Alliance for Natural Health - US

AMA’s Government-Protected Monopoly Squeezes Out Alternative Medicine

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:30:40 +0000

The world of medicine is run by billing codes. Every hospital, doctor, and practitioner who accepts insurance or Medicare uses billing codes so they can be reimbursed. But where are the codes for integrative and alternative medical services? Our Action Alert to the DHS this week asks for the incorporation of these integrative codes. Healthcare codes describe medical, surgical, and diagnostic services, remedies, and supply items provided to patients. They are designed to communicate uniform information about medical services and procedures among physicians, coders, patients, accreditation organizations, payers (insurance, managed care, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.). The code set copyrighted and maintained by the American Medical Association is called the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code. In 1983, an agreement between the HCFA (the government’s Health Care Financing Administration, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services) and the AMA made the CPT the sole coding system that could be used for billing Medicare. This monopoly completely squeezes out alternative and integrative medical practitioners. The AMA’s codes are for treatments by conventional medical doctors, in allopathic medical care systems. There are no codes for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) because the AMA doesn’t deal in that type of medicine; for them to create CAM codes would in fact be a conflict of interest. There is a competing system that can fill those gaps: the ABC codes—a system of 4,400 new codes specifically designed for those 4,300,000 non-MD practitioners working in professions such as nursing, behavioral health, alternative medicine, ethnic and minority care, midwifery, and spiritual care. They are important for a number of reasons:

they are HIPAA-compliant (HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; passed by Congress in 1996, it allows for people to transfer and continue their health insurance coverage when they change or lose their jobs, mandates industry-wide standards for healthcare information on electronic billing, and requires the protection and confidential handling of protected health information);
they can be used by both licensed and non-licensed healthcare practitioners on standard claim forms;
they complement existing code systems used in the allopathic setting;
they accurately document the care patients receive, covering a vast range of healthcare practices; and
they fulfill requirements imposed by both state medical boards and payers.

Widespread use of ABC codes is desperately needed so alternative medical providers can be fairly compensated for the services they provide, and can document and quantify the safety and efficacy of their treatments. However, the AMA’s coding system is being spread across the board—and physicians are charged to use it, even though only 15–19% of practicing physicians are AMA members. And it’s a huge business. The AMA’s own website says, “The AMA is a successful business entity that generates approximately two-thirds of its annual $230 million operating budget from non-dues sources”—which includes the hefty fees to use the CPT codes. In 1997, the US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, ruled that the AMA’s exclusivity agreement with HCFA for using CPT “gave the AMA a substantial and unfair advantage over its competitors” and “constituted a misuse of the copyright by the AMA.” The court did not address whether the AMA’s conditions and high prices for a licensee’s use of the CPT code constituted violations of anti-trust law as well. In 2001, when he was Senate Minority Leader, Trent Lott (D–MS) asked the Department of Health and Human Services to clarify the exclusivity arrangement it had with the AMA’s coding system. In response, the HHS approved a two year pilot project using the ABC codes. The pilot project was an amazing success, providing stunning statistics in a report showing the need for a revised billing code system—one that would include billing codes for ALL health practitioners. According to ABC Coding Solutions, which developed the ABC codes, the AMA is now open to other coding systems, and ABC codes can work with CPT and provide supplemental information for billing, but the government has been unwilling to implement any changes that would have a greater effect on the healthcare billing system. Our Action Alert to the DHS this week asks for the incorporation of these integrative codes. As we pointed out last week, doctors often have their hands tied by healthcare regulations. A doctor can be charged with a crime for billing an “unnecessary” treatment to the government or a private insurance company, because the CPT codes often do not allow for non-traditional services. This makes it difficult for doctors to bill their services accurately and puts them at risk of running afoul of government regulations. There are several ways for an integrative doctor to reduce this risk. One is to not participate in any government program or accept private insurance. Another is to avoid using the CPT codes and instead substitute the ABC codes—ABC will automatically convert its code to the AMA’s code for such billing purposes. This makes the treatment more likely to be covered, and it will therefore be harder to say that it is “unnecessary.” This can be especially useful for an integrative clinic that is part of a hospital system that requires the AMA’s code.

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO DHS

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter. We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only be seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Deborah Ray’s Blog Become a Better Educated Healthcare Consumer

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:59:53 +0000

The American economy while battered, shaken, and plagued by staggering debt from wasteful government spending continues to remain relatively safe to many in the business world. Conventional American medicine boasts amazing technology and innovation but it remains unlike any other segment of the economy as most Americans would currently agree it’s a broken system. It has been difficult or even impossible for Americans to become educated healthcare consumers. After all, the time-tested adage that you get what you pay for just doesn’t hold true in American conventional medicine. In American medicine more money does not equal more care and certainly does equal better care. There are the complicating factors of complications, side effects, nocosomial (caused by the system itself), along with its very-own terminology. Myocardial infarction-why can’t they just say heart attack? Essential hypertension-why can’t they tell you it’s high blood pressure caused by unknown reasons? And the lab tests, why was a cholesterol reading of 300 mg% normal until just a few years ago and now it’s the lower, the better. Then there is the disconnect between the fact that the patient is in charge and even though they may be footing the bill personally, their money directly or indirectly is paying for the services they receive. We would indignantly refuse to pay for complications when our car is serviced but we fail to be outraged if we are charged and our insurance pays for hospital-acquired infections, complications, drug interactions, and the like. Healthcare reform took a huge step forward when the Bush administration announced Medicare would no longer pay for mistakes caused by the system. We would not pay our accountant or attorney for mistakes they made, would we? The current voter mood may take this further as their outrage for wasteful government spending is affected elections across the country. Comparison shopping is slowly coming to medicine. The Cleveland Clinic has joined with venture capitalists in a venture, Castlight Health, to build a search engine for health care prices. The supermarket chain, Safeway, has already signed on as its first customer. Others are also joining that effort to provide Americans this basic consumer information including the New Hampshire state government, Aetna, and a start-up from Tennessee calling Change: healthcare, among others. Click here to read further http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/technology/11cost.html?ref=health. Several years ago The Wall Street Journal revealed the prices of MRI scans and the eye-opening information that more expensive scans were not better scans. In fact, some of the least expensive scans were of the highest quality. We can only imagine what else we may learn if we clearly understand the cost and the quality of the service. The difference between what labs charge for blood tests and what diagnostic centers charge for scans and procedures can be profound. It is only a matter of time before consumers couple that with quality information. Am I getting the best price and am I getting the best quality? These are two questions most American healthcare consumers never even knew to ask. Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, recently published a study that found that those on high-deductible insurance plans spend less. It’s basic consumerism 101. If the money is coming out of your pocket, you want to know the price of the service and are inclined to shop around for the best price and want to be sure you are getting the best care for the money you spend. Consider the situation Castlight Health has revealed to Safeway employees. Safeway pays their employees up to $1200 for preventive colonoscopies. In one location, the price can range from $500 up to $3000 for colonoscopies. Even the same doctor charges different fees among different hospitals where they perform the colonoscopy. That would not be tolerated in a consumer-driven economy. Now, it appears Congress is also a less than educated healthcare consumer. Healthcare reform was sold to Congress by the current administration to eliminate wasteful spending. However, the data cited from the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare illustrated the difference Medicare paid for the same procedure in different areas of the country. Congress interpreted the data that more money equaled better care and less money equaled poor care. However, it has not been acknowledged that this is NOT the case. Click here to read further http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/business/03dartmouth.html. And more medical procedures does not equate to better care. More medical procedures are sometimes both wasteful and potentially harmful. Undoubtedly it will take years for government, business, and consumers to get the message. However, given the warp speed with which changes in technology such as cell-phones emerge, come on the market, and eclipse more expensive outdated technology, we can only imagine when costs are shifted primarily to consumers, how rapidly the medical system will change to be more in line what we find with any commodity purchased by the consumer. Physician offices are also increasingly cost shifting to consumers. Click here to read further http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20100607/NEWS01/100607005/Doctors-tack-on-fees-for-patients. While consumers now complain, they will ultimately find ways to spend their dollars more wisely for healthcare. Integrative physicians’ offices are ahead of this curve as most of these offices are private pay, that is, consumers pay out of pocket for care in these settings. The ultimate control of healthcare costs outside emergencies and accidents is increasingly equated in consumers’ minds to their lifestyle choices. If we consider the costs relating to heart disease, diabetes, and even many forms of cancer, many consumers already acknowledge if they make wiser lifestyle choices, they can even affect genetic expression and dramatically reduce or eliminate their risk of these chronic diseases that have high price-tags. Companies preceded consumers in this aspect of healthcare costs and many now say “no thanks” to hiring those who smoke or engage in other risky behavior. If visible role models like former AK-Governor Mike Huckabee demonstrate how their lifestyle choices reversed serious disease (in Governor Huckabee’s case, he reversed type II diabetes with eating and exercise changes), consumers will pay attention particularly if the consequences of their own lifestyle adversely affects their pocketbook. The natural products industry, integrative medical doctors, and medical spas are all examples of how consumers will spend to increase their quality of life. The revolution in American medicine is well under way. It is possible the U.S. will no longer lead in dollars spent on healthcare but lead in the efficiency and outcome of the healthcare system. From Deborah A. Ray, MT(ASCP) Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

The Little Purple Pill Problem

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:29:20 +0000

Forbes magazine calls it “a parable of what’s wrong with health care [costs].” We think that the popular drug Nexium is a scandal for a different reason – what it does to your digestion. AstraZenica, the international pharmaceutical company worth $46.8 billion, began selling a drug called omeprazole in 1989 under the brand name Prilosec. It is a proton pump inhibitor, and it was marketed as a treatment for heartburn, peptic ulcer disease, and GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). Two years before the patent expired, AstraZeneca changed the formulation slightly and started selling it as a new patented drug, Nexium. What the drug company did not want was for consumers to stay with Prilosec, essentially identical to the new drug, once the old drug came off patent and the price collapsed. This strategy worked. Nexium is easily AstraZeneca biggest seller, bringing in $5 billion so far. And part of that is its cost: $2,000 for a year’s supply. While the drug company says an average consumer only pays a $30 co-pay for Nexium, a recent Forbes article points out that the rest of us are paying for it with higher health insurance rates. The article also provided more details about how the company managed the switch from Prilosec to Nexium: “Intense marketing around Nexium coincided with price increases for Prilosec, pushing many patients to Nexium. Doctors, easy to woo with drug sales reps bearing samples and company-commissioned research reports, were happy to write scripts for the new drug—and oblivious of the economic implications. Insurers and their corporate clients mostly wimped out, paying full freight for Nexium. Nobody wants to be the bad guy with employees’ health coverage. But the sum of many dubious coverage decisions adds up; the nation’s health spending keeps rising at 5% to 6% a year.” Prescription drug spending accounts for about 10% of the total health pie—which is estimated to be around $260 billion for 2010. This is scandalous in a number of ways. First, Nexium is little different from Prilosec, which can be purchased for $13.50 for a month’s supply at Costco. The difference is, one version is patented and the other is not. The company has always justified the drug by pointing to a single study that found Nexium was three percentage points better at preventing a rare form of esophageal damage than Prilosec. But even worse, as we reported last year, acid blockers like Prilosec and Nexium incorrectly treat most people’s stomach problems, including heartburn and GERD, by turning off acid production. While it seems counterintuitive, recent studies suggest that the problem for most stomach sufferers is not too much stomach acid, but too little! Other maladies—bloating, belching, constipation, indigestion, and even thinning hair or breaking fingernails in women—may also be the result of too little acid. So antacids may actually be making the problem worse. If antacids and acid blockers are a cause rather than a cure for stomach problems, this would rank as one of the major medical errors of history. For more information about why most stomach sufferers may need more stomach acid, not less, see Your Stomach by Dr. Jonathan Wright.

Readers Corner: Unfounded, Sensationalist Claims? ANH-USA Responds.

ANH-USA — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:29:58 +0000

Anna writes: July 15, 2010 at 2:36 am “I’ve read in a statement that ANH is making unfounded and sensationalist claims. Your response?” ANH-USA says: July 16, 2010 “We have never made any unfounded claims, much less unfounded sensationalist claims. This is totally false. We have also discussed these rumors in our newsletter. Please see the links below: Rumor No. 1 That the Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) provision we got into Obamacare mandating an integrative doctor on the CER and advisory panel was pointless. ANH-USA ANSWER: http://www.anh-usa.org/capitol-hill-search/ Rumor No. 2 That there is no evidence Congressman Waxman authored the FTC expansion provision and in addition the provision is not (now was not) a threat to supplements. ANH-USA ANSWER: http://www.anh-usa.org/did-waxman-author-the-%E2%80%9Cwaxman%E2%80%9D-amendment/ Rumor No. 3 That ANH-USA did not get the supplement protecting language into the Senate Food Safety Bill to ensure protection from Codex, and that this provision went into the bill long before we said it did. ANH-USA ANSWER: http://www.anh-usa.org/further-update-on-our-story-supplements-gain-exemption-from-codex-language-in-senate-food-safety-bill/”

Deborah Ray’s Blog AIDS drugs linked to ‘Severe Vitamin D Deficiency’

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:52:02 +0000

It is one of those ‘far enough ahead of your time to suffer for it medical maverick” moments. Integrative medical practitioners have long recognized because of their knowledge and use of the body’s biochemistry that prescription drugs deplete the body of certain nutrients. It’s called drug induced nutrient depletion. The side effects of medication are often related to or caused directly by the phenomenon of drug induced nutrient depletion. It was written about by two well-known integrative pharmacists, Dr. Ross Pelton and Dr. James Lavelle, in their book Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, 1999-2000 (Paperback - Jun 15, 1999). For example, the class of drugs known as steroids or corticosteroids is widely accepted to have more side effects than any other single classification of medications. It is not widely embraced that steroids deplete the body of more nutrients than any other single class of medications.Weight gain, bone thinning, immune suppression, cataracts are all side effects of the long-term use of steroids that can be related to the nutrients depleted by the use of steroids. Drug induced nutrient depletion has recently been acknowledged in the mainstream media. News wire services picked up the UK group report from the June 25, 2010 online issue of AIDS which indicated the use of tenofovir or efavirenz, one of the most widely used first line HIV drugs, are at risk for clinically significant vitamin D deficiency and subsequently, excessive bone turnover. Click here to read about this in further detail http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/07/08/professional/links/20100708clin009.html. With it widely accepted that up to 89% of all Americans may be less than optimally vitamin D nourished, it is of interest to note thanks to a University of Maryland Medical Center data base the drugs that deplete the body of vitamin D. They include anti-inflammatory medications including inhalant, systemic, and topical corticosteroids, antibiotic medications, anti-convulsant medications, anti-ulcer medications, cholesterol lowering medications, and some laxatives. Click here for a more in-depth look at the medications known to deplete the body of vitamin D http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/vitamin-d-000724.htm An increasing number of nutritionally oriented practitioners question the practice of targeting LDL cholesterol as the bad cholesterol to be lowered with a medication with the knowledge that LDL cholesterol is essential in vitamin D production; click here to read further www.jpands.org/vol10no3/colpo.pdf. Vitamin D controls 1 in 10 of our body’s genes and it recognized to be essential for bone health, protection from many forms of cancer, integral in immune system function and balance, protection from heart disease and stroke, protection from asthma and autism, protection from chronic pain, and much more. Just as the Celebrex/Vioxx issue transcended risk to benefit analysis of prescription drug use to mainstream media lingo, it is essential that drug induced nutrient depletion be part of the education and empowerment of healthcare consumers as well as that of their practitioners and pharmacists. The side effects of properly prescribed prescription drugs can affect many and are costly both medically and financially. Dr. Frank Post and Dr. Tanya Welz of King’s College Hospital in London noted that current efavirenz use doubled the likelihood of the risk of severe vitamin D deficiency. We know that has serious consequences beyond even bone health. It’s time for mainstream conventional medicine and the popular media to begin to educate themselves, their patients, and their readers/viewers/listeners about drug induced nutrient depletion. From Deborah A. Ray, MT(ASCP) Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

Doctors Threatened With Jail

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:00:48 +0000

For decades, doctors have been in the crosshairs of trial lawyers. Now they are increasingly in the crosshairs of prosecutors threatening jail sentences. In the murky world of Medicare and Medicaid rules, it is very easy to make a false claim. In one experiment, a researcher contacted five different government Medicare billing advisors about a possible claim and got five different answers about how to handle it. So even if a doctor stopped practicing and instead spent full time supervising each and every bill, the government can easily claim error and thus fraud. It isn’t that every error will be treated as fraud. It is just that it could be. This is a powerful weapon of intimidation and reprisal. Medicare and Medicaid claims are often paid by mail. And of course each instance of “mail fraud” as defined by the government can also fetch five years in prison. Electronic billing may change this, though as we have pointed out in other articles, it will also violate your medical privacy. Medicare fraud is admittedly a giant problem. Only about 5% of claims are audited, and estimates of the total volume of fraudulent claims range from 10 to 20%. Given the Medicare budget of around $450 billion, this is very big money. But most of this fraud is organized theft, not individual doctors trying to cheat the system. In response to the fraud problem, Congress passed more laws during the Clinton administration designed to punish cheating both in federal programs and in state programs with any federal financing. The trouble with these laws is their vagueness. They include under fraud treatments that are “not medically necessary.” It is of course the government itself which decides how to interpret this, and the government is lobbied by and heavily influenced by the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry. In most cases, natural therapies would definitely be categorized as “not medically necessary” and thus fraudulent—and criminal. Keep in mind also that it is not just doctors that defraud the government’s medical programs. Drug companies have also been found guilty of this. Although they have paid some fines, we haven’t yet seen any Pharma executive go to jail, and no one expects that ever to happen. In 1996, Senator Ted Kennedy added to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act new anti-fraud provisions providing for jail terms of up to ten years. If a patient dies while being given the “medically unnecessary” treatment and the government decides that the treatment caused the death, the doctor can go to jail for life. This legislation also extended the anti-fraud provisions to cover bills submitted to any “health care benefit program.” Under federal law, health care benefit programs include private insurance as well as federal programs. So now a doctor can go to jail for getting on the wrong side of a private insurance company. Meanwhile if a doctor signs up for a drug research program, he or she had better follow FDA regulations to the letter. Although the legal situation here has not been fully sorted out by the courts, the FDA takes the position that an infraction of its rules may be a felony. Given all this, you can see why ANH-USA has sounded the alarm about the new jail terms targeted by the FDA at supplement producers that has been included in the House version of the Food Safety Act. But it doesn’t take any new legislation to put a doctor in jail for doing things that are quite innocent. This is not only unfair to doctors. it is unfair to all of us. Once we succeed in getting all Americans medically covered, we will need a lot more doctors, not fewer. Will they be there? If not, how much do you think it will cost to see one of the remaining doctors? But it doesn’t stop there. News has just broken that the US Department of Justice, together with the Idaho Attorney General (note that this is a bipartisan operation), charged a group of Boise orthopedists with a criminal violation of the antitrust laws. What had they actually done? They got together and discussed what to do about the very low fees offered by the State Workers Compensation Program. Result: thoroughly intimidated doctors signed a draconian ten year consent decree agreeing to accept the Idaho Industrial Commissions’ price controls. Most of the doctors also agreed to rescind any threats of withdrawing from Blue Cross of Idaho. Keep in mind that Blue Cross is a private insurance company. As such, it is itself exempt from antitrust laws. And state and federal governments are also exempt. it is just the doctors who are subject to it. News accounts also suggest that the doctors were “persuaded” to hire a high priced lawyer who until recently worked for the same division of the Justice Department that was suing them. This is part of a well established pattern of government intimidation practiced by government agencies including the FDA as well as the Justice Department. Once you have talked a very scared plaintiff into a consent decree, you require that they hire former employees of the agency at very high prices for further representation or compliance. If you are a government employee, you don’t make money on this arrangement right away. But when you leave the agency, the buddy system ensures that you will get your turn at these spoils. The excuse for this inexcusable behavior? It is that the expensive former government employee being foisted on the scared plaintiffs knows the ropes about how to comply with the consent decree. And there will be masses of compliance work to do. The doctors face ten more years of compliance and have agreed among other things to submit detailed written reports, submitted under oath, whenever required by their tormentors. Bottom line: the doctors will work all day for a pittance as required by the decree and spend their “spare time” filling out reports. If doctors met together and decided what to charge the general public, they would of course be engaging in a genuine violation of antitrust laws. But note that this is primarily a case of doctors responding to a government price control. The constitution expressly permits us to assemble, to talk freely, and to petition the government. That is why the doctors’ consent decree explicitly says that they can do those things even though they have actually been prosecuted for doing them. As William Norman Grigg noted in his recent article about this travesty, “How are the doctors supposed to comply with the Final Judgment, given that its guidelines distinguishing ‘Prohibited’ from ‘Acceptable’ conduct make no sense?” But making no sense is what it is all about. The government puts in rules that only a lawyer can figure out. If a doctor violates any of them, there is the threat of jail to ensure compliance with price controls or anything else. That is the whole idea. And even if the consent decree were not written in gobbledegook, can you imagine the doctors standing up for their constitutional rights now? It takes a great deal of courage to do that with the threat of jail and losing your license hanging over your head. Will doctors have to unionize to beat this new antitrust-related gag order? Remember that unions are exempt from antitrust legislation too. That is how unionized workers can discuss together what they will accept for pay. But if doctors get swept up into some vast union, that might well accelerate the drift toward government-mandated, one-size-fits-all medicine. If doctors don't unionize, they had better not expect any help with price controls from the courts. An American College of Cardiology suit against Medicare pay cuts was recently dismissed by the US District Court in south Florida. The reason: the court said it had no jurisdiction, and that the federal government could do whatever it wanted about prices. Parents: it may be time to reconsider. Maybe you don’t want your child to become a doctor, or marry one. Maybe that’s a thing of the past.

Children Are Being Exploited to Extend Pharmaceutical Patents

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:39:06 +0000

Want to protect your kids from high cholesterol? Just give ’em drugs—like the new, chewable form of Lipitor. Yes, chewable. Like candy. A new Action Alert asks Congress to repeal a really rotten law that encourages this. Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug—made by Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company—has just been approved for use with children in the European Union. It is already approved for children in the US. The motivation is obvious: Lipitor’s 2009 sales were about $13 billion, but its US patent expires at the end of November 2011. This means Pfizer will quickly lose much of its Lipitor revenue once the generic competition hits the market. The company is desperately trying to boost its sales everywhere it can before then. Pfizer also plans to apply for a six-month extension of its patent in European countries. As is the case in the United States, the EU allows drug makers to seek an additional six months of patent protection for medications if they test them in children, who generally are excluded from the drug studies done before a new medication is approved. The company has already received the extension in the US. And those extra six months could put several billion extra dollars in Pfizer’s pockets. Lipitor has been available in the US for children since 2002. But it’s rarely prescribed, and it’s not (yet) the EU-approved chewable type. The fact that kids can be used by pharmaceutical corporations to extend their patents is nothing short of outrageous. This law provides huge incentives to drug companies to sell drugs to children—whether they’re good for kids or not. Case in point: the FDA has approved another statin drug, Prevachol, for 8-year-olds, despite the weighty risks for a growing child. Duane Graveline, MD, former NASA astronaut and scientist, demonstrated the link between statin drugs and muscle and neurological problems, including memory loss and Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in his book Statin Drug Side Effects. Other documented side effects include nerve damage, muscle damage (don’t forget that the heart is a muscle too), liver enzyme derangement, and in some cases even kidney failure. Dr. Joseph Mercola notes a number of other side effects of statins, which he calls “some of the most dangerous drugs on the market”: blood glucose elevation, tendon problems, anemia, acidosis, cataracts, and sexual dysfunction. Meanwhile, Harvard researchers have found that 85% of heart disease can be prevented by lifestyle changes alone—the correct diet, plenty of exercise, and extra nutrients such as fish oil, l-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, d-ribose, and others. Many doctors are now calling for universal school screening of children for high cholesterol. This invasion of the home and of parents’ rights would lead to more and more statins being given at a younger and younger age. And it’s not just cholesterol drugs they’re giving to kids. The journal Pediatrics found that medications are being prescribed for children in the US at a dramaticly increasing rate—for diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma, ADHD, and depression. Using a database of prescription claims from children with private health insurance, they were able to find prescriptions for almost 4 million children. In addition to calls for universal school screening for cholesterol, there are also plans to screen kids for mental health issues, which will lead to more mental health medications being used on children. We are creating a generation of drugged kids. Some of the price to be paid for this is already visible. Pediatrics also found ADHD drugs causing hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms (in addition to growth stunting, reported elsewhere). Half a million children are being treated annually for drug side effects. Pfizer has worked hard to protect Lipitor, its cash cow. In 2003, it funded the National Lipid Education Council (NLEC), a promotional tool for Pfizer which was thinly disguised as a continuing medical education group whose job was to educate doctors on cholesterol issues. Half the members of the US government’s National Institute of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program were also members of the NLEC. That same year, a whistleblower from Pfizer alleged that the pharma giant marketed Lipitor for patients with moderately high cholesterol when the FDA approval was only for high cholesterol patients. Of course Pfizer has also worked to redefine what is considered “high.” Doctors who were selected by Pfizer as investigators on the NLEC received multimillion dollar research grants, an honorarium, speaker fees, travel, entertainment, and the opportunity to attend meetings and network with luminaries in the cardiovascular disease world. ANH-USA has been dedicated to children’s health issues since its founding—including the rising concern of environmental toxins—but nothing makes us more upset than the outright exploitation of kids so the richest corporations in the world can extend their patents and become just a little richer. This six-month extension on drug patents so they can test them on children is reprehensible, but it’s a law like any other law, and it can be changed. Please contact your senators and your representatives, and ask them to get this law changed for the sake of all our children.

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter. We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only be seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Supplements Still in Peril

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:36:29 +0000

Over the past year, we fought four different Congressional bills that would have affected your access to supplements. In our Action Alert, we need your help to educate our lawmakers, most of whom know little or nothing about existing supplement regulation or why supplements are not drugs. As successful as you have been in defending supplements on Capitol Hill this year, anti-supplement members of Congress are still playing on the offense. As Congressman Henry Waxman, one of the leaders of the group trying to turn supplements into drugs, once said that nothing is ever “settled for good” in Washington. Of the four pieces of legislation below, only the Food Safety Bill is still an immediate threat and so far it keeps being delayed. But even the bad ideas you have defeated could easily come back.

Senator McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act (S. 3002) is no longer supported by McCain himself, but cannot be formally withdrawn and so remains for this session.
The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), which passed the House in late 2009, included a buried provision written in impossible-to-follow legalese that would have drastically expanded the powers of the Federal Trade Commission, powers that would have been used against supplements. Although you stopped it in the Senate and in conference committee, it could still be added to another bill.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). You succeeded in getting language added that would protect us from sliding down a slippery slope toward harmonizing US standards for supplements with the irrationally restrictive European standards—under rules set by the global Codex Alimentarius. Other provisions of the bill we still oppose, but it has been sitting on the Senate calendar for ten months with no activity. One possibility is that it will emerge and be reconciled with the House bill in the very dangerous lame duck session after the fall elections, when defeated or retired legislators can take positions without worry about voter reaction.
The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749). This is a terrible bill. It has passed the House, so the last chance to stop its toxic provisions is in the House–Senate Conference when it eventually comes. Among the worst provisions, it includes jail time—up to 10 years—for “misbranding” or “adulterating” supplements. And the definitions are very broad: “adulteration” includes recordkeeping violations, while “misbranding” includes citing peer-reviewed science about the benefits of a dietary supplement. This new threat of sanctions (only in the House bill, not the Senate’s) would give the FDA a hammer with which to threaten and coerce companies engaging in completely legal activities.

In the case of all the bills above, we have been successful so far. But we have been fighting in a defensive mode. If we stay only on the defense, we will eventually lose. It is clear that we need to take action—to be proactive—and educate Congress on the supplement regulation issue. In order to prevent new legislative efforts to implement duplicative, unnecessary, and expensive regulations that could drastically reduce your access to health-giving supplements, we need your help to tell Congress that dietary supplements are already regulated! That’s right: contrary to what the media has been saying (and many members of Congress believe), dietary supplements are indeed fully regulated. The FDA has complete authority to regulate supplements in three important ways:

It can take any supplement off the the market that is unsafe, mislabeled, misbranded, adulterated, or makes false or misleading claims. (The FTC also has the power to stop any fraudulent advertising.)
It is charged with enforcing the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which holds supplement manufacturers to “good manufacturing practices” (industry standards for product quality) as defined by the FDA itself.
It collects and takes any necessary action based on “adverse event reports,” that is, any reported negative reactions to dietary supplements.

Please let your senators and your representative know that supplements are not drugs. It is nonsensical to treat them as drugs. Importantly, supplements are natural substances; therefore they cannot be patented; therefore to subject them to the vast cost of FDA approval would simply drive supplement producers out of business, leaving drug companies with a complete monopoly. Moreover, although they are not drugs, supplements are already fully regulated. More legislation is not needed. Please help deliver this message where it is needed. Please TAKE ACTION now.

