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1) THERE ARE NO TESTS IN EXISTENCE THAT CAN PROVE MENTAL “DISORDERS” ARE MEDICAL CONDITIONS. PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS IS BASED SOLELY ON OPINION.
The psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year in order to convince the public, legislators and the press that psychiatric disorders such as Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc., are medical diseases on par with verifiable medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. This is simply a way to maintain their hold on a $84 billion dollar-a-year psychiatric drug industry that is based on marketing and not science. Unlike real medical disease, there are no scientific tests to verify the medical existence of any psychiatric disorder. Despite decades of trying to prove mental disorders are biological brain conditions, due to chemical imbalances or genetic factors, psychiatry has failed to prove even one of their hundreds of so-called mental disorders is due to a faulty or “chemically imbalanced” brain. To counter this obvious flaw in their push to medicalize behaviors, the psychiatric industry will claim that there are certain medical conditions that do not have a verifiable test so this is why there isn’t one for “mental illness.” This is frankly a lame argument; Whereas there may be rare medical conditions that do not have a verifiable medical test, there are virtually no psychiatric disorders that can be verified medically as a physical abnormality/disease. Not one. In fact the “brain scans” that have been pawned off as evidence that schizophrenia or depression are brain diseases, are simply bogus. Most have not been done on drug naive patients, meaning someone who has not been on psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotic drugs, documented to causebrain atrophy (shrinkage). Other brain scans have shown the brains of smaller children to show smaller brains in comparison to larger/older children and then claimed children with ADHD have smaller brains. None have been conclusively proven to verify mental disorders as abnormalities of the brain. The Difference Between a Medical Disease and a Psychiatric Disorder If there were such verifiable brain scans, or in fact any medical/scientific test that could show a physical/medical abnormality for any psychiatric disorder, the public would be getting such tests prior to being administered psychiatric drugs. This is fact: There are no genetic tests, no brain scans, blood tests, chemical imbalance tests or X-rays that can scientifically/medically prove that any psychiatric disorder is a medical condition. Period. Whereas real diseases are discovered in labs, psychiatric disorders are invented by committee and voted into existence. 2. YES, PEOPLE CAN GET DEPRESSED, SAD, ANXIOUS AND EVEN ACT PSYCHOTIC. THAT DOESN’T MAKE THEM MENTALLY “DISEASED” No one is saying that people don’t get depressed, sad, troubled, anxious, nervous or even sometimes act psychotic. The question then is simple—is this due to some mental “disease” that can be verified as one would verify cancer or a real medical condition? And the answer is No. For example, can soldiers returning from war experience extreme and often debilitating stress? Yes. It is something wrong with their brain? No. It’s the horrors of war. Can children become distracted and not pay attention? Since time immemorial, the answer is yes. But psychiatry has pathologized childhood behaviors into a “mental illness.” The same is true of mothers. Can a new mother become distraught after a joyous occasion such as the birth of a child? Yes. Is it a brain abnormality or mental disease? No. And is the most humane solution to put these people on drugs documented by international regulatory agencies to cause mania, psychosis, worsening depression, heart attack, stroke, sudden death? Or for new or nursing mothers to risk birth defects or damage to their infants from being prescribed such powerful drugs? This is also true of people diagnosed “schizophrenic.” There is no medical test to verify someone has a brain abnormality or medical condition of schizophrenia. And while no one claims people can’t become psychotic, the fact remains there is no biological evidence to support schizophrenia as a brain disease or chemical abnormality. And consider this, if people do become psychotic, or irrational, is it in fact caused by some underlying medical (not psychiatric) problem? And why did a 15-year multiple follow up study find that there was a 40% recovery rate for those diagnosed schizophrenic who did not take antipsychotics, versus a 5% rate for those who did? What happened to their supposed “brain disease?” Did it simply vanish? Moreover, if they could recover from such a mental state, do they deserve the “stigma” of “schizophrenia” still being part of their permanent medical record? For life? Think about it. Imagine you were extremely overweight—obese. You lose all the weight so you are no longer obese. Yet your medical records continue to say that you are. And if schizophrenia is in fact a “disease” despite the fact there is no medical or biological evidence (note we did not say speculation, or theories, but evidence) then why is it that psychiatrist Loren Mosher, the former Chief of Schizophrenia Research for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) openly state that there is no biological condition of schizophrenia as a disease or brain malfunction? And why didn’t the mental health industry take advantage of his 2-year-outcome studies proving that those diagnosed schizophrenic could recover without the use of drugs? Is it because this proved that recovery was possible and thereby disproved the theory that something was wrong with their brain? Or was it the fact that they recovered without the use of drugs, thereby threatening a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry? Maybe this explains why Mosher was fired from his position at NIMH. 3. THE CAMPAIGN TO “STOP THE STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS” IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY… BIG PHARMA With