TSA Refusal To Release Body Scanner Safety Reports Has Many Crying Foul
February 16, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
February 16th, 2011
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
Two months after lawmakers ordered the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to release safety reports about the levels of radiation being emitted by baggage X-ray machines, naked body scanners, and other airport security equipment, the agency has yet to make this information public. The reports, which remain in the hands of TSA officials, are allegedly being retained to protect “sensitive security or privacy-protected information.”
NaturalNews covered TSA’s refusal to release safety inspection reports back in December 2010 shortly after USA Today petitioned the agency to release them. TSA workers and travelers have continued to file numerous complaints about radiation exposure not only from the new machinery but also from faulty and poorly-maintained machinery. TSA responded by insisting the machines have all passed safety inspections, but it refused to provide any trace of evidence for this claim.
“The public has a right to know, and there isn’t something so sensitive that requires holding it back,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) who recently sponsored legislation to limit the use of full-body scanning machines.
TSA officials routinely insist that its scanning machines are all safe, and that no malfunctions have ever caused “an actual or potential additional radiation exposure.” But a 2008 report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that not only do TSA contractors routinely fail to properly inspect and maintain machinery, but malfunctioning machinery does indeed emit excess radiation, exposing workers and passengers to unknown levels of harm.
TSA also falsely insists that the electromagnetic wave versions of its naked body scanners are completely harmless, even though scientific tests have shown that the tetrahertz waves used in such machinery cause significant DNA damage.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Zinc May Curb Cold Symptoms
February 16th, 2011
CNN
As everyone knows, there’s no cure for the common cold. So most people simply suffer through two or more colds a year, often missing days of work or school in the process.
Scientists still haven’t found a cure, but a new expert review suggests that taking zinc supplements may help ease cold symptoms—and may even prevent the viral infections altogether.
Nearly 30 years of research on zinc and colds has had mixed results and has been marred by iffy studies. To get a sound big-picture assessment of zinc’s benefits, researchers in India sifted through the evidence and analyzed 15 randomized controlled trials—the “gold standard” in medical research—that compared zinc with placebo for the prevention or treatment of the common cold.
When they compiled the evidence, the researchers found that healthy adults and children who took zinc syrup, lozenges, or tablets within 24 hours of their first cough or sniffle experienced shorter and less severe colds than the participants who took a zinc-free placebo. Taking zinc reduced the odds that a person would still be experiencing symptoms at the seven-day mark by more than half.
Zinc—a mineral that occurs naturally in nuts, seeds, meats, fruits, and vegetables—also appeared to help prevent colds. Study participants who took zinc syrup or lozenges daily for at least five months cut their chances of developing a cold by about one-third, on average. As a result, the children in those studies who took zinc missed fewer days of school and took fewer antibiotics than their peers.
“These findings don’t surprise me. We’re learning that zinc can be quite helpful,” says David Rakel, MD, director of integrative medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who was not involved in the review. “We know it is an important mineral for immune function and that it can inhibit the replication of some viruses.”
Zinc supplements do carry some potential risks. Some of the study participants experienced nausea and a bad taste in their mouths while taking zinc, for instance. And zinc supplements can interfere with the body’s uptake of other key minerals such as copper and calcium, Dr. Rakel says.
The authors of the review, which was published in the Cochrane Library, stopped short of recommending over-the-counter zinc supplements. Because the studies included in the review were so varied, they wrote, it wasn’t possible to identify an ideal dose, a formulation, or a schedule for taking zinc.
Still, Dr. Rakel says, “zinc looks pretty promising. We need to take precautions, particularly with long-term use, but I’d still recommend it to my patients at the first sign of cold symptoms.”
Click here for the full report from CNN
Reporter Suffers Stroke On Air
February 16th, 2011
AOL News
By: Catherine Donaldson Evans
When CBS Los Angeles reporter Serene Branson suddenly fumbled her words and appeared to lose the ability to speak during her live Grammy’s coverage Sunday night, many chalked it up to an embarrassing gaffe.
But many now believe that Branson suffered a mild stroke or other neurological problem during the post-awards show telecast.
