Health News Stories

Excerpts of Key Health News Stories in Major Media

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.

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Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

The nation is at risk if FDA science is at risk. In recognition of this threat, in December 2006, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, MD requested that the Science Board, which is the Advisory Board to the Commissioner, form a Subcommittee to assess whether science and technology at the FDA can support current and future regulatory needs. This report is the product of that assessment. The Subcommittee concluded that science at the FDA is in a precarious position: the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities. The FDA cannot fulfill its mission because its scientific base has eroded and its scientific organizational structure is weak. The FDA cannot fulfill its mission because its scientific workforce does not have sufficient capacity and capability. FDA does not have the capacity to ensure the safety of food for the nation. The FDA science agenda lacks a structure and vision, as well as effective coordination. The FDA has an inadequate and ineffective program for scientist performance. Recommendations of excellent FDA reviews are seldom followed.

Note: The above excerpts are all taken from the chapter headings in the initial table of contents and the second page of the initial overview.

Drug companies manipulated the World Health Organisation into downgrading its definition of a pandemic so they could cash in on a swine flu outbreak, it is claimed. An inquiry heard yesterday that the WHO allegedly softened its criteria for declaring a H1N1 flu pandemic last spring - just weeks before announcing there was a worldwide outbreak. Critics said the decision was driven by pharmaceutical companies desperate to recoup the billions of pounds they had invested in researching and developing pandemic vaccines after the bird flu scares in 2006 and 2007. As a result, millions of people have been vaccinated against a mild illness, and money that could have been used to prevent and treat major killers such as heart disease has been squandered. The claims, which emerged during the first of several Council of Europe hearings into the handling of the swine flu pandemic, were strongly rejected by the WHO. Following the organisation's declaration of a pandemic, the Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, and suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given without prescription. But with just 250 or so deaths in Britain and 14,000 worldwide, the WHO is being asked to account for its actions.

Note: For lots more on the swine flu "false pandemic" from reliable sources, click here.

More than half the scientists on the swine flu taskforce advising the [UK] Government have ties to drug companies. Eleven of the 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have done work for the pharmaceutical industry or are linked to it through their universities. Many have declared interests in GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine maker expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic. The disclosure of the register of interests comes just days after a health expert branded the swine flu outbreak a 'false pandemic' driven by the drug companies which stood to profit. The Government is now trying to offload up to Ł1billion worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine. Last July, the Department of Health warned of up 65,000 deaths, with 350 a day at the pandemic's peak. But the death toll now stands at just 251. SAGE was created to give Ministers recommendations on how to control and treat the virus. Official documents show some members are linked to vaccine manufacturer Baxter and to Roche, which makes Tamiflu. GSK, Baxter and Roche stand to make up to Ł1.5billion between them from Government contracts related to swine flu.

Note: For lots more on the Swine Flu "false pandemic," click here.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, epidemiologist Tom Jefferson speaks about dangerous fear-mongering, misguided, money-driven research and why we should all be washing our hands a lot more often. SPIEGEL: Do you consider the swine flu to be particularly worrisome? Jefferson: There are some people who make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. None of them so far have come about, and these people are still there making these predictions. Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost waiting for a pandemic to occur. SPIEGEL: Who do you mean? Jefferson: The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the pharmaceutical companies. They've built this machine around the impending pandemic. And there's a lot of money involved, and influence, and careers, and entire institutions! And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding. SPIEGEL: Do you think the WHO declared a pandemic prematurely? Jefferson: Don't you think there's something noteworthy about the fact that the WHO has changed its definition of pandemic? The old definition was a new virus, which went around quickly, for which you didn't have immunity, and which created a high morbidity and mortality rate. Now the last two have been dropped, and that's how swine flu has been categorized as a pandemic.

Note: For lots more on the Swine Flu "false pandemic," click here.

Our federal and state governments have dragged their feet in addressing the risks of BPA exposure - due mainly to relentless lobbying by the chemical industry. The chemical industry has used every weapon at its disposal - including lawsuits, in the case of San Francisco - to keep BPA on the shelves and in our bodies. So the Food and Drug Administration deserves mild applause for reversing its position on BPA, calling it a "concern" and offering ways in which the public can reduce its exposure to the chemical. It would have been far better for the FDA to ban the chemical, or at least require manufacturers to label products that contain it. Instead, it offered the familiar "more study is needed" defense and said that it doesn't have enough data to support a legal crackdown.

Note: The Department of Health and Human Services has released a list of ways to reduce your exposure. It can be found at www.hhs.gov/safety/bpa.

