Vaccines | Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health

Author of Mandatory Vaccination Bill Facing Recall Efforts

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 18:24:59 +0000

Richard Pan, the California state senator whose infamous pro-vaccine bill sailed to victory on the winds of pharmaceutical industry dollars, is now in serious hot water with his constituents.
A major recall effort seeks to remove Sen. Pan from office. If the movement garners enough signatures—which must equal 20% of the total votes cast in the election that Sen. Pan won—then there will be a recall election. If he loses that election, Sen. Pan would not be eligible to run in the follow-up election to fill his seat.
To recall Sen. Pan, activists must gather at least 35,926 signatures by the end of December 2015. The other state legislators who voted for the bill are also facing recall efforts.
This is not easy. Since 1913, while 158 recalls have been attempted in California, only nine have qualified for the ballot, and only five have succeeded. On the other hand, even a governor has been successfully recalled.
You may recall that this past June, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 277, a bill that would require parents to vaccinate their children in order to send them to public or private school.
Despite tremendous grassroots voter opposition, special interests won the day. We reported that some of the most vocal proponents of SB 277 received funding from Big Pharma. The top recipient of pharmaceutical donations, coming in at more than $95,000, was Sen. Richard Pan—one of the principle authors of the bill.
SB 277’s approval is a major setback, not just for Californians, but for concerned parents across the country. The California bill will no doubt embolden other state legislatures to similarly kowtow to the vaccine industry and remove non-medical vaccine exemptions.
In addition to the recall, Californians have initiated a referendum to overturn SB 277 entirely using California’s referendum system to overturn the law. Remember the quote widely attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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Media Misrepresenting the Facts in the First “Measles Death” Since 2003

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 18:29:44 +0000

As far as we can tell, there was no “death from measles,” just a seemingly desperate attempt to twist the facts to support a pro-measles vaccine narrative.
Last week, news reports started discussing the death of a woman in Washington. For the first time since 2003, the stories went, someone in the United States had died of measles. The woman was probably exposed to measles at a medical facility during an outbreak this spring.
Many of the articles used this tragic incident to bemoan the falling vaccination rates and shame those who choose not to vaccinate. But the lesser-reported facts of the case throw such a conclusion into serious doubt. The woman was on immune-suppressing drugs—and, according to Washington State health officials, she had already been vaccinated for measles! How can anyone use this as a reason to chide people for not being vaccinated? Had the woman not been on the immune suppressing meds, she would have likely had enough immunity to protect against the disease!
Because of her immune suppression, once the disease developed, she did not experience the characteristic measles rash. Instead, she developed pneumonia. The actual cause of the woman’s illness was only revealed after she had been hospitalized at a second medical facility, died, and underwent an autopsy: the cause of death was pneumonia secondary to measles, not the measles encephalitis that kills patients in many developing countries.
So a patient who is fully vaccinated against measles is given drugs that suppress her immune system, is exposed to measles in a medical facility, contracts the measles virus because of her immune suppression but no one realizes it because she never develops a rash, and dies of a complication that is extremely rare in developed countries. And now her death is being used as a cudgel to get more people to become vaccinated? How does that make any sense?
Perhaps they should consider developing a vaccine that will supposedly prevent the 128,000 deaths (or the 1.9 million hospitalizations) each year from FDA-approved drugs!

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What to Do if Your Drug Has Too Many Dangerous Side Effects?

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:09:19 +0000

Simple—you ship it to third world countries!

The manufacturers of two human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, Merck (Gardasil) and GlaxoSmithKline (Cervarix), have found a new market: they struck a deal to offer their HPV vaccines to developing countries at much reduced prices. They hope that by 2020, 30 to 40 million girls in developing countries will be getting vaccinated.

Even at the reduced prices of $4.50 (Gardasil) and $4.60 (Cervarix), this will mean a massive increase in Merck and GlaxoSmithKline’s revenues. The primary reason Big Pharma is looking for new markets is because a majority of girls in the US are not being vaccinated against HPV. This appears to be mainly due to the risk of side effects. Dr. Diane Harper, lead developer of Gardasil, has stated that the HPV vaccine is associated with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and has resulted in deaths. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reports for Gardasil supports this and in addition notes a propensity for blood clots.

