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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
 Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:16 pm
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quote:
Originally posted by increase 1776
Didn't come here looking for sympothy,came for knowledge.
I concur. Knowledge truly is Power. And with knowledge comes wisdom.
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Thu Aug 05, 2004 12:39 am
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The evidence is there for the vaccination/Diabetes connection. In fact, I came down with polio right after I took it, and developed Diabetes right after the polio. Took the Smallpox vaccination, and had blotches all over my body. Coincidence?.... Rotten thoughts?....Genetics?......It was Sugars, Starches, Shock, and Vaccinations.
http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/hcdiabetes.htm
Childhood Vaccinations and Juvenile-Onset (Type-1) Diabetes
by Harris Coulter, Ph.D.
President, Center for Empirical Medicine
Testimony before the Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
April 16, 1997
Diabetes, both juvenile-onset (Type I) and adult-onset (Type II), is a major health problem in the United States, and the number of diabetics is increasing every year.
In 1947, there were an estimated 600,000 cases of diabetes in the United States. (1) Thirty years later, in 1976, Henry Bearn wrote:
It is perhaps not generally appreciated that in the United States diabetes, or at least the recognition of the disease, has increased about 300 percent over the last fifteen years. It is the second leading cause of blindness, and the third cause of death. In 1950 there were 1.2 million diabetics in the United States; the estimation now is that there are over 10 million, yet the population has increased by only 50 percent. (2)
Today the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.'s quarterly Statistical Bulletin estimates that diabetics make up 5 percent of the US population, or 13 million persons. (3) Of these, 85-90 percent are adult onset, which is more or less controlled by diet and exercise; the other 10-15 percent require daily injections of insulin.
So, while the US population has approximately doubled since the 1940's, the number of diabetics has risen more than 20 times. While the statistical data, like any medical statistics, are based to some degree on estimates, there has clearly been a huge increase in the number of diabetics in the United States.
Billions Spent to Help Diabetics - Furthermore, diabetics consumer about 15 percent of all health care costs, again according to Metropolitan Life. People not only die from diabetes (160,000 cases in 1994) but the disease leads to cardiovascular complications, stroke, gangrene of the extremities requiring amputation, kidney failure, and blindness.
With an estimated total health bill in the United States of about $1 trillion per year at the end of the 20th century, the annual bill for the care and treatment of diabetics will shortly amount to $100-$150 billion unless steps are taken to prevent this. If the Medicare and Medicaid expenditures for treatment of diabetics could be reduced by half, it would be a major savings.
African Americans At Risk - Of particular concern is the heightened prevalence of diabetes in the American black population. In 1991 the death rate from diabetes in American white males was 11.5/100,000 (resident population), for white females it was 9.6; for black males it was 24.6 and for black females it was 25.7. In other words, the death rate for blacks is 2-3 times as high as for whites (4).
This is an especially serious problem in the armed services. The expected incidence of Type-I (insulin-dependent) diabetes for persons aged 17-34 is 4/100,000 for whites and 90/100,000 for black sailors in the 17-34 age group. (5) The authors of this study admit ignorance about the reason why the diabetes incidence should be higher in black naval personnel.
Especially worrisome in this connection, is the ignorance of scientists about the reasons for the steep rise in diabetes. It may be due, in part, to earlier diagnosis or better treatment of the disease, thus preventing or postponing death and/or the development of stroke, kidney failure, and blindness. But this factor cannot account for the tremendous increase in cases since the 1940s.
Genetic and Environmental Factors - In any case, the very origin of diabetes is still a mystery. Since the late 19th century, diabetes has been known to be related to the pancreas and, in 1922, Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles H. Best, discovered that the missing factor was insulin - an internal secretion of the pancreas. But why does the pancreas stop, or fail to start, secreting insulin? Or, more specifically, why do the beta-cells of the pancreas cease to perform their functions?
The consensus on the causation of diabetes was expressed in 1976 in a paper by Alexander Bearn: "Diabetes appears to be one of those diseases in which susceptibility may be inherited but where environmental factors may lead to the onset of disease and illness." (6)
One environmental factor - viral infection - has been recognized; the other factor of significance for diabetes is the presence of an autoimmune process. (7) But the cause or causes of the epidemic of autoimmune disease in the United States, which commenced in the 1950's, are themselves mysterious. (
Since the incidence and prevalence of diabetes continues to rise at a rather rapid rate in the United States and the other industrialized countries, every possible causal or environmental factor is worth examining. On such factor which has hardly been investigated at all is the relationship with childhood vaccinations. The purpose of my appearance here today is to draw the Committee's attention to this connection.
No Investigation of the Vaccine Connection - As we will see, while there is much circumstantial and "anecdotal" evidence (meaning case histories) in favor of a diabetes/vaccination connection, this has never been officially investigated. The fact that the federal medical establishment - which would be the major source of funds for such an epidemiologic investigation - is itself highly committed to the childhood vaccination program, goes far to explain the absence of any official interest in this connection. This is a major disadvantage of all research on damage from the childhood vaccination program.
In fact, several of the vaccines administered for the disease of childhood have been implicated in the causation of diabetes.
1. The Pertussis Vaccine
The vaccine for pertussis, or whooping cough, is part of the DPT shot (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) given to all children. The pertussis vaccine includes "pertussis toxin," a toxin secreted by the microbe which causes whooping cough (the Bordetella pertussis). This toxin, which has been described as one of the most virulent poisons known to science, has several names and has a variety of effects on the body.
Pertussis Toxin Affects Pancreas - One of the names for pertussis toxin has traditionally been "islet-activating protein," signifying that this substance acts specifically and directly on the "islets of Langerhans," which are the insulin-secreting parts of the pancreas. (9)
At least since the 1970s, pertussis vaccine has been known in animal experiments to stimulate over-production of insulin by the pancreas followed by exhaustion and destruction of the "islets" with consequent under-production of insulin; in the first case the outcome is hypoglycemia, and in the latter it is diabetes. (10)
Physicians as early as 1949 called attention to low blood glucose in children who had severe reactions to the pertussis vaccine. (11) In 1970, Margaret Pittman wrote: "the infant whose blood sugar level is influenced by food intake may be especially vulnerable to vaccine-induced hypglycemia...the vaccine induces hypoglycemia in mice and rabbits."
Gordon Stewart wrote in 1977: "more than any other vaccine in common use, pertussis vaccine is known pharmacologically to provoke...hypoglycemia due to increase production of insulin." Two Dutch researchers, Hannik and Cohen, observed in 1978: "infants who show serious reactions following pertussis vaccination suffer from a failure to maintain glucose homeostasis." And two German researchers, Hennessen and Quast, found in 1979 that 59 out of 149 children who manifested adverse reactions to the pertussis vaccine developed symptoms of hypoglycemia. (12)
The next logical step - deciding that the whooping cough vaccine could be responsible for the presently observed increase in the incidence of hypoglycemia and diabetes - has been inhibited by the federal government's pro-vaccination policy, but enough researchers have spoken out in favor of a diabetes connection to suggest that this is a very real possibility deserving of further investigation.
II. The Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine
The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, especially its mumps and rubella components, has been especially implicated in the causation of Type-I diabetes.
A. Rubella and the Rubella Vaccine
Of the three vaccines making up the MMR shot, the rubella component is the major suspect because rubella (German measles) itself, like mumps, is known to be a cause of diabetes and the action of the vaccine resembles that of the disease. If the disease can cause diabetes, so can the vaccine.
Let us first look at the disease.
