These Common Fluoride-Added Antibiotics May Cause Permanent Nerve Damage

Dr. Mercola | Mercola.com

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a warning that fluoroquinolone antibiotics, taken by mouth or injection, carry a risk for permanent peripheral neuropathy. The safety announcement states:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required the drug labels and Medication Guides for all fluoroquinolone antibacterial drugs be updated to better describe the serious side effect of peripheral neuropathy. 

This serious nerve damage potentially caused by fluoroquinolones may occur soon after these drugs are taken and may be permanent... The topical formulations of fluoroquinolones, applied to the ears or eyes, are not known to be associated with this risk."

Peripheral neuropathy is nerve damage in the arms and/or legs, characterized by “pain, burning, tingling, numbness, weakness, or a change in sensation to light touch, pain or temperature, or sense of body position.”

Image: wikimedia.org

This is not the first warning FDA has posted about this family of antibacterial drugs. In 2008, they posted a black box warning about severe tendon damage. Now having the additional warning for severe and sometimes-permanent nerve damage, there should be NO question in your mind about the danger of these drugs, and I strongly recommend avoiding them if at all possible.

Just Say “Know”

Fluoroquinolones, a class of synthetic antibacterial drugs, are the only types that directly inhibit bacterial DNA synthesis. Several drugs in this class have been taken off the market due to their deadly adverse effects, but six of them remain FDA-approved for use in the United States:

Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) Levofloxacin (Levaquin)
Gemifloxacin (Factive) Moxifloxacin (Avelox)
Norfloxacin (Noroxin) Ofloxacin (Floxin)

Due to their tremendous health risks, fluoroquinolones should be reserved for treating serious bacterial infections that won’t respond to any other treatment, when the patient is made fully aware of the potential for serious adverse events. Instead, they’re often inappropriately prescribed for mild conditions like sinus, urinary tract and ear infections.

In fact, fluoroquinolones are among the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the United States. I highly recommend you take pause before filling a prescription for these drugs, especially if you have a “routine infection” that has not been treated by other agents that have a safer side effect profile.


You should not expose yourself to this degree of risk unnecessarily! The dangerousness of fluoroquinolones definitely warrants some serious discourse with your health care provider about whether they are really necessary, versus safer treatment options.

Read more at Mercola.com

FDA: Many common cooking spices may contain bug parts, rodent hairs

Hiding inside your pepper grinder and cumin shaker could be things like rodent hairs, bug parts and even salmonella, claims a new report recently put out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Entitled "Pathogens and Filth in Spices," the report alleges that up to 12 percent of all U.S. spice imports may contain hidden insect filth, while up to 7 percent may contain bacterial contaminants, an obvious push by the agency to further legitimize irradiating cooking spices.

According to CNN, the agency decided to launch an investigation into the contents of imported cooking spices as part of a general assessment of their safety risks. The agency itself says the endeavor was hatched in response to growing concerns about the effectiveness of current safety control measures for spices. But based on the findings of the report, spices are generally safe and pose a minimal risk to human health.

Nevertheless, the FDA is convinced that spices may be dangerous, categorizing them as a "systemic challenge" due to the fact that they generally contain about twice as much "filth" as other kinds of imported food. And yet, based on 37 years' worth of records looked at by the agency, there have only been 14 outbreaks ever in the entire world that have been linked to spices or seasonings, resulting in fewer than 2,000 human illnesses and 128 hospitalizations.

"We would agree ready-to-eat spices should be clean and meet FDA standards and be pathogen-free," stated Cheryl Deem, Executive Director of the American Spice Trade Association, to CNN about the findings. "We did find it really interesting that the FDA said they were going to use this report to develop a plan to reduce illness, but if you look at the data we don't think that's a significant problem. That's a small number of illnesses."

FDA report fails to distinguish between ready-to-eat and raw spices

Despite its thorough analysis on imported spices, the FDA apparently failed to distinguish in test results whether or not the spices it looked at were in "ready-to-eat" form or in raw form. Ready-to-eat spices have already been cleaned overseas prior to import, while raw spices may still need to processed. It is typically raw spices from non-organic sources that contain the most "filth," a fact that the FDA should have addressed in its report.

It may seem curious that the FDA appears to have made a mountain out of a molehill concerning spice safety, that is until you consider the fact that the FDA has been trying to amass more control over the food supply for years. Even in its new report, the FDA admits that the agency's goal is to utilize more of the provisions outlined in the Food Safety Modernization Act, the infamous regulatory overhaul that harmonizes American law with the international Codex Alimentarius food code.

"This is an example of non-experts trying to start a commotion with consumers," writes one CNN commenter who claims to have previously worked in the spice industry. "The field insects are mostly of the garden variety and harmless coming from the field where crops are grown.... Welcome to your world people insects are everywhere."

You can read the full, 213-page FDA report on spice safety here:
http://www.fda.gov.

Source: Natural News
 by: Ethan A. Huff

What is the Deadliest of All Vaccines?

