Microchipping: Pets, People and Cancer

Is your pet microchipped? Have you thought about getting a chip implanted in yourself or a loved one? Then you will definitely want to have a look at this information.

Mental Health and Micronutrients - Revolution or false hope?

From the Montreal Gazette

“The normalization of the mentally ill via nutrient supplementation would be the most significant breakthrough in the field of mental illness since the beginning of time,” states Bonnie Kaplan – a professor in the faculty of medicine at University of Calgary who has conducted research into Stephan’s micronutrient treatment – in conference materials for Micronutrients for Mental Health, held in San Francisco in December.

Kaplan co-authored a study with New York University economics Professor Dermot Gately, published in November 2009, examining 358 adults with bipolar disorder who were using Stephan’s approach. The study showed that symptoms of bipolar disorder were “45-per-cent lower after six months” of taking micronutrients, according to their report in the journal Clinical Medicine: Psychiatry. This involved daily doses of vitamins and minerals that could be sourced from almost any drugstore.

Although this treatment originated in Canada, other countries might be in the process of legitimizing it.

Link

We think good nutrition is common sense.

The Patton Report

Report on conditions at a California mental hospital, presented to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006

Excerpt from page 5 -
"Initial assessments at Patton are not individualized and fail to provide a basis for a diagnostic process that hassufficient reliability and validity. Moreover, initial assessments are routinely completed within 24 hours of admission to Patton, before the treating psychiatrist would be able toobtain input from other disciplines. The practice of finalizingassessments within 24 hours deprives the psychiatrist ofpotentially critical diagnostic information.
Annual update assessments are likewise inadequate. Many are based on outdated information and, therefore, do not provide anaccurate guide for the patient’s treatment. In fact, we found that Patton’s overall approach to ongoing psychiatric assessment reflects a lack of critical thinking and clinical inquiry. In many cases we reviewed, the psychiatrist failed to evaluate important developments in a patient’s condition that would suggest that the diagnosis assigned to the patient is not accurate. Without a proper understanding of a patient’s condition, Patton’s psychiatrists cannot make appropriate treatment decisions. Additionally, Patton fails to adequately assess the presence and impact of seizure disorders when formulating psychiatric diagnoses and assessments.
As a result of the deficiencies in psychiatric assessments and diagnoses at Patton, patients’ actual illnesses are not being properly treated and are permitted to progress. Additionally, patients are exposed to potentially toxic treatments for conditions from which they do not suffer, patients are not provided appropriate psychiatric rehabilitation, and patients’options for discharge are seriously limited."

Link

WHERE IS NAMI??

Celebrities involved in mental illness activism toe the meds line

Bringchange2mind, an American mental illness/anti stigma charity, appears to offer no real information about the causes of mental disorders. The group's celebrity figureheads are Glenn Close and Ron Howard.
From its site:

"LEARN THE FACTS

One of the best ways you can help someone with mental illness is by understanding what it is – and what it isn’t. After all, myths about mental illnesses contribute to stigma, which often prevents those who are living with it from seeking help.

The fact is, a mental illness is a disorder of the brain – your body’s most important organ – And 1 in 6 adults suffers from brain-related illness including depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD and schizophrenia.

Like most diseases of the body, it has many causes – from genetics to other biological, environmental and social/cultural factors. And just as with most diseases, mental illnesses are no one’s fault. The unusual behaviors associated with some illnesses are symptoms of the disease – not the cause.

But most importantly, mental illnesses are treatable through medication and psychosocial therapies – allowing those who suffer from them the opportunity to lead full and productive lives."

Mr. Howard's dishonesty about mental illness we have dealt with here. John Nash, the subject of Howard's film A BEAUTIFUL MIND, recovered from schizophrenia without drugs.

When Miss Close LEARNS THE FACTS - that medications can disable and kill and that many of the people she is trying to help may in fact have acquired Bipolar Disorder and other disabilities like Tardive Dyskinesia as a result of taking antidepressants or other psychoactive medications - she is sure to be furious.

Bringchange2mind links to pro-meds government and charity sites. It doesn't raise any questions about the real causes of mental disorders and how to do physical tests to screen for schizophrenia or other disorders, and does not oppose the promotion of psychotropic meds for young children.

We wish Bringchange2mind would promote healing that does no harm. For example, this link has a collection of articles on fish oil and mental health.

Finally, Bringchange2mind states that "1 in 6 adults suffers from brain-related illness including depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD and schizophrenia."

