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Concerns About MRSA
by Carrie Lazarus
The four letter word on everyone’s lips in Central New York
and across the country right now is MRSA. It’s not actually
a word, it stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
It’s a staph infection that’s resistant
to some antibiotics. The majority of cases occur in healthcare
settings, but as we’re learning this week, the infection
can spread in communities, especially schools. Cases have been
reported in the Syracuse, Liverpool, Oswego, Marcellus and East
Syracuse school districts.
Should we be alarmed? I asked that question
of Dr. Shelly Gilroy, an infectious disease specialist at Crouse
hospital. Her answer; no, we don’t need to be alarmed,
but we should be aware of MRSA.
MRSA is spread by skin to skin contact or by
touching an object touched by someone with MRSA. The skin infection
looks like a pimple or boil, but it tends to be more red and
swollen with pus or discharge and gets worse over time. Anything
like this should be checked out by a doctor. MRSA can be treated
with some antibiotics, but it is resistant to some of the most
common medicines such as penicillin.
The best protection against MRSA is hand washing.
At home, soap and water will do the job. Away from home, use
antibacterial hand washes with at least 60% ethyl alcohol. Because
the MRSA bacteria can live on objects for up to 3 days, sports
equipment, uniforms and towels should be washed after each use
and personal objects such as razors should not be shared.
The Journal of the American Medical Association
reported this week that MRSA is far more common than anyone
thought; affecting more than 94,000 Americans. It can be extremely
dangerous for people with weakened immune systems. That's why
hospitals here in Central New York and across the country have
been working hard to control the spread of MRSA. Crouse hospital
has an entire floor where all MRSA patients are treated. I was
up there on 7 Memorial earlier this week and the doctors tell
me it's helped to contain the staph infection.
For most people though, MRSA is not life
threatening, but it is definitely on the increase. That's why
it's important for all of us to learn about how to protect ourselves
and others. The more this spreads, the greater the chance that
we’ll run out of antibiotics that can treat it. Stay tuned.
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Healthcare Choice Is A Right of the People Secured by Common Law
by BenTaylor
How to best care for our health, whether with
mainstream “medicine” or by means of supplement,
nutrition, or any other method that one deems proper and best
is a Right secured by Common Law for each individual American
Man and Woman. The healthcare war that is being waged today
between the FDA, their puppet masters, The Pharma-Industrial
Complex and the People is not new to western culture, nor is
the use of courts by an organized group to force their tyranny
upon others. Groups advocating monopolies for their "select
and enlightened clicks" have been at work for centuries
trying to steal the Right of healthcare choice from the People.
A friend of mine doing healthcare freedom research sent this
to me recently and I thought that it was something all Americans
needed to know and be prepared to use in court. The following
is from English Common Law which by reference was invoked and
accepted into the Common Law of the several American States.
According to Ralph Fucetola, JD, “When the American Colonies
declared their independence as Sovereign States, in July, 1776,
they each adopted the Laws of England as the Common Law of the
State. Among the Laws of England so adopted is the Herbalist's
Charter, an Act of Henry the Eighth (in the Eighth Year of his
reign). It is astonishing to note that many of the issues confronting
alternative practitioners today are the same issues which the
Act of Parliament addressed. In the Sixteenth Century, as in
the Twentieth Century, licensed physicians and surgeons were
going to Court to ban the activities of the alternative practitioners
of their day, the herbalists. Parliament ordered an end to this
misuse of the Courts to enforce licensure, protecting the nutritionists
from "suit, vexation, trouble, penalty, or loss of their
goods..." This ancient Act of Parliament applied to England
and the King's "other dominions" including, of course,
the American Colonies, and later, States. This Act has never
been repealed, and thus remains part of our Common Law to this
day, offering protection to alternative practitioners, "at
all Time from henceforth..." as a perpetual Charter of
Rights.”
This Charter is referenced on PubMedCentral at:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=31729
The text of the Charter reads:
Herbalist's Charter of Henry the VIII, 1543 A.D.
