Newsletter Archive

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December 19, 2007

Latest News Updates

Keep up-to-date on the latest health and politics news with our regular updates and analysis of the key stories from around the world.

Included in this edition: L-carnitine linked to better mental function in the very old; Supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids could reduce fat mass in diabetics; China Shuts Down Leukemia Drug Maker; European Commission Accused Of supporting pharma companies trying to make direct-to-consumer advertising for medicinal products legal; Hundreds of Australian girls get sick from Gardasil cancer vaccine; Increase folic acid dose to prevent birth defects, society urges; Maximum levels should not be based on RDA, say Irish Association of Health Stores; Vitamin D dose study adds weight to intake increases; Report claims Britain's drinking water is under threat from medicinal chemicals and cosmetic products; EU to release proposed list of banned herbs imminently; France suspends commercial GMO seed use; African National Congress to discuss establishment of a United States of Africa; MEPs warn of 'battle ahead' over EU treaty; Danish MPs vote against EU treaty referendum; Enlarged EU is coping without treaty, says study.

Natural Health News

December 13, 2007

L-carnitine linked to better mental function in the very old
Supplements of L-carnitine improved total muscle mass and boosted cognitive performance among a group of centenarians in Italy, reports a new study. Sixty-six subjects over 100 years of age took part in the study, published in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which also reports reductions in fat mass and fatigue during the placebo-controlled, randomised, double-blind, 2-phase study.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

December 13, 2007

Omega-3 shows benefits for fat loss in diabetics
Supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids could reduce fat mass in diabetics, as well as improving blood lipid levels associated with the formation of arterial plaque, suggests a new study from France.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

For more natural health news, click here.

Pharma "Business with Disease" News

December 13, 2007

China Shuts Down Leukemia Drug Maker
China's food and drug safety agency has revoked the license of a company responsible for making tainted leukemia drugs blamed for causing leg pains and partial paralysis among dozens of patients. State-owned Shanghai Hualian Pharmaceutical Co., a unit of China's biggest drug maker Shanghai Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., will also be fined the highest amount allowed under law and profits from the sale of the contaminated drugs will be confiscated, the State Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on its Web site seen Thursday. Some Shanghai Hualian executives were detained by police on suspicion they deliberately withheld information about violations of production standards during the investigation, the SFDA's statement said.
Read Associated Press news story at google.com

December 7, 2007

European Commission Accused Of Pushing DTC
Several associations have accused the European Commission of supporting pharma companies in trying to make direct-to-consumer advertising for medicinal products legal. Four groups representing complementary health insurers, independent medical bulletins and patient advocates have issued a joint press release claiming: "The European Commission is supportive of the industry?s moves: its "consultations" are little more than an attempt to sway public opinion."
Read article at pharmalot.com

December 3, 2007

Hundreds get sick from Gardasil cancer vaccine
MORE than 17 girls a week have been experiencing adverse reactions such as seizures and numbness after taking cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil since it became widely distributed in April. But the Department of Health and Ageing, while revealing the number of reactions, is refusing to release the details of them - despite growing controversy overseas, including links to at least seven deaths. There have been previous reports in Australia of young girls fainting, experiencing seizures, dizzy spells and paralysis, including 20 students at a Melbourne private school who reported being sick after having an injection in late May. The Daily Telegraph can reveal that as of November 30 there have been 496 adverse reaction reports filed to the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA).
Read article from the Daily Telegraph at news.com.au (Australia)

For more pharma "business with disease" news, click here.

Other Health-related News

December 13, 2007

Increase folic acid dose to prevent birth defects, society urges
Women planning pregnancy should boost their intake of folic acid even more, as it could play a key role in reducing as many as half of certain birth defects, according to new guidelines released Wednesday. The recommendations were produced for health-care professionals by a multidisciplinary panel of experts from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Women with no personal health risks, a planned pregnancy and a diet of foods rich in folate should take a multivitamin containing between 0.4 and one milligram of folic acid at least two to three months before conception and throughout pregnancy, the recommendations say. However, women who are at higher risk, including those who are smokers, obese, diabetic or with previous history of spina bifida in the family should be supplementing their diet with multivitamins containing five milligrams of folic acid, three months prior to and up to 12 weeks following conception.
Read article on the website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

December 12, 2007

Maximum levels should not be based on RDA, group says
A petition will today be handed to the Minister for Health in Ireland against a proposal to base the maximum levels for vitamins and minerals on recommended daily allowances - a concept which has been criticised as being 40 years out-of-date. The Irish Association of Health Stores (IAHS) said they have a gathered tens of thousands of names demanding the Irish government and European Commission to "respect the right" of consumers to have high level doses. More than 60,000 people - some 1.5 per cent of the population of Ireland - have signed-up to the petition which will be handed to Minister Mary Harney. The sheer volume of signatures shows how important the issue is being taken, and IAHS is expecting more to come onboard.
Read article at nutraingredients.com
Comment: Click here to read the Irish Association of Health Stores' press release, "TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CONSUMERS APPEAL TO MARY HARNEY".

