Johnson & Johnson Slapped With $1.2 Billion Penalty In Arkansas

April 17, 2012

Natural News

By Ethan A. Huff

“Isn’t it funny how most people think Johnson & Johnson is this wholesome family company?  After all, they make baby shampoo.”  –KTRN

The chickens are coming home to roost for drug giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J), as a jury in Arkansas has found the company guilty of fraudulently marketing and selling the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. But this time, the penalty for J&J’s crimes is a whopping $1.2 billion which, to date, collectively totals more than $2 billion in fines and settlements the company has already had to shell out just for cases involving Risperdal.

Reutersreports that a jury atPulaski County Circuit Courtin Little Rock, Ark., recently found J&J guilty of illegally marketing Risperdal for unapproved uses, bilking the Arkansas state Medicaid insurance program for millions of dollars, and withholding the truth about the drug’s deadly side effects. The consequence is that J&J will have to pay out $5,000 for each of the 240,000 Risperdal prescriptions the state Medicaid program paid for during a three and a half year period, as well as $2,500 for the more than 4,500 letters the company sent to Arkansas doctors.

“(The ruling) sends a clear signal that big drug companies like Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a division of J&J) cannot lie to the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), patients and doctors in order to defraud Arkansas taxpayers or our Medicaid dollars,” Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is quoted as saying byBusinessWeekin response to the ruling.

The decision is likely to set a precedent for the dozens of other state lawsuits filed against Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the division of J&J responsible for Risperdal, that await proper hearings. Though earlier lawsuits against J&J involving Risperdal have already been settled in Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina, the company has many more cases coming up that it now stands to lose, and rightfully so.

The U.S.Department of Justicefiled a lawsuit against J&J back in 2010 as well, alleging that the company paid tens of millions of dollars to nursing home pharmacies to push its drugs on patients, even when cheaper and more effective alternatives were available (http://www.naturalnews.com/027994_Johnson_&_kickbacks.html). And the culmination of this lawsuit, of course, has been a cascade of state and local lawsuits filed against J&J.

“These two companies put profits before people, and they are rightfully being held responsible for their actions,” added McDaniel. “Most attorneys general can do the math, and there’s no reason for any state to settle (their lawsuits against J&J) if they can win really big numbers in court.”

Learn more at Natural News

Pfizer Execs To Stand Trial For Cover-Up Of Drug Trial Results

April 3, 2012

Natural News

By Ethan A. Huff

“Here is more proof that drug companies are evil to the core.”  –KTRN

Four former executives at Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug company. — Henry McKinnell, John LaMattina, Karen Katen, Joseph Feczko — as well as Gail Cawkwell, Pfizer’s current Vice President of Medical Affairs, will all face trial for allegedly concealing the unfavorable results of drug trials involving Celebrex and Bextra. Courthouse News Service (CNS) reports that U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain has denied requests made by defendants to dismiss the case, which means all five individuals will be held to account for their actions.

The securities class-action lawsuit, which was filed by the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL) on behalf of Pfizer stockholders, alleges that the five defendants violated federal securities laws by concealing the results of studies involving Celebrex, a COX-2 inhibiting anti-inflammatory drug, and Bextra, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was pulled from the market in 2005.

According to the suit, the five defendants made misleading statements in their public filings about the drug trials, and also omitted important information that exposed both Celebrex and Bextra as being dangerous. And despite numerous attempts by Pfizer and the defendants to have the case dismissed or reconsidered, the case will now proceed as intended following Judge Swain’s ruling that the plaintiffs provide sufficient evidence to show that Celebrex and Bextra are “linked to adverse cardiovascular events to a statistically significant degree, and that these results were known to Defendants.”

Click here for the full report.

Prevent Or Reverse Hardening Of The Arteries Without Deadly Pharmaceuticals

March 19, 2012

Natural News

By Paul Fassa

“Pharmaceuticals do not make you healthy – they are of of the main causes of disease and death. You do not need them.” –KTRN

It’s commonly known that cranberry juice is beneficial for clearing and eliminating infections of urinary tracts. But several studies have recently discovered another benefit for cranberry juice – heart health.

Hardened and obstructed arteries lead to blood vessels collapsing or rupturing, initiating heart attacks. Cranberry juice helps arteries become more flexible as well as remaining sufficiently dilated to not obstruct blood flow.

