Botox: Brain Freeze

Dorian Grey Department:
According to this article from the UK's Independent, Botox freezing can reach your grey matter.

UK: Behaviour medications putting tots at risk

By Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Monday April 7 2008

New evidence has shown children's lives are being put at risk by a surge in the use of controversial tranquillising drugs which are being prescribed to control their behaviour, the Guardian has learned.

The anti-psychotic drugs are being given to youngsters under the age of six even though the drugs have no licence for use in children except in certain schizophrenia cases, the report says.

The number of children on the drugs has doubled since the early 1990s as the UK begins to follow a trend started in the US, but critics say they are a "chemical cosh" that could cause premature death.

The first comprehensive analysis, carried out by Ian Wong, professor of paediatric medicines research at the London School of Pharmacy, suggests the number of children on the drugs has surged sharply.

His analysis, to be published next month in the US journal Pediatrics, shows that between 1992 and 2005, 3,000 UK children were given anti-psychotics.

Read the article here

Side Effects

This is the trailer for a movie called "Side Effects".
If you haven't seen it, rent it!

Death By Medicine

"Death By Medicine"


This study was conducted between 2003/2004, so it's been around for a while. However, it is sometimes necessary to refresh our memories and also to introduce it to those who haven't seen it.
This study was done by Gary Null, PhD; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD, and Carolyn Dean, MD, ND. It is mind-boggling to say the least, the startling findings from this meticulous study indicate that conventional medicine is “the leading cause of death” in the United States . Over 700,000 Americans die each year at the hands of government-sanctioned medicine, while the FDA and other government agencies pretend to protect the public by harassing those who offer safe alternatives. I suggest reading the entire study, including the foot notes before your next doctor's appointment or surgery.....

From the Abstract of the study;

A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good.

• The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.
  
  
• Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.
  
  
• The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million.
  
  
• The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.
  
  
• The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936.

It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.

ANNUAL PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC COST OF MEDICAL INTERVENTION

Condition	Deaths	Cost
Adverse Drug Reactions	106,000	$12 billion
Medical error	98,000	$2 billion
Bedsores	115,000	$55 billion
Infection	88,000	$5 billion
Malnutrition	108,800	--------
Outpatients	199,000	$77 billion
Unnecessary Procedures	37,136	$122 billion
Surgery-Related	32,000	$9 billion
TOTAL:	783,936	$282 billion

It's simply astounding, follow the link to read more of this study. Be healthy!

Counterfeit medicines: the pills that kill

It's not just legal drugs we have to worry about. A great many problems are caused by counterfeit ones, too. From Britain's Telegraph.

Who pwns your food?

Fascinating information on "green" food production by corporate giants - some of which also produce chemicals, drugs and other products.
Sometimes, where there are hydrogenated fatty acids, there's smoke, too. Did you know that Kraft Foods was owned by (cough cough) Philip Morris, which they have cleverly disguised by renaming it Altria?
How Greenwashing Works

Farmers are disappearing. What will happen if all food production is corporatized?


And we are also concerned about genetically modified (GM) food - some crops have been designed to produce DRUGS...

Pharma Drug Rep Tells All

Ex-Drug Sales Rep Tells All
Former Eli Lilly Rep Says He Wined and Dined Doctors to Make a Sale

By MARCUS BARAM
—

To sell their drugs, pharmaceutical companies hire former cheerleaders and ex-models to wine and dine doctors, exaggerate the drug's benefits and underplay their side-effects, a former sales rep told a Congressional committee this morning.

Shahram Ahari, who spent two years selling Prozac and Zypraxa for Eli Lily, told a Senate Aging Committee chaired by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., that his job involved "rewarding physicians with gifts and attention for their allegiance to your product and company despite what may be ethically appropriate."

Ahari claims that drug companies like hiring former cheerleaders and ex-models, as well as former athletes and members of the military, many of whom have no background in science.

"On my first day of sales class, among 21 trainees and two instructors, I was the only one with any level of college-level science education," Ahari told ABCNews.com on Tuesday.

During their five-week training class, Ahari claims that instructors teach sales tactics, including how to exceed spending limits for important clients, being generous with free samples to leverage sales, using friendships and personal gifts to foster a "quid pro quo" relationship, and how to exploit sexual tension.

"The nature of this business is gift-giving," says Ahari. He claims that he's heard stories about sales reps helping to pay the cost of a doctor's swimming pool and another doctor who was routinely taken to a nightclub where a hostess was paid to keep him company.

Drug reps develop a positive view of their drug and a negative view of the competitors, according to Ahari. "You drink the Kool-Aid. We were taught to minimize the side effects and how to use conversational ploys to minimize it or to change the topic."

According to Ahari, the benefits could be lucrative for sales reps, who tended to earn more than researchers. On top of a base salary for starting reps of $50,000, "there were four quarterly bonuses, an annual bonus, stock options, a car, 401K, great health benefits, and a $60,000 expense account."

Read the rest here.