The standard DTP or DPT (diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus) vaccine is acknowledged to be the deadliest of all vaccines, causing more disability, illness and the highest risks, even exceeding MMR (measles, mumps and rubella).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) in 1988 to compensate individuals and families of individuals injured by covered childhood vaccines. The VICP itself was adopted in response to a the pertussis portion of the DTP vaccine.

Since 1988, the program has been funded by an excise tax on every purchased dose of a covered vaccine. To win an award, a claimant must show a causal connection; if medical records show a child has one of several listed adverse effects soon after vaccination. The burden of proof is the civil-law preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, in other words a showing that causation was more likely than not. 

As of May 2013, the VICP has paid out $2.7 billion for cases involving injury amongst all vaccines.It obliges drug companies that produce vaccines to contribute to the program by paying an excise tax on each dose of vaccine, based on potential risk.

Although the taxes raised by the vaccine tax go into a "trust fund," this trust fund, like most government trust funds, is on paper only. According to the most recent report on the fund, November 2012, the balance in the fund is nearly $3.5 billion. 

Epidemiologists Admit Pertussis (Whooping Cough) Is Spreading And Vaccines Are The Cause

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is spreading across the entire US at rates at least twice as high as those recorded in 2011 and epidemiologists and health officials are even admitting that the vaccines may be the cause.

The cause could very well be due to multiple loads of toxins delivered through the DTP vaccine which include, (but not limited to): formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal, and polysorbate 80. That means that every DTP vaccine contains carcinogenic, neurotoxic, immunotoxic and sterility agents just like many of this year's flu vaccines. These chemicals then bioaccumulate in the child with each successive vaccine, further introducing an additional load of toxins with each injection.

Dangerous new strains of whooping cough bacteria are now evading Australia's vaccine against the disease and entrenching a four-year epidemic that could soon spread overseas, Sydney scientists have found in research that raises questions about the national vaccine program.

The dangerous new strains of whooping cough bacteria were reported in March 2012. The vaccine, researchers said, was responsible. The reason for this is because, while whooping cough is primarily attributed toBordetella pertussis infection, it is also caused by another closely related pathogen called B. parapertussis, which the vaccine does NOT protect against. Two years earlier, scientists at Penn State had already reported that the pertussis vaccine significantly enhanced the colonization of B. parapertussis, thereby promoting vaccine-resistant whooping cough outbreaks.

According to the authors:

"... [V]accination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice. Though the mechanism behind this increased colonization was not specifically elucidated, it is speculated to involve specific immune responses skewed or dampened by the acellular vaccine, including cytokine and antibody production during infection. Despite this vaccine being hugely effective against B. pertussis, which was once the primary childhood killer, these data suggest that the vaccine may be contributing to the observed rise in whooping cough incidence over the last decade by promoting B. parapertussis infection."

Pertussis whooping cough is a cyclical disease with natural increases that tend to occur every 4-5 years, no matter how high the vaccination rate is in a population using DTP or Tdap vaccines on a widespread basis. Whole cell DTP vaccines used in the U.S. from the 1950's until the late 1990's were estimated to be 63 to 94 percent effective and studies showed that vaccine-acquired immunity fell to about 40 percent after seven years.

In the study cited above, the researchers noted the vaccine's effectiveness was only 41 percent among 2- to 7-year-olds and a dismal 24 percent among those aged 8-12

The fact that many vaccines are ineffective is becoming increasingly apparent. Merck has recently been slapped with two separate class action lawsuits contending they lied about the effectiveness of the mumps vaccine in their combination MMR shot, and fabricated efficacy studies to maintain the illusion for the past two decades that the vaccine is highly protective. 

Whooping Cough Outbreaks & Vaccine Failures

History of Adverse Events Associated With The DTP Vaccine 

The whole-cell pertussis component is associated with a range of adverse events, including serious neurological consequences. Concerns about the safety of whole-cell pertussis vaccine date back to the 30s and 40s. By the 1950s, concern about potential adverse events led some researchers to begin searching for a more refined, acellular version of pertussis vaccine with less reactogenicity. 

Fertility has been declining rapidly since the 1950s in all countries of the world and the start of the change coincided with the introduction of the first mass vaccination programs. For instance, in the UK in 1947, a mass DPT vaccine campaign was initiated and in 1958, the first polio and diphtheria vaccines were brought in on a mass scale for all people under 15 years old. 

In the early to mid-1970s, the safety of whole-cell pertussis came under increasing scrutiny both in the U.S. and abroad. Newly heightened concerns were in part related to reports published 
in Great Britain and Germany linking whole-cell pertussis vaccine to long term neurologic effects. 

In 1975, in response to the deaths of two infants within 24 hours after DTP vaccination, Japanese health authorities temporarily suspended the routine use of pertussis vaccine in infants, and soon after recommended that vaccination against pertussis start instead at age two years. 

In Britain, while health authorities continued to recommend routine DTP immunization for infants, the public became increasingly wary of potential adverse effects, and many parents chose not to immunize their children.

