3D TV May Be The Future Despite Fears of Causing Health Problems
March 12, 2010
Mail Online
By Mail Foriegn Service
Avatar director James Cameron hailed 3D TV as ‘the future’ last night as he helped launch a range of 3D television sets.
At a glitzy launch in New York of Samsung 3D sets, he told the crowd: ‘You will all remember that you were here, in Times Square, for the launch of the television of the future.’
The Black Eyed Peas were called in to perform and lend the event a touch of glamour as fears surfaced that viewers could experience health problems while watching the screens.
Viewers wear electronic glasses with the screens which open and close rapidly in time, with images designed for the right and left eye, creating a three-dimensional effect.
But doctors said headaches and visual disturbance were likely.
Dr Michael Rosenberg, an ophthalmology professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said: ‘There are a lot of people walking around with very minor eye problems, for example a minor muscle imbalance, which under normal circumstances, the brain deals with naturally.’
But he said that in a 3D film, these people are confronted with an entirely new sensory experience.
‘That translates into greater mental effort, making it easier to get a headache,’ he added.
A recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that 3D does cause headaches and blurred vision.
Researchers attributed this to viewers focusing on the foreground and distance simultaneously.
There have been a number of anecdotal reports of viewers developing headaches while watching Avatar and the internet is awash with forums advising how to avoid head pain while viewing 3D.
Samsung, which is the industry leader for flat-screen televisions, was the first to unveil its range of sets which will hit British shops by the end of the month.
They are offering 46 and 55-inch televisions and Blu-ray with two pairs of 3D glasses.
In hot pursuit is Panasonic, which is also launching its first 3D televisions at a BestBuys shop in New York this week. Sony, meanwhile, aims to start selling its sets in June.
British retailers are already preparing for a rush of orders when the new ranges become available.
Bill Moir, head of marketing at electrical specialist Comet said: ‘Our first 3DTVs will be available to pre-order online from the end of March and available in stores in April.
‘We’ve already seen a lot of demand for the new technology. Thousands of customers have already registered their details online with us to receive more information about 3DTV ahead of the UK launch.’
Experts predict that within five years every full-size television will have 3D capability.
Click here for the full report
Herbal Mint as a Natural Pain Reliever
December 16, 2009
Natural News
By Sherry Baker
Brazilian mint, known to botanists by its Latin name Hyptis crenata, has long been used by traditional healers in Brazil to treat pain and discomfort from a variety of ailments, including stomach aches, fevers, flu and headaches. In fact, researchers at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom say that the mint has been handed down as a prescription for pain relief for thousands of years. And a new study just presented at the 2nd International Symposium on Medicinal and Nutraceutical Plants held in New Delhi, India, concludes the ancient herbal therapy is, in fact, an effective, natural treatment for pain. The research is slated for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal Acta Horticulturae.
A team of Newcastle University scientists, led by Graciela Rocha, carried out a survey in Brazil to find out specifically how the herbal medicine is typically prepared and how much should be consumed as a treatment. They learned that traditional healers use the mint in a decoction, meaning the dried leaves are boiled in water for 30 minutes and then allowed to cool before being consumed as a tea.
Rocha, who is originally from Brazil, noted in a statement to the press that she remembers being given the tea as a treatment for various childhood illnesses. “The taste isn’t what most people here in the UK would recognize as a mint,” she stated. “In fact it tastes more like sage which is another member of the mint family.”
When the researchers tested the herbal tea in laboratory experiments with mice, they found it was just as effective at relieving pain as the pain reliever drug known as as indomethacin in the US and indometacin in the UK. Marketed under many brand names including Indocin, Indocid and Indochron E-R, indomethacin is a highly potent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication used to reduce fever, pain, stiffness, and swelling. Unlike the natural herbal mint pain reliever, indomethacin is associated with a host of serious side effects including stomach upset, gastric irritation and the risk of heart attack.
Deaths in China After Flu Shot
November 16, 2009
TIME.com
By Alice Park
Chinese health officials reported on Nov. 13 the first deaths in people who received the H1N1 vaccine. The Ministry of Health announced that the two people, including a teacher from Hunan province, died hours after receiving their inoculations. Since September, when the ministry began its H1N1 immunization program, 12 million Chinese have received the pandemic flu shot.
A preliminary autopsy revealed that the teacher died of an apparent heart attack while playing basketball, and a ministry spokesperson told the China Daily newspaper that the death was a “coincidental medical incident” and not related to the vaccine. No details on the second victim have been released thus far. (See pictures: “Soccer in the Time of Swine Flu.”)
