Young, Assured and Playing Pharmacist to Friends Wednesday 16 November 2005 Nathan Tylutki arrived late in New York, tired but eager to go out dancing. When his friend Katherine K. offered him the Ritalin she had inherited from someone who had stopped taking his prescription, he popped two pills and stayed out all night. For the two college friends, now 25 and out in the working world, there was nothing remarkable about the transaction. A few weeks later, Katherine gave the tranquilizer Ativan to another friend who complained of feeling short of breath and panicky. "Clear-cut anxiety disorder," Katherine decreed. The Ativan came from a former colleague who had traded it to her for the Vicodin that Katherine's boyfriend had been prescribed by a dentist. The boyfriend did not mind, but he preferred that she not give away the Ambien she got from a doctor by exaggerating her sleeping problems. It helps him relax after a stressful day. "I acquire quite a few medications and then dispense them to my friends as needed. I usually know what I'm talking about," said Katherine, who lives in Manhattan and who, like many other people interviewed for this article, did not want her last name used because of concerns that her behavior could get her in trouble with her employer, law enforcement authorities or at least her parents. For a sizable group of people in their 20's and 30's, deciding on their own what drugs to take - in particular, stimulants, antidepressants and other psychiatric medications - is becoming the norm. Confident of their abilities and often skeptical of psychiatrists' expertise, they choose to rely on their own research and each other's experience in treating problems like depression, fatigue, anxiety or a lack of concentration. A medical degree, in their view, is useful, but not essential, and certainly not sufficient. They trade unused prescription drugs, get medications without prescriptions from the Internet and, in some cases, lie to doctors to obtain medications that in their judgment they need. A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration says it is illegal to give prescription medication to another person, although it is questionable whether the offense would be prosecuted. The behavior, drug abuse prevention experts say, is notably different from the use of drugs like marijuana or cocaine, or even the abuse of prescription painkillers, which is also on the rise. The goal for many young adults is not to get high but to feel better - less depressed, less stressed out, more focused, better rested. It is just that the easiest route to that end often seems to be medication for which they do not have a prescription. Some seek to regulate every minor mood fluctuation, some want to enhance their performance at school or work, some simply want to find the best drug to treat a genuine mental illness. And patients say that many general practitioners, pressed for time and unfamiliar with the ever-growing inventory of psychiatric drugs, are happy to take their suggestions, so it pays to be informed. Health officials say they worry that as prescription pills get passed around in small batches, information about risks and dosage are not included. Even careful self-medicators, they say, may not realize the harmful interaction that drugs can have when used together or may react unpredictably to a drug; Mr. Tylutki and Katherine each had a bad experience with a medication taken without a prescription. But doctors and experts in drug abuse also say they are flummoxed about how to address the increasing casual misuse of prescription medications by young people for purposes other than getting high. Carol Boyd, the former head of the Addiction Research Center at the University of Michigan, said medical professionals needed to find ways to evaluate these risks. "Kids get messages about street drugs," Ms. Boyd said. "They know smoking crack is a bad deal. This country needs to have a serious conversation about both the marketing of prescription drugs and where we draw the boundaries between illegal use and misuse." To some extent, the embrace by young adults of better living through chemistry is driven by familiarity. Unlike previous generations, they have for many years been taking drugs prescribed by doctors for depression, anxiety or ADHD (attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder). Direct-to-consumer drug advertising, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1997, has for most of their adult lives sent the message that pills offer a cure for any ill. Which ones to take, many advertisements suggest, is largely a matter of personal choice. "If a person is having a problem in life, someone who is 42 might not know where to go - 'Do I need acupuncture, do I need a new haircut, do I need to read Suze Orman?' " said Casey Greenfield, 32, a writer in Los Angeles, referring to the personal-finance guru. "Someone my age will be like, 'Do I need to switch from Paxil to Prozac?' " For Ms. Greenfield, who could recite the pros and cons of every selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor on the market by the time she graduated from college, years of watching doctors try to find the right drug cocktails for her and for assorted friends has not bolstered faith in their expertise. "I would never just do what the doctor told me because the person is a doctor," said Ms. Greenfield, who dictates to her doctors what to prescribe for her headaches and sleep problems, and sometimes gives her pills to friends. "I'm sure lots of patients don't know what they're talking about. But lots of doctors don't know what they're talking about either." Prescriptions to treat attention deficit disorder in adults age 20 to 30 nearly tripled from 2000 to 2004, according to Medco, a prescription management company. Medications for sleeping disorders in the same age group showed a similar increase. Antidepressants are now prescribed to as many as half of the college students seen at student health centers, according to a recent report in The New England Journal of Medicine, and increasing numbers of students fake the symptoms of depression or attention disorder to get prescriptions that they believe will give them an edge. Another study, published recently in The Journal of American College Health, found that 14 percent of students at a Midwestern liberal arts college reported borrowing or buying prescription stimulants from each other, and that 44 percent knew of someone who had. "There's this increasingly widespread attitude that 'we are our own best pharmacists,' " said Bessie Oster, the director of Facts on Tap, a drug abuse prevention program for college students that has begun to focus on prescription drugs. "You'll take something, and if it's not quite right, you'll take a little more or a little less, and there's no notion that you need a doctor to do that." Now, Going Online for Pills The new crop of amateur pharmacists varies from those who have gotten prescriptions - after doing their own research and finding a doctor who agreed with them - to those who obtain pills through friends or through some online pharmacies that illegally dispense drugs without prescriptions. "The mother's little helpers of the 1960's and 1970's are all available now on the Internet," said Catherine Wood, a clinical social worker in Evanston, Ill., who treated one young client who became addicted to Xanax after buying it online. "You don't have to go and steal a prescription pad anymore." In dozens of interviews, via e-mail and in person, young people spoke of a sense of empowerment that comes from knowing what to prescribe for themselves, or at least where to turn to figure it out. They are as careful with themselves, they say, as any doctor would be with a patient. "It's not like we're passing out Oxycontin, crushing it up and snorting it," said Katherine, who showed a reporter a stockpile that included stimulants, tranquilizers and sleeping pills. "I don't think it's unethical when I have the medication that someone clearly needs to make them feel better to give them a pill or two." Besides, they say, they have grown up watching their psychiatrists mix and match drugs in a manner that sometimes seems arbitrary, and they feel an obligation to supervise. "I tried Zoloft because my doctor said, 'I've had a lot of success with Zoloft,' no other reason," said Laurie, 26, who says researching medications to treat her depressive disorder has become something of a compulsion. "It's insane. I feel like you have to be informed because you're controlling your brain." When a new psychiatrist suggested Seroquel, Laurie, who works in film production and who did not want her last name used, refused it because it can lead to weight gain. When the doctor suggested Wellbutrin XL, she replied with a line from the commercial she had seen dozens of times on television: "It has a low risk of sexual side effects. I like that." But before agreeing to take the drug, Laurie consulted several Internet sites and the latest edition of the Physicians' Desk Reference guide to prescription drugs at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Union Square. On a page of her notebook, she copied down the generic and brand names of seven alternatives. Effexor, she noted, helps with anxiety - a plus. But Wellbutrin suppresses appetite - even better. At the weekly meetings of an "under-30" mood-disorder support group in New York that Laurie attends, the discussion inevitably turns to medication. Group members trade notes on side effects that, they complain, doctors often fail to inform them about. Some say they are increasingly suspicious of how pharmaceutical companies influence the drugs they are prescribed. "Lamictal is the new rage," said one man who attended the group, "but in part that's because there's a big money interest in it. You have to do research on your own because the research provided to you is not based on an objective source of what may be best." Recent reports that widely prescribed antidepressants could be responsible for suicidal thoughts or behavior in some adolescents have underscored for Laurie and other young adults how little is known about the risks of some drugs, and why different people respond to them differently. Moreover, drugs widely billed as nonaddictive, like Paxil or Effexor, can cause withdrawal symptoms, which some patients say they only learned of from their friends or fellow sufferers. "This view of psychology as a series of problems that can be solved with pills is relatively brand new," said Andrea Tone, a professor of the social history of medicine at McGill University. "It's more elastic, and more subjective, so it lends itself more to taking matters into our own hands." To that end, it helps to have come of age with the Internet, which offers new possibilities for communication and commerce to those who want to supplement their knowledge or circumvent doctors. Fluent in Psychopharmacology People of all ages gather on public Internet forums to trade notes on "head meds," but participants say the conversations are dominated by a younger crowd for whom anonymous exchanges of highly personal information are second nature. On patient-generated sites like CrazyBoards, fluency in the language of psychopharmacology is taken for granted. Dozens of drugs are referred to in passing by both brand name and generic, and no one is reticent about suggesting medications and dosage levels. "Do you guys think that bumping up the dosage was a good idea, or should I have asked for a different drug?" someone who called herself Maggie asked earlier this month, saying she had told her doctor she wanted to double her daily intake of the antidepressant fluoxetine to 40 milligrams. In another recent posting, a participant wrote that his supply of the beta blocker Inderal, acquired in Costa Rica, was running out. He uses the drug for panic attacks, he said, but he has not told his doctor about it. "What do I do/say to get her to prescribe me some?" he asked. "CraZgirl," who said she was not currently taking any medications, received a resounding "yes" to her posting that asked, "If you wouldn't go on meds for yourself, is it reasonable to do it to keep your marriage intact?" Still, for some young adults, consulting their peers leads to taking less medicine, not more. When Eric Wisch, 20, reported to an anonymous online group that he was having problems remembering things, several members suggested that he stop taking Risperdal, one of four medications in a cocktail that had been mixed different ways by different doctors. "I decided to cut back," said Mr. Wisch, a sophomore at the University of Rochester who runs www.thebipolarblog.com, where he posts his thoughts on medications and other subjects. "And I'm doing better." Despite frequent admonitions on all the sites to "check with your Pdoc," an abbreviation for psychiatrist, there are also plenty of tips on how to get medications without a prescription. "I know I shouldn't order drugs online," one participant wrote in a Sept. 26 posting on the Psycho-babble discussion group. "But I've been suffering with insomnia and my Pdoc isn't keen on sleep aids." What should he do, the poster wanted to know, after an order he placed with an online pharmacy that promised to provide sleeping pills without a prescription failed to deliver? Another regular participant, known as "med-empowered," replied that the poster was out of luck, and went on to suggest a private e-mail exchange: "I think I know some sites where you could post your experience and also get info about more reliable sites." For a hefty markup, dozens of Web sites fill orders for drugs, no prescription required, though to do so is not legal. Instead, customers are asked to fill out a form describing themselves and their symptoms, often with all the right boxes helpfully pre-checked. Erin, 26, a slender hair stylist, remembers laughing to herself as she listed her weight as 250 pounds to order Adipex, a diet pill, for $113. One recent night, she took an Adipex to stay up cleaning her house, followed by a Xanax when she needed to sleep. Like many other self-medicators, Erin, who has been on and off antidepressants and sleeping pills since she was in high school, has considered weaning herself from the pills. She wishes she had opted for chamomile tea instead of the Xanax when she wanted to sleep. "I feel like I have been so programmed to think, 'If I feel like this then I should take this pill,' " she said. "I hate that." But the problem with the tea, she said, is the same one she faces when she is coloring hair: "It's not predictable. I know how these drugs are going to affect me. I don't know if the chamomile tea will work." Online pharmacies are not the only way for determined self-prescribers to get their pills. Suffering from mood swings a decade after his illness was diagnosed as bipolar disorder, Rich R., 31, heard in an online discussion group about an antidepressant not available in the United States. A contractor in the Midwest, Rich scanned an old prescription into his computer, rearranged the information and faxed it to pharmacies in Canada to get the drug. "My initial experience with physicians who are supposed to be experts in the field was disappointing," Rich said. "So I concluded I can do things better than they can." Even for psychiatrists, patients say, the practice of prescribing psychotropic drugs is often hit and miss. New drugs for depression, anxiety and other problems proliferate. Stimulants like Adderall are frequently prescribed "as needed." Research has found that antidepressants affect different patients differently, so many try several drugs before finding one that helps. And in many cases, getting doctors to prescribe antidepressants, sleeping pills or other psychiatric medications is far from difficult, patients say. The result is a surplus of half-empty pill bottles that provides a storehouse for those who wish to play pharmacist for their friends. The rules of the CrazyBoards Web site prohibit participants from openly offering or soliciting pharmaceuticals. But it is standard practice for people who visit the site to complain, tongue-in-cheek, that they simply "don't know what to do" with their leftovers. The rest takes place by private e-mail. Sometimes, the person requesting the drugs already has a prescription, but because the medications are so expensive, receiving them free from other people has its merits. A Post-Hurricane Care Package Dan Todd, marooned in Covington, La., after Hurricane Katrina, said he would be forever grateful to a woman in New Hampshire who organized a donation drive for him among the site's regular participants. Within two days of posting a message saying that he had run out of his medications, he received several care packages of assorted mood stabilizers and anti-anxiety drugs, including Wellbutrin, Klonopin, Trileptal, Cymbalta and Neurontin. "I had to drive down to meet the FedEx driver because his truck couldn't get past the trees on part of the main highway," said Mr. Todd, 58. "I had tears in my eyes when I got those packages." It doesn't always work out so well. When Katherine took a Xanax to ease her anxiety before a gynecologist appointment, she found that she could not keep her eyes open. She had traded a friend for the blue oval pill and she had no idea what the dosage was. An Adderall given to her by another friend, she said, "did weird things to me." And Mr. Tylutki, who took the Ritalin she offered one weekend last fall, began a downward spiral soon after. "I completely regretted and felt really guilty about it," Katherine said. Taking Katherine's pills with him when he returned to Minneapolis, Mr. Tylutki took several a day while pursuing a nursing degree and working full time. Like many other students, he found Ritalin a useful study aid. One night, he read a book, lay down to sleep, wrote the paper in his head, got up, wrote it down, and received an A-minus. But he also began using cocaine and drinking too much alcohol. A few months ago, Mr. Tylutki took a break from school. He flushed the Ritalin down the toilet and stopped taking all drugs, including the Prozac that he had asked a doctor for when he began feeling down. "I kind of made it seem like I needed it," Mr. Tylutki said, referring to what he told the doctor. "Now I think I was just lacking sleep." |
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Machines Behave Like DNA
By Tracy Staedter, Discovery News
Oct. 14, 2005- Just like the biological components inside a cell can replicate a segment of DNA and self-correct when something goes out of whack, so too can a newly developed set of miniature robots.