The US Center for Disease Control says that adverse event reports are not peer reviewed science but then refuses to study them so that they can be peer reviewed. It was the government of course which first developed this expensive and dangerous vaccine, which licensed it to a drug company, which then fast tracked approval for it despite protests about the placebo used (a toxic substance itself) and then recommended requiring it for teenagers.

HPV has been back in the news this week mainly because of Michael Douglas’s announcement that the throat cancer he battled was caused not by his lifelong smoking and drinking—both of which are significant contributors to oral cancer—but by HPV contracted through oral sex. (Afterward, he backpedaled a bit on that statement through a spokesperson.) However, according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, while recent increases in incidence and survival of oropharyngeal cancers in the US have been attributed to HPV infection, the empirical evidence is lacking. On top of that, HPV is linked to only one type of throat cancer—upper throat cancer—and not all oropharyngeal cancers.

Sadly, the media has taken this opportunity to stump for wider acceptance of HPV vaccines, despite the fact that 75% of sexually active men and women become infected with HPV at some point, but most clear the infection on their own within two years—their immune system handles it. On top of that, the media almost never discusses the side effects of the vaccine, or its poor success rate. Could this be because major media are kept alive with drug company advertising and drug makers also make vaccines?

Of the 100+ different types of HPV, only fifteen might someday develop into cancer; moreover, the Journal of the American Medical Association says the relationship between infection with HPV at a young age and later development of cancer is unknown. Of those fifteen potential cancer-causing strains, the vaccine targets only two: HPV-16 and HPV-18. In other words, the vaccine will have no effect on 87% of the HPV viruses that might potentially cause cancer, and the causal link between HPV and the later development of cervical cancer is far from definitive.

By contrast, regular pap smears have no side effects and can easily catch cervical cancer in time. Even women who have had HPV vaccine should still do pap smears since the vaccine doesn’t protect against all cancer-causing HPV strains.

According to Dr. Jonathan Wright, patients with HPV should turn to vegetables—particularly those of the cruciferous family—because they influence the metabolism of estrogen, which in turn hinders the growth of HPV viruses. One study showed that a natural substance found in cruciferous vegetables, indole-3-carbinol (13C), which can also be taken in supplement form, can help treat HPV-associated tumors. Early research indicates that 13C may potentially reverse and even cure HPV-related cervical cancer. Dr. Wright believes that the curative powers of13C may be even more potent in its active form, known as DIM, or di-indolylmethane.

As always, individuals need to weigh the risks with the benefits and make up their own minds, armed with as much information as possible.

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Mothers Shouldn’t Have to Protect Their Children from Medical Overtreatment

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:50:47 +0000

Hospitals and now even doctors’ offices have become dangerous places, especially for the vulnerable young.

