ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Revered in India as "holy powder," the marigold-colored spice known as turmeric has been used for centuries to treat wounds, infections and other health problems. In recent years, research into the healing powers of turmeric's main ingredient, curcumin, has burgeoned, as its astonishing array of antioxidant, anti-cancer, antibiotic, antiviral and other properties has been revealed.
Yet little has been known about exactly how curcumin works inside the body.
Now, University of Michigan researchers led by Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy have discovered that curcumin acts as a disciplinarian, inserting itself into cell membranes and making them more orderly, a move that improves cells' resistance to infection and malignancy.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Revered in India as "holy powder," the marigold-colored spice known as turmeric has been used for centuries to treat wounds, infections and other health problems. In recent years, research into the healing powers of turmeric's main ingredient, curcumin, has burgeoned, as its astonishing array of antioxidant, anti-cancer, antibiotic, antiviral and other properties has been revealed.
Yet little has been known about exactly how curcumin works inside the body.
Now, University of Michigan researchers led by Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy have discovered that curcumin acts as a disciplinarian, inserting itself into cell membranes and making them more orderly, a move that improves cells' resistance to infection and malignancy.
"The membrane goes from being crazy and floppy to being more disciplined and ordered, so that information flow through it can be controlled," said Ramamoorthy, a professor of chemistry and biophysics. The findings were published online March 3 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The research project melds Ramamoorthy's past with his current scientific interests. As a child in India, he was given turmeric-laced milk to drink when he had a cold, and he breathed steam infused with turmeric to relieve congestion. Now as researcher he is fascinated with proteins that are associated with biological membranes, and he uses a technique called solid-state NMR spectroscopy to reveal atom-level details of these important molecules and the membranous milieu in which they operate.
"Probing high-resolution intermolecular interactions in the messy membrane environment has been a major challenge to commonly-used biophysical techniques," Ramamoorthy said. His research group recently developed the two-dimensional solid-state NMR technique that they used to probe curcumin-membrane communication in this study.
Scientists have speculated that curcumin does its health-promoting work by interacting directly with membrane proteins, but the U-M findings challenge that notion. Instead, the researchers found that curcumin regulates the action of membrane proteins indirectly, by changing the physical properties of the membrane.
Ramamoorthy's group now is collaborating with chemistry professor Masato Koreeda and U-M Life Sciences Institute researcher Jason Gestwicki to study a variety of curcumin derivatives, some of which have enhanced potency. "We want to see how these various derivatives interact with the membrane, to see if the interactions are the same as what we have observed in the current study," Ramamoorthy said. "Such a comparative study could lead to the development of potent compounds to treat infection and other diseases."
In a related line of research, Ramamoorthy's team is using the same methods to investigate the effects of curcumin on the formation of amyloids---clumps of fibrous protein believed to be involved in type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and many other maladies. In addition, the researchers are looking to see whether other natural products, such as polyphenols (compounds found in many plant foods that are known to have antioxidant properties) and capsaicin (a pain reliever derived from hot peppers), interact with membranes in the same way as curcumin.
###
Along with Ramamoorthy, the paper's authors are undergraduates Jeffrey Barry and Michelle Fritz, post-doctoral fellow Jeffrey Brender, graduate student Pieter Smith and a visiting professor from South Korea, Dong-Kuk Lee.
11 March 2009
Belly Fat Hurts Your Lungs
CHICAGO - Carrying excess weight around the middle can impair lung function, adding to a long list of health problems associated with belly fat, French researchers said on Friday.
Abdominal obesity is already linked with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as part of a cluster of health problems known collectively as metabolic syndrome.
Researchers have now shown that a large waist measurement is strongly associated with decreased lung function, regardless of other complicating factors that affect the lungs such as overall obesity and smoking.
CHICAGO - Carrying excess weight around the middle can impair lung function, adding to a long list of health problems associated with belly fat, French researchers said on Friday.
Abdominal obesity is already linked with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as part of a cluster of health problems known collectively as metabolic syndrome.
Researchers have now shown that a large waist measurement is strongly associated with decreased lung function, regardless of other complicating factors that affect the lungs such as overall obesity and smoking.
The researchers analyzed health information about 120,000 people in France, assessing demographic background, smoking history, alcohol consumption, as well as lung function with respect to a measure of obesity known as body mass index, waist circumference and other measures of metabolic health.
"We found a positive independent relationship between lung function impairment and metabolic syndrome due mainly to abdominal obesity," Dr. Natalie Leone of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research wrote in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The researchers defined abdominal obesity as having a waist circumference of greater than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.
Several large studies have linked poor lung function with higher rates of deaths and hospitalization from heart disease, the researchers said.
While it was not clear from the study, the researchers think belly fat may impair the way the diaphragm and chest function. Fat tissue is also known to increase inflammation in the body, which may be playing a role, they said.
Although the reasons may not be clear, Dr. Paul Enright of the University of Arizona said in a commentary there is now enough evidence to include waist measurements as part of routine assessments of lung function.
"Abdominal obesity could then be highlighted on the printed report so that the physician interpreting the report could take the effect of obesity into account," Enright wrote.
Abdominal obesity is already linked with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as part of a cluster of health problems known collectively as metabolic syndrome.
Researchers have now shown that a large waist measurement is strongly associated with decreased lung function, regardless of other complicating factors that affect the lungs such as overall obesity and smoking.
CHICAGO - Carrying excess weight around the middle can impair lung function, adding to a long list of health problems associated with belly fat, French researchers said on Friday.
Abdominal obesity is already linked with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as part of a cluster of health problems known collectively as metabolic syndrome.
Researchers have now shown that a large waist measurement is strongly associated with decreased lung function, regardless of other complicating factors that affect the lungs such as overall obesity and smoking.
The researchers analyzed health information about 120,000 people in France, assessing demographic background, smoking history, alcohol consumption, as well as lung function with respect to a measure of obesity known as body mass index, waist circumference and other measures of metabolic health.
"We found a positive independent relationship between lung function impairment and metabolic syndrome due mainly to abdominal obesity," Dr. Natalie Leone of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research wrote in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The researchers defined abdominal obesity as having a waist circumference of greater than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.
Several large studies have linked poor lung function with higher rates of deaths and hospitalization from heart disease, the researchers said.
While it was not clear from the study, the researchers think belly fat may impair the way the diaphragm and chest function. Fat tissue is also known to increase inflammation in the body, which may be playing a role, they said.
Although the reasons may not be clear, Dr. Paul Enright of the University of Arizona said in a commentary there is now enough evidence to include waist measurements as part of routine assessments of lung function.
"Abdominal obesity could then be highlighted on the printed report so that the physician interpreting the report could take the effect of obesity into account," Enright wrote.
Were Tainted Vaccines a Conspiracy to Provoke a Pandemic?
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
Were Tainted Vaccines a Conspiracy to Provoke a Pandemic?
