Experimental Treatment May Help Food Allergies

March 5th, 2012

CNN News

By: Elizabeth Landau

Food allergies are tricky business. They’re on the rise in the United States and no one knows why.

Some children are allergic to many foods, and it’s impossible to know based on preventive testing whether someone will have a mild or severe reaction. And so far there’s no cure.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Duke University are working on a treatment that may one day allow kids with allergies to safely eat the foods that cause them life-threatening reactions. It’s still in the early stages, but Dr. Robert Wood of Johns Hopkins, who has been on the forefront of food allergy research, estimates the treatment could be brought to the public within six to eight years.

In his new study, researchers explored a treatment for children with cow’s milk allergies. The strategy is to desensitize the child by giving small amounts of the allergen (milk). Oral immunotherapy, swallowing small amounts of the allergen, has shown to be more effective than sublingual therapy, which involves putting even tinier quantities of milk under the person’s tongue.

Wood and colleagues found promising results from this small experiment with 30 children ages 6 to 18. These kids were severely allergic to cow’s milk. Wood presented the study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology this weekend.

The results suggested that children who went through a year of sublingual therapy followed by one to two years of oral immunotherapy were less likely to have significant allergic reactions when undergoing the oral immunotherapy. Still, it did not eliminate all symptoms.

This is particularly important, because about 20% of the kids that Wood and colleagues work with have significant reactions during the treatment that make the therapy unfeasible, Wood said.

Some participants have shown they can safely eat milk products up to a year after stopping the therapies, Wood said. But only one-third have longterm protection. Others need regular exposure to milk in order to maintain protection against allergic reactions.

“With milk that’s not too hard,” Wood says, because one could “eat pizza a couple of times a week.”

It’s not known yet whether children respond better to this kind of treatment than adults, since there have been so few participants in this research. The big barrier to broadening the scope of the research is funding, Wood said.

This is the first time the sublingual therapy has been studied in terms of its benefit as a precursor to the oral immunotherapy, Wood said.

Other research has shown that immunotherapy techniques may similarly work for children with peanut allergies. But tree nuts may be harder to treat, Wood said, because tree-nut allergic individuals often have multiple kinds of nuts they can’t eat.

Researchers are separately looking at a drug called omalizumab (Xolair), approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of severe asthma, to see if it could help people with food allergies, too.

Do not try the immunotherapy technique at home; these experiments are conducted under medical supervision.

For The Full Report Go To CNN

Hybrid PACs: Politicians Figure Out How To Combine ‘Best’ Of Both PACs and Super Pacs

January 27, 2012

AllGov

By Noel Brinkerhoff

n a nation that invented the “super-size me” option, it seems only appropriate that U.S. political campaigns would figure out a way to go mega when it comes to collecting and spending money on elections.

Beyond the political action committee (PAC) and Super PAC, there is today in American politics the Super Super PAC, also known as the hybrid PAC. Basically, the hybrid PAC combines the “best” of both PACs and Super PACs.

With PACs, groups can make contributions to federal candidates, but they can’t accept individual donations that exceed $5,000. With Super PACs, election players can raise unlimited donations from corporations and unions, but they must operate independently of candidates’ campaigns and cannot give money directly to them.

But with a hybrid PAC, special interests can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash to promote or oppose candidates, just like a Super PAC, while also giving limited amounts of money directly to candidates’ campaigns.

Click here for the full report from AllGov.

U.S. Government Conspires With Doctors To Commit Murderous Medical Experiments in Guatemala

September 1st, 2011

Natural News

By: Mike Adams

U.S. government medical researchers, including those from the National Institute of Health (NIH), engaged in heinous crimes through secret medical experiments on Guatemalan medical experiments, concluded an investigative report commissioned by President Obama. The report concluded that:

• The U.S. government knowingly funded and deliberately engaged in criminal medical experiments against Guatemalan prisoners.

• At least 5,500 people were drafted into the experiments, including children, women and the mentally ill. The number deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) exceeded 1,300 (that we know of).

• U.S. doctors and medical researchers knowingly and deliberately violated all the fundamental medical ethics including “do no harm.”

• The victims of this criminal, government-run pharmaceutical experiment were mentally ill prisoners who were deliberate infected with STDs just to see what would happen.

• The victims were “not treated like human beings” but rather like laboratory animals and were deprived of basic human dignity in these heinous medical crimes.

• The purpose of the medical experiment was to test the effectiveness of penicillin for the pharmaceutical companies so they could sell the drug at high profit while claiming it had been “scientifically and clinically tested” to prevent the contraction of STDs.

