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Israel & South Africa: Netcare coughs up about illegal organ trafficking

Fred Kockett
Mail & Guardian Online
Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:08 UTC
transplant operation
© Unknown
The biggest health care provider in South Africa has been involved in illegal kidney transplant operations.
After seven years of obfuscation and denial, South Africa's largest private healthcare group, Netcare, finally confessed to its role in a cash-for-kidneys scheme and to benefiting from associated international trafficking of living donors.

Immediately after Netcare admitted to having illegally profited from the scheme, Richard Friedland, Netcare's chief executive, publicly apportioned blame to St Augustine's hospital management and transplant coordinators acting in cahoots with surgeons and others -- basically every­one involved in the scheme, except Netcare itself.

See here for graphic describing the scheme.

Netcare's conviction in the Durban commercial crimes court is said to be a world first -- no other hospital group has been found guilty of supporting an organised trafficking scheme dealing in organs.

The scheme, dubbed the Israeli Transplant Programme, recruited living kidney "donors". They were flown to South Africa for harvesting and transplant operations at Netcare's facilities in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
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Sherlock

Report: U.S. Doctors Still Too Cozy with Drug Industry

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:56 UTC
Image
© cbsnews.com
A study estimates drug companies pay doctors $57 billion a year in fees and services, causing some to worry that decisions on prescription are being unduly influenced.
Doctors in the United States are still too cozy with drug companies, although they have managed to break some of those ties, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The team at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital did a national survey of 1,900 primary care doctors in 2009 about their contacts with drug companies.

They found 84 percent reported some type of relationship with drug companies, compared with 94 percent in 2004.
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Attention

Another Gaza aid mission sabotaged: Ken O'Keefe and Road to Hope humanitarian aid activists abducted, now facing terrorism charges!

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:30 UTC
Image
© Road to Hope
Irish Gaza aid activist Ken O'Keefe has been abducted along with companions and a dozen Libyan policemen by the captain of their chartered ship (which was supposed to transport the activists and their cargo of humanitarian aid to Al-Arish port in Egypt, from where the convoy would continue their journey by land to the besieged people of Gaza). The captain apparently pulled out of port in such a hurry that mooring ropes were snapped and one of the convoy's vehicles was left stranded at a 45 degree angle on the ship's loading ramp. Somebody, it seems, got to him at the last minute. The 'Road to Hope' organisation had paid $75,000 to the captain to sail their cargo of humanitarian aid to Egypt. Below O'Keefe speaks to Hasan Ghada of Press TV about the incident.

According to Ken's facebook updates, the aid workers are now being held by Greek authorities on suspicion of terrorism, even though it was THEY who were abducted from Libya!


Comment: UPDATE: As of 01:30 CET, Sunday November 14, all the charity workers have been arrested, handcuffed and imprisoned by Greek port police.

UPDATE 2: Ken O'Keefe sent the following message to his Facebook page at 07:30 CET:
We are free in Greece. It has been trying, but the Greek government has done the right thing in the end.
UPDATE 3: Monday November 15 - The Road to Hope crew have released this video footage of the bizarre moment when the Ukrainian captain of their chartered ship went bezerk and deliberately ran his own vessel into the pier at the port of Derna in Libya, before abducting them to Greece:



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Bad Guys

McDonald's and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy

Felicity Lawrence
Guardian
Fri, 12 Nov 2010 20:00 UTC
burger
© Murdo Macleod
McDonald's and other food companies will help write policy on obesity and diet-related diseases.

Exclusive: Department of Health putting fast food companies at heart of policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease

The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned.

In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five "responsibility deal" networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.
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Video

The Story of Electronics


The Story of Stuff
Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:00 UTC
Why "designed for the dump" is toxic for the people and the planet.