Created by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the three-inch-long autonomous machines have mechanisms, both physical and computational, that allow them to meet up randomly, latch together, decide if they should stay connected, and then either let go or remain paired.
"The technique simultaneously addresses two of the most challenging requirements in nanoscale manufacturing: error-free assembly and massively parallel assembly of mechanical parts," said Robert A. Freitas Jr., a senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, Calif., and co-author of a recent book on self-replicating machines.
The new method, published by MIT's Joseph M. Jacobson in a recent edition of the journal Nature, could serve as the foundation for systems that assemble themselves, such as machines that break apart to explore tight places and then reassemble later.
To date, self-replicating machines have been realized, but have relied on the well-ordered input of building blocks and do not posses a self-correcting function.
But the approach taken by Jacobson and lead graduate student, Saul Griffith, functions more like a biological system.
For example, inside a cell's nucleus, particles including a variety of chemical compounds and proteins float around randomly.
The proteins copy bits of DNA by assembling the compounds into a specific order. This is not an assembly line where parts are delivered in the correct sequence, yet nature has figured out a way to correctly order the components and self-correct any errors along the way.
"We wanted to mimic nature and make an analogy to the machinery in nature that copies itself," said Jacobson.
In the lab, his team built machines that come in two colors: yellow and green.
They attached five robots together, shoulder to shoulder, to make a "seed" string, for example green, green, yellow, yellow, green.
The seed string, which served as the starting point for assembly, was placed on an air hockey table with a bunch of individual robots.
Even though the robots in the string were attached shoulder to shoulder, the individual robots are designed to latch onto each other front to back.
The goal was to assemble identical rows of robots in the same color order: green, green, yellow, yellow, green.
As the air from the table jostled the little machines here and there, they randomly bumped into each other, as well as the components in the seed string.
When they attached, they automatically sent each other an electronic signal to identify whether they were of the same color. If they were, they stayed together. If they weren't, they released.
In tests, the team got perfect replication of the five-robot strings each time. If they turned off the error-correction program, strings replicated only three percent of the time.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051010/dnabot.html
============== 30 ===============
By Tracy Staedter, Discovery News
Oct. 14, 2005- Just like the biological components inside a cell can replicate a segment of DNA and self-correct when something goes out of whack, so too can a newly developed set of miniature robots.
Created by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the three-inch-long autonomous machines have mechanisms, both physical and computational, that allow them to meet up randomly, latch together, decide if they should stay connected, and then either let go or remain paired.
"The technique simultaneously addresses two of the most challenging requirements in nanoscale manufacturing: error-free assembly and massively parallel assembly of mechanical parts," said Robert A. Freitas Jr., a senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, Calif., and co-author of a recent book on self-replicating machines.
The new method, published by MIT's Joseph M. Jacobson in a recent edition of the journal Nature, could serve as the foundation for systems that assemble themselves, such as machines that break apart to explore tight places and then reassemble later.
To date, self-replicating machines have been realized, but have relied on the well-ordered input of building blocks and do not posses a self-correcting function.
But the approach taken by Jacobson and lead graduate student, Saul Griffith, functions more like a biological system.
For example, inside a cell's nucleus, particles including a variety of chemical compounds and proteins float around randomly.
The proteins copy bits of DNA by assembling the compounds into a specific order. This is not an assembly line where parts are delivered in the correct sequence, yet nature has figured out a way to correctly order the components and self-correct any errors along the way.
"We wanted to mimic nature and make an analogy to the machinery in nature that copies itself," said Jacobson.
In the lab, his team built machines that come in two colors: yellow and green.
They attached five robots together, shoulder to shoulder, to make a "seed" string, for example green, green, yellow, yellow, green.
The seed string, which served as the starting point for assembly, was placed on an air hockey table with a bunch of individual robots.
Even though the robots in the string were attached shoulder to shoulder, the individual robots are designed to latch onto each other front to back.
The goal was to assemble identical rows of robots in the same color order: green, green, yellow, yellow, green.
As the air from the table jostled the little machines here and there, they randomly bumped into each other, as well as the components in the seed string.
When they attached, they automatically sent each other an electronic signal to identify whether they were of the same color. If they were, they stayed together. If they weren't, they released.
In tests, the team got perfect replication of the five-robot strings each time. If they turned off the error-correction program, strings replicated only three percent of the time.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051010/dnabot.html
============== 30 ===============
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 6:22 PM
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 5:47 PM
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Tamiflu Cited in 2 Teen Deaths, Report Says
TOKYO (Nov. 12) - Two teenage boys who took the antiviral drug Tamiflu
exhibited abnormal behavior that lead to their deaths -- one jumped in
front of an oncoming truck and the other apparently fell from a building,
the Mainichi Shimbun reported Saturday.
Following the first incident, which took place last year, the prescription
drug in Japan began carrying a warning that says possible side effects
include "abnormal behavior" and "hallucinations," the major Japanese
newspaper said.
This is the first time that deaths have been linked to the drug.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is aware of one of the cases. "As
a result of abnormal behavior, it could lead to an accidental death," a
ministry official said.
Rokuro Hama, the doctor who heads the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance
for Evidence-Based Healthcare, will present the cases at a meeting of the
Japanese Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases on Saturday in Tsu, Mie
Prefecture, the Mainichi said.
Hama, who runs the Osaka-based nonprofit group, was consulted by the boys'
families, according to the newspaper.
The first case occurred in February last year when a 17-year-old male high
school student in Gifu Prefecture was diagnosed with influenza and took a
regular dose, one capsule, of Tamiflu at home at around noon, the newspaper
said.
When no one else was there, the teen, wearing pajamas and barefoot, left
the house, jumped over a fence around the house and ran in the snow, it said.
He then crossed over a guard rail near his home, jumped in front of a big
truck and died at around 3:45 p.m., it said.
Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese distributor of Tamiflu, produced by
Swiss drug giant Roche, reported the incident in July that year to the
health ministry as "a case where a causal link to the drug cannot be
denied," the Mainichi said.
In the second case, a 14-year-old male junior high school student in Aichi
Prefecture was diagnosed with flu on Feb. 5 this year and took one capsule
at around 4 p.m.
He went to his bedroom around 5:30 p.m. About 30 minutes later, the boy was
found lying barefoot in front of his condominium building, and later died,
the newspaper said.
Police said his fingerprints were found on a handrail on the ninth floor of
the building, and the boy is believed to have fallen after hanging onto the
handrail, according to the Mainichi.
Neither of them had exhibited any psychological abnormalities before taking
the drug, the newspaper said.
The government is planning to boost its stockpile of Tamiflu, generically
known as oseltamivir phosphate, amid growing fears about a possible
pandemic of a new type of influenza as bird flu deaths rise across Asia,
health ministry sources said earlier.
Tamiflu is used to inhibit the growth of a flu virus in humans.
11/11/05 21:21 EST
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051111212209990004
TOKYO (Nov. 12) - Two teenage boys who took the antiviral drug Tamiflu
exhibited abnormal behavior that lead to their deaths -- one jumped in
front of an oncoming truck and the other apparently fell from a building,
the Mainichi Shimbun reported Saturday.
Following the first incident, which took place last year, the prescription
drug in Japan began carrying a warning that says possible side effects
include "abnormal behavior" and "hallucinations," the major Japanese
newspaper said.
This is the first time that deaths have been linked to the drug.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is aware of one of the cases. "As
a result of abnormal behavior, it could lead to an accidental death," a
ministry official said.
Rokuro Hama, the doctor who heads the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance
for Evidence-Based Healthcare, will present the cases at a meeting of the
Japanese Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases on Saturday in Tsu, Mie
Prefecture, the Mainichi said.
Hama, who runs the Osaka-based nonprofit group, was consulted by the boys'
families, according to the newspaper.
The first case occurred in February last year when a 17-year-old male high
school student in Gifu Prefecture was diagnosed with influenza and took a
regular dose, one capsule, of Tamiflu at home at around noon, the newspaper
said.
When no one else was there, the teen, wearing pajamas and barefoot, left
the house, jumped over a fence around the house and ran in the snow, it said.
He then crossed over a guard rail near his home, jumped in front of a big
truck and died at around 3:45 p.m., it said.
Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese distributor of Tamiflu, produced by
Swiss drug giant Roche, reported the incident in July that year to the
health ministry as "a case where a causal link to the drug cannot be
denied," the Mainichi said.
In the second case, a 14-year-old male junior high school student in Aichi
Prefecture was diagnosed with flu on Feb. 5 this year and took one capsule
at around 4 p.m.
He went to his bedroom around 5:30 p.m. About 30 minutes later, the boy was
found lying barefoot in front of his condominium building, and later died,
the newspaper said.
Police said his fingerprints were found on a handrail on the ninth floor of
the building, and the boy is believed to have fallen after hanging onto the
handrail, according to the Mainichi.
Neither of them had exhibited any psychological abnormalities before taking
the drug, the newspaper said.
The government is planning to boost its stockpile of Tamiflu, generically
known as oseltamivir phosphate, amid growing fears about a possible
pandemic of a new type of influenza as bird flu deaths rise across Asia,
health ministry sources said earlier.
Tamiflu is used to inhibit the growth of a flu virus in humans.
11/11/05 21:21 EST
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051111212209990004
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 7:17 AM
Monday, November 14, 2005
The "Vitamin Vaccine"
The headline of the AP story read:
Government to Unveil Super-Flu Strategy
Well, hallelujah. We're saved. The Feds are ready for this year's flu season
- they're on the case with all their needles and pinheads. Just like in
years past, now we can count on inefficient distribution, obsolete vaccines,
and marginal protection that breeds super-bugs and may actually do more harm
than good...
But hey, we've got a "strategy," right?
I've got a better one. Steer clear of the government's flu lines altogether.
You're far more likely to catch influenza from the sickies that flock to
these things than you are to get any actual protection from the flu.
So, how do you protect yourself? A great start is to make sure you get
enough vitamin C. I'm not talking eating an extra orange or about making
sure you get the "USRDA" of vitamin C from Centrum or some other
multivitamin. I mean aggressively and systematically stocking your body with
a daily supplementation of immune-boosting, free-radical fighting vitamin C.
How does flooding your system with vitamin C work to defeat infections?
It isn't because of the vitamin itself - not exactly, anyway. It's because
some of the substances we use to give ourselves extra vitamin C are rich in
extra electrons that bind up and neutralize free radicals in the body, the
source of most disease.
One of the best substances to do this with is sodium ascorbate (sometimes
called ascorbic acid). You can buy supplements of this substance, or you can
administer it intravenously, if you're comfortable with that (check with
your doctor first). Evidence shows that not only is sodium ascorbate
effective in helping people resist influenza and other types of infections,
but that it also is astonishingly effective at eliminating flu symptoms.
Even the American Cancer Society notes that dietary vitamin C "may have a
protective role" in reducing cancer risk. Heck, for them, that's a parade of
an endorsement! And in even more good news on the vitamin C front...
Reliving the 70s - in a good way!