a seemingly altruistic agenda, the fact is the campaign to end the “stigma” of mental illness is one driven and funded by those who benefit from more and more people being labeled mentally ill—pharma, psychiatry and pharmaceutical front groups such as NAMIand CHADD to name but a few. For example, take NAMI’s campaign to stop the “stigma” and “end discrimination” against the mentally ill—the “Founding Sponsors” were Abbott Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Pfizer, Novartis, SmithKline Beecham and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs. (For an in-depth look at what else Pharma funds and how this funding not only helps set mental health policies but campaigns such as this, read Pharmaceutical Industry Agenda Setting in Mental Health Policies at the bottom of this post) The fact is that the “stigmatization ” is coming from those that benefit from people being labeled/stigmatized with mental disorders that have no medical/biological evidence. Case in point, if you are rebellious, you are “stigmatized” with the label “oppositional defiant disorder.” If your kid acts like a kid he is “stigmatized” with the label “ADHD.” If you are sad, unhappy (even temporarily) you are “stigmatized” with the label “depressive” or “bi-polar disorder.” If you are shy you are “stigmatized” with the label “social anxiety disorder.” Moreover, you or your child are now stigmatized for life as this label, which is based solely on opinion, is now part of your medical record, despite the fact there is no medical evidence to prove you are “mentally ill”. 4. PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS ARE BIG BUSINESS—AND THE PSYCHIATRIC/PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IS MAKING A KILLING—$84 BILLION PER YEAR. The primary reason people take psychiatric drugs is because they’ve been taught to believe they have a medical condition called a psychiatric disorder, which then justifies taking drugs to treat it. This is a brilliant marketing campaign, but it is not science. Any drug changes behavior or mood, whether cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or heroin. This does not mean someone who acts or feels differently on cocaine does so because they had a cocaine imbalance which the cocaine then corrected. It means that drugs changes mood, emotion and behavior. But while the illicit use of drugs is universally frowned upon, and considered a bad way for people to deal with their problems, psychiatric drugs are made out to be “good” drugs, despite the fact many are more addictive than cocaine or heroin, and have side effects that rival such hardcore street drugs as LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. 5. WHERE TO GET THE FACTS ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS RISKS AND SIDE EFFECTS Because the public has been so mislead by the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, CCHR has created a one-of-a-kind, easy to search psychiatric drugs side effects database, containing all international studies and drug regulatory warnings that have been issued on both classes of drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, stimulants, etc) and brand names such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ritalin etc. These are provided by CCHR as a free public service to help people make educated decisions based on facts, not marketing campaigns 6. WHY SAFE, EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS TO MENTAL DIFFICULTIES ARE KEPT BURIED The larger problem is that the biological drug model (based on the bogus mental disorders are a disease marketing campaign) prevents governments from funding real medical solutions for people experiencing difficulty. And there are workable, non-harmful medical treatments that do not receive government funding because the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on advertising and lobbying efforts, including hundreds of their pharma funded “patient’s rights” groups to counter any medical modality that does not support their biological drug model of mental disorders as a disease. Why? Billions of dollars in revenue for the psycho/pharma industry would be lost. This is an industry that time and again, has been proven to put profit above patients lives. See various non-drug solutions/alternatives here: http://www.cchrint.org/alternatives/ by Prof. John Kozy | Global Research
exerpted.. The law is a great crime, far greater than the activities it outlaws, and there's no way you can protect yourself from it. The establishment protects itself. The law does not protect people. It is merely an instrument of retribution. It can only be used, often ineffectively, to get back at the malefactor. It never un-dos the crime. Executing the murderer doesn't bring back the dead. Putting Ponzi schemers in jail doesn't get your money back. And holding BP responsible won't restore the Louisiana marshes, won't bring back the dead marine and other wildlife, and won't compensate the victims for their losses. Carefully watch what happens over the next twenty years as the government uses the law to shield BP, Transocean, and Halliburton while the claims of those affected by the spill disappear into the quicksand of the American legal system. Jim Kouri, citing FBI studies, writes that "some of the character traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed in many within the political arena.;" they share the traits of psychopaths who are not sensitive to altruistic appeals, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse or guilt over their crimes. They possess the personality traits of lying, narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. These are the people to whom we have entrusted our fate. Is it any wonder that America is failing at home and world-wide? Some may say that this is an extreme, audacious claim. I, too, was surprised when I read Kouri's piece. But anecdotal evidence to support it is easily cited. John McCain said "bomb, bomb, bomb" during the last presidential campaign in response to a question about Iran. No one in government has expressed the slightest qualms about the killing of tens of thousands of people in both Iraq and Afghanistan who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened on nine/eleven or the deliberate targeting of women and children by unmanned drones in Pakistan. What if anything distinguishes serial killers from these governmental officials? Only that they don't do the killing themselves but have others do it for them. But that's exactly what most of the godfathers of the cosa nostra did. read in full: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19536 (San Francisco) – Now it is official. Researchers have shown that uranium oxide, or DU, “travels the nerves from the nose to the brain,” in the words of a University of Chicago doc and researcher. A tiny amount (a milligram) of this radioactive poison quick marches up your smelling nerves right into your brain and keeps firing 1.2 Million bullets a day – forever. That’s a bunch. 