Diagnosis of ADHD on the Rise

The number of American children leaving doctors’ offices with an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis has risen 66 percent in 10 years, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Over this same timeframe, specialists, instead of primary care physicians, have begun treating an increasing number of these young patients, the study found.

The study, which will be published in the March/April issue of the journal Academic Pediatrics, analyzed ADHD trends from 2000 to 2010 among children under the age of 18 who were diagnosed and treated by office-based physicians. Researchers analyzed changes in the diagnosis of ADHD and treatment of the disorder over this 10-year time period.

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http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-diagnosis-adhd-million-american-children.html

FDA Weighing Non-Prescription Status for Chronic Disease Drugs

The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to let consumers buy medicines for some chronic conditions without a prescription while speeding approvals of drugs for infection,Alzheimer’s disease and rare conditions.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and the agency’s director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research yesterday outlined ways to get drugs in patients’ hands faster. The House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee today will hold a hearing on ways to expand the agency’s accelerated approval program and encourage drugmakers to develop antibiotics.

The FDA plans to expand its accelerated approval program based on relaxed standards for effectiveness, which is now largely limited to AIDS and cancer drugs, said Janet Woodcock, the agency’s top drug evaluator. The agency will also hold a two-day public meeting this month to evaluate whether to reclassify drugs for high blood pressure, cholesterol, migraines and asthma so patients can get them without a prescription.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-08/fda-weighing-non-prescription-status-for-chronic-disease-drugs.html

Profoundly Flawed Study Used as Basis for CDC’s New Report on Supposed “Dangers” of Raw Milk

^[1]To hear the media tell it, our lives are in jeopardy if we drink unpasteurized milk. But the facts tell the opposite story.

A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declares that raw milk “cannot be considered safe under any circumstances,” and essentially advocates for stricter laws and enforcement against raw milk on the state level. The study claims that the rate of outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk and products made from it was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk. The authors of the study based this conclusion on an analysis of reports submitted to the CDC from 1993 to 2006.

However, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation ^[2], the CDC has manipulated and cherry-picked this data to make raw milk look dangerous—and it has dismissed the same dangers associated with pasteurized milk.

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http://www.anh-usa.org/flawed-study-used-as-basis-for-cdc-report-on-raw-milk/

Suzanne Humphries - Smoke, Mirrors, and the 'Disappearance' Of Polio

“The tendency of a mass vaccination program is to herd people. People are not cattle or sheep. They should not be herded. A mass vaccination program carries a built-in temptation to oversimplify the problem; to exaggerate the benefits; to minimize or completely ignore the hazards; to discourage or silence scholarly, thoughtful and cautious opposition; to create an urgency where none exists; to whip up an enthusiasm among citizens that can carry with it the seeds of impatience, if not intolerance; to extend the concept of the police power of the state in quarantine far beyond its proper limitation; to assume simplicity when there is actually great complexity; to continue to support a vaccine long after it has been discredited;… to ridicule honest and informed consent.¹”

There is plenty of confusion on the topic of vaccination, especially amongst brainwashed doctors who trusted their medical schools.  Then the unsuspecting, trusting public trusts them…because the medical establishment must know best, right? And doctors are nice people, trying to do a good thing.  True.  I was once one of those brainwashed doctors who believed in the benevolence of the medical system and believed that all I learned was the best that modern times had to offer. It is blazingly clear to me now though, that much of what is taught in medical school is enormously limited. I now see that most doctors are little more than blind slave-technicians who follow the dogma they were taught and were rewarded for repeating, even as the truth unfolds in front of them dictating otherwise.

Read More:

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/11/17/smoke-mirrors-and-the-disappearance-of-polio/

Robert Koehler - PTSD: A Cancer of the Spirit

Can we squeeze the glory out of the word “war”? Can we talk about savage irrationality and lifelong inner hell instead? Can we talk about the wreckage of two countries?

Can we talk about spiritual cancer?

In the extraordinary documentary On the Bridge — an unstinting look at the reality of war and the terror of PTSD, directed by Olivier Morel — each of the six Iraq vets who opens his or her heart in the course of the film has a moment of deep, almost unbearable silence at the end, staring into the camera and through the camera at the viewer . . . and at the nation they are committed to waking up. In that silence, those are the questions that begin to emerge.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/08

Anthony Gucciardi - Drug Deaths Now Outnumber Traffic Fatalities in US

In 2009, drugs exceeded the amount of traffic-related deaths, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide. According to information provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the very pharmaceuticals that are prescribed to treat life-endangering conditions are now ending lives. The death toll is partially due to an increase in mental illness medication known as psychotropics, which have been criticized by health experts as being oftentimes unnecessarily prescribed. The pills, given to patients to prevent suicide thoughts and tendencies, may actually lead to suicidal thoughts and suicide.

