Fatal Heart Problems Among Risks of Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer
October 23, 2009
Natural News
By S. L. Baker
According to the National Institutes of Health, “The appropriate treatment for prostate cancer is not clear.” However, men who have prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate gland or who have had a recurrence of their disease are routinely subjected to a specific treatment anyway — hormone therapy, which consists of either surgical or, more commonly, a kind of pharmacologic castration. This shuts down the source of the male hormones testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT or 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone, a male hormone that is converted from testosterone within the prostate) believed to be fueling the cancer.
Side effects of this chemical castration can be devastating, including reduced or total lack of sexual desire, impotence, weakness and fatigue, loss of muscle mass, growth of breast tissue, hot flashes, depression and osteoporosis. Now there’s new research showing the hormone-blocking approach used to treat men with prostate cancer has yet another dark side: It results in a dramatically increased risk of serious and often deadly heart problems.
Scientists meeting at Europe’s biggest cancer congress, dubbed ECCO 15 – ESMO 34, in Berlin recently announced the findings of the largest and most comprehensive study to date on the issue. Bottom line: the researchers said physicians should consider the risk of cardiovascular side effects when they prescribe hormone therapy for prostate cancer patients. In fact, they should refer patients to a cardiologist before starting treatment.
For the study, headed by cancer epidemiologist Mieke Van Hemelrijck of King’s College in London, the researchers looked at the records of 30,642 Swedish men with locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer who had received hormone therapy as the primary treatment for their disease between 1997 and 2006. The men were followed for about three years and the scientists studied their risk of developing ischemic heart disease, heart attacks, arrhythmia, heart failure requiring hospitalization, and death from heart disease. Then they compared the rates of heart problems among these prostate cancer patients with those of people in the general Swedish population.
“We found that prostate cancer patients treated with hormone therapy had an elevated risk of developing all of the individual types of heart problems and that they were more likely than normal to die from those causes,” Van Hemelrijck said. She added another worrisome point: the heart problems started within only a few months after the men began their hormone therapy.
In all, prostate cancer patients treated with hormone therapy had a 24 percent increased risk of a non-fatal heart attack, a 19 percent increased risk of arrhythmia, a 31 percent increased risk of ischemic heart disease and a 26 percent increased risk of heart failure. The risk of a fatal heart attack was increased by 28 percent, the risk of dying from heart disease soared by 21 percent, the risk of heart failure death was increased by 26 percent and the risk of a fatal arrhythmia was increased by 5 percent.
Men taking anti-androgen therapy (which block testosterone from binding to the prostate cells but still allows some testosterone to circulate in the body) had a somewhat lower risk of heart problems than those on gonadotropin releasing hormone agonist therapy which is a stronger testosterone blocker. The association with heart risk when the testicles were removed was also extra high, similar to those taking the gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy.
But, despite all the dangerous side effects and risks associated with depriving a man of his male hormones, this kind of therapy must be worth it because it cures some men of advanced disease, right? Wrong. In fact, it is not a cure at all.
Swine Flu Scams Lurk on the Internet
October 23, 2009
By Marilynn Marchione
Air “sterilizers.” A photon machine. Supplement pills to boost the immune system. Protective shampoos and face masks. Even fake Tamiflu.
These and other products making bogus claims to prevent or treat swine flu are flooding the Internet as scam artists prey on the public’s fears while the vaccine is delayed and real Tamiflu — made by Switzerland’s Roche Group — is rationed.
Every problem, it would seem, is a sales opportunity. Some of the products appear to have been pitched for other emergencies, such as one called “Quake Kare” and masks and purifiers sold during the SARS scare.
Federal officials have sent warning letters to promoters of more than 140 swine flu-related products, including well-known alternative medicine advocate Dr. Andrew Weil for his “Immune Support Formula.”
Consumer Reports also has warned subscribers to be wary.
“It’s harmful, disappointing, frustrating to see folks take advantage of the public like this,” said Dr. John Santa, who evaluates health claims for Consumer Reports.
Fraudulent products emerged shortly after swine flu did last spring — about 10 a day, said Alyson Saben, head of a swine flu consumer fraud team formed by the Food and Drug Administration. The pace slowed over the summer as the flu abated, but “it’s picked up” in recent weeks, she said. “We are seeing new sites pop up.”
