J&J’s McNeil Unit Recalls Infants’ Tylenol
February 17, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 17th, 2012
CNN
By: Aaron Smith
The healthcare company McNeil is recalling more than half a million bottles of Infants’ Tylenol because of consumer complaints about the difficulties of using the dosing system.
McNeil is recalling about 574,000 bottles after receiving a “small number” of complaints regarding the so-called “dosing syringe” of the orally-administered over-the-counter painkiller. The company said that in some cases the “flow restrictor was pushed into the bottle when inserting the syringe.”
The recall applies to one-ounce bottles of grape-flavored Infants’ Tylenol Oral Suspension.
The company said there have been “no adverse events” from the problem and that “the risk of series adverse medical event is remote.”
The company said that consumers can continue to use the product, despite the voluntary recall, so long as the flow restrictor remains in place at the top of the bottle.
McNeil, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500), has had numerous recalls in the recent past, especially with Tylenol.
The U.S. government took over three Tylenol plants last year for failure to comply with federally-mandated manufacturing procedures.
Click Here For The Full Report From CNN
Painkiller Overdose ‘Epidemic’ Strikes US
November 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
November 3, 2011
Yahoo News
By Kerry Sheridan
The United States is facing an epidemic of lethal overdoses from prescription painkillers, which have tripled in the past decade and now account for more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.
The quantity of painkillers on the market is so high that it would be enough for every American to swallow a standard dose of Vicodin every four hours for one full month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The unfortunate and in fact shocking news is that we are in the midst of an epidemic of prescription drug overdose in this country. It is an epidemic but it can be stopped,” said CDC chief Thomas Frieden.
“Now the burden of dangerous drugs is being created more by a few irresponsible doctors than by drug pushers on street corners.”
The CDC Vital Signs report focused on opioid pain relievers, including oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone, better known as Vicodin, which have quadrupled in sales to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors’ offices since 1999.
Last year, 12 million Americans reported taking prescription painkillers for recreational uses, not because of a medical condition.
The number of deaths from overdoses of opioid pain relievers has more than tripled from 4,000 people in 1999 to 14,800 people in 2008.
The epidemic is at its height among middle-aged white men, age 35-54, and American Indians or Alaska natives, the CDC said.
Rural and poor areas tend to have the highest prescription drug overdose death rates, and the severity of the problem varies widely from state to state.
The drugs are highly addictive and people can build up tolerance quickly, according to Michael Lowenstein, who treats patients at his pain clinic in Los Angeles, California and was not involved with the CDC research.
“What happens in a lot of this population is they take the medication for something like knee pain, or surgery,” he told AFP.
“The opiate receptors are very close to the pleasure centers in the brain, so for a period not only does the pain feel better but their anxiety, their depression and their stress is better.
“The problem is it takes more and more medication to maintain that response so someone will be given two or three or four Vicodin to treat their pain and before you know it they are taking 20 and 30 and 40 Vicodin a day.”
Death typically occurs when the patient stops breathing because the drugs can cause respiratory depression, and are particularly lethal when mixed with anxiety medications or alcohol.
Lowenstein is co-medical director of the Waismann Method, a $20,000 dollar treatment for opiate dependence that involves sedating the patient for several days in a hospital intensive care unit so that they do not feel the symptoms of withdrawal such as vomiting, nausea and inability to function.
Click here for the full report.
To this day, Coca-Cola Still Imports Coca Leaves Which Are Used To Manufacture Cocaine In The U.S.
June 9, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
June 9th, 2011
Natural News
By: Mike Adams
Coca leaves have been chewed and consumed as tea for thousands of years in the high Andes. They are rich in many essential nutrients; they ease respiratory and digestive distress and are a natural stimulant and painkiller. Indigenous tradition and scientific studies have both confirmed that in their natural form, the leaves are completely safe and non-addictive — it takes intensive processing and toxic chemical ingredients to produce cocaine. That’s why more and more coca-containing products have started to hit the market in Andean countries in the past few years.
