Gold Prices Spike On Greek Rescue Plan
February 21, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 21, 2012
The Street
By Ross Tucker
Gold prices were rising Tuesday after approval of second bailout package for Greece propped up the euro.
Gold for April delivery was rising $30.20 at $1,756.10 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price has traded as high as $1,757.60 and as low as $1,727 an ounce while the spot price was adding $21.20, according to Kitco’s gold index.
Jon Nadler, senior metals analyst at Kitco Metals, noted that market action has hinged on Greek headlines for weeks, with equities and the euro rising on positive news and falling after missed deadlines. With the deal now in place, Nadler believes investors can return their focus to the bigger — and more problematic — picture.
“Now that the red wax seal is drying on the 130 billion euro package and the many strings that are attached to it, the markets can focus on the remaining troublesome items — banking sector problems and Greece’s own inability to avoid coming back to knock on the EU’s door for more assistance, at a later date,” said Nadler. “There appears to be little doubt that in order for the country to bring debt down to 120% of GDP such further help will be necessary. As things stand right now, if Greece is lucky, that ratio might get down to 129% by — 2020 or so.”
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Rep. Ron Paul says son Rand ‘detained’ by TSA
January 23, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
January 23, 2012
USA Today
By Ben Mutzabaugh
“This should outrage everyone in the country. What is happening to the Unites States? Why are we allowing this to happen?” –KTRN
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was “detained” earlier this morning by Transportation Security Administration agents in Nashville, Paul’s father Ron Paul, R-Texas, said this morning via Facebook and Twitter.
The TSA, however, disputed that assessment, telling Politico.com that Rand Paul was “not detained at any point.”
Instead, the TSA told The Tennessean newspaper it simply barred Rand Paul from entering the secure area of the airport after he refused a pat-down that was required following an “irregularity” in his screening.
RESPONSE: Paul slams ‘police state’ after son stopped at airport
“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” agency spokesman Jon Allen said to the newspaper. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”
Rand Paul apparently booked another ticket out of Nashville after the incident and passed through screening without incident on his second try, according to the TSA.
An agency spokesman tells The Hill publication that Paul “has since rebooked on another flight and was rescreened without incident.”
Still, Rand Paul’s initial run-in with TSA already was generating headlines after father Ron got the word out via social media.
Ron Paul initially addressed the incident via Twitter, saying:
Click here for the full report.
J&J Recalls 40,000 Bottles of Schizophrenia Drug Risperdal
June 28, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
June 28th, 2011
NaturalNews.com
By: Jonathan Benson
The Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Co.’s pharmaceutical division just cannot seem to get its act together. A recent recall involving 16,000 bottles of its schizophrenia drug Risperdal, and 24,000 bottles of a generic version of the same drug, mark yet another in the growing dozens the company has initiated over the past several years. And once again, the cause of the most recent recall involves the same strange odors caused by a palette chemical used to ship the drugs that also spurred earlier recalls.
According to a recent Reuters report, trace amounts of tribromoanisole, a chemical used to treat the wood palettes that store and ship the company’s drugs, apparently keep contaminating the drugs themselves, which is the same reason why the company had to initiate earlier recalls of Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, and others. Though the company claims, without much evidence of course, that the chemical is not harmful to health, officials admit it is at least a nuisance.
“While not considered to be toxic, TBA can generate an offensive odor and a very small number of patients have reported temporary gastrointestinal symptoms when taking other products with this odor,” said J&J in a recent press release.
Sold by the company’s Patriot Pharmaceuticals unit, Risperdal, known generically as risperidone, is the same harmful drug that prompted personnel from Michigan’s Child Protective Service (CPS) to target the now-infamous Maryanne Godboldo. As many NaturalNews readers now know, Godboldo had stopped giving her daughter Risperdal because its side effects were making the girl’s condition worse, which was her right to do, and was later raided by a SWAT team that illegally abducted her daughter.
Risperdal is known to cause abdominal pain, vomiting, aggression, anxiety, dizziness, and lack of coordination. Add to that the scent and taste of toxic chemicals, and it becomes obvious why J&J is opting to voluntarily recall the tainted drug, even if it supposedly poses no additional health risks.
To see the long list of J&J recalls that have taken place in recent years, visit: http://www.naturalnews.com/J&J.html
Click here for the full report from NaturalNews.com
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 6-22-11
Today, Kevin gives you the full history behind why he was forced to create such a revolutionary supplement program.
Self Help:
Lose Weight Fast!
No Meat Glue Here!