Rubella Virus Causes Diabetes - In 1978 Margaret Menser wrote: "Since 1968 there has been increasing interest in the possibility that viral infection may play a part in the etiology of diabetes mellitus in man...[but] only one virus consistently produces diabetes in man - the congenitally acquired rubella virus." (13)
"Congenital rubella syndrome" is the name given to the group of impairments and disabilities often seen in babies whose mothers become infected with rubella during pregnancy. These impairments include: heart disease, mental retardation, deafness, and blindness. E.J. Rayfield and colleagues wrote in 1986: "The congenital rubella syndrome provides the best documentation in humans that a viral infection is associated with the subsequent development of insulin-dependent [Type-I} diabetes mellitus." (14)
In the 1960's and 1970's, researchers came to realize that the effect of the rubella virus does not end at the moment of birth, but that it remains in the organism of the baby and continues to exert its influence for many years thereafter. Especially to be noted is the fact that up to 20 percent of these individuals later come down with Type-I diabetes. This may take from 5 to 20 years to develop, indicating that the rubella virus remains active in the organism for all that time. (15)
This virus acts by forming "rubella-specific immune complexes" (an immune complex" is a mixture of the rubella virus and the antibody to it). P.K. Coyle and colleagues showed in 1982 that such immune complexes are found in individuals with congenital rubella and also in persons vaccinated against rubella. They were not found in persons who had never been infected with rubella nor in those who had had the disease naturally and recovered from it. These immune complexes can and do act on the pancreas. (16)
In 1989, Numazaki and colleagues infected laboratory cultures of human pancreatic islet cells with rubella virus. They found that these infected cells produced much lower levels of insulin and concluded: these results suggest that rubella virus can infect human pancreatic islet cells and that such infection may lead to significantreductions in levels of secreted insulin." (17)
Thus, rubella itself has been demonstrated to be a causal agent in Type-I diabetes. How about the vaccine?
Rubella Vaccine Virus Persists In Body - P.K. Coyle and colleagues demonstrated in 1982 that "rubella-specific immune complex formation is frequent after vaccination and could be demonstrated in two-thirds of an unselected group of vaccinates for as long as eight months after vaccination." (1 In fact, the virus has been found to persist in the body of the vaccinated person for as long as seven years after vaccination. (19)
This is not surprising, given that in congenital rubella syndrome the virus can persist for at least 20 years and, probably, for a lifetime. (20)
Thus, there is no reason to make a distinction between rubella virus entering the organism as part of the disease process and the same virus entering via a vaccination. It is known, for instance, that "vaccinees sometimes develop mild rubella, including rash, lymphadenopathy, fever, sore throat and headache." (21) In adult women this occurs in about half the vaccinees. (22)
In both cases, immune complexes are formed and persist in the host organism for lengthy periods. Immune complexes from a vaccination can attack the pancreas just as easily as if they were from congenital rubella syndrome.
The actual mechanism of such an attack on the pancreas is probably multifactorial. Aside from the possibility that the immune complexes attack the islet cells of the pancreas directly, there is also the likelihood that they generate an allergic (anaphylactic, hypersensitive) or autoimmune state with subsequent autoimmune destruction of the pancreas. Margaret Menser wrote:
"Clinically it is not possible to show whether the pathogenesis of the diabetes initiated by the rubella virus is due solely to direct viral invasion of the beta-cells of the islets of Langerhans, or whether the virus induces an immunologic reaction in the islet cells, which then leads to the development of diabetes." (23)
E.J. Mayfield and colleagues wrote in the same connection:
"The mechanism of virus-induced diabetes is not known. Viruses associated with diabetes in animals may cause disease by (1) directly lysing [i.e., dissolving] the beta-cells; (2) triggering an autoimmune response; or (3) specifically impairing the secretory process of beta-cells through a persistent infection."
He concluded that option (2) was the most probable one: the generation of an autoimmune state in which the body, as it were, becomes allergic to itself or to a part of itself. (24)
The reasonableness of this explanation is enhanced by the observation that the rubella vaccine can cause an allergic reaction. (25) A Canadian survey in 1987 found "allergic reactions" in 30 children who reacted adversely to the MMR vaccine. (26) Indeed, the possibility of an anaphylactic reaction from the MMR vaccine is specifically recognized by the Vaccine Injury Table in Title 21 of the Public Health Service Act (this table was developed as a guideline for compensating victims of vaccination under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, Public Law 99-660).
Diabetes after a rubella vaccination probably represents a combined effect: the virus attacks the islet cells of the pancreas in an organism which has already been weakened by an autoimmune reaction to the same virus.
B. Mumps and the Mumps Vaccine
Mumps Infection Can Cause Diabetes - There is copious evidence of a causal relationship between clinical mumps and subsequent development of diabetes. This evidence consists of: data linking mumps with pancreatitis; individual case reports of Type-I diabetes following clinical mumps infection; clusters of Type-I diabetes cases after mumps epidemics; and large epidemiological studies demonstrating parallel curves between outbreaks of mumps and new cases of Type-I diabetes (with a lag of 2-3 years). (27)
Furthermore, mumps virus can infect human pancreatic beta cells in vitro and destroy them. (2
These and similar reports are noted and described in Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence Bearing on Causality (Washington, D.C: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, 1993). This compendium was prepared by the Vaccine Safety Committee appointed as part of the overall effort of the federal government to evaluate vaccination risks and benefits as charged by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (100 Stat. 3780, 3781). The IOM Committee concluded:
"There is evidence suggesting that mumps virus infection can trigger the onset of Type-I diabetes in some individuals. Biologic plausibility data implicating the mumps virus in the pathogenesis of Type-I diabetes include: (1) the association between viral infections, including mumps, and Type-I diabetes in humans; (2) the detection of circulating autoantibodies against pancreatic antigens, particularly islet cells, during convalescence from mumps infection as well as early in the course of Type-I diabetes; and (3) in vitro studies demonstrating that the wild-type mumps virus can infect human pancreatic beta cells. (29)
The question to be answered is whether the mumps vaccine can have the same effect as the clinical infection with mumps.
Diabetes Reported Following Mumps Vaccination - There are many reports in the literature of Type-I diabetes emerging after mumps vaccination. In 1997, Sinaiotis and colleagues reported the onset of Type-I diabetes one month after receipt of mumps vaccine in a 6.5 year old boy. In 1991, Pawlowski and Gries described an 11-year old body who had mumps disease at age 16 months and then received measles-mumps vaccine 5 months prior to the emergence of Type-I diabetes; he had severe abdominal pain and fever one week after vaccination.
In 1984, Otten and colleagues reported three cases of Type-I diabetes with onset in one case 10 days and, in other cases, 3 weeks after mumps vaccination in children 3,2 and 16 years of age. In 1986, Helmke and colleagues reported seven children who developed Type-I diabetes in the second to fourth week following mumps or measles-mumps vaccination.
In 1979, Quast and colleagues noted that in the first two years after mumps and measles-mumps vaccines were introduced into Germany, two cases of Type-I diabetes following immunization with measles-mumps and mumps vaccines respectively were reported to the manufacturer. (30)
But, oddly enough, despite this finding and despite the series of case studies already noted, the Vaccine Safety Committee concluded that there was insufficient evidence either to accept or reject a causal relation between mumps vaccine and Type-I diabetes. This contradicted its own assertion in the Preface that: "In reaching conclusions favoring acceptance of a causal relation...the committee most commonly relied on case series and individual case reports." (31)
C. Measles and Measles Vaccine
There is little convincing evidence of an association between measles as a clinical disease and diabetes; thus there is no reason to suspect the measles component of the MMR vaccine of any causal relationship to diabetes. (32)
III. Haemophilus Influenzae B and Hib Vaccine
A study of haemophilus influenzae B (Hib) vaccine in 114,000 Finnish children found that those who received 4 doses of the vaccine had a higher incidence of Type-I diabetes than those who received only one dose. (33)
IV. Hepatitis B and Hep-B Vaccine
According to J. Barthelow Classen, M.D., a hepatitis B vaccination program in New Zealand, which commenced in 1988, led to a 60 percent increase in Type-I diabetes in the recipients. In the under-20 age group, the incidence of Type-I diabetes prior to the vaccination campaign (i.e. from 1982-1991) was 18.2/100,000 person years.
