Merck ordered to pay $321 million criminal fine for illegally marketing Vioxx painkiller

Drug giant Merck & Co., creator of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, has been ordered by a federal judge in Boston, Mass., to fork over $321 million in criminal fines for illegally marketing Vioxx, a dangerous painkiller drug that was pulled from the market…

Advanced electrical stimulation technology can repair damaged nerves, restore neuron function with virtually no side effects

(NaturalNews) Patients suffering from nerve damage or paralysis may soon be able to better regain function, thanks to a new electrical stimulation technique developed by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Mass., and engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Science Daily reports that the new method of functional electrical stimulation (FES) reduces electrical output by 40 percent and better protects surrounding nerves and tissues from damage by focusing energy directly to the damaged site. Published in the journal Nature Materials , the findings reveal a method of stimulating neuronal activity in patients with nerve damage that is superior to traditional FES technologies. By reducing the amount of electrical current emitted and better concentrating it into damaged areas, scientists have successfully developed a safer and more efficient method of helping nerve-damaged patients regain function with less damaging side effects. “This new device works by manipulating the concentration of charged ions surrounding the nerve,” said Samuel J. Lin, MD, a surgeon at BIDMC’s Divisions of Plastic Surgery and Otolaryngology, Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and co-author of the study. “This could potentially mean reduced risk to surrounding nerves because less electrical current is required to stimulate the affected nerve.” Since sensory nerves and the nerves that control movements are located very closely together, reducing both the amount of electrical current as well as its spread is crucial to maximizing the benefits and reducing the side effects of FES treatments. And after experimenting with the various ions in the fluid that surrounds nerves, the research team discovered that removing the positively charged calcium ions helps to focus the electrical current on the damaged nerve areas while protecting the healthy areas. “Nerve fibers fire their signals based on the message they receive from the interaction of ions, or charged particles,” added Lin. “The nerves that control movements and the sensory nerves that carry pain signals are extremely close together, so existing FES therapy has had limitations. This (new discovery) is an important step towards the design of a device to help patients suffering from nerve paralysis and chronic neurological conditions.” Sources for this article include: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111121194131.htm

Years of social unrest on the horizon if economies fall like dominoes

(NaturalNews) Have you been paying attention to the economic collapse of Europe? How about the rising debt of the United States ? If not, you should be, because these events are very likely to have a real effect on your future quality of life and safety. Last week leaders from the world’s top 20 economies were warned that a social tsunami is coming if their economies tank in the form of massive unrest that could even lead to the collapse of some governments. The United Nations International Labor Organization says souring economies will bring the loss of millions of jobs, a phenomenon that is likely to trigger social chaos on an unprecedented scale. Think of the Occupy Wall Street protests on steroids. The UN agency austerity measures being taken by some overextended European nations – Greece, Italy, and Portugal, to name a few – have already triggered angry protests. When those measures are ramped up, to bring bloated Eurozone budgets into line with reality, the frustration is only going to rise, and so are the protests for widespread unrest. In 40 percent of the countries it examined, the ILO said risks of social unrest are rising. Uncertainly, anger, frustration and the loss of benefits will all combine to create an environment that, according to some, is due to explode. Barclays chief Robert E. Diamond, Jr., says “the threat of further social unrest remains if we don’t work together to generate stronger economic growth and more jobs.” The rising threat is not without precedent. Economic crises in the past have threatened to tear apart a nation’s social fabric. Events like the Boston Tea Party, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution in 1905, general strikes in Barcelona, Spain in 1919, sit-down strikes in Flint, Mich., Poland’s Solidarity strikes in 1980 and uprisings all throughout the Middle East have all resulted in political changes that, in turn, improved conditions for the populations involved and the governments those protests affected. But this time things are different. People aren’t protesting unfair work conditions, low wages or unsafe environments. Scores of millions are literally losing portions of what they have worked for, the result of overpromising by politicians, and they’re angry about it. Many feel like they have nothing more to lose. And in terms of maintaining civil order, that’s the last thing you want – millions of people who feel so desperate they don’t think things can get any worse for them, no matter what they do. The governments in Europe, as well as the boys and girls in Washington, need to understand they could be sitting on ticking social time bombs. They need to figure out how to dig themselves out of the economic hole they are in, and fast.

