Month: February 2009

(3 stars)
Strength: it emphasized this was a small, early study. But it focused exclusively on one patient with an excellent outcome, giving no broader data from the study. No independent sources were quoted.

(NaturalNews) While the Obama administration is attempting to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in a hurry, NaturalNews readers have begun actually reading the bill, and they’re finding some worrying language that should raise concern among people interested in preserving health freedom and protecting the health of all Americans.

Specifically, one section of the economic stimulus bill designates nearly a billion dollars for new vaccinations of children. This was discovered by Elisha Celeste, a NaturalNews reader. As stated in the bill:

$954,000,000 shall be used as an additional amount to carry out the immunization program authorized by section 317(a), (j), and (k)(1) of the Public Health Service Act (“section 317 immunization program”)

The issue of whether vaccinations are actually helpful or harmful is hotly debated, of course. The pro-vaccine camp believes that the human immune system is a technological failure and that chemical intervention is the only way to protect children. The anti-vaccine camp believes that exposure to non-fatal infections actually strengthens the immune system, creating stronger protections against future infections. Thus, vaccines actually interfere with normal, healthy immune function while injecting children with dangerous chemicals and substances derived from sick, diseased animals.

NaturalNews is against childhood vaccines as explained in this article that completely debunks conventional beliefs about vaccinations: http://www.naturalnews.com/025596.html

Genomics programs?
The economic stimulus bill also requests more than half a billion dollars for “genomics programs”, saying:

$545,000,000 shall be used as an additional amount to carry out chronic disease, health promotion, and genomics programs

What’s interesting about this last quote is that it essentially says this half a billion dollars should be used to carry out three things:

1) Chronic disease programs
2) Health promotion
3) Genomics programs

I don’t have a problem with the second point. “Health promotion” sounds good (unless it’s nothing more than mammograms and mental health screening programs designed to sell more chemotherapy and psych drugs). But what, exactly, is meant by the phrase “…to carry out chronic disease”? And what is meant by “genomics programs”? Are we talking about government-funded genetic experimentation on human babies, perhaps? It wouldn’t be the first time. See: http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html

You can find the text quoted here in an early version of the bill at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/h679_rh.xml

This text has survived in the recent versions of the bill and is about to be passed into law. A vote could take place as early as tomorrow.

The real question, of course, is this: What is sweeping health care reform doing hidden inside an economic stimulus bill?

And why is this bill being passed so quickly, without any chance for public debate on its merits or problems?

Democracy should not be carried out under the dark cover of fear-based urgency that bypasses public debate and cool-headed consideration. Health care reforms deserve more than a one-day debate. Virtually no one has actually read this bill. It’s 800 pages long, and more than a quarter of the bill is dedicated to these sweeping health care “reforms” that essentially represent sudden, significant changes in America’s health care system.

This isn’t about the right or the left. It’s about the process of Democracy. For Obama and members of Congress to hide this health care reform inside an urgent economic stimulus bill, then tell no one about it — and try to pass it quickly before anyone notices — is outright deception.

At the very least, they should remove the health care language from the bill and vote on the economic stimulus bill as purely a spending proposition (and that’s a whole different article). The health care changes should be carefully considered separate from this emergency stimulus bill.

Help stop the economic stimulus bill and / or request removal of the health care provisions
Key Phone Numbers:

Capital Switchboard , (202) 224-3121
Or go to www.senate.gov to get your Senator’s contact information.

The three key Senators to also contact:

Collins, Susan M. – (R – ME)
Direct: (202) 224-2523
Fax: (202) 224-2693

Specter, Arlen – (R – PA)
Direct: (202) 224-4254
Fax: 202-228-1229

Snowe, Olympia J. – (R – ME)
Direct: (202) 224-5344
Fax: (202) 224-1946

(NaturalNews) Under the cover of emergency economic legislation the front wave of an entire new system of health care is being pushed on Americans. The strategy for this ploy was once explained by Obama’s former appointee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and now exposed tax cheat, Senator Tom Daschle. Daschle spells out the plan on pages 196-197 of his book, Critical , What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, “The next president should act immediately to capitalize on the goodwill that greets any incoming administration. If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it. This issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.” In other words, public debate should be avoided, forget about democracy , so that Obama-care does not meet the same fate as Hillary-care.