Classen's data have led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to request the Swedish health authorities to investigate the possible connection between the pertussis vaccine and Type-I diabetes. Results are expected to be available in several months.
In Classen's view, the Hepatitis B vaccine and other vaccines can induce Type-I diabetes through the release of interferons, since interferons have already been implicated as causing autoimmunity, including Type-I diabetes. Classen also observes that the package inserts for the various hepatitis B vaccines on the market notes that they cause several autoimmune diseases, and the FDA itself has recognized that they can cause alopecia (baldness) of autoimmune origin. (34)
V. Conclusion
The vaccines discussed above are not an exhaustive list of those suspected of causing Type-I diabetes. Apparently in all cases, factors relating to autoimmunity are involved in the causal chain between vaccination and the emergence of Type-I diabetes. Any vaccine capable of giving rise to the autoimmune state is thus a candidate.
Little Research Exists on Vaccination and Autoimmunity - A 1996 article on vaccination and autoimmunity by researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel throws additional light on this question. (35) The authors note that "in recent decades, although it has been suggested in case reports that some vaccines might trigger autoimmune disorders, the subject has received comparatively little attention in clinical and laboratory studies."
Such vaccines as influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rabies, MMR, tetanus and oral polio have all been linked with autoimmune diseases such as reactive arthritis, thrombocytopenia purpura and lupus. Also, the authors note, "it seems that vaccines have a predilection to affect the nervous system: neuritis, demyelination, myasthenia gravis, and Guillain-Barre syndrome have been described." Furthermore, the incidence of vaccine-induced autoimmunity is twice as high as high in females as in males. The authors conclude: "The subject of the vaccine autoimmunity relationship is still obscure; reports have been rare, not laboratory experimentation on this topic has been undertaken, and there are few animal models. For the time being no conclusions can be drawn."
Since this is still virgin territory, we may expect far more data in support of the vaccine-autoimmunity connection as work progresses and, specifically, on the connection with Type-I diabetes.
Military and African American Populations Need Study - Further evidence of a possible vaccination link is found in the data on diabetes in US Navy enlisted personnel mentioned above. These are individuals in whom Type-I diabetes has appeared after the age of enlistment (since diabetes is a bar to enlistment). Frequent vaccinations seems to be a fact of life in the US armed forces. In the absence of any suggestion as to other possible causative factors which could transform a healthy sailor into a diabetic, the vaccinations which these men and women receive at regular intervals during their naval service must be considered as prime suspects. (36)
The greater incidence of diabetes in the US African American population can readily be explained in terms of enhanced susceptibility to vaccine damage. The genetic background of this population may differ in significant respects from that of white populations sufficiently to account for a greater likelihood of vaccine damage.
Public Health Agencies Ignore Diabetes-Vaccine Connection - A striking feature of this whole diabetes/vaccination picture is the division or bifurcation of medical opinion. While researchers are well aware of the significance of vaccinations as etiological agents in the production of diabetes, the Public Health Service and related agencies promoting vaccination programs deny or ignore this relationship or are simply unaware of it. At any rate, the public is not yet being informed of this additional and very real risk from the vaccines which they are compelled to administer to their children.
The seriousness of Type-I diabetes is perhaps not appreciated by the public at large. While not quite a death sentence, it is close to it. Panzram wrote in 1984: "Type-I diabetes, particularly at a young age, must be considered as a rather serious disease, with a 5 to 10-fold higher excess in mortality in comparison with the general population." (37)
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Type-I, especially, means a shortened life with many disagreeable features such as stroke, kidney failure, cardiovascular complications, blindness and the need to amputate gangrenous limbs. The bill for treating these conditions is, as already noted earlier, in the neighborhood of $100-$150 billion every year.
VI. Suggestions for Action
As noted throughout this paper, the Public Health Service and other federal health agencies promote vaccination programs and do not readily criticize them. Even the scanty information we have today about vaccine damage would not have been available if the Congress had not adopted the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (over a presidential veto), compelling these agencies to investigate areas they would have preferred to ignore.
The following action items are suggested as ways to prevail on these agencies to pursue further research on these matters and thus increase our knowledge of the vaccination-diabetes connection.
Study Military Personnel - An effort should be made to contact former armed services personnel who contracted Type-I diabetes while on active service. Since diabetes is a bar to military service, one can be relatively certain that these individuals were diabetes-free at the time of enlistment. It would be interesting to ascertain the chronological relationship between one or another of the many vaccinations received by servicemen and women and the date of onset of the first symptoms of diabetes (the testimony of one who did contract diabetes in this way is given in the Appendix).
Study Modification of Vaccination Schedules - Alternative scheduling of childhood vaccinations as a way of minimizing the incidence of Type-I diabetes should be studied.
Conduct Cost-Benefit Analyses - Cost-benefit analyses of various childhood vaccines should be prepared based on the assumption that they contribute to the incidence of Type-I diabetes.
Alert Doctors - Physicians should be alerted to Type-I diabetes as a possible consequence of rubella, pertussis and other childhood vaccinations; if that were done, the reporting of Type-I diabetes would be intensified.
Add Type-I Diabetes to Vaccine Injury Compensation Table - Consideration should be given to including Type-I diabetes in the Vaccine Injury Table of the national vaccine injury |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
| The Conspiracy of Diabetes
Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:04 am
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The #1 group that is attempting to stop both herbal/nutritional and cloning cures for Diabetes, are the Fundamentalists. Look at who was opposed to life extension research. Our Devil Boy, Jerry Falwell.
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/oct2003_awsi_01.html
Here is the simple fact. The Diabetes industry is a $1 trillion a year business, if you count all the drugs, kidney machines, glaucoma, heart attacks, strokes, impotency, and research that goes nowhere, especially in this country. This does not count the fact that the pharmaceuticals know that vaccines cause Diabetes in a certain percentage of the population.
Herbs and Science were the enemies of the Inquisition of the Middle ages, and they still are the target. Through despair, people have to resort to “Mystical”,
“Mind Healing”, and prayer,as primary means of healing Diabetes. It is 100% anecdotal, that a state of mind will cure it. If one has a blood sugar reading of 500, you do not pray, you do not caste spells, you do not drink strawberry tea. You take a shot of insulin or run a mile at a fast pace.Period.
Does chanting, prayer, dancing, and positive thoughts help? No, but they also don’t hurt. A positive outlook will ease stress, but do ZERO in healing an illness like Diabetes. Only chemical and nutritional balance will keep you from succumbing early. Cloning is the answer, cloning of your own Beta Cells, that have been destroyed by the various means I mentioned in earlier threads.
The Fundamentalists have all but halted cloning research in the US. Europe is continuing, but limited right now. The US pharmaceuticals have herbs and vitamins in their sites, and the Europeans get them from their socialized medical system.
Below, I go into detail on how the origins of Diabetes dovetailed into the Inquisition, and it’s witch hunting, and science bashing. The prosection of witches for casting spells was a front for the fact they they were actually curing by means of herbs. Counter-productive to the male-dominated church, which did not enjoy the competition from powerful women Pagans. We are seeing the modern version of the destruction of alternative lifestyles and pure science, and it’s desperate creation, “Symbolism”, or "Mysticism". which will not confront the charlatans head on, but will accept a form of pseudo-science as reality.
The Conspiracy of Diabetes
The origins in ancient history date back to Paleo-American skeletons, 9000, the so-called Kennewick Man years old. Many researchers view the disease as a result of a "thrifty gene," which helped earlier generations through lean times. The thrifty gene hypothesis proposes that a genotype--the genetic constitution of an individual--that allowed survival during famines through efficient storage of fat, leads to obesity--and diabetes--in times of plenty.
Food shortages in Europe, Asia and Africa evidently were not as frequent as in Australia, the Americas and the Pacific Islands; hence there was not as strong a selection for the thrifty gene among African, European or Asian populations.
