The Newest Finding in the Use of Laboratory Testing in Inflammation
I just gave a talk in Boulder, Colorado at the Healing Journey Seminar on the use of laboratory testing and inflammation. For those of you interested in the subject, I’ve uploaded the Powepoint presentation. Enjoy!
Incontinence drugs like Detrol, have now been linked to memory problems and other psychological ills. According to this article on MSNBC.com, “The people who took the drugs had a 50 percent faster rate of cognitive decline compared to those who didn’t take any.” That is pretty staggering if you ask me. Other drugs in the same class, known as anticholinergics also have similar effects.
So what does Pfizer, who makes Detrol say? Here is a quote from Ponni Subbiah, Pfizer’s vice president of medical affairs, “Detrol has been on the market since 1998. It has been prescribed more than 100 million times worldwide.” further more he states “the frequency of events and the role of Detrol in their causation cannot be reliably determined,” Huh? So basically they say that despite what the research tells us, lots of people are taking it and there is no way you are ever going to prove that it’s bad. Pfizer’s mind-numbing denial just goes to show how they clearly think money over health of their customers. I guess they must be working on a brain enhancing drug to make up for the brain numbing effect of Detrol. I think that maybe they have the people working at Pfizer on Detrol in order to come up with the kind of nonsensical comments they make.
My favorite part of the article was the following comment – “Our message is to be careful when using these medicines,” said U.S. Navy neurologist Dr. Jack Tsao, who led the study. “It may be better to use diapers and be able to think clearly than the other way around.” I would add that it might behove you to try some GPC (glycerophosphocholine) or PS (phosphatidyl serine) to boost brain function as well
It just keeps coming it seems, the pharmaceutical industry has stooped to levels even I didn’t think possible. Merck was just found to have paid academic scientists to put their names on papers they didn’t write. Who wrote the papers? Company hired medical writers of course.
According to Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, JAMA’s editor-in-chief, “The manipulation is disgusting. I just didn’t realize the extent.” I think her use of the word disgusting pretty much sums up my opinion of this revelation. The article about this scandal is in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association. You can read the two articles, one by Ross, Hill, Egilman, and Krumholz and the other by Psaty and Kronmal.
One JAMA report says internal company data showed in 2001 that Vioxx patients in two Alzheimer’s studies had a higher death rate than patients on dummy pills. Merck didn’t publicize that “in a timely fashion” and provided information to federal regulators that downplayed the deaths, the report said. It’s time to reign in the industry through Congressional legislation.
Lest you think that only Merck is guilty of this deception, think again. I am sure that you will see more of this cropping up in the coming months. In my opinion, this type of behavior is driven by executives of pharmaceutical companies need to impress Wall Street and fluff up their balance sheets instead of having patient’s health in mind.
Here is the result of a paper done by Choudry, et al published in JAMA about how pervasive the industry’s hooks into medicine is:
“Eighty-seven percent of authors had some form of interaction with the pharmaceutical industry. Fifty-eight percent had received financial support to perform research and 38% had served as employees or consultants for a pharmaceutical company. On average, CPG authors interacted with 10.5 different companies. Overall, an average of 81% (95% confidence interval, 70%-92%) of authors per CPG had interactions. Similarly, all of the CPGs for 7 of the 10 diseases included in our study had at least 1 author who had some interaction. Fifty-nine percent had relationships with companies whose drugs were considered in the guideline they authored, and of these authors, 96% had relationships that predated the guideline creation process. Fifty-five percent of respondents indicated that the guideline process with which they were involved had no formal process for declaring these relationships. In published versions of the CPGs, specific declarations regarding the personal financial interactions of individual authors with the pharmaceutical industry were made in only 2 cases. Seven percent thought that their own relationships with the pharmaceutical industry influenced the recommendations and 19% thought that their coauthors’ recommendations were influenced by their relationships. “
What is truly sad is how many people have suffered health and financial wise due to the greed and immoral behavior by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mitochondrial Insufficiency, Type II Diabetes and Infertility/Pregnancy
Autism, Asthma, Allergies and Obesity Presentation
I’d like to thank the people who attended a training session I was part of this past weekend in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. It gave me a great surge of energy to meet so many people who are passionate about health and nutrition.
