May 18, 2012
Flu Vaccines creating Rip Van Winkles
Rip is an amiable though somewhat hermitic man who enjoys solitary activities in the wilderness, but is also loved by all in town—especially the children to whom he tells stories and gives toys. However, a tendency to avoid all gainful labor, for which his nagging wife (Dame Van Winkle) chastises him, allows his home and farm to fall into disarray due to his lazy neglect.
One autumn day, Rip is escaping his wife’s nagging, wandering up the mountains with his dog, Wolf. Hearing his name being shouted, Rip discovers that the speaker is a man dressed in antiquated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg up the mountain, who requires Rip’s help. Without exchanging words, the two hike up to an amphitheatre-like hollow in which Rip discovers the source of previously-heard thunderous noises: there is a group of other ornately-dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. Although there is no conversation and Rip does not ask the men who they are or how they know his name, he discreetly begins to drink some of their liquor, and soon falls asleep.
He awakes in unusual circumstances: it seems to be morning, his gun is rotted and rusty, his beard has grown a foot long, and Wolf is nowhere to be found. Rip returns to his village where he finds that he recognizes no one. Rip is told that he has apparently been away from the village for twenty years.
The long-term health damage caused by the great H1N1 swine flu scam “pandemic” of 2009 — and particularly the mass vaccination campaign that accompanied it — is already becoming apparent in the form of an autoimmune disorder. A new review published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE confirms that Pandemrix, a swine flu vaccine produced by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is responsible for causing an up to 1700 percent increase in narcolepsy among children and teenagers under 17 years of age.
Based on their findings, a cohort of scientists has determined that narcolepsy rates increased significantly following mass vaccination campaigns with Pandemrix. Compiled data has revealed that between 2002 and 2009, the narcolepsy rate among children under age 17 was 0.31 per 100,000. But in 2010, that number jumped to 5.3 per 100,000, which represents a 17-fold increase.
Similarly, research compiled by Markku Partinen of the Helsinki Sleep Clinic and Hanna Nohynek of the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland, both of which were also involved in the new research, has determined a link between Pandemrix and narcolepsy. Children not vaccinated with Pandemrix were found to have a 1300 percent less risk of developing narcolepsy compared to children who were vaccinated with Pandemrix.
But because the subject of controversy is a vaccine, researchers were quick to inject several caveats to their findings that deflected some of the blame to other potential causes. In their soft-peddled, politically-correct conclusion, researchers said they “consider it likely that Pandemrix vaccination contributed, perhaps together with other environmental factors, to this increase in genetically susceptible children.”
But the findings are strong enough to have prompted officials in Great Britain to begin their own investigation into Pandemrix causing narcolepsy in children. Though the U.K.’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) has declared that seasonal flu vaccine is not linked to narcolepsy, the agency is concerned that Pandemrix is of a different breed, and that it is not necessarily safe for children (http://www.guardian.co.uk).
Back in 2009, it was confirmed that narcolepsy is actually an autoimmune disorder characterized by missing brain cells that are responsible for producing hypocretin, a hormone that promotes wakefulness. Based on those findings, which were published in the journal Nature Genetics, it appears as though Pandemrix may be responsible for actually spurring the immune system to destroy vital hormone-producing cells in young children (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090503132613.htm).
The truth is really starting to come out now about the failure of vaccines. A new study reveals that whooping cough outbreaks are higher among children already vaccinated against whooping cough!
Infection rates were lower among unvaccinated children, not surprisingly. That’s because the vaccines actually spread the disease they claim to treat! That’s why outbreaks rise as vaccine rates rise.
So in my previous blogs I have railed against the illusion that vaccination is purported to be a “scientific” process. I rest my case.
Be well
Dr Sundardas
April 24, 2012
Is Medicine becoming a New Religion? (Part 2)
Like any good faith, the church of medicine stands on the authority of its sacred texts. The randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard that assures the purity of church doctrine. The sacred studies are the only source of true knowledge; all other forms of knowledge are held to be inferior. Upholders of the faith frequently quote from the sacred texts in order to disprove and discredit heretical viewpoints.
The conspicuous incongruity here is the ever-changing and fickle nature of medical research studies, which frequently contradict one another and are commonly sponsored and funded by the very corporate interests that stand to gain from that research.
The contemporary battle between the monolith of unyielding medical opinion and those who have experienced the firsthand devastation to loved ones wrought by vaccine injuries and adverse drug reactions is emblematic of the issues created by a medical system that is increasingly unresponsive to its patients. When we come to understand that modern medicine is a result of an overreliance upon the abstracting and analyzing functions of the rational mind, then we see how it can take such cold and calculated positions in the face of so much iatrogenically-induced tragedy.
