On September 2, 2008 NEJM published the full study in question, along with the Oxford report, and its own editorial now stating “Whether the increased mortality risk is due solely to the play of chance is uncertain. Ezetimibe [the Zetia portion of Vytorin] interferes with the gastrointestinal absorption not only of cholesterol, but also of other molecular entities [fat soluble antioxidants and isoprenoids] that could conceivably affect the growth of cancer cells….Physicians and patients are unfortunately left for now with uncertainty about the efficacy and safety of the drug.” This rare reversal of opinion has sent a shock wave through Big Pharma’s world, like having your stamp of approval withdrawn at the last minute.

Vytorin is the controversial cholesterol lowering drug that is the center of a major advertising fraud that netted Merck and Schering-Plough over 10 billion dollars in sales in the past two years.  Merck and Schering-Plough are facing congressional investigation, various state attorney general investigations, and plaintiff class action lawsuits.  All the negative publicity has caused sales to fall off, yet the questionable drug is still a top seller for Merck and Schering-Plough in 2008.

Underneath the advertising fraud is a far more damaging prospect from the Big Pharma point of view, that the theory of lowering LDL cholesterol with drugs to prevent heart disease is itself a major fraud that has been perpetrated on the American public for the past decade.  Indeed, while Vytorin is the most effective drug combination of all time in terms of lowering LDL, doing so does not produce cardiovascular health or reduce cardiovascular mortality.

The current study that uncovered cancer risk, called the SEAS trial, was supposed to prove that patients whose heart valves were partially blocked would benefit from Vytorin and not need valve replacement therapy or have heart failure.  In this regard, the SEAS trial showed that Vytorin is worthless, despite lowering LDL cholesterol. This finding is consistent with another unrelated study (GISSI-HF trial) just published in the Lancet that showed fish oil could save lives in patients with heart failure, while the statin drug Crestor could not.  The researchers in this study concluded that “patients with heart failure should not be treated with statins.”

Adding more alarm to the statin industry’s safety is another article published in the NEJM just last week.  It reported on a detailed analysis of the human genome in those with statin-induced muscle damage.  Scientists uncovered an alteration in a gene that causes statin drugs to be more readily absorbed by the liver, thereby making the drugs very toxic.  15% of our population has the risk-related gene variant.  At this time no screening is done to see who is at potential risk, meaning that 1 in 6 patients taking statins are likely to be damaged to a greater or lesser degree based on this one variable alone.  Whatever happened to “first do no harm.”

Adding fuel to the low cholesterol and cancer link was another study recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that found a 33% increased risk of cancer and mortality in type II diabetic patients when their LDL cholesterol reached 107 and a 50% increase when their LDL reached 87.  This is particularly alarming because type II diabetic patients (like Tim Russert) are aggressively treated with statins to lower their cholesterol to the very numbers that are now associated with increased cancer risk and death from any cause.

Pathetically, various forces in the Big Pharma world are recommending that children as low as 7 months of age have their LDL cholesterol levels maintained at 50 for their entire lives (which obviously will require statin drugs since such levels are highly abnormal).  Big Pharma is always looking to expand their market share – focusing now on our children – a truly sad state of affairs.

Statin drugs do not produce cardiovascular health.  The lower your cholesterol goes the more likely you are to develop cancer and/or die from any cause.  This is massive public health fraud on a grand scale.

Talk show hosts lament the death of Russert as the death of an icon and one of the last men of news not suffering from flagrant political bias.  His piercing, accurate, and fair questions often got to the source of many issues and exposed the truth for what it was.  Now that he is gone who is left to ask the questions – even about his death?

Russert’s doctor, Michael Newman, has not disclosed his medication list or any specific changes in medication doses in the past year.  Why?  What is he trying to hide?  Russert’s death is a matter of tremendous public interest, partly because the man was admired by so many and partly because there are millions of men out there wondering if they are the next Tim Russert.  There is no excuse for anything but full disclosure of his health issues so that a proper public dialogue can take place that may help many others.

A Glaring Omission of the Facts

The most glaring omitted information from Russert’s doctor is telling us what diabetes medication he was taking.  I am willing to bet that he was taking Avandia, the drug the FDA should have pulled off the market because it causes a whopping 43% increased risk of a sudden heart attack, information the FDA actively sought to sequester during that drug’s approval process.  Why do I think that?  Because in the scant health data his doctor is giving out he has stated that Russert had high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol – the exact metabolic profile that Avandia is supposed to treat.  When a treatment has death as a common side effect it can hardly be considered a treatment. 

Could it be that Russert is a casualty of one of the great Big Pharma/FDA scams currently going on?  How ironic, since all news programs are sponsored by this industry’s ads and the media fought tooth and claw in the past year to ensure that dangerous drug ads could continue to run non-stop during all news programs – exposing millions of Americans to drug-induced injury (while they got their billions in ad revenues).  I am stunned that no reporter interviewing his doctor seems to be able to ask such an obvious question.

Russert’s Doctor Failed Him

Russert was significantly obese and had been for many years.  Any doctor that couldn’t guess his coronary arteries were full of plaque is not very bright.  Once a man’s waistline passes 40 inches you can rest assured plaque is forming in his arteries – you don’t need a test.  The longer you are in this condition the worse the plaque buildup is going to be.  This is not rocket science.  His autopsy showed a number of significantly clogged arteries which seemed to surprise his doctor and other “experts.” Apparently they forgot to take Plaque 101 in medical school.

By the time Russert’s weight problem had progressed to the point of diabetes a major intervention should have been done.  He should have been read the riot act.  He should have been told that his higher blood sugar would now be caramelizing (cementing) his arteries and vital organs, like spilling sugary syrup on the counter and letting it turn hard – and that sooner or later something would certainly break. 

He should have been told that his excessive abdominal fat clearly predicts that his liver and kidneys look more like a piece of bacon than lean beef.  He should have been told that his low HDL cholesterol was due to free radical damage, meaning his lipids were being oxidized in his blood from some form of toxin or stress (such as oxidized adrenaline).  He should have been told that this same problem will “cook” the fat that is marbleizing his liver and eventually make it look like a piece of overcooked meat. 

He should have been told that his fat stomach was now his worst enemy, cranking out more inflammatory signals on a daily basis than any other stress he was under.  He should have been told that the outsides of his arteries were also getting fat, and this excess fat was recruiting macrophages to the outer lining of his arteries that were in turn forming abnormal inflammatory gangs along his arteries that were going to drastically alter the function of his arteries.

His doctor should have scared the hell out of him because behavior changes in men seldom take place unless there is adequate pain.  And then he should have given him the facts of the simple solution “Tim, all you have to do is get in a healthy pattern where you lose 20% of your weight, at which point your risk factor for a heart attack drops to close to zero.  Then, if you keep losing 1-2 pounds a month you will maintain this very low risk pattern while you are getting back in shape.  In fact, by losing the weight you can go a long way towards reversing all of these problems.”

He should have been told that his real risk for a heart attack was based on his overall inflammation burden (wear and tear), and that if he managed this trend well he would have much less risk of any problem.  He needed to start by managing his weight, because that was a major source of inflammation.  He needed to make sure he got enough sleep at night to recover from wear and tear.  And he really needed to watch his work load as pushing himself into the ground was no longer a safe option.

Of course I do not know what conversations took place between Russert and his doctor, but considering that his doctor is also overweight it probably wasn’t anything like the above and it certainly wasn’t effective.  What Russert’s doctor did was what virtually all doctors do in this country; they pull out the Big Pharma tool box and begin aggressively treating numbers on paper instead of the patient in front of them. 

Sure we can say that Russert’s problems were self inflicted.  But why then do we need doctors?  Don’t doctors have an obligation to do everything in their power to help a person get well? Or are doctor’s nothing more than part of the Big Pharma drug cartel? 

The Cardiovascular Drug Quagmire

Drugs buy you time if you are lucky.  The problem with cardiovascular drugs that make numbers look better on paper is that they make your health worse the longer you use them – and your Big Pharma-trained doctors expect you to use them forever.  It was quite clear back in February of this year, when the ACCORD trial turned in dismal results, that the greater the number of cardiovascular drugs given to a diabetic to manage his condition the more likely he was to die.

Russert’s doctor said he was taking a statin even though his cholesterol wasn’t high.  Yes, this is now standard medical care.  Anyone at risk gets their cholesterol system placed in a statin straightjacket.  This is one of the dumbest things you would ever want to do, since cholesterol synthesis is the foundation of survival in your body.  The American Heart Association actively promotes this fraud at considerable profit for its bedfellows with consequent death for many Americans.

Tim Russert is a great example proving that statins are useless – and likely dangerous.  Statins are now proven to activate a gene called atrogin-1, a gene that is abnormal to activate and directly damages muscle.  This reduces the effectiveness of muscles to perform exercise, reducing Russert’s chance of losing weight.  The heart is also a muscle, meaning that statins can induce direct heart damage via atrogin-1 activation.  Statins also reduce the production of coenzyme Q10, leading to cardiac malfunction. 

Russert’s autopsy showed his heart was enlarged, meaning it was structurally abnormal and headed in the direction of failure.  This finding surprised his doctor, apparently meaning that this change in his heart was recent.  Was this simply a progression of his condition or was this caused by statins?  Nobody really knows, but rest assured his doctor and the general statin-prescribing community will blame his underlying health when in fact the accelerated deterioration of the heart often happens after starting statin therapy or when statin doses are raised.  This is why the public needs to know what kind of statin Russert was on, what was the dose, and had it been raised in the past year.  The simple fact of the case is that Russert’s heart was not working well prior to the arterial clot that caused his fatal heart attack – and this means that he had less of a chance of surviving the heart attack.  There is a high likelihood this handicap in heart function was the result of the statin he was taking.