From 1978 through 1981, a total of nine product liability lawsuits were filed against DTP manufacturers in the U.S.. For the single year 1982, however, 17 DTP lawsuits were filed; and by 1986, the number of pertussis productliability suits filed during the year reached an all-time high of 225. During a six-month period in 1984, in response to the growing liability crisis, two of the three manufacturers distributing DTP in the U.S. market B Wyeth and Connaught B dropped out.

In 1997, the DTP vaccine was taxed at the highest rate per dose - $4.56 - compared with $0.29 for polio and $0.06 for DT (without pertussis). Only the MMR vaccine, at $4.44 per dose, approaches the DTP in ‘taxation’. This is tacit acknowledgement by the government that the pertussis vaccine carries the highest risk of them all.

No Placebo-Controlled Trials of Whole-Cell Vaccine Since 1950 - All Post-Vaccination Research in The Last 60 Years Shows Health Damage

No randomised placebo-controlled trials of whole-cell vaccine have been performed since the 1950s, when diagnostic methods were different. Indeed, in the early 1990s, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which spent 20 months studying all the available data on vaccinations, confirmed that no controlled clinical trials have ever been conducted to rule out whether the vaccine can cause chronic neurological damage, blood disorders, juvenile diabetes, Guillain-Barre paralysis and learning disabilities. With the most controversial vaccine in history, most questions about safety have never been asked.

The only large-scale study ever conducted in the US, at University of California at Los Angeles in 1979, found that one in 875 doses of DTP is followed by convulsions, or an episode of shock or collapse, leading to death in the case of two babies (Pediatrics, 1981; 68: 650-60). As for brain damage, a Swedish study showed a rate of brain damage or death of one in 17,000 children (BMJ, 1967; 4: 320-3).

The IOM report concluded that: the triple shot definitely causes anaphylactic shock and extended periods of inconsolable crying or screaming evidence is consistent with a causal relationship between acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and shock and unusual shock-like (hypotonia/hyporesponsive) reactions, causing total collapse (Stratton K, Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines; Evidence Bearing on Causality, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993).

In 1993, The National Childhood Encephalopathy study: a 10-year follow-up reported on the medical, social, behavioural and educational outcomes after serious, acute, neurological illness in early childhood. The analysis found a four-fold increase in the estimated risk of encephalitis from the pertussis vaccine. The analysis showed the risk of encephalitis with the vaccine have been grossly underestimated.

Diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and whole-cell pertussis vaccine (DTP) and pediatric diphtheria and tetanus toxoids (DT) are not recommended for individuals 7 years of age or older due to increased adverse reactions. Yet in 1994, a study in the Family Practice Research Journal found that children 7 years of age or older are inadvertently receiving DTP or DT and were unnecessarily experiencing adverse reactions. 

In another study in the The Journal of the American Medical Association, children vaccinated with pertussis vaccine were six times more likely to develop asthma. In 2004, a study in the British Medical Journal found that the prevalence of asthma and wheezing in non-vaccinated individuals was approximately 50% less at age 69-81 months than children who had 3 or more doses of with the Diptheria and tetanus vaccine.

Researchers reported in the OSMA Journal that the pertussis vaccine may cause lasting and permanent brain damage. Physicians are required to warn all responsible parties of vaccine recipients that pertussis vaccine may cause "lasting brain damage", but rarely if ever to Physicians inform parents of this fact.

In the Journal of Pediatrics researchers found an association observed between the DTP vaccination of preterm infants and a transient increase or recurrence of apnea where they would stop breathing.

New England Medical Journal reported in 2001 that the DTP vaccine increases the risk of febrile seizures fivefold on the day of vaccination and that there are significantly elevated risks.

According to the Anti-Aging Manual: The Encyclopedia of Natural Health, DTP vaccines may cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) - 85% in 1 -6 months, same as the 2-4-6-month DTP vaccinations risk; the death rate increases eight times within 3 days of injection; in one study 70% of SIDS deaths occurred within 3 weeks of DTP vaccinations causes reported adverse reactions in 100 per 1000 vaccinations (10%). 

In a hard hitting editorial in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME),Dr. Jacob Puliyel, head of pediatrics at St Stephens Hospital in New Delhi, reports on detailed investigation into the deaths of children in Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India and Vietnam following use of Pentavalent vaccine. This vaccine combines the Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus or DTP vaccine. (See WHO Caught Falsely Stating Pentavalent Vaccine Was Safe After It Was Discontinued In Some Countries Due To Deaths In Children)

Several other research citations linking the DTP vaccines to diseasehave they cause complications in neurological systems, the central nervous system, sudden death, cervical lymphadenitis and convulsions.

Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that “only about 1% of serious adverse events are reported to the FDA.” This study confirms the systematic under-reporting bias against vaccine adverse reactions. So we could reasonably multiply the incidence in VAERS reports by 100 to get a better handle on the magnitude of the problem. Apparently, no number of VAERS vaccine adverse reaction reports is sufficient to cause the FDA or CDC to raise a red flag or withdraw a vaccine from the market.

