Wall Street trader stuns world by telling the truth about coming economic collapse

(NaturalNews) In a BBC interview aired last week, Wall Street trader Alessio Rastani stunned the world by actually telling the truth. Notice that he hasn’t been asked back for any interviews? Watch the full interview on NaturalNews.TV: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=5EB5AE1587E1511154FCBF8366BD15EC Here’s the complete transcript: Alessio Rastani: : …it’s gonna crash and it’s gonna fall pretty hard. Because markets are ruled right now by fear. Investors and the big money, the smart money …I’m talking about the big funds, the hedge funds, the institutions, they don’t buy this rescue plan. They basically know that the market is toast. They know that the stock market is finished, the Euro as far as they’re concerned they don’t really care, they’re moving their money away to safer assets like Treasury bonds, 30 year bonds, and the US dollar. So it’s not gonna work. Maxine Croxall: : We keep hearing that whatever the politicians are suggesting — it’s all been rather wooly — isn’t right. Can you pin down exactly what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident? Alessio Rastani: : Ah, that’s a tough one. Personally, it doesn’t matter. I’m a trader, I don’t really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So for most traders we don’t really care that much how they’re going to fix the economy, how they’re going to fix the whole situation. Our job is to make money from it and personally I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. Personally, I have a confession to make, I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession. I dream of another moment like this. Why? Because people don’t seem to maybe remember, but the ’30′s depression, the Depression of the ’30′s wasn’t just about a market crash. There were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash and I think anybody can do that. It isn’t just for some people in the elite, anybody can actually make money, it’s an opportunity. When the market crashes, when the Euro and the big stock markets crash, if you know what to do, if you have the right plan to set up you can make a lot of money from this. For example, hedging strategies is one, then investing in bonds, Treasury bonds that sort of stuff. Maxine Croxall: : If you could see the people around me, jaws have collectively dropped at what you’ve just said. I mean we appreciate your candor, but it doesn’t help the rest of us does it, or the rest of the Eurozone. Alessio Rastani: : I will say this, listen. I would say this to everybody who’s watching this, this economic crisis is like a cancer. If you just wait and wait thinking this is going to go away, just like a cancer it’s gonna grow and it will be too late. What I would say to everybody is get prepared. This is not a time right now to wishful think that the Government is going to sort things out. The Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world. Goldman Sachs does not care about this rescue package neither does the big funds. So actually, I would actually tell people, I want to help people. People can make money from this, it isn’t just traders. What they need to do is learn about how to make money from a downward market. The first thing people should do is protect their assets, protect what they have because in less than 12 months, my prediction is that savings of millions of people is gonna vanish and this is just the beginning . So I would say, be prepared and act now. The biggest risk people can take right now is not acting. Maxine Croxall: : Alessio Rastani thank you very much for talking with us. Watch the full interview at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=5EB5AE1587E1511154FCBF8366BD15EC

US to break record number of solar panel installations in 2011

(NaturalNews) Solar technology has made tremendous advances in recent years, which has in turn prompted significant growth in commercial and residential photovoltaic (PV) panel installations. And for the first time in history, the US solar panel market will exceed one gigawatt (GW) in new PV energy production during a single year, according to recent report by Greentech Media . In 2010, the US reached 887 megawatts (MW) in new PV panel installations. But that rate is expected to more than double by the end of 2011. Forecasts project that a whopping 1.8 GW in new PV panel installations will have taken place by the start of 2012 — and by the end of 2012, that amount is expected to more than double again, topping four GW of new PV installations. “On the whole, the US is currently the PV industry’s most attractive and stable growth market,” said Shayle Kann, Managing Director of Solar at GTM Research, which publishes the quarterly Solar Market Insight Report that unveiled the new data. “This is reflected in our report’s quarterly market data and in the comments from global suppliers, distributors, and developers, all of who see the US positioned to nearly double its global market share in 2011 and support a greater diversity of installation types than has previously been seen in any leading demand center.” Germany and Italy are currently the world leaders in solar energy production, but the US is quickly shaping up to earn a spot in this top tier of alternative energy-producing countries as well. And with advances being made to reduce overall production and maintenance costs of PV cells, more homeowners than ever will be able to afford them. Back in 2010, for instance, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) developed a new type of PV solar panel that performs at roughly 90 percent quantum efficiency. And because the technology uses only two percent semiconductors (the most expensive aspect of solar panels) and 98 percent plastic, the new panels are set to cost far less than those currently on the market (http://www.naturalnews.com/028691_solar_cells_efficiency.html). Also in 2010, scientists from the University of Southern California developed flexible, “organic” solar cells that cost less to produce than traditional solar cells, and that can be used in a wider variety of applications thanks to their pliable design (http://www.naturalnews.com/029347_organic_solar_cells.html). Sources for this story include: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/America-Finally-Joins-the-1-Gigawatt-PV-Club/