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only be seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Cancer, Chemo, and Crony Capitalism

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:31:41 +0000

When Medicare reduced reimbursements for oncologists in 2003, some physicians started giving their patients more expensive chemotherapy and other cancer treatments—in return for kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies, a new study has found. The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that oncologists can buy drugs at deep discount and then dispense them at the higher Medicare rate in their offices. It lets oncologists run a kind of pharmacy as a side business (although it is rarely identified as such to the patients). This represents a considerable part of some oncologists’ income. Talk about a huge conflict of interest! Oncologists prescribe specific drugs to their patients—and are then permitted to sell them those same drugs at a huge profit. Other doctors do not do this. But oncologists had an exception carved out for themselves. Cancer patients often feel powerless, and they’ll do whatever their doctor tells them to do. Moreover, they can’t go to another source (other than another oncologist) for the chemotherapy drugs. And they often don’t have the luxury of time to explore other options and second opinions. It becomes, in effect, a closed market—crony capitalism at the expense of human health, made possible by a government favor posing as a government rule. The authors of the study analyzed the records of over 200,000 lung cancer patients treated between 2003 and 2005. Before the Medicare cuts went into effect, 16.5% of such patients received chemotherapy; afterward, nearly 20%. That 2.5% difference could be considerable, especially if applied to a substantial portion of the 1,529,460 Americans that are expected to develop cancer in 2010, according to the American Cancer Society. The study also found that doctors frequently switched to more expensive cancer drugs like docetaxel, for which oncologist get reimbursed about $2,500 per patient per month. The bottom line, according to noted medical writer Ralph W. Moss, PhD, who created the important Internet journal Cancer Decisions, is that some oncologists in private practice may make crucial treatment decisions based not on medical necessity but on what is most profitable for themselves. In his forthcoming book Customized Cancer Treatment, Dr. Moss notes that the public did not know about the existence of the chemotherapy concession until 1999. That year, at a Medicare Advisory Panel meeting in Baltimore, a gastroenterologist complained that the government had reduced his reimbursement rate for colonoscopies from $400 to $108. All the doctors in his internal medicine group were hurting, he continued, except for the two medical oncologists, whom he said were making a fortune running their in-office retail pharmacies. This offhand remark alerted the world to the fact that oncologists were selling drugs at a profit in their offices. If this isn’t bad enough, it is much debated in the medical community whether many chemotherapy treatments do more harm than good. Dr. Mercola reported on a recent study which found that over four in ten patients who received chemotherapy towards the end of life suffered potentially fatal effects from the drugs, and treatment was “inappropriate” in nearly a fifth of cases. In a study of more than 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of receiving treatment, chemotherapy probably caused or hastened death in 27 percent of cases. In fact, as Mike Adams points out, even dispensing the chemotherapy drugs is dangerous, and the doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who handle the toxic medications are giving themselves cancer! One last point: if you are ever treated with chemotherapy, be sure to review the scientific studies recommending the use of antioxidant supplements with it. Most oncologists refuse to accept any of this persuasive evidence and won’t tell you about it.

Deborah Ray’s Blog A Medical Maverick’s Fate

ANH-USA — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:47:20 +0000

The attempt to wipe Andrew Wakefield, MD from the face of the medical community for honestly reporting his findings trying to help his patients The General Medical Council of UK has now removed Andrew Wakefield, MD from the medical registry. This follows their January 2010 findings from the Fitness to Practice and Investigation Committee report. And, it follows the February 2010 action by the Lancet medical journal to retract the article published in 1998 by Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues. The GMC investigation was prompted by an inquiry from Brian Deer, Sunday Times columnist. The Sunday Times is owned by a board member of GSK, the makers of the MMR vaccine mentioned in Dr. Wakefield’s published research. Medical mavericks are far enough ahead of their time to suffer for it. And, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a noted gastroenterologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and author of over 130 original studies, who was never anti-vaccine, was an unlikely maverick. In 1995, to quote Dr. Wakefield “A mother called me and said a child is developing perfectly normally and then had their MR vaccine. The child became extremely unwell, high fever for days and upon recovery was never the same. The child deteriorated into Autism - lost speech, communication, language, inter-action. I said, I'm terribly sorry, I'm a gastroenterologist, you must have rang the wrong number. I knew nothing about Autism; when I was in medical school, it was so rare - we were not even taught about it. And she said, No, you don't understand my child has terrible bowel problems; he's having diarrhea 12 times a day he's lost continence; I know he's in pain but he can't tell me he's in pain. He's hitting himself, banging his head, biting himself and attacking people and I know this is because he is in pain.” Click here to read further a about Dr. Wakefield’s story in his own words http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010053010367/health-and-education/dr-andrew-wakefield-on-the-autism-vaccine-controversy.html. His team found 100 other children with nearly identical stories. Twelve were tested further and written up for publication. Children have now been found in five other countries with similar sets of experiences. When Dr. Wakefield treated the first child and others for their bowel disorders, their behavior improved. That was what initiated propelled Dr. Wakefield to look further, to study and to present his information. He had no anti-vaccine agenda. His genuine interest to help his patients led him to study the safety of the MMR vaccine which resulted in his preparation of a 250-page report finding the safety studies “appalling” “totally unsatisfactory”. And as many parents who have questioned the link between their child’s immunization and subsequent changes in behavior and learning ability, to question vaccines is fraught with many political pressures. One of the most amazing facts of this whole story is that Dr. Wakefield’s original merely suggested further research specifically regarding the linkage between the MMR vaccine and autism. 19 papers were published on this research by Dr. Wakefield. It is this one study that generated a maelstrom of criticism, years of uproar and controversy, and a final effort to wipe Dr. Wakefield from the conventional community for his desire to help a patient, then more patients, and his scientific curiosity, and researcher’s duty to look further, report everything found, and suggest there was more to be learned. ANH-Europe has published an excellent overview of the events surrounding the GMC action against Dr. Wakefield was never a suggestion from a parent that Dr. Wakefield had harmed a child either from treatment or failing to treat a child. To this day, every parent involved remains content with Dr. Wakefield’s care of their child. http://www.anh-europe.org/news/anh-feature-the-longest-witch-hunt-in-medical-history-draws-to-a-close However, the professional care and personal life of Dr. Wakefield and his family has forever changed. He is an engaging earnest physician and research clearly dedicated to patient care and scientific excellence. Because these two values were in conflict with the political, public health, and conventional medical community’s push to achieve 100% rates of vaccination, Dr. Wakefield was “far enough ahead of his time to suffer for it.” No vaccine is 100% safe or 100% effective. It is the right of every parent and person contemplating a vaccine to objective information about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy record. Only weighing the risks versus the benefits can an individual make an informed choice about what is right for their child and their body. That’s healthcare freedom of choice. That is worth standing up for thanks to courageous scientists and doctors like Dr. Andrew Wakefield. From Deborah A. Ray, MT(ASCP) Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

Antibiotics for Farm Animals—Is the FDA Serious?

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:01:09 +0000

Last Wednesday, the FDA announced that it wanted to reduce the use of growth-promoting antibiotic drugs for meat-producing animals because it contributes to drug resistance in humans. Good intentions, perhaps—but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Our new Action Alert asks the FDA to take the next step and actually do something about the problem. In our June 14 issue of The Pulse of Natural Health, we told you about a FDA Citizen Petition to ban the use of arsenic in animal feed. The FDA has been backtracking on that issue. The use of antibiotics in feed is a related issue. Low doses of antibiotics are given to animals either to make them grow more quickly or so they require less feed to get to market weight. They are commonly used in animals raised for meat, such as chickens, pigs, and beef cattle. Antibiotics are also frequently used to treat sick dairy cattle, with the result that a residue may appear in milk or milk products. Antibiotic use in animal agriculture has been linked to bacterial infections in humans which are resistant to antibiotics. Mounting evidence suggests that widespread overuse of agricultural antibiotics also may be contaminating surface waters and groundwater, including drinking water sources in many rural areas. Nonetheless, agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry are fighting hard to thwart restrictions on the use of antibiotics in agriculture. The US Food and Drug Administration’s draft guidelines recommend gradually phasing in measures that would allow medically important antimicrobial drugs (that is, antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics) to be given to food-producing animals only if it were considered necessary for ensuring the animal’s health. And veterinary oversight would be mandated. Currently, as journalist David Kirby points out, operators can buy these pharmaceuticals by the barrelful at a feed store, without a prescription and without the supervision of a vet. According to some figures, up to 70% of all US antibiotics are given to farm animals. FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein told reporters, “This is an urgent public health issue. To preserve [the drugs’] effectiveness, we simply must use them as judiciously as possible.” If this is such an “urgent public health issue,’’ then why is this just a recommendation? Why not just ban the practice outright? The FDA has that authority, and it would bring our animal production practices closer to those found in Canada and the EU countries. The problem is, antibiotics are always deemed necessary in CAFOs, or Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations. It’s the standard model for large-scale food-producing-animal factory farms. These feedlots are so cramped, so filthy, and so full of harmful bacteria like MRSA (which kills more people each year than AIDS) and e-coli that without regular doses of antibiotics, none of their animals would survive. And businesses will certainly claim medical necessity, even though their real goal is to continue to use antibiotics for growth purposes. Of course, meat producers dispute the idea that the use of antibiotics for growth or any other purpose is unsafe. National Pork Producers Council president Sam Carney says the FDA “didn't present any science on which to base this [their proposed guidelines].” So what’s the solution? Outside of a much-needed revolution in factory farming, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (HR 1549) lays out the best approach. It was introduced by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D–NY), the only microbiologist in Congress, and is supported by organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Center for Food Safety. This bill would ban the nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials in animals, and would ban the use of even therapeutic antimicrobials unless it can be demonstrated that there is “a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health” due to the development of antibiotic drug resistance. The public (and industry) will have 60 days to comment on the FDA announcement, and the FDA will then use those comments to consider its next move. Please tell the FDA that you oppose the use of antibiotics in agribusiness. TAKE ACTION HERE. Please Note: Comments left below are not delivered to the FDA. To send your message please click the “TAKE ACTION HERE” link above.

Raw Milk Gets a Raw Deal

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:00:56 +0000

To public health officials and state departments of agriculture, unpasteurized milk is a dangerous, germ-ridden liquid that is especially hazardous to children and their immature immune systems. And the FDA has been on a rampage against raw milk for quite some time. If it weren’t for the fact that twenty-eight states allow the sale of raw milk, the FDA would ban it nationally. The agency has already banned raw milk artisanal cheeses that aren’t aged at least 60 days, a requirement that puts an enormous strain on small artisanal farms and cheesemakers. In the case of imported cheeses such as from France, only a limited number of producers are allowed in at all, thereby eliminating the best cheeses. This is another glaring example of how the FDA prefers to concentrate food and drug production in the hands of a few large companies with which the agency has close ties. Favoring large producers over family and artisanal producers does not make our food any safer. On the contrary, it just makes it less safe, less nutritious, and also invites more corruption of the government by powerful companies growing rich from government-created monopolies. Even more galling is the fact that the raw milk cheese aging requirement is completely arbitrary. There is no scientific (or even anecdotal) evidence to suggest that aging cheese a particular length of time will make it any safer than it already is. And it is indeed safe. Raw milk has shown to be superior to pasteurized milk in protecting against infection, diarrhea, rickets, tooth decay, and tuberculosis; children drinking raw milk have better growth rates than those drinking pasteurized milk. The Weston A. Price Foundation has launched a campaign for “real milk,” that is, pasture-fed, unprocessed, and full-fat. The campaign’s website carefully documents the safety of raw milk, its health benefits, and the economic issues involved. ANH–USA believes consumers should have the right to access non-processed foods, and farmers should be able to offer these products directly to consumers. State laws governing the sale of raw milk vary tremendously. Retail sale of unpasteurized milk is fully legal in ten states; it is banned outright in another ten. In the rest it is legal only at the farm, via “cow-share” (when people buy shares in a cow so they're drinking their own milk), according to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. The cow providing your raw milk is important. Many cows are overmilked with bad results for their health and the quality of the milk. No one would knowingly choose a milk that is full of white blood cells and other signs of poor health. The issue of raw milk is heating up in Wisconsin, the “land of all things dairy.” Some farmers blame huge dairy corporations for driving down prices to a point where family farms can't compete. The problem has some farmers switching to niche markets like raw milk, hoping to have more control over their products. But Wisconsin law allows only incidental sales of raw milk (that is, it can’t be part of the farm’s regular business), and such sales cannot be advertised. Right now there are two lawsuits in Wisconsin challenging the state’s ban on raw milk sales. In one of the suits, the operators of Grassway Organic Farm allege that regulators have no right to stop them from selling raw milk to customers who are part-owners of their farm. An attorney from Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection challenged the suit, saying, “We believe that this idea of this members-only organization that can be outside the regulations is simply not available under Wisconsin law.” The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which is based in Virginia and advocates for raw milk sales nationally, is defending the farmers in both cases. Both houses of the Wisconsin legislature approved a bill legalizing raw milk sales this year, only to have it be vetoed by the governor, Jim Doyle. Why the veto? The bill had been opposed by Wisconsin’s dairy industry (controlled by large producers) and the Wisconsin Medical Society. Wisconsin residents tell your Governor, State Senators and Representative you want the raw milk bill re-introduced, passed and signed into law. TAKE ACTION HERE

Are “Natural” Household Cleaners Really Safer?

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:00:23 +0000

A growing number of Americans are concerned about the safety of household cleaners, laundry detergents, and other home care products. For some, their family's health has been damaged by chemicals found in mainstream products. Others have studied the issue and want to protect themselves and those they love, and so shop for home care products whose ingredients they understand and feel confident using. But according to the Natural and Nutritional Products Industry Center (NPIC), there has never before been standard definition of the term "natural" used by the home care industry. Now, an easily identifiable seal will help consumers discern which products are natural. Shoppers can expect the seal to begin appearing on certified home care products in the coming months. "A number of products that are mainly synthetic are being positioned as natural. This leads to significant consumer confusion," according to Dr. Daniel Fabricant of the Natural Products Association (NPA), the largest industry organization dedicated to the natural products industry. For a product to merit the NPA seal, it must:

Be composed of at least 95 percent truly natural ingredients, or ingredients that are derived from natural sources, excluding water;
Contain no ingredients with any suspected human health risks;
Be made with no processes that significantly or adversely alter the natural ingredients;
Contain ingredients that come from a purposeful, natural source (flora, fauna, mineral);
Be made with minimal processing and without the use of synthetic or harsh chemicals;
Contain non-natural ingredients only when viable natural alternative ingredients are unavailable and only when there are absolutely no suspected potential human health risks; and
Have transparent and full disclosure of all ingredients.

We look forward to finding the NPA seal on more and more home care products in the near future.

Deborah Ray’s Blog A Pill for Every Ill

ANH-USA — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:13:25 +0000

Americans have become culturally conditioned to reach for a drug, in fact now prefer a drug, for depression. Consumer Reports has now stated that nearly 80% of Americans prefer to take a pill for depression when presented with other options including talk therapy. Consumer Reports went on to note that in a survey of 1500 readers, they benefited equally from talk therapy as they did from antidepressant medication. What consumers may not remember or even know a 1998 publication of a meta-analysis of nineteen double-blind antidepressant trials in the American Psychological Association's online publication, Prevention and Treatment Guy Sapirstein, PhD (of Westwood Lodge Hospital, Needham, MA, co-author) created a professional uproar “when it was revealed that the placebo effect accounted for a mind-boggling 75 percent of an antidepressant's result - any antidepressant, you name it.” Click here to read further http://www.mcmanweb.com/clinical_trials.html As Dr. Sapirstein and many other researchers have pointed out; the placebo effect is very real. A 2002 University of Toronto study of brain scans revealed that Prozac and a placebo worked on similar areas of the brain. In fact, the placebo effect is profound enough that a full half of antidepressant studies end in failure. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has noted that drug companies are working harnessing the placebo effect. In the Consumer Reports survey, 80% of those diagnosed with depression were prescribed an antidepressant. We can all wonder if those same individuals were told talk therapy worked equally as well or that placebos have been found in many studies to equal the effect of antidepressants. We can also wonder if those individuals were presented with an objective overview of the risks of antidepressant medications versus the benefits of their use. There a growing body of evidence that antidepressant side effects are under-reported and antidepressants themselves may affect the brain in deleterious ways. Click here to read further http://www.antidepressantsideeffects.org/ and http://www.breggin.com/. It is clear we have never had a generation of individuals diagnosed with depression who took one or more antidepressant medication and commonly a medication for anxiety and perhaps to sleep as well. Thanks to the work of Andrew Stoll, MD and Carol Locke, MD and many other courageous practitioners, there is an effort to screen those with depression and bipolar depression for fatty acid status. Click here to read further www.mclean.harvard.edu/pdf/news/mitn/satevnpost.stoll0605.pdf. Simply, the brain needs fats, good fats from Omega 3 and other sources to function optimally. 85% of Americans are estimated to be fatty deficient. Click here to read further http://www.e-juven8.com/content/view/85/98/. There are many other factors that affect mood in a culture where our diet has changed dramatically in terms of fatty acid intake, the intake of bad fats, the intake of refined carbohydrates, the intake of fresh fruits and vegetables, the intake of foods with preservatives, colorings, and artificial sweeteners as well as thyroid function and a myriad of other factors. Many of us wonder why the conventional medical community find little fault with the reach to a prescription pad for an antidepressant medication without a careful and thoughtful work-up of the patient medically, nutritionally, and from a lifestyle (stress) standpoint. With an increasing number of antidepressant medications prescribed for children (their use doubled between 1996 and 2005 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03411375.htm), it is troubling indeed that government sources state “More recently, results of a comprehensive review of pediatric trials conducted between 1988 and 2006 suggested that the benefits of antidepressant medications likely outweigh their risks to children and adolescents with major depression and anxiety disorders. The study, partially funded by NIMH, was published in the April 18, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.” Click here to read further http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/child-and-adolescent-mental-health/antidepressant-medications-for-children-and-adolescents-information-for-parents-and-caregivers.shtml. A pill for every ill; the consequences may be actually change the brain. That is an alarming legacy for the next generation in the name of selling more pills. Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

Readers Corner: ANH-USA’s Connections and Position on World Government

tyrone — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:16:48 +0000

We've received some questions from a couple of our readers recently about some rumors that have been flying around the internet. Here is one:

Jim writes: June 30, 2010 at 9:12 am

“Someone on the internet has written that you are part of a Rockefeller family driven agenda to create a single world government. Can you please comment?”

ANH-USA says: July 2, 2010

“ANH-USA is exclusively devoted to natural health and health freedom issues.

In our opinion, the perennial problem with government is keeping it honest, free of corruption, and free of special interest control. A single world government would only make that problem worse.

We also have no relationship with the Rockefeller family, nor are we controlled by or secretly funded by any other organization or group. We are entirely independent. ”

Victory! The Anti-Supplement FTC Expansion Provision is Defeated—At Least for Now

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:41:25 +0000

Last Friday, your voice was heard in Congress. Thanks to your activism, the provision to expand the Federal Trade Commission’s powers—and with it, the likely restricted access to nutritional supplements—did not make it into the final Wall Street “Reform” bill. Congressman Henry Waxman (D–CA), with the support of powerful Congressman Barney Frank (D–MA), made a strong last-ditch effort to save the provision we’ve fought so hard against. The conference committee deliberations went on until early Friday morning, but in the end, the provision was not accepted and will therefore not be in the reconciled bill that will be submitted for final House and Senate passage and presidential signature. Rep. Waxman is well known as an opponent of the dietary supplement industry. ANH–USA has been on alert to see how Waxman would use his committee chairmanship to strike at the DSHEA. He is very clever, and we knew a covert attack was a possibility. Last April we learned that Rep. Waxman had indeed gone covert. He wrote FTC expansion language that was virtually indecipherable to any but a trained legislative expert, and hid it in a bill that was added to the vast House financial “reform” bill. This was done so covertly that even some health freedom activists did not believe that Waxman was the author of the provision, even though his own staff admitted it to us on two different occasions. As soon as we became aware of this, we immediately took action. We forcefully spoke out and lobbied. We joined with over fifty other organizations opposing the provision. You responded to our appeal and made your voice heard in Congress. This was crucial. Many of the organizations opposing this provision did not represent consumers. You told Congress that consumers and voters cared. After the decision went to a joint House–Senate committee, we contacted those of you who were in the particular states and districts represented, so that your message was carefully targeted. Last Tuesday, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R–AL), ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee, offered an amendment to the Conference Committee excluding the FTC expansion powers from the Wall Street Financial “Reform” final package. Rep. Waxman responded by strongly urging House conferees to leave the provision in, saying it did little more than put the FTC regulatory and enforcement authority on par with other oversight agencies included in the financial reform bill, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission or the proposed new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Note that Waxman could have limited the expanded powers to finance, but he did not. As we have explained in earlier articles, there is every reason to think that he was really aiming at supplements. Waxman also told the conferees, “This is not a radical [grant of] new authorities.” Note again that this is technically true. These powers are not new. The FTC had them in the past and lost them because of abuses. But Waxman’s statement was misleading and therefore false—this was a radical expansion of FTC power. The conferees then rejected Rep. Bachus’s amendment by voice vote, which implied that the Waxman provision might yet pass. Last Thursday, knowing that the deliberations were coming to a close, we again asked ANH–USA members who had senators or representatives on the conference committee to contact them directly. And in the early morning hours of Friday, the provision was defeated—proof that you are the deciding factor in the battle for natural health and health freedom! We need to stay vigilant, however. FTC expansion efforts by Waxman are not necessarily over. Our allies on Capitol Hill believe he may slip the language into a miscellaneous amendment on some other bill. We have to be especially concerned about the lame duck session that will follow the fall election when defeated representatives have one last chance to vote. But now we know Waxman’s game plan, who his allies are in the Senate, and we will update you on any new developments.

Action Alert on the Senate Food Safety Bill

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:40:21 +0000

ANH–USA has opposed the so-called Food Safety Bill as a threat to natural health and health freedom. As we reported to you in April, we have been working to improve the Senate’s version of the bill. In particular, we succeeded in preventing language that would have committed the US to harmonization of food standards with the rest of the world under a completely flawed process known as CODEX. Now we need your help to promote two excellent amendments to the bill that would exempt small food producers and producers who sell their food directly to market (such as farmers’ markets) from new regulation. As written, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) would add a new layer of regulation to even the smallest food producers. The rules that would apply to large, corporate food companies would also apply to family food producers across rural America, which are already regulated at the state and local level. The amendments offered by Sen. Jon Tester (D–MT) would reduce red tape and over-regulation of the already beleaguered small farmer or food producer. ANH–USA has also supported Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D–CA) proposed amendment to the bill which would ban BPA from food containers, but that amendment has not materialized yet. Contact your senators and tell them that you support the Tester amendments! TAKE ACTION HERE Please Note: Comments left below are not delivered to Congress. To send your message to Congress please click the "TAKE ACTION HERE" link above.

ANH–USA Joins Healthcare Repeal Lawsuit

ANH-USA — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:35:24 +0000

ANH–USA strongly opposed the recently enacted healthcare bill for a variety of reasons. We stand for the freedom of consumers to choose the type of healthcare they want, and the freedom of practitioners to practice without harassment. The healthcare reform act seriously impinges on both. So after a thorough review of our legal options, which took some time, we have decided to join a lawsuit that has been initiated by a distinguished group of physicians to have the act repealed. One of our biggest concerns about the version of the healthcare “reform” act that was passed is that it forces citizens to buy health insurance (and only government-defined and approved health insurance) even if they prefer alternative medical care which would not be covered by that insurance. In other words, we’ll have to pay twice—once for our alternative healthcare, and again for government-approved insurance that we won’t use. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) allows the federal government to define what health is and what health insurance is. This, coupled with the mandated purchase of government-approved insurance—lest one be slapped with fines and even jail—means the government is unwittingly opening the way for special interests such as drug companies, medical device manufacturers, and the AMA to complete their takeover of medicine. Meanwhile, alternative forms of medical care will become much more expensive, if they are available at all. We’re joining the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, a distinguished group of doctors, in the lawsuit they filed in Washington, DC, district court in March 2010. Their suit seeks declaratory relief from the PPACA, stating that it contains a number of unconstitutional measures:

Under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government lacks authority to compel individuals to purchase health insurance or pay an offsetting penalty.
Forcing patients to participate in Medicare Part A, at the risk of losing their Social Security benefits, is also unconstitutional. It harms physicians who operate surgery centers outside of Medicare, and the provision is beyond the powers of HHS to enact in the first place.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there authorization for the federal government to require businesses or private employers (without direct connection to the government) to purchase health insurance for employees or to set the acceptable terms of health insurance for such individuals.
Requiring the private purchase—by individuals or businesses—of insurance with greater coverage than the purchaser desires constitutes a “regulatory taking,” that is, a prohibited capitation or direct tax.

We are also concerned that healthcare “reform” as passed will subject physicians to greater insurance company oversight and control; deter innovation by physicians because insurance companies won’t allow it; enrich insurance companies at the expense of patient and physician choice; eliminate the growing market of self-paying patients; and cause many physicians to stop practicing, leading to shortages and long waiting lines. We will, of course, keep you posted as the lawsuit progresses.

Deborah Ray’s Blog Medical Radiation Exposure to Americans has grown Six-fold in a Few Decades

tyrone — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:25:17 +0000

Medical Radiation Exposure to Americans has grown Six-fold in a Few Decades We’re number one. But that is not good news because the U.S. is number one in the world for medical radiation. Yes, that’s right that Americans get the most medical radiation exposure in the world. It is increasingly known that one of the most common and insidious ways Americans are over-tested and over-treated is the use of diagnostic tests that involve the use of medical radiation. To read further Click here Dr. John Gofman has sounded the alarm on medical radiation for many years Dr. Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology in the University of California at Berkeley, and Lecturer at the Department of Medicine, University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco, is the expert to whom the Atomic Energy Commission turned in the early 1960s to study the biological effects of radiation. To read further about his work Click Here. One of his most profound works was an independent review of medical radiation and its links to heart disease and cancer, Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure: a Independent Analysis, 480 pages (1990). It is only of recent that the medical profession itself has begun to question the multiple sources of medical radiation, often when administered to their family members. Click here to read further The realization that there are more CT scanners in Pittsburgh than all of Canada is also in the mix. Access, over-use, and the under appreciation of the consequences of medical radiation have all combined to create an alarming situation. Medical radiation is a cumulative exposure to our DNA and the consequences of this is just beginning to be acknowledged. In the Alliance for Natural Health-USA’s newsletter Pulse of Natural Health, there have been several articles that focus on medical radiation and consumer safety and education issues. For further reading please select one of the links below. http://www.anh-usa.org/fda-ignored-urgent-warnings/ http://www.anh-usa.org/expensive-dangerous/ http://www.anh-usa.org/nih%e2%80%99s-new-radiation-policy/ http://www.anh-usa.org/safety-of-radiation-questioned/ http://www.anh-usa.org/no-single-%e2%80%98right-way%e2%80%99/ Consumers and professionals alike are often educated to ask the following question “What is the least dose of radiation that can be used to produce a readable scan?” It is increasingly clear that doses far in excess of those necessary are used without the appreciation of the possible harm. Techniques are now recognized that can reduce the dose of radiation in medical scans by up to 90%. It is also acknowledged ever more that our DNA accumulates radiation from these medical sources with risks associated with larger exposures. So, the radiation from your dentist throughout your life, x-rays from trips to the ER, CT scans, and procedures such as angioplasty, barium enemas, and the like all contributes to your total medical radiation exposure. Dr. Gofman and his colleagues have spoken of this lifetime exposure for over 4 decades and now the FDA “is pushing industry and doctors to develop a radiation medical record” to track our exposure to medical radiation from the cradle to the grave. Click here to read further. A 2007 Columbia University study estimated that as much as 2 percent of all cancer in the US may be due to radiation from CT scans. The Duke University study that found patients get the equivalent of radiation from 850 chest x-rays in the first few days in the hospital is equally alarming. With Penn State studies that 33-90% of medicine practiced is defensive, that is, to avoid medical-legal consequences, our unnecessary exposure to medical radiation may be immense to even those concerned medical researchers. Educate yourself and educate your practitioner. How will this scan change my diagnosis or treatment? How much radiation will be I exposed to during this scan? What is the minimum dose of radiation that can be used to produce a readable study? What can I do (nutritionally such as ascorbic acid and beta glucan) to mitigate the effects of medical radiation? These are must- questions for any educated healthcare consumer. It is critical that there is no further delay to educate consumers and practitioners alike to the risks as well as the benefits from the use of medical radiation in diagnosis and treatment.

Breaking News: Supreme Court Kicks Critical Genetically Modified Alfalfa Issue Down The Road

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:02:23 +0000

A high-profile legal battle over genetically modified crops continues. The US Supreme Court in a 7-1 decision yesterday (June 21) did not accept a lower court’s total nationwide ban on GM alfalfa. But it did agree that the seeds could be dangerous and did not allow Monsanto to proceed with selling them. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) must now complete a study examining whether the seeds will harm the environment before approving them for restricted planting, a process that could go into next year, and which could lead to more litigation. Why is this such an important issue? Alfalfa, the fourth most widely grown crop in the US, is fed to dairy cows. Our friends at Center for Food Safety (CFS), on behalf of organic farmers, sued to ban the GM alfalfa out of the very real concern that it would spread uncontrollably and take over US pasturelands. When we wrote about this court case in May, we noted that GM foods cause sterility in hamsters, and that the real long-term risks to human health from these foreign molecules are still unknown. True organic beef and dairy products would become an impossibility since all cows would be potentially exposed to the GM alfalfa. Some quick background Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology company based in Missouri. It is also the leading producer of genetically modified seed, and sells 90% of the US’s GM seeds. Its development and marketing of GM seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation, political lobbying practices, seed commercialization practices, and “strong-arming” of the seed industry and especially of farmers have given the company the nickname “the evil empire” in many quarters. In ANH’s opinion, this nickname is well deserved. Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of the extremely toxic herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup™. Several weed species, known as superweeds, have developed Roundup resistance largely because of repeated exposure. So Monsanto has created genetically engineered crops—soy, corn, canola, cotton, and alfalfa (with wheat currently in development)—which tolerate the herbicide; they are known as Roundup Ready® crops. Alfalfa is different from the others because it will spread and propagate itself without replanting. The court case In 2007, a federal district judge found that the USDA had failed to consider the environmental impact before it had approved the GM alfalfa seeds for commercial planting. He then canceled the USDA’s approval of the seeds, and imposed a national ban on planting them. But the Supreme Court, in yesterday’s 7-to-1 decision, found that the lower court judge had gone too far. The blanket ban prevented the USDA from considering a partial approval of the seeds, a process known as deregulation. Monsanto cheered the ruling and got its version of events into many major media stories. However, the Supreme Court left in place the lower trial court’s ruling barring the USDA from deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa, and sent the case back down to the lower courts for further proceedings. What this means, as a practical matter, is that the USDA will have to complete the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, including considering more than 200,000 public comments it has received since issuing a draft EIS in December of 2009. “It should be no surprise that Monsanto's PR machine is working hard to spin the truth about the decision,” according to Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. “Despite what the biotech seed giant is claiming, today's ruling isn't close to the victory they were hoping for…. While the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto by reversing an injunction that was part of the lower court's decision, more importantly, it also ruled that the ban on GMO alfalfa remains intact, and that the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa remains illegal.” “This point, which seems to be lost in some news reports, is actually a huge victory,” Kimbrell continued. “The Supreme Court ruled that an injunction against planting was unnecessary since, under lower courts' rulings, Roundup Ready alfalfa had become a regulated item and was therefore illegal to plant. In other words, the injunction was ‘overkill’ because our [earlier] victory in lower federal court determined that USDA violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws when it approved Roundup Ready alfalfa. The court felt that voiding the USDA’s decision to make the crop legally available for sale was enough.” The L.A. Times quoted Paul Achitoff, a lawyer for Earthjustice, as saying, “To the extent that Monsanto is claiming this a victory, it’s a very hollow one since no one can plant their crops.”

