Marijuana opponents in the federal government are up against the wall and the wall is crumbling. The feds have fought marijuana use for decades, disregarding its medicinal applications, in a senseless war against the herb.
The demonized killer weed is turning out to be anything but that. As myths about this ancient herb are dispelled, scientists are using it to treat everything from chemotherapy-induced nausea to different cancers.
In August, The British Journal of Cancer published the results of a study that found THC (the main active component in marijuana) is effective in fighting prostate cancer. Reportedly, pot attacks prostate cancer cell types that do not respond to the usual hormone treatments.
A recent study by a team of Spanish researchers discovered THC kills various brain cancer cells by a process known as autophagy. Michigan's new law regarding marijuana use went into effect in April. Patients, with doctor's prescriptions, get a state-issued ID Card (a lot like California's) which allows them to grow and use marijuana to treat pain and other symptoms of cancer and multiple sclerosis.
In October 2003, the University of California, San Francisco, released the results of a study that said pot was effective when used in combination with opiate pain medications. Dr. Donald Abrams, MD, UCSF professor of Clinical Medicine and chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division at SF General Hospital Medical Center, told the press, “Marijuana uses a different mechanism than opiates and could augment the pain relief of opiate analgesics.”
The Marijuana Policy Project recently reported on a study that suggests moderate amounts of marijuana use reduces risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). This study suggests cannabinoids have potential anti-tumor properties.
A study released in July, “White matter in adolescents with history of marijuana use and binge drinking,” says marijuana use actually protects brain cells. The study involved adolescents with alcohol use disorders.
One group had just alcohol-drinking teens. The other group drank alcohol and used marijuana. The report said that binge drinkers who used marijuana retained more white matter than the other group. In other words, alcohol destroyed more brain cells when a person didn't use marijuana.
How many times have you heard someone say, “Pot destroys your brain cells”? If that's true, what about this study? Why do doctors use marijuana to fight brain cancer if it destroys brain cells? Remember the Spanish study?
In April of 2007, Harvard University researchers released the results of a study that concluded THC cuts tumor growth in common lung cancers and reduces the ability of the cancer to spread.
A study conducted by UCLA's medical school in June 2005 concluded smoking marijuana did not cause lung cancer. That impressive piece of news, along with the Harvard study, seems to have been ignored by most mass media outlets.
Fred Gardner, editor of the medical marijuana research journal, O'Shaughnessy's, recently wrote an article, “Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Cancer,” about this groundbreaking UCLA study that barely made headlines.
Gardner reported that an investigative team was contracted with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in 2002 “to conduct a large, population-based, case-controlled study that would prove definitively that heavy, long-term marijuana use increases the risk of lung and upper-airway cancers.”
Guess what? This study backfired! It turned out that increased marijuana use did not result in higher rates of lung and pharyngeal cancer. The study also concluded that tobacco smokers who also puffed on pot were at a slightly lower risk of getting lung cancer than those who didn't!
Perhaps the icing on the cake is the fact that UCLA Medical professor Donald Tashkin led the investigation. Tashkin has led government studies on marijuana since the 1970s and is well known for his belief that heavy marijuana use causes lung and upper-airway cancers. To his credit as a professional, he ended up disproving his own original hypothesis.
Despite the government's efforts to keep it illegal, it's apparent that marijuana does offer help in the battle to treat cancer. The facts about marijuana's medical potentials are finally causing cracks in the government's wall of lies built up over the years.
As It Stands, it's time to bring down that wall.
Dave Stancliff is a columnist for The Times-Standard. He is a former newspaper editor and publisher. Comments can be sent to richstan1@suddenlink.net or www.davesblogcentral.com
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Supkis on vaccine hysteria...
I am increasingly concerned about the anti-vaccination movement. It seems, on the surface, to be simply irrational. But when we dig deeper into this issue, we detect some rather frightful matters attached like barnacles to the bottom of this particular boat. First, some good news concerning vaccinations, especially the very wonderful news that we may eventually see a real vaccination against that terrible scourge, AIDS:.
Sinovac Shares Rose After Chinese Government Approved Vaccine (SVA) – FOXBusiness.com
Sep 03, 2009 (SmarTrend(R) News Watch via COMTEX) —-9/3/2009 – Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NYSE:SVA) shares rose 6.6% in afternoon trading Thursday after the Chinese government approved its one-shot swine flu vaccine and issued a production license to the company to start making the drug. The vaccine is the first to be approved by the Chinese regulators. Sinovac and Novartis AG are the only company’s who have said their vaccine may protect people with one shot instead of two.
.
OK: one of the favored conspiracy theories of the radicals who hate vaccinations is the mythology that governments want to kill you and me with a shot to the arm. Now, logically speaking, why would the Chinese government want to kill off all the Chinese people? True, the LDP in Japan seemed awfully indifferent to whether or not the Japanese people even survived or reproduced. But I assure everyone, China’s government wants its own people to be healthy and strong.
.
Of course, the profits from pollution means ignoring health issues. But this seems to be rapidly clearing up as the government is responding to both international outrage but even more, internal fury over pollution. The good parents of Chinese children do not want them poisoned by factory or energy plant wastes just like, they want to have safe schools in earthquake zones. There is tremendous pressure on the communist leadership to protect the children and this pressure grows as China’s wealth increases.
.
I would suggest that China is very intent on a safe vaccination that will protect the Chinese people from swine or any other flues. Historically, many of the worst viral outbreaks that killed millions originated in China. This is because, even 100 years ago, China had one quarter of the planet’s population and many of these people lived very closely with pigs, ducks, chickens and oxen. The intensive farming methods using these animals to grow, fertilize, crop and fallow farmlands is a huge intersection between germs and humans. The mutation rates of various diseases were very high due to the intermix of populations which were extremely close in proximity due to pens, leashes and flock control methods.
.