It appears that what helps clear the urinary tract also functions to clear arteries and prevent accumulation of debris leading to atheroscierosis or arteriosclerotic vascular disease (ASVD).

Phytonutrients in cranberries, known as proanthocyanidins (PACs), are the channel clearing agents. PACs do not kill bacteria or eliminate cholesterol. They simply don’t allow bacteria or plaque debris to collect in urinary tracts or arterial walls. Anthocyanins appear in fruits and vegetables colored red or purple.

Other examples are blueberries and Jamaica (huh-my-ka) or hibiscus tea, which Dr. Andrew Weil has noted reduces blood pressure (http://www.naturalnews.com/026285_health_cayenne_tea.html).

Cranberry researchers still used the cholesterol myth
Though strict testing showed improved vascular health and blood flow from drinking cranberry juice, the researchers constantly referred to high cholesterol as their marker. The test reviews are within sources linked below.

But more and more health authorities see cholesterol as a benevolent bystander involved in the mix of debris that forms arterial plaque.

Cholesterol is composed of lipids (fats) that are flexible. Some health experts consider a more unusual suspect is free roaming calcium in the blood that isn’t getting into the bones, but instead is calcifying in the arteries.

According to heart surgeon Dr. Dwight Lundell, arterial inflammation is the cause of heart disease. It usually occurs from trans-fatty acids that are substituted for good fats in our diet. He maintains that cholesterol is not the culprit. It’s actually protective and essential to cellular wall and brain composition.

There is the possibility that bacterial or viral inflammation in the arteries is another factor. Considering how cranberry juice removes, not kills, infectious pathogens in the urinary tract, this characteristic could apply to removing arterial inflammatory sources as well.

Click here for the full report.

Obama’s Executive Order Creates More Pharmaceuticals

February 22, 2012

Activist Post

By Mike Barrett

“Here is just one more example of why this president needs to be replaced. Ron Paul believes in health freedom and natural medicine.” –KTRN

Drug shortages seem to be igniting some problems for pharmaceutical companies and health officials – so much so that president Barack Obama previously issued an Executive Order demanding that the Food and Drug Administration address the shortages.

Per Obama’s request, the FDA is taking action and continues to fight the drug shortages traversing the United States.

Despite mostly being mostly manufactured in China with virtually no inspection, mega-tumor-linked pharmaceutical drugs are now being rolled out more than ever before.

It was only last month when we reported on the struggle pharmaceutical companies are going through with filling prescriptions for ADHD. More than 18 million prescriptions were written for Adderall in 2010, up 13.4 percent from 2009. While pharmaceutical companies would normally be thrilled about this, they are actually struggling to acquire enough of the active ingredient used in the drug, Adderall, to ‘treat’ the ‘disease. This is leading to complications for the drug companies since they are unable to provide for the high demand. Of course the information showing that ADHD can be combated with simple dietary changes is of no concern to drug giants.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration has announced on Tuesday that they will be taking measures to increase the supply of two other drugs – Methotrexate, a drug for children with leukemia, and Doxil, a drug used to ‘treat’ various cancers. Until the FDA successfully increases available supplies of the original drugs, substitute drugs from overseas will be implemented for United States patients. Nearly half of all pharmaceutical drugs within the United States are already produced overseas, with a shocking 81% of the 3,765 unregulated foreign factories never having been inspected by the FDA.

Is an Executive Order from the president that forces the FDA to supply the nation with more pharmaceutical drugs the answer to the nation’s health crisis?

Click here for the full report.

What Is Factory Farming?

February 22, 2012

Food Matters

By Food Matters

“If everyone really knew what went on in factory farms, we would all be vegetarians. The meat is diseased and the animals are tortured.” –KTRN

In the last few decades, consolidation of food production has concentrated power in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations. Many of today’s farms are actually large industrial facilities, not the green pastures and red barns that most Americans imagine. These consolidated operations are able to produce food in high volume but have little to no regard for the environment, animal welfare, or food safety. In order to maximize profits, factory farms often put the health of consumers and rural communities at risk.

What is a Factory Farm?

The government calls these facilities Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a CAFO as “new and existing operations which stable or confine and feed or maintain for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period more than the number of animals specified” in categories that they list out. In addition, “there’s no grass or other vegetation in the confinement area during the normal growing season.”

