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The Book is Hardly Closed on the Autism-Vaccine Issue

Over the past two months, I have read many articles exclaiming that journalist Brian Deer's article in the British Medical Journal is the final deciding "evidence" that vaccines do not cause autism. As I have written in prior articles, we know that Brian Deer's document does nothing of the sort.

My initial understanding of autism and biomedical symptoms begins with a 2004 study at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore. According to an article in the November 15, 2004 Independent, Carlos A. Pardo-Villamizar, M.D., at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, stated that his 2004 study's findings
"...open possibilities for understanding the dynamic changes in the brain. Although they may lend themselves to the development of new medical treatments for autism, much more research is needed."
Pardo and fellow researchers conducted post-mortem examinations of the brains of 11 people with autism aged from five to 44, who had died in accidents. Specifically, they found that proteins called cytokines and chemokines were present in higher amounts than in those of normal controls, which indicated inflammation. Professor Pardo related, '"This ongoing inflammatory process was present in different areas of the brain ... The pattern of cellular and protein findings indicate they are part of the innate immune system in the brain and do not appear to be caused by immune abnormalities from outside the brain." All of this research can be found online in the Annals of Neurology. Most of the information cited from the Annals article can be seen here.

Eye 1

Macular Degeneration: Will Discovery Bring Cure for Blindness?

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© istockphoto
There's still no cure for macular degeneration, an incurable eye disease that is the leading cause of blindness among older people.

Is that about to change?

Scientists at the University of Kentucky have made a key discovery regarding the abnormal deposits that cause the condition - and are already testing ways to block the formation of these yellow deposits, which are called "drusen."

The scientists, led by Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, associate professor of ophthalmology at the university, found that people with "dry" macular degeneration are more likely to progress to the potentially blinding "wet" form when their drusen contain certain chemical components known as C3 and C5.

By screening patients for C3 and C5, doctors might be able to determine whose vision is at risk. And if researchers can find a way to keep C3 and C5 from forming in the first place, they may be able to halt the progression of macular degeneration.

And guess what: Ambati's lab is already testing such substances. Human trials of these substances could start by the end of the year, the Telegraph reported.

Pills

Little Pharma: The Medication of U.S. Children

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© ehsmanager.blogspot.com
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a study of prescription patterns in 2009, conducted by IMS Health, showed that 25 percent of children in the U.S. were on regular medication.

IMS Health is a firm that provides marketing intelligence to pharmaceutical companies. The firm's job is to keep the $800 billion per year global pharmaceutical industry on a continued pattern of growth. Hopefully these consultants accomplished something quite different this week. Hopefully they provided our citizens with an overdue wake-up call.

One in four children in the U.S. are on chronic prescription medications. This doesn't even include all the prescriptions we write to treat acute illness, or the use of over-the-counter products. It is an astounding number. We either have the sickest pediatric population in the world, or there is something very wrong with the way therapies are driven in our health care system.

Attention

New Superbugs Resist Most Powerful Antibiotics

Life-threatening bacterial infections are likely to become dramatically more common over the next 10 years as antibiotics lose their remaining effectiveness against man's age-old enemy.

A summit of infectious diseases experts has heard warnings that antibiotic-resistant superbugs are spreading quickly around the world, and for the first time in decades there is no new generation of more powerful drugs waiting in the wings that can stop them.

Experts are calling on the federal government to formulate a national strategy to deal with the challenge. They say that, unless met, it could set the world back towards the medical experience of the 1930s -- when operations and infections now considered routine often proved fatal because of unstoppable infections.

Tom Gottlieb, the president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, said he and his colleagues were seeing patients with untreatable infections more often -- yet there were no effective monitoring systems to track their location and frequency.

USA

Are Americans Ready for a 'Generation Rx'?

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© Karen Warren Chronicle Bari Brochstein-Ruggeri — whose daughter, Jennifer, died of an accidental overdose of Vicodin in 2010 — holds Mitzi, a dog Jennifer rescued when she found her hit by a car. Brochstein-Ruggeri said her daughter "was too good to be swallowed up that way."
We consume more than 70% of the world's opiates and are dying of overdoses at epidemic rates. Where is the oversight?

A decade after Congress began dramatically increasing imports into the United States, Americans are consuming more than 70 percent of the world's legal medicinal supply of opiates - poppy-based pain drugs related to heroin, a Chronicle analysis of the Congressional Record and international treaty data shows.

The resulting wave of accidental prescription drug overdoses has been called a national epidemic, but the same federal agencies that license drugmakers and oversee imports and doctors have been slow to react to exponential increases in deaths reported in states like Texas, Florida, West Virginia and others from coast to coast.

"The truth is this is killing people and there are things that can be done," says A. Thomas McLellan, a prominent addiction researcher who until September served as assistant director of the Office of National Drug Policy in Washington, D.C., better known as the office of the drug czar. "In 2008, there were 28,000 deaths and one of them was my son. It was one of the reasons that I took this job."

Prescription drug overdoses nationwide have doubled in the past five years, according to the latest reports from emergency room doctors who participate in the government's Drug Awareness Warning Network. Some hard-hit metro areas have seen even bigger increases in both nonfatal overdoses and deaths, Texas and national data shows.