The US medical system is geared, quite frankly, to the overtreatment of patients. There are many reasons for this. There is the threat of medical malpractice lawsuits if the doctor does less rather than more. There is the increasing tendency for someone other than your doctor to decide what your treatment will be, whether the hospital, practice administrators, insurance companies, or medical societies. Then there are the financial incentives to overtreat because of the way medical bills are paid.
Case in point: Vermont has one of the most homogenous populations in the nation, so one might expect health problems to be evenly distributed. Yet there is a huge variation in the number of medical treatments people receive. For example, in Middlebury, a now-classic study showed that only 7% of children had their tonsils removed, while in Morrisville, 70% did. This had nothing to do with the condition of the patients—only the doctors’ aggressiveness in removing tonsils, with very little difference in the children’s health after treatment.
Interestingly, a study published in the British Medical Journal revealed that almost half of the doctors who set clinical guidelines for diabetes and cholesterol from medical societies or government agencies in the US and Canada between 2000 and 2010 had financial conflicts of interest.
It’s bad enough when unnecessary treatments are pushed on adults. It’s far worse when doctors try to convince worried parents that their children need more treatment than they actually do. The daughter of an ANH staff member, for example, has ectodermal dysplasia (ED), which is a mild genetic disorder that impacts the growth of her teeth, nails, and hair; in others with the condition, the disease can be more pronounced, affecting eyes, sweat glands, and all sorts of additional areas.
“So far,” she reports, “doctors have tried to convince us to sedate her and have an electrocardiogram on her eyes (at age two!), have a full mouth x-ray to see what is happening with her adult teeth growth (at age four!), and so so on. There have been additional suggested tests, none of which we have elected to have her undergo. ED is a rare disorder, and the docs at Hopkins wanted, I believe, to collect information for their research, none of which would have changed our course with our daughter. By the way, because of the natural health treatments she received, our daughter is now a completely normal six-year-old with no problems whatsoever!”
Vaccines are another area where children are regularly subject to overtreatment. And mainstream medicine keeps developing more and more ridiculous but also potentially dangerous vaccines that children will inevitably be subject to. The latest is a vaccine to prevent smoking—which includes an antibody that is genetically engineered, no less!
The vaccine makes the liver produce antibodies that attack nicotine before it can reach the brain and therefore trigger addiction. The researchers took the genetic sequence of an engineered nicotine antibody and put it into a virus that they had engineered to not be harmful. They also included information that directed the vaccine to go to hepatocytes, that is, liver cells. The antibody’s genetic sequence then inserts itself into the nucleus of the hepatocytes, and these cells start to churn out a steady stream of the antibodies. This was all very clever, no doubt, but let’s not pass laws mandating this for our children. They are not guinea pigs.
As the National Health Policy Forum notes, “All [medical] services carry risks and, in the case of unneeded services, these are not balanced by benefits.” Not only that, but overtreatment carries a huge financial cost. According to George Washington University’s National Health Policy Forum, overspending is costing the healthcare system $210 billion a year, most of which is due to unnecessary services. The American College of Physicians sets the cost of excessive testing alone somewhat higher than that—as much as $250 billion per year. MIT healthcare economist Dr. Jonathan Gruber cites estimates that about $800 billion—or nearly one-third of all healthcare spending—is wasted in unnecessary diagnostic tests, procedures and extra days in the hospital.
“We spend between one-fifth and one-third of our healthcare dollars on care that does nothing to improve our health,” writes award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and former writer for US News & World Report. Her new book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, documents how between 20 and 30 cents of every health care dollar we spend goes toward useless treatments and hospitalizations, toward CT scans we don’t need, and toward ineffective surgeries.
Speaking of CT scans, they are often used on children during emergency room visits. Between 2000 and 2006, Medicare spending on imaging services also more than doubled—with over a 25% increase in advanced imaging techniques like nuclear medicine and x-ray computed tomography (CT scans), with an estimated 62 million CT scans per year in the US (up from 3 million in 1980).
The problem, of course, is that CT scans have been linked to cancer. A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine says that the radiation from CT scans may cause of as many as 1 in 50 future cases of cancer. And a new study published in The Lancet show that CT scans in children can significantly increase the risk of leukemia and brain cancer. Unfortunately, the cancer won’t show up for many years, while in the short term it allows hospitals to bill for the unnecessary scan.
The problem is compounded because one doctor or hospital does not know how many other CT scans the child may already have had. This can lead to very high levels of radiation exposure, as we discussed in another recent article.
MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging scans) are also performed excessively. Medicare data show that doctors often order MRI scans for patients with lower back pain instead of prescribing less invasive, less expensive treatments such as physical therapy. An MRI, which costs about $3,000, also frequently leads to even more expensive surgery.
There is also an overabundance of cesarean sections being performed. According to the CDC, births by C-section rose 53% between 1996 and 2007 nationwide, and jumped more than 70% in six states (Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Washington).
The American College of Physicians identified thirty-seven clinical scenarios where screening was unnecessary and did not promote the patients’ health, among them electrocardiograms to screen for cardiac disease in patients at low to average risk for coronary artery disease; coronary angiography in patients with chronic stable angina who have well-controlled symptoms; and exercise electrocardiograms even for low-risk, asymptomatic adults.
Regular readers will recall our report from last year in which we discussed an epidemic of prostate, breast, and colon screenings—and the terrible infections, complications, and spread of cancer that can result from such procedures. As always, a natural approach to healthcare is not only the least expensive, it is also safest and often most effective.
What to do about all this overtreatment? First of all put the patient back in charge of his or her own care, and that of children. Second stop the federal government censorship of health news and information. Third introduce prices—yes real prices—again so that both practitioners and consumers can find out what procedures cost. It’s not rocket science. But it is getting worse, not better.

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Whose Side Is the USDA Really On?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:07:19 +0000

It’s supposed to help organic farmers. But it’s more likely to be just another sneaky way to help Monsanto. New Action Alert!