Yet the United States still aggressively pursues an eradication policy that encourages Andean governments to spray their forests with toxic chemicals to eliminate this medicinal crop. It is illegal to import or possess the leaves under U.S. law — unless you’re the Coca-Cola company. In an effort to preserve the traditional flavor of the best-selling drink, the company long ago convinced the U.S. government to exempt it from the law.
(Coca-Cola, by the way, used to literally contain cocaine in its original formula. The practice was halted in 1903, but the name persisted. The “coca” part of “coca-cola” is derived from the coca plant, and the “kola” comes from the kola nut which also flavored the original beverage.)
The secret history of Coca-Cola, coca leaves and cocaine
Coca-Cola is the only U.S. corporation that has been granted the right to legally import coca leaves into the United States, via a coca processing lab known as the Stepan Company). In 1922, the Jones-Miller Act banned cocaine imports into the United States, but Coca-Cola (and its lab) was granted an exception. This exception remained a secret until the late 1980′s when the New York Times seemed shocked to discover the truth.
As the New York Times published in 1988: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/01/business/how-coca-cola-obtains-its-coca.html
This week, details of how Coca-Cola obtains the coca and how it is processed emerged from interviews with Government officials and scientists involved in drug research programs. They identified the Illinois-based Stepan Company as the importer and processor of the coca used in Coke. After Stepan officials acknowledged their ties to Coca-Cola, the soft drink giant confirmed those details of its operations.
In a telephone interview from Coca-Cola’s Atlanta headquarters, Randy Donaldson, a company spokesman, said, ”Ingredients from the coca leaf are used, but there is no cocaine in it and it is all tightly overseen by regulatory authorities.”
100 tons of cocaine ingredients each year – let’s do the math
Approximately 100 metric tons of coca leaves are imported to the Stepan Company each year under “special permission” from the DEA. Keep all this in mind when you consider the total fraud of the current “War on Drugs” and how young African American men are given ten-year prison sentences for pot possession while one of the largest corporations in America is actually importing leaves that are used to manufacture cocaine.
Once the coca leaves are imported into the USA under these special permissions from the DEA, the cocaine is extracted out of the coca leaves. Coca-Cola doesn’t use the cocaine, you see. There is no cocaine in Coca-Cola today.
This brings up an obvious question: Where does all the white powder cocaine go if not to Coca-Cola? It turns out that this cocaine is sold to a St. Louis company called Mallinckrodt Incorporated.
Mallinckrodt receives not only all the cocaine from the Coca-Cola imports, but also imports opium from India. In addition, this company also buys THC extracted from marijuana grown in the United States. So much for the War on Drugs, huh? It turns out if you buddy up to the DEA and federal regulators, you can make all the cocaine you want while buying opium and marijuana by the ton — as long as you’re a powerful corporation with ties to Coca-Cola and other wealthy organizations.
More than a quarter ton of cocaine for “medicinal” use?
It’s a reasonable question to wonder where all this cocaine and opium ends up going after it arrives at Mallinckrodt. The official explanation is that it’s for “medical use.” But let’s do the math on this and see if that explanation holds water.
According to various websites that are readily found in any search engine, it takes roughly 300 grams of coca leaves to produce 1 gram of refined cocaine. This means that 100 metric tons of coca leaves (100 x 1000 kilograms, or 100,000 kilograms) can produce roughly 333 kilos of cocaine each year.
Ask around… That’s a lot of cocaine. Remember, too, that these are 333 kilos of cocaine approved by the DEA — an agency which claims to be fighting a “war on drugs” but somehow grants immunity to Coca-Cola suppliers who are literally manufacturing hundreds of kilos of cocaine each year.
All this brings up the obvious question: What is the Mallinckrodt company doing with 333 kilos of cocaine each year? Throwing a big annual Christmas party or something? It is impossible to imagine that 333 kilos of cocaine are being used for “medical purposes” unless you have a very loose definition of “medical purposes.” Although this is pure conjecture, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if a significant portion of this was handed out to top DEA officials as bribes to pay them off and keep the cocaine operation running.
Enough lines of cocaine for the entire U.S. Congress!
Continuing with the math, 333 kilos is (obviously) 333,000 grams of cocaine. How much cocaine is that, exactly? Well, according to TheGoodDrugsGuide.com, a typical “line” of cocaine (a “line” is what a typical user will inhale to ingest the cocaine) contains 50 – 75mg, or roughly 1/20th of a gram.
