(NaturalNews) The CDC now reports that nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed by H1N1 swine flu. This number is supposed to sound big and scary, motivating millions of people to go out and pay good money to be injected with untested, unproven H1N1 vaccines. But let's put the number in perspective: Did you know that more than four times as many people are killed each year by common NSAID painkillers like aspirin?
The July 1998 issue of The American Journal of Medicine explains it as follows:
"Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone." (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)
So for every person the CDC claims was killed by H1N1 swine flu this year, common painkillers like aspirin have killed four! Yet you don't see the CDC, FDA, WHO or mainstream media running around screaming about the extreme dangers of aspirin, do you? All those deaths apparently don't matter. Only swine flu deaths lead to hysteria.
Understanding risk
According to death statistics tables available on the 'net, you are ten times more likely to die in a car accident this year than be killed by swine flu.
Nearly 100,000 Americans die every year from adverse reactions to FDA-approved prescription drugs. That's twenty-five times the number of people killed by H1N1 swine flu (even if you believe the CDC's numbers). So where's the big warning about the dangers of prescription drugs? Why isn't the CDC warning Americans about an "epidemic of dangerous drugs" that poses a far greater threat to your health?
The answer, of course, is that health authorities want to push people to buy vaccines that are about to become worthless (they're only good before swine flu fizzles out). And the only way to sell more vaccines to people who don't need them is to hype up a bunch of scare stories by citing bold statistics that make H1N1 swine flu seem really, really dangerous.
But the flu is no more dangerous than aspirin. In fact, H1N1 swine flu may be safer than aspirin.
Here's another quote from the New England Journal of Medicine:
"It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin’s disease. If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects from NSAIDs were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States. Yet these toxic effects remain mainly a “silent epidemic,” with many physicians and most patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Furthermore the mortality statistics do not include deaths ascribed to the use of over-the-counter NSAIDS." (Wolfe M. MD, Lichtenstein D. MD, and Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs”, The New England Journal of Medicine, June 17, 1999, Vol. 340, No. 24, pp. 1888-1889.)
Did you catch that? The 16,500 figure for deaths each year doesn't even include over-the-counter painkiller drugs! If you add in those numbers, you're probably looking at something closer to 40,000 Americans kills each year by these drugs. And that makes these drugs 1000% more deadly than swine flu (because 40,000 is ten times greater than 4,000)
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Common Pain Medication Fuels Cancer Growth
(NaturalNews) Painkillers known as opiates are widely used to treat both acute and chronic pain. Morphine, in particular, is often used to relieve the pain experienced by cancer patients. But now comes evidence from two new studies that strongly indicates opiate-based painkillers actually fuel the growth and spread of malignancies.
The research presented in Boston on November 18, 2009, at "Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics," a joint meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, the National Cancer Institute, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, advances the concept that opiate drugs are cancer promoters. The research also explains how protecting cancer cells from opiates may reduce cell proliferation, invasion and migration.
The concept that opiate drugs used to help cancer patients might be contributing to cancer recurrence developed about eight years ago from several unrelated clinical and laboratory studies. First, a 2002 palliative care study found patients who received spinal rather than systemic pain relief from opiate drugs lived longer. A short time later, Jonathan Moss, professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the University of Chicago, reported that several cancer patients receiving a selective opiate blocker called methylnaltrexone (MNTX) which was developed in the 1980s to treat opiate-induced constipation lived far longer than they were expected to. Other studies had similar results.
"These were patients with advanced cancer and a life expectancy of one to two months yet several lived for another five or six. It made us wonder whether this was just a consequence of better GI function or could there possibly be an effect on the tumors," Moss said in a press statement.
Patrick A. Singleton, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, along with Moss, Joe G.N. Garcia, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, and colleagues decided to investigate the many peripheral effects of opiates that might encourage cancer growth and the potential benefits of blocking those effects. In laboratory studies using both cell cultures and mice, the scientists found that morphine did directly rev up the proliferation of tumor cells. It also inhibited the immune response, and promoted angiogenesis (the growth of the blood vessels that help "feed" tumors and allow them to thrive). In the research just presented by Singleton and colleagues, they focused on the mu opiate receptor as a regulator of tumor growth and metastasis and they documented the ability of MNTX to block the cancer-promoting effects of opiates on this receptor.
Bottom line: it appears time for doctors and patients to consider all the side effects of opiate pain relievers, including the fact they may spur cancer to grow. Blocking the cancer-fueling ability of opiates and/or using them for as short a time as possible -- or not at all unless absolutely necessary -- appears to be the safest, and healthiest course of action.
For more information:
http://www.aacr.org/home/scientists...
The research presented in Boston on November 18, 2009, at "Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics," a joint meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, the National Cancer Institute, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, advances the concept that opiate drugs are cancer promoters. The research also explains how protecting cancer cells from opiates may reduce cell proliferation, invasion and migration.
