Category: Bioethics


 

New study reveals how glyphosate in Monsanto’s Roundup inhibits natural detoxification in human cells

 

Friday, May 24, 2013 by: Lance Devon
glyphosate

(NaturalNews) The modern age of industrial agriculture and manufacturing has dumped heavy metals, carninogens, plastics, and pesticides into the environment at alarming rates. These toxins are showing up in most human tissue cells today. One distinct chemical may be trapping these toxins in human cells, limiting the human body’s ability to detoxify its own cells. In a new peer reviewed study, this sinister chemical, glyphosate, has been proven to inhibit the human cell’s ability to detoxify altogether. Glyphosate, found in Monsanto’s Roundup, is being deemed by publishers of the new study “one of the most dangerous chemicals” being unleashed into the environment today.

Download the PDF of the study here: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

How glyphosate destroys human cells

Glyphosate, most commonly found in conventional sugar, corn, soy and wheat products, throws off the cytochrome P450 gene pathway, inhibiting enzyme production in the body. CYP enzymes play a crucial role in detoxifying xenobiotics, which include drugs, carcinogens, and pesticides. By inhibiting this natural detoxification process, glyphosate systematically enhances the damaging effects of other environmental toxins that get in the body. This, in turn, disrupts homeostasis, increases inflammation, and leads to a slow deconstruction of the cellular system. Toxins build up in the gut over time and break down through the intestinal walls, infiltrating blood, and ultimately passing through the brain/blood barrier, damaging neurological function.

Important CYP enzymes that are affected include aromatase, the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen, 21-Hydroxylase, which creates stress hormone cortisol, and aldosterone, which regulates blood pressure.

Getting to the gut

Even as evidence mounts, Monsanto asserts that glyphosate is not harmful to humans, citing that its mechanism of action in plants (the disruption of the shikimate pathway), is not present in humans. This is not true.

The shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan, is present in human gut bacteria, which has a direct relationship with the human body, aiding in digestion, synthesizing vitamins, detoxifying carcinogens, and participating in immune system function.

By inhibiting the body’s gut flora from performing its essential function in the human body, glyphosate heightens many health issues facing the Western world today.

These conditions include inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease, obesity, and even dementia and depression. Also, by restricting gut bacteria from absorbing nutrients, glyphosate voids the body of essential life-giving vitamins.

Depletion of serum tryptophan and its link to obesity

Glysophate’s damaging effects on gut bacteria lead to depleted sulfate supplies in the gut, resulting in inflammatory bowel disease. As more chemicals are absorbed from the environment, alterations in body chemistry actively promote weight gain by blocking nutrient absorption. By effecting CYP enzymes in the liver, obesity incidence is compounded, impairing the body’s ability to detoxify synthetics chemicals. Since serotonin is derived from tryptophan and acts an appetite suppressant, the depletion of tryptophan encourages overeating in the brain, leading to obesity.

In need of urgent, massive awakening

Authors of the new review point out that “glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply and may be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.” Monsanto is already lashing back at these claims, calling this peer reviewed study, “bad science” and “another bogus study.” What Monsanto fails to is mention that most of the studies on glyphosate’s “safety” are conducted by Monsanto themselves, which is bias to the core.

The authors of this new study instead call out for more independent research to be done to validate their findings. They are concerned with glyphosate’s inhibition of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes in the body, which are hindering the body’s natural detoxification ability.

There is certainly a need for more empowering education on chemicals like glyphosate. There needs to be a kind of public mass awakening that correlates Monsanto’s Roundup with skull and crossbones. If anything, Americans have the right to know how their food was produced, engineered, and poisoned, and everyone should pitch in and stop using toxic glyphosate-laced Roundup at all costs.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

http://www.enewspf.com

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

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H7N9 bird flu found to spread through the air

Virus can also infect pigs, say HKU researchers, who warn officials to maintain tight scrutiny even though threat seems under control

Friday, 24 May, 2013, 5:50am


The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.

Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.

“We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known,” said Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, a research assistant professor at HKU’s School of Public Health.

There have been 131 confirmed human infections, with 36 deaths, the World Health Organisation said. All but one of the cases was on the mainland. The virus appears to have been brought under control largely due to restrictions at bird markets and there have been no new confirmed cases since May 8.