Soda consumption linked to teen violence, study finds

(NaturalNews) A new study has found that teenagers who consume high amounts of sugary soda appear to be more prone towards violence than teenagers who consume less or no sugary soda. The more soda a teenager consumes, in other words, the more likely he or she is to show violent aggression towards classmates, a significant other, and even family members. David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard University’s School of Public, and his colleagues instructed a group of 1,878 public school students from inner-city Boston to fill out questionnaires about how much soda they had consumed in the previous seven days. The questionnaires also asked the students how often they carried weapons, consumed alcohol, smoked, and had a violent interaction with another person. The students, who ranged in age between 14 and 18, also answered other background questions about how often they ate meals with their families, and their race. After compiling the data and accounting for other outside factors, the research team discovered that soda intake was directly proportional to violence levels. “What we found was that there was a strong relationship between how many soft drinks that these inner-city kids consumed and how violent they were, not only in violence against peers but also violence in dating relationships, against siblings,” said Hemenway. “It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship was.” The results showed that students who drank one or no cans of sugary soda a week were nearly half as likely as students who drank 14 cans a week to carry a gun or knife to school. The one or no soda group was also about half as likely to commit violence against a partner, or show violent aggression against peers, compared to the high-consumption group. “We don’t know why (there is a strong association),” added Hemenway. “There may be some causal effect but it’s also certainly plausible that this is just a marker for other problems — that kids who are violent for whatever reason, they tend to smoke more, they tend to drink more alcohol and they tend to maybe drink more soft drinks. We just don’t know.” Sources for this article include: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a78af65cc128f522f558eaa64f38258c.3d1&show_article=1

Occupy Wall Street, the American revolution that the mainstream media is ignoring

(NaturalNews) Right now in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and a growing number of other cities, tens of thousands of protestors of all stripes and political persuasions are marching in protest of the corporate corruption that has infiltrated and taken control of the US government — and the mainstream media (MSM), of course, has been virtually absent in covering this massive and escalating demonstration against the current state of US politics. The ongoing demonstrations, which are part of a new movement called Occupy Wall Street (OWS), have already resulted in numerous cases of violent police abuses, the shutting down of the Brooklyn Bridge, and even the voluntary arrival of members of the US armed forces who have reportedly come to help protest and protect protestors from attacks by local law enforcement. Most Americans still have no idea that the protests, which officially began on September 17, 2011, are even taking place, though, because the MSM has been too busy focusing on the next presidential election cycle and other safe, pre-planned news segments. But the events are getting so large and disruptive that the media will be unable to ignore them for too much longer. While not everybody involved in the OWS movement is necessarily fighting against totalitarian government and for true freedom and liberty — InfoWars explains that many protestors are actually demanding bigger government and higher taxes as a solution (http://www.infowars.com/occupy-wall-street-protesters-call-totalitarian-government-re-election-of-obama/) — some of the protestors do appear to understand that big government is the problem, and not the answer. But regardless of what the protestors believe as a whole, they still have every right to peacefully gather and protest without being abused by their own government. And unfortunately many protestors’ constitutional rights have been violated, as early reports and video clips that spread like wildfire on YouTube showed police pepper spraying protestors and aggressively arresting individuals for no apparent reason (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/sep/28/occupy-wall-street-anthony-bologna). Then on Saturday, a group of US Army and Marine troops reportedly traveled to New York to help support the movement and offer protection for protestors against police abuse. One Army serviceman by the name of Ward Reilly posted a message on Facebook on his way to the protests saying, “I didn’t fight for Wall St. I fought for America. Now it’s Congress’ turn,” a sentiment apparently shared by the other servicemen veterans traveling to protest locations (http://antinewworldorderparty.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/the-marines-are-coming-to-protect-the-protestors-of-occupy-wall-street/). Throughout the week, we will be covering the day-to-day happenings associated with OWS that the MSM is ignoring, so stay tuned for more updates. You can also watch a live feed of the OWS events in New York City at the following link: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Many medical journals have no policies regarding conflicts of interest in published research studies

