Kambô: Nature’s Vaccine For The Mind And Body

Kambo

“Kambô circulates in the heart. Our shaman said that when we take kambô it makes the heart move accurately, so that things flow, bringing good things to the person. It is as if there was a cloud on the person, preventing the good things to come, then, when it takes the kambô; it comes a ‘green light’ which opens its ways, making things easier.” — from “Kambô, The Spirit of the Shaman” by Professor Marcelo Bolshaw Gomes

Kambô is a resin secreted from the back of a large green jungle frog, given the name Phyllomedusa bicolor for classification, but more commonly known as the giant waxy monkey tree frog. It’s found in the southern Amazon, across the countries of Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

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5 Harmful Myths We Need to Stop Telling About LSD

LSD2

First synthesized by chemist Albert Hofmann in 1938, lysergic acid diethlamide, commonly known as LSD, remains one of the most spectacularly sensationalized and popularly misunderstood drugs.

Capable of inducing intense sensory hallucinations and provoking overpowering (and sometimes unpleasant) reflections about the nature of reality, this powerful drug has only recently won recognition for its potential role in psychotherapy and medicine.

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If Your DOCTOR INSISTS THAT VACCINES ARE SAFE … Then MAKE THEM SIGN THIS FORM

Vaccine-Danger The average person that consents to a vaccine injection, either for themselves or for their children, genuinely believes it is for the betterment of health. What they are not aware of is that even their doctor is likely unfamiliar with the toxic ingredients contained in vaccines which can immediately begin to degrade both short- and long-term health. If your doctor insists that vaccines are safe, then they should have absolutely no problem in signing this form so that you may archive it for your own records on the event of an adverse reaction. Continue reading

List of dangerous antidepressants that cause sudden death is rapidly expanding

sudden deathThe list of antidepressants that can cause sudden death is growing exponentially, with citalopram - under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil - the latest such drug to be added, according to a new study.

The research, published recently in the British Medical Journal, revealed that the drug tends to cause a lengthening of the Q-T interval, a part of the cycle of heart beat measured by an electrocardiogram, or what is more commonly known as an EKG or ECG. Indeed, a number of drugs are known for creating this phenomenon, the most notable among them being methadone, which has been documented as causing sudden death in some patients, especially when dosages are increased too rapidly.

“There are no symptoms indicating a risk. A perfectly normal person will literally drop dead,” writes Heidi Stevenson at GaiaHealth.com.

A silent killer

The heartbeat is regulated by a series of electrical pulses, and key points of the pattern printed on an EKG are labeled P, Q, R, S, T. If the time between the Q and T waves is lengthened, it is referred to as “Q-T elongation,” or a prolonged Q-T segment; the only way to know if it is occurring; however, is with an EKG.

“There are generally no external clues, so outside of testing, you would have no way of knowing that you’ve been affected,” Stevenson writes.

Researchers, in their report, were specific about the risk of sudden death associated with Celexa; the larger the dose, the greater the risk. Also, they noted that the Food and Drug Administration has said, “Citalopram causes dose-dependent QT interval prolongation. Citalopram should no longer be prescribed at doses greater than 40 mg per day.”

That claim is supported in Medscape’s drug reference for citalopram. “Doses above 40 mg/day are not recommended because of risk for QT prolongation without additional benefit for treating depression,” says the reference.

In performing their study, researchers examined 38,397 adults who were either taking an antidepressant or methadone at some time between February 1990 and August 2011, a period of more than two decades. Antidepressants taken during that period by the patients involved in the study include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), amitriptyline, bupropion (Zyban), duloxetine (Cymbalta), mirtazapine (Remeron), nortriptyline, and venlafaxine (Effexor).

Each participant received an EKG 14-90 days after they had taken their prescribed medication. Researchers found that all antidepressants affect the A-T interval in some manner, though methadone affected it more significantly by a great amount.

In one drug, however - bupropion (Zyban) - had the opposite effect. The Q-T interval was shortened. But a shorter Q-T interval, by comparison, can also cause heart arrhythmias and fainting, conditions which can also lead to sudden death.