But Zhu said that although there was no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, their study provided evidence that H7N9 was infectious and transmissible in mammals.

In the study, to be published today in the journal Science, ferrets were used to evaluate the infectivity of H7N9. It was found the virus could spread through the air, from one cage to another, albeit less efficiently.

Inoculated ferrets were infected before the appearance of most clinical symptoms. This means there may be more cases than have been detected or reported.

We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known … People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it
Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, HKU’s School of Public Health

“People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it,” Zhu said.

Additional tests using pigs, a major host of influenza viruses, showed that they could also get infected with H7N9. Zhu warned that H7N9 may combine with pig viruses to generate new variants.

On a more positive note, it was found that the virus is relatively mild.

“Most of the fatal H7N9 cases had underlying medical conditions, so there are probably some other factors that contribute to this kind of fatality,” Zhu said.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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Scientists create hybrid flu that can go airborne

H5N1 virus with genes from H1N1 can spread through the air between mammals.

02 May 2013

Researchers have crossed two strains of avian flu virus to create one that can be transmitted through the air — and possibly settle on the cilia of lung cells as in this conceptual image.

KARSTEN SCHNEIDER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

As the world is transfixed by a new H7N9 bird flu virus spreading through China, a study reminds us that a different avian influenza — H5N1 — still poses a pandemic threat.

A team of scientists in China has created hybrid viruses by mixing genes from H5N1 and the H1N1 strain behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and showed that some of the hybrids can spread through the air between guinea pigs. The results are published in Science1.

Flu hybrids can arise naturally when two viral strains infect the same cell and exchange genes. This process, known as reassortment, produced the strains responsible for at least three past flu pandemics, including the one in 2009.

There is no evidence that H5N1 and H1N1 have reassorted naturally yet, but they have many opportunities to do so. The viruses overlap both in their geographical range and in the species they infect, and although H5N1 tends mostly to swap genes in its own lineage, the pandemic H1N1 strain seems to be particularly prone to reassortment.

“If these mammalian-transmissible H5N1 viruses are generated in nature, a pandemic will be highly likely,” says Hualan Chen, a virologist at the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the study.

“It’s remarkable work and clearly shows how the continued circulation of H5N1 strains in Asia and Egypt continues to pose a very real threat for human and animal health,” says Jeremy Farrar, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Flu fears

Chen’s results are likely to reignite the controversy that plagued the flu community last year, when two groups found that H5N1 could go airborne if it carried certain mutations in a gene that produced a protein called haemagglutinin (HA)2, 3. Following heated debate over biosecurity issues raised by the work, the flu community instigated a voluntary year-long moratorium on research that would produce further transmissible strains. Chen’s experiments were all finished before the hiatus came into effect, but more work of this nature can be expected now that the moratorium has been lifted.

EinsteinCollegeofMed EinsteinCollegeofMed

Published on May 21, 2013

http://www.einstein.yu.edu – Dr. William Jacobs, Jr. has determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in laboratory culture. The paper was published online May 21, 2013 in Nature Communications. Dr. Jacobs is professor of microbiology & immunology and of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Jacobs is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. See accompanying release: http://www.einstein.yu.edu/news/relea..

Revealed Government Documents Show Vaccine Injured Children in Small African Village Used Like Lab Rats

Children vaccinated  in Africa
were severely harmed by vaccines

Christina England
Activist Post

In December 2012, vaccine tragedy hit the small village of Gouro, Chad, Africa, situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Five hundred children were locked into their school, threatened that if they did not agree to being force-vaccinated with a meningitis A vaccine, they would receive no further education. These children were vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge. This vaccine was an unlicensed product still going through the third and fourth phases of testing.

Within hours, one hundred six children began to suffer from headaches, vomiting, severe uncontrollable convulsions and paralysis. The children’s wait for a doctor began. They had to wait one full week for a doctor to arrive while the team of vaccinators just carried on vaccinating others from the village. More children became sick.

When the doctor finally came, he could do nothing for the children. The team of vaccinators, upon seeing what had happened, fled the village in fear.

