Showing posts with label Alternative Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternative Health. Show all posts

Monday, January 6, 2014

New York governor set to allow limited medical use of marijuana


• Andrew Cuomo in surprise reverse of hardline position
• Small but significant change to highly restrictive laws
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Governor Andrew Cuomo at the inauguration of New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio on January 1, who has set a liberal agenda. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
New York is poised to become the latest US state to relax its laws covering marijuana. Governor Andrew Cuomo will make a surprise turnaround in policy later this week, to allow limited use of the drug for medical purposes.
As Colorado residents continue to flock to their local pot shops, after their state became from 1 January the first to allow the sale and possession of cannabis for recreational purposes, signs have emerged that New York will now make a small but important amendment to some of the strictest laws on the drug in the US. Cuomo is expected to announce an executive action in his annual state of the state address on 8 January, to permit a small number of hospitals to prescribe marijuana for medical use in the treatment of serious illnesses including cancer and glaucoma, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Cuomo, a Democrat, has always been staunchly against legalising cannabis, including for medical use. Even though the likely announcement would only loosen restrictions on the drug very slightly, it will be seen as a significant move at a time when a number of states are liberalising their laws in ways ranging from the use of medical marijuana to decriminalising basic possession of the drug, up to full recreational use. Voters in Washington state have also voted to allow recreational marijuana and it is expected to follow Colorado later this year and become the second state to implement such laws.
More than 20 states currently have laws allowing a variety of medical uses of marijuana.
Cuomo is expected to emphasise that medical marijuana will only be allowed for a tightly circumscribed list of illnesses, to be drawn up by the state Department of Health.
By announcing a unilateral executive action, the governor will sidestep the legislative process in the state capital, Albany, where the senate has repeatedly struck down bills passed in the lower assembly to permit medical marijuana.
Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told the New York Times Cuomo’s move was “bold and innovative”.
Even limited medical marijuana use is banned under federal law but the Obama administration has signalled that it is not interested in actively pursuing prosecution in states that have relaxed their laws around the drug. Whether there will be any clash between federal law enforcement and state authorities in Colorado and Washington state remains to be seen.

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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Campaign against Natural Health Care : Politics Masquerading as Science


File:Flickr - Official U.S. Navy Imagery - Cmdr. Yevsey Goldberg conducts an acupuncture procedure. (1).jpg
ARABIAN GULF (Feb. 16, 2012) Cmdr. Yevsey Goldberg conducts an acupuncture procedure on a patient aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). New Orleans and embarked Marines assigned to the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are deployed as part of the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dominique Pineiro/Released) 120216-N-PB383-330 Join the conversation www.facebook.com/usnavy
Image Source  : Wikimedia . Org
Official Navy Page from United States of America Dominique Pineiro/U.S. Navy

File:India - Varanasi pharmacy - 0835.jpg
vials in a frame at a Homeopatic pharmacy Varanasi Benares India
Author  :   Jorge Royan
Image Source  :  Wikipedia . Org
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Natural Health Care: the Research Evidence



By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall



I find it ironic how eager mainstream doctors are to condemn natural health treatments for not being “evidence-based.” Especially when Western medicine can produce little or no scientific evidence regarding the long term effectiveness and safety of many of their treatments. This is particularly true of heart surgery and immunization protocols. We operate on hearts and vaccinate kids for reasons that have nothing to do with scientific evidence. At the same time, we hold “natural” or “alternative” health providers to a much higher standard of proof. This is for complex political reasons that have given organized medicine and Big Pharma a virtual monopoly over health and healing. It has nothing to do with science.
The Myth of Evidence-Based Medicine
Doctors seem to forget that most common Western remedies were incorporated into the medical armamentarium centuries ago without any “proof” whatsoever of their effectiveness or safety. There were no randomized controlled trials when doctors began using digitalis for heart failure, morphine for pain, or sudafed for nasal congestion. All, like many other drugs, are plant-based treatments* originally used by midwives and herbalists (women the Catholic Church condemned as “witches”).
It was only when pharmaceutical companies began to develop synthetics substitutes that drugs were subjected to randomized control trials. Likewise, the long term outcome of many surgical interventions is never studied before they are rushed into the marketplace. A recent Wall Street Journal article examines the cost effectiveness of two common cardiac procedures – coronary angioplasty and coronary bypass surgery.
According to the article, in 2006 American surgeons performed 1.3 million coronary angioplasties at an average cost of $48,399 each – at a total cost of more than $60 billion. The same year they performed 448,000 coronary bypass operations at a cost of $99,743 each – at a total of more than $44 billion.
Despite these costs, a randomized controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that angioplasties and stents don’t prolong life or even prevent heart attacks in stable patients (i.e. 95% of patients who receive them). Likewise coronary bypass surgery prolongs life in less than 3% of cases.
The Bias Against Natural Health Care
The authors ask:  Why do Medicare and health insurance companies pay billions of dollars for dangerous, expensive, and largely ineffective heart surgeries – yet balk at paying for “natural” approaches that have proven to reverse and prevent the chronic diseases that account for at least 75% of health care costs (INTERHEART study, The Lancet, Sept 2004)?
Good question.
How “Natural” Treatments Affect Genes
The Wall Street Journal article mentions other research into the mechanism by which plant-based diets, yoga, and meditation halt or even reverse the progression of prostate cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic conditions.
One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, provides evidence that only a few months of these “natural” treatments permanently alters gene expression. It describes how genes associated with cancer, heart disease, and inflammation were downregulated or “turned off,” while protective genes were upregulated or turned on.” Another study published in The Lancet Oncology reported that these changes also increased telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens the telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes. Telomeres control how long we live. No prescription medication has ever been shown to do this.
Popularity of Natural Health Care

