Sunday, 24 October 2010 09:12
'Patients' groups have expressed anger over this year's seasonal flu jab programme because people are unable to opt out of having the swine flu vaccine.
The H1N1 vaccine will be the dominant of three flu strains included in the shot, meaning millions of elderly and vulnerable patients will get it automatically. Yet many people refused to have the swine flu vaccine when it was offered last year because of fears it may cause serious side effects.'
Sunday, 24 October 2010 08:57
'An earlier article, titled "UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism" explained that although Blue Helmets are supposed to restore order, maintain peace and security, and help people transition to stability, they usually create more conflict than resolution as imperial enforcers, committing human rights abuses against vulnerable people, nearly always unpunished.
Wherever they're deployed, it's the same. In Haiti, for example, where for the first time ever, an illegal MINUSTAH mission enforced coup d'etat authority against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, instead of staying out or backing his right to return.
It's no better elsewhere. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, where MONUC (renamed MONUSCO in July 2010) never brought peace and stability, and may be involved in reports of mass rapes and other atrocities. It wouldn't be the first time there or elsewhere.'
Sunday, 24 October 2010 08:16
'A new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals a shocking trend in the medical industry that is putting countless patients at needless risk. According to Dr. Jeannie Callum and her colleagues from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, doctors often order dangerous blood transfusions for their cancer patients in order to artificially qualify them for drug trials.
Before a new drug can be approved, it first has to be clinically tested in order to prove its safety. Clinical trials are often skewed to begin with, since drug companies conduct their own trials that typically yield positive results. But they still have to gather volunteers in order to conduct them, and one way they do that is by getting doctors to illegitimately recruit their patients.
As far as cancer patients go, their blood hemoglobin levels must fall within a certain range in order to qualify for research studies on new drugs. But when levels do not fall within that range, many doctors simply order a blood transfusion that temporarily provides a quick fix for qualification.'
Sunday, 24 October 2010 08:13
'The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of a major push to secure FDA approval for drugs to treat "female sexual dysfunction," including a public relations campaign to convince women that the condition is real in the first place.
"This is really a classic case of disease branding," said Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown University, who studies drug marketing. "The messages are aimed at medicalizing normal conditions, and also preying on the insecurity of both the clinician and the patient".'
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