Chicago Sues 5 Big Pharma Firms for Creating Opioid Painkiller Addicts

This story out of Chicago is news only because it shows the cost municipalities must bear to deal with the increasing prescription drug abuse in treating the addicts of painkillers. The lawsuit itself will not be motivation for pharmaceutical companies to change their ways. They are already the largest criminals in the U.S., having paid out billions of dollars in fines and criminal settlements, all as part of the "cost of doing business." Sidney Wolfe of the British Medical Journal wrote an editorial last year explaining that criminal activities by pharmaceutical companies is increasing, due to insufficient penalties. Deaths due to prescription drug abuse of painkillers now exceeds deaths due to heroin and cocaine combined. Yet pharmaceutical companies remain in business pushing their drugs, while millions of users of "illegal drugs" go to prison each year as a result of the "war on drugs."

Senior Care: Music Beats Drugs in Fighting Dementia

Prescription drug abuse against the elderly is an epidemic problem in the U.S. today. Consider the following facts: According to the Office of the Inspector General, 304,983 elderly nursing home residents in the U.S. were given dangerous, and often deadly, antipsychotic drugs, of which 88% were prescribed off-label for dementia. Antipsychotic drugs can double the risk of death and triple the risk of stroke for seniors and there are now about 1 million nursing home patients on antipsychotic drugs. However, research now backs up the experience that personalized music has tremendous therapeutic benefits for seniors, allowing them to overcome dementia without drugs. Lemon Grove Care & Rehabilitation Center near San Diego has reported that since they introduced iPods and personalized playlists to their residents, antipsychotic medication has been reduced by over 50%!

American Heart Association’s Outdated Dietary Guidelines are Hurting Americans’ Health

The American Heart Association’s woefully outdated dietary guidelines are hurting Americans’ health. Last December, we told you about the American Heart Association’s (AHA) new new cholesterol guidelines that would make 33 million healthy Americans dependent on statins. These are the most widely prescribed class of drugs in the world—drugs so dangerous that the FDA mandates their side effects be disclosed in labeling. The problem with AHA’s “logic?” Not only has this bad/good cholesterol dichotomy been solidly debunked by study after study—it was never proven in the first place. According to the Wall Street Journal, the notion that saturated fats and LDL clog our arteries came from a “derailment” of nutrition policy “by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics, and bias.” This article takes a look at some of the other AHA dietary guidelines, accompanied by reasons why they actually are bad for your heart.

No Rest for Psycho-Pharma Until Every American is Drugged

With nearly 79 million Americans currently taking at least one mind-altering psychiatric drug, it boggles the mind that a May 13, 2014 USA Today article titled, “The cost of not caring: Nowhere to go,” would argue that the nation is somehow suffering from a lack of mental health treatment. According to the article, “More than half a million Americans with serious mental illness are falling through the cracks of a system in tatters.” Based on the fact that one in four Americans is taking at least one psychiatric drug, it seems the psycho-pharmaceutical industry will not be satisfied until every American is under the influence of pharmacological “treatment”. The real force behind the article is the push to increase mental health screening, which is part of Representative Tim Murphy’s (R-Pa) controversial legislation (H.R. 3717). The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013, not only creates a new mental health czar, but it also increases spending for mental health training, screening, awareness campaigns and court-ordered treatment—up to a whopping $270 million a year. And this taxpayer mental health financial benevolence is expected without any data to support that even one psychiatric disorder is based in science. Worse still, nowhere in the article is mention made of the known serious adverse reactions to the psychiatric drugs commonly used as treatment.

A New Autoimmunity Syndrome Linked to Aluminum In Vaccines

While "anti-vaxxers" are being smeared in public campaigns as backward and unscientific fear-mongers, a growing body of cutting edge research is emerging from the top echelons of medical immunology to confirm what the "cranks" have been saying for years about the devastating effects of vaccine ingredients. The biggest names in the field of study of the human immune system are attached to current papers in the most prestigious immunology literature that link widely used vaccine ingredients such as aluminum to terrifying modern epidemics of immune-mediated diseases including autism and Alzheimer's.