Fifty children were finally transferred to a hospital in Faya and later taken by plane to two hospitals in N’Djamena, the capital city of Chad. After being shuttled around like cattle, these sick, weak children were dumped back in their village without a diagnosis and each family was given an unconfirmed sum of £1000 by the government. No forms were signed and no documentation was seen. They were informed that their children had not suffered a vaccine injury. However, if this were true, why would their government award each family £1000 in what has been described as hush money?

Interestingly, during the time the children spent in the hospital, two more children joined them from another village.

To read the full stories of this tragedy, please see references at the end of this article from previous Vactruth world-exclusive reports. [1,2,3,4]

Since this time, Vactruth has been passed a series of secret documents, which fill in some missing gaps in this story and expose just how corrupt the organizations behind this tragedy really are.
The Exclusive, Heartbreaking Details

On January 14, 2013, arrangements were made for seven female patients between the ages of 8-18 to be evacuated from the Hospital of Mother and Child (HME) and the General Hospital of National Referrals (HGRN) in N’Djamena and transferred by air to a clinic in Tunisia. This was scheduled to take place between January 16 and 22.

The documents in our possession state that the Chadian government arranged for the patients to be accompanied by Dr. Joseph Mad-Toingue, Chief Service of Infectious Diseases of the National General Referral Hospital; Dr. Moumar Mbaileyo, anesthesiologist employee of the National General Referral Hospital; and Mr. Dihoulne Kakiang, state-certified nurse, employee of the National General Referral Hospital.

On January 29, 2013, a letter passed between The Chief Service of Infectious Diseases of HGRN-N’Djaména and Mr. Director General of the National General Referral Hospital, stating:

Mr. Director General,

Herewith I have the honor of putting into your hands the report of the mission completed in Tunisia between 15 and 22 of January 2013 regarding the medical evacuation of 7 patients.

The Chief of Service.

Vactruth now has this report.

A Parent’s Worst Nightmare

The report states that seven female patients between the ages of 8 and 18 had suffered adverse reactions after receiving the meningitis A vaccination during a national campaign, which took place on December 11, 2012, for the prevention of this illness. These patients had originally been taken to the Regional Hospital of Faya, before being transferred on December 26, 2012, to the Hospital of Mother and Child (HME) and the General Hospital of National Referrals (HGRN) in N’Djamena.

Arrangements were later made for a medical evacuation to transfer these patients to Tunisia for further tests and treatment.

According to the report, the departure took place in N’Djaména on January 15, 2013, at 10:50 pm after a long wait at the Hassan airport in N’Djamena because of the late arrival of the plane.

The journey took place on board a Tunisian plane chartered by the International Medical Society (SMEDI). The party consisted of seven patients, three members of the medical team and seven parents (two men and five women) who accompanied the sick children.

Interestingly, the document states that the party did not fly alone.

The government report states that twenty other passengers traveling to Tunisia for the same reason (medical evacuation) also joined the party. Sadly, there were no further details on these patients in the report.

Were these patients also vaccine-damaged by the meningitis A vaccination, and where did these twenty other sick patients come from?

Just before the plane took off, an 18-year-old patient had what the report describes as a ‘shaking episode,’ and was given a 10 mg vial of diazepam before boarding the plane. Other than this incident, the flight went well.

The Specialists Say “Case Closed”

The group arrived in Tunisia on January 16, 2013, and was received by SMEDI agents who took care of the police formalities (entry visa) before dividing the group into three parties. The patients were transported by ambulance to the clinic, the medical staff was taken to a hotel, and the patients’ parents were taken to a center.

On the afternoon of January 16, the three medical staff were introduced to SMEDI’s Director General, M. Ghazi Mejbri, to get acquainted. This was followed by a work session with the medical coordinator, Dr. Folla Amara. In the course of this meeting, the condition of the patients was discussed and plans were arranged for their care.

The patients were taken to the neurological department of SMEDI’s La Sourka clinic. The clinic had received the children’s medical records in advance and was reported to have conducted their own clinical and biological tests on the patients before meeting with the medical team that had accompanied them.