"If the 'thrifty' diabetic genotype was in fact selected long ago in several populations in different parts of the world, why has diabetes emerged only recently as a major health problem?" There is some likely reasons: changes in diet from foods high in fiber to calorie-dense, high-fat foods; decreases in expended energy; and a deficiency or excess of some micro-nutrient in the diet.
Scientists have made many studies of the effects of diet and lifestyle on non-insulin-dependent diabetes, and it has been found that for diabetic Australian Aborigines, traditional diets and lifestyles can improve metabolism of carbohydrates and lipids. Also, he says studies among Pima peoples living in remote mountains of northwestern Mexico have shown that a traditional diet and lifestyle protects against diabetes.
Diabetes is one of the oldest disorders that have afflicted human beings. The Ancient Egyptians had written details about diabetes on the Papyrus Ebers, around 1550 BC. The Ancient Indian medical texts contained detailed descriptions of this condition by 300 BC. They called it 'Mudumiyama' or 'Sweet Urine'. Their approach in the treatment of diabetes was wholistic, which included exercise, diet and natural herbal medicines.
The Ancient Chinese medical book called 'The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Neijing)', had discussed diabetes under the term 'Xia-Ke' which means 'Wasting and Thirsting'. Sugar in the urine, is one of the most important symptoms of diabetes. This was included in the Chinese medical classic, 'A Collection of Diseases' by Wang Shou, published in 752. For the first time in Chinese medical history, diabetes was listed among the eleven hundred diseases. The author recommended a special method of testing sugar in the urine: the patient was asked to pass urine on a wide, flat brick to see if ants gathered to collect the sugar. Modern Chinese also use the term Tang-Niao-Bing' which means "Sugar Urine Illness." During the first century AD, Arateus described diabetes as the 'Melting Down' of flesh and limbs into urine. Galen of Pergamum, a Greek Physician, classified diabetes as a form of kidney failure.
The Arab physicians were well aware and competent in treating diabetes over a thousand years ago.The classical text 'The Canon of Medicine' by Ibn Sina (Avicena) had detailed descriptions, causes and wholistic treatment of diabetes. It included exercise, dietary changes and use of herbal medicines. It is interesting to note that Ibn Sina was aware of the 'Sweet Urine' of the diabetic.
In the dark ages in Europe, most of the knowledge about diabetes had been forgotten until Thomas Willis, in 1674 separated 'Diabetes Insipidus' from 'Diabetes Mellitus'. It was not until in 1922 that a breakthrough was achieved in the European system when insulin was isolated, manufactured and used on the first human patient. This was an important contribution to the understanding of diabetes.
However since then there has been no real progress in the treatment of diabetes. The cure of diabetes remains hidden within the wholistic and herbal traditions of medicine, and the new high-tech genetic engineering or cloning. The myth within western allopathic medicine, that diabetes is incurable, is like so many other myths, based on ignorance.
Herbalists have been mistreated over the years. Eight hundred years ago, the Catholic Church found the need to set up a court known as the Inquisition. Its duty was to find and punish people suspected of heresy, however the methods were crude, unfair, and even ridiculous. Many innocent people died at the hands of fervent Inquisitors, who were totally convinced of their duty to God to seek and destroy all those who would go against him. Jews, Moors and non-Catholic Christians were all persecuted by the Inquisitors, however the most famous of the persecuted are the witches. With the need for a scapegoat, the Catholics sought out midwives, healers, and dabblers in folk-magic. The 'witches' became the malevolent enemy of the church, and as such they must be eradicated. The Inquisition had a drastic effect on how the common person viewed the practice of witchcraft, and how it would be portrayed for centuries to come.
Before Christianity, there was no practice known as 'witchcraft' The word probably came from a Celtic word for wise, 'wicce'. Many of the signs of witchcraft found in the Inquisition can be related to pagan traditions and magic that have nothing to do with devil-worship. Many of these can be traced to the ancient Celts and Gauls, as they were a major pagan population in Europe where the Inquisition thrived. Before Christianity, pagans were familiar with magic in their daily lives. Priests were the most prominent magic workers, and many people came to them for help with decisions, love and healing. Divinations were done anytime there was a major decision to be made, and the results of a reading were said to be what the result of a situation might be. Healers were a valuable resource, and the priests usually took on the role as healer as well. They combined natural healing techniques with magic that would drive away the evil that had started the illness. Children were given many names, in the hope that an evil spirit would never find its true name and deal them harm. There were also spells and rituals done to help the general community. The gods were made offerings in order to ensure a good harvest, to prevent draught and famine and for many other reasons. Human and animal sacrifice were not uncommon, although many more animals died for religious beliefs than humans. Some gods and spirits were even said to dwell in animal or plant form. In the Celtic world, certain trees were held sacred. Some animals enjoyed special reverence as a sacred creature, and many were held sacred to a specific deity. Almost every animal was in some way related to the supernatural. Crows were ill omens and a white stag was a good omen, etc. The pagans enjoyed this way of life for many centuries, their world was easily explained by the multitudes of spirits around them, and the supernatural forces in effect every day. By coincidence and the power of belief, their magic worked, and was used every day.
When Christianity first arrived, they attempted to convert the pagans, and in all respects, succeeded. However, not everyone finds it so easy to abandon the teachings they had learnt for years. For this reason, some of the Christian holidays and traditions, and even a few saints, are adaptations from paganism. Easter and Christmas fell right around the time of two of the pagan celebrations. Many of the traditions can be traced back to pagan magic in some form. The physical description of the Devil came from the pagan god Pan, who had goat feet, horns and a tail. Christianity took over Europe and the pagan religions were gone. However a few of the traditions and beliefs were not so easily eradicated. Superstitions were still held against evil spirits and the Devil, and adapted folk-magic was still practiced.
As magic and the apparent ability to use supernatural powers were developing a more sinister face in the eyes of the church, the Catholics decided to do something about it. The Inquisition was formed in 1232. It was a court who's duty was to persecute heretics. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic church reigned supreme, and any people who went against its teachings could be brought before the Inquisition. The majority of the heretics were not witches however, Jews, Moors and any non-Catholic Christians felt the brunt of the Inquisition. The witches were only one of the minorities persecuted. It wasn't until the 16-1700's that the witch-hunts were at full strength, and paranoia set into the people.
In the 1500's Jakob Sprenger published the "Malleus Maleficarum". In his book, he outlines the ways to determine if someone is a witch, how to run the trial and what questions to ask, and the punishments to be carried out. Some of the traits now given to magic workers are as follows.
1. Older women were likely to be a witch, as they reached their age by the use of Devil-granted powers.
2. If they participated in any form of sexual activity outside the basic intercourse for procreation with their spouse.
3. If they had any strange mark on their body that, if pricked, felt no pain, or did not bleed. This was the devils mark, and he supposedly put it on all who had pledged allegiance to him.
4. If they kept a pet. Any pet could be brought under suspicion as a familiar, a witches companion sent by the devil. This probably came from the pagan belief that animals were representations of the supernatural. Witches familiars were usually cats, crows, lizards, goats or rodents. All these had relations to ill omens or dark ideas in paganism, and were easily adapted into becoming tools of the devil. Since most houses had some form of infestation of any one of these animals, suspected familiars were in no short supply.
5. Any odd behavior could be taken as a sign of witchcraft. Not going to church for any reason other then illness was sure to put a person in suspect of heresy. If a person was an outcast or kept to themselves they were among the first to be accused. People who socialized or sympathized with outcasts or those accused were put under suspicion.
