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Revealing News For a Better World

Health News Articles
Excerpts of key news articles on


Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on health from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

For further exploration, delve into our comprehensive Health and Food Corruption Information Center.


Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Diet soda may hurt the heart
2014-03-31, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/diet-soda-may-hurt-the-heart/

Older healthy women who consume two or more diet drinks per day are at higher risk for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems, according to a new study. These women were ... 50 percent more likely to die from a disease associated with heart problems than women who rarely - or never - drank artificially flavored beverages. The study of 59,614 post-menopausal women ... is, thus far, the largest study conducted on heart health and diet beverage consumption. Over the last decade, an increased awareness of the dangers of refined sugar has led the popularity of diet beverages. Between 1999 and 2010, diet drink consumption increased from 17.8 percent to 21.2 percent for women and 13.9 percent to 19.0 percent for males, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently about 1 in 5 Americans drink some type of diet beverage each day. However, other research suggests one's intentions to avoid refined sugar from beverages may still result in many of the same health problems. Studies have found diet drinks can elevate one's risk for metabolic syndrome, which is associated with weight gain and an increased risk for diabetes. And other researchers believe artificial sweeteners may activate reward centers in the brain, which causes people to overeat.

Note: There has been a huge cover-up around the dangers of aspartame, the sugar substitute used in most diet drinks. Find loads of solid evidence about this on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health.


Diet Drinks Linked With Heart Disease, Death
2014-03-29, NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/diet-fitness/diet-drinks-linked-heart-disease-d...

Women who drink the most diet sodas may also be more likely to develop heart disease and even to die, according to a new study. Researchers found women who drank two or more diet drinks a day were 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack or other cardiovascular “event,” and 50 percent more likely to die, than women who rarely touch such drinks. The findings, being presented at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, don’t suggest that the drinks themselves are killers. But women who toss back too many diet sodas may be trying to make up for unhealthy habits, experts say. “Our study suggests an association between higher diet drink consumption and mortality,” said Dr. Ankur Vyas, a cardiovascular disease expert at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinic, who led the study. Research has long shown that artificially sweetened drinks are not health drinks. While they may help people avoid more dangerous sugary sodas, studies show they don't help people lose weight. Vyas’s team studied nearly 60,000 middle-aged women taking part in a decade-long study of women’s health. They filled out a questionnaire on food and drinks as part of the study, including detailed questions on diet sodas and diet fruit drinks. After just under nine years, the researchers checked to see what happened to the women's’ health. They found that 8.5 percent of the women who drank two or more diet drinks a day had some sort of heart disease. The women who drank the most drinks were also more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to have diabetes and to have high blood pressure, Vyas noted.

Note: What this article fails to mention is that aspartame, used in most diet drinks, has been shown to be dangerous for health. Explore the mountain of evidence showing this. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.


Brain-Damaged UK Victims of Swine Flu Vaccine to Get Ł60 Million Compensation
2014-03-02, International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/brain-damaged-uk-victims-swine-flu-vaccine-get-60-mi...

Patients who suffered brain damage as a result of taking a swine flu vaccine are to receive multi-million-pound payouts from the UK government. Following the swine flu outbreak of 2009, about 60 million people, most of them children, received the vaccine. It was subsequently revealed that the vaccine, Pandemrix, can cause narcolepsy and cataplexy in about one in 16,000 people, and many more are expected to come forward with the symptoms. Across Europe, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by the vaccine. The Pandemrix vaccine was manufactured by pharmaceuticals giant Glaxo Smith Kline, which refused to supply governments unless it was indemnified against any claim for damage caused. "There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Pandemrix increased the occurrence of narcolepsy onset in children," Emmanuelle Mignot, a specialist in sleep disorder at Stanford University in the United States told Reuters. Among those affected are NHS medical staff, many of whom are now unable to do their jobs because of the symptoms brought on by the vaccine. They will be suing the government for millions in lost earnings. However, the vast majority of patients affected - around 80% - are children. Despite a 2011 warning from the European Medicines Agency against using the vaccine on those under 20 and a study indicating a 13-fold heightened risk of narcolepsy in vaccinated children, GSK has refused to acknowledge a link.

