Category Archives: Controversial Issues

Another Stupid CNN Anti-Supplement Article

You would think by now, CNN would monitor its writers for accuracy but in the case of Caleb Hellerman, I guess he gets a free pass. His article posted on the CNN website today is such a load of garbage that you would have to wonder where this writer gets his paycheck from. Entitled No scientific evidence diet supplements work this pile of trash is unbelievably poorly written and so lacking in honesty, I think it should be listed under fiction instead of being on a news website.

His claim that there is no evidence that nutritional supplements would is a bold faced and unadulterated lie. There are so many studies showing efficacy that he should be ashamed to have even written this drivel. My challenge to Hellerman is that I can come up with 10 studies showing benefits to every one that shows otherwise. His bringing up the embarrassing recent Danish study which purports to show that antioxidant nutrients may shorten life spans should tell you that his prejudice regarding supplements cloud his judgement. The study was so flawed and so obviously twisted since it clearly eliminated any study showing benefits to antioxidant nutrients that no scientist with any credibility would take it seriously. I challenge Hellerman to subscribe to to an email put out by Tishcon called Vitasearch which comes out weekly with studies showing benefits of nutritional supplements from numerous peer-reviewed journals around the world.

This clearly biased writer (cannot call him a reporter as this would imply his ability to report the truth) also states, “studies have found virtually no evidence supplements improve health your health.” Is he really serious?  Can he be that dishonest? I guess so. What would motivate a writer to so blatantly write nonsense like this is beyond me unless there is something nefarious going on. Either that or he is illiterate and unable to read research papers that number in the thousands that show benefits to taking supplements.

Shame on Hellerman and even more shame on CNN for writing this person a paycheck and publishing his crap.

Medicare Fraud – A La Congress

If you missed last weeks Sixty Minutes broadcast on CBS TV, you probably aren’t seething as much as those of us who did. Turns out, that nice little Medicare reform bill that was supposed to make life better for senior citizens did nothing more that enrich the most profitable industry of all, the pharmaceutical (herein renamed harmaceutical).

Our Congress, led by Republican’s, passed a bill that is so one-sided for a particular industry that I believe that criminal charges of theft should be filed against every Congressman that voted for the bill. It will cost you and me, the taxpayers, an estimated 534 billion dollars. The bill disallows Medicare from negotiating with the harmaceutical companies to lower prices for drugs. This should make everyone of you completely outraged. If you want to read the story, click here to go to the CBS website.  Just be prepared to be angered.

Until Americans demand lobbyist reform, we will continue to be ripped off, our taxes stolen from us and our health will be at the mercy of profiteers. The Senate is trying to pass a bill to reverse this travesty but guess what?  The Republicans are fighting it and the President has threatened a veto if passed. Who does he work for?  You can bet it isn’t for the American people.

Economics Over Your Child’s Life – The Conservative View of the World

In a book I reviewed earlier this week, How Everyday Products Make People Sick, by Dr. Paul D. Blanc, there is one part that both angered and sickened me. It had to do with a review of the effects of lead by the conservative think tank – the American Enterprise Institute – Brookings Joint Center AEI/BJC on Regulatory Studies. The comment shows the kind of denial and obfuscation that the conservative right uses to protect industry’s ability to dump toxins on us despite overwhelming research.

Lead is a well known neurotoxin that was used in both gasoline and paint prior to the 1970s. According to numerous studies, lead causes IQ levels to drop, especially in children. What amazed me is that the AEI/BJC did not dispute the fact that lead was neurotoxic but that economically parents gain only $1,100 per IQ point while their children gain $1,900 through lead abatement. Are they kidding me??? Do we measure life benefits in terms of parents versus children? What kind of moral system do these people hold dear? One of their comments was “This analysis suggests lead standards will redistribute resources from parents to their children, because the benefits to parents are less than the costs of the standards. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should reconsider their lead standards.”

Appalling?  You bet. Morally corrupt?  Closer to the truth. My parents came to this country back in 1953 to make their kids lives better, not at our expense but at theirs. The AEI/BJC is one of the many groups that our present administration looks to for advice. What does that say for us when the argument used to reconsider reintroducing lead into our environment is that parents should make more money at the expense of their children?

But lest this be a Bush-Bashing party, let me make it clear that this kind of disgusting government behavior has been going on for centuries and by just about every government in this world. In 1868, the British Fisheries Preservation Authority wrote a pamphlet entitled On Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom. they saw the problems back than.

Dr. Blanc even points out that in 1549 writers talk about things like sick building syndrome (not that term exactly) in a paper called Aerarium Sanitatis. We know that pollution and the dumping of toxins are killing us and causing incalcuable damage to our children and generations to come. As long as it is business as usual, we will continue to be dumped on and lied to about the dangers that surround us.

Please get this book. I don’t care if you get it through clicking on the link below or through any portal you chose, get it. It is one of the finest books on the effects of environmental toxins on human health I have ever read and believe me, I have read a lot of them.

 

How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace

Adult versus Embryonic Stem Cells – Is there a difference?