FDA approved Big Pharma drugs without effectiveness data

(NaturalNews) Consumers constantly are told how complicated it is to get a new drug on the market. After all, researchers have to jump through all sorts of hoops to assure safety before new therapies are approved for the public, right? It turns out they may be missing some of those hoops or not jumping through some of the most important ones. In fact, huge red flags are being raised about how drugs are tested and approved in two new studies, including one just published in the May 4th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ). A case in point: it turns out that only about half of the new prescription medications pushed onto the market over the last decade had the proper data together for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – yet the FDA approved them anyhow. The information in question is known specifically as comparative effectiveness data . And it is – or should be – a very big deal when it comes to deciding whether a drug should be approved and sold to the public. According to the Institute of Medicine, comparative effectiveness data is defined as the “generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care.” In other words, how does a new drug stack up against other treatments – is it more beneficial, safer, or does it have more potential dangers? Comparative effectiveness information on drugs is especially important when doctors are making decisions about whether to prescribe a med, and to whom, soon after a drug is approved. That’s because when Big Pharma medications first hit the market, physicians are relying on what drug companies and the FDA tell them about a medication. It takes a while for real life reports to come in as people report reactions, side effects (including deaths related to a drug) to become clearer. Also, there are usually not data from large head-to-head trials comparing multiple treatments available when a medication first hits the marketplace. “Comparative effectiveness is taking on an increasingly important role in U.S. health care, yet little is known about the availability of comparative efficacy data for drugs at the time of their approval in the United States,” according to background information in the new JAMA study. It’s not like there’s not money to come up with this information, either. In 2009, Congress allocated $1.1 billion of taxpayers’ money to comparative effectiveness research. For the JAMA study, researcher Nikolas H. Goldberg and colleagues from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, investigated the proportion of recently approved drugs that had comparative efficacy data available at the time they were authorized by the FDA to be sold in the U.S. They also examined the availability of this information over time and by therapeutic indication by checking out approval packages publicly available through the online database of drug products (dubbed new molecular entities, NMEs, for short) approved by FDA between 2000 and 2010. The researchers found that only about half of 197 eligible approved NMEs between 2000 and 2010 had comparative efficacy data available at the time they were approved to be marketed. Meanwhile, another recent study throws needed light on the limited data behind the safety and effectiveness of some Big Pharma drugs. Research led jointly by Alexander Tsai of Harvard University and Nicholas Rosenlicht of the University of California San Francisco just published in PLoS Medicine zeroed in on the medication aripiprazole, which is prescribed treating bipolar disorder. How was this powerful drug deemed safe and effective? Amazingly, the research team found the only evidence for the use of this medication came from a single trial. And, as they described in their paper, the scientists found key limitations of the drug study that clearly skewed the findings so they appear to support the use of aripiprazole for bipolar disorder. Did this stop the FDA from approving the drug? No way. And neither did the fact that this single, poorly designed trial was sponsored by the drug manufacturer who produces aripiprazole. For more information: http://www.plos.org/ http://pubs.ama-assn.org/

GSK study suggests its antidepressant drugs cause suicidal tendencies

(NaturalNews) A new study released by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) suggests that its very own antidepressant drug Paxil (paroxetine) is linked to an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and tendencies among adult patients. The findings appear to confirm those of previous studies and cases that have linked selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) like Paxil to suicides, suicide attempts, and even murders (http://www.naturalnews.com/019342.html). Published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry , the GSK study reveals a nearly sevenfold increase in suicide attempts among those taking Paxil versus those taking a placebo. In clinical trials, 0.34 percent of participants taking Paxil attempted suicide, while only 0.05 percent of those taking a placebo did. Besides increasing the risk of suicidal tendencies, a GSK study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in early 2010 showed that Paxil does not even appear to work as intended in patients with varying levels depression (http://www.naturalnews.com/027962_Paxil_antidepressants.html). Combine this with the fact that Paxil technically makes depression symptoms worse by causing more suicides and suicide attempts, and you are left asking how or why this drug ended up on the market in the first place. GSK has known since at least 2006 that Paxil is linked to increased suicide risk, and yet the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to allow the ineffective, harmful drug to remain on the market. Sure, the agency has upped its warning labels over the years, but based on the drug’s safety and performance record, is there any legitimate reason for it to even be on the market in the first place? The FDA first modified warning labels for Paxil in 2004 after suicide rates among children taking the drug was found to be twice as high as it was among those not taking Paxil. In 2006, the FDA extended the warning to include adults up to age 25. Today, the drug carries a “black box” warning for everyone that says it may increase risk of suicide. A 2009 study published in the online journal PLoS One revealed that among 832 different drugs, which represent 99 percent of the total suicide-related events reported in the Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS), Paxil was the worst of all. Among the 27,012 adverse events reported for suicide attempts between 2004 and 2008, 1,323, or 4.9 percent, were linked to Paxil (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007312). Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-suicidal-thoughts-antidepressants-idUSTRE72U4EW20110331