• Victims were not even informed they were being infected with STDs. The entire experiment was a clandestine operation involving an admitted conspiracy between Big Pharma and the U.S. government. Undeniable evidence has now emerged that the doctors and medical researchers involved in the experiment actively took steps to hide what they were doing. (Because they knew they were engaged in EVIL actions.)

(Gee, I guess conspiracies really do exist, huh? All those people who dismiss “conspiracy theorists” have obviously never read actual U.S. history and have no knowledge of the way the pharmaceutical industry really works…)

• One purpose of these experiments was to “…find a reliable way of infecting subjects for future studies,” reports the Washington Post. “Doctors also poured bacteria onto wounds they had opened with needles on prisoners’ penises, faces and arms. In some cases, infectious material was injected into their spines.”

• Today, of course, the medical industry has long since found the perfect way to infect subjects for experimental studies — Vaccines! Seriously: If these doctors, NIH researchers and government authorities would inject mentally ill prisoners with infectious diseases (directly into their spines), do you honestly think they wouldn’t load up today’s vaccines with live viruses and unleash mass vaccination campaigns to cause cancer, pandemics and other diseases that generate Big Pharma profits? (Grow up, folks. The medical industry is based on fundamental evils and criminal madness. The sooner you get that through your heads, the sooner you’ll understand why there are no pharmaceutical cures for any disease — they WANT you to be sick!)

“They should shock the conscience not in spite of their medical context, but precisely because of it,” said commission chairwoman Amy Gutmann, who also serves as president of the University of Pennsylvania. “The people who were in the know, did want to keep it secret because if it would become more widely known, it would become the subject of public criticism,” she said.

• Guatemala condemned the medical experiments as “crimes against humanity” and vowed to prosecute the United States government for its role in international courts.

• The Institute of Medicine was asked by President Obama to take part in the investigation of the criminal medical experiments on Guatemalans but had to recuse itself because of past ties with the research.

Details about Dr. John Cutler, the M.D. who carried out these medical crimes on behalf of the U.S. government and the NIH

• These crimes in Guatemala were carried out by a conventional medical doctor named Dr. John Cutler who was funded by a grant from the NIH.

• Dr. Cutler acted with complete alignment alongside the pharmaceutical industry’s total disregard for human life. When one of the mentally ill victims who was infected with STDs began to show signs that she might die, Dr. Cutler proceeded to infect her with yet more syphilis and did nothing while she suffered and then died. This is how the pharmaceutical industry routinely operates in conspiracy with the NIH and government entities (see below).

• These medical experiments were not merely conducted in “foreign countries,” by the way. After successfully sacrificing Guatemalans on the altar of pharmaceutical profits, Dr. John Cutler was granted permission to take part in the infamous Tuskegee experiments that targeted African Americans. That experiment went on for four decades until it was finally ended in 1972. Yes — FOUR decades of government-run medical experiments on black Americans.

• After the Tuskegee experiments, Dr. John Cutler continued to run medical experiments on Americans in Terre Haute, Indiana, where prison inmates were deliberately infected with STDs.

• Dr. Cutler died in 2003 and probably went to Hell. He never apologized for his research, insisting that he was acting in an ethical manner as a doctor. (Seriously. This is yet another great example of how doctors suffer from egomaniacal self delusion that allows them to justify vaccines, chemotherapy and other deadly procedures that kill millions of innocent people every year.)

Click here for the full report from Natural News

U.S. Funding For Future Promises Lags By Trillions

July 26th, 2011

USA Today

By: Dennis Cauchon

The federal government’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.

This gap between spending commitments and revenue last year equals more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.

Social Security added $1.4 trillion in obligations, partly reflecting longer life expectancies. Federal and military retirement programs added more to the financial hole, too.

Corporations would be required to count these new liabilities when they are taken on — and report a big loss to shareholders. Unlike businesses, however, Congress postpones recording spending commitments until it writes a check.

The $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations amounts to $528,000 per household. That’s more than five times what Americans have borrowed for everything else — mortgages, car loans and other debt. It reflects the challenge as the number of retirees soars over the next 20 years and seniors try to collect on those spending promises.

“The (federal) debt only tells us what the government owes to the public. It doesn’t take into account what’s owed to seniors, veterans and retired employees,” says accountant Sheila Weinberg, founder of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, a Chicago-based group that advocates better financial reporting. “Without accurate accounting, we can’t make good decisions.”

Michael Lind, policy director at the liberal New America Foundation’s economic growth program, says there is no near-term crisis for federal retirement programs and that economic growth will make these programs more affordable.

