Drug Companies ‘Exploit Legal Loophole’

November 17th, 2010

The Telegraph

By Rebecca Smith

Rules that were intended to encourage drug companies to research and develop new medicines for rare diseases that are being misused, the 20 consultants said in the British Medical Journal.

Instead of developing new drugs they are obtaining licenses for existing ones and hiking up the price by up to 700 per cent, they said.

Some NHS hospitals are now refusing to fund drugs that were previously available cheaply while the NHS faces paying millions of pounds extra a year for the same, or very similar, medicines.

The open letter, which is also addressed to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and David Cameron, said: “Once a company has obtained a licence, the legislation then gives the company sole rights to supply the drug.

“This in turn allows the company to set an exorbitant price for this supply and effectively to bar previous suppliers of the unlicensed preparation from further production and distribution.

“We believe that this behaviour is not in the best interests of patients or the NHS but is undoubtedly significantly advantageous to drug companies.”

The doctors said they had already written to the Department of Health for England and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency about the issue.

“In reply we have simply been quoted the rules, and no one seems willing to investigate the issues we are raising or to consider whether the system should be changed.

“We urge you to instruct urgent review not only for the sake of our particular patients but also for the many other patients who are likely to be affected in the near future as other drug companies take advantage of this loophole.

“Legislation on orphan drugs, far from encouraging the development of new treatments for orphan diseases, is severely limiting the availability of existing treatments.”

The doctors provide several examples of price hikes, including a drug to treat rare muscle diseases which used to cost £800 to £1,000 per patient per year.

After obtaining a licence and slightly modifying the drug, the drug company now charges £40,000 to £70,000 per patient per year, the doctors said.

They added: “In the present economic situation it seems vital to ensure that systems are in place to prevent excessive commercial profits being made at the expense of patients and public spending.”

In a BMJ investigation, also published today, Dr Sam Richmond, a consultant neonatologist at Sunderland Royal Infirmary, and a signatory of the open letter, said: “If drug companies are undertaking research where nobody else was interested – and some are – then a monopoly may be justified.

“But if it’s a product already in use, they should clear off, or sell at a price comparable with the existing price.”

Professor Timothy Cox and colleagues at the University of Cambridge also argue the issue may warrant an investigation under competition rules.

Click here for the full report from the Telegraph

Antibiotics Often Unnecessary For Kids’ Ear Infections

November 17th, 2010

USA Today

By: Liz Szabo

Ear infections are the No. 1 reason kids get antibiotics, costing the country $2.8 billion a year. Yet a new analysis suggests that most of the 8 million kids who see a doctor for ear infections each year don’t need antibiotics.

Eighty out of 100 children with ear infections will get better on their own in about three days, according to a review of 135 previously published studies in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Prescribing antibiotics improves that cure rate only slightly, to 92 of 100 children, the review says.

The benefits of antibiotics seem even smaller in light of their side effects: Three to 10 children will develop a medication-related rash; five to 10 more will get diarrhea, says author Tumaini Coker, a pediatrician at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

Overuse of antibiotics can cause more serious problems, encouraging the growth of hardier, drug-resistant bacteria, says Barry Strasnick, professor and chairman of otolaryngology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.

Others say it’s not always easy to avoid antibiotics. Most day care centers won’t allow kids with fevers to come to school, which can lead parents to miss work, says Austin otolaryngologist Mark Brown. “Doctors are pushed to treat when it might not be completely necessary.”

Many experts encourage doctors to give parents a SNAP — or safety-net antibiotic prescription. Doctors write the prescription on the child’s initial visit but instruct parents to fill it only if the child gets much worse or isn’t better within three days, says Richard Rosenfeld, professor and chair of otolaryngology at Long Island College Hospital in New York, who wasn’t involved in the new study. He says the best relief for ear infections is a bedtime dose of over-the-counter ibuprofen.