Note: Read about people in other countries who were damaged by the vaccine on this webpage. See powerful media reports suggesting that both the avian flu and swine flu were manipulated to promote fear and boost pharmaceutical sales. And watch a powerful CBS video describing how 4,000 Americans in 1976 sued for neurological damages caused by a swine flu vaccine that they agreed to take after falling for fear mongering about the flu by the government. 300 people allegedly died from the vaccine. For more, see the excellent resources in our Health Information Center.


GlaxoSmithKline fined $490m by China for bribery
2014-02-19, BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29274822

China has fined UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline $490m (Ł297m) after a court found it guilty of bribery. The record penalty follows allegations the drug giant paid out bribes to doctors and hospitals in order to have their products promoted. The court gave GSK's former head of Chinese operations, Mark Reilly, a suspended three-year prison sentence and he is set to be deported. Other GSK executives have also been given suspended jail sentences. The guilty verdict was delivered after a one-day trial at a court in Changsha, according to the Xinhua news agency. Chinese authorities first announced they were investigating GSK in July last year, in what has become the biggest corruption scandal to hit a foreign firm in years. The company was accused of having made an estimated $150m in illegal profits. GSK said it had "published a statement of apology to the Chinese government and its people". This is a humiliating outcome for one of Britain's biggest companies: pleading guilty to systematic bribery, facing the biggest fine in Chinese history and making an abject apology to the Chinese government and people.

Note: In February 2016, GlaxoSmithKline was fined another $53 million by the UK for preventing generic competition. The list of huge fines to top drug companies includes five fines of over $1 billion and dozens over $100 million. How can we trust these companies on the safety and reliability of their products?


Vast Study Casts Doubts on Value of Mammograms
2014-02-11, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/health/study-adds-new-doubts-about-value-of...

One of the largest and most meticulous studies of mammography ever done, involving 90,000 women and lasting a quarter-century, has added powerful new doubts about the value of the screening test for women of any age. It found that the death rates from breast cancer and from all causes were the same in women who got mammograms and those who did not. And the screening had harms: One in five cancers found with mammography and treated was not a threat to the woman’s health and did not need treatment such as chemotherapy, surgery or radiation. The study, published Tuesday in The British Medical Journal, is one of the few rigorous evaluations of mammograms conducted in the modern era of more effective breast cancer treatments. It randomly assigned Canadian women to have regular mammograms and breast exams by trained nurses or to have breast exams alone. Researchers sought to determine whether there was any advantage to finding breast cancers when they were too small to feel. The answer is no, the researchers report. Many cancers, researchers now recognize, grow slowly, or not at all, and do not require treatment. Some cancers even shrink or disappear on their own. But once cancer is detected, it is impossible to know if it is dangerous, so doctors treat them all.

Note: For more on issues that matter to our health, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Study Suggests Wi-Fi Exposure More Dangerous To Kids Than Previously Thought
2014-01-13, Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertszczerba/2015/01/13/study-suggests-wi-fi-ex...

Uh-oh. Not another diatribe about the dangers of our modern communication systems? Even if we want to, we can’t eliminate our exposure, or our children’s, to RF/EMF. But we may need to limit that exposure when possible. That was among the conclusions of a report published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure entitled “Why children absorb more microwave radiation than adults: The consequences.” From an analysis of others' studies, the authors argue that children and adolescents are at considerable risk from devices that radiate microwaves (and that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk). Children and fetuses absorb more microwave radiation, according to the authors, because their bodies are relatively smaller, their skulls are thinner, and their brain tissue is more absorbent. They also note that the average time between exposure to a carcinogen and a resultant tumor is three or more decades, thus making it difficult to arrive at definitive conclusions. This is not a call to throw out all electronic devices. However, at the very least, it should open up the discussion about different safety levels for adults versus children. In a Network World opinion article ominously titled “Is Wi-Fi killing us…slowly?” columnist Mark Gibbs makes the point that “… laws and warnings are all very well but it’s pretty much certain that all restrictions on products that use microwave technology will err on ... the side that’s safe for industry, not the side of what’s safe for society.”

Note: On a list of Top Stories Subjected to Press Censorship in 2014, 'evidence of ongoing wireless technology health hazards' was number 14. For more on the dangers of over-exposure to electromagnetic field radiation, see this summary of a 2010 Los Angeles Times article.