“The false claim that Social Security and Medicare are about to bankrupt the United States has been repeated for decades by conservatives and libertarians who pretend that their ideological opposition to these successful and cost-effective programs is based on worries about the deficit,” he says.

USA TODAY has calculated federal finances based on standard accounting rules since 2004 using data from the Medicare and Social Security annual reports and the little-known audited financial report of the federal government.

The government has promised pension and health benefits worth more than $700,000 per retired civil servant. The pension fund’s key asset: federal IOUs.

Click here for the full report from USA Today

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 6-20-11

Today, Kevin is back with a vengeance! Find out how Kevin is planning to fight for you and your health freedoms and why he would make the political scum in Washington shake in their boots!

Self Help:
Stand Up & Fight For Your Rights!!

Health:
KFC Admits to Dangerous Chemicals In Products
Chemical Used in Food Containers Added to U.S. List of Carcinogens
Psych Drug Doctors Now Pushing To Add Lithium To Drinking Water
Common Bread Ingredient Derived From Human Hair
Scientist Creates Meat Alternative Made From Recycled Human Waste

Government:
America’s Legacy of Forced Sterilization
Dope-Smoking, Menstruating Monkey Study Got $3.6 Million in Tax Dollars

Education:
Wikipedia Founder Discourages Academic Use of His Creation

Wealth:
China Ratings House Says US Defaulting

Everything Kevin:
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ATM Fees Rise as Banks Feel Funding Squeeze

March 18th, 2011

Daily Finance

By: Dawn Kawamoto

Before slipping the old debit card into an ATM, consumers may want to think twice if it’s not their own bank’s machine. ATM fees at these non-customer cash-dispensing outposts are edging up, with some hitting the $5 transaction fee mark, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Some banks are saying so-long to the standard $3 fee as they seek to re-coup lost revenue from debit cards and overdraft charges due to federal regulatory changes, the report notes.

J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) is trying out a $5 non-customer transaction fee in Illinois, as well as a $4 fee in Texas. PNC Financial Services Group (PNC), meanwhile, is planning to terminate its ATM reimbursement program, which covers transaction fees at non-customer bank machines, later this year. And last week TD Bank Financial Group (TD) eliminated its perk that allowed its customers to use ATMs operated by other banks without charging those customers for a piece of the transaction fee.

Banks brought home a sizable $7.1 billion last year from ATM transaction fees. And of that multi-billion-dollar bonanza, $3 billion was collected by banks whose customers used another institution’s ATM, the report notes.

As more banks are expected to weigh in with higher ATM fees, frequent ATM users may switch to institutions that have the largest network of cash-dispensing machines. Savvy consumers may also opt to double down when at checkout stands that allow them to get cash back when making a purchase, minimizing the impact of the non-customer ATM fee.

Click here for the full report from Daily Finance

Dems Cut Food Stamps To Bail Out Teachers

August 11, 2010

Fox News

Some House Democrats and advocacy groups are getting squeamish about the move to fund the $26 billion jobs bill by making cuts to food stamps, a federal assistance program currently depended on by nearly 41 million Americans.

Some Democrats are upset and advocacy groups are outraged over the raiding of the food-stamp cupboard to fund a state-aid bailout that some call a gift to teachers and government union workers.

House members convened Tuesday and passed the multibillion-dollar bailout bill for cash-strapped states that provides $10 billion to school districts to rehire laid-off teachers or ensure that more teachers won’t be let go before the new school year begins, keeping more than 160,000 teachers on the job, the Obama administration says.

But the bill also requires that $12 billion be stripped from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, to help fund the new bill, prompting some Democrats to cringe at the notion of cutting back on one necessity to pay for another. The federal assistance program currently helps 41 million Americans.

Arguably one of the most outspoken opponents on the Democratic side is Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who has blasted the move as “a bitter pill to swallow” but still voted yes.

“I fought very hard for the food assistance money in the Recovery Act, and the fact is that participation in the food stamps program has jumped dramatically with the economic crisis, from 31.1 million persons to 38.2 million just in one year,” DeLauro said in an e-mail sent to FoxNews.com. “But I know that states across the nation and my own state of Connecticut also desperately need these resources to save jobs and avoid Draconian cuts to essential services for low income families.”

The Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday that several state advocacy groups, including the Texas Food Book Network and the Houston Food Bank, rallied for House members to strike down the legislation, which passed 247-161 in the House. Three Democrats voted against the measure, while two Republicans voted in support of it.

Democratic rank and file members, including Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, say the cuts won’t take effect until 2014 and will merely return food stamp benefits to pre-stimulus levels.