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
How to Cure Your Acne the Natural Way
Discover the Newest Safe Cancer Screening Tool Available…
The best way to beat cancer and other chronic illnesses is to prevent them in the first place. Now there’s a revolutionary, new high-tech diagnostic tool called thermography that can help detect cancer and disease anywhere in your body. It’s safe, painless, and reliable. Why take the chance of developing a serious illness when you can stop it in its tracks.
In this video, I explain simple, safe, and effective ways to cure acne.
Discover the Newest Safe Cancer Screening Tool Available…
The best way to beat cancer and other chronic illnesses is to prevent them in the first place. Now there’s a revolutionary, new high-tech diagnostic tool called thermography that can help detect cancer and disease anywhere in your body. It’s safe, painless, and reliable. Why take the chance of developing a serious illness when you can stop it in its tracks.
The best way to beat cancer and other chronic illnesses is to prevent them in the first place. Now there’s a revolutionary, new high-tech diagnostic tool called thermography that can help detect cancer and disease anywhere in your body. It’s safe, painless, and reliable. Why take the chance of developing a serious illness when you can stop it in its tracks.
In this video, I explain simple, safe, and effective ways to cure acne.
Discover the Newest Safe Cancer Screening Tool Available…
The best way to beat cancer and other chronic illnesses is to prevent them in the first place. Now there’s a revolutionary, new high-tech diagnostic tool called thermography that can help detect cancer and disease anywhere in your body. It’s safe, painless, and reliable. Why take the chance of developing a serious illness when you can stop it in its tracks.
Seaweed supplement may aid knee arthritis
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A mineral supplement derived from seaweed may help people with knee arthritis cut down on painkillers, a preliminary study suggests.
Researchers found that among 22 adults with moderate to severe knee arthritis, those who took the supplement for 12 weeks were able to reduce their use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs -- commonly known as NSAIDs -- but still show improvements in walking ability and range of motion in the knee joint.
More studies are needed, the researchers report in the online publication Nutrition Journal, but these early results suggest that the seaweed supplement -- sold as Aquamin -- could reduce some patients' need for painkillers.
Dr. Joy L. Frestedt, of Frestedt Inc., in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, led the study. Frestedt Inc. is a consulting firm that runs clinical trials. Ireland-based Marigot Ltd., which markets Aquamin, funded the study.
The study included 22 older adults with knee osteoarthritis, the wear-and-tear form of arthritis in which the cartilage cushioning the joints gradually breaks down. The patients were randomly assigned to take either Aquamin or inactive "placebo" capsules for 12 weeks.
After the first two weeks of treatment, all patients were asked to cut their NSAID use in half for the next two weeks, then stop the drugs completely for the rest of the study.
In general, Frestedt's team found, Aquamin patients performed better on tests of walking distance and knee joint range of motion after one month of treatment, despite their NSAID use being halved.
The benefits did not continue, however, once the patients stopped taking NSAIDs altogether, the study found. Six patients dropped out of the trial because of worsening pain -- though five of them were in the placebo group, the researchers note.
The findings, they write, indicate that Aquamin "cannot entirely replace" NSAIDs as a treatment for knee arthritis.
It's not fully clear why the seaweed supplement might aid arthritis symptoms. It contains a mix of trace minerals, with the main ingredients being calcium and magnesium.
Some of those minerals, Frestedt and her colleagues say, have been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in lab animals. For its part, calcium is known to boost bone mineral density, and there is some evidence that it may ease arthritis symptoms as well.
SOURCE: Nutrition Journal, February 2, 2009.
Researchers found that among 22 adults with moderate to severe knee arthritis, those who took the supplement for 12 weeks were able to reduce their use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs -- commonly known as NSAIDs -- but still show improvements in walking ability and range of motion in the knee joint.
More studies are needed, the researchers report in the online publication Nutrition Journal, but these early results suggest that the seaweed supplement -- sold as Aquamin -- could reduce some patients' need for painkillers.
Dr. Joy L. Frestedt, of Frestedt Inc., in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, led the study. Frestedt Inc. is a consulting firm that runs clinical trials. Ireland-based Marigot Ltd., which markets Aquamin, funded the study.
The study included 22 older adults with knee osteoarthritis, the wear-and-tear form of arthritis in which the cartilage cushioning the joints gradually breaks down. The patients were randomly assigned to take either Aquamin or inactive "placebo" capsules for 12 weeks.
After the first two weeks of treatment, all patients were asked to cut their NSAID use in half for the next two weeks, then stop the drugs completely for the rest of the study.
In general, Frestedt's team found, Aquamin patients performed better on tests of walking distance and knee joint range of motion after one month of treatment, despite their NSAID use being halved.
The benefits did not continue, however, once the patients stopped taking NSAIDs altogether, the study found. Six patients dropped out of the trial because of worsening pain -- though five of them were in the placebo group, the researchers note.
The findings, they write, indicate that Aquamin "cannot entirely replace" NSAIDs as a treatment for knee arthritis.
It's not fully clear why the seaweed supplement might aid arthritis symptoms. It contains a mix of trace minerals, with the main ingredients being calcium and magnesium.
Some of those minerals, Frestedt and her colleagues say, have been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in lab animals. For its part, calcium is known to boost bone mineral density, and there is some evidence that it may ease arthritis symptoms as well.
SOURCE: Nutrition Journal, February 2, 2009.
Low levels of vitamin B12 may increase risk for neural tube defects
Vegans, vegetarians may be at risk
Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland.
Women with the lowest B12 levels had 5 times the risk of having a child with a neural tube defect compared to women with the highest B12 levels.
Women who consume little or no meat or animal based foods are the most likely group of women to have low B12 levels, along with women who have intestinal disorders that prevent them from absorbing sufficient amounts of B12.
Neural tube defects are a class of birth defects affecting the brain and spinal cord. One type, spina bifida, can cause partial paralysis. Another type, anencephaly, is a fatal defect in which the brain and skull are severely underdeveloped.
Researchers have known that taking another nutrient, folic acid, during the weeks before and after conception can greatly reduce a woman's chances of having a child with a neural tube defect. Folic acid is the synthetic form of the vitamin folate. In the United States, cereal grains are fortified with folic acid to reduce the occurrence of neural tube defects in the U.S. population.
The study appears in the March Pediatrics. The study's first author was Anne M. Molloy, Ph.D., Trinity College Dublin. Scientists from the Health Research Board of Ireland and two NIH institutes, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Human Genome Research Institute, also took part in the study.
"Vitamin B12 is essential for the functioning of the nervous system and for the production of red blood cells," said Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the NICHD. "The results of this study suggest that women with low levels of B12 not only may risk health problems of their own, but also may increase the chance that their children may be born with a serious birth defect."
Ireland has a high rate of neural tube defects, and NIH scientists have frequently collaborated with Irish researchers to gain insight into the causes of this group of disorders.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed stored blood samples originally collected during early pregnancy from three groups of Irish women between 1983 and 1990. During that time, pregnant women in Ireland rarely took vitamin supplements. The study authors reasoned that the lack of routine vitamin supplementation would allow them to identify a sufficient number of women with low Vitamin B12 to conduct their analysis.