In 2005, it was found that link between Prozac and suicidal behavior was kept a secret. The BBC even reported in as early as the year 2000 that Prozac ‘led to suicide’. Oftentimes killers will end their own lives after shootings, or attempt to force the cops to kill them. This is essentially a form of suicide with a mixture of murderous tendencies. If Prozac can drive someone to suicide, could it also drive someone to end someone else’s life? Paxil, an anti-depressant drug, was found to be linked to violent behavior in 2006. The link incited multiple lawsuits, and brings up questions as to whether or not similar drugs have the same effects.

Read More:

http://naturalsociety.com/drug-deaths-now-outnumber-traffic-fatalities-in-us/#ixzz1oFj05G3W

Robin McKie - Fasting can help protect against brain diseases, scientists say

Fasting for regular periods could help protect the brain against degenerative illnesses, according to US scientists. Researchers at the National Institute on Ageing in Baltimore said they had found evidence which shows that periods of stopping virtually all food intake for one or two days a week could protect the brain against some of the worst effects of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other ailments.

"Reducing your calorie intake could help your brain, but doing so by cutting your intake of food is not likely to be the best method of triggering this protection. It is likely to be better to go on intermittent bouts of fasting, in which you eat hardly anything at all, and then have periods when you eat as much as you want," said Professor Mark Mattson, head of the institute's laboratory of neurosciences.

"In other words, timing appears to be a crucial element to this process," Mattson told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/18/fasting-protect-brain-diseases-scientists

Amy Fried - What's Worse Than Being Called the "S" Word?: Why Rush's "Apology" Added Insult to Injury

So much of the outrage against Rush Limbaugh has focused on his having called Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, a "slut" and a "prostitute," that I think it's easy to lose sight of what's even worse than what he called her. 

First, let's remember that Sandra Fluke was testifying about the difficulty that all students at Georgetown have getting insurance coverage for birth control pills. It may have been easy for Rush to call the (presumably single, straight and childless - after all, she did not testify about herself) Fluke a slut. But that let the anti-woman crowd pretend that this issue is somehow about morality or premarital sex. But, of course, the anti-birth control forces don't discriminate between married and single women, or between women with twenty children or women with none. It has nothing to do with morality. Mitt Romney had it right with his first, gut reaction to a question about the Blunt amendment: it is not government's role to involve itself in the personal decisions made between men and women. (Unfortunately, of course, he immediately caved on that issue.) 

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-s-Worse-Than-Being-Ca-by-Amy-Fried-Ph-D-120305-243.html

Mike Barrett - Cadmium Exposure Could Be Damaging Children’s Health more than Lead

Recent research shows that cadmium could very well be more dangerous to children’s health than lead. While heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and mercury are often the first to pop up when discussing or thinking about heavy metals and human health, cadmium remains the lesser mentioned metal compromising the health of many — especially children. Current and future research will likely continue to make the dangers of cadmium more well known.

Is Cadmium More Dangerous for Children than Lead?

“One of the important points of the study is that we didn’t study a population of kids who had very high exposures. We studied a population representative of the U.S. That we found any [effect] suggests this is occurring at relatively low levels…It does certainly point to the fact that we need more attention paid to the neurotoxic effects of cadmium in children”

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http://naturalsociety.com/cadmium-exposure-could-be-damaging-childrens-health-more-than-lead/

Oregon Research Institute Tai Chi program helps Parkinson's disease patients

An Oregon Research Institute (ORI) exercise study conducted in four Oregon cities has shown significant benefits for patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease. In an original article published in the February 9, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), ORI scientist Fuzhong Li, Ph.D. and colleagues report that a tailored program of twice-weekly Tai Chi training resulted in improved postural stability and walking ability, and reduced falls in the participants.

"These results are clinically significant because they suggest that Tai Chi, a low-to-moderate impact exercise, may be used, as an add-on to current physical therapies, to address some of the key clinical problems in Parkinson's disease, such as postural and gait instability. Since many training features in the program are functionally oriented, the improvements in the balance and gait measures that we demonstrated highlight the potential of Tai Chi-based movements in rehabilitating patients with these types of problems and, consequently, easing cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease and improving mobility, flexibility, balance, and range of motion," noted Dr. Li.

Read More:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/ori-ori020612.php