"An Act that Persons, Being No Common Surgeons, May Administer
Outward Medicines”
"Where in the Parliament holden at Westminster in the third
Year of the King's most gracious Reign, amongst other Things,
for the avoiding of Sorceries, Witchcrafts and other Inconveniences,
it was enacted, that no Person within the City of London, nor
within Seven Miles of the same, should take upon him to exercise
and occupy as Physician or Surgeon, except he be first examined,
approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London and other, under
and upon certain Pains and Penalties in the same Act mentioned;
"Sithence the making of which said Act, the Company and
Fellowship of Surgeons of London, minding only their own Lucres
and nothing the Profit or ease of the Diseased or Patient, have
sued, troubled and vexed divers honest Persons, as well as Men
and Women, whom God hath endued with the Knowledge of the Nature,
Kind and Operation of certain Herbs, Roots and Waters, and the
using and ministering of them to such as been pained with customable
Diseases, as Women's Breasts beings sore, a Pin and the Web
in the Eye, Uncomis of Hands, Burnings, Scaldings, Sore Mouths,
the Stone, Strangury, Saucelim and Morphew, and such other like
Diseases; and yet the said Persons have not taken anything for
their Pains or Cunning, but have ministered the same to poor
People only for Neighborhood and God's sake, and of Pity and
Charity:
"And it is now well known that the Surgeons admitted will
do no Cure to any Person but where they shall be rewarded with
a greater Sum or Reward that the Cure extendeth unto; for in
the case they would minister the Cunning unto sore People unrewarded,
there should not so many rot and perish to death for Lack or
Help of Surgery as daily do; but the greatest part of Surgeons
admitted been much more to be blamed than those Persons that
they troubled, for although the most Part of the Persons of
the said Craft of Surgeons have small Cunning yet they will
take great sums of Money, and do little therefore, and by Reason
thereof they do oftentimes impair and hurt their Patients, rather
than do them good.
"In consideration whereof, and for the Ease, Comfort, Succour,
Help, Relief and Health of the King's poor Subjects, Inhabitants
of this Realm, now pained or diseased:
"Be it ordained, established and enacted, by Authority
of this present Parliament, That at all Time from henceforth
it shall be lawful to every Person being the King's subject,
having Knowledge and Experience of the Nature of Herbs, Roots
and Waters, or of the Operation of the same, by Speculation
or Practice, within any part of the Realm of England, or within
any other the King's Dominions, to practice, use and minister
in and to any outward Sore, Uncome Wound, Aposelmations, outward
Swelling or Disease, any Herb or Herbs, Ointments, Baths, Pultess,
and Emplaisters, according to their Cunning, Experience and
Knowledge in any of the Diseases, Sorea and Maladies beforesaid,
and all other like to the same, or Drinks for the Stone, Strangury
or Agues, without suit, vexation, trouble, penalty or loss of
their goods;
"The foresaid Statute in the foresaid Third Year of the
King's most gracious Reign, or any other Act, Ordinance or Statues
the contrary heretofore made in anywise, not withstanding."
Know your Rights or you will not know what is being pillaged
from you by others and your own “government”.
Here I stand, by God’s grace,
Ben Taylor
http://content.herbalgram.org/wholefoodsmarket/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=546&p=Y
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No, the problem is the way the game is rigged against our health
by Tony Isaacs author
of Cancer's
Natural Enemy
As I recall, Vioxx "legally"
made those kind of claims because they did go through "randomized,
double blind, placebo-controlled trials to prove effectiveness,
data published in peer-reviewed journals". Their product
was soon found to be a killer and the FDA you say is so essential
let it remain on the market until over 60,000 deaths had been
attributed to it - more than we lost in Vietnam and many times
more than all the deaths attributed to supplements in the history
of our country.
And the sorry SOB's at Merck decided to fight
every single claim in court, arguing that if there was even
a 10 percent chance that something else could have caused a
death, then it could not be determined beyond a shadow of a
doubt that Vioxx was to blame. So far, they have not paid out
a single dime in damages. There is your darling FDA, FDA approved
safe drug and a drug manufacturer who plays by "the rules"
for you.
The mainstream line that you parrot sounds so
reasonable until you realize just how the rules have been rigged
to suppress dietary supplements and force our money and our
lives into the lab created medicines and lifetimes of managed
illness that is Big Pharma and mainstream western medicine.
Did you even bother to look at the Rain Forest
Plant Database entry for Bitter Melon? Just in case you missed
it, I will copy it for you below. What more proof, and how many
more studies could anyone possibly want - except those that
wish to use the rules to suppress natural competition of the
things we encounter in nature.