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

TED talks falls in line with Monsanto: no talks that question GMOs will be allowed

TED aligns with Monsanto, halting any talks about GMOs, 'food as medicine' or natural healing

 science
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) Allow me to be the first to announce that TED is dead. Why? Because the group that organizes so-called "TED talks" has been thoroughly hijacked by corporate junk science and now openly rejects any talks about GMOs, food as medicine, or even the subject of how food can help prevent behavioral disorders in children. All these areas of discussion are now red-flagged from being presented on any TED stage.
This is openly admitted by TEDx itself in a little-known letter publicly published on December 7, 2012. Click here to view the letter.
In that letter, TED says that people who talk about GMOs are engaged in "pseudoscience." Those who discuss the healing potential of foods are spreading "health hoaxes."
The letter also advises TEDx organizers to, "reject bad science, pseudoscience and health hoaxes," meaning anyone who talks about GMOs, "food as medicine" or similar topics.
The TED organization, incredibly, believes that food cannot be medicine and does not contain medicine. Perhaps someone should educate TED about resveratrol, curcumin, phycocyanins, polyphenols and ten thousand other chemicals created by plants that have medicinal functions in the human body. To deny this is to nearly admit you believe the Earth is flat and that the sun and stars revolve around our planet. It is a sure sign of a feeble mind that cannot grasp the very simple and readily evident idea that the human body evolved in an environment full of plants with beneficial physiological effects, including many medicinal effects.
Maybe someone should remind TED that nearly 25% of all prescription medicines are in some way derived from plants, including statin drugs. Drug companies expend enormous resources searching the world's botanical treasures for amazing molecules that they can pirate from nature and alter in some way to make them patentable as a drug. Even the World Resources Institute readily admits this, while also remind us that 80 percent of the world population still relies largely on plant-based medicine.
TED apparently thinks 80 percent of the world population is purely delusional, because obviously, as TED insists, real medicine can only come from pharmacological factories spewing out deadly chemicals, right?

TED falls in line with Monsanto: no talks that question GMOs will be allowed

It's a sure sign that you've jumped into a circle of dogma when the very act of asking intelligent questions is no longer allowed. Any speakers who might ask questions about genetically engineered foods are strictly forbidden by TED. This makes TED a source of pseudoscience because it censors and silences any dissenting views that don't align with Monsanto and the Frankenfoods biotech industry.
The TEDx letter mentioned above actually claims that anyone who questions the wisdom of genetically engineering food crops grown in open fields is a quack or a hoaxer.
Read the letter yourself. It reads as if it were written by someone with the intellectual capacity of an 8th grader -- someone who is so naive that they still haven't caught on to the fact that corporations routinely lie to the world by hijacking science to push their agenda of profit and domination. And it makes you wonder just how stupid TED thinks the public really is on the subject of GMOs. Even though 90% of the public believes GMOs should be labeled on foods, TED thinks anyone who dares talk about GMOs is spewing "pseudoscience."
Does TED also think that spraying the world with glyphosate is a boon to mankind? Does TED even know what glyphosate is and how glyphosate causes cancer at concentrations of parts per billion?

TED's letter filled with false information

The TEDx letter attacking "pseudoscience" is, itself, filled with factually false information. The letter says, "Andrew Wakefield's attempt to link autism and vaccines was exposed as a hoax last year."
That statement is blatantly false. For starters, Dr. Wakefield never conducted any studies whatsoever that linked autism and vaccines. That is a complete fabrication / delusion invented by the intellectually dishonest critics of Dr. Wakefield. TEDx obviously believes that if a lie is repeated often enough among critics of real science, that lie become a "truth."
Secondly, the actual hoax is on the medical journals and critics of Dr. Wakefield who were caught deliberately lying about his research and inventing wildly false claims in order to try to discredit him. They are currently being sued over their false allegations, by the way, and as the facts of this lawsuit come out, Dr. Wakefield will be completely vindicated.
For the real evidence that TED doesn't want you to see on Dr. Wakefield, check out these articles:
BMJ admits that fraud claim against Dr. Andrew Wakefield has no basis in fact
Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent; BMJ and Brian Deer caught misrepresenting the facts
Dr Wakefield demands retraction from BMJ after documents prove innocence from allegations of vaccine autism data fraud

Other areas of investigation banned by TED

It turns out that TED isn't only a proponent of GMOs, vaccines and whatever corporate-sponsored status quo science is currently being spouted -- it's also wholly aligned against a wide range of topics it considers "pseudoscience."
These so-called "pseudoscience" topics include:
• Consciousness, free will and the non-material "mind"
• "The fusion of science and spirituality" -- as if higher spiritual awareness is somehow not a valid pathway for the discovery of truth.
• Nearly all neuroscience.
• The placebo effect, something that has been experimentally proven to exist through tens of thousands of clinical trials.
• Any and all "healing," including Reiki or hands-on healing, healing touch, etc.
Yep, according to TED, these are all pure hokum and bunk. There is no placebo effect, they insist, even though it has been experimentally proven to be the strongest across-the-board form of medicine available today. The reason they cannot acknowledge the existence of the placebo effect is because it is contingent upon the interaction between the body and the mind. Because TEDx and its cabal of closed-minded junk scientists cannot admit to the existence of a non-material mind, they also cannot admit to the existence of the placebo effect even though their own experiments prove its existence beyond any rational doubt.
In fact, the placebo effect is so widely documented that in order to discard it, you would have to throw out all randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies altogether. Is TED saying that all such studies are bunk because, taken as a whole, they show the placebo effect to be statistically significant in its effectiveness?
See, this is how TED destroys its own argument (and credibility). If the placebo effect doesn't exist, then virtually all modern clinical trials must be deemed invalid, and that means TED doesn't believe in any real science at all.