Earlier research found a similar connection

The worst antidepressants - those which lengthened the Q-T interval the most, on average - were citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), and amitriptyline, researchers said. Overall, one in five subjects taking these drugs experienced abnormal EKGs, and specifically longer Q-T intervals. Researchers said the clinical significance of these findings; however, is as yet unknown.

Writes Stevenson:

We do know that an extended QT interval can result in sudden death. In reality, this doesn’t happen often - though no one can quantify the frequency of death. So, it seems that the only ethical approach is to inform people of the potential risk of sudden death by taking these drugs.

But we already know that genuine informed consent almost never happens. People are routinely told that the risk is minimal and the specifics are not stated. Ultimately, though, the only one who lives the results are the person inside your own skin.

Earlier research also found that antidepressants caused a lengthening of the Q-T interval. In 2004, Dr. Dan M. Roden, of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, said that, in the previous decade, “the single most common cause of the withdrawal or restriction of the use of drugs that have already been marketed has been the prolongation of the QT interval,” which can be “fatal.”

Sources:

http://gaia-health.com

http://reference.medscape.com/drug/celexa-citalopram-342958

http://www.courses.ahc.umn.edu

 

 

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/040433_antidepressants_sudden_death_drug_list.html#ixzz2U2PsKXPP

Tommy Chong claims cannabis helped cure his prostate cancer

 

Tommy Chong screenshot

 

Comedian and stoner Tommy Chong says ‘I kicked cancer’s ass!’ with a variety of treatments including diet and supplements

 

Tommy Chong, the veteran star of the dope-fuelled Cheech and Chong films, says he has beaten prostate cancer with a combination of cannabis use and a special diet.

 

Chong, 74, was diagnosed with cancer in June last year following a three-year period in which he said he had been drug free. He now says he is 99% free of the disease after a Canadian doctor helped him change his diet to include a variety of special supplements, as well as hemp oil. He then sat for a number of sessions with a practitioner named Adam Dreamhealer, described as a “world-renowned healer”.

 

“That’s right, I kicked cancer’s ass!” Chong wrote on the website CelebStoner.com. “So the magic plant does cure cancer with the right diet and supplements. I’m due for another blood test, MRI, etc, but I feel the best I’ve felt in years. And now for a celebration joint of the finest Kush …”

 

Together with collaborator Cheech Marin, Chong starred in eight films between 1971 and 1985, including the pair’s classic debut Up in Smoke. During that period the duo also released eight albums, three of which hit the US top 10. The duo split in the mid-80s, but began touring together again in 2008.

 

US doctors cure child born with HIV

(Refreshing News) Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.

