While progressives pointed out that it would have been worthy of more applause if the offer of support had come back when he had the actual power to do something about it, Medicare for All proponents applauded the huge paradigm shift denoted by the newest high-profile endorsement of the popular proposal: former President Barack Obama. Continue reading
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new home grown mad cow case recently in a cow raised for beef in Florida. The 6-year-old cow tested positive for atypical H-type BSE but, “never entered slaughter channels, and at no time presented a risk to the food supply, or to human health,” says USDA. Continue reading
In August 1921, sheriff’s deputies in West Virginia—later joined by federal troops—massacred striking mineworkers using machine guns and aerial bombardment, in what’s now known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. Continue reading
Washington, NATO and Israel need enemies to justify their indefensible actions. None exist so they’re invented. Continue reading
A new study highlights a lesser-known but serious consequence of the climate crisis for hundreds of millions of people around the world—major nutritional deficiencies that are likely to hit impoverished populations the hardest, as carbon dioxide emissions seriously affect the quality of food crops. Continue reading
Anything less than universal healthcare for all its citizens and residents is unacceptable in the world’s richest country. Continue reading
There are now more than 700 million obese people worldwide, 108 million of them children, reported the New York Times in 2017. In Brazil, food giant Nestle sends vendors door to door hawking its high-calorie junk food and giving customers a full month to pay for their purchases. Such a deal. Nestle calls the junk food hawkers, who are themselves obese, “micro-entrepreneurs.” Right. Continue reading
Ecological economists, such as Herman E. Daly, stress that as the external costs of pollution and resource exhaustion are not included in Gross Domestic Product, we do not know whether an increase in GDP is a gain or a loss. Continue reading
Less than a week after Argentine lawmakers rejected a bill that would have legalized some abortions, the apparent first casualty from their action has emerged: a woman died from complications from an at-home abortion. Continue reading
An astounding 10,000 2- and 3-year-olds in the U.S. are on drugs like Ritalin and Adderall for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder it was reported in 2014. Pediatric “psychopharmacology” treating conduct disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and more has become a gold mine for Pharma. Pre-school kids are even “diagnosed” with schizophrenia. Fifty percent of pediatricians prescribe kids insomnia drugs. Children are ideal patients because they have to do what their parents, teachers and doctors tell them. Continue reading
According to Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), universal healthcare in America would save about $500 billion annually—by eliminating insurer middlemen and the bureaucratic nightmare it creates for physicians and hospitals. Continue reading
If the billionaire Koch brothers really want to undermine the economic case for Medicare for All, they have a funny way of showing it. Continue reading
July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history. Continue reading
Thousands of people have died from taking Big Pharma’s products as directed, with Big Pharma executives aware that their products caused sickness and death. Continue reading
There is an old saying that if you keep going into a barber shop, eventually you will get a haircut. The same can be said of Pharma’s many health “screenings.” Continue reading
Just as any new technology claims to offer the most advanced development; that their definition of progress will cure society’s ills or make life easier by eliminating the drudgery of antiquated appliances, the Wifi Alliance was organized as a worldwide wireless network to connect ‘everyone and everything, everywhere” as it promised “improvements to nearly every aspect of daily life.” Continue reading
For years now Liberian journalists have been digging into how the Centers for Disease Control based in the USA was at the epicenter of how the Ebola virus suddenly appeared in the West African country of Liberia in 2014. Continue reading
Antibiotics, once considered benign drugs, are raising new and disturbing questions. Excessive medical and agricultural use of antibiotics is now clearly linked to antibiotic-resistant microbes or superbugs. Worse, antibiotics are now known to have negative effects on the microbiome, sometimes called the body’s second brain, contributing to obesity, diabetes and problems with mood. Continue reading
It has happened at slaughterhouses run by Smithfield Foods, Swift and Agriprocessors. Continue reading