There is also the plain observation that Russert did not have high cholesterol in the first place, yet his autopsy showed that he had a number of coronary arteries full of plaque.  What does that say for the cholesterol theory of heart disease?  It means that cholesterol numbers on paper are a near useless marker of actual health.  It means that taking statins didn’t make any difference to Russert at all, except in a likely adverse way.  And it means that nothing effective was actually done to help him.  In other words, the theory of statins and trying to lower cholesterol to abnormally low levels to prevent a heart attack, as clearly exposed by the massive Vytorin drug fraud, is a 20-billion-dollar a year racket.  It is propped up by groups like the American Heart Association who will do almost anything to maintain their grip on public health, power, and money – regardless of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who die each year while receiving such treatment.

Russert was being treated for coronary artery disease, which involves the use of blood pressure medications such as beta blockers and calcium channel blockers.  These medications put Russert’s heart in a medical wheelchair.  Maybe one day doctors will learn there is a huge difference between having good blood pressure because you are healthy and having good blood pressure numbers because you are taking medication. 

Blood pressure medication restricts cardiovascular function, which means by definition that circulatory pressure and thus circulation to small blood vessels and numerous end points of circulation throughout your body is reduced.  This means that nutrients and oxygen do not reach many cells and organs appropriately; creating acid pH and inflammation as an undesirable side effect.  This causes many people taking these medications to become fatigued and gain weight or not be able to lose weight, a problem that is generally ignored yet directly makes the underlying cardiovascular problem worse.

In Russert’ case his doctor has not disclosed his exact blood pressure medications, other than to say his blood pressure had risen recently.  This likely meant he increased the dose of medication.  Thus, in the months leading up to his death Russert was going all out trying to cover the elections while at the same time he was taking higher amounts of anti-energy blood pressure drugs that increased fatigue and wear and tear. 

The Long Plane Flight

The straw that broke the camel’s back was most likely the long plane flight Russert took as he and his family returned from a vacation to Italy the day before his death.  The low cabin pressure for an extended period of time, combined with the lack of movement, places significant stress on both the circulatory and lymphatic systems.  This subjected Russert to a low-oxygen pro-inflammatory stress that is known to be associated with increased clotting risk – especially in somebody who is at risk in the first place.  The pro-clotting strain of that flight would persist for the next several days, at least.

Russert had a combination of factors that were not working in his favor.  He had just been through months of grueling wear and tear covering the elections.  Tom Brokaw reported that Russert had pushed himself too exhaustion a number of times.  This means he had created a baseline of wear and tear that was pushing the inflammatory limits, a problem that tends to congest his lymphatic trash removal processes.  At the same time, flying in an airplane is always a challenge to anyone’s lymph system, based on changes in pressure. If there is already pre-existing lymph stagnation from wear and tear – a long airplane flight can be a real problem.

It is worth noting that blood pressure medication, especially if the dose is too high, is a significant handicap in terms of being able to tolerate the pressure changes and lower oxygen problem of a long plane flight.  This is because the forced reduction in pressure by the medication causes the lymph system to lose “tone,” in turn promoting even further lymph stagnation. 

These problems were compounded by Russert’s high level of triglycerides, which are fat blobs just sitting in his circulation.  These are like Mack trucks reducing the flow of traffic – significantly compounding the pressure problem of stagnation induced by the flight along with the other wear and tear factors. 

Thus, after his plane flight Russert was left in a significant pro-inflammatory and pro-clotting state.  If he would have taken a few days off to rest and recover he may well be alive today.  But no, he dragged his jet-lagged body out of bed, put it on a treadmill for a while (inducing further wear and tear considering the circumstances), and then went off to work.  He was never to return.

The Tim Russert tragedy does have a take home message for men – wake up.

Few Americans receive the preferential care given to an important Senator like Kennedy.  It is interesting to note what the “finest” care enables a person to receive.  He is being treated at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, arguably one of the best hospitals in the world – the same place he had surgery for a significantly blocked carotid artery in October of 2007. 

Now that the public’s attention will be diverted onto treating his cancer problem, not too many are going to explain that the care for his carotid artery problem could be a primary reason for his brain tumor suddenly emerging.  Indeed, in Kennedy’s situation the fox and the hen house are the same hospital – do you really expect them to take a close look at his situation when such an evaluation is self incriminating?  And on the larger scale such an evaluation could lead to millions of Americans dumping their statin drugs in the trash.

Kennedy’s Health History

Kennedy is no poster child for health, fitness, or a healthy lifestyle.  He is overweight and out of shape and has been for a long time.  Eight months ago doctors found his left carotid artery mostly blocked and performed surgery to clean out the plaque.  It took many years of abuse to create that problem.  In all fairness to his doctors, Kennedy is not a very healthy patient.  On the other hand, that is what doctors are for – treating patients who aren’t healthy and getting them back to real health.

We know from publicly disclosed information that Kennedy was taking both blood pressure medication and statin drugs to lower cholesterol.  We can assume that as part of the “finest medical care” his treatment to lower cholesterol was quite aggressive following his carotid artery surgery – now the “gold standard” of care being pushed on countless Americans.  This means lowering cholesterol to abnormally low physiological levels, based on the idea that if a person can’t make much cholesterol then it can’t form plaque.  Virtually no attention is given to the potential risks of starving the cholesterol synthesis system throughout the body – which is the core survival system of any person.

Kennedy was also on blood pressure medication.  Most doctors think they have done their patients a real favor when they use enough drugs to get their numbers looking better on paper.  Unfortunately, blood pressure medication typically reduces the flow of nutrition and oxygen to your brain, resulting in acid pH and an environment readily suitable for cancer growth.  There is a huge difference between having normal blood pressure because you are healthy (meaning blood gets to your head properly) and good blood pressure numbers artificially produced with drugs (meaning blood doesn’t get to many areas of your body properly, including your brain).  There is no short cut to real health.

Statins and Cancer

Statins cause cancer for a variety of reasons, a fact that is consistently covered up by the 20-billion-dollar-a-year statin industry – with the help of Senators from both sides of the political aisle, like Kennedy, who actively support the Big Pharma agenda.  In fact, Big Pharma tries to promote statins as a cancer-protective drug based on the ability of statins to kill cancer cells in test tubes.  They do this in test tubes because they are so toxic.  In your body a dose required to kill cancer cells would kill you first.

Statins interfere with normal immune function in multiple ways.  They are so effective at suppressing your immune system that they have been researched as immune-suppressing options for organ transplant patients.  That is not good news for anyone having to fight the flu or combat cancer. 

Statins interfere with core survival systems that are “branches” in the normal production of LDL cholesterol.  Such interference in health is a major side effect of statins – and widely ignored by prescribing physicians.  For example, selenium-containing genes are reduced/blocked by statins, including the production of cellular glutathione – your cell’s most important antioxidant that protects against cell mutations that can lead to cancer.

Important anti-cancer nutrients such as vitamin D and coenzyme Q10 are also reduced by statins.  And a primary anti-cancer cell-modulating substance known as isoprenoids are reduced by statins.  Isoprenoids in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are the reason eating these foods is associated with less cancer.  Blocking your body’s natural production of them with statin drugs is not a good idea.

Brain cells are weakened by statins, as every brain cell has a naturally higher level of cholesterol in its cell membrane so it can live longer (brain cells do not split and divide like other cells). 

Thus, super high levels of statins are immune toxic, cripple your body’s natural cancer defense system, and weaken nerves.  The longer a person stays on these high doses the worse the problems become – as damage is cumulative and insidiously progressive over time.  When combined with blood pressure medication this creates an environment within the nervous system ripe for cancer growth, a fact that simply cannot be denied based on the timing of Kennedy’s problems.

When a person develops cancer while taking a statin the statin is never blamed – even though it is an obvious causative agent that cannot possibly be ruled out.  The risk for cancer is especially true when cholesterol levels are being suppressed to abnormally low levels that virtually no person who is healthy possesses.  The “finest” medical care money can buy enables an individual to be poisoned by statins and the brightest medical minds on earth don’t seem to have a clue what they are actually doing to people such as Senator Kennedy.

Kennedy and Health Freedom

Ironically, in the case of Kennedy his health care is a direct result of the health policies he has forged.  He is one of the most anti-vitamin and anti-natural health senators.  He has now slid down the health ladder to the point he has no options but surgery, toxic drugs, or FDA-sanctioned experiments.  Can the cancer be killed before his body gives out?  He has very aggressive cancer and poor underlying health – not a good combination.

No place on the internet will he find a credible explanation of what vitamins he should be taking right now, which ones would support his medical options, and which ones would help him recover from his treatments most effectively.  You would think he would like to know which nutrients would help turn off the inflammatory gene signals in his brain that are driving the spreading of his cancer.  He certainly won’t get that information from his doctors.  At least he might like to know what to do if his medical treatments are successful enough that he has some time to try to fix himself.

I’d be happy to post such information on my website, but the FDA won’t allow it.  Indeed, it is Kennedy and mostly Democratic members of the Senate and House (along with a large number of Republicans) that are adamantly opposed to Americans understanding how to be healthy or how to use natural health options to support medical care to increase their likelihood of a positive outcome – even though the science behind such support and benefit could help millions of Americans without any side effects.

While Kennedy is being praised by friend and foe alike for his health policies that provide care to the less fortunate – it is overlooked that such plans carry with them the sacrifice of health freedom under the false pretense of “safety” and strict governmental public health enforcement. 

Hillary Clinton has always seen eye to eye with Kennedy on health freedom suppression and a desire to excessively regulate vitamins.  Dick Durbin, Obama’s fellow senator from Illinois and national co-chair of his campaign, is at the very top of the list of vitamin-hating senators.  The Democratic Party motivation behind such health freedom suppression is to have an iron grip on “herd mentality” and public health initiatives – and health freedom and access to natural health options are not compatible with this unspoken objective. 