Such practices don’t strike me as very rational — or scientific. Congregants are also expected to unquestioningly submit to a long string of ritual acts such as well-baby visits, vaccinations, mammograms, cholesterol checks, and an ever-expanding battery of tests and procedures brought to us by the latest cutting-edge technologies made possible through the generosity of the biotechnology industry. One must wonder, with such vast expenditures dedicated to health care, why our collective health as a society suffers so badly.
By contrast, true medical science that was faithful to its original mission was originally conceived to explore the nature of life without a predetermined agenda. It did not impose artificial parameters upon itself in order to define what was and what was not worthy of scientific inquiry. However, when contemporary medicine chooses to restrict the scope of its investigations to the purely material, it must therefore acknowledge the limitations that this places upon it as a science.
It reveals a serious bias when it declares that spiritual existence is a mere figment of the imagination that has no impact upon illness and health. If it chooses not to take spiritual reality into account, then it cannot at the same time claim any authority regarding issues of vitalism, energy, consciousness, spirit, or soul.
Most forms of holistic health and healing, on the other hand, begin with the fundamental assumption that we are spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies during our time here on the physical plane. If this truth is to be honored, spiritual laws and energetic principles must be taken into account when we consider issues of health and illness. Another important foundational principle of holism considers it a given that “all is one” and that everything, therefore, is interconnected. To speak of body and soul as separate entities is an artificial construct of the rational mind that is not congruent with holistic reality.
This illusion of separateness is, nevertheless, part of the legacy of the reductionistic / mechanistic / materialistic worldview into which most of us were indoctrinated. And it reduces human life to its lowest common materialistic denominator.
When one person reports the resolution of his chronic headaches after a past life regression, and another experiences relief from her depression after a shamanic soul retrieval, and conventional medicine responds by dismissing such stories as mere “anecdote,” it reveals an unbecoming contempt for things of which it has no understanding.
When homeopathic treatment results in the dramatic improvement of a child with attention deficit disorder and conventional medicine claims that it is just not possible because it defies the laws of chemistry as it understands them, then it is time to go back to the medical drawing board in order to revise one’s conception of the mysterious nature of human health and disease. When orthodox medicine demands explanations that conform to its mechanistic worldview before it will acknowledge those phenomena as legitimate, it simply demonstrates its intractable obstinacy and refusal to adjust its understanding.
be well
Dr Sundardas
April 3, 2012
Is Medicine becoming a New Religion? (Part 1)
Modern medicine projects the image of scientific rigor but has all the hallmarks of a system of religious belief. The practical consequence of its insular perspective is the dead-end system of Western medical materialism that we have today. Repair of the physical body is erroneously equated with healing. Never mind whether it is capable of true healing; it doesn’t even understand the meaning of the concept.
The “church” of modern medicine is a dysfunctional Frankenstein monster, a result of having raised the analytical abstractions of the rational mind to god-like status above all other faculties of human experience. It is a mere caricature of what medical science could and should be.
In its quest for objectivity medicine has rejected its spiritual roots and lost sight of its humanity. It cannot be but a reflection of the culture from which it has emerged. It arrogantly rejects the wisdom of thousands of years of human history, is fragmented to the point of dissociation, devoid of common sense, preoccupied with short-term material goals, slave to its financial overlords, and utterly lacking in the requisite spiritual knowledge that would enable it to find its way out of its self-imposed foolishness.
Like some religious faiths, medicine clings ferociously to its worldview when challenged by congregants (patients) whose firsthand experiences sometimes lead them to believe otherwise. It defends its dogma with a powerful form of groupthink and is quick to lash out at heretical ideas that threaten its doctrine and its territorial interests. Like some religious movements that purport to be the one and only true path to salvation, it displays an unusual degree of intolerance when faced with nonbelievers who dare to ask questions. It is a closed belief system that does not allow innovation or new ideas. It lays claim to truth, fact, and objectivity, but exposes itself as otherwise when we closely examine its assumptions, politics, and practices.
The church of medicine found its origins with Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century, a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and a proponent of rationalism, a philosophy that elevated the mind and its ability to reason to a superior status above all other sources of knowledge. There are many thoughtful individuals, however, who would consider spiritual insight to be a superior form of knowledge. Nevertheless, even though spiritual reality and material reality can be considered two halves of Cartesian dualism, one gradually began to take precedence over the other. That which could not be measured, quantified, or assigned a logic to justify its truth was dismissed and tossed aside as irrelevant, and it was from this dogma that the new secular church of medical materialism took root. That is to say that this is the point where it began to deny the primacy of spirit and replace it with the worship of the physical body as the most important, if not the only consideration relevant to human health.
Medical science takes a materialistic stand in opposition to the non-physical; it is predicated upon a denial of the relevance of spirit. The irony here is that the church of medicine assumes the authority and function of a religious system but refuses to account for the role that the spiritual dimension plays in human health. Others who understand the significance of spiritual factors such as an afterlife, reincarnation, dreams, synchronicity, and so on, are forced to contend with an unnatural cultural split that reduces the welfare of the physical body to material terms and relegates the welfare of the soul to the wayside, as if body and soul are not connected and have no impact upon one another.