Last week, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack gave a clear directive to his department’s new Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21): come up with a plan to compensate organic and conventional farmers whose crops become contaminated because of genetically engineered foods.
This directive is clearly intended to sound like it will help farmers. But we think it is actually intended to help Monsanto. To see why we think this, a bit of background.
The committee is comprised of a broad spectrum of interested parties: organic scientists and organic trade organizations, conventional farming industry reps (including makers of high-fructose corn syrup), DuPont, agriculture experts, genetic engineering companies, lawyers, and a few concerned individuals.
As we reported recently, courts have increasingly been siding against GE and biotech farming when surrounding farms and products become contaminated. Bayer CropScience recently agreed to pay up to $750 million to farmers in the Midwest to settle lawsuits over its contamination of the US rice supply.
This is in sharp contrast to the past when Monsanto was suing nearby farmers whose crops were contaminated for theft of product and using the threat of suit to intimidate and silence.
Could this possibly mean, asks Marion Nestle in her Food Politics blog, that instead of Monsanto suing organic or conventional farmers whose crops get intermingled with patented GM varieties, Monsanto might now have to treat organic farmers fairly and pay them for the damage caused by the contamination? Or does the USDA actually have in mind a new protection scheme for Monsanto—a legal shelter that will limit Monsanto’s future monetary damages?
This isn’t the first time that our crony capitalist-inclined government has created a system protecting industry from liability. You may recall our stories on “vaccine courts” like the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system that compensates individuals harmed by vaccines. By denying the right to file lawsuits, it’s a way to protect the vaccine industry from potentially huge financial damages. Will this USDA compensation plan for GE crop contamination be just another gift to the biotech farming industry?
Tom Vilsack does not admit to being a crony of the biotech industry. The secretary was quoted as saying, “I have no favorite [type of agriculture] here,” but other statements—and past actions—make it clear that this is not a truthful statement. Today’s USDA acts virtually as an agent of Monsanto and other big GE companies. So do other government agencies which want to promote the export of this “American” product, as Wikileaks documents show.
Consumers, by contrast, have been voicing their objections to genetically engineered foods, and some elected officials are listening. In June, the House of Representatives amended the agriculture spending bill and prohibited the FDA from spending money to approve genetically engineered salmon. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) recently said she would attempt to do the same for the Senate version of the bill.
ANH-USA strongly advocates for clear labeling on all genetically modified foods to give consumers an informed choice, a position which the American public strongly supports. Citizen activists have organized the Right2Know March—a massive sixteen-day march from New York City all the way to the White House to demand GMO labeling. The march takes place from October 1 to October 16; they are looking for walkers, bikers, drivers, volunteers, cheerleaders, hosts, and supporters, so be sure to visit their website for details.
Today please contact Congress and USDA secretary Tom Vilsack and tell them America will not stand for any USDA’s attempt to shield the GMO industry from liability when their products contaminate surrounding organic and conventional crops. Please take action now!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS AND THE USDA

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.
We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not the USDA.

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A Medical Maverick’s Fate

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:47:20 +0000

The attempt to wipe Andrew Wakefield, MD from the face of the medical community for honestly reporting his findings trying to help his patients