The World Health Organization said it plans to conduct a review of its response to swine flu as policymakers in Europe prepare for an “urgent debate” on the influenza pandemic. Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said “false pandemics, a threat to health” will be a major theme of its next plenary session. Health authorities worldwide are assessing whether their response to swine flu is justified by its threat as cases retreat in the U.S. and Western Europe. The new H1N1 virus, which has targeted children and younger adults, has so far resulted in fewer deaths than attributed to seasonal strains, which kills mostly the frail elderly. Council of Europe parliamentarian Wolfgang Wodarg said last week he and several colleagues had called for a commission of inquiry into a “false pandemic” and the way it was handled at national and European levels, claiming pressure from pharmaceutical firms. The WHO moved to the top level of its six-step pandemic alert in June after the discovery of swine flu in Mexico and the U.S. in April.

Note: BusinessWeek deleted this article days after posting it. Could someone have pressured them to do this? If you click the above link, the article is gone, though you can still see a promo here and read it on BusinessWeek in the Google cache available here. For a link to the article on the Bloomberg website, click here. For revealing reports of the corruption surrounding the swine flu and previous health scares, click here.

A leading health expert says the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claims major [drug] firms organised a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organisation to declare a pandemic. He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century" — and has called for an inquiry. Dr Wodarg said: "It's just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu. The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared. We want to clarify everything that brought about this massive operation of disinformation. We want to know who made decisions, on the basis of what evidence, and precisely how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry came to bear on the decision-making." He added: "A group of people in the WHO is associated very closely with the pharmaceutical industry."

Note: For powerfully revealing reports of the corruption regarding swine flu and previous health scares, click here.

Antidepressants ... may be no better than dummy pills for people with mild or moderate depression, according to a study that suggests 70 percent of patients wouldn’t benefit from the drugs. In a review of six trials of antidepressants involving more than 700 patients published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers led by Jay Fournier at the University of Pennsylvania found the drugs helped only those patients with the most severe depression. Doctors, policy makers and sufferers should be made aware that there’s little evidence to show the treatments will benefit patients with less severe symptoms, the authors said. “This important feature of the evidence base is not reflected in the implicit messages present in the marketing of these medications to clinicians and the public,” they said. The researchers combined data from six trials. The drugs had a “nonexistent to negligible” effect on patients with mild, moderate and severe symptoms, compared with those who took a placebo, according to a commonly used scale used to measure the disorder. The pills had a large effect on patients with very severe symptoms, the study found.

Note: For a treasure trove of important reports on corruption regarding major health issues, click here.

The massive U.S. Senate healthcare reform measure passed ... with support from the multibillion drug industry, but makers of cheaper generic rivals are feeling left out in the cold. Generic drugmakers face several obstacles in the bill backed by Democrats that they worry will dampen a potential increase in use even as more people gain access to health insurance and prescription medicines. The hurdles include extensive protections against generic versions of pricey biotech medicines, an incentive for Medicare recipients to use more brand-name drugs, and a possible end to payments from brandname makers to delay the launch of copy-cat medicines. "The bill passed by the Senate unfortunately amounts to a treasure trove to brand drug companies," said Generic Pharmaceutical Association President Kathleen Jaeger. Bill Marth, chief executive of Teva's North American operations, said Democrats missed a chance to further boost [generics] use: "It's frustrating," he said. "Maybe some people have just lost sight of what the bill is supposed to do."

Note: For a powerful analysis by Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, of the corrupt relationship between the biggest pharmaceutical companies and the federal government, click here. Drug company lobbyists who contribute millions of dollars to the elections campaigns of Congress members have a huge influence which is often detrimental to public health.

Patients who lack health insurance are more likely to die from car accidents and other traumatic injuries than people who belong to a health plan -- even though emergency rooms are required to care for all comers regardless of ability to pay. An analysis of 687,091 patients who visited trauma centers nationwide from 2002 to 2006 found that the odds of dying from injuries were almost twice as high for the uninsured than for patients with private insurance, researchers reported in Archives of Surgery. The research team from Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston used information from 1,154 U.S. hospitals that contribute to the National Trauma Data Bank. The risk of death was 80% higher for patients without any insurance, the report said. The researchers also did a separate analysis of 209,702 trauma patients ages 18 to 30 because they were less likely to have chronic health conditions that might complicate recovery. Among these younger patients, the risk of death was 89% higher for the uninsured, the study found.

Note: For many highly informative reports on important health issues, click here.