Playing Monopoly With Our Health

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:01:23 +0000

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) wants to create a monopoly on state nutritional licensure. This organization—which lists among its corporate sponsors soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg's, candy maker Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer products brands in foods and beverages—already has a stranglehold on who can dispense nutritional counseling at the state level. The latest battle is in Michigan. So far, the Michigan Board of Dietetic and Nutrition has voted to accept the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR) as the sole certifying agency. The CDR is the ADA’s credentialing arm. We recently sent Michigan officals a letter asking them to recognize more than one certifying organization. We are requesting, at a minimum, the acceptance of reputable nutrition-based credentialing agencies such as the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists (CBNS) or the American Clinical Board of Nutrition. As our position paper notes, there is a major philosophical difference between nutritionists and dietitians—they are two entirely different fields of study and practice. In general:

Nutritionists are health practitioners with comprehensive knowledge of the impact nutrition has on the whole body. They focus on nutrition therapy for better health, metabolism, and biochemistry, and practice an integrative approach to health, concentrating on the prevention and treatment of chronic disease.

Dietitians’ training focuses on institutional diets and food service management—developing diets for hospital patients, school food service programs, and nursing homes, although they can also provide individualized counseling on diet and disease. Hospital food by law is controlled by dieticians, and almost everyone recognizes that the poor food in hospitals is a medical disgrace.

As noted, that there can be an overlap in the type of work each profession practices. There are many different dietary and nutritional therapies to choose from, which is why freedom of consumer choice is absolutely essential in this field.

By accepting only a single credentialing agency—one run by the dieticians, not nutritionists—the Michigan board is establishing a “one-size-fits-all” dietician standard for both nutritionists and dietitians. This removes all competition, essentially handing the ADA a monopoly over nutritional therapy. Licensing in this field should not be an excuse for an ADA monopoly. Michigan may not even realize that it is also barring the best-educated, most highly qualified professionals from providing nutritional therapy to Michigan residents. Other credentialing agencies’ standards are higher than those of the ADA. The CBNS, for example, requires an advanced degree in nutrition, 100 more hours of supervised experience than the ADA requires, and a certifying examination (even if the nutritionist has a doctoral degree). It is outrageous that consumers should be denied access to expert advice on nutrition from the most highly educated and well-respected professionals in the field. In order to adequately protect the profession of nutritional therapy, certifying organizations that specialize in nutrition (and not simply dietetics) must be recognized. And we believe the citizens of Michigan—indeed, the citizens of every state—have the right to choose their form of nutritional therapy from as large a pool of professionals as possible. Our website has a chart showing your state’s licensing status. ANH–USA advocates for access and choice—to ensure that consumers have unencumbered access to healthcare treatments, and that practitioners have the autonomy to practice in a manner that is truly in the best interest of their patients. Because of this, last week we sent a special alert to our members in Michigan asking them to contact the Michigan Board of Dietetic and Nutrition to express their concern before the board meeting (scheduled for today, Tuesday). We have been working on this issue for two years, and since our involvement, we have involved our members in active states, and we have prevented any monopolies. We’ve stopped bills from going through in Wisconsin and New Jersey. Michigan and Delaware had already passed legislation and are in the rules phase, but we were able to stall the rules process in Michigan and have gotten the CBNS included as a credentialing organization in Delaware, preventing a complete monopoly. Grassroots activism is our strength. We will keep you involved at the state level whenever and wherever you can make a difference.

How Somebody’s Medicines May Be Making You Sicker

ANH-USA — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:00:22 +0000

This week we discuss several ways prescription drugs may be making us all sicker—whether through illnesses brought on because these medicines deplete critical nutrients in our body, or because we’re unwittingly consuming pharmaceuticals in the municipal water we drink. Drug-induced nutrient depletions The number of dollars spent on prescribed medications in the US is at all time high. Seniors are expected to use an average of 38.5 different medications this year. The number of prescriptions written, drugs dispensed, and dollars spent are carefully recorded each year, particularly for those over the age of 65, but we’re doing a lousy job of quantifying the toll our prescription drug use has on our health because of nutrient depletions. Now comes a study from a Netherlands university linking vitamin B12 deficiency with the use of metformin, a commonly-used diabetic medication. Given that 10% of Americans are now diagnosed as type II diabetic—with up to 40% being pre-diabetic—the number of cases of metformin-induced vitamin B12 deficiency may be immense. Vitamin B12 deficiency is commonly manifested by memory loss, though it is also linked to fatigue, anemia, nerve damage (including neuropathy), and other mental changes. Coenzyme Q10—a substance found in our mitochondria—is an essential element in the creation of 90% of the human body’s energy. Statin drugs deplete CoQ10. While some cardiologists advise their patients on statin drugs to take supplemental CoQ10, most doctors are poorly educated on the subject, and consumers don’t know to ask what nutrients a particular drug will affect. Ironically the first patent on statins included a patent combining them with supplemental CoQ10. So Merck, the manufacturer, knew about the damage to CoQ10 from statins but chose to say nothing and do nothing about it. Dirty showers? Another way our medications are making us sick is through our morning baths and showers. According to the American Chemical Society (ACS), showers and baths are sending hormones, antibiotics, and other medicines down the drain—and right into our drinking water. It has long been known that toilets are a source of environmental pollution from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) being excreted in urine and feces. But the ACS’s new study links bathing, showering, and laundering with API water pollution. “These routes may be important for certain APIs found in medications that are applied topically. They include creams, lotions, ointments, gels, and skin patches,” according to Dr. Ilene Ruhoy, director of the Institute for Environmental Medicine at Touro University in Nevada. And topical APIs can have a greater impact on the environment than APIs released in feces and urine, because the latter have been broken down to some extent by the liver and kidneys. "We need to be more aware of how our use of pharmaceuticals can have unwanted environmental effects," Ruhoy continued. Direct from the source Perhaps worst of all, researchers have now found that the pharmaceuticals which have been turning up in streams and rivers may come directly from the drug plants that manufacture them. Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) looked at the effluent from two New York state treatment plants serving drug manufacturers, and compared it to plants not receiving pharmaceutical waste. Effluent samples from across the country showed evidence of the drugs, but concentrations were all very minor. By contrast, the New York plants that serve drugmakers released seven painkillers in massive concentrations—the highest was the muscle relaxant metaxalone.

Deborah Ray’s Blog Something Had Gone Terribly Wrong

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:03:24 +0000

Researchers who published Study on Cell Phones and Cancer acknowledge “something had gone terribly wrong” According to a major international study just published in the International Journal of Epidemiology “using a cell phone seems to protect against two types of brain tumor.” Let that sink in for just a moment and then learn that even the researchers behind the study, funded in part by the cell phone industry, did not believe their results. Which prompts many of us to ask the question “can we count on the studies, the gold standard of double-blind placebo controlled randomized clinical trials”? Click here to read more of the cell phone study. After all, double blind studies are held out as the measure of excellence, of acceptance within the conventional medical community. There has been a great deal of “show me the studies” when patients attempt to engage their practitioners in discussions about the use of more CAM/complementary and alternative therapies in their care. Practitioners who practice in an integrative fashion, using CAM therapies along with conventional medical techniques, have often been scrutinized as practicing “outside the standard of care for the practice of medicine” when they use therapies such as nutrients therapeutically, screen for heavy metals, take their patients seriously when they complain of chronic fatigue syndrome, and connect the dots between Lyme disease and a whole host of disease conditions, just to name a few scenarios. The American public is culturally conditioned to believe American medicine is a science, backed by double-blind studies. However, medicine is at best an artful science and there is a significant question within medicine about the reliability of studies, the influence of who funded the study, the influence of who funded the researchers, the bias of placebo, and now with the recognition that genetic predispositions may affect how test subjects respond comes the question of just how applicable studies may be to those with other unique genetic maps. Even how the studies are presented in the media comes with a potential bias. Click here to read further about the controversy of studies in CAM. Studies are prone to methodology flaws and to bias. This cell phone study appears to be one of the more puzzling leading some to conclude “the result was(is) a strange set of numbers”. Anytime studies are done using survey methods, that is, “what is your use of cell phones?” they can be an inherent error. Many within the medical community ruefully shake their heads that subjects often tell researchers what they want to hear when it comes to their dietary intake, for example. After all, who wants to admit you are more likely to eat ice cream than vegetables? The control group in the cell phone study had its own problems. 53% of those selected to serve as a control agreed to serve as such. A survey of those who declined to serve as a control found they were less likely to use cell phones than those who participated. It was eye-opening and virtually buried in the media reports that “those who talked the most on their cell phones had a significantly greater chance, 40%, of developing a glioma (brain tumor) than those who did not use cell phones.”

Tell FDA to Ban Arsenic in Animal Feed!

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:38:51 +0000

(Updated June 16) The chickens you buy at the grocery store are given feed with arsenic added to make them gain weight faster. Yes, arsenic—the deadly poison and carcinogen. A petition had been filed with the FDA to remove arsenic from animal feed and the FDA had until June 15th to respond. ANH-USA forwarded the thousands of comments our readers submitted in support of the arsenic ban to the FDA. Thank you all for taking action! Arsenic-containing compounds are most widely used in chicken production, and most chickens receive arsenic–“fortified” feed. Most arsenic-containing animal feed additives are not used to treat sickness. Instead, these additives are commonly used in poultry production to induce faster weight gain and give the meat a healthy-looking color; the same techniques are used to a lesser extent in turkeys and hogs. Last December, the Center for Food Safety and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration calling for the immediate withdrawal of approvals for arsenic-containing compounds used in animal feed. The petition was supported by a coalition of food and farm groups around the country. Arsenic is powerful carcinogen. The government knows this; they state openly that “the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that inorganic arsenic is carcinogenic to humans.” And it is now well known that these feed additives lead to arsenic residue both in conventionally raised chickens—that is, chickens sold in supermarkets and restaurants across the country—and in the environment, putting our health at risk. Just two weeks ago in The Pulse of Natural Health, we discussed the safety of nutritional supplements, and how trace amounts of arsenic and lead get into herbal supplements because the metals occur naturally in air, water, soil, and food. How much more ironic is it that arsenic, in far greater amounts, is being added to our food, with no public outcry, no mention in the conventional media (compared to the dramatic headlines over the trace metals in supplements)—and worst of all, no action whatsoever from the FDA, our supposed “watchdog” agency! In fact, it would be shocking if the FDA did take any positive action—its pattern is to support big business and the pharmaceutical industry in particular no matter the cost to public health. Case in point: In 2008, the FDA issued a rule that banned the widespread use of a class of powerful antibiotics—specifically, cephalosporin antimicrobial drugs—in food-producing animals. In July of last year, they even called the practice “a public health risk.” Then, last December, they reversed their decision, bowing to pressure from agriculture groups and pharmaceutical makers, who claimed that the antibiotics are needed to prevent many infectious diseases in animals. “Needed”? On the contrary: public health officials and the American Medical Association are worried that excessive use of antibiotics—including in animals—can promote resistance and produce strains of bacteria that threaten human life. And even the FDA’s director of veterinary drugs, Steven Vaughn, told a conference that that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are becoming more common in cattle. But back to arsenic. For many years, pressure-treated lumber was coated with a preservative that contained arsenic to keep it from rotting. It was used for foundations and decks and playground equipment, wherever wood is exposed to earth and weather. But the wood treatment industry and the Environmental Protection Agency finally reached the commonsense conclusion that the best way to protect kids from arsenic wood was not to affix a “Poison!” label to it, but to eliminate it altogether, and in 2004 the substance was banned. In many cases, kids’ playgrounds had to be replaced, and many public decking areas had to be rebuilt. So the government thinks it’s too dangerous for kids to play around arsenic-treated wood, but the FDA says it’s OK to put it in feed—that is, directly into our own food supply? How does that make any sense? It is true that the EPA and the FDA often disagree. For example, the EPA says that five micrograms per liter of blood in a 132-pound woman is the maximum amount of mercury she can have in her system and still be considered healthy and nontoxic. The FDA has not issued any advisory on maximum mercury levels, and seems entirely unconcerned about the mercury that children (and adults, including pregnant women) get in their flu shot. Mercury, of course, is one of the most toxic-heavy metals and causes fainting spells, nausea, intermittent stomach upset, headaches, fatigue, abnormal hair loss, and trouble concentrating, among other damage.

More Waxman Amendment News

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:26:37 +0000

The “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is now in conference committee, the conferees have been named, and meetings have begun. We still have an opportunity to make sure the Waxman amendment threatening supplements doesn’t end up in the final version of the bill—if we act quickly. On June 9, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named ten members of the House Financial Services Committee to the conference committee: Frank (D-Massachusetts); Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania); Waters (D California); Maloney (D-New York), Gutierrez (D-Illinois); Watt (D-North Carolina); Meeks (D-New York); Moore (D-Kansas); Kilroy (D-Ohio) and Peters (D-Michigan); Bachus (R-Alabama); Barton (R-Texas); Graves (R-Missouri); Issa (D-California); Lucas (R- Oklahoma); Smith (R-Texas); Royce (R-California); Biggert (R-Illinois); Capito (R-West Virginia); Hensarling (R-Texas) and Garrett (R-New Jersey). The House members will now join the Senate conferees: Dodd (D-Connecticut); Shelby (R-Alabama); Johnson (D-South Dakota); Reed (D-Rhode Island); Schumer (D-New York); Corker (R-Tennessee); Crapo (R-Idaho); and Gregg (R-New Hampshire). Also appointed as negotiators are Senators Lincoln (D-Arkansas); Chambliss (R-Georgia); Leahy (D-Vermont); and Harkin (D-Iowa). The first conference meeting was last Thursday. Estimates are that the bill might make it out of committee before the July 4 recess, your action now is critical. However long the conferees take, now is the time make sure the conference committee removes the FTC powers expansion language currently in the House version of the bill. We need to make sure that Waxman’s amendment threatening supplements, which was accepted in the House’s version of the bill but never came up in the Senate because of the pressure YOU placed on them, doesn’t get put back into the final, reconciled version of the bill that goes back to both chambers for final passage. This could be a devastating piece of legislation for anyone who uses dietary supplements. If you have not already done so, please TAKE ACTION immediately! We’ve made so much progress—we can’t let this final opportunity slip through our fingers.

Fluoride is Not Enough—Now They Want to Add Calcium to Our Drinking Water!

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:20:14 +0000

In the wake of the World Health Organization’s swine flu vaccine scandal we told you about last week, we have learned of even more WHO foolishness: they’re now recommending that municipal water supplies and foodstuffs be fortified with added calcium. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. In their recommendations, they write: “In both developed and developing countries, typical diets are often deficient in calcium and magnesium, essential minerals which are necessary for the development of strong bones and teeth, and for cardiovascular function. At the same time, there is evidence that consuming ‘hard’ drinking-water [that is, water high in minerals] may be associated with reduced risks for some diseases.” Quite true. And it is certainly good that they want to add both calcium and magnesium. Calcium shouldn’t be taken without magnesium (though magnesium may be taken without calcium), but the correct calcium-to-magnesium ratio is much debated. WHO won’t be able to recommend a universally accepted ratio because the science isn’t there yet. Importantly, calcium also shouldn’t be used without vitamin D, omega–3 fatty acids, and especially vitamin K (in particular, vitamin K2). Without these essential co-factors, the calcium may end up in our blood vessels or our heart, where it causes harm, rather in than our bones, where it is needed. The science is simply too complicated for governments to be putting things into our water supply. The current widespread fluoridation of water is bad enough—and may even be illegal—now that fluoride has finally been recognized to be toxic. This is just one more intervention that can have unintended and possibly disastrous consequences. We have noted the way governments (at WHO’s urging) mandate too many vaccines, often for diseases without pandemic potential. Some of the vaccines are risky or contain toxic ingredients, or are damaging when taken all at once or at too young an age. And the current requirement to add folic acid to bread may be riskier than anyone in government understands (something we will discuss further in a future newsletter). Scientists need to study and test and debate and make their arguments for what they believe is healthy. Governments need to stop being so arrogant about forcing everyone to ingest increased levels of specific nutrients, particularly when the science is anything but unanimous on the subject. Decisions like these are always best left to the consumer. The consumer, of course, does need to be informed. And government can help that by alerting the public to the emerging science of natural health. At the very least, food agencies around the world can lift their gag orders and stop censoring the dissemination of legitimate peer-reviewed science about food and dietary supplements.

Readers’ Corner

ANH-USA — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:16:46 +0000

This week we answer questions about drug company contributions to senate campaigns, and learn that sometimes congressional offices don’t even know what their own members voted on! Karen writes: “If only the pharmaceuticals industry were policed with anywhere near the zeal the FDA is showing for supplements, we would have hundreds of thousands of fewer deaths each year due to drugs. I wonder where Senator Kohl gets his campaign money: Big Pharma, I presume. I’d sure like to know.” Senator Herb Kohl (D–WI) is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. He has self-financed 93% of his reelection campaign expenses since he was elected in 1988. The amount of money Sen. Kohl received from drug companies is so insignificant that we really cannot connect his recent Committee hearing actions to drug company contributions. Thanks for your excellent question. You’ve inspired us to do further research on other senators and Congressional representatives, research that we will either put into a report or add to our Congressional Scorecard. This will be good to know before the fall elections. Lance writes: “Hi! I am a little confused. You say that the amendment by Rep. Waxman was not included in the Senate bill (S 3217), amendment (SA 3739). I called Sen. Casey on Friday May 21 to learn that it did pass on Thursday May 20, and Sen. Casey voted for it. I went to the U.S. Senate website to find out the vote was 60–40 with the Yays in the majority. Are you sure you have your facts straight? I did call twice and e-mailed Sen. Casey and Sen. Specter opposing this amendment.” ANH-USA writes: There was a large package of amendments (SA 3739) that were adopted into the Senate bill (S 3217). Although there were Federal Trade Commission-related amendments among them, Waxman’s now-controversial FTC expansion language was not included. Unfortunately, this bill was so large and so vast that many Senate offices are still getting up to speed on what they voted on William writes about our article on supplement safety: “You folks are the BEST!!! At last, some light on a subject that has seriously needed it. Keep up the great work!” ANH-USA writes: Thanks! That kind of message makes it all worthwhile.

Deborah Ray’s Blog, Practicing Medicine without a License

tyrone — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:39:36 +0000

It has become a perennial political argument. Is it wise to involve government in health care? Does the government practicing medicine help people to live longer, live better, or make healthcare more efficient? The Medicare regulations alone, more profuse than those from the IRS, have caused many a physician to say "I wouldn't choose this profession again." There is a host of other issues including medical privacy but to name one that cause many of us to question the wisdom of government-run healthcare. The union groups representing about 6 million workers (Change to Win) has charged the pharmacy benefits manager of CVS with sending a letter to doctors urging them to add Januvia, a new, expensive diabetes drug to specific patients' treatment. The letter mentions that Merck paid for the letter but not the fact that Januvia is 8 times more expensive than other diabetic medications. It is reminiscent of the Rezulin drug recall. Thanks to the collection of prescribing practices by pharmacy benefits manager firms, a local TV outlet called a Jacksonville, FL diabetic to inquire about their reaction to the Rezulin recall, only to be told "How did you know I am taking Rezulin? My doctor's office has not even called me yet." Doctors have these firms looking over their prescribing habits and this information is sold profiting pharmacies and benefiting pharmaceutical firms in the long-run. Patient privacy appears to go by the wayside. While Change to Win has charged that the CVS pharmacy benefits management firm is putting its interests ahead of the businesses that pay CVS to manage employee prescription drug benefits, there is much more to discuss. Where are the privacy rights of the patient here? What about the patient's right to choose? What about raising the standard of care for the treatment of diabetes? Lifestyle based techniques to address diabetes along with the use of the older, cheaper drugs only when absolutely necessary work 90% of the time or better treating type II diabetes. Why has 30-years of government funded research on chromium and its ability to address insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control been dismissed by diabetic educators as 'sounds good but let's wait for more studies'? These issues are medical issues, economic issues, political issues and health freedom issues. They are key to the practice of medicine in the U.S. where wasting resources is no longer financially sustainable. This small issue tells us that healthcare is not sustainable as it is now practice in the U.S. It is time to protect the right of the practitioner to practice and the consumer to choose. It is time to support the legislative efforts of AAHF. Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science New

Capitol Hill Search Underway for Leading Integrative Doctor

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:35:07 +0000

Which integrative physician will be appointed to the powerful new federal research institute? ANH–USA is currently working with Congress to be sure that he or she will be the real thing. ANH-USA knew that whatever the outcome of the Healthcare “Reform” legislation, there would be a new federal panel for medicine. This panel is supposed to report on the most proven and effective treatments. But it is widely understood that its advice will eventually guide the government when and if it moves to ration care, starting with Medicare and then moving into private insurance plans. Initially, the board was known as the Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) Board. Now it is called the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Whatever soothing name it is given, it is expected to have immense influence. For this reason, ANH–USA lobbied hard to have an integrative doctor included by statute. Normally we would worry that this statutory requirement might be evaded by the choice of a physician who would be “integrative” in name only or perhaps not integrative at all. But the same allies who ensured a place for an integrative physician will influence the naming of an individual to play this role, so we are hopeful. ANH–USA remains strongly opposed to the healthcare bill that passed because of its mandate of conventional medical insurance policies among other reasons. We expect to join others in legal tests of that bill. But even if the bill is eventually overturned or repealed, we think it overwhelmingly likely that the new Research Board will survive. With our Congressional allies’ help, we will try to make it as friendly to natural and integrative medicine, that is, to real preventive medicine as we can. We will keep you posted on how the appointment of an integrative doctor to the powerful new board goes.

The Vaccine Firestorm

ANH-USA — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:32:40 +0000

The Vaccine Firestorm Last Friday’s shocking news—the revelation of hidden financial ties and influence-peddling behind the World Health Organization’s declaration of a worldwide H1N1 pandemic—is only one of our articles this week on the controversial issue of immunization. We’ll tell you about flu vaccine deaths, fetal death and injury from mercury, a high government official formerly in charge of vaccines who now works for a drug and vaccine maker, and yet another tragic miscarriage of justice in the case of a pioneer of autism research. Although the health issues involved are the most troubling, we show how the truth can be uncovered, as always, by heeding that old adage: “Follow the money.” The WHO’s H1N1 (Swine Flu) Vaccine Scandal Last Friday, two different European groups released reports accusing the World Health Organization (WHO) of exaggerating the threat posed by the H1N1 virus, and of having been influenced by the pharmaceutical industry in its recommendations about how countries should respond. According to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the WHO’s over-the-top response to the H1N1 virus caused widespread, unnecessary fear, and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars. They say that when the WHO advised countries to stockpile millions of doses of antiviral medications, it had been influenced by the very companies that make the H1N1 antiviral drugs and vaccines. The second report, a joint investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, said the WHO’s global immunization guidelines were based in part on the advice of three experts who received direct financial compensation from the two leading manufacturers of antiviral drugs used against the virus, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, each of which received a windfall of profits from the pandemic declaration. As Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com notes, “During all this, WHO refused to disclose any conflicts of interests between its top advisors and the drug companies who would financially benefit from its decisions. All the kickbacks, in other words, were swept under the table and kept silent, and WHO somehow didn't think it was important to let the world know that it was receiving policy advice from individuals who stood to make millions of dollars when a pandemic was declared.” The BMJ report concludes, “We are left wondering whether major public health organizations are able to effectively manage the conflicts of interest that are inherent in medical science.” A spokesperson for the WHO strongly disputed that its decisions had been tainted. But in response to the criticism, WHO has launched two investigations, including one by an independent panel of experts asked to judge the extent to which WHO’s decision-making processes are influenced by Big Pharma. ANH–International, noted, “The three scientists who authored the World Health Organization guidance document for the swine flu pandemic were in the pay of the drug companies—the very drug companies due to profit so much from stockpiles of vaccines if governments could be persuaded to stockpile. Once again we get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes corporate puppeteering that compromises our freedoms. Such manipulation resulted in a stockpile of drugs and vaccines costing an estimated £1 billion [approximately $1.45 billion].” Flu Vaccines Causing Deaths Worldwide Meanwhile, in western Australia, more than sixty children had “adverse reactions”—fever, vomiting, and convulsions—to a three-strain flu vaccine within hours of being immunized, according to the Brisbane Courier-Mail. The vaccine manufacturer has voluntarily withdrawn the vaccine and is trying to retrieve it wherever it has been distributed. In Taiwan, seventeen children have died after being given the H1N1 vaccine. The Minister of Health said six of the deaths can be attributed to other causes such as myocardial rupture, suffocation due to inhalation of vomit, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, though he did not say what had caused those conditions. Investigations continue into the remaining eleven cases. It was revealed that vaccine had not been tested on humans prior to being administered in Taiwan, but that vaccinations will continue in order “to avoid wasting the vaccine.” The deputy director of the Taiwan CDC noted that, “If parents insist, doctors will be asked to explain the possible health risks.” Mercury Rising CoMeD Inc., a non-profit group hoping to ban the use of mercury in all medications, filed declarations in US District court about pregnant women and their unborn fetuses who have been harmed by influenza shots that contain Thimerosal (mercury). The declarations filed detailed fetal deaths, miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births, and mental retardation or gross mental impairment of live births following the administration of swine flu and regular flu shots that contained mercury. As Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, one of the country's most knowledgeable and outspoken physicians regarding the impact of vaccines on health, writes: “The doctors who are forcing these vaccines on pregnant women do not understand what they are giving or doing. We have heard story after story of people challenging their physicians over whether Thimerosal is present in vaccines. When the doctor finally takes the time to read the package insert, they are shocked to see that it is. While most of the mercury has been taken out of most of the childhood vaccines, it has not been taken out of the multi-dose flu vaccines. Each swine flu shot has 25 mcg of mercury.” In light of this, it is all the more interesting that a respected Japanese study recently concluded that vitamin D was as effective as vaccine in preventing flu, including pandemic flu. And of course it is also effective as a treatment. The complete silence of the US government about the use of this simple, cheap, unpatented substance against flu is truly shameful. If vitamin D were a patented drug sold by a drug company, is there any doubt the government would be promoting and stockpiling it? This is one example of crony capitalism in medicine but not unfortunately the most blatant. For that, see the next story. Blatant Crony Capitalism in Medicine Dr. Julie Gerberding was director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the past seven years. Essentially, she was in charge of federal government decision-making about vaccines and disease-response programs. In January, she resigned to become president of Merck Pharmaceuticals’ vaccine division. Merck, as Pulse readers know, makes the Gardasil vaccine, which is marketed as a cervical cancer vaccine even though it’s really a vaccine for genital warts—the human papillomavirus (HPV). There are as many as forty different HPVs, only four of which can cause some types of cancer in some women. Gardasil’s own small-print disclaimers say the vaccine doesn’t protect everyone; it doesn’t protect against diseases caused by other HPV types; it doesn’t prevent all types of cervical cancer; and it doesn’t treat cancer or genital warts once you have them. Yet Merck is marketing it as the great new cervical cancer preventive. You can’t take it if you’re prone to yeast infections or are pregnant, and the acknowledged side effects include pain, swelling, itching, bruising, and redness at the injection site, headache, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and fainting with seizures or rigidity! Unacknowledged possible side effects have included a teenage girl’s death. A true miracle drug. Merck's announcement said, "Dr. Gerberding is the ideal choice to lead Merck's engagement with organizations around the world that share our commitment to the use of vaccines to prevent disease.” This is crony capitalism at its most blatant. By the way, in 2008, Dr. Gerberding went on CNN’s House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and admitted that vaccines can trigger autism. It was buried in a pile of obfuscation, but the admission was there nonetheless. This in turn makes the next story all the more interesting. “A Clear Miscarriage of Justice” In March, a federal administrative law judge ruled that the evidence supporting an alleged causal link between autism and a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines was “unpersuasive,” and that the families of children diagnosed with autism were not entitled to compensation. The Coalition for Vaccine Safety called it “a clear miscarriage of justice.” These families, representative of than 5,300 cases of parents who believe vaccines caused their child’s autism, sought compensation but above all an acknowledgment of wrong from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system set up to shield pharmaceutical firms making vaccines from financial liability and thus to encourage them to make more vaccines. Now, in another miscarriage of justice, Andrew Wakefield, MD—the British doctor whose research and public statements initially linked a common childhood vaccine to autism—had his license to practice medicine revoked two weeks ago. The British General Medical Council alleged in part that he had conducted invasive medical procedures on children that they did not need. Significantly, no parent or child has ever alleged that they were harmed by Dr Wakefield. Prior to this controversy, Wakefield was a gastroenterologist and respected researcher. In 1995, he was approached for help by a mother whose child developed a painful inflammatory bowel disorder following a routine MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella). The child also became autistic. His research team found nearly 100 children with the same symptoms and the same chain of events, a syndrome now identified in five countries As part of his investigation, Dr. Wakefield found the safety studies on the MMR vaccine “totally unsatisfactory,” and put together a 250-page report on these safety studies. The manufacturer of the MMR vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), saw its sales drop sharply after the report. One of the members of GSK’s board of directors owns the Sunday Times newspaper. That paper wrote a series of articles critical of Dr. Wakefield, which prompted the UK’s General Medical Council to investigate. This was the beginning of what ANH–Europe called, in its excellent analysis of the incident, “the longest witch hunt in UK medical history.” As Dr. Sherri Tenpenny notes, “The autism rate, now at least 1 in 150, is more than the childhood rate of pediatric cancer, HIV, and diabetes combined. And yet we deny the connection to vaccines and even deny there is an autism epidemic, with many thousands of children losing their brains. It is more important to be sure we don't have a few cases of mumps or the flu than it is to question the holy water coming through that needle, a solution that contains known carcinogens, animal DNA, and heavy metals.” Dr. Wakefield recently published a book on his experience, Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines—The Truth Behind a Tragedy.