Most worrisome: sites that claim to sell Tamiflu without a prescription. The FDA bought and tested five such products. One contained powdered talc and generic Tylenol — no Tamiflu. Several others contained some Tamiflu but were not approved for sale in the U.S.
“We have no idea of the conditions under which they were manufactured. They could contain contaminated, counterfeit, impure or subpotent or superpotent ingredients,” Saben said.
Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza are the only drugs recommended for treating swine flu.
Rogue Web sites are not the only ones trying to cash in on flu fears. Makers of some well-established products are making claims that may be close to the line, the FDA says.
This week, the makers of Dial Soap, Kleenex, Clorox and other big brands launched a joint promotional campaign costing up to $1 million. The FDA is reviewing the campaign, which includes a video that says:
“Germs are tiny organisms that can cause disease. According to the CDC, up to 80 percent of infectious diseases, like the flu, are spread by your hands. That’s why frequent, proper handwashing is so important in preventing spread of the flu, other viruses and germs. An antibacterial soap like Dial Complete foaming hand wash kills 99.9 percent of germs.”
Flu is caused by a virus, so killing bacteria is of uncertain benefit.
The campaign is “not being specific down to swine flu,” said Scott Moffitt, an official with Dial Corp.’s parent company, Germany-based Henkel AG. He also contends the video is not misleading, even though the germ-killing claim follows a sentence about flu and other viruses.
One product that drew a warning letter from the FDA is the Photon Genie, a gadget that delivers “energy waves.” Its Web site claimed it “helps strengthen the immune system, and a strong immune system is KEY to preventing swine flu symptoms and KEY to treating swine flu.”
Read Those Food Labels
October 23, 2009
The New York Times
By Elizabeth Rosenthal
Shopping for oatmeal, Helena Bergstrom, 37, admitted that she was flummoxed by the label on the blue box reading, “Climate declared: .87 kg CO2 per kg of product.”
A dairy farm near Uppsala is among the Swedish companies now focusing on the carbon dioxide emitted in food production.
“Right now, I don’t know what this means,” said Ms. Bergstrom, a pharmaceutical company employee.
But if a new experiment here succeeds, she and millions of other Swedes will soon find out. New labels listing the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods, from whole wheat pasta to fast food burgers, are appearing on some grocery items and restaurant menus around the country.
People who live to eat might dismiss this as silly. But changing one’s diet can be as effective in reducing emissions of climate-changing gases as changing the car one drives or doing away with the clothes dryer, scientific experts say.
“We’re the first to do it, and it’s a new way of thinking for us,” said Ulf Bohman, head of the Nutrition Department at the Swedish National Food Administration, which was given the task last year of creating new food guidelines giving equal weight to climate and health. “We’re used to thinking about safety and nutrition as one thing and environmental as another.”
Some of the proposed new dietary guidelines, released over the summer, may seem startling to the uninitiated. They recommend that Swedes favor carrots over cucumbers and tomatoes, for example. (Unlike carrots, the latter two must be grown in heated greenhouses here, consuming energy.)
They are not counseled to eat more fish, despite the health benefits, because Europe’s stocks are depleted.
And somewhat less surprisingly, they are advised to substitute beans or chicken for red meat, in view of the heavy greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising cattle.
“For consumers, it’s hard,” Mr. Bohman acknowledged. “You are getting environmental advice that you have to coordinate with, ‘How can I eat healthier?’ ”
Many Swedish diners say it is just too much to ask. “I wish I could say that the information has made me change what I eat, but it hasn’t,” said Richard Lalander, 27, who was eating a Max hamburger (1.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions) in the shadow of a menu board revealing that a chicken sandwich (0.4 kilograms) would have been better for the planet.
Yet if the new food guidelines were religiously heeded, some experts say, Sweden could cut its emissions from food production by 20 to 50 percent. An estimated 25 percent of the emissions produced by people in industrialized nations can be traced to the food they eat, according to recent research here. And foods vary enormously in the emissions released in their production.
While today’s American or European shoppers may be well versed in checking for nutrients, calories or fat content, they often have little idea of whether eating tomatoes, chicken or rice is good or bad for the climate.
