‘Female Sexual Dysfunction’ – is it Real or Did the Pharmaceutical Industry Make it up?
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The pharmaceutical industry is attempting to convince the public that a variety of normal conditions affecting the majority of women should be classified as “female sexual dysfunction” and treated with drugs.
The medical establishment has a long history of treating the female body as sexually dysfunctional, from when Hippocrates first attributed “hysteria” to a wandering uterus. According to JoAnn Wypijewski, former senior editor of The Nation, this perspective fell out of favor with the sexual revolution of the 1970s but has since re-emerged.
“Today the cultural air is thick with sex, but the rhetoric of freedom and rights largely serves a commodified notion of sexual satisfaction,” Wypijewski said. “The politics has dropped out, and without politics we’re all just … potential patients.”
A 2005 article in the medical journal BMJ noted the emergence of drugs intended to treat “female sexual dysfunction.” In spite of skepticism from the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry has pressed ahead, insisting that conditions such as an inability to regularly achieve orgasm through intercourse alone, low levels of sexual desire, and sexual dissatisfaction are medical disorders in need of treatment.
All these conditions are normal for women at various points throughout their lives. Yet proponents of the label “female sexual dysfunction” claim that anywhere from 43 percent to 70 percent of women are actually ill; Oprah has called it as an “epidemic.”
The cure, according to the pharmaceutical industry, is testosterone treatment or other drugs. Meanwhile, Wypijewski notes that rates of “vaginal rejuvenation” (tightening) among middle-aged women and “laser labiaplasty” (reshaping of the labia) among younger women continue to rise. A doctor in North Carolina even offers to implant an electrode in women’s spinal columns to help them achieve orgasm during sex.
“Female sexual dysfunction, it turns out, was wholly created by drug companies,” Wypijewski said. “The more obstinate question is … whether a resistant politics can grow up to say … ‘We want out’ of the profit system and … out of a medical model that elevates a doctor over … a more sensual ease with oneself and others.”
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The Positive Effects of Bitter Melon Against Breast Cancer
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
A vegetable commonly eaten in India and China called bitter melon (also known by the botanical name Momordica charantia), has been shown in previous studies to have a beneficial impact on blood sugar and cholesterol levels. It turns out that’s not all the health benefits bitter melon offers. A new study by Saint Louis University scientists provides evidence the vegetable triggers a chain of events on a cellular level that stops breast cancer cells from multiplying and also kills them.
Lead researcher Ratna Ray, Ph.D., a professor in the department of pathology at Saint Louis University, noted in a statement to the media that she personally uses bitter melon when she cooks stir fry dishes. She decided to investigate the health effects of bitter melon extract after other researchers discovered how it can lower blood sugar and regulate cholesterol levels. In fact, bitter melon extract has been used by traditional healers in China and India for centuries as a natural treatment for diabetes. But Dr. Ray was surprised to find this vegetable was a powerful inhibitor of breast cancer growth, too.
“To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the effect of bitter melon extract on cancer cells,” Dr. Ray stated. “Our result was encouraging. We have shown that bitter melon extract significantly induced death in breast cancer cells and decreased their growth and spread.”
The research, published in the March 1 edition of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, involved human breast cancer cells exposed to bitter melon extract in the lab. Dr. Ray cautioned that it is too early to jump to conclusions that the extract could help breast cancer patients — but her findings are promising.
“Cancer prevention by the use of naturally occurring dietary substances is considered a practical approach to reduce the ever-increasing incidence of cancer. Studying a high risk breast cancer population where bitter melon is taken as a dietary product will be an important area of future research,” Dr. Ray said in the press statement.
Dr. Ray and colleagues are currently conducting follow-up studies. They are looking at a number of different cancer cell lines in order to investigate how bitter melon halts cancer cell growth. They are also planning to test the vegetable extract in animals to see if it will delay or kill breast cancer cells. If that research goes well, clinical trials in human breast cancer patients could soon follow.
“Breast cancer is a major killer among women around the world, and in that perspective, results from this study are quite significant,” Rajesh Agarwal, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado, Denver School of Pharmacy, and the Cancer Research associate editor for this study, commented in a media release. “This study may provide us with one more agent as an extract that could be used against breast cancer if additional studies hold true.”
Bitter melon is widely grown in Asia, Africa and South America. Extracts of this vegetable are currently included in some dietary supplements in Western countries because bitter melon is known to contain healthful phytochemicals such as carotenoids, flavanoids and polyphenols, as well as vitamin C.