Cheerios drops genetically modified ingredients
2014-01-02, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/02/cheerios-gmos-cereals...

Under pressure from consumers and activist groups, General Mills says it will stop using genetically modified ingredients to make its original Cheerios cereal. While the oats used to make Cheerios have never contained any genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the company did make changes to its sourcing — and now, for example, only uses non-GMO pure cane sugar instead of beet sugar, says spokesman Mike Siemienas. The move is being hailed by anti-GMO activist groups as a major victory. It comes at a time activists have been increasingly pressuring American food makers to remove GMOs from all foods — or, at the very least, label all foods that do contain GMOs. Last year, Whole Foods became the first national grocery chain to require all of its suppliers to label all products that contain GMOs by 2018. In the past year, Chipotle announced plans to phase out GMOs and Kashi is also is taking action to phase out GMOs. "This is a big deal," says Todd Larsen, corporate responsibility director at Green America, a green economy activist group. "Cheerios is an iconic brand and one of the leading breakfast cereals in the U.S." What's more, he adds, "We don't know of any other example of such a major brand of packaged food, eaten by so many Americans, going from being GMO to non-GMO. " One year ago, the group used social media efforts to rally consumers to pressure General Mills to make Cheerios without GMOs. Cheerios was picked, in part, because it's one of the first foods given to many toddlers.

Note: For more on the health risks of GMO foods, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


What's wifi doing to us? Experiment finds that shrubs die when placed next to wireless routers
2013-12-16, Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2524598/Experiment-finds-plant...

A group of schoolgirls claims to have made a scientific breakthrough that shows wifi signals could damage your health – by experimenting with cress. The 15-year-olds set out to test whether mobile phone signals could be harmful. They say the result could affect millions of people around the world. An experiment in Denmark claims to show that Wi-Fi signals are powerful enough to kill cress seeds after just 12 days of exposure. Pupil Lea Nielsen said: ‘We all thought we experienced concentration problems in school if we slept with our mobile phones at the bedside, and sometimes we also found it difficult sleeping.’ However, because they were not able to monitor their brain activity at their school in Denmark, they chose to monitor plants near wireless routers, which emit similar radio waves to mobile phones. When the girls grew trays of garden cress next to wifi routers, they found that most of the seedlings died. In the experiment, they placed six trays in a room without any equipment and another six trays in a room next to two routers. Over 12 days many of the seedlings in the wifi room turned brown and died, whereas those in the others room thrived. Kim Horsevad, the students’ biology teacher at Hjallerup School, said: ‘This has sparked quite a lively debate in Denmark regarding the potential adverse health effects from mobile phones and wifi equipment.’ The results will bolster the findings of researchers in Holland, who found that trees exposed to wireless radio signals suffered from damaged bark and dying leaves.

Note: For more on important health issues, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
2013-12-15, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-dis...

After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating. Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs like Adderall and Concerta to temper the traits of classic A.D.H.D., helping youngsters succeed in school and beyond. But Dr. Conners did not feel triumphant this fall as he addressed a group of fellow A.D.H.D. specialists in Washington. He noted that recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. He questioned the rising rates of diagnosis and called them “a national disaster of dangerous proportions.” “The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous,” Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, said in a subsequent interview. “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.” The rise of A.D.H.D. diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants over the years coincided with a remarkably successful two-decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators and parents. With the children’s market booming, the industry is now employing similar marketing techniques as it focuses on adult A.D.H.D., which could become even more profitable.

Note: For more on corruption in the medical industry, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Meditation Has the Power to Influence Your Genes
2013-12-09, Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/meditation-has-th...

In a groundbreaking discovery, a collaborative team of researchers from Wisconsin, Spain, and France reported in December 2013 the first evidence of specific molecular changes at a genetic level following a period of mindfulness meditation. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice," says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. The study compared the effects of a single day of intensive mindfulness practice between a group of experienced meditators and a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After an intensive day of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a dramatic range of genetic and molecular differences. Meditation was found to alter levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation. "Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona in Spain, where the molecular analyses were conducted. In past studies, mindfulness-based training has been shown to have beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders. Meditation is endorsed by the American Heart Association as an effective way to lower [the] risk for heart disease. Another study from April 2011 found that meditation produces powerful pain-relieving effects in the brain.

