The US Governments are just lap dogs to these Masters -
Antidepressants Could Cause Harm to Heart, Brain, and Bones
April 16, 2012 — craftledger
Source: Activist Post
Did you know that roughly 10% of the American population suffers from depression? It isn’t exactly a coincidence, with the FDA approving a wide variety of damaging foods and drugs that many millions of Americans consume each day. The FDA isn’t helping the population with their approval of the dozens of antidepressant medications on the market – it in fact is doing the exact opposite.
The beneficial results of antidepressants have been under the spotlight for quite some time in the health world, and the validity of giving them out like candy to patients in need of a quick and easy solution is under question as well; just how useful is medication for depression?
At best, the tangible results felt by patients are comparable to sugar pills. That is to say, the medication itself does virtually nothing to improve the mood of the patient directly. At worst, antidepressants cause decreased mental stability. Wanting to kill yourself or others around you are feelings which antidepressants have been shown to ignite.
There is even the possibility that while on these terrible drugs you can become even more vulnerable to more serious mental illnesses – all whilst other legitimate non-medication methods for treating depression are being tread underfoot by the FDA.
In more recent studies, there has been surfacing evidence that antidepressants cause arteries to thicken at a faster rate. Research specifically points to an increased thickness of the lining of the carotid artery by up to 5% in men, thereby increasing the risk of heart disease substantially by putting more pressure on the heart.
This occurs when taking either selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs, the primary form of antidepressants), as well as antidepressants that affect other chemicals in the brain. The evidence isn’t completely concrete, but it points towards the change of serotonin in the body caused by the medications.
Another study in women who have gone through menopause unveiled that women who take either variation of antidepressants were up to 45% more likely to suffer from life-threatening brain damage from a stroke. This same study also found that women’s death rates rose 32% more whilst on the drugs.
Other documented side effects are much more prominent, but certainly no less detrimental to your health. These include those suicidal/homicidal thoughts mentioned earlier, as well as an increased risk of diabetes, an increased possibility of stillbirth, lowered immune system support and reduced bone density — resulting in a higher risk of fractures, primarily in the spinal column.
There are also a few long-term risks with using these detrimental drugs: a conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar depression, and an overall cognitive decline in most users. If becoming bipolar unnecessarily does not steer you away from these, then the overall loss of your mental capacity should be enough to raise a warning flag.
Explore More:
- Antidepressants Cause Your Arteries to Thicken 400% More Than Aging
- Antidepressants Drastically Increase the Risk for Miscarriages
- Antidepressants Make You More Depressed and Trigger Suicidal Thoughts
- Antidepressants Proven to be Useless, Pushed on Public Anyway
- Antidepressants Increase Breast Cancer Risk
- Antidepressants Prescribed Without Psychiatric Diagnosis
Swine flu drug ‘Tamiflu’ may be ‘no better than aspirin’
April 11, 2012 — craftledgerPharmaceutical companies should make full data from their clinical trials publicly available so the risks and benefits of the drugs can be independently analysed, researchers say.
The researchers have documented a number of cases in which access to full trial data “radically changed public knowledge of safety and efficacy” of widely used drugs, including Vioxx and Tamiflu.
Professor Chris Del Mar points to insufficient evidence that Tamiflu – stockpiled by the Australian Government in 2009 to quarantine swine flu – had any preventative effect.
Professor Del Mar, from the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice at Bond University, and colleagues presented their argument today in the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science Medicine journal.
Read the article in full
“It is the public who take and pay for approved drugs, and therefore the public should have access to complete information about those drugs,” the researchers said.
Earlier this year Professor Del Mar was involved in a review of Tamiflu, which concluded that although it does reduce symptoms, there is no reliable evidence the drug reduces the complications of influenza and hospitalisations.
He says governments around the world rushed to stockpile Tamiflu largely on the basis of these claims.
“All the data we’ve seen so far suggests it’s no better than aspirin. It could be, but we don’t have the data to say so,” Professor Del Mar said.
He adds the available evidence is insufficient to tell whether Tamiflu is successful in preventing influenza and stopping its transmission.
Professor Del Mar says there is far better evidence available for physical barriers such as handwashing, masks, gloves and quarantining.
Turned on its head
Professor Del Mar says the evidence for Tamiflu reducing hospitalisation came from a publication which summarised data from a number of trials by drug manufacturer Roche.
“It wasn’t until you scratched it a bit that you realised there was a problem,” he said.
In 2009, the professor and his research group sought to verify the conclusions of the published study by checking lengthy clinical study reports, which describe in detail what happened in the trials.
When the first author of that study did not have the full data, Professor Del Mar and his team turned to Roche, but after two years of “extensive correspondence” they only received a fraction of the reports from the company.
Professor Del Mar’s group then supplemented the incomplete data from Roche with reports obtained from regulators under freedom of information requests, along with leaked documents.
“This information has turned our understanding of the drug’s effects on its head,” the researchers said.