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Bill From Senator McCain Threatens Vitamins and Supplements
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By Ethan Huff
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has introduced a new bill called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) of 2010 (S. 3002), that, if enacted, would severely curtail free access to dietary supplements. Cosponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the bill would essentially give the FDA full control over the supplement industry.
Most of the industrialized world has incredibly restrictive laws governing supplements. People worldwide often purchase supplements from the U.S. because they are freely available at low costs.
All of this could change, however, if DSSA passes. DSSA would change key sections of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C), undoing protections in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, effectively eliminating free access to supplements.
The importance of DSHEA
The passage of DSHEA resulted from millions of Americans who worked hard to reinforce their freedom to buy and sell supplements. At the time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was alleging that nutrients like CoQ10 and selenium were dangerous and should be pulled from the market.
Though weak in some areas, DSHEA established a foundation upon which free access to dietary supplements would be protected from attacks by drug companies and the FDA.
What prompted DSSA?
McCain’s DSSA bill emerged in response to illegal steroid use among Major League Baseball players. Likely instigated by pharmaceutical interests, the bill is being posited as necessary to prevent supplement adulteration.
The FDA already has the power to pull supplements from the market that are contaminated but it has not been doing its job. DSSA is not only unnecessary, but it would actually reward the FDA for its failures. DSSA would also strip DSHEA and give full control of the supplement industry to the FDA.
Registration requirements
DSSA would mandate that all supplement companies register with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA. Any company that refuses to register and comply with HHS would be subject to hefty fines, the classification of its products as “adulterated”, and their removal from the market. The new system would burden manufacturers with significant new costs that would cause supplement prices to increase. A new taxpayer-funded bureaucracy would also be created to conduct inspections and oversee compliance.
Reporting requirements
DSSA would require all “non-serious adverse events” received by supplement companies to be reported to the government, regardless of whether or not the events are related to the supplements for which they are submitted. Pharmaceutical companies would have access to these reports which they could use to petition the FDA to have supplements removed from the market. The FDA could also arbitrarily pull supplements from the market if it believes it has “reasonable probability” that there may be a problem.
FDA would decide which supplements are legal
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of DSSA is that it would allow the HHS Secretary to establish a list of permitted supplements. Reversing common law, which assumes all is legal unless restricted, DSSA would allow only what is permitted to be legal.
In a nutshell, DSSA would increase supplement costs for consumers, grant incredible new power over the supplement industry to the FDA, and drastically limit the availability of supplements. Drug companies could also use the bill to remove supplements from the market, patent them, and sell them as drugs!
It is absolutely critical to contact your Congressmen and oppose this bill. LifeExtension Magazine has a convenient “Action Alert” page in which to do so.
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Many Cancer Patients Over Radiated
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
One of the advantages of natural medicine is that if you make a mistake on your dosage, it’s usually no big deal because natural medicine is inherently safe. But conventional medicine, with all its toxic chemotherapy poisons and irradiation machines, can be fatal even when simple mistakes are made. Numerous patients have already been killed by miscalibrated chemotherapy pumps that drip poison in to the bodies of patients. And now there’s news from Springfield Missouri where an actively-used brain cancer irradiation machine has been miscalibrated since 2004.
Oops. Gee, didn’t anyone wonder why the burn marks were so severe and patients were losing brain function so rapidly?
Oh, wait. I forgot: Nobody noticed because losing cognitive function is a “normal” side effect of conventional cancer treatments. Harming patients in the cancer industry is now so routine that nobody even notices it anymore!
Nobody bothered to check the machine
The facts of this case are a bit frightening because this could happen anywhere, in any hospital: For the last five years, patients undergoing brain irradiation treatments have been over-exposed to very high levels of radiation. The radiation machine at the CoxHealth hospital in Springfield, Missouri was apparently never calibrated correctly. The incompetent technicians who set up the machine (who probably lost their own brain function as a result of being around so many miscalibrated radiation machines) apparently never bothered to configure it correctly. They just used the default setting the machine came with, which happened to be the “Fry my brain” setting.
Now here’s the really scary part: The massive radiation overdose problem was only discovered when the hospital trained a new physician on the machine. They were apparently going over all the settings and functions of the machine when the new doctor asked something like, “Hey, why is this dosage knob turned all the way up to ‘Hiroshima’?”
Hospital administrators scratched their heads (after which clumps of hair fell out) and then began to realize something was wrong. “This might explain all the severe radiation burns on patients skulls…”
Oops.
So what, exactly, do you do in a case like this? Do you call all the brain cancer patients who suffered radiation burns and a loss of cognitive function and say, “Um, we’re really sorry that we fried your brain because we were too stupid to configure the radiation machine correctly…”
Or do you just hope no one notices because cancer patients are too frightened to know the difference between “treatment” and a radiological assault?