Note: For an excellent and inspiring book on how your thinking and feeling can change your genes, check out Bruce Lipton's Biology of Belief, available here. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.


Smelling a rat: GM maize, health and the Séralini affair
2013-12-07, The Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21591159-study-suggested...

Genetically modified maize causes cancer: that was the gist of one of the most controversial studies in recent memory, published in September 2012 by Food and Chemical Toxicology. [But] on November 28th the journal retracted it. The article was by Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, in France, and his colleagues. It described what happened to rats fed with NK603 maize, a variety made resistant to a herbicide called glyphosate by a genetic modification made by Monsanto. Monsanto also discovered glyphosate’s herbicidal properties. It sells it under the trade name “Roundup”. In Dr Séralini’s experiment, rats fed with the modified maize were reckoned more likely to develop tumours than those which had not been. Females were especially badly affected: their death rates were two or three times as high as those of control groups. The article was explosive. Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s prime minister, said that if its results were confirmed his government would press for a Europe-wide ban on NK603 maize. Russia suspended imports of the crop. Kenya banned all GM crops. Though the paper has been retracted, that is unlikely to be end of the matter. The journal’s publisher said there was “no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data”, which are the usual justifications for retraction. Scientific opinion runs strongly against the conclusion that GM foods are harmful—but not universally so. A group called the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility backed Dr Séralini.

Note: Over 100 scientists have signed a pledge to boycott Elsevier, the publisher of the journal which retracted the GMO study, as you can see at this link. For an excellent video review of the study, click here. For more on the health risks of GMO foods, see the deeply revealing report available here.


Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance
2013-12-06, Interdisciplinary Toxicology (A scientific journal listed by the National Institute of Health)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/

Celiac disease, and, more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide, but especially in North America and Europe, where an estimated 5% of the population now suffers from it. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression. It is ... associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer. Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic. Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. Celiac disease is associated with imbalances in gut bacteria that can be fully explained by the known effects of glyphosate on gut bacteria. Celiac disease patients have an increased risk to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which has also been implicated in glyphosate exposure. Reproductive issues associated with celiac disease, such as infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects, can also be explained by glyphosate. Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation just prior to the harvest. We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate residues in foods.

Note: As this is from a scientific journal, the language may not be easy to follow, yet the link between RoundUp, which contains glyphosate, and gluten intolerance is clear. This chart from the article shows how increasing incidence of thyroid cancer relates to increasing use of glyphosate on corn and soy crops in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health.


As Hospital Prices Soar, a Stitch Tops $500
2013-12-03, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/health/as-hospital-costs-soar-single-stitch...

In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care bill, the biggest single segment, according to government statistics, and are the largest driver of medical inflation, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association found. A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries. The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them ... emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures — closing a wound with a needle and thread — typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more. At Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Daniel Diaz, 29, a public relations executive, was billed $3,355.96 for five stitches on his finger after cutting himself while peeling an avocado. At a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., Arch Roberts Jr., 56, a former government employee, was charged more than $2,000 for three stitches after being bitten by a dog. Insurers and patients negotiated lower prices, but those charges were a starting point. The main reason for high hospital costs in the United States, economists say, is fiscal, not medical: Hospitals are the most powerful players in a health care system that has little or no price regulation in the private market.

Note: For more on corruption in the health industry, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Twenty-Six Countries Ban GMOs—Why Won’t the US?
2013-10-29, The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176863/gmo-wars-global-battlefield

The 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive vice president and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, responsible for development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The choice of Fraley was widely protested, with eighty-one members of the prestigious World Future Council calling it “an affront to the growing international consensus on safe, ecological farming practices that have been scientifically proven to promote nutrition and sustainability.” The choice of Monsanto’s man triggered accusations of prize buying. From 1999 to 2011, Monsanto donated $380,000 to the World Food Prize Foundation, in addition to a $5 million contribution in 2008. For some, the award to Monsanto is actually a sign of desperation on the part of the GMO establishment. The arguments of the critics are making headway. Owing to concern about the dangers and risks posed by genetically engineered organisms, many governments have instituted total or partial bans on their cultivation, importation, and field-testing. A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had total or partial bans on GMOs. Now there are at least twenty-six, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries. Already, American rice farmers face strict limitations on their exports to the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and are banned altogether from Russia and Bulgaria because unapproved genetically engineered rice “escaped” during open-field trials on GMO rice.