Numbers for both large and medium CAFOs (factory farms) are listed on the EPA’s site. A large CAFO includes 1000 cattle, 2500 hogs over 55 pounds, or 125,000 chickens. A liquid manure system is used where the animal’s urine and faeces are mixed with water and held either under the facility or outside in huge open air lagoons. These manure systems create a tremendous amount of pollution.

These industrial facilities share many characteristics, including:

Excessive Size

Unnaturally large numbers of animals are confined closely together. Cattle feedlots generally contain thousands of animals in one place, while many egg-laying businesses house one million or more chickens. The main animals for such operations are cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys, but this practice is also applied to sheep, goats, rabbits, and various types of poultry.

Disregard for Animal Welfare

Metal buildings confine animals indoors, with minimal room for normal behaviours and little or no access to sunlight and fresh air.
Animals are mutilated to adapt them to factory farm conditions. This includes cutting off the beaks of chickens and turkeys (de-beaking), and amputating the tails of cows and pigs (docking).

Pens and cages restrict the natural behaviour and movement of animals. In some cases, such as veal calves and mothering pigs, the animals can’t even turn around.

Use of Pharmaceuticals:

Low doses of antibiotics are administered regularly to animals in a pre-emptive move to ward off the diseases bred by unnatural, unsanitary conditions.

In addition to preventive medicines, animals are fed hormones and antibiotics to promote faster growth.

Click here for the full report.

Chemotherapy Effects Genetic Code In Future Generations

February 8, 2012

Natural Society

By Andre Evans

Chemotherapy is an accepted method by the mainstream medical establishment as a means to fight against cancer, but its effectiveness and reliability is highly in question. Now, research even brings into question the effect chemotherapy has on your entire hereditary line, with researchers linking chemotherapy drug usage with DNA mutations that extend to your offspring.

You probably know somebody who has undergone some cancer treatment at one point or another. The effects of chemotherapy on the body are highly destructive, and often leave the cancer patient in a worse state than they were in before.

Unfortunately, using an unnatural chemical substance to effectively blast the cancer cells has the same effect on the healthy functioning cells as well. As a result, most chemotherapy patients are highly damaged by the process and sometimes sustain injuries that are irrevocable.

Three common drugs used for chemotherapy have been found to cause DNA mutations within the users. This is already highly dangerous, but according to new research, this damage may have the ability to pass into future generations. These findings shed light on the long term negative effects pharmaceuticals are having on our bodies. If the bodily effects were not enough to cope with, the use of these treatments may actually have a long term effect on the health of those to come afterward.

Click here for the full report from Natural Society.

CDC Increases Pressure on Parents to Vaccinate Kids with Deadly Toxins

January 17, 2012

Info Wars

By Curt Linderman Sr.

“Isn’t it fascinating (sick) that the minute a new person is born, they are immediately bombarded with drugs?  Wait a second.  Give the kid a second to catch her breath?”  –KTRN

Recently, the CDC, in coordination with HHS and state health departments, has been increasing the pressure on parents to vaccinate their children. In many cases, pressure has been brought on families with phone calls, school notes sent home and now it seems, knocking on your doors. In this video, Natomas, California school officials and a school nurse are seen going door to door trying to vaccinate school children that have not had one of the many DTaP vaccines recommended by the CDC schedule (1). While these school officials are more than likely, concerned about federal dollars that they will be refused for each child that is not fully vaccinated (2) there is little doubt that there is a far more nefarious agenda at hand.

NORC (National Organization for Research at the University of Chicago) is currently working closely with CDC to ensure that all of America’s children are fully vaccinated with the toxic, sickness inducing and physically and mentally debilitating cocktail of toxins, carcinogens, DNA animal fragments and viruses through the National Immunization Survey (3). Calls to your home will be coming soon if you have young children or even teenagers. These calls will most certainly begin with a nice voice at the end of the line asking questions and perhaps even exhibiting true and deep concern regarding the health of your child. In some cases, the actual operator/survey taker might even feel that they are performing a righteous task for the good of the nation and your children. That is the farthest thing from the truth.

So what is the vaccine agenda all about and why is the CDC “ramping-up” their efforts to vaccinate every American? The notion that vaccines are about preventing disease is the first mistake most people make. This might have been the case back when Jenner originally noted that milk maids exposed to cow pox were seemingly unaffected by the more lethal small pox, but this agenda changed dramatically in the early 1900s. In fact, the change in the underlying reasoning for vaccination was so dramatic and fantastically disturbing that even many of the citizens considered to be “awakened” to the globalist agenda cannot comprehend its diabolical nature. Perhaps this is a defense mechanism, I’m not sure, but you must understand the medical history of the past 100 years to truly see what is going on and where we are headed.