I have a solution to this problem
This accidental irradiation overdose issue is a huge problem all across the country. Radiation machines are often miscalibrated, and there’s virtually no oversight by anyone. Hospitals can openly operate miscalibrated machines for years on end without anyone doing a single thing to stop them.
But I have a simple, highly-effective solution to this problem: Just require cancer doctors to irradiate their own brains using the machines before treating patients. If such a rule were enforced, I’ll bet you that all of a sudden those machines would be correctly calibrated.
Naturopathic physicians, by the way, aren’t afraid to take the same medicine they’re about to prescribe to patients. You need these anti-viral herbs? I’ll take some too just to show you how safe they are, see? No big deal.
But conventional cancer doctors would never inject themselves with chemotherapy or stick their heads under an operating radiotherapy machine. You know why? Because those treatments are dangerous! That’s why they’re reserved solely for patients. Only the patients get poisoned and irradiated.
Why do you think radiology technicians flee the room before they fire up their machines on patients? They flee the room because they don’t want to be anywhere near that radiation!
Cancer doctors aren’t very bright about curing cancer, but they are smart enough to figure out that radiation = cancer. Which makes it all the more hilarious that they use radiation to treat cancer, huh?
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Would You Trust A Robot to Perform Surgery on You?
February 26, 2010
ABC News
By Carolyn Thompson
One of the first things Mike Ameroso asked while contemplating robotic surgery for his prostate cancer was how many surgeries his doctors had done with the robot.
He liked the idea of the robot’s smaller incision and steady miniature “hands” and the promise of less pain and a quick recovery — but had his doctors put in time at the controls?
After all, “an aircraft is only as good as the pilot who flies it,” concurred Thenkurussi Kesavadas as he and Ameroso took part Thursday in the rollout of a new robotic surgery simulator that lets surgeons practice endlessly in a field that’s growing by leaps and bounds.
The “RoSS” simulator closely approximates the touch and feel of the widely used da Vinci robotic surgical system. It was developed through a collaboration between the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and University at Buffalo, where Kesavadas heads the Virtual Reality Lab.
Nearly all prostate surgeries in the United States are now performed by robot, with doctors peering through a viewfinder at a magnified image and moving instruments in the air to control the ones inside the patient. Robotic systems are increasingly being used in everything from weight loss surgery to children’s operations.
Ameroso’s successful 2007 surgery made him a believer. The 68-year-old Amherst resident came out of it not only cancer-free but pain-free and with only a half-inch incision.
But “it is never about the machine,” said Dr. Khurshid Guru, a surgeon and director of the Center for Robotic Surgery at Roswell Park in Buffalo. “What’s more important than the machine is the person who manages or operates the machine.”
Guru and Kesavadas co-founded a spin-off company, Simulated Surgical Systems LLC, to commercialize the RoSS simulator and have already taken five orders for the roughly $100,000 machines.
The simulator uses virtual reality technology developed over 10 years at UB to let surgeons practice anything from cutting tissue and sewing incisions to full procedures and versions of procedures where complications arise.
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Double Mastectomy May Not Improve Survival
February 26, 2010
Business Week
By Kathleen Doheny
Women with breast cancer who choose to have a preventive mastectomy on their disease-free breast do reduce their risk of cancer in that breast, studies have shown.
But now new research finds that the survival benefit from that preventive surgery is small and not equal among all women.
“The survival benefit was limited to a small subset of all breast cancer patients [studied],” said study author Dr. Isabelle Bedrosian, an assistant professor of surgical oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.
Those most likely to derive a survival benefit, she said, were those younger than 50 who had been diagnosed with early-stage cancers that were estrogen receptor (ER)-negative.
ER-negative tumors don’t require estrogen to grow, as do ER-positive tumors, and the prognosis is poorer for the ER-negative cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
The study is published online Feb. 25 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
According to Bedrosian and others, experts have long known that women diagnosed with breast cancer have an elevated risk of developing cancer in the opposite breast. Removing that breast as a preventive measure reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of cancer in that breast.
“But we have never really established the difference it makes in the survival of breast cancer patients,” she said. So, Bedrosian and her colleagues used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, evaluating 107,106 women with breast cancer who had undergone mastectomy for that cancer between 1998 and 2003, along with a subset of 8,902 who had the opposite breast removed as a preventive measure.