For their analysis, the researchers classified the women into three groups. The first group consisted of 95 women who were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect at the time the blood was taken. The second group was composed of 107 women who had previously given birth to a child with a neural tube defect but whose current pregnancy was not affected. Like the first group, women in the third group (a total of 76) were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect at the time the blood sample was obtained, but were enrolled in a different study than the women in group 1. The researchers measured the Vitamin B12 and folate levels of the women's blood samples, and compared them to those of control groups whose pregnancies were unaffected by a neural tube defect.
Because low folate levels are a known risk factor for neural tube defects, the researchers used statistical techniques to evaluate the role of Vitamin B12 independently of the role of folate. In all three groups, women with low B12 concentrations (estimated at less than 250 ng/L, before pregnancy) had 2.5-3 times the risk of having a child with a neural tube defect compared to those with higher levels. Women with levels in the deficient range (0-149 ng/L ) were at the highest risk: 5 times that of women with higher levels.
The study authors wrote that it is not known how B12 and folate might interact to influence the formation of the neural tube, the embryonic structure that gives rise to the spine and brain. They noted that the two vitamins are jointly involved with several key biochemical reactions, as well as with the synthesis of DNA. Lack of either Vitamin B12 or folate in any of these chemical processes theoretically could increase the risk of a neural tube defect.
The authors noted that their results needed to be confirmed by other studies among other populations of women. They suggested, however, that women should have Vitamin B12 levels above 300 ng/L before becoming pregnant. (Because B12 levels drop sharply during pregnancy, the researchers adjusted the levels measured during pregnancy to provide a target level for women to achieve before they become pregnant.)
Because Vitamin B12 comes from foods of animal origin, women who adhere to a strict vegan diet may be at risk for a B12 deficiency, said an NICHD author of the paper, James L. Mills, M.D., senior investigator in the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research. He added it is advisable for women with digestive disorders that interfere with the absorption of foods to consult a physician before getting pregnant, to make sure they are receiving adequate amounts of B12.
Dr. Mills explained that critical events in the formation of the brain and spinal column occur very early in pregnancy—in the first 28 days after conception—before many women even realize they are pregnant.
He added that the U.S. Public Health Service recommends that all women of childbearing age consume 400 micrograms of folic acid each day. This amount assures that a woman will have adequate stores of the vitamin, in the event of an unintended pregnancy.
"If women wait until they realize that they are pregnant before they start taking folic acid, it is usually too late," Dr. Mills said.
Similarly, he said, it would be wise for all women of childbearing age to consume the recommended amount of Vitamin B12, whether they are planning a pregnancy or not. "Half of the women who become pregnant each year in the U.S. were not planning to become pregnant."
"Our results offer evidence that women who have adequate B12 levels before they become pregnant may further reduce the occurrence of this class of birth defects," Dr. Mills said.
###
Vitamin B12 is available in milk, meats, poultry, eggs, as well as fortified cereals and some other fortified foods. Information on foods that contain Vitamin B12, as well as the Recommended Dietary Allowances for the vitamin, is available from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12.asp.
Folate is found in leafy green vegetables, fruits, and dried beans and peas. Information on sources of folate also is available from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/folate.asp.
The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute's Web site at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland.
Women with the lowest B12 levels had 5 times the risk of having a child with a neural tube defect compared to women with the highest B12 levels.
Women who consume little or no meat or animal based foods are the most likely group of women to have low B12 levels, along with women who have intestinal disorders that prevent them from absorbing sufficient amounts of B12.
Neural tube defects are a class of birth defects affecting the brain and spinal cord. One type, spina bifida, can cause partial paralysis. Another type, anencephaly, is a fatal defect in which the brain and skull are severely underdeveloped.
Researchers have known that taking another nutrient, folic acid, during the weeks before and after conception can greatly reduce a woman's chances of having a child with a neural tube defect. Folic acid is the synthetic form of the vitamin folate. In the United States, cereal grains are fortified with folic acid to reduce the occurrence of neural tube defects in the U.S. population.
The study appears in the March Pediatrics. The study's first author was Anne M. Molloy, Ph.D., Trinity College Dublin. Scientists from the Health Research Board of Ireland and two NIH institutes, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Human Genome Research Institute, also took part in the study.
"Vitamin B12 is essential for the functioning of the nervous system and for the production of red blood cells," said Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the NICHD. "The results of this study suggest that women with low levels of B12 not only may risk health problems of their own, but also may increase the chance that their children may be born with a serious birth defect."
Ireland has a high rate of neural tube defects, and NIH scientists have frequently collaborated with Irish researchers to gain insight into the causes of this group of disorders.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed stored blood samples originally collected during early pregnancy from three groups of Irish women between 1983 and 1990. During that time, pregnant women in Ireland rarely took vitamin supplements. The study authors reasoned that the lack of routine vitamin supplementation would allow them to identify a sufficient number of women with low Vitamin B12 to conduct their analysis.
For their analysis, the researchers classified the women into three groups. The first group consisted of 95 women who were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect at the time the blood was taken. The second group was composed of 107 women who had previously given birth to a child with a neural tube defect but whose current pregnancy was not affected. Like the first group, women in the third group (a total of 76) were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect at the time the blood sample was obtained, but were enrolled in a different study than the women in group 1. The researchers measured the Vitamin B12 and folate levels of the women's blood samples, and compared them to those of control groups whose pregnancies were unaffected by a neural tube defect.
Because low folate levels are a known risk factor for neural tube defects, the researchers used statistical techniques to evaluate the role of Vitamin B12 independently of the role of folate. In all three groups, women with low B12 concentrations (estimated at less than 250 ng/L, before pregnancy) had 2.5-3 times the risk of having a child with a neural tube defect compared to those with higher levels. Women with levels in the deficient range (0-149 ng/L ) were at the highest risk: 5 times that of women with higher levels.
The study authors wrote that it is not known how B12 and folate might interact to influence the formation of the neural tube, the embryonic structure that gives rise to the spine and brain. They noted that the two vitamins are jointly involved with several key biochemical reactions, as well as with the synthesis of DNA. Lack of either Vitamin B12 or folate in any of these chemical processes theoretically could increase the risk of a neural tube defect.
The authors noted that their results needed to be confirmed by other studies among other populations of women. They suggested, however, that women should have Vitamin B12 levels above 300 ng/L before becoming pregnant. (Because B12 levels drop sharply during pregnancy, the researchers adjusted the levels measured during pregnancy to provide a target level for women to achieve before they become pregnant.)
Because Vitamin B12 comes from foods of animal origin, women who adhere to a strict vegan diet may be at risk for a B12 deficiency, said an NICHD author of the paper, James L. Mills, M.D., senior investigator in the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research. He added it is advisable for women with digestive disorders that interfere with the absorption of foods to consult a physician before getting pregnant, to make sure they are receiving adequate amounts of B12.
Dr. Mills explained that critical events in the formation of the brain and spinal column occur very early in pregnancy—in the first 28 days after conception—before many women even realize they are pregnant.
He added that the U.S. Public Health Service recommends that all women of childbearing age consume 400 micrograms of folic acid each day. This amount assures that a woman will have adequate stores of the vitamin, in the event of an unintended pregnancy.