The US government is doing exactly the same thing the Chinese communists are doing: trying to stop any possible pandemic. This is because, millions of deaths would be a grave problem for the US especially if it is children and young adults. If anyone imagines that vaccinations are being deviously designed to kill us, this begs the logical question, why? That is, if the germs will kill us, why use other methods? I find this illogical systematic thinking to be a key characteristic of many conspiracy belief systems. Indeed, the seem addicted to this sort of illogical thinking. If a government protect people, the irrational believers in conspiracies think this is a tricky way to really kill us. And if the government does nothing when danger approaches, ditto! This is beyond silly, it is stupid.
.
New hope for Aids vaccine as scientists find ‘Achilles heel’ – Times Online
The search for an HIV vaccine has taken a major step forward with the discovery of a potential Achilles heel of the virus that causes Aids. .
Two powerful antibodies that attack a vulnerable spot common to many strains of HIV have been identified, improving the prospects for a vaccine against a virus that affects an estimated 33 million people and kills over 2 million each year. .
The discovery is important because it highlights a potential way around HIV’s defences against the human immune system, which have so far thwarted efforts to make a workable vaccine. The hope is that a vaccine that stimulates the production of these antibodies could remain effective against HIV even as the virus mutates. .
Scientists from the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) are already examining the antibodies for clues to vaccine design. The new techniques used to discover the antibodies also promise further progress, as they should reveal other weaknesses in HIV that a vaccine might exploit.
.
Hooray! This is good, good news! Africa and many island communities like Haiti are being ravaged by AIDS. It is destroying entire communities, literally. It is a slow death so people get sicker and sicker and can do less and less and this leads to a collapse in farming, trading and raising families. It is a complete disaster for the third world! And for anyone else! This disease has killed many millions of people and is a major plague. And I hope, will be terminated by a vaccination. We must thank the many scientists who devoted their careers to understanding this viral menace and mapping its internal structure.
.
The anti-vaccination people will fight this one, tooth and nail. I can see it coming: they are irrational, dangerous and DEADLY. Many obvious liars take refuge within the antiviral community and work tirelessly to convince people to do something deadly to themselves. This is criminal.
.
anti-vaccination moevment – The Skeptic’s Dictionary – Skepdic.com
The anti-vaccination movement (AVM) is at least two-pronged: one prong denies a causal connection between vaccines and the eradication or significant reduction of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles, and rubella; the other prong perceives vaccines as causing diseases, e.g., it claims that the MMR (mumps-measles-rubella) vaccine causes autism. Either way, the AVM proponents oppose vaccination against disease. .
One might consider a third prong of the AVM to be those who advocate homeopathic “vaccines” or isopathic preparations for such things as meningococcal disease, the “flu”, childhood illnesses, malaria, and HIV. Such people offer magic water in place of an actual vaccine developed and properly tested by scientists. They believe the water has been energized and has a selective “memory” of molecules long gone in the homeopathic dilution process. Most homeopathic vaccines are nothing but water or inert substances and cannot protect anyone from anything. They endanger people’s lives when they are offered as protection against diseases like malaria. They are sought out by people who do not trust real vaccines and who live according to the principles of vitalism and magical thinking. Thus, we might well say that those who recommend homeopathic vaccines are part of the AVM since, in effect, they oppose real vaccination against disease. .
One thing that unites these three prongs of the AVM is that each is selective in its picking of evidence to support its viewpoint and to denigrate one of scientific medicine’s major contributions to public health.
.
timeline of the autism caused by vaccines scare – The Skeptic’s Dictionary – Skepdic.com
[This timeline is in response to Sharon Begley's Newsweek article that gives the impression that there has been a significant amount of publication in reputable journals in support of the vaccine/autism link. It is important to emphasize the need to look at all the evidence and accept what the preponderance of the data supports. All of us are susceptible to confirmation bias and too many of us go with our gut instinct rather than with the data. Your "mommy instinct" or gut feeling isn't as reliable as you think it is when it comes to complex causal matters.] .
Background: The anti-MMR-vaccine movement has two camps: one sees the vaccine as harmful, the other sees thimerosal (an ethylmercury based preservative) as harmful. In the US, the anti-vaccine movement began as one aspect of a larger movement that blames mercury and other neurotoxins in the environment for most neurological disorders. After thimerosal was removed from vaccines, the focus shifted to the quantity of shots given to children and to the speculation that some children are “especially sensitive” to vaccines. The evidence, as you can see for yourself by following this timeline, is overwhelmingly in favor of the notion that neither the vaccines nor their preservatives are harmful, but that not getting children vaccinated has harmful, sometimes deadly, consequences.
.
I have gone from being annoyed by the anti-vaccination commentators who have posted one fake story after another here on my blog. Now, I will tell them all who they really are: FOOLS. I am utterly outraged by this movement and I recommend that everyone read the above timeline in the Skeptic article. Don’t worry about clicking on this story, it won’t rip your heads off. It is important to read because a lot of it is about the false calumny about autism and vaccinations. Autism is most likely a genetic problem. And incidentally, could also be aggravated by pollution. As I detailed in my mercury in fish story the other day.
.
Some of my readers hate science. I can’t fix this problem. People love illogic and prefer magic, over science and can’t be fixed via arguments or logical expositions. If someone wants to be crazy, they will be crazy! But the problem is deep: people basically have a poor understanding of what science actually is. It is an ongoing logic systems argument which settles debates via assembling and then examining from all angles, all information relevant to the issues. Double blind testing is one area in science which is most important. Non-scientists who want to make ideological points, often ignore the double blind tests. They want to assemble ‘facts’ and then draw conclusions based on their pet facts.
.
Also, if someone discovers something and no one can reproduce it or find it again, it is discounted. Since it isn’t happening twice. People seeking to have singular events hate this rule. Another tool of science is to test things over and over again, in a bigger and bigger pool and with more and more people participating. This way, hoaxes and misunderstandings are revealed.
.