As promised I have uploaded my two presentations above for you to read and use (just make sure you tell people where you got the slides). Please also visit my other blog site, ToxicWorldBook.
There is a lot of data out there on the links between disease and environmental toxins. Problem is, there is a LOT of data on the links. Where to go if you need to see how strong the data is? Well look no further than The Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s – CHE Toxicant and Disease Database.
From Abnormal sperm (morphology, motility, and sperm count) to Wilm’s Tumor, this database is chock full of information on the links between the poison’s we are exposed to and the health concerns many of us face. A definite favorite link to keep if you’re a health care practitioner.
An important thought as well is to make sure you test for the toxins instead of just going out and looking at a disorder and immediately thinking that the toxins listed are the cause of the disease. You can’t treat strictly based on what you think is there. Both the US Biotek test for Environmental Pollutants and the Whole Blood Elements Test from Doctor’s Data is the way to go.
My book, Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World is now available through multiple outlets. It is the story of a child, my daughter, and her battle with a rare type of epilepsy, given little chance of recovery by the medical world, but through it all she has made it through, not perfectly, with the ability to live a normal life.
It also deals with what I believe caused her disorder, environmental toxicity. We are polluting our world at a staggering ratewhich is causing epidemics of diseases unheard of in human history. Big corporations would want you to believe this is not happening but my book shows you the truth.
The scariest part of my research delved into the effect these toxins are having on our most vunerable citizens, our children, and the up coming generations. In the final two parts of the book, I give you real world ideas on how to cope with the toxins and how you can begin the movement toward changing our world before it is too late. The increase in the rate of autism, asthma, epilepsy, ADHD, childhood cancers, cannot be explained by a “genetic epidemic”. We are poisoning ourselves and we can change that.
To order the book, you can go to either Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com or for faster service my publisher – AuthorHouse’s web site . This book represents my 20+ years of research along with the passion that comes with fighting for a daughter’s life. I can guarantee one thing about the book and that is it will move you, both emotionally and physically to help us change the world.
Coming out soon is a book that Gary Taubes, a New York City journalist has written called The Diet Delusion by Vermilion. In it he writes that obesity is not simply eating too many calories but the abnormal effect on ones hormones. Taube wrote in the recent New Scientist magazine (January 19-25th, 2008) that “There is considerable evidence that the obesity epidemic is caused by a hormonal phenomenon, specifically by the consumption of refined carbohydrates, starches and sugars, all of which prompt (sooner or later) excessive insulin secretion.”
Furthermore, he skewers many in the diet industry by saying “Obesity researchers, nutritionists and health authorities have refused to contemplate this scenario, partly because it would imply that diet-book doctors advocating carbohydrate-restricted diets – Robert Atkins et al – were right all along. Instead, these alleged experts and guardians of our health have wasted a good part of a century on research based on a high-school misconception, watching their compatriots grow ever fatter while blaming everyone but themselves. In the process, they have created a field of clinical medicine that functions more like a religion than a science. It is time to put science back in charge.”
I agree with him that hormones are at the root of obesity but I want to add something he hasn’t looked at (or at least I don’t think he has which is the effect of environmental toxins on hormones and obesity. To me, it is the very cornerstone of why the world is getting fat. Toxins like phthalates, bisphenol A, benzene, toluene, and xylene, all have been shown to have an effect on hormones. Heavy metals which can also interfere with hormones as well so just putting the blame on bad carbohydrates, is only part of the story. I highly suggest reading the article in the New Scientist and getting a subscription while you’re at it.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any lower, it does. A report published on the Nature magazine website claims that Dr. Steven M. Haffner of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, forwarded a report to drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline warning them about a paper that was about to be published by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) critical of their blockbuster (blockbuster meaning big money maker) drug Avandia. He was supposed to be reviewing the paper and it is highly unethical and against NEJM rules to let anyone else see a paper being reviewed.
