Man Died After Medics Missed Disease 6 Times
April 21, 2010
Telegraph.co.uk
By Nick Britten
Malcolm Drake, 23, died from Crohn’s Disease and spent his final hours unable to move or eat. He had sought help six times in the days before he died, but GPs and two Accident and Emergency doctors had missed his condition.
He was even refused an MRI scan three days before he died that would have shown up the condition, the hearing was told.
Mr Drake’s former fiancée, Sophie Lindop, 25, told the inquest yesterday that she found him dead on their sofa on Christmas Day 2007.
In a statement read to the inquest, at Hanley Town Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, Miss Lindop said: “By December 18 he was getting worse each day and was deteriorating in front of us.
“I couldn’t believe they were still doing nothing for Malcolm. It was very frustrating but I felt powerless when everyone said it was just a strain.”
Referring to to Mr Drake’s second visit to A&E on December 22, Miss Lindop added: “I looked at him and he looked seriously ill.
“He looked like an old man and I couldn’t believe the doctor was sending him home when he was so obviously ill.
“As we left I looked back into the cubicle, had a moment of hesitation and thought about taking him back into the cubicle.
“It just didn’t seem right that they were discharging him, but the staff just seemed to want us out of there.”
She added: “The doctor said he didn’t need an MRI scan – that he should go home and exercise.”
Crohn’s disease is an autoimmune disease of the intestines and causes inflammation of the digestive tract, particularly the lower part of the small intestine.
Miss Lindop told the hearing how Mr Drake had urged her to visit her family on Christmas Day as it was their five month-old son Zak’s first Christmas.
She left a phone next to Mr Drake on the sofa and called him every 20 minutes to check on him, but dashed back to their home when he stopped answering the phone, only to discover his body on the sofa with the television and Christmas tree lights still on.
Mr Drake had first complained of abdominal pain in mid-November before the first of six visits to medics and physiotherapists in the 15 days before he died, during which time his right leg had swollen considerably and he was in such pain he couldn’t eat.
He saw a GP on December 10th, went to A&E on the 13th, another GP on the 17th and finally A&E again on the 22nd. In between, he had two bouts of physiotherapy.
The hearing was told that Dr Richard Aw, a junior doctor who saw him at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire’s Accident and Emergency department on December 22nd, did not refer to his previous recent visits which were on his medical records, nor make a written record of them when Mr Drake explained who he had seen.
Dr Aw had been employed as a GP locum and had only one year’s experience.
He diagnosed Mr Drake as suffering from a groin strain “consistent with previous findings” and sent him home with a dose of painkillers.
Dr Aw also claimed that despite ambulance staff apparently noting a ‘palpable mass’ in Mr Drake’s right thigh on the way to A&E, he did not find any lump in the leg himself.
It emerged that Dr Aw had advised him against having an MRI. Giving evidence, he admitted that an MRI would have shown up the Crohn’s disease.
Simon Fox, representing Miss Lindop and Mr Drake’s family, told Dr Aw: “Had Mr Drake had the scan, it would’ve led to the diagnosis – Mr Drake had it exactly right didn’t he?”
Dr Aw replied: “Yes.”
The hearing continues.
Click here for the full report.
Arizona Voters Support Controversial Immigration Bill
April 21, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
April 21, 2010
FoxNews.com
An overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support a controversial bill that would give state officials broad new powers to arrest people suspected of being illegal immigrants, a new poll finds.
An overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support a controversial bill that would give state officials broad new powers to arrest people suspected of being illegal immigrants, a new poll finds.
The Rasmussen Reports poll found 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona back the bill, which cleared the state Legislature this week and awaits the governor’s signature, despite concerns about potential civil rights violations.
The survey found 53 percent of voters are worried that immigrants’ civil rights could be infringed in the effort to find and deport illegal immigrants. Forty-six percent were not concerned about that possibility.
But for immigrant-rights activists in Washington and elsewhere, the state bill has become a flashpoint in the national debate.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has led the charge against the bill on Capitol Hill, said Wednesday that he wants the Department of Justice to be prepared to “go immediately to court” to stop Arizona officials from enforcing the law if it is signed.
“There will be many, many people, American citizens, whose rights will be violated when the police come to them for no other reason than to check their immigration status,” he told Fox News.