A great number of investigators took the autism/vaccination story very seriously. And after many years of hard work, have decided there is NO connection whatsoever. I lost one good commentator here, David, because he and his sister were convinced, based only on their singular observations, that the vaccinations caused his sister to deliver an autistic baby. David believes this business despite being told by professionals that the condition appears right after the third month, probably triggered by hormone changes, which happens to coincide with the first vaccinations. When it comes to family relations, people’s emotions overwhelm them and they have to react and then cling to the reaction.
.
So the story spreads, vaccinations are evil. Despite the fact that the diseases these vaccinations protect us from kill, maim and create autistic-like damage to healthy babies! That is, these diseases can paralyze, kill, render deaf, put holes in hearts, etc and thus, are a grave danger in themselves.
.
To immunize or not? | PressDemocrat.com | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
The percentage of fully immunized students entering Sonoma County kindergarten classes has steadily dipped from 91.6 percent in 2002 to 87.7 percent last fall, according to state records. The statewide average is down by only 0.6 points over the same period. .
Roughly half of this year’s kindergartners who are not fully vaccinated have exemptions that cover all diseases. The other half are missing some vaccinations. .
The county’s nearly 4-point drop in the vaccination rate might seem small, but officials say it comes close to the level — about 85 percent — at which “herd immunization,” the safety in numbers from widespread inoculation, breaks down. .
In nine county school districts, six of them in the west county, the percentage of fully immunized kindergartners is below 80 percent, a Public Health Department analysis said. The figures exclude private schools. .
At six North Bay schools, all charter or private schools, more than half the families had received exemptions from the required vaccination regimen. Such concentrations of partially immunized or unimmunized students pose “a significant risk of an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease,” Maddux-Gonzalez said. .
State law allows parents, by merely signing a waiver form, to gain exemption from the vaccinations required to enter kindergarten at public and private schools.
.
One child gets sick in the private schools and we get a mini-epidemic! Already, the rate of death and impaired health from lack of vaccinations is rising rapidly in ‘educated’ countries due to this global push to get parents to stop immunizing their children! If anyone is paranoid, wouldn’t they be upset that dangerous people are convincing gullible parents to expose their children to possible DEATH??? I used to live in northern California. This is where people believe the ridiculous idea that if you eat certain foods, viruses and bacteria will leave you alone or not hurt you. This is pure hogwash.
.
I got a number of emails from enraged readers who did NOT want to hear this news. They wanted desperately to believe that if they ate carrots every day, they would never get very sick. I can’t help it: if I know something, I will say it out loud. History is crystal clear: no matter what you eat, you can be struck down by the Viral Kingdom in a flash.
.
Autism Blog – Autism, scientology and the moonies « Left Brain/Right Brain
I never imagined when I started blogging about autism just how deep the rabbit hole of quackery went. It never ceases to amaze me how the relationships between some of the people deeply involved in the mercury militia start to unravel with some occasionally disturbing results. .
Over the last few weeks, I’ve come across some of the most disturbing relationships yet. As the title suggests, there seem to be disturbing links between some mercury militia members and the Unification Church (the moonies) and there are definite links between established scientologists and DAN! as well as other non-DAN! mercury militia resources. Most disturbing of all is the suggestion of a relationship between The Moonies and Scientology with an apparent agenda to encourage the mercury militia and possibly even help finance or otherwise aid the legal fight some parents are undergoing with relation to vaccines and autism.
.
If anyone is paranoid, the words ‘Moonies’ and ‘Scientologists’ should make you scream and run like hell! And guess what, everyone: both of these groups work hand in glove with a number of the damn ‘NWO’ people you guys are blaming for everything! Why not connect some dots here? The movement to expose yourselves and your poor children to dangerous and deadly viral diseases….are these guys. And if you are truly paranoid, google ‘Scientologists’ and see what real darkness looks like! GAH! Get a grip!
.
This is what happens when people are lured into cults. The anti-vaccination groups are CULTS. So are the Moonies and the Scientologists. There are many cults out there that want us to not take medicines and to not get vaccinations. I know that a number of Buddhist cults are the same way. As well as born again Christian cults or cults like the Mennonites, the list is very long. The fear of vaccinations is a key element in irrational religious cults. It taps into a dark part of the brain which is where religious beliefs lurk and it a grave danger to any rational consideration of reality.
.
Sarah Palin Adviser’s Secret Scientology Plot to Take Over Washington – sarah palin – Gawker
John Coale, currently advising Sarah Palin on running for president in 2012, is a Scientologist. And according to a memo obtained by Gawker, Coale once plotted to use friendly politicians to advance the power-hungry cult’s agenda. .
Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin’s political action committee behind the scenes and “guiding [her] political image in Washington.” .
In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the “MONEY and VOTES game” in order to “create power” for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C…. .
…Coale denies playing any role in Palin’s political career aside from that of a friend who e-mails her once a week or so. And he insists that he has never used his political influence—in addition to Palin, his friends include the Clintons and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others in Washington—to advance the aims of Scientology. “I don’t think I have ever said, to the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone else, a word about Scientology. Not a word.”
.
Read this and weep. Fox TV is big on cult beliefs. It encourages all sorts of irrational or outright stupid behavior. For example, in the healthcare debate, it promotes the false story about ‘death panels’ which is exactly what the Scientologists love. Fox TV is big on taking over normal outrage like the Tea Baggers who were turned on their heads and shoved into being anti-healthcare. A number of people who get government healthcare are screaming about healthcare reforms thanks to these creeps who run Fox TV. And the Scientologists know that if they sow fear and paranoia, they can harvest fools to use as tools.
.
Ditto, a number of religious organizations. Religions love to pretend they heal people. So, while doctors toil using modern science and medicine to save lives of believers, their brethren stand around pray and then, if the doctors succeed, always crow that their particular god or belief was the true cure. Some religions are very doctrinaire and forbid modern medications and their believers die. Of course, when inflicted on innocent children who have no choice in the matter, this becomes criminal.
.
Now, to round out the health news (before the regular crew here begins howling at the moon rather than at the Moonies) here is some news about the biggest pharmaceutical corporation breaking the law:
.