Eliminate Negative Blockages
Health:
Coumadin Recalled Over Potency Fears
Wealth:
Gold and Silver Fall Due To Dollar’s Rise
Deutsche Bank Accused Of Massive Mortgage Fraud
Everything Kevin:
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Stand with KT!
Kevin is on YouTube!
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Click below to watch the Kevin Trudeau Show!
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 5-12-11
Today, Kevin gives you the full history behind why he was forced to create such a revolutionary supplement program.
Self Help:
Lose Weight Fast!
No Meat Glue Here!
Eliminate Negative Blockages
Health:
Coumadin Recalled Over Potency Fears
Wealth:
Gold and Silver Fall Due To Dollar’s Rise
Deutsche Bank Accused Of Massive Mortgage Fraud
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Stand with KT!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become A Fan of Kevin 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!
Bipolar Drug’s Long-Term Use Questioned
May 11, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
May 11th, 2011
The Huffington Post
The growing use of a popular drug in the long-term treatment of bipolar disorder is based largely on a single, flawed clinical trial that may be steering doctors and patients away from drugs with a more established track record, a new review published this week in the journal PLoS Medicine suggests.
The drug, Abilify (aripiprazole), was initially used to treat schizophrenia and acute episodes of mania, the better-than-good feeling that characterizes bipolar disorder. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also approved it for long-term use in bipolar patients whose moods have stabilized (known as “maintenance” therapy).
Since then Abilify sales have more than doubled, according to market research cited in the review. And a 2008 survey of doctors found that it had become the first-choice drug for bipolar maintenance therapy among 23 percent of psychiatrists and 16 percent of primary care physicians.
The medical research does not appear to justify the widespread use of Abilify for maintenance therapy, says psychiatrist Alexander C. Tsai, M.D., one of the lead authors of the review and a visiting researcher at Harvard University. “We failed to find sufficient data to support its use.”
Tsai emphasizes that individuals taking Abilify for bipolar disorder should not abruptly stop the medication. “It may actually be working for some people,” he says. “But it’s certainly worth talking to your doctor about how it’s working for you.”
After noticing that a growing number of patients seemed to be asking for Abilify by name, Tsai and his colleagues performed an in-depth search of double-blind, randomized controlled trials–both published and unpublished–on the use of Abilify for the long-term treatment of bipolar disorder. Studies of that design are considered the gold standard of medical research.
Their search turned up just one clinical trial, data from which was used in two published studies. The trial was funded jointly by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese company that developed Abilify, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, which markets the drug in the U.S.
That trial had several important limitations, according to Tsai and his coauthors. For one, they say, it may have been too short to judge the drug’s true effectiveness in preventing mood swings over the long term. The first phase of the trial lasted for 26 weeks, and less than one-fifth of the participants went on to complete the 48-week follow-up phase.
What’s more, the study population was limited to people whose mood had already stabilized on Abilify during the preliminary phase of the trial, and the placebo group therefore consisted of patients who were abruptly switched from Abilify to placebo. The potentially harmful effects of rapid drug withdrawal may have made the placebo group appear artificially prone to relapse–the key finding that made Abilify appear beneficial, Tsai and his colleagues say.
Psychiatrists have continued to refer to the results of the trial despite these weaknesses, Tsai says. “Frankly, I think it’s an embarrassment to the profession that [Abilify] has been accepted so uncritically for this indication.”
Gregory E. Simon, M.D., a psychiatrist at Group Health Research Institute, in Seattle, says that the perceived flaws noted in the review are not so clear-cut. “The methods of studying long-term effectiveness are complex, and experts disagree regarding the best ways to study this question,” he says.
Alternatives within the same class of drugs, known as atypical antipsychotics, include Seroquel (quetiapine) and Zyprexa (olanzapine). Older drugs, such as lithium, also remain in popular use.
Evidence for the long-term effectiveness of lithium is far stronger than that for newer medications, including Abilify, Simon says. For that reason, lithium remains his first-line treatment for maintenance therapy in bipolar disorder, despite the potentially dangerous side effects associated with too-high doses.
The increased use of Abilify for maintenance therapy may be leading to higher treatment costs for consumers, Tsai says. Abilify runs upwards of $600 for a month’s supply and is not yet available in a generic form. “But our main concern,” he adds, “is that patients are getting diverted from more effective treatments.”
Sonia Choi, the director of public affairs for Bristol-Myers Squibb, said in a statement that the company has conducted five long-term studies of Abilify in the maintenance of bipolar disorder, some of which were presented at medical conferences rather than published in peer-reviewed journals. (Dr. Tsai and his colleagues restricted their analysis to peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials.)