TED is a cult of "scientism"

Like the Church that once suppressed scientific understanding long before the Age of Reason, TED is now part of the new Cult of Scientism, a dogmatic circle jerk of intellectual bullies who insist the only "science" that's true is their own selected brand of corporate-sponsored science. All legitimate science is excluded and attacked if it dares question the core beliefs of the Cult of Scientism. Those beliefs include some real whoppers, such as, "Corporate science is the only science that counts," and, "GMOs are automatically safe, even without long-term testing, because we say they are."
In this cult, there is no room for the simple, scientific act of questioning today's scientific beliefs. "Bad science," says TED, is anything that "has failed to convince many mainstream scientists of its truth."
This, of course, is nothing more than "mob science" which isn't really science at all. If new science were only recognized once all the existing scientists were convinced of its truth, then science would never have advanced.
According to TED, then, in 1616, then, the idea that the Earth was spherical would have been considered "bad science." TED would have agreed with the "Congregation of the Index" which cited holy scripture and decreed the Earth stood still and the Sun and stars revolved around it. Anyone who questioned this belief would have been attacked as a pusher of "pseudoscience" by TED.
The idea that invisible, microscopic bacteria spread disease would have been considered "bad science," too, because before the invention of the microscope, most "scientists" thought the idea of a microbiological world of invisible living organisms was sheer lunacy. When a now-famous doctor named Semmelweiss suggested that doctors should wash their hands between delivering babies, he was condemned by the "scientific" community and fired from his job. Meanwhile, an alarming number of women giving birth soon died from infections. This would have been completely acceptable to TED, as it was the "science" of the day, and "science" cannot be questioned.
(For historical references, see my article entitled, Why Doctors are Idiots: 150 Years of Disastrous Advice on Children's Health.)
Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity would have been considered "bad science," too. It was such a whacky theory that almost nobody believe it was true (at first).
In fact, throughout the history of scientific discovery -- microbiology, quantum physics, genetics and epigenetics, cosmology and chemistry -- any self-proclaimed scientist who declared "we now know everything and no new questions can be asked" is now seen in retrospect to be a complete fool.

Real science explained to TED

Science is not a static collection of knowledge, it is a process of exploring the nature of reality to discover and embrace new truths that very often displace old truths. Anyone who believes that science is "fixed" and that modern-day scientists have somehow stumbled upon the final answers to everything is nothing short of a complete fool. The great strength of the scientific method is that it is based on the asking of questions, even in the face of self-important, delusional "scientists" who have convinced themselves they are the final word on the subject at hand.
Through the process of asking questions and being willing to explore unexpected answers, science has made tremendous advances in understanding the material universe (although science has utterly failed to understand the non-material universe).
And yet, like any method of exploring the nature of reality, science is fallible. Science has made tremendous, horrifying mistakes such as giving pregnant women thalidomide as a morning sickness drug, or using African Americans for medical experiments in the Tuskegee affair. Science has created weapons of mass destruction and actually dropped them on civilian populations in Japan. Science invented DDT, Agent Orange and countless other toxic chemicals which now threaten the very survival of the human species.
See some of these failures of science in my related mini-documentary called "The Dark Side of Science"










Just this week, the CDC openly admitted that the era of antibiotics -- brought to you by pharmacological science -- is now coming to an end, and all of humanity is now threatened by superbugs for which chemical treatments are just about to run out. That's another little gift from the world of scientific pharmacology: deadly superbugs that could become the world's next deadly plague.
You won't hear TED talks about these subjects, because TED is dead. And by that, I mean TED's "mind" is utterly and completely closed to the really important ideas that we must discuss, explore and debate as a civilization if we hope to survive this "age of toxicity" that science has unleashed upon us. Instead of being open to "ideas worth spreading," TED simply declares all ideas it does not agree with as being pseudoscience. That approach requires no thought, no investigation and no real science. That's why it is also the same approach used by the status quo "scientific" community to push GMOs, mercury-laced vaccines and other deadly toxins on our world.