Deborah Ray’s Blog, The Power of the Placebo, is healing all in our mind?

tyrone — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:50:21 +0000

Deborah Ray has been bringing quality health information to radio listeners since 1982 when she founded her radio program with her late husband, Donald J. Carrow M.D. S. Deborah has been consistently named among the top 100 most important talk radio hosts in America by Talkers Magazine, and has been host and speaker for numerous seminars and events since 1994. Read More

The Power of the Placebo, is healing all in our mind? A recent survey of doctors from the U.S. finds that nearly two out of three believe it is permissible to use placebos and one out of two U.S. doctors prescribe placebos to their patients. Surveys of physicians in Israel, Denmark, and Great Britain reveal similar findings. This published research from the British Medical Journal, now known as BMJ, have prompted Sally Satel, MD, well known author to comment on a recent Op/Ed page of the Wall Street Journal that the extent of the use of placebos is "disquieting even unethical". However, when recent studies revealed that prescription anti-depressants worked only as well as placebos, the Wall Street Journal reported on the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to "harness placebos" as part of their current R&D, research and development. Studies have indicated that placebos are effective up to 60-70% of the time. A review of the efficacy of many prescription drugs would reveal efficacy rates much lower than that of the placebo. Placebos provide an opportunity to integrate mind-body medicine into the practice of medicine which is often prescription and procedure driven in the U.S. Placebos speak to harnessing the mind-body connection to the benefit of our health. The systems of healthcare that have stood the test of time, Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, have thousands of years of time-tested use compared to the relatively young allopathic medicine (less than 100 years old). These systems of healthcare (not disease care) focus on health as a balance of physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Kudos to Dr. Satel who comments that "physicians who use placebos carefully recognize that the practical value of faith must neither be underestimated nor dismissed. …If patients suffer less…it is worth finding out." Integrative medicine has been dismissed time and again as 'the placebo response.' Chelation? Oh, it's just a placebo. Homeopathy? Again, it's just a placebo. Integrative medicine has learned to integrate the mind-body response into their clinical practice. Patients now flock to the doors of integrative physicians who brave the ire of their state medical boards to offer health programs based upon physical, emotional, and spiritual balance. Following the numbers of cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and PSA readings is now recognized as solely "physical" based medicine and appears not to stand up to scientific scrutiny. The recent discussion by the professor of medicine and palliative care at the Massey Cancer Center Virginia Commonwealth University from the November 2008 issue of Consumer Reports on Health mentioned the use of palliative chemotherapy. That is disconcerting at best given the potential downsides of chemotherapy. All the more intriguing to read Spontaneous Remission, an Annotated Bibliography from the Institute of Noetic Sciences as a humbling tribute to what we have yet to learn. And, this is but one of the reasons millions of Americans seek the advice and counsel of integrative physicians who are open to learning new science and new ways to harness the body's ability to heal itself. One of the most important campaigns of AAHF is to protect the rights of physicians to practice. Click here to support that effort.

Court Finds For ANH-USA In Stunning Victory Over FDA (Thank You Jonathan Emord!)

ANH-USA — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:00:31 +0000

This was a key federal case argued for ANH-USA and other plaintiffs by Jonathan Emord and the Emord law firm. It was a remarkable seventh victory for Emord over the FDA in the area of allowable health claims for food or supplements. Unless reversed on appeal, the decision restricts the Agency's ability to place gag orders on the emerging science behind healthy foods and dietary supplements. The case revolved around what are called qualified health claims. In a qualified health claim, the producer of a food or supplement tries to share the state of the science behind the product with the public. If the science is less than completely conclusive, usually the case with food or food related items, the claim is "qualified". The FDA has never liked qualified health claims. It wants food and supplements to be treated like drugs and forced to submit to the full FDA approval process in order to make any health claims. Of course this is crazy. Food and supplements, being natural, cannot usually be patented, and nobody can afford to spend a billion dollars to gain FDA approval of claims on an unpatented product that anyone else can sell. The FDA knows this full well. The real reason it does not want any health claims for food or supplements is probably that it fears that this will create competition for approved drugs-- and drugs pay the Agency's bills. This is a scandal that badly needs to be addressed. The Environmental Protection Agency does not, so far as we can see, represent the interests of coal mining companies. So why should the FDA represent the drug companies rather than the public? Probably because the monopoly created for drug companies by the FDA has given the drug companies vast sums to spend to gain influence. Coal companies are poor by comparison. The judge in this case, Ellen Huvelle of the United States District Court of the District of Columbia, rendered a summary judgment. That means she felt the case was clear from the start. The FDA was violating freedom of speech by saying that no cancer related health claims about the mineral selenium could be made unless the science was completely conclusive or unless ridiculous and misleading disclaimers were added to the message. Although this case was focused on selenium, it has much bigger ramifications. The judge was in effect saying that food and dietary supplement producers have a right under the free speech doctrine to talk about the science behind the product so long as they accurately represent that science. The FDA is currently flush with cash from new appropriations. It may appeal. Even if it does not appeal, it may fall back into a passive aggressive stance of quibbling over every word of every qualified claim. But at some point, the accumulation of court decisions against the Agency should finally result in some real change. Although the struggle is far from over, this court victory is an important milestone along the way to an eventual victory for free speech, uncensored science, and common sense.

Senate Hearing Headlines: The Media Gets It Wrong Again. Here Is Some Of What You Need To Know About Supplement Safety.

ANH-USA — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:00:04 +0000

In last week's newsletter, we reported that the staff of the Senate Committee on Aging, led by Senator Kohl (D-WI), was preparing a surprise ambush of dietary supplements in a Senate hearing held last Wednesday. We were right. But we didn't anticipate how seriously distorted the major media news stories would be. The centerpiece of the hearing was a report by the GAO (Government Accounting Office) of the testing they had done on 40 herbal supplement bottles at the Committee's request. An incomplete account of the GAO report was leaked to major media, probably by committee staff, the night before the hearing and produced dramatic headlines. The trouble is that all these headlines were seriously misleading. Here are a few examples: New York Times: "Study Finds Supplements Contain Contaminants" CBS News: "Many Supplements Contain Lead, Arsenic" AOL News: "Herbal Supplements May Pose Health Risk" At least AOL told the reader that this wasn't about vitamins or minerals, just herbs. But, contrary to the AOL headline, the GAO found that the herbal supplements did not pose health risks. The GAO reported that "FDA and EPA officials did not express concern regarding any immediate negative health consequences from consuming these supplements." To understand why this is so, you have to know that the GAO found only "trace" amounts of the metals, in many cases barely above the level of detectability, far below the levels that the FDA or EPA worries about. And you also have to know that these metals naturally occur in air, water, soil, and food, so they are to be expected at some level in herbal supplements. The critical question is not whether they are there, but rather at what level. The human body has evolved with these metals in our food. Consequently we have the ability to metabolize and excrete them and we do so every day. A problem arises when we ingest or absorb too much for our bodies to handle. AOL also claimed in the first sentence of its story that the supplements were "laced" with heavy metals. Laced? This suggests large amounts and that someone had put them there intentionally. (We thank AOL News for subsequently deleting the word "laced" at our request.) Here is an example of what would have been a truthful headline: Trace Amounts Of Lead, Arsenic, And Other Metals, Naturally Found In Air, Water, Soil, And Consequently Food, Were Found In A Limited Sample of Herbal Supplements Derived From Plants, But At Levels Generally Considered Safe. That headline would not of course have run. It would have made it clear that there wasn't much of a story. Why did the major media get their reporting so wrong? In some cases, the stories directly contradicted their headlines. Of course the New York Times, CBS News, and similar mainstream media have a long history of attacking natural health approaches in general, and supplements in particular. They are also on the financial ropes these days and would probably go bankrupt without the major drug company advertising they get. Please don't misunderstand. ANH-USA is not in favor of heavy metals. In fact we often have defended the right of integrative doctors to treat for heavy metal contamination. And we are not shills for the supplement industry. One of our supporters (Charles) recently sent us the following message: "The way you are spinning this [story] sounds like you are speaking for the supplements industry. I am not interested in taking contaminated supplements. I want clean, uncontaminated supplements that I don't have to worry about. I'd rather pay more and know that there are some standards for evaluating supplements. I don't want to be ingesting lead!" We couldn't agree more about not wanting to ingest lead. But there is much more to know about it. For example, we need to understand that each time we take a bite of spinach we are ingesting lead. FDA testing suggests that there is 7.0 mcg of lead in an average serving of four ounces of boiled spinach. Shrimp is higher: 23.8mcg. Peaches are lower: 3.4 mcg. Whole wheat bread is lower still at 2.8 mcg and milk is 1.2 mcg. We do not, however, stop eating spinach. Even with the small amount of lead (equivalent to about 7 parts per million), nutritional scientists agree that spinach does us much more good than harm. Overall the FDA says that we should try not to ingest more than 75 mcg of lead per day. The World Health Organization says we can ingest (and safely excrete) up to 243 mcg per day (this assumes we weigh 150 pounds). The amount of lead we know is too much to excrete safely is higher still. How much lead was in the 40 bottles tested by the GAO? Of the 37 bottles with trace amounts of lead, the echinacea had the most (.043 mcg to 1.290 mcg). The peppermint had the least (.007 mcg to .023 mcg). Note that .007 is barely detectable; the lowest lead that can be detected is .005 mcg. Is this what the media were terrifying us about? This leads to an important point. Some supplements will be more lead free than others. The highest end supplement companies test each batch of supplement material to be sure it is what it is supposed to be, for potency, for heavy metals, and for pesticides. These tests are very important, especially since so much supplement material comes from China. Not surprisingly, supplements that have been put through more tests may cost more. Of course many consumers cannot afford any supplements at all, much less high end products, and if the FDA has its way, supplements would cost as much as drugs. You may be able to consume less lead by choosing carefully among supplements. But keep in mind that there is a paradox here. The more "natural" a supplement, the more it is based on plants, the more likely it is to contain lead. Even the highest end supplement companies cannot remove every bit of the lead in a product that is based on spinach and other similar greens. By the way, the GAO report covered four heavy metals and a number of pesticides as well. Some of the stories spoke of "illegal" pesticide levels. One or more trace pesticide was found in fewer than half the herbal samples and, like the metals, was in an amount lower than what you might get in food. The reason any amount of pesticide may be illegal is that in many cases the EPA has not gotten around to stating an allowable level, something it is supposed to do, and absent a guideline any amount is technically illegal, even though the pesticide may be common in food. To reduce the risk of pesticides, supplement buyers might try, in addition to choosing brands carefully, to buy organic supplements, but even these may have tiny trace amounts of pesticides from rain water and other sources. Lastly, let's not imagine, as Charles may or may not have meant to suggest, that increasing the FDA's budget will lead to safer, higher quality supplements. The 1994 law governing supplements (DSHEA) ordered the FDA to establish good manufacturing practices (GMP's) for supplement makers. The FDA dragged its heals for years. GMP's for supplement makers will only finally come into force for all supplement companies next month, sixteen years after passage of the bill! There always have been and, we have to assume, still are some bad actors among supplement companies. The FDA should move against them, but does not. It has plenty of regulatory authority to do so. The testimony of the Deputy Director of the FDA at the Kohl Senate hearing acknowledged this authority. So why does the Agency hold back? There is evidence that, at least in the past, the Agency had a conscious policy of not regulating supplements in the hope that this would lead to a crisis; the crisis would then lead to a requirement for full drug approval for supplements. Currently the Agency claims it lacks the money to do its job although it's budget has been sharply increased. There is a lot more we could tell you about the Senate hearing. But this is plenty for this week's report. The bottom line: although designed to "ambush" supplements, the facts presented were hardly an indictment. They could just as easily be taken as a validation of the general safety even of herbal supplements, the supplements most likely to contain heavy metals or pesticides. All of us at ANH-USA are consumers of supplements. We care about supplement safety for the same reasons you do. We will have more to say about this important subject in future newsletters. By the way, supplements have recently been under steady attack in Congress, so naturally our newsletter has focused on them. But we cover all of natural health and health freedom and have lots of non-supplement news to share with you as soon as space permits.

Deborah Ray’s Blog Has Technology Failed Us?

tyrone — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:54:31 +0000

Has Technology Failed Us? There are many aspects of the "gold standard" of medicine that have been scrutinized by science and found to be lacking. Episiotomy is one and the routine use of blood transfusions is another. And now the use of EKG to predict future heart problems for people who have chest pain is another.The November 13, 2008 online issue of BMJ reports on following over 8000 patients with no history of heart disease who were referred to chest pain clinics because of suspected chest pain. The researchers concluded that 47% of the coronary events (heart attacks and the like) occurred to those people whose exercise EKGs did not indicate any heart problems. They went on to state that while EKGs do help determine whether chest pain is caused by a heart problem, the exercise EKG added no value above and beyond the physician examining the patient. To those ends, there are sources like the Dartmouth University Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making a non-profit organization dedicated to assuring that people understand their choices and have the information they need to make sound decisions affecting their health and well being by: promoting understanding and adoption of informed medical decision-making, organizing and framing medical evidence in an unbiased manner to help people evaluate their options, particularly in instances where differences in individual preferences and perspectives are likely to affect personal choice and sponsoring research to expand knowledge of how to improve decision quality in health care. Our government public health effort may want to take notice of this effort. According to research from Penn State University, over 90% of what is practiced in allopathic medicine is defensive medicine, not necessary except for medico-legal purposes and medical regulatory reasons. Defensive medicine has its consequences. Gilbert Welch, MD, Dartmouth University professor states in his book Should I Be Tested for Cancer?: Maybe Not and Here's Why there is a downside to over-diagnosis. We already know there is a downside to over-treatment. Leading integrative physicians like Sidney Baker, MD at a recent Institute of Functional Medicine symposium speak of the wisdom of 'listening to your patient'. When the news wire service headlines read Doctors Match Machines in Spotting Heart Disease, more may be persuaded that this is a wise way to practice medicine. Copyright © 2010 Natural Health Science News. Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to Natural Health Science News.

Supplements In The Senate—Again!

ANH-USA — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:30:54 +0000

The Senate Special Committee on Aging is chaired by Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI). The Committee may be about to take some potshots at supplements during a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, May 26. Everyone involved is being very hush-hush on what they’ll be discussing. We have, however, learned of a couple of items on their agenda. Supplements used as drugs The Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent undercover shoppers into health food stores with tape recorders to see whether they could get store employees to give them information on the treatment of their ailments, and many did so. This information may be used to support the notion that supplements should go through the same lengthy and exorbitantly expensive approval process that patented drugs do. The argument will be that supplements are being used like drugs to treat medical conditions, so they should be treated like drugs. The truth is, it’s simply a case of some store employees sincerely wanting to share their knowledge and help people and not following the rules closely enough. Product purity The GAO also took samples of the forty top-selling herbs and tested them to see whether they were contaminated with heavy metals or other toxins. ConsumerLab found contaminants in a number of the samples, and is on the witness list for the hearing. However, the GAO and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both found the supplements to be within acceptable levels. The point which needs to be made at the hearing is that the supplement industry is already regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the power to protect consumers from those few supplement manufacturers not following the rules, something which it has refused to do. In an earlier administration, we know that the FDA intentionally chose not to monitor supplements, hoping that this would lead to a crisis and thence to an expansion of FDA control. Perhaps partly in response to this history, Senators Tom Harkin (D–IA) and Orrin Hatch (R–UT) plan to introduce the “Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010” before the hearing (and may have already done so by the time you receive this newsletter). This act will fully fund DSHEA and give the FDA more resources to ensure proper enforcement. You will be able to view the live webcast at the Senate Special Committee on Aging website on May 26 at 2:00pm. We'll provide a complete summary of the hearing in next week’s newsletter.

Success! Waxman’s Anti-Supplement Measure Excluded From Senate “Wall St. Reform” Bill! But Fight Is Not Over

ANH-USA — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:31:31 +0000

On Thursday, May 19, the Senate held their final vote on the Wall Street “Reform” Act. We are pleased to report that the anti-supplement provision drafted by Congressman Henry A. Waxman (D–CA), and included in the House bill, which would have expanded the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), was not included in the final version of the Senate bill— the provision had suddenly become "too controversial"! This victory was largely due to you, our supporters, who flooded Senate offices with thousands of emails and phone calls. Thank you! This is proof once again that when you make your voice clearly heard, legislators listen. But the fight isn’t over yet. Now's the time to let your senators and Congressional representatives know that you want them to tell the conference committee to remove the FTC powers expansion language currently in the House version of the bill from the final version of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. As we noted earlier, this could be a devastating piece of legislation for anyone who uses dietary supplements. Please TAKE ACTION immediately! We've made so much progress-- we need to redouble our efforts now! Please note: Senate Conferee were just named. They are Dodd (D-Connecticut); Shelby (R-Alabama); Johnson (D-South Dakota); Reed (D-Rhode Island); Schumer (D-New York); Corker (R-Tennessee); Crapo (R-Idaho); and Gregg (R-New Hampshire). Also appointed as negotiators are Senators Lincoln (D-Arkansas); Chambliss (R-Georgia); Leahy (D-Vermont); and Harkin (D-Iowa). If any of these Senate Conferees or negotiators are from your state it's critical you TAKE ACTION immediately! House Conferees will likely be named next week.

Did Waxman Author The “Waxman” Amendment? A Critic Says No. Here Is The Evidence Behind Our Claim That Waxman Did Author The Amendment

ANH-USA — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:30:17 +0000

A friend has just sent us a recent internet article. The article implies that the FTC expansion amendment does not really threaten supplements. To understand why this is wrong, why the amendment directly threatens supplements, please see our prior articles here and here. The article also states that ANH-USA made a “false claim” that Congressman Henry Waxman authored the FTC expansion amendment in the House Wall St. “Reform” bill. We will now explain why we feel certain that Congressman Waxman, a long time foe of supplements, was in fact the author of the amendment. Here is some of what the article said: “This would certainly sound like a typical Waxman tactic. However, the fact is that this bill was reported out of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Waxman does not even serve.” Fact: This is wrong. The House Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 began life as H.R. 3126, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009. H.R. 3126 was introduced by Congressman Barney Frank, chair of Financial Services, on 7/8/2009 and referred both to Financial Services and to Waxman’s Energy and Commerce Committee. The Thomas link which explains this is here. Waxman’s committee marked up H.R. 3126 on Oct 29. It was voted out of Energy and Commerce with the additional controversial FTC language. Waxman noted in his opening statement before markup in his committee: “Its jurisdiction (FTC) is limited and it has been hampered by a slow and burdensome rulemaking process…We must ensure that the Federal Trade Commission is strengthened, not weakened.” Just to be certain of Waxman’s authorship of the amendment prior to writing our article, ANH-USA called the Energy and Commerce committee staff. A member of the Committee staff confirmed that Congressman Waxman inserted the controversial FTC expansion language. ANH-USA has detailed notes of the call including time, date, and the name of the staff member who told us this. H.R. 3126 (with Waxman’s FTC language) was then introduced and presented to the House on Dec 10th as a Manager’s Amendment to H.R. 4173, The Wall Street Reform Act. Here’s information on the vote. Note that what WAS the Wall Street Reform bill became the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. Final vote on the bill was Dec 11. The internet article doubting Waxman’s authorship of the amendment continues: “Doing some in-depth checking, it turns out that there were a total of 183 amendments made to the House version of the Financial Reform bill, H.R.4173…. None of these had either Waxman's name or his fingerprints upon them.” Fact: That is because the amendment came in through another bill. Are we burdening our readers with too much detail? We hope not. We just want you to know that we do not make allegations without checking them carefully. We are committed to truthful and factual reporting. If we do ever make an error, it won’t be for lack of checking, and we will correct the record promptly.

Nanotechnology: New Threat to Organic Foods

ANH-USA — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:32:37 +0000

Nanotechnology, the process of manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular level, has no place in organic food. Like genetic modification, it is the antithesis of the organic concept. Our friends at the Organic Consumers Union and others recently asked that the United States National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture formally prohibit the use of nanotechnology in organic food production. The NOSB member from General Mills sought to delay the process by demanding that a technical definition of the term be developed. The committee then responded by requesting a technical and scientific review of the issue. Canada has already acted. It recently amended its national organic rules to ban nanotechnology in food production as a “Prohibited Substance or Method." The U.S. Department of Agriculture is hearing from large food companies on this issue, and has a record of siding with industry against consumers, as some of our earlier stories have shown. It is important that we let USDA know that consumers care deeply about maintaining and preserving real organic standards. Please add your voice by taking action now to support the ban on nanotechnology in organic foods TAKE ACTION.

U.S. Institute of Medicine Study Urges New Approach to Regulating Supplements – Big Pharma Influenced Doctors Get it Wrong Again

ANH-USA — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:31:10 +0000

The U.S. Institute of Medicine represents the heart of the medical establishment. Congress listens to it. The President listens to it. The FDA listens to it. In this case, the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition posed some technical questions to the Institute of Medicine. Please note that this FDA center is in charge of regulating dietary supplements. Unfortunately the Institute of Medicine decided to go beyond the technical questions posed and instead chose to recommend a new approach to regulating supplements. A lot of what the IOM said was wrong, but let’s take it from the top. View the report here. 1) The IOM seems to think that healthy foods and supplements should be regulated like drugs. "There is no scientific rationale for having different levels of rigor applied to these different categories," said Dr. John Ball, chair of the committee that produced the report. Really? The distinguished scientists on the IOM panel should be able to understand that natural products cannot be patented and therefore cannot be brought through the obscenely expensive FDA approval process required for drugs. Who does the IOM or FDA expect to pay a billion dollar cost of approval for cherries or walnuts? Individual cherry or walnut growers? Will consumers buy cherries if they cost as much as drugs? This is what we have called the Catch 22 of contemporary American medicine. Because only non-natural and patentable substances can be brought through the FDA approval process, the FDA in effect enforces a medical monopoly for drug companies. As a direct consequence, natural and often much safer and cheaper natural remedies are ignored. Natural medicine based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle, which ought to be at the center of medicine, are shunted off to the sidelines and subjected to legal threats by hostile regulatory agencies. By the way, how safe are all those drugs that go through the FDA approval process? In 2008, the FDA received more than 530,000 reports of suspected adverse drug effect, there were 320,000 serious adverse events and nearly 50,000 deaths reported. A report in 2007 by the FDA, CDC and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that common drug dangers are so bad that "Harmful reactions to some of the most widely used medicines - from insulin to a common antibiotic - send more than 700,000 Americans to emergency rooms each year." View the report here. 2) The IOM also seems to favor strengthening FDA authority over supplements and allowing the agency to pull supplements because of vague concerns, not just the current standard of “significant or unreasonable risk.” The report cites a study on beta-carotene as partial justification for this, but clearly hasn’t bothered to look into the seriously flawed science behind the study. This recommendation again misses the central point: it would be nice to pay for a billion dollars of study of each component of our diet but who will pay for this? Medical costs are already completely unsustainable and food prices are rising. Do we really want to regulate functional foods and supplements out of existence? The drug companies of course would like that very much—no more competition. 3) IOM also doesn’t like the idea that a supplement intended for bones (containing vitamin K, D, calcium, and other minerals) may currently cite accepted claims for vitamin D or calcium. No. The IOM committee thinks that the entire product in each case should be required to be researched as a whole and nothing whatever said about component vitamin D or calcium benefits. Never mind that the report also says that “in order to make informed decisions individuals need access to complete information.” How is the public to get any information, much less complete information, with these irrational government gag orders in place? ANH-USA has a guess about what is bothering the distinguished committee members. None of us like to see sugary cereal makers claiming health benefits for their cereals because they have sprayed on a few cheap synthetic vitamins. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Let’s have a little common sense. The bone product should be able to cite the vitamin D claim. Otherwise the purchaser is left in the dark. And the cereal maker should be required to be honest about what else is in the cereal. 4) The report says that its recommendations are “consistent with recent efforts to improve the use of science at FDA and in European Regulatory Agencies.” The bare truth (as pointed out by ANH-Intl’s Dr. Rob Verkerk in a series of peer reviewed scientific journal articles) is that the science used by the European Regulatory Agencies is very poor science and is getting worse, not better. 5) The IOM report makes some good points too. For example, it notes that the FDA relies heavily on so-called bio-markers in approving drugs and there isn’t enough or consistent science behind this. For example, it is taken almost on faith today that a cholesterol lowering drug (cholesterol is the bio-marker) will reduce heart disease and lengthen life. This is naïve: cholesterol is not an illness in itself; indeed we cannot live without it. And the drugs used to reduce cholesterol are quite dangerous. Similarly reduction of blood pressure (a bio-marker) is assumed to be “good” without considering the side effects of the drugs that produce it. We agree that bio-markers are being misused at the FDA. But that does not mean that drugs and supplements should be subjected to identical research requirements. In general, we must always be wary when conventional medicine calls for greater scientific “consistency.” That is often just an excuse for choosing some valid science and excluding some other, equally valid science for ideological reasons. For example, did you know that the phrase “evidence based medicine,” as used by conventional medical research, means accepting the kind of human trials currently demanded by the FDA and rejecting all other forms of scientific evidence? This is true even though food in particular cannot be studied in the same way as a drug. It has multiple ingredients and effects which interact with other multiple ingredients and effects in ways that cannot possibly be isolated. There are rumors on Capitol Hill that an upcoming Congressional hearing will address the supplement issues raised by this poorly thought through IOM report. We have our ear to the ground and will keep you informed as we learn more.

Latest European Court of Justice Ruling on Supplements: Comme ci, Comme ça

ANH-USA — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:30:21 +0000

An important ruling was recently handed down by the European Court of Justice in April about supplement regulation. First the bad: The court accepted the scientific methodology that our Dr. Rob Verkerk has so effectively shown to be highly flawed. This is not too surprising. What do judges know about science? But there is some good too: The Court also ruled that national governments or the European Commission cannot implement excessively low maximum vitamin levels without demonstrating "genuine" or "real" risks to human health. ANH- Europe believes that this 'supreme view' from the highest court in Europe could pave the way for preventing disproportionate bans on particular molecular forms of nutrients that are known to be safe (and beneficial) at supplemental doses currently used. For more on this story, please see the following report from ANH-Intl. This latest ruling underscores the important role that the courts are playing in natural healthcare in Europe. In the European community, real legislative democracy is in full retreat. More and more decisions are not made by democratically elected legislators but by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. The only counter-weight to the suffocating regulatory demands coming out of Brussels are the courts. ANH-Intl has gone to the courts in the past and will do so again. Even when court decisions are mixed, as in this most recent case, they are still on balance a blessing for natural health. And the threat of court action is just about the only thing that still restrains the otherwise out of control regulators. Does this affect U.S. citizens? Absolutely. The unelected bureaucrats in Brussels will try to make their rules worldwide under the slogan of “harmonization” and “trade harmonization.” Better to fight these battles in Europe, both for the Europeans and ultimately for all of us.

Your Voice Is Heard In The Senate – Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Keep Waxman’s Anti-Supplement FTC Language Out of The Senate Bill!

