Health & WellnessS


2 + 2 = 4

Mutation of immune system has possible links to Alzheimer's

Gina Kolata
The New York Times
Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:51 UTC
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© New York TimesAmyloid plaques build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's researchers and drug companies have for years concentrated on one hallmark of Alzheimer's disease: the production of toxic shards of a protein that accumulate in plaques on the brain.

But now, in a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer's disease: the immune system's role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain's ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.

The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer's risk substantially in older people.
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Red Flag

Gardasil genetic fingerprints found in postmortem samples of girls given vaccine

Jonathan Benson
Natural News
Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:37 UTC
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A recent study published in the open-access journal Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs provides shocking new evidence that viral components contained in the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil are capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier and triggering cerebral vasculitis, a severe form of blood vessel inflammation in the brain that can lead to severe autoimmune disorders and even death.

A postmortem assessment of two young girls from opposite ends of the world who died recently after being given the Gardasil vaccine revealed fragments of the HPV-16L1 antigen, which is added to both Gardasil (Merck & Co.) and Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline), inside the girls' brain tissue. According to the study's authors, these particles represent a genetic fingerprint of the Gardasil vaccine, which is now clearly exposed as causing serious, adverse events in at least some of the girls that receive it.

For their research, Dr. Chris Shaw from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada and Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic from the Neural Dynamics Research Group in Vancouver examined samples of brain tissue taken from both girls, one 19 years old and the other 14 years old. Their analysis focused specifically on the potential presence of both HPV-16L1 and HPV-18L1, two specific antigens used in HPV vaccines.

Comment: Read the following articles about the serious health concerns regarding the Gardasil Vaccine:

Time for the Truth about Gardasil
Gardasil Researcher Speaks Out
New Worries About Gardasil Safety
The HPV Vaccine: Herd Immunity or Human Sacrifice?
Uncovered FDA Documents Reveal 26 More Gardasil Deaths
Gardasil HPV vaccines found contaminated with recombinant DNA that persists in human blood

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Bad Guys

Study blames pregnant mothers giving children autism by contracting the flu

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:28 UTC
pregnant women
© Unknown
A propaganda study recently published claims that Danish researchers are citing pregnant women who suffer from flu or a fever lasting more than 7 days were more likely to give birth to children who developed an autistic disorder.

The study asserts that children of mothers who had two or more instances of flu had a doubled-risk of being diagnosed with autism prior to the age of 3; as well as simply having a fever. Also attributed to the development of autism in children were the uses of a pharmaceutical grade anti-biotic during pregnancy.

This study gives governmental agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) an excuse to disregard scientific data correlating autism to the use of mercury-based preservatives like Thimerosal to the onset of autism. Other alarmist researchers claim these findings are "noteworthy" because of the extensive range of mother and children interviewed. The fact that the conclusions are bogus does not register with these so-called experts.

There were no differentiation between the wide range of possible infections that a pregnant woman could contract, nor the pharmacological drugs that would be prescribed to the pregnant woman by her doctor; yet there is an association between the contraction of flu and development of infantile autism.

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Heart - Black

Woman 'denied a termination' dies in hospital

Kitty Holland and Paul Cullen
Irish Times
Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:14 UTC
Savita Halappanavar
© UnknownSavita Halappanavar, who was found to be miscarrying when admitted, died of septicaemia at University Hospital Galway
Two investigations are under way into the death of a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant, at University Hospital Galway last month.

Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.

This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, "this is a Catholic country".

She spent a further 2½ days "in agony" until the foetal heartbeat stopped.
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Bacon

People Power! Denmark to scrap ineffective and unpopular fat tax

Agence France-Presse
Raw Story
Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:58 UTC
butter
Denmark said Saturday it would scrap a fat tax it introduced a little over a year ago in a world first, saying the measure was costly and failed to change Danes' eating habits.

"The fat tax and the extension of the chocolate tax - the so-called sugar tax - has been criticised for increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies' administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk," the Danish tax ministry said in a statement.

"At the same time it is believed that the fat tax has, to a lesser extent, contributed to Danes travelling across the border to make purchases," it added.