Why the "Berlin Wall" of closed-minded science will doom humanity to its own destruction

In a time when humanity desperately needs revolutionary, progressive ideas to survive its own destruction, TED is stuck in a 1950's mindset of "better living through chemistry." TED is like the 16th-century scientist who warns that if we sail our ships too far into the unknown, we will fall off the edge of the ocean and die.
Right now, humanity is suffering alarming rates of mysterious diseases such as autism, autoimmune disorders, infertility and cancer. Corporate-driven science has zero answers to these issues. The status quo "scientific" community exists in a total state of denial over the causes of these diseases, even absurdly insisting that injecting children with trace levels of mercury in vaccines is somehow "good" for children, as if mercury were a nutrient.
The biodiversity of our natural world is in a state of unprecedented collapse. The Earth biosphere is dying from toxicity, and that toxicity has been unleashed in the name of "science" via genetic pollution (GMOs), agricultural pollution (insecticides such as neonicotinoids), industrial pollution (which harms waterways and oceans), medical pollution (ionizing radiation and chemical medications) and food pollution (toxic heavy metals are now routinely being found in foods). This has all been done in the name of "science."
TED doesn't want you to hear about any of this. You are a "hoaxer" and a pusher of "pseudoscience" if you believe in any of this, apparently. And by God, don't you dare suggest that food is your medicine -- as Hippocrates wisely said -- or you will be called a "quack."
So thank you, TED, for showing you total insanity, your complete detachment from reality, your abandonment of humanity and your offensive, incestuous relationship with the Monsantos of the world. It is organizations like you, TED, that are destroying humanity by attacking the very people who possess the desperately-needed answers to saving humanity from its own destruction at the hands of closed-minded "science."
TED also aggressively attacks the very idea of consciousness, pretending that humans are nothing more than biological robots with no minds, no spirit, no soul, no consciousness and no free will. This is the position parroted by utterly misinformed "scientists" like Stephen Hawking, whose view of humanity is as dark and pessimistic as any we have ever witnessed.
For a full exploration of this issue covering Stephen Hawking's monumental mistake in failing to recognize the existence of consciousness, see my science documentary called "The God Within."

Learn the truth about science you're not supposed to know

Unlike today's corporate-driven scientists, I don't claim to have all the answers, but where I'm a quantum leap ahead of most modern-day status quo scientists is that I still believe in the scientific method of asking questions. Apparently, this act of asking questions is now utterly disallowed in today's dogmatic "science" cult.
I also have a strong scientific background, which terrifies GMO pushers and pro-vaccine child killers. I have a bachelor of science degree with a minor in mathematics and I'm fluent in the fundamental concepts of microbiology, chemistry, physics, anthropology, genetics, cosmology, nutrition science, environmental science, physiology and many other areas.
And what I've discovered from observing and writing about science for over a decade is that modern-day scientists suffer from a dangerous epidemic of arrogance that's actually standing in the way of real scientific advancement.
Sir Isaac Newton famously explored all sorts of bizarre ideas -- including delving heavily into the occult -- in his search for answers of how the universe works. If TED had been around in Newton's days, it would have banned Newton from speaking because his ideas "hadn't convinced the majority of other scientists" of their merits. Newton's laws of motion would have been called "quackery" because everybody knows that steel balls fall much faster than feathers, right? It's obvious, isn't it? How could they both possibly be accelerated at the same rate by gravity? TED would have banned such a talk.
So now, TED has become a re-hash of old, outdated ideas that brought us to these global problems in the first place. TED's answers to problems are apparently the same as Big Pharma's answers: more drugs, more vaccines, more chemicals, more corporate patents and more profiteering from human suffering.

Most of the world strongly disagrees with TED

For the record, most of the population of our world agrees with the fundamentals of what I'm saying here. Most of the world disagrees with TED's minority opinion on science and pseudoscience.
Specifically:
• Most of the world believes in the existence of mind and spirit
• Most of the world uses medicinal plants, not prescription drugs, as their primary source of medicine
• Most of the world agrees food contains medicinal properties and can be used medicinally to prevent disease
• Most of the world agrees the mind influences body physiology
• Most of the world agrees that GMOs should be questioned, relying on the precautionary principle rather than risking the entire genetic future of global agriculture with an unwise roll of the dice (open-air GMO experiments)
TED's disagreement with the majority of the world population on these issues puts TED in a desperate minority of monopoly-minded intellectual bullies who cannot win any intelligent discussion on the issues so they resort to censorship, bullying, intimidation and sheer arrogance to try to limit the public discussion of ideas they don't like.
That's not science. That's dogma.

Beyond TED - a new forum for leading thinkers

Despite its intellectual failings, we must thank TED for exposing itself as a backwards, intellectually-dead circle jerk of corporate-backed poison pushers who offer nothing but suffering and destruction to humanity. Because that creates an opportunity for the rest of us to get together and create our own public forum of truly progressive, groundbreaking ideas that can move humanity forward.
What I'm envisioning is a "New Science" forum where we invite Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Graham Hancock, Dr. Andrew Wakefield and all the other brilliant people who are no longer welcome at TED conference because their ideas are simply too revolutionary to be stomached by the old school apologists for corporate-backed anti-science.
I don't personally have time to start such an event this year because, ironically, I'm working in the Natural News Forensic Food Lab and conducting real science in the realm of food investigations, but if someone else doesn't start a new science speaking event within the next few years, I may take up the task myself.
In this event, we would openly welcome talks on consciousness, hands-on healing, neuroscience, environmental science, spirituality, meditation and all the other areas that are too advanced to be tolerated or even understood by the ignorant TED organizers.
TED could have been something great by doing precisely this, but instead it chose to silence the truly brilliant minds of our time and force-feed people a total line of corporate-backed bunk that pushes GMOs, brain-dead materialism and synthetic chemicals as the answer to everything.
TED is dead. But real science moves forward, with or without the TED bullies who desperately try to stop it.

