Are We Ignoring the Next Pandemic Risk by Focusing on Measles?

While policymakers and many in the scientific community are worried about measles, a deadlier threat from drug-resistant diseases like tuberculosis lurks on the horizon. Action Alert!

The measles outbreak in California has unleashed a storm of heated debate across the country, including multiple calls for mandatory vaccinations at both the federal and state level. What is the extent of this outbreak that has unleashed such energetic debate, you might ask? A total of 178 cases out of a population of 320 million people.

While we certainly do not want to disregard the seriousness of measles, there are important questions being asked about the efficacy of the vaccine as well as its safety. And good sense seems to dictate that the response should be proportionate to the severity of the threat. With measles getting all the headlines, there is a much more serious problem that is not getting the attention it warrants.

As we’ve reported before, tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s most common diseases mainly because it is so highly infectious—it’s spread with a mere cough or sneeze. It’s second only to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide.

The World Health Organization estimates that two billion people—that’s one-third of our planet’s population—are infected with the bacteria that cause TB. Ten percent of these carriers will become sick, and if left untreated, half of those will die from the disease.

TB is becoming resistant to multiple drugs, and many health experts fear it may become “virtually untreatable.” One particularly scary strain of TB, known as XDR-TB (XDR stands for “extremely drug resistant”), has no known cure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that multi-drug resistant TB is one of our “most significant global threats.”

This isn’t just a problem for developing countries, either. Just a few weeks ago, twenty-eight high school students in Kansas were infected with TB. In 2011, the most recent data available, 536 Americans died from TB, and in 2013 there were over 9,500 cases of TB reported.

As we’ve shown before, the overarching problem that produces these superbugs is antibiotic overuse—both by doctors who rely too heavily on antibiotics and by industrial farming operations. Consider these statistics: a Medscape poll found that 95% of healthcare professionals said they prescribe antibiotics when they aren’t sure they’re needed. A whopping 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are used on livestock. There’s even evidence that pesticide and herbicide use contributes to antibiotic resistance.

As of last Friday, the Obama Administration has released a plan intended to address the issue of antibiotic resistance, but it leaves much to be desired. Much of the plan focuses on heightened surveillance, slowing the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, and developing new antibiotic drugs. These measures are akin to putting band-aids on a gushing wound. To really address this threat, what we need is a shift in thinking about how we treat disease.

Fortunately, some health experts are starting to realize the flaw in conventional medicine’s paradigm. Dr. Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, put it this way: “The reality is that this one-size-fits-all approach is a major part of what’s led to this drug resistance issue. I think individualized treatment is what we should be aiming for.”

This, of course, is what integrative doctors have been saying all along: the innate effectiveness of drugs diminish over time, and an absolute reliance on drugs is unsustainable.

There are other ways to fight disease. Two studies have now linked vitamin D to the successful prevention and treatment of TB. In the first study, white blood cells converted vitamin D to an active form of the vitamin, which helps make a protein that kills the TB bacterium. In the second study, Indonesian scientists compared vitamin D to a placebo, testing them on seventy patients for nine months. The patients who received 10,000 IU of vitamin D (rather than the 600 IU recommended by conventional medicine) led to an astounding 100% cure rate.

There have also been studies which show that ozone therapy—which increases the amount of oxygen in the body—can be an effective treatment for TB. There are many other integrative strategies for controlling pandemic bugs. We need these to be ready for the next pandemic.

One immediate measure we could take is to support efforts such as the new bill from Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), which would preserve antimicrobial drugs for human use only. That is just a start, but a good start.

Action Alert! Tell Congress to support Rep. Slaughter’s Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, which would reduce the use of antibiotics on livestock and thus take steps towards addressing drug-resistant diseases like TB. Please send your message immediately!

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Waxman Joins Son’s PR Firm

Is Waxman a “liberal icon” who just happened to stage midnight attacks on supplements in conference bills? Or a crony capitalist? We’ll let you decide.

Last year, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the doggedly anti-supplement House member from California, retired from Congress after forty years of service. When we covered Mr. Waxman’s retirement, we saw him as a tragic figure who probably started out with good intentions, even though they led to unintended results.

For instance, Mr. Waxman considered himself a strong environmentalist but passed a clean energy bill that ended up being supported by coal companies and opposed by environmental groups. As healthcare legislation emerged in his committee, he once again seemed to have been captured by corporate interests—in this case, health insurers, who were also major campaign contributors to him.

Waxman also wanted supplements treated like drugs, even though they can’t be patented, and being non-patentable, nobody will pay a billion dollars to take them through the FDA drug-approval process. Even if supplement prices were raised to drug levels, they would still disappear from the shelves because they lack patent protection. Waxman is very smart. He must have understood all this.

Despite his deploying all kinds of cunning maneuvers on Capitol Hill, often in conjunction with Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the other arch-nemesis of supplements, natural health advocates succeeded in outmaneuvering one of Washington’s most clever and powerful players at every turn.

While recognizing that DC abhors a vacuum and it was likely someone else would pop up to renew the attack on supplements, it was still a relief to see such a formidable opponent leave office.

Now it has been reported that Mr. Waxman has joined his son’s public relations firm in DC, Waxman Strategies. You can guess how and why Waxman’s son got his clients while his father occupied a powerful position in the House. Rumor has it that Waxman senior tried to work at other lobbying firms to avoid the unseemly appearance of joining his son, who had already been profiting from the Waxman name, but found no takers. The former representative is also completing plans to teach at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and at UCLA.

“I wouldn’t want a firm to represent something I didn’t agree with,” Waxman told the National Law Journal . “There are many special interest groups that I often found myself opposed to in my congressional career.”

Will this mean a renewed attack against dietary supplements? Only time will tell.

from The Alliance for Natural Health USA http://ift.tt/1C2TmYW via Aloe for Health

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Are We Ignoring the Next Pandemic Risk by Focusing on Measles?