“Our review has led to the detection of numerous reporting biases and fundamental problems in trial design, and we have concluded that previous effectiveness claims were not supported by the available evidence.”
The researchers also found evidence that serious adverse events were not reported in published papers.
“The drug companies are not publishing some of the experiments they’ve done,” Professor Del Mar said.
“Suspicious people around the world say, ‘well, it’s because those data don’t say what the drug company wants to show and will affect their shareholders’ interest’.”
Roche responds
In a statement to ABC Science Online, Roche said it stood by the efficacy and safety of Tamiflu.
It said it provided the Cochrane research group that analysed Tamiflu with access to 3,200 pages of very detailed information, and says more information was made available on a password-protected site.
“Roche has made full clinical study data available to global health authorities, including the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), for their review as part of the licensing process,” the statement says.
“It is the role of global health authorities to review detailed information on medicines when assessing benefit and risk.”
But Professor Del Mar says the TGA is not resourced to properly review the vast amount of information it is sent.
He says the better-equipped US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rejected some claims made by Roche, including that Tamiflu reduces the complications of influenza and hospitalisations.
A spokeswoman for the TGA says the Australian Government stockpiled $179 million worth of Tamiflu and the related antiviral Relenza.
The Genetically Modified Food You Eat Every Day – Warning, this may shock you!
April 6, 2012 — craftledgerSource: Fast coexist
Genetically modified food is in a store near you today. In fact, it’s been there for years. You may not know it, but in all the fracas over genetically modified food, one point is often left out: You’ve been eating it for a long time and no one has told you. This infographic from Nature’s Path–which makes organic cereals, bars, and waffles that contain no GMO ingredients, they’d like you to know–shows where you’re getting your genetically modified treats, and why no one has told you:
Many crops are genetically modified so frequently, it’s nearly impossible to find non-GMO versions. These modifications usually involve either a seed manufacturer making their seeds genetically resistant to a certain type of weed-killer (that the seed company also conveniently sells–synergy!) or to make plants resistant to certain pests naturally.
You may not know that you’re eating these crops–despite the fact that they appear in 80% of all packaged food sold in the country–because the U.S. is one of the few places in the developed world that doesn’t require food producers to disclose whether or not their ingredients have any modifications.
If something is labeled “organic” by the USDA, that means it has no GMO crops. The Non-GMO Project is also working on a system for labeling products that aren’t genetically enhanced. To be fair, there isn’t any science that proves that GMO crops are at all bad for consumption; there also aren’t any that confirm that they’re safe. For now, we’re in the dark. And more and more GMO products–like Monsanto’s sneaky, unlabeled sweet corn, the first direct-to-consumer GMO food–are coming to market every day. The full infographic is here:
USA; FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign
March 31, 2012 — craftledgerSource: Activist Post
While the Food and Drug Administration has seemingly reached the limit for unbelievable behavior, the company’s decisions continue to astound and appall consumers and health activists alike.
In the agency’s latest decision, undoubtedly amazing thousands of individuals yet again, the FDA virtually erased 1 million signatures and comments on the ‘Just Label It’ campaign calling for the labeling of genetically modified foods.
The ‘Just Label It” campaign has gotten more signatures than any campaign in history for the labeling of genetically modified foods. Since October of 2011, the campaign has received over 900,000 signatures, with 55 politicians joining in on the movement. So what’s the problem here?
Evidently, the FDA counts the amount of signatures not by how many people signed, but how many different individual letters are brought to it. To the FDA, even tens of thousands of signatures presented on a single petition are counted as – you guessed it – a single comment.
This is how, despite over a million supporters being gathered by the petition, the FDA concluded a count of only 394.
The argument as to whether genetically modified foods are dangerous is a whole discussion on its own, but for the FDA to completely sidestep away from the labeling of GM foods is completely and utterly irresponsible.
Consumers have every right to know what they are consuming. Needless to say, biotechnology giant Monsanto is against GMO labeling, claiming that it would mislead consumers since GMOs are ‘perfectly safe’. Of course there is plenty of evidence proving that GMOs are not completely safe, and how they affect life in the long-term is questionable to say the least.
Either way, there is enough controversy surrounding the issue which is cause for alarm for millions of people, and Monsanto’s opinion on GMOs safety is a sorry excuse for not labeling foods as GM. Is the FDA avoiding such an issue because so many ties exist between genetically modified makers like Monsanto and the agency?
The bottom line is that you have the right to know what is in your food, and what your food is. Denying that right, whether it be by the essential deletion of millions of signatures on a petition, or by ignoring the voices of thousands of people on the street, is stripping the rights of consumers.
‘This is an election year and there are more than a million people who say this is important to them. This petition has nothing to do with whether or genetically modified foods are dangerous. We don’t label dangerous foods, we take them off the shelves. This petition is about a the citizens’ right to know what they are eating and whether or not these foods represent a novel change.’ said Andrew Kimbrell an attorney for the Center for Food Safety, one of the partner groups on the Just Label It campaign.