I know this is a volatile issue but I think we need to at least clarify why there is a need for embryonic stem cells (ESC) versus adult stem cells (ASC). Whether you feel that it is a moral issue or not, the bottom line is that ESC is superior because you can generate vastly more cells with them as opposed to ASC.

Human embryonic stem cells are known as pluripotent, which means they can become any type of cell in the body. The same cannot be said for adult stem cells. You may object to using ESC due to religious or personal beliefs but it is wrong to delude the public, which the present administration has done, that ASC is just as good. It isn’t.

My concern is that other nations, more scientifically enlightened than the U.S. will further the research, come up with the technology to make ESC work, and we will be left behind. The present administration has continually thwarted real science advancement because of religion. I am not in any way, shape, or form an atheist but I do believe in a separation of church and state. If our country is to continue to be the leader of the free-world, we need to change the way we approach science.

If you believe that we should not use ESC, then I respect your opinion. If the majority of people in this country believe that we should not use ESC, then we should not use them. That is simply not the case though as the majority of Americans are for the use of embryonic stem cells. What we should not do is lie to the American people and tell them ASCs are as good. It isn’t true, and it isn’t science.

Intolerance and Hatred – There is no place for it in a enlightened world.

Earlier today news that former NBA player Tim Hardaway made the following statement about John Ameche another former player who admitted being gay, “Well, you know, I hate gay people. I let it be known I don’t like gay people. I don’t like to be around gay people. I’m homophobic.” — Tim Hardaway, on Dan Le Batard’s radio show made all the sports and news talk shows. What strikes me is not the idea that someone is opposed to the gay lifestyle but the use of the word hate. I am not one to judge people like John Ameche for his lifestyle or Tim Hardaway for his comments, that is for a greater being than I am, what I do have a problem with is the lack of respect for a fellow human being and the hypocracy that is Tim Hardaway, his comments and others who have the same deep seated anger.

While listening to the Colin Cowherd talk show on ESPN radio this morning, I was astonished at the number of angry callers who agreed in principle with Mr. Hardaway. One caller claimed that since he was molested as a child he had a good reason for hating gays. Thankfully, Mr. Cowherd admonished him and reminded him that fully 80% of child molesters are heterosexual not homosexual. It is through ignorance that we generate hate, not intelligence. Hate is a base emotion that is borne of frustration and lack of knowledge for the most part.

Gene Wojciechowski wrote what I think is a brilliant response to this situation where his major astonishment is how a man like Hardaway can show such bigotry since he “…played at the same university and for the same coach who, years earlier, helped destroy racial stereotypes by starting five African-American players against all-white Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA Final Four championship game.” So I guess Mr. Hardaway feels it is all right to be a bigot against gays but not blacks.

What I hope for is that news of another gay person coming out of the closet is relegated to the back page of the newspaper, buried with other unimportant issues. The same for the announcement that this Super Bowl is the first with two black head coaches or other news like that. My ideal world would be one where people who are unique don’t have to hide from the spotlight but also that they don’t need to have a spotlight shown on them because they are different.

There are far more pressing issues in this world than the fact that an athlete is gay or that an ignorant ex-player hates him. Let’s move on to more important things like saving our environment or making the world a better place for our children to live in. Oh, and if you have some hate mail for me because of my point of view, just leave it in the draft box because I won’t pay any attention to it.

A Rant in Time, May Save the Environment

Today I’m a little peeved. No, make that really angry.  Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of The House is telling everyone she needs a big plane to go from Washington D.C. to California and back because of her position. Now I’m not just a little mad that this will waste taxpayer money, no I’m really mad because this hypocrite who criticized President Bush for his horrible (and it is horrible) environmental track record is going to waste ten’s of thousands of gallons of jet fuel every year because of her position. Hey Nancy, that is just not right.

Al Gore is another one who should talk about the environment while he flies around in a private jet and riding in a gas guzzling limo. I can understand having some privileges in life but holy cow does it have to be so blatant and wasteful? I bet Al Gore’s ecological footprint is the size of a few hundred of us “simple folk.”

If people are going to buy into the whole “save the environment, save the world” issue, our leaders need to step up to the plate and lead by example. Don’t tell me to cut back on my consumption when you waste so much fuel that I couldn’t make up for it if I lived in a cave and never used a bit of energy for the rest of my life.

Lest I sound like a Democrat basher today, the revelation that 87% of Republican Congressmen don’t buy global warming makes me wonder whether we have a mandatory I.Q. test for our representative or whether all you need is a smile, a few million bucks and a friend in some major industry. Hey guys, if you’re right we will be forced to spend money on making our environment better for generations to come and if you’re wrong and we do nothing like you seem to suggest, our coastal cities will be underwater, our environment will be in horrible shape leading to an increase of disease and suffering (and the added expense of dealing with all those sick people) and droughts will wreck havoc with major regions of the world.  Hmmmm.  What should we do?

Fight on the Hill – Will Big Pharma Get the Tide Turned on Them

Ever since the Republican’s have had control over the House and Senate, as well as the White House, Big Pharma has received a lot of benefits, which in my opinion have been undeserved and unwarranted. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 was a gift to the industry to the tune of more than $8 billion dollars of additional profit according to the January 13, 2007 issue of The Lancet . Since the top ten harmaceutical companies half-year profits in 2006 were a staggering $38 billion, this seems utterly ridiculous.