Note: For more on the risks from GMO foods, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Curbing antibiotics on farms taking too long: Our view
2013-10-27, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/27/antibiotics-farms-drug-resis...

Want to ensure that miracle drugs can no longer perform miracles? Then do what some physicians and industrial livestock farmers have done for years: Overprescribe antibiotics to people, and use them cavalierly in farm animals to promote growth or prevent infections before they even occur. Last month, federal officials quantified that danger: At least 23,000 people die from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which said that's a conservative figure. For more than four decades, scientists and government health agencies have warned about the danger this poses for development of drug-resistant bugs. Yet last week, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future reported that little progress has been made on limiting the use of antibiotics on farms. The agriculture industry maintains that the connection is murky between antibiotic use in animals and drug resistance in people. On the other side of the debate is a long list of scientists, public health officials and veterinarians whose views carry more sense and less self-interest. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million pounds of penicillins and 12.3 million pounds of tetracyclines were sold for use in food animals. It's hard to believe that wouldn't have an effect. According to the CDC, humans can pick up drug-resistant bugs through contact with animals or by eating contaminated food. But neither Congress nor the FDA has acted to curtail the broad dangers. The well-financed agriculture industry has won most rounds. And regulators have dragged their feet.

Note: For more on important health issues, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater
2013-08-25, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/health/exploring-salines-secret-costs.html?...

It is one of the most common components of emergency medicine: an intravenous bag of sterile saltwater. Luckily for anyone who has ever needed an IV bag to replenish lost fluids or to receive medication, it is also one of the least expensive. The average manufacturer’s price, according to government data, has fluctuated in recent years from 44 cents to $1. Yet there is nothing either cheap or simple about its ultimate cost, as [revealed by] the commercial path of IV bags from the factory to the veins of more than 100 patients struck by a May 2012 outbreak of food poisoning in upstate New York. Some of the patients’ bills would later include markups of 100 to 200 times the manufacturer’s price, not counting separate charges for “IV administration.” And on other bills, a bundled charge for “IV therapy” was almost 1,000 times the official cost of the solution. At every step from manufacturer to patient, there are confidential deals among the major players, including drug companies, purchasing organizations and distributors, and insurers. These deals so obscure prices and profits that even participants cannot say what the simplest component of care actually costs, let alone what it should cost. And that leaves taxpayers and patients alike with an inflated bottom line and little or no way to challenge it. The real cost of a bag of normal saline, like the true cost of medical supplies from gauze to heart implants, disappears into an opaque realm of byzantine contracts, confidential rebates and fees that would be considered illegal kickbacks in many other industries.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing medical corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Documentary looks at possible problems with smart grids
2013-08-12, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/cybertruth/2013/08/12/crowd-sourced-documentary...

Josh del Sol got curious in the summer of 2011 after a friend linked a serious illness to the recent installation of a "smart meter." Del Sol subsequently learned that electrical utilities across North America had been quietly installing "smart grids" that ... monitor Internet-connected meters and appliances in homes and businesses. Now, del Sol is on the verge of premiering a feature-length documentary ... titled Take Back Your Power, disclosing questionable industry practices in support of implementing networked control systems for power plants. The film links billing mistakes, invasive monitoring, even human illnesses to the rising use of smart grids in the U.S. and Europe. "Take Back Your Power delivers an ominous, powerful message about the energy industry's shift to closely watching how customers use energy in their home in an invasive, controversial manner," says Lee Waterworth, president of Yekra, a video-on-demand company. Del Sol says access to industry sources was tough. "We had a difficult time getting anyone in the industry to talk to us on camera once they found out that we were wanting to get to the bottom of some of these concerns," he says. The filmmaker was surprised by the contrast between the views of industry officials and those of ordinary citizens trying to get to the bottom of safety, privacy and health concerns. Del Sol hopes the documentary helps to prompt the electricity industry "to provide more transparency, accountability and clarity on the issues we explore in the film."