The Arizona bill would create a new misdemeanor crime for failing to have an alien registration document; allow officers to arrest anyone unable to show documents proving their legal residence in the country; and allow people to sue over claims that a government agency is hindering immigration enforcement.
The Rasmussen poll reflected bipartisan support for the bill in Arizona. Eighty-four percent of Republicans support it — but so do 51 percent of Democrats. Forty-three percent of Democrats oppose it.
The poll of 500 likely voters was conducted last Wednesday. It had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Click here for the full report.
Weather Affects Your Risk of Prostate Cancer
April 21, 2010
Telegraph.co.uk
By Richard Alleyne
Scientists believe a combination of cold temperatures and lack of sun could help explain higher rates of the disease in northerly parts of the world.
Poor exposure to the sun’s rays can lead to vitamin D deficiency, which may increase prostate cancer risk, it is claimed.
At the same time, cold weather might help to slow the degradation of cancer-triggering industrial pollutants and pesticides, said US researchers.
Cold temperatures were also believed to help the chemicals precipitate out of the atmosphere and fall to the ground.
Dr Sophie St-Hilaire, who led the scientists from Idaho State University, said: “We found that colder weather, and low rainfall, were strongly correlated with prostate cancer.
“Although we can’t say exactly why this correlation exists, the trends are consistent with what we would expect given the effects of climate on the deposition, absorption, and degradation of persistent organic pollutants including pesticides”.
Around one in six men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime.
Across the northern hemisphere, reported incidence of the disease is greater in higher latitudes, according to the scientists.
The rate varies by about five per cent.
Each year in the UK, around 35,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and 10,000 die from the disease.
It is known that some pollutants can cause cancer, said the researchers writing online in the International Journal of Health Geographics.
Experts believed that cold weather slowed the chemicals’ degradation and caused them to precipitate to the ground.
Rain and humidity were also thought to play important roles in their absorption and degradation.
Dr St-Hilaire said: “This study provides an additional hypothesis for the north-south distribution of prostate cancer, which builds on the existing supposition that individuals at northern latitudes may be deficient in Vitamin D due to low exposure to UV (ultraviolet) radiation during the winter months.
“Our study suggests that in addition to vitamin D deficiency associated with exposure to UV radiation, other meteorological conditions may also significantly affect the incidence of prostate cancer”.
The scientists analysed prostate cancer data for every US county between 2000 and 2004.
They found that lower temperatures correlated with higher rates of prostate cancer, after adjusting for UV radiation, local pesticide use, rainfall, snowfall and other factors.
“We hypothesise that temperature may be associated with the incidence of prostate cancer by modulating exposure to POPs (persistent organic pollutants), some of which have been linked to the disease,” the researchers wrote.
Organic chemicals tended to exist in a solid rather than a gaseous form at cold temperatures, they pointed out. This would cause them to fall to earth.
Temperature also affected the degradation of POPs in the soil and atmosphere.
Click here for the full report.
The 10 Biggest Health Care Lies In America
April 21, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Mainstream health care isn’t based on “health” or “caring.” It’s actually based on an engrained system of medical mythology that’s practiced — and defended — by those who profit from the continuation of sickness and disease. This system of medical mythology might also simply be called “lies”, and today I’m sharing with NaturalNews readers the top ten lies that are still followed and promoted under mainstream health care in America today.
Lie #1) Vaccines make you healthy
Vaccines have emerged as the greatest and most insidious mythology yet fabricated by western medicine. The idea that vaccines protect you from infectious disease is blatantly false in the long term because this year’s flu shot actually makes you more susceptible to next year’s influenza (http://www.naturalnews.com/028538_s…).
On top of that, even the theoretical short-term effectiveness of vaccines is dwarfed by the far more effective protection offered by vitamin D and other immune-modulating nutrients. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027385_V…)
Lie #2) Pharmaceuticals prevent disease
The big push by Big Pharma is now focused on treating healthy people with drugs as if pharmaceuticals were nutrients that could somehow prevent disease. This is the new push with cholesterol drugs: Give ‘em to everyone, whether they have high cholesterol or not!
But pharmaceuticals don’t prevent disease, and medications are not vitamins. Your body has no biological need for any pharmaceuticals at all. People who believe they need pharmaceuticals have simply been the victims of “fabricated consent” engineered by Big Pharma’s clever advertising and P.R. spin.