Recommended reading

Keep in mind that the authors of all these extraordinary books would be banned from speaking at TED events:
Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients
Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself
Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery
The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles


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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Health And Wellness Report – Saturday July 28th, 2012

Health

Doctors call for change in painkiller labels

By Anna Yukhananov
U.S. health regulators should change the prescription guidelines for opioid painkillers to prevent more people abusing the powerful and addictive medicines, urged a group of medical and public health experts.
Thirty-seven health experts signed a petition to the Food and Drug Administration, asking it to revise the prescription label for opioid painkillers. They want to prohibit use of the drugs for moderate pain, add a maximum daily dose, and only allow patients to take them for up to 90 days unless they are being treated for cancer-related pain.
Changing the label would not limit how doctors prescribe painkillers. But it would stop pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions Inc and Pfizer Inc from promoting the drugs for non-approved uses.
Some researchers say aggressive marketing by drug companies has fueled overprescribing of opioids like oxycodone and methadone, synthetic versions of opium that are currently used to treat moderate or severe pain but are also highly addictive.
Overdose from prescription drugs is now the leading cause of accidental death in the country, eclipsing car crashes and the combined impact of cocaine and heroin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the problem has become an epidemic.
The government has tried a multitude of strategies to combat the problem, from targeting “pill mills” and pharmacies like CVS Caremark Corp that are accused of peddling painkillers to addicts, to asking drugmakers to pay for training courses that show doctors how to properly prescribe the medicines.
But some researchers say the government has done little to address drug companies’ marketing, which often encourages doctors to prescribe the pills for chronic pain.
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chair of the psychiatry department at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and one of the petitioners, said he has many patients who started off taking opioids for legitimate medical reasons, but then became addicted when they stayed on them for too long.
“We don’t think drug companies should be allowed to advertise these drugs as safe and effective for long-term pain, if we know very well that they’re not,” said Kolodny, who is also president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.
“The FDA has said there’s nothing they can do about this problem (of painkiller abuse). But there is, and that’s a label change.”
Read Full Article Here

Expanding Medicaid cuts death rates, study finds

By Lewis Krauskopf
State expansions of the Medicaid health insurance program for poor Americans reduced adult mortality rates by more than 6 percent compared with states that did not broaden eligibility for their plans, according to a study released on Wednesday.
  1.  The findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine could fuel a political furor over new plans for a nationwide expansion of Medicaid that erupted after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold President Barack Obama’s healthcare law in late June.
In an unexpected move, the high court ruling also left it up to states to decide whether to participate in the law’s broader eligibility criteria for Medicaid that would extend insurance coverage to as many as 16 million more Americans starting in 2014. At least five Republican governors who opposed the healthcare law have vowed to opt out of the expansion, saying the program will pose a huge financial burden.
The lead author of the study was Benjamin Sommers, an assistant professor in health policy and economics at the Harvard School of Public Health who is temporarily working as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to a disclosure note in the study, the paper was conceived and drafted while Sommers was employed at Harvard and the findings do not reflect official U.S. government policy.
The study examined three states that substantially broadened Medicaid eligibility for adults since 2000 — New York, Maine and Arizona. They were compared to neighboring states that did not implement expansions — Pennsylvania (for New York), New Hampshire (for Maine) and Nevada and New Mexico (for Arizona).
Read Full Article Here

Two more men with HIV now virus-free. Is this a cure?

By Maggie Fox
NBC News
Two men unlucky enough to get both HIV and cancer have been seemingly cleared of the virus, raising hope that science may yet find a way to cure for the infection that causes AIDS, 30 years into the epidemic.
The researchers are cautious in declaring the two men cured, but more than two years after receiving bone marrow transplants, HIV can’t be detected anywhere in their bodies. These two new cases are reminiscent of the so-called “Berlin patient,” the only person known to have been cured of infection from the human immunodeficiency virus.
These two cases, presented as a “late-breaker” finding on Thursday at the 19th annual International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., are among the reasons that scientists have been speaking so openly at the event about their hopes of finding a cure.
“Everyone knows about this ‘Berlin patient’. We wanted to see if a simpler treatment would do the same thing”, said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who oversaw the study. The widely publicized patient, Timothy Brown, was treated for leukemia with a bone marrow transplant that happened to come from a donor with a genetic mutation that makes immune cells resist HIV infection. The transplant replaced his own infected cells with healthy, AIDS-resistant cells. He is HIV-free five years later.
AIDS patients are susceptible to cancers, but they usually stop taking HIV drugs before receiving cancer treatment. “That allows the virus to come back and it infects their donor cells,” Kuritzkes said.
About 34 million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, globally; 25 million have died from it. While there’s no vaccine, cocktails of powerful antiviral drugs called antiretroviral therapy (ART) can keep the virus suppressed and keep patients healthy. No matter how long patients take ART, however, they are never cured. The virus lurks in the body and comes back if the drugs are stopped. Scientists want to flush out these so-called reservoirs and find a way to kill the virus for good.
Brown, and now these two other men, offer some real hope.
Dr. Timothy Henrich and colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital launched a search about a year ago for HIV patients with leukemia or lymphoma who had received bone marrow stem cell transplants. Bone marrow is the body’s source of immune system cells that HIV infects and it’s a likely place to look for HIV’s reservoirs.
“If you took an HIV patient getting treated for various cancers, you can check the effect on the viral reservoirs of various cancer treatments,” Kuritzkes, who works with Henrich, said. They found the two patients by asking colleagues at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston which, like Brigham and Women’s, is associated with Harvard Medical School.
Both men had endured multiple rounds of treatment for lymphoma, both had stem cell treatments and both had stayed on their HIV drugs throughout. “They went through the transplants on therapy,” Kuritzkes said.
It turns out that was key.
“We found that immediately before the transplant and after the transplant, HIV DNA was in the cells. As the patients’ cells were replaced by the donor cells, the HIV DNA disappeared,” Kuritzkes said. The donor cells, it appears, killed off and replaced the infected cells. And the HIV drugs protected the donor cells while they did it.
One patient is HIV-free two years later, and the other is seemingly uninfected three-and-a-half years later.
“They still have no detectable HIV DNA in their T-cells,” Kuritzkes said. In fact, doctors can’t find any trace of HIV in their bodies — not in their blood plasma, not when they grow cells in the lab dishes, not by the most sensitive tests.
Can the patients be told they are cured?
“We’re being very careful not to do that,” Kuritzkes said.
Read Full Article Here