In the last few days a debate on this issue has blown up on national TV, talk radio, and the internet. It began with an article published on Bloomberg titled, “Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan” by Betsy McCaughey. McCaughey says the plan could be used to ration care to the elderly, putting government, not doctors, in charge of what care will be delivered. She has been interviewed on Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck. Fox News, the Drudge Report, and even Rush Limbaugh have spread the news. Limbaugh warned his listening audience that their patient privacy was at stake and that “Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.” The bottom line of their messages: quality of care and type of care will not be determined by the doctor, but rather by a new system of cost containment implemented by the federal government.

(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs)

Democrats have found themselves on the defense. While getting grilled on FOX news Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said, “There is nothing in this legislation that interferes with a doctor making a decision, with the patient, on what is appropriate care. What is in this legislation is an effort to make sure we share information , generically, appropriately , so doctors and medical providers can have the best information, but there’s nothing in this bill that compromises the decision-making between the doctor and the patient.”

Democratic websites have attacked McCaughey, saying she is reading more into the bill than is actually there. She has fired back, saying the health-care language in the bill has nothing whatsoever to do with new jobs and jump starting the economy. She says, “Americans deserve an open and honest debate about creating a federal healthcare infrastructure of this magnitude. These health provisions should be removed from the stimulus bill and offered to Congress in separate legislation.”

We even have Scott Gottlieb getting into the discussion, the former second in command at the FDA, who during his time at the FDA advocated the industry-friendly position that Americans should be exposed to dangerous and expensive drug experiments and have no right to recourse if they are injured. Now he says, “The bill will be used to create guidelines to direct doctors’ treatment of difficult, high-cost medical problems.” His statement means that Big Pharma and Big Biotech are really concerned that their future cash-cow experiments may not be covered by the new plan.

Indeed, Big Pharma was really upset about parts of the plan that called for spending government money to try and compare the effectiveness of drugs, one to another. This provision has now been changed based on intense lobbying over the past few days. Such a provision would have been really bad news for Big Pharma, as it would quickly be discovered that their drugs hardly work at all to produce positive health outcomes, especially in preventive medicine. For a more comprehensive understanding of Big Pharma in relation to the health care handouts in this bill, read my article “Is Obama Bailing Out Big Pharma’s Bursting Bubble.”

(http://www.wellnessresources.com/content/articles/is_obama_bailing_out_big_pharmas_bursting_bubble/)

The Hill website reported in early December that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) wanted health IT in the stimulus bill to help avoid a fight on healthcare early in 2009 when lawmakers were drafting broader healthcare legislation. “There are going to be certain costs of healthcare reform — upfront costs. If I can put some of those upfront costs in the so-called stimulus bill, I’d rather put them there….We’ve got to create a very significant upfront effort early on and keep the momentum going on healthcare,” said Baucus, who added he was in regular contact with the Obama team, Kennedy and other key lawmakers.

(http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/baucus-wants-schip-health-it-in-stimulus-2008-12-10.html)

Several things are certain. Health IT has nothing to do with meaningful stimulus for the economy. It is in the stimulus bill to get its own financial stimulus, helping to jump start Obama-care without any public debate.

The Scope of Obama’s Health IT
In the 680 page House version of the stimulus bill (H.R.1.E.H., pdf version), almost 200 pages are spent on Health IT (434-627). Right away you can understand that this is a comprehensive piece of legislation, taking up almost 1/3 of the bill. The legislation establishes within the Department of Health and Human Services an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which will be headed by a National Coordinator. This is like creating a new FDA, meaning the size of this new branch of government will end up quite large. It states various admirable purposes, such as ensuring electronic health information is secure and that it is used to better patient care. An overall goal is to have an electronic health record for every American by 2014 (page 445).

(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.+1:)

This is not a passive IT system that is collecting data. It is intended to be used as a tool to deploy a type of care it deems appropriate based on government employees making policy-related health decisions, with a stated purpose so the IT system “provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care.” (page 442)

Anybody reading this legislation quickly realizes that it is much more than a health IT system. It is a new type of health care with a blank check on expanding its regulatory powers to accomplish anything it deems appropriate. For example, on page 447 it reads, “REPORT ON ADDITIONAL FUNDING OR AUTHORITY NEEDED. — Not later than 12 months after the date of the enactment of this title, the National Coordinator shall submit to the appropriate committees of jurisdiction of the House of Representatives and the Senate a report on any additional funding or authority the Coordinator or the HIT Policy Committee or HIT Standards Committee requires to evaluate and develop standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria, or to achieve full participation of stakeholders in the adoption of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of health information.”

