Tim's Natural Medicine and Homeopathy Blog

MONSANTO'S MINIONS: The White House, Congress, and the Mass Media

2011-11-21T04:49:00.000-08:00

Hamlet Act 1, Scene 4
Marcellus:
'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'

There's a reason he says "state of Denmark" rather than just Denmark: the fish is rotting from the head down—all is not well at the top of the political hierarchy. Fast forward a few hundred years and substitute USA for Denmark.

For those readers interested in the close links between President Obama, his administration and Monsanto the following paras give the details - at http://www.naturalnews.com/031263_Monsanto_organic_consumers.html.

The United States is rapidly devolving into what can only be described as a Monsanto Nation. Despite Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton's) campaign operatives in 2008 publicly stating that Obama supported mandatory labels for GMOs, we haven't heard a word from the White House on this topic since Inauguration Day. Michele Obama broke ground for an organic garden at the White House in early 2009, but after protests from the pesticide and biotech industry, the forbidden "O" (organic) word was dropped from White House PR. Since day one, the Obama Administration has mouthed biotech propaganda, claiming, with no scientific justification whatsoever, that biotech crops can feed the world and enable farmers to increase production in the new era of climate change and extreme weather.

Like Obama's campaign promises to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; like his promises to bring out-of-control banksters and oil companies under control; like his promises to drastically reduce greenhouse gas pollution and create millions of green jobs; Obama has not come though on his 2008 campaign promise to label GMOs. His unilateral approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa, overruling the federal courts, scientists, and the organic community, offers the final proof: don't hold your breath for this man to do anything that might offend Monsanto or Corporate America.

Obama's Administration, like the Bush and Clinton Administrations before him, has become a literal "revolving door" for Monsanto operatives. President Obama stated on the campaign trail in 2007-2008 that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the regulatory powers of government.

But, starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto and the biotech industry know they'll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration. President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms:

Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods. Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Islam Siddiqui, Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative. Rajiv Shah former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama's USDA Under-Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID. Elena Kagan, who, as President Obama's Solicitor General, took Monsanto's side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, is now on the Supreme Court. Ramona Romero, corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA.

Of course, America's indentured Congress is no better than the White House when it comes to promoting sane and sustainable public policy. According to Food and Water Watch, Monsanto and the biotech industry have spent more than half a billion dollars ($547 million) lobbying Congress since 1999. Big Biotech's lobby expenditures have accelerated since Obama's election in 2008. In 2009 alone Monsanto and the biotech lobby spent $71 million. Last year Monsanto's minions included over a dozen lobbying firms, as well as their own in-house lobbyists.

America's bought-and-sold mass media have likewise joined the ranks of Monsanto's minions. Do a Google search on a topic like citizens' rights to know whether our food has been genetically engineered or not, or on the hazards of GMOs and their companion pesticide Roundup, and you'll find very little in the mass media. However, do a Google search on the supposed benefits of Monsanto's GMOs, and you'll find more articles in the daily press than you would ever want to read.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don't hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers' right to know what's in their food. In a decade of Congressional lobbying, the OCA has never seen more than 24 out of 435 Congressional Representatives co-sponsor one of Kucinich's GMO labeling bills. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the outrageous "Citizens United" case gave big corporations like Monsanto the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Keep in mind that one of the decisive Supreme Court swing votes in the "Citizen's United' case was cast by the infamous Justice Clarence Thomas, former General Counsel for Monsanto.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031263_Monsanto_organic_consumers.html#ixzz1eLN1b16S

Sigh! Flu jab... here we go again. Flu Vaccine Rebranding job to make lots more pennies

2011-11-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

Consumer products, particularly branded products, need 'refreshing' from time to time to make sure that the client base doesn't forget them or get bored with them. As we all know, a salesman's nightmare is not having any new story to tell those he needs to sell to, to convince them to stock his product. Pharmaceutical drugs are no exception, many of them having the added problem that when their patent period expires generic competitor manufacturers will pile in with a cheaper "me too" version. Sometimes the efficacy of the old product therefore has to be downplayed, or even trashed, to tell a convincing story which will pump up the attractiveness of the new refreshed product. Remember the pronouncement of Dr Allen Roses of GlaxoSmithKline, in Dec 2003 the worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline, who noted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them - "The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people"? This was the scene setting for the new story which was that in future drugs would be designed to target just those patients who can benefit most from each medication (called pharmacogenomics)(The Independent. UK. 8 December 2003). And would there be any accountability for all the years the public purse had shelled out for 'useless' drugs, or for the side effects of drugs given to those they would never have worked on? You can bet your bottom dollar not.

So, when we hear the 'new story' for a 'universal flu jab' in place of the old annual flu jab (see NaturalNews below), why should we not yawn?

First, because the researchers in question seem to have decided to try to steal a message which historically has legitimately been the unique preserve of the natural, 'holistic' healthcare community viz. natural remedies are ultimately better for you because they support the body's immune system, not suppress or fight against it, with natural, not artificial substances. For any vaccine to make the same claim, if, as has been the case to date, it contains a laundry list of primary substances and adjuvants which are basically toxic to the body's immune system, and which will be injected in a place which bypasses much of the body's front-line IgA immune system (nose and mouth through to the gastrointestinal tract), would be hogwash - quite apart from the points that NaturalNews feature story by Ethan Huff makes below.

Secondly, because we have heard something like this before. Remember how the adjuvant squalene was added into swine flu vaccine in Europe to boost the immune response/creation of antibodies and how previously it had been in jabs given to Gulf War soldiers? Squalene as an oil molecule consumed normally would have been no problem for the immune system. But injected it had devastating effects on Gulf War veterans and contributed to the cascade of documented reactions called "Gulf War Syndrome".

The symptoms they developed included arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anaemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Raynaud's phenomenon, Sjorgren's syndrome, chronic diarrhoea, night sweats and low-grade fevers.

So, when we hear of another compound which has been found to "stimulate our own (immune) response ...and boost it to fight and infection", what's the betting that it will turn out to be "hogwash with side effects" for the human guinea pigs who participate in this annual experiment?

---------------------------

(NaturalNews) The medical community is in the process of unveiling a "universal" influenza vaccine that it claims will prevent all flu strains with a single jab. The only problem is that, in the process, the system has inadvertently admitted that current flu shots are medically useless because they fail to target the correct flu strain in many cases, and they do not stimulate a natural flu-fighting immune response even when the strain is a match.

A recent report by CBS 11 News in Dallas / Fort Worth explains that researchers from the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have identified a compound they say spurs the growth of a key protein known as REDD-1, which prevents cells from becoming infected. By injecting this compound into patients, REDD-1 will increase, say the researchers, and thus effectively prevent any strain of flu from taking hold.

But what about current flu vaccines? Dr. Beatrice Fontoura, one of the head researchers involved with the new universal flu shot, explained to CBS 11 that it works differently than current flu shots because it "stimulates our own (immune) response which is already there and boost[s] it to fight an infection."

In other words, flu shots being sold today at pharmacies across the country do not actually promote natural immunity at all, which begs an important question. If current flu shots do not boost the immune response, then what, exactly, are they good for?

Not much, according to a recent study published in The Lancet. Though the mainstream media widely reported that the study's findings showed an effectiveness rate of 60 percent for flu shots, actual data in the study reveal that flu shots help about 1.5 out of every 100 adults. This, of course, translates into a measly 1.5 percent effectiveness rate (http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_i...).

And yet, for years, medical professionals everywhere have been hounding the public to get their flu shots or else face horrific sickness and even death. And those who continue to avoid the flu shot based on concerns about its safety and effectiveness have been routinely dubbed "anti-science," or worse.

Ironically, the CBS 11 piece about the universal flu shot also contains an interview with a woman who admits that she stopped getting the flu shot because it made her sick every single year. Once she stopped getting flu shots, she stopped getting the flu. So why, again, do we even need a universal flu shot?

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034092_universal_flu_shot_vaccines.html#ixzz1d8oAaOqC

Censorship by any other name! Egged on by the enemies of homeopathy the ASA sails into uncharted waters without a navigator and gets out of its depth!

2011-10-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

The Advertising Standards Authority has recently made an Adjudication against parts of a fully referenced New Statesman press release last year by the homeopathic charity, H:MC21 [Homeopathy for the 21st Century] urging integration of homeopathic practitioners into front-line healthcare whilst monitoring both clinical and cost benefits. There are serious concerns both over the manner in which the ASA arrived at its assessment, using discredited sources often quoted by denigrators of homeopathy, and the twisted logic and lack of fairness in the conclusions it arrived at. It took it a staggering 10 months to get there with some clear shifts of goalposts in its challenges of H:MC21 on the way. Its staff seemed hellbent on finding spurious ways of attacking purely factual statements. The outcome flew in the face of commonsense; it is without doubt an unashamed attempt at censorship of facts being published to support the case for an expanded use of homeopathy within the NHS alongside conventional medicine. This is unacceptable in a democratic society which cherishes the principle of freedom of expression1.

Separately the ASA has been attempting with threatening letters to bully a number of individual homeopaths into self-censorship of some of the content of their websites. And at http://asa.org.uk/ASA-action/Adjudications/2011/10/Ana-Durning/SHP_ADJ_156642.aspx
you will also be able to read the ASA’s attack against a qualified herbalist who is stating certain long recorded truths about the benefits of natural herbs such as echinacea, astragalus, goldenseal etc. I have used all these personally on myself. They are part of the wide and very effective range of natural remedies that can often support your immune system sufficiently to enable it to throw off rapidly flu, colds, sore throats, gastro-intestinal problems etc without you having to bother your doctor for chemical drugs and risking the possibility of side effects. They are the remedies every human being has a right to elect to have access to information on, to discuss freely with others on websites or elsewhere, and to be able to purchase at a reasonable price, thereby ensuring that he/she can self-medicate should he/she so wish without accepting blindly the dictates of others.

A bit more about the ASA and its method of operating.

The ASA is a non-statutory body set up and paid for by the advertising industry to regulate advertising. It has no statutory powers to enforce its adjudications. It has only recently extended its activities to websites. We know from what ASA staff have said to H:MC21 and some homeopathic associations that they have inadequate in-house expertise to be able to understand, and accept, that there are significant differences between the homeopathic and conventional medicine paradigms, and the different test methods each of these two medical systems considers most appropriate for testing the effectiveness of its remedies and prescribing procedures. They did not find a suitable external “expert” to advise them in the H:MC21 case. So they defaulted to applying, wrongly, to the H:MC21 case the current mindset of conventional medicine’s controlling clique.

This means that despite the fact that homeopathic medicine is far older than conventional medicine and has been safely practised with much success since the 1800s, and as part of the NHS since 1941, the ASA are unable, or unwilling, to accept that the historical record of homeopathic medicine - two centuries worth of observations, clinical reports and case studies in Europe, the USA and the rest of the world by some of the finest medical minds (fully qualified MDs and other professionals) of their era, including the present - is itself more than sufficient proof for both general and specific statements about its usefulness in treating a very full range of ailments, and certainly to confirm the truth of the statement “Homeopathy has a history of success in chronic illness”. In order for this not to be true i.e. that homeopathy is no more effective than slipping a patient a placebo we would have to assume the greatest case of medical self-delusion across continents and time in the history of science.

References in the text of the ASA adjudication make it clear that their reasoning has been well and truly misinformed by these two things:
1. The very hostile approach taken by the Chairman, Phil Willis, and Dr Evan Harris, both of whom were already wellknown for their extreme anti-homeopathy views, in the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee review which fed through into every paragraph of the Committee Report (Evidence Check 2)3 dated Monday 22nd Feb 2010.
2. The (conventional medicine) notion that the gold standard4 of scientific evidence for their, and hence, in their view, every, medical paradigm is a double blind RCT (randomised controlled trial). As far as we can tell, since they wouldn’t tell H:MC21 (in itself a breach of due process), the ASA justify the upholding of some of the challenges to H:MC21’s statements by reliance on just one flawed meta-analysis in 2005 by Shang et al.

1. Evidence Check 2

As Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, chairman of the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee which had carried out a review of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2000, commented in a typical British understatement, “The (S&T) Committee however has been less than rigorous in its approach to this evidence. Its choice of witnesses favoured a medical media opponent of homeopathy over a research centre of excellence. It was unwise to rely heavily on the interpretations of one professor of CAM [Ernst], some of whose statements are unsound or in conflict with other statements of his, and who is not without his critics in the worlds of research and academia whose views were given less prominence. The 2005 review by Shang et al has been inaccurately represented as ruling out specific effects of homeopathy, in a summary statement by the Committee that goes beyond present evidence......These limitations make the Committee’s report an unreliable source of evidence about homeopathy”. That is a polite euphemism for saying the conclusions of the report were BS, as 70 MPs also subsequently signalled by supporting the Early Day Motion on 23rd Feb 2010 against the report (extracted at the end of this posting), and as no one reading the report with an open mind could be in any doubt about.

How large and impartial was this socalled Science and Technology Committee?
For the sake of completeness, I would remind the ASA staff and Council in case they overlooked just what a “kangaroo court” lay behind this report and the reason for the follow-up EDM, that the Chairman and Dr Evan Harris were known in advance for their extreme anti-homeopathy views and that out of the THREE MPs who voted for the eventual report (Ian Cawsey, Evan Harris and Doug Naysmith5, now all ex-MPs), two hadn’t even attended the hearings and one of the two was not even a member of the Committee when the hearings were held6! Talk about a stacked deck! See http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/forum/topics/first-they-came-for-the
to understand how blatantly biased the proceedings were and consequently rather irrelevant to a proper consideration of those of H:MC21 statements that have been challenged by homeopathy’s “professional” detractors.

The Government itself followed up in July 2010 when the Secretary of State for Health presented to Parliament the “Government Response to the Science and Technology Committee report 'Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy’ “. Overall, he too was far too polite in responding to the recommendations of the anti-homeopathy Gang of Three MPs, but in doing so he properly stressed the legal requirement under EU directive that patients must have access to the medicinal products of their choice. In his words

“37. Homeopathy has a long tradition in Europe and is a recognised and
widely used system of medicine across the EU. The Government takes
the view that consumers who choose to use homeopathic medicines
should be fully informed about their purpose and assured that standards
of quality and safety are maintained. If homeopathic medicines were not
subject to any kind of regulatory control consumers would not have
access to such information or assurances. Conversely, if regulation was
applied to homeopathic medicines as understood in the context of
conventional pharmaceutical medicines, these products would have to be
withdrawn from the market as medicines. This would constrain
consumer choice and, more importantly, risk the introduction of
unregulated, poor quality and potentially unsafe products on the market
to satisfy consumer demand.
38. The concern to achieve consumer choice while protecting public health is
also reflected at a European level. Thus Recital 9 to Directive
92/73/EEC7 made clear the overall policy position concerning
homeopathic products in the EU: “Whereas, despite considerable
differences in the status of alternative medicines in the Member States,
patients should be allowed access to the medicinal products of their
choice, provided all precautions are taken to ensure the quality and
safety of the said products.”

2. The differences in the two medical paradigms and the relevance of RCT evidence

It has been said that there are two laws of healing –- the law of opposites (allopathy/conventional medicine) and the law of similars (homeopathy).

Conventional medicine is based on the treatment of a diagnosed disease and suppression of its symptoms with material doses of chemicals. Pharma drugs work through the Law of Opposites, eg. antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, anti-convulsants, anti-hypertensives, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, etc. This can be effective, especially the use of antibiotics for bacterial acutes, but it risks giving the semblance of healing and sometimes plays havoc with the internal ecology of the body, trusting one supposes that the body’s innate immune system is strong enough to come to the rescue. Whatever ... it is a system of medicine for all its faults. Many have benefited from it, though many also have not, and a million Britons are hospitalised by prescription medicines every year, costing the NHS £2 billion8.

Homeopathy is different. It is not suppressive of symptoms. It focuses on triggering the best possible healing reaction from the immune system with the minimum remedy dose (highly diluted and vigorously shaken to ‘energise’ it) after an individualised casetaking of all the symptoms and case history of the patient has identified a remedy known to produce similar symptoms in a healthy person (the law of similars). Importantly, one or more remedies may be prescribed in succession, sometimes in different potencies as symptoms change, and over what may be an extended period.

The mechanics of an RCT based as they are upon the reductionist principle of dividing the whole into ‘parts’ small enough to be measured or monitored in isolation, hence restricting the test to a single remedy, and not taking account of the patient’s overall experience of the treatment being trialled, do not lend themselves well to testing the homeopathic process. For this reason, as well as the very high cost of RCTs, the substantial body of evidence for homeopathy very properly comes from clinical research, from outcome studies9, from cost-effectiveness studies and from empirical evidence (i.e. from practice ‘on the job’). It is therefore truly “evidence based”10. This has been possible because homeopathic remedies won’t kill or damage the patient.

Notwithstanding the above, there are a considerable number of RCTs of individual homeopathic remedies for specific conditions which have been conducted vs placebo11. Of those which came up with conclusive results, more are indeed positive (44%) than negative (7%), as H:MC21 stated; a factual statement which the ASA considered couldn’t be stated, unless accompanied by the information that 49% were (for unexplained reasons) inconclusive.

In the end however the ASA’s hands were over their ears because they wanted only to hear evidence that said that homeopathy was no better than placebo, the corollary to which is that all the people it had helped cure through history had been duped idiots.

The Adjudication says that the ASA had been given “a substantial review of over 100 placebo controlled trials (which) showed no convincing evidence that homeopathy was superior to placebo”. The ASA told H:MC21 about this very late in the investigation and refused to say exactly what review that was (another lack of due process). The only review it could have been was the 2005 Shang et al review which was a meta-analysis which selectively eliminated all but 8 RCTs out of the 110 they started with in order - surprise surprise - to come to a conclusion which would say homeopathy was no better than placebo. Shang et al’s methods and conclusions have - no surprise - since been found to be flawed as HMC21 pointed out [A.L.B.Rutten and C.F.Stolper, ‘THE 2005 meta-analaysis of homeopathy: the importance of post-publication data’, Homeopathy, 97 (2008), 169-177, - “Re-analysis of Shang's post-publication data did not support the conclusion that homeopathy is a placebo effect. The conclusion that homeopathy is, and that conventional is not, a placebo effect was not based on comparative analysis and not justified because of heterogeneity and lack of sensitivity analysis. If we confine ourselves to the predefined hypotheses and the part of the analysis that is indeed comparative, the conclusion should be that quality of homeopathic trials is better than of conventional trials, for all trials (p=0.03) as well as for smaller trials (p=0.003).” and Lüdtke R, Rutten AL , J Clin Epidemiol. 2008 Dec;61(12):1197-204. Epub 2008 Oct 1. “Homeopathy had a significant effect beyond placebo ..... Shang's negative results were mainly influenced by one single trial on preventing muscle soreness in 400 long-distance runners“].

In conclusion, if one was overly suspicious one might suspect that the ASA needed 10 months to find some stretched “interpretations” of the true facts in plain English which H:MC21 had used in its press release (see previous post), which could, just possibly, provide them with an excuse to Uphold some of the challenges which the rather nasty Nightingale Collaboration and fellow travellers had made. Something which would allow them to say, with fingers crossed behind their backs and ignoring the length of their own noses, “we note that you H:MC21 believe that you have provided evidence for certain factual statements known already by millions around the world that e.g. “Homeopathy has a history of success in chronic illness” and that “In Cuba, an integrated approach to healthcare has led to homeopathy being used to enable 2.3 million ... to be cheaply and effectively protected against endemic Leptospirosis”, but we, the ASA, concluded (after referring to the skewed information the kind people at the Nightingale Collaboration gave us) that you hadn’t supplied sufficient evidence.”

“Phew! (sighs of relief). That got us out of a possibly embarrassing position with the companies which help pay ASA salaries and spend such a lot of money on advertising in the UK, and have such close links with important people in government and the medical profession”.

But, hang on a moment fellows. Isn’t what you have said the same as saying "we don’t believe that your metal boat can float because we have seen no convincing evidence" when it has merrily been floating in sight of everyone for over 200 years and the majority of those choosing to be carried by it are very happy with the boat's progress!" And didn’t the homeopathic associations, including one, the BHA,that represents 400+ qualified doctor homeopaths, send you loads of evidence in 2008?

So now we are awaiting The Independent Reviewer’s decision whether to hear H:MC21’s appeal, and, if he does, what he will make of this Big Muddle. Could he indeed decide that what we have here is in fact a clash between two ideologies, and point out to the ASA that the CAP Code specifically states “IV These criteria apply to the Code: ... j. the ASA does not arbitrate between conflicting ideologies.” ?

Whatever the Independent Reviewer says, what we have seen here is an attempt at CENSORSHIP, which incidentally if allowed to pass through would be a considerable assistance to one medical paradigm - conventional medicine - which already has a near monopoly within the UK, enjoys well over 99% of the funds available from H.M Government for healthcare, and wants the remaining percent, and no competition, please - regardless of some of their taxpayer patients' wishes. Time for the OFT to step forward. And, on judicial review if it comes to that one trusts the ASA will get another heavy ruler on the knuckles. 11

 
Early Day Motion
EDM 908
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE REPORT ON HOMEOPATHY
23.02.2010

Tredinnick, David

That this House expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee's Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy; notes that the Committee took only oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses, including known critics of homeopathy Tracy Brown, the Managing Director of Sense About Science, and journalist Dr Ben Goldacre, who have no expertise in the subject; believes that evidence should have been heard from primary care trusts that commission homeopathy, doctors who use it in a primary care setting, and other relevant organisations, such as the Society of Homeopaths, to provide balance; observes that the Committee did not consider evidence from abroad from countries such as France and Germany, where provision of homeopathy is far more widespread than in the UK, or from India, where it is part of the health service; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective, and that the Committee recommends no further research; further notes that 206 hon.Members signed Early Day Motion No. 1240 in support of NHS homeopathic hospitals in Session 2006-07; and calls on the Government to maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community's needs.

1 For another recent case involving Freedom of Expression which the ASA lost at judicial review see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12818480 . Art 10 European Convention on Human Rights: Judge Treacy - “Article 10 protects not only the content and substance of information but also the means of dissemination since any restriction on the means necessarily interferes with the right to receive and impart information.”
2 The Adjudication mentions this report as having been “noted” by the ASA, in a paragraph headed Assessment, which precedes their findings on each challenged statement, which makes it clear that the “noted” is code for “we believed the S&TC report and not HMC21‘s evidence”
3 Sir Michael Rawlins (Chair of NICE and no supporter of homeopathy/CAM) pointed out - Harveian Oration 2009,
"RCTs, long regarded as the 'gold standard' of evidence, have been put on an undeserved pedestal. Their appearance at the top of hierarchies of evidence is inappropriate; and hierarchies are illusory tools for assessing evidence. They should be replaced by a diversity of approaches that involve analysing the totality of the evidence base."
4 in an earlier life an immunologist at Beecham Laboratories. Later a researcher at Edinburgh and Bristol Universities.
5 http://vonsyhomeopathy.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/stop-funding-nhs-homeopathy-mps-urge-who-are-these-mps/#more-293
6 http://eurex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdoc&numdoc=392L0073&lg=en
7 Sarah Boseley, The Guardian
8 such as the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital study of 6,500 patients mentioned in H:MC21’s press release where the researchers recorded that 50.7% of patients reported that improvement in their symptoms was “much better” and, in all, 70.7% reported a degree of improvement.
9 See Dr Lionel Milgrom http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/homeopathy/ucm0402.htm
10 Up to the end of 2010, 156 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in homeopathy have been reported in 135 full papers in peer-reviewed journals. This represents research in 75 different medical conditions. Of these 156 RCTs, 41% were positive, 7% negative and 52% non-conclusive.http://www.facultyofhomeopathy.org/research/
11 I am indebted to James Panozzi, Dana Ullman, and Lionel Milgrom, and NaturalNews for excerpts from material they have posted on the internet

H:MC21 New Statesman Homeopathy Cares ad 2010

2011-10-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

As the ASA has been asked by the anti-homeopathy Nightingale Collaboration and fellow travellers to attack some factual statements made by the charity Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century in its 2010 New Statesman advert, I have posted the full text of the ad below. A follow-up blog will discuss the ASA response.

Homeopathy Cares

Homeopathy has a history of success in chronic illness
• At Bristol Homeopathic Hospital 70.7% of 6,500 patients with chronic conditions
benefited from homeopathic treatment and had reduced need for conventional
medication. [1]
• Other clinical outcome studies indicate similar levels of benefit, and more randomised controlled trials are positive than negative. For more see www.britishhomeopathic.org.
• In Cuba an integrated approach to healthcare has led to homeopathy being used to enable 2.3 million people, including the elderly, to be cheaply and effectively protected against endemic Leptospirosis. [2]
• About 6 million people in the UK choose homeopathy despite the fact that for the vast majority this means that they have to pay for their treatment. [3]

Homeopathy offers a caring alternative
• The NHS spends £11 billion annually on conventional drugs out of a budget of £100 billion, and this cost keeps rising, as there is an increasing need to treat long-term conditions. [4]
• Only 0.001% of the NHS drugs budget is spent on homeopathic medicines, but these are mainly used to treat patients with chronic health problems who have not been helped, despite great cost, by conventional means. [5,6]
• The NHS also spends £2 billion annually on treating the adverse side effects of conventional drugs. Homeopathy has no side effects. [7]
• Even a small increase in spending on homeopathy could produce dramatic benefits, reducing care needs and increasing patient quality of life.

Opposition to homeopathy is based on propaganda
• Homeopathy has a growing evidence base, but according to the British Medical Journal, of the 2,500 most commonly used treatments in the NHS, 51% have unknown effectiveness, and only 11% have been shown to be beneficial.[8,9]
• The leading so-called ‘expert’ and critic of homeopathy, Professor Edzard Ernst, has admitted that he has no qualifications in homeopathy.[10]
• The leading organisation opposing homeopathy, Sense About Science, is funded by pharmaceutical companies and relies on a strategy of propaganda stunts rather than scientific research.[11,12]
• The leading popular book critical of homeopathy (Trick or Treatment?) has been shown to be scientifically unreliable. It was co-authored by Simon Singh (a trustee of Sense About Science) and Professor Ernst.[13]
• The recent Science and Technology Committee report on homeopathy was voted for by only three MPs. Of these only one attended the hearings and he has strong links to Sense About Science (Dr Evan Harris).[14,15,16]

A vision for an economic and effective medical future

H:MC21 believes that the NHS should increase the integration of homeopathic practitioners into front-line healthcare whilst monitoring both clinical and cost benefits.

H:MC21 believes that, by sharing clinical experience and skills in this way, homeopathic and conventional practitioners can provide the safest, most economic and most effective service to patients.

H:MC21 believes that this will allow the NHS to confirm the benefits of homeopathy in the real world of clinical practice.

References
1. D.S. Spence, E.A. Thompson, S.J. Barron, ‘Homeopathic Treatment for Chronic Disease: A 6-Year, University-Hospital Outpatient Observational Study’, JACM, 2005, 11:793-798.
2. G. Bracho et al., ‘Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control’, Homeopathy, 99 (2010),156-66, available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20674839.
3. Professor Kent Woods, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), response to Q211, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Evidence Check: Homeopathy (2010), p. Ev 70, at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/45.pdf
4. Mr Mike O’Brien, Minister for Health Services, Department of Health, response to Q244, Evidence Check, p. Ev 73.
5. O’Brien, response to Q244, Evidence Check, p. Ev 73.
6. Spence et al.
7. Sarah Boseley, ‘Adverse drug reactions cost NHS £2bn’, The Guardian, 3 April 2008,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/03/nhs.drugsandalcohol, accessed 14 November 2008.
8. http://www.britishhomeopathic.org /research/
9. ‘How much do we know?’, BMJ Clinical Evidence at http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp.
10. ‘Interview mit Professor Edzard Ernst, Exeter’, Homöopathische Nachrichten, April 2010, 1-3, translation at http://www.hmc21.org/ #/edzard-ernst/4543212059.
11. Funding information taken from the annual accounts at the Charity Commission.
12. Strategy information from the ‘Memorandum submitted by Sense About Science’ (HO36), Evidence Check, pp. Ev 7-8.
13. William Alderson, Halloween Science (Stoke Ferry: Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century, 2009), available at http://www.hmc21.org/#/ halloween-science/4535659799.
14. ‘Formal minutes’, Evidence Check, pp. 48-50.
15. Register of Members’ Interests, available at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10261, accessed 22 May 2010.
16. http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/other/491/, accessed 22 May 2010.

Merck vaccine scientist Dr. Maurice Hilleman admitted presence of SV40, AIDS and cancer viruses in vaccines

2011-09-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Mike Adams of Natural News for publishing the transcript below, which comes I guess you would say from the horses mouth. I thought it worth posting it particularly for those of my doctor friends, and an MP I wrote to, who still take it on trust that the research process which develops novel drugs and vaccines for them to give their patients is always conducted with the utmost care and integrity.

(NaturalNews) One of the most prominent vaccine scientists in the history of the vaccine industry -- a Merck scientist -- made a recording where he openly admits that vaccines given to Americans were contaminated with leukemia and cancer viruses.

In response, his colleagues (who are also recorded here) break out into laughter and seem to think it's hilarious. They then suggest that because these vaccines are first tested in Russia, they will help the U.S. win the Olympics because the Russian athletes will all be "loaded down with tumors." (Thus, they knew these vaccines caused cancer in humans.)

This isn't some conspiracy theory -- these are the words of a top Merck scientist who probably had no idea that his recording would be widely reviewed across the internet (which didn't even exist when he made this recording). He probably thought this would remain a secret forever. When asked why this didn't get out to the press, he replied "Obviously you don't go out, this is a scientific affair within the scientific community."

In other words, vaccine scientists cover for vaccine scientists. They keep all their dirty secrets within their own circle of silence and don't reveal the truth about the contamination of their vaccines.

You can hear this interview at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=13EAA...Here is the full transcript. (Thanks are due to Dr. Len Horowitz for finding this recording and making it publicly available.)

Transcript of audio interview with Dr. Maurice HillemanDr.

Len Horowitz: Listen now to the voice of the worlds leading vaccine expert Dr Maurice Hilleman, Chief of the Merck Pharmaceutical Company's vaccine division relay this problem he was having with imported monkeys. He best explains the origin of AIDS, but what you are about to hear was cut from any public disclosures.

Dr Maurice Hilleman: and I think that vaccines have to be considered the bargain basement technology for the 20th century.

Narrator: 50 years ago when Maurice Hilleman was a high school student in Miles City Montana, he hoped he might qualify as a management trainee for the local JC Penney's store. Instead he went on to pioneer more breakthroughs in vaccine research and development than anyone in the history of American medicine. Among the discoveries he made at Merck, are vaccines for mumps, rubella and measles…

Dr Edward Shorter: Tell me how you found SV40 and the polio vaccine.

Dr Maurice Hilleman: Well, that was at Merck. Yeah, I came to Merck. And uh, I was going to develop vaccines. And we had wild viruses in those days. You remember the wild monkey kidney viruses and so forth? And I finally after 6 months gave up and said that you cannot develop vaccines with these damn monkeys, we're finished and if I can't do something I'm going to quit, I'm not going to try it. So I went down to see Bill Mann at the zoo in Washington DC and I told Bill Mann, I said "look, I got a problem and I don't know what the hell to do." Bill Mann is a real bright guy. I said that these lousy monkeys are picking it up while being stored in the airports in transit, loading, off loading. He said, very simply, you go ahead and get your monkeys out of West Africa and get the African Green, bring them into Madrid unload them there, there is no other traffic there for animals, fly them into Philadelphia and pick them up. Or fly them into New York and pick them up, right off the airplane. So we brought African Greens in and I didn't know we were importing the AIDS virus at the time.

Miscellaneous background voices:…(laughter)… it was you who introduced the AIDS virus into the country. Now we know! (laughter) This is the real story! (laughter) What Merck won't do to develop a vaccine! (laughter)

Dr Maurice Hilleman: So what he did, he brought in, I mean we brought in those monkeys, I only had those and this was the solution because those monkeys didn't have the wild viruses but we…

Dr Edward Shorter: Wait, why didn't the greens have the wild viruses since they came from Africa?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …because they weren't, they weren't, they weren't being infected in these group holding things with all the other 40 different viruses…

Dr Edward Shorter: but they had the ones that they brought from the jungle though...

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …yeah, they had those, but those were relatively few what you do you have a gang housing you're going to have an epidemic transmission of infection in a confined space. So anyway, the greens came in and now we have these and were taking our stocks to clean them up and god now I'm discovering new viruses. So, I said Judas Priest. Well I got an invitation from the Sister Kinney Foundation which was the opposing foundation when it was the live virus…

Dr Edward Shorter: Ah, right…

Dr Maurice Hilleman: Yeah, they had jumped on the Sabin's band wagon and they had asked me to come down and give a talk at the Sister Kinney Foundation meeting and I saw it was an international meeting and god, what am I going to talk about? I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to talk about the detection of non detectable viruses as a topic.