Click here for the full report.

Do You Know Where Your Medicine Came From? Over 40% of Pills Made Overseas — Many in Unregulated Factories

January 17, 2012

Alter Net

By Paul Tullis

“Isn’t it amazing that people still reach for a pharmaceutical drug to fix their ‘problem?’ Everyone knows the drugs are dangerous – just listen to the side effects in the commercials.  Oh wait, but they’re safe and effective.  Our mistake.” –KTRN

Headaches. Insomnia. Anxiety. American medicine cabinets are packed with remedies for these common maladies. And up to 40 percent of them are manufactured overseas (along with 80 percent of active ingredients for pharmaceuticals). But a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that in fiscal year 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration visited just 11 percent of the 3,765 foreign factories it is responsible for inspecting — compared to 40 percent of domestic factories. In 2008, the GAO found that the FDA took two to five years to follow up with foreign plants it cited for safety issues — if it followed up at all.

In 2008, 30 products made by a single Indian company were banned by the FDA, and a tainted batch of the blood thinner heparin from one of many hundreds of Chinese pharmaceutical plants was linked to 81 U.S. deaths.

The good news is, the low rate of inspection should soon change: under an agreement reached in August between the generic drug industry and the FDA (expected to win congressional approval in 2012) the generic drug companies would pay $299 million in annual fees to help the FDA inspect their overseas operations. Inspections would happen once every two years, the same rate as at U.S. facilities.

And yet, over-the-counter drugs remain outside the scope of the new agreement. (Nearly all the aspirin and vitamin C consumed in the U.S. is made in Chinese plants that never see an inspector.)

Click here for the full report.

Chemical Found In Deodorants, Face Cream And Food Products Is Discovered In Tumours Of ALL Breast Cancer Patients

January 13, 2012

Daily Mail

By Claire Bates

“This article should wake-up anyone still using regular deodorant.  When you eat healthy and exercise and supplement your diet, guess what?  Your body odor goes away.  You don’t even need deodorant.  Even after a workout, you really shouldn’t smell.”  –KTRN

A chemical widely used as a preservative in cosmetics, food products and pharmaceuticals has been found in tissue samples from 40 women with breast cancer.

A number of studies since 1998 have raised concerns about the potential role of these parabens in breast cancer as they possess oestrogenic properties.

Oestrogen is known to play a central role in the development, growth and progression of breast cancer.

Parabens are a chemical compound found in everyday toiletry products including moisturisers, make-up, shaving foam, tanning lotions and toothpaste.

They are also found in numerous brands of underarm deodorant. However, a causal link has never been found between them and breast cancer.

They are present in processed meats such as sausages, pies and pastries along with other savoury snacks.

Click here for the full report.

Statin Drugs Linked To Higher Diabetes Risk

January 13, 2012

Natural News

By Elizabeth Walling

“You do not need statin drugs to lower cholesterol. Eat a salad and exercise.” –KTRN

A new study confirms a dangerous statin drug side effect: diabetes. Researchers at Harvard Medical School report women over the age of 45 are much more likely to develop diabetes if they’re taking a statin drug.

The study followed more than 153,000 postmenopausal women who enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative study in the 1990s. At the time they enrolled, none of these women had diabetes. Researchers followed up with the women in 2005, and found that nearly 10 percent of women taking statins developed diabetes, compared to only 6.4 percent in women who did not take statin drugs.

Some experts are calling this a “slight” or “modest” increase. However, crunching the numbers reveals a different result: this is a whopping 50 percent increase in the risk for developing diabetes! Because statin drugs are the darling of the medical community, this risk is being played down. But with millions of Americans taking statin drugs, a 50 percent increase really adds up.

This is hardly the first study to turn up the link between statins and diabetes. In fact, there have been several studies demonstrating the same results. For instance, statins were also shown to increase diabetes risk in a randomized controlled study in 2008. More reports about the connection between diabetes and statin drugs were published in The Lancet in 2010 and yet again in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2011.

Although statins are supposed to be helping our hearts, they may be doing just the opposite. The link between diabetes and heart disease is frighteningly strong. The official website for the American Heart Association says, “Adults with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have heart disease or a stroke than adults without diabetes.”

Click here for the full report.

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