ANH-USA — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:19:22 +0000

Two weeks ago we told you about a “sneak” anti-supplement provision (Section 4901) slipped at the last moment into the House Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173). This “below the radar” provision is intentionally written in unintelligible legalese that can barely be deciphered by a legislative or legal expert (here is the actual language if you want to try to decipher it yourself). Reduced to understandable language, this section gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) broad new rulemaking and enforcement authority. Although this proposed new FTC authority can be used against a wide variety of industries, it particularly threatens the dietary supplement industry and consumer access to dietary supplements. Why? Because the FTC has adopted a destructive policy toward supplement companies that presently can only be applied to those few companies signing FTC consent agreements. If the new provision becomes law, the FTC could and almost certainly would apply its policy to all supplement companies. The likely result is that many supplements and supplement companies would disappear. (More information about this is available in our alert.) Drug companies would of course be delighted to see supplement companies put out of business by harsh FTC requirements. They know that supplements are their chief potential competition, are often more effective than drugs, are often less toxic, and are always far, far less expensive. Supplements are already regulated by the FDA under DSHEA. If the Waxman provision becomes law, the FTC will gain the power to override the limited protections for supplements that already exist under DSHEA. The FDA would still have to respect DSHEA, but the FTC would be under no such constraint. Many thousands of you have taken action though our website and requested your Senators not to include Waxman’s dangerous FTC power expansion measure in the Senate version of the Wall Street Reform bill. We are pleased to report that the Senate is listening. The Senate's Restoring American Fiscal Stability Act of 2010 (S.3217) is moving its way though the chamber right now. Just as we expected, an effort was made by Senator Rockefeller to convince Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) to include Waxman’s FTC provision into the bill before it came to the floor as part of the “managers amendment.” If this had succeeded, the battle would have been over. But we headed this off by making the provision too “controversial”, as Senator Dodd reportedly said. Still, the fight isn’t over. The bill is on the Senate floor and a senator could still offer the now controversial FTC expansion measure as a floor amendment, although a floor amendment would be much easier to defeat. If you haven’t already done so, please TAKE ACTION on our alert and be sure to forward the link to your friends and family. The alert will also provide you with more information about the provision and why it is so toxic for supplements.

Genetically Modified Foods: More Reason to Avoid Them; Why They Threaten Organic Agriculture

ANH-USA — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:18:08 +0000

Last week the New York Times wrote about an upcoming report from The President’s Cancer Panel. The paper was “astonish[ed] to learn that [the panel] is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: [these] chemicals threaten our bodies.” If you doubt that Genetically Modified (GM) foods threaten your body, here is a recent report from Russian biologists. They conducted what they thought would be a “routine” study of the long-term effects of the consumption of GM soy feed among a hamster population. For the first generation, the only untoward effects seemed to be constipation. The second generation didn’t seem too much the worse for wear either. But the third generation showed serious ill effects and turned out to be completely sterile. Hampsters are not human beings and more research needs to be done, but other studies also point to reproductive ill effects. Eating frankinfoods would not seem to be the best form of birth control! In addition to the unknown but increasingly documented risks of ingesting organisms that are completely new to the human body, we also need to worry about contaminants found in GM foods such as Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” herbicide. It should also be noted that GM food issues have for the first time found their way to the US Supreme Court. A lawsuit brought by organic farmers and The Center for Food Safety pointed out that biotech alfalfa would spread uncontrollably and take over US pasturelands. True organic beef would become an impossibility since all cows would be potentially exposed to the GM alfalfa. A federal judge agreed and halted the sale of biotech alfalfa from Monsanto until the USDA could do a full-scale environmental impact study. The Supreme Court will decide if the federal judge had the constitutional right to take this action and a decision is expected in late summer. If GM leads to human sterility in succeeding generations, would we like to see all beef products contaminated? Even vegetarians will face the consequences when they try to farm GM contaminated land. This is a big, big issue and our thanks to The Center for Food Safety for defending common sense and fighting Monsanto in the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, The [international] Codex Committee on Food Labeling met to discuss whether Genetically Modified food could be labeled “organic”. The decision remains to be made, but in this case the Europeans, whom we generally condemn for their ridiculously restrictive approach to supplements, are fighting the good fight and are expected eventually to carry the day. It is of course appalling that this matter is being debated at all, and that it will eventually be decided based on the political weight of the different countries and regions. We do not need food decisions based on politics, nor bureaucratic meddling in organic standards, which began outside of government, and which just get watered down by government officials charged with protecting us who really answer to commercial interests. A recent poll, conducted by the U.S. Consumers Union, found that two-thirds of US consumers would be concerned if they thought that GM ingredients were in organic food. There is overwhelming public opinion support for GM labeling, and more than 80 public health, environmental, and agriculture organizations are working to ensure genetically modified foods are labeled as such. Who is working in the opposite direction? The GM and food producers of course-- and their powerful ally the US government.

A BPA Ban In The Food Safety Bill?

ANH-USA — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:14:16 +0000

The widely used chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is an estrogen-mimicker. Some 200 animal studies have suggested that the substance is very harmful. Over 90 percent of Americans show some BPA in their “body burden”. It is especially hard to avoid BPA since it is used in plastic containers and food liners and is even used to make the coating on the receipts we get at stores. For most urban residents, the handling of these receipts is thought to be the number one source of BPA in the body. About 2 billion pounds of BPA are produced in the United States each year. Last year ANH-USA filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration warning of the widespread use of BPA in dental sealants for children (these sealants are literally painted on the teeth), composite fillings, and orthodontery. The FDA has responded to the petition with dismissive silence. Fortunately, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is taking the fight to the Food Safety Bill by trying to offer an amendment banning the substance in food containers. This has stirred up a hornet’s nest among industry associations. The Grocery Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have threatened to withdraw support for the bill if an anti-BPA amendment is added. If you are curious about how much BPA would be reduced in our bodies if the use of the chemical was banned from the lining of food containers, it is significant. In the late 1990s Japanese companies removed the chemical from any direct contact with food. The efforts resulted in a 50 percent reduction in BPA levels in Japanese citizens who were tested. We strongly support Senator Feinstein’s proposed amendment to the Food Safety Modernization Action (S. 510) to ban BPA from food containers and hope it will be added to the bill. If the amendment is offered and time permits, we will notify our readers and ask that you support the amendment. We have also been in communication with the senator’s office about the importance of removing BPA from children’s dental sealants and fillings and from orthodontery. We do not support the Senate Food Safety Bill, but it will almost certainly pass and this amendment would make it better. We are especially opposed to the House version of the Food Safety bill which has already passed. We intend to work as hard as possible to keep the noxious house provisions from being adopted in the final version of the bill that must pass both House and Senate.

Send A Message To PBS Frontline! What Frontline Covered Up In Their Biased Report On “The Vaccine War”

ANH-USA — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:26:41 +0000

Accomplished pediatrician, author, and teacher Dr. Jay Gordon has a commonsense approach to vaccinations-- and an unwillingness to be coerced into either the “pro” or “anti” vaccine camps. PBS Frontline recently interviewed the noted pediatrician at length for a show called “The Vaccine War.” Although Dr. Gordon spent hours interviewing with Frontline, PBS producers omitted not only 100% of his interview but the entire “third camp” approach to vaccinations. It is obvious that PBS wanted to create a simple tabloid news piece with the all-knowing doctors on one side vs. crazed parents on the other. This is disturbing. It is even more disturbing given the level of financial support provided to public television by drug and related companies. You won’t easily find information about drug company support for public television on the internet. But you can find some of it on a fundraising website run by WGBH, the public station that produces Frontline: www.SGPTV.org. ANH-USA reprints Dr. Gordon’s letter to PBS Frontline in its entirety for your review, because it provides excellent information on whether to vaccinate your children, and it serves as a reminder that the media cannot be trusted to report accurately on this issue. PBS’ actions are inexcusable. Please join us in telling PBS Frontline that the show’s biased presentation on vaccines is totally unacceptable and that the show has an obligation at least to put Dr Gordon’s information on the website. Take action now. Shame on PBS Frontline, ” The Vaccine War”, by Dr. Jay Gordon "Last night, PBS aired a show called “The Vaccine War.” I was interviewed at great length and in great depth about vaccines and my point of view and expressed my ambivalence about the polarization of this issue and the need for more calm reasoned discussion about the number one question that new parents have. I told Kate McMahon, the co-producer of the show, that there was a large group of doctors and others who cannot be dismissed with the facile label “anti-vaccine” because we still give vaccines and see a place for them in the practice of medicine, but we do not agree with the current vaccine schedule nor the number of vaccines children receive all at one time. A few days ago, Ms.McMahon emailed me to tell me that the decision had been made to omit my interview from the show. There would not be one word from me. She didn’t tell me that she had also omitted 100% of Dr. Robert Sears’ interview. And that any other comments from physicians supporting the parents on the show in their ambivalence about vaccines or their decision to refuse all vaccines would also be omitted. She left this as a show with many doctors commenting very negatively, very frighteningly and often disdainfully and dismissively about vaccine “hesitation” as they called it." Below is my email response to Kate McMahon. Dear Kate, The “Frontline” show was disgraceful. You didn’t even have the courtesy to put my interview or any part of the two hours we spent taping on your web site. You created a pseudo-documentary with a preconceived set of conclusions: “Irresponsible moms against science” was an easy takeaway from the show. Did you happen to notice that Vanessa, the child critically ill with pertussis, was not intubated nor on a respirator in the ER? She had nasal “prongs” delivering oxygen. I’m sorry for her parents’ anxiety and very happy that she was cured of pertussis. But to use anecdotal reports like this as science is irresponsible and merely served the needs of the doctor you wanted to feature. No one pursued Dr. Offit’s response about becoming rich from the vaccine he invented. He was allowed to slide right by that question without any follow up. Dr. Paul Offit did not go into vaccine research to get rich. He is a scientist motivated by his desire to help children. But his profiting tens of millions of dollars from the creation of this vaccine and the pursuit of sales of this and other vaccines is definitely not what he says it is. His many millions “don’t matter” he says. And you let it go.

Congressman Waxman Slips Obscure Anti-Supplement Measure into Wall St. “Reform” Bill Passed by the House; Please Take Action to Prevent Same Thing Happening in the Senate!

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:34:22 +0000
The American public is becoming fed up with “sneak” provisions tacked onto largely unrelated bills that are likely to pass. A glaring recent example was tacking onto the Healthcare bill a complete change to student loans. Often the “sneak” provision is so buried that hardly anyone is aware of it. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), recently passed in the House of Representatives, includes language going far beyond finance inserted by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA). This language could be used for an end run around the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), the legislation that governs dietary supplement regulation by the FDA. The Senate is expected to vote on its finance “reform” bill as early as this weekend. We need your help to ensure that it is not amended to include a similar provision going far beyond finance that could be used against supplements. Please take action now. TAKE ACTION Congressman Waxman is well known as an opponent of the dietary supplement industry. This is somewhat ironic: his district includes Hollywood and presumably many of his closest supporters are health store shoppers and supplement users. Most of these people simply don’t know what Waxman is doing in this area. This powerful Congressman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which includes health as a subcommittee), would appear to want supplements regulated like drugs, a step that would effectively eliminate them. He is determined and has stated: “One enduring truth about Washington is that no issue is ever settled for good.” ANH-USA has been on alert to see how Waxman would use his committee chairmanship to strike at DSHEA. He is very clever and we knew a covert attack was a possibility. A direct attack on supplements would take the form of an amendment to DSHEA, since that legislation governs FDA regulation of supplements. In this case, Waxman has left DSHEA alone, and has instead inserted language in the Wall St. “reform” bill that gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) important new powers that could be used to circumvent key supplement protections in DSHEA. TAKE ACTION To see how this would work, let’s see how the FTC operates today. Its chief mission is to combat commercial fraud. It has full authority to pursue companies making fraudulent claims. But the FTC can’t go beyond that, can’t set other regulatory requirements, without advance approval of Congress. The FTC once had this regulatory “rule-making” authority. It lost it in the 1980’s because Congress thought the Agency was abusing it. At the present time, if the FTC moves against a dietary supplement company for false or misleading advertising, the FTC typically requires the company, as part of a consent decree agreed to by both parties, to back up its claims by undertaking at least two random controlled human trials. This is done on a case-by-case basis and is legal because the targeted company has agreed to it. If the FTC had general rulemaking authority, which Waxman’s language reinstates, the Agency would be expected to create a new legal requirement for all supplement companies. Such companies would have to perform at least two of these human studies before making any claims for their products. Why should we care whether supplement companies are required to perform two random controlled human trials for each product? Because such trials take a long time and would be beyond the financial means of most supplement companies. Even if the companies could find the money, the FTC could require more and more costly versions of these studies, or more of these studies. At each stage, fewer supplements would be available, and those available would cost more and more, until they became as costly as drugs.TAKE ACTION Supplements are not drugs. In most cases, drugs are non-natural and therefore patentable substances. Why patentable? Because no company will spend a billion dollars on studies and FDA approval trials without the monopoly provided by the patent. To insist that supplements be treated like drugs is really to sound the death knell for the supplement industry, something that drug companies would be delighted to see, because they know that supplements are their chief potential competition, are often more effective than drugs, are often less toxic, and are always much less expensive. Supplements are already regulated by the FDA under DSHEA. If the Waxman provision is included in the final Wall St “reform” bill, the FTC will gain the power to override the limited protections for supplements that already exist under DSHEA. The FDA would still have to respect DSHEA, but the FTC would not be so constrained. Five unelected FTC commissioners would issue binding regulations in a wide range of areas, including the regulation of dietary supplements. And companies that did not comply with the new FTC rules could effectively be put out of business. According to renowned constitutional attorney Jonathan Emord, “The provision removing the ban on FTC rulemaking without Congressional preapproval contained in H.R. 4173 invites the very same irresponsible over-regulation of the commercial marketplace that led Congress to enact the ban in the 1980s. FTC has no shortage of power to regulate deceptive advertising; this bill gives it far more discretionary power than it needs, inviting greater abuse and mischief from an agency that suffers virtually no check on its discretion.” The bottom line is that FTC would be given power to regulate areas they don’t understand, and their first order of business would likely be to regulate supplements, an area far outside their area of expertise. The Senate Wall St “reform” bill, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (S. 3217), doesn’t contain the Waxman provision yet. But we know that Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) may offer an amendment including Waxman’s language. Please help us stop this. Please take action now to help us maintain access to low cost, high quality supplements. Tell your senators not to support any amendments that give FTC unchecked power to over-regulate areas they don’t understand, including dietary supplements.

Vermont “Vitamin Tax” on Dietary Supplements Defeated

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:34:05 +0000
The proposed “Vitamin Tax” failed in the Vermont legislature last week. This is a significant victory for consumers and natural health advocates. Many thanks to the large numbers of our Vermont supporters who responded to our action alert. Not only did the residents of Vermont defeat this foolish tax on supplements. They also sent a message to legislatures around the country that dietary supplements are not a good place to look for new revenue. It is a well established principle that what we tax we get less of. We need more preventive healthcare, not less. Dietary supplements are a critical part of preventive healthcare and are already extremely expensive for most people. Taxing what is good for us will just lead to vastly greater state and federal spending in the long run.

Wisconsin Dietary Licensing Bill Defeated

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:33:50 +0000
Since 1984, The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has been sponsoring legislation that excludes all but ADA- approved nutritionists from professional practice. They have succeeded in passing various forms of their legislation in more than 40 states. In some of these states, nutritionists can still practice but any non-ADA approved professionals are prohibited from using the words ‘nutritionist’ and ‘nutritional care’—even if the individual holds a Masters or a PhD in nutrition and is not claiming to be certified, licensed or registered. Keep in mind that most ADA-approved dieticians have undergraduate degrees, not advanced degrees. So in effect the ADA wants a monopoly that would exclude the most educationally qualified nutritionists. Do you like the kind of food offered in today’s hospitals? Or, in schools? As you might expect, the ADA controls these programs. And who by the way contributes large amounts of money to the ADA? As you might also expect, it is large food companies, many of which sell billions of dollars worth of what we might charitably describe as less than nutritious processed food. These companies want to have a close relationship with the ADA. The ADA wants to have a monopoly on professional nutrition in each state and of course big food companies have a lot of influence in state legislatures. It’s a very cozy arrangement for the ADA, the food companies, and the state legislators. Those of us who appreciate the role of nutrition for natural health and preventive medicine have a duty to stand up and try to stop this kind of corporate sponsored and government-enforced monopoly. The Wisconsin state government recently took up a bill that would have threatened non-ADA licensed practitioners. Although the measure’s sponsor said that the bill does not regulate the term “nutritionist,” opponents vehemently disagreed and in the end the controversial bill was stopped from coming to the floor for a vote. Of course it might come back again in the future. We will be watching and let you know.

Further Update on our Story–Supplements Gain Exemption From Codex Language in Senate Food Safety Bill

ANH-USA — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:33:33 +0000
ANH-USA recently shared with you our hard won victory for dietary supplements in an amendment to the still to be voted on Senate FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). After working for several months with our champions in the senate, supplements were exempted from language in the Food Safety bill that likely would have created a slippery slope toward US harmonization with irrationally restrictive standards under the global Codex Alimentarius. A friend of ours recently brought to our attention a message on the Internet. This message claimed that ANH-USA had misrepresented what had happened. It asserted that, “The actual (dietary supplement) exemption language had already been in this particular bill for some time now, due to the efforts of several organizations and many individuals; so, sadly, no real victory should have been claimed.” This was written by a congressional lobbyist who should have known better how Congress works. The dietary supplement exemption language that ANH-USA worked for was inserted using a "technical amendment". This means it has been put into the engrossed version of the bill, originally published in December. For those that are not in the know and have not been following the process, it would appear that the language was inserted back in December. Actually, this language was inserted just a few weeks ago. We know because it was our initiative. We worked hard behind the scenes to have this language included and we reported to you on our success as soon as it happened. This amendment is a critical victory in our fight to save supplements. It does not mean that we support the food safety legislation. We do not. The House version of the bill, far worse than the Senate’s, has already been passed and the House will try to get its provisions into a final bill to be passed by both the House and Senate. We need to do everything possible to defeat the ill advised and dangerous House provisions in particular and will report to you further as the story unfolds.

New Senate Supplements Bill Expected

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:34:22 +0000
Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), both supporters of natural health and supplements, plan to introduce new legislation, the Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010, within the coming weeks. The bill will fully fund FDA implementation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), the legislation that governs the regulation of dietary supplements. At the present time, opponents of dietary supplements and natural health make false claims that supplements are not regulated and therefore unsafe. We completely disagree. In the first place, federal regulation does not ensure safety. Second, supplement producers are currently regulated by DSHEA, mandated to report adverse events, and required to comply with Good Manufacturing Practice regulations. The Dietary Supplement Full Implementation and Enforcement Act of 2010 is intended to fund all DSHEA regulatory provisions and therefore rebut the argument by supplement opponents that the supplement industry is not really regulated due to a lack of funding. Will this work as intended? No one can say for sure. It is possible that the FDA will misuse the funds to persecute supplements. On the other hand, this funding means that, for the first time, some FDA employees will see their jobs as being funded by supplements and likely to disappear if supplements disappear. Perhaps that will work to the advantage of natural health. Only time will tell. In the meantime, the bill will effectively rebut those who keep claiming, falsely, that supplements are unregulated. Important note: the bill is likely to include some provisions drafted by Senator John McCain (R-AZ). McCain might even end up as a bill sponsor. But this does not worry us. One of the two McCain provisions requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to notify the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) if a new supplement ( so-called New Dietary Ingredient or NDI) may contain anabolic steroids. This is not an objectionable provision. The second McCain provision that may be included in the bill will attempt to clarify the New Dietary Ingredient Process. This is the process whereby supplement manufacturers may petition the FDA to sell substances not sold prior to 1994, the year DSHEA passed. This is a very sensitive area for natural health supporters because of the recent tendency of drug companies to try to convert supplements not sold prior to 1994 into exclusive prescription drugs. We are confident that any provision agreed to by Senators Harkin and Hatch will protect natural health and supplements. But we will have to wait for the particular language. We will report back to you as soon as we have more particulars.

ANH-International Executive and Scientific Director Dr. Rob Verkerk Publishes Article In Respected Scientific Journal Explaining Why European Regulation Of Supplements Based On Bad Science

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:32:25 +0000
A study just published in a leading peer-reviewed journal argues that the European Commission’s proposal to limit the maximum legal doses of vitamins and minerals in food supplements is scientifically invalid. The study’s author, Robert Verkerk, Ph.D., executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health-Intl, wrote: "When you dig into the complexity of risk and benefit relationships for nutrients as I have in this study, proceeding with the kind of approaches the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority and industry have been discussing over the last six or so years makes absolutely no scientific sense. The only rational way forward involves moving from the risk-only approach that has been considered up until now, to a risk-benefit approach. This means changing tracks." The study was published in the journal Toxicology — the official journal of the British Toxicology Society and the German Toxicology Society —just two months after the same journal ran an in-depth review of the scientific methods being considered by European authorities. The earlier paper was co-authored by Verkerk and Dr. Steve Hickey of Staffordshire University. The latest study demonstrates that, if passed into law as proposed, the risk-based approaches under consideration by European authorities would forbid the majority of people from consuming truly beneficial quantities of vitamins and minerals. According to Dr. Verkerk: "The problem is that the risks and benefits for most nutrients actually overlap. If you exclude all risks in the majority through statutory limitation as planned under the second phase of the EU Food Supplements Directive, you literally prevent people from accessing products containing levels that are good for them. You might stave off deficiency diseases, but you would also prevent many people from managing their health naturally. If we applied the same approach to wheat, dairy or peanuts, governments would have to ban these foods." Verkerk argues that dosages of individual molecular forms of vitamins and minerals should be addressed individually, rather than being subject to blanket levels applied universally to all forms of a given group of supplements. "A good example of this, considered in detail in the paper, is that of folate,” Verkerk says. "There are more and more data pointing to health risks from long-term supplementation with more than 1000 micrograms daily of the synthetic form of folate, folic acid, that’s widely used in cheaper supplements. But the natural, non-reduced forms as found in green-leaved vegetables have a much wider range of benefits, and are known to exert their greatest benefits when consumed in significantly larger amounts." Verkerk insists that legislation establishing maximum levels of vitamins and minerals should not proceed until new methods for assessing both risks and benefits of individual types of supplements have been developed. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Delay is preferable to error.” The paper also examines E.U. legislation regarding fluoride in supplements and water. Given the risks posed by fluoride to young children, Verkerk says, it is remarkable that mass treatment of public drinking water is still allowed in Ireland and the UK, the only two countries that fluoridate public water, and that the European Food Safety Authority continues to permit various forms of fluoride in supplements. Of course, these concerns are equally, if not more, applicable to the USA, where most municipal drinking water supplies are fluoridated. The abstract and paper can be accessed here.

Protecting Europe’s Tradition Of Botanical Medicine

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:31:12 +0000
At a workshop in Budapest sponsored by the Indian government and convened by the European Ayurvedic Association, the Alliance for Natural Health International (ANH-Intl) announced its plan to begin legal proceedings against the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products. The directive, which requires that the same pharmaceutical standards as govern conventional, synthetic drugs be applied to herbal products (at a great cost), poses a major threat to the continued use of botanical products and long-standing healthcare practices, including those of Ayurveda and Unani and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Until now, many herbal products have been sold in the European Union under the food supplement regime. But most E.U. member states expect to narrow the regime once the directive’s 7-year transition phase expires on March, 31, 2011. Dr. Robert Verkerk, executive director of ANH-Intl, said: “Getting a classical herbal medicine from a non-European traditional medicinal culture through the E.U. registration scheme is akin to putting a square peg into a round hole. The regulatory regime ignores and thus has not been adapted to the specific traditions. Such adaptation is required urgently if the directive is not to discriminate against non-European cultures and consequently violate human rights.” ANH-Intl and its lawyers, Cheyney Goulding, have sought advice from leading London-based barristers who specialize in European laws covering competition and human rights. Referring to ANH-Intl’s legal advice, Verkerk stated: “We are now confident that our legal counsel has found a solid way forward that will be in the long-term interests of European and non-European citizens alike. Given the challenges facing the health of the people of Europe, especially as a result of the burden of chronic diseases, the EU should be welcoming — not locking out —these very long-standing, multi-faceted and effective healthcare traditions. We are now assured that a diverse range of interests are willing to work with us to initiate the judicial review process". For more information please visit the ANH-Intl website here.

Vermont Considering New Tax on Dietary Supplements

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:30:55 +0000
On March 25, 2010, the Vermont House of Representatives adopted a series of amendments to H.783, “An Act Relating to Miscellaneous Tax Provisions.” One of the amendments crafted by their Ways and Means Committee directed Vermont’s 6 percent sales tax to be applied to the sale of dietary supplements. Previously, supplements — like food — were exempt from the state’s sales tax. The tax bill, which passed in the Vermont House, now awaits a vote in the State Senate Finance Committee this week. Wasting no time, local activists have let their legislators know that there will be a fight over implementing this new tax on dietary supplements. This past week, dozens of local organizations mobilized to defeat what they call the “vitamin tax.” "Taxing dietary supplements is contrary to good public-health policy," said Dolly Fleming, representing the Council of Vermont Elders. "The vitamin tax is a step backward in making healthcare more affordable," said Jill Krowinski, director of communications for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. The chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ann Cummings, apparently got the message and recently stated on local television that “there isn’t a lot of traction in my committee or the Senate for a vitamin tax.” Even Vermont’s Gov. Jim Douglas weighed in on the issue, saying he sees no logic in the proposal. "I don't support any new taxes,” Douglas declared. ANH-USA is working to make sure that Vermont’s legislators listen to their constituents and commonsense.

Chemical Cosmetics Linked To Increased Risk Of Breast Cancer

ANH-USA — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:28:32 +0000
According to Canadian scientists writing in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, women exposed to synthetic fibers and petroleum products in the course of their work appear to be most at risk of breast cancer. Exposure to certain chemicals and pollutants before she reaches her mid-30s could triple a woman’s risk after menopause. Now comes news from ChemicalSafeSkincare.co.uk that women unknowingly apply up to 175 different chemicals to their bodies daily in the form of mainstream cosmetics. As a result, manufacturers of natural “personal care” products are calling on makers of mainstream cosmetics to provide more information on their products' ingredients and side effects. ChemicalSafeSkincare says three ingredients are especially hazardous. Parabens (preservatives used in many moisturizers and body creams) have been linked to both cancer and to skin irritation. Sodium lauryl sulfate (a foaming agent used in shampoos) can irritate the skin, as can formaldehyde (used in hand soap and shampoo). "Media reports about the possible dangers of certain chemicals such as parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, phthalates and formaldehyde have made consumers more aware of what they are buying, and potentially more demanding of chemical safe alternatives," says Julia Mitchell, spokeswoman for ChemicalSafeSkincare.co.uk.

Tell The FDA That Cherries—And Now Walnuts—Are NOT Illegal Drugs!

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:22:06 +0000

Has the FDA lost its mind--again?
In the latest volley of the US Food and Drug Administration’s bizarre war on scientific freedom of speech, the FDA has sent a Warning Letter to the president and CEO of Diamond Foods stating that the firm’s packages of shelled walnuts are “in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.” Why? As Bill Faloon, co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, explains in a powerful new investigative article, Diamond Foods, a processor and distributor of nuts, dared to list some of the health benefits of walnuts on its website. The FDA says that the walnuts are being “promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” In other words, if you say that a food is healthy and may help protect against heart disease, or ease arthritis or inflammation, your words have magically changed that food into a drug, and that’s illegal. Life Extension magazine has published no fewer than fifty-seven articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts, each article supported with copious scientific references. Yet the FDA says the walnuts “are not generally recognized as safe and effective,” that the manufacturer’s “unauthorized health claims” have caused the walnuts to become “misbranded,” which makes them subject to government “seizure or injunction”! What Science Says about Walnuts As Bill Faloon notes (with every statement carefully supported by scientific journals and publications):

There is a sharply reduced incidence of heart disease in those who consume walnuts.

Walnuts provide a unique blend of polyunsaturated fatty acids (including omega-3s), along with nutrients like gamma tocopherol that have demonstrated heart health benefits.

Even moderate consumption of walnuts offers significant reductions in dangerous LDL cholesterol and improvement in the lipoprotein profile.

Walnuts protect against coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis because they contain key nutrients like arginine, polyphenols, and omega-3 fatty acids.

The National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than thirty-five peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk—yet the FDA, the federal agency responsible for protecting the health of the American public, would apparently rather support pharmaceutical manufacturers’ rights. Imagine what would happen to drug profits if everyone ate walnuts for heart health instead of taking expensive medications! As Bill Faloon says, the verbiage in the FDA’s Warning Letter to the walnut manufacturer “makes it clear that the FDA does not even consider the underlying science when censoring truthful non-misleading health claims.” Moreover, Faloon continues, “FDA has issued waves of warning letters to companies making foods (pomegranate juice, green tea, and walnuts) that protect against atherosclerosis. The FDA is blatantly demanding that these companies stop informing the public about the scientifically validated health benefits these foods provide.” These latest FDA outrages are on top of an earlier attack on cherry growers. In that case, the cherry growers cited excellent scientific research from places like Harvard indicating that cherries reduce inflammation and pain. The FDA sent an injunction letter threatening the usual legal penalties—including jail—if this truthful dissemination of scientific research did not stop immediately. What is the FDA thinking? Why is it blatantly disregarding its own mission of educating the public and promoting health? Why is it acting like an ignorant bully? Potato Chips . . . as Health Food? Faloon points to Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of the food and softdrink giant PepsiCo, makers of Pepsi-Cola®, as an example of the strange double standard the FDA seems to be applying. Frito-Lay sells $12 billion a year of products that include Lays® Potato Chips, Doritos®, Tostitos®, Cheetos®, and Fritos®. You might not associate these mostly deep fried snack foods as being good for you, but as Faloon mentions, the FDA has no problem allowing the Frito-Lay website to state the following:
Frito-Lay snacks start with real farm-grown ingredients. You might be surprised at how much good stuff goes into your favorite snack. Good stuff like potatoes, which naturally contain vitamin C and essential minerals. Or corn, one of the world's most popular grains, packed with Thiamin, vitamin B6, and Phosphorous—all necessary for healthy bones, teeth, nerves and muscles.

