Nexus - 1702 - New Times Magazine-pages

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GLOBAL NEWS ROCHE MISLEADS OVER TAMIFLU SAFETY hen it comes to selling chemicals that claim to treat HINI1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry's options are limited to two: vaccines and antivirals. The most popular antiviral by far is Tamiflu, a drug that's actually derived from a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called star anise. But Tamiflu is no herb. It's a potentially fatal concentration of isolated chemical components that have essentially been bio-pirated from Chinese medicine. And when you isolate and concentrate specific chemicals in these herbs, you lose the value (and safety) of full- spectrum herbal medicine. Roche claims there are 10 studies proving that Tamiflu is both safe and effective. According to the company, Tamiflu has all sorts of benefits including a 61 per cent reduction in hospital admissions by people who catch the flu and then get put on Tamiflu. The problem with these claims is that they aren't true. They were simply invented by Roche. A groundbreaking article recently published in the British Medical Journal accuses Roche of misleading governments and physicians over the benefits of Tamiflu. Out of the MAMMOGRAM TESTS CAN CAUSE BREAST CANCER ot having annual mammograms, some say, means that countless women will receive a virtual death sentence because their breas tumours won't be discovered. Bu what is rarely discussed abou mammograms is that the tests could actually be causing many cases o breast cancer. A new study just presented at the annual meeting of the Radiologica Society of North America (RSNA concludes that the low-dose radiation from annual mammography screening increases breast cancer risk in women with a genetic or familia predisposition. This is particularly worrisome because women who are at high risk for breast cancer are regularly pushed to © star mammograms at a younger age—as early as 25—and that means they are exposed to more radiation from mammography earlier and for more years than women who don't have breast cancer in their family trees. "For women at high risk for breast cancer, screening is very important, but a careful approach should be taken when considering mammography for screening young women, particularly under age 30," said Marijke C. Jansen-van der Weide, PhD, an epidemiologist in the Department of Epidemiology and Radiology at University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands in a statement to the media. "Further, repeated exposure to low-dose radiation should be avoided," she said. "Our findings suggest that low-dose radiation increases breast cancer risk among these young high-risk women, and a careful approach is warranted." If you're gullible enough to actually have your breasts irradiated every year, then don't be surprised or shocked if some day they find tumours in them. (Source: Natural News, 2 December 2009, http://tinyurl.com/yamx7c8) 10 studies cited by Roche, it turns out that only two were ever published in science journals. And where are the original data from those two studies? Lost. The data have disappeared. Files were discarded. The researcher of one study says that he never even saw the data. Roche took care of all hat, he explained. So the Cochrane Collaboration, asked with reviewing the data behind Tamiflu, decided to investigate. After repeated requests o Roche for the original study data, hey remained stonewalled. The only complete data-set that he Cochrane group received was rom an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no better than a placebo. That's when former employees o Adis International (essentially a Big Pharma PR company) shocked the medical world by announcing tha they had been hired to ghost-write the studies for Roche. The FDA, remarkably, hasn't entirely given in to the Tamiflu hoax. | required Roche to print a disclaimer on Tamiflu labels—a disclaimer tha openly admits that the drug has never been proven to work: (Source: Natural News, 14 December 2000, http://tinyurl.com/ydzxu7d) to to start WATCH IT... THERES A SPEED CAMERA ROUND THE NExT BEND. i a . somerville 8 * NEXUS FEBRUARY - MARCH 2010 www.nexusmagazine.com