850 Rounds a MinuteThe radioactive 850 rounds a minute automatic weapon is about as big as the period at the end of this sentence, never needs reloading and never jams. It’s a perfect killing machine for brain cells and other cells. The range is about 20 cells, after that there is what the famous British physicist Dr. Chris Busby calls the “bystander effect.” He discovered it, he gets to name it. These radioactive automatic weapons are so small they can float right through your clothes, evade your skin’s defenses and invade your body. Wherever the weapons alight inside, there is trouble as they never stop firing and there is no limit to their number. In a soldiers brain, trouble shows up in a noticeable way to others. As for the 20 cell radius ball within Range, think of these powerful Bullets each as a 100 car, 100 mph, or 160 kmh, fully loaded freight train obliterating a small dog tied to the railroad tracks. Right, for the 20 cells that are within range – in all directions, it ain’t pretty. To me, this means these 20 cell radius spheres in Soldiers and Vets brains turn to jelly or mush, weird diseases or cancers, or all of the above. No wonder VA Secretary and former General Eric Shinseki has noted the big increase in the VA’s contract Psychiatric services. Olfactory Nerve to Brain, The Free Dictionary. This radioactive bullet explanation for Vets unusual behaviors holds water and makes perfect sense to me. The Vets are under attack internally. Actually inside their skulls and in their brains. Worse, there’s nothing they can do about it. The huge VA system is also helpless. There is no cure and no treatment. The VA knows it and is stonewalling. They fired the only doc who stood up to them on DU. Word travels fast among the cowed medical staffs. So, the Vets get slapped with some fake diagnosis and sent to the shrink or told there is nothing wrong with them. No way the spineless docs are going to call it like it is. They grab their 250K and slink home, comfortable every night. That ain’t no way to run an Army; but, it IS a way to run the world’s most lethal Armed Force right into the ground. Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D, Ret., former Director of the Pentagon’s Depleted Uranium Project, puts it succinctly “It [DU] is killing our own troops.” General Eric Shinseki, Head of VASince no less than Gen Shinseki has pointed out the huge increases in contract psychiatric services, let’s all take note of it and ask real loud “Why is this happening to Vets? They are not the enemy!” It’s way past time to take names and kick ass in DC. That means changing the President as s/he appoints the head of the DOD. Not so hard to do, really. It is simply what is required. No wonder DU in the brain drives Vets nuts. The suffering these Vets must go through is unimaginable. OK. Here’s the targeted science, make up your own minds. I did. Abstract http://tinyurl.com/ku3ctn Uranium travels nerves from nose to brain.Jul 31, 2009 Tournier, BB, S Frelon, E Tourlonias, L Agez, O Delissen, I Dublineau, F Paquet, and F Petitot. 2009. Role of the olfactory receptor neurons in the direct transport of inhaled uranium to the rat brain. Toxicology Letters doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2009.05.022. Synopsis by Paul Eubig, DVM Radioactive uranium that is inhaled by soldiers on the battlefield and by workers in factories may bypass the brain’s protective barrier by following nerves from the nose directly to the brain. Nerves can act as a unique conduit, carrying inhaled uranium from the nose directly to the brain, finds a study with rats. Once in the brain, the uranium may affect task and decision-related types of thinking. This study provides yet another example of how some substances can use the olfactory system – bypassing the brain’s protective blood barrier – to go directly to the brain. Titanium nanoparticles and the metals manganese, nickel, and thallium have been shown to reach the brain using the same route. Military personnel and people who work in uranium processing plants are exposed to the weak radioactive element via wounds or by breathing. Exposure may affect brain function; cognitive skills are lowered in soldiers who carry uranium-laced shrapnel. Uranium has various industrial and military uses. A form of uranium called depleted uranium is very dense and is used in armor-piercing ammunition and military vehicle armor. Battlefield exposure can occur through wounds – such as with some US military personnel who were injured during the Gulf War. These exposures can be higher than with civilians who work with the element. A study of Gulf War veterans who have uranium shrapnel in their bodies showed that they perform more poorly on general brain cognitive tests of performance efficiency and accuracy. Uranium can also be inhaled. Soldiers in vehicles hit by uranium rounds and workers in uranium-processing facilities can breathe it in. The researchers – taking advantage of the fact that uranium can exist in different forms, or isotopes – used rats to compare how the element travels through the body if it is inhaled or injected into the blood. The animals breathed in one isotope at levels similar to those encountered on a battlefield where depleted uranium weapons are used. They