On January 17, a meeting took place with Professor Rachid Namai (“chef de clinique”), Dr. Kefi and Dr. Mabet. It was concluded that the children’s ‘shaking attacks’ or convulsions were of no consequence. On the paraclinical level, the report stated that the liquor tests of five patients did not reveal any anomalies, nor did the EEG of six patients.

The EEG of the seventh patient showed minor anomalies in the immediate post-critical phase, but was reported to have stabilized. An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was to take place of all seven patients. After the meeting, the team visited the patients who were all reported to be well, except for one child who had developed tonsillitis and had to receive appropriate treatment.

On January 19, a second meeting took place at the La Soukra Clinic during which they examined the patients’ medical records that gave the results of all the medical tests that had taken place. Among the biological perturbations there was reported to be one case of persistent thrombopenia (a lower than normal number of blood cell fragments called platelets), two cases of of elevated immunoglobulines E (Ig E) and five cases of gram negative bacteria directly upon examination — culturing has not been contributory.

The report stated that, generally speaking, the patients showed a raised tendency for hypoalbuminemia (swelling), hypo creatininemia (renal dysfunction), and hyper glucorrhagia (no definition found).

 

Read Full Article Here

The cells, made with cloning technique behind Dolly the sheep, have the potential to regenerate damaged organs and tissues

Cloning technique: a donor egg before nucleus extraction

A human egg before nuclear extraction and fusion with a skin cell. The resulting embryonic stem cells were genetically identical to the skin donor. Photograph: Oregon Health & Science University

Scientists have used the cloning technique that led to Dolly the sheep to turn human skin into embryonic stem cells – which can make any tissue in the body.

The US team overcame technical problems that had frustrated researchers for more than a decade to create batches of the body’s master cells from donated skin.

The work will spark fresh interest in the use of cloning in medical research, and reignite the controversy over a procedure that demands a supply of human eggs, and the creation and destruction of early stage embryos. The US group employed the technique to make embryonic stem cells that were genetically matched to individuals. Such cells could be used to study diseases in exquisite detail, and regenerate damaged organs and tissues.

“Our finding offers new ways of generating stem cells for patients with dysfunctional or damaged tissues and organs,” said Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health and Science University. “Such stem cells can regenerate and replace those damaged cells and tissues and alleviate diseases that affect millions of people.”

Dolly was born in 1996 after researchers led by Sir Ian Wilmut in Edinburgh created an embryo by fusing a cell from a sheep’s udder with an egg that had had its nucleus removed. The embryo was a clone – genetically identical to the adult sheep the udder cell came from.

 

Read Full Article Here

Biotech’s next big disaster: seeds that emit multiple pesticides

image source

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post

Tom Laskawy, writing at Grist, points out how the next generation of GMOs is following in the track of present disasters:

“…the growing pest and weed problems for GMOs have caused farmers to turn to seeds that are coated with a different pesticide—a neonicotinoid. If that name rings a bell, it’s because these pesticides… have been implicated in the increasing epidemic of bee deaths.

“And that’s aside from the evidence that biotech’s ‘next big thing’ —seeds that emit multiple pesticides—may be doomed to fail. An international team of researchers, including USDA and biotech scientists, found what they termed ‘cross-resistance’ to these pesticides in [predatory] bugs exposed to the next-generation GMO seeds. Evidence, in other words, that GMO seeds are hitting a bug-covered wall.” The seeds don’t knock out the plant pests.

Yet the venerable journal Nature recently urged patience, because just over the next hill, the biotech giants will surely succeed in bringing us better GMO crops.

This reveals an underlying assumption about technology: when scientists discover a new way of doing things, it can never be retracted; it will eventually work well; improvements will come.

That false assumption sustains a tremendous amount of false science, as well as profits, of course, for the companies involved.

“Wait, better developments are being made.”

If scientists can shoot genes into plants, that’s a step that can never be taken back. It’s automatically a sign of progress. To admit defeat would be equivalent to admitting science can be wrong.

This is the insanity we are dealing with.

We’ve seen it in the field of psychiatric drugs, all of which carry heavy toxicity. If you push a researcher up against the wall, where he has to admit problems with the drugs, he’ll say, “But we’re working on next-generation chemicals. It’ll be different. We’re just starting to understand how the brain really works. Be patient. Help is on the way.”