Sources:
iom.edu
healthy.net
vaccinenewsdaily.com

PreventDisease

The Most Ridiculous "Natural" Flavor of All Time

Natural Flavors 101

Castoreum (or beaver butt) is just one of the ingredients that could be called a “natural flavor.” But there are many other things called “natural flavors” that could be lurking in your food. We’ll never know what they are because the food companies won’t tell us as they consider this information proprietary.


According to the FDA, natural flavors can include:

“the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22).

Image: www.brucebradley.com

That means, the food industry can use virtually anything found in nature (including genetically engineered fruits, vegetables, meat and hidden forms of MSG derived from yeast) and label it as “natural flavors”. These flavors create a false sense of reality while you are eating and give off the illusion of real food. The flavors work against you, getting you addicted to processed food using the best part of a taste or even smell. (Who are these flavor chemists? You can learn more about them here.)

They don’t want you to have the full essence of the strawberry – they want you to only experience the best 1 millionth part of the taste – so you get “addicted” and keep having to go back for more and more, searching continuously for gratification – eating more of that product which in turns fills Big Food Companies pockets. The Big Food Companies are “hijacking” your taste buds one by one and the FDA couldn’t care less, because they allow these companies to get away with it.

Most of us know artificial flavors derived from petroleum and crude oil aren’t good for us, but the ingredient “natural flavor” can fool the best of us. Natural flavor can legally contain natural occurring “glutamate” bi-products like MSG – which are known excitotoxins. These excitotoxins are some of the chemicals that cause your taste buds to experience irresistibility when it comes to food. Ever wonder why you can’t just eat one chip? Or one cookie? Or why you remember a taste of a product so distinctly and crave it uncontrollably?

Natural flavors can be to blame.

A lot of people think you shouldn’t blame these food companies, flavor chemists, or anyone else for people’s inability to stop eating and from getting obese – but when companies practice this type of trickery – you can’t help but realize we are all at a disadvantage. How much do you have to research and know about your food in order to trust it?  Can we expect all people in all income levels to have the time to find and understand this knowledge? Shouldn’t we be able to trust the mustard or the oatmeal the grocery store down the street is selling to us? It’s amazing we can’t trust something labeled “natural flavor” – it sounds so simple, friendly and well natural… but really can be so misleading.

What Can You Do About Natural Flavors?

Humans were meant to eat real food – not fake industrial food created in a laboratory and that’s why I recommend not buying food with the ingredient “natural flavor” on the label. Who wants to be tricked or lured into thinking a food tastes better or smells better than it should or eating beaver butt for goodness sake!?

If you find a product in your pantry or fridge that has “natural flavors” in it – take it back to the store and get your money back. But before you take it back, come on over to my facebook page and post a picture of that product, so we can all learn and identify where natural flavors or beaver butt may be hiding.

Source: Food Babe via Raw For Beauty

Hundreds of dogs killed by contaminated jerky treats made in China; FDA still clueless of cause

by Mike Adams

Thousands of family dogs across the USA have been sickened by pet jerky treats made in China, and nearly 600 dogs have died. The FDA has issued a warning over the deadly jerky treats but has not forced any sort of product recall.

Image: orangectlive.com

So far, the cause of the fatalities remains a mystery. The FDA says it has tested jerky treats for heavy metals, pesticides, antibiotics, chemicals and even Salmonella but cannot find the cause. The agency is warning pet owners to watch their pets for symptoms of poisoning which may include “decreased appetite, decreased activity, vomiting, diarrhea (sometimes with blood or mucus), increased water consumption and / or increased urination.”

Click here to view the FDA’s fact sheet on contaminated jerky treats.

According to USA Today, the deadly jerky treats “come mostly from China,” and the number of dogs sickened or killed by these treats has been rising all year.
The treats causing this epidemic of death, says USA Today, are “made of chicken, duck, sweet potatoes or dried fruit.”

BEWARE OF PET TREATS MADE IN CHINA

Most consumers do not fully realize that pet treats do NOT have to list their country of origin. Many pet treats are highly deceptive on their packaging, sometimes showing a logo of the continental USA and claiming to be “made with beef from the USA” even though the treats themselves are manufactured in China using toxic chemicals.

The FDA has not issued a recall on the brands it suspects are causing these deaths. This is one of the problems with the agency: it already knows which products are killing dogs, but it has so far failed to release that information to the public. As a result, as more and more people learn about this, all pet treat manufacturers will suffer because consumers will shun the entire product category.

In truth, there are perfectly healthy, safe and even nutritious pet treats made in the USA and other countries, yet due to a lack of labeling laws, it is virtually impossible for consumers to know which country the pet treats they buy are coming from.

This is why we need stronger labeling requirements that mandate the disclosure of things like country of origin, GMOs and even heavy metals contamination. Currently none of these things have to be listed on the label.

Even those of us who believe in smaller government recognize the important role of government in enforcing a “level playing field” through honest labeling. Only with this information can consumers make informed decisions about what they wish to buy (or avoid buying).