While policymakers and many in the scientific community are worried about measles, a deadlier threat from drug-resistant diseases like tuberculosis lurks on the horizon. Action Alert! The measles outbreak in California has unleashed a storm of heated debate across the country, including multiple calls for mandatory vaccinations at both the federal and state level. What is the extent of this outbreak that has unleashed such energetic debate, you might ask? A total of 178 cases out of a population of 320 million people. While we certainly do not want to disregard the seriousness of measles, there are important questions being asked about the efficacy of the vaccine as well as its safety. And good sense seems to dictate that the response should be proportionate to the severity of the threat. With measles getting all the headlines, there is a much more serious problem that is not getting the attention it warrants. As we’ve reported before, tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s most common diseases mainly because it is so highly infectious—it’s spread with a mere cough or sneeze. It’s second only to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that two billion people—that’s one-third of our planet’s population—are infected with the bacteria that cause TB. Ten percent of these carriers will become sick, and if left untreated, half of those will die from the disease. TB is becoming resistant to multiple drugs, and many health experts fear it may become “virtually untreatable.” One particularly scary strain of TB, known as XDR-TB (XDR stands for “extremely drug resistant”), has no known cure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that multi-drug resistant TB is one of our “most significant global threats.” This isn’t just a problem for developing countries, either. Just a few weeks ago, twenty-eight high school students in Kansas were infected with TB. In 2011, the most recent data available, 536 Americans died from TB, and in 2013 there were over 9,500 cases of TB reported. As we’ve shown before, the overarching problem that produces these superbugs is antibiotic overuse—both by doctors who rely too heavily on antibiotics and by industrial farming operations. Consider these statistics: a Medscape poll found that 95% of healthcare professionals said they prescribe antibiotics when they aren’t sure they’re needed. A whopping 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are used on livestock. There’s even evidence that pesticide and herbicide use contributes to antibiotic resistance. As of last Friday, the Obama Administration has released a plan intended to address the issue of antibiotic resistance, but it leaves much to be desired. Much of the plan focuses on heightened surveillance, slowing the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, and developing new antibiotic drugs. These measures are akin to putting band-aids on a gushing wound. To really address this threat, what we need is a shift in thinking about how we treat disease. Fortunately, some health experts are starting to realize the flaw in conventional medicine’s paradigm. Dr. Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, put it this way: “The reality is that this one-size-fits-all approach is a major part of what’s led to this drug resistance issue. I think individualized treatment is what we should be aiming for.” This, of course, is what integrative doctors have been saying all along: the innate effectiveness of drugs diminish over time, and an absolute reliance on drugs is unsustainable. There are other ways to fight disease. Two studies have now linked vitamin D to the successful prevention and treatment of TB. In the first study, white blood cells converted vitamin D to an active form of the vitamin, which helps make a protein that kills the TB bacterium. In the second study, Indonesian scientists compared vitamin D to a placebo, testing them on seventy patients for nine months. The patients who received 10,000 IU of vitamin D (rather than the 600 IU recommended by conventional medicine) led to an astounding 100% cure rate. There have also been studies which show that ozone therapy—which increases the amount of oxygen in the body—can be an effective treatment for TB. There are many other integrative strategies for controlling pandemic bugs. We need these to be ready for the next pandemic. One immediate measure we could take is to support efforts such as the new bill from Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), which would preserve antimicrobial drugs for human use only. That is just a start, but a good start. Action Alert! Tell Congress to support Rep. Slaughter’s Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, which would reduce the use of antibiotics on livestock and thus take steps towards addressing drug-resistant diseases like TB. Please send your message immediately!

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Waxman Joins Son’s PR Firm

Is Waxman a “liberal icon” who just happened to stage midnight attacks on supplements in conference bills? Or a crony capitalist? We’ll let you decide. Last year, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the doggedly anti-supplement House member from California, retired from Congress after forty years of service. When we covered Mr. Waxman’s retirement, we saw him as a tragic figure who probably started out with good intentions, even though they led to unintended results. For instance, Mr. Waxman considered himself a strong environmentalist but passed a clean energy bill that ended up being supported by coal companies and opposed by environmental groups. As healthcare legislation emerged in his committee, he once again seemed to have been captured by corporate interests—in this case, health insurers, who were also major campaign contributors to him. Waxman also wanted supplements treated like drugs, even though they can’t be patented, and being non-patentable, nobody will pay a billion dollars to take them through the FDA drug-approval process. Even if supplement prices were raised to drug levels, they would still disappear from the shelves because they lack patent protection. Waxman is very smart. He must have understood all this. Despite his deploying all kinds of cunning maneuvers on Capitol Hill, often in conjunction with Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the other arch-nemesis of supplements, natural health advocates succeeded in outmaneuvering one of Washington’s most clever and powerful players at every turn. While recognizing that DC abhors a vacuum and it was likely someone else would pop up to renew the attack on supplements, it was still a relief to see such a formidable opponent leave office. Now it has been reported that Mr. Waxman has joined his son’s public relations firm in DC, Waxman Strategies. You can guess how and why Waxman’s son got his clients while his father occupied a powerful position in the House. Rumor has it that Waxman senior tried to work at other lobbying firms to avoid the unseemly appearance of joining his son, who had already been profiting from the Waxman name, but found no takers. The former representative is also completing plans to teach at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and at UCLA. “I wouldn’t want a firm to represent something I didn’t agree with,” Waxman told the National Law Journal . “There are many special interest groups that I often found myself opposed to in my congressional career.” Will this mean a renewed attack against dietary supplements? Only time will tell.



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GMO Roundup

The GMO labeling issue is seeing some action on Capitol Hill. Maybe that’s because GMOs are in the news across the country. Here are some of the stories you may have missed.

Monsanto Settles with US Wheat Farmers

Monsanto has settled class-action lawsuits with farmers in seven states over 2013 contamination from their genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” wheat.

Genetically modified wheat has not been approved in the US, but Monsanto field-tested its Roundup Ready variety between 1998 and 2005 before withdrawing its application for approval from the USDA. Before Roundup Ready was either destroyed or stored, the GM wheat was found on an Oregon farm, triggering a suspension of trade with countries suspicious of GM crops. The incident led farmers in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to seek compensation for lost income.

Now Monsanto has settled these lawsuits by donating $50,000 to agricultural schools in each of the seven states. This is bad—all it does is increase the efforts of these companies to dominate the schools.

Last November, Monsanto announced a $2.4 million settlement on other lawsuits stemming from the 2013 Oregon wheat scare.

WHO Report Finds Roundup is “Probably” Carcinogenic

Glyphosate—better known by Monsanto’s trade name, Roundup—is the most widely used pesticide in the country. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research, which includes seventeen experts from eleven countries, recently published a report which concluded that, based on animal studies, Roundup is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Roundup use has increased markedly in recent years, due in large part to the prevalence of genetically modified crops that are “Roundup Ready”—that is, the toxic pesticide can be sprayed on crops, killing weeds without killing the crops themselves. According to the USDA, GM plants were grown on 94% of US soybean fields and 89% of U.S. corn fields last year.

“Arctic Apple” Approved for Sale in US and Canada

The Arctic Apple—a non-browning GM apple developed by the Canadian biotech firm Okanagan Specialty Fruits (OSF)—has been approved for sale in both the US and Canada.

What sets apart the Arctic Apple from other GM foods is that the gene which leads to oxidation and browning has been switched off. Most other GM products have been modified by introducing genes from other organisms into a plant.

In this context, it is useful to keep in mind that natural tomato plants were selected over the years to eliminate the tendency of the blossom end of the plant to stay green even after the rest of the tomato was red and ripe. After this was done, it was finally realized that the green end was closely connected to flavor, and eliminating the one also eliminated the other.

After approval of the GM apple, the OSF president wrote, “Over the next couple of years, we will be working hard with our grower partners to get as many Arctic trees in the ground as we can.”

The Organic Consumers Association had petitioned the USDA to deny approval, arguing that the GM apples could be harmful to human health, but the petition was rejected.

Bill Nye Flips on GMOs

Bill Nye, the children’s television show host known most recently for his fierce defense of the science behind evolution and climate change, has flipped his position on GMOs after a visit to Monsanto.

Before his visit to the biotech giant, Nye had advised caution in approaching GM foods. He covered GMOs in an episode of his show in 2005 and offered the following advice: “Let’s farm responsibly, let’s require labels on our foods, and let’s carefully test these foods case by case.”

He covered the GMO topic again in his recent book, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, where he discusses the unintended environmental consequences of GM crops.

Now, in a recent backstage interview on Bill Maher’s HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher, Nye stated that he was changing his position and planned to re-write the GMO section of his book. He is reported as having said, “I went to Monsanto, and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there, and I have revised my outlook, and I’m very excited about telling the world.”

GM Grass Gets USDA Seal of Approval

Late last year, the USDA cleared a glyphosate-resistant grass for cultivation without requiring any environmental safety review. Developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro, the grass is a variety of tall fescue turf-grass meant to be marketed to golf courses.