were also injected with a different isotope. Researchers compared the levels of the two isotopes in different regions of the brain. The inhaled isotope accumulated at 2 to 3 times higher levels than the injected isotope in the olfactory (smell) paths from the nose to the brain and in the frontal cortex and hypothalamus of the brain. This is concerning because the front part of the brain controls executive function, which is the broad ability to gather information, make decisions and initiate action. The scientists then chemically damaged the olfactory nerves in the nose. The rats with the damaged nerves had three times less uranium in the olfactory system than the rats with intact olfactory nerves. These finding suggests that inhaled uranium can travel directly from the nose along the olfactory nerves to the front of the brain. The olfactory pathway, then, plays an important role in inhaled uranium reaching the brain. It is not known from this study if soldiers and civilian workers that breathe uranium could be at an even higher risk for cognitive effects or if inhaled uranium may affect brain function in similar ways as when it is carried through the blood. It is also unclear if these findings would hold true for the human brain since the rat brain is much more developed for smelling than the human brain. Assessing these possible risks and determining if people’s relatively underdeveloped sense of smell could protect the brain would require further studies of people exposed to uranium through inhalation. No 2. Abstracthttp://tinyurl.com/2ff6tcz Uranium presents numerous industrial and military uses and one of the most important risks of contamination is dust inhalation. In contrast to the other modes of contamination, the inhaled uranium has been proposed to enter the brain not only by the common route of all modes of exposure, the blood pathway, but also by a specific inhalation exposure route, the olfactory pathway. To test whether the inhaled uranium enter the brain directly from the nasal cavity, male Sprague–Dawley rats were exposed to both inhaled and intraperitoneally injected uranium using the 236U and 233U, respectively, as tracers. The results showed a specific frontal brain accumulation of the inhaled uranium which is not observed with the injected uranium. Furthermore, the inhaled uranium is higher than the injected uranium in the olfactory bulbs (OB) and tubercles, in the frontal cortex and in the hypothalamus. In contrast, the other cerebral areas (cortex, hippocampus, cerebellum and brain residue) did not show any preferential accumulation of inhaled or injected uranium. These results mean that inhaled uranium enters the brain via a direct transfer from the nasal turbinates to the OB in addition to the systemic pathway. The uranium transfer from the nasal turbinates to the OB is lower in animals showing a reduced level of olfactory receptor neurons (ORN) induced by an olfactory epithelium lesion prior to the uranium inhalation exposure. These results give prominence to a role of the ORN in the direct transfer of the uranium from the nasal cavity to the brain. http://tinyurl.com/2ff6tcz [End] The Notes are an integral part of the article. Include when distributing. CopyRight by Bob Nichols 2010. Feel free to distribute with attribution and Notes. Related Articles. “PTSD, infertility and other consequences of war,” April 27, 2010, Bob Nichols, VeteransToday dot com http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/04/27/ptsd-infertility-and-other-consequences-of-war/ Or,http://tinyurl.com/22w8qpy Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner, a correspondent for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and a frequent contributor to various online publications. He reports on war, politics and the two nuclear weapons labs in the Bay Area. Nichols is writing a book based on 20 years of nuclear war in Central Asia. He is a former employee of an Army Ammunition Plant. You are encouraged to write Nichols at duweapons@gmail.com Please email us at: producer@thevinnyeastwoodshow.com with your thoughts, ideas suggestions, story tips and guest ideas. All good on this end as our show expands this week to New Zealand!
Wikileaks lawyer makes case for Assange innocence Despite his arrest, some people are asking if Julian Assange has broken the law in either his personal life or through his organisation making classified documents available to the world's media. "Information would not be on WikiLeaks if there had not been an illegal act undertaken," Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said, and the Government has asked the Australian Federal Police to see if Mr Assange has broken any laws. "He's not charged with anything," Mark Stephens, lawyer for Julian Assange, points out. "What he's done is no more illegal than every national newspaper and every broadcaster around the world every day," Mr Stephens asserts. The Swedish police "want him for questioning, he's not even wanted on a charge there," Mr Stephens adds. He goes on to describe Wikileaks as, "online journalism in the 21st century." However, another of Mr Assange's lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, reports she has heard from "several different US lawyers rumours that an indictment was on its way or had happened already, but we don't know." Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas—on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese—in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn’t reach, and “mistakes” can end up in pauper’s graves? The authors investigate the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. Government’s failure to rein in a lethal profit machine. You wouldn’t think the cities had much in common. Iaşi, with a population of 320,000, lies in the Moldavian region of Romania. Mégrine is a town of 24,000 in northern Tunisia, on the Mediterranean Sea. Tartu, Estonia, with a population of 100,000, is the oldest city in the Baltic States; it is sometimes called “the Athens on the Emajõgi.” Shenyang, in northeastern China, is a major industrial center and transportation hub with a population of 7.2 million.