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka are committed to making data from those studies available to physicians, Choi said. “We are confident in the Abilify clinical development program and will continue to make available information about the efficacy and safety of Abilify from our studies in this and other indicated uses.”
Sandy Walsh, an FDA spokesperson, said the agency will review the new study.
Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post
The 5 Most Profitable Drugs: They Never Cure You
January 5, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
January 5th, 2010
The Village Voice
By: Jason Parham
In this week’s cover story, writer Keegan Hamilton investigates the controversy surrounding ibogaine, the experimental hallucinogen drug that has helped kick meth and heroin addictions.
Ibogaine is illegal, even though its power to cure addicts has been proven. Hamilton’s story describes the many reasons the medical establishment and the government are wary of Ibogaine, despite its benefits, but one of them really stood out:
Because Ibogaine is an outright cure, drug companies want nothing to do with it.
Martin Kuehne, a chemist at the University of Vermont, is quoted in the story, saying, “Pharmaceutical companies don’t like cures. Really, they don’t — that’s the sad thing. They like treatment. Something for cholesterol or high blood pressure that you take for years and years, every day. That’s where the profit is.”
When we read that, a light went on. The worst thing for a drug company is a pill you take that completely cures you of your ailment with one dose, right? Where’s the money in that?
So, with that in mind, we thought we’d test Kuehne’s theory, and look at the five most profitable drugs in the United States.
Guess what they all have one in common? They never cure you.
1) Lipitor (2009 gross revenue: $7.5 billion): Designed to lower cholesterol, Lipitor uses statins to decrease LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increase HDL cholesterol levels. Studies indicate that high cholesterol increases one’s chance for heart disease, the leading health problem in the U.S.
2) Nexium (2009 gross revenue: $6.3 billion): This well-marketed drug decreases the amount of acid produced in the stomach, but it’s not an instant cure for heartburn.
3) Plavix (2009 gross revenue: $5.6 billion): Nobody likes a nasty blood clot, and this drug prevents that from happening, particularly after a stroke or a heart attack. The downside: Plavix increases your chances of small-injury bleeds and, if drinking alcohol, heightens your risk of stomach and intestinal bleeds.
4) Advair Diskus (2009 gross revenue: $4.7 billion): For asthma sufferers, a twice-daily inhaler to reduce the swelling in your respiratory system. Helps keep attacks from being more severe.
5) Seroquel (2009 Gross: $4.2 billion): Rounding out our top 5 is Seroquel, an anti-psychotic drug that treats schizophrenia, severe depression, and bipolar disorder by altering chemical activity in the brain.
Click here for the full report from The Village Voice
Studies Show Adverse Side Effects in Schizophrenia Drugs
December 28, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 28th, 2010
Natural News
By: Amy Chaves
The November 2010 issue of Nature reported that several large pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, have chosen to pull out of the psychiatric pharmacology in the treatment of schizophrenia. The reason is obvious, according to Nature author, Abbott: The first generation of schizophrenia drugs (manufactured in the 1950s) and the second generation (manufactured in the 1990s) have not addressed the adverse side effects of antipsychotic drugs on patients.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes schizophrenia as a mental disorder that interferes with a person’s ability to identify what is real. A person affected with this disorder is not able to manage emotions, cognition, as well as communication. Symptoms could appear in early adolescence as “early flickers of paranoia, hypersensitivity, and hallucination” (Dobbs, 2010). According to WHO, schizophrenia is usually characterized by disruptions in the most fundamental human attributes such as perception, language, thought, emotion, and sense of self. In 2001, WHO estimated that schizophrenia affects 7 per thousand of the adult population (the equivalent of 24 million worldwide), mostly between 15 to 35 years old.
The same November 2010 issue of Nature discussed about a US clinical trial involving nearly 1,500 patients in 57 clinical sites, and at a cost of US$43 million. This trial examined an array of second generation antipsychotic drugs to determine if they were better than the first generation antipsychotic drugs. The clinical trial spanned from 2001-2005. When the results of the unblinded trial were released in 2005, the psychiatric community and pharmacological companies were astounded: the findings suggest that the new drugs were barely different from the old ones.
Although both generations of anti-psychotic drugs were reported to control hallucinations and delusions, patients taking the second generation drugs remained confused, withdrawn, and devoid of drive, the same side effects observed in the first generation drugs. The result of this clinical trial, according to psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, is frustrating and humbling for the research community and it had a chilling effect on the pharmaceutical industry (Abbott, 2010).