The market for organic food products in Europe

The market for organic food products in Europe The market for organic food products in Europe List Price: Price: 199.0

Monsanto’s super GMO corn fails

(NaturalNews) The tides may be turning for agri-giant Monsanto, the multi-national company most recognized for the propagation of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) around the world. According to a recent New York Times article, Monsanto’s new “SmartStax” variety of GMO corn has failed miserably, and the company’s stock prices have plummeted by nearly 50 percent since the beginning of 2010. Until recently, Monsanto’s stock value had been steadily rising since 2008, but as its new GMO varieties have failed to live up to expectations, share prices and profits have been plummeting. SmartStax corn, which is far more expensive than previous GMO varieties, has failed to achieved desired yields, as has the company’s newer variety of GMO soybeans. Both failures have led not only to major price reductions for seeds, but also far less overall sales by farmers. Monsanto’s strategy has been to continually insert increasing amounts of new genes into seeds to make them perform better, and subsequently increase prices for farmers. But that predatory strategy has failed, as farmers are less willing these days to buy such seeds, especially at premium prices. And many farmers simply no longer trust Monsanto. Sales of Monsanto’s RoundUp formula have also plummeted, due in part to the fact that cheaper generics have started to penetrate the market, and because the formula simply is not working like it used to. New RoundUp-resistant “superweeds” are emerging that have rendered the product largely useless. You can find out more about Monsanto by visiting: http://www.naturalnews.com/Monsanto.html Unfortunately, Monsanto is not the only player in the GMO game. And rather than regress back to non-GMO seeds, some farmers are simply purchasing GMO seeds from other companies like DuPont that have seen their market share grow as Monsanto’s has decreased. But as the public wakes up to the truth about the dangers of GMOs, perhaps the entire GMO industry will eventually wither and die, much like the weeds and pests that it claims to eliminate.

Health benefits of gluten-free diet helped make it mainstream

(NaturalNews) A mere decade ago, most people likely had no idea what gluten even was. Today, the protein is widely known for causing digestive and other health problems in certain people that requires them to eat only gluten-free foods. And many otherwise healthy individuals are also going gluten-free because they believe it will improve their overall health. Gluten is a glue-like composite found naturally in grains like wheat, rye and barley. It is what gives breads their fluffy texture, and is often used in other food preparations to make food thicker or more chewy. But gluten upsets the digestive function of some people, including those with Celiac disease, which is changing the consumer food market. According to reports, less than one percent of the population actually suffers a severe immune reaction from gluten, and up to eight percent have mild-to-moderate insensitivity to it. But a far greater percentage of people are choosing to go gluten-free, a trend that has many analysts confused. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who recently admitted that she is severely deficient in vitamin D, believes that living gluten-free has improved her health and given her more energy. And Chelsea Clinton apparently had her wedding cake baked without gluten for similar reasons. “I feel better when I don’t [eat gluten],” explained Silvana Nardone, former editor-in-chief of the magazine Every Day with Rachael Ray . “If I go out to a restaurant with friends and I have a beer and a plate of pasta, I’m going to feel it the next day. No one wants a gluten hangover.” Nardone’s son Isaiah has a gluten intolerance, so she has been mastering the art of gluten-free cooking. She recently released a cookbook full of gluten- and dairy-free recipes called Cooking for Isaiah . Consumer preference towards gluten-free continues to increase, with sales having increased twofold since 2005. That same year, the market for gluten-free foods topped $1.5 billion, and experts believe the market will only continue to flourish. Sources for this story include: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jrmLUrNOz31cDg8yAxlzo8XjVsOwD9I9BM580