His works were admired by Pope Innocent VII, who backed up the German witch hunter and wrote his own endorsements of Sprenger. "…The Catholic Faith should especially in this Our day increase and flourish everywhere, and that all heretical depravity should be driven far from the frontiers and bournes of the Faithful, We very gladly proclaim…those particular means and methods whereby Our pious desire may obtain its wished effect, when all errors are uprooted by Our diligent avocation,… a zeal for, and the regular observance of, Our holy Faith will be all the more strongly impressed upon the hearts of the faithful." was the a passage written by the Pope to endorse the witch hunts and help exterminate heresy.
Once a witch was accused, the methods to go about their trial and questioning were often quite unfair. Few people were found innocent of their accusations, and most went through horrific torture. If they plead innocent, they were most often tortured until they confessed and described their exploits with the Devil and the many crimes they had committed when in fact they had done none. By the end of the questioning many accused actually believed what they were saying in the insanity brought on by torture. The practices that had thrived for centuries as everyday traditions that had helped people to cope with the strangeness of the world around them were now condemned. People no longer wanted their future divined, animals and the earth were no longer sacred. Only God and the church were sacred. Natural healing was seen as magic, and was therefore work of the Devil. People no longer understood that certain herbs and methods might help them heal better or help cure an illness, and a very beneficial practice was now forbidden. If any person used what was now called witchcraft to help someone, they were still dealt with as though they had murdered a person. "...The workings of witches are never lawful" and therefore they were all seen as Devil-worshippers.
The Inquisition was also a mass attempt to keep women powerless. For hundreds of years, women were just as capable magic workers as men, and many were healers. This gave them power that was forbidden in a Christian world. Women who had knowledge beyond the norm were thought of as witches. Healers and midwives were persecuted for their 'magical knowledge' of herbs. It was seen necessary to persecute them as "... No one does more harm to the Catholic faith than midwives." Midwives were in a position of power over the newborns and mothers, and could slip in an evil talisman or charm. The child would then be a target for the devil. Since witches were also supposed to eat babies, targeting midwives as witches is understandable to any good Catholic.
Witches were thought to be able to fly, shape-change, cause blights and bring down horrible curses on those around them. They would fly to Sabbats, demonic holidays where they danced wildly, feasted on human flesh, and cavorted with demons. Their ability to fly most likely came from the pagan priests, who would put themselves in trances that often felt like flight. Shape changing was another supposed ability of pagan priests. Their spirits were able to take on the form of any animal in the spirit world while they were in a trance. They were also able to deal with the weather and crops just as a witch was able, except they meant no harm in their magic but used it to help and ensure their tribes survival. The sabbats were also derived from pagan holidays. On a pagan festival, great feasting was the norm, dancing and cavorting carried on into the night on most, especially fertility festivals. All these are examples of how the Catholic Church and the Inquisition helped to change peoples perceptions of what was now called witchcraft.
Now that everyone knew what to look for in a witch, many more accusations were made. The people knew the signs of witchcraft as wellas who to stereotype. Starting in the 1600's and ending in the 1700's, the Witch trials of the Inquisitions reached their height. People were paranoid about witches. Many innocent people were executed at the hands of the church. Women were most likely to be accused, as they were thought to be more susceptible to the Devils propositions. When in torture, one question asked was if they knew of any other witches that they recognized at the sabbat. To appease the Inquisitors, many women simply gave them names of people in the community. These people soon found themselves on trail, and asked the same question. This chain reaction could kill many before it found an end.
The people thought it their duty as Christians to weed out these devil worshippers and accusations ran wild. The only people immune to the Inquisition were those behind it, all others were at risk. Nobles and peasants were persecuted alike.
There are many accounts of how the fear of the unnatural and the power of the church led to deaths of thousands. As the fever of witch hunting grew, witch burnings went from one once in awhile to numerous burnings at once. Years later they were burned by the hundreds. In the French city of Savoy eight hundred were condemned together. In 1586, the winter was very cold on the Rhine, and the frigid weather continued into the summer and decimated the harvest. Witchcraft was blamed for the poor weather, and one hundred and eighteen women and two men died because of the peoples fear and the churches assurance of the evil presence. There are many accounts of torture, accusations and executions, but there are very few documents from the side of those who were accused. There is one letter of a tortured man to his daughter that survived. In it he describes the tortures used on him, and the questions asked. He explains how it came about that he was accused of witchcraft. "Dear child, six have confessed against me at once…all false, through compulsion, as they have all told me, and begged my forgiveness in God's name before they were executed. . . . They know nothing but good of me. They were forced to say it, just as I myself was. . ." This shows how the accused were forced to name their neighbors as witches. Within the letter we find that the man was innocent, and how even some involved in it realized the farce that was the Inquisition. "When at last the executioner led me back into the prison, he said to me: "Sir, I beg you, for God's sake confess something, where it be true or not. Invent something, for you cannot endure the torture you will be put to; and, even if you bear it all, you will not escape, not even if you were an earl, but one torture will follow after another until you say you are a witch. Not before that, will they let you go." This led the man to confess to many crimes, all of which he describes and swears are false.
Even today, people are still affected by the mistakes made so many centuries ago. A reawakening of paganism in the past century has stemmed many modern-day witch hunts. People who practice the pagan faiths are still labeled as devil-worshippers. A certain group of pagans, who are sometimes called witches, now suffer a severe stereotype of evil and hate when in fact they worship nature, and use 'magic' to try and help better their lives. Children are brought up with the idea that witches are old hags who are going to get them in the night. As people grow up, and are perhaps exposed to modern-day pagan culture, they see them as the stereotypical witches of the Inquisition. Although no one is as afraid of the supernatural elements as in the time of the Inquisition, people are still happy to label them with what they think is an accurate representation. Therefore, the Inquisitions affects can still be felt today. When people think 'witch' or 'pagan' the image of an old, evil person who does strange magic with powers granted to them by dark masters pops into most peoples minds. When in fact, they should think of a normal person, perhaps a healer from many centuries ago, a wise druid, or even a modern day Canadian who has taken up the ways of the ancient pagans.
If the Church and the Inquisition had not taken the fervent direction of changing traditions and practices rooted in the peoples past, the witch-hunts may not have affected so many, if at all. They changed many of the old beliefs into working for them to help convert the pagans. The beliefs and practices that had held for thousands of years were now evil and against everything the Church stood for. The people now actively sought out demons that weren't there, and were eager to accept the facts the Church fed to them as a new explanation for natural misfortune. For this, many innocent people died painfully and needlessly.
The Inquisition also punished Scientists. Galileo was a prime example. All of these discoveries -- and others -- posed yet more direct challenges to Aristotle's idea of the perfection of the heavens -- some Aristotelian astronomers refused to look through Galileo's telescope, others tried to deny what he had seen. The Roman Catholic Church, however, was becoming increasingly concerned -- and a young Dominican, Tommaso Caccini, was the first to denounce Galileo officially and the Copernican theory his observations seemed to support -- from the pulpit during a sermon in the Duomo -- or Cathedral -- of Florence.
A few years later, as concerns mounted, Galileo was officially advised by Cardinal Bellarmino on the Pope's behalf to proceed cautiously and speak only hypothetically about the Copernican theory, but not as if it were actually real. Galileo returned to Florence and continued work on his book, but now he gave more emphasis to mathematical arguments rather than to esperimental or physical arguments. -- as the Pope wished. But when the book finally appeared in 1632, it raised an immediate storm of protest leading immediately to Galileo's arrest and famous trial by the Inquisition in Rome. which found him guilty of having published a heretical book. In the end, Galileo had no choice but to repent and confess that he had gone to far. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he spent, for the most part at his own villa at Arcetri near Florence, under the surveillance of the Inquisition.
