September 2008 Health in the News Archive

[ Monthly Index of New Briefs ]

The evidence about our daily bombardment from electromagnetic fields and radio frequencies just keeps coming. According to a University of Washington scientist: 70 percent to 80 percent of the energy emitted from the antenna of a mobile phone is absorbed in your head. The concern about kids using mobiles is because their younger skulls are thinner and their growing brains much more susceptible to radiation exposure.

Is the "convenience" worth a five times increased risk of brain cancer?

Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, and Russia have introduced precautionary policies regarding cell phone usage due to potential health risks.

This is a landmark event in the battle for transparency of genetically modified foods. In South Africa, approximately 60% of the maize crop is GM, 70% of the soya crop, and 90% of the cotton crop is genetically modified.

SAFeAGE recently released the results of random tests conducted on a number of food products, including breakfast cereals, baby foods and staple foods. Some breakfast cereals include a high content of genetically modified organisms (GMO's) while one of the baby products contained a staggering 97.49%. Children's food is already full of additives and pretty stripped of nutrients.

We have long seen high levels of antimony in the urine and stool of children with heavy metal toxicity – not just autistic children. PCBEs are even more disruptive to developing systems. The "body burden" of chemicals inside us is escalating the rates of chronic disease, including cancer. Perhaps we will begin to realize that natural fabrics – cotton, linen, wool – do not have the flash potential of artificial fabrics – nylons, polyesters, etc – and therefore have no need to flame-retardant chemicals. It really is time to wake up and smell the roses, and to make sure that they are real roses, with real petals that fall on the ground.

The biggest problem for all the studies which attempt to link autism to any one trigger is that they are attempting to link all autistic children to the one trigger. We are fairly confident that autism is a syndrome, the final result of a multitude of causative factors. That means some, but not all, of those factors may be operative in any individual case. In a study of only 25 children, it is remarkable that 20% of them developed GI disease after receiving MMR vaccine. Is it not possible that these particular children were susceptible, where the other 20 children were not? And why are some so quick to gloat that vaccines do not "cause autism," when we know that the cause is not one thing but many, and may be different in different individuals. "Only five of the 25 kids with autism got their MMR vaccine before getting bowel disease and autism" still says that 20% had at least a temporal link. I do not believe that we have ruled out vaccinations, nor do I believe that the MMR vaccine is without culpability in some children.

I fail to see the logic in the FDA's statement that vaccination remains the cornerstone of preventing influenza. We are unable to identify the strains which we wish to prevent. If the immune system is strong, not even with a virulent strain of influenza will kill us. And we will be protected against similar infections for the foreseeable future.

And if we really want to be proactive, we can get tested for reaction to fluogen, which is the flu vaccine, and then receive immunotherapy to prevent the reactions and the severe disease (just like allergy shots for pollens or molds). And once again, reading the package inserts – the multi-dose vials contain thimerosal as a preservative. Will we ever learn? Of all the vaccines approved for the 2008 flu season, only one, Fluarix, is formulated without preservative in the final stage of production, although even in this one, thimerosal is used in the early stages of production. There is no flu vaccine which is formulated without thimerosal entirely, although most of them in the single dose format do not have large amounts of mercury in them, only small amounts left over from early in production.

You can understand why so many of us in the "alternative" or "holistic" medical field refuse to accept payment from insurance companies. When it's their sandbox, you play by their rules. I do not choose to treat my patients according to the insurance companies' rules.

Andrew Wakefield is a gastroenterologist and lead author of a controversial 1998 research study, published in The Lancet, which alleged a possible connection between autism and the MMR vaccination. Wakefield proposed that the administration of three live viruses increases the risk of an adverse event occurring, particularly when one of those viruses influences the immune system in the way that measles does. He suggested parents should opt for single jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, separated by gaps of one year.

Although the paper stressed no causal connection had been proven, Wakefield called for suspension of the triple MMR vaccine.

Controversy aside, there is a valid issue here of safety. There is no reason a child has to receive three vaccines with live viruses all in one day – except that it is cheaper so our insurance system is set up to reimburse that. The safer approach is to vaccinate separately. Or better yet, consider letting Nature take its course because a real case of childhood measles will leave an individual immune for life. A vaccine gives just 8-10 years of immunity and an adult case of measles is typically much more serious.

Drug makers already fund more than half of the FDA's drug review process through the mechanism of user fees. This gives the drug makers immense clout in determining how the agency is run. Additionally, about 75% of the new drug trials are contracted out to private, for-profit test centers and which are paid directly by drug companies and not directly supervised by the FDA.

To go to the next step and shield drug companies from lawsuits is to put the fox in charge of the henhouse. And this would come at a time drug makers are increasingly accused of putting profits above patients and spinning false PR campaigns. Going to court is an act of last resort. Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the pharmaceutical industry, consumers will have no recourse.

More than two million adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs are recorded in U.S. hospitals each year. More than 780,000 deaths are associated with drug use each year. To put that in perspective: in 2001, less than 555,000 people died of cancer in the U.S. The 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center claimed less than 3000 lives.

In November 2004, The Wall Street Journal reported that internal Merck & Co. e-mails revealed that some Merck executives were well aware of the serious heart attack dangers associated with Vioxx. But instead of sending out warnings to doctors and Vioxx users, they wondered how they could design a study that would make the risks appear minimal. Vioxx went on to kill some 60,000 people.