Click here for the full report from the USA Today

10 Things Snack Food Companies Won’t Say

November 17th, 2010

SmartMoney.com

By: Catey Hill

1. This is illegal in Canada

An hour after munching on some light potato chips – made with fat substitute olestra — Debra Jaliman, 55, a Manhattan dermatologist, found herself so sick with abdominal cramps that she had to cancel her slate of patients. Reactions like these are why the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy organization, says no one should eat olestra, and why Canada and the United Kingdom banned it. But it’s legal here – and you’ll find it in foods like low- or non-fat chips, crackers and cookies. Procter & Gamble, which sells olestra under the name Olean, says that nearly 6.5 million servings of foods containing Olean have been consumed since 1996, the year the FDA approved olestra for U.S. use.

Olestra isn’t the only banned substance that Americans are noshing on. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH (commonly sold under the name Posilac), a synthetic hormone injected into cows to stimulate milk production, pops up in many dairy-based snacks like ice cream. Not in the European Union or Canada, where it has been banned amid health concerns for both cows and humans, including fears that a hormone associated with cancer might be higher in people who drink milk treated with rBGH. (Eli Lilly, the company that manufacturers Posilac, denies these claims.) Meanwhile, rBGH is a lucrative product in the U.S.: A division of Eli Lilly bought Posilac for more than $300 million in 2008, and studies show Posilac can increase milk production in a cow by 15% or more, meaning more milk to sell.

2. We added pulverized insects to your snack

For Dr. James Baldwin, treating the 27-year-old woman for anaphylactic shock was easy, but figuring out what caused the reaction was a mystery. Several tests later, Baldwin discovered that the patient had a rare allergy to something she’d eaten—the carcasses of ground-up, boiled beetles, which are often used in snack foods to create those lovely shades of red, purple and pink in everything from fruit juice to ice cream to candy. “It’s a common colorant,” Baldwin says.

No, you won’t find the word “beetle” anywhere on food labels; instead, you’ll likely see the less cringe-worthy “carmine,” “carminic acid” or “cochineal extract.” And the beetle’s remains are big business. Peru, the largest exporter of cochineal in the world, produces about 2 million pounds of the dyestuff each year, according to Amy Butler Greenfeld, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and the author of “A Perfect Red,” which examines the history of cochineal. Experts say the industry in Peru grew about 15% per year during the past decade – and as the demand for natural color in foods grows, Greenfeld predicts that the cochineal industry will grow along with it.

3. Expiration date? There’s no expiration date

We’ve all chuckled over the urban legend that a Twinkie will stay fresh in its plastic wrap forever. Turns out, it’s not so far-fetched. The expiration date on highly-processed foods can be significantly longer than the date on the package, says Karen Duester, MS, RD, president of the Food Consulting Company, which advises companies on food labels and FDA regulations. In fact, if the product is well-sealed, kept away from light, and has a low fat and dairy content, it could last for years. That’s particularly true for canned snacks like maraschino cherries.

These “best by” dates are provided voluntarily by the manufacturer, but given that experts say these products are safe to eat after their expiration, why do they even bother? It encourages retailers to restock – and reorder – the product more often, says Duester. Plus, an expiration date pegged to 2015 isn’t exactly appealing to a customer.

Click here for the full report from SmartMoney.com

Healthy Eating: Good For You, Bad For The Economy?

November 17th, 2010

The Huffington Post

By: Maria Cheng

Eating a healthy diet may be good for you, but it may be unintentionally slimming for the economies of some developing countries, a new study says. British researchers modeled what could happen if people in Britain and Brazil adopted healthier diets as defined by the World Health Organization, including more fruits and vegetables and less meat and dairy products.

In Britain, experts estimated that fixing the country’s bad eating habits might prevent nearly 70,000 people from prematurely dying of diet-related health problems like heart disease and cancer. It would also theoretically save the health system 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) every year.

In Brazil, however, the rates of illnesses linked to a poor diet are not as high as in the U.K. So Brazilians would get relatively few health benefits while their economy might lose millions.

The study was paid for by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was published online Thursday in the medical journal, Lancet.

“We are not suggesting people not eat a healthy diet,” said Richard Smith, a professor of health system economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “We’re just trying to point out that healthier eating can have unintended consequences.”

Smith and colleagues said decisions in Brazil and in Western countries to adopt more vegetarian diets could cost the meat-dependent Brazilian economy 1,388 million reais ($815 million).

“In an ideal world, we would all have a perfect diet,” Smith said. “But it’s also desirable that everybody has a job.”