This means that each gram of cocaine is enough to make up to 20 “lines” of cocaine, give or take, depending on how crazy you and your friends are.
Multiply that by the 333,000 grams of cocaine that could be produced from the 100 metric tons of cocaine leaves being imported into the USA each year, and you come to the astonishing realization that the coca leaves imported for the benefit of the Coca-Cola company can be processed into the equivalent of 6.66 million lines of cocaine each year!
Here’s the math again (calculations are all rounded for the sake of convenience, so they’re just rough estimates):
100 metric tons of coca leaves = 100,000 kilograms of coca leaves
100,000 kilograms of coca leaves produces 333 kilograms of cocaine
333 kilograms equals 333,000 grams
333,000 grams of cocaine can be divided into 6.66 million “lines” of cocaine
P.S. According to Wiki Answers, 333,000 grams of cocaine is worth roughly $16.7 million on the street (at $50 a gram).
It strains the limits of believability to think that 333,000 grams of cocaine are being used for “medical purposes” in America. How and where are 333,000 grams of cocaine being used for “medical purposes?” I mean, have you ever gone to your doctor and watched him write a prescription for cocaine? Nope.
This seemingly leaves only three possibilities for where all this cocaine is going:
Possibility #1) The Mallinckrodt company might be stockpiling massive amounts of cocaine each year, perhaps dwarfing Disneyland’s “Space Mountain” ride.
Possibility #2) The Mallinckrodt company might be somehow destroying massive amounts of cocaine each year. (But human greed probably prevents this from happening, given that this white power is so darned valuable…)
Possibility #3) The Mallinckrodt company might be “losing track” of massive amounts of cocaine each year (i.e. is disappears out the back door and into the hands of DEA agents and politicians who keep the whole operation “legal”). This is one case where brown-nosing the DEA leaves a thin layer of white dust on your nose, too.
Or hey, maybe all this cocaine is being quietly distributed to all the doctors and pharmacists who are chronically addicted to drugs themselves — it’s a huge percentage of the medical workforce because they have access to drugs on a day-to-day basis and they think they need a pharmaceutical kick to survive their long work hours. 6.66 million lines of cocaine is enough to keep a few thousand pharmacists churning away, filling high-profit prescriptions for painkillers and psychiatric drugs that turn everybody else into addicts, too.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Popular Painkiller Could Cause Patients to Commit Suicide
February 22, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 22nd, 2011
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
A popular and powerful prescription painkiller may be causing people to kill themselves, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Pain Clinic Bergmannsheil at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, and published in the journal Pain.
Six years ago, a new painkiller named ziconotide (also known as SNX-111 and Prialt) was approved by the FDA for patients in which the older, more well-known opioid drugs prove either ineffective or addictive. Derived from the lethal venom of the cone snail (Conus magus), ziconotide acts by directly blocking the pain receptors in the brain.
Although ziconotide appears to be non-addictive, increasing concerns have emerged that it may cause unintended effects in the brains of patients, increasing their risk of suicide. According to the new study, the drug deteriorates patients’ states of mind while reducing both anxiety and impulse control. While this will not produce suicide in all patients, it may drastically increase the risk in psychologically vulnerable people.
In addition to analyzing growing reports of suicide associated with ziconotide prescription, the authors use case studies to make their point. In the first, a patient who had suffered from untreatable pain for years finally gained relief from ziconotide, apparently without side effects. His depression, never severe to begin with, apparently decreased. Three weeks after starting ziconotide, he killed himself without warning.
In another case, a woman who had been undergoing pain treatment for 14 years and who had attempted suicide while suffering from depression 20 years previously was prescribed ziconotide. Two months later, she experienced an increase in suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, confusion and partial amnesia. She suffered two car accidents, which may have been cause by the psychic side effects, possibly including suicidal urges. When ziconotide treatment was halted, all suicidal thoughts and other psychological side effects ended.