Even so, Galileo, in his last years, now undertook his last and perhaps greatest work, his Discourses on the Two New Sciences, which has been described as "the cornerstone of modern physics." It was smuggled out of Italy to France, and published in Leyden in 1638. In this book, Galileo presented the true laws of accelerated motion and falling bodies, as well as the fundamental theory of projectile motion and important applications of mathematics to a host of physical problemsWhen Galileo died in 1642, totally blind and almost 78 years old, Pope Urban VIII refused to forget his feud with Galileo, and refused to permit his burial with a suitable monument -- instead, Galileo was buried unceremoniously in the Church of Santo Croce, in Florence. Only a few hundred years later were his remains moved to their present magnificent tomb, opposite that of Michelangelo near the entrance to the church.
By now it is possible to appreciate several basic and fundamental aspects of Galileo's scientific genius. Above all, his early work seems to have concentrated upon arguments against Aristotle, arguments involving a sustained pattern of observation and demonstration requiring little in the way of mathematics and concentrating instead on physical experience. His most revolutionary observational discoveries came with the telescope, and these provided, for the first time, about 1610, a number of good physical arguments in favor of the Copernican theory. Later, however, Galileo had two additional concerns -- the problem of defending that theory against attacks from the Church without recourse to physical examples as the Pope had insisted -- but primarily with mathematical arguments. Secondly, his impressive discovery of the parabolic nature of projectile motion -- elaborated fully in 1638 -- seemed in a very profound way to display the essentially mathematical character of physical phenomena.
As we shall see in a more careful examination of the mathematical arguments arguments Galileo developed for accelerated motions (especially the parabolic trajectories of projectile motions) Galileo believed that nature was inherently mathematical, that mathematics was the language of nature, and that mathematics was the key to understanding the reality behind the appearance of natural phenomena -- for example, accelerated and parabolic motions. What Galileo achieved in revolutionizing physics was to show how observation, careful measurement, and attention to the structure of a given event -- all led to an appreciation of hidden causes that ultimately expressed the pervasive mathematical unity of all nature. But Galileo was not the first to have done this, although in terms of astronomy and physics he was clearly a pioneer. But Renaissance artists -- painters, sculptors and architects -- had been observing nature with a special interest in depicting it faithfully, realistically, from the early 15th century on. In fact, by turning to the problem of art and science in the Renaissance, it is possible to find what I believe are important roots for Galileo's own peculiarly realistic -- and idealistic -- approach to nature. For the values and attitudes Galileo held were ones he shared with Italian humanists -- including philosophers, artisans, even musicians. The question, now, is to determine what those values were, the important ones for |
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increase 1776
Joined: 07 Oct 2000
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Location: Bizzaro World |
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Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:46 am
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That was a lot to digest.No pun intended.If a young mother ,under 20,with 4 or 5 kids lost track of which ones had been vacinated for schools there could be hell to pay .Wonder what would happen ,if at a pre-school age, a child was mistakenly vaccinated multiple times for the same disease.Like two mumps,two chicken pox,etc.If the parent had been moving from town to town quite frequently and lost track it could happen.Could it happen? The results would be deadly,yes.Thanks again to EVERYONE.
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"The police are not here to create disorder.
The police are here to preserve disorder." Mayor Richard Daley |
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increase 1776
Joined: 07 Oct 2000
Posts: 3097
Location: Bizzaro World |
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Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:31 am
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Not getting off topic here.
Polio Vaccine Dangers Revealed
http://www.thelancet.com/journal
LANCET Volume 364, Number 9432
31 July 2004
The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey
Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed Debbie Bookchin, Jim Schumacher. St Martin's Press, 2004. Pp 380.
ISBN 0-31-227872-1.
On any list of medical triumphs of the 20th century, polio vaccination is sure to rate a mention. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the shot and sugar-cube vaccines of Jonas Salk, and later Albert Sabin, offered people the first opportunities to protect themselves from a scourge as feared in its day as AIDS is in our own.
Few back then grasped that these vaccines might also be a huge,
inadvertent, uncontrolled experiment in interspecies viral transmission. But from 1955 to 1963, according to a 1976 US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study, 98 million Americans alone probably were exposed to polio vaccines contaminated with SV40--a monkey virus that can cause cancers in animals. Now, a July 7 report in New Scientist has raised fears that hundreds of millions of eastern Europeans, Asians, and Africans also may have been exposed to SV40 in Soviet-made polio vaccines. Michele Carbone of Loyola University Medical Center, Chicago, USA, announced at the 2004 Vaccine Cell Substrates meeting (Rockville, MD) that the Soviet vaccine could have been contaminated until the 1980s. This is worrying since, despite 44 years of medical debate, epidemiological studies have yet to establish conclusively whether SV40 has or hasn't caused cancers in people.
When Salk developed his vaccine, instead of using human tissues, as did the scientists who won a Nobel Prize for first growing poliovirus in tissue culture, he used minced-up rhesus macaque monkey kidneys, which were remarkably efficient poliovirus factories. Those who sought to supplant Salk's formaldehyde-inactivated vaccine with live, attenuated oral vaccine also used monkey kidney cultures. Despite a manufacturing problem that, at best, left six children who received the vaccine paralysed in the arm, and despite concerns about wild simian viruses, Salk's shots were declared safe and effective after 1954 field trials. The next year, after grudging approval by sceptical government regulators, free Salk shots were made available throughout the USA.
By 1960, scientists and vaccine manufacturers knew that monkey kidneys were sewers of simian viruses. Such contamination often spoiled cultures, including those of an NIH researcher named Bernice Eddy, who worked on vaccine safety. In 1959, fresh from co-reporting that the mouse polyoma virus could cause cancer in other animals, Eddy tested the rhesus monkey kidney substrate used to make polio vaccine. She injected 154 newborn hamsters with extracts of the cell cultures: 109 developed tumours. Next, she ground up three of the tumours and injected the residue into other hamsters. The animals receiving injections from two of the three tumours developed cancers. But when Eddy put the substance back into the monkey cell culture, nothing happened, and she couldn't isolate the suspected virus.
In The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed, Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher report that in 1960, when Eddy presented her results to her boss, a polio vaccine champion named Joe Smadel, he was livid and disbelieving: "Its implications--that something in the polio vaccine could cause cancer--was an affront to his career." Her discovery also threatened one of the USA's most important public-health programmes. "By 1960, tens of millions of Americans had been vaccinated against polio, and it was federal health policy that everyone should be vaccinated and continue to receive Salk booster shots."
Eddy tried to get word out to colleagues but was muzzled and stripped of her vaccine regulatory duties and her laboratory. However, two Merck researchers, Ben Sweet and Maurice Hilleman, soon identified the rhesus virus later named SV40--the carcinogenic agent that had eluded Eddy. In 1963, US authorities decided to switch to African green monkeys, which are not natural hosts of SV40, to produce polio vaccine. In the mid-1970s, after limited epidemiological studies, authorities concluded that although SV40 caused cancer in hamsters, it didn't seem to do so in people.
Fast forward to the 1990s: Michele Carbone, then at NIH, was working on how SV40 induces cancers in animals. One of these was mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the pleura thought in people to be caused mainly by asbestos. The orthodoxy held that SV40 didn't cause human cancers. Emboldened by a 1992 NEJM paper that found DNA "footprints" of SV40 in childhood brain tumours, Carbone tested human mesothelioma tumour biopsies at the National Cancer Institute: 60% contained SV40 DNA. In most, the monkey virus was active and producing proteins.
He published his results in Oncogene in May, 1994, but the NIH declined to publicise them. Doubters at NIH developed epidemiological evidence that showed no correlation between people who received potentially contaminated polio vaccines and increased cancer rates. Others suggested that the SV40 DNA was a laboratory contaminant. On the first point, the US Institute of Medicine reviewed all published epidemiological studies of SV40 and found them inconclusive. Meanwhile, Carbone had moved to Loyola University.
There he discovered how SV40 disables tumour suppressor genes in human mesothelioma, and published his results in Nature Medicine in July, 1997. Studies in Italy, Germany, and the USA also showed associations between SV40 and human cancers.