"If women wait until they realize that they are pregnant before they start taking folic acid, it is usually too late," Dr. Mills said.
Similarly, he said, it would be wise for all women of childbearing age to consume the recommended amount of Vitamin B12, whether they are planning a pregnancy or not. "Half of the women who become pregnant each year in the U.S. were not planning to become pregnant."
"Our results offer evidence that women who have adequate B12 levels before they become pregnant may further reduce the occurrence of this class of birth defects," Dr. Mills said.
###
Vitamin B12 is available in milk, meats, poultry, eggs, as well as fortified cereals and some other fortified foods. Information on foods that contain Vitamin B12, as well as the Recommended Dietary Allowances for the vitamin, is available from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12.asp.
Folate is found in leafy green vegetables, fruits, and dried beans and peas. Information on sources of folate also is available from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/folate.asp.
The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute's Web site at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Inappropriate drug prescriptions wasting millions, raising health risks
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A recent study in Oregon suggests that drugs designed for treating the most severe mental illnesses are often prescribed at inappropriately low doses and at considerable expense, for use in conditions where their benefit has not been established.
In this case, prescription drugs that might cost as much as $20 to $25 a day were being widely used to treat problems for which they were not FDA-approved. Some of those problems could have been addressed with generic medications costing $1 a day, with better results and less risk of serious side effects.
This is a reflection of widespread use of medications for "off-label" uses that have not been carefully considered or approved by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers said, some of which are unnecessarily raising medical costs and reducing the effectiveness of health care.
The research was done by scientists in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University, the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and Oregon Health and Science University. It was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"It's legal for a physician to prescribe a medication for something other than its FDA-approved uses, and based on good studies or clinical judgment it may be justified," said Daniel Hartung, an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at OSU. "However, the approved uses are usually a pretty good proxy for real, proven effectiveness. And if in fact drugs are being used inappropriately, it not only can be very expensive but also pose an unnecessary health risk."
Both of those problems were found in this study.
In this case, the health conditions of 830 Oregon Medicaid patients were examined – all of whom had been given one of the newer antipsychotic medications approved only for some of the most severe forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, the researchers found that the vast majority of the people receiving one of these drugs did not have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, the underlying mental health conditions for which the drugs had been approved.
Most people who received these "atypical antipsychotic" drugs, which are very powerful and have potentially severe side effects, had less serious mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder – or no psychiatric disorder other than insomnia.
The newer antipsychotic drugs can cause side effects such as neuromuscular rigidity, increased risk of stroke, heart arrhythmias, moderate-to-severe weight gain, and worsening glucose control that leads to increased risk of diabetes. The drugs may be necessary for patients with major mental health problems such as schizophrenia, Hartung said, but have not been demonstrated to be effective for most of their off-label uses, such as depression or agitation in persons suffering from dementia.
The prescriptions, he said, were also often given at lower doses and for shorter time periods than anything that has been shown to be therapeutic.
And the concerns involve many types of practitioners, the study found – the medications were prescribed by primary care physicians and nurse practitioners and, to a lesser extent, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners.
"Some drug companies have been accused of encouraging and expanding the off-label use of drugs, and that may be where part of this misinformation is coming from," Hartung said. "That is an illegal practice, and some companies have been successfully sued on that basis. Regardless of what's causing this, it's a serious concern, both for ensuring resources are used judiciously and protecting health care quality."
These issues should be more carefully explored, the researchers said in their study. They are particularly relevant to Medicaid programs, in which use of antipsychotic medications is surging. In 2002 these drugs constituted more than 7 percent of the expenditures for all Medicaid programs nationally. In Oregon, the medications represented nearly 30 percent of all outpatient fee-for-service drug expenditures in 2006.
During 2006, the study found, the Oregon Medicaid program spent about $2.5 million for chronic, subtherapeutic use of a single antipsychotic drug in adult patients.
Based on this, the researchers concluded that "a statewide initiative to provide guidance regarding the administration of antipsychotic medication could be beneficial."
The study was done in Oregon, Hartung said, but is probably a reflection of trends across the nation.
The researchers wrote in their report that "states wishing to reduce costs and improve the quality of use for atypical antipsychotic medications should examine prescribing patterns to ensure that these drugs are prescribed within acceptable practice limits, and are not used for off-label uses when other approaches may be more appropriate and less expensive."
###
About the OSU College of Pharmacy: The College of Pharmacy prepares students of today to be the pharmacy practitioners and pharmaceutical sciences researchers of tomorrow by contributing to improved health, advancing patient care and the discovery and understanding of medicines.
In this case, prescription drugs that might cost as much as $20 to $25 a day were being widely used to treat problems for which they were not FDA-approved. Some of those problems could have been addressed with generic medications costing $1 a day, with better results and less risk of serious side effects.
This is a reflection of widespread use of medications for "off-label" uses that have not been carefully considered or approved by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers said, some of which are unnecessarily raising medical costs and reducing the effectiveness of health care.
The research was done by scientists in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University, the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and Oregon Health and Science University. It was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"It's legal for a physician to prescribe a medication for something other than its FDA-approved uses, and based on good studies or clinical judgment it may be justified," said Daniel Hartung, an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at OSU. "However, the approved uses are usually a pretty good proxy for real, proven effectiveness. And if in fact drugs are being used inappropriately, it not only can be very expensive but also pose an unnecessary health risk."
Both of those problems were found in this study.
In this case, the health conditions of 830 Oregon Medicaid patients were examined – all of whom had been given one of the newer antipsychotic medications approved only for some of the most severe forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, the researchers found that the vast majority of the people receiving one of these drugs did not have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, the underlying mental health conditions for which the drugs had been approved.
Most people who received these "atypical antipsychotic" drugs, which are very powerful and have potentially severe side effects, had less serious mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder – or no psychiatric disorder other than insomnia.
The newer antipsychotic drugs can cause side effects such as neuromuscular rigidity, increased risk of stroke, heart arrhythmias, moderate-to-severe weight gain, and worsening glucose control that leads to increased risk of diabetes. The drugs may be necessary for patients with major mental health problems such as schizophrenia, Hartung said, but have not been demonstrated to be effective for most of their off-label uses, such as depression or agitation in persons suffering from dementia.
The prescriptions, he said, were also often given at lower doses and for shorter time periods than anything that has been shown to be therapeutic.
And the concerns involve many types of practitioners, the study found – the medications were prescribed by primary care physicians and nurse practitioners and, to a lesser extent, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners.
"Some drug companies have been accused of encouraging and expanding the off-label use of drugs, and that may be where part of this misinformation is coming from," Hartung said. "That is an illegal practice, and some companies have been successfully sued on that basis. Regardless of what's causing this, it's a serious concern, both for ensuring resources are used judiciously and protecting health care quality."
These issues should be more carefully explored, the researchers said in their study. They are particularly relevant to Medicaid programs, in which use of antipsychotic medications is surging. In 2002 these drugs constituted more than 7 percent of the expenditures for all Medicaid programs nationally. In Oregon, the medications represented nearly 30 percent of all outpatient fee-for-service drug expenditures in 2006.