Dr Albert Sabin …there were those who didn't want a live virus vaccine… (unintelligible) …concentrated all its efforts on getting more and more people to use the killed virus vaccine, while they were supporting me for research on the live viruses.

Dr Maurice Hilleman: So now I got to have something (laughter), you know that going to attract attention. And gee, I thought that damn SV40, I mean that damn vaculating agent that we have, I'm just going to pick that particular one, that virus has got to be in vaccines, it's got to be in the Sabin's vaccines so I quick tested it (laughter) and sure enough it was in there.

Dr Edward Shorter: I'll be damned

Dr Maurice Hilleman: … And so now…

Dr Edward Shorter: …so you just took stocks of Sabin's vaccines off the shelf here at Merck…

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …yeah, well it had been made, it was made at Merck…

Dr Edward Shorter: You were making it for Sabin at this point?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …Yeah, it was made before I came…

Dr Edward Shorter: yeah, but at this point Sabin is still just doing massive field trials…

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …uh huh

Dr Edward Shorter: okay,

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …in Russia and so forth. So I go down and I talked about the detection of non detectable viruses and told Albert, I said listen Albert you know you and I are good friends but I'm going to go down there and you're going to get upset. I'm going to talk about the virus that it's in your vaccine. You're going to get rid of the virus, don't worry about it, you're going to get rid of it… but umm, so of course Albert was very upset...

Dr Edward Shorter: What did he say?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …well he said basically, that this is just another obfuscation that's going to upset vaccines. I said well you know, you're absolutely right, but we have a new era here we have a new era of the detection and the important thing is to get rid of these viruses.

Dr Edward Shorter: Why would he call it an obfuscation if it was a virus that was contaminating the vaccine?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …well there are 40 different viruses in these vaccines anyway that we were inactivating and uh,

Dr Edward Shorter: but you weren't inactivating his though…

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …no that's right, but yellow fever vaccine had leukemia virus in it and you know this was in the days of very crude science. So anyway I went down and talked to him and said well, why are you concerned about it? Well I said "I'll tell you what, I have a feeling in my bones that this virus is different, I don't know why to tell you this but I …(unintelligible) …I just think this virus will have some long term effects." And he said what? And I said "cancer". (laughter) I said Albert, you probably think I'm nuts, but I just have that feeling. Well in the meantime we had taken this virus and put it into monkeys and into hamsters. So we had this meeting and that was sort of the topic of the day and the jokes that were going around was that "gee, we would win the Olympics because the Russians would all be loaded down with tumors." (laughter) This was where the vaccine was being tested, this was where… so, uhh, and it really destroyed the meeting and it was sort of the topic. Well anyway…

Dr Edward Shorter: Was this the physicians… (unintelligible) …meeting in New York?

Dr Maurice Hilleman …well no, this was at Sister Kinney…

Dr Edward Shorter: Sister Kinney, right…

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …and Del Becco (sp) got up and he foresaw problems with these kinds of agents.

Dr Edward Shorter: Why didn't this get out into the press?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …well, I guess it did I don't remember. We had no press release on it. Obviously you don't go out, this is a scientific affair within the scientific community…

Voice of news reporter: …an historic victory over a dread disease is dramatically unfolded at the U of Michigan. Here scientists usher in a new medical age with the monumental reports that prove that the Salk vaccine against crippling polio to be a sensational success. It's a day of triumph for 40 year old Dr. Jonas E Salk developer of the vaccine. He arrives here with Basil O'Connor the head of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis that financed the tests. Hundreds of reporters and scientists gathered from all over the nation gathered for the momentous announcement….

Dr Albert Sabin: …it was too much of a show, it was too much Hollywood. There was too much exaggeration and the impression in 1957 that was, no in 1954, that was given was that the problem had been solved , polio had been conquered.

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …but, anyway we knew it was in our seed stock from making vaccines. That virus you see, is one in 10,000 particles is not an activated… (unintelligible) …it was good science at the time because that was what you did. You didn't worry about these wild viruses.

Dr Edward Shorter: So you discovered, it wasn't being inactivated in the Salk vaccine?

Dr Maurice Hilleman: …Right. So then the next thing you know is, 3, 4 weeks after that we found that there were tumors popping up on these hamsters.

Dr. Len Horowitz: Despite AIDS and Leukemia suddenly becoming pandemic from "wild viruses" Hilleman said, this was "good science" at that time.

NaturalNews wishes to thank Dr. Len Horowitz for uncovering this interview from the national archives, and for getting it released so the public can learn the truth behind the deadly vaccine industry.Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033584_Dr_Maurice_Hilleman_SV40.html#ixzz1YL2vNp5G

PCTs as Gatekeepers shutting out effective Natural Healthcare for osteoarthritis

2011-09-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this. Assuming PCTs do indeed get swept away in the Coalition's NHS reforms, everyone will need to keep a beady eye, and be prepared to report, on the behaviour of "the new Gatekeepers" if these turn out to be NHS Commissioning Boards just staffed by doctors with no lay representation sympathetic to ensuring patients access to homeopathic treatment if they want it. Any sign of restrictive practices by orthodox doctors on such Boards should be referred to the Office of Fair Trading.

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NHS. No Choice for Marjorie!
We are rightly proud of our health service. The principles of the 1947 NHS Act still apply, in the most part, that any citizen, when sick, will have access to health treatment - regardless of his or her ability to pay.

But is everyone getting access to the type of treatment they want?

All the main political parties now parade ‘patient choice’ as an important objective for the future of the NHS. The previous Labour government, in its White Paper, (“Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: a new direction for community services. January 2006)” confirmed this. Patricia Hewitt, Health Secretary at the time, stated this:

“(more) people (are) wanting a different approach to services, looking for real choices, more local care, taking greater control over their health, supported to remain independent wherever possible”.

The new coalition Government’s White Paper, “Equity and Excellence: liberating the NHS. July 2010” says this:

“We want the principle of "shared decision making" to become the norm: no decision about me without me. International evidence shows that involving patients in their care and treatment improves their health outcomes, boosts their satisfaction with services received, and increases not just their knowledge and understanding of their health status but also their adherence to a chosen treatment. It can also bring significant reductions in cost, as highlighted in the Wanless Report, and in evidence from various programmes to improve the management of long-term health conditions.

Yet is this anywhere near close to reality within the NHS?

Marjorie Titchen is 93 years old. She lives in Bournemouth, where she continues to run a small hotel. She says that she will retire when she is 100 years old! By this time she will have paid taxes for over 80 years, so she has certainly paid her dues, and her entitlement to health treatment should surely be unquestioned.

Yet despite this she has been fighting now for several years for treatment for her osteoarthritis. But the Bournemouth and Poole PCT has refused to consider it. Why? Because Marjorie wants to see a homeopath, and the PCT insists that they will allow her access only to conventional treatment.

Marjorie refuses to accept conventional treatment, and her arthritis is getting worse. She says she has heard too much about the ‘adverse reactions’ to drugs, and does not want to go down that route.

Even her GP supports her, and has referred her for homeopathy treatment - but still the PCT remains unmoved. She has made representations, and formal complaints; she had written to the Department of Health; she has talked to her MP; she has highlighted her case in the local media. All to no avail.

The PCT refuses to budge on its paternalistic belief that it knows best. Their primary defense appears to be that there is ‘no evidence’ that homeopathy is effective in treating osteoarthritis.

Wrong, says Marjorie! She developed osteoarthritis over 12 years ago, and was referred to homeopathic treatment by the PCT at that time. This relieved her pain, and for several years she was pain free. So as she says, she is living proof of the effectiveness of homeopathy.

Wrong, says the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, referring to the research that has been carried out into arthritis that shows it can be effective in the treatment of the disease.

This includes research that found homeopathy provided a level of pain-relief superior to a conventional drug, used as a control. This research, carried out in 1998, also found that homeopathy produced ‘no adverse reactions’.

So what is happening here? Mrs Titchen wants to access homeopathic treatment. Her GP supports her. Her homeopath is willing to treat her, as he did, successfully, several years ago. Homeopathic treatment is not expensive, indeed, it is less expensive than the conventional treatment she is being offered.

Yet the PCT still sees fit to make the purely bureaucratic decision to deny her the treatment she is asking for.

The NHS is dominated by conventional medicine, and it has become a monopoly. The bureaucrats in charge of PCTs in most areas don’t want to consider homeopathic treatment because they don’t want us to breach their monopoly. They also don’t want to allow homeopathy to prove more effective in the treatment of diseases, such as arthritis, than the favour medicine - in which, of course, they have a personal vested interest.

Government policy on patient choice is a mess. It talks about ‘patient choice’ but what it allows to happen within the NHS runs contrary to this objective. When the Department of Health is asked to comment on this kind of situation, it says that the decision rests at the local level, with the local PCT, which has to take ‘local needs’ into consideration. No doubt this is part of their laudable policy to devolve NHS power from the centre to local areas. But devolving power from London to local PCTs it acts against patient choice, as can be seen in Marjorie Titchen’s case.

The Bournemouth and Poole PCT, and its bureacracy has decided not to offer Mrs Titchen homeopathy. It know better than Marjories, her GP, and her homeopath. Such a decision is anathema ‘patient choice’, and all patients looking for drug-free treatment are certainly not getting the medicine of their choice.

And the only person who is suffering, literally, is Marjorie............
Posted by Alliance of Registered Homeopaths

Comment: Yep. University of Bergen, Norway study found NSAIDs reduced pain short-term but this benefit dropped off significantly longterm; NSAIDs were then hardly better than placebo. The more serious side effects can include high blood pressure leading to congestive heart failure, stomach irritation that may result in bleeding, ulcers, or perforation of the stomach or intestines, and damage to the kidneys. All in all a high risk treatment and the sufferer would be well advised to look first at natural alternatives such as homeopathy or acupuncture.

Unreliable Research

2011-07-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Smith is a doughty opponent of Genetically Modified Anything. For the reason why it is totally unacceptable to rely on tests by the manufacturers of GMO products as opposed to independent tests take a look at this 2 minute video at

http://vimeo.com/22310092

I expect the message in it would be equally valid in the field of Pharmaceuticals i.e you can't rely on, and Doctors and the regulatory authorities shouldn't be relying on, manufacturer conducted RCT tests on their own products eg vaccines, anti-depressants, statins. But of course, they are!

Dr Burzynski's cancer cure and fights with the FDA

2011-06-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

Have just watched a riveting video at http://www.cmn.tv/blog/burzynski-cancer-is-serious-business/ which is only free to watch this weekend, if you have the time.

Two very interesting things about it

1. If anyone wanted seemingly cast-iron proof that the FDA needs rebuilding from the ground up this is it

2. The socalled anti-neoplastons which Dr Burzynski uses have achieved in tests a complete cancer remission rate of around 27% even in very serious eg brain and metastasised tumours, as against the chemo/radiation therapy survival of 1 out of 140 patients in the study (and that 1 patient died after the 5 yr period).
The FDA allied to Big Pharma have been using everything they can since the '80s to shut Burzynski down, but so far have failed.

His antineoplastons are nontoxic compounds (so no side effects) of proteins and aminoacids extracted from - wait for it - human urine! And he has patented them (the specific mix I suppose), making him the first individual, as opposed to pharmaceutical giant, to be in this position, which is unacceptable to the US authorities, of course! Now urine therapy either in material dose or potentised as a homeopathic has for long been regarded with potentised patient's blood as being the remedy of last resort for the most serious pathologies. So perhaps a case of "what goes around, comes around"!

Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered

2011-06-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

For the interesting possible background to the recent killer e.coli outbreak in Germany - thought to have originated in Spain - go to

http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html

It does indeed seem likely that it was manufactured in a lab.

Low Salt Diet Increases Death Rate Over 500%

2011-05-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Yep. Always have liked salted butter. Always will. But one does wonder why the study mentioned below turned out these results when there have been so many previous ones supporting the health benefits of a low salt diet?

------------------
At http://drdavidbrownstein.blogspot.com/
An article in The Journal of The American Medical Association (May 4, 2011. Vol. 305, N. 17) looked at the influence dietary salt had in cardiovascular disease. The authors studied 3681 subjects for a median of 7.9 years. What the researchers found made headlines in major newspapers.

The scientists reported that there was a direct, inverse linear correlation between the amount of salt ingested and the rate of cardiovascular deaths. What that means is that as salt intake went up, cardiovascular deaths went down. They stratified the subjects into three groups; a low, medium and high salt intake group. The death rates declined as the subjects ate more salt: from 4.1% in the lowest group to 1.9% in the medium group and 0.8% in the highest group.

For those who have read my book, Salt Your Way to Health, there really wasn’t anything new in this study. However, the media (at MSNBC.com) had large headlines proclaiming, “Eating less salt doesn’t cut heart risks.” However, MSNBC missed it here. The headline should have read, “Eating less salt increases your cardiovascular death rate over 5x as compared to those who eat a high salt diet.”

The human body was designed to crave and utilize salt. We have hundreds of grams of salt in our bodies at any one time. As I showed you above, eating a low salt diet does not decrease your risk for heart disease, it actually increases it—this has also been shown in many other studies. Furthermore, restricting salt to very low levels has almost no effect on blood pressure for the vast majority of people.

Finally, it is important to eat the right kind of salt—unrefined salt. Unrefined salt contains over 80 minerals that are essential to the human body. I have successfully used unrefined salt in my medical practice for nearly 20 years. Unrefined salt actually helps to lower blood pressure. More information about salt can be found in my book, Salt Your Way to Health.

Dr Chopra's Book - "Corrupt to the Core"

2011-05-14T00:31:00.000-07:00

No apologies for ensuring that readers don't miss this article from Dr Mercola's website. The scientist interviewed, who worked in Canada's health authority for decades, reveals how difficult it was for a conscientious scientist to get governmental health authorities not to take risks with the public's health.

-----------------------

Dr. Shiv Chopra is a world renowned scientist, author and public speaker. As a former employee of Health Canada (the Canadian equivalent of the US FDA) for 35 years, he was the Senior Scientific Advisor for the regulatory assessment of food and drugs, including new vaccines. When he changed job titles from human prescription drugs to the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs, the first file that landed on his desk was Eli Lilly's application to use rBGH in Canada.

In this interview he discusses subjects covered in his most recent book, Corrupt to the Core, which chronicles his many decades fighting for scientific principles against profit-hungry corporations and ultimately against his own bosses and the Canadian government itself.

Sources:
Video Transcript

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

You may remember Dr. Shiv Chopra from my interview with him in 2010, discussing some of the same subjects covered in his new book. He is truly an expert on these topics, having spent 18 years on vaccines and antibiotics for humans with Health Canada. But he also spent another 17 years in the Human Safety Evaluation of Drugs given to food-producing animals, with the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs.

He was eventually removed from his Veterinary Drugs post for "insubordination", a charge that he not only refutes, but is currently pursuing a wrongful dismissal suit in the Canadian legal system.

Dr. Chopra's First Battle: Vaccines

As a member of Canada's Food and Drug Directorate starting in 1969, Dr. Chopra had a seat on the governmental agency charged with protecting consumers against harmful drugs, and immediately he was pressured to approve vaccines that he objected to on scientific grounds. Despite his objections, after experts from the United States were brought in and "yelled and screamed" at his staff, the vaccines were approved.

According to Dr. Chopra:

"After 1967, after the thalidomide affair, there was going to be very rigorous health and safety standards for all drugs including vaccines in both the United States and Canada… Canada was ahead of the United States [in] that they started to consider vaccines as drugs.

The moment I joined…the first vaccines that landed on my desk were rubella and later on, mumps, and some later versions of measles. I objected to it. I said, 'I see problems in these because these are minor diseases and most people get immune by age 15. Why are we going to give these vaccines that have never been tested?'

I knew they were made in monkey kidney tissue and we have had problems with the polio vaccine…

… My suggestion was, why don't we test women at the age of 15 and 16? Those who are not yet immune then may be given the vaccine?

Of course, the companies didn't want that. They wanted 100 percent or at least 80 percent of the children vaccinated. That was the only way they were going to make money. So they flew in hordes of people from the United States -- of all people, Dr. Hilleman, you may remember him. He himself came. He was effectively yelling and screaming at my department that the United States has passed it and so forth. In any case, the vaccines were passed.

We now know from history that those vaccines have been used for more than 40 years and the diseases, all of them, are still here. Meanwhile, autism, diabetes, and all kinds of autoimmune diseases have increased.

We don't know what damage we're doing -- actually we know that in association with those vaccines, chronic diseases in children have increased. But nobody is paying attention. Everybody is denying that."

At the time of the Canadian approval of scientifically questionable vaccines, even government studies in the US questioned the effectiveness of vaccines.

But not only was no one listening to the arguments about vaccine efficacy, the medical community at that time, according to Dr. Chopra, was also in deep denial about the steep drop in infectious diseases before vaccines gained widespread usage:

"…Back in 1971, there was an investigation in the United States that influenza vaccines was not working and one man, Dr. Anthony Morris, a senior scientist, was fired. And then an investigation occurred and there was a congressional inquiry. They looked at 200 vaccines and they ruled that they were all useless vaccines.

Ironically, those vaccines have never been removed from the ledgers and DPT was never talked about. Again, medical people know, a lot of scientists know, the CDC, U.S. FDA, other departments, medical departments, medical professionals, they are all denying that all these infectious diseases had started to decrease in the early 1940s."

With this early battle over vaccines, Dr. Chopra witnessed the pattern that would become familiar during his tenure as a scientist at various governmental regulatory agencies. First, the findings of scientists would be neglected, overruled or ignored. Second, corporations would use their influence and money to bend governmental policy towards maximum corporate profits.

This model has dominated governmental health policy for the last 40 years, and has recently taken a turn for the worse. Today, the regulators are merely corporate insiders from the very industries they are assigned to regulate.

Just how Much Protection are Government "Regulators" Providing?

According to Dr. Chopra's 35 years of experience as a scientist fighting to protect the public health in Canada – not much!

Corrupt to the Core is a fascinating commentary on the entire system of drug approvals, and how the system originally designed to protect the public health, whether in the US or Canada, has been hopelessly corrupted by corporate money and corporate cronyism that views industry as the "client" instead of the public.

Again and again, we see this repeating pattern: when concerned scientists who really understand the issues voice their concerns, they're oftentimes fired or overruled by bureaucrats holding MBA's. According to Dr. Chopra:

"Non-technical people, accountants, lawyers, and MBAs and all kinds of people were appointed as our bosses; who didn't want to listen [to our scientific findings]. That was the style. MBAs can buy science and scientists don't know how to manage science. That was the trend. It all came out of Harvard -- the idea of how to manage scientific areas and health areas.

That is part of the corruption that began a long time ago. It was triggered out of the United States, particularly the Harvard model; everybody has to be an MBA. Doctors are sidelined, the scientists are sidelined, and engineers are sidelined... It will be those accountants and MBAs who will make the decisions."

Scientists are dismissed because they interfere with the collusion between government and these large multinational corporations whose primary intent is to increase their profits – not to serve the public health.

The Canadian system is perhaps even worse than the US, as Canada only performs paper verification and doesn't do any testing of their own on these products, which the US has the capacity to do.

Either way, the regulatory system we now have in the US and in Canada is a well greased, politically run operation where companies are NOT required to prove the safety and efficacy of their product in peer-reviewed scientific literature.

All they have to do is manipulate the regulatory authorities to approve their product, and they can then use that approval as proof and documentation -- rather than the actual science -- that their product is declared safe! Then they have plausible deniability for any health catastrophes that follow, since they can just blame the government for giving them approval.

If you think you deserve better protection than this from your government, then I encourage you to make your voice heard. As long as the masses stay silent on this subject, the systemic silencing of government scientists is guaranteed to continue.

Dr. Chopra's Second Battle: Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)

In 1988, Dr. Chopra's plan was to transfer to the less contentious public policy branch of Veterinary Drugs in the Canadian government, where he might enjoy a few quiet years before retirement, but no sooner did he arrive when the application from Eli Lilly for rBGH in Canada's dairy cows landed on his desk.

So much for a few quiet years before retirement!

Dr. Chopra questioned the safety of rBGH and fought to keep it out of Canada's food supply. According to Dr. Chopra:

"My colleagues were saying, it's the same as natural. We don't need to ask any questions. The recommendation was "Just pass it." I said, "you can't pass it. You have to ask questions. It's genetically modified." They said, it's the same as the cow's own. I said, "It doesn't matter. Even if you took natural BST/BGH and you gave injections of it, it could harm the cow and ultimately it might come out in the milk, anything else may happen, people are going to drink that milk."

They kept on arguing. I said,"'Can you give insulin when it's not needed? No, you'll kill people if you give more than what is necessary." I used the same argument.

They said, 'What test can we do?' I said, 'Normal tests.' This is a growth hormone.

If you inject it in some animals, rats, we should find out whether it produces some other hormones. For instance, it could affect the pancreas. There could be more insulin. There could be more progesterone. There could be more thyroxin. This is a normal thing for a veterinarian to ask.

Veterinarians are effectively toxicologists.

Unlike medical people, we learn comparative medicine. So therefore, this is a way to compare and see what species do. The law is that every drug, any product that directly or indirectly gets into the human body must be tested in at least two species of animals, one of which must be non-rodent. It must also be tested in pregnant animals. Then it also must be tested to see whether it produces cancer by lifetime studies in rats and mice and so forth.

None of these studies have been done on the bovine growth hormone.

Anyway, the product sat there unapproved. And then we saw that when it was actually given to cows it produced double births in cows, and their hooves were elongated, the horns and joints were swollen. They said, don't worry about the cow, we're only concerned about the milk so don't worry about the cow's safety. But what about the human safety aspect of it?

This went on and on and ultimately, I had dug my heels in, my colleagues also did the same thing… [Then] pressure [for approval] came from the highest offices of the Canadian government, including the Prime Minister and the Privy Council, the highest offices."

So as rBGH neared regulatory approval despite the scientific concern, Dr. Chopra and his colleagues took their argument directly to the public:

"We couldn't do anything about it, so we filed complaints. Because we filed the complaints through our union, it became public. When it became public, the farmers of Canada, the public of Canada, they all were complaining about rBGH.

This now got their attention and I, with my colleagues, were hauled before the Canadian Senate. This is where the first spillage of information occurred before it became very public. Finally, rBGH was not approved in Canada. The U.S. approved it, where it is still approved. .

The U.S. is now the only major country where [rBGH] is approved. Mind you, a lot of people now object to it."

As I said earlier, which was proven by this Canadian example concerning rBGH, if the public stands up for their right to a safe food and drug supply and lets their collective voice be heard, then the system may be forced to stop the "business as usual" practice of subverting scientific concern over approving dangerous food and drugs.

Final Thoughts

According to Dr. Chopra, corruption is not only systemic in the regulatory process, it's also infected the judicial branch of government; and it's now threatening to infect all corners of the globe. And this corruption is leading to very real public health consequences.

In Dr. Chopra's words:

"[Recently] the United States Supreme Court said that if people get damaged, if the children get damaged due to vaccine, they can't sue either the government or the companies -- by what right?

Who is to decide to shove vaccines into people who don't want it?

Who decides what food they should eat, whether it's GMO or contaminated with all those toxic products: antibiotics, and GMO's and pesticides and slaughterhouse waste?

Seventy-six million people in the United States get food-borne infections every year. About 5000 people die. In Canada, 11 million people, 1/3 of the population every year gets acute food-borne disease. Nobody talks about chronic food-borne disease; diabetes, obesity, heart attacks. All those things that are happening and nobody seems to care.

…Corruption is now hitting us all over. Every country is involved in this.

The U.S. has passed this bill, 510. Canada has passed a similar bill. India is passing a similar bill. They are even saying that if you criticize a government approved product without your own proof, you go to jail."

To read more about Dr. Chopra's battles as a scientist against the corrupting influence of corporations seeking to maximize their profits at the expense of public health, please read his newest book Corrupt to the Core.

EU takes an Axe to all Herbal remedies to support Pharmaceutical Industry!

2011-05-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

New EU regulations on herbal medicines come into force
By Dominic Hughes
Health correspondent, BBC News

New European Union rules have come into force banning hundreds of traditional herbal remedies.

The EU law aims to protect consumers from possible damaging side-effects of over-the-counter herbal medicines.

For the first time, new regulations will allow only long-established and quality-controlled medicines to be sold.

But both herbal remedy practitioners and manufacturers fear they could be forced out of business.

To date, the industry has been covered by the 1968 Medicines Act, drawn up when only a handful of herbal remedies were available and the number of herbal practitioners was very small.

But surveys show that about a quarter of all adults in the UK have used a herbal medicine in the past two years, mostly bought over the counter in health food shops and pharmacies.

The regulations will cover widely used products such as echinacea, St John's Wort and valerian, as well as traditional Chinese and Indian medicines.

Herbal remedies that have been approved for sale under the new regulations will come with this logo
But safety concerns have focused on the powerful effects of some herbal remedies, as well as the way they interact with conventional drugs.

For example, St John's Wort can interfere with the contraceptive pill, while ginkgo and ginseng are known to have a similar effect to the blood-thinning drug warfarin.

From now on only products that have been assessed by the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will be allowed to go on sale.

Manufacturers will have to prove that their products have been made to strict standards and contain a consistent and clearly marked dose.

And to count as a traditional medicine, products must have been in use for the past 30 years, including 15 years within the EU.

They will also only be approved for minor ailments like coughs and colds, muscular aches and pains, or sleep problems.

Remedies already on sale will be allowed to stay on the shelves until they reach their expiry date.

Free from contamination
Richard Woodfield, head of herbal medicine policy at the MHRA, says so far there have been 211 applications, of which 105 have been granted registration.

"We're very concerned that patients appreciate they must be very careful when they take these medicines and ideally should talk to their doctor or pharmacist”

Prof Jayne Lawrence
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
"Crucially, this EU directive and the registration scheme puts consumers in the driving seat so they can identify that a product meets assured standards on safety, quality and information about safe use.

Safety speaks for itself, but quality means, are they using the right part of the plant? Is it free from contamination? Is the claimed shelf life suitable?

"Product information will include possible side effects and interactions with other drugs, but above all it must make very clear that it is based on traditional use."

And that is a key point for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which believes the new regime is a step forward in improving safety and quality.

But Prof Jayne Lawrence, chief science adviser to the society, says there are still some concerns about herbal products.

They certainly haven't been tested on the same basis as a conventional medicine and some of these compounds are very potent.

Patients might not realise that in some cases they should not take other medicines with them, or if they're going for surgery they should tell their doctors they are taking these particular medicines because there may be complications.

So we're very concerned that patients appreciate they must be very careful when they take these medicines and, ideally, should talk to their doctor or pharmacist."

The manufacturers of herbal remedies have had seven years to prepare for the new rules after the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products was introduced in 2004.

Too onerous?
These regulations apply to over-the-counter sales, which form the bulk of herbal remedies sold in the UK.

But some manufacturers and herbal practitioners have expressed concern, arguing the new rules are too onerous for many small producers.

Michael McIntyre, chairman of the European Herbal and Traditional Medicines Practitioners Association, says there will be a significant impact on herbal medicine practitioners and their suppliers, but admits the rules do need bringing up to date.

"Products that go on the market now will definitely do what it says on the bottle, while we didn't know how good they were in the past.

But registration is expensive so perhaps there may be fewer products on the market and a smaller range.

It's difficult to argue that the market should stay as it is, without any regulation, but how many businesses will pack up and walk away? I can't say."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We have swiftly introduced a system to register herbal practitioners using unlicensed herbal medicines, so consumers will be able to continue to use unlicensed herbal medicines if they wish."

TNM Comment: The EU steamroller has, as we predicted, now rolled over more of our fundamental human rights - in this case to have free access to the natural herbal healthcare products that yesterday we were able to choose to treat ourselves with - and the UK Government has stepped aside, instead of saying "Bugger off, we know what's behind all this i.e. protection of the pharmaceutical industry's monopoly position to drug up UK patients, ably assisted by supine or ignorant doctors".

The Dept of Health spokesman (or woman) is using "Legal-Speak". How can consumers continue to use unlicensed herbal medicines when they won't be available on shop shelves any more, or be able to be imported, and when many competent practising therapists dispensing them won't be able to any longer because they aren't "qualified"? Make them themselves from herbs in the hedgerows?

More comment on this awful development when I have the time. Creative solutions welcomed on how to stick it to 1) The EU 2) Big Pharma and their medical fundamentalist supporters within the UK Medical Profession 3) the BBC who can't be relied on to stick up for natural, safe healthcare which has been practised in this country for hundreds of years and is now under grave threat.

Best solution? Leave the EU. Repeal all this extra regulation garbage which was totally unnecessary, because "Where are all the bodies?" if it was, and use the £9bn a year we are now paying to the EU FOR NOTHING to expand natural, safe healthcare in the UK and help educate the public to take more responsibility for their own health in a revamped NHS system.

How safe is your medication? The FDA Exposed: An Interview With Dr. David Graham, the Vioxx Whistleblower

2011-04-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

There's some riveting "whistle-blowing" stuff giving the inside story on how the American Food and Drug Administration are falling down in their job of ensuring that drugs allowed on the world-wide market are really effective, and, above all, safe to use, and that people are dying as a result-
at http://www.naturalnews.com/011401_Dr_David_Graham_the_FDA.html

The person doing the whistle-blowing is Dr David Graham, the top FDA epidemiologist (the branch of medicine that deals with the study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations).

The Case for Homeopathic Medicine: dealing with the medical fundamentalists and other crackpots

2011-04-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

There are a good many "Medical Fundamentalist" doctors, and some "useful idiot" journalists (who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag as the saying goes) who call homeopathy "bogus" and go into auto-loop trotting out the hoary old myths about there being no evidence for it working or that it's no better than placebo, which means "dangerous" because it might put off people getting proper (conventional)(poisonous) medication etc etc. The other part of their auto-loop is that conventional medication is always backed up by the best "scientific evidence" (selectively chosen) and inconvenient side effects, including death, are to be ignored.

For these types Dana Ullman put together an article last August entitled "The Case for Homeopathic Medicine: Consider the Historical and Scientific Evidence" which can be found at
http://www.naturalnews.com/029419_homeopathic_medicine_evidence.html#ixzz1KZNBSErz

It's best when dealing with such crackpots not to indulge in time-wasting discussion with them but just to point them to such an article and tell them to read it. They won't of course, because they have no intention of changing their auto-loop mantras and their minds are closed.

And that would be fine if they confined themselves to poisoning their own minds and bodies and naturally thereby slowly selected themselves out of existence. The problem is that they are doing that for a lot of innocent people as well if they are conventional doctors, and those in the higher echelons are telling lies about other safe, natural healthcare therapies and attempting to use their influence to shaft them. That's criminal.

In 1542 Henry VIII was confronted by the Physicians and Surgeons wanting essentially a monopoly over treating patients and dispensing medications, and the suppression of the competition, which at that time was the herbalists. He took advice and found that the herbalists did a lot of good to the public treating a range of diseases for no payment, as compared with the Surgeons, who often did harm and yet demanded excessive payment. Much to the annoyance of the Physicians and Surgeons, he promptly passed the Herbalists Charter in 1543 to provide that "it shall be lawful to every Person being the King's subject, having Knowledge and Experience of the Nature of Herbs, Roots and Waters, or of the Operation of the same, by Speculation or Practice" ..."to practice, use and minister in and to any outward Sore, Uncome Wound, Aposelmations, outward Swelling or Disease, any Herb or Herbs, Ointments, Baths, Pultess, and Emplaisters, according to their Cunning, Experience and Knowledge in any of the Diseases, Sorea and Maladies beforesaid, and all other like to the same, or Drinks for the Stone, Strangury or Agues".I believe this Act hasn't been repealed.

Now that's the kind of King or Queen we need today!

BTW as I haven't yet discovered what Aposelmation means I'm going to accord it the following meaning: a malignant condition of the mind which denies the usefulness of any natural form of healing regardless of the evidence for it. Yes, there are homeopathic remedies such as Arsenicum, Arg. Nit etc which could well make considerable inroads into such a condition.

Is your Doctor really to blame for the stuff he prescribes?

2011-04-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from a naturopathic US doctor which explains the modern day pressures they are under which, he believes, leads his (non-complementary minded) colleagues to prescribe in ways that, under other circumstances, they mightn't do. I think commonsense tells us laymen that he is speaking the truth. But what a damning indictment it is on the top hierarchy of the medical profession that they don't do anything to change this. Whatever happened to that fundamental precept of medical ethics "First, do No Harm" ? [The follow-up comments appended below came from the same website]

"As a naturopathic physician, I am always looking to new scientific findings to help explain why the treatments I provide work so well, despite often not having been subjected to "gold standard double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over studies." We vastly undervalue empiricism in medicine, yet many experienced conventional docs use unproven empirical treatments all the time. They figure out what works, despite what the "gold standard" research says.