A new analysis, using H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, shows that a typical -- or possibly even a milder flu season than average -- should have been expected. The finding [raises] the question: Has swine flu been oversold? The new study, done by researchers at Harvard University and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit in the U.K., says swine flu cases in the spring indicated a flu season that might be, at worst, slightly worse than normal. "It would have been great to have that back in June," said Philip Alcabes, an associate professor in the program in urban public health at Hunter College's School of Health Sciences. "There would have been one more bit of evidence behind my assertion six months ago" that people were overreacting to H1N1. Around the time that swine flu first started making headlines, Alcabes' book, Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics From the Black Death to Avian Flu, was published, and he said the circumstances surrounding H1N1 provide an apt case study. "I think that it was, from the very beginning, created as a crisis and overstated as a real threat," he said.

Note: For powerful, reliable articles showing major profiteering and fear-mongering around the swine flu to the great risk of public health, click here and here.

There is more than a casual association between GM [Genetically Modified] foods and adverse health effects. There is causation [as] confirmed in several animal studies. Specificity of the association of GM foods and specific disease processes is also supported. In spite of this risk, the biotechnology industry claims that GM foods can feed the world through production of higher crop yields. However, a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed 12 academic studies and indicates otherwise: "The several thousand field trials over the last 20 years ... indicate a significant undertaking. Yet none of these field trials have resulted in increased yield ... with the exception of Bt corn." Therefore, because GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health and are without benefit, ... because GM foods have not been properly tested for human consumption, and because there is ample evidence of probable harm, the AAEM asks: [1] Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks. [2] Physicians to consider the possible role of GM foods in the disease process. [3] Our members, the medical community, and the independent scientific community to gather case studies potentially related to GM food consumption and health effects. [4] For a moratorium on GM food, implementation of immediate long term independent safety testing, and labeling of GM foods, which is necessary for the health and safety of consumers.

Note: Why was this not reported in the mainstream media? A top academy of physicians states our health is being endangered by GM foods, yet no one is reporting this. For how our media is bought off in matters like this, click here. For a powerful essay showing blatant corruption of the science around GMOs and FDA complicity, click here. For key media articles on this vital topic, click here.

A new report finds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a poor job of screening medical experts for financial conflicts when it hired them to advise the agency on vaccine safety. Most of the experts who served on advisory panels in 2007 to evaluate vaccines for flu and cervical cancer had potential conflicts that were never resolved, the report said. Some were legally barred from considering the issues but did so anyway. In the report ... Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, found that the centers failed nearly every time to ensure that the experts adequately filled out forms confirming they were not being paid by companies with an interest in their decisions. The report found that 64 percent of the advisers had potential conflicts of interest that were never identified or were left unresolved by the centers. Thirteen percent failed to have an appropriate conflicts form on file at the agency at all, which should have barred their participation in the meetings entirely, Mr. Levinson found. And 3 percent voted on matters that ethics officers had already barred them from considering.

Note: For lots more on corporate and government corruption from reliable sources, click here and here.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was named president of Merck & Co Inc's vaccine division. Gerberding, who led the CDC from 2002 to 2009 and stepped down when President Barack Obama took office, will head up the company's $5 billion global vaccine business that includes shots to prevent chickenpox, cervical cancer and pneumonia. She had led CDC from one crisis to another, including the investigation into the anthrax attacks that killed five people in 2001, the H5N1 avian influenza, the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and various outbreaks of food poisoning. She may be charged with reigniting flagging sales of Merck's Gardasil vaccine to prevent cervical cancer by protecting against human papillomavirus or HPV. After an encouraging launch Gardasil sales have been falling and were down 22 percent in the third quarter at $311 million.

Note: So the head of the CDC now is in charge of vaccines at one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Could this be considered conflict of interest? Could this possibly be payback for supporting the vaccine agenda so strongly for years? For more on the risks and dangers of vaccines, click here.

A healthcare firm is seeking to silence a Danish academic from expressing doubts about one of its products by using England’s draconian libel laws. Two years ago in a conference room in the Randolph hotel in Oxford, Henrik Thomsen ... one of Europe’s leading radiologists, revealed how patients treated at his hospital had subsequently contracted a rare and potentially fatal disease. Thomsen and other doctors at his Copenhagen University hospital were baffled as to why 20 kidney patients who had been given routine scans were afflicted by a disorder — nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) — in which the skin gradually swells, thickens and tightens. Some sufferers were confined to wheelchairs. At least one died. There was no known cure. It was confirmed that all those who had fallen ill with NSF had been given the same drug in advance of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Omniscan was used to enhance the images produced by the scan. The product was sold around the world and was manufactured by GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric, one of the world’s largest corporations. Thomsen ... now refuses to speak anywhere in England on the possible risks of Omniscan. The reason is that he faces another kind of storm: GE Healthcare is suing him in the High Court for libel. GE has already racked up costs of more than Ł380,000 pursuing the respected academic. Thomsen will have to pay the firm’s costs if he loses the case.