The GM grass was developed using a process called “biolistics.” With this method, a gene-gun shoots DNA-coated metal particles into a plant cell. Because this method does not use a plant pest to transfer the genes, the USDA supposedly has no authority to regulate the GM grass and could not direct the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to conduct its normal pre-market testing.

It’s a clever maneuver initiated by Scotts. In 2003, a variety of GM grass escaped a field trial in Oregon, resulting in a $500,000 civil penalty from USDA. This way there is no oversight—and no potential penalty! Such a tactic sets a dangerous precedent for future efforts to introduce GM products into the market with no testing for negative environmental effects.

“Systematic Corruption” and “Subversion of Science” in the Proliferation of GMOs, Authoritative New Book Finds

Steven Druker’s book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth has recently been released. Druker was part of a 1996 lawsuit against the FDA after the agency decided to allow GMOs to be sold without labels. Now, in this remarkable new work, Druker details how the biotech industry and its well-funded offshoots in government agencies, academia, research institutions, and the biotech industry have succeeded in covering up the evidence that GMOs are not safe and not grounded in sound science. It’s a must-read for those looking to review the evidence in one thorough source.

from The Alliance for Natural Health USA http://ift.tt/1N5Kk5X via Aloe for Health

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Wi-Fi Especially Dangerous for Young Children—Cell Phones Too

Should we be concerned about radiation from our cell phones (which we carry with us everywhere) and our Wi-Fi (which is nearly ubiquitous these days)?

A review of recent studies shows reasons for caution, pointing to evidence which demonstrates that children absorb more microwave radiation (MWR) than adults. The authors also note the shortcomings in current federal regulatory policy in regard to MWR exposure.

The study, published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure, says that children are at greater risk because their brain tissues are more absorbent, their skulls are thinner, and their relative size is smaller. The younger the child, the greater the risk; fetuses are particularly vulnerable to MWR.

To those who follow this issue, the potential dangers of MWR-exposure are nothing new. The UN’s International Agency for Research on Cancer calls MWR a class 2B carcinogen, which means it possibly causes cancer in humans—it’s in the same category as lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, and the pesticide DDT. Most of the research concerns a specific type of MWR: the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF) given off by radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones and Wi-Fi, and the smart meters installed in your home by the utility company.

As we noted in 2011, there have been multiple reports, mostly out of Europe’s premier research institutions, of cell phone use being linked to brain damage, early-onset Alzheimer’s, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs. But after this new study on the MWR dangers to young children, concern is mounting about the growing number of children’s toys that use Wi-Fi technology—and that’s not counting the number of kids who play with tablets or carry cell phones these days.

The study also found that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk, echoing the findings of a 2013 case study from a team of breast cancer surgeons and pathologists who raised the possibility that nonionizing radiation from cell phone EMF exposures caused multifocal invasive breast cancer in four young women. These women, all between the ages of 21 and 39, regularly carried their smartphones directly against their breasts in their bras for up to ten hours a day, for several years. All four developed tumors in areas of their breasts immediately underlying the phones. All four had no family history of breast cancer, tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2, and had no other known breast cancer risks. The pathology of all four cases shows striking similarities in the tumor composition.

The article concludes with this striking warning: “The risk to children and adolescent from exposure to microwave radiating devices is considerable. Adults have a smaller but very real risk, as well.”

Given the potential dangers of long-term exposure to MWR and the near-ubiquity of cell phones and Wi-Fi devices in our society, you might think that significant steps would be taken at the policy level to adequately address these dangers. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.

Rather than erring on the side of caution, the US seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the government body responsible for regulating MWR exposure, has stated that equipping schools with Wi-Fi is a national priority; the agency plans to invest an additional $2 billion in broadband service for schools and libraries by the end of the year.

The study also notes that exposure limits in the US are inadequate. Exposure limits were set by the FCC in the 1990s, before the plethora of scientific studies showing cancer risks at levels well below the current legal exposure limit. Further, the FCC’s exposure limits are based entirely on short-term exposures, with no consideration of long-term exposures. We now have an abundance of data showing just how dangerous MWR may be.

Government warnings have been issued, but according to Forbes , most of the public is unaware of such warnings. Cell phone manual warnings make clear that an overexposure problem exists—but that is to limit legal liability, and besides, who reads cell phone manuals? Furthermore, FCC regulations state that devices should be tested under normal operating conditions—yet many MWR products, including cell phones and laptops, usually measure exposure when the device is held 20 centimeters (a little less than 8 inches) from the body. People place laptops on their laps and keep cell phones in receiving mode (rather than the presumably safe airplane mode) in their pockets and bras all the time. Most people hold their cell phones to their heads to talk, rather than using speakerphone or a headset.

Clearly, something needs to be done. The answer isn’t to throw away our cell phones and smash our wireless routers, but in our increasingly tech-intensive world, we need to do a better job of evaluating the risks of moving further and further away from nature.

At the policy level, the FCC should update its standards on MWR exposure and test products based on how they are actually used. Government officials in the US could also follow the proactive approach taken by officials in other countries to warn and protect their citizens. Belgium’s Public Health Minister, for instance, banned cell phone sales for children under seven years old. The Australian government produced a fact sheet educating citizens on how they could reduce their exposure from wireless devices. The FCC and other related agencies should work to make sure that people are aware of the possible dangers of MWR exposure.

If you are concerned about MWR exposure, there are some simple steps that you can take in your home to protect your family:

• Because of particular dangers to the fetus, pregnant women should avoid exposing their fetus to MWR.


• Avoid using baby monitors on cribs.


• Women and girls should avoid putting cell phones in their bras.


• Hold cell phones 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) away from your ear to limit exposure—that is, use the speakerphone function or else headphones with a microphone.


• When not in use, try not to keep your phone on your person. A cell phone is always radiating unless it’s turned off.


• Teach kids to limit cell phone use when they can, and to use alternatives like landlines and Skype, which don’t emit MWR.


• Wi-Fi routers should be placed where people, especially children, spend the least amount of time.


• Consider hardwiring your computers to the modem via Ethernet instead of using Wi-Fi (that’s what we do at the ANH-USA offices).


• Opt-out of installing smart meters in your home (though this may be difficult in some states).

In response to public and governmental concern, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established the International Electromagnetic Fields Project to assess the scientific evidence of possible adverse health effects from electromagnetic fields. WHO will conduct a formal risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from RF fields exposure by 2016.

Dr. Mercola, in a powerful article on RF/EMF dangers, reported an interesting suggestion from a panel of experts: EMF-free zones where children, pregnant women (or those hoping to conceive), and others sensitive to EMFs, can be protected. It’s an excellent first step for protecting the most vulnerable members of our society.

Considering how much wireless technology and other MWR-emitting devices have been woven into our everyday lives, it’s important to act now to protect our family and loved ones.

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GMO Roundup

The GMO labeling issue is seeing some action on Capitol Hill. Maybe that’s because GMOs are in the news across the country. Here are some of the stories you may have missed.

Monsanto Settles with US Wheat Farmers

Monsanto has settled class-action lawsuits with farmers in seven states over 2013 contamination from their genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” wheat. Genetically modified wheat has not been approved in the US, but Monsanto field-tested its Roundup Ready variety between 1998 and 2005 before withdrawing its application for approval from the USDA. Before Roundup Ready was either destroyed or stored, the GM wheat was found on an Oregon farm, triggering a suspension of trade with countries suspicious of GM crops. The incident led farmers in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to seek compensation for lost income. Now Monsanto has settled these lawsuits by donating $50,000 to agricultural schools in each of the seven states. This is bad—all it does is increase the efforts of these companies to dominate the schools. Last November, Monsanto announced a $2.4 million settlement on other lawsuits stemming from the 2013 Oregon wheat scare.