Before I get much further into this critique of Western medicine, let me qualify by saying that I am not anti-science per say. My first degree was in physics. I often joke that in the hard sciences like Physics the accuracy of our results are measured to three decimal places. In medicine, you are lucky if you have one decimal place if at all. Neither am I against conventional medicine and diagnosis when I find it necessary for my patients, my family, and myself. It has its pluses and minuses.
We could not do without medical diagnostics, emergency medicine, insulin for diabetics, antibiotics for life-threatening illnesses, and so on. And although I have the utmost respect for my conventional medical colleagues who dedicate themselves to the well-being of their patients, the system itself is badly broken, based upon a flawed philosophy, and in dire need of serious revision. Similarly, I respect the diversity of human religious and spiritual experience, especially when it, too, respects diversity and eschews the impulse to proselytize.
“Scientism” is a term that has been applied to Western science’s tendency to consider itself as the only valid way of describing reality and acquiring knowledge. Far from objective science, it is riddled with a self-imposed form of materialistic and mechanistic bias. When it inappropriately and clumsily attempts to impose its restricted worldview upon domains where it has no business meddling, it can no longer be considered legitimate science that is practiced with an awareness of its boundaries. It instead begins to resemble an ideology not unlike a religious form of evangelism. Again, it is more than a bit ironic when conventional medicine attempts to belittle some alternative therapies as “faith-based.”
If you have read my earlier two articles, the mishmash of murky money politics, government manoeuvrings and character assassination would be wonderful ingredients in a popular pot-boiler but hardly appropriate for the BMJ, one of the sacred cows of Western Medicine to be involved in. The scandalous attempt to destroy the reputation and career of Dr Wakefield.is fairly typical for a political or religious organisation but not for a scientific one, unless it is a really a political or religious organisation masquerading as a scientific one.
Why is this important to you as a consumer? Simply because if you recognise that organisations like the British Medical Journal have a “religious and political” agenda first followed by a scientific agenda, you are less likely to be disappointed then if you expect scientific and academic impeccability.
Be well
Dr Sundardas
March 16, 2012
What you don’t know about vaccines can kill you
It is facts like these that BMJ, Brian Deer, and the rest have conveniently Dr. Andrew Wakefield has been shamelessly mocked, repeatedly lied about, and cruelly defamed for his legitimate scientific research into the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism in children. But Dr. Andrew Wakefield is now fighting back against those responsible for viciously denigrating his work and his character by filing a lawsuit against the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which published lies about him, and journalist Brian Deer, who authored many of those lies.
The lawsuit cites several articles and editorials published in BMJ that include “false and defamatory allegations” about Dr. Wakefield and his work. Secrets of the MMR scare: how the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed, an article written by journalist Brian Deer that was published in BMJ, and an accompanying editorial by Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of BMJ, are two of the defamatory writings named in the suit.
But ignored in their witch hunt to destroy the career and life of Dr.Andrew Wakefield, who has hardly been given the chance to present his side of the story before the public. This is why many still falsely believe, for instance, that Dr.Wakefield fabricated his research data. This accusation was entirely made up by those that Dr.Wakefield is now suing — or that he is no longer a doctor just because the GMC banned him from practicing in the UK.
Such malicious slander against a man who dared to conduct honest science about a condition that afflicts more and more children every year is outrageous. But it is precisely becauseDr. Wakefield’s science conflicts with the medical status quo that the full arsenal of hatred and vilification was drawn upon to destroy him.
Many “scientific” studies are literally nonsense. This is not a conspiracy theory. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association [2005;294(2):218–28] published a paper showing that one-third of “highly cited original clinical research studies” were eventually contradicted by subsequent studies. The supposed effects of specific interventions either did not exist as the original studies concluded, or were exaggerated. It is not unusual for the “science” of today to degenerate into tomorrow’s fiction.
Vaccine studies are often funded by vaccine manufacturers. The lead authors of important studies that will be used to validate the safety or efficacy of a vaccine are often beholden to the manufacturer in some way. They may own stock in the company or are paid by the manufacturer to travel around the country promoting their vaccines. Lead authors may receive consultation fees, grants or other benefits from the drug maker. Although many people consider this unethical or corrupt, in the world of immunizations this is an acceptable practice, condoned by the CDC and FDA.
Sometimes study conclusions contradict core data in the study. It is not uncommon to read the abstract or summary of a major paper touting a vaccine’s apparent safety or benefits, only to find that upon examining the actual paper, including important details, the vaccine is shown to be dangerous and may have poor efficacy as well. For example, a landmark study published in Pediatrics [2003;112:1039-48] found that cumulative exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines “resulted in a significant positive association with tics” and “increased risks of language delay.”