The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe.
Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.
Doctors did not release the name or sex of the child to protect the patient’s identity, but said the infant was born, and lived, in Mississippi state. Details of the case were unveiled on Sunday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.
Dr Hannah Gay, who cared for the child at the University of Mississippi medical centre, told the Guardian the case amounted to the first “functional cure” of an HIV-infected child. A patient is functionally cured of HIV when standard tests are negative for the virus, but it is likely that a tiny amount remains in their body.
“Now, after at least one year of taking no medicine, this child’s blood remains free of virus even on the most sensitive tests available,” Gay said.
“We expect that this baby has great chances for a long, healthy life. We are certainly hoping that this approach could lead to the same outcome in many other high-risk babies,” she added.
The number of babies born with HIV in developed countries has fallen dramatically with the advent of better drugs and prevention strategies. Typically, women with HIV are given antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy to minimise the amount of virus in their blood. Their newborns go on courses of drugs too, to reduce their risk of infection further. The strategy can stop around 98% of HIV transmission from mother to child.
In the UK and Ireland, around 1,200 children are living with HIV they picked up in the womb, during birth, or while being breastfed. If an infected mother’s placenta is healthy, the virus tends not to cross into the child earlier in pregnancy, but can in labour and delivery.
The problem is far more serious in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, around 387,500 children aged 14 and under were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2010. Many were born with the infection. Nearly 2 million more children of the same age in the region are in need of the drugs.
In the latest case, the mother was unaware she had HIV until after a standard test came back positive while she was in labour. “She was too near delivery to give even the dose of medicine that we routinely use in labour. So the baby’s risk of infection was significantly higher than we usually see,” said Gay.
Doctors began treating the baby 30 hours after birth. Unusually, they put the child on a course of three antiretroviral drugs, given as liquids through a syringe. The traditional treatment to try to prevent transmission after birth is a course of a single antiretroviral drug. The doctor opted for the more aggressive treatment because the mother had not received any during her pregnancy.
Several days later, blood drawn from the baby before treatment started showed the child was infected, probably shortly before birth. The doctors continued with the drugs and expected the child to take them for life.
However, within a month of starting therapy, the level of HIV in the baby’s blood had fallen so low that routine lab tests failed to detect it.
The mother and baby continued regular clinic visits to the clinic for the next year, but then began to miss appointments, and eventually stopped attending all together. The child had no medication from the age of 18 months, and did not see doctors again until it was nearly two years old.
“We did not see this child at all for a period of about five months,” Gay told the Guardian. “When they did return to care aged 23 months, I fully expected that the baby would have a high viral load.”
When the mother and child arrived back at the clinic, Gay ordered several HIV tests, and expected the virus to have returned to high levels. But she was stunned by the results. “All of the tests came back negative, very much to my surprise,” she said.
The case was so extraordinary, Dr Gay called a colleague, Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at Massachusetts Medical School, who with another scientist, Deborah Persaud at Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre in Baltimore, had far more sensitive blood tests to hand. They checked the baby’s blood and found traces of HIV, but no viruses that were capable of multiplying.
The team believe the child was cured because the treatment was so potent and given swiftly after birth. The drugs stopped the virus from replicating in short-lived, active immune cells, but another effect was crucial. The drugs also blocked the infection of other, long-lived white blood cells, called CD4, which can harbour HIV for years. These CD4 cells behave like hideouts, and can replace HIV that is lost when active immune cells die.
The treatment would not work in older children or adults because the virus will have already infected their CD4 cells.
“Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without lifelong treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place,” said Dr Persaud. “Our next step is to find out if this is a highly unusual response to very early antiretroviral therapy or something we can actually replicate in other high-risk newborns.”
Children infected with HIV are given antiretroviral drugs with the intent to treat them for life, and Gay warned that anyone who takes the drugs must remain on them.
“It is far too early for anyone to try stopping effective therapy just to see if the virus comes back,” she said.
Until scientists better understand how they cured the child, Gay emphasised that prevention is the most reliable way to stop babies contracting the virus from infected mothers. “Prevention really is the best cure, and we already have proven strategies that can prevent 98% of newborn infections by identifying and treating HIV-positive women,” she said.
Genevieve Edwards, a spokesperson for the Terrence Higgins Trust HIV/Aids charity, said: “This is an interesting case, but I don’t think it has implications for the antenatal screening programme in the UK, because it already takes steps to ensure that 98% to 99% of babies born to HIV-positive mothers are born without HIV.”

U.S. sicker than rest of developed world—nutrition industry speaks out


(New Hope 360) A new report released last month found that Americans are unhealthier than 16 other developed countries.

The report, which was compiled by the National Research Council and the Institutes of Medicine, found that, despite the fact that Americans spend the most money per year on healthcare, we’re not healthier or living longer than other countries.

Several factors contribute to U.S. debility, such as a large uninsured population, high consumption of calories, high drug abuse, less use of seatbelts, high levels of poverty, high reliance on cars and low physical activity. No single factor explains the overall status of American health.

Of the health areas studied, Americans ranked worse than other countries in nine categories, including, among others, drug abuse, heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and lung disease.

The study found that U.S. men live the shortest lives of all 16 countries at 76 years, and U.S. women ranked second-to-last at just under 81 years. Americans are more likely to die younger because of illnesses like obesity and heart disease.

“I don’t think most parents know that, on average, infants, children, and adolescents in the U.S. die younger and have greater rates of illness and injury than youth in other countries,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, chair of the panel and of the department of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, according to NBC News.

But there is a silver lining. Americans who live to the age of 75 are expected to live longer than those in the other countries. Not to mention people in the U.S. control blood pressure and cholesterol better and have a lower death rate from cancer.