The Story of Electronics employs the Story of Stuff style to explore the high-tech revolution's collateral damage - 25 million tons of e-waste and counting, poisoned workers and a public left holding the bill.
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Pills

MicroChipping the Population? Big Pharma to Begin Microchipping Drugs

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:00 UTC
Chipped drugs
© NaturalNews
The age of pharmaceutical microchipping is now upon us. Novartis AG, one of the largest drug companies in the world, has announced a plan to begin embedding microchips in medications to create "smart pill" technology.

The microchip technology is being licensed from Proteus Biomedical of Redwood City, California. Once activated by stomach acid, the embedded microchip begins sensing its environment and broadcasting data to a receiver worn by the patient. This receiver is also a transmitter that can send the data over the internet to a doctor.

The idea behind all this is to create "smart pills" that can sense what's happening in the body and deliver that information to the patient's doctor. Novartis plans to start microchipping its organ transplant anti-rejection drugs and then potentially expand microchipping to other pharmaceuticals in its product lineup. This same technology could soon end up in pills made by other drug companies, too.

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Toys

U.S. Study: Ban Toxic Toys & Other Kids' Products


CBC News
Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:04 UTC
Image
© Kevin Wolf/Associated Press
According to a new U.S. study, 17 million toys have been recalled in the U.S over high lead levels since 2007.
Toxic toys and other children's products containing harmful ingredients require an extensive overhaul of the legislation that governs them, says a new U.S. scientific paper.

Calling the epidemic of recalls of these products a "crisis," U.S. researchers at the University of Massachusetts, and Monica Becker and Associates Sustainability Consultants say the current response by government, advocacy and industry groups has been inadequate in restricting the entry of toxic toys into the market.

"Much of the response to the toxic toys crisis has been reactive and piecemeal," write the authors. "Taken as a whole, these responses have not been sufficient to ensure that toys and children's products are safe."
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Cheeseburger

Study Shows Fast Food Companies Aggressively Market to Kids, Minorities

Kristin Wartman
Civil Eats
Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:53 UTC
Image
© rodale.com
In what is the most comprehensive analysis of fast food nutrition and marketing to date, the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity released a study Monday indicting fast food restaurants for aggressive marketing campaigns targeted to youth and other vulnerable groups, and a lack of readily available healthy options on their menus.

In a telephone briefing on Monday, the authors of the study discussed why their research is so important. They cited statistics compiled over the past year, which show that one-third of U.S. children and teens eat fast food every day, accounting for 16 to 17 percent of their daily caloric intake. "Eating at fast food restaurants is ingrained in our culture. That's why the nutritional quality of these meals is so important," Marlene Schwartz, co-author of the study said on Monday. Jennifer Harris, lead author of the study added that they uncovered how the barrage of fast food advertising has made kids think that this kind of food is "normal and expected." Harris said:
"Kids think that they should be able to eat McDonald's all the time and this has a direct effect on obesity."
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Attention

Defending psychopaths? Amazon.com pulls one pedophilia book -- but not all

Nathan Olivarez-Giles
LATimes.com
Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:09 UTC
Image
© Scott Eells/Bloomberg News
After 3,000 comments, customer outrage and threats of boycotts, Amazon.com removed The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure from its Kindle eBook listings Thursday.

But the decision, which came after Amazon defended selling the book Wednesday, affected just the one book. At least one other publication offering guidance on pedophilia, Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, remains for sale on Amazon.

The controversy has raised questions about Amazon's book vetting process and about whether companies such as Amazon -- which traditionally have been thought of simply as tech companies -- should exclude the sale of such books.
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Vader

Meg McLain Singled out by the TSA, Cuffed to a Chair, Her Ticket Ripped up

georgedonnelly
YouTube
Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:09 UTC
The TSA chose Meg McLain for special screening. They wanted her to go through the new porno-scanners. When she opted out, TSA agents raised an enormous ruckus. When she asked some question about what they planned to do to her, they flipped out. TSA agents yelled at her, handcuffed her to a chair, ripped up her ticket, called in 12 local Miami cops and finally escorted her out of the airport. Listen to her story as she told it on radio show Free Talk Live last night. Things are getting out of control in the USA

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