In other words, babies that received two or more vaccines containing mercury showed signs of neurological damage. This crucial information can be found in the body of the study. However, the authors concluded that “No consistent significant associations were found between thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes.”
Sadly, the media is reluctant to publish anything that challenges the sacrosanct vaccine program. Newspaper articles about vaccines, and reviews of vaccine studies that are published, merely mimic the original spurious conclusions.
Often, important information is missing from a study. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine [2007;356:1915-27] published a paper on the HPV vaccine. It concluded that the vaccine “was highly effective” even though data in the study showed that vaccine efficacy was just 17% against high-grade cervical lesions. However, truly vital information that would help families to make informed vaccine decisions was never mentioned in the paper.
A secret FDA study [VRBPAC Meeting: May 18, 2006] had already found that the HPV vaccine may “enhance cervical disease” in girls who are sexually active prior to vaccination. In other words, the vaccine seems to work best in virgins and may actually increase a young woman’s chance of developing cervical cancer if she was previously exposed through sexual intercourse to HPV strains included in the vaccine.
In some instances, study results may be preordained. For example, when the vaccine-autism link became a public concern, vaccine proponents hastened to produce authentic-appearing studies that contradicted genuine data. Years ago, tobacco companies used this very same ploy. They financed numerous bogus studies ostensibly “proving” that cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. The real studies got lost in the muddle. Sadly, it’s all too easy to obfuscate truth and deceive the public.
At the infamous Simpsonwood conference held in Norcross, Georgia [June 2000], CDC and FDA authorities knew that mercury in vaccines was damaging children. They had irrefutable proof: a comprehensive study conducted by the CDC itself. However, instead of making this important information public, they hatched a plan to produce additional “studies” that denied such a link. In fact, vaccine proponents had the audacity to claim in some of these papers that mercury in vaccines not only doesn’t hurt children but that it actually benefits them! In the topsy-turvy world of overreaching vaccine authorities, the well-documented neurotoxic chemical mercury somehow makes children smarter and more functional, improving cognitive development and motor skills. Of course, this is nonsense. Numerous real studies document mercury’s destructive effect on brain development and behavior.
Be well
Dr Sundardas
February 29, 2012
BMJ Practices Pseudo-Science
Dr.Andrew Wakefield was a victim of the BMJ’s (British Medical Journal) injustice, which also helped hide vaccine injury science from public awareness.
Dr. Wakefield was organizing clinical research on Crohn’s disease, colitis and gastrointestinal disorders in young children. The research intended to determine if there was a link between those disorders and measles at the Royal Free Hospital in England. Dr. Wakefield published the results of this clinical study in the U.K. medical journal Lancet in 1998.
Children were brought to him because of his interest, but contrary to all accusations, he never treated them. He described himself as “the thinker”. In this particular study, he was the thinker for the team of doctors directly involved with the treatment.
Another accusation, that Dr. Wakefield asserted a definite link of MMR vaccines to autism was never published. He never made that claim. Some of his team colleagues put forth their interpretation that MMRs were linked to autism, but that was not part of Wakefield’s Lancet paper. Dr. Wakefield was looking into the possible link of those commonly experienced gut disorders in children under five years old as a precursor to their autism related behavior.
That link to MMRs was actually made by the parents of those 12 participating children. They were doing fine until they received MMR vaccinations, and the parents reported this to Dr. Wakefield’s team. Dr. Wakefield included the parents’ reports in the case study findings. Including parents’ observations in case study reports is highly appropriate.
Dr. Wakefield’s only conclusion was the measles/gut disorder connection to autistic behavior possibilities merited further study.
Two other researchers discovered the same problems of gut disorders and autistic behavior in seven children. Their 1996 presentation was called “Entero-colitis and Disintegrative Disorder Following MMR – A Review of the First Seven Cases.” Those seven cases became part of the final twelve cases inDr. Wakefield’s 1998 Lancet paper. This and other facts disprove accusations thatWakefield fabricated the twelve reports.
Contrary to what the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC), BMJ, Brian Deer, and the host of biased media outlets continue to claim, Dr. Wakefield’s original study was a case series that made no actual claims about a definitive link between MMR and autism. And the observations, which do happen to suggest a link between MMR and autism regression, are not just unique to Dr. Wakefield’s research. Professor Walker-Smith and Dr. Amar Dhillon together documented their own independent research that also points to a link between MMR vaccine and autism
A more recent Wake Forest University study determined that 70 of 82 autistic children they studied had measles virus in their guts. Interestingly, the measles virus strain they discovered was not a wild virus — it was the same strain used in MMR vaccines.
A Russian born U.K. pediatrician, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, has not only established the connection of gastrointestinal tract disorders among the very young to autistic and other behavioral problems, she cures them with proper diet and supplementation. She learned how the hard way, by curing her own autistic son.
Dr. McBride coined the acronym GAPS for her book Gut and Psychology Syndrome. She describes the dietary solutions to her explanations of how the gut and the brain are connected. This relationship has been known by traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.
