The Supreme Court closed the courthouse door Tuesday to parents who want to sue drug makers over claims that their children developed autism and other serious health problems from vaccines. The ruling was a stinging defeat for families dissatisfied with how they fared before a special no-fault vaccine court.

The court voted 6-2 against the parents of a child who sued the drug maker Wyeth in Pennsylvania state court for the health problems they say their daughter, now 19, suffered from a vaccine she received in infancy.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said Congress set up a special vaccine court in 1986 to handle such claims as a way to provide compensation to injured children without driving drug manufacturers from the vaccine market. The idea, he said, was to create a system that spares the drug companies the costs of defending against parents' lawsuits.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Nothing in the 1986 law "remotely suggests that Congress intended such a result," Sotomayor wrote, taking issue with Scalia.

Scalia's opinion was the latest legal setback for parents who felt they got too little from the vaccine court or failed to collect at all.

Fears concerning the possible dangers of prolonged cell phone use won't go away, despite numerous studies showing no conclusive link between cell phones and brain tumors or cancer.

Now new data from the National Institutes of Health suggesting that cell phone radiation boosts brain activity is poised to stir the debate even further.

Researchers used PET scans to measure brain activity in 47 participants when they had cell phones held to their ears in both off and on but muted positions and found that exposure to an in-use cell phone for more than 50 minutes increased brain activity by about 7 percent in the regions closes to the antenna.

You've probably heard about the bad rap vitamin D has been getting lately. The argument goes something like this... the vitamin D crisis isn't as bad as we thought. You probably don't need as much of it as we thought. But it's a free country. So go ahead and take 400 IU of it per day, if you want. That's more than enough. Just don't go over 4,000 IU per day. "High doses" like that can increase your risk for "harm"

These new guidelines come from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (or IOM), a powerful non-profit agency that advises the nation of matters of health. But here's the problem: Their report is pure propaganda.

In fact, I believe these low doses of vitamin D are a deliberate attempt to keep the American public needing more drugs until the day they die. (I'll admit, that sounds a tad paranoid. But I'll explain why my paranoia is well-founded a moment.)

Monsanto has agreed to help clean-up a quarry in South Wales it is accused of polluting with a cocktail of toxic substances despite consistently refusing to accept liability, the Ecologist can reveal.

But the taxpayer could still end up meeting the estimated £2 million clean-up bill.

Waste from a Monsanto-owned plant in Newport was dumped at the Brofiscin quarry, near the village of Groesfaen, in the 1960s and 70s. Investigations since have revealed the site is heavily polluted with dangerous toxins leaking from corroding waste containers buried underground.

There are fears a major underground aquifer, which could in future supply nearby Cardiff, may be at risk of pollution from chemicals leaching from the waste. Toxins in the air and ground vapour have also recently been detected at the site.

The Environment Agency took over responsibility for cleaning up the site in 2005 but has been accused in an Ecologist investigation of failing to pursue Monsanto for its role in the pollution. In an otherwise unpublicised statement published on its website recently it now says Monsanto has been identified as one of those companies that 'should be held responsible under the contaminated land laws and be held liable for the cost of remediating Brofiscin Quarry.'

Greek authorities have issued a warning about swine flu epidemic, which has already claimed the lives of 99 people, local media reported.

Another 127 people affected with swine flu have been hospitalized in intensive care with confirmed symptoms.

Greek epidemiologists have forecast that the number of people affected with the A(H1N1) virus this year would be double the number from last year, which was 149.

According to health officials in Greece, the elderly are more at risk of getting infected, but young individuals can also catch the virus.

In Bulgaria, one person died from swine flu in December 2010.

We all know that celiac disease is a problem of the small intestine, but most of us are probably unaware that it could actually be the root cause of a whole host of neurological problems from brain fog, to tingling and numbness sensations in your extremities, to developmental delays and learning disorders, autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, movement disorders like ataxia, and even psychological issues from irritability or depression to schizophrenia. You may think these claims sound like nothing more than a bunch of smoke and screens coming from greedy alternative medicine self-help sites designed to sell you the latest vitamin and mineral supplements and get you on their own personal and highly costly gluten-free product bandwagon, but there are real scientific studies supporting these claims. In addition, there are a whole host of forums filled with people that have made recoveries from a variety of diseases and disorders by avoiding gluten.


I hesitated to write this article. I sat on it actually for quite some time. The claims sound so incredulous, how could anyone actually believe this stuff? I tried to put myself back into my own shoes a little over a year ago - back before things got so crazy around our house, back before we ever stepped foot into a Whole Foods store, or went to Trader Joes for anything other than gourmet cheese or those awesome appetizers in the freezer section. That me would have read the title of this article and thought, "What an extremist nutzo." Then I would have picked up the phone and speed dialed the local pizza joint for dinner, too.

So what has happened to me since then?