New research shows that high doses of IV vitamin C (specifically from
ascorbate) can fight cancer, an effect first suggested back in the 1970s.
According to the study, published in a September issue of The Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, intravenous Vitamin C (not oral!) led to
the formation of hydrogen peroxide in the blood. This process caused the
destruction of many cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells alone...
Hmmm. I wonder where the medical establishment has heard something like this
before? Could it have been from lil' ol' me?
As you probably know, I've been singing the praises of IV hydrogen peroxide
therapy for decades, and have used it in my travels to Africa and other
nations and eradicate much disease. It is truly miraculous treatment when
administered properly. And now it turns out that this exact compound may be
responsible for the eradication of cancer cells. Of course, the
establishment claims that more study is needed (especially on animals) to
prove these effects, but it sounds encouraging to me...
Heck, anytime the mainstream gets around to "proving" something I've been
saying for years, I'm encouraged.
This IV vitamin C story's developing - I'll keep you posted.
Always C-ing years ahead of the mainstream,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
"New research shows that high doses of IV vitamin C (specifically from
ascorbate) can fight cancer, an effect first suggested back in the 1970s."
The headline of the AP story read:
Government to Unveil Super-Flu Strategy
Well, hallelujah. We're saved. The Feds are ready for this year's flu season
- they're on the case with all their needles and pinheads. Just like in
years past, now we can count on inefficient distribution, obsolete vaccines,
and marginal protection that breeds super-bugs and may actually do more harm
than good...
But hey, we've got a "strategy," right?
I've got a better one. Steer clear of the government's flu lines altogether.
You're far more likely to catch influenza from the sickies that flock to
these things than you are to get any actual protection from the flu.
So, how do you protect yourself? A great start is to make sure you get
enough vitamin C. I'm not talking eating an extra orange or about making
sure you get the "USRDA" of vitamin C from Centrum or some other
multivitamin. I mean aggressively and systematically stocking your body with
a daily supplementation of immune-boosting, free-radical fighting vitamin C.
How does flooding your system with vitamin C work to defeat infections?
It isn't because of the vitamin itself - not exactly, anyway. It's because
some of the substances we use to give ourselves extra vitamin C are rich in
extra electrons that bind up and neutralize free radicals in the body, the
source of most disease.
One of the best substances to do this with is sodium ascorbate (sometimes
called ascorbic acid). You can buy supplements of this substance, or you can
administer it intravenously, if you're comfortable with that (check with
your doctor first). Evidence shows that not only is sodium ascorbate
effective in helping people resist influenza and other types of infections,
but that it also is astonishingly effective at eliminating flu symptoms.
Even the American Cancer Society notes that dietary vitamin C "may have a
protective role" in reducing cancer risk. Heck, for them, that's a parade of
an endorsement! And in even more good news on the vitamin C front...
Reliving the 70s - in a good way!
New research shows that high doses of IV vitamin C (specifically from
ascorbate) can fight cancer, an effect first suggested back in the 1970s.
According to the study, published in a September issue of The Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, intravenous Vitamin C (not oral!) led to
the formation of hydrogen peroxide in the blood. This process caused the
destruction of many cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells alone...
Hmmm. I wonder where the medical establishment has heard something like this
before? Could it have been from lil' ol' me?
As you probably know, I've been singing the praises of IV hydrogen peroxide
therapy for decades, and have used it in my travels to Africa and other
nations and eradicate much disease. It is truly miraculous treatment when
administered properly. And now it turns out that this exact compound may be
responsible for the eradication of cancer cells. Of course, the
establishment claims that more study is needed (especially on animals) to
prove these effects, but it sounds encouraging to me...
Heck, anytime the mainstream gets around to "proving" something I've been
saying for years, I'm encouraged.
This IV vitamin C story's developing - I'll keep you posted.
Always C-ing years ahead of the mainstream,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
"New research shows that high doses of IV vitamin C (specifically from
ascorbate) can fight cancer, an effect first suggested back in the 1970s."
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 5:36 PM
7 questions/observations:
1) Why is it that, in a day's driving up and down the hill from Corrales
to Rio Rancho, I have: some groceries, a swim at the spa
and a mediocre meal - and I drove over 82 speed bumps for that?
It's true, I counted them. 82. By the way, nice work on the Alameda
intersection again, with no one working and hundreds of cars burning
useless fuel in orange barrel hell.
2) Why has no one told the MRGCD that the NM sunflower is an endangered
species, since they have systematically eradicated the sunflower, among
other wildflowers, by mowing and scraping the ditches every year
in September before the flowers go to seed? Can we give them $900K to
STOP doing that?
3) Why would anyone think it's not true that a
particularly horrible smell comes out of Intel late at night?
Are they hard of smelling? Who would make that up? It's bad, admit it.
Surely something can be done about fixing it.
4) Why would anyone state publicly in the paper that 2000 deaths in Iraq
(at the minimum) were 'negligible'- or that a piece of paper that says
"constitution" is worth all those deaths-- and those of more than 100,000
wounded and more than 100,000 dead Iraquis--that were murdered for a
piece of paper-- is'negligible' and does not deserve the front page headline
of another piece of paper? Why?
...And does the woman who wrote that letter know that the
second Article of the Iraq Constitution she holds in such regard will
criminalize secular clothing for women, and put them all back in the burqua?
Is that also 'negligible'?
5) Who is going to take the new train to work? We need more and smaller buses,
more routes, more stops and connections - rather than extra-big, mostly-empty
billboards, and millions spent on a train to nowhere, from nowhere... The train
station is a disgrace, and there's no excuse for it.
6) Do you find it odd that " a slow flu season " occurred in a year
when far fewer than usual got the flu shot? This year, as they pump out
millions of shots and pump up the volume on the Fear-O-Meter, watch out!
Better hope that echinacea isn't just a 'myth'...
7) Why is it that you need approval from P&Z to put a sign in front of
your home - but you can buy a piece of land and chop down every tree on
it,and don't have to ask permission from anyone to do that?
1) Why is it that, in a day's driving up and down the hill from Corrales
to Rio Rancho, I have: some groceries, a swim at the spa
and a mediocre meal - and I drove over 82 speed bumps for that?
It's true, I counted them. 82. By the way, nice work on the Alameda
intersection again, with no one working and hundreds of cars burning
useless fuel in orange barrel hell.
2) Why has no one told the MRGCD that the NM sunflower is an endangered
species, since they have systematically eradicated the sunflower, among
other wildflowers, by mowing and scraping the ditches every year
in September before the flowers go to seed? Can we give them $900K to
STOP doing that?
3) Why would anyone think it's not true that a
particularly horrible smell comes out of Intel late at night?
Are they hard of smelling? Who would make that up? It's bad, admit it.
Surely something can be done about fixing it.
4) Why would anyone state publicly in the paper that 2000 deaths in Iraq
(at the minimum) were 'negligible'- or that a piece of paper that says
"constitution" is worth all those deaths-- and those of more than 100,000
wounded and more than 100,000 dead Iraquis--that were murdered for a
piece of paper-- is'negligible' and does not deserve the front page headline
of another piece of paper? Why?
...And does the woman who wrote that letter know that the
second Article of the Iraq Constitution she holds in such regard will
criminalize secular clothing for women, and put them all back in the burqua?
Is that also 'negligible'?
5) Who is going to take the new train to work? We need more and smaller buses,
more routes, more stops and connections - rather than extra-big, mostly-empty
billboards, and millions spent on a train to nowhere, from nowhere... The train
station is a disgrace, and there's no excuse for it.
6) Do you find it odd that " a slow flu season " occurred in a year
when far fewer than usual got the flu shot? This year, as they pump out
millions of shots and pump up the volume on the Fear-O-Meter, watch out!
Better hope that echinacea isn't just a 'myth'...
7) Why is it that you need approval from P&Z to put a sign in front of
your home - but you can buy a piece of land and chop down every tree on
it,and don't have to ask permission from anyone to do that?
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 5:06 PM
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Transcendental Chores
Everyday Meditation In Repetitive Tasks
The idealized vision of a holy man sitting in deep meditation in a
cave can sometimes lead us to believe that in order to attain, or
maintain, enlightenment, we must abandon the commonplace world most
of us inhabit. But many realized men and women have attested to the
fact that the true test of enlightened awareness is the ability to
live the ordinary life in an extraordinary way; and that to live in
a spectacular world full of magic and beauty, we need only see the
world we live in with more open eyes.
We have a tendency to view many of the repetitive tasks that fill
our daily lives as something to be gotten through so we can get to
the experiences we consider desirable, or transcendental. But the
chores on our "to do" list, in and of themselves, are gateways to
the enlightened state of mind. Every moment is an opportunity to
awaken.
It can be difficult to believe that brushing your teeth could be as
much fun as going to Paris, or as enlightening as a meditation
retreat, but maybe it can. For people in an expanded state of
awareness, every moment is miraculous and wild, and we all have
access to this state of mind.
A powerful way to open ourselves more deeply to the world we think
we know so well is to try to forget everything we think we know.
Imagine you just suddenly found yourself in your body and are
exploring the possibilities of having arms and legs for the first
time. Imagine you have never seen a toothbrush before, or a pen, or
a fork. Where did these things come from? The truth is, without even
having to pretend, there is a great deal we do not know, and
engaging with that mystery can imbue the cyclical tasks of our lives
with new life.
When washing dishes, for example, we can take the time to tune into
our breath and the sound of running water; the sensation of holding
a wet plate in one hand and scrubbing it with the other; the colors
and shapes of each item we wash. In this way, we transform a
recurring chore into an exploration and appreciation of the mystery
of being.
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2005/407.html
Everyday Meditation In Repetitive Tasks
The idealized vision of a holy man sitting in deep meditation in a
cave can sometimes lead us to believe that in order to attain, or
maintain, enlightenment, we must abandon the commonplace world most
of us inhabit. But many realized men and women have attested to the
fact that the true test of enlightened awareness is the ability to
live the ordinary life in an extraordinary way; and that to live in
a spectacular world full of magic and beauty, we need only see the
world we live in with more open eyes.
We have a tendency to view many of the repetitive tasks that fill
our daily lives as something to be gotten through so we can get to
the experiences we consider desirable, or transcendental. But the
chores on our "to do" list, in and of themselves, are gateways to
the enlightened state of mind. Every moment is an opportunity to
awaken.
It can be difficult to believe that brushing your teeth could be as
much fun as going to Paris, or as enlightening as a meditation
retreat, but maybe it can. For people in an expanded state of
awareness, every moment is miraculous and wild, and we all have
access to this state of mind.
A powerful way to open ourselves more deeply to the world we think
we know so well is to try to forget everything we think we know.
Imagine you just suddenly found yourself in your body and are
exploring the possibilities of having arms and legs for the first
time. Imagine you have never seen a toothbrush before, or a pen, or
a fork. Where did these things come from? The truth is, without even
having to pretend, there is a great deal we do not know, and
engaging with that mystery can imbue the cyclical tasks of our lives
with new life.
When washing dishes, for example, we can take the time to tune into
our breath and the sound of running water; the sensation of holding
a wet plate in one hand and scrubbing it with the other; the colors
and shapes of each item we wash. In this way, we transform a
recurring chore into an exploration and appreciation of the mystery
of being.
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2005/407.html
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 8:21 PM
Dalai Lama Gives Talk On Science
Monk's D.C. Lecture Links Mind, Matter
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page C01
In an unusual marrying of science and spirituality, the Dalai Lama
addressed thousands of the world's top neuroscientists yesterday,
telling them that society is falling behind in its efforts to make
sense of their groundbreaking research.
Speaking sometimes in Tibetan and sometimes in halting English to a
receptive audience at the 35th annual meeting of the Society for
Neuroscience, the Tibetan spiritual and political leader said
scientists and moral leaders need each other.
"It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been
able to keep pace with such rapid progress in our acquisition of
knowledge and power," he said in a prepared text.
The speech at the Washington Convention Center had been opposed by
some members of the society who objected to a religious leader
addressing neuroscientists, who research the brain, emotions and
human behavior. Nearly 800 people had signed an online petition
demanding that the Dalai Lama's invitation be withdrawn.
Many of the petition signers were Chinese Americans, leading to
countercharges that they opposed him on political grounds. Relations
between China and once-independent Tibet have been badly strained
for a half-century, and the Dalai Lama is at the center of the
dispute.
But except for minor protests yesterday -- one woman held a sign
that read "Dalai Lama not qualified to speak here" -- that conflict
was barely visible at the conference. Some attendees stayed away
from his talk, and others left early in what a few described as a
protest of sorts.
For most of the 14,000 conference participants who watched in the
lecture hall or from overflow rooms, the Dalai Lama's enthusiastic
embrace of science and promotion of meditation were warmly received.