In a recent U.S. lecture, she mentioned that her colleagues were afraid to mention Dr. Wakefield due of the witch-hunt conspired against him earlier. But she acknowledges his research efforts as accurate contributions to her practice.
The U.K. government refuses to compensate cases of encephalitis (brain disease) due to vaccine injury. Here there may have one motive for a conspiracy against Dr. Wakefield.
There are other motives from the usual suspects. The allegedly corrupt Murdoch empire’s Sunday Times is run by Rupert Murdoch’s son James. The Murdoch family is heavily invested in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a vaccine manufacturer. James Murdoch is even on GSKs board of directors.
James hired a freelance hack journalist, Brian Deer, to fabricate the Wakefield fabrication. It created a firestorm in London that ignited another vaccine promoter, Dr. Fiona Godlee, who happens to be the editor in chief for the British Journal of Medicine (BMJ). She propagated Deer’s lies officially.
This pincer move encircled the U.K. Government’s medical establishment and forced a five member GMC (General Medical Council) hearing on Dr. Wakefield. Perhaps the hearing intended to defend the U.K.’s stance on not awarding vaccine injury victim?
Private admission of wrong doing by the BMJ to newsletter Age of Autism, spoken evasively out of both sides ofDr. Fiona Godlee’s mouth, is insufficient for the public damage done toDr. Wakefield’s integrity. But it has served to inspire a stronger alliance among medical professionals and aware parents of vaccine injured children on both sides of theAtlantic.
Be well
Dr Sundardas
February 6, 2012
Statins can damage your liver and kidneys
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs significantly increase a person’s risk of cataracts, muscle weakness, liver dysfunction and kidney failure, according to a study in the British Medical Journal.
The study also confirmed that the drugs lower the risk of heart disease and esophageal cancer, but claims of other health benefits were unsupported.
Researchers from Nottingham University in the United Kingdom examined data on more than 2 million patients between the ages of 30 and 84, seen at 38 different general practices, who had been prescribed the cholesterol-lowering drugs. More than 70 percent were taking simvastatin (Zocor), 22.3 percent were taking atorvastatin (Lipitor), 3.6 percent were taking pravastatin (Pravachol, Selektine), 1.9 percent were taking rosuvastatin (Crestor) and 1.4 percent were taking fluvastatin (Canef, Lescol, Lochol, Vastin).
The researchers confirmed prior data suggesting that statins increase patients’ risk of cataracts, liver dysfunction, kidney failure and a form of muscle weakness known as myopathy. They found that for every 10,000 women treated with the drugs, 23 would develop acute kidney (renal) failure, 39 would develop myopathy, 74 would develop liver dysfunction and 309 would develop cataracts. Men suffered an even higher risk of myopathy, but their risks of the other three conditions were similar to those suffered by women.
Putting it in different terms, the researchers found that only 434 people would need to be treated with the drugs for five years for one case of acute renal failure to develop. It would take only 136 treated for each case of liver dysfunction and 33 for each case of cataracts. Among women, 259 would need to be treated for each case of myopathy; among men, the number was only 91.
The risk of developing all conditions was highest during the first year of treatment, but continued throughout the course of the study. Risk of liver and kidney problems increased proportionally with the dose of statins being taken.
All drugs appeared to pose a similar risk of all conditions, with the exception of fluvastatin, which increased the risk of liver dysfunction more than its competitors. Men taking fluvastatin were twice as likely to develop liver dysfunction as those not taking statins, while women’s risk increased by 2.5 times.
The researchers did find, however, that the risk of cataracts returned to normal within one year of stopping statin treatment, while the risk of liver and kidney problems returned to normal within one to three years. Additionally, they found no connection between statin use and the risk of dementia, osteoporotic fracture, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis or venous thromboembolism.
Examining the purported benefits of the drugs, researchers found that they did in fact lower the risk of heart disease, averting 271 cases for every 10,000 high-risk patients treated. Put another way, 33 high-risk men or 37 high-risk women would need to be treated with the drugs to avert one case of the disease.
Although advocates of the drugs have claimed that they may also reduce the risk cancer, the researchers found almost no data supporting these claims. The study “largely confirmed other studies that reported no clear association between statins and risk of cancers,” the researchers wrote.
The only cancer-fighting effect uncovered in the study was a slightly lower risk of esophageal cancer, with eight cases averted for every 10,000 high-risk women treated. In other words, 1,266 high-risk women or 1,082 high-risk men would need to be treated with the drugs to prevent one case of esophageal cancer.
Although sales of the blockbuster drugs are unlikely to be reduced as a result of the study, the researchers encouraged closer monitoring of patients for side effects and said their findings “would tend to support a policy of using lower doses of statins in people at high risk of the adverse event.”