Lie #3) Doctors are experts in health
Doctors don’t even study health; they study disease. Modern doctors are taught virtually nothing about nutrition, wellness or disease prevention. Expecting a doctor to guide you on health issues is sort of like expecting your accountant to pilot a jet airliner — it’s simply not something he or she has ever been trained in.
That’s not to say doctors aren’t intelligent people. Most of them have high IQs. But even a genius can’t teach you something they know nothing about.
Lie #4) You have no role in your own healing
Doctors, drug companies and health authorities all want you to believe that your health is determined by their interventions. If you believe them, you have virtually no role in your own health or healing — it’s all managed by their drugs, their screening, their surgeries and their interventions.
Lie #5) Disease is a matter of bad luck or bad genes
Western medicine wants you to believe in the mythology of spontaneous disease — disease that strikes without cause. This is equivalent to saying that disease is some sort of voodoo black magic and that patients have no way to prevent disease through their own diets or lifestyle choices.
It’s funny, actually: Western medicine claims to be driven by scientific, rational thinking, and yet the entire industry still fails to acknowledge that chronic disease always has a cause and that most of the time, that cause has everything to do with nutritional deficiencies, exposure to toxic chemicals and a lack of exercise.
Disease is almost never a matter of bad luck or bad genes.
To continue reading this report, click here.
School Lunches Are a Threat to National Security
April 21, 2010
ABC News
By Courtney Hutchison
Unhealthy school lunches pose a threat to national security, according to a group of retired military leaders.
Leaving 27 percent of young adults “too fat to fight,” childhood obesity is jeopardizing military recruitment, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-profit group Mission: Readiness.
The 130-plus retired military leaders making up the organization is joining together to battle the obesity epidemic on the school front.
While putting cafeteria fare on the level of a national security threat may be “dramatic,” “it’s not entirely unjustified” considering how much students eat during the school day, said Karen Glanz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Medicine and Nursing.
In the report, the retirees called for less junk food in schools, better nutrition programs for kids and overall better funding for federally provided school lunches. The group also appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday with Sen. Richard Lugar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to show their support for new legislation on the issue pending in congress.
“Since 1995, the proportion of recruits who failed their physical exams because they were overweight has risen by nearly 70 percent,” said Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We need to reverse this trend, and an excellent place to start is by improving the quality of food served in our schools,” he added.
National School Lunch Program at Work
While school lunches would not be the obvious culprit behind the military’s dwindling recruitment pool, the connection from one to the other works a bit like a chain reaction, pediatric nutrition experts say.
According to the USDA, the National School Lunch Program provided low-cost or free lunches to more than 30.5 million children each school day in 2008.
Through a combination of school lunch and breakfast programs, children “acquire close to 40 percent of their daily calories at school,” said Barbara Moore, president of Shape Up America!
If the food provided at school and the quality of education about nutrition isn’t sufficient to teach good eating habits and stave off childhood obesity, then there’s a good likelihood that these overweight kids will not be fit to enroll in the military, Moore sai, because an overweight child has about an 80 percent chance of remaining overweight as an adult.
So while fattening Sloppy Joes are not the only guilty party in childhood obesity, “better lunches are without a doubt a part of the solution,” she said.
On the military end, the report found that obesity is the number one reason that young Americans are unfit to enlist and also the most likely reason that a new recruit will be discharged before their first contract is even up, Mission: Readiness executive director Amy Dawson Taggart said.
And the trend only increases with each passing year, she said.
The reason school lunch reform is so key, Moore added, is that school is an environment in which “we can get to kids” and influence what they eat. At home, it’s much harder to change these habits, she said.
Soldiers of Nutrition
But lunches aren’t the only change to be made in schools, Glanz noted.
“Blaming it all on food is to not recognize that physical activity is a large component, “she said.
Moore agreed, adding that initiatives to up the quality of food in vending machines as well as improve the education kids get about what food they choose to eat outside of school are also essential.
“Since 2006, there’s been a law that requires schools with federally funded meal plans to also establish a wellness committee to address nutrition and physical activity standards,” she said, but these standards are not universally upheld at this time.
To continue reading this report, click here.