"Double-blind, placebo controlled studies
in peer reviewed journals" didn't do squat for a long line
of FDA approved killers. That is just using the rules and the
game, such as the many hundred million dollars it takes to get
a "new drug' through trials, which all the FDA approved
killers did because they have the money to do so and can get
a patent and sole control on unnatural substances - and, given
the track record, be assured that their FDA lapdogs will approve
them and leave them on the market long enough to reap billions
of dollars of profits regardless of the death toll.
Dietary supplements are not supposed to be treated
as drugs! They are made up by and large from natural botanicals,
vitamins and mineralsthings we have lived with for hundreds
of thousands of years, not some lab created monstrosity that
is unnatural to put in our bodies. That is why the DSHEA made
them dietary supplements - so they could be treated as FOOD!
If the problem was merely claims, then why does
the FDA allow other food items to make such claims and use the
disclaimer, as provided by law, and yet not allow dietary supplements
to do the same thing, as also provided by law the FDA chooses
to selectively enforce? Except things like cherries - far too
natural, I guess and not nearly as highly processed and genetically
modified as the foods that have been allowed to use the exception.
The law is rigged. And yes there is a reason
why the FDA exists. Let's hear that reason as given by the last
FDA commissioner to stand up to pressure from the industry to
approve unsafe drugs and to suppress natural alternatives:
"The FDA 'protects' the big drug companies
and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government's police
powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies.
People think that the FDA is protecting them.
It isn't.
What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks
it is doing are as different as night and day."
Dr. Herbert Ley
Former U.S. FDA Commissioner
Corrupt FDA employees? No, by and large many
of the lower level employees believe that what they are doing
is right. Like most corrupt organizations, it is the ones at
the top that are corrupt, having been bought off by gifts and
promised of lucrative future jobs by those they are supposed
to oversee.
Speaking of foods, when the drug makers
are able to to make their lab created unnatural drugs as safe
as our natural supplements, then come back and demand that they
meet the same failed standards. Until then, don't try to feed
us any more mainline crap, because we aren't swallowing it!
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Safety of New Drugs Cannot
Be Known for Many Years
Twenty Percent Ultimately Found to Have Life-Threatening Adverse
Effects, Harvard and Public Citizen Find
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Twenty percent of all new
drugs are found to have serious or life-threatening adverse
effects unknown or undisclosed at the time of drug approval,
according to a study to be published tomorrow in the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The study, by researchers at Harvard Medical
School and Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization,
found that half of these serious adverse effects are detected
within seven years after a drug is first introduced onto the
market. Damage to the liver, heart and bone marrow, as well
as pregnancy risks, are the most common problems that arise
after new drugs are introduced.
Sixteen drugs were withdrawn from the market
over the 25-year study period; half of those withdrawals took
place within two years of a drug's introduction. The study
also analyzed drug entries in the Physicians' Desk Reference
(PDR), the most common source of drug information for doctors.
The authors examined 26 volumes of the PDR, from 1975-2000,
to determine how many drugs were found to have new serious
adverse effects that were not known when the drug was first
released. The study authors found that the estimated probability
of acquiring a new black box warning or being withdrawn from
the market over 25 years was 20 percent.
"This study will change the way I talk
to patients about the use of new drugs," said Dr. Karen
Lasser, study author and primary care doctor and researcher
at Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "If
there is a safer, effective drug that has been in use for
a number of years, I would strongly recommend it over a newer
drug whose safety profile is unknown. I would prescribe a
new drug only when absolutely necessary, and then watch for
adverse effects very, very closely."
Prescription drug adverse effects are a major
public health problem. "Twenty million patients, almost
10 percent of the U.S. population, were exposed to the five
drugs withdrawn from the market between September 1997 and
September 1998," said Dr. Paul Allen, study co-author,
an internal medicine specialist at Cambridge Hospital and
Harvard Medical School. "Yet the drug companies push
the public and doctors to use new drugs that are more profitable
but also more dangerous."
The authors recommend that the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) not approve new drugs that are found
to have safety problems in premarketing trials, especially
when safer, equally effective therapies already exist, or
when a new drug treats a benign condition.
"For many years, we have recommended
to doctors and patients not to use new drugs until they have
been on the market for at least five years, unless the drug
is an important advance over existing treatments, which is
rarely the case," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of
Public Citizen's Health Research Group and study co-author.
"This study provides much more extensive evidence for
this cautious approach to treating patients."
The other study authors (Drs. Steffie Woolhandler,
David Himmelstein and David Bor) are associate professors
of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