The General Medical Council of UK has now removed Andrew Wakefield, MD from the medical registry. This follows their January 2010 findings from the Fitness to Practice and Investigation Committee report. And, it follows the February 2010 action by the Lancet medical journal to retract the article published in 1998 by Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues. The GMC investigation was prompted by an inquiry from Brian Deer, Sunday Times columnist. The Sunday Times is owned by a board member of GSK, the makers of the MMR vaccine mentioned in Dr. Wakefield’s published research.
Medical mavericks are far enough ahead of their time to suffer for it. And, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a noted gastroenterologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and author of over 130 original studies, who was never anti-vaccine, was an unlikely maverick. In 1995, to quote Dr. Wakefield “A mother called me and said a child is developing perfectly normally and then had their MR vaccine. The child became extremely unwell, high fever for days and upon recovery was never the same. The child deteriorated into Autism – lost speech, communication, language, inter-action. I said, I’m terribly sorry, I’m a gastroenterologist, you must have rang the wrong number. I knew nothing about Autism; when I was in medical school, it was so rare – we were not even taught about it. And she said, No, you don’t understand my child has terrible bowel problems; he’s having diarrhea 12 times a day he’s lost continence; I know he’s in pain but he can’t tell me he’s in pain. He’s hitting himself, banging his head, biting himself and attacking people and I know this is because he is in pain.” Click here to read further a about Dr. Wakefield’s story in his own words http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010053010367/health-and-education/dr-andrew-wakefield-on-the-autism-vaccine-controversy.html.
His team found 100 other children with nearly identical stories. Twelve were tested further and written up for publication. Children have now been found in five other countries with similar sets of experiences. When Dr. Wakefield treated the first child and others for their bowel disorders, their behavior improved. That was what initiated propelled Dr. Wakefield to look further, to study and to present his information. He had no anti-vaccine agenda. His genuine interest to help his patients led him to study the safety of the MMR vaccine which resulted in his preparation of a 250-page report finding the safety studies “appalling” “totally unsatisfactory”.
And as many parents who have questioned the link between their child’s immunization and subsequent changes in behavior and learning ability, to question vaccines is fraught with many political pressures.
One of the most amazing facts of this whole story is that Dr. Wakefield’s original merely suggested further research specifically regarding the linkage between the MMR vaccine and autism. 19 papers were published on this research by Dr. Wakefield. It is this one study that generated a maelstrom of criticism, years of uproar and controversy, and a final effort to wipe Dr. Wakefield from the conventional community for his desire to help a patient, then more patients, and his scientific curiosity, and researcher’s duty to look further, report everything found, and suggest there was more to be learned. ANH-Europe has published an excellent overview of the events surrounding the GMC action against Dr. Wakefield was never a suggestion from a parent that Dr. Wakefield had harmed a child either from treatment or failing to treat a child. To this day, every parent involved remains content with Dr. Wakefield’s care of their child. http://www.anh-europe.org/news/anh-feature-the-longest-witch-hunt-in-medical-history-draws-to-a-close
However, the professional care and personal life of Dr. Wakefield and his family has forever changed. He is an engaging earnest physician and research clearly dedicated to patient care and scientific excellence. Because these two values were in conflict with the political, public health, and conventional medical community’s push to achieve 100% rates of vaccination, Dr. Wakefield was “far enough ahead of his time to suffer for it.”
No vaccine is 100% safe or 100% effective. It is the right of every parent and person contemplating a vaccine to objective information about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy record. Only weighing the risks versus the benefits can an individual make an informed choice about what is right for their child and their body. That’s healthcare freedom of choice. That is worth standing up for thanks to courageous scientists and doctors like Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
From Deborah A. Ray, MT(ASCP)
Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

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Do Mandatory Vaccinations Achieve Higher Rates of Immunization?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:00:17 +0000

Tami Wahl, ANH-USA’s legislative director, attended the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination, held in Reston, Va., October 2-4, 2009. The conference was hosted by the National Vaccine Information Center, a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1982. The oldest and largest consumer organization advocating for the institution of vaccine safety and the protection of informed consent in the mass-vaccination system, NVIC is an independent clearinghouse for information. Consequently, it does not promote the use of vaccines; nor does it advise against their use. Rather, it supports the availability of all preventive healthcare options, including vaccination, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary healthcare choices. NVIC’s work aims to ensure that public-health policies are based in science and not influenced by industry.

At the conference, hundreds of parents, grandparents, health practitioners, medical doctors, former pharmaceutical sales representatives, concerned citizens, community activists and members of the media heard a variety of noted speakers. The topics covered included the history of vaccination, the status of the H1N1 and HPV/Gardasil vaccines, legal matters (including manufacturer liability), constitutional law (including protections against mandatory vaccination), informed consent, pet vaccination, homeopathy and immunization. There were also sessions that allowed for interaction with the speakers.
An especially compelling presentation compared how Japan and the United States handle vaccinations. For example, Japan completes vaccinations for infants over an extended period of time (as opposed to the tight “schedule” implemented in the United States) and does not vaccinate infants under 3 months of age. Since 1994, Japan has utilized a “voluntary vaccination” plan and found it to be highly effective. In short, mandatory vaccinations don’t always mean higher rates of true immunization. The Japanese government has pulled certain vaccines from the schedule when these were deemed unnecessary or not completely safe. As a result, the Japanese have a high degree of trust in their vaccine schedule.
The conference also addressed the problem of studies that fail to compare a tested vaccine with a true placebo control-group. Often, the placebo contains mercury or some other toxic substance. Sometimes another vaccine is used in the control group in lieu of a true placebo.
Several speakers gave pointers for individuals who want to get involved at the local level: 1) Become informed about the side effects of vaccines; 2) be familiar with your state’s laws (e.g., is a religious exemption available?); 3) educate others, such as legislators and family members (www.nvic.org).
On a related note, a New York state Supreme Court judge has granted a temporary restraining order against the requirement that all healthcare workers get the H1N1 vaccine. The restraining order, granted October 19, 2009, will be in effect until New York’s Supreme Court reviews the case in a hearing scheduled for October 30. The original order indicated that workers not vaccinated against seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus would be subject to disciplinary action after November 30. A 1990 court ruling rejected healthcare workers’ opposition to mandatory rubella vaccination.