In recent days, we’ve seen the US National Institute of Mental Health and its British counterpart defect from orthodox psychiatry in the interpretation of what a mental disorder is. Some people have taken this as a positive development. But that’s not the case.

The defectors intend to push brain research to new dangerous heights. Even though they have no baseline for “normal brain activity,” they are racing along the track of discovering “abnormal chemical imbalances.” In other words, their better science is no science at all.

They will invent new names for mental disorders, and there will be more drugs to treat patients, and the whole edifice will be founded on lies.

In the field of gene research, scientists are advancing on a road of manipulation of the human genome. This, they say, is yielding one breakthrough after another. New humans, better humans, more talented and healthy and intelligent humans will be the result.

But really, this translates into: we can shift genes around, we can substitute new genes for old genes, we can silence genes and provoke dormant genes to express themselves—therefore, we have to keep doing it. It’s science. We have to expand our work.

No they don’t. In the same way they don’t have to build even more destructive H-bombs, they don’t have to play roulette with the human body and brain.

Just because medical researchers can come up with new chemo drugs that kill cells and destroy immune systems, it doesn’t mean they have to.

Despite failures along every front of GMO-crop production, despite the fact that predictions of higher crop yields and reduced use of pesticides and herbicides have failed to materialize, Monsanto pushes on.

Monsanto lies and pretends their work is an enormous success. Their researchers, many of whom know the catastrophic failure they are dealing with, nevertheless keep going, keep telling themselves that this is science, and therefore it will ultimately succeed.

Translation: The seven billion people of earth are the guinea pigs in a vast corporate experiment.

Technocrats who envision trans-humans, a combine of brain and computerized brain, pin faith on the idea that, since brains can be hooked up to machines, they should be. It’s “scientific progress,” and therefore it has to happen.

All this used to be called scientism, a massive overreach of misplaced faith, but now the word is largely defunct. It was too accurate. It nailed the obsession and showed how crazy it was.

Years ago, I was invited to give a lecture to an atheist group in Los Angeles. The topic was HIV research, because I had written a book about it, AIDS INC.

I described the line of HIV research, and made a detailed case for the fact that researchers had never proved HIV caused a condition that was being called AIDS.

My analysis was met with strong opposition. The group was unhappy.

No problem. But it turned out their unhappiness was based on the notion that I was attacking science itself. And since they believed that’s what I was doing, they were angry because, get this, if I was against science, I must be for God. And they were atheists.

Therefore, I had to be wrong.

Their reaction mirrored 19th century attitudes about the rise of science. Its proponents felt they’d finally found an antidote to religion, and therefore, anyone who criticized science on any terms (e.g, flawed reasoning, bad data, bogus experiments) must be demanding a return to the Church, the Inquisition, and burning at the stake.

Read Full Article Here

New Study Links GMO Food To Leukemia

New Study Links GMO Food To Leukemia

 

Last September, the causal link between cancer and genetically modified food was confirmed in a French study, the first independent long-term animal feeding study not commissioned by the biotech corporations themselves. The disturbing details can be found here: New Study Finds GM Corn and Roundup Causes Cancer In Rats

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases indicates that the biopesticides engineered into GM crops known as Bacillus Thuringensis (Bt) or Cry-toxins, may also contribute to blood abnormalities from anemia to hematological malignancies (blood cancers) such as leukemia.[i]

A group of scientists from the Department of Genetics and Morphology, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia, Brasilia/DF, Brazil set out to test the purported human and environmental biosafety of GM crops, looking particularly at the role that the Bt toxin found within virtually all GM food crops plays on non-target or non-insect animal species.

The research was spurned by the Brazilian Collegiate Board of Directors of the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), who advocated in 2005 for evaluations of toxicity and pathogenicity of microbiological control agents such as Bt toxins, given that little is known about their toxicological potential in non-target organisms, including humans.

While Bacillus Thurigensis spore-crystals have been used since the late 1960′s in agriculture as a foliar insecticide, it was only after the advent of recombinant DNA biotechnology that these toxin-producing genes (known as delta endotoxins) were first inserted into the plants themselves and released into commercial production in the mid-90′s, making their presence in the US food supply and the bodies of exposed populations ubiquitous.