The concept that opiate drugs used to help cancer patients might be contributing to cancer recurrence developed about eight years ago from several unrelated clinical and laboratory studies. First, a 2002 palliative care study found patients who received spinal rather than systemic pain relief from opiate drugs lived longer. A short time later, Jonathan Moss, professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the University of Chicago, reported that several cancer patients receiving a selective opiate blocker called methylnaltrexone (MNTX) which was developed in the 1980s to treat opiate-induced constipation lived far longer than they were expected to. Other studies had similar results.
"These were patients with advanced cancer and a life expectancy of one to two months yet several lived for another five or six. It made us wonder whether this was just a consequence of better GI function or could there possibly be an effect on the tumors," Moss said in a press statement.
Patrick A. Singleton, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, along with Moss, Joe G.N. Garcia, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, and colleagues decided to investigate the many peripheral effects of opiates that might encourage cancer growth and the potential benefits of blocking those effects. In laboratory studies using both cell cultures and mice, the scientists found that morphine did directly rev up the proliferation of tumor cells. It also inhibited the immune response, and promoted angiogenesis (the growth of the blood vessels that help "feed" tumors and allow them to thrive). In the research just presented by Singleton and colleagues, they focused on the mu opiate receptor as a regulator of tumor growth and metastasis and they documented the ability of MNTX to block the cancer-promoting effects of opiates on this receptor.
Bottom line: it appears time for doctors and patients to consider all the side effects of opiate pain relievers, including the fact they may spur cancer to grow. Blocking the cancer-fueling ability of opiates and/or using them for as short a time as possible -- or not at all unless absolutely necessary -- appears to be the safest, and healthiest course of action.
For more information:
http://www.aacr.org/home/scientists...
FDA Warns on Overdose Risk for Darvon and Darvocet Painkillers
(NaturalNews) The FDA has issued a warning about the high overdose risk from the opiate painkillers Darvon and Darvocet, but has stopped short of banning the drugs as the United Kingdom has done.
Darvon and Darvocet contain a mix of an over-the-counter painkiller (either aspirin or acetaminophen) and the opiate propoxyphene, also known as dextropropoxyphene. The new FDA rules will require a tougher boxed warning on all products containing propoxyphene about the particular danger that the drugs pose when taken at higher-than-recommended doses.
"FDA is taking action to reduce the likelihood of such fatal overdoses in the United States while we investigate the safety of propoxyphene more fully," the agency said. "In Europe, there is recent evidence that this medication may be more lethal in overdose than other pain medications."
After the propoxyphene-acetominophen combination marketed in the United Kingdom as co-proxamol was withdrawn from the market in that country, the number of suicides and accidental overdoses from painkillers fell dramatically. Approximately 295 fewer people committed suicide with co-proxamol and 54 fewer people died from accidents involving the drug over a two-year period, with no corresponding increase in suicides or accidental poisonings using other painkillers.
"Major changes in prescribing after the announcement of the withdrawal of co-proxamol have had a marked beneficial effect on poisoning mortality involving this drug, with little evidence of substitution of suicide method related to increased prescribing of other analgesics," Oxford University researchers concluded in a recent study.
The FDA's ruling came in response to a petition by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which had also requested that the drug be phased out of the U.S. market. Although an FDA advisory panel also voted 14-12 in favor of withdrawing the drug, the agency decided only to strengthen warnings on the drug and conduct further research at this time.
Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com.
Darvon and Darvocet contain a mix of an over-the-counter painkiller (either aspirin or acetaminophen) and the opiate propoxyphene, also known as dextropropoxyphene. The new FDA rules will require a tougher boxed warning on all products containing propoxyphene about the particular danger that the drugs pose when taken at higher-than-recommended doses.
"FDA is taking action to reduce the likelihood of such fatal overdoses in the United States while we investigate the safety of propoxyphene more fully," the agency said. "In Europe, there is recent evidence that this medication may be more lethal in overdose than other pain medications."
After the propoxyphene-acetominophen combination marketed in the United Kingdom as co-proxamol was withdrawn from the market in that country, the number of suicides and accidental overdoses from painkillers fell dramatically. Approximately 295 fewer people committed suicide with co-proxamol and 54 fewer people died from accidents involving the drug over a two-year period, with no corresponding increase in suicides or accidental poisonings using other painkillers.
"Major changes in prescribing after the announcement of the withdrawal of co-proxamol have had a marked beneficial effect on poisoning mortality involving this drug, with little evidence of substitution of suicide method related to increased prescribing of other analgesics," Oxford University researchers concluded in a recent study.