Mumps Outbreak in Brooklyn
October 23, 2009
My Fox New York
By Luke Funk
New York City’s Health and Mental Hygiene Department is warning doctors about a mumps outbreak in Brooklyn.
The cases started turning up in late August.
The outbreak began among children from Borough Park who attended summer camp in Upstate New York. Now, a similar outbreak is being reported in New Jersey
So far, 57 confirmed or probable cases have been identified in New York. Cases of mumps have continued to occur in Borough Park since the start of the school year.
The victims have ranged in age from 1 to 42 years of age. Most of the cases are among children ages 10-15 years old.
Mumps is an illness characterized by acute swelling of the salivary gland lasting two or more days. The illness can cause deafness and encephalitis.
A person can be infected for two days before symptoms appear.
The health department is telling people who suspect they have mumps to stay home for five days.
Children who are not fully vaccinated against mumps are the highest risk of infection.
Government Calls For Updated Vaccine-Making Process
October 23, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 23, 2009
Los Angeles Times
By Kim Geiger
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress on Wednesday that delays in the release of H1N1 flu shots show that the United States is too dependent on other countries for the manufacture of vaccines and that the technology to make them must be improved.
Four of the five manufacturers of H1N1 vaccines are foreign companies — a fact that alarmed lawmakers, who expressed concern about the ability of the federal government to secure enough vaccine to prevent the spread of the virus, known as swine flu.
Some expressed even greater concern that the lag in vaccine production could mean the H1N1 flu shots would arrive too late to do any good, citing a recent study that predicted that swine flu infections would reach their peak this week.
The study by researchers at Purdue University in Indiana projects that 63% of the U.S. population will be infected by the end of this year, with 8% being infected this week.
“H1N1 is very contagious,” said Sherry Towers, a Purdue graduate student in statistics and coauthor of the study.
Officials had originally projected that 40 million doses of the vaccine would be available by the end of October, but because of what Sebelius called “glitches” in manufacturing, just 11 million doses have been made available. Officials estimate that 28 million to 30 million doses will be available by the end of the month.
Sebelius said the U.S. is “at the front of the line” in getting the vaccines as they’re produced but noted the country needs to expand its manufacturing capacity.
“We are still too dependent in the United States on vaccination production in other countries,” Sebelius said at a hearing on the topic.
Vaccine manufacturers worldwide are “using old technology,” Sebelius explained, stressing the need to convert from egg-based to cell-based vaccine development.
The good news, she said, is that original projections requiring 40 million doses of the vaccine were developed when scientists had expected that adults would need two shots. Since then, researchers have found that just one dose is required for people older than 10, meaning that the available doses will be spread across more of the population.
“There is enough vaccine, and will be, to vaccinate every American who wants to be vaccinated,” Sebelius said.
Fewer than half of Americans get flu shots yearly, even though seasonal flu kills 36,000 people annually, she said.
She added that she expects the number of people getting vaccinated to increase this year because of high public awareness of the H1N1 virus.
Poll Indicates Mass Rejection of Swine Flu
October 23, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 23, 2009
Infowars
By Steve Watson
A new scientific poll has found that the vast majority of Americans have no intention of rolling up their sleeves for the H1N1 vaccine because they do not trust government assurances that the shot is safe.
In the week that the first H1N1 vaccines have become available, 62% of respondents to ABC News/Washington Post survey said they will probably not get vaccinated, while 30% said they are not confident in the shot’s safety.
The poll shows that the vast majority of Americans would rather risk sickness than trust their government’s advice of necessity, indicating that the $16 million federal propaganda effort is failing.
In addition, the survey reveals that around four parents out of ten say they have no intention of allowing their children to receive the vaccine.
Over half of respondents in that group said that the primary reason they would not allow their kids to be vaccinated was because of the possibility of side effects and suspicions that the shot has not been adequately tested.
The rest cited the belief that H1N1 was not serious enough to warrant vaccination or that getting the shot was not “worth the trouble”.
The results come despite the fact that concerns over getting the flu have also increased significantly from 39% to 52%. More people are worried over H1N1 than they were over bird flu and SARS in 2006 and 2003 respectively, according to the poll.