Until that happens, countless more dogs, cats and even our own children will die from contaminated food products. These are deaths that could have been avoided if we only had honest labeling laws in place that, for starters, clearly list the country of origin. While that regulation is in place for human foods, it does not exist for pet foods.

Read More at NaturalNews.com

Source: realfarmacy.com

This is how Big Pharma bought it's way onto FDA advisory panels

by Ethan A. Huff – Natural News

It is now an undeniable fact that the pharmaceutical industry weaseled its way onto key U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panels, which were instrumental in shaping the way drugs are safety tested and approved. According to The Washington Post (WP), a recent public records request has revealed that drug companies purchased special access onto these panels, where they were given the keys to the kingdom in swaying decision-makers about official drug policy.

Based on critical information gathered from hundreds of leaked emails, pharmaceutical companies have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to attend private meetings with the FDA, many of which were geared towards the regulation and approval of painkiller drugs. Drug companies would reportedly shell out upwards of $25,000 or more per meeting to have their voices heard, a small price to pay for direct access to the $9 billion American painkiller market.

According to the WP, officials from both the FDA and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) would regularly meet with pharmaceutical representatives in private to discuss regulatory protocols, co-write scientific papers and collaborate on various ways to help streamline the drug approval process. And the only parties who actually paid to attend such meetings were the drug companies, a fact that one official from the NIH expressed serious concerns about in an email, referring to the whole scheme as a “pay to play process.”

Others who have since reviewed the emails agree, noting that, while the FDA did not necessarily benefit financially from these private meetings, many FDA officials went on to work as pharmaceutical consultants. In other words, FDA staff who agreed to grease the palms of the drug industry during these private meetings were later rewarded with high-paying positions in the drug industry. This is just one glaring example of how the line between the regulator (FDA) and the regulated (pharmaceutical companies) has been blurred beyond recognition.

“These e-mails help explain the disastrous decisions the FDA’s analgesic division has made over the last 10 years,” said Craig Mayton, the Columbus, Ohio, attorney who made the public records request to the University of Washington, to the WP. “Instead of protecting the public health, the FDA has been allowing the drug companies to pay for a seat at a small table where all the rules were written.”

Big Pharma, FDA corruption runs deep

It is no longer a conspiracy theory, then, that the drug industry owns the FDA. In this particular case, it was two academics by the names of Robert Dworkin, from the University of Rochester, and Dennis Turk, from the University of Washington, who allegedly orchestrated the painkiller plot. But there have been many other plots with the same ultimate end, a fact that NaturalNews and many others in the so-called “alternative” media have been shouting from the rooftops for years, but that the mainstream media has ignored, until now.

“Shame on the FDA and NIH for sending representatives to this panel, cooked up by two unethical professors and their drug company cronies,” wrote one WP commenter about the scandal. It should be noted that FDA officials actively participated in the painkiller scheme, all the while knowing full well that the private meetings they attended were hatched by Big Pharma. “Congress should come down hard on both agencies for participating in what was clearly pay-to-play, with awful consequences for the health of many suffering Americans.”

Such consequences include a flood of dangerous analgesic drugs to the market that were approved based on questionable or flawed safety studies. According to MedpageToday.com, the drug industry was successful during these meetings in convincing the FDA to adopt an “enriched enrollment” guidance for safety trials that eliminated patients who experienced adverse reactions. These and other modifications made it much easier for drugs to be declared safe and effective, and thus gain rapid approval.

Source: naturalnews.com

Sources for this article include:

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.medpagetoday.com

http://seattletimes.com

Drug companies bought their way onto FDA advisory panels

by Ethan A. Huff – Natural News

It is now an undeniable fact that the pharmaceutical industry weaseled its way onto key U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panels, which were instrumental in shaping the way drugs are safety tested and approved. According to The Washington Post (WP), a recent public records request has revealed that drug companies purchased special access onto these panels, where they were given the keys to the kingdom in swaying decision-makers about official drug policy.

Image: NaturalNews.com

Based on critical information gathered from hundreds of leaked emails, pharmaceutical companies have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to attend private meetings with the FDA, many of which were geared towards the regulation and approval of painkiller drugs. Drug companies would reportedly shell out upwards of $25,000 or more per meeting to have their voices heard, a small price to pay for direct access to the $9 billion American painkiller market.

According to the WP, officials from both the FDA and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) would regularly meet with pharmaceutical representatives in private to discuss regulatory protocols, co-write scientific papers and collaborate on various ways to help streamline the drug approval process. And the only parties who actually paid to attend such meetings were the drug companies, a fact that one official from the NIH expressed serious concerns about in an email, referring to the whole scheme as a “pay to play process.”

Others who have since reviewed the emails agree, noting that, while the FDA did not necessarily benefit financially from these private meetings, many FDA officials went on to work as pharmaceutical consultants. In other words, FDA staff who agreed to grease the palms of the drug industry during these private meetings were later rewarded with high-paying positions in the drug industry. This is just one glaring example of how the line between the regulator (FDA) and the regulated (pharmaceutical companies) has been blurred beyond recognition.