Brain Games May Do Nothing for the Brain
April 21, 2010
USA Today
By Mary Brophy Marcus
Computer brain games may not offer the big mental boost many were hoping for, suggests new research, but brain scientists and brain-game experts don’t all agree on the findings.
The study, out this week in Nature, is the largest of its kind, say scientists from England’s Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and the Alzheimer’s Society U.K. They said in a Tuesday press briefing that brain-training games, used by millions, may not increase general brain power on other tasks or increase IQ.
“Participants did get better at games they practiced. The more they trained, the better they got. But there was still no translation to any general improvement in cognitive function,” said lead author Adrian Owen, assistant director of Medical Research Council.
The online experiment was sponsored by the BBC and involved more than 11,000 people between the ages of 18 and 60. They were split into three groups, including two groups that played different brain-training games that are similar to commercially available games, and a control group that was asked to go online and find answers to questions about topics such as music.
Participants trained for at least 10 minutes a day, three times a week, for up to six weeks, Owen said. All took standard cognitive assessment tests at the start and finish of the study. While players increased their skills the more they played a specific game, that improvement didn’t transfer to other activities or to a higher score on intelligence tests, said Owen and colleagues.
Duke psychiatrist and Alzheimer’s expert Murali Doraiswamy said it’s the best study done to date and a good reality check. “There was so much hype surrounding brain games,” he said.
But it’s not a death knell for gaming, Doraiswamy said. “I still think brain games offer tremendous potential for helping people with conditions such as ADHD and learning disabilities, but this study puts the burden of proof now on game manufacturers to show that they really offer meaningful benefits.”
Study shortcomings include the fact that it didn’t focus on the aging population, a group targeted by brain-game makers, experts said.
And it did not look at benefits of more intense training, said Alvaro Fernandez, CEO and co-founder of Sharp Brains, a San Francisco market research firm that specializes in cognitive science. “This study shows random brain exercise doesn’t transfer, but it does not deny that transfer can work if a person engages in more intense and targeted brain-training,” Fernandez said.
Click here for the full report.
Gene Makes People Overweight & Increases Risk for Alzheimer’s
April 21, 2010
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen
A variant of an obesity gene carried by more than a third of the U.S. population also reduces brain volume, raising carriers’ risk of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
People with a specific variant of the fat mass and obesity gene, or FTO gene, have brain deficits that could make them more vulnerable to the mind-robbing disease.
“The basic result is that this very prevalent gene not only adds an inch to your waistline, but makes your brain look 16 years older,” said Paul Thompson, a professor of neurology at the University of California Los Angeles, who worked on the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Brains generally shrink with age.
The study compared brain scans of more than 200 people and found consistently less tissue in the brains of people who carry the “bad” version of the FTO gene compared to non-carriers.
On average, people with the obesity variant of the FTO gene had 8 percent less tissue in their frontal lobes — sometimes referred to as the brain’s “command center.” They also had 12 percent less tissue in their occipital lobes, which is the part of the brain that processes vision and other perceptions.
Thompson said reduced brain volume raises a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease by reducing the amount of brain reserve a person has to compensate if the brain plaques linked to Alzheimer’s form. Stroke can also reduce brain tissue, depleting the brain’s reserve.
DIET AND EXERCISE
The added brain risk means it is more important for people who carry the FTO gene to eat a low-fat diet and exercise regularly, he said.
A 2008 study of Amish people who had the FTO risk gene but were physically active found they weighed about the same as non-carriers, suggesting that physical activity can overcome a genetic predisposition to obesity.
People with two copies of the FTO gene variant on average weigh nearly 7 pounds (3 kg) more and are about 70 percent more likely to be obese than those who do not have the gene.
“In all the maelstrom of activities you do, exercise and a low-fat diet are genuinely saving your brain from both stroke and Alzheimer’s,” Thompson said.
For the study, Thompson’s team compared magnetic resonance images taken of the brains of 206 healthy people between age 55 and 90 at 58 centers. The centers were taking part in the five-year Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which is examining the factors that help aging brains resist disease.
Because so many people carry the obesity version of the FTO gene, Thompson said the findings may drive research into new drug compounds to alter the effects on the brain.
Short of that, he said the findings should lead carriers to eat less and exercise more.
There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia affecting 26 million people globally.
Current treatments help with some symptoms, but cannot reverse the course of the disease, leading many scientific teams to look for ways to prevent it.