“These results suggest that encouraging vaccinations depends not merely on warning people about getting the flu but as much on persuading doubters that the vaccine is safe.” The ABC report states.
The numbers in the ABC/Washington Post poll dovetail almost exactly with those in recent AP, Consumer Reports and Harvard University surveys.
Elsewhere there have been mixed reports on the uptake of the vaccine. Some clinics have reported thousands lining up on the streets to get the vaccine, while others have reported very low turnouts.
Chicago has taken the step of making the vaccine free for pregnant women; health-care workers; caregivers of children younger than 6 months; children and adults under 24, and adults who have underlying medical conditions.
Obama Sees Worst Poll Rating Drop in 50 Years
October 23, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 23, 2009
Telegraph
By Toby Harnden
Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April.
His current approval rating – hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle – is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.
The bad polling news came as Mr Obama returned to the campaign trail to prevent his Democratic party losing two governorships next month in states in which he defeated Senator John McCain in last November’s election.
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup explained: “The dominant political focus for Obama in the third quarter was the push for health care reform, including his nationally televised address to Congress in early September.
“Obama hoped that Congress would vote on health care legislation before its August recess, but that goal was missed, and some members of Congress faced angry constituents at town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. Meanwhile, unemployment continued to climb near 10 per cent.”
Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is in severe danger of defeat while Democrats are fast losing hope that Creigh Deeds can beat his Republican opponent in Virginia. Twin Democratic losses would be a major blow to Mr Obama’s prestige.
Campaigning for Mr Corzine in Hackensack on Wednesday night, Mr Obama delivered a plea that almost seemed as much for himself as the local candidate: “I’m here today to urge you to cast aside the cynics and the sceptics, and prove to all Americans that leaders who do what’s right and who do what’s hard will be rewarded and not rejected.”
Mr Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive and multi-millionaire, is currently running even in New Jersey, which is normally comfortably Democratic, while Mr Deeds is trailing badly in Virginia, a swing state that was key to Mr Obama’s 2008 victory.
Mr Obama is also facing widespread criticism for his drawn-out decision-making process over what to do next in Afghanistan.
Republicans sense Mr Obama is in a vulnerable position and this week saw the return to the public stage of his perhaps most vehement opponent – Vice-President Dick Cheney.
In a blistering speech on Wednesday night, he accused Mr Obama of failing to give Americans troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals and of being seemingly “afraid to make a decision” about Afghanistan “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy in Washington.
Kevin Taking Over New England
October 22, 2009 by JP
Filed under Radio Stations
October 22, 2009 CHICAGO, IL – The Kevin Trudeau show is proud to announce that starting October 31, 2009, it will be airing on WNRI-AM 1380 in Northern Rhode Island
The show will be on WNRI every Saturday from 10:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M.
Listeners have compared Kevin Trudeau’s radio show to the best parts of Michael Savage, Howard Stern, Art Bell, John Tesh and Rush Limbaugh.
Mr. Trudeau is one of the most read authors of all time. His books have all been best sellers and have sold over 30 million copies globally. Mr. Trudeau’s most controversial book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About was number 1 on the New York Times best sellers list for 26 weeks in a row becoming the best selling health book of all time.
The Kevin Trudeau Radio Show originates from studios at Trudeau’s World Headquarters in Chicago. For information regarding affiliate relations visit www.KevinOnAir.com
Parents Doubt Safety of Flu Vaccine
October 22, 2009
ABC News
By Gary Langer
Nearly four in 10 parents do not plan to have their children get the swine flu vaccine this year, with doubts about its safety overwhelmingly cited as the chief reason, underscoring safety concerns as potentially a major impediment to vaccination efforts.
Other results in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll buttress the point: Three in 10 adults are not confident the vaccine is safe (including one in three parents), and 22 percent believe it’s “very” safe. These attitudes heavily influence intentions to get vaccinated, with views of the vaccine’s safety a stronger factor than the perceived risk of getting the flu itself.
Click here for PDF with charts and questionnaire.
Even though concern about catching the flu has risen sharply since August, only 35 percent of adults plan to get vaccinated (including 2 percent who say they’ve already done so); 62 percent say they probably will not get vaccinated. More parents, 56 percent, intend to have their children vaccinated (including 4 percent who say they’ve done so), but even among parents, 39 percent say they probably won’t.