The station’s website initially said that Branson was checked by paramedics after the episode and her vital signs were normal, so she was sent home with a colleague. Monday evening, however, the station reported on air that Branson had gone to see a doctor for testing. She was said to be resting at home.
Watch a video on the incident from the “Today” show. Article continues below.
A number of experts believe Branson should have immediately gone to the hospital following the episode, even though her vital signs were normal.
“She could have recovered and had perfectly normal function, normal vital signs and gone home. Not the right thing to do,” NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman told the “Today” show on Tuesday. “This could be a harbinger of more things to come.”
Her symptoms point to what could be a serious neurological problem.
“Stroke is the number one possibility,” Dr. John Krakauer told CBS News. Krakauer, an associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said that about 50,000 people under the age of 50 have a stroke every year.
Krakauer, Snyderman and others believe Branson could have experienced a miniature temporary stroke called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA.
“This is in real time what I would call a transient ischemic attack or a mild stroke,” said Snyderman. “Something has happened to the circuitry of her brain such that she cannot speak.”
Dr. Keith Black, the head of the department of neurosurgery at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, said a TIA is caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain.
“This is what we’d call a classic neurological event,” he told “Today.” “She was obviously aware that she was having difficulty.”
A stroke of any kind can also cause sudden vision loss, dizziness, difficulty walking, numbness in the face and loss of feeling on one side of the body, according to the American Heart Association. Distorted speech is a tell-tale warning sign.
“Well, a very heavy du-burtation tonight,” Branson said incomprehensibly during the Grammy Awards, grinning. The slurring worsened quickly, and her chatter deteriorated into gibberish.
Drugs and alcohol can be ruled out, explained Snyderman, partly because of Branson’s “stellar history” and partly because the video of the event paints another picture.
“The right side of her face gets a little weak, and if you watch her eyes, you can see she senses something is wrong,” she told “Today.”
Branson may also have had a small seizure caused by a brain tumor, infection, blood clot or other health problem, according to experts.
No matter what happened, the TV reporter will have to be closely monitored by doctors, since neurological occurrences like a TIA can raise the risk of a full-blown stroke later.
“She’s going to have a long-term relationship with a neurologist,” explained Snyderman. “This is not something where doctors will say, ‘Oh, okay, fine. You’re okay.’”
The Los Angeles CBS station said Branson appreciates the concern shown by the public and hopes to return to work soon.
Click here for the full report from AOL News
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-15-11
Today, Kevin explains how natural supplements, like honey and apple cider vinegar, can improve your health and even reverse the aging process.
Self Help:
Make Food Allergies Vanish
Get Rid of Depression
Give Your Support
Health:
Leading Experts Rethinking Food Allergy Causes
New Blood Tests Spot Cancer Years Before Tumors Form
Diet Soda Increases Stroke Risk
Misinformation:
Study Claims Calcium Supplements May Increase Your Risk of Heart Attack
Your Food:
What’s Really In Taco Bell’s Beef?
Media:
Oprah to Rake in $100Mil in Ad Revenues from Proctor & Gamble
Government:
Infrastructure in America is Going Down Hill
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Climategate U-Turn
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Harmful Medical Devices Get OK Too Easily
February 15th, 2011
Chicago Tribune
By: Lindsey Tanner
Most medical devices recalled in recent years because of deaths or life-threatening problems were cleared for approval under less stringent regulations that don’t require human testing, an analysis found.
The report comes as the Food and Drug Administration is reviewing sweeping proposals to revise the medical device approval process. The studied devices fell under rules for products similar to ones on the market, not regulations for brand new ones, which call for more extensive testing.
Thousands of deaths or serious medical problems occurred in patients with the recalled devices, which included external heart defibrillators, brain shunts and implanted pumps that deliver cancer drugs, the researchers said.
Device makers say the new data are flawed and conflict with previous reports.
For their analysis, the researchers looked at the FDA’s list of high-risk devices that were recalled from 2005 through 2009.
Of the 113 highest-risk recalled devices, 71 percent, or 80 devices, had been approved through the less stringent regulation. Only 19 percent, or 21 devices, were approved under a stricter process for brand new products that involves inspections and human testing. Eight were registered with the FDA but exempt from regulation.