"Against this background, the government and the (far-left) Red Green Party have agreed to abolish the fat tax and cancel the planned sugar tax," the ministry said.
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Clipboard

Food, toxics and ADHD: Old fears, ever stronger science

David Wallinga, M.D
Huffington Post
Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:38 UTC
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Image copyright - Caryn Talty/Healthy-Family.org
A Harvard study just published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine journal, associates a mother's low level exposure to mercury while pregnant with greater risk of her child later developing ADHD-related behavior.

The research coincides with another study earlier this year that correlated the increased prevalence of ADHD in the U.S. -- along with other developmental disorders, including autism -- with the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to the American food supply. The link is that until quite recently, it was common for HFCS to be manufactured using mercury-contaminated caustic soda.

Together the findings are leading to closer examination of the myriad toxins that fetuses are exposed to such as lead, nicotine, pesticides, and mercury; science consistently shows such exposures early in life contribute to the development of brain and behavior disorders later in life.

Comment: ADHD: It's The Food, Stupid:
Over five million children ages four to 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the United States and close to 3 million of those children take medication for their symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But a new study reported in The Lancet last month found that with a restricted diet alone, many children experienced a significant reduction in symptoms. The study's lead author, Dr. Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Research Centre in the Netherlands, said in an interview with NPR,
"The teachers thought it was so strange that the diet would change the behavior of the child as thoroughly as they saw it. It was a miracle, the teachers said."


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Attention

Antibiotics Overuse: Health experts seek action to curb rise of drug-resistant superbugs

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:14 UTC
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a coalition of 25 healthcare organizations are joining forces to fight the overuse of antibiotics in people and livestock in a bid to curb the rise of drug-resistant "super bugs."

Without action, patients could soon face a time when antibiotics are powerless to treat many of the most common infections, said CDC experts and the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, a public health research group.

"How we use and protect these precious drugs must fundamentally change," Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, associate director for healthcare-associated infection prevention programs at the CDC, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

Dr. David Relman, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, which is part of the effort, said doctors are already seeing patients with bacterial infections resistant to "every antibiotic we have left."

"It will take all of us - consumers, health care providers, researchers, policymakers, industry, and others - to tackle this problem," he said.

Comment: For more information about deadly Superbugs read the following articles:

Resistant Superbugs Pose Serious Risks
The Truth About Deadly 'Superbugs'
Widespread Antibiotic Use in 1960s sparked MRSA
Hospital Superbugs Kill 48,000 Patients a Year
Why are 48,000 Hospital-Stays per Year in the US Ending in Death?
New Superbugs Resist Most Powerful Antibiotics
As MRSA Gets Worse, the FDA Discovers Antibiotic Abuse on Factory Farms
FDA Report: Alarming Amounts of "Superbugs" in Supermarkets
Scientists Fear Antibiotics are Perpetuating Diseases Impossible to Treat
Common Infections Will Be 'Untreatable' If Antibiotic Misuse Continues

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Calculator

"Labeling it Ourselves": With real food calculator, students take Prop 37 into their own hands

Hannah Wolfe & Katie Blanchard
Real Food Challenge
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:54 UTC
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As the defeat of Prop 37 is mourned in California and throughout the food movement, students are actually enacting it, continuing the hard work for food chain transparency that they started well before the Prop 37 battle entered the mainstream. For 4 years, from coast to coast, students have created, piloted, and refined the Real Food Calculator, the most meticulous assessment tool for food procurement available.

The qualifications of 'real food' are stringent and precise, utilizing strong third-party certifications and going the extra step in verifying source agricultural and labor practices. GMOs are outright prohibited from counting under any of the Calculator's four categories: community-based, fair, humane, and ecologically-sound. The Calculator's criteria actually enact Prop 37 on an institutional basis - with it, students are literally taking Prop 37 into their own hands.

The Real Food Calculator evaluates each food item purchased along with its source, producing a percentage indicating the proportion of the school's food budget dedicated to real food. Most importantly, the Calculator is conducted by students - the consumers.
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Family

Washington's brand of crony capitalist medicine


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:22 UTC
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Does AARP really speak for the elderly? Or the AMA for doctors?

In Washington, AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) is said to represent the interests of retirees in arguments about medicine. Their endorsement of President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was mentioned reverently during the October 3rd presidential debate. Similarly, the AMA (American Medical Association) is said to represent the interests of doctors.

