Newsletter Archive

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October 3, 2008

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.

Natural Health News

September 29, 2008

Vitamin K1 may have diabetes benefits: study
Supplements of vitamin K1 may reduce the development of insulin resistance in older men, and thereby offer protection against diabetes, suggests a new study. Insulin resistance, whereby insufficient insulin is released to produce a normal glucose response from fat, muscle and liver cells, was significantly lower in men following a daily vitamin K1 supplement, according to results of a 36-month, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

September 26, 2008

Vitamin D again linked to breast cancer protection
Increased intake of vitamin D from the diet and from sunlight may reduce the risk for breast cancer by over 20 per cent, says a new study.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

For more natural health news, click here.

See also our 2001-2008 news archive, by clicking here.

Pharma "Business with Disease" News

September 29, 2008

Blood-Thinning Drug Linked to Increased Bleeding in Brain
Patients who take the commonly used blood-thinning drug warfarin face larger amounts of bleeding in the brain and increased risk of mortality if they suffer a hemorrhagic stroke, new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows.
Read article at physorg.com

September 29, 2008

Tests for drugs in tap water
Drinking water supplies are to be tested for the presence of prescription drugs amid fears that rivers are being contaminated by the growing quantity of pharmaceuticals flushed unwittingly down the drain.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
Comment: Powerful anti-cancer drugs are of particular concern as they can be excreted unaltered from the body into the sewerage system. They are thought to be potentially dangerous because they are highly toxic to dividing cells, are easily dissolved in water and are difficult to destroy by conventional water-treatment techniques. About 50 of these "cytotoxic" drugs are prescribed to patients in Britain and researchers are concerned they may have an additive effect – where small concentrations of two or more drugs become more poisonous when absorbed together at the same time in drinking water.

September 26, 2008

FDA Warns Five Drugmakers Over ADHD Ads
Five, count ‘em, five warning letters were sent yesterday by the agency to different drugmakers for incomplete, false or misleading promotional materials for ADHD meds. Among the ads cited - a YouTube video for Shire Pharmaceutical’s Adderall XR with Ty Pennington that was featured on the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” television show. The charges would appear serious - the FDA says the drugmakers variously omitted material facts; miminized important risks; overstated efficacy or made unsubstantiated claims.
Read article at pharmalot.com

September 25, 2008

Statins Can Hinder Muscle Repair
Statins, taken by millions to lower cholesterol, may hinder the body's ability to repair muscles, University of Alabama researchers report. The most frequently reported side effect of statin therapy is fatigue, with about 9 percent of patients reporting muscle pain. As doses of the medication are increased, and physical activity is added, these effects can be more pronounced. These side effects are found in all commonly used statins.
Read article at medicinenet.com

September 25, 2008

Anti-depressant drug may affect fertility, says study
Antidepressant drugs taken by tens of thousands of British men may damage sperm quality and harm fertility, researchers at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York have found. The doctors examined the effects of paroxetine (Seroxat) on men taking the drug over five weeks. Four weeks into the trial, tests revealed the men had sperm showing more than twice as much genetic damage as at the start of the study.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

September 24, 2008

Senator questions doctors' ties to drug companies
An influential U.S. senator is investigating the drug company connections of two renowned psychiatrists linked to the University of Texas System. In a letter to the UT chancellor's office, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said the two researchers, both of whom have received federal grants, have failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in income they received from drug companies. The university is required to keep records of such income on file. Dr. Augustus John Rush, a former researcher at UT-Southwestern in Dallas, and Dr. Karen Wagner, who works at the University of Texas Medical Branch, are the latest doctors to fall under federal scrutiny in a brewing national debate over the influence big pharmaceutical companies can wield over medical research.
Read article at dallasnews.com

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

See also our 2001-2008 news archive, by clicking here.

GMO News

September 16, 2008

Ban GMO rice, Greenpeace asks Senate
MANILA, Philippines - Environmental group Greenpeace asked the Senate to ban the sale of genetically modified organism (GMO) rice, as it opened a photo exhibit highlighting the importance of rice. The group cited the importance of rice to Filipino culture, saying this is why it must be protected from risky genetic modification. "Greenpeace is here at the Senate to lobby our senators to enact a legislation to protect our most important staple food from the inherent risks of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is an unproven, unpredictable and unnecessary technology. The resulting genetically-modified food crops threaten human health, the environment, and farmers' livelihoods," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Genetic Engineering Campaigner Daniel Ocampo, in a statement on the group's Web site (www.greenpeace.org.ph).
Read article on the gmanews.tv website (Philippines)

For more GMO news, click here.

Other Health-related News

September 29, 2008

Soil Association urges ban on pesticides to halt bee deaths
The Soil Association has urged the government to ban pesticides linked to honeybee deaths around the world. The chemicals are widely used in UK agriculture but have been banned as a precaution in four other European countries. Last week the Italian government issued an immediate suspension after it accepted that the pesticides were implicated in killing honeybees, joining France, Germany and Slovenia.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: Germany suspended sales of the pesticides in May of this year after 700 beekeepers along the Rhine reported that two-thirds of their bees had died following the application of clothianidin. In France, imidacloprid has been banned on sunflowers since 1999 and as a sweetcorn treatment since 2003, after a third of honeybees were wiped out. Imidacloprid and clothianidin are produced by a division of the chemical manufacturer Bayer.

September 28, 2008

Return to the Good Life is the solution to the food crisis
People should dig up their gardens and start growing their own fruit and vegetables in the face of a looming world food crisis, according to the man who coined the phrase 'food miles'. Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, urged people to follow the example of the 1970s sitcom The Good Life starring Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers, by cultivating their own food in their back gardens or in allotments. Prof Lang, who advises the Government on the crisis, said that people who relied on the large supermarkets for their food did so at their peril.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

For more health-related news, click here.

See also our 2001-2008 news archive, by clicking here.

Political News

September 26, 2008

Medvedev orders upgrade of Russia's nuclear deterrent by 2020
President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that Russia must upgrade its nuclear deterrent and fully supply the Armed Forces with modern weaponry by 2020. He said Russia would make the modernization of its nuclear deterrent and Armed Forces a priority in light of the recent military conflict with Georgia.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)

September 25, 2008

Ganley: the Lisbon treaty is dead
Ahead of a conference of presidents meeting this morning to discuss the funding of Irish anti-Lisbon group Libertas, its founder, businessman Declan Ganley, puts his case to MEPs. “It has been interesting to note the response of some MEPs to my country’s overwhelming rejection of the anti-democratic Lisbon treaty. It seems some of them were surprised, which only goes to prove just how removed they are from the real world in which we citizens of Europe occupy.”
Read Declan Ganley's full statement on theparliament.com website

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 Initiative website.

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