Nexus - 0302 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS PESTICIDES LINKED TO CHRONIC FATIGUE Statistical evidence shows clearly that The study found 16 different pesticides, the incidence of measles has been dropping eight of which are suspected carcinogens. over the decades, and, in fact, had been Five of the pesticides are known to disrupt dropping rapidly before the introduction of the endocrine system, and eight are known immunisations. to affect the nervous system. When Dr Nicholson asked the Health (Source: Green Left Weekly, 6 September Department to produce the figures upon 1995) which the prediction for the epidemic was based, they were unable to do so. DOCTORS CHEAT BECAUSE THEY The final result of this fiasco: the public © KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU! is down £20 million; hundreds of families Doctors are so convinced that they know are suffering the effects of adverse vaccine what's best for their patients that many are reactions that no one will pay compensa- tempted to cheat in clinical trials. tion for; no epidemic materialised in the Clinical trials are designed to compare non-vaccinated children; and the pharma- the effectiveness of two treatments, ideally ceutical drug companies made a fortune. to see how a new drug compares with an (Source: The Sunday Telegraph [UK], 15 _ old one or with no drug at all. Importantly, October 1995) a patient is assigned to one of the two treat- Maybe this is related to the item above, maybe not, but a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in September ‘95 found a higher-than-average incidence of pesticides in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients, and suggested a link between the recalcitrant chemicals and the disease. Substantial levels of organochlorine pes- ticides, including insecticide DDT and fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB), were found in people with no known exposure to toxic chemicals. The study, conducted by Newcastle University, measured HCB in about 45 per cent of CFS patients, compared to 21 per cent in other people without CFS. (Source: The Australian, 18 September 1995) DOCTORS CHEAT BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU! Doctors are so convinced that they know what's best for their patients that many are tempted to cheat in clinical trials. Clinical trials are designed to compare the effectiveness of two treatments, ideally to see how a new drug compares with an old one or with no drug at all. Importantly, a patient is assigned to one of the two treat- ments at random—a technique designed to eliminate any effects introduced by researchers’ biases. For example, a doctor may feel it is safer to assign only healthier patients to a new treatment, leaving riskier cases to the other therapy. As a safeguard, the details of who will receive what are usually coded and kept secret to prevent anyone interfering with the results. But in trials where the codes were poorly concealed, or were pinned on the wall in the examiner's office, the new experimental treatments were on average 30 per cent more effective than when the codes were kept strictly confidential. These results suggested that when researchers could influence the way patients were assigned to treatments, they often did. (Source: New Scientist, 16 December 1995) PESTICIDES FOUND IN BABY FOOD An independent analysis of US baby food products found 16 different pesticides in the eight major baby foods. Researchers with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned a food industry laboratory to analyse eight foods which form a significant part of the average infant's first-year diet: apple sauce, peaches, pears, plums, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, peas and carrots. The products tested were made by the three largest baby-food producers, Gerber, Heinz and Beech-Nut, whose sales account for 96 per cent of all baby food sold in the USA. They were tested using the Food and Drug Administration's standard pesticide analytical methods. MASS MEASLES JAB: WAS IT NECESSARY? In October 1994, the UK Health Department launched a blitzkrieg immuni- sation campaign against measles, the justi- fication for which was summed up in an explanatory pamphlet: "Q. Are we really going to have a measles epidemic? "A. Definitely. Predictions suggest that between 100,000 and 200,000 cases of measles will occur in 1995. Thousands of children will have to be admitted to hospi- tal... Around 50 children will die." Within a month, nearly seven million children between the ages of five and 16 got their booster jabs. A triumphant David Salisbury, the principal medical] officer involved, crowed that the epidemic E was prevented, and pointed this out = in May '95S in a letter to the British 2 Medical Journal. The campaign, which cost £20 million, resulted in hundreds of a children falling ill following their gE jab, with many developing illnesses : . A . CC including epilepsy, rheumatoid Z arthritis, encephalitis, and trans- 1 verse myelitis (an inflammation of ia the spinal cord that paralyses from the waist down). A Nicholson, Editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, stated, "There was never going to be a measles epi- = demic in 1995." (Unless, of i course, all the previous measles shots were totally useless.) On top of all this, Dr Richard 2 DEPOT NEXUS ¢ 7 FEBRUARY-MARCH 1996