Defense Contractors Got Flu Vaccine Before Schools and Hospitals
December 9, 2009
The Raw Story
By Daniel Tencer
Corporate offices at defense contractors and energy companies in Texas received doses of swine flu vaccine at a time when the vaccine was in short supply and the state’s hospitals and schools were receiving none, says a news report published Tuesday.
USA Today reports that Bell Helicopter received 100 doses and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics received 80 doses in October or early November, when the vaccine was scarce. Energy companies Chevron (190 doses) ExxonMobil (160 doses), Dow Chemical (170 doses) and ConocoPhillips (110 doses) also received shipments the newspaper says were destined for the companies’ corporate clinics.
“Thousands of registered providers — doctors, hospitals, schools, pharmacies — in Texas alone got no doses in that period,” USA Today reports
A memorandum circulated in October by Lockheed Martin indicates the company either did not expect to receive the H1N1 vaccine, or was keeping its corporate supply a secret from the rank-and-file.
“A limited supply of H1N1 vaccine is expected to be available from public health authorities in mid-October for high-risk individuals, but corporations including Lockheed Martin are not expected initially to have the vaccine to provide directly to employees,” the memorandum stated.
Yahoo! and Verizon’s Shocking Spying Policies
December 2, 2009
The Raw Story
By John Byrne
A little-noticed letter from Yahoo! to the US Marshals Service offers troubling insight into the surveillance policies of one of the Internet’s largest email providers.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details of Yahoo’s! policies allowing the Justice Department to request wiretaps of its users and the amount they charge US taxpayers per wiretap — the search engine leviathan declared in a 12-page letter that they couldn’t provide information on their approach because their pricing scheme would “shock” customers. The news was first reported by Kim Zetter at Wired.
“It is reasonable to assume from these comments that the [pricing] information, if disclosed, would be used to “shame” Yahoo! and other companies — and to “shock” their customers,” a lawyer for the company writes. “Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies.”
Yahoo! also argues that because their price sheet for wiretaps was “voluntarily submitted” to the US Marshals Service, it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act law.
Verizon, meanwhile, says (letter PDF) they can’t provide details on how much they charge for wiretaps because it would be “confusing.
Back Pain During Pregnancy Reduced With Acupuncture
November 25, 2009
Natural News
By E. Huff
The unique circulatory network that exists between the mother and her developing child is delicate, leading many prenatal health providers to shy away from prescribing any pharmacological methods of intervention to alleviate the lower back pain associated with pregnancy. Since drugs carry heavy side effects for both mother and child, researchers have continued to investigate safer, simpler, more natural methods of mitigation.
Dr. Shu-Ming Wang of the Yale School of medicine suggests that simple, inexpensive acupuncture treatments offer a drug-free method of easing common back and pelvic pain in pregnant women and may help stave off perpetual chronic back pain throughout their lives.
Three groups of women were included in the study; one group receiving real acupuncture, the second group receiving acupuncture in “sham” points, and the third group receiving nothing but self-care. Eighty-one percent of the women in the legitimate acupuncture group experienced a 30 percent or greater reduction in pain while only 59 percent in the phony acupuncture group experienced such results. Of the group receiving no treatment, 47 percent indicated reduction in pain.
After only one week, 37 percent of the women receiving genuine acupuncture treatment were pain free compared to 22 percent in the fake group and only 9 percent in the self-care control group. Those who received veritable acupuncture treatment also experienced a significant improvement in mobility and function compared to the other two groups.
Though not all women remained free of pain in the weeks following the study, researchers indicate that longer-term treatments may produce more sustained relief. Further study is also needed to verify characteristically why some women respond more favorably than others to acupuncture treatment.
Acupuncture continues to make inroads into mainstream medicine due to its veritable effects on reducing pain. Studies conducted on a wide cross-section of pain conditions have seen favorable results, leading the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to support acupuncture as a viable treatment option.
From fibromyalgia and chronic headaches to cramps and arthritis, alternative and complementary doctors are witnessing excellent results in prescribing this inexpensive treatment option for their patients’ ailments rather than pharmaceutical drugs.