Some of the treatments I provide have been around for thousands of years and I continue to be surprised how well my patients respond to acupuncture, nutrients, herbs, homeopathy, hydrotherapy and other approaches. I use several therapies simultaneously with my patients, an approach that is difficult to study using "gold standard" methodology. Additionally, you have to consider that "gold standard" methodology makes a massive and impossible assumption right out of the gate, that the population being studied is socially, phenotypically and genetically homogenous.

Perhaps my medicine's focus on the individual's overall health and function does work best -not labelling him with a diagnosis for the purpose of justifying a FDA/ industry accepted, standard-of-care treatment. The treatment X for condition Y approach sounds scientific and rational; but the catch is in determining the "condition," the whole health picture of the patient, not just that they have an affected part.

Yes, I use the available science to best direct my treatments, whether the approach is "conventional" or "alternative." I just like to practice good medicine; what I know works based upon my experience and what has worked for doctors who've come before me.

It's ironic that the word, physician, means 'one who knows nature.'

It seems that THE ONLY THING CONVENTIONAL PHYSICIANS KNOW THESE DAYS IS WHAT IS TAUGHT TO THEM IN MEDICAL SCHOOL FROM DRUG REPS AND PRACTICE GUIDELINES THAT ARE DICTATED BY THEIR INDUSTRY, DRUG COMPANIES AND INSURANCE FIRMS(my emphasis added).

I actually feel sorry for MDs these days. Even if they wanted to do things differently, the various industry influences would prevent it.

In addition, with ever-dwindling reimbursement from insurance, they have to provide even less individualized care than ever before; having to squeeze in more patients in a day just to pay their bills.

MANY MDS THESE DAYS ARE VIRTUALLY SLAVES WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO PRACTICE MEDICINE IN A WAY THAT IS BOTH ACCEPTABLE TO THEIR PEERS AND PROFITABLE FOR DRUG COMPANIES.

No, everyday MDs aren't evil. They are (most of them) very decent, well-intentioned individuals who are, unfortunately, caught up in a meat grinder of an industry. MOST of them aren't the ones churning the meat-grinder handle, so don't lump them all together. I say this even though MOST OF THEM HAVE BOUGHT INTO THE ANTI-COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE BIAS THAT IS FED TO THEM."

--------------------

The constructive vision is there, in the article!
1. Take more time caring for your patients - listen to them, think about what is going on, what are the real causes/triggers of their individual condition?
2. Don't give too much emphasis to routine test results.
3. Avoid prescribing cocktails of drugs routinely and thoughtlessly. Take your patients off drugs whenever possible.
4. Resist the pressure from colleagues, manufacturers and journals to accept research at face value.
5. Don't get attached to trendy theories (e.g. dietary cholesterol causes heart disease - disproved decades ago, but still trotted out by many medics)

I get really flabbergasted by the opaqueness of many physicians vision when the answer is staring them in the face: YOU HAVE BECOME TOO DEPENDENT ON DRUGS TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS FOR YOU!

[TNM COMMENT: One could well add the advice to conventionally trained doctors .... Have the humility to understand that in any given case you may well not be the person in the best position to help the patient back to full health if all you can think of dosing them with is an antibiotic, statin, steroid, antidepressant etc which will just mask the symptoms and not cure but potentially damage the patient's immune system. It may well be that unless it is a case for acute emergency treatment the patient's best interests would be better served by you attempting a diagnosis and then handing the casenotes on to a qualified complementary healthcare practitioner eg homeopath, naturopath, nutritionist, accupuncturist, chiropracter, osteopath etc]

-----------------------------

- For many physicians it is very difficult to keep up with every single new guideline because publishing increases at an exponential rate every year (despite 90% of research being rejected by publishers).

- Only 54% of people seen in hospitals get what is considered the standard of care.

- The standard of care is usually based on gold & platinum standard large randomized control trials, of which around 10-25% may be wrong.

- Pharmaceutical companies fund about 90% of Randomized Control Trials performed globally. (WHY? Because these are REALLY EXPENSIVE).

- These RCTs rarely produce results that are unfavourable to the [pharmaceutical] companies' products. AND, overall, studies funded by a [pharmaceutical] company were four times more likely to have results favourable to the company than studies funded from other sources.

[TNM COMMENT: RCTS have been and doubtless still are being "fudged". Take a look at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269.

For testing homeopathic remedies conventional medicine's RCT test is totally unsuitable and inappropriate because homeopathy, as properly practised, treats each patient individually and most often with a succession of different remedies depending upon the aetiology in the case, that patient's vital state and the totality of their symptoms, to nudge the patient's system back to full health. This would be the case even where, say, each individual had been diagnosed as having eg arthitis. There is no way an RCT could begin to accurately test this process, but that has never stopped homeopathy's detractors from clamouring for the homeopathic profession to use RCTs!]

Do your homework before subjecting your children to any vaccine.

2011-04-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

An update on the HPV vaccine ..... which no girl (or boy) should ever take.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/18/leading-vaccine-doctor-states-cancer-linked-to-polio-vaccine.aspx

Following on from my 28th Oct blog reporting the 40 UK children killed by the MMR vaccine, we hear that for the HPV vaccine as of December 13, 2010, 20,915 adverse reactions had been reported in the United States alone, INCLUDING 89 DEATHS, 297 miscarriages or stillbirths, and 370 reports of abnormal pap smears post vaccination. (NB these stats may be vastly too low because of the normal under-reporting of adverse events by the medical profession).

According to the US National Vaccine Information Center, the incidents of miscarriage and still birth events from Gardasil supersede the same event from all other vaccinations.

According to a recent Sane Vax press release on PR Log:

"There is no doubt the vaccine's safety and efficacy has not been thoroughly investigated. And independent investigation on the safety and efficacy of the HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix must be conducted before there are more injuries and deaths."

What's most frustrating about this is that not a single one of these 21,000 children and young women needed to be harmed or die.

In the case of the HPV vaccine (Gardasil and Cervarix) the choice is clear. It has a high rate of risk and the potential benefits are unproven:

In more than 70 percent of cases, HPV clears up on its own within a few weeks or months. In over 90 percent of cases, it's gone within two years, causing no symptoms or disease.

Only about 26 percent of girls and women ages 14 to 59 have been exposed to any HPV strain at all; and

Only 2 percent have been exposed to strains 16 or 18 – the two that Gardasil and Cervarix protect against – meaning this vaccine is completely unnecessary because HPV infection very rarely leads to cancer.

Women whose partners wore condoms during vaginal intercourse are 70 percent less likely to become infected with HPV. That's a FAR greater level of protection than you can get from this vaccine!

Vaccines' Unsavory Assortment of Toxins

Mercury continues to be a major health concern, since it is still being used in a number of different vaccines, without sufficient safety testing. The science is increasingly clear about the dangers of mercury for children.

The latest studies confirm that mercury can damage children's brains and immune systems. Most childhood vaccines are finally mercury-free, but thimerosal continues to be used in multi-dose vials of DTwP, DT and most flu shots.

Besides mercury, vaccines also contain other dangerous ingredients conveniently disregarded by the pharmaceutical industry, including:

Formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent
Phenol (carbolic acid)
Resin and gelatin, known to cause allergic reactions
Polysorbate 80 (Tween80™), which can cause anaphylactic reactions, and may cause miscarriage and infertility
Triton X100 (detergent)

Increasing numbers of concerned parents are opting out of vaccines for their children after concluding that the risks far outweigh the benefits. But if you live in Washington State, your right to file this kind of exemption is in jeopardy.

A bill that jeopardizes the freedom for Washington state residents to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination was fast tracked and rammed through the state legislature by special interest lobbyists promoting forced vaccination. The legislators ignored the pleas of more than 100 parents and holistic health professionals, who showed up in Olympia to testify against the bill that would require parents to get a signature from a doctor or medical worker if they wanted to file a religious or philosophical belief exemption to vaccination.
The health committee chairpersons in the state House and Senate blocked the oral testimony of all but a handful of parents and then went on to ignore the thousands of phone calls by Washington state voters protesting the assault on their informed consent rights by the medical and pharmaceutical lobby.

Despite the public protest, the legislation passed the legislature on March 26 and is headed for Governor Christine Gregoire's desk for her signature after final touches are put on the legislation in the House and Senate.

The proposed new law discriminates against parents by failing to give them equal protection under the Federal Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL 99-660).
According to the National Vaccine Information Center, if the Governor of Washington signs this legislation into law, it will give doctors and other vaccine providers the power to sit "in judgment of," or interfere with, the free exercise of religious, spiritual or conscientious beliefs of their patients. It will also make it easier for physicians to deny children medical care as a way to punish parents for making selective vaccine choices, which is, unfortunately, the official policy of many American pediatricians.

Informed consent is especially important when it comes to vaccination, because there is no way for you or your physician to predict if your child will be one of the children who has a devastating vaccine reaction, such as brain inflammation, immune dysregulation, or even death.

REMEMBER with just a few minutes research on the internet you will probably be in a far more informed position than most doctors would have the time to be about these vaccines.

Meat Glue!

2011-04-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here's something you might not know. I certainly didn't. The meat industry uses "glue" to stick together scraps and make them look like Prime Cuts.
(see the http://healthfreedoms.org website)

Did you know your meats can contain this meat glue? It’s not on labels because technically it not part of formulation of the product. It's called Thrombin coagulant.

It allows butchers to use the undetectable glue to piece together scraps of meat into a seamless full meat cut. England banned use of Thrombin coagulant last year. They found it misled consumers into thinking they were getting a prime cut for their money, and also the original glue was made from cow and pig blood, something they didn’t think was wise in restaurant meats.

When multiple pieces are globbed together, bacteria has a better chance of growth. “If there is a bacteria outbreak, it’s much harder to figure out the source when chunks of meat from multiple cows were combined,” said Keith Warriner who teaches food science at University of Guelph.

The EU recently brought back the use of the new glue, Thrombian, or Transglutaminase, right along with Australia, Canada and the US. The FDA, of course, deems it GRAS (generally recognized as safe).

It’s hush-hush because meat preparers are afraid to lose their suppliers and customers. The next time you buy natural and organic meat, it wouldn't hurt to ask whether the glue is in it.

This sort of thing has been a boon to the food industry, which can now treat all sorts of proteins like meat or fish as just another material to be processed, but in the hands of molecular gastronomists it’s become a way to manipulate food in a way that would have been previously impossible. It’s possible, for example, to make tenderloin rolls wrapped in bacon that hold together perfectly without the need for twine or toothpicks. So what kind of glue is it exactly?

Produced as Activa by Japan’s Ajinomoto Company, it’s scientific name is “transglutaminase” and it belongs to the family of clotting enzymes which are eight in number.

Thrombin is a coagulation protein which together with the fibrous protein fibrin can be used to develop a “meat glue” enzyme that can be used for sticking together different pieces of meat. It can be made from blood taken from either cows or pigs.

Less than a year ago, the European Parliament had voted to ban bovine and porcine thrombin. The House said the meat glue has no proven benefit for consumers and might mislead them instead.

The Parliament estimated that there is “a clear risk that meat containing thrombin would find its way into meat products served in restaurants or other public establishments serving food, given the higher prices that can be obtained for pieces of meat served as a single meat product”.

But two weeks ago, all but one of the European Union nations voted in favor of using Thrombian, or Transglutaminase (TG). They now join other developed nations such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia who approved the product.

If there is a bacteria outbreak, it’ll be much harder to figure out the source when chunks of meat from multiple cows were combined.

Yet another innovation is “modified atmosphere packaging”, the widespread practice of filling meat packaging with adjusted levels of oxygen and other gases. The gases can keep meat from losing its fresh-looking red hue. Shiv Chopra, an Ottawa food-safety expert and retired Health Canada scientist, said in an e-mail that the technique is “dangerous” because it may prevent shoppers from seeing when meat has gone bad. UBC’s Allen agreed: “This can be misleading to consumers.”

Invariably, industry justifies use of these so called meat glues because they are used only during processing and resist declaring it in the label obviously maintaining that it is not a part of the formulation of the product. While technically they are correct, the fact still remains that the so called processing aid stays right there in the final product.which certainly requires declaration for the information of the consumer.

Maybe it's time to have a chat with your butcher or shop more from farmer’s markets.

How to deal with potential Radioactive exposure

2011-03-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

For readers wondering what they might do if one day they hear a radioactive cloud is likely to be wandering over the UK the article below by Azlan White, kindly emailed to me by White Dove healing Arts Ltd, will give you plenty of seaweed to digest and much else besides. Show it to your GP?

RADIATION DETOX & PREVENTION by Azlan White on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 8:39pm-

Information from www.radiationdetox.com Here's some of the information we do know from the only book in the world on the topic. Keep this information in the back of your mind as it may one day help save you or someone you know.

Most people are aware taking potassium iodide (KI) or potassium iodate (KIO3) tablets will help block your thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive iodine should there ever be a dirty bomb explosion or nuclear power plant mishap such as the Three Mile Island incident. In 1999, another such accident happened in Tokaimura, Japan where several individuals died from radiation exposure in a fuel processing facility. What people don't recognize is that potassium iodide or iodate tablets only protect the thyroid gland and do not provide protection from any other radiation exposure, so taking them should not give you a false sense of security.

It's important to detox your body after radioactive exposure! One question is, what do you do if KI or KIO3 tablets aren't available during an emergency? Interestingly enough, according to research by Ken Miller, health physicist at the Hershey Medical Center, he found that an adult could get a blocking dose of stable iodine by painting 8 ml of a 2 percent tincture of Iodine on the abdomen or forearm approximately 2 hours prior to I-131 contamination. Potassium iodine tablets are best, but if they're not available this is the next best thing.

An entirely different problem arises after you've been exposed to radioactive contamination because now you have to get rid of any radioactive particles you may have ingested through the air you breathed, water you drank, or food you ate. Some people suggest Epson salt, Clorox or clay baths to remove any residues on your skin and to leach out any heavy metals you may have absorbed, but the big worry is internal contamination.

To gain some insights into what to do, we have to turn to the story of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.At the time of the atomic bombing, Tatsuichiro Akizuki, M.D. was Director of the Department of Internal Medicine at St. Francis's Hospital in Nagasaki and he fed his staff and patients a strict diet of brown rice, miso and tamari soy soup, wakame, kombu and other seaweed, Hokkaido pumpkin, and sea salt. He also prohibited the consumption of sugar and sweets since they suppress the immune system.By imposing this diet on his staff and patients, no one succumbed to radiation poisoning whereas the occupants of hospitals located much further away from the blast incident suffered severe radiation fatalities.

Much of this positive result has to do with the fact that the sea vegetables contain substances that bind radioactive particles and escort them out of the body. This is why seaweed sales usually skyrocket after radiation disasters, and why various seaweeds and algae are typically used to treat radiation victims. In Chernobyl, for instance, spirulina was used to help save many children from radiation poisoning. By taking 5 grams of spirulina a day for 45 days, the Institute of Radiation Medicine in Minsk even proved that children on this protocol experienced enhanced immune systems, T-cell counts and reduced radioactivity. Israeli scientists have since treated Chernobyl children with doses of natural beta carotene from Dunaliella algae and proved that it helped normalize their blood chemistry.

Chlorella algae, a known immune system builder and heavy metal detoxifier, has also shown radioprotective effects. Because they bind heavy metals, algae should therefore be consumed after exposure to any type of radioactive contamination.In 1968 a group of Canadian researchers at McGill University of Montreal, headed by Dr. Stanley Skoryna, actually set out to devise a method to counteract the effects of nuclear fallout. The key finding from their studies was that sea vegetables contained a polysaccharide substance, called sodium alginate, which selectively bound radioactive strontium and eliminated it from the body.Sodium alginate is found in many seaweeds, especially kelp, and since that time the Russians have been seriously researching the use of their own kelps from Vladivlostok, from which they have isolated the polysaccharide U-Fucoidan, which is another radioactive detoxifier.

MISO! - miso soup was so effective in helping prevent radiation sickness, the Japanese have also done research identifying the presence of an active ingredient called zybicolin, discovered in 1972, which acts as a binding agent to also detoxify and eliminate radioactive elements (such as strontium) and other pollutants from the body.

The kelps and algaes aren't the only natural foods with radio-detoxifying effects. In terms of fluids to drink, BLACK AND GREEN TEA have shown "radioprotective effects" whether consumed either before or after exposure to radiation. This anti-radiation effect was observed in several Japanese studies, and studies from China also suggest that the ingredients in tea are radioactive antagonists.

In short, after any sort of radioactive exposure you want to be eating seaweeds and algaes along with almost any type of commercial heavy metal chelating formula to bind radioactive particles and help escort them out of the body. Whether you're worried about depleted uranium, plutonium or other isotopes, this is the wise thing to do which can possibly help, and certainly won't hurt.

Many nutritional supplements have been developed for the purpose of detoxifying heavy metals, most of which contain the algaes and plant fibers and other binding substances.Basically, an anti-radiation diet should focus on the following foods:· Miso soup· Spirulina, chlorella and the algaes (kelp, etc.)· Brassica vegetables and high beta carotene vegetables· Beans and lentils· Potassium, calcium and mineral rich foods· High nucleotide content foods to assist in cellular repair including spirulina, chlorella, algae, yeast, sardines, liver, anchovies and mackerel· Cod liver oil and olive oil· Avoid sugars and sweets and wheat· A good multivitamin/multimineral supplement

Yet another benefit of the sea vegetables rarely discussed is their high mineral content, which is a bonus in the case of radioactive exposure. Consuming natural iodine, such as in the seaweeds, helps prevent the uptake of iodine-131 while ironinhibits the absorption of plutonium-238 and plutonium-239. Vitamin B-12inhibits cobalt-60 uptake (used in nuclear medicine), zinc inhibits zinc-65 uptake andsulfur is preventative for sulfur-35 (a product of nuclear reactors) incorporation by the body. Since nuclear workers are potentially exposed to radioactive sulfur, this means that workers in the atomic power industry need a higher content of sulfur in their diet. MSMsupplements provide a source of dietary sulfur, but thiol supplements such as cysteine, lipoic acid and glutathione serve double-duty in this area because they help detoxify the body and attack all sorts of other health problems as well.

The immune system is usually hit hard after radiation exposure, and a number of steps can be taken to help prevent opportunistic infections after a radioactive incident.

Though the full dimensions of the protective mechanism is still unknown, Siberian ginseng is one form of ginseng that exerts a definite radioprotective effect and has been demonstrated to lessen the side effects of radiation. It was widely distributed by the Soviet Union to those exposed Chernobyl radiation and is commonly used to help cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Consuming Reishi mushrooms is another proven way to bolster your immune system after radiation exposure and helps reduce the damage from radiation. It's been used to decrease radiation sickness in animals and help them recover faster after potentially deadly exposure. Panax ginseng has prevented hemorrhaging after radiation exposure, prevents bone marrow death and stimulates blood cell formation, so it's another supplement to add to one's protocol.

In short, yeasts, beta glucans, bee pollen and various forms of ginseng have all been shown to bolster the immune system after radiation incidents.

In terms of radiation burns, aloe vera has a proven ability to treat serious radiation burns and offers other radioprotective effects, and can easily be grown in your house.

The amino acid L-Glutamine can be used to help repair the intestine in case of the gastrointestinal syndrome usually suffered due to radiation exposure, and a variety of substances can help rebuild blood cells to prevent hematopoietic syndrome. Those particular foods include beet juice, liver extract, spleen extract, and shark alkyglycerols.

Most oncologists don't know that shark liver oil, with alkyglycerols, can help platelet counts rebound in days.

Depleted uranium is currently in the journalistic spotlight because US weapons are made from this material, and after being fired leave a legacy of depleted uranium dust in the environment, which anyone can absorb.Because the kidneys are usually the first organs to show chemical damage upon uranium exposure, military manuals suggest doses or infusions of sodium bicarbonate to help alkalinize the urine if this happens. This makes the uranyl ion less kidney-toxic and promotes excretion of the nontoxic uranium carbonate complex. In areas contaminated by depleted uranium dusts, it therefore makes sense to switch todrinking slightly alkaline water and to favor a non-acidic diet to assist in this detoxification. Any of the heavy metal detoxifiers, such as miso soup, chlorella, spirulina and seaweeds, are also commonsense warranted.

Another thing you can do is use homeopathics for radiation exposure. People commonly argue over whether homeopathics work or not, but if you assume the position that they produce no results whatsoever then you must also assume that they certainly won't hurt you, which means the only loss from using them is a few dollars. Frankly, there are countless cases and double-blind studies where homeopathic tinctures do provoke physical healing effects in the body. Therefore they are a viable adjunct treatment option. One homeopathic, in particular, is URANIUM NITRICUM (nitrate of uranium) which homeopaths suggest should be used in cases of depleted uranium exposure or uranium poisoning. Not just soldiers or civilians exposed to battlefield dusts, but uranium miners and radiation workers may find it quite useful.

While we've discussed just a few of the many supplements and protocols you can use to help detox the body of the lingering results of radioactive contamination, including the residues of depleted uranium, the last thing that might be of interest is that there is a plant that is a natural geiger counter. The spiderwort plant is so sensitive to changes in radiation levels (its petals change color upon exposure) that it's often used as a natural radiation detector (dosimeter), just as they use canaries in mines as detectors of poisonous gas. Some people like knowing that they have an ongoing monitoring system for radiation in the environment, and this is just another tip available in "How to Neutralize the Harmful Effects of Radiation or Radioactive Exposure."

A plug for the charity Homeopathy: Medicine of the 21st Century (H:MC21)

2010-11-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

Homeopathy Cares

Homeopathy has a history of success in clinical practice

• In Cuba homeopathy has enabled 2.3 million people to be cheaply and effectively protected against endemic Leptospirosis. [1]
• At Bristol Homeopathic Hospital 70.7% of 6,500 patients with chronic conditions benefited from homeopathic treatment and had reduced need for conventional medication. [2]
• About 6 million people in the UK choose homeopathy despite the fact that for the vast majority this means that they have to pay for their treatment. [3]
• There is considerable research evidence for homeopathy, with more randomised controlled trials being positive than negative. For more information see www.britishhomeopathic.org.

Homeopathy offers solutions to the NHS

• The NHS spends £11 billion annually on conventional drugs out of a budget of £100 billion, and this cost keeps rising, so it is essential to look seriously at alternatives. [4]
• Only 0.001% of the NHS drugs budget is spent on homeopathic medicines, and these are mainly used to treat patients with chronic health problems who have not been helped, despite great cost, by conventional means. [5,6]
• The NHS also spends £2 billion annually on treating the adverse side effects of conventional drugs. Homeopathy has no side effects. [7]
• Even a small increase in spending on homeopathy could produce dramatic savings, cutting waste and increasing patient satisfaction.

Opposition to homeopathy is based on propaganda

• Homeopathy has a growing evidence base, but according to the British Medical Journal, of the 2,500 most commonly used treatments in the NHS, 51% have unknown effectiveness, and only 11% have been shown to be beneficial.[8,9]
• The leading so-called ‘expert’ and critic of homeopathy, Professor Edzard Ernst, has admitted that he has no qualifications in homeopathy.[10]
• The leading organisation opposing homeopathy, Sense About Science, is funded by pharmaceutical companies and relies on a strategy of propaganda stunts rather than scientific research.[11,12]
• The leading popular book critical of homeopathy (Trick or Treatment?) has been shown to be scientifically unreliable. It was co-authored by Simon Singh (a trustee of Sense About Science) and Professor Ernst.[13]
• The recent Science and Technology Committee report on homeopathy was voted for by only three MPs. Of these only one attended the hearings and he has strong links to Sense About Science (Dr Evan Harris).[14,15,16]

A vision for an economic and effective medical future

H:MC21 believes that the NHS should increase the integration of homeopathic practitioners into front-line healthcare whilst monitoring both clinical and cost benefits.

H:MC21 believes that, by sharing clinical experience and skills in this way, homeopathic and conventional practitioners can provide the safest, most economic and most effective service to patients.

H:MC21 believes that this will allow the NHS to confirm the benefits of homeopathy in the real world of clinical practice.

References

1. G. Bracho et al., ‘Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control’, Homeopathy, 99 (2010),156-66, available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20674839.
2. D.S. Spence, E.A. Thompson, S.J. Barron, ‘Homeopathic Treatment for Chronic Disease: A 6-Year, University-Hospital Outpatient Observational Study’, JACM, 2005, 11:793-798.
3. Professor Kent Woods, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), response to Q211, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Evidence Check: Homeopathy (2010), p. Ev 70, at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/45.pdf
4. Mr Mike O’Brien, Minister for Health Services, Department of Health, response to Q244, Evidence Check, p. Ev 73.
5. O’Brien, response to Q244, Evidence Check, p. Ev 73.
6. Spence et al.
7. Sarah Boseley, ‘Adverse drug reactions cost NHS £2bn’, The Guardian, 3 April 2008,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/03/nhs.drugsandalcohol, accessed 14 November 2008.
8. http://www.britishhomeopathic.org /research/
9. ‘How much do we know?’, BMJ Clinical Evidence at http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp.
10. ‘Interview mit Professor Edzard Ernst, Exeter’, Homöopathische Nachrichten, April 2010, 1-3, translation at http://www.hmc21.org/ #/edzard-ernst/4543212059.
11. Funding information taken from the annual accounts at the Charity Commission.
12. Strategy information from the ‘Memorandum submitted by Sense About Science’ (HO36), Evidence Check, pp. Ev 7-8.
13. William Alderson, Halloween Science (Stoke Ferry: Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century, 2009), available at http://www.hmc21.org/#/ halloween-science/4535659799.
14. ‘Formal minutes’, Evidence Check, pp. 48-50.
15. Register of Members’ Interests, available at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10261, accessed 22 May 2010.
16. http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/other/491/, accessed 22 May 2010.

Cost of swine flu "pandemic" - socalled. £1.2bn

2010-11-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Sorry for being late in posting this. For posterity, as so many of us publicly warned the authorities not to go down this route but they did, I think it is important to remember the cost of this fiasco. It is also illustrative to see what very much looks like a whitewash when what the public needed was an honest account of what the Labour Government and their medical advisors at the time did wrong and how many people suffered as a result.

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=153993463

Swine flu pandemic cost UK £1.2bn

Dame Deirdre Hine discusses the report into the UK's response to the swine flu pandemic

The swine flu pandemic cost Britain more than £1.2 billion despite being much less severe than feared, a Government-commissioned review has found.

Warnings that 65,000 people in the UK could die in a worst-case scenario proved far too pessimistic - and the actual death toll during the outbreak was 457.

An inquiry into the handling of the emergency concluded that the Government's response was "proportionate and effective". [Comment: Well they would say that wouldn't they?]

But it criticised the restrictive contracts with drug companies which have left a stockpile of over 20 million unused doses of swine flu vaccines for England alone. The review revealed that Britain spent £654 million preparing for a possible flu pandemic, and £587 million responding to last year's H1N1 outbreak - a total of £1.24 billion. This included £1.01 billion on drugs, among them anti-virals, vaccines and antibiotics, as well as £115.4 million on items like face masks and respirators.

Critics questioned why the bill for tackling the pandemic was so large, with one describing Britain's response as a "hugely expensive farce". But Dame Deirdre Hine, a former chief medical officer for Wales who led the review, defended the cost. "I think we have got to set these figures, which seem enormous, against the potential for saving lives," she told reporters. "It is fairly clear that there probably were lives saved of very young people, young children and so on." [Comment: let's have the evidence, and also the stats for those who died and those injured by the vaccine]

After the H1N1 outbreak in April last year, the Government made plans to buy up to 132 million doses of swine flu vaccine, enough to give everyone in the UK two doses. But the contracts it signed with drug manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Baxter were too inflexible, the review found. Baxter agreed to a "break clause" allowing the Government to cancel its order for some of the doses but GSK refused.

The Department of Health said it ordered 90 million vaccine doses from GSK, of which it eventually agreed to take 34.8 million. It also placed an order for 36 million doses with Baxter, 9.2 million of which were purchased before the contract was cancelled. About 4.88 million doses of the vaccine were given to people in England in priority groups such as pregnant women and sufferers of asthma, diabetes and heart disease.

The Department of Health said it still held just over 20 million doses of swine flu vaccine for England, with shelf lives that run out by October 2011. Dame Deirdre's review team said commercial confidentiality prevented them from revealing how much money would have been saved if the Government's vaccine contracts had included break clauses. But their report said: "The lack of such a clause in the advance purchase agreements for both contracts consequently exposed the Exchequer to some risk."

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The swine flu response has proved to be a hugely expensive farce. Serious questions must be asked about why so much was spent on combating a threat that turned out not to be very serious. It's unacceptable to hide the details of this massive bill behind the excuse of commercial confidentiality. We need full details and full answers about this scandalous waste of money."

NHS funding for orthodox medicine risks misleading patients

2010-11-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am deliberately transposing the words "NHS funding for homeopathy risks misleading patients" which Sir John Beddington allegedly said.

It was reported in the Guardian, which, one assumes, is proud of producing a regular flow of anti-homeopathy articles,

"Sir John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, said patients might believe homeopathic treatments could protect them against serious illnesses, or treat existing conditions, because GPs and hospitals are allowed to prescribe them on the NHS."

I think Beddington is a fool (here I am being polite because I'm an Englishman) to trot out a comment which suggests that a proven alternative and safe form of medicine, unlike the current socalled orthodox medicine, doesn't work. Oh, sorry, I forgot for a moment that he's terribly important - Professor of Applied Population Biology (What?) and is (Labour appointed) Chief Scientific Adviser at £165,000 pa. And, like the hierarchy of the BMA, clearly wants homeopathy killed, which incidentally would make orthodox medicine's monopoly on healthcare complete. Aren’t monopolies meant to be unlawful? Why isn’t the Office of Fair Trading investigating the anti-competitive practices of the BMA?

If Beddington took the trouble to check, he'd find that loads of (“scientifically trained”) doctors through the last couple of hundred years have chosen voluntarily to go over to prescribing homeopathic remedies for the very reason that their orthodox remedies weren't curing their patients. In fact some orthodox remedies were killing or maiming them. These doctors have written loads of books about their experiences. And loads of doctors have cured with homeopathy serious, life threatening illnesses where the conventional medicine of the day had no answers, and used homeopathics effectively prophylactically. And I'm not just talking about curing patients in epidemics eg cholera, typhus, Yellow fever, dyptheria in the old days (see http://www.whale.to/v/winston.html), but recently in Cuba's leptospirosis epidemic in 2007

So, Prof B, just read these snippets:

"One physician in a Pittsburgh hospital asked a nurse if she knew
anything better than what he was doing, because he was losing many
cases. "Yes, Doctor, stop aspirin and go down to a homeopathic
pharmacy, and get homeopathic remedies." The Doctor replied: "But that
is homeopathy." "I know it, but the homeopathic doctors for whom I have
nursed have not lost a single case."--W. F. Edmundson, MD, Pittsburgh"

“In Cuba, Leptospirosis is recorded by an efficient national surveillance programme. Its incidence correlates closely with heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding. In late 2007, in response to a developing epidemic, and with only enough vaccine to treat 15,000 high-risk people, the government decided to treat the entire population of the region, over one year of age, with a homeopathic medicine. This was prepared from the inactivated causative organism by the Cuban National Vaccine Institute.

The homeopathic medicine was given to the 2.3 million population of the provinces usually worst affected. Within a few weeks the number of cases had fallen from the forecast 38 to 4 cases per 100,000 per week, significantly fewer than the historically-based forecast for those weeks of the year. The 8.8 million population of the other provinces did not receive homeopathic treatment and the incidence was as forecast. The effect appeared to be sustained: there was an 84% reduction in infection in the treated region in the following year (2008) when, for the first time, incidence did not correlate with rainfall. In the same period, incidence in the untreated region increased by 22%.” http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/197128.php

Doesn't that make you wonder whether you are talking nonsense, Prof B? Oh, I interrupted you .....

"I have made it completely clear that there is no scientific basis for homeopathy beyond the placebo effect and that there are serious concerns about its efficacy," Professor Beddington told the Commons science and technology committee today.

“He went on to warn that government funding for homeopathy risked legitimising unproven treatments and that patients could harm their health by choosing these over conventional vaccines and medicines.”

Well, Prof B, did you ever hear of something called the swine flu pandemic on which the last Labour Government wasted over £1.2bn of the taxpayer's money and risked harming the health of the British nation with the swine flu vaccine? Perhaps you've forgotten about the nasty side effects it had on so many, and perhaps you've forgotten that homeopathy doesn't have adverse side effects, and that homeopaths are daily called upon to treat the adverse effects of orthodox drugs? The efficacy and safety of that vaccine for all was unproven at the time this country's Government and medical authorities enthusiastically endorsed it. And do you recall the massive percentage of GPs and nurses who when polled said they would never take the vaccine themselves?

What’s that?

“Professor Beddington cited the case of a man who caught malaria after being advised to take a homeopathic preparation to protect against the disease.”