These places are not on anyone’s Top 10 list of travel destinations. But the advance scouts of the pharmaceutical industry have visited all of them, and scores of similar cities and towns, large and small, in far-flung corners of the planet. They have gone there to find people willing to undergo clinical trials for new drugs, and thereby help persuade the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to declare the drugs safe and effective for Americans. It’s the next big step in globalization, and there’s good reason to wish that it weren’t. Once upon a time, the drugs Americans took to treat chronic diseases, clear up infections, improve their state of mind, and enhance their sexual vitality were tested primarily either in the United States (the vast majority of cases) or in Europe. No longer. As recently as 1990, according to the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, a mere 271 trials were being conducted in foreign countries of drugs intended for American use. By 2008, the number had risen to 6,485—an increase of more than 2,000 percent. A database being compiled by the National Institutes of Health has identified 58,788 such trials in 173 countries outside the United States since 2000. In 2008 alone, according to the inspector general’s report, 80 percent of the applications submitted to the F.D.A. for new drugs contained data from foreign clinical trials. Increasingly, companies are doing 100 percent of their testing offshore. The inspector general found that the 20 largest U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies now conducted “one-third of their clinical trials exclusively at foreign sites.” All of this is taking place when more drugs than ever—some 2,900 different drugs for some 4,600 different conditions—are undergoing clinical testing and vying to come to market. Some medical researchers question whether the results of clinical trials conducted in certain other countries are relevant to Americans in the first place. They point out that people in impoverished parts of the world, for a variety of reasons, may metabolize drugs differently from the way Americans do. They note that the prevailing diseases in other countries, such as malaria and tuberculosis, can skew the outcome of clinical trials. But from the point of view of the drug companies, it’s easy to see why moving clinical trials overseas is so appealing. For one thing, it’s cheaper to run trials in places where the local population survives on only a few dollars a day. It’s also easier to recruit patients, who often believe they are being treated for a disease rather than, as may be the case, just getting a placebo as part of an experiment. And it’s easier to find what the industry calls “drug-naïve” patients: people who are not being treated for any disease and are not currently taking any drugs, and indeed may never have taken any—the sort of people who will almost certainly yield better test results. (For some subjects overseas, participation in a clinical trial may be their first significant exposure to a doctor.) Regulations in many foreign countries are also less stringent, if there are any regulations at all. The risk of litigation is negligible, in some places nonexistent. Ethical concerns are a figure of speech. Finally—a significant plus for the drug companies—the F.D.A. does so little monitoring that the companies can pretty much do and say what they want. Consent by Thumbprint Many of today’s trials still take place in developed countries, such as Britain, Italy, and Japan. But thousands are taking place in countries with large concentrations of poor, often illiterate people, who in some cases sign consent forms with a thumbprint, or scratch an “X.” Bangladesh has been home to 76 clinical trials. There have been clinical trials in Malawi (61), the Russian Federation (1,513), Romania (876), Thailand (786), Ukraine (589), Kazakhstan (15), Peru (494), Iran (292), Turkey (716), and Uganda (132). Throw a dart at a world map and you are unlikely to hit a spot that has escaped the attention of those who scout out locations for the pharmaceutical industry. The two destinations that one day will eclipse all the others, including Europe and the United States, are China (with 1,861 trials) and India (with 1,457). A few years ago, India was home to more American drug trials than China was, thanks in part to its large English-speaking population. But that has changed. English is now mandatory in China’s elementary schools, and, owing to its population edge, China now has more people who speak English than India does. While Americans may be unfamiliar with the names of foreign cities where clinical trials have been conducted, many of the drugs being tested are staples of their medicine cabinets. One example is Celebrex, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that has been aggressively promoted in television commercials for a decade. Its manufacturer, Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, has spent more than a billion dollars promoting its use as a pain remedy for arthritis and other conditions, including menstrual cramps. The National Institutes of Health maintains a record of most—but by no means all—drug trials inside and outside the United States. The database counts 290 studies involving Celebrex. Companies are not required to report—and do not report—all studies conducted overseas. According to the database, of the 290 trials for Celebrex, 183 took place in the United States, meaning, one would assume, that 107 took place in other countries. But an informal, country-by-country accounting by VANITY FAIR turned up no fewer than 207 Celebrex trials in at least 36 other countries. They ranged from 1 each in Estonia, Croatia, and Lithuania to 6 each in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Russia, to 8 in Mexico, 9 in China, and 10 in Brazil. But even these numbers understate the extent of the foreign trials. For example, the database lists five Celebrex trials in Ukraine, but just “one” of those trials involved studies in 11 different Ukrainian cities. The Celebrex story does not have a happy ending. First, it was disclosed that patients taking the drug were more likely to suffer heart attacks and strokes than those who took older and cheaper painkillers. Then it was alleged that Pfizer had suppressed a study calling attention to these very problems. (The company denied that the study was undisclosed and insisted that it “acted responsibly in sharing this information in a timely manner with the F.D.A.”) Soon afterward the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicinereported an array of additional negative findings. Meanwhile, Pfizer was promoting Celebrex for use with Alzheimer’s patients, holding out the possibility that the drug would slow the progression of dementia. It didn’t. Sales of Celebrex reached $3.3 billion in 2004, and