Pfizer to pay record $2.3bn settlement | Business | guardian.co.uk
The government said Pfizer had promoted four prescription drugs, including a painkiller, Bextra, as treatments for medical conditions – but, crucially, the ailments were not ones for which those drugs had been federally approved. .
Use of drugs for so-called “off-label” medical conditions is not uncommon, but drug manufacturers are prohibited from marketing drugs for uses that have not been approved by the food and drug administration. .
Bextra, one of a class of painkillers known as Cox-2 inhibitors, was pulled from the US market in 2005 amid mounting evidence it raised the risk of heart attack, stroke and death…. .
…The government said Pfizer had promoted four prescription drugs, including a painkiller, Bextra, as treatments for medical conditions – but, crucially, the ailments were not ones for which those drugs had been federally approved. .
Use of drugs for so-called “off-label” medical conditions is not uncommon, but drug manufacturers are prohibited from marketing drugs for uses that have not been approved by the food and drug administration. .
Bextra, one of a class of painkillers known as Cox-2 inhibitors, was pulled from the US market in 2005 amid mounting evidence it raised the risk of heart attack, stroke and death.
.
I happen to be a believer (yes, this is religious!) that people should feel pain. I was dying once and I heard a voice (yes, I have the same brain as everyone else) telling me, ‘If you feel pain, you are alive.’ So I muttered that to the nurse who told me about this, later. Well, pain is life! We need pain to feel the other feelings in our bodies. All pain killers also kill other feelings and this is very bad for us.
.
So pain killers have to be used sparingly. I will endure immense pain in order to continue feeling my other feelings! But most people don’t like pain and want to live sans any pains at all. So they pop pills or use other substances to stop feeling ANYTHING at all! Since this is all about addictions, governments outlaw one painkiller (opium was an early one!) after another. But all of them are addictive because many humans love to avoid pain. I can’t get addicted to painkillers because I hate them.
.
The Holy Grail is a painkiller that isn’t addictive. I think this will never be found due to humans loving painkillers too much. So here is a paradox: to really live life, you have to suffer lots of pain. And this is an unhappy thing. But then, all the real joys in life involve alertness and focus and nothing makes us more alert and focused than some pain.
http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/aids-vaccine-possible-at-last
Sinovac Shares Rose After Chinese Government Approved Vaccine (SVA) – FOXBusiness.com
Sep 03, 2009 (SmarTrend(R) News Watch via COMTEX) —-9/3/2009 – Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NYSE:SVA) shares rose 6.6% in afternoon trading Thursday after the Chinese government approved its one-shot swine flu vaccine and issued a production license to the company to start making the drug. The vaccine is the first to be approved by the Chinese regulators. Sinovac and Novartis AG are the only company’s who have said their vaccine may protect people with one shot instead of two.
.
OK: one of the favored conspiracy theories of the radicals who hate vaccinations is the mythology that governments want to kill you and me with a shot to the arm. Now, logically speaking, why would the Chinese government want to kill off all the Chinese people? True, the LDP in Japan seemed awfully indifferent to whether or not the Japanese people even survived or reproduced. But I assure everyone, China’s government wants its own people to be healthy and strong.
.
Of course, the profits from pollution means ignoring health issues. But this seems to be rapidly clearing up as the government is responding to both international outrage but even more, internal fury over pollution. The good parents of Chinese children do not want them poisoned by factory or energy plant wastes just like, they want to have safe schools in earthquake zones. There is tremendous pressure on the communist leadership to protect the children and this pressure grows as China’s wealth increases.
.
I would suggest that China is very intent on a safe vaccination that will protect the Chinese people from swine or any other flues. Historically, many of the worst viral outbreaks that killed millions originated in China. This is because, even 100 years ago, China had one quarter of the planet’s population and many of these people lived very closely with pigs, ducks, chickens and oxen. The intensive farming methods using these animals to grow, fertilize, crop and fallow farmlands is a huge intersection between germs and humans. The mutation rates of various diseases were very high due to the intermix of populations which were extremely close in proximity due to pens, leashes and flock control methods.
.
The US government is doing exactly the same thing the Chinese communists are doing: trying to stop any possible pandemic. This is because, millions of deaths would be a grave problem for the US especially if it is children and young adults. If anyone imagines that vaccinations are being deviously designed to kill us, this begs the logical question, why? That is, if the germs will kill us, why use other methods? I find this illogical systematic thinking to be a key characteristic of many conspiracy belief systems. Indeed, the seem addicted to this sort of illogical thinking. If a government protect people, the irrational believers in conspiracies think this is a tricky way to really kill us. And if the government does nothing when danger approaches, ditto! This is beyond silly, it is stupid.
.
New hope for Aids vaccine as scientists find ‘Achilles heel’ – Times Online
The search for an HIV vaccine has taken a major step forward with the discovery of a potential Achilles heel of the virus that causes Aids. .
Two powerful antibodies that attack a vulnerable spot common to many strains of HIV have been identified, improving the prospects for a vaccine against a virus that affects an estimated 33 million people and kills over 2 million each year. .
The discovery is important because it highlights a potential way around HIV’s defences against the human immune system, which have so far thwarted efforts to make a workable vaccine. The hope is that a vaccine that stimulates the production of these antibodies could remain effective against HIV even as the virus mutates. .
Scientists from the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) are already examining the antibodies for clues to vaccine design. The new techniques used to discover the antibodies also promise further progress, as they should reveal other weaknesses in HIV that a vaccine might exploit.
.
Hooray! This is good, good news! Africa and many island communities like Haiti are being ravaged by AIDS. It is destroying entire communities, literally. It is a slow death so people get sicker and sicker and can do less and less and this leads to a collapse in farming, trading and raising families. It is a complete disaster for the third world! And for anyone else! This disease has killed many millions of people and is a major plague. And I hope, will be terminated by a vaccination. We must thank the many scientists who devoted their careers to understanding this viral menace and mapping its internal structure.