Well, Prof B, there is no orthodox malaria drug which has protected 100% of those given it by their doctors from malaria. And their side effects? Maybe you didn’t know that an orthodox-doctor-prescribed malaria drug ruined my honeymoon and made me so sick that I couldn’t move for days and only got better when I stopped taking it. Yes, I WAS BEING POISONED.

I doubt you’d want to believe it, but I recently had a patient who’d contracted typhoid while on holiday (confirmed by tests). The reason I had him – for homeopathic treatment – was because orthodox medicine wasn’t curing him. In fact he was feeling very ill indeed, had a lot of nasty symptoms, and was getting very concerned. Two homeopathic remedies and three days later he was feeling so much better he returned to work. In homeopathy we are used to such cases. But do you see us saying that all of orthodox medicine should be scrapped? Not often. But then, we homeopaths generally have open minds. I’m sorry that you don’t. Hence the headline for this posting.

Your Human Rights to Health are under attack!

2010-11-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

This is an incredibly important topic for everyone who believes as this blog does that it is a basic human right not to have your Government or a Government sitting in Belgium tell you what you can or cannot put into your mouth or use in any other way you reasonably choose, or deny or restrict any individual the right of access to natural herbs or supplements to treat themselves, or their patients if they are a natural therapist.

I've extracted below the whole of an article at the URL mentioned. It's written from a US perspective but it's nonetheless applicable to us all in EU.

Fine for those who are not "into" treating themselves with natural remedies with little or no side effects, and who prefer to trot along to doctor trusting him/her to make decisions for them about stuffing some noxious chemicals down them. I'm happy for them if they are comfortable with the "what synthetic drug can I sell you?" system and turn a blind eye to the side effects. But for the large minority of us who don't buy into that system, who do our homework on what natural substances are available for us to self-treat safely and effectively, or who wish to consult a natural therapist on that subject, and have them prescribe us accordingly, this level of control is totally unacceptable. Natural healthcare has been effectively and safely used for generations without the burdensome controls now being imposed, and there is no reason to change this.

Let's all support the Alliance for Natural Health's legal challenge to the new EU laws, and let's have some public naming and shaming. It's high time that the bumpkins who have the impudence to interfere in our lives in this way were "outed" so that we can where possible deprive them of any future influence over us and try and make their lives very much less comfortable.

http://healthfreedoms.org/2010/11/09/traditional-medicines-to-become-illegal-in-europe/

In less than a year, virtually all medicinal herbs will be illegal in the European Union.

It sounds like a bad April Fool’s joke, but it’s not. On the first of April next year, thousands of products associated with traditional medicine will become illegal throughout the European Union.

April 1, 2011, is the date the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) comes into force throughout Europe. Many herbal products—including those already sold safely as food supplements—will need to be registered under THMPD if they are to be made available. But registration involves a series of eligibility and technical challenges as well as prohibitive costs, so a large number of traditional medicines will be prevented from being registered. This is especially true if the medicines are made by smaller companies with low annual sales volumes—a fairly common occurrence with traditional medicines.

In their take-no-prisoners strategy to wipe out every penny of competition and gain complete control of the health of the people, Big Pharma and Agribusiness have scored a major win in Europe. Similar, potentially devastating battles are also underway in the U.S.

How can this be happening?

The secret weapon used by drug companies is trade law. According to Gaia Health:
“Rather than treating food and traditional medicines as human rights issues, they have been treated as trade issues. That makes the desires of large corporations the focus of food and herbal law, rather than the needs and desires of people.
It’s this twisting that has resulted in the FDA’s making outrageously absurd statements, such as claiming that Cheerios and walnuts quite literally become drugs simply because of health claims made for them.”

A related concern is that laws and regulations that are enacted in Europe often influence US policy—and a negative outcome over there is a dangerous precedent that could be adopted here at home. So preserving access in the EU is absolutely critical to our own health freedoms.

Our colleagues at the Alliance for Natural Health International (ANH-Intl), together with the European Benefyt Foundation (EBF), have established a joint working group to coordinate their response to this issue. They plan a three-pronged attack:

1. Force a judicial review of THMPD as being an unsuitable vehicle for assessing traditional medicines. Not a single Ayurvedic or traditional Chinese medicine product has been registered under it. This will be expensive—please see the ANH website about how you can help - at http://www.anh-europe.org/about-us.

2. Change the EU food supplement regulations. The current regulations say that herbal products previously sold as food supplements are to be reclassified as medicines; a food or herb preparation is considered “novel” (and thus banned from sale) if it cannot be proved that one or more of its ingredients had been used significantly in the EU before May 1997; and health claims made by many herbal products are banned, limiting consumer choice.

3. Facilitate a new regulatory framework for traditional medicinal products to replace THMPD and expand its scope. This would regulate not only over-the-counter herbal medicines, but practitioner-prescribed and pharmacy-dispensed supplements as well. The European Benefyt Foundation has been working to develop such a framework for over a year.

40 UK children killed by MMR – and the true picture could be 10 times worse

2010-10-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

Now it's beginning to leak out ... The Sunday Times reported

Forty children have died after a routine vaccination such as MMR and 2,100 more have suffered a serious reaction, UK health authorities have been forced to disclose this week – and these figures are just the tip of the iceberg.

Two of the vaccinated children have been left with permanent brain damage, and 1500 others have suffered neurological reactions, including 11 cases of brain inflammation and 13 cases of epilepsy and coma. Overall, there have been more than 2,100 adverse reactions to a childhood vaccine in the UK in the last seven years.

The UK’s Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) was forced to reveal the figures following a request from a journalist under freedom of information legislation.

The true picture is likely to be far worse. The MHRA cases are only those that doctors have reported; if the doctor does not believe the vaccine has caused the reaction, he will not report it. It is suspected that just 10 per cent of all deaths and reactions from vaccines are ever reported; if so, this means that 400 children have died from a vaccine and 21,000 have suffered an adverse reaction in the UK alone. The true situation will be far worse in countries such as the US where childhood vaccination is compulsory.

Last month, the UK government was forced by a court to pay damages to a mother whose son was left with severe brain damage after an MMR vaccination. Another 500 similar cases are currently going through the UK courts.

These figures represent a major setback in the relationship between doctors and parents. Most parents have accepted the reassurances of doctors and health authorities that the vaccines are safe, and that they are doing the best for their child and the community.

(Source: Sunday Times, October 24, 2010).

If you were sane and Minister for Health wouldn't you on receiving the above info immediately call a moratorium on the MMR vaccine? Would it take you even 10 secs to make that call? Just how much "collateral damage" does it take before our public servants and doctors do the right thing? Would one of their own children dying convince them? The saddest part about all this is there are books and books out there spelling out the known dangers of these vaccines, but the hierarchy of the orthodox medical profession just doesn't want to know. Time for a new broom, plus some good old fashioned naming and shaming.

And have a look at http://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/2010/10/flu-vaccine-over-3000-miscarriages.html also

50 Homeopathy Blogs Worth Reading

2010-10-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

At http://www.mastersinpublichealth.net/50-homeopathy-blogs-worth-reading/ you'll find someone has already done the arduous task of compiling loads of good sites related to homeopathy. Well worth a browse.

MMR jab resulted in autism symptoms says US court awarding high compensation

2010-09-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

The splendid WDDTY emag reports

Childhood vaccines are linked to autism - and here's $20m to prove it

15 September 2010
Vaccines we give to our children are definitively linked to autism. A US court has this week awarded a family a payment of up to $20m as compensation for their daughter who suffered autism after she was given multiple vaccines, including the MMR. The parents of Hannah Poling, now a 13-year-old girl, will receive an immediate $1.5m compensation payment followed by annual sums of $500,000 to pay for her care. The award could easily reach $20m, say prosecutors. Hannah was a normal and healthy child until she was given five vaccinations, including the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) shot, in 2000. Her health declined rapidly and she developed fevers, stopped eating, didn’t respond to stimulus, and started to display symptoms of autism, her parents said. Although the US government accepted liability in 2007, the settlement figure has only recently been agreed. Pro-vaccine groups are quick to point out that Hannah’s is a special case, and that it doesn’t prove an MMR-autism link. They say that Hannah suffered from a rare mitochrondrial disorder that predisposed her to autism. The condition was the result of the vaccine, but was not caused by it, they say. However, there are around 4,800 other vaccine-damage cases waiting to be heard in US courts and, as Time magazine once suggested, it’s not unreasonable to assume that some of the other children could also have Hannah’s same underlying problem. (Source: CBS News, September 9, 2010)

Well, to anyone with half a brain and at least one ear it's been obvious for years that multiple vaccine jabs taken over a short period, or "multi-vaccines" (many vaccines in one jab like the MMR or DPT), are in themselves such a violent assault on the immune system compared with a single vaccine that they are likely to have awful side effects for a percentage of the recipients. That's not to say that I approve even of single vaccines in most cases; many vaccines, for more people than realise it, come at a high price down the road (permanently lowered general immune system), as well as at best conferring only a temporary protection for some of those jabbed.

Any chance of the troglodytes in the BMA conceding that anytime soon and apologising to Dr Andrew Wakefield for hounding him for so many years? Not an earthly.

Oh, and did the statement above - "(the autism) condition was the result of the vaccine, but was not caused by it" - get a hollow laugh from you? That sort of wordsmithing generally comes from a law school or political spinmaster training.

This all comes in the same week as we hear that the UK medical system is planning to use up unwanted stocks of its untested swine flu vaccine on the elderly this winter. The same stuff that contains thiosermal, a mercury-based preservative which GPs practice staff said patients reported to have "caused headaches, sleeplessness and stomach cramps" (and how many not immediately obvious other disorders?)last winter. Come on, the UK's GPs. Take some time to read up about the poisons inside vaccines, and how the stats reveal conclusively that due to better hygiene the diseases being targeted were already largely on their way out BEFORE those vaccines were introduced.

Unsafe Vaccines - recent news on MMR and HPV vaccines

2010-09-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

The WDDTY magazine recently reported the following

MMR vaccine isn't safe after all, UK government forced to concede
01 September 2010

After years of reassuring parents about the safety of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, the UK government has finally had to concede that it can have serious side effects. A UK court has ruled that the vaccine caused severe brain damage in a boy, now aged 18, and has ordered the government to pay compensation. The ruling brings to an end a lengthy campaign by the boy’s mother, Jackie Fletcher, who created the pressure group JABS to help other parents win compensation for their vaccine-damaged children. Jackie’s son, Robert, was just 13 months old when he had the MMR vaccination. From being a healthy baby who was developing normally, he started to suffer epileptic fits and became unresponsive. He is now severely disabled. Jackie and her family have been awarded £91,000 in compensation. The judgement also sends out hope to the thousands of parents in the UK who are also fighting for compensation. (Source: Sunday Times, August 29, 2010).

-------------------------

Parents want HPV vaccine banned after it wrecked health of their daughters
01 September 2010

A group of American mothers wants the HPV vaccine Gardasil banned after it ruined the health of their teenage daughters. The ‘safe’ vaccine – supposed to protect against cervical cancer – has harmed thousands of girls and a small number have died directly after having the shot. The girls have suffered a range of serious side effects, from seizures, strokes, auto-immune disorders, chronic fatigue, hair loss, headaches, heart pain, weak muscles, vision and hearing loss and paralysis.

Marian Greene, whose daughter was affected by Gardasil, has set up a website – http://www.truthaboutgardasil.org – where other mothers can document the side effects suffered by their daughters.

One of the mothers, who sits on the group’s board, has said her own daughter died after being given the vaccine. Merck, Gardasil’s manufacturer, maintains it is safe and effective. Since the US’s drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approved the vaccine in 2006, around 40 million doses have been administered to teenage girls around the world. Merck now want to vaccinate teenage boys as well – while Truth About Gardasil wants it banned. (Source: The Truth About Gardasil; http://www.truthaboutgardasil.org)

Exclusive interview with Dr. Blaylock on chemicals (excitotoxins) in your food

2010-05-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

There’s a 10 page conversation that’s well worth reading between Mike Adams of NaturalNews www.NaturalNews.com and Dr Blaylock at http://downloads.truthpublishing.com/Aspartame_Truth.pdf.

It’ll make you understand what can go wrong inside you when you eat too much food containing glutamate, and how this may be leading to heart arythmia and sudden (“unexplained”) cardiac death, to autism, Alzheimers, Parkinsons and other problems. So as well as actively avoiding eating aspartame and Monosodiumglutamate (MSG), you should be looking at avoiding soy products, “hydrolysed protein” and probably a good few other things that you aren’t aware of that contain too much glutamate.

Pig virus contaminates rotavirus vaccines

2010-05-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this report. Still happy to have the vaccine and rely on the manufacturer or your health authority to estimate the risks on your behalf?

http://www.naturalnews.com/028832_rotavirus_vaccines_contamination.html
(NaturalNews) Rotavirus vaccines are commonly given to children, and this year's batch of vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are contaminated with a pig virus, the FDA recently discovered. So the FDA called a meeting to determine whether injecting a pig virus into the bodies of young children might be some sort of problem requiring a recall of the vaccines.

Can you guess what conclusion the agency reached? As reported by Reuters, the FDA concluded "...it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo's Rotarix and continue using Merck's Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm..."

In other words, as long as they can bury the evidence and deny any link between vaccines and health problems -- which has been the standard excuse of the FDA for decades -- they can continue to claim the vaccines are safe enough to inject into little children.

Never mind the fact that the pig virus found in the vaccines actually causes a wasting disease in baby pigs, giving them intense diarrhea and causing them to rapidly lose weight. DNA from these viruses was detected in the "master cells" used to make the vaccines.
Suppressing the evidence of harm
An FDA advisory panel said the risk to human health from the viral contamination was only "theoretical." But of course it's easy to claim anything is "theoretical" if you suppress the evidence that it's real. By simply ignoring any reports of neurological side effects from the vaccine, the FDA can always claim there is "no evidence" of harm. Well, no evidence they're willing to accept as real, anyway.

And that's how vaccine science works these days: Suppress any evidence of harm, deny any links between vaccines and neurological problems, then okay practically any viral contamination from any animal and declare it's all safe to be injected directly into the bodies of infants and children.

So much for science, huh? The vaccine industry operates more like a cult than a scientific organization, and anyone who questions the beliefs of their cult is immediately branded a heretic and publicly condemned.

By the way, even though these rotavirus vaccines are contaminated with a pig virus, the companies that make them claim there is "no manufacturing or safety issue" with the vaccines. In other words, this is normal!

Think about that for a moment: The discovery that a vaccine being injected into children is contaminated with a virus from a pig doesn't even result in a product recall! It doesn't raise any red flags! It's just business as usual in the vaccine industry, where DNA from any number of diseased animals is often used in the vaccine formulas.

Last year, rotavirus vaccines earned nearly a billion dollars in revenues for Big Pharma. The risk of a child in the United States actually dying from a rotavirus infection is ridiculously small. What these kids need is good nutrition and vitamin D, not an injection of a questionable vaccine made with pig virus DNA

Report by President Obama's Cancer Panel on cancer-causing chemicals in foods, medicine, personal care products and the environment

2010-05-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.naturalnews.com/028765_environmental_chemicals_cancer.html
(NaturalNews) When a government panel of experts finds the courage to tell the truth about cancer, it's an event so rare that it becomes newsworthy. Late last week, a report from the President's Cancer Panel (PCP) broke ranks with the sick-care cancer establishment and dared to say something that natural health advocates have been warning about for decades: That Americans are "bombarded" with cancer-causing chemicals and radiation, and if we hope to reduce cancer rates, we must eliminate cancer-causing chemicals in foods, medicines, personal care products and our work and home environments.

In a directive to President Obama, the report states, "The panel urges you most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase healthcare costs, cripple our nation's productivity, and devastate American lives."

When I first read that, I just about fell out of my chair. Government-appointed experts are really saying that there are cancer-causing chemicals in our food and water? That simple fact has been vehemently denied by the cancer industry, processed food giants, personal care product companies and of course the fluoride lobby -- all of which insist their chemicals are perfectly safe.

ACS attacks the report
The American Cancer Society, not surprisingly, was quick to bash the report. The ACS is one of the sick-care cancer industry front groups that reinforces consumer ignorance about both the causes and the solutions for cancer. The ACS has, for decades, engaged in what can only be called a "cancer chemical cover-up" with its denials that environmental chemicals cause cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/010244_A...) and (http://www.preventcancer.com/losing...)

Even as cancer experts like Dr Sam Epstein have been warning about carcinogens in cosmetics, personal care products and foods (http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers), the ACS has ridiculously pretended such threats don't exist. And just to top it off, the ACS has been warning people to stay away from sunlight and become more vitamin D deficient, thereby increasing cancer rates even further.

So it's no surprise that the ACS doesn't like this PCP report that dares to state the obvious: There are cancer-causing chemicals in our food and water! "The American people -- even before they are born -- are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures," the report writes.

The great chemical denial
Joining the ACS in criticizing the report is the American Chemistry Council, the trade group representing the very same chemical companies that are poisoning our world right now. Remarkably, the ACS and ACC are on the same side here, denying any link between chemicals and cancer. They insist that all those chemicals in your processed foods, cosmetics, antibacterial soaps, shampoos, fragrance products, home cleaning solvents, pesticides, herbicides and other similar products are all safe for you! Eat up, suckers!

Don't worry about the chemicals, they say. Cancer is just a matter of bad luck. There's nothing you can do about it. So stop trying.

That's their message, you see, and it's a message that plays right into the hands of the cancer industry: Don't prevent your cancer and when you get sick, they'll make a fortune off your disease and suffering.

The radiation threat from medical imaging
The PCP report also takes a strong stand on the cancer risks caused by medical imaging radiation. It actually says, "People who receive multiple scans or other tests that require radiation may accumulate doses equal to or exceeding that of Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors."

I remember receiving hate mail from cancer industry shills when I once made the same statement in an article about mammograms and CT scans. (http://www.naturalnews.com/026113_m...) And yet that statement was factually quite correct: If you undergo several medical imaging tests in a hospital today, you can very easily receive just as much radiation as a person standing a few miles away from the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshoma during World War II. This is not an exaggeration. It is a simple fact of physics and the law of inverse squares. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invers...)

The environmental dangers of pharmaceuticals
Here at NaturalNews, I've been talking about the environmental pollution of pharmaceuticals for years. The fact that pharmaceutical chemicals are flushed down the drain and end up in the water supply is the "dirty little secret" of the drug industry. The problem has gone virtually unrecognized by the entire mainstream medical system... they just pretend it doesn't exist.

Yet this PCP report takes aim at it by saying: "Pharmaceuticals have become a considerable source of environmental contamination. Drugs of all types enter the water supply when they are excreted or improperly disposed of; the health impact of long-term exposure to varying mixtures of these compounds is unknown."

It's about time somebody in Washington stood up and challenged the pharmaceutical industry on the environmental effects of its toxic chemicals. HRT drugs, antidepressants, painkillers and many other types of drugs are right now polluting our oceans and waterways. You can hardly catch a fish near any major U.S. city now that isn't contaminated with pharmaceuticals.

But don't expect anyone to give credence to this warning. This entire PCP report is being largely ignored in Washington (and attacked by Big Business).

What the report really says
The President's Cancer Panel is headed by:

LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D., F.A.C.S., Chair
Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery
Howard University College of Medicine
Washington, DC 20059

Margaret L. Kripke, Ph.D.
Vivian L. Smith Chair and Professor Emerita
The University of Texas
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX 77030

These two people deserve your support for having the courage to publish a report that challenges the status quo of the corrupt cancer industry. So if you wish, send them a thank-you email for their work.

The report is entitled, "REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK - What We Can Do Now"

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

• In 2009 alone, approximately 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease. Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer. The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons.

• The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. One such ubiquitous chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), is still found in many consumer products and remains unregulated in the United States, despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases, including various cancers.

• However, the grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program. The American people -- even before they are born -- are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures.

• Some scientists maintain that current toxicity testing and exposure limit-setting methods fail to accurately represent the nature of human exposure to potentially harmful chemicals. Current toxicity testing relies heavily on animal studies that utilize doses substantially higher than those likely to be encountered by humans. These data -- and the exposure limits extrapolated from them -- fail to take into account harmful effects that may occur only at very low doses.

• Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety.

• While all Americans now carry many foreign chemicals in their bodies, women often have higher levels of many toxic and hormone-disrupting substances than do men. Some of these chemicals have been found in maternal blood, placental tissue, and breast milk samples from pregnant women and mothers who recently gave birth. Thus, chemical contaminants are being passed on to the next generation, both prenatally and during breastfeeding.

• The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals, some of which also are used in residential and commercial landscaping. Many of these chemicals have known or suspected carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting properties. Pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contain nearly 900 active ingredients, many of which are toxic.

• Many of the solvents, fillers, and other chemicals listed as inert ingredients on pesticide labels also are toxic, but are not required to be tested for their potential to cause chronic diseases such as cancer. In addition to pesticides, agricultural fertilizers and veterinary pharmaceuticals are major contributors to water pollution, both directly and as a result of chemical processes that form toxic by-products when these substances enter the water supply.

• The use of cell phones and other wireless technology is of great concern, particularly since these devices are being used regularly by ever larger and younger segments of the population.

• Americans now are estimated to receive nearly half of their total radiation exposure from medical imaging and other medical sources, compared with only 15 percent in the early 1980s. The increase in medical radiation has nearly doubled the total average effective radiation dose per individual in the United States. Computed tomography (CT) and nuclear medicine tests alone now contribute 36 percent of the total radiation exposure and 75 percent of the medical radiation exposure of the U.S. population.

• Many referring physicians, radiology professionals, and the public are unaware of the radiation dose associated with various tests or the total radiation dose and related increased cancer risk individuals may accumulate over a lifetime. People who receive multiple scans or other tests that require radiation may accumulate doses equal to or exceeding that of Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors.

• Hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilians in the United States received significant radiation doses as a result of their participation in nuclear weapons testing and supporting occupations and industries, including nuclear fuel and weapons production, and uranium mining, milling, and ore transport. Hundreds of thousands more were irradiated at levels sufficient to cause cancer and other diseases.

• Numerous environmental contaminants can cross the placental barrier; to a disturbing extent, babies are born "pre-polluted." There is a critical lack of knowledge and appreciation of environmental threats to children's health and a severe shortage of researchers and clinicians trained in children's environmental health.

• Single-agent toxicity testing and reliance on animal testing are inadequate to address the backlog of untested chemicals already in use and the plethora of new chemicals introduced every year.

• Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated. Enforcement of most existing regulations is poor. In virtually all cases, regulations fail to take multiple exposures and exposure interactions into account.

• Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated. Enforcement of most existing regulations is poor. In virtually all cases, regulations fail to take multiple exposures and exposure interactions into account. [Editor's note: In other words, people should read NaturalNews! We've been doing this for years!]
Sources
Read the report yourself right here:
http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory...

How Safe are the Drugs that our medical profession uses?

2010-04-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

For those interested in checking on how safe, or otherwise, conventional drugs are take a look at some of the articles on http://dangerousprescriptiondrugs.weebly.com/index.html e.g.

Cancer Vaccine Programme Suspended After Four Girls Die

Prescription Drug Deaths Increase Dramatically

Confidential report reveals: Big Pharma trying to stop long-term safety studies of ADHD drugs (Ritalin, Concerta) A confidential document, now made public by a Swedish court, tells how pharmaceutical companies (calling themselves the “Consortium”) are trying to stop long-term safety studies of ADHD drugs (Ritalin, Concerta)

and many more

In Defence of Homeopathy - Studies Roundup

2010-04-10T02:18:00.000-07:00

Robert Medhurst in his article "In Defence of Homeopathy" cites scores of helpful studies and statistics. These can be read in the March edition of the ezine Homeopathy for Everyone at http://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/in-defense-of-homeopathy/

For me, however, the bottom line is that people have been being cured gently by homeopathic treatment for over 200 years. Like herbal treatment, it has never gone away - because it works. And if something works, you should use it. Sometimes the disease treated is too advanced for homeopathics to restore the body to health, but often even in such cases it can palliate the symptoms. One thing one can say: no homeopathic remedy has ever had to be withdrawn because of its side effects.

The unavoidable demise of the "chemical" medicine model

2010-04-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

I make no apologies for continuing to bleat on about how important it is for everyone not to abdicate responsibility for health to their doctor, or even to their natural healthcare practitioner. The problem of course is that even with the amazing facility of the worldwide web it takes a little time. But I have learned that everyone must come in their own time – often very slowly - to that point where they get so browned off by the rubbish assurances, and often outright lies, they get from “officialdom” that (maybe with someone they trust at their elbow) they get stuck in themselves and research their own best route back to health. Some, of course, never get to that point.

But it’s not just they themselves who are to blame for the outcome. It’s also the official healthcare system in this country, which largely depends upon a cupboard full of toxic chemicals, and processes, and expensive ones at that, to try and help their patients. I can see that if you are a professional who has spent many years getting qualified and needs to earn a living like everyone else, then even if you realise that the train you are on has frequently been steaming down tracks which will never truly get you and your patient to the destination you both desire and may even steam you over a precipice, it can be well nigh impossible for you to grab the driver to stop the train and find one that is going to, or nearer to, the right destination. But sooner or later, it is the only solution if you are not to find yourself at the bottom of the gulch.

The medical “chemical” paradigm is currently staggering and floundering about like a sick man on his last legs. Anyone standing on the sidelines with a modicum of medical knowledge, and no vested interest in the current system, has seen that clearly for years now. The untold billions of taxpayers’ money that have been misguidedly spent in the last 100 years in dead-end “chemical” and other toxic processes has all been wasted, and as usual there will be no accountability, though there are plenty of selfserving bureaucrats, politicians and medical professionals who thoroughly deserve the red hot poker treatment.

The fact is that, as physics showed many years ago, a humanbeing, is not just a chemistry experiment. At our core – or at least the core that we can currently observe with the most sophisticated instruments scientists have been able to devise – we are each a whirling mass of energy; a universe of fundamental particles and charges which, in ways we have no grasp over whatsoever, comes together in each of us to create and animate the conscious, living, physical creature that we can experience on this planet with our 5 senses. So the sensitives who through the ages have suggested this, maybe using strange language and words like chakra which failed to resonate with ordinary people, have been at least more right all along than their fellows.

The corollary, however unpalatable it may be to those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of the “chemistry experiment” level of modern medicine, is that many natural healthcare disciplines have developed along lines which, in many situations, are much more likely to help their patients back to optimum health from their ailments than conventional medicine. Homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, naturopathy are just a few of those where patient cure and satisfaction is way above that which can honestly be claimed using conventional medical practices.

I have no illusions about what is going to happen, sooner or later, because I have seen it happen from the inside when I worked in industry, and I have also read a bit about “catastrophe theory”. It is not pretty, and a lot of people and their families get hurt.

In a large company with a successful product but many competitors one eventually reaches a point where, unless one is able to reinvent the business one is in and evolve, it is not possible annually to sell more of that product in your marketplace than you did the year before. However, the ego of the Chief Executive, whose position and rewards ultimately depend upon the stock markets’ analysis of whether the company is moving forward or stagnating, which analysis in turn is derived from the quarter’s and yearly Net Sales and profitability figures and a few other inputs, does not allow him to accept that reality. Instead, he issues orders to his subordinates that each quarter’s Net Sales figures have to be, say, 10% higher than that quarter in the preceding year, or the Sales Manager will be replaced. He and his Financial Officer then see what they can do to massage the profitability figures without alarming their auditors, to ensure that all on the surface continues to look good to outsiders.

Meanwhile the Sales Manager is forced to approach his suppliers and do deals with them, something that is termed “loading” the trade before the end of each quarter. Eventually, and sometimes it can take years for the crunch point to come, the trade is so saturated with product, that it rebels. The company then takes a bath on that quarter’s figures, and the truth comes out into the public domain. Everyone inside the company (and by analogy – you can see where I am heading - everyone inside the conventional medical profession) already knew that the train was headed for the precipice, but it needed the shareholders to get together and say Enough is Enough and fire the Chief Executive. The company is then broken up and sold, liquidated, or if lucky reshaped under new management. Many innocent insiders get hurt because of the ego of one or a few people at the top. It happens every day in business.

Catastrophe theory predicts that when the tipping point comes, it hits like a tornado. Afterwards one finds oneself at the bottom of the gulch, not like in the cartoons somehow saved in midair by a shrub growing ten feet below the precipice.

Catastrophe can only be averted by the business or profession evolving sufficiently before the tipping point is reached. And in a profession, to do that, it needs the hierarchy, or generally, a subset of younger members, to have the integrity and honesty to publicly get together with its stakeholders and other professions involved in the direction where the new paradigm is likely to lie. In our case, stakeholders would mean, non-partisan representatives of the general public and the natural healthcare disciplines which already treat humanbeings holistically as energetic bodies. Conventional medicine can learn from them, and in the long run the nation’s health and pocket will benefit immeasurably.

Herd Immunity Myth (cont)

2010-03-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

My labelling of the “herd immunity” from vaccination concept as a MYTH has been noticed by the opposition. A blogger has written in asserting

“The concept of herd immunity makes perfect sense. If enough people get vaccinated in a community, the less chance the virus spreads to those who are not immunized.

There is also the benefit that higher rates of immunization mean less chance that the virus will mutate.”

This perfectly illustrates the mentality of the “denialists”, the give-a-vaccine-for-everything brigade. Even where they have had their noses rubbed in the facts (vaccinated communities can still contract the disease - see my last post), they continue on auto assertion mode. In fact in relation, for example, to measles according to the World Health Organisation the odds are about 15 times greater that measles will strike those vaccinated against the disease than those who are left alone [1].

It’s for this reason that I heavily moderate comments to my blog because I didn’t start it to give the oxygen of publicity to those who will argue black is white till the cows come home, regardless of the counter-evidence given them, or who just want to propagate pernicious views that, for example, the health of the nation is dependent on everyone being forcefed, or injected, with xyz vaccine or that all drinking water should be fluoridated “for your own good” (as if they knew!). Many of them clearly delight in wasting the good guys’ (holistic therapists) time requesting “explanations” though they are not interested in the answer, and they seem to come in one of two categories: either “useful idiots” doing Big Pharma’s job for them, or criminals (in my book) who are intentionally spreading misinformation, and maybe getting paid for it.

As for the second assertion, “higher rates of immunization mean less chance that the virus will mutate”, that is not, I’m afraid, true. It is known now that when vaccines attack only some strains of a disease, other strains gain prominence. The disease becomes more virulent and people who are not normally susceptible to the ailment are infected. Thus a pneumococcal vaccine designed to protect against several strains of the disease has resulted in more dangerous non-vaccine strains of pneumococcal disease replacing strains targeted by the vaccine. Over-use of any vaccine, or drug as even lay people are aware in the case of antibiotics, tends to have a significant and unforeseen downside.

Finally, let’s remind ourselves again

1. no vaccination ever achieves immunisation, by which I mean 100% protection, forever. Instead, it may result in an unknown level of what we might call semi-protection ranging from 0% to, maybe, 50 % (there’s no way of measuring the latter figure) for just a limited time [2].
2. Whatever limited semi-protection the vaccine may give against a particular virus strain you may never even meet in the rest of your life has to be weighed against the potential for possibly severe adverse effects which may appear many years down the road in a compromised immune system. Your vaccine virus will have been incubated in an “unnatural” medium, often a chicken’s embryo (which itself can never be guaranteed sterile), then supposedly inactivated (100%? You can never be sure [3]) with a poison, formaldehyde, then preserved with Thimerosal, a derivative of mercury (a neurological toxin), and finally has further poisons or “nasties” added – possibly polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, hydrocortisone, neomycin, polymyxin (antibiotics), etc. If millions of such artificially doctored pathogens, which may or may not be totally inactive, are produced and shot into people, you are going by that very process to increase significantly the risk of creating additional mutations which would never have occurred in nature.

The much safer alternative is to work on boosting your immune system by natural means and not run risks you don’t have to. Google Vitamin D and C especially, which have a very important role to play here. And homeopathic remedies taken as prophylactics will probably give you as good a level of protection as you should need without risking filling your body up with poisons.

[1] Vaccine Safety Manual, Neil Miller p.120
[2] Between 0- 5 years possibly, which depends on the vaccine and the reaction of the particular patient: sometimes antibodies produced in response to the vaccination disappear very rapidly from the body. The pharmaceutical companies' only answer to this is to repeat the vaccination ie “booster” jabs.
[3] See, for example, Jonas Salk’s supposedly “inactivated” polio vaccine which was actually quite virulent. It paralysed and killed many children. Many viruses are incubated in mediums eg monkey parts which already have other infectious agents in them which simply cannot all be detected by currently available scientific methods.

