Health & WellnessS


Magic Wand

The Myths of Modern Pharmaceutical Medicine Parallel Greek Mythology

Mike Adams
Nature News
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:14 UTC
Every culture invents its own mythology to explain the world around it. What's interesting about this, however, is that no culture believes its mythology is actually "myth". Its people believe commonly-held fabrications to be truthful and accurate. It is only later, after that culture or civilization collapses or moves forward that the mythology is revealed as fiction.

Western civilization is currently steeped in a fascinating form of mythology called "medical science." Like any good mythology, it has its stories ("these chemicals balance your brain chemistry") and its story tellers (the medical journals). These stories are carefully placed in the framework of truthful-sounding "scientific" language. But as the recent findings about 21 fabricated studies reveals, these peer-reviewed clinical trial results published in "scientific" journals are really just a modern form of mythological story-telling.
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Health

Russian medics say hadron collider can cure cancer


MOSNEWS.com
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:26 UTC
Up to 2,000 cancer patients can be cured annually by a hadron collider-based device developed by Russian researchers, spokesman for a Russian nuclear physics study center has said.

The treatment process involves focusing the flow of protons, accelerated to the speed of light, into a hair-thin ray, and directing it at the tumor, deputy head of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Russian Sciences Academy, Yevgeny Levichev, told Life.ru website on Thursday.
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Pills

Fake company gets approval for risky trial


New Scientist
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:03 UTC
You would hope that a fake company, proposing to test a risky medical procedure, would be turned down flat. But that's not what happened in an elaborate "sting" operation set up to probe the US system for protecting volunteers in clinical research.

Trials of new drugs or medical devices can only begin if approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). Often these are attached to the hospitals or universities where the research will take place. But the task is increasingly being performed for profit by commercial IRBs, prompting fears that some may be rubber-stamping risky trials without proper scrutiny.
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Bad Guys

Teen Commits Suicide Due to Bullying: Parents Sue School for Son's Death

Susan Donaldson James
American Broadcasting Company
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:18 UTC
Family Wants No Money but Insists School Address Bullying and Three Other Suicides

Image
© (Courtesy Mohat Family)In a federal lawsuit, the parents of Eric Mohat allege that their son committed suicide after being tormented by bullies at his Mentor, Ohio, High School. They say the school knew about the bullying and failed to protect their son.
Eric Mohat, 17, was harassed so mercilessly in high school that when one bully said publicly in class, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself, no one will miss you," he did.

Now his parents, William and Janis Mohat of Mentor, Ohio, have filed a lawsuit in federal court, saying that their son endured name-calling, teasing, constant pushing and shoving and hitting in front of school officials who should have protected him.

The lawsuit -- filed March 27, alleges that the quiet but likable boy, who was involved in theater and music, was called "gay," "fag," "queer" and "homo" and often in front of his teachers. Most of the harassment took place in math class and the teacher -- an athletic coach -- was accused of failing to protect the boy.
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Health

Fear Erased in Rat Brains

Andrea Thompson
Live Science
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:46 UTC
Fearful memories have a powerful grip on the brain, but researchers have developed a new technique in rats that loosens that grip and overwrites the fear response permanently.

The technique, involving exposing rats to the very thing they were primed to fear and taking advantage of a moment of weakness in memory of that fear, could eventually be used to develop clinical treatments of fears in humans, the scientists said.

Fear memories, like other bad memories, are particularly sticky in the brain compared to "good" ones. Evolution played a hand in this, the thinking goes, because fearing things that can harm us is an advantage to survival.

So the brain has a hard time letting go of these memories, as well as distinguishing rational from irrational fears. Researchers have long looked for a way to short-circuit the brain and help it delete those irrational fears.
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Heart

Scientists prove human heart can regenerate cells

Kylie MacLellan
Reuters
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:13 UTC
Image
© REUTERS/Camilla Svensk/HandoutJonas Frisén of Sweden's Karolinska Institute in an undated photo.

London-- Scientists said on Thursday they had shown the human body regenerates heart cells at a rate of about one percent a year, a discovery that could one day reduce the need for transplants.

The study of 50 volunteers, using a dating method that detects traces of a carbon isotope left by Cold War nuclear bomb tests, raises the prospect of artificially stimulating the renewal process some day, they reported in the journal Science.

"It would be a way to try and help the heart to some self-help rather than transplanting new cells," Jonas Frisen of Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a telephone interview.

"Taking advantage of the heart's own capacity to generate new cells either using pharmaceutical compounds or, if it is possible, by exercise or any other environmental factor."
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Health

US: House Committee Urges Probe of Uniforms Posing Health Problems

Steve Vogel
The Washington Post
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:17 UTC
Complaints that new uniforms are causing rashes and other irritations for Transportation Security Administration officers who screen passengers at airports have triggered an inquiry by the House Committee on Homeland Security.

In a letter to TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) called the complaints "very troublesome" and requested that the agency fully investigate the issue and report back with proposed solutions to any problems found.

According to unions representing federal workers, hundreds of transportation security officers, or TSOs, have complained about the uniforms, most reporting skin rashes but others complaining of runny or bloody noses, lightheadedness, red eyes and swollen and cracked lips.
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Health

Flashback Who's Afraid of GMOs? Me!

Neil E. Levin, CCN, DANLA
saynotogmos.org
Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:04 UTC
In your article, Who is Afraid of GMOs? (by Lindsey Partos), the author tries to persuade us that genetically modified (also known as GMO, GM, GE, and biotech) foods can feed the world's hungry and that foes of this technology are selfish, greedy idealists who abet the starving of millions of people.

In fact, the foes of genetic crops are the heroes who are fighting greedy, huge agribusiness interests that are slowly destroying our environment and exposing us all to uncertain dangers for their own gain.

Instead of focusing on the (yet) uncertain health risks and accepting by faith that GMO food can better feed the hungry, the author should have zeroed in on the scientifically unsubstantiated safety issues and the clear environmental dangers of GMO crops. The lack of evidence of harm to date may simply be the result of a lack of resources to look at potential problems from GMOs.
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Health

Marijuana Chemical May Fight Brain Cancer

Kelli Miller Stacy
Web MD
Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:35 UTC
Active Component In Marijuana Targets Aggressive Brain Cancer Cells, Study Says

The active chemical in marijuana promotes the death of brain cancer cells by essentially helping them feed upon themselves, researchers in Spain report.

Guillermo Velasco and colleagues at Complutense University in Spain have found that the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, causes brain cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy. Autophagy is the breakdown of a cell that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests.
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Bulb

New York county ban on baby bottle chemical is official

Karen Matthews
Associated Press/ Yahoo News
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:53 UTC
New York - A suburban New York county has adopted the nation's first ban on the chemical found in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups.

The measure banning the sale of baby bottles containing BPA was signed by Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy on Thursday after county legislators passed it last month.

Several states including California, Oregon and Hawaii are considering bans the chemical formally known as bisphenol A, but Suffolk County, on Long Island, is the first place in the nation to enact one.
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