June 2007 Archives

Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame – widely used in soft drinks – might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats. The FDA is unmoved. Despite this new evidence, they have no plans to change their stance on the safety of aspartame use in foods despite pleas from the Center for Science in the Public Interest to review the safety of the suspect sweetener. (Note: the European Food Safety Authority is equally culpable.) I find it especially disturbing that the FDA is not only ignoring this new study, as well as all the previous studies, reporting the dangers of aspartame, but that they have also ignored their own studies proving that aspartame triggers brain tumors and many other health issues.

Antidepressants, one of my favorite topics, are once again in the news. I"ve already explored the connection between antidepressants and a number of personality disorders, but the new studies take us in an entirely different direction and only add fuel to the fire.Two studies released today indicate that Infants born to women taking prescription antidepressants during the first trimester of their pregnancies have an increased risk of serious birth defects. At first glance, the results seem chilling. For example:

Researchers in Germany and Switzerland just announced that among patients who had received initial treatment for a specific type of heart attack (unstable angina/non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction), those that were obese or very obese were less than half as likely to die during the following three years as patients who were of normal weight.

Just a few days ago, the FDA announced its final rule establishing regulations on manufacturing practices for dietary supplements. The final rule includes requirements for establishing quality control procedures, designing and constructing manufacturing plants, and testing ingredients and the finished product. It also includes requirements for recordkeeping and handling consumer product complaints. And under the final rule, manufacturers are required to evaluate the identity, purity, strength, and composition of their dietary supplements.

Royal Rife may have been the greatest medical genius of all time. During the first half of the 20th Century, Dr. Rife perfected a methodology for using electrical frequencies to destroy a number of diseases including cancer, herpes, polio, spinal meningitis, tetanus, and influenza.

The efficacy of his technology was tested and proven by the medical community. In 1931, the nation's most respected medical authorities honored Dr. Rife with a banquet billed as “The End to All Diseases.” However, by 1937 he had come under the eye of Morris Fishbein, president of the AMA. After failing in an attempt to purchase control of Dr. Rife’s technology, he subsequently proceeded to discredit Dr. Rife and end his research. For more on Dr. Rife and Fishbein, go to http://home.att.net/~bob.wallace/fishbein.html.

I’m not really sure why people are so enamored of peer reviewed studies. Depending on your methodology, you can get them to prove anything. We’ve had peer reviewed studies that prove hormone replacement therapy is helpful, that it’s harmful, that it works, that it doesn’t work, and that in only works for five years around menopause. If you can get a peer reviewed study to come out with continually contradicting results, how much value can it have?

Two new studies just released on diabetes should serve as a wake up call to the powers that be; but of course, that won’t happen.

The National Changing Diabetes Program (NCDP) study was released today at a briefing of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus. The study concluded that:

First of all, let me state that I never use this forum to talk politics except as it relates to health. It’s not that I’m apolitical; it’s just that the purpose of the Baseline of Health Foundation is to improve the health of its readers, not to change their political opinions. With that said…

Presidential candidate John Edwards unveiled his version of a universal healthcare proposal today. And like Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama before him, it’s utter nonsense. In summary, the plan offers to:

Canadian Researchers announced today that studies prove that children who got antibiotics as babies had double the risk of developing asthma by age 7. This may come as a big surprise in parts of the scientific community, but not to anyone who has any awareness of the importance of intestinal flora, which are destroyed by antibiotics.

Researchers presenting yesterday at the International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia in Washington DC announced, “We face a looming global epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease as the world’s population ages.”

It is thought that 26 million people are living with Alzheimer's disease throughout the world today.  Yesterday’s announcement indicated that could quadruple to more than 106 million by 2050.  The biggest rise in cases, the study warned, would occur in Asia, where 48 percent of sufferers live. There, prevalence will grow from 12.65 million in 2006 to 62.85 million in 2050, accounting for 59 percent of all cases.

Back in 2002, a series of studies started coming out challenging the safety of flax seed oil for men in regard to prostate cancer. In October of that year, I wrote a newsletter questioning the validity of those studies, and I caught a lot of grief for taking that position. People questioned my judgement saying, "Why even go there?" "Better safe than sorry." "Why not just use fish oil to get your Omega-3’s?" Even many alternative health authorities backed away from flax based on those studies.