After a five-year follow-up, 88.5 percent of those who had the opposite breast surgery were alive, versus 83.7 percent of those who did not, a difference of less than 5 percent. The improved survival was clear for a select group, mostly the women aged 18 to 49 with early-stage, ER-negative tumors, the researchers found.
There was no information from the database on whether the women had genetic mutations to boost breast cancer risk, Bedrosian noted.
After five years, what might happen? “We actually would expect that number [the nearly 5 percent benefit] would increase over time,” Bedrosian said.
The findings makes sense to Dr. Allison W. Kurian, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif., who has published research on the topic.
“These results are consistent with other studies,” she said, including her own research published in 2009 in the same journal, which found that the risk for a breast cancer in the opposite breast is affected by a variety of factors, with those having ER-negative tumors in the original breast cancer having a higher risk of getting second tumors in the opposite breast.
Bedrosian said her research suggests most women diagnosed with breast cancer shouldn’t be concerned about the opposite breast: “We cannot demonstrate for most of them a survival benefit [with preventive mastectomy on the opposite breast].”
However, she said, psychological factors should also be taken into account. “There are some patients who may feel they still want to do this,” she said.
Kurian agreed: “This paper does give more information [about the outlook for various women], but it remains a personal decision for women to discuss with their doctor.”
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CDC Calls For Flu Vaccine For All
February 26, 2010
WEbMD
By Daniel J. DeNoon
Everybody, not just those at risk of complications, should get a yearly flu shot, the CDC’s immunization advisory panel says.
The CDC almost certainly will make universal flu vaccination official U.S. policy for this fall’s 2010-2011 flu season, as it consistently follows the advice of the panel of outside experts, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Now flu vaccination will be advised even for healthy adults ages 19 to 49 who do not come into contact with infants or elderly people, who are at highest risk of flu complications.
That’s only 15% of the U.S. population. But the ACIP say the effect of the universal recommendation will affect far more people. That’s because a lot of people for whom the flu vaccine already is recommended don’t think of themselves as being at high risk.
Moreover, the universal recommendation simplifies the extremely complicated current recommendations that create confusion about who should and should not be vaccinated. And it makes it likely that insurers will cover flu shots for all healthy adults.
ACIP members also said that the universal recommendation would assure Americans that the nation’s public health experts are fully confident in the safety and effectiveness of the flu vaccine — particularly the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.
The 2010-2011 seasonal flu vaccine will include the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, as the pandemic virus appears to have replaced the seasonal H1N1 virus covered by previous vaccines. The new seasonal vaccine will also include protection against the predominant “Perth” H3N2 type A and “Brisbane” type B flus.
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McCain’s Dietary Supplement Bill is Direct Assault On Natural Health Freedom
February 26, 2010
Info Wars
By Brandon Turbeville
A bill recently introduced to the U.S. Senate, the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (S. 3002), by Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan is possibly the most direct assault on natural health freedom we have seen for some time. If passed into law, this bill would require all dietary supplement manufacturers, distributors, and holders all the way down to the retail store level to be comprehensively registered. It would also allow for the arbitrary banning of nutritional supplements by the FDA and the introduction of deceitful reporting of adverse events related to them.
The cover for this legislation is that it is designed to prevent both intentional and unintentional steroid adulteration of dietary supplements. The trigger, according to McCain, was six NFL players who were accused of doping with supplements tainted with steroids. Even with this being the case, however, the FDA already has the authority to regulate synthetic anabolic steroids via the Anabolic Control Act of 2004 which permits them to do just that. Nevertheless, under the guise of the behavior of six NFL players, an entire market that has been proven not only very safe but very healthy will be essentially regulated out of business. (NHF)
The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 would require registration of any “business or operation engaged in manufacturing, packaging, holding, distributing, labeling, or licensing a dietary supplement for consumption in the United States,” definitions which could possibly include even retail stores that sell herbal and nutritional products. (DSSA p.2) Currently, under the Dietary Supplements and Non-Prescription Consumer Protection Act, small retailers are not required to register. This, however, will change with the passage of McCain-Dorgan’s bill. (NHF)
The switch from the current practices of Serious Adverse Event Reporting to that of simply Adverse Event Reporting is of concern as well. Existing law requires the reporting of serious adverse events related to the supplement in question to be reported for regulatory and recall purposes. The McCain-Dorgan bill, however, removes the language “Serious Adverse Event” and replaces it with the term “adverse event,” opening up the floodgates for the most ridiculous possible claims of adverse events such as bad taste or even dislike of packaging. This “report everything possible” stance is will vastly increase the numbers of complaints that will hence be used to add credence to the arguments for banning supplements in the future. Not only that, but more government bureaucracies will have to be created in order to organize and sort through all of the incoming “adverse event reports.” (NHF)