During 2006, the study found, the Oregon Medicaid program spent about $2.5 million for chronic, subtherapeutic use of a single antipsychotic drug in adult patients.
Based on this, the researchers concluded that "a statewide initiative to provide guidance regarding the administration of antipsychotic medication could be beneficial."
The study was done in Oregon, Hartung said, but is probably a reflection of trends across the nation.
The researchers wrote in their report that "states wishing to reduce costs and improve the quality of use for atypical antipsychotic medications should examine prescribing patterns to ensure that these drugs are prescribed within acceptable practice limits, and are not used for off-label uses when other approaches may be more appropriate and less expensive."
###
About the OSU College of Pharmacy: The College of Pharmacy prepares students of today to be the pharmacy practitioners and pharmaceutical sciences researchers of tomorrow by contributing to improved health, advancing patient care and the discovery and understanding of medicines.
Missing Link Between Fructose, Insulin Resistance Found
ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2009) — A new study in mice sheds light on the insulin resistance that can come from diets loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener found in most sodas and many other processed foods. The report in the March issue of Cell Metabolism also suggests a way to prevent those ill effects.
The researchers showed that mice on a high-fructose diet were protected from insulin resistance when a gene known as transcriptional coactivator PPARg coactivator-1b (PGC-1b) was "knocked down" in the animals' liver and fat tissue. PGC-1b coactivates a number of transcription factors that control the activity of other genes, including one responsible for building fat in the liver.
"There has been a remarkable increase in consumption of high-fructose corn syrup," said Gerald Shulman of Yale University School of Medicine. "Fructose is much more readily metabolized to fat in the liver than glucose is and in the process can lead to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," he continued. NAFLD in turn leads to hepatic insulin resistance and type II diabetes.
Metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes have both reached epidemic proportions worldwide with the global adoption of the westernized diet along with increased consumption of fructose, stemming from the wide and increasing use of high-fructose corn syrup sweeteners, the researchers noted.
High-fructose corn syrup, which is a mixture of the simple sugars fructose and glucose, came into use in the 1970s and by 2005 the average American was consuming about 60 pounds of it per year. Overall, dietary intake of fructose, which is also a component of table sugar, has increased by an estimated 20 to 40 percent in the last thirty years.
Earlier studies had established that fructose is more readily converted to fatty acids than glucose and had also linked high-fructose diets to high blood levels of triglycerides (a condition known as hypertriglyceridemia), NAFLD and insulin resistance. While researchers had implicated a gene known as SREBP-1, a master regulator of lipids' manufacture in the liver, much about the underlying molecular connections between fructose and those metabolic disorders remained mysterious.
In the new study, the researchers zeroed in on PGC-1b, a gene known for boosting SREBP-1 levels. To test its role in the effects of fructose, they blocked its activity in mice fed a diet high in that sugar for four weeks.
Those treatments improved the animals' metabolic profiles by lowering levels of SREBP-1 and other fat-building genes in their livers. The mice also showed a reversal of their fructose-induced insulin resistance and a threefold increase in glucose uptake in their fat tissue.
"These data support an important role for PGC-1b in the pathogenesis of fructose-induced insulin resistance and suggest that PGC-1b inhibition may be a therapeutic target for treatment of NAFLD, hypertriglyceridemia, and insulin resistance associated with increased de novo lipogenesis," the researchers concluded.
The new study has "revealed the transcriptional coactivator PGC-1b as a missing link between fructose intake and metabolic disorders," wrote Carlos Hernandez and Jiandie Lin of the University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor in an accompanying commentary. "The findings …support the emerging role of gene/environment interaction in modulating the metabolic phenotype and disease pathogenesis. Thus, perturbations of the same regulatory motif may produce vastly different metabolic responses, depending on the specific combinations of dietary nutrients," they continued.
The researchers include Yoshio Nagai, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical InstituteShin Yonemitsu, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Derek M. Erion, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Takanori Iwasaki, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Romana Stark, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Dirk Weismann, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT Jianying Dong, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Dongyan Zhang, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Michael J. Jurczak, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Michael G. Loffler, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; James Cresswell, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Xing Xian Yu, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Susan F. Murray, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Sanjay Bhanot, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Brett P. Monia, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Jonathan S. Bogan, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Varman Samuel, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT and Gerald I. Shulman, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Journal reference:
1. Nagai et al. The Role of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ Coactivator-1 β in the Pathogenesis of Fructose-Induced Insulin Resistance. Cell Metabolism, 2009; 9 (3): 252-264 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2009.01.011
The researchers showed that mice on a high-fructose diet were protected from insulin resistance when a gene known as transcriptional coactivator PPARg coactivator-1b (PGC-1b) was "knocked down" in the animals' liver and fat tissue. PGC-1b coactivates a number of transcription factors that control the activity of other genes, including one responsible for building fat in the liver.
"There has been a remarkable increase in consumption of high-fructose corn syrup," said Gerald Shulman of Yale University School of Medicine. "Fructose is much more readily metabolized to fat in the liver than glucose is and in the process can lead to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," he continued. NAFLD in turn leads to hepatic insulin resistance and type II diabetes.
Metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes have both reached epidemic proportions worldwide with the global adoption of the westernized diet along with increased consumption of fructose, stemming from the wide and increasing use of high-fructose corn syrup sweeteners, the researchers noted.
High-fructose corn syrup, which is a mixture of the simple sugars fructose and glucose, came into use in the 1970s and by 2005 the average American was consuming about 60 pounds of it per year. Overall, dietary intake of fructose, which is also a component of table sugar, has increased by an estimated 20 to 40 percent in the last thirty years.
Earlier studies had established that fructose is more readily converted to fatty acids than glucose and had also linked high-fructose diets to high blood levels of triglycerides (a condition known as hypertriglyceridemia), NAFLD and insulin resistance. While researchers had implicated a gene known as SREBP-1, a master regulator of lipids' manufacture in the liver, much about the underlying molecular connections between fructose and those metabolic disorders remained mysterious.
In the new study, the researchers zeroed in on PGC-1b, a gene known for boosting SREBP-1 levels. To test its role in the effects of fructose, they blocked its activity in mice fed a diet high in that sugar for four weeks.
Those treatments improved the animals' metabolic profiles by lowering levels of SREBP-1 and other fat-building genes in their livers. The mice also showed a reversal of their fructose-induced insulin resistance and a threefold increase in glucose uptake in their fat tissue.
"These data support an important role for PGC-1b in the pathogenesis of fructose-induced insulin resistance and suggest that PGC-1b inhibition may be a therapeutic target for treatment of NAFLD, hypertriglyceridemia, and insulin resistance associated with increased de novo lipogenesis," the researchers concluded.
The new study has "revealed the transcriptional coactivator PGC-1b as a missing link between fructose intake and metabolic disorders," wrote Carlos Hernandez and Jiandie Lin of the University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor in an accompanying commentary. "The findings …support the emerging role of gene/environment interaction in modulating the metabolic phenotype and disease pathogenesis. Thus, perturbations of the same regulatory motif may produce vastly different metabolic responses, depending on the specific combinations of dietary nutrients," they continued.