A short version of this is “the National Coordinator shall report on any additional authority required to achieve full participation of stakeholders.” In other words, everyone will play ball and or else the National Coordinator must seek more power to be able to get everyone in line.

The legislation makes it clear that this is not just about your personal health. On page 455 it says, “the HIT Policy Committee may consider the following additional areas: The appropriate uses of a nation wide health information infrastructure, including for purposes of biosurveillance and public health.” This approves the use of your health information for military-related needs and other public health measures (meaning did you get all your vaccinations? etc.). It is not at all a stretch of the imagination to interpret this to mean that your electronic health record will be used to ensure you are in compliance with public health initiatives.

The legislation specifically mandates compliance by the private sector, page 470: “SEC. 4112. APPLICATION TO PRIVATE ENTITIES. Each agency (relating to promoting quality and efficient health care in Federal government administered or sponsored health care programs) shall require in contracts or agreements with health care providers, health plans, or health insurance issuers that as each provider, plan, or issuer implements, acquires, or upgrades health information technology systems, it shall utilize, where available, health information technology systems and products that meet standards and implementation specifications.”

In other words, all health professionals are required to abide by the standards of care that are determined in conjunction with the cost containment and “best practices” ideas of the federal government, whatever they may be. This means that the government is directly telling doctors how to practice medicine, and even what kind of medicine is allowed, contrary to what Senator Cardin told FOX news.

The theme and importance of conforming to the government’s idea of medical care is further spelled out in the section on the MEDICARE PROGRAM – INCENTIVES FOR ELIGIBLE PROFESSIONALS. This section introduces the term “meaningful user,” which is repeatedly used in the context of a health professional who is conforming to whatever the IT system tells them to do with their patients. It offers them bonuses up to $15,000 per year to comply with the IT health guidelines. (page 513) This means your doctor’s bonus could be more important than the right decision for your health.

The goal is to get doctors in the loop and then force them to comply with guidelines of care: “The Secretary shall seek to improve the use of electronic health records and health care quality over time by requiring more stringent measures of meaningful use.” (page 518) This is an open-ended and vaguely defined approach that could mean almost anything.

Freedom and Choice are Being Sacrificed
The price of this legislation cannot be measured in dollars. The price of this legislation should be measured in your loss of freedom, loss of privacy, and loss of choice relating to your own health. The government will want your DNA in its database next. It will want a chip in your arm to really keep track of you and your health. One thing will lead to another.

This legislation represents a broad and sweeping change in the type of care you will be able to receive. And that care will be set by the government, by unelected bureaucrats with who knows what agenda.

If this is what Americans really want then it should be debated and discussed openly on its merits. Freedom is not easily regained once it is lost. Once upon a time the people of Germany had a truly advanced health care system called the “freedom to cure.” It encouraged alternative health practitioners to practice side by side with medical doctors, offering true freedom of choice, all in the best interests of the patient. That was a long time ago.

In the name of public health, those freedoms were set aside for the rise of a socialist system. It was recognized that health freedom fostered mental health and free thinking citizens, and those rights were not compatible with socialism. Health freedom and general health choice were obliterated in the name of the greater good. The government had control. Even though Hitler was stopped, Germany has never regained its health freedom and today has one of the most repressive socialist health care systems on earth.

Certainly we want to do what we can to help Americans who are struggling with health problems, especially when those problems were not created by their own poor choices. It is simply not right to sacrifice our identity as a free people to accomplish that objective.

About the author: Byron J. Richards, Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist, nationally-renowned nutrition expert, and founder of Wellness Resources is a leader in advocating the value of dietary supplements as a vital tool to maintain health. He is an outspoken critic of government and Big Pharma efforts to deny access to natural health products and has written extensively on the life-shortening and health-damaging failures of the sickness industry. www.wellnessresources.com [email protected]

(NaturalNews) The FDA has effectively banned a naturally-occurring form of vitamin B6 called pyridoxamine by declaring it to be a drug, reports the American Association for Health Freedom. Responding to a petition filed by a drug company, the FDA declared pyridoxamine to be “a new drug.”

Now, any nutritional supplements containing pyridoxamine will be considered adulterated and illegal by the FDA, which may raid vitamin companies and seize such products. See the history of FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html

Pyridoxamine occurs naturally in fish, chicken and other foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6), putting the FDA in the strange position of banning a substance from dietary supplements even though it is already present in the food supply.