Note: You can find this documentary on the Internet. For more, read how solar providers are using "smart" systems to help their customers save money while traditional utilities use these systems only to cut their own costs. Meanwhile, concerns about the health impacts of wireless tech and the ongoing erosion of privacy rights continue to grow.


Is The FDA Being Compromised By Pharma Payments?
2013-08-07, Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/08/07/is-the-fda-being-comprom...

In ... the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (JLME), Donald W. Light of the School of Public Health, University of Medicine & Dentistry of NJ, wrote an article entitled “Risky Drugs: Why The FDA Cannot Be Trusted”. The bulk of his essay focuses not on his views about pharma’s competence but rather on his issues with the FDA. While I found a number of his comments troubling, the following stood out. “The ... article in JLME also presents systematic, quantitative evidence that since the industry started making large contributions to the FDA for reviewing its drugs, as it makes large contributions to Congressmen ... drugs approved are significantly more likely to cause serious harm, hospitalizations, and deaths.” This is a pretty damning comment. Basically, Light is saying that pharma paid congressmen to sponsor legislation that results in the FDA being beholden to pharma for funding for its work. Implicit in this is that, as a result of these large “contributions”, the grateful FDA is rapidly approving medicines that are harmful.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about big pharma profiteers and government corruption.


Scientists Seek to Rein In Diagnoses of Cancer
2013-07-29, New York Times
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/report-suggests-sweeping-changes-to-...

A group of experts advising the nation’s premier cancer research institution has recommended changing the definition of cancer and eliminating the word from some common diagnoses as part of sweeping changes in the nation’s approach to cancer detection and treatment. The recommendations, from a working group of the National Cancer Institute, were published [in] The Journal of the American Medical Association. They say, for instance, that some premalignant conditions, like one that affects the breast called ductal carcinoma in situ, which many doctors agree is not cancer, should be renamed to exclude the word carcinoma so that patients are less frightened and less likely to seek what may be unneeded and potentially harmful treatments that can include the surgical removal of the breast. The group, which includes some of the top scientists in cancer research, also suggested that many lesions detected during breast, prostate, thyroid, lung and other cancer screenings should not be called cancer at all but should instead be reclassified as IDLE conditions, which stands for “indolent lesions of epithelial origin.” The impetus behind the call for change is a growing concern among doctors, scientists and patient advocates that hundreds of thousands of men and women are undergoing needless and sometimes disfiguring and harmful treatments for premalignant and cancerous lesions that are so slow growing they are unlikely to ever cause harm. Once doctors and patients are aware a lesion exists, they typically feel compelled to biopsy, treat and remove it, often at great physical and psychological pain and risk to the patient.

Note: Isn't it interesting that a diagnosis which might not even be accurate can so change a person's life? For more on promising cancer cures which are being suppressed by the medical-industrial complex, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Dental amalgam: Anti-mercury movement pushes for shifts in dentistry
2013-03-31, Chicago Tribune
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-31/business/ct-biz-0324-dental-ama...

Silver [tooth] fillings, commonly called dental amalgam, contribute mercury pollution to the environment. Recent developments suggest momentum is building against silver fillings based on environmental concerns: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Japan and Finland have either banned dental amalgam or restricted its use within the last five years. Twelve states have mandatory dental amalgam reduction programs. About half the mercury entering municipal wastewater treatment plants, or about 3.7 tons annually, comes from dental amalgam waste. While treatment plants capture about 90 percent of amalgam, some mercury settles into sewage sludge that is deposited in landfills, incinerated, applied as fertilizer or flushed into waterways. Once in water, it can transform into methylmercury, a neurotoxin that builds up in fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish, including humans. Several studies have linked methylmercury to health and developmental problems, especially in pregnant women, fetuses, infants and children. High exposure to methylmercury has been linked to permanent damage in children's brains and nervous systems and to increased risk of kidney problems in adults. Research shows that the human body absorbs mercury vapor released from dental amalgam. Numerous studies raise concerns about mercury exposure from amalgam. In toxic doses, elemental mercury breathed in as vapor can cause symptoms including tremors, mood swings, neuromuscular changes and cognitive deficits.

Note: For a great report by Dr. Mercola and Dr. Oz on the risks of mercury-based dental amalgam, click here.


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