The researchers include Yoshio Nagai, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical InstituteShin Yonemitsu, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Derek M. Erion, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Takanori Iwasaki, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Romana Stark, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Dirk Weismann, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT Jianying Dong, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Dongyan Zhang, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Michael J. Jurczak, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Michael G. Loffler, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; James Cresswell, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Xing Xian Yu, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Susan F. Murray, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Sanjay Bhanot, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Brett P. Monia, ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Jonathan S. Bogan, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Varman Samuel, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT and Gerald I. Shulman, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT , Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Journal reference:
1. Nagai et al. The Role of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ Coactivator-1 β in the Pathogenesis of Fructose-Induced Insulin Resistance. Cell Metabolism, 2009; 9 (3): 252-264 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2009.01.011
Low vitamin D may be a bigger problem than thought
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many U.S. teenagers -- including half of African Americans -- would be considered vitamin D-deficient if the definition of deficiency were changed to what many experts recommend, a new study finds.
Right now, people are considered to have an overt deficiency in vitamin D when blood levels drop below 11 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), but there is debate over how the optimal vitamin D level should be defined.
Some experts consider a level of 30 ng/mL or higher to be desirable for overall health, and many argue that the cutoff for deficiency should be 20 ng/mL.
In the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that adopting the 20 ng/mL standard would push many more U.S. teenagers into the vitamin D-deficient category.
Using data from a government health survey of nearly 3,000 12- to 19- year-olds, they found that 14 percent would be deficient in vitamin D -- compared with 2 percent when the current standard was applied.
What's more, 50 percent of black teenagers would be considered vitamin D-deficient, up from 11 percent under the current definition.
Also at elevated risk were overweight teens, who were twice as likely as their thinner peers to have a deficiency, according to Dr. Sandy Saintonge and colleagues at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
Vitamin D has been the subject of much research of late, including one recent study showing that 40 percent of U.S. babies and toddlers may have inadequate blood levels of the vitamin.
Vitamin D is necessary for healthy bone development and maintenance, and it also plays a role in nerve, muscle and immune system function. Some studies have linked low vitamin D levels to a higher risk of type 1 diabetes in children and, in adults, heart disease and certain cancers.
The latest findings, according to Saintonge's team, suggest that teenagers should take supplemental vitamin D, and possibly have their blood levels of the vitamin routinely checked -- especially if they are at high risk of deficiency.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants, children and teenagers get 400 IU of vitamin D each day. Milk, breakfast cereals and orange juice fortified with the vitamin are the main food sources, though some fatty fish naturally contain high amounts of vitamin D. Experts recommend vitamin pills for children who do not get enough of the vitamin from food.
Vitamin D is naturally synthesized in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. This process is less efficient in people with darker skin, which is one reason African Americans are at higher risk of deficiency.
Overweight children and adults appear to be at elevated risk because vitamin D is stored in body fat. The more vitamin D that gets taken up by fat tissue, the less active vitamin there is in the blood.
SOURCE: Pediatrics, March 2009.
Right now, people are considered to have an overt deficiency in vitamin D when blood levels drop below 11 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), but there is debate over how the optimal vitamin D level should be defined.
Some experts consider a level of 30 ng/mL or higher to be desirable for overall health, and many argue that the cutoff for deficiency should be 20 ng/mL.
In the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that adopting the 20 ng/mL standard would push many more U.S. teenagers into the vitamin D-deficient category.
Using data from a government health survey of nearly 3,000 12- to 19- year-olds, they found that 14 percent would be deficient in vitamin D -- compared with 2 percent when the current standard was applied.
What's more, 50 percent of black teenagers would be considered vitamin D-deficient, up from 11 percent under the current definition.
Also at elevated risk were overweight teens, who were twice as likely as their thinner peers to have a deficiency, according to Dr. Sandy Saintonge and colleagues at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
Vitamin D has been the subject of much research of late, including one recent study showing that 40 percent of U.S. babies and toddlers may have inadequate blood levels of the vitamin.
Vitamin D is necessary for healthy bone development and maintenance, and it also plays a role in nerve, muscle and immune system function. Some studies have linked low vitamin D levels to a higher risk of type 1 diabetes in children and, in adults, heart disease and certain cancers.
The latest findings, according to Saintonge's team, suggest that teenagers should take supplemental vitamin D, and possibly have their blood levels of the vitamin routinely checked -- especially if they are at high risk of deficiency.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants, children and teenagers get 400 IU of vitamin D each day. Milk, breakfast cereals and orange juice fortified with the vitamin are the main food sources, though some fatty fish naturally contain high amounts of vitamin D. Experts recommend vitamin pills for children who do not get enough of the vitamin from food.
Vitamin D is naturally synthesized in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. This process is less efficient in people with darker skin, which is one reason African Americans are at higher risk of deficiency.
Overweight children and adults appear to be at elevated risk because vitamin D is stored in body fat. The more vitamin D that gets taken up by fat tissue, the less active vitamin there is in the blood.
SOURCE: Pediatrics, March 2009.
10 March 2009
Bad Marriages Harder on Women's Health
The cardiovascular damage wrought by an unhappy marriage may be greater for women than men, a new study shows.
While both men and women in "strained" unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other markers of what's known as "metabolic syndrome," said study author Nancy Henry, a doctoral candidate in clinical healthy psychology at the University of Utah.
Metabolic syndrome is known to boost the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
The cardiovascular damage wrought by an unhappy marriage may be greater for women than men, a new study shows.
While both men and women in "strained" unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other markers of what's known as "metabolic syndrome," said study author Nancy Henry, a doctoral candidate in clinical healthy psychology at the University of Utah.
Metabolic syndrome is known to boost the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
While many studies have linked poor marriages with poor health, Henry said she believes her is the first to tie in depression as a possible route through which the strain boosts the risk of metabolic syndrome. "The negativity triggers the depression, which is associated with the metabolic syndrome," said Henry. This was found true, she said, only for the women in her study.
For the study, she interviewed 276 couples, median age 54, by questionnaires, asking about positive aspects of marriage quality such as mutual support and sharing, and negative aspects such as arguing, feelings of hostility and disagreeing over important issues such as kids, sex, money and in-laws. She asked about depressive symptoms.
Couples were married, on average, 27.5 years, most in their original marriage.
"For the most part, you could say, these were happily married couples," Henry said. About 20 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women in the study had metabolic syndrome (diagnosed when three of the five risk factors were present).
The men were as likely as the women to become depressed with marital strain, but the link between negativity, depression and metabolic syndrome only applied to women, she said. The depression in women accounted for the metabolic syndrome, she said.
Exactly why isn't known, but Henry speculated that women may take the negativity more to heart and ruminate about it more than men.
Henry can't say specifically how much risk of metabolic syndrome is attributed to the negativity. Earlier research has linked negativity in marriage with an increased risk of heart disease for both men and women.