“Because so many medical devices are not being held to a higher safety standard, people are dying who wouldn’t otherwise die and who don’t have to die, and people are being harmed who don’t have to be harmed,” said study co-author Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, a Washington-based health advocacy group.
FDA spokeswoman Karen Riley said the study’s findings aren’t new and noted that the recalls it highlighted represent a small portion of the more than 19,000 devices cleared through the less strict standard during those years.
The report appears in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine. An editorial says the analysis shows that “millions of Americans may be at risk for device-related injuries and recalls from high-risk devices that were cleared by FDA without any supporting clinical trial data.”
“The public deserves better protection,” the editorial said.
The researchers didn’t include a tally of all deaths and injuries linked with the recalled devices. They noted that in 2006 alone, the FDA received reports of 2,830 potential device-related deaths and more than 100,000 injuries. More than half of the deaths were linked with devices approved under the less rigid process.
AdvaMed, a medical device makers trade group, said the analysis conflicts with other reports — including one with industry ties — showing devices cleared through that process have a good safety record.
Under the FDA’s 510(k) process, new devices can be approved without human testing if they are similar to devices already on the market. A stricter category, the pre-market approval process, requires scientific evidence, typically extensive testing that is similar to what is required of new medicines.
The 510(k) process is “a short-cut backdoor approach” stemming from a 1976 law, when there weren’t many implanted devices meant to sustain life, said study co-author Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
He and Zuckerman are among FDA critics who’ve urged the agency to subject such devices to more rigorous testing, which device makers oppose.
The FDA has said it is awaiting input from the Institute of Medicine, an independent government advisory group, before making a final decision on revisions to the device approval process.
Click here for the full report from the Chicago Tribune
The Simple Blood Test That Spots Cancer Six Years Before Tumors Develop
February 15th, 2011
DailyMail.co.uk
By: Fiona MacRae
A simple blood test to spot cancer up to six years before a tumour forms could be available in Britain next year.
The brainchild of a Nottingham University cancer specialist, it could provide vital early warning of lung and breast cancers – diseases that between them claim almost 50,000 lives annually.
Picking up the cancer at the earliest stages when it is easiest to treat could save thousands of lives and spare many others the pain and distress of prolonged illness.
Despite advances in drugs and technology, cancer still affects almost 300,000 Britons each year – and kills more than half.
The UK’s record in treating cancer is particularly poor, with female patients more likely to die than in most western European countries.
In many cases, the sufferers is symptom-free until relatively late on in the course of the cancer, meaning the disease is not detected until it is too late.
Diagnostic techniques such as scans and biopsies focus on tumours that have already formed but the new test can detect that something is wrong well before the cancer does any damage.
The Oncimmume test picks up telltale signs of a germinating cancer in the blood. The signals – generated by the immune system – can be detected up to five years before a cancer is spotted, from just two teaspoons of blood.
Professor John Robertson, the breast cancer specialist who spent 15 years developing the test, said: ‘We are starting to understand carcinogenesis in a way that we have never seen before – seeing which proteins are going wrong and how your immune system responds.
‘It’s as if your body is shouting “I’ve got cancer” way before a tumour can be detected.
Presentations on the technology are due to be made at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual conference in Chicago next week.
The kit is twice as good at detecting lung cancer as CT scans and is as accurate at picking up breast cancer in younger women as mammograms.
The lung cancer test is already in use in the US. It is due to go on sale in Britain in the first half of 2011 and will be targeted at long-term smokers and others thought to be at high risk of the disease.
Those who get a positive result, suggesting a cancer is germinating in their chest, will be closely monitored by their doctors, allowing them to be treated as soon as a tumour starts to appear.
The breast cancer version is due to follow later in the year.
The kits, which will cost around £300 each, will initially only be available privately, with use on the NHS being dependent on it being judged cost-effective.
Oncimmune have had talks with Professor Sir Mike Richards, the Government’s cancer tsar, who described the test as a ‘very exciting concept’.
But he cautioned that large-scale trials would be needed to prove its worth before it could be used by the health service.
He told the Times: ‘Now that the test has shortly to become available [privately] we have to think about doing a wider programme to show that it can save lives, as we hope it might.’