Between 1997 and early 2003, say Bookchin and Schumacher, more than 25 published studies found SV40 in human mesotheliomas; 16 others found the virus in brain and bone cancers, lymphomas, and other cancers and in kidneys and peripheral blood. As of 2003, SV40 had been found in human tumours in 18 developed countries. Bookchin and Schumacher claim that the rates of SV40-positive tumours seem highest in countries that used the greatest amount of contaminated Salk polio vaccine, including the UK, USA, and Italy.
As the SV40 story illustrates, until scientists know that a virus exists in cell cultures, they can't create a test to detect it and thus can't eliminate it from vaccines grown on those cultures. Might other
potentially dangerous simian viruses lurk in primary monkey kidney cultures used for polio vaccines? Such concerns were relieved in January, 2000, when attenuated oral polio vaccine made since the 1950s by Lederle Laboratories on primary monkey kidney cultures was removed from the US market. Since wild-type polio cases had been eradicated in the USA in the mid-1970s, the eight to ten cases of paralysis caused yearly by return to neurovirulence of the live vaccine virus were finally deemed no longer acceptable. The
vaccine was replaced with Aventis Pasteur's killed polio vaccine grown on a well characterised VERO monkey cell line. Thus the odds of further
contamination by unrecognised viruses are thought to have been greatly reduced.
Bookchin and Schumacher complain that since the era of Bernice Eddy the NIH hierarchy has been consistently dismissive of evidence that SV40 from vaccines may have caused human cancers. Officials who had previously said SV40 was harmless were authorised to assess independent research that challenged that conclusion: "Not surprisingly, they reaffirmed their own previous wisdom." Accepting that SV40 is a human carcinogen, they
continue, raises questions about what the government response should be: "A coordinated and extensive search for SV40 in other kinds of tumors,
coupled with far greater efforts to study how the virus causes tumors? A crash SV40 screening program among populations most likely to have been infected? . .
An anti-SV40 vaccination campaign?" The problem, they continue, is that to undertake any of these options the government would have to admit that it should have acted sooner to protect public health.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962) Thomas Kuhn suggests that paradigm shifts don't happen because opponents are converted by evidence, but rather because one generation of investigators and scientific leaders dies and is replaced by another. For credible epidemiological studies confirming whether SV40 from polio vaccines has caused human cancers, we may have to wait until a new generation is put in charge of the USA's health research bureaucracy.
_________________
"The police are not here to create disorder.
The police are here to preserve disorder." Mayor Richard Daley |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
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Thu Aug 05, 2004 12:54 pm
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quote:
Originally posted by increase 1776
That was a lot to digest.No pun intended.
LOL! Information is like water.....No calories, and absolutely essential.
Remember, when cloning happens, and your own Beta Cells are implanted in your pancreas, the Diabetes Industrial Complex (DIC) will grind to a halt. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ will be much, much less.
And since they know that vaccines cause cancer and diabetes, no small wonder that blow hards like Andrew Weil put down wheatgrass and advocate vaccinations. A hack for the pharmaceticals, and I've been follwing him since the early 70's, and you should hear what Gary Null thinks of him, especially towards the AIDS scam. That's another story for another thread.
Mix in religious and mystical fanatics, and you have a virtual halt to the curing of dangerous diseases. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Aug 08, 2004 4:52 am
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This was a heated, but incredibly stimulating thread.
My thanks to all of you.
This has helped me develop a greater appreciation to such debilitating illnesses.
Ive had my share...but nothing like diabetes.
Strep and infected throats seems to be a re-occuring theme for me unfortunately. |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:38 pm
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http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=ns99993508
Bone marrow experiments suggest diabetes cure
Stem cells from bone marrow can transform into insulin-producing cells, scientists have shown, suggesting a future cure for diabetes.
The experiments in mice are the first to show that bone marrow cells can be converted to beta cells. These are the pancreatic cells responsible for producing insulin, the hormone that regulates the body's blood sugar levels.
Transplants of pancreatic cells have been tried between people, but the supplies are restricted and recipients have to take strong anti-rejection medication. Embryonic stem cells have also be converted into insulin-producing cells, but also produce immune-rejection, in addition to ethical concerns.
But taking bone marrow cells from a patient, developing them into beta cells and then reimplanting them would have none of these difficulties. Also, much of the technology for bone marrow transplantation is already well developed, says study leader Mehboob Hussain, at the New York University School of Medicine.
"I am absolutely excited by the potential applications of our findings," he said. "In our body, there is an additional, easily available source of cells that are capable of becoming insulin-producing cells."
Green light
People who suffer diabetes are unable to regulate their body's blood sugar levels. There are two types of the disease. In type 1 diabetes the body's own immune system mistakenly destroys the beta cells which are crucial in producing insulin. In type 2 diabetes beta cells are present but do not secrete insulin fast enough to maintain normal blood sugar control.
The experiments of Hussain and his colleagues set out to show that bone marrow cells could become beta cells. To do this, they extracted bone marrow cells from male mice and injected them into the tail veins of female mice, in which the male cell would be easy to detect. The females had been exposed to radiation to destroy their bone marrow and beta cell function.
In addition, the team engineered the genes of the male cells to signal that insulin was being produced by making a green fluorescent protein. After four to six weeks, the team found glowing green cells in the females' pancreases.
However, Hussain noted that only between 1.7 and 3.0 per cent of the beta cells in the pancreas came from the bone marrow stem cells. A level between 10 and15 per cent would be needed to cure diabetes, he says, and the team's ongoing experiments have come close to this.
Markus Stoffel and Vivian Lee, diabetes experts from the Rockfeller University, New York, say the study is "elegant". The potential of bone marrow cells to avoid immune rejection problems is the greatest advantage, they say. |
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increase 1776
Joined: 07 Oct 2000
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Location: Bizzaro World |
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Tue Aug 10, 2004 2:11 pm
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This sounds very promising.I hope this guy gets to finish his good work.
_________________
"The police are not here to create disorder.
The police are here to preserve disorder." Mayor Richard Daley |
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CDsNuTz
Joined: 16 Jul 2004
Posts: 950
Location: Down the hill a bit |
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Sat Aug 21, 2004 3:27 am
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Dialysis may have spread West Nile
By Reuters | August 20, 2004
MIAMI -- Two people who contracted West Nile virus in Georgia may have acquired the deadly infection while undergoing dialysis treatment, US health officials said yesterday.
The infections, which occurred last year, were suspicious because the two men were treated on the same dialysis machine on the same day, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A third person who received dialysis on the same day showed exposure to the virus at some point in the past. One of the patients, a 60-year-old man with a history of diabetes, hypertension, and prostate cancer, subsequently died.
"One or more of these dialysis patients might have acquired West Nile virus infection at the dialysis center through an undetected breach in infection control procedures or outside the dialysis center from the bite of an infected mosquito," the report said.
Although outbreaks of infectious diseases surface from time to time in dialysis clinics, investigators in Georgia could find no evidence that this occurred in the medical center that treated the patients in southern Georgia. But they could not rule it out, so state investigators consulted with the CDC on the matter and together they produced a report.
Blood from three others treated on the same machine around the same time tested negative for West Nile. No infections have surfaced in other dialysis patients.
The report cautioned hospitals and medical centers offering dialysis to make sure that their machines, needles, and other devices were adequately cleaned before and after each patient was treated.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/20/dialysis_may_have_spread_west_nile/ |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:41 pm
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Sort of reminds me of how many people get cancer from biopsies. When the cancer is localized it may not spread, but it it spread when the sample is taken. |
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CDsNuTz
Joined: 16 Jul 2004
Posts: 950
Location: Down the hill a bit |
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Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:27 pm
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Im putting this here because on page 2 there was mention of teflon.
Hidden Risks of Teflon-Like Chemical Raised by Documents, Says Company Insider
November 17, 2005 — By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee.
