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Fluoride Tide Halted by Ancient Court

Matt Smith
Southern Daily Echo
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:18 UTC
Fluoride tide
© Daily EchoFluoride tide halted by ancient court
It took three times of asking and the casting vote of Southampton's sheriff.

But Southampton's ancient Court Leet agreed to ask the city council to rethink its support for adding fluoride to tap water.

Anti-fluoride campaigners seized the chance to put their case for councillors to vote again on the scheme, which would affect 160,000 city residents, following the extent of public opposition.

Some 72 per cent of the 10,000 responses to a consultation by the South Central Strategic health Authority were not in favour and its decision to press ahead is now subject to a judicial review.

The jury of court, which has sat since the 14th century to hear "presentments" from citizens on matters of local concern, at first refused two requests for a fluoride rethink. A third request evenly split the jury after a couple of members left the session early and the sheriff, Councillor Carol Cunio, used her casting vote to accept it. The city council will now have to consider the court's plea for another fluoride debate.
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Health

Exercise Improves Body Image For Fit And Unfit Alike


Science Daily
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17 UTC
Image
© iStockphotoNew research shows that the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better.
Attention weekend warriors: the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better, a new University of Florida study finds.

People who don't achieve workout milestones such as losing fat, gaining strength or boosting cardiovascular fitness feel just as good about their bodies as their more athletic counterparts, said Heather Hausenblas, a UF exercise psychologist. Her study is published in the September issue of the Journal of Health Psychology.
"You would think that if you become more fit that you would experience greater improvements in terms of body image, but that's not what we found," she said. "It may be that the requirements to receive the psychological benefits of exercise, including those relating to body image, differ substantially from the physical benefits."
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Info

LSD Returns to University Labs


United Press International
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:10 UTC
LSD is back in labs after years of disrepute, joining other hallucinogens as legitimate subjects of research, a researcher in Santa Cruz, Calif., said.

The first new studies of LSD in human subjects started at Harvard University last year. Scientists are looking into it as a treatment of cluster headaches, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.

A second research project is under way at the University of California San Francisco.

"Psychedelics are in labs all over the world and there's a lot of promise," Rick Doblin, director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies said. "The situation with LSD is that because it was the quintessential symbol of the '60s, it was the last to enter the lab."

"What poisoned the well was the widespread abuse being promoted by scientists to the public," Dr. John Mendelson, an associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at UCSF who is helping run the LSD study, said. "That put a lot of researchers off, and it made it very hard for researchers to justify getting back into the field. And there were no pressing health needs, no pressing treatments other than curiosity."
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Family

The mysterious effect of pets on sick kids

Carla Baranauckas
Edmonton Journal
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:56 UTC
Interaction with animals produces tangible results, families say

Image
© Photos.com, Canwest News ServiceMany companion animals, whether service dogs or pets, have an effect on human health that is noticeable but has yet to be fully understood through scientific study.
When Chad, a yellow Labrador retriever, moved in with Claire Vaccaro's family in Manhattan last spring, he already had an important role. As an autism service dog, he was joining the family to help protect Vaccaro's 11-year-old son, Milo -- especially in public, where he often had tantrums or tried to run away.

Like many companion animals, whether service dogs or pets, Chad had an immediate effect -- the kind of effect that is noticeable but has yet to be fully understood through scientific study. And it went beyond the tether that connects dog and boy in public.
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Family

Virus Is Found in Many With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Denise Grady
New York Times
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:16 UTC
Many people with chronic fatigue syndrome are infected with a little known virus that may cause or at least contribute to their illness, researchers are reporting.

The syndrome, which causes prolonged and severe fatigue, body aches and other symptoms, has long been a mystery ailment, and patients have sometimes been suspected of malingering or having psychiatric problems rather than genuine physical ones. Worldwide, 17 million people have the syndrome, including at least one million Americans.