Republican politicians also favor this iron grip on public health, but for somewhat different reasons – historically to forward the sales of Big Pharma at the expense of any potential competitors.  Although under the Bush administration a similar political control agenda (forced vaccinations in a pandemic flu, etc.) have blurred any differences between Republicans and Democrats on core health freedom issues.  There is no candidate in serious contention for president that actively stands for and supports health freedom.

What we have is a Big Pharma model of health that Kennedy is in no small part responsible for.  His own actions have drastically limited his access to solutions that actually work and could help him.  Does he care?  Probably not, after all he has the “best” health care that money can buy.  However, there are millions of Americans who do care and are being denied their right to helpful information and safe and effective remedies.  This issue should be central to a national debate on health care.

For more information on the science and side effects of statins read my article, The Statin Scam Marches On and Chapter 19 – Death by Statin, in my book, Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America.

The cell phone industry mobilized its behemoth defense machine calling the study a select view of existing literature.  This meant that his conclusions were not in line with all the studies the industry has been funding around the world called INTERPHONE.  Indeed, a casual look through Pub Med and you will see study after study refuting a link between cell phone use and brain tumors.  The cell phone industry has excelled at using “scientists for hire” to quell public concern.  They have taken a page from Big Pharma’s playbook and have learned well from the troubles of previous health catastrophes like international PCB exposure at the hands of Monsanto, Bayer, GE, and Westinghouse.

David vs. Goliath

It is always interesting to watch a handful of people take on an empire.  The empire has enough money to buy votes in the governments of countries around the world, fund studies that reach conclusions it likes, suppress the publishing of information it doesn’t like (professional blackmail), parade a legion of “experts” before any court when a legal challenge is mounted, and create enough mystery about any potential problem in the minds of consumers that the net result is that nothing much is ever done. 

Such strategies also hijack the public health system and use it as a shield.  In essence, governments are on the take from industry and the economics of the questionable industry are woven into multiple other economic benefits.  In the U.S. other examples of this involve placing fluoride in water, using nerve gas chemicals as pesticides, and poisoning the water supple with perchlorate (playing the national security card to prevent clean up).  I bring up these examples because all three are proven to be neurotoxic, all significantly adversely affect the health of Americans today, and all are condoned and allowed by our government. There are always a few Davids throwing stones at these Goliaths, without much luck.

Dr. Khurana is not alone in his view.  Last summer a relatively small group of concerned scientists calling themselves the Bioinitiative Working Group published a 600 page document after reviewing over 2000 existing studies and came to similar conclusions about the potential risks of cell phones.  Even Swedish scientists, in a country with widespread deployment of advanced cell phone technology, have a handful of scientists that have been warning about brain tumors since 2000, with their most recent study published in 2006.

The small voices raising concern are offset by a massively funded machine.  Dr. Khurana’s public relations work has the cell phone industry on the defensive, proving once again that the court of public opinion trumps all aces.

Why Warnings Are Falling on Deaf Ears

Brain tumors don’t develop overnight, excess exposure to radiofrequency radiation may take 10 – 20 years before the full scope of the problem is known.  The cell phone industry is just now entering the front end of that time period.  If there is a problem, by the time governments take effective action to ensure cell phones are safer the damage to an entire generation will already be done.

The potential problem to our children and current young adults is staggering, since they have grown up attached to cell phones.  Any damage cell phones cause will be worse in children, as their brains are still developing.

Nobody questions the fact that cell phone radiation is entering the brain of the user.  The debate is on how problematic the radiation is.

There are two factors that are actually quite alarming about this whole issue.
1) If cell phones can cause brain tumors they would have to, on a lesser scale of damage, cause numerous other disruptions in brain function ranging from cognitive dysfunction to behavioral issues like ADHD, to potentially violent behavior.
2) Our government is doing nothing to proactively evaluate and ensure the safety of our citizens, not evening proving or forcing the industry to prove at what level of cell phone exposure are there no changes in brain cells that correlate to risk.

The cell phone industry will have to have people lining up for brain cancer treatment before they even admit there is a potential problem.  By that time they hope to have stalled long enough to have safer phones.  And then they will use lawyers to create doubt that any such tumors were caused by cell phones in the first place – blaming multiple other stressors in modern society as the likely problem.  This strategy will minimize liability, spread it out over many years, and most likely make it disappear.  The only thing that prevents the cell phone industry from escaping unscathed is if enough consumers demand safer phones now. 

Smoking Guns Exist

As a health professional, I look at fundamental science as the main predictor of whether a problem will exist or not as the result of the use of anything.  I predicted estrogen replacement therapy (horse urine extract) was not safe for 15 years before the medical community finally counted all the deaths.  Just as I currently predict that the use of statin drugs to lower cholesterol and bisphosphonate drugs for bones are major health scams not only wasting billions but seriously compromising the health of those taking these pills as currently prescribed.

It is not hard to make such predictions correctly when fundamental science allows for no other possible outcome.  Vested interests never want to hear about the obvious.  They simply want to continue to make money, regardless of the damage, until they are stopped.  And when they own the decision makers within governments, it takes a long time to stop them.

I will now go on record with the prediction that the dangers of cell phones are real and should not be ignored.  After an extensive review of the cell phone literature I came upon the smoking gun; an article published January 22, 2007 in Neuroscience Letters entitled “Exposure to cell phone radiation up-regulates apoptosis genes in primary cultures of neurons and astrocytes.”

While brain tumors are not always produced in animal models of cell phone radiation exposure, there is little question that free radical damage in the brain is occurring along with alterations in DNA.  The researchers sought to identify precise gene-related pathways that would explain why such damage occurs – and their findings are a dagger in the argument that cell phone radiation is harmless.

In their experiments they exposed cultures of neurons (nerve transmitting brain cells) and glial cells (astrocytes that are the main brain structure cells and regulators of overall brain function) to cell phone radiation.  Using advanced gene arrays they measured the results. 

They documented distinct disruption in how mitochondria (energy producing systems) with brain cells function.  Essentially, genes that turn on cell suicide were upregulated – meaning that brain cells will now try to kill themselves.  Cells only want to commit suicide when they think the stress they are being exposed to is too great to handle, usually as a result of DNA damage that is not repairable.  If suicide fails, then mutations in the defunct cell can lead to cancer.

Additionally, there was an upregulation of NF-kappaB pathways – the key inflammatory gene switch that not only causes massive free radical damage, but when chronically upregulated locks into the “on position” and readily fuels cancer growth.  If you would like to understand more about how Nf-kappaB causes problems then read my article on How to Prevent Vaccine Injury.

This study offers clear gene pathways by which brain cells are inflamed, killed, and/or turned to cancer. 

The authors, who were obviously “placed in handcuffs” just to get their study published, concluded “Cell phone emissions thus have the potential to cause dysfunction or death through activation of specific intracellular cell death signaling pathways.” Dysfunction at least means chronic inflammation with free radical damage.  And it also means that such dysfunction follows commonly understood gene activation problems associated with cancer.

Cell phone companies can say anything they want, but they cannot refute that cell phone radiation enters the brain of the user at levels consistent with the above study, and that the above study shows precise gene-alterations that cause brain cell death as well as activation of known genetic pathways involved in cancer. 

Cell phones carry risk for micro brain injury with each use, a problem that is magnified by heavy use over a number of years.  Damage to children will be higher than damage to adults, though damage at any age is a problem.  This means cell phones are a risk for cognitive dysfunction, learning issues, and behavior problems in anyone.  After exposure of 10 years or more there is enough fundamental science already known to be very concerned about an increased risk for brain tumors.  Immediate steps should be taken by all cell phone users, especially children, to reduce cell phone exposure and to protect their brains from damage.

It is an interesting comment on our society that an outspoken and impassioned mother of an autistic child, along with her partner (actor Jim Carrey), are the catalysts that are likely to cause a warped empire to crumble.  Many before them have tried; and typically been burned at the stake.  Jenny and Jim are the government’s worst nightmare.  They can’t shut down their medical practice because they don’t have one.  They can’t financially damage them into silence.  And as they lead their autism March on Washington D.C. this June 4th it is quite clear that they haven’t a prayer of shutting them up.  A powder keg is about to blow.

Jenny, to her credit, takes a diplomatic view on vaccines.  Here main point is that there are too many vaccines given too soon and that the vaccines contain too many toxic components.  As both a leading defender of health freedom in this country and a top nutritionist who has helped numerous autistic children, I am more than happy to put the entire problem into perspective and give insights that will help many parents. 

A Brief History of Vaccines, Profits, and Politics

Vaccines started the Big Pharma sickness industry over 100 years ago.  While the public views vaccines in a preventive health context our government’s position is much more complex.  Vaccines and germs are part of warfare, and the issue is deeply woven into national security interests.  Military personnel are frequently subjected to experimental vaccines.  Vaccines are a key component of herd mentality; i.e., the ability of those in power to get a population to behave.  Public health is never in the best interest of any one person, which is why laws are concocted to enforce compliance.  Unelected bureaucrats and scientists in our government agencies, tied financially to the profits of the drug industry and linked to the military, have been playing God for many decades.  They know full well there will be deaths and injuries from vaccinations; collateral damage that is justified by prevented disease (a convenient and fear-driven argument). 

Our government has no problem manipulating data so that the benefits appear to outweigh the risks.  Imagine having a calculator that always has the same conclusion no matter what data is entered.  How can the risk of injuring 1 in 150 children for life be acceptable to Big Pharma and the revolving door CDC and FDA management?  Any business would love to have the opportunity to produce a product and have the government mandate its sale.  Government officials find lucrative jobs in the industries they regulate – after doing “good work.” Autism is partly a side effect of the cancer within government agencies.

Our government will never pay the price to screen children at risk for autism – that would be too proactive and expensive on the front end.  They won’t even prepare a reasonable patient history checklist that reflects obvious risk for vaccine injury – as too many parents would opt out.  Rather, our government specializes in lazy medicine – fire a shotgun and if someone gets injured it is their fault for standing there.  Costs are now the burden of families on the back end of the equation; more profits for the sickness industry.  If autism didn’t have painful little faces connected with it this problem would simply be swept under the rug, as is the 100,000 Americans (mostly elderly) killed by Big Pharma drugs every year.