She was expected to present her findings Thursday at the American Psychosomatic Society annual meeting, in Chicago.
Another researcher in the field called the findings interesting, especially the new focus on depression as a possible mechanism through which the strain influences the metabolic syndrome.
"The study raises the importance of increasing our understanding of how depression influences biological processes that result in metabolic syndrome -- and why these processes might be stronger for women than men," said Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
The findings, Umberson said, fit in with her research finding a strong effect of marital strain on partners' overall health. But the gender difference finding differs from her research. "Basically, we find that marital strain undermines the health of men and women," she said, adding that perhaps the men in Henry's study had their health influenced in a different way.
More research is needed, Henry said, to figure out how the pieces fit together.
Meanwhile, Umberson said: "Choose your partner carefully. A strained marriage is bad for your health." If it's already strained, she said, focus on reducing conflict.
While both men and women in "strained" unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other markers of what's known as "metabolic syndrome," said study author Nancy Henry, a doctoral candidate in clinical healthy psychology at the University of Utah.
Metabolic syndrome is known to boost the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
The cardiovascular damage wrought by an unhappy marriage may be greater for women than men, a new study shows.
While both men and women in "strained" unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other markers of what's known as "metabolic syndrome," said study author Nancy Henry, a doctoral candidate in clinical healthy psychology at the University of Utah.
Metabolic syndrome is known to boost the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
While many studies have linked poor marriages with poor health, Henry said she believes her is the first to tie in depression as a possible route through which the strain boosts the risk of metabolic syndrome. "The negativity triggers the depression, which is associated with the metabolic syndrome," said Henry. This was found true, she said, only for the women in her study.
For the study, she interviewed 276 couples, median age 54, by questionnaires, asking about positive aspects of marriage quality such as mutual support and sharing, and negative aspects such as arguing, feelings of hostility and disagreeing over important issues such as kids, sex, money and in-laws. She asked about depressive symptoms.
Couples were married, on average, 27.5 years, most in their original marriage.
"For the most part, you could say, these were happily married couples," Henry said. About 20 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women in the study had metabolic syndrome (diagnosed when three of the five risk factors were present).
The men were as likely as the women to become depressed with marital strain, but the link between negativity, depression and metabolic syndrome only applied to women, she said. The depression in women accounted for the metabolic syndrome, she said.
Exactly why isn't known, but Henry speculated that women may take the negativity more to heart and ruminate about it more than men.
Henry can't say specifically how much risk of metabolic syndrome is attributed to the negativity. Earlier research has linked negativity in marriage with an increased risk of heart disease for both men and women.
She was expected to present her findings Thursday at the American Psychosomatic Society annual meeting, in Chicago.
Another researcher in the field called the findings interesting, especially the new focus on depression as a possible mechanism through which the strain influences the metabolic syndrome.
"The study raises the importance of increasing our understanding of how depression influences biological processes that result in metabolic syndrome -- and why these processes might be stronger for women than men," said Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
The findings, Umberson said, fit in with her research finding a strong effect of marital strain on partners' overall health. But the gender difference finding differs from her research. "Basically, we find that marital strain undermines the health of men and women," she said, adding that perhaps the men in Henry's study had their health influenced in a different way.
More research is needed, Henry said, to figure out how the pieces fit together.
Meanwhile, Umberson said: "Choose your partner carefully. A strained marriage is bad for your health." If it's already strained, she said, focus on reducing conflict.
Supreme Court Refuses to Shield Drugmakers From Lawsuits
The ruling could have significant implications beyond drug manufacturing. Many companies have sought tighter federal regulation in recent years in part to shield themselves from litigation.
The court, by a 6-to-3 vote, upheld a jury verdict of $6.7 million in favor of a musician from Vermont whose arm had to be amputated after she was injected with an antinausea drug. The drug’s manufacturer, Wyeth, had argued that its compliance with the Food and Drug Administration’s labeling requirements should immunize it from lawsuits.
Pharmaceutical companies were especially disappointed by Wednesday’s decision.
Ronald Rogers, a spokesman for Merck, said, “We believe state courts should not be second-guessing the doctors and scientists at the F.D.A.”
Merck was hit with several huge damage awards over its painkiller Vioxx before agreeing to a $4.85 billion settlement in 2007. Allowing juries to make determinations about drug risks, Mr. Rogers said, would cause “mass confusion.”
The Supreme Court has been sympathetic in recent years to arguments that federal law should pre-empt state injury suits. Last year, in Riegel v. Medtronic, an eight-justice majority of the court ruled that many state suits concerning injuries caused by medical devices were barred by the express language in a federal law. Wednesday’s decision addressed implied pre-emption, a different legal standard.
Drug companies and other businesses, supported by the Bush administration, had hoped the Vermont case would establish broader protections. They relied not on express language in a statute enacted by Congress, as in Riegel, but on what might be implied from federal regulatory standards and policies — in this case, from the drug agency’s authority to approve drug labels.
Producers of goods as different as antifreeze, fireworks, popcorn, cigarettes and light bulbs have sought to take refuge behind federal oversight in recent years to fend off litigation. After Wednesday’s decision, those efforts are most likely to succeed if they are based on express language in a Congressional statute or a specific regulatory action that makes compliance with state requirements impossible.
“This narrows the playing field,” for implied pre-emption arguments, Mark Herrmann, a corporate defense lawyer in Chicago, said of the decision. “This does not eliminate the playing field.”
Most drug company stocks, including Wyeth’s, closed up on Wednesday, as did the Dow Jones industrial average, which rose 150 points, breaking a long losing streak.
Catherine M. Sharkey, a law professor at New York University, said the decision does mean that “there is certainly a thumb on the scale against the more aggressive arguments for implied pre-emption.”
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority in Wednesday’s decision, Wyeth v. Levine, No. 06-1249, said Congress could have required pre-emption in the case but had not. “Evidently,” he said, “it determined that widely available state rights of action provided appropriate relief for injured consumers.”
Justice Stevens noted that Congress did adopt just such an express pre-emption provision for medical devices in the law at issue in the Riegel case.
Until a recent change in policy under the Bush administration, Justice Stevens wrote, the drug agency had welcomed state injury suits as a useful complement to federal regulation. But in “a dramatic change in position” in 2006, Justice Stevens said, the agency reversed that longstanding policy not withstanding its “limited resources to monitor the 11,000 drugs on the market.”
The agency’s new position, Justice Stevens wrote, “is entitled to no weight.” He was similarly dismissive of a brief supporting Wyeth filed by the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush, saying it was “undeserving of deference.”
Justice Stevens was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Clarence Thomas voted with the majority but did not adopt Justice Stevens’s reasoning, saying instead that he objected generally to “far-reaching implied pre-emption doctrines” that “wander far from the statutory text.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the three dissenters, said the court had done an about-face, “turning yesterday’s dissent into today’s majority opinion” and turning ordinary injury suits into a “frontal assault on the F.D.A.’s regulatory regime for drug labeling.”
“This case illustrates,” Justice Alito said, “that tragic facts make bad law.”