Does industry have the answer?

The nutrition industry is concerned with the results of this study because of its implications for the world of consumer health and the industry’s interest in improving the well-being and health of the country.

Industry experts Mark LeDoux, chairman and CEO at Natural Alternative International, Inc.; Steve Mister, president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition; and Robert Craven, CEO of FoodState, commented on the findings of this study.

LeDoux: It’s ‘sick care’ not ‘healthcare’

Mark LeDoux, chairman and CEO, Natural AlternativesInternational: The first obvious issue that arises from this report is that the “healthcare” system in America is a misnomer. We don’t provide healthcare, we provide sick care. Many of the commondiseases that lead to our mortality rates being high are directly linked to what we affectionately call “high-risk behaviors.”

If we look at food choices in the family from an early age, we see that convenience plays a role in generating unhealthy choices. Getting a frozen dinner and plopping oneself in front of the television while eating retards the development of proper social family time. When children go off to public school, they are often fed by institutional food service programs that are big on quantity, but not necessarily up on freshness or quality. It never ceases to amaze me that people will order 1,200 calories of fat laden foods at fast food restaurants, and then order a super sized diet soft drink, thinking that simply by ordering a diet beverage they are somehow redeeming the poor choices of food that accompany the beverage. Unfortunately, when it comes to healthcare in America we have seen the enemy, and he looks an awful lot like us.

Supplements can and should play a vital role in securing appropriate nutrient densities in our tissues and organ systems, but failure to be mobile leads to a whole set of other negative consequences. Gluttony leads to obesity, and that condition takes a toll on overall health—putting undue burdens on the ‘sick care’ system in America to hopefully alleviate the symptoms of self-wrought misery. It would seem self-evident that Americans may be the most overfed and undernourished people in the developed world.

Mister: We can deliberately defy unhealthy culture

Steve Mister, president and CEO, Council for Responsible Nutrition: This report is certainly troubling. At the same time, maybe it illuminates some opportunities for potential growth in the U.S. supplement marketplace. As the researchers noted, it’s not any one factor, but rather a whole collection of health-related behaviors that contributes to the U.S.’s health score.

As individuals we all need to be more conscious of the small daily behaviors that collectively contribute to a longer, more healthy life—everything from easing up on the accelerator, to taking a daily jog, to passing on the second piece of chocolate cake. When we think about health as a constellation of lifestyle choices rather than “I need to lower my cholesterol orI need to lose weight,” we can start to understand how all these things work together. Our bodies are not a collection of unconnected parts, they are integrated holistic systems all working together. So what we eat, the supplements we take, the exercise we get, all impact our entire bodies and life outlook—not just our blood pressure, or just our mood or just our alertness, but everything. Supplements are just one of those behaviors, but because they are easily incorporated into a daily regimen, they can be a daily reminder to do other healthy things too.

Daily supplement regimens have direct effects on health, but just the act of taking a supplement can also serve as a reminder to engage in other healthy behaviors. It gives us a feeling of autonomy and empowerment over our health which in turns makes us more conscious of our health and more invested in protecting it. Marketers ofsupplements could move the needle toward a healthier U.S. if they rebrand the routine of taking supplements as a brave, deliberate act of defying the unhealthy culture around us.

Craven: Let’s lead by example

Robert Craven, CEO, Food State (MegaFood): Like Mark, I am convinced that new legislation will do very little – although I was in favor of the super-size soft drink ban in NYC. I got into a Facebook fight on this one as some of my friends started saying that this was taking away “freedom” and “liberty” and I made the point that if your liberty and freedom starts costing me money it ceases to be your freedom. But I digress.

I believe our industry has a real opportunity to take a leadership position here—not from a legislative perspective, but from one that is much more aspirational. What if our industry was the healthiest industry in the nation? What if we could prove it? What if our industry did more for turning around disease directly—meaning we had more of an impact than any doctor or legislator or health insurer ever could? What if we could prove we were healthier with real data? I think this would do more for our positive stature in the world than anything else we could ever do. It’s walking all the talk.