December 12, 2007

Vitamin D dose study adds weight to intake increases
Doses of vitamin D3 of 2,000 International Units (IU) - the current tolerable upper intake level (UL) in Europe and the US - are needed to ensure blood levels of the vitamin amongst post-menopausal African-American women, says a new study. Over 200 women took part in the three year study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which adds to an ever-growing body of science suggesting an urgent need to review current daily intakes of the vitamin.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

December 10, 2007

Cosmetics threat to drinking water
Britain's drinking water is under threat from medicinal chemicals and cosmetic products flushed down the drains of millions of households, a report has claimed. Experts warned that treatment works are currently unable to remove all these substances, leaving some of them to contaminate water supplies.
Read article at Channel 4 News (UK)
Comment: Chemical drug medicines found in the UK water supply now include anti-depressants, painkillers and chemotherapy drugs.

December 8, 2007

"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic
Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we don't
What leads the Gates and Rockefeller foundations to at one and the same time to back proliferation of patented and soon-to-be Terminator patented seeds across Africa, a process which, as it has in every other place on earth, destroys the plant seed varieties as monoculture industrialized agribusiness is introduced? At the same time they invest tens of millions of dollars to preserve every seed variety known in a bomb-proof doomsday vault near the remote Arctic Circle 'so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future'...
Read article by F. William Engdahl at globalresearch.ca
Comment: The other sponsors of the vault include Monsanto Corporation, the Syngenta Foundation and the US agribusiness giant DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, one of the world?s largest owners of patented genetically-modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agrichemicals.

December 6, 2007

EU to release proposed list of banned herbs imminently!
Something many of us have been concerned about for years is now imminent - the intention of the European Union to ban a range of botanicals, including some that have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years in traditional systems of healthcare.
Read article on the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) website (UK)

December 6, 2007

France suspends commercial GMO seed use, studies safety
France formally suspended on Thursday the commercial use of genetically modified (GMO) seeds in the country until early February and ordered a biotech safety study.
Read article at reuters.com

For more health-related news, click here.

Political News

December 14, 2007

United States of Africa on agenda
Cape Town - Uniting the continent in a United States of Africa is one of the key international policy issues to be discussed by the ANC at Polokwane next week. This emerged from discussions at the June policy conference, which also welcomed the establishment of a pan-African fund to promote infrastructure development in the continent. The conference broadly supported the idea of establishing a union government in a United States of Africa "as a step towards a strategic goal of unification of Africa". This ambitious task should be carried out by building regional economic blocs and strengthening the African Union, the policy conference proposed.
Read article in Business Report (South Africa)

December 12, 2007

MEPs warn of 'battle ahead' over EU treaty
Signing the controversial reform treaty will not put an end to the "crisis of confidence" in the EU, it has been claimed.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: Margot Wallstrom, commission vice president, told MEPs that ?lessons had been learned? following the rejection of the EU constitution by Dutch and French voters in 2005. However, senior deputies, including GUE/NGL leader Francis Wurtz, warned it would be wrong to think a line could be drawn under the whole issue of Europe?s future. "The EU is making a significant error of diagnosis if it considers that this summit agreement marks the end of the crisis of confidence between whole sections of our societies and the current economic and social tendencies of the EU," he said.

December 12, 2007

Danish MPs vote against EU treaty referendum
The Danish parliament has voted against having a referendum on the new EU treaty, making it likely that Ireland will be the only EU member state to put the document to a public poll.
Read article at euobserver.com

December 10, 2007

Enlarged EU is coping without treaty, says study
European Union leaders fly to Lisbon on Thursday to sign a treaty that most describe as essential to modernise the bloc's institutions after its enlargement in May 2004 from 15 countries to 27. Yet according to a report by one of Europe's leading academic experts on the EU, the main institutions - the council of ministers, European Commission, European parliament and European Court of Justice - are functioning as well as ever and the much-predicted gridlock has not happened.
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)

For more political news, visit the news pages on the website of the International Alliance for Health, Peace and Social Justice, and the news page on the European Referendum website.

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