The researchers called for careful psychological monitoring of any patients who are prescribed ziconotide.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
FDA Rejects Another Proposed Diet Pill
February 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 3rd, 2011
AOL Health
By: Deborah Huso
U.S. health officials have denied approval of the experimental weight loss drug Contrave, requesting that the manufacturer conduct more studies to address concerns about possible heart problems.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a letter Monday telling drug maker Orexigen Therapeutics that they must do a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of “sufficient size and duration” to demonstrate the risk of major cardiovascular events in overweight and obese subjects taking Contrave.
FDA spokeswoman Karen Riley declined to comment to AOL Health on the particular notice sent to the company, but explained that a so-called “letter of complete response” like the one issued “indicates that the review cycle for an application is complete and that the application is not ready for approval.” Such a report also outlines what changes need to be made to the drug.
Riley said the FDA only approves drugs that are both “safe and effective.”
Contrave contains bupropion, an antidepressant, and naltrexone, a treatment for alcohol and painkiller addiction. Previous drugs touted as weight-loss remedies have been under fire for causing heart attack and stroke in some patients.
“There continue to be concerns about the cardiovascular risk of this drug combination,” Dr. Wayne Andersen, the medical director of Take Shape for Life, told AOL Health. “Contrave is a combination of two approved drugs that target different parts of the brain influencing appetite and cravings.”
He said existing clinical studies on Contrave showed that it caused blood pressure and heart rate to rise among the control group, a trend that continued after weight was lost.
“[The drug] could potentially increase the risk of cardiovascular events such as angina, heart attacks or strokes,” he said.
The current available weight loss medications, including Contrave, are problematic because they are combinations of older drugs that can have “long-term systemic effects on the body,” according to Andersen.
“They must be used indefinitely or the weight loss is regained,” he said. “Any result of the current weight loss drug would require indefinite use with the potential of dangerous side effects.”
A much safer way to battle weight gain is to change diet and exercise habits, rather than take pills, Andersen said.
Orexigen said it was disappointed about the FDA’s decision, but intends to address the government’s concerns.
“We plan to work closely with the agency to gain more information to determine the appropriate next steps regarding the Contrave application,” said company president and CEO Michael Narachi in a statement.
The drug has already been tested in several clinical trials on 4,500 patients.
“They would likely need to do an extensive, costly and long-term study to evaluate that the benefits of weight loss outweigh the cardiovascular risks,” Andersen said, which will probably result in a years-long delay in FDA approval.
The FDA’s denial is the third time the agency has tossed out a proposed diet drug since last year. The fact that the government requested another study indicates approval may be in Contrave’s future, however.
Contrave has been considered to be the best of the trio of new diet pills recently submitted for the FDA green light. Four of 10 patients taking it for 12 months lost 5 percent or more of their body weight, and the drug is safer than the other two options recently offered.
Click here for the full report from AOL Health
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-27-11
Today, Kevin goes over the important rules to follow before jumping into a business venture or making an investment. Plus, find out how the Shroud of Turin defies science and why people are so angry about Kevin’s dissertation about the Iraqi Dinar.
Self Help:
Change Your DNA
Be Prepared
Health:
Rich People Found To Live Longer
Love May Be Nature’s Painkiller
Government:
Wall St. Mogul Picked For State Department Post
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-18-10
Today, Kevin explains how the Wikileaks documents prove that aliens are here on earth and that we are heading towards a new world order and one world currency.
Self Help:
Find A Holistic Doctor
Prepare For A Disaster
Health:
Rolaids Recalls 13 Million Packages
FDA Pulls Darvon Painkiller Due to Safety Risks
Corruption:
Ethics Committee Recommends Censure for Charlie Rangel
Jack Camp Stripped of Judgeship for Helping Stripper Buy Cocaine, Pot
FDA Is Criticized for Training Deals
Watchdog Says FDA Risked Integrity
U.S. Reviews FDA Scientists’ Complaints
Duke Cancer Researcher Quits as Papers Questioned
Wealth:
Why Warren Buffett Hates Gold
Congress Getting Richer, Despite Market Meltdown
UK:
Royalty Attacked By Protesters Over Tuition Hikes
Truth:
I Am Julian Assange
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
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Kevin’s Film Club
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Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
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FDA Pulls Painkiller Due to Safety Risks
December 13, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 13th, 2010
Fox News
The maker of the painkiller Darvon is pulling the drug off the market under pressure from public health officials who say it causes dangerous heart rhythms.