In late September of last year my son received his preschool vaccinations. Within three weeks he became a real behavioral problem at school, and by six weeks we saw his first tic. By the time the Christmas holidays rolled around he was nearly impossible to take anywhere as he was an emotional time-bomb in the making and so ticcy that it was hindering his daily activities. We kept him home from preschool for a couple weeks to limit his stress, but it didn't work. Then came the insomnia. He would just lie awake blinking for hours. I used to sit in his room and choke back the tears. To comfort him I fed him more of his favorite foods: pizza, mac and cheese, Christmas cookies, etc.... How did I know that the very things I was doing were actually making his condition worse?

I visited his pediatrician, the pediatric neurologist, a naturopath, a general practitioner, an ophthalmologist. We had a CBC, titer test, EEG, eye exam, acupuncture, you name it. I even went as far as giving him a pyramid-scheme all natural remedy with no scientific basis for cure other than the sales pitch I got from the supplier. Crazy, I know. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

This is an overview of the main usefulness of magnesium in medicine and above you can see the cover of the second edition to the Transdermal Magnesium Therapy book, which is now finally in production and will be available in a few weeks.

Magnesium & Cancer

One would not normally think that magnesium (Mg) deficiency could increase the risk of cancer while simply maintaining ideal levels can protect against cancer. Yet we will find that just as severe dehydration or asphyxiation can cause death, magnesium deficiency can directly lead to cancer. Consider, please, that over 300 enzymes and ion transports require magnesium and that its role in fatty acid and phospholipid acid metabolism affects permeability and stability of cell walls. We can readily see that magnesium deficiency would lead to physiological decline in cells, setting the stage for cancer.

Magnesium & the Heart

Magnesium is nutritional oil to the heart; it lubricates and facilitates the heart's function. Correct administration of magnesium can eliminate angina pain, muscle spasms, keep blood flowing smoothly, and prevent platelet stickiness. Magnesium also produces vasodilation by a direct action as well as indirectly by sympathetic blockade and inhibition of catecholamine release. Magnesium dilates both the epicardial and resistance coronary arteries. Magnesium also balances cholesterol and is essential for endocrine stability and function. Most importantly, magnesium prevents calcification of the heart tissues.

A sharp rise in whooping cough infections in Bendigo is nearing epidemic levels, Bendigo Hospital chief medical officer Dr Andre Nel says.

But Dr Nel says his patients, staff and visitors were adequately protected from the raging whooping cough infection that killed 14-day-old Bendigo tot Kristian James Reade.

Kristian was born at Bendigo Hospital on February 1 but returned to the hospital at 10 days old with the infection.

He spent more than two days there before he was transferred to the Royal Children's Hospital, where he died on Monday.

"It's getting to epidemic proportions. It's certainly a much higher incidence than one would normally expect," he said.

"This is an issue across Victoria. This is not just a Bendigo issue but we are aware of a high incidence in Bendigo, but it's around Victoria."

Dr Nel offered no explanation for the rise in cases.

After reading this new book by celiac nurse specialist Shelly Stuart, RN, what shines through above all is her true understanding of the complex nature of gluten-related illnesses, and her heartfelt compassion for patients who suffer from them. Her book is extremely well researched and documented. As a registered nurse and celiac herself, Ms. Stuart is able to use her strong patient teaching experience to clearly educate the reader about even very complicated subjects. She provides excellent explanations of leaky gut and the pathophysiology of celiac disease, and she is one of the first clinicians to write in-depth about non-celiac gluten intolerance. Importantly, she makes the point that immune mediated reactions can and do occur in non-celiac gluten intolerance, and backs this up by citing clinical evidence. Another important point made concerns pancreatic insufficiency, which can accompany celiac disease, but few know that this condition can persist even after diagnosis and transition to a gluten-free diet. Her discussion of the many, varied health disorders associated with celiac disease is very comprehensive.

One of the most compelling aspects to Gluten Toxicity is the many important questions asked regarding the future of clinical research. Ms. Stuart makes it crystal clear that we need to know much more about the physical and mental health effects of gluten-related illness. This can only come about by increasing awareness both within the medical and research communities, and throughout each of our communities. We must all become advocates for greater testing and more accurate diagnosis.

NCSU economics professor Dr. Melinda Morrill has some bad news for working moms. In her study comparing health statistics of school-aged children with working mothers to those with mothers who stay at home, Morrill found that the children of mothers who worked were 200% more likely to be hospitalized overnight, to suffer an injury or poisoning, or to have a asthma attack.

Morrill's study looked at 20 years of health statistics involving approximately 89,000 children aged 7-17. Her results differ from previous studies that indicated children of working mothers were healthier, presumably because of higher income, greater access to health insurance, and increased maternal self-esteem. Those studies were flawed, according to Morrill, because they had reversed cause and effect. That is, the stay-at-home mother group had numbers of moms of children with such severe medical problems that they required full-time care or supervision, effectively eliminating the option of the mother to work outside the home. But these children weren't getting sick because their moms were home; their moms were home because the children were so sick.