then began to quickly drop. “Rescue Countries” One big factor in the shift of clinical trials to foreign countries is a loophole in F.D.A. regulations: if studies in the United States suggest that a drug has no benefit, trials from abroad can often be used in their stead to secure F.D.A. approval. There’s even a term for countries that have shown themselves to be especially amenable when drug companies need positive data fast: they’re called “rescue countries.” Rescue countries came to the aid of Ketek, the first of a new generation of widely heralded antibiotics to treat respiratory-tract infections. Ketek was developed in the 1990s by Aventis Pharmaceuticals, now Sanofi-Aventis. In 2004—on April Fools’ Day, as it happens—the F.D.A. certified Ketek as safe and effective. The F.D.A.’s decision was based heavily on the results of studies in Hungary, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. The approval came less than one month after a researcher in the United States was sentenced to 57 months in prison for falsifying her own Ketek data. Dr. Anne Kirkman-Campbell, of Gadsden, Alabama, seemingly never met a person she couldn’t sign up to participate in a drug trial. She enrolled more than 400 volunteers, about 1 percent of the town’s adult population, including her entire office staff. In return, she collected $400 a head from Sanofi-Aventis. It later came to light that the data from at least 91 percent of her patients was falsified. (Kirkman-Campbell was not the only troublesome Aventis researcher. Another physician, in charge of the third-largest Ketek trial site, was addicted to cocaine. The same month his data was submitted to the F.D.A. he was arrested while holding his wife hostage at gunpoint.) Nonetheless, on the basis of overseas trials, Ketek won approval. As the months ticked by, and the number of people taking the drug climbed steadily, the F.D.A. began to get reports of adverse reactions, including serious liver damage that sometimes led to death. The F.D.A.’s leadership remained steadfast in its support of the drug, but criticism by the agency’s own researchers eventually leaked out (a very rare occurrence in this close-knit, buttoned-up world). The critics were especially concerned about an ongoing trial in which 4,000 infants and children, some as young as six months, were recruited in more than a dozen countries for an experiment to assess Ketek’s effectiveness in treating ear infections and tonsillitis. The trial had been sanctioned over the objections of the F.D.A.’s own reviewers. One of them argued that the trial never should have been allowed to take place—that it was “inappropriate and unethical because it exposed children to harm without evidence of benefits.” In 2006, after inquiries from Congress, the F.D.A. asked Sanofi-Aventis to halt the trial. Less than a year later, one day before the start of a congressional hearing on the F.D.A.’s approval of the drug, the agency suddenly slapped a so-called black-box warning on the label of Ketek, restricting its use. (A black-box warning is the most serious step the F.D.A. can take short of removing a drug from the market.) By then the F.D.A. had received 93 reports of severe adverse reactions to Ketek, resulting in 12 deaths. During the congressional hearings, lawmakers heard from former F.D.A. scientists who had criticized their agency’s oversight of the Ketek trials and the drug-approval process. One was Dr. David Ross, who had been the F.D.A.’s chief reviewer of new drugs for 10 years, and was now the national director of clinical public-health programs for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. When he explained his objections, he offered a litany of reasons that could be applied to any number of other drugs: “Because F.D.A. broke its own rules and allowed Ketek on the market. Because dozens of patients have died or suffered needlessly. Because F.D.A. allowed Ketek’s maker to experiment with it on children over reviewers’ protests. Because F.D.A. ignored warnings about fraud. And because F.D.A. used data it knew were false to reassure the public about Ketek’s safety.” For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 Washington, D.C. - Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the expansion of the Department's national "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign to hundreds of Walmart stores across the country - launching a new partnership between DHS and Walmart to help the American public play an active role in ensuring the safety and security of our nation. "Homeland security starts with hometown security, and each of us plays a critical role in keeping our country and communities safe," said Secretary Napolitano. "I applaud Walmart for joining the ‘If You See Something, Say Something' campaign. This partnership will help millions of shoppers across the nation identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to law enforcement authorities." The "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign—originally implemented by New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and funded, in part, by $13 million from DHS' Transit Security Grant Program—is a simple and effective program to engage the public and key frontline employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities. More than 230 Walmart stores nationwide launched the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign today, with a total of 588 Walmart stores in 27 states joining in the coming weeks. A short video message will play at select checkout locations to remind shoppers to contact local law enforcement to report suspicious activity. Over the past five months, DHS has worked with its federal, state, local and private sector partners, as well as the Department of Justice, to expand the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign and Nationwide SAR Initiative to communities throughout the country—including the recent state-wide expansions of the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign across Minnesota and New Jersey. Partners include the Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, sports and general aviation industries, and state and local fusion centers across the country. In the coming months, the Department will continue to expand the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign nationally with public education materials and outreach tools designed to help America's businesses, communities and citizens remain vigilant and play an active role in keeping the country safe. The Department of Homeland Security is gathering names and information about anti-Transportation Security Administration activists, members of the media, and other supposed troublemakers for investigation and possible tracking, according to an internal DHS memo cited by security expert and Northeast Intelligence Network Director Douglas Hagmann.
