Infinite Unknown

(NaturalNews) Drugs like Avastin that are used to treat some cancers are supposed to work by blocking a vessel growth-promoting protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. With VEGF held in check, researchers have assumed tumors wouldn’t generate blood vessels and that should keep malignancies from growing. In a sense, the cancerous growths would be “starved”. But new research just published in the journal Nature shows this isn’t true. Instead of weakening blood vessels so they won’t “feed” malignant tumors, these cancer treatments, known as anti-angiogenesis drugs, actually normalize and strengthen blood vessels — and that means they can spur tumors to grow larger.

Continue reading »

Tags: American Cancer Society, Cancer, Drugs, Health, Medicine, Nature, Science, Tumors

(NaturalNews) A congressional investigation has revealed that a group of Harvard psychiatrists, instrumental in pushing the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and its off-label treatment with antipsychotics, concealed from university officials the millions of dollars they earned in consulting fees for the companies that make those drugs.

Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley requested the financial disclosure reports that Drs. Joseph Biederman, Timothy E. Wilens and Thomas Spencer had filed with Harvard University between 2000 and 2007. He then asked a handful of pharmaceutical companies for their own records on how much had been paid to the researchers in that time.

The numbers reported by the drug companies were much higher than those on the researchers’ forms.

“Basically, these forms were a mess,” Grassley said. “Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

Upon being confronted with the discrepancies, the researchers admitted to having concealed certain consulting fees and upped their estimates. These new numbers still fell short of those reported by the drug companies.

Biederman, for example, originally told Harvard that he had received no money from Johnson & Johnson in 2001. When Grassley asked him to double check, Biederman admitted to receiving $3,500. The drug company’s records, however, recorded payments of $58,169 to Biederman in that year alone.

A more thorough investigation revealed that Biederman and Wilens had received at least $1.6 million from the pharmaceutical industry between 2000 and 2007, while Spencer had received at least $1 million.

Continue reading »

Tags: antipsychotic, Big Pharma, children, Drugs, Harvard, Health, Pharmaceutical Industry, pharmaceuticals, schizophrenia, Science

• EU agency fears glut and reversal of deaths decline
• UK tops cocaine abuse table for fifth year in row

Afghan farmers in a poppy fi eld: Helmand province, centre of British military operations, accounts for over half of the opium crop. Photograph: Ahmad Masood/Reuters

A glut of opium on the world market, fuelled by a record Afghan harvest, threatens a new heroin crisis in Britain, the European Union’s drug agency warned yesterday. The agency’s annual report also confirms that the UK remains at the top of the European league table of 27 countries for cocaine abuse for the fifth year in a row. The UK accounts for 820,000 of the 4 million Europeans who have “recently used” cocaine.

But the agency also reports that there are “stronger signals” of the declining popularity of cannabis across Europe, especially among British school students.

Nevertheless the drug experts say that a quarter of all Europeans - 71 million people - have tried cannabis at some time in their lives.

The heroin warning from the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug abuse follows two record opium harvests in Afghanistan of 8,200 tonnes in 2007 and 7,700 tonnes this year. The harvests represent 90% of the world’s illicit opium production with Helmand province, the centre of British military operations, accounting for over half of the crop.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, cocaine, Drugs, EU, heroin, Politics

In an alarming dispatch from Afghanistan, the Conservative MP reveals the rampant corruption that has infected public life and threatens to destroy Nato’s hopes of bringing peace to this traumatised country

‘We need a new strategy,’ says Tory MP David Davis, on a factfinding mission to Afghanistan

It is time to face facts in Afghanistan: the situation is spiralling downwards, and if we do not change our approach, we face disaster. Violence is up in two-thirds of the country, narcotics are the main contributor to the economy, criminality is out of control and the government is weak, corrupt and incompetent. The international coalition is seen as a squabbling bunch of foreigners who have not delivered on their promises. Although the Taliban have nowhere near majority support, their standing is growing rapidly among some ordinary Afghans.

In Kabul, foreign delegations huddle behind concrete and barbed wire, often with the Afghans’ main roads shut. That causes jams throughout the city, exacerbated by convoys of armoured four-wheel drives loaded with bodyguards that push their way through the traffic. These vehicles carry warning signs telling ordinary Afghans that the occupants reserve the right to shoot anyone who comes within 50 metres. Afghans veer between resentment of the high-handed foreigners and fear of the Taliban, who appear to be inexorably seizing the provinces around the city.

In Britain’s area of responsibility, Helmand, the governor admits the Taliban control most of the province. While we were, properly, celebrating the delivery of the turbine to the Kajaki dam, we were being forced out of one of the richest poppy growing areas, and the Taliban fought their way to within 12km of Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital. Time after time, our soldiers win tactical victories, only to have the advantage lost because of a lack of coherent international strategy.