The Food and Drug Administration says the drugmaker Xanodyne will halt marketing of Darvon and related brand Darvocet. The FDA has also called on generic drugmakers to stop marketing low-cost versions of the drug.
The FDA action puts the U.S. in line with Britain, which banned Darvon several years ago due to suicides and accidental overdoses.
Darvon, first approved in the 1950s, is an opioid used to treat mild to moderate pain.
Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com, said Darvon is still prescribed for chronic pain, mostly in generic form, although not very often.
“These types of drugs are in a class of their own,” Alvarez said. “They are old and there are certainly newer drugs that are far more sophisticated and even safer.”
The consumer watchdog group Public Citizen had petitioned the FDA to ban the drug, saying its benefits didn’t justify a risk that added up to several hundred deaths a year.
Click here for the full report from Fox News
FDA Pulls Painkiller Darvon Over Safety Risks
November 22, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
November 22nd, 2010
AOL News
By: Matthew Perrone
The maker of the painkiller Darvon is pulling the drug off the market under pressure from public health officials who say it causes dangerous heart rhythms.
The Food and Drug Administration says the drugmaker Xanodyne will halt marketing of Darvon and related brand Darvocet. The FDA has also called on generic drugmakers to stop marketing low-cost versions of the drug.
The FDA action puts the U.S. in line with Britain, which banned Darvon several years ago due to suicides and accidental overdoses.
Darvon, first approved in the 1950s, is an opioid used to treat mild to moderate pain.
The consumer watchdog group Public Citizen had petitioned the FDA to ban the drug, saying its benefits didn’t justify a risk that added up to several hundred deaths a year.
Click here for the full report from AOL News
Love May Be Nature’s Painkiller
October 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
October 14, 2010
BBC News
Love hurts, at least according to many a romantic songwriter, but it may also help ease pain, US scientists suggest.
Brain scans suggest many of the areas normally involved in pain response are also activated by amorous thoughts.
Stanford University researchers gave 15 students mild doses of pain, while checking if they were distracted by gazing at photos of their beloved.
The study focused on people early in a romance, journal PLoS One reported, so the “drug of love” may wear off.
The scientists who carried out the experiment used “functional magnetic resonance imaging” (fMRI) to measure activity in real-time in different parts of the brain. It has been known for some time that strong feelings of love are linked to intense activity in several different brain regions.
These include areas linked to the brain chemical dopamine, which produces the brain’s feel-good state following certain stimulants – from eating sweets to taking cocaine.
“Light up”The Stanford University researchers had noticed that when we feel pain, some of the same areas “light up” on the scans – and wondered whether one might affect the other.
They recruited a dozen students who were all in the first nine months of a relationship, defined as “the first phase of intense love”.
Each was asked to bring in a picture of the object of their affection and photos of what they deemed an equally attractive acquaintance. While their brains were scanned, they were shown these pictures, while a computer controlled heat pad placed in the palm of their hand was set up to cause them mild pain.
They found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.
Dr Jarred Younger, one of the researchers involved, said that the “love-induced analgesia” appeared to involve more primitive functions of the brain, working in a similar way to opioid painkillers.
“One of the key sites is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction centre for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse.
“The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this.”
Professor Paul Gilbert, a neuropsychologist from the University of Derby, said that the relationship between emotional states and the perception of pain was clear.
He said: “One example is a footballer who has suffered quite a painful injury, but who is able to continue playing because of his emotionally charged state.”
He added that while the effect noticed by the Stanford researchers might only be short-lived in the early stages of a love affair, it may well be replaced by something similar later in a relationship, with a sense of comfort and wellbeing generating the release of endorphins.
“It’s important to recognise that people who feel alone and depressed may have very low pain thresholds, whereas the reverse can be true for people who feel secure and cared for.
“This may well be an issue for the health service, as patients are sometimes rushed through the system, and perhaps there isn’t this focus on caring that might have existed once.”