Herd Immunity from vaccination? A myth

2010-03-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Last year I heard Liam Donaldson, England’s Chief Medical Officer (though, thank goodness, retiring soon) using this phony theory to pressurise the public to have the swine flu vaccine, and he also said it was irresponsible for hospital staff not to volunteer for the vaccine because they were thereby putting the public at risk. Subsequently, I heard a doctor parroting the same herd immunity myth. What happens to these people after medical school? Do they just carry on believing everything they were told by an ancient professor? Don’t they read any books or use the search facilities on their computers?

“The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. He had been studying measles patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years before any vaccine was ever invented for measles) and he observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68% of children had developed a natural immunity to it. This was based upon the principle that children build their own immunity after suffering with or being exposed to the disease. So the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of the population were allowed to build their own natural defences, there would be no raging epidemic.

Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programmes.” [I am indebted to this website for that historical detail http://www.lowellsfacts.com/herdimmunity.html].

Hedrich found that if enough of a population developed a NATURAL immunity through having had a disease like measles and having recovered from it, then that virus didn’t subsequently return to cause an epidemic. However, this is NOT the case with the supposed immunisation of vaccinated populations.

In fact to use the word “immunisation” in connection with vaccines is totally wrong. There are lists and lists of documented instances in medical literature showing that fully vaccinated populations DO contract the disease they were vaccinated against. And with measles this actually seems to be the result of high vaccination rates (1). In relation to the Hib vaccine a Minnesota state immunologist concluded that the vaccine increases the risk of illness when a study revealed that vaccinated children were five times more likely to contract meningitis than unvaccinated children. Again, if you look at the statistics for flu death, in 1999, before flu vaccines were recommended and administered in the US to small children, just 25 children under 5 years old died that year from influenza. In 2000, 2001 and 2002, there were just 19, 13 and 12 flu deaths in this age group. However, in late 2002 the Centre for Disease Control began advocating that all young children receive flu vaccines and doctors responded to that recommendation. The result:? In 2003 flu deaths in children under 5 years rocketed to 90 cases.

Doctors who are prepared to confront the facts understand that vaccination does not confer lifetime protection from a disease in the comprehensive way that happens when a person contracts the disease and recovers from it naturally after the body’s immune system has dealt with it. [This is not to say that there isn’t a valuable role for the medical profession to play when intervention is warranted to help a patient where their immune system isn’t strong enough to enable them to recover without assistance]. Furthermore, they are bound to admit that if one measures supposed protection by the number of antibodies in a person, many vaccinations only confer a degree of protection for a short period which may be 1 to 5 years or even less. This is the reason why vaccine manufacturers advocate booster vaccines for many of their products.

Without the mantra of “herd immunity”, public-health officials would not be able to justify forced mass vaccinations. As one website (2) states, “I usually give the physicians who question my statement that herd immunity is a myth a simple example. When I was a medical student almost 40 years ago, it was taught that the tetanus vaccine would last a lifetime. Then 30 years after it had been mandated, we discovered that its protection lasted no more than 10 years. Then, I ask my doubting physician if he or she has ever seen a case of tetanus? Most have not. I then tell them to look at the yearly data on tetanus infections – one sees no rise in tetanus cases. The same can be said for measles, mumps, and other childhood infections. It was, and still is, all a myth”.

-------------------------------------------
1 Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology, May 1996; 79(2):163-170. Eg during a 1984 outbreak in an Illinois high school, 100% of the cases occurred in previously vaccinated students.
2 http://secretsofnaturalhealing.blogspot.com/2009/12/forced-vaccinations-and-myth-behind.html

House of Commons Committee Report on Homeopathy a Sham

2010-03-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

What an excellent dissection of this sorry saga is given on the blogsite referenced below.

Committee members Phil Willis (Chairman), Evan Harris and their fellow travellers in the Anti Homeopathy Brigade on the Committee ought to be required to pay back the taxpayers money they wasted in this exercise, and the HoC should either disband this Committee or reconstitute it with some members who can demonstrate impartiality.

Here is the text of the Early Day Motion set down by David Tredinick MP following their biased Report

"EDM 908 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE REPORT ON HOMEOPATHY 23.02.2010

Tredinnick, David
That this House expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee's Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy; notes that the Committee took only oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses, including known critics of homeopathy Tracy Brown, the Managing Director of Sense About Science, and journalist Dr Ben Goldacre, who have no expertise in the subject; believes that evidence should have been heard from primary care trusts that commission homeopathy, doctors who use it in a primary care setting, and other relevant organisations, such as the Society of Homeopaths, to provide balance; observes that the Committee did not consider evidence from abroad from countries such as France and Germany, where provision of homeopathy is far more widespread than in the UK, or from India, where it is part of the health service; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective, and that the Committee recommends no further research; further notes that 206 hon. Members signed Early Day Motion No. 1240 in support of NHS homeopathic hospitals in Session 2006-07; and calls on the Government to maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community's needs."

--------------------------

A wizard article on http://vonsyhomeopathy.wordpress.com goes into the "murky" background:

“Stop funding NHS Homeopathy, MPs urge”. But who are these MPs?

As predicted the media produced the expected snow – every national paper, every TV channel ran the story along similar lines: “Homeopathy should not be funded on the NHS, say MPs”. The Mail and Telegraph ran stories on Sunday night, which was interesting since the Science and Technology Committee were adamant that details of the report should not be released to the public until after 11am Monday. Bloggers had already written detailed posts directly quoting the report and published them at precisely 11am. Leaked? Surely not,

The Guardian at least waited till Monday to report: “Stop funding homeopathy, MPs urge”.

And so it went on. Anyone reading the news might have imagined that there had been an in depth investigation of the matter in parliament.

But who are these MPs doing the urging, and how does the Science and Technology Committee work?

The Science and Technology Committee is a parliamentary Select Committee charged with looking into what informs government policy in a number of areas – it’s a relatively recent enterprise and homeopathy is only their second investigation in this form. One might ask why – of all the government policy the committee could have chosen to investigate, it chose homeopathy – which uses just 0.004% of the NHS budget and has been part of the NHS since 1948. We can only surmise.

Phil Willis, Chair of the committee was at pains to put on record that it was NOT to be an investigation into whether homeopathy worked or not – and then he chaired a committee which did exactly that, but restricted the investigation to the narrow remit of RCTs (Random Controlled Trials). Surely not?

Let’s look at this committee in more detail:
At the first meeting on 25th November 5 MPs were present plus the Chair: Phil Willis: a history teacher and associate of the Pharma lobby group Sense About Science; Tim Boswell, a farmer; Brian Iddon, Professor of Chemistry; Graham Stringer, Analytical Chemist; Evan Harris, medical doctor and associate of Sense About Science and Ian Stewart, chemical plant operator and open mind.
It can be said categorically that NONE of the MPS present at the hearings have any expertise or even understanding of the homeopathic method. It could be said that those steeped in chemistry might find it particularly challenging.
The committee spent a total of 4 and half hours questioning 12 witnesses – 7 of whom also have NO expertise or understanding of the homeopathic method – 5 of the 9 non-governmental witnesses had previously publicly declared they were vehemently opposed to homeopathy. Only 1 witness is in clinical practice. Biased? Surely not?

The procedure called for written submissions – closing date was Nov 6th 2009. Based on these submissions witnesses would be selected to give oral submissions at the committee’s meetings.

Almost 50 written submissions were received by the closing date and invitations for witnesses were apparently sent out 48 hours later. It would be interesting to know which devoted MPs stayed up all night reading the submissions and selecting witnesses. Unless of course they had already been pre-selected. Surely not?

Anyone who has watched the archived meetings on the parliamentary website will know that at least two members of the committee had a clear agenda they were determined to push through. Evan Harris and Chair of the committee Phil Willis, Sense About Science associates, made no attempt to hide their disdain for the witnesses speaking on behalf of homeopathy. Denialist bloggers and newspapers like the Guardian had a field day with sound bites and helped set the scene for the foregone conclusions of the report itself.

All claims of bias were ignored by the committee and the draft report was written.

This is where it gets even more interesting….

At the meeting of Feb 8th 2010 the S and T committee met to ratify the report.
Present was: Phil Willis in the Chair, Evan Harris, Tim Boswell, Ian Cawsey, Doug Naysmith and Ian Stewart.

Ian Stewart put forward an amendment not to ratify the report as it stood but to call upon government to “fund a rigorous research programme into homeopathy”
Voting was: Ayes: Ian Stewart Noes: Evan Harris, Ian Cawsey, Doug Naysmith. Presumably Tim Boswell abstained though his vote was not recorded.

A second vote was taken on the specific paragraph relating to research – to retain as written and not insert Stewart’s amendment: paragraph 77. “There has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious. Competition for research funding is fierce and we cannot see how further research on the efficacy of homeopathy is justified in the face of competing priorities.”

Voting was: Ayes: Evan Harris, Ian Cawsey, Doug Naysmith Noes: Ian Stewart Paragraph was agreed to as was. Tim Boswell abstained? Vote not recorded.

The vote to accept the report and its recommendations to stop funding NHS homeopathy on the basis that the evidence did not support government policy was: Ayes: Evan Harris, Ian Cawsey, Doug Naysmith Noes: Ian Stewart. Tim Boswell abstained again? We’ll never know.

SO this report was ratified by just THREE MPs:

Evan Harris, associate of Sense About Science and it’s fair to say rabid anti-homeopathy campaigner, 1023 participant and ’senior counsel for the prosecution’.

Ian Cawsey – IT expert, who joined the S and T committee in October 2009, just a month before the meetings and yet chose not to attend the committee’s investigation – in fact was nowhere to be seen until the ratification meeting.

Doug Naysmith – an immunologist – did not join the S and T committee until January 2010 – so was not even on the committee until after all the hearings – yet was present for the ratification of the report. And he is standing down at the next election.

A committee would invite a new member to join knowing that in a matter of a few months he would be leaving again? Surely not?

So let’s get this straight – the report and its recommendations that led to the media snow this week, and the dramatic assertion that the public have been duped since 1948 by NHS placebos masquerading as medicine, is the result of a report ratified by THREE MPs: TWO of whom were NOT EVEN PRESENT AT THE COMMITTEE MEETINGS – and ONE of the two was NOT EVEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE when the hearings were held, and is due to stand down at the election in May this year.

This Science and Technology Committee investigation into homeopathy was a set up and a sham from its inception to the final meeting and delivery of the report to the UK press. And there’s no “surely not” about it.

-------------

And if anyone wants to read the Evidence to the Committee it can be found here

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/homeopathy/contents.htm

It bears mentioning that the Committee called for evidence only on 20th October 2009 and wanted submissions by 6th November. Many in the pro-homeopathy group heard of this only days before the 6th November so if you wondered why more evidence was not put in by them, that's the reason. Convenient for the antis, Huh?

Antibiotics: Life savers and cause of death. Alternatives needed

2010-01-10T01:54:00.000-08:00

The European Central Council of Homeopaths, made up of 26 member professional associations in 22 EU, EEA and CEE countries, has issued this report on antibiotics. See http://www.homeopathy-ecch.org/

Antibiotic resistance has become a global health problem. Over-use and mis-use of antibiotics has caused the development of lethal antibiotic resistant micro-organisms. They are now also suspected of causing cancer. Can homeopathy serve as an alternative?

International warning

18 November 2009 was the 2nd European Antibiotic Awareness Day. The European Centre of Disease prevention and Control (ECDC) warned about the threat of antibiotic resistance and called for antibiotics to be used far more responsibly in the treatment of infectious diseases1. Antibiotics are of no use in viral infections and they should not be used in uncomplicated bacterial infections such as light ear, throat and sinus infections2.

The ECDC and the World Health Organisation (WHO) warn that infectious micro-organisms have become increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics3. Replacement products are proving difficult to find. Governments and researchers across the world are searching for alternatives.

Antibiotics may cause cancer

A Finnish study based on three million people correlates a higher risk of developing prostate, breast, lung, and colon cancer with multiple use of antibiotics4. Researchers are currently unsure as to whether antibiotics are carcinogenic and directly cause cancer, or that cancers develop as a result of antibiotics disturbing the body’s protective intestinal micro-biotic environment.

Homeopathy – effective in infectious diseases

Research shows that homeopathy can serve as an effective alternative to antibiotics in a range of infectious conditions for which they have been commonly used5-13.

Out of 500 patients suffering from upper respiratory complaints, 82 % receiving homeopathy improved within 14 days, compared to 67 % treated conventionally10. In another study with 169 children, those receiving homeopathic treatment had significantly less symptoms and shorter duration of disease compared to other children11. Their parents also had less time away from work.

Homeopathy is effective in treating recurrent ear infections in children7-8. Over 70 % had no ear infections after homeopathy, compared to 57 % percent receiving conventional drugs8. Out of 230 children those receiving homeopathic treatment recovered 2.4 times faster than others7.

Three surveys show that homeopathy is at least as effective as conventional treatment in treating sinus infections5,12-13.

Patients receiving homeopathic treatment need antibiotics less often. Moreover, no complications are found. Homeopathy is not only effective and avoids the creation of antibiotic resistance, but is also shown to be potentially a more cost-effective solution14-16.

In summary: Homeopathy may be at least as effective as conventional treatment in treating infectious diseases. It could therefore serve as an effective first line option in treating viral and mild bacterial infectious diseases and so help preserve antibiotics for when they are really needed.

References

1. ECDC Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections Programme. Antibiotic resistance in Europe: the challenges ahead. Euro Surveill. 2009; 14(45): pii=19405. Available online: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19405

2. Arroll B, Kenealy T. Are antibiotics effective for acute purulent rhinitis? Systematic review and meta-analysis of placebo controlled randomised trials. BMJ 2006, doi:10.1136/bmj.38891.681215.AE

3. WHO Use of antimicrobials outside human medicine and resultant antimicrobial resistance in humans http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs268/en/

4. Kilkkinen A, Rissanen H, Klaukka T, Pukkala E, Heliövaara M, Huovinen P, Männistö S, Aromaa A, Knekt P. Antibiotic use predicts an increased risk of cancer. Int. J. Cancer 2008, 123, 2152–2155.

5. Adler M. Efficacy, safety of a fixed-combination homeopathic therapy for sinusitis. Adv Ther 1999; 16: 103-111.

6. De Lange de Klerk E, et al. Effects of homoeopathic medicines on daily burden of symptoms in children with recurrent upper respiratory tract infections. BMJ 1994; 309: 1329-1332.

7. Frei H, Thurneysen A. Homeopathy in acute otitis media in children: treatment effect or spontaneous resolution? Br Homeopath J 2001, 90: 180-182.

8. Friese K-H, Kruse S, Ludtke R, Moeller H. Homeopathic treatment of otitis media in children: comparisons with conventional therapy. Int J Clim Pharmacol Ther 1997; 35: 296-301.

9. Jacobs J, Springer DA, Crothers D. Homeopathic treatment of acute otitis media in children: a preliminary randomized placebo-controlled trial. Pediatr Infect Dis J 2001; 20: 177-183.

10. Riley D, Fischer M, Singh B, Haidvogl M, Heger M. Homeopathy and conventional medicine: an outcojmes study comparing effectiveness in a primary care setting. J Altern Complement Med 2001; 7: 149-159.

11. Steinsbekk A, Fønnebø V, Lewith G, Bentzen N. Homeopathic care for the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections in children: A pragmatic, randomised, controlled trial comparing individualised homeopathic care and waiting-list controls. Complementary Therapies in Medicine 2005, 13, 231-238.

12. Weber U, Luedtke R, Friese KH, Fischer I, Moeller H. A non-randomised pilot study to compare complementary and conventional tretaments of acute sinusitis. Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd 2002; 9: 99-104.

13. Wiesenauer M, Gaus W, Bohnacker U, Haussler S. (Efficiency of homeopathic preparation combinations in sinusitis. Results of a randomized double blind study with general practitioners.) Arzneimittelforschung 1989; 39: 620-625.

14. Rossi E, Crudeli L, Endrizzi C, Garibaldi D. Cost-benefit evaluation of homeopathic versus conventional therapy in respiratory diseases. Homeopathy 2009, 98, 2–10.

15. Trichard M, Chaufferin G, Dubreuil C, Nicoloyannis N, Duru G. Effectiveness, quality of life, and cost of caring for children in France with recurrent acute rhinopharyngitis managed by homeopathic or non-homeopathic general practitioners. Dis Manage Health Outcomes 2004, 12(6): 419-427.

Van Wassenhoven M, Ives G. An observational study of patients receiving homeopathic treatment. Homeopathy 2004, 93, 3–11.

Presenting 55 Facts About Homeopathy

2010-01-10T01:49:00.000-08:00

Here's another succinct summary by Louise Mclean, LCCH MHMA, Editor, Zeus Homoeopathy News and Homeopathy Heals Me! www.homeopathyheals.me.uk

How Homeopathy Works

FACT 1: Hippocrates ‘The Father of Medicine’ of Ancient Greece said there were two Laws of Healing: The Law of Opposites and the Law of Similars. Homeopathy treats the patient with medicines using the Law of Similars, orthodox medicine uses the Law of Opposites, e.g. antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, anti-convulsants, anti-hypertensives,

anti-depressants, anti-psychotics.

FACT 2: Homeopathic theories are based on fixed principles of the Laws of Nature - unlike medical theories which are constantly changing!

FACT 3: Homeopathy is an evidence-based, empirical medicine.

FACT 4: Homeopathy is both an art and a science.

FACT 5: The Homeopathic PROVINGS of medicines are a more scientific method of testing than the orthodox model of RCTs or double blind trials.

FACT 6: Homeopathic medicine awakens and stimulates the body's own curative powers. The potentised remedy acts as a catalyst to set healing into motion.

FACT 7: Homeopathic medicines work by communicating a current/pattern/frequency of energy via the whole human body to jump start the body’s own inherent healing mechanisms.

FACT 8: Homeopathy assists the body to heal itself, to overcome an illness which brings the patient to a HIGHER level of health. Orthodox medicine suppresses the illness, bringing the patient to a lower level of health.

FACT 9: The homeopathic practitioner endeavours to search for and treat the CAUSE of the disease in order to heal the EFFECT.

FACT 10: Outcomes of homeopathic treatment are measured by the LONG TERM curative effects of prescribing and complete eradication of the disease state.

FACT 11: The homeopathic practitioner treats the WHOLE PERSON, believing all symptoms are interrelated and seeks to select a medicine which most closely covers them all.

FACT 12: Homeopathy works FAST in acute illnesses, slower in chronic illness.

FACT 13: Homeopathic medicine has been proven extremely effective in Epidemics such as cholera, typhoid, diptheria, yellow fever, polio and influenza and were used extensively in 19th century. http://www.whale.to/v/winston.html

Homeopathic Medicines

FACT 14: Homeopathic remedies are cheap.

FACT 15. Pharmaceutical medicines are expensive.

FACT 16: Homeopathy is the 2nd most popular and widely used medicine in the world.

FACT 17: There are more than 4,000 homeopathic medicines.

FACT 18: Homeopathic medicines have no toxic side-effects.

FACT 19: Homeopathic medicines are NON-ADDICTIVE.

FACT 20: In 200 years, there has never been a single homeopathic medicine recalled, unlike pharmaceutical medicines.

FACT 21: Every true homeopathic medicine is made using ONE SUBSTANCE – whether plant, mineral, metal, etc. The exact substance is known, unlike most modern drugs where we are rarely informed of the ingredients.

FACT 22: Any remedy up to a 12c or a 24x potency still contains the original molecules of the substance and this is known as Avogadro's number.

FACT 23: Every Patient is Unique so homeopathic medicines are individualised.

FACT 24: Homeopaths treat genetic illness, tracing its origins to 6 main genetic causes or ‘miasms’: Tuberculosis, Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Psora (scabies), Cancer, Leprosy.

FACT 25: High fevers will drop within minutes after taking the homeopathic medicine Belladonna and Aconite.

FACT 26: There are thousands of homeopathic books, available at specialist outlets, not sold in the high street.

Homeopathic Hospitals

FACT 27: There are 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK - in London, Tunbridge Wells, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow. They cost the NHS under £10 million a year compared to the £100 billion for the total annual NHS budget for 2008!

FACT 28: At one of the earliest debates on the NHS Act of 1948 the Government pledged that homoeopathy would continue to be available on the NHS, as long as there were "patients wishing to receive it and doctors willing to provide it".

FACT 29: There is a campaign by certain UK Professors to oust homeopathy completely from the NHS http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1827553.ece

and in 2007 they organised a document on NHS headed paper to be sent to all Primary Care Trusts telling managers not to refer patients to the homeopathic hospitals. http://dcscience.net/homeopathy_paper_for_nhs_commissioners.pdf

FACT 30: The Homeopathic Hospitals are clean, with friendly, well informed staff. The patients are generally pleased with their treatment unlike many orthodox National Health Service hospitals.

FACT 31: The chances of contracting MRSA or C. Difficile at a Homeopathic Hospital are extremely rare.

FACT 32: Unlike orthodox medicine, where the side-effects of pharmaceutical medicines bill for negligence claims can run into millions, one UK leading insurance company reported only ‘a couple’ of claims against homeopaths in a ten year period! Hence insurance cover for homeopathy is cheap reflecting low risk.

Orthodox Medicine Opposing Homeopathy

FACT 33: In the United States in the early 1900s there were 22 homeopathic medical schools and over 100 homeopathic hospitals, 60 orphanages and old people's homes and 1,000+ homeopathic pharmacies.

FACT 34: Members of the American Medical Association had great animosity towards homeopathy after its formation in 1847 and it was decided to purge all local medical societies of physicians who were homeopaths.

FACT 35: Big Pharma does not want the Public to find out how well homeopathy works!

Scientific Studies

FACT 36: In 2005 World Health Organisation brought out a draft report which showed homeopathy was beneficial causing Big Pharma to panic and the Lancet to bring out an editorial entitled ‘The End of Homeopathy’.

FACT 37: In 2005 the Lancet tried to destroy homeopathy but were only looking at 8 inconclusive trials out of 110 of which 102 were positive. This was a fraudulent analysis.

"The meta-analysis at the centre of the controversy is based on 110 placebo-controlled clinical trials of homeopathy and 110 clinical trials of allopathy (conventional medicine), which are said to be matched. These were reduced to 21 trials of homeopathy and 9 of conventional medicine of ‘higher quality’ and further reduced to 8 and 6 trials, respectively, which were ‘larger, higher quality’. The final analysis which concluded that ‘the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects’ was based on just the eight ‘larger, higher quality’ clinical trials of homeopathy. The Lancet's press release did not mention this, instead giving the impression that the conclusions were based on all 110 trials."

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1375230

FACT 38: There have been many clinical trials that prove homeopathy works. In the past 24 years there have been more than 180 controlled, and 118 randomized, trials into homeopathy, which were analysed by four separate meta-analyses. In each case, the researchers concluded that the benefits of homeopathy went far beyond that which could be explained purely by the placebo effect.

FACT 39: The Bristol Homeopathic Hospital carried out a study published in November 2005 of 6500 patients receiving homeopathic treatment. There was an overall improvement in health of 70% of them. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4454856.stm

FACT 40: Homeopathy can never be properly tested through double blind randomised trials because each prescription is individualised as every patient is unique. Therefore 10 people with arthritis, for example, may all need a different homeopathic medicine.

FACT 41: Homeopathic medicines are not tested on animals.

FACT 42: Homeopathic medicines work even better on animals and babies than on adults, proving this cannot be placebo effect.

FACT 43: Homeopathy is safe for women to take while pregnant and safe for old people.

FACT 44: Scientists agree that if and when homeopathy is accepted by the scientific community it will turn established science on its head.

Homeopathic Practitioners

FACT 45: Homeopathic Practitioners train for 3 or 4 years in Anatomy and Physiology, as well as Pathology and Disease, Materia Medica, Homeopathic Philosophy and study of the Homeopathic Repertory.

FACT 46: Most homeopaths treat patients who have been referred to them by

word of mouth. Most patients seek out homeopathy because conventional treatment has not benefitted them or because it poses too great a risk of side-effects.

FACT 47: The homeopathic community has thousands, even millions, of

written case notes that demonstrate the positive benefits of their treatment. Some homeopaths have video proof of their patients before and after treatment.

FACT 48: Homeopaths charge patients an average of £50 an hour. Specialist

Doctors can charge up to £200 or more.

Popularity of Homeopathy

FACT 49: The popularity of homeopathy has grown in the past 30 years, its revival entirely through word of mouth and estimated to be growing at more than 20% a year the world over!

FACT 50: Hundreds of famous people throughout the past 200 years have enjoyed the benefits of homeopathic medicine. www.homeopathicrevolution.com

FACT 51: The aristocratic patronage of homeopathy in the UK extended well into the 1940s and beyond can be easily demonstrated. In the Homeopathic Medical Directories there are lists of patrons of the dispensaries and hospitals. They read like an extract from Burke’s or Debrett’s.

FACT 52: The Royal Families of Europe use homeopathic medicine and Queen Elizabeth II of England never travels anywhere without her homeopathic vials of medicine.

FACT 53: Homeopathy is practised nowadays in countries all over the world. In India there are 100 homeopathic medical schools and around 250,000 homeopathic doctors!

FACT 54: In a recent Global TGI survey where people were asked whether they trust homeopathy the following percentages of people living in urban areas said YES: 62% in India, 58% Brazil, 53% Saudi Arabia, Chile 49%, United Arab Emirates 49%, France 40%, South Africa 35%, Russia 28%, Germany 27%, Argentina 25%, Hungary 25%, USA 18%, UK 15%. http://www.tgisurveys.com/documents/TGIbarometerhomeopathy_Jan08.pdf

FACT 55: The media as a whole has been unwilling to air a defence of the efficacy of homeopathy and the validity of this 250 year old profession.

Please put up on as many websites as possible…Louise Mclean

Zeus Homeopathy News

Copyright © Louise Mclean 2008

A Vastly Incomplete List of Scientific Research Behind Homeopathy

2010-01-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested in following up in this area, there is a long list of interesting stuff and links to additional reference material at http://drptandon.blogspot.com/2009/09/vastly-incomplete-list-of-scientific.html

As an aside Charles Darwin in his experiments also dabbled in dilutions of homeopathic proportions though whether he added the technique of succussion as well (energising by shaking the diluted fluid a number of times)is I believe unknown. In his work on Insectivorous Plants he says: "It is an astonishing fact ... that so inconceivably minute a quantity of 1/20,000,000 of a grain [a much smaller quantity than the 6th decimal trituration] of ammonia phosphate should induce changes in a gland, sufficient to cause a motor impulse to be sent down the whole length of a tentacle, this impulse exciting movements through an angle of about 180 degrees".

THE TRUTH ABOUT HOMEOPATHY - Dispelling the MYTHS that Surround it! Louise Mclean of Zeus Information Service

2010-01-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people need reminding about the essentials of homeopathy because there are a lot of oddballs out there who for their own unfathomable reasons keep on spreading misinformation about it.

An article which Louise wrote a while back is accordingly a must-read! Have a look too at http://www.homeopathyheals.me.uk

"In this article, I would like to dispel a plethora of myths surrounding homeopathy which have been used to discredit this highly efficacious healing art and science. Homeopaths are given few opportunities in the media to defend their profession, so a lot of misconceptions abound. The medical profession in general presents a fierce and blinkered opposition, yet as Big Pharma is learning of all sorts of amazing cured cases, they are determined to stamp out competition via EU regulation.

Myth No. 1 – Homeopathic medicines cure nothing.

Homeopathy works by stimulating the body’s OWN healing mechanisms, through like for like. A substance that would cause symptoms in a healthy person can be used to cure the same symptoms in a sick person by giving a minute, highly potentised dose of that substance acting as a catalyst to jump start their own healing mechanisms. Everyone of us has our own natural innate healing powers. All that is needed is the correct stimulus to kick start it. In healthy people this may just be rest and good food but many people become 'stuck' in their physical, emotional or mental illness and cannot recover. Of course there are different levels of health and the choice of potency given should reflect that. Low potencies are given for very physically ill people and higher for those whose problems are emotional or of the mind. Homeopathy is very successful in treating emotional problems such as stress, anxiety and fears.

Myth No 2 – Homeopathic medicines are just water

Homeopathic medicines are NOT made using only dilution. Dilution alone would do nothing whatsoever. Many homeopaths are getting tired of reading this highly inaccurate reporting in the media. All homeopathic medicines are made by a process of dilution and SUCCUSSION (potentisation through vigorous shaking - 100 shakes between each potency - i.e. between a 1c and a 2c, between a 2c and a 3c potency, between a 3c and a 4c, etc. etc.) Most homeopathic medicines can be bought in either 6c or 30c from Boots or from health shops. Higher potencies of 200c and 1m (1000c) can be obtained only from homeopathic pharmacies. Succussion is nowadays done by machines, originally by hand. Succussion brings out the formative intelligence of the substance and imprints it upon the 60% distilled water + 40% alcohol medium used to make homeopathic medicines - alcohol acting as a preservative.

Myth No. 3 – homeopathic medicines are unscientific

Homeopathic medicines undergo a scientific 'Proving' where a control group of 50+ healthy volunteers ('Provers') are instructed to keep taking a remedy under trial until they develop symptoms which they must record in detail. Substances that have been rigorously tested include nearly everything on the Periodic Table - metals, minerals and gases as well as plants and even things like snake venom.

The Provers are given a bottle of a new remedy being tested in the 30c potency and must keep taking it until they develop symptoms, which must be carefully recorded and then submitted to a database. The Provers must be healthy and symptom-free to start with so that the symptoms they experience are new ones CAUSED by the remedy.

They must keep a careful daily note of what happens and not discuss it with any of the other Provers. Whatever symptoms the Provers all experienced in common become the black type symptoms of the remedy which are then added to the Materia Medica of homeopathic medicines and Homeopathic Repertory (encyclopedia of symptoms). Thus the curative indications of a remedy are obtained for clinical use.

Symptoms have also been obtained through historical records of accidental poisonings, such as Arsenic and Belladonna. For example, poisoning by Arsenic causes vomitting, diarrhoea, restlessness, anxiety and extreme chill. Therefore you might get a patient in this state (possibly after food poisoning) and Arsenicum in a homepathic tablet will quickly alleviate them.

There are more than 4,000+ homeopathic medicines including nearly everything on the periodic table. But of course all of the remedies tested have been diluted and succussed (potentised), so they are not toxic like modern drugs.

The Homeopathic Materia Medica and Repertory are extremely large books or divided into volumes. The Repertory is divided into sections in this order: Mind, Vertigo, Head, Eye, Vision, Ear, Hearing, Nose, Face, Mouth, Teeth, Throat, External Throat, Stomach, Abdomen, Rectum, Stool, Bladder, Kidney, Prostate Gland, Urethra, Urine, Male, Female, Larynx, Respiration, Cough, Expectoration, Chest, Back, Extremities, Sleep, Dreams, Chill, Fever, Perspiration, Skin, Generals. Obviously some sections are bigger than others!

In the various Repertories, remedies are listed alongside the full range of symptoms (rubrics) in abbreviated form - all information being systematically taken from Provings and clinical practice. Every human state of mind, emotions and body is listed. Symptoms that would mean nothing to a medical doctor can be looked up and the curative remedy found in these huge book. Homeopathy is a study of human nature, endlessly fascinating and how negative states of mind and emotions affect the physical body culminating in illness. Nowadays many homeopaths use computer software programmes which contain all this information.

Myth No. 4 – homeopathic practitioners receive inadequate training

In fact all qualified homeopathic practitioners undergo a three or more years training course at accredited Colleges, which includes Anatomy and Physiology, as well as Pathology and Disease, Materia Medica, Homeopathic Philosophy and study of the Homeopathic Repertory. Yet medical doctors and nurses treat after much shorter homeopathy courses. To be really good, you need to study intensively for about 10 years. Homeopathy is a lifetime's work and you never stop learning.

Myth No. 5 - there are no studies that prove homeopathy works

In the past 24 years there have been more than 180 controlled, and 118 randomized, trials into homeopathy, which were analysed by four separate meta-analyses. In each case, the researchers concluded that the benefits of homeopathy went far beyond that which could be explained purely by the placebo effect. Another meta-analysis found that 65 of the 89 trials analysed had produced an effect way beyond placebo (source WDDTY www.wddty.co.uk )

A study of 6500 patients at the Bristol Homeopathic hospital was conducted showing that over 70% of patients reported complete cure or significant improvement of their symptoms. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4454856.stm

A study on the properties of water was performed by Dr. Rustrum Roy. This paper provides an interdisciplinary base of information on the structure of liquid water.

The Structure Of Liquid Water; Novel Insights From Materials Research; Potential Relevance To Homeopathy

Rustum Roy1, W.A. Tiller2, Iris Bell3, M. R. Hoover4

Received: 2 August 2004 Revised: 6 September 2004 Accepted: 14

http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

http://www.infiniteconferencing.com/Events/nch/051607nch/recording-playback.html

Homeopathy can never be tested properly through conventional trials because each prescription is individualised as every person is unique. Therefore 10 people with arthritis, for example, may all need a different homeopathic medicine. So it is far from ideal to follow the allopathic trial paradigm to test homeopathy. In orthodox medicine trials, all are given the same medicine to be tested. In homeopathy all may be given different medicines!