And it's not just the obvious ingredients. Our all-natural sunflower, corn and soybean oils contain good polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which help lower total and LDL “bad” cholesterol and maintain HDL “good” cholesterol levels, which can support a healthy heart. Even salt, when eaten in moderation as part of a balanced diet, is essential for the body.
In other words, Frito-Lay can make health claims about its processed fried foods, in opposition to real scientific research, with no repercussions whatsoever, but Diamond can’t make scientifically substantiated claims about shelled walnuts, a health superfood. As Faloon notes: “For the FDA to allow Frito-Lay to pretend there are heart benefits to ingesting their high-calorie snack products, while censoring the ability of walnut companies to make scientifically substantiated claims, is tantamount to treason against the health of the American public. The simple fact is that walnuts are healthy to eat, while carbohydrates fried in fat are not. FDA permits companies selling disease-promoting foods to deceive the public, while it suppresses the dissemination of peer-reviewed published scientific information.” Two Things You Can Do As our regular newsletter readers are aware, on March 23 a bipartisan bill was introduced into the House of Representatives called the Free Speech about Science Act (HR 4913). This landmark legislation, promoted by ANH-USA, protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public. The Free Speech about Science bill has the potential to transform medical practice by educating the public about the real science behind natural health. For this very reason, the bill will have opposition. It will be opposed by the FDA since it restricts their ability to censor the dissemination of published scientific data. It will be opposed by drug companies fearing competition from natural health approaches based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle. The public, on the other hand, wants access to credible information they can use to make wise dietary choices. Please don’t let special interests stop this bill. Take action now and ask your Representative to cosponsor the Free Speech About Science Act (HR 4913). We also have a new Action Alert for you. This one will let you contact Congress to express your outrage about the FDA’s censorship of the scientific evidence supporting the health claims surrounding walnuts (and green tea, and pomegranates, and cherries!). It will also let you tell the FDA what you think about their hypocritical support of deep fried potatoes and corn chips as being “heart-healthy,” while denouncing the scientific evidence of walnuts’ health benefits. Please take action today and write to the FDA and your members of Congress! If possible please send in both letters, one supporting the Free Speech About Science Act and the other expressing your opposition to the FDA’s outrageous attack on walnuts (not to mention cherries, green tea, and other natural products). We need to hammer home our message in defense of free speech, common sense, health freedom, and natural health.

ANH-USA Victory! Supplements Are Exempted From Codex Language in Food Safety Bill

ANH-USA — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:04:04 +0000
The FDA Food Modernization Act (S. 510), also referred to as the “Food Safety” bill, has been modified to exempt dietary supplements from language that otherwise creates a slippery slope toward U.S. harmonization with Codex Alimentarius. ANH-USA worked to protect the natural health community from this dangerous provision that threatened access to high quality, therapeutic supplement doses by working with key senators to modify the language, now for the second time. The most worrisome provision of the bill initially required the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) to recommend that U.S. foreign trading partners harmonize with Codex. This odd language was no doubt very intentional. How could we recommend harmonization to other countries if we rejected it for the U.S.? So in effect we were committing ourselves to a much more restrictive regulatory regime for supplements. As the Senate moved forward with the Food Safety bill, Senator Harkin (D-IA), committee chair, working closely with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), promised to see what could be done to make absolutely clear this legislation was not intended to impact our access to dietary supplements. At that time, Senator Harkin modified the Codex provision, asking the FDA to consider “whether and how” to recommend U.S. foreign trading partners harmonize. This was a very important change and a tremendous show of support from both Senators, but we were still concerned that the inclusion of Codex language in the bill could be used to support future U.S. harmonization with Codex standards on dietary supplements. ANH-USA worked with our allies in the Senate over the past several months to include additional language providing stronger protection for supplements. New language has now been added specifically stating, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the regulation of dietary supplements.” The Codex Alimentarius was initially developed to establish international food safety standards and regulate ingredients of food products. However, there is great concern that if the U.S. harmonizes with Codex standards, which are expected to follow Europe’s increasing ban on supplements, our access to supplements will be lost and even our food standards may be compromised. Although ANH-USA considers the new exemption a huge victory, it only applies to dietary supplements. The U.S. is still at risk of harmonization with other Codex food standards. ANH-USA is especially grateful to Senators Harkin and Hatch for their leadership, continued dedication to the natural health community, and most recently, their show of support protecting our supplements from Codex harmonization. The Senate is expected to take up the Food Safety bill any day now. As the legislative process moves forward we will keep our members up to date on our efforts and where appropriate, we’ll ask for your help to protect supplements from increased government intrusion. The House version of the Food Safety bill, already passed, is especially worrisome. We will continue to make every effort, with your help, to ensure that the House version does not become law.

New Title, Same Focus

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:30:53 +0000
When we operated under the name American Association for Health Freedom, our newsletter was called Pulse of Health Freedom. When our merger with Alliance for Natural Health brought us a new name, Alliance for Natural Health-USA, we kept the old newsletter title for a while just to avoid confusion when you opened your mailbox. By now, however, we hope you are accustomed to our new name, ANH-USA, so we think the time has come to modify the name of our newsletter too. So, starting next week, Pulse of Health Freedom will become Pulse of Natural Health. Does this mean that our organization is moving away from our traditional focus on health freedom? Absolutely not! Our mission is still to preserve the freedom to choose your healthcare approach and products, whether you are a practitioner or a consumer, and to protect this freedom through good science and good law. Healthcare freedom is basic. Without that, natural health cannot get a hearing. So we do want you to know that our commitment to health freedom remains just as firm as ever, as I hope we demonstrate every week. Our merger has changed how we operate. We now operate globally. But it has not changed our basic outlook and what we want to accomplish. We hope you will agree that the merger is a big plus. Health freedom and natural health issues are increasingly linked globally. It helps to tackle them from a global base and it gives us standing with global organizations such as the World Health Organization. We also believe that our merger has sent a message of how important it is to work together to achieve common ends. We expect and hope to partner with many organizations in the future, both formally and informally. So please keep alert next week for Pulse of Natural Health, the newsletter’s new name. The name will change, but our core mission and commitments remain exactly the same.

Alert: Protect Your Right To Natural and Bio-available Vitamin B-6!

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:18:35 +0000
Human beings cannot live without vitamin B-6. It is also important for the prevention of cancer and the prevention and treatment of seizures, anemia, mental disorders including schizophrenia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other conditions. Its effect on carpal tunnel can seem almost miraculous. A natural form of the vitamin, Pyridoxamine, was recently yanked off the market by the FDA. Why? Because a pharmaceutical company, BioStratum, wanted sole use of pyridoxamine in a drug, a drug which may or may not ever appear. The company filed a so-called citizens petition and the FDA agreed, notwithstanding protests from ANH-USA, other organizations, and thousands of citizens. You might ask: how can Pharma take a supplement off the market and claim exclusive use of it as a prescription drug? The FDA does not presently feel obligated to answer this question. Unfortunately, this isn’t all the bad news about vitamin B6. All forms of B-6, natural or synthetic, must be converted to P5P, another natural form, for the body to use it. Another drug company, Medicure Pharma, wants sole use of P5P and so has petitioned the FDA to ban its use as a supplement as well. Medicure has yet to market a drug made from P5P, but wants the ban to take place now. And never mind that any individual unable to convert synthetic B6 to P5P would have to rely solely on Medicure’s product to stay alive. How does Medicure think it can get away with this? Its petition states rather candidly: “Pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs must be protected from companies that may seek to market the ingredients in those drugs as dietary supplements. The marketing of such products has the potential to undermine the incentive for the development of new drugs because many people may choose to purchase the supplements rather than the drugs.” This is not of course a case of supplement producers creating a product to compete with an existing prescription drug. It is just the reverse. P5P, the natural and bioactive form of B6, has existed in food for as long as there have been humans and has been available as a supplement for years. Medicure seems to be saying: If it seems profitable, let’s just turn a critical vitamin, one essential for human life, into a drug, make it available only by prescription, and mark up the price. This is truly outrageous. The FDA has not yet responded to Medicure’s petition. We have asked you in the past to send a message to the FDA and Congress protesting Medicure’s P5P grab, and the time has come to send some more messages. So if you haven’t sent in a message to the FDA and Congress yet, or even if you have, please send one today. While we are discussing Vitamin B6, here is the latest scientific report. An analysis of 13 U.S., European and Asian studies of vitamin B6 and colon cancer, conducted from 2002-2009, has been published in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Studies of the range of B6 doses found that vitamin B6 taken in higher doses reduced the risk of colon cancer by 21 percent. In one study, Dr. Susanna Larsson and her colleagues at Sweden’s National Institute of Environmental Medicine reported an inverse relationship between the intake of vitamin B6 or pyridoxine and the risk of colon cancer. Dr. Larsson linked the effect to bloodstream levels of pyridoxal-phosphate (PLP), the main active coenzyme form of vitamin B6. Pyridoxal-phosphate is also known as pyridoxal 5-phosphate or (as we referred to it above) P5P. Don’t let the FDA take away our access to the natural and most bioavailable form of B6, P5P. Please take action now.

FDA Ignored Urgent Warnings

ANH-USA — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:12:26 +0000
Pulse of Health Freedom has often pointed out the dangers of medical radiation, which produces cumulative changes to our DNA, changes increasingly linked to cancer and heart disease. The FDA concedes that one CT chest scan delivers as much radiation as nearly 400 chest X-rays. Now, according to journalist Gardiner Harris, scientists have broken their year-long silence and revealed how the FDA ignored their urgent warnings about the “risks of routinely using powerful CT scans to screen patients for colon cancer”. Dr. Julian Nicholas, a gastroenterologist trained at Oxford University and the Mayo Clinic, has warned that radiation screening could “expose a number of Americans to a risk of radiation that is unwarranted and may lead to instances of solid organ abdominal cancer.” In June 2009, Nicholas wrote FDA senior managers, urging that patients be told of the risks associated with CT scanning: “I hope you understand that the failure to include a warning on the label will mean that patients will undoubtedly develop abdominal cancer and leukemia. It may not happen tomorrow, but yes, sadly it will happen.” FDA Medical Officer Robert Smith, M.D., former professor of radiology at Yale and Cornell, has gone on record as agreeing with Dr. Nicholas. FDA policies forbid the penalizing of agency staff for expressing scientific views, but on March 30, 2010, Nicholas told a public meeting of imaging specialists that a month after he and eight colleagues voiced their concerns about high-grade medical scanning to Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s medical device division, he (Nicholas) was ridiculed by agency managers for “raising the bugaboo of radiation” and told that his job had been eliminated. In his book Should I Be Tested for Cancer: Maybe Not and Here’s Why, Gilbert Welch, M.D., professor of medicine at Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice, contends “that testing healthy people for cancer is really a double-edged sword: while these tests may help, they often have surprisingly little effect and are sometimes even harmful”. For too long, medicine has failed to monitor radiation dosage, and errors have not been identified and corrected. When the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently reviewed the medical records of 116 veterans implanted with radioactive seeds to treat their prostate cancer, the results were disturbing. It was found that 97 of the 116 men had received the wrong radiation dosage. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission responded by imposing a fine of $227,500 “ for lacking procedures to ensure and verify that treatments were done correctly, failing to properly train staff and neglecting to immediately report mistakes”.

Healthcare Bill: Let’s Not Forget the Good News About How We Changed the Bill When It Was Being Drafted Last Year

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:36:07 +0000
As we have reported previously, we knew last year that President Obama and Congress were determined to legislate a federal “Comparative Effectiveness Review” process for medical procedures and treatments. This part of “health reform” was going to happen whether or not the larger bill passed. Mindful of this, ANH-USA went to work trying to change the language about Comparative Effectiveness Research in the Senate bill. Our allies in Congress succeeded in inserting language requiring that an integrative practitioner be included on both the CER Board and on the Board’s Advisory Panel. This is the first time that integrative medicine has ever been mentioned, much less included in a federal health program. If the House had been able to amend the Senate bill, you can be sure that certain powerful members of the House would have demanded the removal of this key language. But as you know, the House had to pass the Senate bill without modification. And subsequent “fixes” included in the reconciliation bill were limited to items directly affecting the federal budget. Consequently, our language emerged in the final legislation without any changes. For this at least we can be grateful.

Another Reason We Need The Free Speech About Science Bill: U.S. Media Ignore “The Power of Your Plate.”

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:24:00 +0000
Nutrition — “The Power of Your Plate,” as Dr. Neal Barnard termed it in his book of that name — is known to be important in the prevention and treatment of disease. And yet, the American press gives nutrition a pass. Another reason that we need to stop FDA censorship of science and allow natural foods and supplement producers to talk about the science behind their products. On March 2, 2010, the BBC News picked up the report that diet can help blocked arteries, but the report received scant coverage in the U.S. press. In that same week, the U.S. National Library of Medicine noted the following research:

Plant-focused diet may curb breast-cancer risk;

Potassium-rich foods do a heart good;

Whole grains take a bite out of type II diabetes risk; and

Apple fibers may boost immune health.

But there was little coverage in the mainstream U.S. media, or even in medical media. Why? One reason may be that the treatment of chronic diseases with prescription medications is such big business, and most media organizations depend on drug company advertising. The disease care industry knows that chronic illnesses account for at least 75 percent of this nation’s healthcare costs. Why kill the golden goose? There is an alternative: diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes that are such an important part of integrative medicine. Drs. Dean Ornich, Nathan Pritikin, John McDougall and others have all shown that patients willing to make lifestyle changes can prevent and treat most of the chronic diseases that consume so many of our nation’s healthcare dollars. With both the government and the mainstream media silent about the benefits of natural health approaches, it is unconscionable that the government maintains its gag rule on natural food and supplement producers. Cherry growers should be able to cite the science behind the health benefits of cherries. The same for the walnut growers, another group attacked by the FDA for daring to refer to peer reviewed scientific studies. This is why we need the Free Speech About Science bill. Please take a moment to send a message to your member of Congress supporting it.

Acetaminophen: the Killer Painkiller

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:23:20 +0000
The active ingredient in the painkillers Tylenol, Anacin and Panadol was the focus of a recent analysis of 19 studies of 425,000 children and adults treated with acetaminophen in the past year. Children given acetaminophen were 60 percent more likely to suffer from asthma, while adults who had taken the drug were 75 percent more likely to experience asthma. According to a University of British Columbia-Vancouver review published in the journal Chest, higher doses translated to a greater risk of asthma. The March 2010 issue of the American Journal of Medicine contained an analysis of data from 26,000 men, participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Researchers at Harvard University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University, and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, determined that men younger than 60 who used acetaminophen were 61 percent more likely to experience hearing loss. Studies appearing in the journal Drug Safety (2008 Vol 31:pp127-141) have linked acetaminophen to adverse vision events. The U.S. Acute Liver Failure Study Group found that acetaminophen poisoning is the leading cause of liver failure in the nation, associated with nearly 50 percent of all liver failure . The Life Extension Foundation has also sounded the alarm about acetaminophen and liver damage. With 70-75 million prescriptions written annually, acetaminophen is the most commonly prescribed class of drugs in the United States. It is blamed for 56,000 injuries, 25,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been aware of this situation for decades. As early as 1977, the agency warned about acetaminophen and liver damage. The FDA Advisory Review Panel noted that exceeding the recommended dosage or (please note the or) taking acetaminophen for more than 10 days puts the patient at risk of liver damage. A suggestion that pharmacists distribute information explaining the risks of this drug has fallen on deaf ears at the FDA. A study published in the journal Arthritis Care and Research cautioned that adverse reactions to acetaminophen not only affect patients’ quality of life, they also impose substantial economic burdens on society. Given all that we know now, how can the FDA remain silent about acetaminophen?

Just How Broken is the FDA?

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:42:16 +0000
There has been comment of late about the FDA’s refusal — under the guise of protecting trade secrets — to notify practitioners and consumers about defective medical devices. But that controversy pales in comparison with the scandal now swirling around Menaflex, a device intended to fix a torn meniscus. It is manufactured by the company ReGen Biologics, of Hackensack, N.J. In December 2008, the FDA approved Menaflex over repeated objections from its own scientists and managers. In 2009, after the Wall Street Journal reported that outside pressure had been applied during the approval process, incoming FDA Deputy Commissioner Josh Sharfstein initiated an investigation. Outside orthopedic experts would meet on March 23, 2010. This provoked claims that for the FDA to rescind approval of a device exceeded the limits of the agency’s authority. According to Jeffrey Gibbs, a long-term industry lobbyist: “Congress has laid out reasons the FDA can revoke an approval, and none of them includes ‘We goofed.’ “ However, a September 2009 report critical of the FDA states that the agency bowed to congressional pressure and to lobbying by ReGen. Another case of lobbyists running amok concerns the patent-extension of the blood thinner Angiomax. In 2009, the manufacturer, The Medicines Company, which missed a deadline to file for a five-year extension, spent $4.4 million in 2009 lobbying activities, including hiring former House majority leaders Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., and Dick Armey, R-Texas. According to the New York Times, this “illustrates the lengths to which drug companies will go to preserve the precious patents that separate name-brand moneymakers from generic also-rans”.

Finally– Legislation to Protect Your Right to Know About the Science Behind Supplements!

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:00:07 +0000
Take Action Today. Help Us Gain Cosponsors for the Free Speech About Science Act, H.R. 4913! Consumers are largely kept in the dark about the potential health benefits of foods and supplements. Why? Because current law makes it illegal for food and supplement producers to share this information. Today Congressmen Jason Chaffetz (R, UT) and Jared Polis (D, CO) have introduced the Free Speech about Science Act (H.R. 4913). This landmark legislation protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings about natural health products with the public. ANH-USA has been working toward the introduction of this bill for several years. Now that it is finally here, we need your help to gain cosponsors and support. At first sight, this might not appear to be a blockbuster bill. But look closely. If it passes, Free Speech about Science has the potential to transform the healthcare field by educating the public about the real science behind natural health. This is a small bill with vast potential leverage. For this very reason, the bill will have opposition. It will be opposed by the FDA for reasons we will explain. It will be opposed by drug companies fearing competition from natural health approaches based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle. Please do not let these special interests stop this bill. Please contact your representative today. Ask him or her to cosponsor this vital legislation. Take action now. We all know that consumers are looking for reliable information backed by legitimate scientific research in order to make informed choices about diet and health. Access to this information is essential if we are to know which foods and food supplements really are healthy and contribute to good health. The FDA mission statement says that the agency is charged with helping educate the public about health. The Agency mostly ignores this mission and seems intent only on keeping even valid science under wraps. Drug companies are of course entirely free to flood the airwaves and print media with ads. As has been well established, the FDA does very little monitoring of these ads. In some cases, drug ads are highly misleading. For example, if you listen closely to a drug ad for antacids, you will see that they give an impression the drugs will cure heartburn but do not actually claim to do so (because the drugs do not cure it and may actually make it worse). In sharp contrast to the treatment of drug companies, current FDA regulations flatly forbid food and supplement manufacturers from mentioning any link between a product and a health condition, even if the link is established by peer reviewed scientific studies coming out of Harvard and other highly respected universities. Any producer that fails to comply with this censorship regime will have its product declared an unapproved drug. Selling an unapproved drug in turn will lead to fines and even jail. The FDA has issued many warning letters to various food producers to keep them from telling consumers truthfully about the healthful nature of their products. For example, cherry growers have been targeted and enjoined from referencing peer-reviewed scientific articles showing cherries’ health benefits for gout and arthritis. For years, the FDA barred health claims about the benefits of fish oil for heart, cancer, depression, body pain, and various other conditions until a drug company paid to go through the approval process. Not surprisingly, the FDA approved version of fish oil (the only kind that can be reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid and the VA) costs as much as ten times more than otherwise available, high quality fish oil. In the FDA’s view, even providing a link on a website to a scientific study converts a healthy fruit or nut into an unapproved drug, a bizarre result that effectively denies Americans scientific information that could alleviate their illnesses or even save their lives. If the FDA insists that even cherries must be brought through the full drug review process in order to make any health condition claim, why not just go along? The problem is that FDA approval easily costs a billion dollars! Drug companies can only pay these vast sums because they have patent protection and will use that patent protection to create a monopoly on the sale of the product. Result? $100 per pill in some cases. Natural products cannot usually be patented and therefore cannot usually be brought through such an expensive approval process. The FDA knows this, but ignores it. It willfully excludes most natural substances from medicine. Who does the FDA expect to pay the billion dollar cost of approval for cherries? The cherry growers? And don’t forget: the cherry growers cannot combine efforts to do this because that would violate anti-trust laws. And would we want to pay ten times as much for cherries if a cherry company was foolish enough to try to do this? This is what we have called the great Catch 22 of contemporary American medicine. Doctors are afraid to prescribe non-FDA approved medications. They can lose their licenses for doing so. But with very few exceptions, only non-natural and therefore patentable substances can be brought through the FDA approval process. The result is an FDA enforced monopoly for drug companies. Natural and often much safer and cheaper natural remedies are ignored. Natural medicine based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle, which ought to be at the center of medicine, is shunted off to the sidelines and subjected to legal threats. There are many things that need to be done about this. For one thing, we should not allow drug companies to pay FDA expenses and salaries. We should not allow drug companies to pay scientists serving on FDA panels or allow a revolving employment door between the drug companies and the FDA. In other words, we need to reform the FDA. But Free Speech about Science is a major first step. It will go far toward breaking up the drug company monopoly and the drug company chokehold on the dissemination of scientific information. Note that the Free Speech about Science Act provides a very carefully targeted change to FDA regulations. It simply says that legitimate, peer reviewed, scientific studies may be referenced by manufacturers and producers without converting a healthy food or dietary supplement into an unapproved drug. The bill amends the appropriate sections of current law to allow the flow of legitimate scientific and educational information while still giving FDA and FTC the right to take action against misleading information and against false and unsubstantiated claims. Government (and especially allied drug companies) should not be the gatekeeper of scientific information. Consumers have a right to hear about legitimate scientific research. As soon as the bill is filed in the Senate, we will ask you to contact your senator, but for now we have to concentrate on the House, where a bill of this sort usually originates. Please contact your representative today and ask him or her to cosponsor the Free Speech about Science Act!

Expensive, Dangerous

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:40:55 +0000
Many an integrative health practitioner has been harassed by state medical boards with the power to revoke licenses with a charge such as: “The use of vitamin C is outside the standard of care.” What is the standard of care, and who sets this standard? Webster’s New World Medical Dictionary defines “standard of care” as: “1. A diagnostic and treatment process that a clinician should follow for a certain type of patient, illness, or clinical circumstance 2. In legal terms, the level at which the average, prudent provider in a given community would practice.” In his eye-opening article “Bypass Nation,” published in the March 1999 issue of Talk magazine, Abraham Verghese, M.D., noted that coronary artery bypass grafting surgery was the standard of care in Houston simply because that is what market forces (i.e., Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. William DeBakey) deemed it to be. But that “standard of care” is not always what’s best for the patient. Recent headlines make the point:

“Scans may be misleading for hockey players: MRIs shouldn't take the place of a good clinical exam, study finds” (70 percent of healthy professional and college hockey players had abnormal hip and pelvis MRIs).

“Mammograms fail to detect 66 per cent of breast cancers ” , but of course do produce many false positives and do significantly increase the exposure to radiation, which itself can lead to cancer.

“Growing doubts over standard prostate cancer test” (this from Dr. Richard Ablin, of the University of Arizona, who discovered the PSA test.

“Panel: Women need chance to avoid repeat C-section” (a government panel urges doctors to rethink the principle of “once a C-section, always a C-section”).

“Study suggests too many invasive heart tests given”.

“Popular osteoporosis drugs linked to hip breaks”. They might have added: also linked to jaw death. But the number of deadly drug side effects is too great to begin to cover here.

The truth is that most of medicine is not truly science-based. In most cases, evidence for efficacy and safety is limited. Therefore the conventional “standard of care” is not adequately science-based, yet practitioners can lose their licenses for not following it. Why is this? Why do we have monopoly medicine run by the American Medical Association (AMA), the drug companies, and medical equipment manufacturers? The short answer is that this monopoly is government supported. Government, which starts out by trying to help, all too easily falls into the hands of special interests. Does this have to happen? No. Coal companies do not control the Environmental Protection Agency. And it is high time for the American public to insist that there be a top to bottom house cleaning of the government agencies charged with regulating medicine, all the more so after the passage of the recent healthcare legislation and the imposition of national government standards on health insurance.

Poison: How Little is Too Much?

ANH-USA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:30:54 +0000
For generations, physicians were taught that “the dose makes the poison,” a “fact” first espoused by the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541).Indeed, many current physicians insist that this holds true for modern pharmaceutical drugs: i.e., the dosage determines whether a medicine is toxic or a cure. Now Dr. Pete Myers — founder, CEO and chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences (EHS), a Charlottesville, Va., public-health advocacy group — is arguing that Paracelsus’ determination is all wrong when it comes to hormone disrupters, such as bisphenol A (BPA). These endocrine disrupters are unbelievably widespread (90 percent of Americans carry traces of BPA in their body). Myers believes that even tiny doses of these chemicals “may well explain the mysterious rash of modern ailments — attention-deficit disorders, thyroid problems, obesity, precocious puberty in girls, hormonally influenced cancers that have gone from rare to commonplace”. In recent decades, testosterone levels have declined and estrogen levels increased in men. Why? Research published in the British journal New Scientist has shown that two plastic softeners called phthalates, also in our bodies, said to be inconsequential when used separately, can effectively decrease the production of testosterone when combined. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg has announced that over the next 18-24 months, $30 million of stimulus money will be spent to study BPA’s effects on human health. In the meantime, Hamburg’s agency has failed to act on ANH-USA’s petition to consider the effects on children of dental sealants and composite fillings containing BPA . The FDA remains silent about this subject.

The Latest McCain Bill Update

ANH-USA — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:35:00 +0000
There is a great deal of confusion on Capitol Hill and on the internet about the status of Senator McCain's mis-named Dietary Supplement Safety Act, the anti-supplements bill. Some of this confusion has been deliberately created by Senator McCain. Hundreds of thousands of messages pouring into Senate offices in support of supplements have convinced Senator McCain that his bill is dead. He is backing away from it. This is your victory. All of you who sent messages to the Senate should be very proud of what you have accomplished. Democracy is working. But why do we say that Senator McCain is backing away from his bill? Where is the evidence? First we know that Senator McCain met with Senator Hatch, a staunch defender of supplements, and said that he was giving up on his bill. Senator Hatch wrote a letter to McCain confirming this and Senator McCain posted the letter on his website. Senator Dorgan's office (Dorgan co-sponsored the bill) also confirmed to ANH-USA that he and Senator McCain would not pursue their bill further. Neither Senator McCain nor Senator Dorgan confirmed any of this publicly. In what we believe is a face-saving gesture, McCain has also written his own letter to Senators Harkin (another defender of supplements), Hatch, and Enzi. This letter states that the four senators have agreed to strengthen supplement regulation through the pending FDA Food Modernization Act (S. 510), commonly referred to as “Food Safety”. This letter has led some voices on the internet to attack Senators Harkin and Hatch as traitors to supplements. But please do not be taken in. Senators Harkin and Hatch have not gone over to the anti-supplement side. Far from it. They remain staunch defenders of supplements and natural health. Here are the facts. 1) The very worst provisions of the McCain-Dorgan bill are not in the Food Safety bill. Nor have Harkin or Hatch agreed to put them in. As you will recall, these provisions included:

Wiping out the current protected list of supplements (those supplements sold before 1994)

Wiping out the supplement industry's current right to create new supplements if the ingredient has been in the food supply and has not been chemically altered.

Mandatory reporting of even minor or incidental adverse events (reporting of serious adverse events is already required)

Requiring retailers to confirm that supplements and ingredients have been registered with the FDA (which would put a tremendous legal liability on retailers and push them away from dealing with small supplement companies)

2) None of the provisions of the McCain bill are likely to be added to the Food Safety Bill. Senator McCain has been able to obscure this important point because two of his bad provisions are already in the Food Safety Bill! In other words, this is not a compromise in which McCain gets his provisions into Food Safety in exchange for dropping his own bill. McCain is simply taking credit for what is already in Food Safety. 3) What are the bad provisions already in Food Safety that are also in the McCain bill? Two big ones. First, the Food Safety bill requires the registration of supplements with the FDA. This is bureaucratic make-work but won't destroy the supplement industry. The McCain version of it is worse and there is no reason to think that it will get into Food Safety. Second, there is a supplement recall provision. The Food Safety bill says that supplements may be recalled if there is a reasonable probability that the supplement could cause serious health consequences and is adulterated or fails to follow labeling laws for food allergens, one part of the definition of “misbranded” under the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. We don't like the words "reasonable probability" because the FDA is biased against supplements and it gives the FDA too much scope. The McCain bill version of this is much worse. It says the FDA can recall a product if there is a reasonable probability of harm or the supplement is adulterated or misbranded. This substitution of "or" for "and" is very important. Why? Because the FDA may deem a supplement "adulterated" if there is a minor paperwork violation, and the general term "misbranded" is referenced, as opposed to the discreet sub-part pertaining to food allergen labeling. This means a product could be recalled even if the seller is making entirely truthful statements about the science behind the product. Here is the interesting point: in his letter, McCain suggests that the senators together have agreed on the "or" language that is in the McCain bill, and further, that they have agreed to include the general term “misbranding”. This is quite false. The senators have not agreed to change the Food Safety bill to pick up McCain's language. Is this just sloppiness on the part of the McCain staff? Have they not noticed that their version of the recall provision is quite different from the provision currently in Food Safety? Or is this an effort to sneak McCain's version of the recall provision into Food Safety without Harkin and Hatch noticing the difference? If it is the latter, rest assured that it won't work. We are in contact with both Senator Harkin and Hatch. Where do we go from here? We will be following every move in this game. We think the worst features of the McCain bill are now dead. But if they come back in any form, we will immediately alert you and ask you to help. We will also of course keep a very close watch on the Food Safety bill. Although ANH-USA succeeded in changing some critical language in that bill, we are still opposed to it for reasons that go beyond supplements. We will continue to oppose it and send you more information about it whenever it seems likely to be brought up for a vote. We will also be especially watchful about what is added to it from this point forward and report back on that. With your help, we will keep our access to supplements. We will not allow the FDA to impose a European style regime with a short approved list of supplements and doses in this country. Real healthcare is preventive in focus and relies on diet, supplements, and lifestyle. Government approved disease-care, provided in alliance with the drug and surgical equipment manufacturers, will not keep us well.