(NaturalNews) The clinical trial analysis and research studies published in some medical journals — and that are used directly by doctors to diagnose and treat patients — could be posited in biased language due to secret financial ties to drug or medical device companies, and nobody would ever know it. Of 131 cancer journals sampled, a research team found that only 112 of them had any kind of policy requiring published research to state potential conflicts of interest — the other 19 had absolutely no policies whatsoever. Research that appears favorable to a new chemotherapy drug, for instance, might have been secretly prompted and funded by a drug company. But this disclosure would not be required in the 19 cancer journals sampled — and among the other 112, it may or may not be disclosed in a meaningful or consistent manner, the team found. Researchers presenting the findings on the drug in the journal could additionally have been paid to speak highly of it and minimize its side effects — and doctors and other readers would never know the difference. “Journals can’t even agree on what a conflict of interest means,” said Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass., to Reuters Health concerning the findings. “It is certainly confusing to authors and to readers.” Back in 2009, an analysis by researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) Comprehensive Cancer Center found that many clinical cancer studies published in reputable medical journals are directly connected to pharmaceutical companies. The analysis, which itself was published in the American Cancer Society journal CANCER , stated that conflicts of interest cause some researchers to report results that are favorable to drug companies, rather than those that are favorable to the actual truth (http://www.naturalnews.com/026314_cancer_research_studies.html). Kesselheim and his colleagues pored through 1,700 reports derived from various “high-impact” journals, and among the 27 that included editorials, only about half had any sort of conflict of interest disclosures. The others were falsely presented as having come from objective sources. “Physicians — like other professionals — are influenced by incentives, especially financial incentives,” added Kesselheim concerning the findings. “Conflicts of interest and financial relationships can have an impact on the research process and on the reporting of research, and they can also have an impact on physician behavior.” By itself, disclosure of financial and economic ties is not enough to fix the problem of research fraud Lack of consistency among disclosure policies in some journals, and the obvious lack of disclosure policies in others, are both highly problematic issues in medical research. But even if medical journals were to collectively agree on a consistent, standardized method of reporting conflicts of interest, this would not ultimately fix the problem of the inherent research fraud that persists behind the scenes. Speaking about their research concerning conflicts of interest in medical studies, U-M researchers suggested that cancer research in general is so deeply connected to the conventional cancer industry that comprehensive reform would be necessary in order to effectively clean up and restore integrity to the entire body of medical research that gets published today. “Given the frequency we observed for conflicts of interest and the fact that conflicts were associated with study outcomes, I would suggest that merely disclosing conflicts is probably not enough,” said Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, and assistant professor of radiation oncology at U-M, in a media statement in 2009. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that we need to look more at how we can disentangle cancer research from industry ties.” Ghostwriting is another major problem in medical journals, as drug companies routinely pay private consultants to pose as doctors and researchers, and write journal articles promoting various drugs and medical devices. In 2010, an investigation revealed that numerous drug companies including Wyeth (which has since become part of Pfizer), paid writers thousands of dollars to promote synthetic hormone replacement drugs like Prempro (http://www.naturalnews.com/029696_drug_companies_ghostwriting.html). The cancer industry is a racket, and almost all studies promoting expensive drugs are fraudulent Anyone who has been following NaturalNews for a while probably already knows that the cancer industry is a multi-billion-dollar profit machine that thrives on generating fear, and promoting grossly expensive, highly ineffective, treatments. Chemotherapy and radiation, which are the trademarks of conventional cancer treatment, are both completely ineffective at treating most major cancers — and yet these are primarily what cancer journals promote (http://www.naturalnews.com/027705_chemotherapy_fraud.html). These treatments costs tens of thousands of dollars a month, in many cases, and are touted as the only known methods of treating cancer — but in reality, they really do not treat anything, and typically kill patients faster than if they took nothing at all. But savvy natural health enthusiasts know that there are legitimate, alternative methods of both preventing and treating cancer without the use of deadly drugs, radiation blasts, and surgery. These include formal methods like the Gerson therapy (http://www.naturalnews.com/033045_Gerson_tapes_cancer.html), and everyday nutritional and lifestyle changes (http://www.naturalnews.tv/Browse.asp?categoryid=14). In conclusion, a good rule of thumb to use when trying to decide whether or not a medical journal research paper is legitimate or not, is this: if it promotes expensive synthetic drugs or deadly treatments that have nothing to do with lifestyle and nutrition changes, it is likely an industry-funded treatment that should be avoided. Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/22/us-transparency-cancer-idUSTRE76L60S20110722

US government caught in fake vaccination program harvesting DNA from civilians to target terrorists