Adderall has extreme side effects, but FDA says keep taking it

(NaturalNews) The attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drug Adderall is known to cause serious physical side effects including heart attack, stroke, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, and even sudden death. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is aware of this and more, but insists that people continue taking the drug anyway. Adderall is basically a cocktail of various amphetamine stimulants and is often referred to as “prescription speed”. And because it is similar in makeup to illegal methamphetamines, it is highly addictive. So in addition to its many side effects, users will have a difficult time functioning without Adderall once they start taking it. Adderall also comes with a full slate of mental side effects as well as physical ones. Ironically, the drug can actually cause behavior to become worse, leaving one to wonder how or why such a drug was ever approved as a legitimate medicine to treat a disorder that it may actually aggravate. Taking Adderall can also thwart proper brain function, increase behavioral aggression, and even cause episodes of psychosis in which the patient becomes maniacal and starts hearing voices. In other words, it is absolutely insane for this dangerous drug to be on the market, let alone be touted as a safe medicine for children. And the FDA is aware of the seriously dangerous nature of this drug because it warned the public back in 2009 about its many extreme side effects. The FDA conducted its own study of Adderall’s effects on children and early data pointed to the fact that the drug increases the risk of sudden death in children. But neither the study nor any of the other facts about the drug’s dangerous effects prompted the FDA to actually pull the drug from the market. In fact, the FDA made a point of denying the results of its own study and insisting that patients continue to take the drug. The best way to deal with ADHD is to focus on getting proper nutrition, which includes supplementing with powerful superfoods. Cleansing the body of built-up toxins and feeding it with rich nutrients is the number one priority when trying to maintain mental clarity and boost energy and focus. Remember to avoid excessive caffeine, refined sugars and processed foods, because these things only help to intensify the undesirable symptoms. Sources for this story include: http://topnews.us/content/218105-despite-detrimental-side-effects-adderall-fda-advises-not-stop-giving-drug-patients

GlaxoSmithKline pushing dangerous Avandia drug on thousands in new global clinical trial

(NaturalNews) Back in February, I wrote an article about how a Senate Finance Committee report revealed that GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of the diabetes drug Avandia, knew that its drug was dangerous and caused heart attacks; yet GSK went out of its way to hide this important information from the public and kept on selling Avandia . Now, GSK has now decided to launch a global clinical trial of this dangerous drug that could potentially harm thousands of people. Both FDA and GSK scientists have found that Avandia is dangerous and significantly increases the risk of heart attacks, but the drug remains on the market to this day. FDA officials have rejected sound scientific evidence demonstrating the dangers of the drug, including evidence from the FDA’s own scientists. (Read all about the Avandia scandal in my previous article on the subject .) Meanwhile, GSK is moving forward with a global clinical trial that it says will compare the safety of Avandia with other diabetes drugs in its class. In other words, according to press reports, GSK knows Avandia is dangerous, but it’s choosing to go ahead with a trial anyway… a trial that could put the lives of thousands of people at risk. Real scientists say Avandia drug trial is unethical and dangerous Dr. David Juurlink, chief of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, and Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of health research for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, have petitioned the FDA to stop the GSK drug trial . Citing concerns that the trial is “unethical” and “dangerous”, the two are doing what the FDA itself should be doing – assessing the evidence and coming to a rational conclusion about risk versus benefit. After all, it was Dr. Juurlink’s 2009 study which already found that Avandia increases the risk of heart failure and death by 30 percent more than another diabetes drug in the same class. Not only has Avandia been proven to be dangerous, it’s been proven to be even more dangerous than the competition. And numerous studies years before found that Avandia increases the risk of heart problems and death, prompting the FDA to issue two black-box warnings for the drug back in 2007. But at this point, it doesn’t seem to matter how many people suffer and die from Avandia because the FDA somehow doesn’t believe there is “conclusive evidence” that Avandia is dangerous, so pharmacies everywhere continue to sell it. And even though GSK knows that Avandia is statistically responsible for an increase in deaths, it continues to push this drug on the masses. GSK guilty of negligent deaths? If you really think about it, what GSK is doing amounts to negligent homicide. The company is knowingly and willfully selling a dangerous drug that’s killing people, and now it wants to subject even more people to unnecessary risk of death through a medically unnecessary clinical trial that’s global in scope. I say “medically unnecessary” because there have already been a number of studies verifying that Avandia is dangerous. Why create another trial with 16,000 participants to reveal what we already know? How many more people need to suffer or die before the FDA pulls the drug from the market? The sheer lunacy of what’s taking place here in the name of “medicine” and “science” is shocking — even to those of us who follow the crimes and corruption of Big Pharma on a regular basis. Real scientists and doctors know this behavior by GSK is appalling, and apparently so does much of the public who, according to new reports , are refusing to even participate in the trial. GSK can’t even get Americans to participate in the trial, so it’s moving to third-world countries/h1> Typically when drug companies conduct clinical trials, they pay people a sum of money to act as guinea pigs for a new drug. (Sadly, many people are willing to ingest experimental substances for a couple hundred bucks). However according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, GSK can’t even get Americans to sign up! You see, the average joe has more common sense than the FDA, and a lot of people know that Avandia is dangerous. The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, for example, which is one of GSK’s study sites, has “not succeed[ed] in recruiting anybody” in over a year. And this is during a time when a lot of Americans are out of jobs and desperately need the cash. So what does GSK do in response? It opens dozens of new sites in third-world countries where it can prey on innocent poor people who are less informed about the dangers of Avandia. In fact, this is part of the reason why Dr. Juurlink and Dr. Wolfe are urging the FDA to stop the trial. They recognize how evil it is for GSK to exploit ill-informed people from other countries when things aren’t going so well for Avandia back at home. In targeting low-income third-world study subjects, GSK is demonstrating itself to be a ruthless, money-hungry organization that has no qualms about exploiting human lives to achieve its profit goals. The inhumanity of the medical-industrial complex The whole Avandia fiasco is truly indicative of the way the medical-industrial complex operates. You would think that after all the studies and trials proving its dangers, the countless lawsuits and the official government report, that GSK would at least back down from this drug. Not only has GSK continued to deny the obvious truth about Avandia’s risks, but now it is shamelessly pressing forward to expand the market for Avandia around the world. (Remind you of anything? How about Big Tobacco?) It seems obvious that Avandia should be pulled from the market and GSK investigated for its role in pushing a knowingly harmful drug. At the very least, there should be a moratorium on the sale of the drug until GSK can prove the safety of Avandia. But in the real world, this dangerous drug is being treated as safe and its producer is allowed to continue using it on human guinea pigs around the world. If GSK was a person, that person might be classified as a serial killer (and the FDA would be considered its accomplice). Both GSK and the FDA, if they were people, would be pursued for their crimes against society. But because they are two of the key organizational players in the global medical-industrial complex, they continue to perpetrate their crimes without consequence. This may be changing, though, as people wake up to the truth. The fact that GSK can’t get U.S. participants to sign up for its Avandia clinical trials says to me that people are really starting to recognize “the emperor has no clothes.” Big Pharma’s lies can only continue for so long before the truth is exposed.