Have We Abandoned Our Children to Toxins?

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:55:16 +0000
Many of us are aware of the recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report indicating that 1 in every 110 children has some form of autism. Fewer know the work of Dr. Philip Landrigan, of Mt. Sinai Medical School, who was quoted in a February 25, 2010, New York Times editorial by Nicholas Kristof: “Do Toxins Cause Autism?” According to Landrigan, 1 in 6 American children is currently learning or behaviorally disabled. Another excellent resource is the work of Dr. Kenneth Bock, chronicled in his recent book Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders. As the following, recent news stories indicate, our nation’s children live in an environment that is increasingly toxic:

Studies show danger of even small amounts of lead in children’s blood

Dust bunnies tainted with toxins? Household dust consists of a potpourri that can include lead, arsenic, and other potentially harmful substances

Phthalates (plastics softeners used in children’s products) predispose mice to allergies

Add to these the fact that our children are exposed to more vaccinations than ever before. In 1985, children were vaccinated for seven diseases; that number has swelled to 16. And vaccinations are grouped together solely to make children more likely to get them, even though the risks increase to an unknown degree. Parents deserve to know that vaccines are neither 100 percent effective nor 100 percent safe. A16-year old girl lost her vision following vaccination against the HPV virus. Do we have to wait until most children are autistic or otherwise damaged before we try to do something about this situation?

Make Your Voice Heard on the Healthcare Bills!

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:45:18 +0000
After months of negotiating and back-door dealing, Congress is set to pass industry-friendly healthcare legislation at the expense of consumer choice. Please contact your elected representative today and tell him or her to vote NO on the healthcare bill! The House of Representatives is expected to pass the Senate healthcare bill along with separate “fixes” as early as Thursday. If passed, the Senate will then vote on the fixes shortly thereafter. This may be your last chance to make your voice heard. There are a few key representatives who will make or break the healthcare bill, because for one reason or another, their votes remain uncertain and subject to change. If you see your elected official listed below, it’s particularly critical you contact them today and tell them to vote no on this version of healthcare reform. Members who voted no last time but haven't said what they would do this time include: Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) Rep. Michael McMahon (D-NY) Rep. Walt Minnick (D-ID) Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) Rep. Glenn Nye (D-VA) Rep. John Tanner (D-TN) Members who voted yes last time but are in districts unfriendly to this bill and might be swayed to vote no: Rep. Mike Arcuri (D-NY) Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) Rep. Christopher Carney (D-PA) Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) Rep. Steven Driehaus (D-OH) Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) Rep. John Hall (D-NY) Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN) Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT) Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY) Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY) Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) Rep. John Salazar (D-CO) Rep. Mark Schauer (D-MI) Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) Rep. Zach Space (D-OH) Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) This is a list of representatives who are uncertain because of their concerns about abortion (some of these will overlap with last list): Rep. Anh Cao (R, LA) Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI) Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) Rep. Charles Wilson (D-OH) A brief recap of why we oppose this bill: 1) The government defines health and healthcare and health insurance. This is an open invitation for special interests such as drug and medical equipment makers and even the American Medial Association (AMA) to take even tighter control of your medical options. 2) The government forces you (on penalty of fine and even jail) to buy government approved health insurance policies that will not provide any access to natural medicine. Catastrophic policies, health savings accounts (HSAs), and other ways to buy natural medicine services will be destroyed. 3) Health records will be electronic and neither you nor your doctor will have any privacy (the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship is not protected). 4) The language is ambiguous, but it may be illegal even to pay your doctor separately in cash for natural medical services. 5) The bills are paid for with “smoke and mirrors” and will increase the budget deficit over time, but we leave these considerations to others. Please contact your elected representatives (both senate and house but especially the house right now). Although the house will vote first, the senate may follow immediately thereafter, so it is best to send a message to both chambers right now. Please do not delay. Tell your elected representatives to vote NO on the healthcare bill! Gretchen DuBeau Executive Director

Hope for Brain Injuries

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:00:17 +0000
A recent article in USA Today is just one of many reports highlighting the traumatic brain injuries suffered by our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the result of roadside bombings. For years, it was believed by conventional medicine that the victims would never recover — physically or mentally. But at the Eighth World Congress on Brain Injury, held March 10-14, 2010, in Washington, D.C., Dr. Paul Harch described his success in treating 15 U.S. military veterans who had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. After 30 days of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, all the subjects showed significant recovery from physical symptoms as well as cognitive and affective improvement. Writing in Digital Journal, the journalist K. J. Mullins said: “Harch is going to Washington D.C. next week to fight for the troops and the rest of the population who face the devastating life changes that a brain injury causes. There is a treatment. It works. It's time that it is being used to help the lives of millions”. ANH-USA is proud to have been instrumental in the November 2008 legislative effort to ensure that the wounded have access to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Update on Senator McCain’s Anti-supplement Bill, DSSA (S. 3002)

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:55:01 +0000
As we explained in our special message last week, Senator McCain in private conversations within the Senate has agreed to withdraw support for the worst provisions of the DSSA. He is reeling from the massive outpouring of opposition from the American public. In a letter dated March 4, Senator Hatch wrote to Senator McCain, “I want to thank you for agreeing to withdraw your support for the provisions of S. 3002 that I believe would do great harm to the dietary supplement industry”. McCain’s retreat was further confirmed by a McCain staffer. At the same time, other reports have stated that the Senator is “revisiting” the bill after meeting with Senator Hatch, and has no plans to withdraw the bill as it stands. So far, Senator McCain has remained publicly silent. The last public statement he made was his floor statement in which he seemed to misunderstand what was in his own bill. Technically, Senator McCain cannot withdraw the DSSA from the Senate without unanimous Senate agreement; however, he can publicly announce his intention to withdraw his support for the disastrous provisions of the bill, what he has already told Senator Hatch privately. We invite McCain to clear up the remaining confusion about his intentions and set the record straight! It’s critical to receive confirmation from McCain directly. Now is the time to keep the pressure on to ensure the final defeat of DSSA! So, until we hear directly from Senator McCain, let’s keep contacting our senators to express our opposition. There are also numerous rumors floating around that individual elements of the McCain bill will turn up as amendments to other legislation. We will be maintaining our steely vigilance against all other legislative efforts that might infringe consumer and practitioner access to US natural health products, on which so many Americans (and hundreds of thousands outside of America) depend. (For any of you just coming into the conversation now, Senator McCain’s mis-named Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) would repeal key legislative protections for supplements. It would give the FDA arbitrary authority to pre-approve a discreet list of supplements and dosages while banning all others. This would almost certainly lead to a highly restrictive European style regime with very few approved supplements and dosages.) Take action here to defeat this bill!

False Rumors about the McCain Bill

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:50:04 +0000
There may be one silver lining around the increasingly serious threats to the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. This is the increasing amount of collaboration and cooperation we’re seeing among key players in the natural health or health freedom movement (our recent merger with ANH to form ANH-International being a good example of this) as well as growing activism among consumers, practitioners and of course industry—much of which has been comparatively inactive following the hard-won success of DSHEA in 1994. While ANH-USA has been leading the collaborative campaign against the McCain bill, there are statements on the internet suggesting that McCain’s bill would bring into US law restrictions associated with the international ‘food code’, Codex Alimentarius. We urge anyone who is communicating with senators or congressman on this issue to avoid making mention of Codex in relation to McCain’s bill. There is actually no relationship whatsoever between McCain’s bill and anything to do with Codex. Giving Codex as the reason to block McCain’s bill will simply cause any informed elected representative to discount your communication. This is just one example of how inaccurate information can be counter-productive to our cause. What we can say, as we have, is that McCain's provisions would likely lead to European style restrictions on supplements, including the development of a white or positive list of permitted ingredients, and eventually, a limitation of their dosages. But let's not charge McCain with introducing Codex. Most likely, he has not even heard of Codex. By the way, there was language in an earlier version of the Food Safety bill committing the US to harmonize with other countries under Codex. That was a clear and present threat to natural health in the US and we (ANH-USA) succeeded in getting that language changed. This was a very important change and one that we are proud to have accomplished. There is still a reference to Codex in the Food Safety bill that we would like to remove, but it no longer commits the US to harmonization under Codex. We have also seen some harsh criticism of Senator Harkin (D-Iowa) on the internet. While Senator Harkin supports elements of the Obama healthcare bill and the Food Safety bill that we at ANH-USA do not support, it is worth recognizing that he is also a real friend of natural health and of supplements. As chairman of the powerful Senate Health Committee, he has great power over natural health and supplements and we are very glad to count him as a friend. Our view, born out of years of experience, is that it is always better to try to work with friends. Sharing a common purpose is the key—and, by definition, although many views will be shared, it doesn’t mean that we have to agree on everything. As all this should suggest, ANH-USA is determinedly bi-partisan in our approach. We have criticized President Obama but also Senator McCain. We have also thanked many legislators, both Democrat and Republican, who have worked to help all of us preserve natural health options and in the process truly reform US healthcare.

Please File Your Comment Against Electronic Health Records by March 15!

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:47:18 +0000
The institute for Health Freedom has brought to our attention the filing deadline for sending in your comments about the proposed national electronic records system. We agree with the Institute that the proposed system is a disaster because a) it will invade your privacy by allowing hundreds of thousands of parties to access your records and b) it will allow big brother (the government) to look over the shoulder of every prescribing natural health physician, which could easily lead to license revocation threats. Electronic records should only be allowed if privacy rights are guaranteed, privacy both for the patient and the physician. To file your comment, please visit: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a7c4a8

Can HSAs Be Saved?

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:45:29 +0000
President Obama has now announced his willingness to include what he calls ‘GOP ideas’ in his latest healthcare reform package. Among them: allowing health savings accounts (HSAs) to survive. HSAs are an essential tool, coupled with reform of health insurance, to help encourage improved cost-consciousness in the use of healthcare services by the public. Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, recently reported that the HSA experiment in his state “is reducing the costs for the state and its employees”. In the first year, just 4 percent of Indiana’s state workers signed up for HSAs. This year, 70 percent of Indiana’s state employees chose HSAs. At year’s end, the unused funds remaining in an employee’s account became their permanent property, a powerful incentive both to stay healthy and to spend healthcare money wisely. Professor Regina Herzlinger of Harvard has written brilliantly about this topic in her book Market-driven Health Care: Who Wins, Who Loses in the Transformation of America's Largest Service Industry. In short: Let consumers decide where they want their healthcare dollars to be spent and allow them to reap the benefits if they save money by choosing wisely or remaining well. HSAs are particularly important for those of us who believe in natural health. We can use our HSAs to pay for doctor visits that are not covered by conventional health insurance. The effective elimination of HSAs and related accounts in the House and Senate Health bills has been a particularly sore point for us, since it would mean that we would be forced to pay for low deductible health insurance even though this insurance would exclude most natural medical treatments. Will HSAs likely survive now? It is much too early to say. We will have more on President Obama’s latest healthcare proposal as soon as it takes legislative form.

Just say “No” to GMOs!

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:44:46 +0000
In recent articles, we’ve touched on the subject of genetically modified organisms (GMOs): their potential to contaminate organic crops, the complete failure to test their safety for your health or the environment, and the failure of labels to alert shoppers to the presence of GMOs in foods they’re considering buying. We now have some updates. A non-GMO product-verification program is up and running. This will help you avoid GMO contaminated food. You can download the invaluable Non-GMO Shopping Guide from the website of leading anti-GMO campaigner, Jeffrey Smith. GMO crops have also been banned on National Wildlife Refuge land. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has issued an important statement about GMOs. AAEM is an association of doctors. It’s mission is “to promote optimal health through prevention, and safe and effective treatment of the causes of illness by supporting physicians and other professionals in serving the public through education about the interaction between humans and their environment”. True to that mission, the AAEM has helped patients suffering from exposure to many different environmental toxins — long before the American Medical Association acknowledged that the environment has any effect on human health. In sharp contrast to the pro-GMO lip service of the US and other governments, and of course the biotech industry itself, the AAEM’s statement shows that there is indeed a causal relationship between genetically modified foods, poor health, and disease. The statement cites a large number of studies linking GMO foods to a “wide variety of health problems.” The organization also notes that not a single clinical trial of any GMO crop has ever been published, despite evidence that as many as 80 percent of processed foods now on grocery-store shelves contain ingredients derived from GMO crops. ANH-International has also taken a strong stand with its Say No to GMO campaign.

Your Victory on the McCain Bill

ANH-USA — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:16:46 +0000
We did it! It's all thanks to the action that you took. Hundreds of thousands of messages poured into the Senate opposing Senator McCain's bill, the bill that would have wiped out current legislative protections for dietary supplements. More and more messages were arriving by the day. The entire Congress began to take note. Senator McCain was embarrassed by our ad whose headline pointed out that he was misrepresenting and did not seem to understand his own bill. Word is now racing around Capitol Hill that Senator McCain met with Senator Orin Hatch, a champion of natural medicine, and told him that he is withdrawing his support for the bill he authored, the so-called Dietary Supplement Safety Act (S 3002). This means that the bill as written is now dead. Is this the end of the story? No. Having given his word to a fellow senator, McCain is not likely to resume his support for the bill. But we do need to see a declaration from McCain himself. We will need to see if McCain will try to offer some modified version of the bill. And there has also been no word from the other co-sponsor of the bill, Senator Dorgan. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, it is time to celebrate your accomplishment. The democratic process worked. The people spoke and a powerful senator reversed course. It was all because of you, the active citizens willing to take time and make the effort to defend natural and sustainable forms of health and healthcare in the often hostile environment of Washington, DC. As we all know, Washington is ringed today with special commercial interests. They have millions of dollars of campaign contributions to hand out and gigantic lobbying budgets. But in the end, politicians have to answer to the people.
Thank you!

Supplements Under Fire: Suzanne Somers Spars with Bill O’Reilly

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:59:51 +0000
On February 19, 2010, consumer healthcare advocate, best-selling author and actress Suzanne Somers appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s “No-Spin Zone,” which airs on FOX news channel. Their discussion centered on the McCain/Dorgan Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010, which many experts fear would dismantle the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. The eloquent Somers stressed the importance of consumers’ right to buy dietary supplements and blamed the FDA’s admitted failure to protect consumers’ safety for setting the stage for the McCain/Dorgan bill. Many people are outraged to learn that drug-safety information is often hidden from professionals and consumers, and that manufacturers may be directed to conduct safety studies when drugs are already on the market. Dietary supplement health benefit information is also shielded from the public purview. This lack of scientific freedom of speech has been the subject of many suits against the FDA, including Pearson v. Shalala (D.C. D.C. 1999); Pearson v. Shalala (D.C.D.C. 2001); Pearson v. Thompson (D.C.D.C. 2001); and Whitaker v. Thompson (D.C.D.C. 2002), which held FDA censorship of nutrient-disease relationship claims to be unconstitutional. The McCain Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 will not make consumers safer. The failure of the FDA to move against products adulterated with steroids or other illegal ingredients masquerading as dietary supplements puts our health at risk. Given the FDA’s repeated failures, why would we give it more power? As Suzanne Somers said so courageously, we deserve better than the flawed McCain/Dorgan DSSA. Click here to take action

Americans Overfed, Undernourished

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:55:49 +0000
People who eat nothing but processed foods for a few days in a row often notice that despite ingesting lots of sugar, processed grains and hydrogenated fats, they are consuming few nutrients. And so they remain hungry. The paradox of malnourished obesity even affects hospital economics, for although gastric bypass surgery is replacing heart surgery as the most lucrative source of revenue for hospitals, more than one gastric bypass surgery has had to be delayed while the patient’s evident malnourishment was addressed. A review of data gleaned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Exam Surveys reveals how widespread poor nutrition is among Americans, from vitamin B12 deficiency among seniors to vitamin D deficiency in all age groups. Several researchers have stressed the connection between poor nutrition and poor health: for example, Bruce Ames, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkeley, with his “triage theory”. In 2006 professor Ames published “Low micronutrient intake may accelerate the degenerative diseases of aging through the allocation of scarce micronutrients by triage” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, arguing that congenital conditions can be addressed by giving high-dose nutrition to bypass the co-factors, enzymes and nutrients influenced by the affected genes. According to Ames, “Many micronutrient (i.e., vitamin and mineral) deficiencies are associated with chromosome breaks and cancer in humans, such deficiencies having caused DNA damage in rodents or human cells in culture. It had also been established that chromosomal breaks cause early aging.” Dr. Ames’ work has profound consequences for industrialized countries whose populations eat a great deal of processed foods. It is interesting to note that great minds such as Dr. Ames, the late Dr. Abram Hoffer, the late Dr. Linus Pauling, Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg and Dr. Lester Packer take or took their vitamins each and every day. But as Ames says: “A new idea is always hard to get through.”

FDA Memo Blasts Diabetes Medicine Avandia

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:55:09 +0000
As the mainstream media have gradually exposed the scandal of unpublished drug-risk studies (for example, the Celebrex/Vioxx affair), the concept of risk-to-benefit analysis has entered public consciousness. While consumers are aware that all prescription drugs come with risks, few know how to weigh these risks vs. the benefits. But we are less likely to take chances with our health when we are educated about the potential dangers of using prescription drugs. Avandia, a widely prescribed diabetes medication, was scrutinized by two FDA drug-safety reviewers, Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin, who wrote an October 2008 memo (yes, over a year ago!) in which they concluded that Avandia posed serious risks. Graham and Gelperin’s memo stated there was "strong evidence that (Avandia) confers an increased risk of "heart attack and heart failure when compared with Actos.” The researchers estimated that Avandia caused 500 more heart attacks and 300 more cases of heart failure per month than did Actos. In 2007 Dr. Graham had urged an FDA panel to pull Avandia from the market, but the panel voted 22-1 to advise the FDA to allow continued sales of the drug. Sens. Grassley and Baucus, who serve on the Senate Finance Committee, released the Graham/Gelperin memo as part of a report showing that Glaxo "knew for several years prior to this study that there were possible cardiac risks associated with Avandia." The FDA appears to serve the interests of corporations whose fees fund the agency’s activities and who employ many former FDA staff members. The Grassley/Baucus report should galvanize every American into action. As we have often written here, the FDA cannot be fixed; it must be fundamentally reformed from the ground floor up.

Death in a White Coat

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:55:07 +0000
In the January 26, 2010, New York Times, two fourth-year Harvard Medical School students addressed “Patient Safety: Conversation to Curriculum,” stressing “a need to end the secrecy around medical errors and learn from our mistakes”. Noting that findings by the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report on medical errors have been “slow to trickle down to medical schools,” Daniel Blumenthal and Ishani Ganguli underscore the “pressing need for a cultural shift that dissolves the secrecy surrounding medical errors.” After all, Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” In his new book Death by Medicine, Dr. Gary Null — an award-winning journalist and one of this nation’s leading advocates of natural healing — confirms that the number of people who die each day because of medical errors (e.g., physician mistakes, hospital-related illness and reactions to FDA-approved medications) — is the equivalent of six jumbo jets falling out of the sky. Every year, the number of Americans dying at the hands of medicine exceeds the American casualties in the Civil War and World War I combined. According to Null and his three co-authors, drug company representatives write about new medicines in glowing articles, which are then signed by physicians who are paid handsomely for their cooperation, although they may not know about the adverse side effects of the drugs they promote. The most toxic substances are often approved first, while milder and more natural alternatives are ignored for commercial reasons. Adverse interactions between prescription drugs are largely untested, despite the fact that more and more Americans are taking multiple drug-combinations, often for medical conditions related to simple vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. Fortunately, American healthcare consumers increasingly vote with their pocketbooks, seeking integrative healthcare when they are sick and allopathic medicine only in cases of emergency. Kudos to practitioners-in-training Blumenthal and Ganguli, who echo the sentiments expressed by famed patient-safety researcher Dr. Lucian Leape, of Harvard’s School of Public Health: “When I go to a doctor, I should have somebody who I know is competent, who I know I can trust and who will put my interest first. Two of those three have nothing to do with science.”

Senator McCain Files New Bill That Attacks Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

ANH-USA — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:10:33 +0000

TAKE ACTION AND TELL YOUR SENATOR NOT TO CO-SPONSOR THIS BILL

Donate to our campaign to STOP this bill!
McCain’s bill is called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). It would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA protects supplements if 1) they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug. These protections are far from perfect. They discourage companies from developing new forms of supplements. New supplements may be arbitrarily banned by the FDA or adopted by drug companies in a way that precludes their further sale as supplements. McCain’s bill would wipe out even the minimal protections contained in DSHEA. It would give the FDA full discretion and power to compile a discreet list of supplements allowed to remain on the market while banning all others. Everyone knows that the FDA is friendly to drug companies (which pay its bills and provide good revolving door jobs) and hostile to supplement companies. Under this bill, this same Agency could quite arbitrarily ban any supplement it wished or turn it over to drug companies to be developed as a drug and sold for multiples of its price as a supplement. We must prevent this bill from gaining traction! Protect your access to supplements by contacting your senators today and asking them NOT to co-sponsor the Dietary Supplement Safety Act but rather to oppose it. TAKE ACTION McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) appears to be supported by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) which is funded by major league sports teams including baseball, football and others. The recent suspensions of NFL and other professional sports figures is much in the news, and the goal of the sports industry appears to be to shift the spotlight from their players to the supplements industry. In his comments, Senator McCain cited six NFL players recently suspended for testing positive for banned substances and purportedly exposed to these substances through dietary supplements. The problem here of course is one of illegal sale and use of steroids. So why dismantle the supplement industry in order to control already illegal substances? The FDA currently has complete and total authority to stop illegal steroids and, more broadly, to regulate dietary supplements. If the agency were doing its job, it could and would have prevented the sale of illegal steroids. The answer to this problem is not to give FDA more power. The Agency simply needs to do it’s job. TAKE ACTION Why would a bill be offered to solve an illegal steroid problem that does not really address the steroid problem but instead gives the FDA complete and arbitrary control over all supplements? The answer is simple. There are a lot of vested interests which are threatened by supplements. Drug companies do not like them because they represent a low cost, safer, and often more effective alternative to drugs. The FDA does not like them because supplements do not come through the FDA approval process and therefore do not support the FDA budget. Why not simply require that supplements be brought through the FDA’s drug approval process? Wouldn’t that create a level playing field? That is probably the argument that Senator McCain has been sold. But it is a completely false argument. The FDA drug approval process costs as much as a billion dollars. It is not economically feasible to spend such vast sums on substances that are not protected by patent, and natural substances cannot legally be patented. This is the great “Catch 22” of American medicine. The FDA, which is supposed to guard and promote our health, is hostile to the kind of natural medicine—based on diet, supplements, and exercise—that represents the real future of healthcare. The Agency has either been captured by drug interests or is trapped in a catastrophically expensive, toxic, and ineffective patented-drug model. Senator McCain has no doubt offered this bill in good faith. But he has been sold a bill of goods by special interests. And he has been naïve enough not to know that he is being used. TAKE ACTION This exceptionally bad bill also requires the reporting of all minor adverse events related to supplements. This is in addition to the already existing requirement to report adverse events. This will further stack the deck against small supplement companies by creating new, unnecessary, even more cumbersome, and of course very expensive administrative hurdles. The result: the consolidation of the supplement industry into a few big companies.If passed, this bill will likely result in the disappearance from store shelves of many supplements currently on the market. In addition to fewer supplements, there would likely be much lower doses available. Unbridled authority would be handed to the FDA, an agency that needs a top to bottom overhaul, not ever more power over our lives. The FDA will like this because it believes that it can more easily control a few industry giants. But isn’t it more likely that the industry giants will eventually gain control over the FDA? The FDA is already misusing the adverse event reporting process that exists. Drugs rack up thousands of adverse event reports without any action. Just recently, the FDA yanked from the market a supplement product based on just a couple of alleged adverse event reports without even allowing the company (an old and respected firm) to provide any counter-evidence or counter-argument. The bill also allows the FDA to yank a product (at the company’s expense) if there is a “reasonable probability” that it is “adulterated” or “misbranded”. Let’s remember that “adulterated” could mean there is a minor record keeping error on the producer’s part and “misbranded” can mean that the producer simply tells the truth about the product. An “adulterated” and “misbranded” supplement in Orwellian FDA speak may actually be both completely safe and effective. If passed, this bill will likely result in the disappearance from store shelves of many supplements currently on the market. In addition to fewer supplements, there would likely be much lower doses available. Unbridled authority would be handed to the FDA, an agency that needs a top to bottom overhaul, not ever more power over our lives. If McCain’s bill passes, we can look to Europe for a snapshot of what we may be in for: EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has sharply reduced the list of available supplements and is in process of reducing potencies to ridiculous levels, such as less beta carotene than can be found in half of a large carrot. Europeans already look to the US to obtain their dietary supplements. If this bill passes, where will we obtain ours? Please take action immediately. TAKE ACTION Tell your senators NOT to co- sponsor this legislation and to do everything in their power to defeat it. Then forward this to your friends and family and ask then to do the same!

Senator McCain – Please Read Your Own Bill

tyrone — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:51:55 +0000
On Monday, Senator McCain released a Senate Floor Statement defending his Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010. He lashed out at "opponents of the bill and their well-paid Washington lobbyists" who have "spread false statements and rumors about the legislation". OK. So what are these alleged "false statements and rumors"? McCain again: "Opponents have stated that the legislation would seek to limit consumers' ability to purchase dietary supplements, vitamins, or prescription drugs. That is completely false.... If you take a vitamin now, this bill will in no way restrict your ability to take that vitamin." McCain clearly hasn't read his own bill. Perhaps he needs a plain English version. Under current law, the FDA cannot arbitrarily ban a supplement that was sold prior to October 15, 1994, the date that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed. McCain's bill wipes out that protection. What supplements would be legal to sell if this bill passes? Only those supplements "included on [a] list...prepared, published, and maintained by the [FDA]". In other words, traditional (pre 1994) supplements would no longer be protected. The FDA would have arbitrary power to choose permitted supplements and (importantly) supplement doses. Senator McCain is engaging in patent falsehoods here, not the critics. And let's not forget: the FDA has repeatedly shown its hostility to supplements and favoritism toward drugs (perhaps because drugs pay the FDA's bills). An FDA with arbitrary power over supplements could very well be expected to institute a European style regulatory regime, one that restricts the amount of beta carotene in a supplement to what is available from half a carrot. Sound ridiculous? It is happening right now in Europe, and the FDA is in close touch with the European regulators. McCain touches on just this point. He says that "Opponents also claim the bill establishes a new regulatory structure for dietary supplements. That is completely false." But it's not false; it's true. The broad regulatory framework for supplements at the moment is provided by DSHEA. McCain's bill guts the protections provided by DSHEA and gives the FDA complete and arbitrary authority. If that isn't a new regulatory structure, what is? Until now, supplement producers have also been allowed to market a "new dietary ingredient", that is, one not sold as a supplement prior to 1994, if it has been "in the food supply as an article used for food in a form not chemically altered." McCain's bill also wipes this out. If passed, supplement producers would have to prove the safety of the ingredient to the satisfaction of the FDA even if the item has been in food for millennia. This is a big change. But McCain still insists that it isn't a new regulatory structure. Need we add that the FDA almost never agrees that a supplement has been proven safe? The Agency wants full drug trials, but who can afford to pay for full drug trials on a non-patentable substance? Are we going to end up paying $100 for a supplement tablet? McCain also tells us that "people have died from taking dietary supplements... and thousands have had to be hospitalized...." He should provide his sources. No one died from dietary supplements in 2008, the last year reported, according to the Association of Poison Control Centers. Supplements have a truly remarkable record of safety, in sharp contrast to FDA approved drugs, which are a leading cause of death. There is much, much else that is wrong with the McCain bill. But we have covered that in our earlier alert and won't repeat. We will close with a few more whoppers from Senator McCain. He tells us that his "legislation is about truth in labeling" but he can't even label his bill truthfully. He also says that it "is about giving consumers choice". Taking away consumers' existing rights to choose supplements and giving arbitrary authority to the FDA is not about "giving consumers choice". This could be Orwellian double speak. More likely McCain does not understand his own bill. Have you contacted your senator to ask them not to co-sponsor and to oppose Senator McCain's bill? If not, please do so now! Take Action If you have already contacted your senators, please send a letter protesting Senator McCain's gross distortions. Take Action

Is President Obama’s New Healthcare Proposal Better? No!