But do these groups actually represent anyone other than their members? Is their support basically for sale?

Consider AARP. It gets only about 20% of its revenue from its members. Over 50% comes from its medical insurance business where it has the largest share of "Medigap" policies, the policies that fill in the holes in traditional Medicare. When the administration sought AARP's support for the Affordable Care Act, it promised to exempt Medigap policies from the requirement that insurers could not turn away people with preexisting conditions. Not only that, it also promised to exempt Medigap policies from rate review. (Ordinarily, health insurance companies must tell consumers when they want to increase insurance rates for individual or small group policies by an average of 10% or more.) In the end, Medigap was exempted from most of the law.

Comment: Learn more about the history of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the control they have over 'modern day medicine':

How the American Medical Association Got Rich
History reveals that the AMA was dictatorially led for the first half of the twentieth century by George H. Simmons, MD (1852-1937) and his protégé, Morris Fishbein, MD (1889-1976). Simmons and Fishbein both served as general manager of the organization and as editor of its journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). While these two leaders provided substantial benefit to the organization and to medical doctors, their methods of doing so have been severely criticized, with some historians referring to them as "medical Mussolinis."
In addition, watch Doctored, a documentary that reveals how the medical and pharmaceutical industries conspire to maintain a failing business model:

Supreme Court Found AMA GUILTY of Conspiracy to Destroy Chiropractic Industry

The modern medical system is committed to branding virtually all serious competition to their flawed model by labeling it 'quackery.' But what most people fail to realize is that this effort is rather like the witch hunts of old, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of men and women in possession of priceless knowledge and understanding of the healing powers of the natural world. That extermination of ancient wisdom no doubt helped drive mankind deep into ignorance, setting the people of the West on a path that would quickly sever our innate connection with Nature.

The results of this separation from time-honored ancient healing practices and our ignorance of our symbiotic place within the natural world are clearly evident today...

The film (Doctored) includes the groundbreaking and historical case of Wilk vs. The American Medical Association (AMA) - a case in which the AMA was ultimately found guilty of an illegal conspiracy to "contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession," in 1984. The Supreme Court ordered the AMA to cease their illegal treatment of the chiropractic profession, and in the years since, chiropractic has slowly but surely established its usefulness and scientific merit.

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Beaker

Freaky Clean: Chemical in antibacterial soap weakens muscle function

Alexandra Sifferlin
healthland.time.com
Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:59 UTC
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© Gerard Brown / Getty Images
It turns out antibacterial soaps aren't so "clean" after all. A common chemical in antibacterial products, triclosan - which can be found soaps, toothpastes and mouthwashes - was found to impair muscle function in lab and animal tests.

Originally, the chemical, developed in the 1960s, was used in hospitals to prevent bacterial infections. Since then, it's been used in countless household products, and several studies - mostly in animals - have hinted that the effects of triclosan may not be entirely beneficial.

According to a recent Smithsonian article:
Studies have shown that the chemical can disrupt the endocrine systems of several different animals, binding to receptor sites in the body, which prevents the thyroid hormone from functioning normally. Additionally, triclosan penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream more easily than previously thought, and has turned up everywhere from aquatic environments to human breast milk in troubling quantities.

Comment: Chemicals like Triclosan are endocrine disruptors, regardless of claims made by the FDA. Read the following articles to learn more:

Endocrine Disruptors Really Do Suck
U.S. manufacturers and agribusiness are addicted to endocrine disruptors - dangerous chemicals that alter the natural function of the body's hormones. They are frequently used in plastics, in pesticides, and in personal care products and act in the human body as a "false" version of estrogen. They appear to be linked to a variety of diseases, including sexual dysfunction, heart disease, metabolic disorders, and cancer. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wrote a frightening summary of the health and environmental risks of this class of chemicals about a year ago that's still timely.
The Dangers of Triclosan: A Common Anti-Bacterial Ingredient
Why You Don't Want to Use Antibacterial Soap Anymore
Triclosan May Be Harmful to Health, Says FDA
Study: Triclosan in Toothpaste, Soaps may Damage Fetal Brain
FDA Will Review Safety of Common Antibacterial in Soap, Toothpaste
How Your Toothpaste, Soap and Make-Up Can Harm Your Health

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