Australian courts rule that Vioxx should never have been approved for sale

(NaturalNews) Australian courts recently ruled that Vioxx, a popular prescription painkiller, should never have been approved and allowed on the market. The case represents the world’s first successful class action lawsuit against a drug company for damage caused by its drugs. Merck, the drug giant that produced Vioxx, was deemed by the courts as negligent for failing to properly inform doctors who were prescribing the drug about the dangers and health risks associated with the drug. As a result, thousands of patients around the world have suffered severe injury or death because of Vioxx. Graeme Peterson, a 59-year-old man represented in the case, was awarded the equivalent of about $266,000 for injuries inflicted upon him by Vioxx. He suffered a heart attack from the drug in 2003 that has left him unable to work since. He took the drug for more than four years, and still keeps a Vioxx tablet with him as a reminder of what almost killed him. Though great for Australians, injured patients in the U.K. have not had the same success. Norman Lamb, a member of the British Parliament, explained that he and others have been trying to convince Merck for years that it should compensate the many British citizens who were injured by the drug. But Merck continues to deny liability and the British government has failed to successfully negotiate a settlement. “Ministers made promising noises then after a meeting between the Government and the company they weakened their position. I believe that the ministers came under pressure from the company and their own civil servants to shut up,” explained Lamb in a U.K. article. Unfortunately, this is typically the case with most drug company lawsuits. The Australian case is a landmark victory that should typify how class action lawsuits against drug companies are handled and hopefully a similar victory will one day be achieved for the many British cases of Vioxx injuries. One such case involves Raymond Eaton, whose wife died from heart problems that were likely caused by Vioxx. Mrs. Eaton, who had been suffering from a severely debilitating form of rheumatoid arthritis, was immediately prescribed Vioxx upon its release. The drug helped her pain, but four years later, she suffered a coronary from which she never recovered. Since she never had any heart problems prior to taking Vioxx, Raymond is convinced that the drug was responsible. Over 80 million people around the world were taking Vioxx prior to its being pulled from the market, and many lawyers from other countries have been awaiting the outcome of the Australian litigation. The success of the case established a precedence for Merck’s liability due to negligence, providing a way for the thousands, if not millions, of injured patients around the world to receive restitution for damages caused by Vioxx. Sources for this story include: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/vioxx-ruling-gives-hope-for-payouts-to-british-lsquovictimsrsquo-1917042.html

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