His 10-day visit to Washington, which included a meeting with
President Bush last week, will continue today at MCI Center, where
he is scheduled to give a public talk on "Global Peace Through
Compassion."
The author of a new book on the convergence of Buddhism and science,
the Dalai Lama has met with prominent scientists around the world
for almost 20 years and has encouraged an increasingly fruitful
collaboration between brain researchers and Tibetan monks.
Because of the controversy over his speech to the neuroscientists in
Washington, his aides said he would keep to a prepared text,
something quite unusual for him. But he often diverged from the
text, despite saying with a smile that he was feeling
unusual "stress."
His talk focused on how he developed his interest in science as a
boy in Tibet, within a closed and isolated society, and on his view
that morality and compassion are central to science. He pointed out
in his prepared text, for instance, that although the atom bomb was
great science, it created great moral problems.
"It is no longer adequate to adopt the view that our responsibility
as a society is to simply further scientific knowledge and enhance
technological power and that the choice of what to do with this
knowledge and power should be left in the hands of the individual,"
he said.
"By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a
fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry. Rather, I am
speaking of what I call 'secular ethics' that embrace the key
ethical principles, such as compassion, tolerance, a sense of
caring, consideration of others, and the responsible use of
knowledge and power -- principles that transcend the barriers
between religious believers and nonbelievers, and followers of this
religion or that religion," he said.
He acknowledged that some might wonder why a Buddhist monk is taking
such an interest in science.
"What relation could there be between Buddhism, an ancient Indian
philosophical and spiritual tradition, and modern science?" he said.
His answer was that the scientific empirical approach and the
Buddhist exploration of the mind and world have many similarities.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, however, the Dalai Lama is known
as the reincarnation of a major force for compassion, and his
strongest words yesterday were directed at religious people who
might lack that trait.
"People who call themselves religious without basic human values
like compassion, they are not really religious people," he told the
audience, offering no names. "They are hypocrites." The words were
unusually critical for a speaker who likes to emphasize the positive
and productive.
The single protester outside his follow-up news conference at the
convention center was Pei Wang, a neuroscience graduate student at
the State University of New York at Buffalo. "This is supposed to be
a scientific talk," she said. "If he is not presenting data, he
should not speak. This should be about research, not about some
politician giving a speech."
The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, which will continue
through Thursday and has attracted 31,000 people, features scores of
papers on research into human behavior.
In keeping with the Dalai Lama's involvement with meditation and the
physical and mental implications of the contemplative life, one of
the higher-profile papers reports on how regular meditation appears
to produce structural changes in areas of the brain associated with
attention and sensory processing. An imaging study led by
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers showed that particular
areas of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, were
thicker in participants who were experienced practitioners of a type
of meditation commonly practiced in the United States.
"Our results suggest that meditation can produce experience-based
structural alterations in the brain," said Sara Lazar of the
hospital's Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and lead author
of the study, which will appear in the journal NeuroReport. "We also
found evidence that mediation may slow down the aging-related
atrophy of certain areas of the brain."
Monk's D.C. Lecture Links Mind, Matter
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page C01
In an unusual marrying of science and spirituality, the Dalai Lama
addressed thousands of the world's top neuroscientists yesterday,
telling them that society is falling behind in its efforts to make
sense of their groundbreaking research.
Speaking sometimes in Tibetan and sometimes in halting English to a
receptive audience at the 35th annual meeting of the Society for
Neuroscience, the Tibetan spiritual and political leader said
scientists and moral leaders need each other.
"It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been
able to keep pace with such rapid progress in our acquisition of
knowledge and power," he said in a prepared text.
The speech at the Washington Convention Center had been opposed by
some members of the society who objected to a religious leader
addressing neuroscientists, who research the brain, emotions and
human behavior. Nearly 800 people had signed an online petition
demanding that the Dalai Lama's invitation be withdrawn.
Many of the petition signers were Chinese Americans, leading to
countercharges that they opposed him on political grounds. Relations
between China and once-independent Tibet have been badly strained
for a half-century, and the Dalai Lama is at the center of the
dispute.
But except for minor protests yesterday -- one woman held a sign
that read "Dalai Lama not qualified to speak here" -- that conflict
was barely visible at the conference. Some attendees stayed away
from his talk, and others left early in what a few described as a
protest of sorts.
For most of the 14,000 conference participants who watched in the
lecture hall or from overflow rooms, the Dalai Lama's enthusiastic
embrace of science and promotion of meditation were warmly received.
His 10-day visit to Washington, which included a meeting with
President Bush last week, will continue today at MCI Center, where
he is scheduled to give a public talk on "Global Peace Through
Compassion."
The author of a new book on the convergence of Buddhism and science,
the Dalai Lama has met with prominent scientists around the world
for almost 20 years and has encouraged an increasingly fruitful
collaboration between brain researchers and Tibetan monks.
Because of the controversy over his speech to the neuroscientists in
Washington, his aides said he would keep to a prepared text,
something quite unusual for him. But he often diverged from the
text, despite saying with a smile that he was feeling
unusual "stress."
His talk focused on how he developed his interest in science as a
boy in Tibet, within a closed and isolated society, and on his view
that morality and compassion are central to science. He pointed out
in his prepared text, for instance, that although the atom bomb was
great science, it created great moral problems.
"It is no longer adequate to adopt the view that our responsibility
as a society is to simply further scientific knowledge and enhance
technological power and that the choice of what to do with this
knowledge and power should be left in the hands of the individual,"
he said.
"By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a
fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry. Rather, I am
speaking of what I call 'secular ethics' that embrace the key
ethical principles, such as compassion, tolerance, a sense of
caring, consideration of others, and the responsible use of
knowledge and power -- principles that transcend the barriers
between religious believers and nonbelievers, and followers of this
religion or that religion," he said.
He acknowledged that some might wonder why a Buddhist monk is taking
such an interest in science.
"What relation could there be between Buddhism, an ancient Indian
philosophical and spiritual tradition, and modern science?" he said.
His answer was that the scientific empirical approach and the
Buddhist exploration of the mind and world have many similarities.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, however, the Dalai Lama is known
as the reincarnation of a major force for compassion, and his
strongest words yesterday were directed at religious people who
might lack that trait.
"People who call themselves religious without basic human values
like compassion, they are not really religious people," he told the
audience, offering no names. "They are hypocrites." The words were
unusually critical for a speaker who likes to emphasize the positive
and productive.
The single protester outside his follow-up news conference at the
convention center was Pei Wang, a neuroscience graduate student at
the State University of New York at Buffalo. "This is supposed to be
a scientific talk," she said. "If he is not presenting data, he
should not speak. This should be about research, not about some
politician giving a speech."
The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, which will continue
through Thursday and has attracted 31,000 people, features scores of
papers on research into human behavior.
In keeping with the Dalai Lama's involvement with meditation and the
physical and mental implications of the contemplative life, one of
the higher-profile papers reports on how regular meditation appears
to produce structural changes in areas of the brain associated with
attention and sensory processing. An imaging study led by
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers showed that particular
areas of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, were
thicker in participants who were experienced practitioners of a type
of meditation commonly practiced in the United States.
"Our results suggest that meditation can produce experience-based
structural alterations in the brain," said Sara Lazar of the
hospital's Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and lead author
of the study, which will appear in the journal NeuroReport. "We also
found evidence that mediation may slow down the aging-related
atrophy of certain areas of the brain."
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 6:38 PM
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Mercury Connection: Neurological/Immune Reactive Conditions/
Pervasive Developmental Conditions Affecting Millions of Children
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/kidshg.html
Neurological and Immune Reactive Conditions Affecting Kids: The mercury connection to neurological pervasive developmental disorders(autism, schizophrenia, dyslexia, ADD, childhood depression, learning disabilities, OCD, etc.) and developmental immune conditions(eczema, asthma, and allergies)
by Bernard Windham- Chemical Engineer
The largest increase in neurological and immune conditions has been in infants (1,2,5-7,23,4,50,81), with an increase in autism cases to over 500,000 (1,2,23,22,86), an over 900% increase to a level of approx. 1 per 500 infants in the last decade(2ab), making it the 3rd most common chronic childhood condition. For 1999 through 2002, the number of professionally diagnosed in California with full syndrome autism has doubled(2e,86). There have been similar increases in ADD and dyslexia to over 10 million, similar large numbers(over 10%) with childhood depression or anxiety, and over 10 % of infants- approximately 15 million in the U.S. with systemic eczema(1,2,82). Studies researching the reason for these rapid increases in infant reactive conditions seem to implicate earlier and higher usage of vaccines containing mercury(thimerisol) as a likely connection (2cd,23,30,40,80,81). A recent study comparing pre- and post-vaccination mercury levels, found a significant increase in both preterm and term infants after vaccination(42), with post-vaccination mercury levels approximately 3 times higher in the preterm infants as compared with term infants. The study found mercury blood levels up to 23.6 ug/L and received an average dose of 16.7 ug/kg. Just this one vaccination gave an exposure to mercury that is many times the U.S. ATSDR adult minimum risk level(MRL) for mercury of .3/ug/kg body weight per day(41,81).
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/kidshg.html
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 6:40 PM
Friday, November 11, 2005
MMR: WILL WE EVER BE TOLD THE TRUTH?
DOES THE MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine cause autism or not? According to the UK government and its health agencies, the debate is over - there's overwhelming evidence that establishes there is no link.
The latest 'final word' has been supplied by the reputable Cochrane Collaboration, which provides a scientific analysis of previously published studies. Having assessed around 3,500 papers, it has concluded that it can find no evidence of an association.
It's a conclusion that has made the headlines - but, like all headlines, the 'small print' is overlooked. And the small print, in this case at least, is significant.
That small print failed to tell the public that the Cochrane Collaboration could find just FIVE papers that related to the vaccine and autism, and only two of those were scientifically valid.
Those few valid studies were very small, and involved only a handful of children - and so the categorical assurance given by government health agencies to the public was based on flimsy evidence.
It is the second time the Cochrane Collaboration has tried to provide the definitive last word on a topic that just won't go away. Again, in the previous study, carried out three years earlier, its researchers were at pains to find enough suitable studies in order to make a meaningful conclusion, and again they failed.
The PR machine has been in overdrive since 1998 when Andrew Wakefield, then of the Royal Free Hospital, first announced a possible link, based on measles viruses he found in the gut of his autistic patients.
Although Wakefield has only ever contended that there is a 'possible' link, it has been enough for him to lose his post at the hospital, and to face a cross-examination by the medical council. So much for science. He now works in Texas where he continues his research.
But something extraordinary occurred in 2001, something that has never been explained - and has never received much publicity. Prof John O'Leary independently found the measles virus in 24 of 25 of Wakefield's autistic patients.
DOES THE MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine cause autism or not? According to the UK government and its health agencies, the debate is over - there's overwhelming evidence that establishes there is no link.
The latest 'final word' has been supplied by the reputable Cochrane Collaboration, which provides a scientific analysis of previously published studies. Having assessed around 3,500 papers, it has concluded that it can find no evidence of an association.
It's a conclusion that has made the headlines - but, like all headlines, the 'small print' is overlooked. And the small print, in this case at least, is significant.
That small print failed to tell the public that the Cochrane Collaboration could find just FIVE papers that related to the vaccine and autism, and only two of those were scientifically valid.
Those few valid studies were very small, and involved only a handful of children - and so the categorical assurance given by government health agencies to the public was based on flimsy evidence.
It is the second time the Cochrane Collaboration has tried to provide the definitive last word on a topic that just won't go away. Again, in the previous study, carried out three years earlier, its researchers were at pains to find enough suitable studies in order to make a meaningful conclusion, and again they failed.
The PR machine has been in overdrive since 1998 when Andrew Wakefield, then of the Royal Free Hospital, first announced a possible link, based on measles viruses he found in the gut of his autistic patients.
Although Wakefield has only ever contended that there is a 'possible' link, it has been enough for him to lose his post at the hospital, and to face a cross-examination by the medical council. So much for science. He now works in Texas where he continues his research.
But something extraordinary occurred in 2001, something that has never been explained - and has never received much publicity. Prof John O'Leary independently found the measles virus in 24 of 25 of Wakefield's autistic patients.
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 11:11 PM
12 Tips to Treat Colds and Flu the "Natural" Way
WebMD Medical Reference
With no cure in sight for the cold or the flu, current
treatments can at
best bring symptom relief or shorten the duration of
those symptoms. You
can take one of a variety of medications that may help
relieve your
symptoms. Or you can take the natural approach. WebMD
went to Charles B.
Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society,
for some home
remedies that may speed your recovery, and help you
feel better along
the way.
