Health & WellnessS


Syringe

Lung cancer vaccine 'extends terminal patients lives'

Shasta Darlington
CNN.com
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:15 UTC
Terminal lung cancer patients are living longer thanks to the world's first registered lung cancer vaccine, a leading Cuban scientist says.

Cuban scientist Dr. Gisela Gonzalez says she and her team have created a lung cancer vaccine that extends patient's lives.

Dr. Gisela Gonzalez has spent years researching the vaccine which the Cuban government approved for the use of the general public last year.

Gonzalez and her team have worked on developing the CimaVax EGF vaccine at the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology since the early 1990s.
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Magnify

Technique Tricks Bacteria Into Generating Their Own Vaccine


ScienceDaily
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:07 UTC
Scientists have developed a way to manipulate bacteria so they will grow mutant sugar molecules on their cell surfaces that could be used against them as the key component in potent vaccines.

Any resulting vaccines, if proven safe, could be developed more quickly, easily and cheaply than many currently available vaccines used to prevent bacterial illnesses.

Most vaccines against bacteria are created with polysaccharides, or long strings of sugars found on the surface of bacterial cells. The most common way to develop these vaccines is to remove sugars from the cell surface and link them to proteins to give them more power to kill bacteria.

Polysaccharides alone typically do not generate a strong enough antibody response needed to kill bacteria. But this new technique would provide an easy approach to make a small alteration to the sugar structure and produce the polysaccharide by simple fermentation.
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Syringe

Vaccine Maker Immunity Questioned


Newsinferno.com
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:01 UTC
Consumer advocates are saying that a legal protection known as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program shelters vaccine makers and compromises drug safety, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal. The pharmaceutical industry disagrees.

SmartBrief pointed that a relatively recent ruling found that families of autistic children are not eligible for compensation under the program, which has many wondering to whom the program offers the most benefits.

According to FiercePharma, vaccinations have become a huge boon for industry, pointing out that the Program, which was developed in 1986, was meant for the development of vaccines to prevent childhood diseases and to ameliorate the dearth of companies willing to remain in a vaccine business heavy with lawsuits and minimal profits. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noted that the vaccines worked and significantly minimized a wide variety of childhood diseases.
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Syringe

Video: Brain Neuron Degeneration via Mercury Poisoning

Adrenalyn
Youtube
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:41 UTC
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Gear

Video Exposing Food Lobbyists (no one covered this)

minorityfilms
Daily Kos
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:17 UTC
Anyways, with all the news focused on Chimpanzees and the Economy lately, I felt like this is a story that went under the radar. And deserves to be seen to inform the public.

So, I've been tracking the wheelings and dealings of food and beverage lobbyists for 2 years now. I worked on a documentary about the obesity epidemic and learned statistics that blew my mind. For example, when offered "fast food" items at school lunch, teenagers consume an average of 1350 calories. Or that french fries and ketchup make up 46% of the "fruits and vegetables" teenagers consume each year.

I read Marion Nestle's "Food Politics", Ann Cooper's "Lunch Lessons", and Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" back-to-back, which further blew my mind.

So, when I learned that 2009 was the year Congress and the USDA would be renewing the National School Lunch Program, I decided that I would pay close attention to who the movers and shakers would be.

This lead me to a Jan 28 meeting at the Institute of Medicine. A team of scientists had been gathered to come up with revisions and updates to the vastly outdated lunch program. But when I went to the meeting, I looked at the name tags of those in the room and realized that science was in the minority...
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Family

Social websites harm children's brains

David Derbyshire
Daily Mail
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:10 UTC
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.

The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day.

But they will strike a chord with parents and teachers who complain that many youngsters lack the ability to communicate or concentrate away from their screens.
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Evil Rays

Warning Against Adverse Health Effects From the Operation of Digital Broadcast

Dr. Christine Aschermann, Dr. Cornelia Waldmann-Selsam, Dr. Markus Kern
Scribd
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:19 UTC
The Digital TV will start operating in the USA in these days. Many people are worrying about this new technology which has not been tested yet. People in USA will be the Guinea pigs and, what a chance for the industry, there is so much radiation everywhere without DVBT that you will probably see no difference to other RF. (Perhaps more exhaustion, more tiredness, the feeling of being paralyzed??)

Please see the letter in the attachment. You may forward it to your friends and to the press.

Dr. Christine Aschermann
Warning Against Adverse Health Effects From the Operation of Digital Broadcast

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Stop

GM Crops Criticized For 'Feeding Profits, Not The Poor'

Caroline Scott-Thomas
Food Navigator
Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:33 UTC
Friends of the Earth International has accused biotech firms of using genetically modified crops to feed profits instead of the world's poor while increasing costs for US farmers, in a report released Tuesday.

The report, Who Benefits From GM Crops?, outlined how agribusiness corporations have seen increased profits on the back of rising grain prices, even as the world's hungry were hit by the food crisis.

Comment: For a more in depth look at the 'attitudes' toward GM crops read the following articles:

The Public is Proved Right: GM crops are no panacea

Exposed: the great GM crops myth

GM crops 'may give lower yields'

Latest GMO Research: Decreased Fertility, Immunological Alterations and Allergies

Chinese consumers wary of GMO food: Greenpeace

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

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Bulb

How to Save New Brain Cells

Tracey J. Shors
Scientific American
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:38 UTC
Fresh neurons arise in the adult brain every day. New research suggests that the cells ultimately help with learning complex tasks - and the more they are challenged, the more they flourish.

If you watch TV, read magazines or surf the Web, you have probably encountered advertisements urging you to exercise your mind. Various brain fitness programs encourage people to stay mentally limber by giving their brain a daily workout - doing everything from memorizing lists and solving puzzles to estimating the number of trees in Central Park.

It sounds a bit gimmicky, but such programs may have a real basis in neurobiology. Recent work, albeit mostly in rats, indicates that learning enhances the survival of new neurons in the adult brain. And the more engaging and challenging the problem, the greater the number of neurons that stick around. These neurons are then presumably available to aid in situations that tax the mind. It seems, then, that a mental workout can buff up the brain, much as physical exercise builds up the body.
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Health

Brain injury raises epilepsy risk for years

Michael Kahn
Reuters
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:01 UTC
London - A severe brain injury puts people at high risk of epilepsy for more than a decade after they are first hurt, a finding that suggests there may be a window to prevent the condition, researchers said on Monday.

A Danish team found that the odds of epilepsy more than doubled after mild brain injury or skull fracture and was seven times more likely in patients with serious brain injury.
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