Anybody who has an understanding of the principles of homeopathy can be left in no doubt that we are dealing with a scientific therapeutic method in the best possible sense: it is based on observation, facts and phenomena and follows the rules of inductive logic that can be tested in daily practice. It is a comprehensive and comprehensible mode of therapy, which in some countries is first line treatment for the whole range of acute and chronic conditions. It has been proven abundantly that it is superior in the treatment of epidemic diseases to allopathy.

It is amazing how people, who like to see themselves on the side of unprejudiced evaluation, can be so blinkered. People pass judgment on homeopathy who have never bothered to study it. Like any science it takes time to learn (especially to learn it correctly) and years of practice to master but the rewards for patients, practitioners and the NHS purse are great. Before those who preach pure science come down on therapies like homeopathy too heavily, they should ask themselves how many of the accepted treatments within the NHS have a scientific evidence base?

With every homeopathic medicine we know exactly the substance it was made from, unlike most modern drugs where we have no clue of the ingredients. This is ironic too as ALL natural health products, whether vitamin, mineral or food supplement must clearly state on the label every single ingredient. When we go to the supermarket or health food shop, we hold up the packet or bottle and read what is in the product, yet people happily swallow prescription drugs with no idea whatsoever what they have taken! They could contain cyanide or any poison and the patient would be none the wiser. With the new class of genetically modified drugs, such as the one used in the Northwick Park drug trial in London, the dangers of a massive allergic reaction, such as the drug testers experienced, are even greater.

Those, who claim to be scientists, should have the ability to at least try to understand different paradigms. If not, they look more like people who have settled on a comfortable view of the world which might soon look very outmoded indeed. As the great musician and conductor Sir Yehudi Menhuin once said: 'Homeopathy is one of the few specialised areas in medicine, which carries no disadvantages but only advantages.'.

Regarding the Horizon programme on homeopathy, Prof. Madeleine Ennis was not involved in the Horizon test. The test was carried out by Wayne Turnbull at Guys hospital, London. It has been conceded that the Horizon test was not an exact replica of Ennis' successful trials. Many of his protocols were different. You can read at this link where he added in an ammonium chloride lysis step which would have ended up killing the very basophils that were such an integral part of the test. http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/view,55
Ennis' original test was replicated in 4 different labs in 4 different countries.

Dr. Peter Fisher's article in PubMed discusses the 'End of Homeopathy' editorial and meta-analysis published in the Lancet of 26th August 2005 and how nearly 100 successful studies that showed homeopathy worked were thrown out and only a few that were inconclusive were used. Dr. Fisher is the Queen's homeopathic physician and heads the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. (The vitriolic editorial was caused by the World Health Organisation bringing out a draft report in 2005 which was favourable towards homeopathy!)

"The final analysis which concluded that ‘the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects’ was based on just eight clinical trials of homeopathy. The Lancet's press release did not mention this, instead giving the impression that the conclusions were based on all 110 trials." "One of the most serious criticisms is the complete lack of transparency: we have no idea which eight trials were included in the final, damning, analysis." "The literature references are not given, nor any information on the diagnoses, numbers of patients, etc., nor can these be deduced from the article. Prof. Egger has refused several requests to disclose the identity of the eight trials. This is not even a matter of scientific method, but of natural justice: the accused has the right to know the evidence against him."

“The Lancet meta-analysis in 2005 of homeopathic trials was said to be based upon 110 placebo-controlled clinical trials of homeopathy and 110 clinical trials of allopathy, which were said to be matched but were in fact reduced to 21 trials of homeopathy and 9 of conventional medicine and further reduced to 8 and 6 trials.”
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1375230

Other Responses from the Homeopathic Community on the Lancet Article

http://www.ontariohomeopath.com/Response2.htm

from WDDTY

http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/Articles/ShockingTruth.html

George Vithoulkas' 'Science of Homeopathy' is still considered an excellent exposition of the science.

http://www.wholehealthnow.com/books/science-of-homeopathy.html

More scientific studies:

http://www.vhan.nl/documents/ScientificReportECHNov04.pdf

http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/7

http://www.positivehealth.com/research-list.php?subjectid=134

Myth No. 6 - homeopathic hospitals are a waste of money

There are 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK - in London, Liverpool, Tunbridge Wells, Bristol and Glasgow. They cost the NHS about £6 million a year. Compare that to the £100 billion for the total 2008 annual NHS budget!! These homeopathic hospitals SAVE money for the NHS as the Smallwood report commissioned by Prince Charles has demonstrated.

http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/christopher_smallwood_s_report_on_integrated_health_180.html

At one of the earliest debates on the NHS Act 1948 the Government pledged that homoeopathy would continue to be available on the health service as long as there were "patients wishing to receive it and doctors willing to provide it". Many people who depend upon it are alarmed at the possibility that Homeopathy may no longer be available on the NHS. Since the passing of the NHS Act in 1948, a provision has always been made for people to be treated at homeopathic hospitals in the UK and until PCTs began to stop referring patients, there had indeed been long waiting lists, some 6 months or more.

See this letter sent out to all Primary Care Trusts in 2006 signed by a group of professors hostile to homeopathy and putting pressure on PCTs not to refer patients to the 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK. They wrote the letter on NHS headed paper!

http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/pdf/Baum%20letter.pdf

Myth No. 7 – Cure with homeopathy is simply the Placebo Effect.

When Prince Charles treats his farm animals at Highgrove with homeopathic medicines do they know that a remedy has been put in the water they drink? Farmers successfully use homeopathic medicines for their cows suffering from mastitis. Does a tiny baby know when their fever drops dramatically using Belladonna or Aconite, that they have been given a homeopathic medicine?! As anyone who has treated animals and babies with homoepathic medicines will tell you, homeopathy works even better on animals and babies than it does on adults! If proof were needed, this is it. Not placebo.

Perhaps the most striking research on homeopathy that goes some way to debunking the placebo argument is when homeopathic remedies are tested on live tissue in a petri dish or studies involving animals (mice in this case) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3208528.stm

Myth No. 8 - homeopathic medicines contain no molecules

Any remedy under a 12c or a 24x potency still contains the original molecules of the substance and this is known as Avogadro's number. These low potencies are most suitable for physical illness of long duration as well as to heal specific organs that are not functioning properly.

Myth No. 9 – ‘Anecdotal Evidence’ does not constitute scientific evidence!

Most medical, surgical procedures and drug usage are not backed by studies - only by anecdotal evidence. According to the US Government's Office of Technology Assessment (Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment: Assessing the efficacy and safety of medical technologies. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1978), only 10-20% of all medical procedures and off-label drug usage are backed by clinical studies.

Strong anecdotal evidence among informed professionals is actually quite reliable - at least as reliable as clinical testing.

Many clinical tests come to diametrically opposed conclusions. You could say that the problem was discovered through anecdotal evidence - and merely confirmed through a peer reviewed study.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/peerReviewUnderTheSpotlight.php

The problem isn't with the use of anecdotal evidence. It's with the double standard applied by the establishment (medical and regulatory) that holds complementary medicine to an absurdly higher standard, allowing medical doctors to do pretty much whatever they want. If informed anecdotal evidence is allowable for 85% of all medical procedure and drug usage, why is alternative health held to an impossible 0% standard?

Millions of people worldwide testify that homeopathy cures their illnesses yet apparently that cannot be construed as 'evidence'.

If a person were to walk out of their house to the town centre and witness someone having their bag snatched or witness a car accident, then when they relay this information to the Police or to their friends and family, it is anecdotal evidence.

If someone go on holiday, stays at a nice hotel, eats delicious food, comes back home and relates the holiday to their friends, that is anecdotal evidence.

Does that mean that the above never happened? According to the detractors of complementary or alternative medicine, yes it does!

Millions of people have been cured of their diseases or afflictions using homeopathy, herbs, healing, vitamin supplements, special diets and on and on. Yet according to orthodox medicine all of these cures are anecdotal evidence and as such do not merit any further investigation, study, or validity. As far as orthodox medicine is concerned, these cures never happened.

Yet what if someone witnessed a car accident and the Police wanted them to make a statement? Would the statement in court be dismissed as anecdotal evidence? Would the police, even if they arrived at the scene of the accident to find the person still there comforting the passengers or trying to help, say they had not been there and their evidence is non existent? I don’t think so.

So how for so long have we put up with the top dogs in the medical establishment dismissing our cures as total nonsense, figments of our imagination, placebo cures, or outright lies?

How when millions are cured around the world using homeopathic medicines, can these cures be dismissed as unworthy of attention, simply ‘anecdotal evidence’.

Orthodox medicine implies through this that all cures with alternative medicine are untrue or simply imagined. Even when all the evidence is put before them, they become angry and even aggressive, simply refusing to see or to listen.

All the case notes in the surgery show that Mr. A had arthritis for 5 years, had been on anti-flammatory medicines, yet after homeopathic treatment for 6 months, the arthritis is cured. The reaction of the doctor is either disbelief or an attitude where they will not talk about it and do not want to know.

Of course there are some orthodox doctors who practise acupuncture, homeopathy or herbs themselves and who do believe that these therapies cured the patient but they are in the small minority.

It is always the top cancer specialists and professors whose lives and vested interests are the most challenged by the idea that anything other than pharmaceutical drugs or surgical interventions can cure the patient.

Yet pharmaceutical drugs cure nothing. They merely SUPPRESS the symptoms driving them deeper into the body of the patient.

Hence the eczema patient whose skin symptoms have been suppressed, goes on to develop asthma. The arthritic patient whose joint pains are suppressed, eventually will go on to develop heart disease.

The doctor makes no connection whatsoever that their drugs have created these deeper illnesses but just goes on to give the patient more and more powerful drugs, making the patient sicker still. Then when they die, they say, ‘We did everything we could’. Yes and you killed the patient!

After homeopathic treatment, careful analysis is taken of the Direction of Cure of the patient’s symptoms. Constance Hering was a converted skeptic of homeopathy. As a young man in Germany in the early nineteenth century, Hering had been assigned the task of reviewing Homeopathy because his medical mentor (a fervent anti-homeopath) had been asked by a publisher to write a book exposing homeopathy as unworthy. Having been given this task, Hering conducted a detailed study but concluded the opposite from the requested results! He was the first to talk about the Law of Cure which says that symptoms are cured from above down, from the inside out and in the reverse order of their appearance. This has stood the test of time in clinical experience. A simple example would be after a curative remedy is given for eczema all over the body, we would see the eczema start to move down and when it is only on the ankles, we know it is nearly cured.

The body is always intelligent. That is why the human race has survived. When a baby is conceived, Nature chooses the best genes from both parents in order to create a stronger, healthier human. If the parents are both taking drugs of any kind, whether legal or illegal, the health of the baby will be compromised.

If only doctors and scientists would study Nature, they would find all the answers and instead of going against it, learn from it. There is only one true science and that is the science of Nature.

The human race has survived because we all have an innate healing power in our bodies. In homeopathy for example, this is called the Vital Force. Homeopathy stimulates the vital force to heal the body, through like for like (using a potentised substance that would cause the symptoms but in a tiny dose acts as a catalyst for healing).

So in conclusion, there is no question that dismissing cures as Anecdotal Evidence through the use of natural medicine, is nothing more than a whitewash and a desperate means of suppressing the knowledge of those cures to the public as a whole.

Samuel Hahnemann

Hahnemann was a doctor but gave up his practice because he was appalled at the poisonous side effects of most available medicine. He started experimenting and did something rather novel - he took some quinine, while perfectly healthy. He observed that the effect on him was identical to a malarial attack: alternating fever with heat and chills. This is where homeopathy started: a substance, given to a healthy individual, causes symptoms. If given to someone who suffers those symptoms, it will thus neutralise the sickness.

After his observations on quinine, Hahnemann went on to test hundreds of substances on himself and willing, healthy volunteers, used the tested substances for matching symptoms in his patients and all the while kept accounts of detailed observations.

Of course, Hahnemann had an antecedent, still well-known today because all doctors still swear an oath to him to promise best medical practice: Hippocrates. Hippocrates stated that there were two laws of healing – the law of opposites (allopathy) and the law of similars (homeopathy). A Greek physician called Galen had laid these rules down in about 150 AD. Homeopathic theories are based on fixed principles of the Laws of Nature which do not change - unlike medical theories which are constantly changing! Homeopathy is both a science and an art.

Far from being ideas-based, this is completely evidence-based, empirical medicine an almost unique concept at the time. After some years of practicing like this, Hahnemann was still not satisfied. The substances he was using, while more effective than normal medical practice, were still having side effects. Or, if he reduced dosage too far, there was no effect. This is when he developed the concept of potentisation, the serial dilution that opponents of homeopathy deride.

Treating the Whole Person or Holistic Healing

We are not just a collection of parts to be fixed as doctors treat us but ALWAYS operating as a whole person ALL of the time. In other words medicines are chosen that treat the whole person and not just the part. This may seem strange to grasp and yet doesn't it in fact make total sense? Do we leave our sore throat on the desk of the physician as we leave the doctor's surgery? Or our arthritic knee behind. No, every single tiny function of our body operates as a WHOLE, all of the time. You cannot treat one thing and not affect the rest. That is why pharma drugs are so dangerous as for example, in treating a cancerous tumour, the medicine will affect and disturb the other systems of the body.

We are all energy beings. http://www.workingwithenergy.co.uk/energy_centres.htm

The electricity in our bodies transmits messages to all parts/systems of the body. Illness is caused when these messages are not getting through. All systems of the body are communicating with each other at all times. Water is a great conductor of electricity and it transmits the electrical current. This is how homeopathic mediums work – by communicating a current/pattern/frequency of energy via the whole human body to jump start the body’s own inherent healing mechanisms.

Homeopathy treats different sorts of people with distinct characters and personalities as well as different physical looks and natures. It individualises each person and looks at their symptoms AS A WHOLE.

Is it not true that no two people are alike? That every person is unique? This is why you could line up 20 people with asthma and they might all need a different homeopathic medicine. There are in fact about 250 homeopathic medicines for asthma but the correct one for each person must be selected taking into consideration such things as what makes the condition better or worse, what time of day it comes on, whether the person is hot or cold, worse for damp, need fresh air or prefer the windows closed and so on. You would be amazed how each person's symptoms are so different and yet they have all been diagnosed with asthma.

If people want to improve their looks, homeopathy does just that. When you are healthy and well, you obviously look better! Homeopathic practitioners believe in PREVENTION, having treatment can prevent illness rather than leaving it to the surgeon’s knife. There are thousands of homeopathic medicines which treat every ailment known to man, truly the most wonderful science on this planet.

Many people buy self help books or think they can treat themselves with over the counter remedies. This is a short term solution. The reason is as stated above. You cannot treat individual symptoms without taking into consideration the rest of you! Only a qualified and experienced homeopath who will spend 1-2 hours taking your full medical history and all of your symptoms can prescribe the remedy that fits best. In other words if you have hayfever, the homeopath will take into consideration all other physical symptoms a as well as your personality, to come to the correct prescription. Itchy, watery, red eyes, worse morning and evening would be Sulphur but only if all the other things about you fit the Sulphur picture. You cannot prescribe for yourself as you cannot take all of it into consideration at once. So if for example you buy Natrum Mur. for your hayfever (which is also an excellent remedy for this), it may work for a bit if you are healthy but the hayfever will come back, will not be cured for good, because it was not the remedy that fitted best.

The only exception to this rule is in the treatment of first aid and even then it often has to be individualised. An example of when it does not is having a molar removed at the dentist. Firstly you would take Arnica for bruising of the gums, secondly Hypericum for the pain as the anaesthetic wears off (will remove pain completely), thirdly Ledum for injection and fourthly Calendula (the remedy not the cream!) for fast healing of the gums (or any other injury). Symphytum is the great healer of broken bones.

Homeopaths believe that illnesses manifest for three reasons: firstly they are genetically inherited from our parents, grandparents, forefathers. Secondly, they can be caused by an traumatic event such as death of a loved one, divorce, job loss - any event that has a serious impact upon the person. Thirdly they can be caused from drugs taken by our parents (passed onto the foetus) or by ourselves. There is also of course accidents and injury.

Inherited disease can be traced back to one or more of what homeopaths call MIASMS - these are syphilis, gonorrhoea, psora (scabies), tuberculosis and cancer. We are all a mix of all of these as especially TB, dates back thousands of years. However one or more of the miasms is uppermost in a person and is an important aspect of the case-taking to determine the appropriate medicines.

So many people are in total ignorance of the VAST amount of study needed to become an expert in this field. Also there are hundreds of homeopathic books only available at specialist bookshops, many printed in India where homeopathy is more popular than orthodox medicine.

Attacks on Homeopathy

After the ever increasing attacks on alternative medicine in the media and in particular homeopathy, once again Professor Edzard Ernst, the 'first professor of complementary medicine' (whose qualifications for the job are still in question) discredits homeopathy. Yet in an interview with Geoff Watts in 2003

http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/04/01/careers/25.php

entitled 'A Scientist in the Alternative Camp', Professor Ernst stated:

"Our family doctor in the little village outside Munich where I grew up was a homoeopath. My mother swore by it. As a kid I was treated homoeopathically. So this kind of medicine just came naturally. Even during my studies I pursued other things like massage therapy and acupuncture."

"As a young doctor I had an appointment in a homoeopathic hospital, and I was very impressed with its success rate. My boss told me that much of this success came from discontinuing mainstream medication. This made a big impression on me."

The truth is that homeopathy is getting ever more popular and the drugs companies are putting out their spin in overdrive through their science and media PR operation outlets to counteract this in any way they can.

The reason there is this incessant assault in the press against homeopathy is because Pharma wields enormous power over the media and because the popularity of homeopathy has been increasing due to side effects of modern medicine. Also, unlike other natural therapies, it is pills and in direct competition.

At leat six million people use complementary treatments each year in the UK, which offers clinically-effective and cost-effective solutions to common health problems faced by NHS patients.

Historical Facts

In view of the highly inaccurate reporting and vitriolic attacks in the recent press coverage on homeopathy, I would like to point out some little known historical facts concerning homeopathy.

The practice of homeopathic medicine flourished in both Europe and the US during the 1800s and early 1900s and was spectacularly popular with European royalty and the British aristocracy, American entrepreneurs, literary giants, and religious leaders.

John D. Rockefeller referred to it as 'a progressive and aggressive step in medicine' and was under homeopathic care throughout the latter part of his life living to 99 years of age. A strong advocate of homeopathy, major grants of between $300-$400 million he intended for homeopathic institutions were instead used for orthodox medical institutions in the early 1900s, under pressure from his son and his financial advisor, Frederick Gates. (Source Dana Ullman)

In the United States in the early 1900s there were 22 homeopathic medical schools and over 100 homeopathic hospitals, 60 orphanages and old people's homes and 1,000+ homeopathic pharmacies. Members of the American Medical Association had great animosity towards homeopathy after its formation in 1847 and it was decided to purge all local medical societies of physicians who were homeopaths. This purge was successful in every state except Massachusetts because homoepathy was so strong among the elite of Boston.

The AMA wanted to keep homoepaths out of their societies and discourage any type of association with homeopaths. In 1855 the AMA established a code of ethics which stated that orthodox physicians would lose their membership if they even consulted with a homeopath. If a physician lost his membership, it meant that in some States he no longer had a licence to practice medicine.

Drug companies were antagonistic towards homeopathy, collectively trying to suppress it. The medical journals they published were used as mouthpieces against homeopathy and in support of orthodox medicine.

At an AMA meeting, a respected orthodox physician said: 'We must admit that we never fought the homeopath on matters of principles; we fought him because he came into the community and got the business.' Economic issues played a major role in what was allowed to be practised.

Homeopathy attracted support from many of the most respected members of society in the US, such as William James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa M. Alcott, Mark Twain, former American Presidents James Garfield and William McKinley. In Britain among its supporters were George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, William Thackarey, Benjamin Disraeli, Yehudi Menuhin. Other famous supporters were Dostoevsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Mahatma Ghandi.

Nowadays, celebrities using and supporting homeopathy are many and include among others : Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tina Turner, Whoopi Goldberg, Pamela Anderson, Jane Fonda, Cher, Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Sheen, the Chilli Peppers, Jane Seymour, Lesley Anne Warren, Mariel Hemingway, Lindsay Wagner, Paul McCartney, Axl Rose, Linda Gray, Susan Blakely, Michael Franks, Cybil Sheppard, Dizzy Gillespie, Vidal Sassoon, Angelica Houston, Boris Becker, Martina Navratilova, David Beckham, Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley, Cliff Robertson, Jerry Hall, Diane von Furstenberg, Ashley Judd, Naomi Judd, Olivia Newton-John, Julianna Margulies, JD Salinger, Blythe Danner, Pat Riley (coach of the Miami Heat). The list of famous people who supported homeopathy is endless.....

See 'The Homeopathic Revolution' by Dana Ullman MPH www.homeopathicrevolution.com

The aristocratic patronage of homeopathy in the UK extending well into the 1940s and beyond can be easily demonstrated. In the Homeopathic Medical Directories there are lists of patrons of the dispensaries and hospitals. They read like an extract from Burke’s or Debrett’s.

(See A History of Homeopathy in Britain by Peter Morrell, Honorary Research Associate in the History of Medicine, Staffordshire University, UK.)
www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/articles/ukhomhistory.shtml

Homeopathy is practised nowadays in countries all over the world and is especially popular in France, South America and India where there are around 250,000 homeopathic doctors! In a recent Global TGI survey where people were asked whether they trust homeopathy the following percentages of people living in urban areas said Yes: 62% in India, 58% Brazil, 53% Saudi Arabia, Chile 49%, United Arab Emirates 49%, France 40%, South Africa 35%, Russia 28%, Germany 27%, Argentina 25%, Hungary 25%, USA 18%, UK 15%.

Could This 'Forbidden Medicine' Eliminate the Need for Drugs?

2009-12-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Amy Lansky has just had the wonderful article below published on Dr Mercola's site at
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/22/Why-Skeptics-Love-to-Hate-Homeopathy.aspx She explains succinctly why Homeopathy is being attacked by those frightened that allowing the public to use it more will destroy their lucrative "illness businesses", and how with its remedies she and her husband slowly cured their child of autism (which was probably the result of vaccines).

Amy L. Lansky, PhD http://articles.mercola.com/imageserver/public/2009/December/Amy1-1-03.jpg

www.impossiblecure.com

Perhaps the most derided of alternative medicines is my own favorite – homeopathy. Over the past few years, detractors have focused their efforts in the United Kingdom and have succeeded in crippling homeopathic hospitals and clinics funded by the National Health Service, as well as the practices of many homeopaths.
A few well-placed editorials in prominent newspapers have done the trick, despite the fact that Prince Charles and the rest of the royal family are ardent supporters of homeopathy.

It now seems that some of these folks are taking their show on the road. Two key UK players, Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst have published a commentary in the November 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine [1] in which they state, “a belief in homeopathy exceeds the tolerance of an open mind. We should start from the premise that homeopathy cannot work and that positive evidence reflects publication bias or design flaws until proved otherwise.”

Not surprisingly, their commentary also reflects a complete ignorance of homeopathy and the range of studies that support its effectiveness. For example, their article incorrectly uses the term “potentation” instead of “potentization” for the method used to create homeopathic remedies (more on this later). The authors also insist on citing a single negative meta-analysis study that has already been shown to be methodologically flawed [2], while ignoring many positive studies in respected publications, including two other meta-analyses that showed positive results [3—8].

So why do the skeptics love to hate homeopathy? Perhaps because it is one of the most threatening alternative modalities – financially, philosophically, and therapeutically. Actually, homeopathy has been a threat to allopathy ever since the 1800s, when German physician Samuel Hahnemann developed the homeopathic system.

Founder of Homeopathy

Hahnemann, a respected doctor and chemist who helped to pioneer the importance of hygiene as well as homeopathy, was forced to move frequently during his life because the local German apothecaries objected to the fact that he created his own medicines rather than use theirs.

A fierce battle was also waged against homeopathy in the United States during the 1800s, where homeopathy had achieved a strong presence by 1840. In fact, in 1847, the American Medical Association (AMA) was formed specifically to fight the battle against homeopathy.

Most homeopaths of the 1800s were former allopaths who had abandoned their brethren because they found Hahnemann’s system to be more successful in battling cholera, typhus, yellow fever, diptheria, influenza, and other epidemics of the 1800s. In retaliation, the preamble to the AMA’s charter forbade its members to associate with homeopaths or to use their medicines, and many doctors were expelled for failing to comply.

But does homeopathy really pose such a threat to conventional medicine today? To see how the little David of homeopathy could take down the Goliath of big pharma, we need to take a closer look at what homeopathy is all about.

Like Cures Like - - Law of Similars

Homeopathic practice is based on a single law of therapeutics called the Law of Similars. This law states that a substance that can cause the symptoms of a disease can also cure it. In fact, that’s exactly what word “homeopathy” means: similar (“homeo”) suffering (“pathy”). For example, one reason that the remedy Coffea Cruda (made from coffee) can be curative for insomnia is that coffee can cause sleeplessness. Interestingly, allopaths sometimes utilize the Law of Similars, but are unaware of it when they do and are perplexed by the phenomenon.

Ask any conventional doctor why Ritalin (a substance that would normally cause hyperactivity) can treat hyperactivity in children, and they’ll scratch their heads in confusion. Ask a homeopath, and it’s a no-brainer: the Law of Similars.

The reason why homeopaths run into trouble with the skeptics, though, revolves around how homeopathic remedies are prepared. Obviously, many of the substances that can cause the symptoms of disease are toxic. This inherent toxicity poses a challenge if you want to administer these substances safely.

In an effort to deal with this problem, Hahnemann tried various methods of diluting his medicines so that they would become less harmful to his patients. This proved unsuccessful until he also incorporated vigorous shaking or succussion into the process. The result was a method that he called potentization, in which a substance is serially diluted and succussed over and over.

Much to Hahnemann’s own surprise, these ultradilutions – so dilute that they cannot possibly contain a single molecule of the original substance – were still potent therapeutically. In fact, they were even more potent than low levels of dilution.

Of course, this was and still is too much for the skeptics to bear. It turns much of accepted science on its head!

What the skeptics keep ignoring, however, are an increasing number of scientific studies that indicate that some kind of signature of the original substance is embedded in a potentized ultradilution. In a 2007 paper by Professor Rustom Roy, the founding director of the Materials Research Laboratory at Penn State and one of the world's leading experts on the structure of water, it was demonstrated that lab instruments could pick up energetic signatures in ultradilutions that were not only specific to individual homeopathic remedies, but to specific potencies of these remedies [9, 10].

Indeed, science has backed up the phenomenon of potentization for over 20 years. In 1988, Nobel Prize nominee and medical researcher Jacques Benveniste turned the course of his life upside down when he discovered that ultradilutions could retain substance-specific properties. In particular, he found that a certain antibody could be serially diluted and succussed beyond the point where a single molecule could remain, but still cause the same effects [11].

Naturally, the skeptics quickly attacked Benveniste. But he continued his work and further demonstrated that the electromagnetic signature of an ultradilution could be recorded electronically, transmitted via Email, replayed into water, and still achieve the same substance-specific effects in the laboratory [12]. Eventually, Benveniste’s results were replicated [13]. Most recently, a 2009 paper by Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier underscored the power of ultradilutions too [14].

Drug Companies are Running Scared

Now think about it. This is what Big Pharma is scared of.

What if an expensive drug could be potentized to create billions of effective doses at essentially no cost? It would destroy big pharma entirely. Medicines that cost essentially nothing? Nontoxic ultradiluted medicines that cause fewer side effects? How could the coffers of big pharma be sustained? Forget about the Law of Similars. It’s potentization – the process of creating effective ultradilutions – that big pharma is scared of! No wonder Baum and Ernst got the word “potentization” wrong. This one word is the small stone that could take Goliath down.

Of course, homeopaths add fuel to the fire. The fundamental philosophy of homeopathy implies that the primary tools of allopathy are harmful. In particular, homeopaths believe that suppressing symptoms with anti-pathic drugs – drugs that oppose the symptoms of a disease rather than mimic them – cannot cure and can even do harm. If a symptom is suppressed – for example, if a seasonal allergy is suppressed by an antihistamine – it is only temporarily palliated.

A patient still has allergic tendencies and his or her symptoms will eventually return. That’s why suppressive drugs must be taken again and again. And of course, big pharma loves that! It’s good for business.

Deceptive Cures

Unfortunately, if a substance succeeds in completely suppressing a symptom, there may be an illusion of “cure,” but the real result is more sinister. Another key tenet of homeopathy is that the true result of suppression is a deepening of the underlying disease state – because the energy of the disease is now forced to manifest in a more serious way.

That’s why repeated application of cortisone cream to eczema can lead to asthma. That’s why the suppression of arthritis pain can lead to heart disease. That’s why teenagers who take acne drugs sometimes develop suicidal depression.

Doctors call this phenomenon a “side effect” or a “natural disease progression.” But that’s because they don’t understand the effects of suppression or the signs of true cure.

Over the past two hundred years, homeopaths have discovered that homeopathic medicines – drugs that mimic a person’s symptoms rather than oppose them – can lead to genuine cure of chronic disease, not mere palliation or suppression. Rather than creating a deeper disease, a homeopathic medicine that is similar to a patient’s disease can not only cure it, but reveal previously suppressed layers of disease that can be treated too.

That’s why good homeopathic treatment can often cure asthma – and also reveal and treat previously suppressed eczema. That’s why it has the potential to cure arthritis and chronic bladder infections, not simply palliate them with endless medications. Indeed, homeopathy can effectively treat acute diseases like influenza and bacterial infections too. With its ability to successfully treat both chronic and acute disease with low-cost medicines, homeopathy really could be a threat to big pharma, given half a chance.

Ideal for Poor Countries or Rich Ones with Declining Economies

Poor countries with less access to expensive drugs have already discovered this. That’s why homeopathy is the second most widespread form of medicine in the world. In India, homeopathy is a full-fledged medical system with its own medical schools and hospitals. Homeopaths in India successfully treat the full range of diseases, including AIDS, cancer, and malaria.

In Cuba, a poor country with a health care system that often does better than our own, homeopathy is being used more and more. In 2008, 2.5 million Cubans were given a homeopathic remedy to prevent Leptospirosis, an infectious disease also known as swamp fever.

This disease has plagued the country for several years in the aftermath of flooding, but the year in which homeopathy was used, in contrast to previous years, there were no fatalities and very few cases of the disease [15].

But here’s the rub. Homeopathy is harder to practice than allopathy. There are no cookie-cutter cures, especially for chronic disease. (Luckily, however, effective treatment of epidemic diseases like the flu is easier; see Resources.) Each patient’s health pattern is unique, so each patient must be treated as an individual.

A homeopath must find a single remedy (among thousands of possible homeopathic remedies) whose associated symptoms match those of the patient – not just their main complaint, but their entire symptom picture that includes emotional, mental, behavioral, as well as the physical symptoms of the entire body. It’s a daunting task. A practitioner who practices classical homeopathy (the kind of homeopathy I advocate) typically needs at least two hours for an initial case interview and may spend just as long deciding upon a remedy.

And sometimes it takes a homeopath several tries to find just the right remedy – the one that homeopaths call the simillimum. This process also requires patients to engage in their own treatment, because symptoms are gathered not by machines or by using tests, but through direct communication between patient and homeopath.

Of course, this is not something big pharma, conventional doctors, or insurance companies would be happy about. No expensive medicines or tests or equipment needed? No five-minute appointments reimbursed at $300 a shot? A medical system that requires long appointments, time for case analysis, and patients who must participate in the healing process? Not very lucrative.

How I Broke Out of the Mold and Reliance on Failed Medical Therapies

Of course, I used to be a lover of conventional medicine like most people. Back in the early 1990s, my husband Steve Rubin and I were both computer researchers in Silicon Valley and followed our doctors’ instructions obediently, loading our kids up with every recommended vaccine on schedule. Our allopathic trance began to break in 1994 when our 3-year-old son Max began to show signs of autism.

I first read about homeopathy in the January 1995 issue of Mothering Magazine, which contained an article about the successful homeopathic treatment of ADD and other children’s behavioral problems [16]. Steve and I decided to give it a try and found a practitioner in our area. Within a week we began to see small and subtle improvement in Max – improvement that became a slow and steady trend. After two years of treatment, he was testing normally and was released from eligibility for special education benefits.

His speech and language therapist told the county representative that she had never seen an autistic child recover like Max had, and she fully credited homeopathy for his recovery. By the time he was eight, nearly all signs of Max’s autism were gone. Today he is 18, a freshman at a leading university, completely autism free, and without restrictions of any kind.