(NaturalNews) An investigation by The Guardian reveals that CIA agents organized a fake vaccination scheme to harvest DNA from innocent civilians as part of a secret intelligence operation. The scheme was carried out in the town of Abbottabad, where Bin Laden’s family was believed to be hiding. And the purpose of the vaccination scheme was to acquire the DNA of Bin Laden family members in order to identify where Bin Laden was hiding (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna). This is the first time the mainstream media has gone public with a story admitting that vaccines are used as weapons of war , and it proves that vaccination programs sometimes have nothing to do with public health at all (and everything to do with killing people, which was the entire purpose of locating Bin Laden). How could taking DNA samples from civilians help the CIA determine where Bin Laden’s family was located? Because they already had DNA samples from Bin Laden’s sister who died in Boston in 2010. With that DNA sample in hand, it is a simple matter to determine which other samples are genetically related and then zero in on the desired target. Vaccines used to covertly harvest DNA without consent It also shows that vaccinations can be used to harvest DNA without the knowledge of the vaccine recipients. This isn’t even new: The U.S. government openly admitted in 2007 that it harvests the DNA of newborn babies and keeps a “DNA database” of nearly all newborns (http://www.prisonplanet.com/newborns-dna-routinely-harvested-for-government-bio-banks.html). It’s all described in a law called The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1858) which mandates that blood samples from newborns be harvested in order to extract DNA information which is held by the U.S. government. This is all done without parental consent. Hospitals do this secretly and quietly, not raising any alerts or questions over the practice. Most parents have no idea the blood of their baby is being secretly held by the U.S. government. But now we see something far worse: The setting up of a fake vaccination drive whose purpose was solely to harvest DNA in order to track the location of an individual slated to be murdered by the U.S. government. According to The Guardian , the CIA agents even launched the fake vaccination scheme in a poor part of town just to make it look real. They also canvassed the town with vaccination posters that encouraged people to go get vaccinated. A Pakistani doctor named Shakil Afridi was reportedly recruited by the CIA to conduct the vaccination campaign, lending it medical authority and invoking the public’s trust in doctors to trick them into giving up their DNA as part of a wartime intelligence operation. This program was conducted in total violation of medical ethics , using a doctor and a fictitious vaccination program to trick people into giving up their DNA — a blatant violation of human rights as well as international law. This proves that so-called “medicine” can be used as a cover story to conduct illicit government operations with the sole purpose of ending life , not protecting life. Keep that in mind the next time you consider having a needle jabbed in your arm that the government says is “perfectly safe” for you. That’s what they told the children in Pakistan, too. Fake vaccination operations are routinely carried out for a variety of reasons Fake vaccination pushes have, of course, been routinely conducted in the USA to sell vaccine inventories that the government purchased from vaccine manufacturers. For example, even when the risk of the H5N1 swine flu was extraordinarily low, and when the vaccine itself showed near-zero efficacy in actually preventing infections, the CDC was aggressively promoting vaccination campaigns across the nation in order to get more people to buy vaccines that didn’t even work (http://www.naturalnews.com/swine_flu.html). There is also strong evidence that vaccine programs are used around the world right now as a way to reduce the population through chemically-induced infertility. Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to vaccine programs in developing nations, openly describes vaccines as part of an effort to “lower [the population] by 10 or 15 percent.” (http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html) Watch Bill Gates explain this in his own words, in a live audience presentation that’s viewable at: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723 Notice a pattern? What’s really interesting about all the news coming out lately is what we’re learning about our own government: • Through operation Fast and Furious , the U.S. government actively armed Mexican drug gangs with thousands of firearms for the purpose of causing gun violence in America (http://www.naturalnews.com/032934_ATF_illegal_firearms.html). This scam has blown up in the face of U.S. federal officials, and even comedian Jon Stewart exposed the utter ridiculousness of this whole scam in a hilarious comedy bit: http://www.youtube.com/user/oversightandreform?blend=2&ob=5#p/u/0/MvLU7ob7mwA • It is now admitted that the U.S. government conducted illegal medical experiments on Guatemalan citizens. President Obama was recently forced to apologize for the inhumane experimentation after the facts surrounding the practice become publicly known (http://www.naturalnews.com/029924_medical_experiments_Guatemala.html). In truth, even Jonas Salk, the famous inventor of the polio vaccine, was actually engaged in illegal medical experiments conducted on mental patients (http://www.naturalnews.com/031564_Jonas_Salk_medical_experiments.html). • The DEA is well known to actually distribute narcotics as a way to keep enough drugs on the street to justify their own existence. The DEA also routinely ignores state law and conducts armed raids on legal, licensed medical marijuana facilities that are merely providing natural medicine to help ease suffering in patients (http://www.naturalnews.com/021501.html). • Now through the CIA, the U.S. government faked a city-wide vaccination campaign for the sole purpose of harvesting DNA in order to track down someone they wanted to kill. How can you trust a government that actively works against you? So here’s the question: How do you know that vaccination campaigns conducted in the USA aren’t being used to harvest your DNA for some nefarious purpose? How do you know federal agents aren’t working against your interests and causing gun violence in America? How can you trust that vaccines aren’t being used for some secret, dark purpose that hasn’t been made public yet? The answer is that you can’t know for sure whether any vaccination program is actually being conducted for a medical purpose versus some other secret government agenda. The idea that the U.S. government staged fake vaccination programs as an act of war is no longer a bizarre conspiracy theory: It’s a documented historical fact! And if they can pull it off in Pakistan, there’s no reason why they can’t do the same thing in St. Louis, or Sante Fe, or Cleveland. I do not trust the federal government on anything — and especially not on anything that matters such as the national debt, the economy, health care or public health services. The government is not primarily a provider of essential services as is widely believed. Rather, it is actively plotting against the American people through one evil campaign after another: The Wall Street bailouts, the mass expansion of money creation that devalues all our hard-earned dollars, the War in Iraq fiasco, the Fast and Furious operation that has unleashed thousands of firearms into the hands of drug gang members, the continued (inexcusable) approval of GMOs by the USDA, the betrayal of U.S. health by the FDA, and on and on. The examples just never end. Time and time again, the U.S. government has proven itself to be aligned against the freedoms, rights and even the good health of the American people . So the next time your government (CDC, FDA, etc.) tells you to go get vaccinated, think twice about the DNA harvesting operation in Pakistan. Think hard about the true motives of your government, and start asking questions about WHY the population is being so strongly coerced into taking certain actions such as receiving vaccine shots or signing up for mammograms (or psychiatric disorder screening). Virtually every government program that’s advertised as being beneficial to you actually has an alternative agenda that seeks to exploit you, entrap you or otherwise trick you into giving up your money, your freedoms or your health. Big Government doesn’t even pretend to serve the People anymore, it turns out. Government agents don’t consider themselves servants, but rulers! They demand your obedience and your conformity. They despise truth-tellers who dare to question their corruption. Read the story and watch the incredible video about Jennifer Jones from Quartzsite, Arizona, who was arrested for speaking out at a town hall meeting, exposing the corruption of the city council itself: http://www.prisonplanet.com/arizona-woman-arrested-for-speaking-at-city-council-meeting.html See the video, which has been removed from YouTube, here on NaturalNews.TV: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=13394EE3A88E92FD1F6DA7AD9EEA542E Watch your back. The government isn’t watching it for you, folks, and if you don’t look out for your own interests, you will very quickly find yourself bankrupt, hospitalized and trapped in a system of modern economic slavery that is specifically designed to make sure you never escape. Wage slaves. There’s a solution to all this, however: Empowerment through education . The more you read here on NaturalNews, the more empowered you become to make your own choices, take charge of your own health and minimize the risk of loss from the coming economic collapse. Stay informed and you’ll stay ahead of the game. Be a good citizen, but also be an informed citizen who doesn’t fall for the sucker games of the government.