The Vaccine Debate and Suppression of Free Speech in America

There is a raging vaccine debate in America today. Most of those on one side of the debate, however, would like you to simply believe there is no debate. They desperately want you to believe that the issue of vaccines is a settled issue and that there is only room for one side - their side. Sadly, many who believe this want to suppress freedom of speech and not allow the other side of the debate to be heard. This is called tyranny and it is something the founding fathers of the United States of America fought hard to prevent. The debate over vaccines is not new. The debate has existed for the entire history of vaccines, ever since the first vaccine was brought to market. That is because ever since vaccines were developed and marketed, there have always been vaccine-injured children and people, including deaths, and therefore people who have opposed vaccines. Those few who have dared to report on the other side of the vaccine debate in the mainstream media have put their careers on the line. Now, even simple stay-at-home mom bloggers are being targeted and threatened in an effort to suppress free speech regarding vaccines.

The Breast Cancer Industry Is Deceiving Women

Are regular mammograms doing more harm than good? For the past two decades, controversy has swirled around the question of the benefits of mammography. Unfortunately, breast cancer is a huge and thriving industry, and its powerhouses have lined up squarely in support of mammography. If every woman who is recommended to get a breast exam did so, it puts $8 billion dollars a year into the pockets of the radiology industry. But what does the science say? This past February, a twenty-five-year-long Canadian trial found no difference in death rates from breast cancer among women who had regular mammograms and those who did not. The Mammogram Myth may be beginning to crumble, but don’t wait for the dust to settle— research safer ways to prevent, detect, and treat breast cancer.

Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare

An important new book by a recognized medical research expert describes Big Pharma as akin to the Mafia. In an interview conducted by our colleagues at ANH-Europe, Dr. Peter C. Gøtzsche exposes the flaws of the drug approval system, our reliance on dangerous drugs, and the deadly co-dependence between regulators and industry. Dr. Gøtzsche is co-founder of the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration and Cochrane Reviews, a leading journal of evidence-based medicine. The interview is particularly timely now that the FDA has decided to remove restrictions on the dangerous drug Avandia. Dr. Gøtzsche’s new book, Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare, points out that the pharmaceutical industry is allowed to test their own drugs, and thus effectively be their own judge. He calls this a threat to safe medicine and asks for open access to all research data, including raw data, because otherwise, data can be easily suppressed and conclusions manipulated by industry.

New Cholesterol Guidelines May Put 13 Million More on Statin Drugs

Controversial revised cholesterol-treatment guidelines loosened the definition of who would qualify for statin drug treatment to prevent heart disease, greatly increasing the number of people who would be eligible for treatment. Compared with the older guidelines, the new recommendations would increase the number of US adults eligible for statin therapy from 43.2 million to 56 million, with most of the increase occurring among adults without heart disease. Perhaps the biggest “sham” of all is that statin drugs, touted as “preventive medicine” to protect your heart health, can actually have detrimental effects on your heart.

After Gardasil: I Simply Want my Healthy Daughter Back

Prior to Natasja being vaccinated with Gardasil, she led a very active and healthy lifestyle. Natasja had the three shots of Gardasil in May, August and December of 2011. After her second shot she started having severe headaches, tunnel vision and short term loss of her peripheral vision. Natasja developed a sore throat after her third vaccination. She could not eat and was in a lot of pain throughout her body. My daughter was very ill for 14 days. Natasja’s pains did not diminish throughout 2012 and the level of her pain increased. This continued and there did not appear to be any respite. As we continued into the early part of 2013 her health deteriorated. The pain was constant and she had sensory disturbances on the right side of her face and down her right arm along with blurred vision and severe headaches. Natasja was hospitalized and after a lumbar puncture was diagnosed with a neurological disorder and Borrelia, otherwise known as Lyme disease. How can someone who once was so healthy suddenly develop all these illnesses and symptoms? My greatest wish is that someone out there would help my daughter to recover, to be free of pain and to become the once healthy, happy and very active young woman she once was.