As they conduct an autopsy investigation into the second death, Chinese health officials have pulled all vaccines that were manufactured in the same batch used to inoculate the teacher. Although the H1N1 vaccine has been rigorously tested and vetted for safety, no inoculation can be considered 100% safe, and some may cause adverse events, including death, in some people.
Taking an aggressive approach to the pandemic flu, the Chinese government in June asked 11 biotech companies to develop a pandemic H1N1 vaccine. Beijing-based Sinovac succeeded in developing the world’s first approved swine flu shot. The company raced to conduct clinical trials and was the first to report that a single dose of vaccine, instead of the two doses that most flu experts believed would be necessary, was sufficient to protect against 2009 H1N1. In early September, China became the first country to begin swine flu inoculations.
But by the end of October, 54% of Chinese residents reported in a China Daily survey that they would not get the H1N1 vaccine because of concerns about the shot’s safety. That prompted the director of the World Health Organization’s Beijing office, Dr. Michael O’Leary, to tell the newspaper, “The H1N1 vaccine is one of the safest vaccines being used. When it’s available to me, I would not hesitate to get the vaccine developed and produced by China.” (Read “H1N1: Hitting the Young, Riskier for the Old.”)
Three vaccine manufacturers in China, including Sinovac, have received orders from the government for more than 34 million doses. Among the 12 million people inoculated so far, 1,235 have complained of side effects, ranging from sore arms, rashes and headaches to anaphylactic shock and sudden drops in blood pressure.
While the Chinese government has been criticized for its draconian public-health response to swine flu — using quarantines, canceling school and detaining entire planeloads of people when a single passenger appears to have flulike symptoms — the country’s officials say the strict measures helped stem the spread of flu. So far, China reports about 36 deaths and 62,800 H1N1 cases — compared with U.S. government estimates of 4,000 American deaths and 22 million infections. China plans to immunize 65 million citizens, or 5% of the country’s population, by the end of the year. As in the U.S., health officials are targeting high-priority groups first, including the military, police, health care workers, teachers, students and those with chronic diseases.
Click here for the full report.
Study Reveals Serious HPV Vaccine Problems: Fainting, Blood Clots, Death Among Risks
September 12, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
At first glance, a study just published in the August 19th edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is yet another whitewash job about the safety of the quadrivalent human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine –better known as Gardasil, the genital human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Licensed in June of 2006 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for girls and young women between the ages of nine and 26, the enormously hyped and advertised vaccine is designed to prevent infection with four types of HPV: types 16 and 18 can cause cervical cancer and types 6 and 11 are the most common types of genital warts.
The JAMA report says that the Gardasil adverse events reported have been mostly consistent with data gathered before the vaccine was considered safe enough to be widely administered to young girls. But a close reading shows some disturbing additional facts.
Just as NaturalNews has consistently reported, the vaccine has caused an extraordinary number of adverse side effects. And now comes word from the JAMA report that the HPV vaccine has unexpectedly caused episodes of fainting and life-threatening blood clots. In fact, in a statement to the media, these events were called “disproportional” — meaning these side effects are anything but rare. What’s more, among the 12,424 adverse reaction reports about the HPV vaccine, 772 (6.2 percent) were serious and included 32 reports of death.
Other problems caused by the vaccine include local site reactions, skin rashes, nausea, dizziness, headaches and even Guillain-Barre syndrome (a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system sometimes causing paralysis) and anaphylaxis (hypersensitivity reaction that can cause sudden death). As just reported by CBS news, the teenage daughter of physician Scott Ratner and his wife was one of the unfortunate girls who became severely ill with a chronic autoimmune disease, myofasciitis, after her first dose of Gardasil. Dr. Ratner told CBS his daughter was so ill with the neurological problem “..she’d have been better off getting cervical cancer than the vaccination.”
One the lead researchers for Gardasil has also gone public this week, telling CBS news there is no data showing that the vaccine even remains effective beyond five years. That means that if a ten year old girl is given the vaccine and subjected to possibly serious and even life-threatening side effects, the vaccine may offer her no protection at all when she hits her teens or young adulthood.
What makes the debate about Gardasil crazy to begin with is that studies have shown 70 to 90 percent of people with HPV naturally clear the virus from the body within two years of infection — with no help from drugs or vaccines. So the most effective protection from problems caused by HPV is to avoid being infected by the multiple strains of HPV by not engaging in promiscuous, unprotected-by-condoms sex (the virus is transmitted sexually and condoms do not offer 100 percent protection) and by keeping your body’s immune system strong and healthy through good nutrition, exercise and exposure to sunlight.