.
The anti-vaccination people will fight this one, tooth and nail. I can see it coming: they are irrational, dangerous and DEADLY. Many obvious liars take refuge within the antiviral community and work tirelessly to convince people to do something deadly to themselves. This is criminal.
.
anti-vaccination moevment – The Skeptic’s Dictionary – Skepdic.com
The anti-vaccination movement (AVM) is at least two-pronged: one prong denies a causal connection between vaccines and the eradication or significant reduction of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles, and rubella; the other prong perceives vaccines as causing diseases, e.g., it claims that the MMR (mumps-measles-rubella) vaccine causes autism. Either way, the AVM proponents oppose vaccination against disease. .
One might consider a third prong of the AVM to be those who advocate homeopathic “vaccines” or isopathic preparations for such things as meningococcal disease, the “flu”, childhood illnesses, malaria, and HIV. Such people offer magic water in place of an actual vaccine developed and properly tested by scientists. They believe the water has been energized and has a selective “memory” of molecules long gone in the homeopathic dilution process. Most homeopathic vaccines are nothing but water or inert substances and cannot protect anyone from anything. They endanger people’s lives when they are offered as protection against diseases like malaria. They are sought out by people who do not trust real vaccines and who live according to the principles of vitalism and magical thinking. Thus, we might well say that those who recommend homeopathic vaccines are part of the AVM since, in effect, they oppose real vaccination against disease. .
One thing that unites these three prongs of the AVM is that each is selective in its picking of evidence to support its viewpoint and to denigrate one of scientific medicine’s major contributions to public health.
.
timeline of the autism caused by vaccines scare – The Skeptic’s Dictionary – Skepdic.com
[This timeline is in response to Sharon Begley's Newsweek article that gives the impression that there has been a significant amount of publication in reputable journals in support of the vaccine/autism link. It is important to emphasize the need to look at all the evidence and accept what the preponderance of the data supports. All of us are susceptible to confirmation bias and too many of us go with our gut instinct rather than with the data. Your "mommy instinct" or gut feeling isn't as reliable as you think it is when it comes to complex causal matters.] .
Background: The anti-MMR-vaccine movement has two camps: one sees the vaccine as harmful, the other sees thimerosal (an ethylmercury based preservative) as harmful. In the US, the anti-vaccine movement began as one aspect of a larger movement that blames mercury and other neurotoxins in the environment for most neurological disorders. After thimerosal was removed from vaccines, the focus shifted to the quantity of shots given to children and to the speculation that some children are “especially sensitive” to vaccines. The evidence, as you can see for yourself by following this timeline, is overwhelmingly in favor of the notion that neither the vaccines nor their preservatives are harmful, but that not getting children vaccinated has harmful, sometimes deadly, consequences.
.
I have gone from being annoyed by the anti-vaccination commentators who have posted one fake story after another here on my blog. Now, I will tell them all who they really are: FOOLS. I am utterly outraged by this movement and I recommend that everyone read the above timeline in the Skeptic article. Don’t worry about clicking on this story, it won’t rip your heads off. It is important to read because a lot of it is about the false calumny about autism and vaccinations. Autism is most likely a genetic problem. And incidentally, could also be aggravated by pollution. As I detailed in my mercury in fish story the other day.
.
Some of my readers hate science. I can’t fix this problem. People love illogic and prefer magic, over science and can’t be fixed via arguments or logical expositions. If someone wants to be crazy, they will be crazy! But the problem is deep: people basically have a poor understanding of what science actually is. It is an ongoing logic systems argument which settles debates via assembling and then examining from all angles, all information relevant to the issues. Double blind testing is one area in science which is most important. Non-scientists who want to make ideological points, often ignore the double blind tests. They want to assemble ‘facts’ and then draw conclusions based on their pet facts.
.
Also, if someone discovers something and no one can reproduce it or find it again, it is discounted. Since it isn’t happening twice. People seeking to have singular events hate this rule. Another tool of science is to test things over and over again, in a bigger and bigger pool and with more and more people participating. This way, hoaxes and misunderstandings are revealed.
.
A great number of investigators took the autism/vaccination story very seriously. And after many years of hard work, have decided there is NO connection whatsoever. I lost one good commentator here, David, because he and his sister were convinced, based only on their singular observations, that the vaccinations caused his sister to deliver an autistic baby. David believes this business despite being told by professionals that the condition appears right after the third month, probably triggered by hormone changes, which happens to coincide with the first vaccinations. When it comes to family relations, people’s emotions overwhelm them and they have to react and then cling to the reaction.
.
So the story spreads, vaccinations are evil. Despite the fact that the diseases these vaccinations protect us from kill, maim and create autistic-like damage to healthy babies! That is, these diseases can paralyze, kill, render deaf, put holes in hearts, etc and thus, are a grave danger in themselves.
.
To immunize or not? | PressDemocrat.com | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
The percentage of fully immunized students entering Sonoma County kindergarten classes has steadily dipped from 91.6 percent in 2002 to 87.7 percent last fall, according to state records. The statewide average is down by only 0.6 points over the same period. .
Roughly half of this year’s kindergartners who are not fully vaccinated have exemptions that cover all diseases. The other half are missing some vaccinations. .
The county’s nearly 4-point drop in the vaccination rate might seem small, but officials say it comes close to the level — about 85 percent — at which “herd immunization,” the safety in numbers from widespread inoculation, breaks down. .
In nine county school districts, six of them in the west county, the percentage of fully immunized kindergartners is below 80 percent, a Public Health Department analysis said. The figures exclude private schools. .
At six North Bay schools, all charter or private schools, more than half the families had received exemptions from the required vaccination regimen. Such concentrations of partially immunized or unimmunized students pose “a significant risk of an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease,” Maddux-Gonzalez said. .
State law allows parents, by merely signing a waiver form, to gain exemption from the vaccinations required to enter kindergarten at public and private schools.