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EPA Unveils Plan to Analyze and Regulate Six High-Profile Chemicals

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:00:40 +0000

A number of recent studies point to the increased incidence of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, in the United States. And the October issue of the journal Pediatrics publishes a new government study suggesting that autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder, is more prevalent than previously thought, affecting 1 in every 91 U.S. children.

A search of the literature points to exposure to manganese while self-pumping gasoline, to chronic mercury exposure, to pesticide exposure and to a myriad of unknown factors that may affect genetic expression. A research team from the California-based Parkinson’s Institute recently found that the most common pesticides used in gardening tripled the incidence of Parkinson’s disease. The NIH Website www.medlineplus.gov lists 29 published studies linking Parkinson’s disease with pesticide exposure.
The causes of neurodevelopmental disorders — including autism, ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome — remain elusive. But clearly, to quote Walter Willett, M.D, M.P.H., of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, the fact that we’ve changed the fat in our diet has a role to play. Changes in diet and activity, the increased use of vaccines, toxins in the environment (including mercury, lead and phthalates) and genetic susceptibility to the multitude of environmental changes could affect our children, whether as individuals or collectively. The combination of factors could impact each child differently.
In an announcement September 29, 2009, the EPA noted that U.S. consumers are “understandably anxious and confused” about chemicals in the environment and in their bodies. Quoted as saying the 1976 toxics law was “inordinately cumbersome and time-consuming”, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson indicated that in the coming months the Obama administration will promote a new law placing responsibility on the chemical industry to prove that its compounds are safe.
In the interim, Jackson said, the EPA would begin to analyze and regulate six chemicals that have raised high-profile health concerns. These include bisphenol/BPA, found in hard, clear polycarbonate bottles and in dentistry materials; phthalates, found in vinyl and cosmetics; brominated flame retardants; perfluorinated compounds used in nonstick coatings; paraffins found in lubricants; and benzidine dyes and pigments. It is feared that these six chemicals mimic hormones. They have already been linked to reproductive problems, the obstruction of fetal development, cancer and other health disorders.
Using its authority under existing law, EPA may restrict the use of these six chemicals or require that product labels warn consumers of the risks associated with their use.

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Antibiotics Being Used to Excess in Farm Animals

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:50:39 +0000

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, deputy FDA commissioner, testified before the House Rules Committee that feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals should stop. The Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated that as much as 70% of the antibiotics used in the US are given to healthy farm animals. They are traditionally used to encourage growth or prevent illness in farm-lot environments.

According to Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease physician and member of the Healthy Memphis Common Table Council, the measure to limit the use of antibiotics in healthy animals is likely to fail because of the powerful farm lobby. In Dr. Jain’s personal experience as well as in the scientific literature, “The prescribing of too many antibiotics leads to super-resistant bugs in the body, in hospitals, and possibly even in our environment.” According to Dr. Jain, antibiotics are linked to serious side effects, including skin rashes, diarrhea, alteration in thinking, and loss of hearing.
Dr. Stuart Levy, director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance, and professor of molecular biology, microbiology, and medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, agrees that antibiotics are overused and even abused in both human and veterinary medicine. He says that antibacterial agents and antibiotics share the same resistance problem, something the makers of antibacterial sprays don’t want you to know. After all, if you have a product that “kills more than 99.9% of illness causing bacteria and viruses on environmental surfaces in your home,” that means 0.1% of them are both stronger than the other bugs, and they’re the ones left behind to replicate at a shocking rate of speed. That is precisely how super-viruses are made—they have no competition from much less harmful viruses or bacteria, so they’re the ones that rule the roost. Dr. Levy also warns the antibacterial craze has another potential consequence: Studies reveal an increased frequency of allergies and cases of asthma and eczema in persons who have been raised in an environment overly protected against microorganisms.