Big uptick in scheduled births before due dates, Aussie study finds

By Kerry Grens
Expectant mothers in Australia are increasingly having their babies’ births scheduled weeks before their due date, according to a new study.
But that hasn’t lowered the risk of stillbirth, as some had hoped. In fact, researchers found that babies born even just a few weeks before their due date were slightly more likely to suffer from complications such as respiratory distress and feeding issues.
“Without a medical indication that is strong and clear right now, a planned delivery is not supported due to the fact that consequences after birth are likely to be relevant and severe,” said Dr. Karna Murthy, a pediatrics professor at Chicago’s Northwestern University, who was not involved in the study.
A baby’s due date is 40 weeks after the first day of the mother’s last period. For scheduled births, moms can be induced by medications and deliver vaginally or have their babies via Cesarean section.
In some cases, there are good reasons to stop a pregnancy short and deliver the baby early, such as if the mother has severe preeclampsia, which is high blood pressure and protein in the urine.
The condition is risky for the health of the mom, and delivering the baby early is considered a safer option than letting the pregnancy go on.
In other cases, such as if the mom has diabetes or there are low fluid levels around the baby, it’s not clear whether scheduling a birth early is less risky than letting the mother go into labor on her own, said Murthy.
“There is a widely held perception of a change in obstetric decision making that has lowered the threshold at which and for which planned birth occurs,” the researchers write in their report in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The result is that preterm births have become more popular around the world, with increases seen in both C-sections and inductions. In the U.S., for example, about one of every three babies is now born through a C-section.
To see whether planned births have also increased in Australia, and if there are health benefits to planning births, Jonathan Morris at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney and colleagues collected information on all births in New South Wales, Australia, from 2001 and 2009. The study included only single births.
Births that were planned between 33 and 39 weeks of pregnancy rose during the study period, from 19 percent of all births in 2001 to 26 percent in 2009.
Both inductions and C-sections became more popular; inductions rose from nine percent of all births in 2001 to 11 percent in 2009, while early, planned C-sections rose from 10 to 15 percent.
At the same time, severe health problems among newborns increased slightly, from three percent of all births in 2001 to 3.2 percent in 2009.
Among the babies whose births were scheduled between 33 and 39 weeks, 4.5 percent had a major health complication and 43 out of every 10,000 died.
In comparison, 3.3 percent of babies whose moms went into labor naturally and delivered between 33 and 39 weeks had a severe health problem and 40 out of every 10,000 died.
Read Full Article Here

Why married men are happier

Getty Images / Image Source
Married guys are happier post-nuptials than if they’d stayed bachelors, a new study finds.
By Kristen Domonell
Think bachelors have it made? It turns out married men are actually happier after marriage than they would be if they stayed single, according to researchers at Michigan State University.
The study looked at 1,366 people who weren’t married before participating in the survey, got married at some point during, and stayed married. Researchers compared the subjects to a control group who was demographically alike in every way other than being married.
The results: “People, on average, aren’t happier following marriage than they were before marriage, but they are happier than they would have been if they stayed single,” says Stevie C. Y. Yap, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at MSU and one of the study authors.
“Just being in a well-adjusted, long-term romantic partnership with someone may be the underlying mechanism,” says Yap. “It may not have to do with the marriage itself, the fact that you step up to the altar and say, ‘I do.’” (Want to know the secret to long-lasting love? Discover What Every Woman Wants.)
Happiness in a marriage might not always seem as exciting as when you first meet your wife, says Marsha Lucas, Ph.D., a psychologist in Washington, D.C. That’s because, as research proves, many people have a baseline level of happiness they tend to return to after a positive life event.
“During early romance, we’re getting all kinds of great, pleasurable experiences that are giving us a bit of a hit of dopamine, stimulating the brain areas involved with reward—even euphoria—as well as the motivation to seek out and return over and over to that same source to get some more,” she says. “After you’re married and the thrill has settled, those big, constant hits of dopamine taper off, and like coming down from a high, it can feel like a huge letdown.” (For more must-have relationship advice delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our free Girl Next Door newsletter.)
Read Full Article Here

Sorry, But What We Told You Is Wrong


- Dr. Gifford Jones  Sunday

Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, once remarked, “To every question there is a clear, concise, coherent answer that is wrong”. In medicine there are also many questions, and all too often the answers from experts are found years later to be wrong, sometimes with devastating consequences.

A report in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that 13 percent of research articles published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 reported reversals in medical findings involving drugs, screening tests and invasive procedures!
For example, for years we’ve been told that increasing good cholesterol is a prudent move. But new research shows it does nothing to protect against heart attack, strokes and early death.
Here’s another hummer. Doctors have urged men to have regular PSA testing. Now, it’s reported that routine prostate-cancer screening is less likely to save lives and more likely to cause substantial harm from the treatment.