WHO Report Finds Roundup is “Probably” Carcinogenic

Glyphosate—better known by Monsanto’s trade name, Roundup—is the most widely used pesticide in the country. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research, which includes seventeen experts from eleven countries, recently published a report which concluded that, based on animal studies, Roundup is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Roundup use has increased markedly in recent years, due in large part to the prevalence of genetically modified crops that are “Roundup Ready”—that is, the toxic pesticide can be sprayed on crops, killing weeds without killing the crops themselves. According to the USDA, GM plants were grown on 94% of US soybean fields and 89% of U.S. corn fields last year.

“Arctic Apple” Approved for Sale in US and Canada

The Arctic Apple—a non-browning GM apple developed by the Canadian biotech firm Okanagan Specialty Fruits (OSF)—has been approved for sale in both the US and Canada. What sets apart the Arctic Apple from other GM foods is that the gene which leads to oxidation and browning has been switched off. Most other GM products have been modified by introducing genes from other organisms into a plant. In this context, it is useful to keep in mind that natural tomato plants were selected over the years to eliminate the tendency of the blossom end of the plant to stay green even after the rest of the tomato was red and ripe. After this was done, it was finally realized that the green end was closely connected to flavor, and eliminating the one also eliminated the other. After approval of the GM apple, the OSF president wrote, “Over the next couple of years, we will be working hard with our grower partners to get as many Arctic trees in the ground as we can.” The Organic Consumers Association had petitioned the USDA to deny approval, arguing that the GM apples could be harmful to human health, but the petition was rejected.

Bill Nye Flips on GMOs

Bill Nye, the children’s television show host known most recently for his fierce defense of the science behind evolution and climate change, has flipped his position on GMOs after a visit to Monsanto. Before his visit to the biotech giant, Nye had advised caution in approaching GM foods. He covered GMOs in an episode of his show in 2005 and offered the following advice: “Let’s farm responsibly, let’s require labels on our foods, and let’s carefully test these foods case by case.” He covered the GMO topic again in his recent book, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, where he discusses the unintended environmental consequences of GM crops. Now, in a recent backstage interview on Bill Maher’s HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher, Nye stated that he was changing his position and planned to re-write the GMO section of his book. He is reported as having said, “I went to Monsanto, and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there, and I have revised my outlook, and I’m very excited about telling the world.”

GM Grass Gets USDA Seal of Approval

Late last year, the USDA cleared a glyphosate-resistant grass for cultivation without requiring any environmental safety review. Developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro, the grass is a variety of tall fescue turf-grass meant to be marketed to golf courses. The GM grass was developed using a process called “biolistics.” With this method, a gene-gun shoots DNA-coated metal particles into a plant cell. Because this method does not use a plant pest to transfer the genes, the USDA supposedly has no authority to regulate the GM grass and could not direct the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to conduct its normal pre-market testing. It’s a clever maneuver initiated by Scotts. In 2003, a variety of GM grass escaped a field trial in Oregon, resulting in a $500,000 civil penalty from USDA. This way there is no oversight—and no potential penalty! Such a tactic sets a dangerous precedent for future efforts to introduce GM products into the market with no testing for negative environmental effects.

“Systematic Corruption” and “Subversion of Science” in the Proliferation of GMOs, Authoritative New Book Finds

Steven Druker’s book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth has recently been released. Druker was part of a 1996 lawsuit against the FDA after the agency decided to allow GMOs to be sold without labels. Now, in this remarkable new work, Druker details how the biotech industry and its well-funded offshoots in government agencies, academia, research institutions, and the biotech industry have succeeded in covering up the evidence that GMOs are not safe and not grounded in sound science. It’s a must-read for those looking to review the evidence in one thorough source.



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from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1FChOYF

Wi-Fi Especially Dangerous for Young Children—Cell Phones Too

Should we be concerned about radiation from our cell phones (which we carry with us everywhere) and our Wi-Fi (which is nearly ubiquitous these days)? A review of recent studies shows reasons for caution, pointing to evidence which demonstrates that children absorb more microwave radiation (MWR) than adults. The authors also note the shortcomings in current federal regulatory policy in regard to MWR exposure. The study, published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure, says that children are at greater risk because their brain tissues are more absorbent, their skulls are thinner, and their relative size is smaller. The younger the child, the greater the risk; fetuses are particularly vulnerable to MWR. To those who follow this issue, the potential dangers of MWR-exposure are nothing new. The UN’s International Agency for Research on Cancer calls MWR a class 2B carcinogen, which means it possibly causes cancer in humans—it’s in the same category as lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, and the pesticide DDT. Most of the research concerns a specific type of MWR: the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF) given off by radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones and Wi-Fi, and the smart meters installed in your home by the utility company. As we noted in 2011, there have been multiple reports, mostly out of Europe’s premier research institutions, of cell phone use being linked to brain damage, early-onset Alzheimer’s, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs. But after this new study on the MWR dangers to young children, concern is mounting about the growing number of children’s toys that use Wi-Fi technology—and that’s not counting the number of kids who play with tablets or carry cell phones these days. The study also found that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk, echoing the findings of a 2013 case study from a team of breast cancer surgeons and pathologists who raised the possibility that nonionizing radiation from cell phone EMF exposures caused multifocal invasive breast cancer in four young women. These women, all between the ages of 21 and 39, regularly carried their smartphones directly against their breasts in their bras for up to ten hours a day, for several years. All four developed tumors in areas of their breasts immediately underlying the phones. All four had no family history of breast cancer, tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2, and had no other known breast cancer risks. The pathology of all four cases shows striking similarities in the tumor composition. The article concludes with this striking warning: “The risk to children and adolescent from exposure to microwave radiating devices is considerable. Adults have a smaller but very real risk, as well.” Given the potential dangers of long-term exposure to MWR and the near-ubiquity of cell phones and Wi-Fi devices in our society, you might think that significant steps would be taken at the policy level to adequately address these dangers. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. Rather than erring on the side of caution, the US seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the government body responsible for regulating MWR exposure, has stated that equipping schools with Wi-Fi is a national priority; the agency plans to invest an additional $2 billion in broadband service for schools and libraries by the end of the year. The study also notes that exposure limits in the US are inadequate. Exposure limits were set by the FCC in the 1990s, before the plethora of scientific studies showing cancer risks at levels well below the current legal exposure limit. Further, the FCC’s exposure limits are based entirely on short-term exposures, with no consideration of long-term exposures. We now have an abundance of data showing just how dangerous MWR may be. Government warnings have been issued, but according to Forbes , most of the public is unaware of such warnings. Cell phone manual warnings make clear that an overexposure problem exists—but that is to limit legal liability, and besides, who reads cell phone manuals? Furthermore, FCC regulations state that devices should be tested under normal operating conditions—yet many MWR products, including cell phones and laptops, usually measure exposure when the device is held 20 centimeters (a little less than 8 inches) from the body. People place laptops on their laps and keep cell phones in receiving mode (rather than the presumably safe airplane mode) in their pockets and bras all the time. Most people hold their cell phones to their heads to talk, rather than using speakerphone or a headset. Clearly, something needs to be done. The answer isn’t to throw away our cell phones and smash our wireless routers, but in our increasingly tech-intensive world, we need to do a better job of evaluating the risks of moving further and further away from nature. At the policy level, the FCC should update its standards on MWR exposure and test products based on how they are actually used. Government officials in the US could also follow the proactive approach taken by officials in other countries to warn and protect their citizens. Belgium’s Public Health Minister, for instance, banned cell phone sales for children under seven years old. The Australian government produced a fact sheet educating citizens on how they could reduce their exposure from wireless devices. The FCC and other related agencies should work to make sure that people are aware of the possible dangers of MWR exposure. If you are concerned about MWR exposure, there are some simple steps that you can take in your home to protect your family:

• Because of particular dangers to the fetus, pregnant women should avoid exposing their fetus to MWR.