Where did this figure come from?

The UN's WHO puts the frequency of schizophrenia at about 1 in 100. And WHO studies have indicated that Third World country patients can recover better and faster from schizophrenia without treatment than with Western-style intervention.

Bringchange2mind seems to be a screen for promotion of the Pharma status quo.

UPDATE: The UK has a similar initiative,
Time To Change.

Psych meds or exercise will not cure thyroid conditions, a copper overload, a Niacin deficiency. Real change will come when people can get proper diagnoses and the treatments they need - and get well.

Follow the money...

Vitamin D Theory of Autism

"In addition to the current epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, say another epidemic—an epidemic of autism—was upon our children? What if the autism epidemic began at the same time the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency began? What if both epidemics had worsened in unison? What if one theory explained all the unexplained facts about autism? What if both epidemics had the same root cause: sun avoidance? What if both were iatrogenic, that is, medical advice to avoid the sun had caused both epidemics?Be warned, what follows is not light reading—autism is not a light disease.
DOES THE VITAMIN D THEORY BEST EXPLAIN AUTISM?
The theory that vitamin D deficiency, during pregnancy or childhood, causes autism is just a theory. However, the theory has a plausible mechanism of action, explains all the unexplained facts about autism, subsumes several other theories, implies simple prevention, and is easily disprovable—all components of a useful theory.A genetic lesion (abnormality) in some component of the vitamin D system—a lesion vitamin D's unique pharmacology could overcome—would explain why monozygotic (identical) twins are highly affected while fraternal twins are not. Varying brain levels of activated vitamin D during later life would explain why some identical twins get severe disease while others are barely affected.Falling vitamin D levels over the last 20 years due to sun-avoidance explain autism's rapid increase in incidence during that same time. The very different effects estrogen and testosterone have on vitamin D metabolism may explain why boys are much more likely to get it than girls are. Lower vitamin D levels in blacks may explain their higher rates of autism. The vitamin D theory has tenable explanations for all the epidemiological features of autism."
Read more at Link

Scientist Offers Compelling Images of Gulf War Illness

Since the early 1990s, some 175,000 U.S. troops have returned from service in the first Gulf War reporting a host of vague complaints, notes Richard Briggs, a physical chemist at UT Southwestern involved in the new imaging. Their symptoms ranged from mental confusion, difficulty concentrating, attacks of sudden vertigo and intense uncontrollable mood swings to extreme fatigue and sometimes numbness – or the opposite, constant body pain.

With funding from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, Haley has assembled a team of roughly 140 researchers. Many work with patients. Others are developing new animal, biochemical and genetic studies to identify the biological perturbations underlying Gulf War Illness. But the vast majority – some two-thirds of these scientists – are now involved in brain imaging.

As a result of these studies, Briggs says, “In the last two years we have learned more about Gulf War Illness than we did in the previous 15.”

What’s emerged is evidence to suggest “that there are three major syndromes responsible for Gulf War Illness,” he says. They appear loosely linked to at least three different types of agents to which many troops were exposed: sarin nerve gas, a nerve gas antidote (pyridostigmine bromide) that presented its own risks and military-grade pesticides to prevent illness from sand flies and other noxious pests. But Briggs acknowledges that no one knows for sure which combination of agents or environmental conditions might have conspired to trigger Gulf War illness.

Link to article and images

Army Pesticides in the Military

Pharmalot: FDA May Prosecute More Pharmaceutical Execs

By Ed Silverman // March 4th, 2010 //
The FDA plans to increase misdemeanor prosecutions of industry execs as it looks to refocus its Office of Criminal Investigations (see this letter to the Senate Finance committee). The move comes in response to a new report from the General Accountability Office that the OCI suffers from lax oversight, despite increased in funding and staffing over the past decade. In fact, the FDA hasn’t reviewed most OCI offices in more than three years. The OCI investigates counterfeit drugs and other bad stuff, as well as misconduct by FDA employees.
The GAO concluded the FDA “has relied largely on the OCI director to determine which aspects of OCI’s operations and investigations are made known to FDA’s top management.” The GAO found assessments of six OCI field offices aren’t being done on a timely basis. Of 24 total office assessments that should have been completed by August 2009, only 7, or about 30 percent, were completed and one office hadn’t been assessed in over 10 years.

Continues at Link
Thanks, Ed!

Ah, but... who is watching the watchers?