Be well
Dr Sundardas
January 16, 2012
Drug giant experimenting on children
Drug giant Pfizer has canceled a scheduled clinical trial of its antipsychotic drug Geodon after the FDA accused it of subjecting child participants in a prior study to “widespread overdosing.”
“After careful consideration, the company decided not to proceed with the study,” Pfizer spokesperson Gwendolyn Fisher said.
Fisher said that although the company had taken “preparatory steps” toward the trial, it had decided to abandon the study in order “to meet regulatory timelines.” No patients were enrolled.
Pfizer is seeking FDA approval to market Geodon for the treatment of bipolar disorder in children between the ages of 10 and 17. An FDA panel already rejected this use once in 2009 by a vote of 10-7, expressing concern that large numbers of participants had failed to complete clinical trials of the drug. The FDA asked Pfizer for further information on the drug’s safety in children, and the company responded by launching pediatric trials of the drug.
In April, the FDA warned the company that researchers in charge of the trials were engaging in “significant violations,” including “widespread overdosing” caused by inadequate company oversight.
Five months earlier, Pfizer had agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle a collection of federal and state criminal and civil charges that it had improperly marketed Geodon and three other drugs.
Geodon, which made Pfizer $1 billion in 2009, is already approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in adults. Its competitors AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have already secured FDA approval to use their respective antipsychotics Seroquel and Zyprexa to treat bipolar disorder in children.
Treatment of children with antipsychotics remains a controversial practice amid growing concern over major side effects such as severe metabolic changes and weight gain.
Although Geodon’s most recent safety trial has been canceled, the company made it clear that it still plans to secure FDA approval for pediatric use of the drug.
Are you drugging your child unknowingly?
Be well
Dr Sundardas
December 23, 2011
Nobel prize winner endorses Homoeopathy (Part 2)
In addition to Benveniste and Montagnier is the weighty opinion of Brian Josephson, Ph.D., who, like Montagnier, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.Responding to an article on homeopathy in New Scientist, Josephson wrote:
“Regarding your comments on claims made for homeopathy: criticisms centered around the vanishingly small number of solute molecules present in a solution after it has been repeatedly diluted are beside the point, since advocates of homeopathic remedies attribute their effects not to molecules present in the water, but to modifications of the water’s structure.
Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account.”
A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste’s colleague Yolene Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as “memory of water.” If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand.
Following his comments Josephson, who is an emeritus professor of Cambridge University in England, was asked by New Scientist editors how he became an advocate of unconventional ideas. He responded:
I went to a conference where the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste was talking for the first time about his discovery that water has a ‘memory’ of compounds that were once dissolved in it — which might explain how homeopathy works. His findings provoked irrationally strong reactions from scientists, and I was struck by how badly he was treated.
Josephson went on to describe how many scientists today suffer from “pathological disbelief;” that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement “even if it were true I wouldn’t believe it.”
Even more recently, Josephson wryly responded to the chronic ignorance of homeopathy by its skeptics saying, “The idea that water can have a memory can be readily refuted by any one of a number of easily understood, invalid arguments.”
In the new interview in Science, Montagnier also expressed real concern about the unscientific atmosphere that presently exists on certain unconventional subjects such as homeopathy, “I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste’s results, but they are afraid to publish it because of the intellectual terror from people who don’t understand it.”
Montagnier concluded the interview when asked if he is concerned that he is drifting into pseudoscience, he replied adamantly: “No, because it’s not pseudoscience. It’s not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study.”
It is remarkable enough that many skeptics of homeopathy actually say that there is “no research” that has shows that homeopathic medicines work. Such statements are clearly false, and yet, such assertions are common on the Internet and even in some peer-review articles. Just a little bit of searching can uncover many high quality studies that have been published in highly respected medical and scientific journals, including the Lancet, BMJ, Pediatrics, Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Chest and many others. Although some of these same journals have also published research with negative results to homeopathy, there is simply much more research that shows a positive rather than negative effect.
Misstatements and misinformation on homeopathy are predictable because this system of medicine provides a viable and significant threat to economic interests in medicine, let alone to the very philosophy and worldview of biomedicine. It is therefore not surprising that the British Medical Association had the sheer audacity to refer to homeopathy as “witchcraft.” It is quite predictable that when one goes on a witch hunt, one inevitable finds “witches,” especially when there are certain benefits to demonizing a potential competitor (homeopathy plays a much larger and more competitive role in Europe than it does in the USA).
Skeptics of homeopathy also have long asserted that homeopathic medicines have “nothing” in them because they are diluted too much. However, new research conducted at the respected Indian Institutes of Technology has confirmed the presence of “nanoparticles” of the starting materials even at extremely high dilutions. Researchers have demonstrated by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions. (24) In the light of this research, it can now be asserted that anyone who says or suggests that there is “nothing” in homeopathic medicines is either simply uninformed or is not being honest.