WHY NOT? This poll asked those parents, open-endedly, why they don’t plan to have their children vaccinated, a robust approach because it doesn’t prompt for predetermined answers. Far surpassing other mentions, 53 percent in this group raised safety concerns, citing worry about side effects or doubts whether the vaccine’s been sufficiently tested.
Far behind that reason, 18 percent of parents who intend not to have their children vaccinated said they’re not worried about the flu or don’t believe getting the vaccine is worth the trouble; 15 percent said they don’t believe the illness is serious enough; 3 percent were unsure about the vaccine’s availability; and 1 percent were unsure about its cost. The rest gave scattered other answers.
Swine Flu Vaccine: Parents and Kids
The outcome’s similar when comparing views of the vaccine’s safety with the intention to get vaccinated. Among parents who are very or somewhat confident the vaccine is safe, 72 percent plan to get their children vaccinated. By contrast, among those who suspect it may not be safe — again, one in every three parents — only 13 percent plan to get vaccinations for their kids.
Safety concerns likewise influence personal intentions. Among people who are very confident about the vaccine’s safety, 60 percent plan to get it themselves. Among those who are “somewhat” confident, this drops to 40 percent. Among those less confident than that, a mere 6 percent plan to get vaccinated against the swine flu.
Worry about getting the flu, naturally, pushes intention to get vaccinated in the other direction — up — but less strongly. In a statistical model testing these relationships, concern over vaccine safety and concern about getting the flu both independently predict intention to get vaccinated, but concern over vaccine safety does so with nearly twice the predictive power.
These results suggest that encouraging vaccinations depends not merely on warning people about getting the flu but as much on persuading doubters that the vaccine is safe.
It should be noted that vaccination intention is naturally based on current information — how extensive and how serious people perceive the flu to be, what they’ve heard about the safety of the vaccine and the need to get it, its availability and more. If and when these change, intention to get vaccinated may well move too. (The ABC/Post poll in August, for instance, found a sharp rise in intention to get vaccinated if people’s doctors recommended that they do so.)
CONCERN and RESPONSE As noted, concerns about getting the flu are up; 52 percent in this poll are very or somewhat worried they themselves or someone in their immediate family will get the swine flu, up from 39 percent in August. Many less, though, 21 percent, say this is something that worries them “a great deal,” possibly reflecting a sense (or hope) that, if contracted, the flu might be mild.
Concern, Vaccine Safety and Plans to Vaccinate
Concern is higher than for two previous incidents: In March 2006, 41 percent were concerned about catching bird flu; in April 2003, 38 percent expressed worry about getting severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Worry about swine flu is considerably higher.
Among people who are very concerned about someone in their family contracting swine flu, 50 percent plan to get vaccinated; this declines to 34 percent of those who are somewhat worried, about a quarter of those who are not too worried and a fifth of those who aren’t worried at all. There’s less of a relationship, though, between worry about contracting the flu and parents’ intentions to get their children vaccinated. In another factor, faith in the ability of the federal government and local hospitals and health agencies to deal with an outbreak of swine flu remains high — 69 and 79 percent are they’re confident in these entities, respectively, although much less are “very confident.”
People who are confident in federal and local authorities also are somewhat likelier to plan to get vaccinated, because they’re also more confident in the safety of the vaccine.
GROUPS There are some differences across groups, with plans to get vaccinated higher among older adults (despite the government’s advice that younger people are at greater risk), and higher among better-educated adults; 51 percent with post-graduate educations plan to get vaccinated (or have done so) versus 32 percent of those with less formal schooling. One reason, again: Post-graduates are more apt to think the vaccine is safe.
Worry about someone in the household getting swine flu is 11 points higher among parents of children under 18 than among those with no kids at home. Also, women are 17 points more apt than men to worry that they or someone at home may get swine flu, 60 percent versus. 43 percent. Women are a bit more likely than men to plan to get vaccinated, but just slightly so, because they’re also 8 points less apt to be confident that the vaccine is safe.
METHODOLOGY This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 15-18, 2009, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results for the full sample have a 3.5-point error margin. Click here for a detailed description of sampling error. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa.
Click here for the full report.