What if the leaders in our industry got together and did nothing else but decide that all of our employees would be healthy? Has anyone ever taken a count of how many people that would represent (employees of natural and supplement companies and their families)? Has to be in the millions…

If we did nothing else but decide that we (our industry) were going to set an example by being healthy, that as CEOs we were going to lead the charge and set the example—being healthy ourselves; creating systems and support that truly promoted health within our own companies; leading the conversation with other CEOs in our communities; ringing the bell for wellness right where we live—wouldn’t this one act, if we had enough great companies on board and bought into the vision, do more for solving the U.S. health crisis than any other act? Especially given that our employees and customers are the most willing participants.

I can’t think of any other answer. In the end, there may not be enough of us out there to ultimately solve the problem—regardless, as for me and my company, we are going to try.

Heartless thieves steal $3,000 raised to pay for dying baby’s life-saving heart transplant on Valentine’s Day

Four months ago, 9-month-old Jaelyn Anderson was diagnosed with Myocarditis.
You would never know by looking at her that she has an infection in her heart. Her priceless smiles and grins are enough to steal yours away.
Now she’s waiting on a heart transplant in the Intensive Care Unit at All Children’s Hospital. Jaelyn’s parents tell  this journey hasn’t been easy, but when they see her big smile, their lives are a little easier.
“She makes you laugh. She’s my wild child to put it that way,” Jaeyln’s mother Brooke said. “She brings joy to everybody. She’s so sick and she acts like nothing is wrong with her. I am amazed.”
“The only thing that keeps you going is her smile,” Josh Anderson said.
Donations have been coming in from far and wide for Jaelyn’s medical care. But on Valentine’s Day, thieves stole part of that life-saving help.
Jaeyln’s grandfather works for JetBlue and the company helped raise $3,000, but according to investigators, crooks stole that money from his truck in Orlando.
“They stopped and ate at a restaurant and locked the truck up. And went back out and everything was stolen,” Josh Anderson said. “Their luggage and the money and everything in the truck. It was pretty devastating. We were in shock. Like are you serious? Who could do that.”
But the family isn’t letting this stop them because they have something more important to focus on right now. Its now a waiting game as to when Jaelyn will receive a heart.
“It could be tomorrow she gets the heart or a year from now,” Anderson said.
The family is now hoping the thieves get a heart and return the money. They say all the donations go a very long way.
To help Jaelyn, visit her donations Facebook page.

It Is Only The Flu

(Ammoland.com)-  It is only the Flu. These are the famous words of the political leaders of the day, in 1917-1918 while large populations of the world were dying.

They called it the Spanish Flu pandemic. Pandemic means an epidemic, which spreads over a wide area. It was incorrectly named because World War I was going on and the governments on both side had censorship of the news. Spain was not at war and their newspapers reported the latest information on the pandemic as it was occurring.

Because most of the timely and accurate information was coming from that country people wrongfully thought Spain started the whole thing. It is most likely that the 1917 Great Influenza epidemic started in Kansas and was taken to an army camp by some young men who were joining up to fight, now that the US had entered the war.

Military bases and college campuses are some of the worst places to be if there is an easily spread disease around, especially if it is passed on by coughing and sneezing. People go from living in lots of open space of the family home, to the very confined space of a crowded dormitory room or a military barracks.

The practice of medicine in 1917 was not what it is today. Many doctors of the time attended medical schools that did not require the student to have an undergraduate degree. Some doctors graduated from medical school without ever seeing a live patient. Also because the US had entered the First World War, the military had already done a very good job of screening for the better trained medical personnel and then drafting the most competent physicians in the country.

This unfortunately left the older, less modern trained doctors, and the ones who attended questionable medical schools, to treat the sickening public. A public that was about to start dying by the tens of thousands in this county and by the millions world wide. The death rate had been reported has high as 40 million back during the epidemic and has been revised within the last couple of years to approximately 100 million.

According to John M. Barry who wrote the book The Great Influenza, it killed more people in twenty four weeks than AIDS has killed in the past twenty four years. Most people in the US at the time were directly affected by the Flu. If not as a patient themselves, than by a family member, close friend or neighbor who suffered and died.