High levels of vitamin D needed for bone density drugs to work, study shows

To fully optimize a drug therapy for osteoporosis and low bone mineral density, patients should maintain vitamin D levels above the limits recently recommended by the Institute of Medicine, according to a new study by researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The study will be presented at the Endocrine Society’s Annual Meeting in Boston, June 4-7.

Expensive screening for blood clots causing dangerous treatments

(NaturalNews) Over the past 13 years, huge numbers of people have likely been treated for a blood clot in the lungs (known as a pulmonary embolism, or PE) that didn’t need treatment at all. As a result some have suffered serious and potentially deadly side effects from blood thinning drugs, in addition to being exposed to unnecessary, cancer-linked radiation. The result is over diagnosing and over treatment of PEs, thanks to the mainstream medical establishment’s rapid, enthusiastic acceptance and massive usage of high tech computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiography (CTPA) — without evidence that every clot it revealed was a killer, or even anything worth treating. Here’s the background: CT scans use a contrast dye and x-rays to produce cross-sectional images or “slices” of areas of the body. Introduced in l998, the version of this test called a CTPA was hailed as a super duper new medical tool that could zero in on the pulmonary arteries. That was supposedly a huge diagnostic breakthrough because the test revealed blood clots quickly, allowing doctors to spot pulmonary PEs early so they could be treated before they caused life-threatening problems. It’s important to keep in mind that, like most diseases and conditions, blood clots don’t usually come out of the blue and are often related to lifestyle and choices. They are more likely to form in your legs during periods of inactivity, such a long cramped airplane trip (if you don’t get up and stretch and walk the aisles frequently), and prolonged bed rest. Dehydration, joint replacement and other types of surgery, cancer, heart disease, and taking certain drugs such as tamoxifen (to prevent breast cancer recurrence), smoking and obesity also up the risk of these clots which can travel to the lungs causing potentially deadly PEs. PEs usually produce warning symptoms, including shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, light headedness and pallor, which should be treated as an emergency. But expensive CTPA testing rapidly spread into mainstream medical practice as a screening tool to catch PEs, whether there were clear symptoms or not. They became so popular (and such money-makers) they soon replaced other tests for PE such as ventilation-perfusion scans and pulmonary angiography. In fact, many major medical centers reported their use of the CTPA test had increased seven to 13 times by 2006. Overall, between 2001 and 2006 alone there was a 11-fold rise in CTPA tests ordered for people covered by Medicare. Because pulmonary emboli can stop your from breathing, go to the heart or brain and kill, improved detection of any PEs had to be a good thing for everyone, right? After all, the medical community assumed using the highly sensitive CTPA test for screening would improve outcomes of this potentially deadly condition by detecting and treating emboli (blood clots) that were previously missed. Not so fast. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that the widespread use of CTPAs led to over-diagnosis and over treatment of this condition. And the consequences are anything but minor. The BUSM research team investigated the incidence rate, death rate and numbers of treatment complications (including gastrointestinal tract or intracranial bleeding from the use of blood thinners) of PE among US adults before (1993-1998) and after (1998-2006) the introduction of the CTPA test. They found the number of people diagnosed with pulmonary embolism was unchanged before CTPA testing became common. However, the numbers of people diagnosed with PE skyrocketed after CTPA – there was an astounding 81 percent increase in PE cases. Did people suddenly start to develop more blood clots in their lungs? Not at all. As the new study points out, this “epidemic” of PEs was the result of more emboli being spotted due to more CTPA screening. Finding blood clots sounds like it should always be a good thing, but as so often happens in mainstream medicine, it turns out that assumptions were made about the benefits of this type of screening — and the dangers of any and all clots — without looking at the whole picture. So consider these facts: the BUSM scientists documented that fewer people were dying from PEs even before CTPA was on the scene (8 percent decrease, from 13.2 percent to 12.1 percent). Fatalities dropped even more when CTPA was introduced (36 percent decrease (from 12.1 percent to 7.8 percent). While that fact in itself would appear to vindicate the widespread use of the test, the PE fatality statistics don’t tell the whole story. It turns out there has been a downright dangerous side to massive CTPA screening. According to the researchers, CTPA detects blood clots that are so small they are clinically insignificant. That means the clots will never cause symptoms or death. Yet these over diagnosed PEs have led to a huge increase in serious complications because of the anticoagulation treatment that’s used routinely for PEs. Before CTPA was a common diagnostic test, the complication rate for emboli was considered stable. But after CTPA was widely used, side effects — sometimes deadly — from the use of blood thinners soared by 71 percent. “Over-diagnosis matters because it can lead to iatrogenic (medical treatment-caused) harm. While a clinically insignificant PE is by definition not harmful, treating such an embolism can cause harm such as bleeding from anticoagulation, which can in the worst case, be fatal,” explained lead author Renda Soylemez Wiener, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of medicine at BUSM, in a statement to the media. “Because the harm of treatment can be substantial, including in the worst case death, it is imperative that we do not turn the problem of under-diagnosis into one of over-diagnosis,” the study concluded. Moreover, the study findings, published in the May 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine warn the ramifications of the widespread use of CTPAs may continue to grow as the use of the test keeps rising. The scientists are calling for a study to find out what common sense might suggest should have been investigated long ago — they want a trial randomizing stable patients with small emboli to observation vs. anticoagulation to see if there’s any evidence at all that everyone with a PE even requires treatment. “Better technology allows us to diagnose more emboli, but to minimize harms of over-diagnosis we must learn which ones matter,” Dr. Soylemez Wiener stated. There are other compelling reasons to look at the widespread use of CTPA to consider if using the test for screening is worth additional known dangers associated with the scan, too. For example, the FDA lists possible allergic reactions or even kidney failure due to the contrast agent, or “dye” used in the test. There’s also an increased lifetime risk of cancer linked to x-ray radiation exposure from CTPAs. A study published in the journal Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine concluded the radiation dose of CTPA for women undergoing a single 64-slice CTPA procedure increases the risk of breast cancer and lung cancer. For a young 20-year-old woman this would be estimated to increase the relative lifetime risk of breast or lung cancer substantially, up to 5.5 percent. For more information: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/ http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/706957_5