How did the once modest medical specialty of child psychiatry become the aggressive “pediatric psychopharmacology” we see today? Millions of children who were once just considered too active are now diagnosed with ADHD, conduct disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, mixed manias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, pervasive development disorders, irritability, aggression and personality disorders and given drugs. Children who were once considered shy or moody are now diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, mood disorders, social phobia, anxiety, borderline disorders, assorted “spectrum” disorders and even schizophrenia. Continue reading
“While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication,” tweeted Sanofi-Aventis after Roseanne Barr blamed her tweets on the sleeping drug Ambien. While the drug maker may look like the good guy now—and enjoy a boost in Ambien/zolpidem sales––12 years ago it was a different story. Continue reading
Is a side effect of Ambien racism and anti-Semitism? Or does it simply lower someone’s inhibitions so their innate racism and anti-Semitism come out? Disgraced TV star Roseanne Barr says taking Ambien explains her recent tweets which instantly moved ABC to cancel her show. Continue reading
How high are Pharma’s prices? Novartis wants $475,000 a patient for its new cancer therapy. Hep C drugs cost $95,000 for a course of treatment. The immune drug, Actimmune, costs $52,321.80 a month. The parasite drug Daraprim costs $45,000 a month. And the gallstone drug Chenodal costs $42,570 a month. Continue reading
Antidepressants were once considered a short-term therapy to help people get over a troubled time. All that changed with the debut of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants, drug ads on TV and the promotion of the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression. Though there is almost no evidence of the theory––that SSRI antidepressants correct deficits in brain levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter––antidepressants became blockbusters for Pharma. Continue reading
An orgy of antibacterial dish, body and laundry soaps emerged in the 2000s to help people get “better than clean.” But the bacterial overkill, when soap and water work just as well, fuels antibiotic resistance and possibly childhood allergies by preventing exposure to natural microbes in the environment. But there’s a worse problem with the germ killers in such antibiotic products (called endocrine or hormone disrupters): they are the same compounds that are producing frogs with no penises in polluted streams and are actually pesticides. Continue reading
“My number two does not look like a number two. I don’t know what to call it. Is there a number three?” So begins an ad in an aggressive AbbVie campaign to sell the disease of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) in order to sell AbbVie’s drug for it. EPI is characterized by frequent diarrhea, gas, bloating and stomach pain says the campaign whose pay off line is “Don’t Keep a Lid on It.” Creon, AbbVie’s drug to treat the hitherto almost unknown disease of EPI is priced at over $500 a prescription. Continue reading
Imagine a TV ad for a hip replacement device. Over scenes of the puppies and sunsets, a voiceover warns, “Hip replacements may cause tissue death, the destruction of muscles, bones and ligaments, nerve damage, mental changes, thyroid disorder, vision and hearing problems and heart failure.” Such ads may soon be part of primetime viewing, not just because the device industry is starting to advertise but because medical device side effects are as scary as, if not worse than, drug side effects. Continue reading
Bisphosphonate bone drugs are among the most harmful and misrepresented drug classes still on the market. But that has not stopped Pharma-funded medical associations like the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research, the National Osteoporosis Foundation and the National Bone Health Alliance from periodically wringing their hands over low sales. Continue reading
My number two does not look like a number two. I don’t know what to call it. Is there a number three?” So begins an ad in an aggressive AbbVie campaign to sell the disease of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) in order to sell AbbVie’s drug for it. EPI is characterized by frequent diarrhea, gas, bloating and stomach pain says the campaign whose pay off line is “Don’t Keep a Lid on It.” (Get it?) Creon, AbbVie’s drug to treat the hitherto almost unknown disease of EPI is priced at over $500 a prescription. Continue reading
Recently, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) revealed a small but significant risk of breast cancer with regular hormonal birth control pills. The longer women take them, the higher the risk. Yet, says the FDA about one popular hormone-based birth control pill, “Most studies suggest that the use of oral contraceptives is not associated with an overall increase in the risk of developing breast cancer.” Continue reading
On January 11, the Trump administration issued a cruel announcement: If you can’t find a job, don’t count on being able to get health care. Continue reading
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Hazardous to health GMO foods and pesticides
Posted on September 24, 2018 by Stephen Lendman
The danger is indisputable. Independent scientific studies exposed the hazards long ago—suppressed by Washington and US media, supporting corporate profits over human health. Continue reading →