Smith said officials should consider nutritional guidelines more carefully. For countries like Brazil, which rely heavily on meat imports to the West and to Japan, global nutritional advice could potentially be devastating.

Others weren’t so sure.

“There are things happening in the rest of the world that this model didn’t account for,” said Julian Morris, executive director of International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. “The increasing demand for meat in Asia is substantial, ongoing, and might counteract any reduced demand in developed countries.”

Morris also disputed the assumption that healthy eating recommendations would change what people actually do have for dinner.

“If you really want a dramatic change in consumption of meat and dairy products, you need a radical policy, like a tax or quota system,” he said.

Robert Beaglehole, an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland not linked to the study, said scientific developments might help one day.

“The answer could be to breed healthier cattle and pigs,” he said, adding that more research was needed on whether additional strategies were necessary to ensure healthy eating guidelines don’t accidentally hurt developing economies.

Smith said experts shouldn’t assume nutritional advice, even when it’s followed, automatically improves health.

“You could tell people to buy less meat and maybe they will buy bananas instead,” he said. “But they could also buy more beer and wine.”

Click here for the full report from the Huffington Post

Manchester Airport Trials “Biometrics In Motion” Technology

November 17th, 2010

Business Traveller

By: Mark Caswell

It may sound like something out of a science fiction film, but Manchester airport is trialling technology which can recognise passengers’ irises while they walk around the terminal.

The two-week trial is taking place until November 26 in the airport’s Terminal 1, with travellers having the option of registering after check-in. The technology, akin to scenes from sci-fi film Minority Report, is able to identify individuals as they enter the security search area.

Similar to other iris recognition systems, Biometrics In Motion takes a photograph of an eye, which can then be used later to confirm an individual’s identity. But in this case the matching can be done at a distance, rather than the individual having to stare straight into a recognition camera.

The airport says the technology could have “a variety of future applications to speed up the identification of passengers”, for instance allowing international transfer passengers to mix with domestic passengers in the departure lounge, before then being identified prior to boarding their flight.

Commenting on the trial Mike Fazackerley, Manchester Airport’s Product Director said:

“We are always keen to develop innovative technology solutions to improve our passengers’ experience of the airport. People are already familiar with the concept of iris recognition. This technology has the potential for a number of uses in a busy airport environment including security because it can recognise individuals when they are moving around.

“Although it is in its very early stages of development, using this technology for transfer passengers could make Manchester more attractive to airlines as a hub airport in the future.”

Manchester already uses iris recognition technology to manage staff access into sensitive areas of the airport, and the UK Border Agency-backed IRIS system is available in both Terminal 1 and 2 for pre-registered people arriving back into the UK.

For more information visit manchesterairport.co.uk, and to take part in our forum discussion on iris recognition at airports, click here.

Click here for the full report from Business Traveller

British Gitmo Inmates Win Huge Payouts From UK

November 17th, 2010

AOL News

By: Theunis Bates

A group of former Guantanamo Bay inmates who claim British spies helped torture them will receive millions of dollars in payouts from the U.K. government.

The 10 men — some of whom are British nationals, while others arrived in the U.K. as asylum seekers — have filed a range of allegations against the British government, including that U.K. officials knew they were being illegally transferred to Guantanamo Bay but failed to prevent it. There are also allegations that British security and intelligence agents colluded in their torture and abuse while the men were held abroad.

It’s thought that ministers decided to settle after intelligence agencies warned that national security could be put at risk if secret documents detailing U.K.-U.S. cooperation on the so-called “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects were disclosed in court. Such a case would likely have taken years and cost the government tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke will give a statement to Parliament on the payouts, which he is expected to simply say are in the national interest, according to The Guardian. The exact amounts handed over to the suspects — some of whom are alleged to have links with the Afghan Taliban — will likely never be officially announced. But according to U.K. TV news station ITN, at least one of the men is set to receive more than $1.6 million.

Binyam Mohamed — who arrived in Britain as a refugee from Ethiopia in 1994 and converted to Islam in 2000 — is expected to receive one of the largest payments. Pakistani authorities arrested him in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, and he claims that he was ferried between U.S.-approved torture centers in Morocco and Afghanistan before eventually arriving in Guantanamo.