The FDA's ruling came in response to a petition by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which had also requested that the drug be phased out of the U.S. market. Although an FDA advisory panel also voted 14-12 in favor of withdrawing the drug, the agency decided only to strengthen warnings on the drug and conduct further research at this time.
Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com.
Chemotherapy for testicular cancer causes long-term neurological damage
(NaturalNews) The November 25 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute contains a report about the long-term side effects experienced by men who received cisplatin-based chemotherapy for testicular cancer. Severe neurological side effects, discoloration of the hands and feet when exposed to the cold (Raynaud-like phenomena), tinnitus, and impaired hearing were found to be common in men who received chemotherapy as opposed to those who did not.
Men who received cancer treatment between 1980 and 1994 were given follow-up surveys between 1998 and 2002 to assess their conditions after treatment. Researchers found that in the decades following treatment, those men who received any form of chemotherapy were significantly more likely to be experiencing long-term negative side-effects as a result.
In the chemotherapy group, 39 percent of men reported Raynaud-like phenomena, 29 percent reported paresthesias in the hands or feet, 21 percent reported hearing impairment, and 22 percent reported tinnitus symptoms.
Marianne Brydoy, M.D., from Haukeland University's Department of Oncology in Norway, conducted the study with the help of her colleagues to verify the correlation between high rates of long-term neurological damage and chemotherapy. Since the control groups who did not receive any form of chemotherapy experienced far fewer neurological damage incidents than did those who received chemotherapy, the results are indicative of an underlying problem with chemotherapy treatment.
Experts aim to reassess proper treatments for testicular cancer. They hope to minimize the toxic side effects of chemotherapy by reformulating the levels of cisplatin used in chemotherapy treatment. According to their research, 20 mg/m2 a day is the maximum safe dosage of the drug.
The only way to protect yourself from these devastating effects of chemotherapy is to take protective nutritional supplements before undergoing chemo treatments. But oncologists sternly warn patients against consuming such nutritional supplements by citing one of the most oft-repeated myths of the cancer industry: "Nutritional supplements block the chemotherapy" they say!
It's a lie, of course, but it's been repeated so frequently by the cancer establishment that they can't even remember who uttered it first... or why. Truth be told, there is absolutely no science backing up such a false belief. No credible scientific study has ever found that antioxidants or other immune-boosting supplements impede chemotherapy treatments at all. In fact, many supplements potentiate the chemo for cancer cells while simultaneously reducing its toxic effects on healthy cells.
Then again, if cancer doctors knew anything at all about nutrition, they probably wouldn't be in the business of poisoning people with chemo in the first place.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/...
Men who received cancer treatment between 1980 and 1994 were given follow-up surveys between 1998 and 2002 to assess their conditions after treatment. Researchers found that in the decades following treatment, those men who received any form of chemotherapy were significantly more likely to be experiencing long-term negative side-effects as a result.
In the chemotherapy group, 39 percent of men reported Raynaud-like phenomena, 29 percent reported paresthesias in the hands or feet, 21 percent reported hearing impairment, and 22 percent reported tinnitus symptoms.
Marianne Brydoy, M.D., from Haukeland University's Department of Oncology in Norway, conducted the study with the help of her colleagues to verify the correlation between high rates of long-term neurological damage and chemotherapy. Since the control groups who did not receive any form of chemotherapy experienced far fewer neurological damage incidents than did those who received chemotherapy, the results are indicative of an underlying problem with chemotherapy treatment.
Experts aim to reassess proper treatments for testicular cancer. They hope to minimize the toxic side effects of chemotherapy by reformulating the levels of cisplatin used in chemotherapy treatment. According to their research, 20 mg/m2 a day is the maximum safe dosage of the drug.
Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
As this study goes to show, chemotherapy is poison. While chemo may at first appear to be working by shrinking a tumor, it is in fact a systemic poison that will inevitably destroy cells throughout the body, most notably in the brain, heart, liver and kidneys.The only way to protect yourself from these devastating effects of chemotherapy is to take protective nutritional supplements before undergoing chemo treatments. But oncologists sternly warn patients against consuming such nutritional supplements by citing one of the most oft-repeated myths of the cancer industry: "Nutritional supplements block the chemotherapy" they say!
It's a lie, of course, but it's been repeated so frequently by the cancer establishment that they can't even remember who uttered it first... or why. Truth be told, there is absolutely no science backing up such a false belief. No credible scientific study has ever found that antioxidants or other immune-boosting supplements impede chemotherapy treatments at all. In fact, many supplements potentiate the chemo for cancer cells while simultaneously reducing its toxic effects on healthy cells.
Then again, if cancer doctors knew anything at all about nutrition, they probably wouldn't be in the business of poisoning people with chemo in the first place.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
H1N1 vaccines too little, too late; most people already exposed and immune (opinion)
(NaturalNews) The Big Pharma frenzy over H1N1 vaccines has turned into a circus of hilarious medical quackery thanks to the fact that by the time the vaccines are available, most people will have already been exposed to the virus. Hence, most people will have already built up their own H1N1 antibodies, rendering the vaccine not just useless, but downright laughable.