The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person's body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to decide whether to classify PFOA as a "likely" human carcinogen. The Food and Drug Administration, in a letter released Wednesday evening by DuPont, said it was continuing to monitor the safety of PFOA chemicals in food.
The DuPont documents were made public Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.
At the same time, a former DuPont chemical engineer, Glenn Evers, told reporters at a news conference at EWG's office that the company long suppressed its studies on the chemical.
"They are toxic," Evers said of the PFOA chemicals. "They get into human blood. And they are also in every one of you. Your loved ones, your fellow citizens."
From 1981 to 2002, Evers helped DuPont develop new products. He lost his job in 2002 in what DuPont described as a company restructuring.
Evers had a different view: "It is my belief DuPont pushed me out of the company" because he started raising concerns about the chemicals' safety.
Evers said he decided to talk publicly about the PFOA problem after filing a civil suit against DuPont this month in a Delaware court. Evers' aim is mainly to "set the record straight" about the chemical and his own career, said Herb Feuerhake, Evers' lawyer.
But Evers said he also hoped to influence the outcome of an EPA hearing later this month on whether DuPont had withheld from EPA the study on PFOA and possible birth defects. The company could be fined millions of dollars.
After EWG tracked down Evers -- who had provided expert, unpaid testimony in two lawsuits against DuPont -- the 47-year-old Delaware resident said he talked it over with his priest, who told him, "`You can't dance with the devil.'"
DuPont denied allegations that PFOA posed a health risk, saying the Food and Drug Administration had approved the products for consumers.
"These products are safe for consumer use," the company said in a statement. "FDA has approved these materials for consumer use since the late 1960s, and DuPont has always complied with all FDA regulations and standards regarding these products."
The company said Evers "had little if any direct involvement in PFOA issues while employed at DuPont. ... Evers expressed a wide range of personal opinions that are inaccurate, counter to FDA's findings, and which DuPont strongly disputes."
The environmental group on Wednesday gave the FDA and the EPA copies of DuPont-sponsored internal studies indicating higher dangers from Zonyl than the government knew, including its ability to migrate into the food.
One of the documents, a 1987 memo, cites laboratory tests showing the chemical came off paper coating and leached into foods at levels three times higher than the FDA limit set in 1967. Another document, a 1973 Dupont study in which rats and dogs were fed Zonyl for 90 days, said both types of animals had anemia and damage to their kidneys and livers; the dogs had higher cholesterol levels.
"What makes this worse is that DuPont knew at that time that Zonyl breakdown-products, such as PFOA, in food were very persistent in the environment and were contaminating human blood, including the fetal cord blood of babies born to DuPont female employees," EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles wrote to FDA and EPA officials.
Wiles asked the agencies to determine whether DuPont should be penalized for withholding the studies. Last year, based on another DuPont document that the environmental group obtained, EPA alleged the company had repeatedly failed over a 20-year period to submit required data about PFOA. The document referred to a study that suggested possible links between PFOA and birth defects in infants.
EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said Wednesday the agency "has an extensive effort under way to determine the sources of PFOA, how the public is being exposed, and whether these exposures pose a potential health risk."
Evers' decision to go public with his concerns may have already had an impact.
In August, he told a Mississippi court that all three of DuPont's U.S. plants were releasing "massive amounts" of dioxin -- a class of organic chemicals that EPA studies have shown pose a possible cancer risk in humans. In that case, an oyster fisherman who claimed dioxin from a DuPont plant caused his rare blood cancer was awarded $14 million in actual damages and his wife received $1.5 million.
He also testified last year in a West Virginia case in which DuPont agreed to a $107.6 million settlement of a class-action suit. Residents around a plant near Parkersburg, W.Va., had said that PFOA contaminated their drinking water supplies. DuPont also remains the target of another class-action suit over PFOA seeking $5 billion.
Source: Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9275
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CDsNuTz
Joined: 16 Jul 2004
Posts: 950
Location: Down the hill a bit |
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Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:27 pm
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Im putting this here because on page 2 there was mention of teflon.
Hidden Risks of Teflon-Like Chemical Raised by Documents, Says Company Insider
November 17, 2005 — By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee.
The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person's body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to decide whether to classify PFOA as a "likely" human carcinogen. The Food and Drug Administration, in a letter released Wednesday evening by DuPont, said it was continuing to monitor the safety of PFOA chemicals in food.
The DuPont documents were made public Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.
At the same time, a former DuPont chemical engineer, Glenn Evers, told reporters at a news conference at EWG's office that the company long suppressed its studies on the chemical.
"They are toxic," Evers said of the PFOA chemicals. "They get into human blood. And they are also in every one of you. Your loved ones, your fellow citizens."
From 1981 to 2002, Evers helped DuPont develop new products. He lost his job in 2002 in what DuPont described as a company restructuring.
Evers had a different view: "It is my belief DuPont pushed me out of the company" because he started raising concerns about the chemicals' safety.
Evers said he decided to talk publicly about the PFOA problem after filing a civil suit against DuPont this month in a Delaware court. Evers' aim is mainly to "set the record straight" about the chemical and his own career, said Herb Feuerhake, Evers' lawyer.
But Evers said he also hoped to influence the outcome of an EPA hearing later this month on whether DuPont had withheld from EPA the study on PFOA and possible birth defects. The company could be fined millions of dollars.
After EWG tracked down Evers -- who had provided expert, unpaid testimony in two lawsuits against DuPont -- the 47-year-old Delaware resident said he talked it over with his priest, who told him, "`You can't dance with the devil.'"
DuPont denied allegations that PFOA posed a health risk, saying the Food and Drug Administration had approved the products for consumers.
"These products are safe for consumer use," the company said in a statement. "FDA has approved these materials for consumer use since the late 1960s, and DuPont has always complied with all FDA regulations and standards regarding these products."
The company said Evers "had little if any direct involvement in PFOA issues while employed at DuPont. ... Evers expressed a wide range of personal opinions that are inaccurate, counter to FDA's findings, and which DuPont strongly disputes."
The environmental group on Wednesday gave the FDA and the EPA copies of DuPont-sponsored internal studies indicating higher dangers from Zonyl than the government knew, including its ability to migrate into the food.
One of the documents, a 1987 memo, cites laboratory tests showing the chemical came off paper coating and leached into foods at levels three times higher than the FDA limit set in 1967. Another document, a 1973 Dupont study in which rats and dogs were fed Zonyl for 90 days, said both types of animals had anemia and damage to their kidneys and livers; the dogs had higher cholesterol levels.
"What makes this worse is that DuPont knew at that time that Zonyl breakdown-products, such as PFOA, in food were very persistent in the environment and were contaminating human blood, including the fetal cord blood of babies born to DuPont female employees," EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles wrote to FDA and EPA officials.
Wiles asked the agencies to determine whether DuPont should be penalized for withholding the studies. Last year, based on another DuPont document that the environmental group obtained, EPA alleged the company had repeatedly failed over a 20-year period to submit required data about PFOA. The document referred to a study that suggested possible links between PFOA and birth defects in infants.
EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said Wednesday the agency "has an extensive effort under way to determine the sources of PFOA, how the public is being exposed, and whether these exposures pose a potential health risk."
Evers' decision to go public with his concerns may have already had an impact.
In August, he told a Mississippi court that all three of DuPont's U.S. plants were releasing "massive amounts" of dioxin -- a class of organic chemicals that EPA studies have shown pose a possible cancer risk in humans. In that case, an oyster fisherman who claimed dioxin from a DuPont plant caused his rare blood cancer was awarded $14 million in actual damages and his wife received $1.5 million.
He also testified last year in a West Virginia case in which DuPont agreed to a $107.6 million settlement of a class-action suit. Residents around a plant near Parkersburg, W.Va., had said that PFOA contaminated their drinking water supplies. DuPont also remains the target of another class-action suit over PFOA seeking $5 billion.
Source: Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9275
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HELLO ME,MEET THE REAL ME........... |
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