ANH-USA — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:55:04 +0000
Not much new here, mostly the Senate bill warmed over. But there are some new items outlined by the President on Monday, February 22. For example, the penalty if you don’t buy insurance increases over what is in the Senate bill. This may not be apparent because it is presented in a confusing way. The flat penalty goes down. The percent of income penalty goes up (to 2.5% after 2016). But what you have to know is that it is the greater of the two that you pay. So the penalty fee has gone up. Remember also that the penalty fee is defined as a tax, so you go to jail if you don’t pay it. Obama’s proposal also includes a new provision giving the Federal Government power to evaluate and reduce medical insurance price increases. This price control power is important. It could lead to the public option which is not directly in President Obama’s proposal. Why? Because the mandate penalties may still not be high enough to force young people into insurance. If not, and if anybody with pre-existing conditions can buy insurance, even at the last minute, then insurance prices will soar. If the federal government blocks the increases, then private companies will leave the business and the public option will replace them. Leaving these provisions aside, the Obama plan is mostly the old plan. It forces every American to buy into a medical system which is broken. It will thus perpetuate that broken system. The American Medical Association (AMA) and drug companies will have even more control. Health Savings and related accounts will go. You will have to pay much of your income for health care you don’t want while having to pay more out of pocket to get real health care, preventive and integrative health care, if it is available at all. What about real competition and real choice in healthcare? It will be gone. What about true preventive measures, such as diet and lifestyle changes to halt diabetes and other chronic preventable diseases before they develop? What about getting back to the basics with wholesome, organic, whole foods? What about decreasing the toxic load in our foods, such as the bisphenol-A that lines all of our canned foods? Why are President Obama, the Senate, and the House seemingly determined to decrease quality of life while further increasing healthcare costs? The President's 11-page proposal is to serve as the starting point for the bi-partisan, televised health-care summit to be held Thursday, February 25, 2010. ANH-USA’s expert lobbyists suggest that the summit will bring more of the same one-sided discussions. The President will then try to pass his bill with Democratic votes only, using the so-called Reconciliation Process in the Senate which is supposed to be reserved for budget issues and which only requires 51 votes to pass. The real question now is what happens in the House. Will enough of the Democrats in districts carried by John McCain stick with the President to pass the bill? Before that happens, we will come back to you with an alert and ask you to flood your representatives and senators with messages, especially those in the “swing” Congressional districts.

Got Chemicals?

ANH-USA — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:50:48 +0000
Reading a complete list of chemicals contained in their shampoo, conditioner, lotion, moisturizer, hairstyling products, deodorant, cosmetics and cologne would shock most consumers. A recent study found that the average British woman wears over 500 chemicals every day. Clearly, American women do the same. And yet, with the exception of a few enlightened integrative practitioners who practice environmental medicine, no medical professional ever queries patients about their daily application of chemicals to their bodies and scalps. There’s growing evidence that chemicals in the environment can adversely affect the health of susceptible individuals. Nevertheless, the opinion-editorial page of the Wall Street Journal recently issued a baby-bottle “red alert,” stating this “common chemical… is everywhere in our lives” and “Without BPA [bisphenol A], people would be exposed to more harmful metals and substances”. The option to buy products free of BPA is an important freedom of choice. But consumers are derided in certain political circles for wishing to retain that choice. The truth is that humans are the unwitting subjects of an experiment to learn the consequences of living in an ever-swelling sea of chemicals. Even if we believed these chemicals are totally safe, how would we explain that 1 in 6 American children is learning- or behavior-disabled, or explain why in recent years the rate of autism has grown from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100? Why the explosion in the incidence of neurodegenerative disease in the United States? Why does our rate of Alzheimer’s disease far exceed that in Asian countries? Consider the following headlines, all of which appeared within one week:

Exposure on Tap: Drinking Water as an Overlooked Source of Lead

Even if you’re careful, drugs can end up in water

Human placenta cells die after BPA exposure

Lead exposure may contribute to ADHD

Tests show top tuna brands have high mercury levels

Agricultural chemical spray linked to birth defect risk

EPA targets chemical often dumped in Chicago sewers

Cleaning Agent Tied to Parkinson’s in Study

2 stores pull necklaces on toxic cadmium concern

Much higher tritium levels found at nuclear plant

On February 4, 2010, Keri Powell, an attorney for Earthjustice, told a New York state judge that members of his environmental firm “want access to the information [i.e., what chemicals household products contain] so they can determine the kind of chemicals they are introducing into their homes”. How many chemicals do you wear each day?

Saving Lives, Wasting Money

ANH-USA — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:49:54 +0000
Cardiologist William Boden, M.D., led the Courage trial, which discovered that stent surgery “usually yields no additional benefit when used with a cocktail of generic drugs in patients suffering from chronic chest pain”. Dr. Steve Nissen, at the time chairman of the American College of Cardiology, called the Courage findings a “blockbuster,” but the Wall Street Journal quotes Dr. Boden as saying: “Most (cardiologists) haven’t voluntarily incorporated the Courage criteria into their practice. What’s going to continue to drive practice is reimbursement.” The Journal article also cites Dr. Sanjay Kaul of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, who argued that the U.S. healthcare system could save $5 billion of the $15 billion it spends annually on stent procedures if it adopted the Courage guidelines. The Courage trial, “medicine’s missed opportunity for comparative effective savings,” is mirrored by a recent study that determined the 2005 decision by Medicare to pay doctors to do bladder surgery in their offices “dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs”. In short, the current U.S. healthcare system rewards doctors for overusing expensive procedures. Like the FDA, the system must be reformed from the ground up. Lori Knutson, R.N., BC-HN, executive director of the Penny George Institute, reports that inpatient integrative care is saving $2,000 per patient per hospital stay at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. What a great model to study!

Major League Sports Pushes to End Supplement Freedom

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:55:03 +0000

Please Let the Sports Leagues and Franchises Know How You Feel About This Attack on Your Freedom of Supplement Choice!
Last week we asked you to contact your senators and tell them not to co-sponsor but instead oppose Senator McCain's recently introduced Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). Thank you to the large numbers who have already taken action. For those of you who have not yet contacted your senators, please take action now. It is now time to let Big Sports know how we feel as well. If they know that they may lose customers by interfering with your right to choose supplements, it will make them think twice. Especially if you are a sports fan, please contact your local baseball and football teams, in addition to major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig and national football league commissioner Roger Goodell, and let them know that you do not appreciate the meddling with your life that DSSA represents. The background: The USADA (United States Anti Doping Agency funded by professional sports), major league baseball, major league football, and other sports associations have formed "Supplement Safety Now". This is pulling many of the strings behind DSSA. Why? Because DSSA provides a convenient diversion from the sports industry's inability to police their players and effectively test for steroid abuse. This may be convenient for Big Sports but is likely to result in many fewer supplements at much lower doses to choose from. It will also create unnecessary, expensive, duplicative, and burdensome regulatory requirements that have nothing to do with illegal steroids. Click here to tell major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig and national football league commissioner Roger Goodell to stop threatening your access to dietary supplements. Please also contact your local sports teams. You will find a list with the contact details of all NFL and MLB teams here. Tell them to tend to their own industries and stay out of your life. For more information about DSSA, click here.

GOP Doctor Instructs John McCain and Explains What the McCain Bill Means for his Patients

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:50:20 +0000
[In a letter posted in the Health Sentinel on February 8, 2010, Nicholas J. Gonzalez, M.D., wrote to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., co-sponsor of the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010. The following is an abridged form of Gonzalez’ letter.] Dear Senator McCain: Though I am a resident of New York, not Arizona, I suggest that someone on your staff read my letter very carefully, as I believe you are unwittingly sponsoring a bill with potentially onerous consequences, one that might — if I read the information about it properly — lead to the death of hundreds of my patients fighting advanced, terminal cancer. I do not think that you would want their deaths on your conscience. I am a registered Republican, and in the past have donated many thousands to Republican causes, including your reelection, even when it became clear to me that the Party, including you, had strayed significantly from its mission of limited government, deficit reduction and, ultimately, protection of individual liberty. A former journalist (Time Inc.), I am currently a physician and cancer researcher. I was educated at three Ivy League schools (Brown undergraduate, Columbia post grad, Cornell for medical school) and finished a fellowship in cancer immunology under Robert A. Good, for ten years president of Sloan-Kettering. Under Dr. Good's direction, 29 years ago I began researching the use of diet, nutrients and proteolytic enzymes against advanced cancer. Though some consider my work "alternative," and although in the past I have generated controversy (since my therapy does not conform to the drug company model), I have been funded by very mainstream corporations and institutions, including Procter & Gamble, Nestle and the NIH. Congressman Dan Burton, R-Ind., has long been a vocal supporter; and I have met with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, at his invitation, to discuss this treatment. My research was featured in a lengthy profile published in The New Yorker magazine (Feb. 5, 2001) and more recently in the actress Suzanne Somers’ best-selling book Knockout about innovative new approaches to cancer. My colleague Dr. Linda Isaacs and I recently published the first book in a projected series, The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer, which discusses in some detail the scientific support for our treatment approach. You can learn more about my background and therapy at our website: www.dr-gonzalez.com Dr. Isaacs and I are currently treating hundreds of patients diagnosed with terrible advanced cancer, patients for whom no conventional options exist. Many are successfully battling their disease with our regimen of diet, nutritional supplements and proteolytic enzymes — currently available legally as over-the-counter items. We use only high-quality products, manufactured according to my stringent specifications. Though I suspect you and your staff created this new bill with the intention of protecting the public, as I read information about the bill, it appears to give the FDA near-dictatorial control over the manufacture and availability of supplements, allow it at its own discretion to remove legitimate nutritional supplements from the marketplace, file arbitrary complaints against legitimate supplements and impose drug-testing standards on each supplement. Testing of a single product to meet FDA standards for marketing of a new drug can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. To my knowledge, no supplement company has the resources to fight or meet such regulatory impositions. As a result, ethical supplement companies would (again, if I read the bill correctly) be forced to shut down. I have read that you are motivated by recent scandals involving the doping of athletes with illegal steroids, certainly a terrible tragedy, and have been approached by various professional athletic organizations such as Major League Baseball. I believe these organizations are trying to shift blame from their athletes to the supplement industry. Regardless, the FDA already possesses the power to investigate and punish companies marketing and selling steroids improperly. It certainly does not need added control over properly manufactured and properly marketed supplements or food substances — and the companies that provide these products — in order to regulate illicit steroid spiking. It hardly seems reasonable, as could now be possible should your bill pass, to punish and perhaps even eliminate an entire industry because of a few renegade manufacturers. On the surface, your bill sounds innocent enough, requiring manufacturers to provide the FDA with ingredients, etc. But current Good Manufacturing regulations already require supplement companies to provide proof of ingredients and quality. This proposed bill, whatever your stated goal, appears to play into the FDA's longstanding animus against the supplement industry at large, which to date — under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) — has had some protection from capricious regulatory harassment. Based on years of study, I believe that the FDA’s antagonism even against ethically manufactured supplements stems from its close working relationship with the drug company giants. Like the FDA, the drug industry has sought for years to have supplements removed from the over-the-counter marketplace and transformed into prescription drugs, which it alone could control and market and for which it could charge enormous prices. You seem to have played right into this effort. In your press conference, you alluded to expected opposition to your bill from the supplement industry. I suspect such opposition will be small compared with the opposition of the American public at large. In past decades, as the FDA, working with the drug industry, tried to gain complete control over the supplement industry, the American people have repeatedly fought back in vigorous campaigns, expressing their opinions to their elected officials in Washington. But the regulatory agencies in Washington never give up their dream of removing most if not all supplements from the free marketplace and turning them into restricted and expensive drugs, all to the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry and to the ultimate detriment of the public. Ethically manufactured nutritional supplements, when used appropriately, are extraordinarily safe and provide considerable health benefits. We see this daily in our own practice, even with the most advanced, deadly of diseases. Furthermore, nutrients — again, when manufactured and used appropriately — have in my long experience none of the terrible side effects of prescription items or even over-the-counter drugs. For example, it is estimated that 10,000 Americans die each year from bleeding resulting from intake of aspirin or over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs, yet the FDA does nothing to ban these products, which bring in untold profits to the drug industry. Nor to my knowledge have you ever held a press conference expressing your outrage over thousands of Americans tragically dying from aspirin use each year. On a personal note, I will tell you that since your press conference announcing the introduction of your bill, hundreds of my very sick patients have been very distraught, angry that you, of all people, would sponsor legislation that might possibly eliminate their life-sustaining supplements from the marketplace and essentially condemn them to death — all in the name of consumer protection. The mere possibility of such a turn of events has upset them enormously. I will also tell you that as we learn more about this proposed legislation, however you may position it, my patients are already considering mobilizing to support your opponent in every way possible, financially, as volunteers — even perhaps holding a "sit-in" at your offices for the benefit of the press. That is how seriously they are taking this situation. And let me assure you these people are not part of some supplement company conspiracy against safe manufacturing practices: They are Americans with terrible diseases, many of them veterans, who do not want interference with their treatment choice. I can understand their dismay. Perhaps I am wrong in my interpretation, but if this bill were ever to pass, the repercussions do seem potentially disastrous, in ways far beyond your assurance that this issue is a "no-brainer." I would be happy to talk to anyone on your staff about the unintended consequences apparent in this bill. As I read the information, it appears that ultimately it protects nobody except the drug industry and provides professional athletes with a convenient scapegoat. It certainly would not protect the American public that has repeatedly shown over the decades that it wants free access to nutritional supplements without FDA interference. Certainly, it will not protect my patients, who, frankly, did not need to hear of this bill, the thought of which has added enormous stress to their daily lives as they fight their life-and-death battles. Sincerely, Nicholas J. Gonzalez, M.D.

Who’s Minding the War on Bugs?

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:49:54 +0000
In submitting its 2011 budget proposal, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) —the agency that Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, calls the Fear and Denial Administration — has requested $4.03 billion to “promote and protect the public health.” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., says the budget “reflects the FDA’s resolve to transform food safety practices.” And according to a recent FDA press release, the Transforming Food Safety Initiative reflects President Obama’s vision of a new food-safety system to protect the American public: “The FDA will set standards for safety, expand laboratory capacity, pilot track and trace technology, strengthen its import safety program, improve data collection and risk analysis, and begin to establish an integrated national food safety system with strengthened inspection and response capacity” — at a cost of $318.3 million. On the same day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced “sweeping changes to assure the safety and quality of foods" purchased for the National School Lunch Program, which feeds 31 million children. An investigation by USA Today had identified a number of failures in government programs that oversee food safety in the lunch program. The investigation, which compared government’s food-safety efforts with those of private enterprise, found fast-food chains (including McDonald’s) to be far more effective than government in checking for bacteria. USA Today also discovered that in the summer of 2009, a California company forced to recall 826,000 pounds of ground beef contaminated with drug-resistant salmonella was paid several hundred thousand dollars by the USDA for 450,000 pounds of ground beef produced during the recall period. For its March 2010 issue, Consumer Reports analyzed pre-washed salad greens sold in supermarkets and found high levels of bacteria linked to fecal contamination and poor sanitation. You may remember that in 2006, a bacterial outbreak in fresh spinach killed three people and hospitalized more than 100. The source of contamination was never identified, but suspicion pointed to groundwater flowing from a nearby cattle and pig farm. A British report charges China with unleashing waves of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a consequence of Chinese farmers’ overuse of antibiotics and Chinese doctors’ routine prescribing of antibiotics to treat sore throats and other illnesses. The head of the Chinese National Antibiotic Resistance Investigation Network has noted that in contrast to the WHO guideline of 30 percent, more than 60 percent of patients in Chinese hospitals are given antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is now a global concern, in part because of books like Sara Bongiorni’s A Year Without “Made in China”. Even the USDA acknowledges that 50 percent of the apple juice imported by the United States comes from China. The current government effort, which pits the FDA against the USDA and both against the Environmental Protection Agency, is wasteful and ineffective. What we need is an integrated effort to spread the word that the unfettered use of antibiotics in raising animals and overuse in humans has consequences for both human health and the health of the environment.

MMR Whistleblower Targeted

ANH-USA — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:48:11 +0000
As Hugh Riordan, M.D., described in his trilogy Medical Mavericks, many pioneers of medicine suffered for being too far ahead of their time. Be they today’s integrative practitioners or legendary physicians of old (e.g., Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, who urged doctors to wash their hands before delivering a baby, and Dr. James Lind, who urged the British Navy to feed sailors limes in order to prevent scurvy), those who have challenged the medical status quo have often suffered the ridicule of their peers or, worse, risked losing their right to practice medicine. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, M.D., published in the journal Lancet his research regarding 12 children with severe bowel disease and autism. Although Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues did not say that vaccines caused autism, because Dr. Wakefield’s work challenged “the way we have always done it” his work was pilloried by his peers. Most recently, after the British General Medical Council ruled that Dr. Wakefield showed a “callous disregard” for the children in the published study, the Lancet retracted his article. The well-known actors Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy had the courage to publish a statement in support of Dr. Wakefield and his research. McCarthy and Carrey questioned the timing of Lancet’s retraction, which coincided with Dr. Wakefield and eight other distinguished scientists’ publishing the first phase of a clinical trial involving monkeys vaccinated according to the U.S. vaccine schedule. The publication of the complete study is imminent.

Update: Senator McCain Cosponsors a New Bill That Threatens Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:55:42 +0000
A wide variety of organizations, working together with ANH-USA, have swung into action to stop John McCain’s new bill that threatens dietary supplements. Already thousands of messages are on their way to Capitol Hill in protest. Please be sure that your message is among them. If you have not already done so, please take action now. As we told you last week, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) have cosponsored a new bill misleadingly called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). DSSA would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), signed into law by then-President Clinton. DSHEA protects supplements 1) if they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug. DSHEA provides the framework for effective regulation of dietary supplements by the FDA. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) would eliminate the supplement protections contained in DSHEA and allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) arbitrary authority to draw up a list of what supplements can be sold and at what potency levels. Europe is currently limiting both supplements and potencies to ridiculous levels. If DSSA passes, the FDA, beholden as it is to drug interests, would move to do the same in the US. Please take action now. The purported emergency giving rise to DSSA is illegal steroid use by athletes. The bill is supported by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) which is funded by major league sports teams including baseball, football and others. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has urged its adoption. In his comments, Senator McCain cited six NFL players recently suspended for testing positive for banned substances and allegedly exposed to these substances through dietary supplements. The FDA currently has complete and total authority to address illegal steroids and, more broadly, to regulate dietary supplements. If the FDA were policing rogue products adulterated with steroids as current law requires, the NFL violations would not have happened. DSSA also requires the reporting of even minor adverse events related to supplements. This is in addition to the already existing requirement to report serious adverse events. This will further stack the deck against small supplement companies by creating new, unnecessary, even more cumbersome, and of course very expensive administrative hurdles. It will also give the FDA, which ignores very large numbers of serious adverse reports involving drugs, including many deaths, more ammunition to use in its capricious war against food supplements. The likely result: the consolidation of the supplement industry into a few big companies selling many fewer supplements at much lower doses. These large companies would also very likely be owned by drug companies. The bottom line: our health would be almost completely controlled by the FDA and drug companies. Please take action now. Natural Products Association executive director John Gay has issued the following statement in response to Senator McCain’s proposed legislation: “Our industry has long supported efforts to remove the relatively few bad actors who market adulterated products. We have advocated for additional enforcement funds for regulators, and for giving regulators additional authority to act. What we cannot support is wholesale changes to a regulatory structure that is working, and could work better if the measures we have supported were adopted. A series of new laws for criminals to ignore is not the answer. Some seek to paint with an awfully broad brush. For example, the idea that the 150 million Americans who use dietary supplements are gambling with their health by shopping at mainstream stores just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Hyperbole does not lead to sound policy.” Council for Responsible Nutrition president Steven Mister offers his comment as well: “Dietary supplements have a very strong safety profile and consumers should continue to feel confident in the supplements that they are taking.” Senator McCain’s proposed legislation highlights the mindset at the FDA, dubbed the Fear and Denial Administration by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA). The FDA, which is responsible for guarding the health of American citizens, is hostile to the kind of natural medicine—based on lifestyle choices, nutrition, dietary supplements, and exercise—that is both effective and sustainable. Senator McCain appears to have been naïvely sold a bill of goods from vested interests. It is clear he does not know that he is being used by these interests in opposition to the wishes of tens of millions of Americans who supplement wisely to maintain optimal health. If you have not done so already, please take action now or read more about The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010.

GAO Hounds Supplement Makers

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:50:23 +0000
The government’s growing involvement in the dietary-supplement industry strikes many as a waste of the people’s time and treasure. Years ago, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., co-authored legislation requiring the dietary-supplement industry to report adverse events, effective December 2007. In 2008 the FDA received 1,080 adverse event reports relating to the use of dietary supplements. In the same time period, there were a total of 526,527 adverse events reports stemming from the use of prescription drugs. Despite the gaping difference between those two figures, a few congressional leaders — including Durbin himself — queried the Government Accounting Office regarding the marketing of “selected herbal dietary supplements.” Now — in response to a request by Durbin and Reps. Stupak, Dingell and Waxman — the agency has issued the “GAO Report to Congressional Requesters: Dietary Supplements FDA Should Take Further Actions to Improve Oversight and Consumer Understanding”. The report states that the FDA has seen a threefold increase in adverse event reports (AERs) relating to dietary supplements compared with the previous year, even though the legislation requiring AERs of dietary supplements did not go into effect until 2008. Furthermore, the GAO report claims that the FDA has “limited information on types of products (dietary supplements) currently available in the marketplace,” this despite the fact that in 2005 the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) provided the FDA with a copy of the second edition of its Herbs of Commerce in addition to extensive congressional testimony, given under oath, all of which contradict the GAO’s statement. As the AHPA update on January 26, 2010, notes: “[L]etters indicate the GAO is not entirely clear on the way the DSHEA [the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994] addresses dietary supplements”. AHPA adds that it “is working to learn more about the reason for the committee’s request.” In the years leading up to 1994, consumers overwhelmingly told their elected officials (and these officials were in office when DSHEA was passed into law!) that they want access to dietary supplements and trust their own judgment to make informed decisions about which supplements are right for their needs. In light of today’s pressures to protect the nation’s safety and restore the economy, all while reducing waste, spending tax payers’ money to address “a review of the marketing of selected herbal dietary supplements” seems worse than silly.

‘Good Fats’ Always Good

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:50:13 +0000
On January 19, 2010, the British Journal of Nutrition published a study that concluded that increased intakes of fats — whether from saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats — might increase the risk of prostate cancer. Medical researchers who surveyed 512 men with prostate cancer and 838 healthy controls noted that men with the highest average-intake of total fat had an increase of 153 percent in prostate cancer compared with men with the lowest average-intake of total fat. Must we conclude that a diet rich in a balance of Omega 3:Omega 6 fatty acids has the same effect as a diet laden with trans/hydrogenated fats? While admitting that the carbohydrates in a French-fries-and-soda combo are not identical to the carbohydrates in steamed broccoli, medicine has been slow to acknowledge that not all fats are the same. Total fat-consumption is important; but men at risk of prostate cancer would be wise to educate themselves about their intake of the essential fatty acids and the balance of omega 3:omega 6 in their diet, and to eliminate all “bad fats.” Demonizing fat is not a wise message for practitioners to give their patients wishing to prevent prostate cancer.

NIH’s New Radiation Policy

ANH-USA — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:45:56 +0000
Pulse of Health Freedom has previously reported on the dangers of medical radiation screenings. The esteemed educator and researcher Dr. John Gofman has linked radiation from medical procedures to cancer and heart disease. The Journal of the American College of Radiology has announced a policy-change at National Institutes of Health clinics. NIH will now require all makes of scanners that produce radiation to be equipped with software that can track a patient’s radiation dose and log it into an electronic medical record. Radiation from medical procedures is stored by our DNA. Given that 70 million radiation-producing scans were performed on Americans in 2007 (compared with just 3 million in 1980), we urge all healthcare consumers to ask their radiologists to adjust the dosage of radiation to the smallest amount capable of achieving a readable scan. Consumers should also consider taking curcumin, beta glucan, ascorbic acid and other nutrients to protect their cells’ DNA from the cumulative effects of medical radiation.

How Hard is it to Spell ‘D’?

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:52:40 +0000
According to a paper in the current British Medical Journal, “more than 50% of the adult population (in Great Britain) had insufficient levels of vitamin D and 16% had severe deficiency during winter and spring”. Another recent study found that an alarming 69 percent of pregnant women (and 78 percent of women who aren’t pregnant) are vitamin-D deficient. Indeed, it is estimated that 77 percent of the U.S. population suffers from vitamin D deficiency. This is a matter of urgent concern, given that 17 different cancers have been linked, at least in part, to vitamin-D deficiency (the lower one’s vitamin-D status, for example, the higher the risk of breast cancer and colon cancer.) Vitamin-D deficiency is also associated with strokes, asthma, autoimmune disorders, Parkinson’s disease, bone disorders, chronic pain, unsteadiness, poor balance and weakened immunity. Vitamin-D deficiency has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease among American children. John Jacob Cannell, MD, of the Vitamin D Council, cites the connection between vitamin-D deficiency and influenza infection. According to Cannell, the majority of in-patients are vitamin D deficient. Way back in 2003, the journal Clinical Epidemiology called vitamin-D deficiency an unnecessary pandemic. So why are public-health officials not jumping on the crisis and its remedy? To express your opinion on this important issue, take action here. Donate to our vitamin D campaign.

Heavy Metals, Flashy Risk

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:51:22 +0000
Ready for some scary news? The Center for Environmental Health has detected high levels of lead in women’s handbags and wallets, with some bags testing up to 100 times higher than the federal limit for lead in children’s products. In children’s jewelry made in China, Associated Press investigators found troubling quantities of cadmium. And a permit writer for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality discovered that a local cement plant reported emitting just 631 pounds of mercury annually when in fact its emissions were about 2,500 pounds per year. Researchers at Yale University have linked lead and high blood pressure; mercury is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Hal Huggins and Dr. Robert Kulacz are among those studying the dangers associated with the use of heavy metals in dentistry. Body burden testing by the CDC and cord blood testing by Johns Hopkins University both reveal that exposure to heavy metals (including lead, mercury and cadmium) is all too common among Americans. But heavy metal exposure can be treated if identified properly and early on. And so, for the past three decades, integrative physicians have routinely screened their patients for heavy metal exposure: for example, by analyzing hair samples. The case of Daniel Roehm, MD, targeted by the Florida Board of Medicine, ended in the board’s acknowledging that hair mineral analysis is an effective way to screen patients for heavy metal exposure. Nevertheless, state medical boards continue to harass physicians who conduct these tests.

Safety of Radiation Questioned

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:50:47 +0000
An expert on uranium and plutonium, Dr. John William Gofman — professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology, at the University of California, Berkeley —is also on the faculty at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. In the early 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission asked Gofman to establish a biomedical research division at the AEC's Livermore National Laboratory, for the purpose of evaluating the health consequences of all types of nuclear activities. In 1990 Gofman declared that "by any reasonable standard of biomedical proof," there is no threshold level (i.e., no harmless dose) of ionizing radiation with respect to radiation mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, a conclusion supported in 1995 by a government-funded committee studying radiation. Also in 1995, Gofman provided evidence that medical radiation is a necessary co-actor in about 75 percent of recent cases of breast cancer in the United States. Over the past several decades, as the use of diagnostic procedures involving radiation has increased, a growing number of American health professionals have doubted the benefit of these scans. The Wall Street Journal published accounts of parents, who were physicians, questioning the use of CT scans on their own children who had suffered falls. Now the New York Times “has examined thousands of pages of public and private records” to better understand the risks and accidents associated with the medical use of radiation. Dr. Fred Mettler author of several books on medical radiation, says, “My suspicion is that maybe half the accidents (caused by the use of medical radiation) we don’t know about.” Writing in the Times, Walt Bogdanich said: “Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. With no single agency overseeing medical radiation, there is no central clearinghouse of cases. Accidents are chronically underreported, records show, and some states do not require that they be reported at all.” It is inexcusable for the government and the medical community to allow facilities not to report medical errors involving the use of medical radiation. Meanwhile, Dr. Gofman urges healthcare consumers to ask their physicians if a test employs the least dose of radiation that can produce a readable scan. And always ask if the test will change the diagnosis or the treatment of your condition: If the answer is no, why does the doctor feel the scan is necessary?

FDA ‘Powerless’ Re: BPA?

ANH-USA — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:50:22 +0000
For three years, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has written about the government’s failure to regulate bisphenol A (BPA). Now, even as the agency retracts its previous contention that BPA is safe, troubling new evidence surfaces regarding the FDA’s inaction. According to Meg Kissinger of the Journal Sentinel, FDA “officials say they are powerless to regulate BPA. A quirk in the rules allows BPA makers to skirt federal regulation.” FDA officials had told the newspaper they were frustrated by the antiquated framework of the FDA's regulatory process. Kissinger continues: “An agency source says some from within the FDA wanted to follow Canada's lead and ban [BPA] from baby bottles — or from the lining of infant formula cans — but administration officials have resisted, concerned that babies who rely on bottled formula would be left without healthy alternatives.” "They couldn't take it off the shelves when there aren't substitutes in place," said the source, who asked not to be identified because the issue is so politically charged. BPA was found in the urine of 93 percent of all Americans tested. Even the FDA now calls it a “safety concern” for fetuses, babies and young children. Given FDA officials’ acknowledgement that their own regulatory process is antiquated, it’s time to reform the agency: not just patch it but fix it once and for all.

Shivering?

ANH-USA — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:23:49 +0000
As many parts of the United States endure a winter chill, researchers at the University of California, Davis, researchers have published noteworthy findings in the current Journal of Nutrition. Their study suggests increasing the current recommended vitamin D intake by at least a factor of five (5). The new study states that in order to achieve vitamin D sufficiency (i.e., at least 75 nm/liter), someone of European ancestry needs 1,300 IU of vitamin D a day. People of African descent require 2,100-3,100 IU daily. Many experts consider that 25(OH)D levels less than 50 nmol/liter indicate vitamin D deficiency. A pooled analysis published in the British Medical Journal found that the combination of vitamin D and calcium reduced fractures by 8 percent and hip fractures by 16 percent. The call by Bill Faloon of Life Extension Foundation to test hospital patients for vitamin D status grows in importance as vitamin D deficiency is linked to the following:

osteopenia and osteoporosis

muscle weakness and chronic pain

fractures

common cancers

autoimmune diseases including type I diabetes

infectious disease

cardiovascular or heart diseases

Of those aged 50-70 enrolled in a Chinese study, 94 percent tested vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D deficiency is also now linked to metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance. Given the approximately 2,900 studies published to date and the growing awareness of vitamin D deficiency among those who live in the United States, why no public-health action?