My great-grandparents and all but, their oldest daughter (to include my grandfather) contracted the Flu. My great aunt nursed the entire family back to good health then contracted the flu herself and died. I first heard that story in the 1950s when we would go to Missouri and visit my great-grandmother. Thirty plus years after the pandemic the family was still talking about it as if it had just happened.

It is different when you actually lose a family member in an epidemic vs. reading about it in the paper. It would appear the US gave this lethal crisis to the world and as it developed the politicians and the military leaders not only turned a blinded eye, but withheld important information that would have allowed the public to prepare and react more efficiently.

After all it was only the flu.

President Wilson never publicly acknowledged that there ever was a flu. At the end of war he traveled to Europe and promptly contracted the influenza himself. One of the effects of the flu in some patients is swelling in the brain. Even if you survive it can be a precursor to strokes later in life. President Wilson had a major debilitating stroke shortly after he returned to the US. But it was only the influenza.

A 2005 cover story for National Geographic was “The Next Killer Flu-Can we stop it?” Have you seen the movie Contagion? The TV and print news are continually running stories about current flu issues in the US. In some areas there has been a flu vaccine shortages and that was for the regular normal (what ever that means) yearly flu.

People, who wait until the media creates a panic about shortages before they try to get their flu shoot, are their own worst enemy. Between thirty, and fifty thousand Americans, die each year from flu (again normal flu). If you think the response to the hurricane disaster this year was slow to meet the public’s needs that will pale in comparison if there is a pandemic flu outbreak. Remember people did not fly back in 1917. This time it will spread faster and more deadly. Go see Contagion it is the best two hour explanation of how it will happen and how devastating it will be. It is not if – it is when.

Then get your Flu Shot.

Gatorade pulls ingredient linked to flame retardant

Gatorade will remove a controversial chemical from its ingredients. Brominated vegetable oil, a synthetic chemical that has been patented in Europe as a flame retardant, will no longer double as an ingredient in Gatorade sports drinks.

(LA Times) Molly Carter, a spokeswoman for Gatorade owner PepsiCo Inc., said the company has been considering the move for more than a year, working on a way to take out the ingredient without affecting the flavor of the drink.

A recent petition on Change.org to drop the chemical – which has more than 200,000 supporters – did not inspire the decision, Carter said, though she acknowledged that consumer feedback was the main impetus.

In the petition, posted by Sarah Kavanagh of Hattiesburg, Miss., “BVO” is described as banned in Japan and theEuropean Union.

The effort quotes a Scientific American article suggesting that “BVO could be building up in human tissues” and that studies on mice have shown “reproductive and behavioral problems” linked to large doses of the chemical.

The reformulated Gatorade flavors “will start rolling out in the next few months,” Carter said.

There’s no hard date for the launch because “we’re not recalling Gatorade,” she said. “We don’t think our products are unsafe. We don’t think there are health or safety risks.”

The BVO ingredient was used as a flavor emulsifier, helping to distribute Gatorade’s coloring throughout the bottle, Carter said. Now, the company is swapping in another emulsifier with an intimidating name: sucrose acetate isobutyrate.

ENOUGH! (Guns, Active Shooters And Pharma)

The Market Ticker

I’m done being nice.

And I’m doubly-done with the damned leftists in this country performing the moral equivalent ofritual human sacrifice of children to advance their gun-control agenda.

That’s what I charge they’re doing.

And I’m going to back it up with mathematics, using just one of the common psychotropic medications used commonly today — Paxil.

This is from the prescribing information for Paxil:

Clinical Worsening and Suicide Risk:

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), both adult and pediatric, may experience worsening of their depression and/or the emergence of suicidal ideation and behavior (suicidality) or unusual changes in behavior, whether or not they are taking antidepressant medications, and this risk may persist until significant remission occurs. Suicide is a known risk of depression and certain other psychiatricdisorders, and these disorders themselves are the strongest predictors of suicide. There has been a long-standing concern, however, that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depressionand the emergence of suicidality in certain patients during the early phases of treatment. Pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlledtrials of antidepressant drugs (SSRIs and others) showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 18-24) with majordepressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Short-term studies did not show an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24; there was a reduction with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults aged 65 and older.