This opinion piece is not meant to bash a political party. Lord knows they both deserve bashing. What I do have a gripe with is how the Republicans have unabashedly pandered themselves to Big Pharma’s deep pockets. That party received more than 2/3rd’s of the industry’s campaign contributions annually. They spent more than $800 million lobbying Congress and the rest of the Federal government agencies since 1998.

Well, you might ask, they have been creating a bunch of life saving drugs with all the research they’ve been doing, right? Poppycock I say. According to the General Accounting Office, their R & D spending went up by 147% from 1993 to 2004 but new-drug applications only went up 38% in that time frame. Not only that, but the number has been dropping since 1996. If you call Viagra, Cialis and Levitra life saving drugs, well maybe I’m wrong.

In reality, in 2007, there are relatively few new drugs in the pipeline. the industry is in legal battles because of their patent dishonesty when it came to potential side-effects of their drugs (Vioxx, Zypreza to name a few).

The Democrats have already begun the introduction of bills requiring Medicare drug price negotiation, something the Republican backed bill of 2003 forbade. Other bills such as increasing the availability of generics, importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and improved after approval monitoring of existing drugs seem to be on their way. While my faith in politicians is similar to my faith in dinosaurs suddenly appearing at my two young daughter’s elementary school, I do hope a change of climate in Washington D.C. will begin to pull back bad policy decisions made over the past 13 years.

Imagine a Cancer Drug That Kills All Cancers. Too Bad You Can’t Get It.

Imagine if you will that there is a drug that would kill almost any type of cancer, has very few side-effects and is relatively cheap. Actually, you don’t need to imagine it as it does exist and it’s called dichloroacetate or DCA. The problem is no pharmaceutical company will touch it because they can’t patent it and they can’t make ridiculous amounts of money on it. So much for compassionate corporations eh?

What DCA does is cause cancer cells to switch from using glycolysis to generate energy back to using the mitochondria for energy production. This causes the cells to revert from their immortal cancerous state where they commit suicide (apoptosis).

One problem with the drug is that it changes the way researchers need to look at cancer. Instead of being caused by a genetic mutation, they would have to change their point of way and admit that metabolism can spark cancer. My old mentor told me that the real definition of cancer is the abnormal growth and rate of growth of cells. Nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, cancer research is a big business and imagine the problem that would arise if we had a simple and inexpensive answer to many cancers? Lots of jobless researchers I guess.

After reading about this drug in the British journal New Scientist last week I think we need to change the name of drug companies from pharmaceuticals to harmaceuticals. The tag fits them better.

Followup – Your Cat May Make Your Schizophrenic

A recent posting of mine talks about the link between behavior, particularly schizophrenia and infection by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Modern psychiatry has long thought the schizophrenia was either an imbalance of chemicals in the brain or something your mother did to you as a child. In a special edition of Forbes Magazine out now, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey associate director for laboratory research at the Stanley Medical Research in Chevy Chase, Maryland, talks about how this nasty parasite may be the cause of schizophrenia in a large number of cases.

What truly amazes me is that the idea of a microbe causing this devastating brain disorder is not recent. A matter of fact the journal Scientific American published an article entitled “Is Insanity Due to a Microbe?” in 1896. Yes, 1896, over 111 years ago! Very few medical journals are publishing this kind of information which is a shame.

For people suffering with this disease, you need to demand that your physician look into the possibility of Toxoplasma gondii as being the cause of your disorder. Make them look at an antibody test for the parasite. This could be the breakthrough many people have been looking for.

Stop Worrying So Much about What You Eat and Start Enjoying Your Meals More

In research done around the world we are finding out that when you eat a meal you enjoy you absorb more nutrients than meals you don’t like. My old mentor John Kitkoski told me that eating foods more indiginous to our heritage is more important than listening to doctors telling you what to eat. In a book put out by Barry Glassner from the University of Southern California called The Gospel of Food:Everything You Know about Food Is Wrong he tested that theory on Thai and Swedish women.

The women were fed a spicy meal which the Swedes objected to but the Thai women loved it. Surprisingly, the Thai women absorbed more of iron than the Swedish women did. When the meals were switched to meat and potatoes, the Swedish women absorbed more iron this time. When a meal was given that neither side liked much, neither the Thai women nor the Swedish women absorbed much iron.

Harvard University epidemiologist Dr. Karin Michels had a great comment – “It appears more important to increase the number of healthy foods than to reduce the number of less healthy foods regularly consumed.”

In other important correlations, it seems that disease prevalence is worse in communities where participation in civic life is low. Being involved in charitable, community based work isn’t just good for the world around you, but it’s good for your health.

Another quote, this time from Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine – ” Although we would all like to believe that changes in diet or lifestyle can greatly improve our health, the likelihood is that, with a few exceptions such as smoking cessation, many if not most such changes will only produce small effects. And the effects may not be consistent. A diet that is harmful to one person may be consumed with impunity by another.” Holy cow Batman, the concept of biochemical individuality may be at work here!!! People are different. What a concept.