Mainstream media regurgitates exact same news on Fukushima, word for word

(NaturalNews) Where can you go to find “trusted” news about Fukushima? Well according to Google News, only the mainstream sources are “trusted” these days. That’s why they’ve removed nearly all alternative news sites from their news index, leaving only the monotone, mindless canned mainstream news sources for people to read. But just how mindless are these mainstream news sources? To find out, I did a Google search on spent fuel rods and plutonium, and the results were a massive regurgitation of the exact same news from multiple mainstream news sources . See the search result yourself with the screen shot we took at: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/GoogleSearchResults-PlutoniumStrickenReactors.gif Here are the news story titles you see in the Google search results: Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Yahoo! News Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Physorg.com Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Washington Post Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Fox News Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Forbes.com Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – CBS News Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – San Francisco Gate Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Boston Globe Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – MSNBC Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools – Denver Post … followed by a long list of local TV news stations regurgitating the exact same news, word for word. Copy and paste the propaganda Now, keep in mind that these news sources are considered the “trusted” news sources by Google News and most consumers. And yet, when you really get right down to it, these are all news sites that merely copy and paste the same exact stories from Associated Press or Reuters. In other words, these sites aren’t even writing their own news! They are worse than bloggers who at least offer some unique analysis of the news. Google says its search engine penalizes sites for carrying “duplicate content.” And yet we see no evidence of penalties for these mainstream news sites that rip off the same exact news, word for word, from the AP and Reuters news wires. After all, these are the top-ranking search results — and they’re all exactly the same! If anybody other than the mainstream media did this, they would be immediately accused of running a “content farm” and be banned from the Google index. For some reason, Google seems to allow the mainstream media a free pass on the mass duplication of the exact same content. In fact, Google News actually seems to favor it! The more you parrot AP and Reuters, the more they love ya! Do you have original news content? They aren’t interested in that. But if you copy and paste Associated Press stories, you get top billing! Did you drink your homogenized, pasteurized news for breakfast? Over the last few months, Google News says it has been “cleaning up” its listing of news sources over the last few months by dropping what it calls “low quality” news sites (which means any independent or alternative media source, of course). The resulting news on Google News is a homogenized, dumbed-down compilation of idiot phrases parroted by the mindless mainstream media. If you want to read the same exact news, over and over again, written by the centrally-controlled AP and Reuters reporters who don’t even understand the laws of physics (http://www.naturalnews.com/031935_mainstream_media_millisieverts.html), then you now know where to get it! If you want independent, intelligent analysis of world events, however, you’ll need to get your news from truly independent sources like NaturalNews.com or Infowars.com. Some of the best sources of information on the Fukushima disaster in particular are www.lucaswhitefieldhixson.com and www.fairewinds.com Make no mistake, folks: Google News used to offer a diverse ecosystem of intelligent news and analysis. It used to be one of my favorite sources for news research. But today, it has sadly become just another mouthpiece for monotonous disinfo regurgitated word for word by all the same conformist media sources. Until Google News decides to bring back independent news sources, I have completely stopped using it, and I advise everyone else to do the same. After all, if I want regurgitated propaganda from the news wires, I can just turn on CNN!

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