Nell Barrie, science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Diagnosing cancer earlier will save lives, so research into ways to detect the disease is vital.
‘This approach could be helpful, but we need to see the results of larger trials before we know for sure how effective these tests are at detecting cancers in the general population.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: :We are always interested to know about new and innovative treatments that will not only provide benefits for the patients but for the NHS as well.
‘We will follow developments of Oncimmune with interest.’
Click here for the full report from the Daily Mail
Misleading Study To Scare You About Calcium Supplements
February 15th, 2011
ABC News
By: Todd Neale
Calcium supplementation — without giving vitamin D at the same time — appears to increase the risk of myocardial infarction, a new review of past research has shown.
Among studies of patients with or at risk of osteoporosis, those who received calcium supplements were about 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those who did not, Dr. Ian Reid, MD of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues reported online in BMJ.
“As calcium supplements are widely used, these modest increases in risk of cardiovascular disease might translate into a large burden of disease in the population,” the researchers wrote. “A reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in the management of osteoporosis is warranted.”
In a statement, Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said, “This study helps to remind us that ‘one size does not fit all,’ even in recommending supplements and preventive care.”
“For patients who are at risk for heart disease, with multiple risk factors, or a strong family history, perhaps calcium supplementation should not be considered,” she said.
Dr. Murray Favus, an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago, said, “I am sufficiently concerned to advise those with high calcium supplement intake to limit calcium supplement use in favor of dietary sources until the risk of supplements can be sorted out.”
Reid and his colleagues analyzed 11 different trials that evaluated the use of calcium supplementation (at least 500 mg/day). None of the individual studies was designed to assess the risk of cardiovascular events.
Previous studies evaluating dietary calcium intake showed a reduced cardiovascular risk with greater consumption. The difference between those results and the findings of the current study suggests “that cardiovascular risks from high calcium intake might be restricted to use of calcium supplements,” according to the researchers.
It is possible that calcium supplements elevate cardiovascular risk by increasing blood serum calcium levels, which have been associated with higher heart attack rates in observational studies, the researchers noted in their paper.
“Calcium supplements, given alone, improve bone mineral density, but they are ineffective in reducing the risk of fractures and might even increase risk, they might increase the risk of cardiovascular events, and they do not reduce mortality,” Dr. John Cleland of the University of Hull in England and colleagues wrote in an accompanying editorial.
“They seem to be unnecessary in adults with an adequate diet,” they added. “Given the uncertain benefits of calcium supplements, any level of risk is unwarranted.”
Considering the available evidence, they wrote, “patients with osteoporosis should generally not be treated with calcium supplements, either alone or combined with vitamin D, unless they are also receiving an effective treatment for osteoporosis for a recognized indication.”
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Leading Experts Rethinking Food Allergy Causes
February 15th, 2011
ParentDish.com
By: Mary Beth Sammons
The perplexing world of childhood food allergies is enough to make any parent break out in hives.
But conventional wisdom is now being questioned when it comes to bottle-feeding whole milk to babies or keeping toddlers away from the peanut butter jar.
With an alarming increase in childhood food allergies and record numbers of parents heading to the doctor’s office with concerns that their children are allergic to a long list of foods, a team of leading childhood allergy experts says the way we prevent food allergies is misconceived, The New Yorker reports.
Dr. Hugh Sampson, director of the Jae Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, tells the magazine new research is producing some unexpected findings, mostly that, contrary to popular belief, early exposure to allergies may prevent food allergies later on.
Though he believed for most of his career that children are far less likely to become allergic to problematic foods if they are not exposed to them as infants, Sampson tells The New Yorker research is proving him wrong.
Sampson and Dr. Scott Sicherer, a pediatric allergist also at Mount Sinai, have conducted extensive studies throughout the United States that show that the rate of allergies is rising sharply.
They estimate that 3 to 5 percent of the population is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts or seafood, according to the magazine.
“This increase in the incidence of food allergy is real,” Sampson tells The New Yorker, but he adds that he can’t say what is causing the increase, just that he now thinks the conventional approach to preventing food allergies is questionable.
In fact, the Mount Sinai team tells The New Yorker they believe early exposure may actually help prevent food allergies later in life.