Do you ever cringe when you’re with a friend who has a knuckle-cracking habit? Since we’ve been told this leads to arthritis, why not bite the bullet and bluntly tell them to stop it. But in a research study that reviewed hand X-rays of 215 people aged 50 to 59 the incidence of arthritis was about the same in those who did or did not crack their knuckles.
We’ve also been warned by health nuts, and everyone else, that for good health we must drink at least eight glasses of water a day. This feeling persists in spite of the fact that there’s never been any scientific evidence of its benefit. The Institute of Medicine reports that most people get the water they need by letting thirst guide them.
Read Full Article Here

Smokers produce unusually large amounts of two proteins that foster production of bone-resorbing osteoclasts compared to non-smokers.

Solving the mystery of how cigarette smoking weakens bones


- American Chemical Society By Gary Guishan Xiao, Ph.D.

Almost 20 years after scientists first identified cigarette smoking as a risk factor for osteoporosis and bone fractures, a new study is shedding light on exactly how cigarette smoke weakens bones. The report, in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research, concludes that cigarette smoke makes people produce excessive amounts of two proteins that trigger a natural body process that breaks down bone.

Gary Guishan Xiao and colleagues point out that previous studies suggested toxins in cigarette smoke weakened bones by affecting the activity of osteoblasts, cells which build new bone, and osteoclasts, which resorb, or break down, old bone. Weakening of the bones, known as osteoporosis, can increase the risk of fractures and is a major cause of disability among older people. To shed light on how cigarette smoking weakens bones, the scientists analyzed differences in genetic activity in bone marrow cells of smokers and non-smokers.
They discovered that human smokers produce unusually large amounts of two proteins that foster production of bone-resorbing osteoclasts compared to non-smokers. Experiments with laboratory mice confirmed the finding.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Cancer and Smoking Related Disease Research Program and the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Biomedical Research Program.


Alcohol – not marijuana – is the gateway drug, study shows

By J. D. Heyes, July 21 2012
(NaturalNews) For years Americans have been told that marijuana should remain illegal because it is the ultimate “gateway” drug – that is, the drug that most often leads to the abuse of other, more potent drugs. Not so, according to a new study which says alcohol – not marijuana – is the true gateway drug. Of three drugs or drug-containing substances – alcohol, tobacco and marijuana – the study found that the former, not the latter, led to more drug use. In examining a nationally representative…
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Holistic Health


Chocolate can improve blood circulation, EFSA rules

By PF Louis, July 21 2012
(NaturalNews) The EFSA is the European Food Safety Authority, and it considers it okay for a food to promote health benefits based on scientific proof. This is not the attitude of USA’s Food and Drug Administration. Our militantly aggressive FDA has the viewpoint that only large pharmaceutical corporations can promote health benefits for their toxic formulas that harm more than they help. Look out for the FDA if any food group, such as walnut growers, cherry producers, and others who have promoted…


Essential Fatty Acids and the sun

By John McKiernan, July 21 2012
(NaturalNews) Most of us are now aware of the importance of Essential Fatty Acids to our overall health and well being. What isn’t so commonly discussed; however, is the relationship between EFAs and the sun. Don’t be afraid of the sun It seems many people are so concerned with covering themselves up from any sun exposure that they are missing out on the important benefits of sunlight. Dr. Robert S. Stern, chair of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical…


Why virgin coconut oil is superior to highly refined, processed coconut oil

By Donna Earnest Pravel, July 23 2012
(NaturalNews) Many people in the natural health community have been well aware of the health benefits of coconut oil and other coconut products for decades. More recently, “clean eaters” and people following an ancestral diet have been replacing canola oil and other cooking oils with coconut oil. Unfortunately, some people do not realize that certain brands of coconut oil pose serious health risks. Innocent health seekers may be consuming a product that makes them sick. Not all coconut oil is…
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Pet Health

Dr. Becker Interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox (Part 1 of 3)

Published on May 22, 2012 by
http://healthypets.mercola.com/ Dr. Karen Becker, a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox about the book Healing Animals & The Vision of One Health. (Part 1 of 3)




Dr. Becker Interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox (Part 2 of 3)

Published on May 22, 2012 by
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/07/09/dr-becker… Dr. Karen Becker, a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox about the book Healing Animals & The Vision of One Health. (Part 2 of 3)




Dr. Becker Interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox (Part 3 of 3)

Published on May 22, 2012 by
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/07/16/dr-michae… Dr. Karen Becker, a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox about the book Healing Animals & The Vision of One Health. (Part 3 of 3)




BANG!!!! You’re a DEAD dog

Uploaded by on Feb 24, 2009
My Dog… Playing dead… over and over again….This is how I did it…
My dog already knew now to sit and wait for food… if you don’t know how to teach that… just wait till your dog stops moving (in the seated position) and give him a treat. Do that about 30 times and he’ll understand pretty quick.
Then what I would do is get the dog and lay him down by hand…the first 20 or so time it was kinda tough and the dog would not cooperate…but as you hold the dog down and after he stops resisting…say “bang!” and give him a treat…. Keep doing that and the dog will “die” the second you show him a treat..or when you say “BANG!” LOL…
 