That’s a problem.  What’s worse is this:

The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for majordepressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and either the worsening of depression and/or the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality.

And it doesn’t end there:

Screening Patients for Bipolar Disorder

A major depressive episode may be the initial presentation of bipolar disorder. It is generally believed (though not established in controlledtrials) that treating such an episode with an antidepressant alone may increase the likelihood of precipitation of a mixed/manic episode in patients at risk for bipolar disorder.

Now let’s be frank: Mixed manic states are mental states during which all sorts of really ugly things happen, including panic attacks, agitation, impulsiveness, paranoia and rage — all at extreme levels.

In other words, if you miss someone being bipolar and give them this drug you may precipitate a full-on Hulk-style “rage monster” sort of attack!

How often does something like this happen?

Activation of Mania/Hypomania:

During premarketing testing, hypomania or mania occurred in approximately 1.0% of unipolar patients treated with PAXIL compared to 1.1% of active-control and 0.3% of placebo-treated unipolar patients. In a subset of patients classified as bipolar, the rate of manic episodes was 2.2% for PAXIL and 11.6% for the combined active-control groups. As with all drugs effective in the treatment of major depressive disorder, PAXIL should be used cautiously in patients with a history of mania.

So if you miss a bi-polar person in your “analysis” before prescribing, it’s more than doubly-likely that they will have a “rage-monster” episode than if not.

So let’s assume we’re not talking about bi-polar people — that is, let’s make the assumption that we properly screen for each person and perfectly identify all bi-polar people before we prescribe.

What is the expected number of people who will undergo some sort of manic episode, which includes the subset that will turn into rage-monsters and shoot up schools, movie theaters and other public places?

Answer: About 0.7% more that can be charged to the drug (the risk if you do nothing is 0.3%.)

Other similar drugs have similar risk profiles; Paxil is not particularly-remarkable in this regard.

I note, and you should note, that 0.7% is a pretty low risk!  That is, 993 people out of 1000 can get a perfectly good outcome from the drug (or at least no harm) but that other 7 in 1000 have an outcome ranging from bad to catastrophically-bad.

Now let’s assume for the sake of argument that we are 99% effective in physician monitoring of these patients.  That is, we’re able to somehow confirm that they take the drug exactly as prescribed (no more or less), and we have enough time and physician resources to evaluate them on a regular and continuing basis.  This, incidentally, is a fantasy-land level of performance; no profession could possibly meet that standard of care, but we’ll use it to make the point.

But this level of performance, which we can never meet, would provide that of the rage monsters we potentially create with these drugs we catch 99% of them before the episode escalates into something “bad.”

That’s 1% of 0.7%, incidentally, or 0.007% of the total users who (1) have the bad reaction and then (2) we fail to detect via monitoring.  In other words, those are the people who shoot up the schools, movie theaters and US Representatives.

The last figures I have are that in 2005 27 million people in the United States, or close to 1 in 10 of all persons, are on some sort of antidepressant carrying these risks.

So if 0.7% of 27 million people have a manic episode caused by these drugs – that is, under perfect conditions where we catch every single bipolar individual first and never prescribe to any of them we will have 189,000 persons in a year who have a manic reaction to these drugs.

That’s horrifying.

But what’s worse is that if we assume 99% effective surveillance by the medicalprofession — that is, 99% of the time the doctor intercepts the person with themanic episode and modifies or terminates their use of the drug before something bad happens….

WE CREATE AND THEN FAIL TO DETECT, WITH NEARLY PERFECT PERFORMANCE (that we will never achieve) 1,890 RAGE MONSTERS EVERY YEAR WHO ARE MENTALLY CAPABLE OF COMMITTING A MASS HOMICIDE.

We’re surprised that there are a few of these a year, when we create more than 5 of them each and every day with near-perfect performance — and likely several times that many given the real-world monitoring that can actually be achieved?

We create these Zombies.

We prescribe the drugs to them.

We do this knowing that the risk exists and that at least one subset of that risk is materially higher for those under the age of 25 who are consuming these drugs. 