*#1 Know When /Not/ To Treat Symptoms*
Believe it or not, those annoying symptoms you're
experiencing are part
of the natural healing process -- evidence that the
immune system is
battling illness. For instance, a fever is your body's
way of trying to
kill viruses in a hotter-than-normal environment.
Also, a fever's hot
environment makes germ-killing proteins in your blood
circulate more
quickly and effectively. Thus, if you endure a
moderate fever for a day
or two, you may actually get well faster. Coughing is
another productive
symptom; it clears your breathing passages of thick
mucus that can carry
germs to your lungs and the rest of your body. Even
that stuffy nose is
best treated mildly or not at all. A decongestant,
like Sudafed,
restricts flow to the blood vessels in your nose and
throat. But often
you /want/ the increase blood flow because it warms
the infected area
and helps secretions carry germs out of your body.
*#2 Blow Your Nose Often (And the Right Way)*
It's important to blow your nose regularly when you
have a cold rather
than sniffling mucus back into your head. But when you
blow hard,
pressure can carry germ-carrying phlegm back into your
ear passages,
causing earache. The best way to blow your nose: Press
a finger over one
nostril while you blow /gently/ to clear the other.
*#3 Treat That Stuffy Nose With Warm Salt Water*
Salt-water rinsing helps break nasal congestion, while
also removing
virus particles and bacteria from your nose. Here's a
popular recipe:
Mix 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in
8 ounces of warm
water. Use a bulb syringe to squirt water into the
nose. Hold one
nostril closed by applying light finger pressure while
squirting the
salt mixture into the other nostril. Let it drain.
Repeat 2-3 times,
then treat the other nostril.
*#4 Stay Warm and Rested*
Staying warm and resting when you first come down with
a cold or the flu
helps your body direct its energy toward the immune
battle. This battle
taxes the body. So give it a little help by lying down
under a blanket.
*#5 Gargle*
Gargling can moisten a sore throat and bring temporary
relief. Try a
teaspoon of salt dissolved in warm water, four times
daily. To reduce
the tickle in your throat, try an astringent gargle --
such as tea that
contains tannin -- to tighten the membranes. Or use a
thick, viscous
gargle made with honey, popular in folk medicine. Seep
one tablespoon of
raspberry leaves or lemon juice in two cups of hot
water; mix with one
teaspoon of honey. Let the mixture cool to room
temperature before
gargling.
*#6 Drink Hot Liquids*
Hot liquids relieve nasal congestion, prevent
dehydration, and soothe
the uncomfortably inflamed membranes that line your
nose and throat. If
you're so congested you can't sleep at night, try a
hot toddy, an
age-old remedy. Make a cup of hot herbal tea. Add one
teaspoon of honey
and 1 small shot (about 1 ounce) of whiskey or
bourbon. Limit yourself
to one. Too much alcohol inflames those membranes and
is counterproductive.
*#7 Take a Steamy Shower*
Steamy showers moisturize your nasal passages and
relax you. If you're
dizzy from the flu, run a steamy shower while you sit
on a chair nearby
and take a sponge bath.
*#8 Use a Salve Under Your Nose*
A small dab of mentholated salve under your nose can
open breathing
passages and help restore the irritated skin at the
base of the nose.
Menthol, eucalyptus and camphor all have mild numbing
ingredients that
may help relieve the pain of a nose rubbed raw.
*#9 Apply Hot or Cold Packs Around Your Congested
Sinuses*
Either temperature works. You can buy reusable hot or
cold packs at a
drugstore. Or make your own. Take a damp washcloth and
heat it for 55
seconds in a microwave (test the temperature first to
make sure it's
right for you.) Or take a small bag of frozen peas to
use as a cold pack.
*#10 Sleep With an Extra Pillow Under Your Head*
This will help relieve congested nasal passages. If
the angle is too
awkward, try placing the pillows between the mattress
and the box
springs to create a more gradual slope.
*#11 Don't Fly Unless Necessary*
There's no point adding stress to your already
stressed-out upper
respiratory system, and that's what the change in air
pressure will do.
Flying with cold or flu congestion can temporarily
damage your eardrums
as a result of pressure changes during takeoff and
landing. If you must
fly, use a decongestant and carry a nasal spray with
you to use just
before takeoff and landing. Chewing gum and swallowing
frequently can
also help relieve pressure.
*#12 Eat Infection-Fighting Foods*
Here are some good foods to eat when you're battling a
cold or flu:
* Bananas: Soothe upset stomachs.
* Bell Peppers: Loaded with vitamin C.
* Blueberries: Curbs diarrhea, high in natural
aspirin. (May lower
fevers and help with the aches and pains.)
* Carrots: Loaded with beta-carotene.
* Chili Peppers: Can open sinuses, and help break
up mucus in the
lungs.
* Cranberries: Help prevent bacteria from sticking
to cells lining
the bladder and urinary tract.
* Mustard & Horseradish: Helps break up mucus in
air passages.
* Onion: Has phytochemicals purported to help the
body clear
bronchitis and other infections.
* Rice: Curbs diarrhea.
* Tea: Black and green tea (not herbals) contain
catechin, a
phytochemical purported to have natural
antibiotic and
anti-diarrhea effects.
Remember, serious conditions can masquerade as the
common cold:
sinus infections, bronchitis, meningitis, strep
throat, and asthma. If
you have severe symptoms, or feel sicker with each
passing day, call
your doctor.
Reviewed by Cynthia Haines, MD
,
October 2005.
SOURCE: Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's
Medical Society,
a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization, and
author of /77
Ways to Beat Cold and Flu./
© 2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
WebMD Medical Reference
With no cure in sight for the cold or the flu, current
treatments can at
best bring symptom relief or shorten the duration of
those symptoms. You
can take one of a variety of medications that may help
relieve your
symptoms. Or you can take the natural approach. WebMD
went to Charles B.
Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society,
for some home
remedies that may speed your recovery, and help you
feel better along
the way.
*#1 Know When /Not/ To Treat Symptoms*
Believe it or not, those annoying symptoms you're
experiencing are part
of the natural healing process -- evidence that the
immune system is
battling illness. For instance, a fever is your body's
way of trying to
kill viruses in a hotter-than-normal environment.
Also, a fever's hot
environment makes germ-killing proteins in your blood
circulate more
quickly and effectively. Thus, if you endure a
moderate fever for a day
or two, you may actually get well faster. Coughing is
another productive
symptom; it clears your breathing passages of thick
mucus that can carry
germs to your lungs and the rest of your body. Even
that stuffy nose is
best treated mildly or not at all. A decongestant,
like Sudafed,
restricts flow to the blood vessels in your nose and
throat. But often
you /want/ the increase blood flow because it warms
the infected area
and helps secretions carry germs out of your body.
*#2 Blow Your Nose Often (And the Right Way)*
It's important to blow your nose regularly when you
have a cold rather
than sniffling mucus back into your head. But when you
blow hard,
pressure can carry germ-carrying phlegm back into your
ear passages,
causing earache. The best way to blow your nose: Press
a finger over one
nostril while you blow /gently/ to clear the other.
*#3 Treat That Stuffy Nose With Warm Salt Water*
Salt-water rinsing helps break nasal congestion, while
also removing
virus particles and bacteria from your nose. Here's a
popular recipe:
Mix 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in
8 ounces of warm
water. Use a bulb syringe to squirt water into the
nose. Hold one
nostril closed by applying light finger pressure while
squirting the
salt mixture into the other nostril. Let it drain.
Repeat 2-3 times,
then treat the other nostril.
*#4 Stay Warm and Rested*
Staying warm and resting when you first come down with
a cold or the flu
helps your body direct its energy toward the immune
battle. This battle
taxes the body. So give it a little help by lying down
under a blanket.
*#5 Gargle*
Gargling can moisten a sore throat and bring temporary
relief. Try a
teaspoon of salt dissolved in warm water, four times
daily. To reduce
the tickle in your throat, try an astringent gargle --
such as tea that
contains tannin -- to tighten the membranes. Or use a
thick, viscous
gargle made with honey, popular in folk medicine. Seep
one tablespoon of
raspberry leaves or lemon juice in two cups of hot
water; mix with one
teaspoon of honey. Let the mixture cool to room
temperature before
gargling.
*#6 Drink Hot Liquids*
Hot liquids relieve nasal congestion, prevent
dehydration, and soothe
the uncomfortably inflamed membranes that line your
nose and throat. If
you're so congested you can't sleep at night, try a
hot toddy, an
age-old remedy. Make a cup of hot herbal tea. Add one
teaspoon of honey
and 1 small shot (about 1 ounce) of whiskey or
bourbon. Limit yourself
to one. Too much alcohol inflames those membranes and
is counterproductive.
*#7 Take a Steamy Shower*
Steamy showers moisturize your nasal passages and
relax you. If you're
dizzy from the flu, run a steamy shower while you sit
on a chair nearby
and take a sponge bath.
*#8 Use a Salve Under Your Nose*
A small dab of mentholated salve under your nose can
open breathing
passages and help restore the irritated skin at the
base of the nose.
Menthol, eucalyptus and camphor all have mild numbing
ingredients that
may help relieve the pain of a nose rubbed raw.
*#9 Apply Hot or Cold Packs Around Your Congested
Sinuses*
Either temperature works. You can buy reusable hot or
cold packs at a
drugstore. Or make your own. Take a damp washcloth and
heat it for 55
seconds in a microwave (test the temperature first to
make sure it's
right for you.) Or take a small bag of frozen peas to
use as a cold pack.
*#10 Sleep With an Extra Pillow Under Your Head*
This will help relieve congested nasal passages. If
the angle is too
awkward, try placing the pillows between the mattress
and the box
springs to create a more gradual slope.
*#11 Don't Fly Unless Necessary*
There's no point adding stress to your already
stressed-out upper
respiratory system, and that's what the change in air
pressure will do.
Flying with cold or flu congestion can temporarily
damage your eardrums
as a result of pressure changes during takeoff and
landing. If you must
fly, use a decongestant and carry a nasal spray with
you to use just
before takeoff and landing. Chewing gum and swallowing
frequently can
also help relieve pressure.
*#12 Eat Infection-Fighting Foods*
Here are some good foods to eat when you're battling a
cold or flu:
* Bananas: Soothe upset stomachs.
* Bell Peppers: Loaded with vitamin C.
* Blueberries: Curbs diarrhea, high in natural
aspirin. (May lower
fevers and help with the aches and pains.)
* Carrots: Loaded with beta-carotene.
* Chili Peppers: Can open sinuses, and help break
up mucus in the
lungs.
* Cranberries: Help prevent bacteria from sticking
to cells lining
the bladder and urinary tract.
* Mustard & Horseradish: Helps break up mucus in
air passages.
* Onion: Has phytochemicals purported to help the
body clear
bronchitis and other infections.
* Rice: Curbs diarrhea.
* Tea: Black and green tea (not herbals) contain
catechin, a
phytochemical purported to have natural
antibiotic and
anti-diarrhea effects.
Remember, serious conditions can masquerade as the
common cold:
sinus infections, bronchitis, meningitis, strep
throat, and asthma. If
you have severe symptoms, or feel sicker with each
passing day, call
your doctor.
Reviewed by Cynthia Haines, MD
,
October 2005.
SOURCE: Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's
Medical Society,
a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization, and
author of /77
Ways to Beat Cold and Flu./
© 2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 7:53 PM
Thursday, November 10, 2005
New STUDY SHOWS COMPELLING EVIDENCE OF major intestinal immune disease
in children with autism
Thoughtful House scientists and collaborators confirm link between autism
and new inflammatory bowel disease
Austin, Texas - In a study that provides further clues to understanding
the origins of autism, scientists and physicians from Thoughtful House
Center for Children in Austin, Texas, supply considerable evidence of
a new
inflammatory bowel disease in children with autism. The study will be
published this month in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and
Hepatology. (this is posted at http://thoughtfulhouse.org/pub_06.htm)
The team studied 178 children undergoing intestinal investigation for
gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain. More than
140 of these children also had autism, most having regressed after normal
early development. The children with autism had an increased rate of
swelling of the intestinal lymph glands (lymphoid nodular hyperplasia) - a
feature of viral infections and immunodeficiency diseases such as AIDS.
Additionally, the children with autism experienced associated inflammation
of the intestinal lining, while the children examined in the study without
autism did not. The degree of swelling of the intestinal lymph glands was
also more severe in children with autism compared with developmentally
normal children.
"The results of this study give us additional clues on understanding what
is going on in the gut and how it may lead to the brain disorder,"
says Dr.
Andrew Wakefield, Executive Director of Thoughtful House and the lead
author on the paper. "We are working on the idea that what starts in the
intestine can be severely disruptive to normal brain development."
The paper dispels the common misconception that the presence of swollen
lymph glands is a normal finding in children.
"When we compare the intestinal findings in children with and without
autism in a systematic way, the differences become obvious," says Dr.