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One child gets sick in the private schools and we get a mini-epidemic! Already, the rate of death and impaired health from lack of vaccinations is rising rapidly in ‘educated’ countries due to this global push to get parents to stop immunizing their children! If anyone is paranoid, wouldn’t they be upset that dangerous people are convincing gullible parents to expose their children to possible DEATH??? I used to live in northern California. This is where people believe the ridiculous idea that if you eat certain foods, viruses and bacteria will leave you alone or not hurt you. This is pure hogwash.
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I got a number of emails from enraged readers who did NOT want to hear this news. They wanted desperately to believe that if they ate carrots every day, they would never get very sick. I can’t help it: if I know something, I will say it out loud. History is crystal clear: no matter what you eat, you can be struck down by the Viral Kingdom in a flash.
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Autism Blog – Autism, scientology and the moonies « Left Brain/Right Brain
I never imagined when I started blogging about autism just how deep the rabbit hole of quackery went. It never ceases to amaze me how the relationships between some of the people deeply involved in the mercury militia start to unravel with some occasionally disturbing results. .
Over the last few weeks, I’ve come across some of the most disturbing relationships yet. As the title suggests, there seem to be disturbing links between some mercury militia members and the Unification Church (the moonies) and there are definite links between established scientologists and DAN! as well as other non-DAN! mercury militia resources. Most disturbing of all is the suggestion of a relationship between The Moonies and Scientology with an apparent agenda to encourage the mercury militia and possibly even help finance or otherwise aid the legal fight some parents are undergoing with relation to vaccines and autism.
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If anyone is paranoid, the words ‘Moonies’ and ‘Scientologists’ should make you scream and run like hell! And guess what, everyone: both of these groups work hand in glove with a number of the damn ‘NWO’ people you guys are blaming for everything! Why not connect some dots here? The movement to expose yourselves and your poor children to dangerous and deadly viral diseases….are these guys. And if you are truly paranoid, google ‘Scientologists’ and see what real darkness looks like! GAH! Get a grip!
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This is what happens when people are lured into cults. The anti-vaccination groups are CULTS. So are the Moonies and the Scientologists. There are many cults out there that want us to not take medicines and to not get vaccinations. I know that a number of Buddhist cults are the same way. As well as born again Christian cults or cults like the Mennonites, the list is very long. The fear of vaccinations is a key element in irrational religious cults. It taps into a dark part of the brain which is where religious beliefs lurk and it a grave danger to any rational consideration of reality.
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Sarah Palin Adviser’s Secret Scientology Plot to Take Over Washington – sarah palin – Gawker
John Coale, currently advising Sarah Palin on running for president in 2012, is a Scientologist. And according to a memo obtained by Gawker, Coale once plotted to use friendly politicians to advance the power-hungry cult’s agenda. .
Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin’s political action committee behind the scenes and “guiding [her] political image in Washington.” .
In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the “MONEY and VOTES game” in order to “create power” for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C…. .
…Coale denies playing any role in Palin’s political career aside from that of a friend who e-mails her once a week or so. And he insists that he has never used his political influence—in addition to Palin, his friends include the Clintons and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others in Washington—to advance the aims of Scientology. “I don’t think I have ever said, to the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone else, a word about Scientology. Not a word.”
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Read this and weep. Fox TV is big on cult beliefs. It encourages all sorts of irrational or outright stupid behavior. For example, in the healthcare debate, it promotes the false story about ‘death panels’ which is exactly what the Scientologists love. Fox TV is big on taking over normal outrage like the Tea Baggers who were turned on their heads and shoved into being anti-healthcare. A number of people who get government healthcare are screaming about healthcare reforms thanks to these creeps who run Fox TV. And the Scientologists know that if they sow fear and paranoia, they can harvest fools to use as tools.
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Ditto, a number of religious organizations. Religions love to pretend they heal people. So, while doctors toil using modern science and medicine to save lives of believers, their brethren stand around pray and then, if the doctors succeed, always crow that their particular god or belief was the true cure. Some religions are very doctrinaire and forbid modern medications and their believers die. Of course, when inflicted on innocent children who have no choice in the matter, this becomes criminal.
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Now, to round out the health news (before the regular crew here begins howling at the moon rather than at the Moonies) here is some news about the biggest pharmaceutical corporation breaking the law:
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Pfizer to pay record $2.3bn settlement | Business | guardian.co.uk
The government said Pfizer had promoted four prescription drugs, including a painkiller, Bextra, as treatments for medical conditions – but, crucially, the ailments were not ones for which those drugs had been federally approved. .
Use of drugs for so-called “off-label” medical conditions is not uncommon, but drug manufacturers are prohibited from marketing drugs for uses that have not been approved by the food and drug administration. .
Bextra, one of a class of painkillers known as Cox-2 inhibitors, was pulled from the US market in 2005 amid mounting evidence it raised the risk of heart attack, stroke and death…. .
…The government said Pfizer had promoted four prescription drugs, including a painkiller, Bextra, as treatments for medical conditions – but, crucially, the ailments were not ones for which those drugs had been federally approved. .
Use of drugs for so-called “off-label” medical conditions is not uncommon, but drug manufacturers are prohibited from marketing drugs for uses that have not been approved by the food and drug administration. .
Bextra, one of a class of painkillers known as Cox-2 inhibitors, was pulled from the US market in 2005 amid mounting evidence it raised the risk of heart attack, stroke and death.
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I happen to be a believer (yes, this is religious!) that people should feel pain. I was dying once and I heard a voice (yes, I have the same brain as everyone else) telling me, ‘If you feel pain, you are alive.’ So I muttered that to the nurse who told me about this, later. Well, pain is life! We need pain to feel the other feelings in our bodies. All pain killers also kill other feelings and this is very bad for us.
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So pain killers have to be used sparingly. I will endure immense pain in order to continue feeling my other feelings! But most people don’t like pain and want to live sans any pains at all. So they pop pills or use other substances to stop feeling ANYTHING at all! Since this is all about addictions, governments outlaw one painkiller (opium was an early one!) after another. But all of them are addictive because many humans love to avoid pain. I can’t get addicted to painkillers because I hate them.