The FDA’s war on Mother Nature
It’s not the first time the FDA has declared a natural molecule to be a “drug” while attacking nutritional supplements that contain the same molecule. A similar story unfolded with red yeast rice and the lovastatin molecules it contains that lower high cholesterol. The drug companies engaged in biopiracy, ripping off the molecule from red yeast rice to make their now-famous “statin drugs.” Once the statin drugs were patented, Big Pharma and the FDA went after red yeast rice, claiming the supplement was “adulterated with pharmaceuticals.”

It wasn’t really adulterated, of course. It just contained a natural statin-drug-like molecule that the drug companies copied and patented.

It would be like Big Pharma patenting vitamin C, then the FDA claiming that all oranges and lemons were adulterated with drugs because they naturally contain their own vitamin C.

This is the insanity of the FDA as it operates today. You can read more about the FDA on our channel webiste www.FDAreform.org which is updated every few days.

So will this ruling on pyridoxamine affect nutritional supplements? Yes, any supplements containing this form of vitamin B6 can now be declared “adulterated” by the FDA. Manufacturers of such supplements can be arrested and shut down for engaging in “illegal drug trafficking.” Such is the nature of the FDA’s agenda to criminalize nutritional supplement companies and limit consumers’ access to Mother Nature’s remedies.

The pyridoxamine “drug,” by the way (which is just pyridoxamine), is designed to prevent the progression of diabetic nephrothapy (kidney disease). Most likely, the FDA will eventually approve the “drug” for that condition, even while claiming vitamin B6 supplements containing the very same chemical are useless and insert.

This is another classic oppression tactic of the FDA: Ban the herb, but promote the drug using the same chemicals. The same thing happened with ephedra, a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb known as ma huang. The FDA banned the herb, saying it was “dangerous at any dose,” but pharmaceuticals containing the very same molecules (ephedrine) are still being sold over-the-counter as cold medicines, meaning they’re available to any child without a prescription.

The bottom line is this: FDA approvals and bans have nothing to do with science and everything to do with protecting drug companies profits. If a drug company can make money selling a vitamin as a drug, the FDA will gladly ban the vitamin and protect the drug. If a drug company can rip off molecules from Mother Nature and patent them, the FDA will ban those same molecules found in nature.

All of this points to the urgent need to reform the FDA. A new petition demanding real FDA reform will be announced here on NaturalNews in the coming days.

Sources for this story include:

AAHF: http://aahf.nonprofitsoapbox.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=677&Itemid=

NewsFood.com: http://www.newsfood.com/?location=English&item=55070

NaturalProductsInsider.com: http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/hotnews/fda-nixes-pyridoxamine-in-supplements.html

(NaturalNews) High levels of dietary vitamin C intake may reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Institute of Metabolic Science at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, England, and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

At the study’s start, the researchers measured the vitamin C levels in blood samples taken from 21,831 healthy women and men between the ages of 40 and 75. Twelve years later, 312 of the women and 423 of the men had developed Type 2 diabetes, totaling 3.2 percent of the study population.

Comparing vitamin C blood levels with diabetes risk, the researchers found that participants with the highest vitamin C levels had a 62 percent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than participants who had the lowest blood levels of the vitamin.

Using survey information provided by participants at the beginning of the study, the researchers adjusted their findings for the influence of other diabetes risk factors such as age, sex, alcohol or tobacco intake, physical activity level, body mass index and a family history of the disease. The association between vitamin C status and lower diabetes risk did not change.

The researchers noted that vitamin C levels are a very reliable marker of fruit and vegetable consumption. The data “re-endorse the public health message of the beneficial effect of increasing total fruit and vegetable intake,” they wrote, and provide “persuasive evidence of a beneficial effect of vitamin C and fruit and vegetable intake on diabetes risk.”

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 171 million people around the world currently suffer from diabetes, a number that is expected to increase to 350 million by 2030. In the United States, the American Diabetes Association estimates that 20 million people, or 7 percent of the population, have been diagnosed with the disease. Another 6.2 million are diabetic but undiagnosed, with 41 million more considered prediabetic.

Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com.

(NaturalNews) A physician I knew (he died at a ripe old age) once quipped, “Medicine is America`s fastest growing failing business.” And unless we refocus our entire approach to health care, it`s going to grow and fail even faster.

Most proposals for health-care reform have focused on either expanding the availability of insurance or reducing the costs of prescription drugs. While needed, these approaches are essentially extensions of a dysfunctional health-care system, and they fail to correct the system`s fundamental flaws.