“These e-mails help explain the disastrous decisions the FDA’s analgesic division has made over the last 10 years,” said Craig Mayton, the Columbus, Ohio, attorney who made the public records request to the University of Washington, to the WP. “Instead of protecting the public health, the FDA has been allowing the drug companies to pay for a seat at a small table where all the rules were written.”

Big Pharma, FDA corruption runs deep

It is no longer a conspiracy theory, then, that the drug industry owns the FDA. In this particular case, it was two academics by the names of Robert Dworkin, from the University of Rochester, and Dennis Turk, from the University of Washington, who allegedly orchestrated the painkiller plot. But there have been many other plots with the same ultimate end, a fact that NaturalNews and many others in the so-called “alternative” media have been shouting from the rooftops for years, but that the mainstream media has ignored, until now.

“Shame on the FDA and NIH for sending representatives to this panel, cooked up by two unethical professors and their drug company cronies,” wrote one WP commenter about the scandal. It should be noted that FDA officials actively participated in the painkiller scheme, all the while knowing full well that the private meetings they attended were hatched by Big Pharma. “Congress should come down hard on both agencies for participating in what was clearly pay-to-play, with awful consequences for the health of many suffering Americans.”

Such consequences include a flood of dangerous analgesic drugs to the market that were approved based on questionable or flawed safety studies. According to MedpageToday.com, the drug industry was successful during these meetings in convincing the FDA to adopt an “enriched enrollment” guidance for safety trials that eliminated patients who experienced adverse reactions. These and other modifications made it much easier for drugs to be declared safe and effective, and thus gain rapid approval.

Source: NaturalNews.com

3 Facts Everyone Should Know About Monsanto

by ARJUN WALIA

Image: March Against Monsanto

Monsanto is an American multinational corporation founded in the early 1900′s by John Francis Queeny. It’s no coincidence that he was a veteran of the pharmaceutical industry. Monsanto and the people that govern it hide behind the classification of multinational corporations and political labels in order to implement their desired agenda. Why on Earth is our food being manufactured by the largest pesticide company in the world?  Food is supposed to give us health and nourishment, but today our food contains toxins that are without question a major threat to our health. Toxic chemicals are added to our food supply simply through production, harmful pesticide residue and genetic engineering of seeds and crops. Even food packaging can be a source of toxins in food. Why are we allowing poisonous and toxic chemicals to enter into our food supply? What type of corporation would try to persuade the population that it is a good thing? Monsanto would, it’s no coincidence that the food, pharmaceutical and medical industries are so well connected. The most common argument against this fact is “well, I don’t know”, which is not much of an argument at all. In fact, everything we use in our daily lives can often be traced back to a group of families and the corporations they run.

Even as we have an increasing disease burden due to chemicals and pollutants, there is an attempt to push GMOs despite the serious health risks they pose – Dr. Vandana Shiva

1. Monsanto purposely puts small farmers out of business

Monsanto has shut down many small farms via lawsuits because their patented crop was found on the farms. While it was only small percentages of the crop that were Monsanto’s seeds, they were able to get a ruling in their favor regardless of the fact that Monsanto was accused for purposely putting their seed onto farmers land as well as the fact that Monsanto crop pollen from nearby farms can easily blow onto other farms who are not using Monsanto crop. Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer whose canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby GMO farm. Monsanto successfully argued in a lawsuit that Schmeiser violated their patent rights, and forced Schmeiser to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.This type of biotech bullying is happening all over North America. Monsanto performed no independent tests as their tests were all performed in house or by experts hired by the company.

2. Monsanto has multiple connections to the government
Most people are aware that multinational corporations (like Monsanto) are above the government when it comes to the hierarchical  pyramidal structure of control that we see on the planet today. We are living in a corporatocracy, not a democracy,our entire economic, political, health, energy, and educational industries are controlled by corporations and the people that hide behind them.

Toby Moffett –  Toby Moffett is the chairman of the Moffett Group. The Moffett group is a government relations and strategic consulting firm in Washington, DC. He is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He is the liaison between clients and the congress, the Obama administration as well as other federal agencies. Toby Moffett is a former NBC news anchor, as well as former Vice President of Monsanto, and currently serves as a Monsanto consultant.

Margaret Miller - Dr Margaret Miller was a Dep Director for the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) For Bush Sr as well as Bill Clinton. She has worked as in the health and food departments of the World Health Organization (WHO). The FDA and WHO are responsible for the creation of codex alimentarius, an organization that defines the required toxins and chemicals to put in our food.

Michael Taylor - Michael Taylor is the deputy commissioner for Foods at at the FDA, appointed by Obama. He is also the VP for public policy at Monsanto, the same man in charge of GMO’s being put into our food supply.

Linda Fisher- Former Deputy Administrator for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Vice president for government affairs at Monsanto.

The list goes on and on, almost all positions  that hold significance within Monsanto are held by those who have been involved in the political game and with major governmental organizations. More ties can be made to all industries that govern our life on this planet. Our media, health, education, and energy industries are all owned and operated by the same people, it’s a revolving door.