Needless to say, this experience was both mind-boggling and life-transforming. I began to study homeopathy myself and ultimately wrote what became the best-selling patient education book in the USA – Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy [17] – a comprehensive introduction to homeopathic history, philosophy, science, and experience, sprinkled with dozens first-person cure stories for a variety of ailments, along with a chapter about Max’s cure.

In the end, I left my work in computer science and devoted myself to letting others know about the healing powers of homeopathy. I got involved in the successful campaign for health freedom legislation in California too [18]. Steve also got involved and developed the National Vaccine Information Center’s online interface to the VAERS database [19] (the CDC’s public record of vaccine injuries). I guess Max’s healing led us both to become alternative medicine activists, and we haven’t looked back.

Conclusion

So why not take a look at homeopathy for yourself? Make it your New Year’s resolution to find a good classical practitioner and to learn more about this amazing medical modality. The skeptics manage to create a lot of smoke in an effort to hide homeopathy from public view. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Find out about how this powerful healing system – a system that packs a lot of firepower into an infinitesimal punch – can help you and your family.

Resources

(1) Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy – www.impossiblecure.com.

This website includes: book ordering information; autism help page; free archive of Amy’s show on AutismOne Radio – There’s Hope with Homeopathy; Cure Stories Database; helpful links.

(2) National Center for Homeopathy – www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org.

Leading open-membership organization for homeopathy in the USA that organizes the yearly national conference. Membership buys a quarterly magazine, Homeopathy Today, monthly eNewsetter, online chats with leading experts, extensive online resources and social network. Website includes many free resources, including practitioner and resource referrals lists and flu treatment information.

References

[1] Baum, Michael and Edzard Ernst, “Should We Maintain an Open Mind about Homeopathy?” The American Journal of Medicine, Vol. 122, No. 11, pp. 973-974 (November 2009).

[2] Shang, A. et al. “Are the Clinical Effects of Homeopathy Placebo Effects? Comparative Study of Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homeopathy and Allopathy,” The Lancet, 366, pp. 726-732 (2005).

An extensive refutation of the results of this study, including statistical analyses and evidence of foul-play, can be found here

[3] Linde, K. et al. “Are the Clinical Effects of Homoeopathy Placebo Effects? A Meta-Analysis of Placebo-Controlled Trials,” The Lancet, 250, pp. 834-843 (1997).

[4] Kleijnen, J. et al. “Clinical Trials of Homeopathy,” British Medical Journal, 302, pp. 316-323 (1991).

[5] Jacobs, J. et al. “Treatment of Acute Childhood Diarrhea with Homeopathic Medicine: A Randomized Clinical Trial in Nicaragua,” Pediatrics, Vol. 83, No. 5, pp. 719-725 (1994).

[6] Bell, I.R. et al. “Improved Clinical Status in Fibromyalgia Patients Treated with Individualized Homeopathic Remedies Versus Placebo,” Rheumatology, 2004b; 43 (5):577-82.

[7] Taylor, M.A. et al. “Randomised Controlled Trial of Homoeopathy Versus Placebo in Perennial Allergic Rhinitis with Overview of Four Trial Series,” British Medical Journal, 321, pp. 471-476 (2000).

[8] For more trials, see www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org (under Articles, click Research).

[9] Rao, et al. “The Defining Role of Structure (Including Epitaxy) in the Plausibility of Homeopathy,” Homeopathy, 96, pp. 175-182 (2007).

[10] Rao, et. Al. “Characterization of the Structure of Ultra Dilute Sols with Remarkable Biological Properties,” Materials Letters, Vol. 62, Issues 10-11, pp. 1487-1490 (2008).

[11] Davenas, et al. “Human Basophil Degranulation Triggered by Very Dilute Antiserum Againt IgE,” Nature, Vol. 333, No. 6176, pp. 816-818 (1988).

[12] Aissa, J. et al. “Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by Telephone Link,” Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 99:S175 (1997).

[13] Brown, V. and M. Ennis. “Flow-Cytometric Analysis of Basophil Activation: Inhibition by Histamine at Conventional and Homeopathic Concentrations,” Inflammation Research, 50, Supplement (2), S47-S48 (2001).

[14] Montagnier, Luc, et al. “Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences,” Insterdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci, 1:81-90 (2009).

[15] http://homeopathyresource.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/successful-use-of-homeopathy-in-over-5-million-people-reported-from-cuba/

[16] Reichenberg-Ullman, J. “A Homeopathic Approach to Behavioral Problems,” Mothering, Number 74, pp. 97-101 (1995).

[17] Lansky, Amy. Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy. R.L. Ranch Press (2003).

[18] www.californiahealthfreedom.com.

[19]www.medalerts.org.

About the Author

Amy L. Lansky, PhD was a Silicon Valley computer scientist when her life was transformed by the miraculous homeopathic cure of her son’s autism. In April 2003 she published Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy, one of the best-selling books on homeopathy in the USA (www.impossiblecure.com).

Amy is an executive board member of the National Center for Homeopathy (www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org). She speaks and writes internationally about homeopathy and hosts a monthly radio show on Autism One Radio (www.autismone.org).

Related Links:

Ever Wonder Why Homeopathy Works?

New Evidence Supports Science Behind Homeopathy

Mother Describes Her Son's Cure From Autism in "Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy”

FDA dupes Interpol to achieve illegal kidnapping and deportation of herbal formulator Greg Caton

2009-12-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

See http://www.naturalnews.com/027750_Greg_Caton_FDA.html for another report on how the US authorities are twisting the law to their own ends to illegally extradite from another country (Ecuador in this case) a harmless US citizen who was selling proven cancer curing herbal remedies. The reach of Big Pharma (aka the Evil Empire) through its surrogates in the US administration is international.

One more good reason for the next UK Government to cancel the current extradition agreement with the US which was ludicrously applied recently to Gary McKinnon, the hacker searching for information on UFOs on US Army and Pentagon computers. And no wonder that more and more people across the world feel that the USA authorities have lost the plot on most everything they touch nowadays.

Officials cover up wind farm noise report

2009-12-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

An informative article at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6954565.ece

"Civil servants have suppressed warnings that wind turbines can generate noise damaging people’s health for several square miles around.

The guidance from consultants indicated that the sound level permitted from spinning blades and gearboxes had been set so high — 43 decibels — that local people could be disturbed whenever the wind blew hard. The noise was also thought likely to disrupt sleep.

The report said the best way to protect locals was to cut the maximum permitted noise to 38 decibels, or 33 decibels if the machines created discernible “beating” noises as they spun.

It has now emerged that officials removed the warnings from the draft report in 2006 by Hayes McKenzie Partnership (HMP), the consultants. The final version made no mention of them.

It means that hundreds of turbines at wind farms in Britain have been allowed to generate much higher levels of noise, sparking protests from people living near them."

Gardasil triggers MS symptoms in Australia

2009-12-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

Remember my 13th Oct Post about the possible risks of Gardasil -
"I think there's a strong possibility that Gardasil was the catalyst that set off the ALS [Lou Gehrig's Disease]," Dr Harper says. "It could have been the straw that broke the camel's back in a child who was already predisposed to the condition."

Well now, consider this at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26476824-5003426,00.html.

"THE cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil has triggered multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms in some girls after being inoculated.

Doctors said the victims were either teenagers or women in their early 20s who may have been predisposed to MS or who had a prior history of symptoms.

St Vincent's Hospital neurologist Dr Ian Sutton reported five cases in a journal article in January. Another five have since emerged.

"Gardasil vaccination is not the cause of MS; whether or not it was a trigger for episodes of inflammation in the brain in these rare cases is unclear," Dr Sutton said.

All cases were in women aged under 26, the target group of a vaccination program that began in 2007.

Symptoms began within three weeks of vaccination and lasted from weeks to months.

"We have raised the question: has the vaccine modified what may have occurred anyway or just been an additional trigger?" Dr Sutton said.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) last week said six million doses of Gardasil – created by scientist and former Australian of the Year Ian Frazer – had been distributed in Australia, and 1476 suspected adverse reactions had been reported to the regulator.

"The TGA is also aware of a small number of cases in which neurological symptoms, similar to those experienced in patients with a dedemyelinating disorder such as multiple sclerosis, have been reported shortly after HPV (human papillomavirus vaccination)," the regulator said.

The cases involving neurological symptoms have been investigated by an independent panel.

The vaccine has been tested on more than 30,000 women worldwide, its manufacturer CSL said.

"In spite of reports of some neurological symptoms occurring after vaccination, when those have been investigated no causative relationship with the vaccine has been determined," company spokeswoman Rachel David said.

You will need to take that last sentence with more than just a pinch of salt. Even where adverse reactions including death occur on the same day as the giving of a vaccine shot, manufacturers will typically say the two can't be linked until there are so many such reactions that their denials become so absurd that the regulators are forced to step in and call a halt to more vaccinations. Sadly for many parents the regulators ALWAYS step in too late. Remember the 500 who contracted Guillain Barre paralysis and neurological defects after the disastrous 1976 swine flu vaccine in the USA? That vaccine programme was stopped too late.

GP Dr Tim Robinson - why Homeopathy works in my practice

2009-12-12T05:18:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post the letter below from GP Dr Tim Robinson for some time. It was published on www.pulsetoday.co.uk a few months back and has of course brought the usual cabal of homeopathy's critics out of the woodwork to criticise him for doing something which works for his patients.

Good for him. He follows in the line of many doctors through the last 200 years who have incorporated whatever elements of natural medicine work for them into their practices.

Homeopathy doesn't poison people and its remedies have gently cured millions of people of their ailments for over 200 years. Conventional Medicine, so-called, sadly too often harms those it seeks to treat and its proponents have too large a share of information control in health matters. We are unlikely to change their minds. In the words of Ogden Nash "I cannot help mentioning that the door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly." However, we should continue to try and ensure that our fellow humans have the right in return for the taxes they pay to full, undistorted information on health matters, freedom from coercion, and the right to choose the treatments they believe will help them best where these are economically possible.

Dr Tim Robinson's letter:

"I have been incorporating homeopathy into my general practice for almost 15 years.

I have found homeopathy effective as an alternative to conventional medicine for problems in all the systems: respiratory, digestive, skeletal, hormonal, skin and mental/emotional health. It is also extremely useful in situations in which conventional medicine is ineffective or non-existent such as bruising, recurrent cold sores, chilblains, leg cramps, glandular fever, growing pains, teething, infantile colic and children with bedwetting and sleep problems.

Incorporating homeopathy into my general practice has also reduced my referral rate to secondary care, as well as saved my drug budget. Along with these advantages I believe that I have benefited through dealing with my heart-sink patients more effectively. Homeopathy has enhanced my communication skills and resulted in a greater ability to connect with my patients.

The provision of a homeopathic service in routine general practice is very straightforward. As with all consultations the patient presents their particular problem or set of symptoms from which I make a diagnosis and decide upon a management plan for the case. If I consider homeopathic treatment is an appropriate, safe and valid alternative I offer my patient the choice at that point.

I usually point out that although we homeopaths don’t yet know how it works, years of homeopathic experience support its effectiveness. When I am offering the homeopathic choice I back it up with the fact that it won’t do any harm and if it doesn’t work we still have conventional medicine to fall back upon. Patients are usually receptive to this and grateful for the choice.

Homeopathic prescribing is perfectly possible within the standard 10 minute GP consultation time. The prescription is usually based upon one of a number of possible prescribing strategies. For example some specific conditions respond to specific medicines, such as Arnica for bruising or Cocculus for car sickness. I may also prescribe on ‘local’ features of a condition i.e. those features that are individual to the case, for example joint pains that are better for heat and movement (Rhus Tox rather than Bryonia).

Homeopathy has received a lot of slating over the last few years. Our critics discredit homeopathy by saying that patients improve (yes, they admit they do improve) because of long and repeated consultations. As I have described, my homeopathic consultations are mostly seen within standard 10 minute GP appointments. The additional psychotherapeutic effect that can be gained from long consultations does not apply in this situation.

I audited my homeopathic prescribing over a year and demonstrated the wide range of conditions that homeopathy can be prescribed for (1). I assessed the outcomes from the homeopathic treatments by scoring the degree of improvement. I was pleased to find that 78% of those patients treated noted an improvement. These results support the use of homeopathy within my NHS general practice. It was also pleasing to find that this improvement was of the same magnitude as other outcomes studies performed in homeopathic hospital outpatient clinics. (2, 3, 4, 5)

Despite the consistency between these independent outcomes studies, the sceptics are still unconvinced. It is often said in the media that there are no clinical trials in homeopathy that show a positive effect. This is simply untrue. A total of 138 randomised controlled clinical trials have been done, in 71 different medical conditions – 60 had a positive outcome, 68 weren’t statistically conclusive and only 10 were negative. We openly admit that the medicines are often so dilute there are none of the original molecules left in it but how do you explain that these same medicines have a measurable effect in laboratory experiments with allergy response blood components? (6,7)

The sceptics also claim that patients improve (yes, they still state that they improve!) because we only treat conditions that get better on their own with no treatment. Those of us who have been treating patients with homeopathy for long enough will know that we successfully treat many long-term conditions that have previously shown no sign of improvement over long periods of time.

We are also accused of deliberately misleading our patients; as I described earlier, I deliberately tell my patients that we don’t understand how homeopathy works and leave it to them to decide between conventional and homeopathic treatment.

My final annoyance with the sceptics is that they accuse us of being dangerous and treating inappropriately by discouraging childhood immunisation and recommending homeopathic vaccination. Members of the Faculty of Homeopathy are all statutorily registered healthcare professionals who operate within very clear policy guidelines which unequivocally advocate conventional medical immunisation.

The Faculty of Homeopathy offers training at various levels, the first of which is a short course leading to the Primary Health Care Examination. Passing this exam enables you to join the Faculty as a Licensed Associate and to use basic homeopathy in your general practice.

In an ideal world there would be even greater provision of homeopathic treatment in the GP setting. I know that it would bring great benefits to our patients, ease the NHS drug bill and pressure on hospital services. It would also increase the enjoyment and effectiveness of practising as a GP; the quality of life of all parties involved would be enriched.

For more information about training in homeopathy, go to www.facultyofhomeopathy.org"

References:
1. Robinson TW. Responses to homeopathic treatment in National Health Service general practice. Homeopathy 2006; 95: 9–14.
2. Spence D, Thompson E, Barron S. Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: a 6-year university hospital based outpatient observational study. J Altern Complement Med 2005; 5: 793–8.
3. Clover A. Patient benefit survey: Tunbridge Wells Homoeopathic Hospital. British Homeopathic Journal, 2000; 89: 68–7.
4. Richardson WR. Patient benefit survey: Liverpool Regional Department of Homoeopathic Medicine. British Homeopathic Journal, 2001; 90: 158–162.
5. Sharples F, van Haselen R, Fisher P. NHS patients’ perspective on complementary medicine. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2003; 11: 243–248.
6. Belon P, Cumps J, Ennis M, et al. Histamine dilutions modulate basophil activation. Inflammation Research, 2004; 53: 181–188.
7. Chirumbolo S, Brizzi M, Ortolani R, Vella A, Bellavite P. Inhibition of CD203c membrane up-regulation in human basophils by high dilutions of histamine: a controlled replication study. Inflammation Research, 2009: e-published, 6 May.

Tamiflu - will our Government get the taxpayers money back?

2009-12-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

At http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912u/tamiflu

"This week, the British medical journal BMJ published a multi-part investigation that confirms that the scientific evidence just isn’t there to show that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu. The BMJ goes further to suggest that Roche, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians ................

Nancy Cox, who heads the US Centre for Disease Control’s flu program, told us earlier this year she opposes a placebo-controlled study (in which one half of patients would be given Tamiflu and the other half would be given placebo), because the drug’s benefits are already proven. [Comment: Oops! Take a look again at those "not-independent" tests, Nancy]

There are a couple of take-home messages here. One is pretty obvious: Tamiflu may not be doing much good for patients with the flu who take it, and it might be causing harm. The more important issue, however, involves the need for trust in science and medicine. Governments, public health agencies, and international bodies such as the World Health Organization, have all based their decisions to recommend and stockpile Tamiflu on studies that had seemed independent, but had in fact been funded by the company and were authored almost entirely by Roche employees or paid academic consultants. So did the Cochrane Collaboration, at least in its earlier assessments of Tamiflu. Millions of flu patients have taken the drug as a result.

That trust appears to have been misplaced, and a drug touted as beneficial on the basis of flimsy evidence has by now become so entrenched that no one appears willing to conduct the sort of study needed to prove whether or not it can, in fact, save lives."

And, to remind us, from http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_bird_flu.htm

* CLAIM: "Do you know who bought the patent for Tamiflu from ROCHE LABORATORIES in 1996? GILEAD SCIENCES INC."

GARBLED. Gilead Sciences, Inc. discovered Tamiflu in the early 1990s and still holds the patent. Gilead licensed development and marketing rights to Roche in 1996.
* CLAIM: "Do you know who was the then president of GILEAD SCIENCES INC. and remains a major shareholder? DONALD RUMSFELD, the present Secretary of Defence of the USA."

TRUE. According to Fortune magazine, Rumsfeld was Gilead's chairman from 1997 to 2001. It's unknown exactly how many shares he still owns in the company, but the value of his holdings is estimated at between $5 million and $25 million.
* CLAIM: Sales of Tamiflu were over $254 million in 2004 and more than $1 billion in 2005?

ROUGHLY ACCURATE. According to Forbes magazine, Tamiflu sales totalled $258 million in 2004 and were projected to exceed $1 billion in 2005.

GSK Pandemrix swine flu vaccine

2009-12-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

The Patient Information Leaflet, and the notices on the MHRA website http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Safetyinformation/Swinefluinformation/index.htm were changed at the end of last week after reports that (too many) young children were experiencing fever after having the second shot of the two shot Pandemrix vaccine.

The advice now is that children between 6 months and 10 years should only get a single half dose of the vaccine (0.25ml). The one exception is that those in this group who have an impaired immune system get two half doses 3 weeks apart!

Babies under 6 months are not vaccinated, and children over 10 years and adults get a single full dose of 0.5ml, unless they have an impaired immune system when they get 2 such doses.

This logic follows the old rule for vaccines that if the immune system is sluggish and doesn’t produce enough antibodies the first time, you have to have a second go to get the count up otherwise the whole exercise would have been pointless since inadequate immunity would have been gained.

There is however another more commonsense approach, namely that if the body’s immune system is impaired it is unwise to gratuitously shoot additional toxins into it while it is in that state. Too obvious perhaps?

Pandemrix contains

Adjuvant: AS03 to stimulate a better response. This adjuvant contains squalene (10.69 milligrams), DL-a-tocopherol (11.86 milligrams) and polysorbate 80 (4.86 milligrams).

It also contains:
polysorbate 80 (Tween 80)
octoxynol 10
thimerosal (mercury)
sodium chloride
disodium hydrogen phosphate
potassium dihydrogen phosphate
potassium chloride
magnesium chloride
and maybe like most vaccines some things (contaminants) which are hard to detect?

Wikipedia and other sources reveal the following on some of the above ingredients: Polysorbate 80 is a suspected skin and sense organ toxin. Thimerosal is a recognised developmental toxin and a suspected immune, kidney, skin and sense organ toxin. Disodium hydrogen phosphate is an anticaking agent. Potassium dihydrogen phosphate is a soluble salt which is used as a fertilizer, a food additive and a fungicide. It is a source of phosphorus and potassium. Potassium chloride is used in medicine, scientific applications, food processing and in judicial execution through lethal injection. Octoxynol 10, a detergent, apparently typically contains traces of the toxins ethylene oxide, dioxane, C9 phenols, or glycol ether. Detergents and emulsifiers promote tumors and cause cells to leak or explode by weakening their walls, with no mechanism for regulating destructive activity. Detergents are used extensively in cell research precisely because of their ability to break cells open for further analysis.

Well, call me Mr Suspicious, but after that little roll call, I’d prefer an organic bacon sandwich.

Surely a time for banding together, not continuing, as some in ConMed are doing, to argue for a complete monopoly

2009-12-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

2009 will be the worst year for the UK economy since comparable records began in 1948. A 4.75 percent contraction is worse, even, than the worst year of the Great Depression.

It has already struck many of those I talk to that against this background Government should be identifying savings from day to day - not waiting until the outcome of the next General Election.

Saving the millions being spent on the useless swine flu vaccine would be a healthy start. A small portion of the money saved could be used to pay for a homeopathic trial - say 100,000 members of the public to be given free a homeopathic swine flu prophylactic and the same number to have the swine flu vaccine. Both groups to be monitored for a number of years for catching swine flu, side effects etc. Each group to be told what they were receiving. None of this double blind nonsense. If placebo helps one approach better than the other, we all want to know about that. May the best approach win! Judging by what happened in Cuba with the anti-leptospirosis campaign, I don't have to be a bookie to calculate which side would have the best odds....

Swine Flu - How many are likely to die or have other severe adverse reactions?

2009-12-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

It’s been clear for some time that only a fraction of reported H1N1 (swine flu) cases actually are H1N1. Indeed the UK stopped routinely testing all those who reported flu type symptoms back in July so the (probably small) numbers of those actually contracting full blown swine flu are simply not known. Most apparently have just respiratory infections due to other causes. In the US this has been definitively established by Freedom of Information Act requests from individual state authorities when the responsible Government body, the CDC, refused to respond.

So what’s the downside for all those presenting themselves for the swine flu jab? A lot of people might assume that the worst a person could suffer from the vaccine is a sore arm and perhaps a headache or a general feeling of tiredness. Sadly, not so. Severe reactions can include anaphylactic reactions eg severe allergies, convulsions or coma, life altering disabilities such as Guillain Barre neurological disease, and death.

Apparently GSK’s pre-marketing clinical tests show severe reactions in four cases out of 253 people tested, though GSK argue that they think only one of those was vaccine-related. But even 1 out of 253 equals 395 severe adverse reactions in every 100,000 people or 3,950 in every million people! And if they are wrong and the 4 out of 53 is nearer the mark, that equals 15,800 people out of a million. Had they succeeded in getting the Government to jab, say, half the UK population ie 31 million, we could have been looking at between 122,000 and 489,000 severe adverse reactions for the NHS and families of those affected to deal with - just from having the vaccine! All this for a strain of flu which has been described as turning out to have been "milder than seasonal flu".

Did the Government prepare us for this, and did it guess what additional severe adverse reactions might have occurred if many of those vaccinated had already had an ordinary seasonal flu jab which itself could have at least temporarily compromised the human immune system?

The answer is NO. Nobody knows what the cumulative effect of that scenario could be because we are all participating, if we accept these jabs, as guinea pigs in a massive test the true outcome of will be quite unknown for many years down the track as there is no accepted test for deciding to what extent a human’s immune system has been damaged by a vaccine.

The nearest we can get to answering that is to ask the homeopaths. They can treat those who have “never been well since (having a specific vaccine)” with the potentised and highly diluted nosode of that same vaccine, and when the adverse symptoms of a significant proportion of these individuals disappear or are ameliorated by this treatment, then they would conclude that the vaccine was indeed the cause of the pathology treated.

With deaths and serious adverse effects from vaccines made by different manufacturers already being reported from around the world - see http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/05/Swine-Flu-Shot-Side-Effects-Beginning-to-Take-Their-Toll.aspx - Sweden, Japan, China, France, US, why aren’t our media giving the UK public all these facts and assisting debate around the wisdom or otherwise of accepting the swine flu vaccine? Is it to do with money?

The media have made hay during the financial crisis, blaming those on big bonuses working for the banks, and MPS for troughing at the public's expense. If the DIEs (disease inducing effects) figures from swine flu vaccination turn out to be anything like the numbers referred to above, it will be the media's turn to hang their heads in shame, and pay whatever price the public demands, for their inertia when presented in advance by so many of us with the information that this pandemic was "manufactured", and the reasons why the swine flu vaccine should never have been inflicted on us.

Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generic Drugs Off the Market

2009-12-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Just when you think you’ve heard all the wheezes that some pharmaceutical companies get up to to ensure that conventional medicine continues to buy their expensive products, along comes another one. This report comes from http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/blog/2009/12/04/drug-makers-paying-off-competitors-to-keep-cheap-generics-off-market/ .

Over the last few years, some drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we’ll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

So common have these deals become lately that they’ve been given a name: pay-for-delay. The approach — a textbook anti-competitive tactic — is worth billions to drug-makers, because it essentially allows them to buy more protection than their patent confers.

That was made more or less explicit by Frank Balsino, the CEO of Cephalon, which makes the sleep-disorder drug Provigil. In a 2006 interview, Baldino trumpeted recent deals with four generic drug-makers that kept generic versions of Provigil off the market until 2012, declaring: “We were able to get six more years of patent protection. That’s $4 billion in sales that no one expected.”

But pay-for-delay doesn’t work out nearly so well for consumers. Generics are sometimes priced as much as 80 or 90 percent cheaper than the name brands. For instance, the cholesterol drug Zocor costs $164 a month, while a generic version costs just $12 a month. Pay-for-delay deals will cost consumers an extra $35 billion over the next decade, by keeping those cheaper generics off the market, according to a recent Federal Trade Commission study. And it’s the uninsured, who pay out-of-pocket for drugs, that disproportionately pay those costs. In the UK, it would indirectly be every taxpayer who funds the NHS, or those going private.

The Federal Trade Commission is belatedly looking into this practice and hoping to get a ruling from the Supreme Court declaring the deals illegal under existing antitrust law. Meantime, if they wanted them, consumers can’t get cheap drugs.
I would have thought that it would have been a no brainer that the practice was against competition laws, but apparently the point is not settled yet, at least in the US. I wonder which UK companies have made such deals and whether the Office of Fair Trading has made enquiries?

Ads on my blogsite

2009-12-04T06:27:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I haven't found a way to prevent The Evil Empire and Darth Varder from advertising on my blogsite for the very flu jab that my postings have taken care to counsel you to avoid at all costs. I don't get any money from those ads, and I don't want them there anyway - please ignore them!

And those of you in the socalled priority groups eg pregnant women, do avoid the jabs like the plague. Humans were not meant to have killer toxins like squalene, formaldehyde, aluminium, mercury etc jabbed into them, let alone an "attenuated" (maybe dead, maybe not) virus the DIEs (Disease inducing effects) of which can't be adequately tested.

The DIEs of a vaccine may very well take years/decades to appear, like cancer from smoking or liver damage from taking aspirin, and there is NO WAY that any test known to science today, even if it were not by the biased manufacturers themselves, could guarantee that you wouldn't be one of the victims. You can also bet your life that whatever allergy, neurological damage or worse, you get, will (a) be denied as having anything to do with an earlier jab, and (b) you won't get legal aid to sue anybody (this Government has removed that right), and (c) you won't be eligible for even the Govt ex gratia payments available up to £120,000 (they refuse to call it "compensation")for certain vaccine related side effects.

Google the internet for the tragic stories of people suffering from such DIEs before you decide. Surely you wouldn't play Russian roulette with a revolver would you for the uncertain benefit of a year or two only of potential immunity from only one or two strains of a generally mild infection? Ring up your homeopath instead and get them to prescribe you a combination remedy taken from those remedies which have been reported as having helped people avoid or minimise the effects of flu epidemics in the last 100+ years.

PS Have a look at http://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/ for further discussion of DIEs and untested conventional medicine drugs.

Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) Scam Exposed

2009-12-01T02:01:00.000-08:00

1 Downing Street sent this weasel worded "non-reply" to the recent petition below - The real situation is as outlined in the Clarification which follows from the Alliance for Natural Health website - http://www.anhcampaign.org/

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to oppose the adoption of the Codex Alimentarius (WHO/UN) proposals for restriction of the presently freely available herb/vitamin/mineral food supplements.”

Details of Petition:

“The principle of self medication with herbal/vitamin/mineral food supplements would be restricted to ‘prescription only’ status, if the Codex Alimentarius is applied in this country. Since the NHS priorities are ill health diagnosis and treatment, the good health preservation that supplements provide will be inaccessible to the majority of our population and the cost to the NHS will increase, and the health of the population will decline.”

The Government’s response

There are no current or planned Codex Alimentarius proposals that require the UK to change the controls on vitamin and mineral or botanical food supplements.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 to develop food standards and guidelines. One of the main purposes of Codex’s work is to protect the health of consumers. Codex texts and guidelines are not enforceable in law and Codex member countries are not obliged to reflect their requirements in domestic legislation.

In the UK, food supplements are regulated under the European Food Supplements Directive 2002/46/EC which came into effect in the UK in 2003 and has applied since 2005. The Directive is implemented into national UK law by the Food Supplements Regulations (England) 2003. There are no plans to make vitamin and mineral or botanical food supplements available on prescription only.

Herbal remedies are subject to separate controls and are overseen by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority. Herbal remedies do not fall within the scope of Codex guidelines.
An outline of Codex, its activities and the UK’s involvement is available at: www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/Codexbranch/.
----------------------------------

NOW READ THE TRUTH!

Subject: ANH Update: Clarity on Codex confusion

Issue No.31 Monday 30th November 2009
Codex: confusion – or smokescreen?

The British Prime Minister has told more than 60,000 people concerned about the effects of Codex guidelines on food supplements that they shouldn’t be worried. We presume concerned citizens are expected to feel humbled by the wise words of the PM, and should now go about their lives never fretting about Codex again.

The Downing Street petition

As we clarify in our news item on the subject, the Downing Street e-petition to which the PM was responding, was not well worded. But the sentiment in the petition was clear. Being told by the PM not to worry is not only patronising, it also misses the point of people’s concerns that to any thinking person was clearly evident. The petitioners had after all raised the point that the Codex Alimentarius guideline will in due course establish an internationally recognised maximum daily dosage for vitamin and minerals in food supplements. Levels above these are increasingly likely to be viewed as medicinal by governments. The US Food & Drug Administration tells us they wouldn’t dream of implementing the Codex vitamin guideline into US law—but why is the US Codex delegation so intent on nodding this and other nutrition-related guidelines through in cahoots with the European Union?

In some respects, the situation is actually worse than the petitioners claimed, because rather than forcing high dose supplements into a prescription-only category, they force them into medicinal law where such products are likely to be regarded as unlicensed medicines (which are illegal). It will then be down to nutraceutical or pharmaceutical companies to license them. Will companies have either the desire or the financial capability to meet the hugely costly data requirements for drug licensing? Time will tell.

Wider concerns about Codex

What really makes so many people uneasy is the notion that the global food supply is becoming increasingly controlled by a small number of corporations and governments. We have recently updated our Codex pages to explain better to people, in layperson’s terms, how it all works, and why, in some respects, Codex’s remit on vitamins and mineral food supplements is just the thin end of the wedge.

If you’re living in Europe, Codex actually makes little or no difference to your availability of food supplements as this is taken care of by a complex of EU laws, some of which, given the EU’s major influence on the Codex Committee on Nutrition, provide templates for Codex. Some of the key areas to be very concerned about include Codex’s role in approving technologies that are either downright dangerous or create unparalleled damage to the environment. These include endorsing genetically modified (GM) crops, pesticides, food irradiation and the use of synthetic chemical additives in foods.

The most recent issue of The Economist tells us that investment in agriculture has declined relentlessly over the last 25 years. Yet we are meant to feed a population that is expected to grow by another third by 2030 and hit an estimated 9 billion by 2050. And we’re expected to not be worrying about the quality of our food and our access to concentrated sources of nutrients (food/dietary supplements) to make up for its inadequacies? It’s no wonder the UK PM’s friends in the biotech industry are rubbing their hands—they are telling governments they can do the magic, just like they did with the Green Revolution of the 1970s. Successes like this, say expert’s like ANH’s Robert Verkerk, are “unrepeatable” and were in any event far from always the successes they were claimed to be. Trying to make such promises today, armed with the tools of genetic modification is in our view a recipe for disaster.

What you can do

A lot of people rightly feel very frustrated about the difficulty of impacting Codex. Many of us are simply not willing to take the British PM’s advice and stop worrying. There is just not enough trust in the small number of governments and corporations that are wrestling control of the global food supply. Codex and the World Trade Organization have become key tools in the process.

Find out what you can do as an individual. We urge you to not take the advice of the British PM and do nothing!