Nuke and Bio Attack Worries
October 22, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 22, 2009
Associated Press
By Robert Burns
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday warned of dire consequences from the spread of nuclear weapons, while a special U.S. panel asserted that the more worrisome and urgent threat is terrorists attacking the United States or its allies with biological weapons.
In a speech outlining the Obama administration’s nuclear arms agenda, Clinton cited a range of troubling trends abroad, including a failure to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear bomb and weakness in the United Nations agency that is responsible for monitoring nuclear programs worldwide.
“Unless these trends are reversed – and reversed soon – we will find ourselves in a world with a steadily growing number of nuclear-armed states and an increasing likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons,” Clinton said.
Separately, a panel created by Congress, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, said the U.S. was making better progress in regard to the nuclear threat than it was preparing for possible bioterrorism.
“The nation’s level of preparedness for dealing with the threat of bioterrorism remains far lower than that of the nuclear threat,” the commission said in a lengthy report titled “The Clock Is Ticking.”
It said the government needs to move more aggressively to address the threat of bioterrorism, and that the threat is misunderstood by many.
“Unlike nuclear weapons, which require highly advanced technology, massive infrastructure, and rare materials that can be closely monitored and secured, biological weapons materials occur naturally, require no significant infrastructure to produce and can be found in nearly every part of the world,” the commission said.
“As technology advances, the ability to prevent biological attacks diminishes.”
The commission lauded the White House’s National Security Council for creating a bioweapons prevention strategy, which the panel said was the first of its kind. But it said the NSC needs a senior official whose sole responsibility is to improve the country’s capability to defend against a bioweapons attack.
“The near-term biodefense goal of the United States should be to limit the consequences of a bioweapons attack,” the panel said. “The long-term goal should be to improve post-attack capabilities for rapid recognition, response and recovery to a level that bioterrorism would no longer be considered a weapon of mass destruction.”
The commission did not discount the significance of the nuclear threat, while calling it less urgent.
“The current trends, if left unchecked, will increase the odds that al-Qaida will successfully develop and use a biological weapon or a nuclear device against the United States or its allies,” it said.
Atop Clinton’s list of key challenges in the spread of nuclear weapons technology was North Korea, which has an active nuclear weapons program in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
“The international community failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons,” she said.
While reiterating the administration’s willingness to hold one-on-one talks with North Korea, Clinton said it would be insufficient for that country to simply return to negotiations over its nuclear program.
“Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization,” she told members of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a think tank. “Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea.”
Clinton also faulted Iran, which asserts that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, for ignoring calls by the U.N. Security Council to suspend its enrichment of uranium. Iran says it is enriching uranium to make fuel required to run a network of electricity-generating nuclear reactors.
She called for prompt action by Iran to execute an emerging plan to use its own low-enriched uranium to refuel a research reactor in Tehran – an arrangement that would greatly reduce the amount of enriched uranium available to Iran for potential further processing and illicit use in making a nuclear weapon.
Clinton did not mention talks Wednesday in Vienna meant to work out such an arrangement. Iranian negotiators expressed support for the deal, as long as it is accepted by their leaders. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said negotiators from Iran, the U.S., Russia and France had accepted a draft deal and that he hoped for final approval from all four countries by Friday.
Clinton also lamented the failure of the IAEA to detect what Washington insists was a nuclear reactor in Syria, which was destroyed in a 2007 Israeli airstrike, as well as a recently revealed uranium-enrichment facility that Iran had kept secret for some years.
“The IAEA should make full use of existing verification authorities, including special inspections,” she said. “But it should also be given new authorities, including the ability to investigate suspected nuclear weapons-related activities even when no nuclear materials are present. And if we expect the IAEA to be a bulwark of the nonproliferation regime, we must also give it the resources necessary to do its job.”
The Syrian Embassy in Washington issued a statement in response to Clinton’s speech, asserting that it has abided by all its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “regardless of the false accusations leveled by some circles.”
The Syrians also commended Clinton’s push for bolstering the non-proliferation treaty and for declaring a goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. But it said the U.S. efforts are undermined by its unwillingness to push Israel to sign the treaty, even though Israel allegedly has a substantial nuclear arsenal.
Click here for the full report.