The problem for our government is that an admission of guilt on the autism-vaccine link causes the entire paradigm of the Big Pharma-driven Western-medicine sickness industry to collapse.  Even worse in their eyes, it would send an earthquake through the brotherhood of Big Pharma, public health, the CDC, the FDA, the global elite, and the military.  Other public health programs would be questioned – like polluting our water with a neurotoxin called fluoride that makes a population more docile and controllable. 

Unfortunately for parents combating autism, the problems of their child is only a portion of the issue they now must try to solve.  They are up against a government dead set on preventing the truth from ever coming out.  Once cornered, our government will play the national security card before fessing up to their sins or making any real effort to correct the damage they have done. 

A Major Crack in Our Government’s Armor

The case of Hannah Poling is raising quite a stir.  She is now 9 years old.  As a healthy and normally developing 18-month-old girl she showed up for her well baby visit and was pummeled with 9 vaccinations, two of them containing the mercury preservative known as thimerosal.  Her health immediately deteriorated into full blown autism.

Her case was the first to be settled of 4,900 autism cases pending before federal Vaccine Court.  She claimed that mercury-containing vaccines were the cause of her autism.  In a shocking turn of events the federal government conceded this autism case saying that “compensation is appropriate.”

However, our government refused to admit vaccines caused her autism.  Indeed, the government settled the case before there was even a hearing.  The last thing the government wants is to put vaccines on public trial, and place pictures of injured children on the news every night, especially when the evidence of the case is so clear that vaccines will certainly lose.

Rather, the CDC is hinting that it was Hannah’s mitochondria that were to blame, not the vaccines.  This argument opens another Pandora’s box (more on that later).

The defendant in all vaccine cases is the Department of Health and Human Services.  The CDC is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Talk about conflict of interest!  A pack of foxes is in charge of the national chicken coop.

How Our Government Defends Itself When It Is Clearly Wrong

It is somewhat unfortunate that those who have helped to champion the cause of our government’s involvement in vaccine injury have placed so many eggs in the thimerosal basket.  Of course mercury is a nerve toxin and its involvement in autism is likely as a percentage of the problem.  However, neither thimerosal nor any single vaccine is an adequate overall explanation for autism. 

Our government is using various studies to deflect the vaccine-autism link.  These studies relate to thimerosal and MMR vaccines, but not to the collective number of vaccines given at one time and the overall number of vaccines given so early in life (the real problem).  This flimsy government defense (read their vaccine studies here) is being used to deflect attention away from vaccines as a causative link to autism. 

This is a classic stalling tactic used by corrupt government and industry when they have been caught red-handed.  This approach involves acknowledging certain aspects of the problem, making changes (they took thimerosal out of many vaccines), creating doubt (their “study” defense), and then continuing with the mass vaccination program even though they know it causes harm.  This strategy will deflect most of the legal liability from vaccine-related injury, delaying it and then minimizing it over time.  A legion of government-funded scientists can be paraded in a courtroom for decades with the sole purpose of creating doubt and delaying taking responsibility for the problem.  An admission of guilt opens a floodgate of liability lawsuits. 

They think their skimpy studies give them breathing room so that they can now direct attention elsewhere to mysterious possibilities like genetics or environmental toxins that will also take them decades to figure out.  True enough, these issues are also a percentage of the problem – so much so that they can be used to confuse the vaccine link for a long time.  The government’s defense is always that more research is needed.  This is not research that proves what they are doing is safe before they continue to do it; it is research that proves what they are doing is harmful before they stop doing it.  Unfortunately, behind closed doors they cherry pick their research results as well as what they choose to study.

In the mean time these unelected bureaucrats continue to unabashedly administer a vaccine program that injures and kills.  Most societies would either call this murder or involuntary manslaughter.  Why don’t we hear Bush, McCain, Clinton, or Obama weighing in on this issue?  Why don’t they stand on stage with a group of autistic children and tell mothers everywhere how important vaccines are?

When the Hannah Poling case got on the radar map and blew up in the government’s face, a damage control press conference was held.  Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC, stated, “There′s absolutely nothing changed in the adamant recommendations that we are making to get children vaccinated. This is proven to save lives and is an essential component of health protection for children across America and the world.” Dr. Gerberding should be the first to stand trial.

Why Vaccines are a Problem

It is quite clear that the rate of autism in this country is directly time-associated with the increased numbers of vaccines given to children.  The explosion in autism between 1987 and 1992 coincides with the tripling in the numbers of vaccines given to our children.  While such data is not proof of cause and effect, it is significant and cannot be ignored by any responsible parent (it is ignored by the government and medical profession).

Numerous parents report taking their healthy child to the doctor, getting a barrage of vaccinations, having their child run a high fever, and their child never again being the same.  THAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM THAT PARENTS SEE WITH THEIR OWN TWO EYES.

The current government strategy is to keep arguing about thimerosal and MMR vaccines – as they know they can create enough doubt to win that argument in the majority of the scientific community.  What the government does not want to discuss is the adjuvant in vaccines – which will clearly be shown to be the autism trigger.

Vaccines contain weakened “signatures” of a disease.  By themselves they are not strong enough for the immune system to mount a response.  This problem is solved by adding a “booster” compound called an adjuvant.  An adjuvant does not contain any signature of the disease.  Rather, the adjuvant initiates an inflammatory reaction (the first step in any immune response).  The idea is to get the immune system revved up so that it can see the weakened disease and learn what it looks like so that if it ever sees it again it will be more prepared to fight it.  This concept, in and of itself, has validity – but only given the right set of circumstances.

It is clear that those with autism have an excessively inflamed brain.  If pressed, the CDC would likely argue that the brain inflammation is a result of the autism and that they need more studies to determine the cause.  I will argue that they don’t need any more studies at all and that the cause is blatantly obvious based on an understanding of existing science.  The multiple inflammatory insults from the adjuvant in vaccines, at a rate of 1 in 150 cases, sets the brain on fire and causes autism.  As an aside, and to a lesser extent (but just as important to society), a minor brush fire causes ADHD and impaired intelligence.

How Your Brain Works

The crumbling paradigm of Western medicine likes to break down body function according to convenient classifications such as nerves, immunity, hormones, etc.  In reality your brain is a central processor of all systems in your body and thus has connections that link nerves, immune function, and hormones into one symphony of function.  In other words, it is not possible to study only neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine and actually understand what your brain is doing.

Ten percent of the cells in your brain are neurotransmitter related.  The other 90% are glial cells, also called astrocytes.  For decades scientists thought that 90% of your brain was nothing more than a structural framework, simply because scientific tools were not adequate to understand what glial cells were doing, but that has changed in the past 10 years.  Glial cells run your brain and your neurotransmitters.  They are the brokers of all information coming into your brain – with direct links to your immune system and endocrine system (hormones).

Glial cells are the inflammation brokers in your brain.  When stress, a toxin pollutant, or a destructive food additive (like MSG, aspartame, or food coloring) enter your brain they induce excitotoxic reactions that inflame brain cells.  This inflammation is buffered primarily by the hormone leptin and other antioxidants, a process that intimately involves the healthy function of glial cells. 

When the buffering anti-inflammatory capacity of glial cells is overloaded, then inflammation becomes chronic.  Minimally, this results in brain wear and tear.  It is the mechanism behind all accelerated brain aging and, depending on a person’s genetic weaknesses and other health issues, leads to various states of early cognitive decline and nerve-related diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s.

There is also a point at which low grade brain inflammation catches fire.  In adults with an established nerve network this causes a “power outage” in the head, otherwise known as spreading depression.  Such an event is typically triggered by emotional pain or physical pain of a prolonged nature or acute intensity (elevating substance P to abnormally high levels).  Such trauma pushes struggling nerves over the edge.

The difference in a fetus or small child is that the nervous system is still rapidly evolving.  If the brain catches fire at this age proper development of the nerves can be seriously disturbed (the autism spectrum of disorders) or functionally impaired (ADHD, lower IQ). 

The adjuvant in vaccine is pro-inflammatory; i.e., neurologically excitotoxic.  That is intentional so as to boost the effectiveness of the vaccine.  The problem comes about when giving so many of them at once, which can injure even a perfectly healthy child.  Giving multiple adjuvants is like playing Russian roulette with a child’s brain.  Children with already inflamed nerves are at much higher risk for reacting to multiple vaccines, as their nerves have been conditioned to hyper-react.  Don’t think for a moment that Dr. Gerberding and other scientists at the CDC aren’t fully aware of this issue.

Government Responsibility

Our government has the responsibility to prove the safety of any vaccination being recommended for broad public health, as part of an overall vaccine program.  Our current knowledge of science, the immune system, and the brain would make it unlikely that broad vaccine programs could ever be approved for use today if they hadn’t being going on for so long. 

Our government is not only grossly negligent on the vaccine issue itself, but on numerous other true public health issues that pose a significant risk for brain inflammation in fetuses and children.  The CDC, the EPA, and the FDA all play large roles in creating huge autism risk for our population.

Space in this article only allows a few examples; there are many.  Environmental pollution that is fat soluble can cross the placenta, exists in mother’s milk, or occurs in the general food supply fed to small children.  Fat soluble toxins cross the blood-brain barrier and induce nerve inflammation. 

Huge public health risks include widespread contamination of our food supply with fat soluble PCB toxins, a problem that would cost at least 50 billion dollars to clean up.  Another example of broad exposure is the neurotoxic pesticides used on food (originally Nazi nerve gas agents).  Another example is the military’s poisoning of our water supply with perchlorate, a contaminant now found in breast milk of mothers across the country.  This interferes with thyroid function in the baby, resulting in a serious risk for faulty brain development. 

