Steve Connor - No way of stopping leak of deadly new flu, says terror chief

The bioterrorism expert responsible for censoring scientific research which could lead to the creation of a devastating pandemic has admitted the information "is going to get out" eventually.

Professor Paul Keim, chairman of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, controversially recommended that researchers be stopped from publishing the precise mutations needed to transform the H5N1 strain of birdflu virus into a human-transmissible version.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, he argued it had been necessary to limit the release of the scientific details because of fears that terrorists may use the information to create their own H5N1 virus that could be spread easily between people.

Professor Keim said that it was necessary to slow down the release of scientific information because it was clear that the world is not yet prepared for a strain of highly lethal H5N1 influenza that can be transmitted by coughs and sneezes.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/no-way-of-stopping-leak-of-deadly-new-flu-says-terror-chief-6660997.html#

Are Dormant Viruses Killing You: Even While They Are Asleep?

The Center for the Biology of Chronic Disease is a not-for-profit organization specializing in researching the biology of chronic disease (the original disruption that causes the disease and the sequence of events that lead from the disruption to the clinical symptoms.) CBCD believes it is crucial to understand the biology of the disease in order to effectively develop drugs that will cure chronic diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or arthritis. 

CBCD’s work is based on the research of Dr. Hanan Polansky, author of ‘The Purple Book’ - Microcompetition with Foreign DNA and the Origin of Chronic Disease. This highly technical well-researched book has been lauded for its biological theories on the origin of chronic disease by medical experts around the world including distinguished researchers from the National Institute of Health.^1.

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http://sanevax.org/are-dormant-viruses-killing-you-even-while-they-are-asleep/

Mind Over Matter: Patients' Perceptions of Illness Make a Difference

 Whenever we fall ill, there are many different factors that come together to influence the course of our illness. Additional medical conditions, stress levels, and social support all have an impact on our health and well-being, especially when we are ill. But a new report suggests that what you think about your illness matters just as much, if not more, in determining your health outcomes. 

In the February issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Keith Petrie, of the University of Auckland, and John Weinman, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, review the existing literature on patients' perceptions of illness. The authors find that people's illness perceptions bear a direct relationship to several important health outcomes, including their level of functioning and ability, utilization of health care, adherence to treatment plans laid out by health care professionals, and even overall mortality.

In fact, some research suggests that how a person views his illness may play a bigger role in determining his health outcomes than the actual severity of his disease.

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120127162753.htm

Michael Smith - 'Totally' Resistant TB Surfaces in India

Drug resistance in tuberculosis appears to have reached a peak in several patients in India, who are virtually untreatable with available medications.

In a letter to Clinical Infectious Diseases, published online, Mumbai physicians described four patients whose TB was resistant to five front-line drugs and seven second-line medications.

They are "totally drug-resistant," according to Zarir Udwadia, MD, and colleagues at P. D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre in Mumbai.

Udwadia and colleagues blamed the rise of such resistance on India's healthcare system, which has had some success against normal TB, but which they said does not pay enough attention to resistant strains.

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http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/Tuberculosis/30710

NIH study shows 32 million Americans have autoantibodies that target their own tissues

More than 32 million people in the United States have autoantibodies, which are proteins made by the immune system that target the body's tissues and define a condition known as autoimmunity, a study shows. The first nationally representative sample looking at the prevalence of the most common type of autoantibody, known as antinuclear antibodies (ANA), found that the frequency of ANA is highest among women, older individuals, and African-Americans. The study was conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers in Gainesville at the University of Florida also participated.

Earlier studies have shown that ANA can actually develop many years before the clinical appearance of autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. ANA are frequently measured biomarkers for detecting autoimmune diseases, but the presence of autoantibodies does not necessarily mean a person will get an autoimmune disease. Other factors, including drugs, cancer, and infections, are also known to cause autoantibodies in some people.

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nioe-nss011312.php

David Rosen - Eugenics in America

WEEKEND EDITION DECEMBER 16-18, 2011

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2011/12/16/EUGENICS-IN-AMERICA/

by DAVID ROSEN

On December 10, 2011, the New York Times ran a front-page article exposing the painful legacy of one of America’s hidden social crimes, forced sterilization. The article examines how the policy played out in one state, North Carolina, and the on-going effort to address the suffering of the approximately 3,000 still-living victims of the state’s eugenics program.

The program was in effect for over four decades, from 1933 to 1977, and some 7,600 people suffered sterilization at the hands of the state.

In 2002, and after decades of grassroots organizing, NC’s Governor Bev Purdue issued a formal apology to those who had been victims of the program.  The Times article focuses on the current campaign to offer compensation (i.e., reparations) to the still-living victims so as to bring this ugly phase of state history to an end.

Today, the notion of race purification is associated with Nazi Germany.  However, the theory of race improvement was originally put forth in 1893 by the noted British scientist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, as the science of “eugenics.”

Galton argued: “Eugenics is the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physically or mentally.”  From the turn-of-the-20^th century until the late-70s, eugenics found a welcoming home in the good-old U.S. of A.

Eugenics is an ideology of the Gilded Age and its aftermath.  This was a period when the American elite championed a belief in Social Darwinism, a self-serving misreading of Darwin’s biological “survival of the fittest” hypothesis onto social relations, hierarchy.  They believed that biology was destiny and that the white race sat atop the thrown of human evolution, civilization.

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Knight Ridder - Non-infectious diseases are today's main killers

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News  12-16-11

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=12021&Section=Disease

Dec. 16--ABU DHABI -- Chronic non-communicable diseases are today's killers in the world. Despite people knowing the risk factors, such as smoking and unhealthy lifestyle, changing behaviour still remains a big challenge.

"A lot of people still think that a lot of people in developing countries die of infectious diseases, but this isn't the case anymore except for a few countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Most people in the world today die from chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes, chronic lung diseases and cancers.

"Those countries that still face infectious diseases, they now face a double burden -- on the one hand, they're dying from HIV and malaria, and at the same time, they are being hit by these chronic diseases," said Prof Abdallah Daar, chair of the Global Alliance for Chronic Citing a report published in September this year, Prof Daar said it will cost the world about $47 trillion over the next 20 years to deal with chronic NCDs.

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Anna Taylor - Warning as infectious salmon disease spreads from Europe's fish farms to Canada

Anna Taylor

The Ecologist, 15th December, 2011

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1165637/warning_as_infectious_salmon_disease_spreads_from_europes_fish_farms_to_canada.html#

Discovery of the deadly salmon virus Infectious Salmon Anaemia in Canada is just latest likely example of disease spreading to wild fish stocks from the world's mega fish farms

The rise of the farmed fish industry in recent years has been accompanied by the emergence of many infectious diseases of fish. One of the most recent and serious diseases is the marine viral disease, Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA). 

First detected in Atlantic salmon farmed along the southwest coast of Norway in 1984, it has since spread throughout the world. 

As the name suggests, ISA shows itself by a severe anaemia, with fish displaying pale gills, and often swimming close to the surface of the water, gulping for air. More insidiously, however, many fish show no signs at all until they suddenly die. 

An outbreak of the ISA was detected in wild Pacific salmon last October, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Outbreaks of this virus have previously been detected in fish farms in Chile and Scotland, and although not dangerous to human health, have had serious impacts on the industry and the communities who depend upon it.

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[Video] Nancy Banks on Vaccines

[Video] Nobel Prize Winner Challenges The Myths About Aids

California microbiologist Kary Mullis, Ph.D. on whether or not HIV is the probable cause of AIDS.

Created and narrated by Gary Null, Ph.D.

Find more in-depth investigations and crucial information at http://garynull.tv

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