerated at
additional taxpayer cost. The magnitude of theft of public dollars that
took place under this H1N1 fiasco is simply staggering. This was one of the greatest public health swindles ever pulled off.
In all, we're talking about close to half a billion dollars in public money that has been utterly wasted on flu vaccines that never even worked in the first place.
Yes, you read that right: Flu vaccines don't work.
Not a shred of evidence exists that they work any better than placebo.
In fact, all the available evidence that I've been able to find shows
that the H1N1 flu vaccine was never even scientifically tested in a
legitimate clinical trial.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government
spent nearly half a billion dollars on these quack vaccines -- money
that's now going up in flames, wasted on yet another public health scam
but at the same time fattening the wallets of the Big Pharma CEOs and
shareholders who profited handsomely from this charade.
You have
to admit, it was a clever hustle. Street magic hustlers couldn't have
done it any better: The CDC, WHO, drug companies and mainstream media
pulled off their multi-billion-dollar scam with stunning effectiveness.
The news was shaped, the statistics were distorted (or outright made up
and then called "official"), the science hallucinations were properly
marketed to health professionals, and levels of fear were stoked into a
raging fury that led to mindless purchases of useless vaccines that are
now utterly worthless. Actually they're worse than worthless: They are
a liability where money must now be spent to dispose of them.
The
whole scam was downright brilliant... in an evil sort of way. And still
today, the health authorities who pulled this off claim they did
nothing wrong! They insist they all acted in your interests
even though the only parties who benefitted from their actions were the
drug companies who profited from the vaccine scheme. Meanwhile, you and
all your tax-paying neighbors will ultimately foot the bill for this.
Bend over again
But don't put away your checkbook just yet: The vaccine industry plans to pull off the very same scam this coming Fall. It worked once already, right? Why not gouge the public again?
Get
ready for another big season of quack vaccine science, influenza scare
stories and arrogant health officials urging everybody to go get
vaccinated as soon as possible. And during all this, they won't dare
tell you about vitamin D, or immune boosting herbs, or sunlight therapy
or anything that can actually improve your health for free (or nearly
free). Instead, they want you to keep playing their "vaccine sucker"
game where you pony up twenty bucks to get jabbed in the arm with a
drug they already know won't really help you at all.
There's more to this story
If
you want to know just how deep the rabbit hole goes with this story,
read this shocking article on flu vaccine fraud by Richard Gale and Dr.
Gary Null: http://www.naturalnews.com/029124_f...
It
reveals things about the vaccine industry that you never could have
imagined -- things like the financial payoffs, the secret experts who
decide when to issue a pandemic alert, the science that proves flu
vaccines don't work, the failure of the vaccine industry to reveal the
real results of their clinical trials, and much more.
It is a
truly shocking (and disturbing) story about what really goes on in the
vaccine industry. Click the story link here to read it for yourself: http://www.naturalnews.com/029124_f...
Sources for this story include:
CNS News: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/68848
|
Damaged brains rewired by singing
The damaged brains of stroke patients can be "rewired" by singing,
restoring the ability to speak to patients who have lost it, according
to a study conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School and
presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in San Diego.
The findings came out of an
ongoing trial in which stroke patients who have lost the ability to
speak are treated with music therapy and taught to put words into
simple melodies that they tap out with their hands. According to
Schlaug, patients who had previously been unable to form any words at
all became able to say "I am thirsty" after just one session.
Music
has been used as a form of therapy for stroke patients since the
discovery that damage to the brain's speech centers did not affect the
ability to sing.
"People sometimes ask where in the brain music
is processed and the answer is everywhere above the neck," said
Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego.
"Music engages huge swathes of the brain - it's not just lighting up a spot in the auditory cortex."
Speech
and movement are mostly controlled from the left side of the brain,
making them vulnerable in the case of damage to that side.
"But there's a sort of corresponding hole on the right side," Schlaug said.
"For
some reason, it's not as endowed with these connections, so the left
side is used much more in speech. If you damage the left side, the
right side has trouble [filling that role]."
Putting words into song, however, appears to stimulate the formation of speech connections on the brain's right side.
"Music
might be an alternative medium to engage parts of the brain that are
otherwise not engaged," lead researcher Gottfired Schlaug said.
Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.stm.
|
Conventional prostate cancer treatments increase risk of blood clots by 250 percent
A recent study published in The Lancet Oncology has found that
men with prostate cancer are twice as likely as healthy men to suffer a
blood clot, and those with the disease who undergo certain conventional
treatments are at an even greater risk.
The study involved
76,000 Swedish men who were evaluated based on the number of cases of
deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism and arterial embolism
that occurred. Participants on hormone therapy were twice as likely to
suffer a pulmonary embolism and two-and-a-half times more likely to
have DVT than those who did not receive the treatment.
Similar
results were observed for those receiving curative prostate cancer
treatments. Pulmonary embolism risk doubled as a result of the
treatment while DVT risk increased by 173 percent.
Scientists
cannot explain how having prostate cancer alone increases the
likelihood of a patient suffering from a blood clot, but they do know
that conventional treatments increase the risk even more. Some even
suggest that the treatments themselves are fully responsible for
causing clots.
According to reports, up to 50 percent of all
patients treated in a hospital are at risk of developing a blood clot
in their legs. The clots can spread throughout the body and end up in
places like the lungs where they can cause serious damage.
Some
symptoms of a leg blood clot include considerable swelling and/or pain
in the calf or thigh. There may also be a heat sensation in the leg and
it may turn red or purple. Patients should contact their doctors
immediately if they suspect a blood clot.
Prostate cancer
patients on these therapies may wish to consult with their doctors
about alternative treatment options. Though many supposed experts
disagree, there are alternative methods to fight prostate cancer that
are effective and that don't destroy the rest of the body along with
the disease.
Just last December, experts at the American
Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Frontiers in Cancer Prevention
Research Conference, shared the results of three recent studies on
natural ways to treat and prevent cancer, which included a study on
hops, another on coffee and another on exercise.
Saw palmetto,
walnuts, tomatoes and pomegranates have all been studied and found to
fight prostate cancer as well. A diet composed of a variety of
nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts and healthy oils will
work to combat the disease.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li...
|
|
|
|
Medical Disclaimer:
The information contained within does not take the place of medical diagnosis or
prescription. See your health care provider in case of sickness.
Editorial Disclaimer: Publication of these articles are to promote food for thought. The opinions expressed in these articles may not be the opinion of editors.
|
|
|