An article published online Thursday in the journal Science reports that 68 of 101 patients with the syndrome, or 67 percent, were infected with an infectious virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV. By contrast, only 3.7 percent of 218 healthy people were infected. Continuing work after the paper was published has found the virus in nearly 98 percent of about 300 patients with the syndrome, said Dr. Judy A. Mikovits, the lead author of the paper.
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Red Flag

Group Lists 10 Most Dangerous Foods


NewsInferno
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:50 UTC
A variety of so-called healthy foods have topped a list of the 10 riskiest foods regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) just reported. The group pointed out that leafy greens, eggs, and tuna top the list and 10 foods are linked to 40 percent of all food borne illness outbreaks connected with FDA-regulated foods.

Tomatoes, cheese, ice cream, sprouts, and berries also made the list, which, said the CSPI is why the United States Senate should pass legislation, as was recently enacted by the House, to reform food safety laws. The CSPI, a nonprofit advocacy group, wrote the report.
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Attention

We Interact with 100,000 + Chemicals, and the Dangers Are Barely Understood

Monona Rossol
Alternet
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:09 UTC
Our regulatory system works according to a 'guilty until proven innocent' logic, where new chemicals are available and safe, until the day we realize they aren't.

Last month, the Chemical Abstract Service, an agency that registers every new chemical as it is invented or discovered, assigned a registry number to the 50 millionth chemical. It's a landmark to be sure, but not one we're likely to look back on fondly.

The Chemical Abstract Service began to register chemicals in 1956, and it took 33 years to register the first 10 million new chemicals.
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Attention

Urgent lawsuit filed against FDA to halt swine flu vaccines; claims FDA violated federal law

Mike Adams
Natural News
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:46 UTC
Health freedom attorney Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit in Washington D.C. mid-day Friday in an urgent effort to halt the distribution of the swine flu vaccine in America. On behalf of plaintiffs Dr. Gary Null and other licensed health care workers of New York State, the lawsuit charges that the FDA violated the law in its hasty approval of four swine flu vaccines by failing to scientifically determine neither the safety nor efficacy of the vaccines.

"The suit will seek an injunction against the FDA from approving the vaccine," attorney Jim Turner told NaturalNews on Thursday evening's Natural News Talk Hour show. "And the core of the argument is that they have not done the proper safety and efficacy tests on the vaccine to allow it to be release at this time."
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Magnify

How Memories Are Maintained Over Time

Aimee Cunningham
Scientific American
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:22 UTC
As recollections age, different brain areas take charge of the upkeep

The brain's ability to learn and form memories of day-to-day facts and events depends on the hippocampus, a structure deep within the brain. But is the hippocampus still maintaining the memory of, say, the commencement address at your college graduation 20 years ago? The latest evidence suggests that as memories age, the hippocampus's participation wanes.

In a 2006 study, neuroscientist Larry R. Squire of the University of California, San Diego, and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System studied patients who had hippocampal damage. These indi­viduals did not remember details of newsworthy events that occurred in the five to 10 years prior to their injuries, but they did recall older events.

Building on those results, Squire turned to healthy brains. His team questioned 15 people in their 50s and 60s about events in the news over the past 30 years while scanning the participants' brains with functional MRI. To single out brain activity related to the date of the event, the researchers separately evaluated activity tied to learning and remem­bering the test questions. They also accounted for the richness of participants' recollections of events, to make sure the degree to which someone was able to recall an event did not influence the data.
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Pills

Top researcher who worked on cervical cancer vaccine warns about its dangers

Mike Adams
Natural News
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:45 UTC
One of the key researchers involved in the clinical trials for both Gardasil and Cevarix cervical cancer vaccines has gone public with warnings about their safety and effectiveness. This highly unusual warning against these vaccines by one of Big Pharma's own researchers surfaced in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express in the UK over the last few days. There, Dr. Diane Harper openly admitted the vaccine doesn't even prevent cervical cancer, stating, "[The vaccine] will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all."

This is astonishing news. The whole push behind the cervical cancer vaccines is based on the belief that they prevent cervical cancer. That belief, it turns out, is a myth.

Dr. Harper also warned that the cervical cancer vaccine was being "over-marketed" and that parents should be warned about the possible risk of severe side effects from the vaccine. She even concluded that the vaccine itself is more dangerous than the cervical cancer it claims to prevent!
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