Another example is iron fortification of baby formulas, which encourages the growth of hostile bacteria and Candida Albicans in the child’s digestive tract; organisms that produce neurotoxic waste products.  Another example is the use of antibiotics before age 1, which also encourages the growth of the very same hostile bacteria and Candida.  C-Section deliveries also increased the risk for a hostile digestive terrain in the baby.  Candida itself directly communicates to and promotes inflammation in the human immune system causing it to malfunction. 

Yet another example is the widespread use of antidepressants by pregnant and nursing mothers, which drastically disturbs the evolving function of nerves and overall health of the fetus or baby.  And then there is the vaccine preservative thimerosal (different than an adjuvant), which is a neuro-inflammatory in and of itself.  And this is the short list.

All of these issues play a role as a percentage of the problem that induces friction in the developing nervous system of a fetus, baby, or young child and primes the nerves to hyper-react to vaccines.  Each of these problems is a true public health problem because they are caused by industry and are allowed to continue by various vested interests.  Each one will take tens of billions of dollars to fix.  However, that is actually the responsibility of government – to fix costly and broad public health problems – not to make them worse.

The Genetic Red-Herring

The case of Hannah Poling has forced our government to show its hand – and a very weak hand it is.  They will continue to bluff and confuse the public with scientific gibberish in an effort to misdirect.  Their defense in the Poling case, even though they conceded the case, is that the child had genetic mitochondrial dysfunction. 

Mitochondria are the car engines in your cells that produce energy (ATP).  ATP is the energy currency in your body, much like money in your wallet.  You spend ATP, as needed, to do anything.  Inflammation uses up ATP by causing your body to go into a hyper mode (like a 911 phone call).  If ATP production is compromised then inflammation can run wild – contributing to the brain fire called autism.

True mitochondrial gene mutations are too rare to explain autism, so the government is trying to blame this mechanism in the Poling case to deflect the idea that vaccines are a risk for the majority.

What the government isn’t saying is that, independent of a true genetic issue, mitochondria can be taxed into a state of stress that predisposes any child to autism risk.  You don’t need to have a gene mutation; that is simply a diversion and cover-up attempt.

Furthermore, the glial cells in your brain use ATP to communicate, a separate function than energy currency.  This means that any time you run low in overall body energy, brain function is compromised and tilted into a pro-inflammatory mode.  This is why stress makes you tired and causes you to feel physical wear and tear.  It is also why any time you exercise, which conditions your body to make ATP more efficiently, your head feels better.  When glial cells run low on ATP they enter a low grade chronic inflammatory mode – a condition that seriously predisposes to vaccine injury. 

Reducing the Risk for Adverse Vaccine Reactions

The bottom line for any parent is to not expose their child to vaccines under circumstances that are likely to increase the odds of a brain fire that results in autism.  Fewer vaccines in general, not giving so many at once, and giving them at older ages are all common sense.

Additionally, proper nutrition during pregnancy, during lactation, and the overall fitness and health habits of the mother have a profound effect on having a child with a stronger nervous system.  It is quite clear that the obesity hormone leptin is elevated in the blood of autistic children.  This is a risk factor linked to obesity in the mother with consequent abnormal fetal programming of the developing brain which is then handicapped to buffer inflammation from toxic exposure like vaccines. 

High leptin in the blood means that leptin isn’t getting into the brain.  Leptin is the primary buffer in the brain against inflammatory excitotoxic damage.  This is why boys have four times the rate of autism compared to girls.  Girls have naturally higher levels of protective leptin in their brains, mostly to help them get pregnant and nurse their children in later life.  My books on leptin (Mastering Leptin and The Leptin Diet) explain how leptin works in much greater detail.  A mother’s health and eating habits, prior to and during pregnancy, play a large role in the health of her baby’s nervous system.

Likewise, family stress during pregnancy and early childhood development are important to how a child processes stress and consequent nerve inflammation.  Conflicts between husband and wife, in front of a child (including a child in the womb), primes nerves to be inflamed.  Providing a stable environment for mother and child is a main reason for the family unit – and in my opinion the responsibility of men.

Thus we see that there are multiple factors, some under your control and many that are not, acting in one way or another to prime the nerves into a chronic low-grade inflammatory state which sets the stage for increased risk of vaccine injury. 

One of the very worst times to vaccinate a child is directly after an illness or surgery – which are highly inflammatory events.  Unfortunately, doctors don’t seem to understand health very well and it is often the case that the parent has brought the child to the doctor because of an illness or a follow up from some other medical procedure.  At that time the doctor says “Oh, your vaccinations are not up to date.” And then gives them to a child who is already neurologically inflamed.  Such medical malpractice is a disaster, and common in this country.

Parents who have children with digestive problems, recurring infections, asthma, allergies, or any other sign of immune weakness should not vaccinate until such problems are fully resolved.  These problems also indicate a high level of existing brain inflammation.

It is pathetic that the CDC does not publish a list of guidelines for parents that would dramatically reduce the risk for vaccine injury (low cost and low tech).  The “more research is needed” excuse is enough to make everyone vomit.  Of course we could do far more by screening for inflammatory brain markers and immune system dysfunction ahead of any round of vaccines (high cost and high tech).  The days of blindly vaccinating children according to a schedule, while ignoring the child’s state of existing nerve inflammation and immune system function are over.  Parents should revolt.  This is a national tragedy.  The government’s vaccination program is indeed the cause of the autism epidemic.

Related article:  How to Prevent Vaccine Injury

The Senate is about to approve legislation (Mothers Act – S.1375) which mandates the indoctrination of pregnant and nursing mothers into the use of extremely dangerous psychiatric medication.  We already know this class of medication poses serious health risks to both mother and baby.  Consequences to the baby are now proven to cause nerve-related changes that can adversely affect health for a lifetime.

This Big Pharma legislation was innocuously crafted under the pretense of helping pregnant mothers deal with stress and mood.  On the surface it is made to look like a helpful public policy that any Senator would want to support.  The reality is that pregnant and nursing mothers have become a Big Pharma target market and this legislation locks in taxpayer funds to dispense psych drugs to pregnant and nursing mothers – guaranteeing that Big Pharma will get billions for poisoning the most vulnerable members in our society.

Now that Senators are being called on the carpet for what this law will actually do; i.e., injure babies for life – they have gone behind close doors to finish marking up the bill and plan to sneak it through the Senate in the beginning of April without any debate or chance for amendment.  A marriage of Big Pharma dollars with a bizarre socialist medicine agenda is more compelling to them than real health.  The legislation is cosponsored by both Clinton and Obama (members of the Senate HELP committee that will bring the legislation to the floor of the Senate), but make no mistake – it is also widely supported by republican senators and Bush will sign it in a heartbeat.  Both sides of the aisle are owned by Big Pharma.  The only thing more important to them than the Big Pharma money is their image – so let’s make it clear:  they are proposing legislation that knowingly will injure mothers and babies. 

The only thing standing in the way of the final passage of this legislation is your opposition.  Go to my Take Action link.  With two mouse clicks you can use my CapWiz software to send a letter of opposition to both of your senators, it only takes 30 seconds.

Scientific Evidence of Psych-Drug Damage Relating to Pregnancy

The dangers of psych drugs during pregnancy and lactation have been reported for a number of years.  However, within the past six months a stunning amount of new data has become available which I will now summarize for you.  A lot of this information is new since the Senate bill was first crafted.  Any Senator who was truly interested in the health and well being of mother and child would put the Mothers Act on hold until the true risks of these drugs are fully known.  It is completely irresponsible of Senators to create laws which will directly injure mothers, unborn children, and new babies.

It is a well known scientific fact that psych drugs readily cross the placenta and expose the fetus to pharmacologically active levels of these drugs.  It is also known that nursing mothers have pharmacologically active levels of these drugs in their breast milk.

Exposing a fetus or new baby to these drugs is far different than exposing the adult nervous system which has already established brain circuitry.  The fetus’s evolving nerves are trying to form core nerve circuitry (like computer hardware) that cannot easily be changed later, establishing connections throughout the body – such as to the heart and lungs, and setting up how these organs will be run by the nerves over the course of a lifetime.  Available evidence clearly shows that psych drugs interfere with these natural processes and pose a grave risk to the unborn – a risk that can result in a lifetime of poor health.

A meta-analysis published in May of 2007 showed that women taking antidepressants in the first trimester of pregnancy had a 72% increased risk for a child with cardiac malformation (birth defect).  A study published in Dec of 2006 reviewed earlier studies showing that the use of antidepressants during any phase of pregnancy carried serious risks for birth defects, especially cardiovascular.  It reviewed a Danish study showing 60% increased risk, an American study showing 100% increased risk, and a Swedish study showing 120% increased risk for cardiovascular defects.  The American study showed 4% of women who used antidepressants during pregnancy had a baby with any type of birth defect; 2% of women having babies with cardiovascular birth defects.  It is clear that antidepressant medication interferes with how nerves communicate to the heart as the fetus is evolving.  Click here to read the story of Manie – a baby born with an antidepressant-induced heart defect.

A Dec of 2007 Dutch study reports on the broad array of side effects in babies whose mothers took antidepressants during pregnancy.  These include respiratory distress, feeding and digestive disturbances, irritability, and convulsions.  The authors also point out that animal studies have shown “permanent changes in specific parts of the brain and altered behavior in adulthood after perinatal exposure to SSRIs.” A Dec of 2007 Swedish study confirms much of this information, again pointing out the high rates of respiratory distress, convulsions, hypoglycemia, and overall poor health (low Apgar scores).  An Oct of 2006 study explains that 30% of babies born to mothers who used antidepressants have significant inability to adapt (adjusting to being born and then thriving).  This means that even when there are not blatant birth defects, general health of the newborn is compromised across the boards – an incredibly dangerous situation. 

Indeed, data published in Oct of 2006 showed mothers who took antidepressants are much more likely to have premature deliveries and low birth weight babies – indicative of general malnutrition induced by antidepressant medication.  Studies in sheep clearly show that this is because antidepressants reduce the flow of blood to the uterus, in turn reducing the amount of oxygen and nutrition that can get to the baby.