3. Monsanto invented the toxic chemicals that that they spray on our food, which they own.
Monsanto is the leading producer and manufacturer of the herbicide glyphosate. It was manufactured and discovered by Monsanto in the early 1970′s. Glyphosate requires a full body suit and protective eye wear when spraying, do you still think it’s good for us to consume? It kills plants and insects, yet we continue to consume it constantly and wonder why cancer rates are on the rise.

The giant corporations who had produced chemicals for chemical industrial agriculture were talking about three instruments to consolidate the food chain. The first was genetic engineering as a way of control. The second was patenting seed and patenting life as a way of as a way of control. Determining seed to be private property, treating the saving of seed by farmers as theft. Lastly, the design of terminator technology, to create sterile seed in order to impose even more dependence of humanity on a hand full of corporations. – Dr. Vandana Shiva

 Findings like this are helping the world make connections. We are in the process of transparency, if one is truly passionate and curious about how the world operates, all the information and events are there to see. It’s not hard to do a little research and make connections, if one does so I am sure everybody who does will find that the current way of life on our planet does not resonate with them. We created this whole experience on the planet, and we have the freedom to change it anytime we desire. Waking up to the major industries around us that we use to govern our life, and how they operate is something that can no longer be ignored. A critical mass of people on the planet are now calling for a change, and it starts with you.
Source: Collective Evolution

Source: RealFarmacy.com & Collective-Evolution.com

Reality Check: Monsanto and It's Crony Policies

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Ben Swann takes a good look at Monsanto and their notoriously corrupt policy of infiltrating the government.

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13 in a city near you: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV



Source: BenSwann.com

Image: www.lostrepublic.us

California Sues Whole Foods Over All-Natural Pesticides, Ignores Cancer Causing Pesticides

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by Nick Bernabe

March Against Monsanto

The state of California has taken up the noble task of suing natural food retailer Whole Foods over all-natural pesticides the California Department of Pesticide Regulation says it has not approved of. The natural pesticides, including: 365 Natural Pines Pellet Cat Litter, Purely Botanical Cat Flea Spray, Purely Botanical Dog Flea Spray and Enviroman Bugs R Done Bug spray are being sold at Whole Foods markets despite the government reportedly not authorizing permission to sell these products in California.

Perhaps these products would have been readily approved had the companies greased the pockets of California politicians like Monsanto and other large corporations do when legally bribing or 'lobbying' government officials to pass laws that favor their companies and speed up the regulatory approval process. 

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on October 12th

One may naturally question the credibility of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation after it willingly disobeyed constituents when it approved the use of methyl iodide pesticides in December 2011, despite even the farmers' unwillingness to use the chemical.

From CaliforniaWatch.org:

The controversy over methyl iodide has simmered for years, but it erupted in 2010 when Department of Pesticide Regulation managers overruled both their own staff scientists and an agency-appointed peer review panel to approve the chemical for use in California agriculture. 

UCLA professor John Froines, who led the peer review committee, appeared at a state Assembly hearing in Sacramento last April and said “science was subverted” in the state’s decision to approve methyl iodide. 

“I would not want my family, my friends or anyone else to live or work or go to school near fields where this methyl iodide will be used,” Froines said after detailing the chemical’s properties that are known to cause cancer and damage nervous systems. “You had the best science you could have had, and the fact that it was ignored is devastating.”

It seems that despite popular opposition, farmer's reluctance to adopt the chemical pesticide, and clear science showing that this chemical would cause drastic negative health and environmental effects, it was still approved by California Department of Pesticide Regulation: making claims of bribery all the more likely.

The pesticide has since been abandoned in the US by the manufacturer Arysta LifeScience Inc. due to questions over the safety and effectiveness of the product and lack of interest from farmers who were afraid to use it due to consumer and political backlash.

As the war on natural health continues to march on, many people are beginning to question the objectivity and even legitimacy of regulatory bureaucracies who often times receive a large portion of their budgets directly from Big Pharma and Big Food. In fact, the FDA's year over year budget increase of nearly 1 billion dollars is 94% funded by Big Pharma, yet the agencies escape any transparency due to the mainstream media's willful ignorance(and perhaps the $2.4 billion the media receives in ad revenue from Big Pharma every year).

So can we trust these unelected bureaucrats, who often times have direct ties to the very companies they are "regulating", to make unbiased decisions on our behalf? Can we trust them to fairly represent industries that do not lobby them? Let us know how you feel about it in the comments below.

Bayer and FDA Knowingly Exposed Thousands of People to HIV

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Bayer Sells AIDS-Infected Drug Banned in U.S. in Europe, Asia – Unearthed documents show that the drug company Bayer sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine — Factor VIII concentrate, intended for hemophiliacs — to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, although they knew that it was tainted with AIDS. Bayer knew about the fact that the drug was tainted and told the FDA to keep things under wraps while they made a profit off of a drug that infected its patients.