Health care (of which medicine is part) is an oxymoron. It`s really a disease-care system that continues to exist only because of the rationing of treatment. Millions of people are excluded from health-care coverage, and others must deal with huge out-of-pocket expenses or simply do without.

The solution I envision would transform this disease-care system into a genuine health-care system. The only way to accomplish this, at a price this nation can afford, is to emphasize prevention.

I don`t mean inoculations or well-baby checkups, although they certainly should be part of any health-care system. Nor do I mean near-compulsive cholesterol and blood pressure checks, although they too have a place.

Rather, I recommend that the incoming Obama administration fund a large federal and state campaign that tackles prevention in a way similar to how government discouraged the use of tobacco products. The anti-tobacco campaign has largely worked, and one focusing on prevention can work as well.

Focusing on prevention is imperative. Unless we reduce the demands placed on disease care, the current or extended disease-care system will eventually collapse financially.

Nearly all experts agree that most chronic health problems result from poor eating habits, a lack of physical activity, and other lifestyle issues, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. These are behaviors that can be modified to reduce the risk of disease, and less disease means lower health-care costs.

It`s important that this campaign convey the message that each and every one of us is a partner in our own health. We can`t abuse our bodies and then expect doctors or magic pills to reverse the damage, regardless of who pays. We must acknowledge our personal responsibility for staying healthy and do a much better job of eating more nutritious foods and staying reasonably fit.

I would make nutrition the foundation of any health-care campaign, for a couple of reasons. First, it`s the basis of our biology and biochemistry. Second, two of every three Americans are now overweight or obese. More than 23 million have type 2 diabetes, and somewhere between 40 and 100 million have some form of prediabetes. These are signs that our eating habits and lifestyles are truly warped. Ominously, these health problems increase the risk of heart disease and most other chronic degeneration diseases.

There`s no need to get distracted by arguments over which diet is best. Everything I`ve learned about healthy habits boils down to emphasizing fresh foods over almost anything that comes in a box, can, jar, bottle, or bag. It`s as simple as that. Opt for a piece of fish or chicken and some vegetables instead of a burger and fries in the drive-thru. And yes, eat smaller portions.

Physical fitness is important as well. While we don`t have to build Schwarzenegger-type bodies, we do need to realize that all the time we spend in front of televisions and computers helps make us fat. Just going for a daily walk improves blood sugar and weight, and obviously the more we do, the better off we`ll be.

Food companies could certainly be given incentives to help spread the word about eating better and becoming more physically active. They could also retool some of their food products to wean people off junk foods. After all, the health of their profits will at some point depend on the health of the nation.

A consortium of medical societies, food-industry lobbying groups, and vitamin supplement associations could also help underwrite consumer-education campaigns geared to preventing disease.

Even the Food and Drug Administration could play a role by clearly discouraging the use of hydrogenated oils and caloric sweeteners, maybe by requiring warning labels on some packages. The FDA could also streamline the now complicated processes of making health claims for foods and supplements.

Doctors may dismiss my proposal by saying that patients want a quick fix (code word for prescription drug) and aren`t compliant with dietary changes. But the studies show that one-on-one nutrition coaching and follow-ups do result in compliance and consistency.

Will there be resistance to what I propose? Of course they will be. Every billion dollars saved in disease care will translate to a billion lost in drug company and hospital profits.

But something has got to give. As a nation, we`ve got to get off our duff and make some changes. It`s far easier, better, and less costly in the long run to prevent (or lower the risk of) disease than to struggle to treat it. Furthermore, as people get healthier, they will also have more energy, use fewer sick days, and be more productive. That can only be good for our economy.

We need more than a Band-Aid when it comes to reforming health care and controlling costs. I hate to say it, but for a permanent cure, health care needs major surgery followed, of course, by a lean diet and time to heal. This process will certainly take more than a couple of years to yield clear benefits, but so did the campaign to reduce tobacco use.


About the author
Jack Challem, The Nutrition Reporter ™, is a personal nutrition coach and one of America’s most trusted nutrition and health writers. Based in Tucson, Arizona, he is the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including Stop Prediabetes Now, The Food-Mood Solution, Feed Your Genes Right, and The Inflammation Syndrome. Jack is a columnist for Alternative and Complementary Therapies and his scientific articles have also appeared in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Medical Hypotheses, and other journals. Free, downloadable excerpts from his books, and sample issues of his print newsletters are available at http://www.nutritionreporter.com.