The Food Research and Action Center said a family of four would see benefits drop about $59 per month starting in 2014.

“While we support the education initiatives (in the bill), we adamantly oppose using food stamps to pay for them,” said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center. “The rain on food stamps to pay for other things absolutely has to stop and stop now.”

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, the number of people on the food stamp rolls has been growing to record levels for 18 straight months. Nearly $5.5 billion in aid went out to beneficiaries in May alone. The number of May recipients marked a 19 percent increase from a year ago and the USDA projects that next year’s enrollment will reach about 43.4 million.

Republicans, meanwhile, vocally opposed the state aid bill. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News it rewarded “irresponsible states” and their unions.

“It is basically taxpayers from fiscally (responsible) states bailing out fiscally irresponsible states. … Medicaid funding, teacher funding, the more popular of the public unions, what this is, it’s a bailout to prevent states from doing the necessary spending prioritization that they need do,” he said.

The Obama administration pushed hard for the $26 billion bill. The White House argued that it is essential to protecting 300,000 teachers and other nonfederal government workers from election-year layoffs and will not add to the national deficit.

“If we do nothing, these educators won’t be returning to the classroom this fall, and that won’t just deprive them of a paycheck, it will deprive the children and parents who are counting on them to provide a decent education,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden shortly before the bill passed on Tuesday.

“This proposal is fully paid for, in part by closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations that ships American jobs overseas. So it will not add to our deficit,” he said. “And the money will only go toward saving the jobs of teachers and other essential professionals…I urge members of both parties to come together and get this done, so that I can sign this bill into law.”

Click here for the full report.

Scientists Have Ties to Drug Companies?

July 23, 2010

Natural News

More than 90 percent of researchers who have published studies favorable to the controversial diabetes drug Avandia had a financial stake in the issue, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic.

The Mayo Clinic is one of the few research organizations in the United States that does not accept corporate funding.

Sales of GlaxoSmithKline’s bestselling drug Avandia plunged in 2007, after evidence emerged linking the drug to an increased risk of heart attack and death. These reports sparked a debate over the drug’s safety that continues to this day.

In an analysis of more than 200 studies, articles, editorials and letters published in scientific journals since 2007, Mayo Clinic researchers have concluded that financial conflict of interest continues to play a major role in that debate. Fully 87 percent of all authors who expressed positive views about Avandia had financial ties to GlaxoSmithKline, while another 7 percent had ties to other pharmaceutical companies involved with diabetes. Among authors with financial conflicts of interest, only 30 percent “expressed unfavorable views” of the drug.

In contrast, authors who were critical of Avandia were “largely free of identifiable conflicts of interest,” the researchers said.

The conflicts of interest cut both ways. Of 29 authors who recommended the drug Actos as a safer alternative to Avandia, 25 had ties to that drug’s maker, Eli Lilly.

In order to identify conflicts of interest, the Mayo Clinic researchers searched through multiple published works by each given author, as well as conducting investigations on the Internet. This research uncovered that while 47 percent of all authors surveyed had a financial stake in the diabetes drug debate, 23 percent failed to disclose these links. Most of these authors merely remained silent about their conflicts of interest, while three actually lied and said they had none.

“The implication is that there should be better disclosure,” lead researcher Mohammad Murad said. “People [with financial links to companies] should realize they are probably biased, and as readers we should be aware of probable bias.”

Click Here For The Full Article

US Taxpayers Funding Costa Rica Empire?

July 23, 2010

InfoWars.com

By: Michael Edwards

One would think that America is experiencing Boom Times with the way their government is throwing around money lately.  The recent announcement that a flotilla of warships and troops will be sent to Costa Rica would ordinarily be laughable for its wastefulness, but with America experiencing an unemployment rate north of 20% and the median duration of unemployment at the highest in the last 50 years, this should be no laughing matter.

Many Americans do not know much about Costa Rica, its history, or its current political landscape.  It might be worth knowing exactly how and where American tax dollars are being spent.  Here are some basic facts about Costa Rica:

• Costa Rica is a democratic republic with a very strong system of Constitutional checks and balances.

• Costa Rica does not have a military; it was abolished in 1948.

• Recent president, Oscar Arias, was a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1987.

• Costa Rica consistently ranks as one of the happiest places on Earth according to many polls, including the first ever “happiness poll” conducted by Gallup, where it was determined to be #1 in The Americas.