Previously, Sampson says, his research in the 1980s looked at whether the problem of allergies could be prevented if mothers continued breast-feeding as long as possible. Laboratory studies reinforced the theory, he tells the magazine.
“From an evolutionary-biology point of view, food allergy makes no sense at all,” co-researcher Sicherer tells The New Yorker. “It seems pretty clear that food allergy is a condition that resulted from the environment we created.”
Now, experts believe, a child becomes tolerant to a variety of food proteins through exposure in the first six months of life and some 80 percent of infants who are allergic to eggs or milk will outgrow the allergy by their teenage years.
Click here for the full report from ParentDish.com
Could a Pipeline Explode in Your Community?
February 15th, 2011
AOL News
By: Laura Parker
The apparent gas line explosion in Allentown, Pa., that killed five people is certain to refocus attention to the 2 million miles of natural gas pipelines that lie under neighborhoods and subdivisions from coast to coast.
The Allentown explosion came three weeks after a gas main explosion in Philadelphia killed one person and gas pressure buildup caused an explosion and about 15 fires in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland.
The National Transportation Safety Board also will convene a public hearing March 1 into the explosion of a gas transmission line in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight people and destroyed 37 homes in September.
In advance of that hearing, the NTSB issued seven safety recommendations — six of them deemed “urgent” — as a result of its San Bruno investigation. It recommended that Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility that owns the pipeline, “aggressively and diligently” search records to determine which pipeline segments have not been tested to determine a safe operating pressure.
The agency said other pipeline operators elsewhere in the nation could have discrepancies in records that could compromise the safe operation of pipelines throughout the United States.
The details of what caused the Allentown explosion around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday are still being collected by local investigators. But officials said it involved a 12-inch cast-iron pipe, a material that the NTSB has previously warned is subject to decay and in some cases in need of replacement.
“Obviously this raises a number of issues that will have to be answered as the investigation proceeds,” said Jim Hall, who served as NTSB chairman during the Clinton administration and made pipeline safety a key issue. “We don’t know yet what type of inspection methods were used, whether this had been designated as a high consequence area and what type of integrity management program the company had, or the age of the pipe.”
In an interview with AOL News, Hall said old cast iron pipe, still in use in Pennsylvania and Mid-Atlantic States, “can have a problem with brittleness.”
Pipelines running through what the federal government terms “high consequence areas” are subject to more stringent inspections.
“Congress probably needs to look at updating the legislation from 2002,” Hall said.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, an industry trade group based in Washington, has long argued that pipelines, when compared to other modes of transportation, are among the safest.
The San Bruno accident involved the rupture of a 30-inch natural gas transmission line, which was buried — in places less than a foot deep — under a residential subdivision in the Bay Area suburb. The explosion created a crater about 72 feet long by 26 feet wide. A 28-foot section of pipe was found 100 feet away from the crater.
Investigators have not determined the cause of the explosion, but they have ruled out external corrosion in the 54-year-old pipe and found no signs of damage from excavation. Digging by utility or sewer crews and other builders is a prime cause of pipeline breaks.
Investigators did find numerous flawed welds in the section of pipeline that exploded. The agency’s 78-page report, issued last month, also cited a surge of gas through the line shortly before the explosion.
The NTSB, which has only four pipeline investigators, did not send an investigator to Allentown today, in part because the agency is also investigating several other pipeline disasters from last year, including pipeline leaks in Marshall, Mich., and Romeoville, Ill., that caused environmental damage.
“We don’t want to do the same investigation over and over again,” said Ted Lopatkiewicz, an NTSB spokesman. “We have to determine how much additional contribution we can make to the issues that an accident presents. We have issued recommendations over the years dealing with cast-iron pipe, and we’re confident that the state commission will be able to gather the necessary information to give us so that we can determine how to proceed beyond that.”
Lopatkiewicz said the safety agency may still issue a report on the accident, even if no investigator goes to the scene.
Click here for the full report from AOL News
Climategate Scientist Admits No Global Warming Since 1995
February 15th, 2011
DailyMail.co.uk
By: Jonathan Petre
The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.
Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.
The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.
Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying.
Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change.
That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades.
According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.
Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organisation in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted.
Click here for the full report from the Daily Mail