He was freed in 2009, but on his return to the U.K. he alleged that British agents had interviewed him between torture sessions, making them complicit in his mistreatment. And in February, a U.K. court released a top-secret U.S. intelligence report detailing the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” the British resident had allegedly suffered while in American custody.

Other ex-inmates in line for settlements include Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga, according to The Guardian.

The payments are sure to prove controversial in the U.K., as some of the former Guantanamo inmates have allegedly called for the destruction of the British state previously. However, Shami Chakrabarti — the director of U.K. human rights organization Liberty — said, “It’s not very palatable, but there is a price to be paid for lawlessness and torture in freedom’s name. There are torture victims who were entitled to expect protection from their country,” reported the London Times.

John Sawers, head of Britain’s foreign spy service MI6, said last month that torture was “illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it.” But he added that his organization faced “dilemmas” to avoid using foreign intelligence obtained through torture.

Click here for the full report from AOL News

Income is Going Down, Inflation is Going Up

November 17th, 2010

Daily Finance

By: Charles Hugh Smith

To many observers, the stock market is a leading indicator of the economy: If stocks are rising, they take it as strong evidence that the economy is improving.

Yet even after the S&P 500 has soared 80% from its March 2009 lows, 70% of Americans don’t believe the recession is over.

Let’s look at some data to see if Main Street’s grasp on reality is firmer than Wall Street’s.

Income

The stock market rally off the March 2009 lows was by some measures the sharpest such advance in the past 100 years. Yet at the same time as stocks went on a tear, household income kept declining. According to the Census Bureau, the median U.S. household income fell 0.7% to $49,777 in 2009, down 4.2% since pre-recession 2007.

As I noted in a DailyFinance column in October, the Federal Reserve’s stated policy objective is to boost the stock market to trigger the “wealth effect”: If people see their 401(k) and IRA accounts rising in value, they’ll feel wealthier, even if they aren’t directly spending any of those assets. In theory, consumers who feel richer are more willing to open their wallets and start spending, boosting economic activity.

Unfortunately, the Fed failed to consider that only the wealthiest slice of households hold enough stocks to see much benefit from a rising market. As noted above, household incomes actually fell, despite the huge run-up in stocks. In other words, the Fed is gambling on an effect with no evidence to support it.

Employment

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added 151,000 jobs in October, that good news must be viewed in a broader context of sustained employment weakness: The BLS also reported the number of “discouraged workers” increased by 411,000 and the labor participation rate fell again.

Here is one way to understand why that matters. If there are 20 workers participating in the economy, and 10 are unemployed, then the unemployment rate is 50%. If nine of those unemployed drop out and stop looking for work, they become “discouraged workers,” and the unemployment rate magically drops to 9%. Now there are 10 employed workers and only one officially unemployed person.

In other words, a falling unemployment rate can reflect not just more people getting jobs, but fewer people actively looking for them in the labor pool.

Here is a chart which depicts the declining labor participation rate.

The total number of employed people has bounced off a low, but has since flat-lined (see chart below). If the “persons employed part-time for economic reasons” (a BLS category) and those “marginally attached” (jobless but not counted by the BLS as unemployed because they have not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey), then the under-employment/unemployment rate jumps to more than 17%.

This helps explain why the recovery appears so tepid to two-thirds of Americans: In terms of employment, it clearly is. The chart below compares the current employment arc with those of previous recessions, and makes it painfully obvious that the job market is merely limping along, not recovering.

Click here for the full report from Daily Finance

CDC and ADA Now Advise to Avoid Using Fluoride

November 17th, 2010

Mercola

By: Dr. Mercola

A new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association finds once again that, contrary to what most people have been told, fluoride is actually bad for teeth.

Exposure to high levels of fluoride results in a condition known as fluorosis, in which tooth enamel becomes discolored. The condition can eventually lead to badly damaged teeth. The new study found that fluoride intake during a child’s first few years of life is significantly associated with fluorosis, and warned against using fluoridated water in infant formula.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is of a similar opinion. According to their website:

“Recent evidence suggests that mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis may increase the chance of a child developing … enamel fluorosis.”