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The Holy Grail is a painkiller that isn’t addictive. I think this will never be found due to humans loving painkillers too much. So here is a paradox: to really live life, you have to suffer lots of pain. And this is an unhappy thing. But then, all the real joys in life involve alertness and focus and nothing makes us more alert and focused than some pain.
http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/aids-vaccine-possible-at-last
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Civilization's Cost: The Decline and Fall of Human Health
Civilization's Cost: The Decline and Fall of Human Health
Ann Gibbons
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS, 31 MARCH-4 APRIL 2009, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
When humans were freed from searching for food from dawn to dusk, they finally had time to build cities, create art, and even muse about the gods. Agriculture and cities made human life better, right? Wrong, say archaeologists who presented stunning new evidence that most people's health deteriorated over the past 3000 years. "We document a general decline in health across Europe and the Mediterranean," says bioarchaeologist Clark Spencer Larsen of Ohio State University in Columbus. He's a coinvestigator of the European Global History of Health Project, an ambitious new effort to study the health of Europeans during the past 10,000 years.
Most bioarchaeology studies tend to tell the tale of illness and death of people from a single site, such as a burial pit for plague victims or an ancient cemetery. Larsen's project is one of the first—and the largest—to try to reveal broad trends by assembling standardized data from large samples. In a series of posters, the team presented the first analysis of data on 11,000 individuals who lived from 3000 years ago until 200 years ago throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. "This is a real tour de force," says bioarchaeologist George Armelagos of Emory University in Atlanta, after reviewing the posters.
The project has taken 8 years and $1.2 million to organize so far. The goal was to pool 72 researchers' data on standardized indicators of health from skeletal remains, including stature, dental health, degenerative joint disease, anemia, trauma, and the isotopic signatures of what they ate, says project leader Richard Steckel of Ohio State. They also gathered data on settlement size, latitude, and socioeconomic and subsistence patterns so that they could compare rich and poor, urban and rural, farmers and hunter-gatherers.
They found that the health of many Europeans began to worsen markedly about 3000 years ago, after agriculture became widely adopted in Europe and during the rise of the Greek and Roman civilizations. They document shrinking stature and growing numbers of skeletal lesions from leprosy and tuberculosis, caused by living close to livestock and other humans in settlements where waste accumulated. The numbers of dental hypoplasias and cavities also increased as people switched to a grain-based diet with fewer nutrients and more sugars.
The so-called Dark Ages were indeed grim for many people who suffered from more cavities, tooth loss, rickets, scurvy, and bone infections than had their ancestors living in hunter-gatherer cultures. People became shorter over time, with males shrinking from an average of 173 centimeters in 400 B.C.E., for example, to 166 centimeters in the 17th century—a sure sign that children who were not members of the elite were eating less nutritious food or suffering from disease.
Why would people want to settle in towns or cities if it made them sick? One answer is that settlers suffered less bone trauma than nomadic hunter-gatherers, suggesting to Steckel that they might have felt safer in villages and, later, towns where an emerging elite punished violent behavior—but also controlled access to food.
The social and political inequities in urban centers meant that for nonelites, moving into cities was "almost a death sentence" for centuries, notes Armelagos. In the Middle Ages, people in the countryside were generally taller than people in cities.
After a long, slow decline through the Middle Ages, health began to improve in the mid-19th century. Stature increased, probably because of several factors: The little Ice Age ended and food production rose, and better trade networks, sanitation, and medicine developed, says Steckel. But take heed: Overall health and stature in the United States has been declining slightly since the 1950s, possibly because obese Americans eat a poor-quality diet, not unlike early farmers whose diet was less diverse and nutritious than that of hunter-gatherers. By understanding how disease and malnutrition spread in the past, researchers hope to apply those lessons in the future. "Our goal is to understand the health context for what we have today," says Larsen.
Ann Gibbons
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS, 31 MARCH-4 APRIL 2009, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
When humans were freed from searching for food from dawn to dusk, they finally had time to build cities, create art, and even muse about the gods. Agriculture and cities made human life better, right? Wrong, say archaeologists who presented stunning new evidence that most people's health deteriorated over the past 3000 years. "We document a general decline in health across Europe and the Mediterranean," says bioarchaeologist Clark Spencer Larsen of Ohio State University in Columbus. He's a coinvestigator of the European Global History of Health Project, an ambitious new effort to study the health of Europeans during the past 10,000 years.
Most bioarchaeology studies tend to tell the tale of illness and death of people from a single site, such as a burial pit for plague victims or an ancient cemetery. Larsen's project is one of the first—and the largest—to try to reveal broad trends by assembling standardized data from large samples. In a series of posters, the team presented the first analysis of data on 11,000 individuals who lived from 3000 years ago until 200 years ago throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. "This is a real tour de force," says bioarchaeologist George Armelagos of Emory University in Atlanta, after reviewing the posters.
The project has taken 8 years and $1.2 million to organize so far. The goal was to pool 72 researchers' data on standardized indicators of health from skeletal remains, including stature, dental health, degenerative joint disease, anemia, trauma, and the isotopic signatures of what they ate, says project leader Richard Steckel of Ohio State. They also gathered data on settlement size, latitude, and socioeconomic and subsistence patterns so that they could compare rich and poor, urban and rural, farmers and hunter-gatherers.
They found that the health of many Europeans began to worsen markedly about 3000 years ago, after agriculture became widely adopted in Europe and during the rise of the Greek and Roman civilizations. They document shrinking stature and growing numbers of skeletal lesions from leprosy and tuberculosis, caused by living close to livestock and other humans in settlements where waste accumulated. The numbers of dental hypoplasias and cavities also increased as people switched to a grain-based diet with fewer nutrients and more sugars.
