The 'Cochrane Collaboration' is an international collective of researchers whose self-proclaimed role is to provide accurate and robust assessments of health interventions. The group specialises in 'meta-analyses': the grouping together of several similar studies on interventions including drug therapies.

In 2011, Cochrane researchers assessed the evidence relating to statin use in individuals at low risk of cardiovascular disease (defined as a less than 20 per cent risk over 10 years), and concluded that there was limited evidence of overall benefit [1]. I appeared on Channel 4 news to discuss this publication and the issues surrounding it, and you can see the discussion here.

Earlier this year, the same Cochrane group updated their data and concluded thatoverall risk of death and cardiovascular events (e.g. heart attack or stroke) were reduced by statins in low risk individuals, without increasing the risk of adverse events (including muscle, liver and kidney damage) [2]. It seems the Cochrane reviewers had had quite some change of heart. A paper published in the BMJ on 22 October questions the evidence on which this U-turn appears to have been made [3].

The authors of the BMJ piece note that although the 2013 meta-analysis included four additional trials, these trials did not substantially change the findings. The change in advice was actually based on another meta-analysis, published in 2012, conducted by a group known as the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' (CTT) collaboration [4].

Is the role of cholesterol in heart disease really one of the biggest myths in the history of medicine?

For the last four decades we've been told that saturated fat clogs our arteries and high cholesterol causes heart disease. It has spawned a multi-billion dollar drug and food industry of "cholesterol free" products promising to lower our cholesterol and decrease our risk of heart disease.

But what if it all isn't true? What if it's never been proven that saturated fat causes heart disease?

And what if the majority of patients taking cholesterol lowering drugs won't benefit from taking these pills?

In a special two part edition of Catalyst, Dr Maryanne Demasi investigates the science behind the claims that saturated fat causes heart disease by raising cholesterol.

The chemical imbalance theory has fallen in status from bedrock scientific principle to mere marketing device in the minds of many researchers.

A broken heart and a blue, bedevilled brain.

They've been twinned, metaphorically, in poetry and song for millennia.

Over the past 50 years, however, science and medicine have been contemplating the organs and their maladies on a purely biological basis.

In particular, an evolving half-century of medical wisdom came to this conclusion:

Just as coronary diseases - or those of the liver, or kidneys for that matter - were plainly the result of physiological disruptions, so too were the mental illnesses of the brain.

One week of camping outdoors and eschewing all man-made light is enough to reset a person's body clock to its natural sleep rhythms, a new study has found.

Our increased use of electrical light, and reduced exposure to natural light, caused modern humans to stray from our natural circadian rhythms or sleep patterns, and may be a contributor to poor quality sleep.

The findings, published in Current Biology, show that humans' internal biological clocks will synchronise to a natural, midsummer light-dark cycle if the opportunity arises. A midsummer light-dark cycle in Colorado, in the US where the study took place, is 14 hours and 40 minutes of light, 9 hours and 20 minutes of darkness in a 24 hour period.

Relying on electrical light after sunset contributes to late sleep schedules, which disturbs natural circadian rhythms and can leave us feeling not well rested.

The new study, conducted by Dr. Kenneth Wright and colleagues from the University of Colorado in the US, found that increased exposure to sunlight, as opposed to largely relying on electric light, shifted the internal clock earlier, which could help reduce the "physiological, cognitive and health consequences of circadian disruption."

Citing allegedly deceptive studies and a surreptitious marketing campaign, the Louisiana Attorney General has filed a lawsuit claiming that Pfizer fraudulently marketed its Zoloft antidepressant and caused the state Medicaid program to unnecessarily issue reimbursements for the drug.

The lawsuit accuses the drugmaker of knowing there were "serious issues" with Zoloft efficacy and that early clinical studies demonstrated its pill was no better than a placebo. But Pfizer allegedly concealed this from regulators, physicians and patients with an elaborate scheme that included ghostwritten articles that were published in medical journals and a deceptive advertising initiative, according to the lawsuit.

"Pfizer engaged and continues to engage in a deliberate, systematic practice of suppressing unfavorable results for its drug and misleading the state, healthcare providers, consumers and policy makers about the actual efficacy of its drug," according to the lawsuit. "The defendant caused thousands of false and deceptive claims to be made to the state by manipulating published efficacy data, paying key opinion leaders to bolster Zoloft's efficacy and deceptively concealing Zoloft's inefficacy" (here is the lawsuit).

Thomas Verstraeten, MD, in 1999 regarding ethylmercury from thimerosal in vaccines.

The truth shall set you free. - John 8:32

Finally! After all these years of denial and damage, the truth about ethylmercury in the form of Thimerosal (49.6%) in vaccines has been revealed to a member of the U.S. Congress as a result of oversight requests that were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) and shared with one of the foremost research groups regarding mercury in drugs, CoMeD, whose website is www.mercury-freedrugs.com.