Click here for the full report from Mercola

Daily Dose of Beet Juice Promotes Brain Health in Older Adults

November 17th, 2010

Natural News

By: S.L. Baker

The memory and mind-destroying disease known as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are often seen as terrifying consequences of aging that strike out of the blue — and supposedly little can be done to prevent or treat these horrible conditions. But while Big Pharma has consistently failed to come up with drugs that halt or reverse cognitive decline, at least for long, research into natural therapies continues to provide tangible evidence that much can be done to fight dementia using exercise, diet and supplements.

For example, vitamin D deficiencies have been linked to declining mental abilities and researchers have also found that ancient meditation and exercise techniques, including qigong and Tai Chi, slow physical, mental and psychological decline in people with dementia. And now, for the first time, scientists have discovered that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults and may combat the progression of Alzheimer’s and related conditions.

For the new study, which is slated for publication in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society, scientists at Wake Forest University’s Translational Science Center looked at how dietary nitrates affected 14 adults age 70 and older over a period of four days. High concentrations of nitrates are found in beets and other foods including celery, cabbage, spinach and some kinds of lettuce. When a person eats high nitrate foods, the beneficial “good” bacteria in the mouth transform the nitrates into nitrites. And researchers have found that nitrites then naturally open up the blood vessels in the body. This increases blood flow and helps oxygen get specifically to places in body that are lacking oxygen.

“There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain,” Daniel Kim-Shapiro, director of the Translational Science Center, said in a press statement. “There are areas in the brain that become poorly perfused as you age, and that’s believed to be associated with dementia and poor cognition.”

On the first day, the research volunteers reported to the lab after a 10 hour fast, completed a health status report, and then drank either a high or low nitrate breakfast. The high nitrate breakfast included 16 ounces of beet juice. Then the study participants went home with lunch, dinner and snacks conforming to their specifically assigned diets.

The following day, after another 10 hour fast, the volunteers went back to the lab where they ate their assigned breakfasts. Blood samples were taken before and after breakfast to measure nitrite levels in their bodies. Then, one hour after eating, an MRI was performed to record the blood flow in each individual subject’s brain. On the third and fourth days of the study, the scientists switched the diets and repeated the process for each subject.

The results of the MRIs showed conclusively that after the older adults ate a high nitrate diet, they experienced increased blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobes — the very area of the brain commonly associated with degeneration linked to dementia and other cognitive conditions.

“I think these results are consistent and encouraging — that good diet consisting of a lot of fruits and vegetables can contribute to overall good health,” Gary Miller, associate professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science and one of the senior investigators on the project, said in a press statement.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Russian Prison To Get Tanning Beds For Better Prisoner Health

November 17th, 2010

Natural News

By: Jonathan Benson

Russian health authorities recently demonstrated that they hold a much different opinion on the safety and effectiveness of tanning beds than do American health authorities. According to a recent BBC report, a Russian prison will soon be outfitted with various health-promoting amenities, including tanning beds, which officials say will help revamp the nation’s reputation for having poor quality prison facilities.

“We are developing additional medical services … and even sunbeds will be put in place,” explained Sergei Telyatnikov, the head of Moscow’s Butyrka remand prison, to a local Moscow radio station. Russian officials say the tanning beds will help improve prisoner health.

American and European medical officials have largely taken the offensive against tanning beds, warning the public that they supposedly cause skin cancer. But contradictory research continues to show that when used properly, tanning beds actually exhibit an anti-cancer effect on the body, as they expose it to vitamin D-creating ultraviolet (UV) rays just like those given off naturally by the sun.

So while many Americans continue to run and hide from the sun and tanning beds out of fear of getting skin cancer, Russian prisoners will be getting their daily dose of healthy vitamin D through the regular use of tanning beds. In fact, using tanning beds safely actually helps to prevent skin cancers.

“The benefits are that tanning can normalize vitamin D levels, and normal vitamin D levels reduce your risk of all cancers, including melanoma,” explain James Dowd and Diane Stafford in their book, The Vitamin D Cure. “Judicious use of artificial UV light is used to treat some skin diseases, and it can help prevent sunburns.”

Click here for the full report from Natural News

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