A systematic review in 2003 by Bagnall, et al., examined the effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness of atypical antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia. The review consisted of 171 randomized, controlled trials, of which 28 were from drug manufacturers. Although the review showed that atypical drugs (i.e., risperidone, amisulpride, olanzipine, and clozapine) were seen to be more effective in relieving symptoms of schizophrenia than typical ones, it nonetheless found the following common side-effects: agitation, movement disorders, impotence, dry mouth, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, and weight gain.
The same systematic review examined the safety of these drugs and some of the following adverse reactions were found: death, malignant syndrome, seizures, hepatic dysfunction, and cardiac problems.
A systematic review, involving the application of scientific strategies to limit bias, is a synthesis of relevant studies that address specific clinical questions. Reviews of this kind are considered as the best evidence for making clinical decisions.
The findings of the 2001-2005 US clinical trial and the systematic review of Bagnall, et al. point to the ineffectiveness of anti-psychotic drugs in dealing with schizophrenia. Considering that up to 1% of the world’s population is estimated to be affected by this disorder, schizophrenia represents a huge market for any pharmaceutical. However, as research have shown, the pharmaceutical industries have done little in 50 years to address the adverse side-effects that patients have experienced from antipsychotic drugs .
Click here for the full report from Natural News
U.S. War Veterans Being Killed With High-Dose Psychiatric Drugs
December 7, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 7th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Questions are being raised over whether a widely prescribed anti-psychotic drug may be contributing to the deaths of traumatized U.S. war veterans.
Among those who recently died while taking AstraZeneca’s blockbuster drug Seroquel are Marine corporals Andrew White and Chad Oligschlaeger. Both were being given multiple drugs, including Seroquel, for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both died in their sleep.
Before his death, White was being given more than double the maximum recommended Seroquel dose for patients suffering from schizophrenia.
“He was told if he had trouble sleeping he could take another pill,” said his father, Stan White.
Seroquel is the United States’ fifth-best-selling drug, and one of the top prescribed drugs by the Veteran Affairs Department. Since the start of the Afghanistan war, government spending on the drug has increased more than 770 percent to $8.6 million per year. Yet in the same time period, the number of patients being treated by the department increased by only 34 percent.
The drug is approved only for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, yet it is commonly given to vets for insomnia and other PTSD symptoms. According to The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge, other side effects “may include dry mouth, blurred vision, and tardive dyskinesia, typified by involuntary movements of the lips, mouth, and tongue.” Other proven side effects include weight gain and diabetes, while new research suggests that the drug may also cause sudden heart failure.
Medical examiners concluded that both White and Oligschlaeger died of “multiple drug toxicity” caused by a deadly interaction between the different drugs they were taking; such deaths are not recorded as caused by any single drug. Yet family and advocates of vets are becoming increasingly concerned that Seroquel may bear a large part of the blame for such deaths, and are calling for a reevaluation of prescribing practices for the drug.
“Right now, I’m so angry, and I believe someone needs to be held accountable,” said Oligschlaeger’s mother, Julie Oligschlaeger. “The protocol absolutely has to change.”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Pfizer Ends Trial After Widespread Overdosing of Children With Psych Drug
October 18, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
October 18th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Drug giant Pfizer has canceled a scheduled clinical trial of its antipsychotic drug Geodon after the FDA accused it of subjecting child participants in a prior study to “widespread overdosing.”
“After careful consideration, the company decided not to proceed with the study,” Pfizer spokesperson Gwendolyn Fisher said.
Fisher said that although the company had taken “preparatory steps” toward the trial, it had decided to abandon the study in order “to meet regulatory timelines.” No patients were enrolled.
Pfizer is seeking FDA approval to market Geodon for the treatment of bipolar disorder in children between the ages of 10 and 17. An FDA panel already rejected this use once in 2009 by a vote of 10-7, expressing concern that large numbers of participants had failed to complete clinical trials of the drug. The FDA asked Pfizer for further information on the drug’s safety in children, and the company responded by launching pediatric trials of the drug.
In April, the FDA warned the company that researchers in charge of the trials were engaging in “significant violations,” including “widespread overdosing” caused by inadequate company oversight.
Five months earlier, Pfizer had agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle a collection of federal and state criminal and civil charges that it had improperly marketed Geodon and three other drugs.
Geodon, which made Pfizer $1 billion in 2009, is already approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in adults. Its competitors AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have already secured FDA approval to use their respective antipsychotics Seroquel and Zyprexa to treat bipolar disorder in children.
Treatment of children with antipsychotics remains a controversial practice amid growing concern over major side effects such as severe metabolic changes and weight gain.
Although Geodon’s most recent safety trial has been canceled, the company made it clear that it still plans to secure FDA approval for pediatric use of the drug.