Even with the outlandish rush to get these vaccines approved by the FDA -- a hurry that saw the complete abandonment of the principles of "scientific testing" -- Big Pharma just couldn't get these vaccines produced quickly enough to beat the virus itself. Taking a vaccine shot after you've already been exposed is medically useless. It's equivalent to putting on your seat belt after getting into a car wreck.
Even U.S. News & World Report, which is heavily funded by Big Pharma advertising, is now admitting the swine flu outbreak may be over before the vaccines arrive. It reports:
"Richard Wenzel, an H1N1 expert and former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, predicts that the outbreak will last another four to eight weeks before tapering off. In fact, some areas in the South already are seeing a decline in cases. Given that the vaccine will be produced in limited quantities on a rolling basis, most healthy middle-aged adults -- who the government recommends should be vaccinated after children, college students, and pregnant women -- won't be getting immunized before the outbreaks peak and wane."
(http://health.usnews.com/articles/h...)
Did you catch the significance of that last sentence? Most people won't be getting immunized before the outbreak tapers off. And that means the whole reason for getting the vaccine in the first place -- to avoid being killed by an exploding pandemic -- will soon be rendered pointless. Leave it to western medicine to act all heroic, pretending to be saving people's lives from a pandemic that's already on the way out...
Maintaining the illusion
Of course, infectious disease reality never got in the way of Big Pharma making a buck, so this inane vaccine push will continue whether people need it or not. All these vaccines have already been ordered and paid for with taxpayer dollars. Delivery is on the way, and there are no refunds. If cities, states and nations don't use all these vaccines, they'll look pretty darned stupid for buying them, won't they?
That's why health authorities everywhere are determined to use up these vaccines regardless of medical reality. And that means finding enough willing children and adults to be injected. Following that, as the swine flu pandemic fades away (which it was going to do anyway), all the vaccine-pushing health authorities can proclaim, "We did it! We beat the pandemic with the vaccines!"
But the pandemic was burning out on its own, without any intervention at all.
Of course, taking credit for solving problems they didn't really solve is nothing new to the vaccine industry. To this day, the drug companies credit themselves with eradicating smallpox, measles and yellow fever when, in reality, the historical record shows that it was primarily improvements in hygiene and public infrastructure that caused these once-terrible epidemics to wane.
Even with the outlandish rush to get these vaccines approved by the FDA -- a hurry that saw the complete abandonment of the principles of "scientific testing" -- Big Pharma just couldn't get these vaccines produced quickly enough to beat the virus itself. Taking a vaccine shot after you've already been exposed is medically useless. It's equivalent to putting on your seat belt after getting into a car wreck.
Even U.S. News & World Report, which is heavily funded by Big Pharma advertising, is now admitting the swine flu outbreak may be over before the vaccines arrive. It reports:
"Richard Wenzel, an H1N1 expert and former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, predicts that the outbreak will last another four to eight weeks before tapering off. In fact, some areas in the South already are seeing a decline in cases. Given that the vaccine will be produced in limited quantities on a rolling basis, most healthy middle-aged adults -- who the government recommends should be vaccinated after children, college students, and pregnant women -- won't be getting immunized before the outbreaks peak and wane."
(http://health.usnews.com/articles/h...)
Did you catch the significance of that last sentence? Most people won't be getting immunized before the outbreak tapers off. And that means the whole reason for getting the vaccine in the first place -- to avoid being killed by an exploding pandemic -- will soon be rendered pointless. Leave it to western medicine to act all heroic, pretending to be saving people's lives from a pandemic that's already on the way out...
Maintaining the illusion
Of course, infectious disease reality never got in the way of Big Pharma making a buck, so this inane vaccine push will continue whether people need it or not. All these vaccines have already been ordered and paid for with taxpayer dollars. Delivery is on the way, and there are no refunds. If cities, states and nations don't use all these vaccines, they'll look pretty darned stupid for buying them, won't they?
That's why health authorities everywhere are determined to use up these vaccines regardless of medical reality. And that means finding enough willing children and adults to be injected. Following that, as the swine flu pandemic fades away (which it was going to do anyway), all the vaccine-pushing health authorities can proclaim, "We did it! We beat the pandemic with the vaccines!"
But the pandemic was burning out on its own, without any intervention at all.
Of course, taking credit for solving problems they didn't really solve is nothing new to the vaccine industry. To this day, the drug companies credit themselves with eradicating smallpox, measles and yellow fever when, in reality, the historical record shows that it was primarily improvements in hygiene and public infrastructure that caused these once-terrible epidemics to wane.
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