Hagmann’s report, first published last week on the NIN website and in Canada Free Press, is causing widespread condemnation and ridicule of the U.S. regime across the internet. According to the article, Hagmann was contacted by a source within the DHS following publication of a previous article on TSA abuses entitled “Gate Rape of America.” The secret memo was written “in response to the growing public backlash against enhanced TSA security screening procedures and the agents conducting the screening process,” explained the DHS document’s introductory paragraph. It was issued in the form of an “administrative directive” after high-level meetings between American “security” bosses like Janet Napolitano and TSA overlord John Pistole. And Obama apparently approved. The memo reportedly labels opponents of the TSA’s heavy-handed groping, naked-body scanners, and other procedures as “domestic extremists.” Federal bureaucrats are actually instructed to identify and electronically report individuals falling under the “extremist” classification — including “any person, group or alternative media source” opposed to the TSA’s Fourth Amendment violations — to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the “Extremism and Radicalization” branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis section of the DHS. The dragnet also includes anyone who “supports and/or elicits support” for people causing “disruptions.” “It would appear that the Department of Homeland Security is not only prepared to enforce the enhanced security procedures at airports, but is involved in gathering intelligence about those who don’t. They’re making a list and most certainly will be checking it twice,” wrote Hagmann in the article, entitled "DHS & TSA: Making a list, checking it twice." “Meanwhile, legitimate threats to our air travel security (and they DO exist) seem [to be] taking a back seat to the larger threat of the multitude of non-criminal American citizens who object to having their Constitutional rights violated,” he added. “As I have written before, it has nothing to do with security and everything to do with control.” The week before the release of Hagmann’s report, the TSA actually did open an investigation into a passenger who opted out of the naked body scanner and then refused the “enhanced” groping, which he compared to sexual assault. “You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested,” he warned the TSA bureaucrat. Now, the would-be passenger is facing possible criminal charges and a potential $11,000 fine. Anger at the TSA and its invasive procedures has been boiling over in recent months as news reports continue highlighting abuses — undressing toddlers, forcing mothers to drink their own breast milk, naked body scanners, invasive groping of genital areas, and worse. That sentiment led to the national “Opt Out Day” movement calling for airline passengers to opt out of naked body scanners across America during the busy Thanksgiving holiday. But is the bureaucracy really compiling an “enemies list” of Americans who peacefully object to the violation of their rights? Hagmann responded to doubts about his assertions in a follow-up piece entitled "Proof Positive that the government rates body scanner resisters as 'Non-Islamic Domestic Terrorists'." In it, he cites the infamous DHS and MIAC documents — labeling as a potential domestic terrorist virtually every American with an opinion — as proof that the regime is capable of such a feat and has, in fact, already done worse. He declined to publish the full memo, saying “the document cannot be posted or published” and that “dissemination of the document itself is restricted by virtue of its classification, which prohibits any manner of public release.” But one thing is certain; the reaction to his report has been enormous. It has been reposted across the Internet and is right now being discussed in numerous forums by countless people. One concern expressed repeatedly is the notion that the TSA, not content to trample on just the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans, is now moving to stifle the right to free speech as well. “The First Amendment is in more serious jeopardy than one might have previously imagined,” noted author Edward Cline, a contributing editor to Family Security Matters. “Do not cave in to the TSA’s 'conditioning' to make your silence a measure of normalcy,” Cline concluded. “The government’s intention is to inure Americans to living in a state of obedient and submissive servitude. Bill Hicks, a real American Hero and Patriot Speaks about the LA Riots and David Letterman3/12/2010 BILL HICKS BIO Born December 16th, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia, William Melvin Hicks was the youngest of three children. By the time he was seven, Bill had lived in four states before settling in Houston. As a child Bill yearned to be a comedian. He idolized Johnny Carson and the stand-up comedy of Woody Allen. In junior high school, Bill met Dwight Slade and they became fast friends. Together, the two spent hours creating comedy routines. Bill and Dwight’s ambitions of performing in front of an audience seemed hopeless. Even though there were no comedy clubs nearby, they made recordings and sent them to local agents. One package earned them an overnight slot on the Jerry Lewis telethon, but they were underage and couldn’t perform. Finally and opportunity arrived when the Comedy Workshop opened in Houston. Chauffeured to the club by friend Kevin Booth (the only one of the three with a driver’s license), they convinced the club manager to give them a shot. Bill & Dwight became the venue’s youngest regular comics. With only a handful of performances under their belts, Dwight’s family relocated, leaving Bill to focus on his solo act. Shortly after graduating high school, Bill moved to LA to start the first phase of his love/hate relationship with the city. Performing alongside then-unknowns Jay Leno,Jerry Seinfeld, and Gary Shandling, Bill found the going rough. After two years he had had enough and returned to Houston. Although his experience in the heart of the showbiz beast had been disappointing, Bill remained enthusiastically dedicated to stand-up comedy. He began touring, relentlessly, building a small but loyal base of fans. In 1984 with the support of Jay Leno, Bill appeared on David Letterman’s show for the first time (at the time of his death, Bill had performed on the show