Wakefield, "Colonoscopies are not performed on normal children, but on
children with gastrointestinal symptoms, so it is not possible to state
that this is a normal finding. The findings of this new study add to the
clear evidence of a novel and treatable disease of the intestinal immune
system in children with developmental disorders. These are medical
diseases
which should be treated as such. Children are suffering needlessly and
this
has got to change."
The presence and severity of the swollen lymph glands was not influenced
by exclusion diets that some children were on, suggesting that food
allergy
or intolerance was not the cause. The fact that these children also have
abnormal immune systems and the resemblance of the disease to the
intestinal findings in some patients with HIV infection suggests the
disease may be associated with a smoldering viral infection.
"This study, in combination with previous work, raises the possibility
that treating bowel disease may alleviate some of the symptoms of autism
itself," says Dr. Wakefield. "This is something Thoughtful House will be
putting to test in the near future."
--------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK
$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account
vaccineinfo@tesco.net voicemail US 530-740-0561
(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail
Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
Vaccine Dangers On-Line course -
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm
Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.
THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.
******
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy
knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy
information and religions destroy spirituality" ....Michael Ellner
in children with autism
Thoughtful House scientists and collaborators confirm link between autism
and new inflammatory bowel disease
Austin, Texas - In a study that provides further clues to understanding
the origins of autism, scientists and physicians from Thoughtful House
Center for Children in Austin, Texas, supply considerable evidence of
a new
inflammatory bowel disease in children with autism. The study will be
published this month in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and
Hepatology. (this is posted at http://thoughtfulhouse.org/pub_06.htm)
The team studied 178 children undergoing intestinal investigation for
gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain. More than
140 of these children also had autism, most having regressed after normal
early development. The children with autism had an increased rate of
swelling of the intestinal lymph glands (lymphoid nodular hyperplasia) - a
feature of viral infections and immunodeficiency diseases such as AIDS.
Additionally, the children with autism experienced associated inflammation
of the intestinal lining, while the children examined in the study without
autism did not. The degree of swelling of the intestinal lymph glands was
also more severe in children with autism compared with developmentally
normal children.
"The results of this study give us additional clues on understanding what
is going on in the gut and how it may lead to the brain disorder,"
says Dr.
Andrew Wakefield, Executive Director of Thoughtful House and the lead
author on the paper. "We are working on the idea that what starts in the
intestine can be severely disruptive to normal brain development."
The paper dispels the common misconception that the presence of swollen
lymph glands is a normal finding in children.
"When we compare the intestinal findings in children with and without
autism in a systematic way, the differences become obvious," says Dr.
Wakefield, "Colonoscopies are not performed on normal children, but on
children with gastrointestinal symptoms, so it is not possible to state
that this is a normal finding. The findings of this new study add to the
clear evidence of a novel and treatable disease of the intestinal immune
system in children with developmental disorders. These are medical
diseases
which should be treated as such. Children are suffering needlessly and
this
has got to change."
The presence and severity of the swollen lymph glands was not influenced
by exclusion diets that some children were on, suggesting that food
allergy
or intolerance was not the cause. The fact that these children also have
abnormal immune systems and the resemblance of the disease to the
intestinal findings in some patients with HIV infection suggests the
disease may be associated with a smoldering viral infection.
"This study, in combination with previous work, raises the possibility
that treating bowel disease may alleviate some of the symptoms of autism
itself," says Dr. Wakefield. "This is something Thoughtful House will be
putting to test in the near future."
--------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK
$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account
vaccineinfo@tesco.net voicemail US 530-740-0561
(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail
Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
Vaccine Dangers On-Line course -
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm
Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.
THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.
******
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy
knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy
information and religions destroy spirituality" ....Michael Ellner
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 9:45 PM
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Drugs, art and the aliens who lit our way to civilisation
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=2068802005
ANNA SMYTH
GRAHAM HANCOCK is breathless. He's telling me about his first hallucinogenic trip in the Amazon jungle, and he just can't get the words out fast enough. The former journalist and now bestselling science writer spent five weeks living with indigenous Indian shamans in Peru, where he ingested a sacred plant drug known as ayahuasca.
We pick up the story just after the shaman began the ritual ceremony by singing the icaros, ancient chants which draw the spirits around the circle. Hancock then took a sip of the drug, which he describes as a "vile-tasting liquid, so strong and bitter-sweet and salty, so dark and concentrated as to be repellent". His muscles involuntarily relax, he closes his eyes and then the visions begin.
"I had a very scary beginning to that trip," he says. "I saw incredible transformations of different animals and beings glowing with light that appeared directly in front of my field of vision. It was a typical scene which many describe as an alien abduction. They were very anthropic, and definitely wanted to communicate with me. It was rather like going to a strange new country, where I had to start learning the rules of communication."
Getting deeper into the experience, Hancock took another dose of the drug, but his body couldn't take it. The nausea came on strong and soon he was out in the dark, puking. Before long he was drenched in sweat with only dry heaves left. He sank to the ground and called an end to the trip because he was so afraid. He opened his eyes, and the visions left him. You could conclude from this account - detailed in Hancock's latest book, Supernatural - that Hancock is just another traveller keen to acquaint himself with the customs of new cultures. But there is a little more to this trip than meets the eye.
A reporter by trade, Hancock was born in Edinburgh before moving to India in his childhood. He returned to attend school and university in Durham, from where he graduated in 1973 with a degree in sociology. He went on to pursue a career in journalism, writing for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent and The Guardian.
But in the 1980s he gave up newspaper reporting to pursue his own passion - the lost civilisation of man. In the past 20 years, he's written several books including the best-selling Sign and Seal on the Ark of the Covenant - as well as filming documentaries about his research.
"Three years ago I decided to go back to the subject which fascinated me at university," he says. "I was interested in human origins, in what makes us different from the apes. I found that it wasn't the use of tools, as many people believe, but abstract thought and the ability to manipulate symbols." The answer was art. Cave paintings and writings which depicted thoughts and visions, none of which have ever been achieved by other species. In fact, even our human ancestors had no artistic capability. Or not until 40,000 years ago, at least.
"Previously, we were very uncreative and boring. We used the same tools continually without modifying them. Then, suddenly, a light switched on in our brain. Fossils from 40,000 years ago show that we began to explore spirituality, looked for signs of life after death and innovated specialised tools. And we began to paint. In France, Italy and South Africa and all over the world, they've discovered incredibly accomplished paintings, but no explanation for this burst of development."
This has been termed the "greatest riddle in archaeology", and many academics have devoted their career to its study. The reason behind the sudden transformation, the majority have concluded, is hallucinogenic plants. Magic mushrooms would be a relevant example, but all over the world, man stumbled across drugs which opened the possibility for spiritual, creative thought.
Professor David Lewis-Williams, of South Africa's Witwatersrand University, believes that is the end of the story. These visions - and therefore the art they produced - were universal because all of mankind has the same neurology. Our brains are wired in the same way, so when we take these drugs, our bodies have the same response. Indeed, at the University of New Mexico, researchers have found that volunteers given hallucinogenic drugs drew the same kinds of paintings as those found in the ancient caves. This, coupled with a wealth of other evidence, supports Lewis-Williams' theory that drugs are the answer.
For most people that explanation would suffice, but not for Hancock. He could not accept that the beginnings of human spirituality came down to brain chemistry. For him, there had to be more to it, and he decided to investigate, hence the first-hand research trip.
What he has found - and what forms the basis of his new hefty tome - is a theory that to many will sound absurd. He believes that when shamans and drug users experience these hallucinations, they are actually tapping into a parallel universe. The visions - be they of fairies, elves or aliens - are real, they exist all the time, and they want to communicate with us.
"Think of it as though the brain is like a TV receiver. In order to cope with everyday life, we have to tune into "Channel Normal" for the majority of the time. But if we retune our brains with these drugs, or alter our state of consciousness through rhythmic dancing and drums, we can see images of the parallel dimensions."
Hancock does not prescribe for a second to the idea that when people experience "alien abductions", they are seeing foreign creatures that may whisk them to another planet. What he does believe is that the spirits dwell in this other dimension, and if we let them, they will continue the teaching that they gave to our ancestors.
"I believe these hallucinogenic experiences are the basis for all modern-day religions. If you think about it, why would we ever have cause to imagine a spirit world? Our uncreative ancestors didn't, but then they found these drugs and saw for themselves the spirit world, and realised there was more to life. I think religion resulted from the need to explain these supernatural encounters."
A sceptic would maintain that, outwith the experience of those on drugs or in a trance, there is no evidence to support Hancock's theory. And many could take offence to his assertion that when Mohammed, Jesus Christ and St Paul thought they were experiencing God, they were, in fact, just accessing the parallel world. Part of the problem with accepting this higher plane comes in locating its origin. If these spirits are the "ancient teachers of mankind", as he says, where did they come from? In this instance, as with every other, Hancock points to science. Prepare for the most astonishing claim yet. "The secret could be in our DNA," he says. "When Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, died, it was revealed that his first vision of the helix module occurred while he was on LSD. Although he was an atheist, he then published a book which subscribed to the theory of intelligent design, that our universe was not simply the result of a series of chemical accidents.
"In brief, what he said was that after the Big Bang, life did not evolve first on Earth. At the far side of the universe, another civilisation developed, a highly advanced civilisation who surpassed the stage we have currently reached. He asserted that in some way their world became threatened - global warming, or some such catastrophic event - and so they devised a way to pass on their existence. They genetically-modified their DNA and sent it out from their planet on bacteria, with the hope that it would collide with another planet. It did, and that's why we're here." What Hancock goes onto explain is that the DNA was encoded with messages from that other civilisation.
They programmed the molecules so that when we reached a certain level of intelligence, we would be able to access their information, and they could therefore "teach" us about ourselves, and how to progress.
Of course, this talk of aliens sending off bacteria sounds like the ramblings of a deranged guest on a Jerry Springer show. But the astonishing thing is that Hancock is intelligent and articulate, and his writing is as expert as you would expect from an esteemed international correspondent.
Precisely because he is so credible, his idea will no doubt entice those looking for more conspiracy theories, and you need only look as far as Dan Brown to see the commercial success available.
But to give him credit, Hancock at no point claims these discoveries for himself, he always points to archaeologists and scientists who have been fascinated by similar concepts. Indeed, all that he asks for is that people more qualified than himself, investigate the questions he raises.
"I know [this] sounds preposterous and pointless to anyone committed to objective science. The more closely I pursued these questions, however, the more convinced I became that they point towards matters of extraordinary substance, and that science has done us an immense disfavour by its policy of ridiculing and discouraging all rational inquiry in this area."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
********
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http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=2068802005
ANNA SMYTH
GRAHAM HANCOCK is breathless. He's telling me about his first hallucinogenic trip in the Amazon jungle, and he just can't get the words out fast enough. The former journalist and now bestselling science writer spent five weeks living with indigenous Indian shamans in Peru, where he ingested a sacred plant drug known as ayahuasca.
We pick up the story just after the shaman began the ritual ceremony by singing the icaros, ancient chants which draw the spirits around the circle. Hancock then took a sip of the drug, which he describes as a "vile-tasting liquid, so strong and bitter-sweet and salty, so dark and concentrated as to be repellent". His muscles involuntarily relax, he closes his eyes and then the visions begin.
"I had a very scary beginning to that trip," he says. "I saw incredible transformations of different animals and beings glowing with light that appeared directly in front of my field of vision. It was a typical scene which many describe as an alien abduction. They were very anthropic, and definitely wanted to communicate with me. It was rather like going to a strange new country, where I had to start learning the rules of communication."
Getting deeper into the experience, Hancock took another dose of the drug, but his body couldn't take it. The nausea came on strong and soon he was out in the dark, puking. Before long he was drenched in sweat with only dry heaves left. He sank to the ground and called an end to the trip because he was so afraid. He opened his eyes, and the visions left him. You could conclude from this account - detailed in Hancock's latest book, Supernatural - that Hancock is just another traveller keen to acquaint himself with the customs of new cultures. But there is a little more to this trip than meets the eye.
A reporter by trade, Hancock was born in Edinburgh before moving to India in his childhood. He returned to attend school and university in Durham, from where he graduated in 1973 with a degree in sociology. He went on to pursue a career in journalism, writing for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent and The Guardian.
But in the 1980s he gave up newspaper reporting to pursue his own passion - the lost civilisation of man. In the past 20 years, he's written several books including the best-selling Sign and Seal on the Ark of the Covenant - as well as filming documentaries about his research.
"Three years ago I decided to go back to the subject which fascinated me at university," he says. "I was interested in human origins, in what makes us different from the apes. I found that it wasn't the use of tools, as many people believe, but abstract thought and the ability to manipulate symbols." The answer was art. Cave paintings and writings which depicted thoughts and visions, none of which have ever been achieved by other species. In fact, even our human ancestors had no artistic capability. Or not until 40,000 years ago, at least.