Click here for the full report.
Added Sugar Increases Heart Risks
April 21, 2010
ABC News
By Anthony Underwood and Lara Naaman
The average American consumes about 156 pounds of added sugar each year per capita, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That’s troubling, especially when those statistics are coupled with the results of a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association which says there’s a significant correlation between dietary added sugars and an increased risk for diabetes, heart attack and stroke, “Good Morning America’s” medical contributor Dr. Marie Savard said this morning on the show.
Published this week, this is the first major study to look at sugar and blood fats. It found that added sugar has adverse effects on the level of blood fats and therefore, on the heart.
Natural vs. Added Sugar
Sugars occur naturally in foods such as fruits, vegetables and milk, but manufacturers add extra sugar during processing, to boost the flavor or aid with preservation. Consumers may also add sugar to foods on their own.
American adults eat about 104 grams of sugar per day, but the American Heart Association recommends limiting added sugars to 25 grams per day for women and to 37.5 grams a day for men, Savard said.
Savard pointed out that teens were getting more than six times their recommended sugar intake — or 161 grams per day.
Savard reviewed certain foods that have naturally occurring sugars:
Grapes: 1 cup has 15 grams of sugar.
Raisins: ¼ cup has 29 grams of sugar.
Grape juice: One cup has 41 grams of sugar.
Whole milk: One cup has about 12 grams of sugar. Milk sugar isn’t very sweet, Savard said.
Plain full fat yogurt: Six ounces has 12 grams of sugar.
Fruit- or vanilla-flavored yogurt: About 25 grams.
When fruit is dried, though, the sugar becomes more concentrated, so consumers may be tempted to eat more to feel fuller.
Surprising Sugary Foods
Added sugars may lurk in food where they are least expected.
For example, a 16-ounce latte may have about 17 grams of sugar, but a Starbucks Frappucino of the same size has about three times the amount of added sugar.
Fruit smoothies may also contain surprising amounts of sugar. One Odwalla Original Superfood bottled smoothie has about 50 grams of sugar — the rough equivalent of about the amount of sugar found in five donuts.
Sugars may also be found in another surprising place: sandwiches.
A 6-inch chicken submarine sandwich has have 17 grams of sugar. However, Lunchables, a popular packed school lunch, may have 36 grams — or twice that of the sandwich.
The sub may have 17 grams of sugar, a Lunchables package may have 36 grams or twice that of the sandwich.
A typical school lunch — which could contain a glass of Welch’s grape juice and six ounces of vanilla yogurt — would have 101 grams of sugar, Savard said.
To avoid the risk of added sugars, some people turn to artificial sweeteners, but Savard urged caution.
Artificial sweeteners don’t add calories, but they do create a craving for more sweets, she noted.
Splenda is about 600 times as sweet as table sugar, Sweet’N Low is about 300 times as sweet and Equal is about 200 times as sweet, she explained.
Consumers are now also being offered agave, a sweetener promoted as natural but which is all fructose, she said. Agave is processed and has calories. This kind of sugar gets packed on as fat in the liver, she added.
Click here for the full report.
You have touched my life forever…
April 21, 2010 by Brandy
Filed under Testimonials
Dear Kevin,
I just wanted to send you a brief note to let you know you have touched my life forever, even in the short time I have known you. Your CD program Your Wish Is Your Command is by far the most profound program of consciousness, the power of our minds and the potential we have as individuals. The program is so head and shoulders above and beyond anything else I’ve ever head or read and I’ve been reading and listening to CDs and books voraciously my entire life. So, thank you for being who you are and for being with us on Earth at this important time.
I’ve listened to the entire 14 set CD series of Your Wish Is Your Command six times so far and I’m starting my 7th listen round today. I plan to listen to it hundreds of times. It’s so packed full of profound information that words simply can’t do it justice.
With respect, appreciation and in the spirit of love and service to humanity,
Brent N. Hunter
San Francisco, CA
My child is now off all prescriptions & is seizure free…
April 21, 2010 by Brandy
Filed under Testimonials
I am a 47-year-old mother of an autistic child. We have been organic as much as possible for 3 years now. Thanks to you, my child is now off all prescription meds and is seizure free. Thank you, Kevin.
Julie Lannefeld
Deerfield, IL