• Avoid using baby monitors on cribs.


• Women and girls should avoid putting cell phones in their bras.


• Hold cell phones 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) away from your ear to limit exposure—that is, use the speakerphone function or else headphones with a microphone.


• When not in use, try not to keep your phone on your person. A cell phone is always radiating unless it’s turned off.


• Teach kids to limit cell phone use when they can, and to use alternatives like landlines and Skype, which don’t emit MWR.


• Wi-Fi routers should be placed where people, especially children, spend the least amount of time.


• Consider hardwiring your computers to the modem via Ethernet instead of using Wi-Fi (that’s what we do at the ANH-USA offices).


• Opt-out of installing smart meters in your home (though this may be difficult in some states).

In response to public and governmental concern, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established the International Electromagnetic Fields Project to assess the scientific evidence of possible adverse health effects from electromagnetic fields. WHO will conduct a formal risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from RF fields exposure by 2016. Dr. Mercola, in a powerful article on RF/EMF dangers, reported an interesting suggestion from a panel of experts: EMF-free zones where children, pregnant women (or those hoping to conceive), and others sensitive to EMFs, can be protected. It’s an excellent first step for protecting the most vulnerable members of our society. Considering how much wireless technology and other MWR-emitting devices have been woven into our everyday lives, it’s important to act now to protect our family and loved ones.



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Will Google Game the System against Natural Health?

For years, Wikipedia has been a prime source of misinformation (or perhaps disinformation) about natural health. Now we worry about what Google is up to. Action Alert! Our reading of Wikipedia coverage of natural health is that at some point it was captured by interests very hostile to it, as we discussed in depth five years ago. The result is material about integrative doctors and therapies that strikes us not only as highly inaccurate but in some cases libelous. Much of this commentary presents itself as “science.” But as is often the case, people adopting a thoroughly unscientific attitude of mockery and dismissal may try to cloak themselves with the respectability of real scientists. Wikipedia seems to us to be already a major source of misinformation in our field. Could Google being heading in the same direction? Currently, Google’s search engine uses the number of incoming links to a page to determine where it appears in a search. Now, the company is working on a new ranking system based on “truthfulness.” A site with more “incorrect” facts would rank lower than a site that is deemed more credible or trustworthy. This could be quite dangerous. Who at Google decides what is true? Google bias could affect all kinds of issues—from GMO labeling, and integrative approaches to medicine and supplement use, to any stance that challenges mainstream orthodoxies, even when the challenge is thoroughly grounded in the most recent or the most solid science. The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, a database of “facts” that Google has pulled off the Internet. Apparently, if a significant majority of Internet sites agree on a statement, it is considered a reasonable proxy for the truth. Pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings—which means that anything “alternative” will, by definition, be ranked lower. Google’s ranking system is its own business, but it currently enjoys a virtual monopoly in the field, and needs to stick to a system that is transparently objective. Otherwise, searchers should beware of the gatekeepers who make behind-the-scenes decisions about what information we have access to. New strategies and methods for searching the web would be needed if Google becomes a source of misinformation in our field the way Wikipedia already is. Action Alert! Write to Google and explain how its Knowledge Vault will inadvertently censor research and approaches that are at variance with the mainstream, even if it is supported by the most recent or the most solid science—anything new or challenging will be automatically ranked lower. Please send your message today!

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Once Again, the FDA Deliberately Keeps Us in the Dark About Bad Science

It’s the same old story of prescription drugs and fraudulent studies, but the FDA doesn’t seem to care. Action Alert! A recent article in Slate magazine shows how the FDA hides important safety information when it uncovers scientific misconduct in clinical trials of pharmaceutical drugs. The names of the drugs and the company responsible for the misconduct are concealed, journal citations are left uncorrected, and claims made on drugs’ labels are left unchanged even after it’s known that they were based on bad science. According to the author, “The FDA knows about dozens of scientific papers floating about whose data are questionable—and has said nothing, leaving physicians and medical researchers completely unaware.” The author notes that these aren’t isolated incidents, but part of routine behavior by the FDA to shield Big Pharma from unwelcome scrutiny. Here are some highlights from the article:

• Out of seventy-eight publications that sprang from a tainted study, only three cases mentioned the problems FDA found in the study.


• Given 600 clinical trials in which a researcher failed an FDA inspection, in only 100 cases could investigators determine which drug and which pharmaceutical company were involved.


• One company, Cetero, was caught faking data from more than 1,400 drug trials that were used to prove the safety of about 100 drugs. Incredibly, after the FDA caught Cetero, the fraudulent data was still on the drug labels.


• In the RECORD 4 drug trials that were used to establish the safety of the anti-blood-clotting drug rivaroxaban, FDA found rampant misconduct, including falsified data and fraud. “Yet,” writes the author, “if you look in the medical journals, the results from RECORD 4 sit quietly in The Lancet without any hint in the literature about falsification, misconduct, or chaos behind the scenes. This means that physicians around the world are basing life-and-death medical decisions on a study that the FDA knows is simply not credible.”

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this kind of thing before. Clearly, there’s a wide gap between what the FDA knows and what doctors and patients are allowed to know about the safety of prescription drugs. This is exaggerated further by publication bias—the tendency of positive results to be published over negative results—which can give doctors incomplete or misleading information about a drug’s safety. Why would the FDA, which is charged with protecting public health, knowingly conceal information about drug safety from the public and the medical community? The answer is simple. In the words of the author, “It’s a sign that the FDA is deeply captured, drawn firmly into the orbit of the pharmaceutical industry that it’s supposed to regulate.” To most of us, the crony-capitalist relationship between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry comes as no surprise. This is just another example among many of the FDA using its role as a government watchdog to enhance the profits of Big Pharma rather than to safeguard public health. Action Alert! Tell the FDA to require that all drug trials submitted to the FDA be publicly available—not only for new drugs, but for all drugs currently on the market. There is no reason a government agency should bury vital information that could affect the health of its citizens. Tell the FDA to be more transparent! Please take action immediately!

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Will Google Game the System against Natural Health?

For years, Wikipedia has been a prime source of misinformation (or perhaps disinformation) about natural health. Now we worry about what Google is up to. Action Alert!

Our reading of Wikipedia coverage of natural health is that at some point it was captured by interests very hostile to it, as we discussed in depth five years ago. The result is material about integrative doctors and therapies that strikes us not only as highly inaccurate but in some cases libelous. Much of this commentary presents itself as “science.” But as is often the case, people adopting a thoroughly unscientific attitude of mockery and dismissal may try to cloak themselves with the respectability of real scientists.

Wikipedia seems to us to be already a major source of misinformation in our field. Could Google being heading in the same direction? Currently, Google’s search engine uses the number of incoming links to a page to determine where it appears in a search. Now, the company is working on a new ranking system based on “truthfulness.” A site with more “incorrect” facts would rank lower than a site that is deemed more credible or trustworthy.