Yet the most frightening aspect of this bill is the immediate effects it would have on natural supplements. Currently, due to the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), all supplements on the market prior to October 15, 1994 can lawfully be sold in the United States. However, the legislation being proposed completely reverses this and defines a “new dietary supplement” as one that “is not included on the list of ‘Accepted Dietary Ingredients’, to be prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary” (DSSA p.5-6). This seemingly slight change in language actually removes the grandfathering in of supplements on the market prior to 1994. These new dietary supplements will also be considered “adulterated” unless “there is a history of use or other evidence of safety establishing that the dietary ingredient when used under the conditions recommended or suggested in the labeling of the dietary supplement….” (DSSA p.5) The registrants are then required to create and maintain a “scientifically reasonable substantiation file” which is to be made available for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to inspect at his/her whim. These products are to be registered at least 75 days prior to market. (NSF)
As quoted above, the bill also mandates that an “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” list should be created by the Secretary of HHS which will replace the current guidelines. Such a list effectively gives the FDA carte blanche to do whatever it wishes in regards to natural supplements. The FDA is given absolute authority to determine what supplements are allowed on the “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” list, thereby granting it the authority to ban any supplement without due process, scientific merit, or even a hearing simply by refusing to place it on the ADI list. (NSF) The FDA will also be able to remove supplements from market even after it has allowed it to be included on its’ list. As the bill states,
“If the Secretary finds there is a reasonable probability that a dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement would cause serious, adverse, health consequences or death, or is adulterated or misbranded, the Secretary shall issue a cease distribution and notification order requiring the person named in the order to immediately – cease distribution of such dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement; notify distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers of the order; and instruct those distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers to cease distributing, importing, selling, and using the dietary supplement.”(DSSA p.9)
The cost of the recall, of course, will be absorbed by the retailer. (DSSA p.11)
While the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 is an egregious attack on Americans’ freedom of choice, it is also a symptom of an even larger problem. The McCain-Dorgan bill is not just another silly attempt by corrupt politicians to demonstrate that they still have some value to their constituents, but an attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius at the national level and move the United States away from our Common Law heritage. The European Union has already passed similar legislation in the European Union Food Supplements Directive which has decimated open access to natural dietary supplements. Canada has passed laws to the same effect in recent weeks as well.
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Third of Young U.S. Adults Lack Health Insurance
February 26, 2010
Reuters
By JoAnne Allen
A third of young U.S. adults — nearly 13 million people — had no health insurance coverage in 2008, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
The survey of more than 9,000 people aged 20 to 29 by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 30 percent of young adults had no coverage and were almost twice as likely as adults aged 30 to 64 to be uninsured.
People aged 20 to 29 account for more than a quarter of the estimated 45 million uninsured people in the United States, although they make up just 14 percent of the overall population, said Robin Cohen, who worked on the report.
The uninsured rates for people aged 20 to 29 are typically high because their coverage is disrupted as they move from childhood into adulthood, when they may be losing the coverage they had through their parents’ insurance or have reached the age limit for coverage under a public program, Cohen said in a telephone interview.
“They may be taking jobs of lower wages or temporary jobs typically available to young adults and many of these jobs often come with limited or no health benefits,” Cohen added.
The White House offered a plan on Monday that would allow young adults up to age 26 to stay on a parent’s health insurance plan but would not require employers to offer insurance.
The administration plan is aimed at closing gaps between House of Representatives and Senate legislation in order to revive its effort to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.
The government’s report said lack of health insurance coverage may “leave young adults vulnerable to high out-of-pocket expenses in the event of a serious illness or injury.”
“Young adulthood is also a time that there’s a high risk created for unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and injury and these are things that are directly related to the need for health care services,” Cohen said.
More findings from 2008 National Health survey:
* Although 58 percent of those surveyed had private health insurance coverage, men with insurance were less likely than women to seek medical services.
* Young adults with no insurance were four times as likely as those with private insurance and two times as likely as those with Medicaid to have unmet medical need.
* Uninsured young women were almost twice as likely as uninsured young men to have had unfilled prescriptions in the past year.
* 10 percent of young adults needed medical care in the past year but did not get it due to cost.
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FDA Approves New Vaccine From Fraudster Pfizer
February 26, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new version of the widely used children’s vaccine Prevnar.
The current Prevnar vaccine is given to infants and toddlers to prevent seven strains of bacteria known as streptococcus pneumoniae that cause a range of illnesses like ear infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and meningitis, an infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord.
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