When one clicks on CoMeD's webpage Documents, the very first document posting is "CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) annual conference abstract submission for the EIS conference in April 2000, discovered in August of 2013 in a CDC response to a Congressional Request by an office in the U.S. House of Representatives - the abstract submission is titled, 'Increased risk of developmental neurological impairment after high exposure to Thimerosal-containing vaccine in the first month of life'" wherein this absolutely stunning information that federal health agencies conspired to keep from mainstream health information/knowledge about vaccines, and mercury in vaccines, in particular:

Conclusion: This analysis suggests that high exposure to ethyl mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines in the first month of life increases the risk of subsequent development of neurologic development impairment, but not of neurologic degenerative or renal impairment. Further confirmatory studies are needed. [1] [CJF emphasis added] [which apparently led to the Simpsonwood Meeting that I talk about in my book Vaccination Voodoo.]

Here is an excellent collection of scientific papers finding adverse biological effects or damage to health from Wi-Fi signals, Wi-Fi-enabled devices or Wi-Fi frequencies (2.4 or 5 GHz), complied by campaign group WiFi In Schools.

The papers listed are only those where exposures were 16V/m or below. Someone using a Wi-Fi-enabled tablet computer can be exposed to electromagnetic fields up to 16V/m. Papers are in alphabetical order. A file of first pages, for printing, can be found here.

If you feel like sending a copy of this collection to the local schools in your area, you can search for them here and either print out this article to post or email the link.

Wi-Fi papers

1. Atasoy H.I. et al., 2013. Immunohistopathologic demonstration of deleterious effects on growing rat testes of radiofrequency waves emitted from conventional Wi-Fi devices. Journal of Pediatric Urology 9(2): 223-229. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22465825

2. Avendaño C. et al., 2012. Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation. Fertility and Sterility 97(1): 39-45. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22112647

3. Avendaño C. et al., 2010. Laptop expositions affect motility and induce DNA fragmentation in human spermatozoa in vitro by a non-thermal effect: a preliminary report. American Society for Reproductive Medicine 66th Annual Meeting: O-249 http://wifiinschools.org.uk/resources/laptops+and+sperm.pdf)

A new mother says she will literally never be able to hold her newborn baby after the Orlando hospital where she gave birth performed a life-altering surgery that left her a multiple amputee.

"They amputated both her arms and legs and will not explain why..."

At this time the woman claims that the hospital will not tell her why they removed both of her arms and legs during childbirth. Complaints have been filed against the hospital, Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, because it allegedly said it would not tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights.

The event happened over 8 months ago. Claudia Mejia, the mother of the newborn child and victim of the surgery, was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. After the surgeries she was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given.

The hospital claims that if she wants to find out exactly what happened, she would have to sue them.

"I want to know what happened. I went to deliver my baby and I came out like this," Mejia told the media. "I woke up from surgery and I had no arms and no legs. No one told me anything. My arms and legs were just gone."

Her husband Tim Edwards, a devoted man, said he's sticking with her.

"I love her, so I'll always stick with her and take it a day at a time myself."

Her attorney, Judy Hyman, wrote the hospital a letter saying, according to the Florida statute, "The Patients Right To Know About Adverse Medical Incidents Act," the hospital must give her the records.

The hospital's response? "Ms. Mejia's request may require legal resolution."

It is being considered that Mrs. Mejia caught the skin eating disease streptococcus while in the hospital, contracting it from another patient or someone on her floor who already had the disease.

Products ranging from Kit Kats to breadsticks to belVita will contain less fat, but sugar levels will stay the same

Kit Kats and Oreos will become healthier, the government will say on Saturday, announcing that the companies which make them have signed up to a "responsibility pledge" to cut the saturated fat the products contain. But the sugar levels in them will stay the same.

Days after the British Medical Journal ran an opinion piece from a cardiologist asserting that sugar and not saturated fat was the leading cause in the rise in heart disease and diabetes, the government announced the latest in its series of public health pledges with food manufacturers and supermarkets. This will, ministers said, remove the equivalent of one and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools full of saturated fat from the national diet.

In about 1999 I was asked to analyze the data of pregnant women with respect to smoking for a major health insurance company. They were running a campaign to get pregnant women to stop smoking and they expected to find interesting data to support their case.

I used to teach college courses covering the topic. The text books said that smoking causes underweight premature babies. Because of this babies of smoking mothers are more likely to have birth defects. With alcohol, two drinks a day was considered safe, but with tobacco, there was no safe threshold. I thought this was rather strange. You smoke one cigarette while pregnant and you are more likely to have birth defects? Even for a hard core health fanatic that is difficult to believe.

Here is what was found in the data. Babies of smoking mothers average weight was 3232 grams (7.1 lbs.). Babies of non-smoking mothers averaged 3398 grams (7.5 lbs.). That is about a half pound difference and it is statistically significant. Seven pounds is a good healthy birth weight that does not set off any alarms. Babies are considered underweight if they are less than 2270 grams (5 lbs.). 4.5% of smoking mothers babies were underweight and 3.3% of non-smoking mothers babies were underweight. This difference is not significant. There is no indication here of a health risk from smoking based on weight.