This could be quite dangerous. Who at Google decides what is true? Google bias could affect all kinds of issues—from GMO labeling, and integrative approaches to medicine and supplement use, to any stance that challenges mainstream orthodoxies, even when the challenge is thoroughly grounded in the most recent or the most solid science.

The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, a database of “facts” that Google has pulled off the Internet. Apparently, if a significant majority of Internet sites agree on a statement, it is considered a reasonable proxy for the truth. Pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings—which means that anything “alternative” will, by definition, be ranked lower.

Google’s ranking system is its own business, but it currently enjoys a virtual monopoly in the field, and needs to stick to a system that is transparently objective. Otherwise, searchers should beware of the gatekeepers who make behind-the-scenes decisions about what information we have access to. New strategies and methods for searching the web would be needed if Google becomes a source of misinformation in our field the way Wikipedia already is.

Action Alert! Write to Google and explain how its Knowledge Vault will inadvertently censor research and approaches that are at variance with the mainstream, even if it is supported by the most recent or the most solid science—anything new or challenging will be automatically ranked lower. Please send your message today!

from The Alliance for Natural Health USA http://ift.tt/18CURGq via Aloe for Health

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Once Again, the FDA Deliberately Keeps Us in the Dark About Bad Science

It’s the same old story of prescription drugs and fraudulent studies, but the FDA doesn’t seem to care. Action Alert!

A recent article in Slate magazine shows how the FDA hides important safety information when it uncovers scientific misconduct in clinical trials of pharmaceutical drugs. The names of the drugs and the company responsible for the misconduct are concealed, journal citations are left uncorrected, and claims made on drugs’ labels are left unchanged even after it’s known that they were based on bad science.

According to the author, “The FDA knows about dozens of scientific papers floating about whose data are questionable—and has said nothing, leaving physicians and medical researchers completely unaware.” The author notes that these aren’t isolated incidents, but part of routine behavior by the FDA to shield Big Pharma from unwelcome scrutiny.

Here are some highlights from the article:

• Out of seventy-eight publications that sprang from a tainted study, only three cases mentioned the problems FDA found in the study.


• Given 600 clinical trials in which a researcher failed an FDA inspection, in only 100 cases could investigators determine which drug and which pharmaceutical company were involved.


• One company, Cetero, was caught faking data from more than 1,400 drug trials that were used to prove the safety of about 100 drugs. Incredibly, after the FDA caught Cetero, the fraudulent data was still on the drug labels.


• In the RECORD 4 drug trials that were used to establish the safety of the anti-blood-clotting drug rivaroxaban, FDA found rampant misconduct, including falsified data and fraud. “Yet,” writes the author, “if you look in the medical journals, the results from RECORD 4 sit quietly in The Lancet without any hint in the literature about falsification, misconduct, or chaos behind the scenes. This means that physicians around the world are basing life-and-death medical decisions on a study that the FDA knows is simply not credible.”

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this kind of thing before. Clearly, there’s a wide gap between what the FDA knows and what doctors and patients are allowed to know about the safety of prescription drugs. This is exaggerated further by publication bias—the tendency of positive results to be published over negative results—which can give doctors incomplete or misleading information about a drug’s safety.

Why would the FDA, which is charged with protecting public health, knowingly conceal information about drug safety from the public and the medical community? The answer is simple. In the words of the author, “It’s a sign that the FDA is deeply captured, drawn firmly into the orbit of the pharmaceutical industry that it’s supposed to regulate.”

To most of us, the crony-capitalist relationship between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry comes as no surprise. This is just another example among many of the FDA using its role as a government watchdog to enhance the profits of Big Pharma rather than to safeguard public health.

Action Alert! Tell the FDA to require that all drug trials submitted to the FDA be publicly available—not only for new drugs, but for all drugs currently on the market. There is no reason a government agency should bury vital information that could affect the health of its citizens. Tell the FDA to be more transparent! Please take action immediately!

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FDA Compounding Committee Is a Stacked Deck

Conflicts of interests and rampant biases on the committee advising FDA on the new compounding rules? Yes—in abundance! Related Action Alert!

Last week, we wrote about the FDA’s latest efforts to regulate compounding pharmacies in its draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Although these provisions are still in the process of being completed, it’s looking increasingly likely that the final rules will severely restrict consumer access to important compounded medications.

Why is the FDA proposing to place arbitrary restrictions on the amount of medications that traditional pharmacies can send out of state? To help answer that, you need to look at who is advising the FDA on how to implement new compounding laws.

To help them draft new rules, the FDA created a Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. This committee is critical to the development of new rules governing compounding pharmacies, including the development of various lists of drugs that may and may not be compounded, along with lists of which substances may be compounded in bulk.

What, then, is the makeup of this committee? It has twelve voting members and two non-voting industry representatives, but there was a troubling lack of transparency in the nomination and selection process. While the FDA reports that it received over 100 nominations from its public comment period, we were unable to find more than just a few of these nominations in the public records. Further, the criteria for selecting among these nominees contain only vague references to the qualifications sought by the FDA, and generic language concerning steps taken to avoid conflicts of interest. According to the FDA, nominees provided “detailed information” in order to “permit evaluation of possible sources of conflict of interest,” but how the FDA actually selected its committee members is largely a mystery.

This could help explain the committee’s stunning lack of expertise on compounding.

Of the twelve voting members, there are four academics, three government officials (one from the FDA and two from the National Institutes for Health), and three nonprofit representatives. Purportedly representing consumers is Michael Carome of Public Citizen, who made his intentions known from the beginning: “As the consumer representative on the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, I intend to aggressively advocate for rigorous FDA safety standards for all compounded medications to protect patients from serious harm.” Can we expect his vote to be based on an objective analysis of the facts, or fueled by a desire to see FDA be as aggressive as possible in restricting the compounding industry?

A second nonprofit committee member is from the Pew Charitable Trusts, another politically engaged advocacy organization. It deals generally with some public health issues but is hardly qualified to make technical judgments on which specific drugs are suitable to be compounded or not.

Of the two non-voting industry representatives, only one is actually a compounder. The other is a representative of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which is an interesting choice by FDA given the firm’s elephant-sized conflict of interest. Regeneron makes a drug, Eylea, to treat age-related macular degeneration. The competition, a drug called Avastin, is a compounded drug that is far cheaper. If Avastin, or any other compounded drug that competes with a pharmaceutical, becomes more difficult for doctors and patients to acquire, the market share of Pharma firms increase. How FDA came to approve this Regeneron member with such a clear conflict of interest defies logic.

Out of fourteen committee members, then, only one seems to be an expert on compounding specifically, rather than pharmacology in general, and that committee member can’t even vote. The other non-voting member is from a drug company with a clear conflict of interest, and one (voting) member is from an advocacy group with a clear bias against the compounding industry. The committee is clearly stacked against those who stand to lose if access to important medications is restricted.

The committee membership explains, at least in part, some of the arbitrary and needlessly restrictive rules being pursued by FDA. The fact that FDA relies heavily on funding from Big Pharma is certainly relevant as well.

We will continue to closely monitor what comes out of FDA and the Compounding Advisory Committee, but given developments so far and the bias of the committee, the prospects look somewhat bleak.

Related Action Alert! FDA just reopened public comment as they draft their new compounding rules. Send a comment and tell FDA to maintain consumer access to important compounded drugs! Please take action immediately!

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Supreme Court Decision Deals Blow to Monopolistic State Medical Boards

Bad news for trade-restraining state medical boards, good news for consumers in teeth-whitening case. Related Major Action Alert!