The regime we are defending is corrupt from top to bottom. While the President’s brother faces accusations of being a drug baron, some three-quarters of the Afghan National Police actively steal from the people. The irony is that Afghan expectations of government are traditionally low, and their faith in President Hamid Karzai was initially high.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, corruption, Drug Cartels, Drugs, Government, Military, NATO, Politics, Taliban, War

Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) With Breast Cancer Awareness month fully upon us once again, retail stores have been invaded with everything pink, including “pink ribbon” candies and personal care products made with blatantly cancer-causing ingredients. Retail grocery stores like Safeway even hit up customers for donations at the cash register, promising to raise funds to find “the cure for cancer.”

Consumers of course, have virtually no idea where the funds they donate actually go, nor do they know the truths about breast cancer they’ll never be told by conventional cancer non-profit organizations.

In this article, I’ll reveal ten important myths about breast cancer, and the truths that can save your life.

Myth #1: Breast Cancer is not preventable

The Truth: Up to 98% of breast cancer cases can be prevented through diet, nutritional supplements, sunshine and exercise

It’s true: Breast cancer can be almost entirely prevented through commonsense changes in diet, the addition of anti-cancer nutritional supplements, boosting vitamin D creation from sunlight, avoiding exposure to toxic chemicals in consumer products, pursuing regular exercise and eating a live foods diet.

The breast cancer industry — which depends on the continuation of cancer for its profits and employment — has so far refused to teach women even basic cancer prevention strategies (such as increasing the intake of vitamin D, which prevents 77% of all cancers). See: http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html

Continue reading »

Tags: Big Pharma, Brain, breast cancer, Cancer, chemotherapy, Drugs, FDA, Health, Medicine, nutrition, Radiation, vitamins, WHO

Mexican marijuana cartels use pesticides, herbicides that pollute US parks, forest lands

A member of Kentucky’s state marijuana strike force cuts down marijuana in rural Breathitt County, Ky. (AP Photo)

National forests and parks - long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels - have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast’s Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 - and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.

Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.

Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.

“What’s going on on public lands is a crisis at every level,” said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. “These are America’s most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess.”

Continue reading »

Tags: chemicals, Drug Cartels, Drugs, Environment, herbicide, Marijuana, Mexico, pesticides, toxic, toxicity, U.S.

BUDAPEST: Signaling a major shift in strategy for the trans-Atlantic alliance, NATO defense ministers agreed Friday to allow direct attacks on Afghanistan’s drug networks.

The accord means that troops will be able to attack drug operations provided they obtain authorization from their own governments. NATO officials stressed that only drug producers aiding the insurgency would be targeted. The alliance actions will not be open-ended, lasting only until the Afghan security forces are able to take on the task themselves.

“NATO can act in concert with the Afghans against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency, subject to the authorization of respective nations,” an alliance spokesman, James Appathurai, said after lengthy discussions Thursday and Friday among the ministers in the Hungarian capital.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has repeatedly asked NATO to take on more responsibility for dealing with the drug lords. It is unclear, however, if the alliance will need a new UN Security Council resolution. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, operates under a UN mandate.

Germany and several other NATO member states have always been wary about extending the NATO role in Afghanistan, particularly combating drugs, which they believe is a civilian task. Furthermore, the German government - under pressure from the opposition to come up with an exit strategy, or even withdraw all its troops - is concerned that violence will increase and NATO forces will be more exposed.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Drugs, Government, Military, NATO, Pentagon, Politics, U.S., War

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - In a frustrating quirk in government policy, the most tightly controlled drugs - like painkilling narcotics prone to abuse - are the ones that most often elude environmental regulation when they become waste.

Federal narcotics regulators impose strict rules meant to keep controlled pharmaceuticals out of the wrong hands. Yet those rules also make these drugs nearly impossible to handle safely as waste, say hospital environmental administrators.

Many would like to send controlled substances to landfills or incinerators to keep them out of waterways as much as possible. Instead, they are nearly always dropped into sinks and toilets by hospitals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

The problem is huge, because more than 365 medicines are controlled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration - almost 12 percent of all prescriptions, the agency says. They include widely used narcotics, stimulants, depressants and steroids - drugs like codeine, morphine, oxycodone, diazepam (often sold as Valium) and methylphenidate (often sold as Ritalin).

Continue reading »

Tags: DEA, Drugs, Environmental, EPA, Government, Health, Medicine, pharmaceuticals, U.S.

Government officials in charge of collecting billions of dollars worth of royalties from oil and gas companies accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees of the energy firms, federal investigators reported yesterday.

Investigators from the Interior Department’s inspector general’s office said more than a dozen employees, including the former director of the oil royalty program, took meals, ski trips, sports tickets and golf outings from industry representatives. The report alleges that the former director, Gregory W. Smith, also netted more than $30,000 from improper outside work.

Continue reading »

Tags: Chevron, cocaine, corporations, corruption, Drugs, Economy, Justice Department, Oil, Politics, Sex, Shell

Mexican soldiers guard cocaine at the crash site

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA “rendition” flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.

Continue reading »

Tags: CIA, cocaine, Cuba, Drugs, EU, FAA, Guantánamo, U.S.