In point of fact, most of the rage monsters who have committed these crimes are under the age of 25 and either using or having recently terminated the use of these drugs.

Again I reproduce the information directly from the maker of Paxil:

There has been a long-standing concern, however, that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depressionand the emergence of suicidality in certain patients during the early phases of treatment. Pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlledtrials of antidepressant drugs (SSRIs and others) showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 18-24) with majordepressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Short-term studies did notshow an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24;

Something changes around the age of 24 with these drugs and their interaction with the human mind.  We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know that it happens.  We also know that these substances have a low but present risk of inducing mania, including rage.

Utterly nobody is bringing this element to the table in debate, but we must, as the rise of these incidents isdirectly correlated to the gross increase in the number of people, including most-especially young people, taking these drugs.  The number of users doubled from 1996 – 2005.

If you want to address a problem you must look at the data and follow it where it leads.

Where it leads is into a horrifying mess of prescription psychotropic drug use among our youth and the rare but catastrophic side effects they sometimes produce.

I have friends who have versions of the problem in their families among older individuals; members of the family who doctor-shop for prescription on top of prescription and are mentally questionable to start with.  We’re supposed to have some sort of reasonable check and balance on this and indeed Florida claims to have clamped down on the “pill mills” but I can tell you right now that this is utter and complete crap.  There is nothing preventing people from going to 10 different doctors until they find three or four that will write scripts and then abusing the drugs — and when they run out “early” calling up for a refill — and getting it.  It happens every damned day and if other family members try to intervene, including getting the physicians or the law involved (prescription fraud is supposed to be illegal!) they’re blown off!

It’s true that most of the crazy people in the world aren’t violent, and that being crazy, standing alone, is perfectly legal.  It’s also true that nearly all of the people who take these drugs won’t become violent — that’s a side effect that only bites a small percentage of the people who take the drug.

But the risk of turning people into rage monsters and suicidal maniacs appears to be mostly confined to those under the age of 24 according to the drug companies own information and this information is strongly correlated with the actual real-world data on these incidents.

We must have a discussion about this as a society.  We might decide that out of the 27 million or more Americans taking these drugs that enough get benefit that we are willing to accept the occasional school or movie theater shooting gallery as the price of prescribing these drugs to those under the age of 24.

If so then we need to be honest about the trade-off we have made as a society and shut the hell up instead of dancing in the blood of dead children to score political points and destroy The Constitution.

But if not, and you can count my vote among the “No” votes in this regard, then we must ban these substances from those under the age of 24 until we understand what’s different among that age group that alters the risk unless and except those persons are under continual professional supervision such as inpatient hospitalization.

Yeah, I understand this will cut into the profits of the big drug companies and thus is “unacceptable” to many political folks, not to mention that the media won’t even talk about the subject due to the advertising they run on their networks on a daily basis for this drug or that.

But unless we want to keep burying kids we had damned well better have that debate.

Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama and the rest on both the left and right who are refusing to go where the data leads are all practicing the moral equivalent of ritual child sacrifice, fueling the pyre under the bodies of our kids with the Bill of Rights.

Stand up America and say in a loud voice: ENOUGH!

Doctors Save A Little Girl’s Life By Reprogramming The HIV Virus To Fight Cancer Cells

(Business Insider) -Drug company Novartis is betting $20 million on a cancer treatment that seems to have saved a little girl’s life, according to a report from The New York Times’ Denise Grady.

Just last spring, six-year-old leukemia victim Emma Whitehead was “near death,” having gone through chemotherapy twice without success.

But then her parents put Emma through an experimental treatment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

They infected her with a version of HIV, reprogrammed to attack cancer cells.

Whitehead almost died, but the treatment worked and now she’s in remission — and doing cartwheels all over her house.

Grady says the treatment hasn’t worked for all patients.

It worked completely on three adults. Four treated adults have merely improved. A child relapsed. The treatment failed two adults completely.

Here’s the thing though: Each of these patients was a “hopeless” case before trying the treatment. So any success is huge.

Emma in April:

Emma Whitehead

CHOP

 

Emma now:

Emma Whitehead

CHOP