eleven times). He began playing more prestigious rooms and fellow comedians developed tremendous respect for his work. Hicks tried again to integrate into traditional showbiz by moving to New York which he found more agreeable than LA. There Bill stopped taking drugs, a habit he had picked up during hard years of touring. Although he attended AA meetings, Bill never renounced his drug use, explaining in performances that he had “some great times on drugs.” This blunt honesty flowed over into other areas of his performance and Bill addressed a variety of subjects with new, pure clarity. Bill’s comedy (despite his own claims to the contrary) was not about hate or pessimism. Bill was an unabashed optimist. He believed that most people were good at heart but evil forces were deliberately distracting us all from creating a better world using television, lies, tobacco and alcohol as opiates. Bill felt a revolution of thought was coming and that it was his duty, as an emissary of the truth, to bring whatever light he could to anyone who would listen. This blunt, straightforward expression of these ideas could cause clashes with less enlightened, unsuspecting audiences. The result was sometimes dangerous; Bill had his ankle broken and a gun was pointed at him on stage. Despite these experiences, he refused to compromise his material and soldiered on. His first standup comedy video, Sane Man, was recorded in 1988 before an enthusiastic crowd in Austin, Texas. Much of the material heard on his later albums is here in the embryonic stage. Bill toured the clubs even more incessantly in the early 90’s, playing 250-300 gigs a year. Although he loved performing, he hated traveling. But the effort was showing results; his legend was spreading by word of mouth. His first comedy album, Dangerous was released in 1990. That year Ninja Bachelor Party was released on VHS and HBO aired an all-Hicks episode of One Night Stand. At the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, Bill was a hit with audiences and critics. Soon after his Montreal gig, Bill debuted in the United Kingdom appearing in an American comedy revue. British audiences enthusiastically embraced Hicks (Bill joked that it was because of his pale skin), and he toured the country, extensively, winning the prestigious Critics Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. Bill’s second album Relentless was a developmental step from Dangerous but still only hinted at what is to come. On a 1992 English tour he filmed the Revelationsperformance video. Although he was working harder then ever and his career was building momentum, Bill was still not reaching as large an audience as he had hoped. Meanwhile, other comedians were breaking into mass consciousness with a watered-down version of Hicks’ comedy. While it would have been lucrative for Bill to tone down his act and supersede these pretenders, he had no interest in doing so. Uncompromisingly Bill moved forward, expanding his world-view. Turning his back on the opportunity to cash in, he plowed ahead fearlessly. Bill’s material and performances evolved at a tremendous rate. In 1993 a breakthrough seemed closer than ever. Rolling Stone had declared Bill “Hot Stand-Up Comic” of the year. He began work on Counts of the Netherworld, a high-concept talk show for British TV. He had been nominated for Stand-Up Of The Year by the American Comedy Awards for the third time. He wrote a column for the British humor magazine Scallywag and was asked to write for the political journalThe Nation. Rock bands flocked to his banner; Radiohead, Rage Against the Machineand Tool professed their admiration. He had been invited by the New York Public Library for Performing Arts to speak at Lincoln Center in June of 1994. Performance films, screenplays, books and CD box sets were in various stages of discussion. Perhaps to take advantage of this synergy, Bill moved back to LA. Then, in June, Bill learned he had cancer. Choosing to keep his illness a secret, he told his family, a few close friends and went straight back to work. In August of 1993 Bill’s brother Steve flew to LA and together they packed Bill’s belongings into his jeep and drove to Little Rock, Arkansas where Bill moved into his parent’s home. He had already recorded both Arizona Bay and Rant In E-Minor, with ambitious plans to mix music that he had recorded into the performance to compliment the comedy themes. He described the conceptual Arizona Bay as his Dark Side Of The Moonbuilt around the theme of LA falling into the Pacific Ocean. Throughout the year, Bill underwent chemotherapy on a weekly basis. The tour dates didn’t let up and his writing pace accelerated. In October, Hicks taped a performance for David Letterman that became one of his most infamous moments. Returning to his hotel following the early evening taping, Bill was told that censors had cut his segment. In a 39-page letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker, Bill expressed his frustration. He had reason to be enraged; the set had been approved (twice!) by the powers that be. It would’ve been his last television appearance. The set was finally aired on January 30, 2009 when Letterman had Bill's mother as that night's Late Show guest. Bill's last live gig was on January 6, 1994 at Caroline’s in New York City – he did not complete the series of shows. Despite his illness, Bill was at peace. He spent time with his parents, playing them the music he loved and showing them documentaries about his interests. He called friends to say goodbye and re-read J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Fellowship Of The Ring. The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.
"There are a lot of people talking about that. I think the European Commission has talked about that," said the U.S. official, commenting on enlarging the 750 billion euro ($980 billion) EU/IMF European stability fund. "It is up to the Europeans. We will certainly support using the IMF in these circumstances." "There are obviously some severe market problems," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In May, it was Greece. This is Ireland and Portugal. If there is contagion that's a huge problem for the global economy." The remarks foreshadow a visit to Europe this week by a U.S. Treasury envoy who is expected to visit Berlin, Madrid and Paris to hold talks on the ramifications of the debt crisis. |
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