"Previously, we were very uncreative and boring. We used the same tools continually without modifying them. Then, suddenly, a light switched on in our brain. Fossils from 40,000 years ago show that we began to explore spirituality, looked for signs of life after death and innovated specialised tools. And we began to paint. In France, Italy and South Africa and all over the world, they've discovered incredibly accomplished paintings, but no explanation for this burst of development."
This has been termed the "greatest riddle in archaeology", and many academics have devoted their career to its study. The reason behind the sudden transformation, the majority have concluded, is hallucinogenic plants. Magic mushrooms would be a relevant example, but all over the world, man stumbled across drugs which opened the possibility for spiritual, creative thought.
Professor David Lewis-Williams, of South Africa's Witwatersrand University, believes that is the end of the story. These visions - and therefore the art they produced - were universal because all of mankind has the same neurology. Our brains are wired in the same way, so when we take these drugs, our bodies have the same response. Indeed, at the University of New Mexico, researchers have found that volunteers given hallucinogenic drugs drew the same kinds of paintings as those found in the ancient caves. This, coupled with a wealth of other evidence, supports Lewis-Williams' theory that drugs are the answer.
For most people that explanation would suffice, but not for Hancock. He could not accept that the beginnings of human spirituality came down to brain chemistry. For him, there had to be more to it, and he decided to investigate, hence the first-hand research trip.
What he has found - and what forms the basis of his new hefty tome - is a theory that to many will sound absurd. He believes that when shamans and drug users experience these hallucinations, they are actually tapping into a parallel universe. The visions - be they of fairies, elves or aliens - are real, they exist all the time, and they want to communicate with us.
"Think of it as though the brain is like a TV receiver. In order to cope with everyday life, we have to tune into "Channel Normal" for the majority of the time. But if we retune our brains with these drugs, or alter our state of consciousness through rhythmic dancing and drums, we can see images of the parallel dimensions."
Hancock does not prescribe for a second to the idea that when people experience "alien abductions", they are seeing foreign creatures that may whisk them to another planet. What he does believe is that the spirits dwell in this other dimension, and if we let them, they will continue the teaching that they gave to our ancestors.
"I believe these hallucinogenic experiences are the basis for all modern-day religions. If you think about it, why would we ever have cause to imagine a spirit world? Our uncreative ancestors didn't, but then they found these drugs and saw for themselves the spirit world, and realised there was more to life. I think religion resulted from the need to explain these supernatural encounters."
A sceptic would maintain that, outwith the experience of those on drugs or in a trance, there is no evidence to support Hancock's theory. And many could take offence to his assertion that when Mohammed, Jesus Christ and St Paul thought they were experiencing God, they were, in fact, just accessing the parallel world. Part of the problem with accepting this higher plane comes in locating its origin. If these spirits are the "ancient teachers of mankind", as he says, where did they come from? In this instance, as with every other, Hancock points to science. Prepare for the most astonishing claim yet. "The secret could be in our DNA," he says. "When Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, died, it was revealed that his first vision of the helix module occurred while he was on LSD. Although he was an atheist, he then published a book which subscribed to the theory of intelligent design, that our universe was not simply the result of a series of chemical accidents.
"In brief, what he said was that after the Big Bang, life did not evolve first on Earth. At the far side of the universe, another civilisation developed, a highly advanced civilisation who surpassed the stage we have currently reached. He asserted that in some way their world became threatened - global warming, or some such catastrophic event - and so they devised a way to pass on their existence. They genetically-modified their DNA and sent it out from their planet on bacteria, with the hope that it would collide with another planet. It did, and that's why we're here." What Hancock goes onto explain is that the DNA was encoded with messages from that other civilisation.
They programmed the molecules so that when we reached a certain level of intelligence, we would be able to access their information, and they could therefore "teach" us about ourselves, and how to progress.
Of course, this talk of aliens sending off bacteria sounds like the ramblings of a deranged guest on a Jerry Springer show. But the astonishing thing is that Hancock is intelligent and articulate, and his writing is as expert as you would expect from an esteemed international correspondent.
Precisely because he is so credible, his idea will no doubt entice those looking for more conspiracy theories, and you need only look as far as Dan Brown to see the commercial success available.
But to give him credit, Hancock at no point claims these discoveries for himself, he always points to archaeologists and scientists who have been fascinated by similar concepts. Indeed, all that he asks for is that people more qualified than himself, investigate the questions he raises.
"I know [this] sounds preposterous and pointless to anyone committed to objective science. The more closely I pursued these questions, however, the more convinced I became that they point towards matters of extraordinary substance, and that science has done us an immense disfavour by its policy of ridiculing and discouraging all rational inquiry in this area."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
********
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// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 10:59 PM
Subject: The Ten Secrets
The First Secret:
Have a mind that is open to everything
and attached to nothing.
The Second Secret:
Don't die with your music still in you.
The Third Secret:
You can't give away what you don't have.
The Forth Secret:
Embrace silence.
The Fifth Secret:
Give up your personal history.
The Six Secret:
You can't solve a problem
with the same mind that created it.
The Seventh Secret:
There are no justified resentments.
The Eighth Secret:
Treat yourself as if you
already are what you'd like to be.
The Ninth Secret:
Treasure your Divinity.
The Tenth Secret:
Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.
Wayne Dyer
The First Secret:
Have a mind that is open to everything
and attached to nothing.
The Second Secret:
Don't die with your music still in you.
The Third Secret:
You can't give away what you don't have.
The Forth Secret:
Embrace silence.
The Fifth Secret:
Give up your personal history.
The Six Secret:
You can't solve a problem
with the same mind that created it.
The Seventh Secret:
There are no justified resentments.
The Eighth Secret:
Treat yourself as if you
already are what you'd like to be.
The Ninth Secret:
Treasure your Divinity.
The Tenth Secret:
Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.
Wayne Dyer
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 3:10 PM
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com
HOW MANY AMERICANS REALLY DIE OF THE FLU EACH YEAR?
OCTOBER 22, 2004. Ask the American Lung Association. Better yet, read their
own report from August of 2004, titled, "Trends in Pneumonia and
Influenza/Morbidity and Mortality."
This report comes from "Research and Scientific Affairs/Epidemiology and
Statistics Unit." At the bottom of the document, the source is listed as:
National Center for Health Statistics, Report of Final Mortality Statistics,
1979-2001.
Get ready for some surprises, especially since the CDC keeps trumpeting
flu-death annual numbers as 36,000. Like clockwork. Year in and year out. 36,000
people in the US die from the flu every year. Killer disease. Watch out. Get
your flu shot. Every autumn. Don't wait. You might fall over dead
in the street.
Here are the total flu deaths from the report. From 1979 to 2001, the stats
were released every two years.
1979: 604
1981: 3,006
1983: 1,431
1985: 2,054
1987: 632
1989: 1,593
1991: 1,137
1993: 1,044
1995: 606
1996: 745
1997: 720
1998: 1,724
1999: 1,665
2000: 1,765
2001: 257
Don't believe me?
Here is the page:
www.lungusa.org/atf/cf/%7B7A8D42C2-FCCA-4604-8ADE-7F5D5E762256%7D/PI1.PDF
Get there and go to page 9 of the document. Then start scrolling down until
you come to the chart for flu deaths as a separate category.
Tommy Thompson, head of US Health and Human services, stated that 91 percent
of the people who die from the flu in the US every year are 65 and older. So
you might engage in a little arithmetic and figure out how many people under 65
are really dying from the flu each year.
But no matter. The raw all-ages stats are low enough. Quite low enough.
Quite, quite.
Do you see what is going on here?
You can go into my archive and read recent pieces on this subject and find my
argument for those who blithely claim, "Well, harumph, you see, uh ah, flu
often leads to pneumonia and THAT'S why we have to be so careful about the flu.
Deaths from pneumonia are large numbers, harumph, blah blah blah..."
It's a straight con, folks. The CDC is on a street corner with a little
table, and there are shills walking around repeating the 36,000 death figure while
the PR flacks at the table are working the vaccine angle.
The crowd is getting restless. A man shouts, "Where is my flu shot? We're all
going to die!"
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Congress planned a measure that will guarantee
vaccine manufacturers annual billion-dollar payoffs no matter how many doses are
left over, unused.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
This article published a year ago in the BBC shows that these things can be
and are manufactured.
_______________________________________
Killer flu recreated in the lab
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3719990.stm
Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render
them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions.
A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain
known to have no effect on mice.
Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar
to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu
The work of the US team, lead by Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of
Wisconsin, was carried out under the tightest security.
Experts focused on two genes thought to play a key role in the infection
process.
One controls production of a spike-like molecule called hemagglutinin (HA),
believed to be used by the flu virus to attach itself to the cells it is about
to infect.
Previous research published earlier this year in the journal Science
identified the HA gene as being the crucial element which made the 1918 virus so
deadly - and the latest work appears to confirm this.
Post mortems on mice injected in the nose with the composite virus showed
that it had rampaged through their lungs, producing inflammation and
hemorrhaging.
The researchers stress the experiment is conclusive for lab mice, and not
humans.
Better monitoring
But they say that their work may lead to better ways to assess the potential
danger of emerging flu viruses.
Writing in Nature, the researchers say: "Once the properties of the (1918) HA
gene that gave rise to its lethal infectivity are better understood, it
should be possible to devise effective control measures and to improve global
surveillance networks for influenza viruses that pose the greatest threat to humans
as well as other animal species."
Scientists believe the 1918 virus leapt to humans by mutating from bird flu,
possibly after passing through pigs, which are able to harbor both human and
avian viruses and thus allow them to swap genes as the viruses reproduce.
For that reason, experts are deeply concerned that the avian flu that has
broken out in poultry flocks in parts of southeast Asia may acquire genes that
will make it highly infectious as well as lethal for humans.
Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary College London,
told BBC News Online the latest research underlined just what a threat all flu
viruses potentially posed.
He said: "It is not a big difference at all between a virus that kills 15 m
people and one that does not kill anyone at all.
"The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu. Every flu
virus must be carrying baggage that could potentially harm us, and we would be
well advised not to ignore them."
Many deaths
The 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one
billion people - half the world's population at the time.
The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease,
surpassing even the Black Death of the middle Ages.
Although it probably originated in the Far East, it was dubbed "Spanish" flu
because the press in Spain - not being involved in World War I - was the first
to report extensively on its impact. (Other reports say the 1918 flu
occurred just after worldwide mass vaccination...Zeus)
The virus caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between
September and December 1918, resulting in the heaviest loss of life.
It is thought that the virus may have played a role in ending World War I as
soldiers were too sick to fight, and by that stage more men on both sides died
of flu than were killed by weapons.
Although most people who were infected with the virus recovered within a week
following bed rest, some died within 24 hours of infection.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3719990.stm
Published: 2004/10/07 05:02:24 GMT
_____________________________
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28315075.htm
U.S. company to work on jabless avian flu vaccine
28 Sep 2005 17:30:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - A company that makes an inhaled flu vaccine
signed up with the U.S. government on Wednesday to try to make a version of its
jabless vaccine for avian flu.
Maryland-based biotechnology company MedImmune will work with top
U.S. government influenza experts to develop a new vaccine against the H5N1 avia
n flu, which has killed 65 people in Asia since 2003.
"The threat of pandemic flu is an urgent health challenge," Health and Human
Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.
"This agreement will help speed the process of developing vaccines we will
need to fight an outbreak if the avian flu starts to spread rapidly through the
human population."
Injected flu vaccines use a killed version of the virus. The nasal vaccine
uses a live but weakened virus.
To make this attenuated virus Dr. Kanta Subbarao and Dr. Brian Murphy of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will splice selected
genes from avian flu viruses considered to be a threat into a weakened human flu
virus. They will also work with MedImmune scientists to use a process called
reverse genetics to make a vaccine.
Experts consider the avian flu the single biggest threat to human health in
the world today. The H5N1 virus has killed and forced the destruction of tens
of millions of birds and can on occasion be transmitted to people, often
killing them.
A slight mutation would enable the virus to be passed easily from person to
person and because it is such a new virus, experts believe it would sweep
around the world, killing millions of people, if it is not stopped.
A vaccine is the best way but production of influenza vaccines is slow, and
they do not work perfectly.
PREPARING FOR FUTURE OUTBREAKS
NIAID and MedImmune will try to develop at least one vaccine for each of the
16 variations of a protein found on the surface of all influenza A viruses,
called hemagglutinin (represented by the letter "H" in the names of influenza
strains, such as H5N1).
This will take years but will help in preparing for future outbreaks, the
NIAID said.