10 Steps to a Housetrained Dog


  • The first rule of housetraining any puppy or dog is: never leave your little guy or gal unattended. Consider crate training. Despite how many people feel about “caging” their pet, crates actually work with a dog’s natural instinct to be a den dweller. And that’s only one of the benefits of crate training.
  • Consistent feeding times are very important during housetraining and even afterwards. It’s much easier to predict when your dog needs to go outside if he eats at specific times each day.
  • Another rule of housetraining: reward and reinforce good behavior, and do not punish your pet for mistakes. If your dog goes potty indoors, consider it your mistake – not hers. The goal of housetraining is to set your pet up for success. She can’t be successful without your consistent and patient guidance.
 Read Full Article Here
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Positivity Mind and Body

Tom Campbell & Anthony Peake – Consciousness Creates Reality

Uploaded by on Nov 3, 2011
Henrik Palmgren In Conversation With Tom Campbell And Anthony Peake. For More Information Check out
http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2011/02/RIR-110201.php
http://www.mybigtoe.com
http://www.anthonypeake.co.uk/index.php
 

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Articles of Interest


Big Pharma’s Oxycontin addicts being forced to heroin; war on drugs is complete failure

By J. D. Heyes, July 21 2012
(NaturalNews) Is the suggestion that the so-called “War on Drugs,” begun in the early 1980s, has turned out to be a complete failure? Not really, when you consider the connection between Big Pharma and the illicit drug trade. What? You didn’t know there even was a connection? Well, there is, and if anything, maybe it could even be said that current Big Pharma and other accepted medical practices have worsened the illicit drug industry. It stems from a concerted effort within the medical community…

New strategies for raising veggie-loving kids discovered via research

By PF Louis, July 21 2012
(NaturalNews) In addition to the normal aversions to fresh fruits and vegetables displayed by many young children, there are the pervasive TV and peer pressure enticements for sweet cereals, beverages, and stuff the cookie monster liked. TV advertising, especially, attempts to con parents into thinking those delightfully tasty items with cartoon figures displayed on their packaging contain healthy nutrients as well. Unless you consider food coloring and other toxic additives healthy, that’s totally…

Australian woman wins multi-million dollar payout from Thalidomide drug distributor Diageo

By J. D. Heyes, July 23 2012
(NaturalNews) A woman in Australia won a multi-million dollar settlement recently from a British Big Pharma firm, Diageo Plc., a local distributor for the drug Thalidomide, which caused birth defects in thousands of babies around the world in the 1960s, according to her attorneys. Lynette Rowe, 50, was born without any limbs – no arms and no legs – after her mother, Wendy, took the medication for just a single month when she was pregnant. At the time she took it, Thalidomide, a sedative, was being…
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[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Healthwatch

OVERNIGHT HEALTH: GOP seeks to regain upper hand on health policy

By Sam Baker and Julian Pecquet

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/212835-overnight-health-

AMA pushes IPAB repeal ahead of House panel’s vote

By Sam Baker

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/212767-ama-pushes-ipab-repeal-ahead-of-house-panels-vote

Food industry rejects proposed food tax in Obama budget

By Julian Pecquet

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/food-safety/212747-food-industry-rejects-proposed-food-tax

Carriers increasing? Scientist find flu virus in bats for the first time- risks to humans unclear

by The Extinction Protocol
February 27, 2012ATLANTA – For the first time, scientists have found evidence of flu in bats, reporting a never-before-seen virus whose risk to humans is unclear. The surprising discovery of genetic fragments of a flu virus is the first well-documented report of it in the winged mammals. So far, scientists haven’t been able to grow it, and it’s not clear if – or how well – it spreads. Flu bugs are common in humans, birds and pigs and have even been seen in dogs, horses, seals and whales, among others. About five years ago, Russian virologists claimed finding flu in bats, but they never offered evidence. “Most people are fairly convinced we had already discovered flu in all the possible” animals, said Ruben Donis, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who co-authored the new study. Scientists suspect that some bats caught flu centuries ago and that the virus mutated within the bat population into this new variety. Scientists haven’t even been able to grow the new virus in chicken eggs or in human cell culture, as they do with more conventional flu strains. But it still could pose a threat to humans. For example, if it mingled with more common forms of influenza, it could swap genes and mutate into something more dangerous, a scenario at the heart of the global flu epidemic movie “Contagion.” The research was posted online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The CDC has an international outpost in Guatemala, and that’s where researchers collected more than 300 bats in 2009 and 2010. The research was mainly focused on rabies, but the scientists also checked specimens for other germs and stumbled upon the new virus. It was in the intestines of little yellow-shouldered bats, said Donis, a veterinarian by training. These bats eat fruit and insects but don’t bite people. Yet it’s possible they could leave the virus on produce and a human could get infected by taking a bite. It’s conceivable some people were infected with the virus in the past. Now that scientists know what it looks like, they are looking for it in other bats as well as humans and other animals, said Donis, who heads the Molecular Virology and Vaccines Branch in the CDC’s flu division. –Physics

If You Take Oral Vitamin D You Must Avoid Making This Serious Mistake

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/23/oral-vitamin-d-mistake.aspx?e_cid=20120223-a3-ProductTest-1





The Brain Fat that is Seriously Low in Alzheimer’s Vs. Healthy People

http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2012/02/27/the-brain-fat-that-is-seriously-low-in-alzheimers-vs-healthy-people.aspx

Sleeping pills ‘linked to increased death risk’

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17177005

Child motor neurone disease treatment clue

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17155286