In other words, Costa Rica’s lack of a military culture has been enshrined, and is part and parcel of their overall happiness.  Forty-six warships, 200 helicopters, and 7000 troops being sent to patrol the coastal waters of Costa Rica sends the world a false message that Costa Rica is in some way needy of this massive loan of the American military.  Furthermore, the entire region is moving away from neoliberalism, and toward solidarity, in an attempt to build a sovereign Latin America.

We have to assume that Costa Rica’s welcoming support of the American military is likely to fan regional tensions, at the very least.  Or, could that be the reason itself for such a move?  In a comprehensive article by Mark Vorpahl, writing for Global Research, he points out that such an excessive amount of military in order to “combat drug trafficking” or “offer humanitarian aid” to a country the size of Rhode Island can hardly be justified in and of itself.  Much more likely is that this is regional in scope and is a U.S. intimidation force, rather than a humanitarian mission.

Vorpahl asserts that the U.S. is determined to return to the Monroe Doctrine principles which led to the overthrow of popular governments throughout Latin America.  He states the results:

Therefore, the U.S. Empire builders could use their political and economic might alone to subjugate these neo-colonies to a very profitable neoliberal agenda. This agenda included allowing U.S. corporations easy access to pillage these nations’ public sectors through privatization, letting multi-national corporations overrun these nations’ local markets and farms through the elimination of trade barriers, and increasing the exploitation of their workers and the devastation of their natural resources by tossing out national labor and environmental standards. Because of the profits enjoyed by a few as a result of these measures, they carried the day, though they, in turn, created a simmering spirit of rebellion in the semi-colonies’ peasantry and workers that would inevitably find expression.

It is true that Costa Rica is in a precarious geographical location amid other historically less peaceful (and much poorer) nations, but this is nothing new.  It seems that the most likely scenario is that America would like to take the Drug War show to a new area of the high seas, and they have found a convenient headquarters for operations.  Geopolitics notwithstanding, the financial cost to America should be noted.  America is already embroiled in two major wars; has military bases all over the planet; and has a true disaster spreading along its own coast, not to mention the elephant in the living room of a looming second Great Depression.

As a frequent visitor to Costa Rica, I can only add that if the Costa Rican government is allowing its country to be the staging ground and corporate headquarters for empire building in Latin America, they should be called on it.  If the Costa Rican people decide to abandon their dedication to peace, and the absence of a military, by allowing this violation of their sovereignty and Constitution, they are truly misguided.

Polls show that most Americans do support spreading the idea of democracy, but do not agree with empire building.  If the American people do not voice their outrage over this, and the abject wastefulness of their tax dollars during a time of more pressing crises, they are again proving to the world who really has the power in America.

Click Here For The Full Article

ObamaCare Expands IRS Powers To Audit Your Health Insurance Status

July, 19 2010

The Wall Street Journal

If it seems as if the tax code was conceived by graphic artist M.C. Escher, wait until you meet the new and not improved Internal Revenue Service created by ObamaCare. What, you’re not already on a first-name basis with your local IRS agent?

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency’s new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already “greatly taxed”—pun intended?—”by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public,” like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.” And without “sufficient funding” it won’t be able to discharge these new duties.

That wouldn’t be tragic, given that those new duties include audits to determine who has the insurance “as required by law” and collecting penalties from Americans who don’t. Companies that don’t sponsor health plans will also be punished. This crackdown will “involve nearly every division and function of the IRS,” Ms. Olson reports.

Well, well. Republicans argued during the health debate that the IRS would have to hire hundreds of new agents and staff to enforce ObamaCare. They were brushed off by Democrats and the press corps as if they believed the President was born on the moon. The IRS says it hasn’t figured out how much extra money and manpower it will need but admits that both numbers are greater than zero.

Ms. Olson also exposed a damaging provision that she estimates will hit some 30 million sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations, two million farms and one million charities and other tax-exempt organizations. Prior to ObamaCare, businesses only had to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase. But starting in 2013 they will also have to report the value of goods they buy from a single vendor that total more than $600 annually—including office supplies and the like.

Democrats snuck in this obligation to narrow the mythical “tax gap” of unreported business income, but Ms. Olson says that the tracking costs for small businesses will be “disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance.” Job creation, here we come . . . at least for the accountants who will attempt to comply with a vast new 1099 reporting burden.

In a Monday letter, even Democratic Senators Mark Begich (Alaska), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) and Evan Bayh (Indiana) denounce this new “burden” on small businesses and insist that the IRS use its discretion to find “better ways to structure this reporting requirement.” In other words, they want regulators to fix one problem among many that all four Senators created by voting for ObamaCare.

We never thought anyone would be nostalgic for the tax system of a few months ago, but post-ObamaCare, here we are.

Click Here For Full Article

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