In an editorial accompanying the JAMA study, Charlotte Haug, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association in Oslo expressed her concerns about the aggressively promoted Gardasil vaccine: “Whether a risk is worth taking depends not only on the absolute risk, but on the relationship between the potential risk and the potential benefit. If the potential benefits are substantial, most individuals would be willing to accept the risks. But the net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain. Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened…”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Wyeth’s HRT Drug Increases Risk of Death From Lung Cancer
August 12, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Women who take the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drug Prempro not only increase their risk of breast cancer, but their risk of death from lung cancer as well, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Medical Center at the University of California-Los Angeles and presented at a meeting of the American Society of Oncology.
“This is a new finding that tells us women who smoke shouldn’t take estrogen and progestin for menopause symptoms,” said study author Rowan Chlebowski.
Prempro, manufactured by Wyeth, was a best-selling treatment for the symptoms of menopause until 2002, when the Women’s Health Initiative study revealed that HRT significantly increased women’s risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. Sales of the product plunged, although it still generated $1.1 billion for the company in 2008.
Menopause can lead to unpleasant symptoms such as hot flashes, fatigue, dizziness, headaches, muscle weakness, nausea and rapid heart beat.
The current study was based on an analysis of 16,608 participants in the original Women’s Health Initiative study. The researchers found that current and former smokers who took Prempro were significantly more likely to die from lung cancer than women who received a placebo pill instead. This pattern held for non-smokers as well, although there were significantly fewer deaths than among smokers.
Nearly 80 percent of lung cancer cases in women are caused by tobacco use.
There were also more cases of lung cancer diagnosed in women taking HRT than those taking a placebo, but this difference did not achieve statistical significance.
The type of cancer in the study is known as non-small cell lung cancer, and accounts for 85 to 90 percent of all lung tumors. Both worldwide and in the United States, lung cancer kills more people than any other form of cancer. Roughly 200,000 new cases are diagnosed and approximately 160,000 people die from the disease in the United States each year.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Swine Flu: More Than 400 Cases of Tamiflu Side Effects
August 12, 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
Between April 1 and August 6 there were 418 reports, of which 125 were received in the last week alone.
The 418 reports detailed 686 suspected adverse reactions, including allergy to Tamiflu and nausea.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is collecting data on suspected side effects – not all of which are confirmed as being caused by the drug.
Tamiflu, which is manufactured by Roche, has vomiting and nausea listed as its main side effects on its packaging.
A total of 11 per cent of adults and adolescents taking the drug experience nausea and 8 per cent have vomiting, according to the summary of product characteristics.
Headaches are another side effect when the drug is taken preventatively rather than as a treatment.
In children, the most commonly reported side effect is vomiting, with 15 per cent suffering it and 10 per cent having diarrhoea.
A total of 3 per cent of children will get nausea and 5 per cent have reported abdominal pain.
Clinical studies accepted by health bodies in the UK and worldwide show that the drug should not aggravate asthma.
A total of 4 per cent of children with asthma experienced worse asthmatic symptoms when taking the drug – the same proportion as in a group of asthmatic children taking a dummy drug.
The study, on 334 asthmatic children aged six to 12, found the drug did not help cut the length of the illness.
But by the last day of treatment (day six) the lung function was better in children taking Tamiflu, with their Forced Expiratory Volume having increased by 10.8 per cent compared with 4.7 per cent among those on the dummy drug.
The Government has 23 million treatments of Tamiflu and 10.5 million treatments of another anti-viral, Relenza.
Orders of Tamiflu have been placed to increase UK supplies to 50 million doses, enough to treat 80 per cent of the population.
Pregnant women should take Relenza, which is inhaled and helps reduce flu symptoms without affecting the baby.
However, if a pregnant woman has unusually severe flu, a doctor may prescribe Tamiflu.
An expert group reviewed the risk of anti-viral treatment in pregnancy and told the Government the risk was extremely small – smaller than the risk posed by the symptoms of swine flu.
Some people have had wheezing or serious breathing problems when they have used Relenza and it is not recommended for people with asthma or other serious lung problems.
Other possible side effects of Relenza include headaches, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.
The MHRA has received a total of 10 reports of side effects from Relenza since April 1.
An MHRA spokesman said: “We have allocated a dedicated section of our website to receive reports of side effects to Tamiflu and Relenza from doctors and the public in order to spot any developing trends.
“We have set up this specific site so that people can log on and report any potential side effects.
“This will assist us in monitoring the safety of these anti-viral medications.
“A report of a reaction does not mean it has been caused by the drug in question – a mere suspicion will suffice.
“The MHRA is very keen to promote this website as we want people to know about it and use it – http://swineflu.mhra.gov.uk/.”
Click here for the full report from the Telegraph