The case began in 2000, when Diana Levine, suffering from migraine headaches, visited a clinic. She was given injections of Demerol for the pain and Wyeth’s drug Phenergan for nausea.
If Phenergan is exposed to arterial blood, it can cause swift and irreversible gangrene. For that reason, it is usually administered by intramuscular injection or intravenous drip. This time, a physician’s assistant used a third method, injecting the drug into what she thought was a vein, a method known as “IV push.”
In the following weeks, Ms. Levine’s hand and forearm turned black, and they were amputated in two stages. She settled a lawsuit against the clinic and went to trial against Wyeth, claiming its warnings against IV-push administration were not strong enough.
She greeted Wednesday’s decision with elation. “Next to getting my hand back,” she said of the Supreme Court, “it’s the least they could have done and the best they could have done.”
Bert Rein, a lawyer for Wyeth, said the company had “fully complied with federal law in its labeling of Phenergan,” adding that the F.D.A. is “in the best position to weigh the risks and benefits of a medicine.”
Justice Alito said Wyeth had provided ample notice about the risk of gangrene in “six separate warnings,” some of them “in boldfaced font and all-capital letters,” on the drug label the F.D.A. had approved.
Justice Alito, writing for himself, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, added that juries see only the “tragic accident” before them and “are ill-equipped to perform the F.D.A.’s cost-benefit-balancing function.” The agency, by contrast, he wrote, “has the benefit of the long view” and “conveys its warnings with one voice.”
“After today’s ruling,” he said, “parochialism may prevail.”
The court, by a 6-to-3 vote, upheld a jury verdict of $6.7 million in favor of a musician from Vermont whose arm had to be amputated after she was injected with an antinausea drug. The drug’s manufacturer, Wyeth, had argued that its compliance with the Food and Drug Administration’s labeling requirements should immunize it from lawsuits.
Pharmaceutical companies were especially disappointed by Wednesday’s decision.
Ronald Rogers, a spokesman for Merck, said, “We believe state courts should not be second-guessing the doctors and scientists at the F.D.A.”
Merck was hit with several huge damage awards over its painkiller Vioxx before agreeing to a $4.85 billion settlement in 2007. Allowing juries to make determinations about drug risks, Mr. Rogers said, would cause “mass confusion.”
The Supreme Court has been sympathetic in recent years to arguments that federal law should pre-empt state injury suits. Last year, in Riegel v. Medtronic, an eight-justice majority of the court ruled that many state suits concerning injuries caused by medical devices were barred by the express language in a federal law. Wednesday’s decision addressed implied pre-emption, a different legal standard.
Drug companies and other businesses, supported by the Bush administration, had hoped the Vermont case would establish broader protections. They relied not on express language in a statute enacted by Congress, as in Riegel, but on what might be implied from federal regulatory standards and policies — in this case, from the drug agency’s authority to approve drug labels.
Producers of goods as different as antifreeze, fireworks, popcorn, cigarettes and light bulbs have sought to take refuge behind federal oversight in recent years to fend off litigation. After Wednesday’s decision, those efforts are most likely to succeed if they are based on express language in a Congressional statute or a specific regulatory action that makes compliance with state requirements impossible.
“This narrows the playing field,” for implied pre-emption arguments, Mark Herrmann, a corporate defense lawyer in Chicago, said of the decision. “This does not eliminate the playing field.”
Most drug company stocks, including Wyeth’s, closed up on Wednesday, as did the Dow Jones industrial average, which rose 150 points, breaking a long losing streak.
Catherine M. Sharkey, a law professor at New York University, said the decision does mean that “there is certainly a thumb on the scale against the more aggressive arguments for implied pre-emption.”
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority in Wednesday’s decision, Wyeth v. Levine, No. 06-1249, said Congress could have required pre-emption in the case but had not. “Evidently,” he said, “it determined that widely available state rights of action provided appropriate relief for injured consumers.”
Justice Stevens noted that Congress did adopt just such an express pre-emption provision for medical devices in the law at issue in the Riegel case.
Until a recent change in policy under the Bush administration, Justice Stevens wrote, the drug agency had welcomed state injury suits as a useful complement to federal regulation. But in “a dramatic change in position” in 2006, Justice Stevens said, the agency reversed that longstanding policy not withstanding its “limited resources to monitor the 11,000 drugs on the market.”
The agency’s new position, Justice Stevens wrote, “is entitled to no weight.” He was similarly dismissive of a brief supporting Wyeth filed by the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush, saying it was “undeserving of deference.”
Justice Stevens was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Clarence Thomas voted with the majority but did not adopt Justice Stevens’s reasoning, saying instead that he objected generally to “far-reaching implied pre-emption doctrines” that “wander far from the statutory text.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the three dissenters, said the court had done an about-face, “turning yesterday’s dissent into today’s majority opinion” and turning ordinary injury suits into a “frontal assault on the F.D.A.’s regulatory regime for drug labeling.”
“This case illustrates,” Justice Alito said, “that tragic facts make bad law.”
The case began in 2000, when Diana Levine, suffering from migraine headaches, visited a clinic. She was given injections of Demerol for the pain and Wyeth’s drug Phenergan for nausea.
If Phenergan is exposed to arterial blood, it can cause swift and irreversible gangrene. For that reason, it is usually administered by intramuscular injection or intravenous drip. This time, a physician’s assistant used a third method, injecting the drug into what she thought was a vein, a method known as “IV push.”
In the following weeks, Ms. Levine’s hand and forearm turned black, and they were amputated in two stages. She settled a lawsuit against the clinic and went to trial against Wyeth, claiming its warnings against IV-push administration were not strong enough.
She greeted Wednesday’s decision with elation. “Next to getting my hand back,” she said of the Supreme Court, “it’s the least they could have done and the best they could have done.”
Bert Rein, a lawyer for Wyeth, said the company had “fully complied with federal law in its labeling of Phenergan,” adding that the F.D.A. is “in the best position to weigh the risks and benefits of a medicine.”
Justice Alito said Wyeth had provided ample notice about the risk of gangrene in “six separate warnings,” some of them “in boldfaced font and all-capital letters,” on the drug label the F.D.A. had approved.
Justice Alito, writing for himself, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, added that juries see only the “tragic accident” before them and “are ill-equipped to perform the F.D.A.’s cost-benefit-balancing function.” The agency, by contrast, he wrote, “has the benefit of the long view” and “conveys its warnings with one voice.”
“After today’s ruling,” he said, “parochialism may prevail.”
Baby Bottle Companies Will Stop Using BPA
Connecticut's attorney general says six companies have agreed to stop manufacturing baby bottles that contain Bisphenol-A (BPA). Some studies have indicated that BPA may be harmful to infants.
Attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey sent letters last October to 11 companies, asking them to stop using the chemical. Avent, Disney First Years, Gerber, Dr. Brown, Playtex and Evenflow have agreed to the request. The companies stopped manufacturing bottles with BPA a couple of weeks ago.
Suffolk County, NY, recently became the first county in the nation to vote on a ban of baby bottles and toddler sippy cups made with BPA.
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