McLellan was among a prominent group of health specialists who met last July in a summit organized by the Food and Drug Administration. A majority of that group urged the FDA to collaborate with other regulatory bodies to require specialized training on the dangers of pain drugs for all doctors who must get federal licenses to prescribe opioid medications, such as Vicodin (hydrocodone) and OxyContin (oxycodone).

McLellan considered the meeting historic. But so far, nothing has happened.

Syringe

One of the Most Dangerous 'Drinks' You Can Give Your Child


More recent research reveals that there could indeed be a link between the controversial MMR vaccine and autism, as well as bowel disease in children. The study appears to confirm the findings of doctor Andrew Wakefield, who suggested a possible link in 1998 and has since been accused of fraud.

A research team is in the process of examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease. Of the 82 looked at so far, 70 tested positive for the measles virus. In all cases, the virus came from a vaccine strain rather than wild measles.

The Daily Mail reports:
"The 1998 study by Dr. Wakefield ... and 12 other doctors claimed to have found a new bowel disease, autism enterocolitis ... This is the second independent study to back up Dr. Wakefield."
Sources:

Daily Mail January 25, 2011

Dr. Andrew Wakefield - VideoTranscript [PDF]

Attention

15 years of GMO contamination in Canada

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Over the past 15 years, Canadian farmers' experience with contamination from genetically engineered (GE) crops has exposed the seriousness of the problem. One of the earliest arguments advocating caution in the release of GE plants into the environment was based on the fact we cannot control or recall these living, self-replicating organisms. Our inability to fully predict the path of contamination and its consequences is one reason why genetic engineering is still referred to as one large, living experiment.

Contamination from GE crop plants or other GE organisms can occur through a number of different means, including insect or wind pollination, seed mixing and human error. Commonly, the contamination is not examined before GE crops are approved, partly because the social and economic impacts of contamination are not taken into consideration when government creates regulations. Bill C-474, which will be voted on early this month, would recognize the possible economic cost of contamination by requiring that the government assess export market harm before a new GE seed is permitted.

Contamination from GE crop plants is a reoccurring, predictable problem that can have serious impacts on the livelihood of farmers and the future of organic crops. For example, because of GE contamination organic grain farmers on the Prairies lost organic canola as a market and rotation crop; GE canola contaminated non-GE canola to such a degree that, most, if not all, pedigreed seed growers in Saskatchewan could not warrant their canola seed as GE-free and most, if not all, grain farmers could not warrant their canola crop as free of GE contamination, even if it was planted with GE-free seeds.

Video

Animated Video Showing a Typical Conversation Between a Mother and her Doctor Regarding Autistic Child

Peanuts, Vaccines and Better Diagnosis. Please watch a mom and doc explore Johnnie's systemic problems. Hold on until the end, it's worth it! Brought to you by L.J. Goes, Managing Partner of The Misuta Project, L.L.C. Autism media in search of the truth, supporting those pursuing it.


Pills

Many Get Antidepressants for No Psychiatric Reason

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© mybesthealthportal.net
More than a quarter of Americans taking antidepressants have never been diagnosed with any of the conditions the drugs are typically used to treat, according to new research.

That means millions could be exposed to side effects from the medicines without proven health benefits, researchers say.

"We cannot be sure that the risks and side effects of antidepressants are worth the benefit of taking them for people who do not meet criteria for major depression," said Jina Pagura, a psychologist and currently a medical student at the University of Manitoba in Canada, who worked on the study.

"These individuals are likely approaching their physicians with concerns that may be related to depression, and could include symptoms like trouble sleeping, poor mood, difficulties in relationships, etc.," she added in an e-mail to Reuters Health. "Although an antidepressant might help with these issues, the problems may also go away on their own with time, or might be more amenable to counseling or psychotherapy."

Syringe

9 Questions That Stump Every Pro-Vaccine Advocate and Their Claims

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Since the flu pandemic was declared, there have been several so-called "vaccine experts" coming out of the wood work attempting to justify the effectiveness of vaccines. All of them parrot the same ridiculous historical and pseudoscientific perspectives of vaccinations which are easily squelched with the following 9 questions.

Claim: The study of vaccines, their historical record of achievements, effectiveness, safety and mechanism in humans are well understood and proven in scientific and medical circles.

Fact: The claim is completely false.

1. What to ask: Could you please provide one double-blind, placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of vaccines?

2. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific evidence on ANY study which can confirm the long-term safety and effectiveness of vaccines?

3. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific evidence which can prove that disease reduction in any part of the world, at any point in history was attributable to inoculation of populations?

4. What to ask: Could you please explain how the safety and mechanism of vaccines in the human body are scientifically proven if their pharmacokinetics (the study of bodily absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of ingredients) are never examined or analyzed in any vaccine study?

One of the most critical elements which defines the toxicity potential of any vaccine are its pharmacokinetic properties. Drug companies and health agencies refuse to consider the study, analysis or evaluation of the pharmacokinetic properties of any vaccine.

There is not one double-blind, placebo-controlled study in the history of vaccine development that has ever proven their safety, effectiveness or achievements (unless those achievements have underlined their damage to human health).

There are also no controlled studies completed in any country which have objectively proven that vaccines have had any direct or consequential effect on the reduction of any type of disease in any part of the world.

Every single study that has ever attempted to validate the safety and effectiveness of vaccines has conclusively established carcinogenic, mutagenic, neurotoxic or fertility impairments, but they won't address those.