Several companies are working on an H5N1 vaccine, and the furthest along in
development is France's Sanofi-Aventis. U.S.-based Chiron Corp. Claims to test
its H5N1 vaccine later this year and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline plans
large-scale clinical trials in 2006.
These companies, along with MedImmune, also make vaccines against ordinary
flu, but they do not protect against avian flu.
Experts would like to have as many options as possible, as influenza spreads
quickly once a new strain emerges. It takes months to make a new influenza
vaccine and the immunization must match the strain that is actually infecting
people, so it is not currently possible to make them up before a new strain
emerges.
"An intranasal pandemic vaccine may help facilitate and expedite influenza
vaccinations for more Americans in the event of a pandemic outbreak," MedImmune
research and development chief James Young said in a statement.
Two antiviral drugs can help against the infection and may even prevent it if
taken at the right time. These are Tamiflu from Switzerland's Roche Holding,
known generically as oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza, or Zanamivir.
www.nomorefakenews.com
HOW MANY AMERICANS REALLY DIE OF THE FLU EACH YEAR?
OCTOBER 22, 2004. Ask the American Lung Association. Better yet, read their
own report from August of 2004, titled, "Trends in Pneumonia and
Influenza/Morbidity and Mortality."
This report comes from "Research and Scientific Affairs/Epidemiology and
Statistics Unit." At the bottom of the document, the source is listed as:
National Center for Health Statistics, Report of Final Mortality Statistics,
1979-2001.
Get ready for some surprises, especially since the CDC keeps trumpeting
flu-death annual numbers as 36,000. Like clockwork. Year in and year out. 36,000
people in the US die from the flu every year. Killer disease. Watch out. Get
your flu shot. Every autumn. Don't wait. You might fall over dead
in the street.
Here are the total flu deaths from the report. From 1979 to 2001, the stats
were released every two years.
1979: 604
1981: 3,006
1983: 1,431
1985: 2,054
1987: 632
1989: 1,593
1991: 1,137
1993: 1,044
1995: 606
1996: 745
1997: 720
1998: 1,724
1999: 1,665
2000: 1,765
2001: 257
Don't believe me?
Here is the page:
www.lungusa.org/atf/cf/%7B7A8D42C2-FCCA-4604-8ADE-7F5D5E762256%7D/PI1.PDF
Get there and go to page 9 of the document. Then start scrolling down until
you come to the chart for flu deaths as a separate category.
Tommy Thompson, head of US Health and Human services, stated that 91 percent
of the people who die from the flu in the US every year are 65 and older. So
you might engage in a little arithmetic and figure out how many people under 65
are really dying from the flu each year.
But no matter. The raw all-ages stats are low enough. Quite low enough.
Quite, quite.
Do you see what is going on here?
You can go into my archive and read recent pieces on this subject and find my
argument for those who blithely claim, "Well, harumph, you see, uh ah, flu
often leads to pneumonia and THAT'S why we have to be so careful about the flu.
Deaths from pneumonia are large numbers, harumph, blah blah blah..."
It's a straight con, folks. The CDC is on a street corner with a little
table, and there are shills walking around repeating the 36,000 death figure while
the PR flacks at the table are working the vaccine angle.
The crowd is getting restless. A man shouts, "Where is my flu shot? We're all
going to die!"
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Congress planned a measure that will guarantee
vaccine manufacturers annual billion-dollar payoffs no matter how many doses are
left over, unused.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
This article published a year ago in the BBC shows that these things can be
and are manufactured.
_______________________________________
Killer flu recreated in the lab
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3719990.stm
Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render
them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions.
A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain
known to have no effect on mice.
Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar
to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu
The work of the US team, lead by Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of
Wisconsin, was carried out under the tightest security.
Experts focused on two genes thought to play a key role in the infection
process.
One controls production of a spike-like molecule called hemagglutinin (HA),
believed to be used by the flu virus to attach itself to the cells it is about
to infect.
Previous research published earlier this year in the journal Science
identified the HA gene as being the crucial element which made the 1918 virus so
deadly - and the latest work appears to confirm this.
Post mortems on mice injected in the nose with the composite virus showed
that it had rampaged through their lungs, producing inflammation and
hemorrhaging.
The researchers stress the experiment is conclusive for lab mice, and not
humans.
Better monitoring
But they say that their work may lead to better ways to assess the potential
danger of emerging flu viruses.
Writing in Nature, the researchers say: "Once the properties of the (1918) HA
gene that gave rise to its lethal infectivity are better understood, it
should be possible to devise effective control measures and to improve global
surveillance networks for influenza viruses that pose the greatest threat to humans
as well as other animal species."
Scientists believe the 1918 virus leapt to humans by mutating from bird flu,
possibly after passing through pigs, which are able to harbor both human and
avian viruses and thus allow them to swap genes as the viruses reproduce.
For that reason, experts are deeply concerned that the avian flu that has
broken out in poultry flocks in parts of southeast Asia may acquire genes that
will make it highly infectious as well as lethal for humans.
Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary College London,
told BBC News Online the latest research underlined just what a threat all flu
viruses potentially posed.
He said: "It is not a big difference at all between a virus that kills 15 m
people and one that does not kill anyone at all.
"The lesson is not to be complacent about anything to do with flu. Every flu
virus must be carrying baggage that could potentially harm us, and we would be
well advised not to ignore them."
Many deaths
The 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one
billion people - half the world's population at the time.
The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease,
surpassing even the Black Death of the middle Ages.
Although it probably originated in the Far East, it was dubbed "Spanish" flu
because the press in Spain - not being involved in World War I - was the first
to report extensively on its impact. (Other reports say the 1918 flu
occurred just after worldwide mass vaccination...Zeus)
The virus caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between
September and December 1918, resulting in the heaviest loss of life.
It is thought that the virus may have played a role in ending World War I as
soldiers were too sick to fight, and by that stage more men on both sides died
of flu than were killed by weapons.
Although most people who were infected with the virus recovered within a week
following bed rest, some died within 24 hours of infection.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3719990.stm
Published: 2004/10/07 05:02:24 GMT
_____________________________
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28315075.htm
U.S. company to work on jabless avian flu vaccine
28 Sep 2005 17:30:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - A company that makes an inhaled flu vaccine
signed up with the U.S. government on Wednesday to try to make a version of its
jabless vaccine for avian flu.
Maryland-based biotechnology company MedImmune
U.S. government influenza experts to develop a new vaccine against the H5N1 avia
n flu, which has killed 65 people in Asia since 2003.
"The threat of pandemic flu is an urgent health challenge," Health and Human
Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.
"This agreement will help speed the process of developing vaccines we will
need to fight an outbreak if the avian flu starts to spread rapidly through the
human population."
Injected flu vaccines use a killed version of the virus. The nasal vaccine
uses a live but weakened virus.
To make this attenuated virus Dr. Kanta Subbarao and Dr. Brian Murphy of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will splice selected
genes from avian flu viruses considered to be a threat into a weakened human flu
virus. They will also work with MedImmune scientists to use a process called
reverse genetics to make a vaccine.
Experts consider the avian flu the single biggest threat to human health in
the world today. The H5N1 virus has killed and forced the destruction of tens
of millions of birds and can on occasion be transmitted to people, often
killing them.
A slight mutation would enable the virus to be passed easily from person to
person and because it is such a new virus, experts believe it would sweep
around the world, killing millions of people, if it is not stopped.
A vaccine is the best way but production of influenza vaccines is slow, and
they do not work perfectly.
PREPARING FOR FUTURE OUTBREAKS
NIAID and MedImmune will try to develop at least one vaccine for each of the
16 variations of a protein found on the surface of all influenza A viruses,
called hemagglutinin (represented by the letter "H" in the names of influenza
strains, such as H5N1).
This will take years but will help in preparing for future outbreaks, the
NIAID said.
Several companies are working on an H5N1 vaccine, and the furthest along in
development is France's Sanofi-Aventis. U.S.-based Chiron Corp. Claims to test
its H5N1 vaccine later this year and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline plans
large-scale clinical trials in 2006.
These companies, along with MedImmune, also make vaccines against ordinary
flu, but they do not protect against avian flu.
Experts would like to have as many options as possible, as influenza spreads
quickly once a new strain emerges. It takes months to make a new influenza
vaccine and the immunization must match the strain that is actually infecting
people, so it is not currently possible to make them up before a new strain
emerges.
"An intranasal pandemic vaccine may help facilitate and expedite influenza
vaccinations for more Americans in the event of a pandemic outbreak," MedImmune
research and development chief James Young said in a statement.
Two antiviral drugs can help against the infection and may even prevent it if
taken at the right time. These are Tamiflu from Switzerland's Roche Holding,
known generically as oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza, or Zanamivir.
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 12:18 PM
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Jib jab strikes again. Wal-Mart's not laughing.
http://walmartwatch.com/jibjab
Big Box Mart tells the story an unsuspecting consumer who learns an economic lesson the hard way when his high-skilled factory job is shipped overseas to accommodate the "everyday low prices" he's come to expect from his favorite retailer. At the end of the song, the only work he can find is as a janitor at Big Box Mart. Visit our website to see it for yourself and make sure to spread the word to your family and friends.
http://walmartwatch.com/jibjab
http://walmartwatch.com/jibjab
Big Box Mart tells the story an unsuspecting consumer who learns an economic lesson the hard way when his high-skilled factory job is shipped overseas to accommodate the "everyday low prices" he's come to expect from his favorite retailer. At the end of the song, the only work he can find is as a janitor at Big Box Mart. Visit our website to see it for yourself and make sure to spread the word to your family and friends.
http://walmartwatch.com/jibjab
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 10:20 PM
Friday, November 04, 2005
Write and Call now --
List of Senators pushing for Senate Bill 1873
Here is the list of politicians pushing for us to face forced vaccines and forced drugging with untested/experimental drugs and vaccines giving freedom from liability to drug companies. Contact them ALL. Keep this list of these traitors for your voting records. They ALL need to go! This bill is called "The Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005". You will find the wording under Senate Bill 1873 [S. 1873].
REPUBLICANS
Gregg, Judd (R - NH)
393 Senate Russell Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3324
Fax: (202) 224-4952
http://gregg.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.cfm>
Frist, William (R - TN)
509 Hart Senate Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3344
Fax: (202) 228-1264
http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm>
Enzi, Mike (R - WY)
379A Senate Russell Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3424
Fax: (202) 228-0359
http://enzi.senate.gov/email.htm>
Burr Richard (R-NC)
217 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3154
Fax: (202) 228-2981
http://burr.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home>
Isakson Johnny (R- GA)
120 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3643
Fax: (202) 228-0724
http://isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm>
Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)
302 Senate Hart Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398
http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home>
Bond, Christopher (R - MO)
274 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-5721
Fax (202) 224-8149
http://bond.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm>
Roberts, Pat (R - KS)
109 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4774
Fax (202) 224-3514
http://roberts.senate.gov/e-mail_pat.html>
Ensign, John (R - NV)
356 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6244
Fax (202) 228-2193
http://ensign.senate.gov/forms/email_form.cfm>
DeWine, Mike (R - OH)
140 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2315
Fax (202) 224-6519
http://dewine.senate.gov/>
DEMOCRATS
Kennedy, Edward - (D - MA)
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4543
Fax: (202) 224-2417
http://kennedy.senate.gov/index_high.html>
Dodd, Christopher (D - CT)
448 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone (202) 224-2823
Fax (202) 228-1683
http://dodd.senate.gov/webmail/form-opinion.html>
Harkin, Tom (D - IA)
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone (202) 224-3254
Fax (202) 224-9369
http://harkin.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm>
Mikulski, Barbara (D - MD)
503 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4654
Fax (202)224-8858
http://mikulski.senate.gov/contactme/mailform.html>
Bingaman, Jeff (D - NM)
703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone:(202) 224-5521
Fax (202) 224-2852
senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov>
Murray, Patty (D - WA)
173 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2621
Fax: (202) 224-0238
http://murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm>
Reed, Jack (D - RI)
728 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone:(202) 224-4642
Fax (202) 224-4680
http://reed.senate.gov/form-opinion.htm>
Clinton, Hillary (D - NY)
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4451
D.C. Fax (202) 228-0282
NY Fax (631) 249-2847
http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm?subj=issu>
20 October 2005
*****
Congress Set to Pass Law Eliminating Liability For Vaccine> Injuries> 19 Oct 2005 The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is calling the "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005" (S. 1873), which passed out of the U.S. Senate HELP Committee one day after it was introduced "a drug company stockholder's dream and a consumer's worst nightmare." ...The bill establishes> the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA), as the single point of authority within the government for the advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu. BARDA will operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, insuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become public.
// posted by Linda Weissinger Lupowitz @ 7:20 AM