Because the researchers received confirmation of the existence of nanoparticles at two different homeopathic high potencies (30C and 200C) and because they tested four different medicines (Zincum met./zinc; Aurum met. /gold; Stannum met./tin; and Cuprum met./copper), the researchers concluded that this study provides “concrete evidence.”
Although skeptics of homeopathy may assume that homeopathic doses are still too small to have any biological action, such assumptions have also been proven wrong. The multi-disciplinary field of small dose effects is called “hormesis,” and approximately 1,000 studies from a wide variety of scientific specialties have confirmed significant and sometimes substantial biological effects from extremely small doses of certain substances on certain biological systems.
A special issue of the peer-review journal, Human and Experimental Toxicology (July 2010), devoted itself to the interface between hormesis and homeopathy. (25) The articles in this issue verify the power of homeopathic doses of various substances.
In closing, it should be noted that skepticism of any subject is important to the evolution of science and medicine. However, as noted above by Nobelist Brian Josephson, many scientists have a “pathological disbelief” in certain subjects that ultimately create an unhealthy and unscientific attitude blocks real truth and real science. Skepticism is at its best when its advocates do not try to cut off research or close down conversation of a subject but instead explore possible new (or old) ways to understand and verify strange but compelling phenomena. We all have this challenge as we explore and evaluate the biological and clinical effects of homeopathic medicines.
Be well
Dr Sundardas
December 7, 2011
Nobel prize winner endorses Homoeopathy (Part 1)
Dr.Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, has surprised the scientific community with his strong support for homeopathic medicine.
In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe, most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.
Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results, especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies, influenza, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, childhood diarrhea, post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, attention deficit disorder, and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive.
In addition to the wide variety of basic science evidence and clinical research, further evidence for homeopathy resides in the fact that they gained widespread popularity in the U.S. and Europe during the 19th century due to the impressive results people experienced in the treatment of epidemics that raged during that time, including cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and influenza.
Montagnier, who is also founder and president of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, asserted, “I can’t say that homeopathy is right in everything. What I can say now is that the high dilutions (used in homeopathy) are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules.”
Here, Montagnier is making reference to his experimental research that confirms one of the controversial features of homeopathic medicine that uses doses of substances that undergo sequential dilution with vigorous shaking in-between each dilution. Although it is common for modern-day scientists to assume that none of the original molecules remain in solution, Montagnier’s research (and other of many of his colleagues) has verified that electromagnetic signals of the original medicine remains in the water and has dramatic biological effects.
Montagnier has just taken a new position at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China (this university is often referred to as “China’s MIT”), where he will work in a new institute bearing his name. This work focuses on a new scientific movement at the crossroads of physics, biology, and medicine: the phenomenon of electromagnetic waves produced by DNA in water. He and his team will study both the theoretical basis and the possible applications in medicine.
Montagnier’s new research is investigating the electromagnetic waves that he says emanate from the highly diluted DNA of various pathogens. Montagnier asserts, “What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to resonant electromagnetic signals that we can measure. Not all DNA produces signals that we can detect with our device. The high-intensity signals come from bacterial and viral DNA.”
Montagnier affirms that these new observations will lead to novel treatments for many common chronic diseases, including but not limited to autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.
Montagnier first wrote about his findings in 2009, and then, in mid-2010, he spoke at a prestigious meeting of fellow Nobelists where he expressed interest in homeopathy and the implications of this system of medicine.
French retirement laws do not allow Montagnier, who is 78 years of age, to work at a public institute, thereby limiting access to research funding. Montagnier acknowledges that getting research funds from Big Pharma and certain other conventional research funding agencies is unlikely due to the atmosphere of antagonism to homeopathy and natural treatment options.
Montagnier’s new research evokes memories one of the most sensational stories in French science, often referred to as the ‘Benveniste affair.’ A highly respected immunologist Dr.Jacques Benveniste., who died in 2004, conducted a study which was replicated in three other university laboratories and that was published in Nature. Benveniste and other researchers used extremely diluted doses of substances that created an effect on a type of white blood cell called basophils.
Although Benveniste’s work was supposedly debunked, Montagnier considers Benveniste a “modern Galileo” who was far ahead of his day and time and who was attacked for investigating a medical and scientific subject that orthodoxy had mistakenly overlooked and even demonized.
be well
Dr Sundardas
November 17, 2011
Amazing Vitamin that would reduce your cancer risk by 77%
Amazing Vitamin that would reduce your cancer risk by 77%
Exciting new research conducted at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Nebraskahas revealed that supplementing with vitamin D and calcium can reduce your risk of cancer by an astonishing 77 percent. This includes breast cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and other forms of cancer. This research provides strong new evidence that vitamin D is the single most effective medicine against cancer, far outpacing the benefits of any cancer drug known to modern science.