An Oct of 2007 U.S. study reviewed the animal data that shows exposure to antidepressants causes life long abnormalities in behavior and stress tolerance.  A Feb of 2005 study demonstrated that 2 month old infants already had a depressed and inappropriate response to pain – a key factor indicating disturbed development of the nervous system.  This issue is directly related to properly coping with stress or pain as an adult, the failure of which leads to anxiety, fibromyalgia, and increased risk for sudden death from a cardiovascular event.  This is a profound neurologic change because it means that the developing nervous system, as a result of exposure to psych meds, has been “traumatized,” adversely priming nerves to hyper-react to future stress. 

Several studies have tried to identify childhood behavioral and attention issues in those exposed to psych drugs during pregnancy. (Jan of 2007, June of 2006) While poor coping trends are evident, a clear pattern has not emerged because these children are still living in high stress environments due to parental instability – which is never good for children whether they have been exposed to medication or not.

The bottom line of all of this information about psych drug use during pregnancy is that it is one huge experiment with many unknown and likely adverse health consequences.  Once again we see the failure of the FDA to protect the public, as the FDA does not demand Big Pharma do studies to prove these drugs are safe for pregnant women.  To the contrary, most available science tilts in the direction that they are quite unsafe and carry extreme risks for the baby – with ominous implications for future poor health for the child and health care costs to society.  Senators in favor of this legislation, which would steer 80% of pregnant women on to these meds, need their heads and morality examined.  They should be personally held accountable to the mothers whose babies their law injures.

The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs.  It is a great example of how the Big Pharma lobby controls Congress to the detriment of health, as well as needlessly and dramatically inflating the costs of our health care system for everyone.  Like any piece of legislation it purports to address a troubling issue – in this case the mood distress of mothers following birth known as postpartum depression.  It is true that 10% - 15% of women need some assistance in dealing with this topic – but the majority of them sure don’t need it from Big Pharma.  That is the Big Lie. 

The Mothers Act (S. 1375: Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act) has the net affect of reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic medications (which can also easily harm the child).  Urgent consumer action (see below) is needed to stop this atrocity, as the Senate could now vote any day.

It is my understanding that the process of birth, the intimate bonding of mother and child, and the placing of significant responsibility on the father is all part of a healthy culture and the backbone of the fabric that makes strong families and consequently our great nation.  I fail to see why we need laws that force health care professionals to emphasize the idea that the process is some type of mental illness affecting 80% of all women – what a bogus pile of crap. 

The Mothers Act proposes sweeping and dramatic changes in the delivery of pregnancy care by all health professionals.  It demands that health professionals indoctrinate pregnant women into mental health treatment options for mild depression-like symptoms experienced during or following pregnancy, including moderate symptoms they call “baby blues” which they say affects 80% of pregnant women.  In other words, this is a massive federate health mandate to get the majority of pregnant and nursing mothers on psych drugs – a new target market for Big Pharma.

The bill was obviously written by the Big Pharma lobby and its passage into law would be considered laughable except that it is actually happening.  The bill seeks to require taxpayer-funded grants to treat postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, as defined in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  For those of you who don’t know, this is the manual of vaguely defined mental health issues used by Big Pharma to allow the sale of their expensive psych drugs and get payment from Medicare and Medicaid at taxpayer expense.  While some people certainly need help, this system racks up billions in fraudulent sales per year – including the sale of dangerous antipsychotic medications to our children.  The Big Pharma lobby last year spent tens of millions to ensure the government would continue to cover vulnerable children so they could capitalize on this blatant scam.

As far as the Mothers Act goers, how can taxpayers be expected to pay for drug treatments when the problem that isn’t even understood?  As the bill freely acknowledges “The causes of postpartum depression are complex and unknown.” In a mysterious leap of faith the bill says that this condition requires medication to treat it even though such medication has never been proven clinically effective and carries serious side effect risks for the mother and baby, including cardiovascular birth defects. 

The bill goes on to set up a system of taxpayer-funded grants to pay for the treatments. It even commits you the taxpayer to funding “clinical research for the development and evaluation of new treatments for postpartum conditions, including new biological agents.” This means taxpayers will now foot the bill of Big Pharma drug development including the most dangerous new category of totally unproven pie-in-the-sky biological drugs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and can irreparably injure within minutes! 

Yes, and once you have paid a fortune to develop these biological gene-altering agents then you will pay the drug companies price so that they can be freely dispensed to hundreds of thousands of pregnant and nursing mothers.  Taxpayers will be on the hook for tens of billions of wasted dollars.

Immediate Consumer Action is Needed

The Mothers Act has already passed the House (H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes Postpartum Depression, Research and Care Act).  Word has it that it is being snuck out of the HELP committee on Thursday or Friday of this week and may be rammed through the Senate without any debate before the Easter break. 

Rather unbelievably up to this point is that the cause of defeating this legislation has fallen onto the shoulders of one young mother, Amy Philo.  When she struggled with postpartum stress she was placed on the very same psych drugs advocated for use in the Mothers Act legislation.  She began having violent thoughts towards her child and suicidal thinking.  Her not very bright doctor had her double and then triple her dose, nearly killing her.  She is lucky to be alive today and wants to warn other mothers of the dangers inherent in the Mothers Act.  Click here if you would like to view her YouTube story.

Immediate consumer action is needed to stop the Big Pharma-crafted Mothers Act.  Here are the two action steps you can take right now to help make a difference:
1) Go to my CapWiz page and with two clicks of a mouse send an opposition letter to your Senators.
2) Sign this petition, which is being used to pressure Senators on the HELP committee.

As natural health care professionals my wife Mary and I have helped many women with pregnancy and postpartum health issues.  We have plenty of experience in natural options that work and four grown children of our own.  To read more about natural solutions I have used for years click here.  To read more about Mary’s tips on successful pregnancy, her view on the Mothers Act, and to post your own comments on the issue, click here.

THE MOTHERS ACT MUST BE STOPPED – YOUR HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED.

The FDA is now ignoring Congressional subpoenas of its records, setting up another showdown between Congress and the Bush Administration.  Unlike former showdowns, national security is not involved.  Will the Bush administration offer protection for a situation that involves needless deaths to Americans?  The Chinese sentenced to death the head of their FDA for far lesser misdoings.

The issue revolves around the fraud-riddled antibiotic Ketek which is made by Aventis, now Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis.  Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, has been holding the FDA’s feet to the coals on the Ketek issue for the past several years ever since an 18 year old boy from Iowa was killed by the antibiotic when being treated for a routine infection.  There are other deaths and many cases of liver failure.  The House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee has been looking into the matter since early last year, shortly after von Eschenbach’s permanent appointment to head the FDA.

The available evidence paints a picture of the FDA turning this deadly drug loose on children even though it knew of safety problems, a trail of evidence von Eschenbach has actively covered up.  In the face of Congressional scrutiny the FDA has since scaled back it’s approved use of Ketek, but has left it on the market to treat pneumonia. The FDA blames Aventis for the problems, who is also in hot water with Congress.  The FDA is refusing to hand over records showing what it knew and when.  Insider information indicates significant FDA wrongdoing. 

We already know that a clinical trial involving the drug was forged by a weight loss clinic in Gadsden, Alabama.  The physician in charge, Dr. Maria Anne Kirkman-Campbell, is now serving five years in prison.  Congress has been trying to get to the bottom of the matter, seeking to establish what Sanofi-Aventis and the FDA knew.  Congress has hit a stone wall.  It appears they both knew plenty – and covered their tracks.

The House Subpoenas FDA Records

Congress finally had enough.  On January 25, 2008 John Dingell and Bart Stupak of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee sent a memorandum stating they intended to subpoena FDA investigators, a private contractor, and various FDA records, which they followed through on several days later. 

On February 12, 2008 the House committee held hearings on the matter.  Douglas Loveland, a special agent at the FDA’s criminal-investigation office, told the committee that Aventis should have known there was fraud and there was a “catastrophic failure” of their clinical trial systems.  They ignored “red flags” about the bogus data, “they were loud signals…they were bright signals.”
The FDA even admits that it knew there were “serious protocol violations and regulatory noncompliance by multiple clinical investigators” and that it had no knowledge these problems were ever fixed before approving the drug.  However, the FDA is not forthcoming about information that may indicate a von Eschenbach cover-up.

Last March von Eschenbach provided written testimony to the committee on events surrounding the Ketek drug approval.  The committee subsequently learned from an FDA insider and those familiar with the approval that the testimony was not truthful.  The committee had recently subpoenaed the FDA records regarding the preparation of this testimony to learn why it was lied to.

On February 12, 2008 the committee was told by the parent of the FDA, the Health and Human Services Department, that these documents would not be provided because “The department has serious concerns about providing the kind of materials the committee has subpoenaed…such highly confidential and deliberative materials used to prepare witnesses testifying before Congress risks chilling the open exchange of views that is essential to the effective conduct of agency business.” A more skeptical outsider like myself would interpret this to mean “that when people are killed the FDA is above the law and doesn’t need to disclose relevant information.”

Dingell is not taking the matter lying down: “What is in those briefing books that he does not want either my Republican colleagues or our side to see?  Is there evidence of perjury? Are there statements embarrassing to the administration?” He went on to say that “Neither Chairman Stupak nor I will tolerate such a perversion of Congressional powers to investigate and probe.” His next step to get the von Eschenbach records may be to hold Michael Leavitt, the HHS Secretary, in contempt of Congress – setting up a major showdown with the Bush Administration.

FDA Whistleblower

Dr. David Ross served as the FDA’s primary safety reviewer on Ketek.  He was concerned about liver damage as early as 2000 and was stunned by the fact that the U.S. clinical trial contained blatant fraud.  Back in 2003 he wanted to give this information to the FDA advisory panel that was deciding if Ketek was safe to use for the public.  FDA management prevented him from doing so and purposefully withheld information from the advisory panel about the ongoing criminal investigation. 