To see the full extent of the problem, go to this link at the New York Times. My question is, when do we put a stop to this unbridled greed and deceit?
It almost seems to be an everyday issue, but more and more we see how drug trials that don’t show benefits are being either ignored, hidden or modified by the pharmaceutical industry. In a review of the studies on 12 antidepressant drugs, researchers led by Erick H. Turner found that 31% of the studies on these drugs went unpublished and the majority were negative or were conveyed to have a positive outcome which was contrary to the data. The paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in their January 17, 2008 issue. What was truly remarkable was how much the perceived benefits of the drugs were changed because of the lack of publication of all of the data. According to the authors, if you looked at the published research, the antidepressant drugs had positive outcomes 94% of the time. If you include the unpublished research that number drops to a mere 51%. This is a huge difference and should make everyone think twice before agreeing to be put on the medications or at least safer, alternatives should be investigated first.
According to the papers conclusion, “We cannot determine whether the bias observed resulted from a failure to submit manuscripts on the part of authors and sponsors, from decisions by journal editors and reviewers not to publish, or both. Selective reporting of clinical trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, health care professionals, and patients.” In my opinion, it is the sponsors who are probably most likely to apply pressure to stop publication. This would mean that the pharmaceutical industry is to blame. We need to take research on drug efficacy out of their hands and into the hands of real researchers without the onus of pressure and conflict of interest.
Why is this so damaging? When you do a search on meta-analysis of antidepressant drugs, you find a number that show how beneficial the drugs are, like the one by Drs. Dubika, Hadley and Roberts entitled, “Suicidal behaviour in youths with depression treated with new-generation antidepressants” published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2006. Would that study’s conclusion, which is that “Antidepressants may cause a small short-term risk of self-harm or suicidal events in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder” have changed to a large short-term risk or a small long-term risk or maybe worst case scenario, a large long-term risk? Chances are, based on the Turner paper that the answer is yes, the results would have changed but by how much, we cannot tell.
What we can say is that there is a major problem that needs a solution and it has to come sooner than later. How many of us are on medications that may not be helping us or maybe damaging our health and that of our loved ones?
So what do we do about it? Determine biochemical imbalances and toxicity influences on behavior as well as inflammatory processes that have been shown to cause depression in people for decades. The research exists but it is being downplayed by greedy pharmaceutical giants whose obvious intention is to make money at all costs and deflect criticism and downgrade safe alternatives.
Tomorrow, I will discuss a few tests I think are extremely helpful in working with mild to moderate depression in both adults and children.
In the January 19, 2008 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet, author Samuel Lowenberg brings up a number of serious questions relating to ethics and drug trials done by the pharmaceutical industry. After reading his brief two page review, it is apparent that a major overhaul in the way clinical trials are done is in order. The trail of abuse is international in scope and has possibly caused the deaths of innocent children.
According to Tikki Pang, the World Health Organization’s director of Research Policy and Cooperation, “The trials that are being done overseas by drug companies are in a sense secret, because they do not share the information, they site confidentiality and patient protection.” He further goes on to say “Anecdotally, we have heard many, many instances in India, China and other countries of the possibility of ethical safeguards not being followed.” In Nigeria, a number of children died of an experimental anti-meningitis drug Trovan and Pfizer, according to a lawsuit, destroyed data from the trial and gave some of the children a dangerously low dose of Rocephin, a known treatment for meningitis.
It is time for Congress to enact a bill demanding that all drug trial, in the U.S. or abroad, be registered and the results must be shared with the FDA regardless of outcome. The data then must be shared with the public without prejudice and in a timely manner. The nonsense that is pharmaceutical research has got to change. People’s health is at risk and lives are at stake. They are treating third world people like lab rats and this has got to stop.