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Swine Flu: Separating Fact from Hype

Tue, 12 May 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Our British colleagues at the Alliance for Natural Health offer the following savvy analysis of the swine flu pandemic. (We have edited their article for length, but we invite you to read the original in its entirety at their website.)

“Swine flu” is a new strain of the H1N1 influenza A virus, which the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms has never been detected before in either pigs or humans. A strain of the same virus was responsible for the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20, which was responsible for the death of between 20 and 50 million people around the world (some estimates go as high as 100 million). Is it reasonable to fear that this strain will be similarly virulent?

The H1N1 virus is also responsible for the cases of influenza and pneumonia we see every winter—what one might call “regular influenza.” And this basic strain also jumped to humans from birds or pigs back in the early 20th century. Its annual death rate in the US is around 32 per 100,000. This, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), makes it the sixth leading cause of death in the United States following heart disease, cancer, stroke, unintentional injuries, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. (This list does not include healthcare, which is itself a leading cause of death.) If you then convert this flu death rate to a daily death rate, you’ll find that on average, taking into account even the non-influenza seasons when death rates are substantially lower, around 270 people in the US die from this “regular influenza” virus every single day.
In contrast, as of May 11, 2009, the CDC has reported 2,532 confirmed cases of swine flu since its outbreak in late March, with only three deaths. Over the same period, Mexico has reported 48 deaths, from 2,062 confirmed cases. There have been only 53 confirmed deaths worldwide from swine flu.
In short, there are little basis on which to claim that swine flu represents a massive threat, particularly when it has caused far fewer deaths than the common “garden-variety” seasonal flu virus does every year. Experts like Prof. Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College, London, are referring to this recent bout as a “mild strain” and “of no particular concern.”
Of far greater concern are the efforts to prevent the virus from spreading; hype can easily lead to catastrophe. In the swine flu epidemic of 1976, for example, more people were harmed by the efforts to deal with the virus—notably vaccination—than they were by the virus itself, which remained fairly non-virulent.
One particular problem was the increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) among the more than 40 million Americans who received swine flu immunizations. The syndrome causes paralysis from the legs upward as a result of a response in the immune system which attacks the nerve sheaths. The condition may be fatal, while others may be left permanently paralyzed. It is estimated that some 500 vaccinated people developed GBS, and of these, 25 died. This means that vaccinated persons were between 4 and 8 times more likely to get GBS.
In response to the current swine flu outbreak, vaccine manufacturers are already increasing sales of their current flu vaccines worldwide, despite the fact that they will have little effect on a mutated form of H1N1. Soon they’ll be able to “upgrade” future seasonal flu vaccines by incorporating swine flu, and governments will no doubt try to persuade even more people to be vaccinated.
Who else would benefit from a worldwide panic? Stock prices for drug manufacturers Roche and GSK, makers of the anti-viral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, are already soaring. But it’s not because of swine flu drugs, as one might expect. Following the bird flu scare of 2006, many countries stockpiled antiviral drugs in preparation for an epidemic that never came. Now those drugs are approaching the end of their shelf life, so they need to be replaced—which gives pharma ample funding for research and manufacture of the new swine flu drug.
Yet Tamiflu’s potential side effects are rarely discussed: diarrhea, inflammation of the lungs, sinusitis, bronchitis, aggravation of pre-existing asthma, nosebleeds, ear disorders, inflammation of the skin, swelling of the lymph nodes, conjunctivitis, and an increased risk of seizures, confusion, hallucinations, and/or abnormal behavior during their illness.
However, there is no need for panic over the swine flu itself. The Alliance for Natural Health recommends you keep a watchful eye on reliable media sources about its spread and, in particular, its virulence. If the virus is decreasing rather than increasing in virulence, there is really nothing to worry about. To see official figures about confirmed cases, go to the WHO’s swine influenza pages and read its regular updates. And, perhaps most importantly, keep your immune system in tip-top shape (see ANH’s Food4Health campaign page and the recommendations about natural products given in their 2006 avian influenza report).

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