On February 25, the US Supreme Court ruled that North Carolina’s dental board violated antitrust laws by shutting down hair salons and day spas that offered teeth whitening services. According to the Wall Street Journal , “The decision preserves the power of antitrust enforcers to scrutinize professional licensing organizations, even if they are designated as state-government entities.”

The dental board had claimed they were exempt from antitrust law because they were a government body, but the court found that the board was acting without proper state supervision. Writing for the court, Justice Kennedy stated that antitrust law “does not authorize the states to abandon markets to the unsupervised control of active market participants, whether trade associations or hybrid agencies.”

You can see our earlier coverage of this case for more background.

This ruling is a clear message of caution to all state medical boards that use their power to protect their monopoly on the practice of medicine, typically to the detriment of CAM doctors.

Take, for instance, the state of Washington’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission (MQAC), a state board infamous for its malicious treatment of integrative physicians.

We have recounted MQAC’s ongoing attacks against integrative medical practitioner Dr. Jonathan Wright. In the most recent case, Dr. Wright’s Tahoma Clinic had hired a medical doctor who had been licensed in another state, under the condition that he apply for a Washington medical license. He did so, and the doctor’s Washington license was listed as “pending” on MQAC’s website. During this period, Dr. Wright followed the legal advice he had received and monitored him closely as required by Washington law.

Suddenly, MQAC charged Dr. Wright with “aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine” because the doctor’s out-of-state license had been revoked! To add insult to injury, it soon became known that at least four MQAC staff members knew from the beginning that the doctor’s out-of-state license had been revoked and that he could therefore not be licensed in Washington, but they never put that information on the MQAC website or made any effort to inform Dr. Wright. It seems apparent that the intent was to entrap Dr. Wright by denying him any information.

Sadly, this is just one example among many of MQAC harassing integrative doctors. Examples abound where infractions by conventional doctors are overlooked entirely or given a slap on the wrist by MQAC and other state medical boards. When integrative doctors engage in similar behavior, however, MQAC throws the book at them.

This Supreme Court ruling offers hope to consumers, practitioners of integrative medicine, and all who oppose monopolies in healthcare—monopolies that usually have nothing to do with protecting public health and everything to do with protecting turf. That is why various nurses’ groups opposed the NC medical board.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) has also been at this game for a while in its efforts to pass “scope-of-practice” laws whereby only Registered Dieticians (RDs) can offer nutrition services. This, of course, explicitly excludes other nutrition professionals, who are often better educated, more experienced, and better qualified than RDs.

We can only hope that this Supreme Court decision serves as a precedent— not only for monopolistic state medical boards across the country, but for state nutrition/dietetics boards as well. The recent victory of Steve Cooksey in North Carolina offers another glimmer of hope that governmental and legal bodies are starting to crack down on medical and nutritional monopolies, and we at ANH-USA applaud these actions.

Related Major Action Alert! Last week, we wrote about the new model legislation let loose in over a dozen states by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). The legislation is an underhanded way for the FSMB, a private organization with no public funding, transparency, or accountability, to extend its power and supersede state rules governing medical licensure. Click here to see if your state is considering this legislation and tell your legislators to reject it! Please send your message immediately!

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FDA Compounding Committee Is a Stacked Deck

Conflicts of interests and rampant biases on the committee advising FDA on the new compounding rules? Yes—in abundance! Related Action Alert! Last week, we wrote about the FDA’s latest efforts to regulate compounding pharmacies in its draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Although these provisions are still in the process of being completed, it’s looking increasingly likely that the final rules will severely restrict consumer access to important compounded medications. Why is the FDA proposing to place arbitrary restrictions on the amount of medications that traditional pharmacies can send out of state? To help answer that, you need to look at who is advising the FDA on how to implement new compounding laws. To help them draft new rules, the FDA created a Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. This committee is critical to the development of new rules governing compounding pharmacies, including the development of various lists of drugs that may and may not be compounded, along with lists of which substances may be compounded in bulk. What, then, is the makeup of this committee? It has twelve voting members and two non-voting industry representatives, but there was a troubling lack of transparency in the nomination and selection process. While the FDA reports that it received over 100 nominations from its public comment period, we were unable to find more than just a few of these nominations in the public records. Further, the criteria for selecting among these nominees contain only vague references to the qualifications sought by the FDA, and generic language concerning steps taken to avoid conflicts of interest. According to the FDA, nominees provided “detailed information” in order to “permit evaluation of possible sources of conflict of interest,” but how the FDA actually selected its committee members is largely a mystery. This could help explain the committee’s stunning lack of expertise on compounding. Of the twelve voting members, there are four academics, three government officials (one from the FDA and two from the National Institutes for Health), and three nonprofit representatives. Purportedly representing consumers is Michael Carome of Public Citizen, who made his intentions known from the beginning: “As the consumer representative on the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, I intend to aggressively advocate for rigorous FDA safety standards for all compounded medications to protect patients from serious harm.” Can we expect his vote to be based on an objective analysis of the facts, or fueled by a desire to see FDA be as aggressive as possible in restricting the compounding industry? A second nonprofit committee member is from the Pew Charitable Trusts, another politically engaged advocacy organization. It deals generally with some public health issues but is hardly qualified to make technical judgments on which specific drugs are suitable to be compounded or not. Of the two non-voting industry representatives, only one is actually a compounder. The other is a representative of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which is an interesting choice by FDA given the firm’s elephant-sized conflict of interest. Regeneron makes a drug, Eylea, to treat age-related macular degeneration. The competition, a drug called Avastin, is a compounded drug that is far cheaper. If Avastin, or any other compounded drug that competes with a pharmaceutical, becomes more difficult for doctors and patients to acquire, the market share of Pharma firms increase. How FDA came to approve this Regeneron member with such a clear conflict of interest defies logic. Out of fourteen committee members, then, only one seems to be an expert on compounding specifically, rather than pharmacology in general, and that committee member can’t even vote. The other non-voting member is from a drug company with a clear conflict of interest, and one (voting) member is from an advocacy group with a clear bias against the compounding industry. The committee is clearly stacked against those who stand to lose if access to important medications is restricted. The committee membership explains, at least in part, some of the arbitrary and needlessly restrictive rules being pursued by FDA. The fact that FDA relies heavily on funding from Big Pharma is certainly relevant as well. We will continue to closely monitor what comes out of FDA and the Compounding Advisory Committee, but given developments so far and the bias of the committee, the prospects look somewhat bleak. Related Action Alert! FDA just reopened public comment as they draft their new compounding rules. Send a comment and tell FDA to maintain consumer access to important compounded drugs! Please take action immediately!