The study involved 1,179 healthy women from rural Nebraska. One group of women was given calcium (around 1500 mg daily) and vitamin D (1100 IU daily) while another group was given placebo. Over four year, the group receiving the calcium and vitamin D supplements showed a 60 percent decrease in cancers. Considering just the last three years of the study reveals an impressive 77 percent reduction in cancer due to supplementation.
Note that these astonishing effects were achieved on what many nutritionists consider to be a low dose of vitamin D. Exposure to sunlight, which creates even more vitamin D in the body, was not tested or considered, and the quality of the calcium supplements was likely not as high as it could have been (it was probably calcium carbonate and not high-grade calcium malate, aspartate or similar forms). What does all this mean? It means that if you take high-quality calcium supplements and get lots of natural sunlight exposure or take premium vitamin D supplements (such as those made from fish oil), you could easily have a greater reduction than the 77 percent reduction recorded in this study.
This research on vitamin D is such good news that the American Cancer Society, of course, had to say something against it. An ACS spokesperson, Marji McCullough, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology for the American Cancer Society, flatly stated that nobody should take supplements to prevent cancer.
If it seems surprising to you that the American Cancer Society — which claims to be against cancer — would dissuade people from taking supplements that slash their cancer risk by 77 percent, then you don’t know much about the ACS. In my opinion, the ACS is an organization that actually prevents prevention and openly supports the continuation of cancer as a way to boost its power and profits. The ACS is the wealthiest non-profit in America and has very close ties to pharmaceutical companies, mammography equipment companies and other corporations that profit from cancer. Notice the name, too: It isn’t the American Anti-Cancer Society, it’s the American Cancer Society!
This research on vitamin D is a huge threat to the cancer industry profit mongers because it reveals a way to prevent cancer for free — by seeking natural sunlight exposure and letting your skin manufacture your own powerful anti-cancer medicine (vitamin D). The idea that the cancer industry could lose 80% of its patients due to widespread education about vitamin D and sunlight scares the living daylights out of the cancer industry. Billions of dollars in cancer profits are at stake here, so the pro-cancer groups have to do everything they can to discredit vitamin D by creating doubt and confusion. The degree of dishonesty at work here is almost unbelievable to those who don’t really know what’s happening in the cancer industry.
Ten questions to ask yourself about the cancer industry:
#1: Why does the cancer industry refuse to educate people about cancer prevention?
#2: If people keep donating money for the “search” for a cancer cure, why won’t drug companies pledge to “open source” their patents on cancer drugs to benefit the people whose donations funded them in the first place? In other words, why do people donate money for cancer research but then get charged for cancer drugs?
#3: Why does the entire cancer industry so strongly dissuade people from using sunlight exposure to dramatically reduce their cancer risk? (Hint: Follow the money to the sunscreen industry…)
#4: Why have all the really good cancer supplements, clinics and naturopaths been banned, arrested or run out of the country? (Look up the FDA’s oppression of Lane Labs over MGN-3 for a fascinating review of this…)
#5: The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into the cancer industry over the last three decades. Cancer cures were promised in the 1970′s. Why are cancer rates still essentially the same today as they were in the 1970′s?
#6: Why does the cancer industry continue to use chemotherapy, radiation and other toxic procedures to “kill tumors” when the latest science clearly shows that cancer tumors are only the symptoms, not the cause, of cancer? Chemotherapy destroys immune function and causes permanent damage to the heart, brain and liver…
#7: The World Health Organization says that 70% of all cancers are easily preventable through dietary and lifestyle changes. This latest research shows that sunlight and low-cost calcium supplements can slash cancer risk by 77% in women. Why won’t conventional medicine embrace this low-cost, safe and highly effective method for preventing cancer?
#8: The cancer industry routinely attacks anti-cancer herbs, superfoods and supplements. Why is the cancer industry opposed to anti-cancer nutrition? Why does it believe that only man, not nature, can manufacture anti-cancer medicines?
#9: Dark skin pigmentation blocks ultraviolet radiation, meaning that people with black skin need far more time under the sun to generate the same amount of vitamin D as someone with white skin. Not surprisingly, black women suffer extremely high rates of breast cancer while black men show similarly high levels of prostate cancer. The white-dominated medical industry pretends to be “mystified” by all this. Why won’t conventional medicine simple tell black people the truth about vitamin D, skin pigmentation and cancer? Why do oncologists try to keep black people ignorant about their vitamin D deficiencies?
#10: Why is it illegal for nutritional supplement manufacturers to tell the truth about the anti-cancer effects of their products? Broccoli, garlic, onions and sprouts all have powerful anti-cancer effects, as do dozens of rainforest herbs (Cat’s Claw, for example), Chinese herbs and Western herbs. But the FDA threatens and censors any company that dares to mention cancer prevention on its supplement products. Why is the FDA enforcing a policy of nutritional ignorance with U.S. consumers? Why does the federal government want people to remain ignorant of methods for preventing or treating cancer?
Be well
Dr Sundardas