Ross buckled to FDA management pressure and omitted the safety risks and his concerns about Ketek from his final report.  This all happened prior to von Eschenbach coming to the FDA.  Under von Eschenbach’s tenure as temporary head of the FDA the Ketek problems began to hit the fan.  Congress started actively looking into the matter and von Eschenbach went into damage control mode.  He called a meeting of 40 FDA employees regarding Ketek issues and mysteriously Ross was invited to this meeting (he no longer worked on the Ketek issue).

Ross has reported that during the meeting von Eschenbach likened the workings of the FDA to a football locker room, where differing views can be vented but that once on the field the team speaks with one voice and any FDA staff who speaks differently will be warned the first time, benched the second time, and traded the third time.

In the face of such a blatant effort to suppress the truth of the situation Ross turned whistleblower. He has told Congress that the FDA approved Ketek “despite knowing that it could kill people from liver damage and that tens of millions of people would be exposed to it.”

Grassley Predicted the Unethical Behavior of von Eschenbach

Back in February of 2007 Senator Grassley informed the House committee of the extensive nature of the FDA cover-up on Ketek as well as other issues, including FDA disregard for Congressional investigation. 

Von Eschenbach is a cancer-industry insider who took the job at the FDA so he could get quick approval of new biotech drugs while using humans for cruel experiments in the name of “progress.” His nomination as permanent head of the FDA took place during the 2006 lame duck session of Congress and was rubber stamped by Big Pharma friendly Senators.  Senator Grassley knew better, as he stated on the floor of the Senate during the confirmation hearings:

“People ought to be ashamed of saying Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach has done a superb job in the position he is currently occupying [acting head of the FDA].…That is an insult….In my interactions with the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA these last 8 months, I have seen a complete and utter disrespect for congressional authority and hence the law.… This body [the Senate] should not walk hand in hand with the executive branch and sit idly by as instances of abuse and fraud continue to endanger the health and safety of American people.”

As Grassley’s warning fell on deaf ears, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a man whose pockets are lined with Big Pharma money, rose in defense of von Eschenbach:

“To me it is simply unconscionable that the Food and Drug Administration, one of the best little agencies in Government, has gone leaderless for such a period of time…I know Dr. von Eschenbach well. He is a man of integrity….I urge my colleagues--no, I implore my colleagues--to do what is right and vote [for] this nomination….it is what the American people deserve.”

Indeed, as history notes, the American people got von Eschenbach – a drug company sales rep sitting in the hot seat atop the dysfunctional FDA, an organization of unelected bureaucrats who are certain they are above the rule of law and certain they have nice jobs waiting for them in the Big Pharma world.

On February 6, 2008 the government halted an arm of its ACCORD trial (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) because drug treatments in type II diabetics to aggressively lower blood sugar, combined with drugs to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, resulted in a 20% increased risk of death.  The ACCORD trial represents all that is wrong with medicine in America today – taking toxic sledgehammers to struggling systems in the body and pulverizing them to abnormally low levels in the name of health.  No effort is given to fixing the source of any problem; as such a result is beyond the capability of any drug.  Rather, the goal is aggressive symptom management that will foster sales of higher drug doses or drug combinations – while the death toll climbs.

The ACCORD debacle follows closely on the heels of the biggest drug scandal to ever hit America.  The Vytorin fraud case involving Merck and Schering-Plough’s bogus cholesterol-lowering drug will grace the front pages of the news for months to come.  The unexpected side effect of this scandal is that it is prying open a Pandora’s box of feeble science that backs billions of dollars of questionable sales of cardiovascular medications – which often undermine or even ruin the health of those on the receiving end.  Sadly, worsened cardiovascular health is typically the result of ongoing use of almost any type of cardiovascular drug.  While a “Just Say No” campaign probably wouldn’t have worked with boomers in the 60s, it is certainly appropriate today for those in reasonably good health with a few points to work on.

Big Pharma and the FDA Cause Americans to Be Injured and Killed

In the past year the FDA has been grilled before Congress as a number of deadly high profile drug scandals like Vioxx, Avandia, and Trasylol have hit the fan.  The FDA’s defense: all drugs have side effects and inherent dangers (a surprisingly truthful admission).  The FDA’s gross negligence: when drugs are approved the actual risks are still mostly unknown; the FDA has betrayed the trust of the American people by failing to insist upon the required post-marketing safety studies of approved drugs. 

This extensive safety problem cannot be solved for at least a decade even if effective corrective actions were underway today (which they aren’t).  This leaves consumers in the dark for some time to come, playing a Heath Ledger style Russian roulette with their medicine cabinets.  At least 100,000 Americans per year are casualties in this perverted profit-driven system of “health care.” This staggering yearly death toll is somehow swept under the rug.

Many consumers take drugs based on the marketing pieces and glitzy ads of the makers of those drugs, often backed by the fear-mongering of their perk-accepting and Big-Pharma-trained doctor – while FDA managers take six and seven figure job offers at Big Pharma.  Big Pharma also funds the mainstream media, research funding at universities, as well as numerous “scientific journals” and “independent” drug-pushing groups like the American Heart Association.  Big Pharma also owns both sides of the political aisle.  The Big Pharma Golden Idol is a formidable force that has proven time and again that it places drug sales ahead of human health.

Physicians are a Collective Herd of Cowards

Just in case any well-meaning doctor tries to buck the status quo, he or she is blackmailed by their Big-Pharma-tied licensing boards upon threat of losing their livelihood with no way to pay back their medical school tuition or continue their career.  It is a known fact that most physicians live in fear of their licensing boards.  Should they escape the financial pressures and Big Pharma propaganda machine and become an alternative care physician – they are destined to a life of unfounded harassment – a tactic used mostly to discourage others from joining their ranks. 

The sickening and trite direction to “follow the advice of your doctor” has become near meaningless to any person with common sense.  Doctors are ethically bound to the Hippocratic Oath, which says to first do no harm.  Doctors ignore this oath like Congress ignores our constitution, and have thus become, collectively speaking – an unethical and immoral group.  Their actions show their real oath is to Big Pharma and goes something like this “first do no harm to any sales of any drug, or else your licensing board will punish you.” Doing no harm to their patients is low on the list of priorities, which is why 3 million Americans are injured so seriously by their doctor’s prescriptions each year they have to go to the hospital.

Health care in America is no longer patient-centered care.  It is Big Pharma-centered care.  Doctors have no financial incentive to do a good job of restoring health in their patients.  In fact, if they were to make patients well they would lose business.  Thus, doctors are in a win-win relationship with Big Pharma at the expensive of human health – a true sickness industry.

The Expansion of the Sickness Industry

In order to expand the sickness industry consumers must be hoodwinked into taking drugs every day for many years.  The financial expansion of this industry relies on giving ongoing medications to people who do not have any disease – fabricating a case that doing so will prevent future disease.  In the case of cardiovascular medication this means targeting the baby boomer population that is not diseased but has a sign or two that something is not right (high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc.).

Certainly there are times and appropriate uses for cardiovascular medication.  Following a heart attack or stroke medication is needed to guide a person back to health.  Some individuals in very poor cardiovascular health have little choice but to follow a regimen of drugs.  In order to justify the use of toxic drugs in the name of health, especially combinations of drugs, the risks and dangers of these substances must be greater than the impending health threat.  While such a strategy has benefit to a small percentage of current drug users in very poor health, it has very little benefit for prevention in a generally well baby boomer population. 

If doctors followed a common sense and appropriate use of drugs Big Pharma would lose 80%-90% of its sales and office visits to doctors would dramatically decline (and the majority of the 100,000 drug-induced deaths per year would stop).  The fraud-driven health care costs in our nation would also drastically decline, so that real and needed health care could be more affordable for all.

What if You Have a Cardiovascular Problem?

If your cholesterol is high or your blood pressure is up you have a legitimate cardiovascular concern.  However, there is a huge difference between having normal cholesterol or normal blood pressure because you are healthy and having “normal numbers” based on drugging your body.  In fact, these two situations are not even remotely the same.

On top of that, it is very difficult to get good advice from your doctor, no matter how nice he or she is or how convincing their drug options may seem when they are presented to you.  The facts are as follows:
1) The actual risks of the cardiovascular drugs being prescribed are not even known by the doctor prescribing them, especially when drugs are used in combinations and/or in high doses.
2) The use of drugs are directed at symptom management or changing a number on paper, not at the source of any particular health problem.  This means the drug is expected to be used forever as nothing is ever fixed.
3) The adverse effects of all cardiovascular medications magnify as time goes along, meaning that any temporary improvement in symptoms or numbers is eventually offset by worsening cardiovascular health – a disturbing fact that negates the long-term use of drugs for almost anything.

A Huge Crack in Big Pharma’s Armor

Consumer confidence is everything when it comes to sales.  Our housing industry and home values were based primarily on consumer confidence.  Banks and Wall Street were able to build their financial scams that have ruined the housing market and construction industry because consumers had confidence in the value of their homes.  Once consumer confidence was lost, all hell broke loose.  When consumer confidence is propped up by financial shenanigans, the consequences are far and wide.

Likewise, Big Pharma and every player on Big Pharma’s payroll have built a house of cards stacked on consumer confidence with no real evidence or proof that anything they are saying is true.  The reason the scandal involving the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin is so damaging to the sickness industry is that it directly destroys consumer confidence.  The longer it stays in the spotlight the more spillover effect it will have, exposing frauds in the general use of any statin medication to lower cholesterol, the dangerous use of bone drugs to prevent osteoporosis, and over prescribing of mental health drugs (especially with children) – not to mention the entire cancer treatment sickness industry. 