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Supreme Court Decision Deals Blow to Monopolistic State Medical Boards

Bad news for trade-restraining state medical boards, good news for consumers in teeth-whitening case. Related Major Action Alert! On February 25, the US Supreme Court ruled that North Carolina’s dental board violated antitrust laws by shutting down hair salons and day spas that offered teeth whitening services. According to the Wall Street Journal , “The decision preserves the power of antitrust enforcers to scrutinize professional licensing organizations, even if they are designated as state-government entities.” The dental board had claimed they were exempt from antitrust law because they were a government body, but the court found that the board was acting without proper state supervision. Writing for the court, Justice Kennedy stated that antitrust law “does not authorize the states to abandon markets to the unsupervised control of active market participants, whether trade associations or hybrid agencies.” You can see our earlier coverage of this case for more background. This ruling is a clear message of caution to all state medical boards that use their power to protect their monopoly on the practice of medicine, typically to the detriment of CAM doctors. Take, for instance, the state of Washington’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission (MQAC), a state board infamous for its malicious treatment of integrative physicians. We have recounted MQAC’s ongoing attacks against integrative medical practitioner Dr. Jonathan Wright. In the most recent case, Dr. Wright’s Tahoma Clinic had hired a medical doctor who had been licensed in another state, under the condition that he apply for a Washington medical license. He did so, and the doctor’s Washington license was listed as “pending” on MQAC’s website. During this period, Dr. Wright followed the legal advice he had received and monitored him closely as required by Washington law. Suddenly, MQAC charged Dr. Wright with “aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine” because the doctor’s out-of-state license had been revoked! To add insult to injury, it soon became known that at least four MQAC staff members knew from the beginning that the doctor’s out-of-state license had been revoked and that he could therefore not be licensed in Washington, but they never put that information on the MQAC website or made any effort to inform Dr. Wright. It seems apparent that the intent was to entrap Dr. Wright by denying him any information. Sadly, this is just one example among many of MQAC harassing integrative doctors. Examples abound where infractions by conventional doctors are overlooked entirely or given a slap on the wrist by MQAC and other state medical boards. When integrative doctors engage in similar behavior, however, MQAC throws the book at them. This Supreme Court ruling offers hope to consumers, practitioners of integrative medicine, and all who oppose monopolies in healthcare—monopolies that usually have nothing to do with protecting public health and everything to do with protecting turf. That is why various nurses’ groups opposed the NC medical board. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) has also been at this game for a while in its efforts to pass “scope-of-practice” laws whereby only Registered Dieticians (RDs) can offer nutrition services. This, of course, explicitly excludes other nutrition professionals, who are often better educated, more experienced, and better qualified than RDs. We can only hope that this Supreme Court decision serves as a precedent— not only for monopolistic state medical boards across the country, but for state nutrition/dietetics boards as well. The recent victory of Steve Cooksey in North Carolina offers another glimmer of hope that governmental and legal bodies are starting to crack down on medical and nutritional monopolies, and we at ANH-USA applaud these actions. Related Major Action Alert! Last week, we wrote about the new model legislation let loose in over a dozen states by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). The legislation is an underhanded way for the FSMB, a private organization with no public funding, transparency, or accountability, to extend its power and supersede state rules governing medical licensure. Click here to see if your state is considering this legislation and tell your legislators to reject it! Please send your message immediately!



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New Power Grab by Federation of State Medical Boards Threatens Integrative Medicine

Legislation that has been introduced in fourteen states must be stopped now. Major state-based Action Alerts!

Back in September 2014, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) released model legislation for the creation of an interstate medical licensing compact. The stated intent of the legislation is to streamline the licensing process for physicians who wish to apply for medical licenses in multiple states. According to Medscape , the model legislation would allow physicians to apply for an expedited license “in a state other than their own without filling out another formal application or providing another set of documents to the other state’s board. If they meet the eligibility requirements specified in the compact, the board in their ‘principal state’ of license can attest to their qualifications, and the second state can license them.”

The compact would take effect only after at least seven states approve the legislation. Once enacted, an Interstate Commission comprised of representatives of each member state would be created to administer the interstate medical licensing compact.

This may look like an innocuous or even useful move by FSMB, but a deeper analysis of this proposal reveals that the opposite is true.

The FSMB—a private trade association that sets standards which are often followed by state medical boards—has historically been no friend to integrative medicine. Despite having no public funding, transparency, or accountability, FSMB wields a tremendous amount of power over the practice of medicine in all fifty states. The organization has demonstrated its antipathy toward natural health since the mid-1990s, when it discussed altering the definition of health fraud to include alternative medical care! It would appear that FSMB considers innovative approaches to healthcare to be nothing more than exercises in “quackery.”

Operating in the dark as it does, it is hard to say who is running the organization or setting its agenda. But we suspect, based on the available evidence, that it is funded and controlled by some combination of the American Medical Association and Big Pharma. If so, it is one of the chief forces behind the kind of corrupt crony medicine we see today. At the very least, states should be wary of following the FSMB’s lead, much less ceding their power to an organization with so little transparency and public accountability.

FSMB claims its proposal “reflects the effort of the state medical boards to develop a dynamic, self-regulatory system of expedited state medical licensure over which the participating states maintain control through a coordinated legislative and administrative process,” and is therefore the “ultimate expression of state authority.” Such a claim, however, is frankly not credible—especially considering that the language of the compact clearly states that rules made by the Interstate Commission would have “the force and effect of statutory law in a member state.”

The Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts echoed these concerns, noting that

the Compact [takes] away the state’s autonomy and authority to grant licenses.…If [an] applicant is deemed “compact eligible” by any other compact state, all member states must grant licensure based on that eligibility. There is no discretion to look at moral character, malpractice history, training irregularities, or other requirements. There is also no opportunity for a state to disagree with another state’s interpretation of the compact requirements or their determination that a particular applicant meets those requirements.

In other words, contrary to FSMB’s claim elsewhere, the interstate compact clearly takes power away from the states.

There is a stunning lack of accountability with the FSMB-created Interstate Commission. While we’ve been critical of the actions of some state medical boards, at least there is some degree of process by which the public can weigh in when rules are created. But when one bad rule can affect at least seven different states, how can the public have any input? Considering FSMB’s record of enmity toward integrative medicine, we should be extremely wary of its proposal.

Another worrisome aspect of FSMB’s interstate compact is its Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirements. FSMB would require physicians seeking a license through the compact to participate in a credentialing process overseen by one of twenty-four approved medical specialty boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). While ABMS argues that its recertification process maintains high standards, many physicians see this as little more than a money-making endeavor for ABMS—in fact, the chair of ABMS makes $1,000 a day. Worse, these certifications are often used as a requirement for hospital employment. As with monopolistic nutrition licensure laws, FSMB’s interstate compact could be a similar attempt to exercise undue control over the practice of medicine.

As the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons notes, the compact “would be a giant leap towards entrenching MOC as mandatory for ALL physicians and [would put] in place a new bureaucracy that will most certainly only continue to increase its power over the ability of physicians to practice and the rights of patients to see the physician of their choice.”

In short, FSMB’s proposal is an underhanded attempt to increase its control over the practice of medicine—power that would likely be wielded against integrative doctors. Currently, fourteen states have introduced FSMB’s model legislation. We must vehemently oppose this legislation wherever it pops up.

You may be wondering if it’s even legal for a state to delegate authority to a private organization. It seems that the answer depends on the state. Some states are strict and permit delegation of authority only if the delegating statute provides definitive standards or procedures. Other states with looser standards find the delegation of legislative power okay if the recipient has adequate procedural safeguards.

Political philosopher John Locke argued centuries ago that no legislature can legitimately delegate its power of legislating to any other body. The founders of our country thought they were incorporating this principle in our Constitution. Alas, we have increasingly deviated from this basic English and American common-law principle.

Major Action Alert! Tell your state legislature to reject the FSMB’s legislation. It would cede state licensing power to an unaccountable Interstate Commission controlled behind the scenes by a private organization, and it would force many physicians to participate in a burdensome and costly recertification process. Please send your message immediately!

Idaho residents, click here.

Illinois residents, click here.

Iowa residents, click here.

Maryland residents, click here.

Minnesota residents, click here.

Montana residents, click here.

Nebraska residents, click here.

Oklahoma residents, click here.

Rhode Island residents, click here.

South Dakota residents, click here.

Texas residents, click here.

Utah residents, click here.

Vermont residents, click here.

West Virginia residents, click here.

For all other states, click here.

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