If these allegations are true, then both Bayer and the FDA are at fault for this catastrophe. FDA regulators helped to keep the continued sales hidden, asking the company that the problem be ”quietly solved without alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public,” according to the minutes of a 1985 meeting


Source: rawforbeauty.com

Another Monsanto Lobbyist was Just Hired by the Government

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Following in the footsteps of other Monsanto bigwigs going through the government’s revolving door, the seed company has again supplied a staff member for a position of authority in one of the very agencies that are allegedly present to protect the public from unsafe farming practices.  The Iowa Department of Agriculture has hired Mike Naig to serve as the deputy secretary.

Image: weknowmemes

Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey announced he has hired former Monsanto lobbyist Mike Naig as deputy secretary.
Naig was manager of state and local government affairs for Monsanto, the nation’s largest seed-corn company and a farm-chemical giant.
Naig will start Sept. 4.
“Mike will be a tremendous asset to the department and I’m glad he agreed to join our team,” Northey said in a statement. “His background and experience make him a natural fit for the department.”
…Naig will help manage the ag department, especially on personnel and budget issues. (source)

Source: The Organic Prepper

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

This Is The Corrupt Process That Legalized Apartame

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Image: Raw For Beauty

Did you know that Aspartame was banned by the FDA twice? How is this product legal now?

The bittersweet argument over whether Aspartame is safe or not has been going on for a long time. On one side we have medical evidence that suggests we should avoid using it and on the other side we lean on the FDA’s approval that suggests it is safe. Since generally that seems to be the factor that many continue to hold trust based upon, I thought we could look into the Aspartame story to find out how it came to be accepted as safe by the FDA. You would think that something so widely used and so well accepted would have quite the pristine story leading to its acceptance. I imagine one will discover otherwise after reading this post.

It all starts in the mid 1960′s with a company called G.D. Searle. One of their chemists accidentally creates aspartame while trying to create a cure for stomach ulcers. Searle decides to put aspartame through a testing process which eventually leads to its approval by the FDA. Not long after, serious health effects begin to arise and G.D. Searle comes under fire for their testing practices. It is revealed that the testing process of Aspartame was among the worst the investigators had ever seen and that in fact the product was unsafe for use. Aspartame triggers the first criminal investigation of a manufacturer put into place by the FDA in 1977. By 1980 the FDA bans aspartame from use after having 3 independent scientists study the sweetener. It was determined that one main health effects was that it had a high chance of inducing brain tumors. At this point it was clear that aspartame was not fit to be used in foods and banned is where it stayed, but not for long.

Early in 1981 Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (who is a former Secretary of Defense.. surprise surprise) vowed to “call in his markers,” to get it approved. January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Searle took the steps to re-apply aspartame’s approval for use by the FDA. Ronald Reagans’ new FDA commissioner Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry’s decision. It did not take long for the panel to decide 3-2 in favor of maintaining the ban of aspartame. Hull then decided to appoint a 6th member to the board, which created a tie in the voting, 3-3. Hull then decided to personally break the tie and approve aspartame for use. Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller. Burstone-Marstella is the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle. Since that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.

It is clear to this point that if anything the safety of aspartame is incredibly shaky.  It has already been through a process of being banned and without the illegitimate un-banning of the product, it would not be being used today. Makes you wonder how much corruption and money was involved with names like Rumsfeld, Reagan and Hull involved so heavily. In 1985, Monsanto decides to purchase the aspartame patent from G.D. Searle. Remember that Arthur Hull now had the connection to Monsanto. Monsanto did not seem too concerned with the past challenges and ugly image aspartame had based on its past. I personally find this comical as Monsanto’s products are banned in many countries and of all companies to buy the product they seem to fit best as they are champions of producing incredibly unsafe and untested products and making sure they stay in the market place.

Since then, aspartame has been under a lot of attack by scientists, doctors, chemists and consumers about it’s safety and neurotoxic properties. Piles of comprehensive studies have been completed that show aspartame is a cause for over 90 serious health problems such as cancer, leukemia, headaches, seizures, fibromyalgia, and epilepsy just to name a few. We have written several articles discussing various affects of aspartame.

Sources: Raw For Beauty

Collective Evolution

Azodicarbonamide Banned in most European Countries BUT STILL Found In American Bread

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Azodicarbonamide is commonly found in frozen dinners and frozen potato and bread products. It is used to make things like bleach and foamed plastics (you know, the things they make yoga mats with, for instance).

Azodicarbonamide has been banned in most European countries because it has been found to induce asthma. It has been deemed so dangerous that in Singapore, if you are found to use Azodicarbonamide in your products, you will receive a hefty $450,000 fine and up to 15 YEARS IN PRISON.

According to the FDA, however, "Azodicarbonamide is approved to be a bleaching agent in cereal flour and is permitted for direct addition to food for human consumption."

Who are they kidding? Educate yourself, make your own, grow your own, eat whole foods, or suffer the consequences of consuming products that contain ingredients not even an ant would stand near. 

Source : Live Love Fruit, Awaken The Mind