Consumer confidence that propels Big Pharma sales of cardiovascular drugs will soon evaporate, since Vytorin will be in the spotlight for some time to come.  Vytorin will stay in the spotlight because numerous fraud-related lawsuits have already been filed, the attorney general of New York is investigating, the FDA is investigating (mostly to cover their own rear end), the SEC is investigating insider trading, and Congress is investigating all these issues as well – including the collusion of the American Heart Association with the drug companies involved. 

Vytorin was supposed to prevent heart disease by lowering LDL cholesterol to new lows.  The drug was indeed effective at lowering cholesterol to new lows, fitting nicely with the Big Pharma propaganda that LDL cholesterol levels are the prime cause of heart disease and lowering them is the great gift of drugs to mankind.  Consumers have confidence in this line of bull and truly believe it.  However, the Vytorin study calls all of this into question – as the drug failed miserably to show that excessively lowering LDL cholesterol improved cardiovascular outcomes or reduced disease – even though it was being used in a patient population of people with serious heart disease.  If it can’t help them – who can it help?  Certainly not the millions of people taking it for general prevention who are driving the 5 billion in yearly sales – thus the massive number of fraud-related Vytorin lawsuits and other investigations.

Likewise, the ACCORD trial is based on the notion that more drugs in higher doses to control surrogate biomarkers like blood sugar, cholesterol, or blood pressure is better.  It is failing – now proven to cause more death not health.

The problem gets worse for Big Pharma.  The media is starting to ask basic questions.  Even scientists are feeling emboldened to speak up.  The tide is changing.  Big Pharma propaganda cannot survive even a simple investigation of their flawed theories that propel massive cardiovascular drug sales with little or no benefit.

For example, both statin drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure medication cause fatigue, a problem that gets worse with ongoing use.  Since energy is the backbone of life and required for any system in your body to function normally – especially the energy-demanding cardiovascular system, how can any drug that causes fatigue possibly be good for cardiovascular health when taken for a decade or longer?  Blood pressure medication is so energy-depleting that many people gain 15 pounds or more directly from it in a short period of time.  How can gaining that much weight possibly be good for heart health, even if blood pressure numbers look more normal?  A person does not need a science degree to understand such basic shortcomings in Big Pharma logic.  And these examples are only the tip of the flawed iceberg.

Real Health is the Only Solution

It is hard work to be healthy, there are no quick fixes.  A nutritious diet of fresh food, maintaining proper body weight, and consistent activity that maintains fitness are the cornerstones of any person’s optimal cardiovascular health program – and proven to be far superior to any drug or combination of drugs.  Dietary supplements that help a person accomplish these goals or maintain them are important tools for many. 

Having better cholesterol or blood pressure numbers is only meaningful if they got that way by being healthy.  Drugs do not produce health; they are temporary solutions at best.  The Vytorin fraud and the ACCORD debacle are the beginning of the end for the mass market consumer confidence that has driven the use of toxic drugs for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

The drugs in question are known as bisphosphonates.  The biggest selling drug in this class is called Fosamax, made by Merck – the very same company that killed thousands of Americans with Vioxx while hiding cardiovascular risks from the FDA and patients.  Does anyone trust them?  Other commonly recognized names are Actonel (Proctor and Gamble) and Boniva (Roche and GlaxoSmithKline).  Collectively these drugs had $4.3 billion in U.S. sales during 2006 (27 million prescriptions). 

A recent flood of negative information about these drugs is finally coming to light, including an alarming FDA pain warning, the risk for atrial fibrillation, the numerous cases of rotting jaw bones, and a new major study that concludes after 15 years of widespread use there is not enough science to show if the medications are safe or effective.  Sure bone health is extremely important; however, taking bisphosphonate bone drugs does not produce stronger or healthier bones – quite to the contrary. 

The FDA Warning – Severe Pain from Bone Drugs

On Monday, January 7, 2008, the FDA issued a warning on bisphosphonate drugs saying that there is a possibility of “severe and sometimes incapacitating bone, joint, and/or muscle (musculoskeletal) pain in patients taking bisphosphonates.” The FDA explained that the pain “may occur within days, months, or years after starting bisphosphonates. Some patients have reported complete relief of symptoms after discontinuing the bisphosphonate, whereas others have reported slow or incomplete resolution.”

Translated to English this means that any woman experiencing any bone, joint, or muscle pain of any kind since starting a bisphosphonate bone drug, even if the pain started several years after first taking the drug, should work with her prescribing physician to immediately discontinue use of the drug to see if the pain stops or gets better.  Of course, taking statins to lower cholesterol can also cause severe muscle pain and many women are on both drugs – a double whammy.

Think about it for a minute – how could a drug that is supposed to be good for bones cause incapacitating bone pain in anyone? 

Since the FDA has trouble understanding how the drugs it has approved behave in the human body, they had no explanation as to why bone drugs were causing such horrendous pain.  Thus, I will be happy to explain the nature of the problem.

Bisphosphonates are Highly Inflammatory Drugs

Bisphosphonates are a caustic chemical.  They damage any human tissue they come in contact with.  They have been proven to induce inflammation by direct contact with body surfaces and they have been proven to set in motion a chain reaction of inflammatory events.  Indeed, one way they work is by poisoning to death a type of bone cell known as an osteoclast.  The medical profession thinks it is a good idea to poison osteoclasts because there are too many of them in people with accelerated bone loss.  Never do they bother asking why there are too many and treat the source of the problem.  Even though osteoclasts are a normal bone cell required for healthy bone metabolism, the pushers of these poisons have come up with an excuse to perform a type of chemotherapy on bone cells, often in the name of preventive health! 

It has been proven beyond any doubt that these drugs cause swollen bone due to their highly inflammatory nature.  In fact, the unreliable and inaccurate X-Ray-generated pictures doctors claim are better bone density after a person has been taking these drugs for a while are actually pictures of swollen and inflamed bone that is being chaotically disorganized and weakened by these drugs.  A sprained ankle looks bigger than a normal ankle, so does a sprained bone. 

It is worth noting that in addition to the fact the pictures are of swollen bones, the pictures themselves are never an accurate measure of true bone density in any person.  These bone pictures are referred to as Dual energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA).  The flaws include a huge variance in human operator skill and the inability of the machine to judge bone depth, thus all pictures are guesses anyway.  The best-guess reference charts are easily skewed by tall people, short people, thick-boned people – and the lack of skill of the machine operator.  The pictures cannot show bone strength or bone integrity (a convenient shortcoming for bisphosphonate drugs).  Because bisphosphonates also glue calcium in an abnormal manner onto bone, the mirage is that there appears to be more density – true smoke and mirrors.  Numerous studies with bone biopsy show that bisphosphonate-treated bone is actually swollen, chaotically disorganized, and weaker than healthy bone. 

If you would like to understand the details of this issue, as well as basic bone metabolism, you may read for free Chapter 18: The Illusion of Bone Drugs, from my book Fight for Your Health – Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America.  Also, included in the appendix are numerous references documenting all of the many side effects of these drugs up through 2006.

The FDA is now warning that at some point while taking these drugs there can be intense and even debilitating pain.  This is obviously due to the caustic and highly inflammatory nature of these drugs.

Here is a question for the medical profession.  Since it is now clearly understood that excessive inflammation is part of the primary cause of every single disease of aging – what makes you think you are helping the overall health of anyone by giving them a highly inflammatory bisphosphonate drug for a number of years? 

Of course, doctors may warn their patients to walk around after taking these drugs and not lay down.  This is because bisphosphonates are so caustic and inflammatory to the digestive system that they may cause significant damage to the lining of the intestinal tract.  In fact, the drug is only 1% absorbed which leaves 99% of the poison to batter the digestive lining.  The drug even comes with warnings not to give it to people with digestive problems – a warning that is routinely ignored by many prescribing physicians. 

The FDA issued its pain warning because doctors are also ignoring that bisphosphonates are a likely cause of a terrible inflammatory pain which may even start long after first taking the drug.  Doctors have been treating this pain with pain killers, the typical style of the drug-dispensing paradigm governing “modern” medicine – give one drug to offset the side effects of another (IQ=70).

If we had to stretch the imagination of these brilliant men of medicine then possibly they might conceive of the notion that once this caustic drug is absorbed and before it arrives at the bones to work its inflammatory damage in the name of “health,” it must go through the circulation and past the heart.  Would you like to guess what the drug is doing while it is in the cardiovascular system?  Are doctors somehow not aware that filling the arteries with plaque, which leads to heart attacks and strokes, is clearly an inflammatory disease?

Bisphosphonates Increase the Risk for Atrial Fibrillation

Since October 1, 2007 the FDA has also announced that it is reviewing the link between bisphosphonate drugs and atrial fibrillation (a potentially life-threatening heart problem).  The FDA updated its posting about this issue on January 7, 2008 when it released its pain warning.  In essence, the FDA says it is confused about the issue and trying to study the matter.

This is simply another instance of FDA incompetence and failure to do its job.  Back in 1997 it was clear to the FDA that a Merck study showed a 50% increased risk in serious atrial fibrillation from Fosamax.  The FDA did not demand that Merck conduct a specific post-marketing safety analysis relating to atrial fibrillation.  This was a major failure on the part of the FDA to protect the public.  Thus, the only data the FDA can review are studies regarding bisphosphonates that may report atrial fibrillation but are not designed to test for it.  The FDA also has its MedWatch program, but most physicians and patients don’t link the two issues so don’t know to report it.

The FDA is only now becoming interested in the issue as a new type of powerful bisphosphonate that involves a once a year intravenous infusion are showing a 150% increased risk for atrial fibrillation.  This is obviously a higher potency of the drug in the circulation, giving its highly inflammatory and caustic characteristics more of a chance to weaken the heart in one major “blast attack.” If this therapy catches on with women atrial fibrillation problems will triple.

The FDA says it plans to drag its feet on the issue for another 10 months, at which point it is likely to say it does not have enough data to know for sure one way or the other – great job FDA.  It appears that any woman taking bisphosphona