Read on for other recent news stories:

Downing Street ignores weight of public concern over Codex
ANH clarifies UK Prime Minister's Office response to recent Downing Street Petition over Codex concerns Read More
EC scientific committee ‘unqualified for task’ say international medical doctors group
Irish campaign group VOICE issues press release over fluoride risks to Irish children Read More
ANH Press Release: Food supplement ban in 2010 may contravene EU law
ANH raises serious concerns over planned ban on vitamin and mineral food supplements across the EU in January 2010 Read More
UK herbalists threatened by Government inaction over statutory regulation
Herbalists urged to respond to Government Consultation before November 16th Read More

Our Campaigns Get Involved Donate Now Contact us http://www.anhcampaign.org/

© Alliance for Natural Health, The Atrium, Curtis Road, Dorking, Surrey RH4 1XA, United Kingdom www.anhcampaign.org
Alliance for Natural Health, The Atrium, Curtis Road, Dorking, Surrey RH4 1XA, United Kingdom

Obama's America - video of old man being tasered for warning against swine flu vaccination

2009-11-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

From: Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby's Total Health Newsletter #27. Week ending Nov 22nd, 2009 http://www.letterfromserendipity.com/serendipity27.htm

"You may not know that in August in the USA (weeks before the swine flu outbreak) a microbiologist called Joseph Moshe went public and stated that the Baxter vaccine lab in the Ukraine was a cover for a bioweapons facility and that a deliberate virulent plague would be released (this is documented). If you doubt it, then why was Moshe gassed, tazered and dragged off the streets of Los Angeles, with absurd accusations that he threatened to blow up the White House?

You know that official media are lying, covering up and saying nothing factual about this terrifying story. It's almost impossible to know what is going on. I'm not a born-again conspiracist but there has been something that doesn't add up with the H1N1 (swine flu) story, right from day one. The viral strain was an anomoly. This new "mutation" could be just a natural event; but if it is, how come Joseph Moshe knew of it beforehand and was taken out by troops with armoured cars, EMF weapons, tazers etc.?

One thing is for sure: the USA is in the grip of marshal law under President Obama, whether it is admitted publicly or not. One wrong move that the adminstration sees as a threat to its propaganda lies and you disappear from the streets; shades of Argentina, Chile and the Third Reich!

In the last 4 years, no less than 81 scientists have met suspicious deaths. Moshe was fully aware of this and it appears that he was attempting to try to make his way to safety by escaping to the Israeli consulate when he was taken out.

Mainstream media has all but erased the incident, which in itself adds to the suspicion concerning the Moshe story, and the outbreak in the Ukraine.

Start your investigation with this series of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQoO3qoFME&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A66kx0KYFCA "

10 Downing Street Vaccination Test Petition - Please Sign

2009-11-25T13:00:00.000-08:00

At the website address given below a petition has been presented which it would be difficult to believe anyone in this country could disagree with i.e every vaccine should be properly tested for safety before anyone gets jabbed with it; not the rushed, pseudo tests done by the manufacturers themselves which are always suspect because of the billions of pounds riding on the results. So, hopefully, millions will sign this petition.

Subject: Vaccination petition

Hi, i would like to inform you of a petition underway at 10 Downing
Street (link below) to initiate an independent scientific study of the
immediate, short-term and long-term effects of these vaccine injections into
the human body. It is the duty and responsibility of every citizen in the
United Kingdom to see that this study is carried out, and should have been
before we began to administer these injections into the men, women and
children of this nation.

Yours Faithfully

Robert Mcandrew Binnie

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/VaccineEducation/

The Petition is accompanied by the following paragraph.

There is NO scientific proof anywhere in the world that mercury, aluminium, formaldehyde and other toxic substances used in vaccines prevent or combat the diseases they are administered for. On the contrary, there is a mass of scientific proof that these substances are extremely harmful to the human body and also some evidence to suggest that some of these vaccine ingredients, by being injected directly into the bloodstream, can change the DNA/RNA itself, which not only affects your health but would affect the health of your children and their children. It is the duty and responsibility of all United Kingdom Citizens and especially the doctors who administer these injections to be FULLY 100% satisfied that these vaccines are SAFE and do the job they were intended to do, and this can only be done with a scientific analysis independent from the billion dollar vaccine companies themselves.

You Know Best

2009-11-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

When you find yourself being told by Someone Very Knowledgeable that Something Is or Isn't True, or is Good For You or For The Country - that Someone possibly being a Member of the Government, a "Scientist", a Bureaucrat, or a Journalist writing for The Guardian - just recite to yourself first the lines of the wellknown poem before taking what they say as gospel. You are likely to find thereafter, with perhaps the smallest amount of reading, or research on the internet, that you're the one who knows best and they were talking twaddle!

BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

by John Godfrey Saxe

Even Rats prefer Organic Food!

2009-11-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

The next time you find yourself in a debate about which tastes better (organic or non organic foods - if it's still debatable), and which is better for you, you can mention that even rats prefer organic food. In a study involving organic wheat production, researchers gave lab rats the choice between organic and non organic wheat. The rats preferred the former. Because of similar chemical compositions between the wheat, the Swiss and Austrian scientists found it remarkable that the rats could tell the difference. Furthermore the rodents were much more apt at telling the difference than humans were.

For more info on this see
http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/blog/2009/11/23/even-rats-prefer-organic-food/

Thumbs down in France for swine flu vaccine

2009-11-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

France has apparently only been able to convince 0.1 percent of their population to get vaccinated. As of November 5, only 50,000 Frenchmen had lined up for the swine flu shot since the beginning of their campaign, out of a population of 65 million. And only 10 percent of health care workers have received the vaccine. How long will it take Brits to get the message?

See http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/17/Obama-Administration-Launches-Deceptive-Swine-Flu-Propaganda-Blitz.aspx

Wind Turbine power. What a nonsense!

2009-11-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

I like to think I am openminded in terms of alternative energy sources such as wind and wave and solar power but when Mr Millionaire Dave Vince's company Ecotricity applied for planning permission to stonk wind turbines along the top of the hill opposite us the deluge of information which the locals dug up showing that wind turbines just aren't worth the taxpayers money convinced me to cross at least that energy source off my Vote For list. Ecotricity's application was eventually rejected, but they are now wasting all our time again by applying for another windfarm on a nearby site outside Gillingham in Dorset.

It is high time that SOMEONE IN GOVERNMENT WITH SOME COMMONSENSE (is there anyone?) called a moratorium on wind farm applications. Here are two articles from those who know their facts.

COMMENT ON RADIO "FARMING TODAY "

Emailed to BBC 12.11.09 by Alan Shaw DEng(Hon) BSc CEng MIET

Thank you for these interesting programmes. It is quite obvious that the wayleave rentals per wind turbine are an offer that few farmers can resist accepting. Also the developers, who retain the ownership of the wind turbine , obtain huge profits from the electricity they sell to the National Grid. Neither farmer nor developer can lose. Thus support for the government's windfarm promotion policy is assured.

Unfortunately wind turbine output is entirely dependent on wind speed , unpredictable, variable and strongest in the far north and west of Scotland while the UK main demand for electricity is below a line between the Humber and the Bristol Channel. Thus huge costs are incurred in building new overhead and underground transmission lines and in reinforcing relevant existing lines to convey outlying wind power to demand centres.

But UK total demand for electricity in the whole UK system must be balanced exactly by generation at every second of the day. A shortfall causes system frequency , normally maintained at 50 cycles per second , to fall, slowing down electric motors nationally. Excess generation causes frequency to rise causing motor overspeed.

Beyond a certain point either eventuality can destabilise the grid causing wind turbines and power stations to trip out, An extreme case can cause national black out. In a transient situation National Grid can presently prevent total blackout by use of low-frequency relays temporarily cutting out major consumer circuits such as water pumping stations, and, in last resort, national voltage reductions.

But we are heading into an unprecedented situation in which, due to lack of government generation planning, this could be a daily occurrence over many years. Because of total dependence on wind, every wind turbine must be "backed up" by construction of dedicated fully controllable fossil fuelled turbine of nearly equivalent capacity whose capital cost must be added to that of the wind turbine . As this will only be called upon subject to lack of wind, this expensive plant operates variably instead of at its designed economic full load steady state condition.

All the above makes windpower the most uneconomic form of energy generation. Its uncontrollability prevents it from generating contractually in either base load or load following roles.It is therefore connected to either the Supergrid or distribution networks as uncontrolled "negative demand".

National demand presenting for balancing by responsive thermal and hydro generation is net of this "negative demand". A windpower component more than about 8 per cent of national maximum demand is a potential system destabilizer as has been found on the European continent.

UK ministers and their civil service advisors do not appear to comprehend the nature of these basic technical problems and are continuing blindly to promote windpower on land and sea. Experienced chartered engineers are appalled at both the danger to electricity security and the enormous increases to the cost of electricity to consumers which are already appearing and will become astronomical. We face an unprecedented and protracted electrical crisis.

Dr Alan Shaw

--------------

Wind Energy: The Case of Denmark

With the British government planning to obtain up to 35% of UK generating capacity from wind turbines by 2020, it is instructive to consider the case of Denmark, one of the few countries that has got anywhere near that level.

Denmark generates the equivalent of around 19% of its electricity demand from wind, which on the face of it sounds like a great achievement. But because wind is intermittent and unpredictable, wind power sometimes meets as little as 5% of Denmark's demand, with an average over the last five years of only about 9.7% -- approximately half of the theoretical level.

Because electricity can't be stored in volume, wind can sometimes deliver too much energy that can't be used (for example if the wind blows strongly at night when demand is low). This creates entirely new challenges for transmission system operators. In the case of Denmark, about half of all the wind energy generated cannot be used, and has to be exported, below cost, to Sweden, Germany and Norway.

This brings considerable benefits to consumers in those countries, at the expense of Danish consumers and tax-payers. It is estimated that exported subsidies from Denmark amounted to €916 million between 2001 and 2008. Not surprisingly, Denmark's commitment to wind means that Danish consumers have the most expensive electricity in the EU. You may think that at least Danish wind-power is saving CO2 emissions in Sweden and Norway, but not so, because those countries rely heavily on hydro power, rather than fossil fuel generation.

Wind power has saved some CO2 emissions in Denmark, but at a very high cost of €87 per ton. For comparison, investment in building insulation can save CO2 emissions for between €10 and €20 per ton.

British estimates of the cost of wind power typically assume a 25 year working life for turbines. But the Danes are finding that ten to fifteen years is more realistic -- massively increasing the already high cost of wind generation. We are promised that green energy initiatives will increase employment. In Denmark this has proved to be the case, but the net new employment is small, and the cost-per-job in terms of subsidy is estimated at between 175% and 250% of the average worker's wage in Danish manufacturing industry. In terms both of power generation and job creation, wind power is fantastically costly and inefficient. Wind power investment and subsidy have had the effect of moving employment from more productive sectors in Denmark into the less productive wind industry, which has had a negative effect on Danish GDP.

There are lessons here for the UK. Our Labour government has naively assumed that if we build enough wind farms to deliver 35% of our electricity requirements, then that is what we shall get. The Danish experience suggests that we may be able to use only half of it; that it will fail to deliver the anticipated emissions savings or significant net new employment; and that it will damage prosperity and growth. We have been warned.

Source: The Danish Center for Politiske Studier (Centre for Policy Studies), Sept 2009; www.cepos.dk

-----------------------

Look Guys - I'm addressing here our hopelessly inept Government and the bureaucrats doing their bidding who don't have the courage to tell them they are bonkers - it only took one man, Samuel Pepys, to organise the rebuilding of our country's navy in the last half of the 17th century and do it on time and within budget. So, be good chaps, admit you made a right cock up of the energy from windfarms thing, go and apply for any job so long as it isn't remotely connected with energy, and let those of us who do have an ounce of commonsense take over.

The Fake "Pandemic"

2009-11-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

This Nun (!) who was also a doctor hits all the essential facts about the fake "pandemic" of swine flu - only a pandemic because the definition of the word has been changed by the World Health Organisation to be able to force nation states to mass vaccinate - and why you should refuse vaccination, or, if you feel you have to be vaccinated, demand first from the authorities a written guarantee of compensation against any side effects. Trouble is - they'll never give you one!

See it at http://vimeo.com/7298827.

Vaccines, Mercury and Autism

2009-10-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

It's worthwhile reminding yourself and your friends that there isn't just a tenuous link between the mercury containing preservative Thimerosal in many vaccines, including flu vaccines, and autism.

Back in May 20, 2003, after a three year investigation into paediatric vaccine safety, initiated in the US House Committee on Government Reform, the "Mercury in Medicine Report," was placed on the Congressional record.

"Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic," the report concluded.

"This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding the lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin," the Committee advised.

"The FDA and the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines containing thimerosal were approved and added to the immunization schedule," the report pointed out.

"At the same time that the incidence of autism was growing," the Committee said, "the number of childhood vaccines containing thimerosal was growing, increasing the amount of ethylmercury to which infants were exposed threefold."

Vaccine makers and conflicted public health officials are always claiming that studies show vaccines did not cause the autism epidemic. In a February 24, 2009 Huffington Post article, Robert F Kennedy, Jr, pointed out "that for sixty years the tobacco industry successfully defended a product that was killing one out of every five of its customers against thousands of legal actions brought by its victims and their families."

"Big tobacco prevailed for six decades," he said, "even without the help of supportive government agencies deliberately suppressing real science and research."

"In that sense vaccine victims must leap a much higher hurdle," he added.

http://www.naturalnews.com/027363_autism_vaccines_swine_flu.html

Mobile phones do cause Brain Tumours, major study finally confirms

2009-10-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Long-term use of mobile phones can cause brain tumours, a major World Health Organization study will finally announce later this year.

People who have used a mobile phone for more than 10 years face a ‘significantly increased risk’ of developing brain tumours such as glioma, says the Interphone study, which reviewed the evidence from 13 countries, involving around 12,800 people. It will publish its conclusions later this year following a delay of four years.

Study head Dr Elisabeth Cardis said the report will include a “public health warning” about mobile phone usage, especially among children. France has been one of the first countries to act, and has banned the use of mobile phones in primary schools. The UK has merely cautioned about the overuse of the phones by children and adolescents.

The Interphone researchers said that six of the eight studies they reviewed found that mobile phone usage increased the risk of glioma by up to 39 per cent, while the risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour between the ear and the brain, increased nearly four times among people who had used a mobile phone for more than 10 years.

Despite its findings, some critics believe the Interphone study has played down the real risks by including people who use a mobile phone only infrequently, and by excluding children altogether. Critics point out that the study was partly funded by the mobile phone industry, whose own research has invariably failed to find any link between its products and brain tumours.

(Source: Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2009).

Studies show that flu vaccines are unsafe and ineffective

2009-10-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Remember a previous post Say No Thank You to Flu Vaccines which said “(the Government etc) assert that these vaccines are safe and effective without concrete proof of that.”

I could have gone further and said

NO SANE PERSON WHO HAS SEEN THE PRESENTATION BELOW WOULD EVER WANT TO HAVE THE JAB

Take a look at

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/26/Flu-Vaccine-Exposed.aspx

Oh, and as a British taxpayer, I’d like a speedy investigation to identify those responsible for contracting to spend so much of the taxpayers’ money on something so useless and dangerous, and speedy firing of said persons from whatever official posts they hold. Once that has been done, come back to me and I will recommend a replacement WITH SOME COMMONSENSE who will spend the Nation’s health money more wisely and implement a sound health education programme in our schools so that our youngsters grow up knowing what to do to stay healthy rather than abdicating responsibility to the Government, the medical profession and their parents.

Sorry. If it's from "official sources" you probably can't trust it

2009-10-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."

~Marcia Angell MD, a well-known, respected physician, long-time editor of NEJM.
http://e-patients.net/archives/2009/10/a-quote-i-wont-soon-forget.html

NHS Facts & Figures

2009-10-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

Fraser Nelson on Coffee House, The Spectator Blog has this interesting statistic:

The ratio of manager-to-medic in the NHS is one-to-one. That is to say, out of its 1.3m employees (more than the population of some EU member states) just 675,000 are professionally qualified clinical staff. The rest are on the pen pushing/managerial/administrative side of the divide. The average NHS worker takes two weeks off sick every year, in addition to six weeks holiday.
[The breakdown is available at http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/nhsstaff2006/NHS%20Staff%20leaflet.pdf]

Flu Vaccines - Why you should say “No Thank You”

2009-10-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

The UK newspapers have been reporting deaths from swine flu[1], and “alternative sources” on the internet have been predicting deaths and horrifying side effects from taking the vaccines for it (see later). So what should one do?

If the HPV (cervical cancer) immunisation programme is anything to go by, any deaths/side effects from swine flu vaccine even on the same day will be explained away by saying the connection can’t be proved. Or the medical profession will say the equivalent of “It was the patient’s fault “ by alleging that the patient was ultra-sensitive to the vaccine due to a pre-existing medical problem. In which case most of us would say, “Why then wasn’t the patient asked before getting the jab if he/she had any known medical problems eg asthma and shouldn’t therefore have been jabbed?” Such questioning just isn’t happening. The authorities seem to want blanket immunisation (a misnomer in itself) and no questions asked.

Despite the fact that we’re told that seasonal flu in the UK causes far more deaths a year[2] (around 12,000) regardless of vaccination, seasonal flu was never called a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. So, many have concluded that this “pandemic” is just a well orchestrated plan to make millions selling vaccines. And the situation isn’t helped by the information out there that indicates it is quite likely that the swine flu was, accidentally or otherwise, first created in a laboratory rather than the wild.

The tragedy is that out of a population of 61 million so few devote the time to investigate whether there is any other way they could avoid contracting flu or at least minimize their symptoms if they do.

The biggest part of the reason that most of our population don’t do that is because those in positions of influence or power – in Government, the Medical Profession, or the scientific community and some journalists – hide the Truth from us, or lie about the facts. They do it daily to brainwash the great British Public by repetition into having vaccines unnecessarily[3] which themselves can cause short term or long term damage in some people. And they assert that these vaccines are safe[4] and effective without concrete proof of that.

The Safe Alternatives

The authorities don’t remind us that historically homeopathy has had a far better success record at treating patients in flu epidemics than conventional medicine[5]. They don’t tell us that supplementing with vitamins C & D & E while a flu epidemic is on, and having a daily hot drink with a couple of slices of fresh ginger in it, or a tablespoon of organic cider vinegar, a teaspoon of Black Treacle and a couple of shakes of cayenne pepper, will help boost the immune system. They don’t say that use of other natural immune system improvers or bacteria killers like Olive Leaf Extract, turmeric, garlic, Manuka honey, Echinacea tincture & colloidal silver could help keep flu at bay or shorten the symptoms we might get if we caught it. A knowledge of how to use the above could significantly reduce the risk of catching, or symptoms of, swine or seasonal flu and encourage everyone to look after their own health. As a beneficial side effect the huge national cost of the vaccines and the £7.51 (seasonal flu) and £5.25 (swine flu) per jab that the medical profession get from the NHS would annually be saved.

If in addition we each took a homeopathic anti-flu prophylactic (see below), and resolved to get ourselves in better shape over the winter with some brisk walking exercise for those who can manage this, and washed our hands more frequently, we would

- be far less likely to catch any flu at all

- be far more likely to recover quicker, if we did catch flu

- avoid any possibility of any damaging side effects of flu vaccination

A Government spokesman did get around to telling us to clean our hands. But why don’t they tell us the rest of The Truth? Can’t they take the time to google the internet and check the facts rather than rely on those whose advice is so biased? Why don’t they tell the public that such limited tests as there have been on swine flu vaccines have been hurried, don’t guarantee that you won’t get swine flu, and that this and other flu vaccines, or the ingredients in them like thimerosal (mercury based preservative linked with autism & Guillain Barre[6] syndrome), squalene[7][8], & formaldehyde, may end up giving you paralysis or other horrific neurological & auto-immune[9] disorders or cancers[10] years down the track, like the Gulf War vaccines did?[11] Or that our law has been changed so that you won’t be able to sue the manufacturers for any damage from their vaccines, and very likely that the Government won’t accept any liability either?

The scientific community knows that viruses like the swine flu often mutate quickly which means that any swine flu vaccine is unlikely to confer immunity.

Homeopathic Flu Therapy is on the other hand not affected by Viral Mutations.
Homeopathy does not depend on one drug or feature particular drugs for curing any type of flu. Homeopathy is a non allopathic healing method that was once the mainstream medicine of the 19th century. Because different remedies and combinations and strengths are prescribed according to exact symptomatic readings, homeopaths can successfully adapt treatments to handle viral mutations. Homeopathy was enjoyed by many until certain moneyed interests almost pushed it out of existence. Now there is somewhat of a resurgence of its use and what the Government and some doctors are reluctant to publicise is that every patient has a right under the founding Charter of the NHS to homeopathic treatment[12].

If you go to the Helios website (one of the homeopathics suppliers) at http://www.helios.co.uk/swine_flu.html you’ll find suggestions for the names of homeopathic remedies that might help. Or you can visit your local homeopath.

I and my family are taking, apart from the natural remedies mentioned above, a combination homeopathic remedy as a prophylactic against any flu including swine flu this winter. It comprises the remedies Anas Barb Co, Eupatorium Perf, Gelsemium, Aconite, & Influenzinum nosodes mix. If after that we get the sniffles or a fever, we will safely treat whatever symptoms come up with our choice of homeopathics and herbs. Our bottom line is nobody has the right to tell us that we have to inject foreign substances into our bodies[13], especially one about which our neurologists have been "confidentially" briefed to be on the lookout for Guillain Barre syndrome.

Lastly, if you really want to know why you should rightfully be suspicious of vaccines, read Jane Bryant’s speech about her vaccine damaged son[14], or Janine Roberts’ book Fear of the Invisible ISBN 978-0-9559177-2-1. The information there will rock you on your heels. As explained above, there is a kinder, effective alternative, and it is high time our authorities promoted it.

[1] Over 100 as of 16^th October 09

[2] Chief Medical Officer's publication 'Explaining Pandemic Flu' (1 March 2005): "Ordinary flu occurs every year during the winter months in the UK. It affects 10-15% of the UK population, causing around 12,000 deaths every year”

[3] “In 2004, for example, (US) vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise.” See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1

[4] See http://www.naturalnews.com/027258_vaccines_flu_vaccine.html

[5] Homeopathy had an amazingly high cure rate in the virulent 1918 Flu Epidemic. While the mortality rate of people treated with traditional medicine and drugs in the US was around 30%, those treated by homeopathic physicians had a mortality rate of 1.05%. See http://www.hpathy.com/diseases/swine-flu-symptoms-treatment.asp. A recent example in ‘07/08 in two provinces of Cuba of the homeopathic prophylactic treatment of 2.5 million people against the annual epidemic of leptospirosis which allopathic vaccinations had failed to contain (symptoms are fever, kidney/liver damage, meningitis) saw the annual death rate reduced to zero, and infections down to 10 a month from several thousand. Similarly the annual treatment bill was reduced from $3 million under conventional medicine to just $200,000 under homeopathics. http://homeopathyresource.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/successful-use-of-homeopathy-in-over-5-million-people-reported-from-cuba/

[6] Can cause numbness, muscle pain, weakness, breathing difficulty, paralysis, heart failure & death

[7] Sometimes called MF-59 or ASO3. Dr Bruun Laursen -http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2880&end=2900&view=yes&id=3780#newspost

[8] http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2900&end=2920&view=yes&id=3816#newspost

[9] http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2880&end=2900&view=yes&id=3788#newspost

[10] using beta-propiolactone, a potent cancer causing chemical, is a common practice in virus inactivation for vaccines

[11] http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/blog/2009/10/15/woman-takes-seasonal-flu-shot-disabled-for-life/

[12] http://www.homeopathyworkedforme.org/pct-survey/4533990609

[13] 48% of doctors responding to a confidential DNUK survey said they would not have the swine flu jab

[14]http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/vaccines/Jane%20Bryant%20Speech%2C%20NVIC%20Conference%20.pdf

Anti Cervical Cancer jab - Was She got at?

2009-10-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Well, my Postscript to the previous posting on this topic 8th Oct wasn't far off the mark, was it? Dr Harper now apparently wants to take back some of the things she is reported to have said in interviews with various people - see http://www.naturalnews.com/027225_cancer_cervical_Merck.html .

Here's an excerpt from a couple of them. Not much room for doubt about what she said there, is there? Any chance that she was got at?

Could the Gardasil vaccine actually help increase cervical cancer rates?

“The side effects that have been reported are real and they cannot be brushed aside.”

That quote, from Diane Harper, M.D., might mark a turning point in the way the medical mainstream perceives Gardasil, the controversial vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV). Dr. Harper is part of that mainstream. In fact, she was one of the principal investigators in the initial Gardasil trials. But she hasn’t been timid about recognizing Gardasil’s dangers.

More than a year ago, HSI (The Health Sciences Institute) writer and researcher Michele Cagan interviewed Dr. Harper, who revealed a surprising fear about the way Gardasil might influence women’s health habits. This is an excerpt from that interview.

“Even though Dr. Harper believes in the vaccine, she does not think it should be mandated for young girls. She also told me about several concerns she has surrounding public perception of the vaccine, including this stunner: Dr. Harper is afraid that the way the vaccine is being presented could actually have the effect of increasing the rate of cervical cancer in the U.S.

“Why is Dr. Harper afraid of this outcome? ‘Because of the way the vaccine is being advertised and portrayed in the media. The vaccine is not a silver bullet. It can’t clear up an existing HPV infection, and it can’t cure cervical cancer. But the advertising doesn’t make that very clear.’ If women think the vaccine offers 100% protection – or, even worse, can cure the virus or the cancer – they may skip their annual Pap tests, and that could very well lead to an increase in cervical cancer rates.

“Another gray area is the duration. It appears to remain effective for at least five years, but we have no idea how long it will last in the real world. And that could mean that girls vaccinated at 11 or 12 actually lose protection when they’ll need it most – but it’s impossible to know that until after large numbers of vaccinated girls contract the virus.

“Here’s another little titbit the advertising fails to mention – but it’s a critical point. If a girl already has an HPV infection, the vaccine won’t work. I asked Dr. Harper if that was only true for the strain in question, but it’s not. ‘If someone has HPV 18, for example, the vaccine won’t provide any protection for that strain, or full protection for any of the other strains.’ And since millions of women have HPV, millions of women could be getting vaccinated for nothing. Except side effects, that is”

http://hsibaltimore.com/2008/08/27/could-the-gardasil-vaccine-actually-help-increase-cervical-cancer-rates/

and from http://health.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2009/03/30/is-gardasil-more-effective-in-older-teens.html

Harper told me then that the vaccine's efficacy hadn't been tested in anyone under age 16, and she wasn't sure whether it even worked in preteens.

"I think there's a strong possibility that Gardasil was the catalyst that set off the ALS [Lou Gehrig's Disease]," Harper says. "It could have been the straw that broke the camel's back in a child who was already predisposed to the condition."

"I do think it's wrong for physicians to tell parents that it's 100 percent safe."

Bottom line is: As an outside observer I would conclude that as Cervical cancer is apparently usually entirely curable when detected early through normal Pap screenings, Cervical cancer vaccines ARE more dangerous than the cancers they claim to prevent. Who would want to run even the smallest risk that being vaccinated might result in triggering a serious neurological disorder like ALS?

Obama and Monsanto

2009-10-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

What follows is a long extract from Dr Mercola's website. I have extracted it because I want to remember, and I want anyone interested in staying healthy to be informed about, the appointments the new US President is making of individuals connected with Monsanto. You can draw your own conclusions about Obama from that. Remember also that even if you are consciously taking action to avoid GMO meat, the animal you are eating may well have been reared on foodstuffs which contained GMO ingredients - and you would never know it.

......................

Why are Monsanto Insiders Now Appointed to Protect Your Food Safety?

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
October 10 2009 |

By Dr. Mercola

As I write this I am in Washington DC for the International Vaccine Conference and I just did a 12 hour amazing tour of the Capitol that I will describe later, along with pictures that I will post on Facebook. So politics and patriotism is fresh in my mind.

When President Obama took office, many Americans welcomed what was supposed to be an era of much needed change not only for the economy but also for the food industry and U.S. health care system.

Time magazine put it quite well when they described current farm policy as "a welfare program for the megafarms that use the most fuel, water and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most fattening crops; hire the most illegals; and depopulate rural America."

And as has been recently disclosed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), between 2003 and 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies, even though they earned more than the $2.5 million cutoff for such subsidies. In a speech given at the end of 2008, President Obama stated that this was a prime example of the kind of waste he intends to end when he takes office.

Meanwhile, American medical care is the most expensive in the world.[1] The United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. And yet it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing avoidable deaths through use of timely and effective medical care.

That the system is fatally flawed and in need of a radical overhaul is self-evident.

In fact, according to a 2008 report published in the New England Journal of Medicine[2], 90 percent of Americans believe our medical system should be “completely rebuilt” or that “fundamental changes” are required.

And many are looking toward the Obama Administration to carry out these fundamental changes -- changes that appear, on the surface at least, to be in the works.

But while health care reform is finally on the table, and an organic farm has, for the first time, been planted on the White House lawn, there are an unsettling number of foxes being appointed to guard the U.S. health care and food industry hen houses … foxes that have entirely too many connections to Monsanto, the chemical manufacturer turned agricultural giant that is slowly gaining control over the world’s population, one seed at a time.

The New Secretary of Agriculture is a Fan of Factory Farms, GM Crops and More

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is now the Secretary of Agriculture, an appointment that took place despite massive public outcry. What was needed for an effective Secretary of Agriculture was someone who would develop and implement a plan that promotes family-scale farming and a safe and nutritious food system with a sustainable and organic vision.

What we got was yet another politician who’s already made room in his bed for the industry lobby. As the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) points out:[3]

Vilsack has been a strong supporter of genetically engineered crops, including bio-pharmaceutical corn

The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.

When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

The undemocratic and highly unpopular 2005 seed pre-emption bill was Vilsack’s brainchild. The law strips local government’s right to regulated genetically engineered seed (including where GE can be grown, maintaining GE-free buffers or banning pharma corn locally)

Vilsack is an ardent supporter of corn and soy-based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil fuel energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

Overall, Vilsack’s record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting animal cloning.

You may also be interested to know that Vilsack is widely regarded as a shill for biotech giants like Monsanto (he even reportedly often travels in Monsanto’s jet)![4]

The New Senior Advisor for the FDA is a Former Monsanto VP!

Michael Taylor, a former vice president of public policy and chief lobbyist at Monsanto Company, is the new senior advisor for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Who is Michael Taylor? He is the person who “oversaw the creation of GMO policy,” according to Jeffrey Smith, the leading spokesperson on the dangers of GM foods. Smith continues:

“If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist.”[5]

The FDA policy being referred to is the 1992 GMO policy, which stated:

"The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods [genetic engineering] differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way."

In reality, there was major concern among FDA scientists that GM foods were in fact different than natural foods, and that their creation could prompt unknown and unpredictable health problems.

Along with being a key player in the initial pushing of GM foods onto Americans’ plates (without any required safety studies), Taylor also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST).

This growth hormone, which has been banned in Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand because of cancer risks and other health concerns, was approved in the United States while Taylor was in charge at the FDA. Smith writes:

“Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.”

Taylor’s white paper, which again was untrue as even FDA scientists acknowledged differences in the rbGH milk, allowed Monsanto to sue dairies that labeled their products rbGH-free.

Dennis Wolff, Another Monsanto “Yes Man,” May be the Next Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety

In another ironic turn of events, it’s rumored that Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff may be appointed the new Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety -- the top food safety post at the USDA.

Wolff declared that labeling products rbGH-free was against the law, and ordered all such labels to be removed from Pennsylvania. Fortunately, due to consumer demand Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell stepped in and stopped the ban on rbGH-free labels (although he did require such claims to include Taylor’s FDA disclaimer that there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows).

As Jeffrey Smith explains:

“Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania's governor is supporting Wolff's appointment is to get him out of the state -- after he "screwed up so badly" with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.”[6]

Not only did Dennis Wolff attempt to ban rbGH-free labels, but OCA points out that he has “also worked to deprive communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.”[7]

Monsanto’s Long-Reaching Grasp on the U.S. Government

Clearly, Monsanto -- the world leader in genetic modification of seeds -- has worked its way into varying high-level positions in the U.S. government. There are other less noticeable connections too, such as Sharon Long, a former member of Monsanto’s board of directors who was part of Obama’s scientific advisory team during the election/campaign.[8]

Monsanto is a very dark cloud hanging over the future of health and food safety in the United States. This powerful entity has already managed so many reprehensible acts it boggles the mind, including:

Leading the world into a new age of potentially hazardous genetic modification of seeds.

Patenting not only their own GMO seeds, but also a huge number of crop seeds, patenting life forms for the first time -- without a vote of the people or Congress.

Not allowing farmers to save their seeds to replant the next year -- a practice that has been done for generations. Instead, they aggressively seek out and sue farmers they suspect of doing so.

Suing farmers who have not been able to prevent the inevitable drift of Monsanto’s GE pollen or seed onto their land for patent infringement!

Producing two of the most toxic substances ever known -- polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, and dioxin (Agent Orange).

Perhaps their biggest assault to your food supply already is what’s known as terminator technology. These are seeds that have been genetically modified to “self-destruct.” In other words, the seeds (and the forthcoming crops) are sterile, which means farmers must buy them again each year.

The implications that terminator seeds could have on the world’s food supply are disastrous: the traits from genetically engineered crops can get passed on to other crops. Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops, making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile.

If allowed to continue, every farmer in the world could come to rely on Monsanto for their seed supply!