The so-called Dark Ages were indeed grim for many people who suffered from more cavities, tooth loss, rickets, scurvy, and bone infections than had their ancestors living in hunter-gatherer cultures. People became shorter over time, with males shrinking from an average of 173 centimeters in 400 B.C.E., for example, to 166 centimeters in the 17th century—a sure sign that children who were not members of the elite were eating less nutritious food or suffering from disease.
Why would people want to settle in towns or cities if it made them sick? One answer is that settlers suffered less bone trauma than nomadic hunter-gatherers, suggesting to Steckel that they might have felt safer in villages and, later, towns where an emerging elite punished violent behavior—but also controlled access to food.
The social and political inequities in urban centers meant that for nonelites, moving into cities was "almost a death sentence" for centuries, notes Armelagos. In the Middle Ages, people in the countryside were generally taller than people in cities.
After a long, slow decline through the Middle Ages, health began to improve in the mid-19th century. Stature increased, probably because of several factors: The little Ice Age ended and food production rose, and better trade networks, sanitation, and medicine developed, says Steckel. But take heed: Overall health and stature in the United States has been declining slightly since the 1950s, possibly because obese Americans eat a poor-quality diet, not unlike early farmers whose diet was less diverse and nutritious than that of hunter-gatherers. By understanding how disease and malnutrition spread in the past, researchers hope to apply those lessons in the future. "Our goal is to understand the health context for what we have today," says Larsen.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Vitamin D hope in prostate cancer
By Emma Wilkinson
BBC News health reporter
Prostate cancer is a major killer
Vitamin D is an effective treatment for prostate cancer in some patients, a UK study suggests.
A once daily dose reduced PSA level - an indicator of severity of disease - by as much as half in 20% of patients.
There has been much interest in vitamin D in prostate cancer after studies linking risk of the disease to sunlight exposure, the researchers said.
One expert agreed the findings were encouraging but said it needed to be tested in a bigger population.
Professor Jonathan Waxman, said the example had prompted him to assess the effects in a wider group of patients.
Out of 26 men with recurrent prostate cancer, who took a daily dose of vitamin D2 bought from the chemist, five responded to the treatment.
In two the PSA level, fell by more than half, in two by 25-50% and in one man it fell by less than 25%.
The effects in one man were sustained for 36 months.
Welcome addition
Study leader Professor Jonathan Waxman, from Imperial College London, said vitamin D therapy was effective and well-tolerated.
"It's very interesting - there has been no significant trial of vitamin D.
"This is a treatment which is unlikely to have significant toxicity and is a welcome addition to the therapeutic options for patients with prostate cancer."
He agreed that a further trial in a larger number of patients, comparing vitamin D with a dummy pill was warranted.
One theory is that vitamin D interferes with the effect of the androgen receptor, which is stimulated by hormones such as testosterone and implicated in prostate cancer.
John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said it was not the first study looking at vitamin D in the disease but a consensus on the benefits had not been reached.
"This small scale study investigating the use of vitamin D as a 'stand alone' treatment for men with progressive prostate cancer provides a valuable additional perspective.
"Many men with prostate cancer may wonder whether they should take vitamin D supplements to control their disease.
"This study does not answer that question, but maintaining a good level of vitamin D is recommended as part of a generally healthy lifestyle.
"The role of supplements in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer is an area which deserves a greater level of research attention."
Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK prostate cancer expert based at Cardiff University agreed the results were encouraging but more evidence was needed.
"We advise men with prostate cancer to consult their doctor before taking vitamin D supplements."
BBC News health reporter
Prostate cancer is a major killer
Vitamin D is an effective treatment for prostate cancer in some patients, a UK study suggests.
A once daily dose reduced PSA level - an indicator of severity of disease - by as much as half in 20% of patients.
There has been much interest in vitamin D in prostate cancer after studies linking risk of the disease to sunlight exposure, the researchers said.
One expert agreed the findings were encouraging but said it needed to be tested in a bigger population.
Professor Jonathan Waxman, said the example had prompted him to assess the effects in a wider group of patients.
Out of 26 men with recurrent prostate cancer, who took a daily dose of vitamin D2 bought from the chemist, five responded to the treatment.
In two the PSA level, fell by more than half, in two by 25-50% and in one man it fell by less than 25%.
The effects in one man were sustained for 36 months.
Welcome addition
Study leader Professor Jonathan Waxman, from Imperial College London, said vitamin D therapy was effective and well-tolerated.
"It's very interesting - there has been no significant trial of vitamin D.
"This is a treatment which is unlikely to have significant toxicity and is a welcome addition to the therapeutic options for patients with prostate cancer."
He agreed that a further trial in a larger number of patients, comparing vitamin D with a dummy pill was warranted.
One theory is that vitamin D interferes with the effect of the androgen receptor, which is stimulated by hormones such as testosterone and implicated in prostate cancer.
John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said it was not the first study looking at vitamin D in the disease but a consensus on the benefits had not been reached.
"This small scale study investigating the use of vitamin D as a 'stand alone' treatment for men with progressive prostate cancer provides a valuable additional perspective.
"Many men with prostate cancer may wonder whether they should take vitamin D supplements to control their disease.
"This study does not answer that question, but maintaining a good level of vitamin D is recommended as part of a generally healthy lifestyle.
"The role of supplements in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer is an area which deserves a greater level of research attention."
Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK prostate cancer expert based at Cardiff University agreed the results were encouraging but more evidence was needed.
"We advise men with prostate cancer to consult their doctor before taking vitamin D supplements."
Friday, April 24, 2009
83-year-old granny Yoga master
83-year-old Yoga instructor, Bette Calman, performs Yoga moves in Melbourne, Wednesday April 22, 2009. Bette moved to Melbourne to retire 8 years ago, only to find herself back in action again after her daughter Susie, who is also a Yoga instructor, was pestering for fill-in teachers. Despite her senior age, Bette is still practicing and teaching Yoga, teaching up to 11 classes a week. Bette has been practicing Yoga for over 40 years, and has no intention on stopping anytime soon.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-04/24/content_7712913.htm
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