Note: For lots more on corporate corruption from reliable sources, click here.

[Bill Moyers:] Something's not right here. One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither. As for health care reform, you're about to be forced to buy insurance from companies whose stock is soaring, and that's just dandy with the White House. It's capital. Raw money, mounds of it, buying politicians and policy as if they were futures on the hog market. Some of the big insurance companies, Well Point, Cigna, United Health, all surged to a 52 week high in their share prices this week when it was clear there'd be no public option in the health care bill going through Congress right now. What does that tell you? ROBERT KUTTNER: Their strategy was cut a deal with the insurance companies, the drug industry going in. And the deal was, we're not going to attack your customer base, we're going to subsidize a new customer base. And that script was pre-cooked so it's not surprising that this is what comes out the other side. Once the White House made this deal with the insurance companies, the public option was never going to be anything more than a fig leaf. And over the summer and the fall, it got whittled down, whittled down, whittled down to almost nothing and now it's really nothing.

Note: For lots more on corporate and government corruption from reliable sources, click here and here.

Deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism." The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare. Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations -- Iran, Cuba and Sudan -- also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo. The regulations, which cover vaccines for everything from Dengue fever to the Ebola virus, have raised concern within the medical and scientific communities. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they were not even aware of the policies until contacted by The Associated Press ... and privately expressed alarm. They make "no scientific sense," said Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Some experts say the idea of using vaccines for bioweapons is far-fetched.

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows. Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them – but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children? The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems. Part of the reason is insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do. Studies have found that children in low-income families may have a higher rate of mental health problems – perhaps two to one – compared with children in better-off families. But that still does not explain the four-to-one disparity in prescribing antipsychotics.

Note: For many important health reports from reliable sources, click here.

Suzanne Somers is at it again. She's back with a new book [on an] emotional topic: Cancer treatment. Specifically, she argues against what she sees as the vast and often pointless use of chemotherapy. Somers, who has rejected chemo herself, seems to relish the fight. "Cancer's an epidemic," said the 63-year-old actress ... a day before [the] release of Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer--And How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place, her 19th book. "And yet we keep going back to the same old pot, because it's all we've got. Well, this is a book about options." Though she may be one of the most visible, Somers is hardly the only celebrity who's advocated alternative treatments recently. The late Farrah Fawcett underwent a mix of traditional and alternative treatments, and made a poignant plea for supporting alternative methods in her film, "Farrah's Story." Actress Jenny McCarthy advocates a special dietary regime, supplements, metal detox and delayed vaccines to treat autism. In fact, Somers does view chemotherapy as effective for some cancers, but not for the most common, including lung and breast cancer. Diagnosed with breast cancer a decade ago, she had a lumpectomy and radiation, but declined chemotherapy, as she did more recently when briefly misdiagnosed with pervasive cancer.

Note: To watch a video clip of this, click here. For her harrowing experience of being misdiagnosed with stage four cancer, click here. And if you want to understand how big money sometimes ruthlessly acts to stop cancer cures, click here. For media articles discussing potentially powerful cancer cures and how industry sometimes will not support them, click here.

CT [Computed Tomography] scans deliver far more radiation than has been believed and may contribute to 29,000 new cancers each year, along with 14,500 deaths, suggest two studies in today's Archives of Internal Medicine. One study, led by the National Cancer Institute's Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, used existing exposure data to estimate how many cancers might be caused by CT scans. Another study in the journal suggests the problem may even be worse. In that study, researchers found that people may be exposed to up to four times as much radiation as estimated by earlier studies. While previous studies relied on dummies equipped with sensors, authors of the new paper studied 1,119 patients at four San Francisco-area hospitals. Based on those higher measurements, a patient could get as much radiation from one CT scan as 74 mammograms or 442 chest X-rays. Young people are at highest risk from excess radiation, partly because they have many years ahead of them in which cancers could develop. Among 20-year-old women who get one coronary angiogram, a CT scan of the heart, one in 150 will develop cancer related to the procedure.

Note: For many important health reports from reliable sources, click here.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.