What the new study revealed is that various binary combinations and doses of Bt toxins are capable of targeting mammalian cells, particularly the erythroid (red blood cell) lineage, resulting in red blood cell changes indicative of significant damage, such as anemia. In addition, the study found that Bt toxins suppressed bone marrow proliferation creating abnormal lymphocyte patterns consistent with some types of leukemia.

The researchers also found that one of the prevailing myths about the selective toxicity of Bt to insects, the target species, no longer holds true:

It has been reported that Cry toxins exert their toxicity when activated at alkaline pH of the digestive tract of susceptible larvae, and, because the physiology of the mammalian digestive system does not allow their activation, and no known specific receptors in mammalian  intestinal cells have been reported, the toxicity these MCAs to mammals  would negligible [8,22,23]. However, our study demonstrated that Bt spore-crystals genetically modified to express individually Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2A induced hematotoxicity, particularly to the erythroid lineage. This finding corroborates literature that demonstrated that alkali-solubilized  Bt spore-crystals caused in vitro hemolysis in cell lines of rat, mouse, sheep, horse, and human erythrocytes and suggested that the plasma membrane of susceptible cells (erythrocytes, in this case) may be the primary target for these toxins [33]

The study also found:

1) That Cry toxins are capable of exerting their adverse effects when suspended in distilled water, not requiring alkalinization via insect physiology to become activated as formerly believed.

2) That a dose of Cry1Ab as low as 27 mg/kg, their lowest tested dose, was capable of inducing hypochromic anemia in mice – the very toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet.

3) Whereas past reports have found that Bt toxins are generally nontoxic and do not bioaccumulate in fatty tissue or persist in the environment, the new study demonstrated that all Cry toxins tested had a more pronounced effect from 72 hours of exposure onwards, indicating the opposite is true.

4) That high-dose Cry toxin doses caused blood changes indicative of bone marrow damage (damage to “hematopoietic stem cell or bone marrow stroma”).

The authors noted their results “demonstrate leukemogenic activity for other spore-crystals not yet reported in the literature.”

Testing is already under way in China <i>(Image: Han Suyuan/Color China Photo/APt)</i>

Testing is already under way in China (Image: Han Suyuan/Color China Photo/APt)

New Scientist

THE US government has declared that H7N9 bird flu “poses a significant potential for a public health emergency”, and has given “emergency use authorisation” for diagnostic kits for the virus. This means tests can be used that haven’t gone through the usual lengthy approval process by the US Food and Drug Administration.

They are right to be concerned. H7N9 could be a tough adversary: New Scientist has learned that it provokes a weaker immune response than most flu, making vaccines hard to produce.

Although H7N9 is not, so far, transmissible between humans, it does cause severe disease in people, is easier to catch than other bird flu strains, and may need only a few mutations to go pandemic. The UK has already given doctors instructions on when to test people for H7N9, and how to manage any with the virus.

The US’s emergency authorisation will allow the use of a kit that looks for flu genes using a polymerase chain reaction test, which has been made specific for H7N9. The kit has had preliminary tests but would normally need more exhaustive tests to be approved. Innovative new diagnostics should eventually be authorised too, says Charles Chiu of the University of California in San Francisco.

This kind of fast, high-throughput screening for pandemic flu, possibly at borders, might allow early cases to be treated with antiviral drugs, potentially slowing the spread of the virus while vaccines are made.

The next emergency authorisation is likely to be for immune-stimulating chemicals called adjuvants to put in those vaccines. These were used in vaccines in Europe and Canada during the 2009 pandemic, but adjuvants suitable for flu are not currently approved in the US.

Read Full Article Here

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CDC: Current China Bird Flu Strain Can’t Cause Pandemic

Pedestrians wearing medical masks walk on the street outside National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei, April 26, 2013. A 53-year-old Taiwan businessman contracted the H7N9 strain of bird flu while travelling in China, the first reported case outside of mainland China.

Pedestrians wearing medical masks walk on the street outside National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei, April 26, 2013. A 53-year-old Taiwan businessman contracted the H7N9 strain of bird flu while travelling in China, the first reported case outside of mainland China.

 Reuters

May 06, 2013

NEW YORK — The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the current strain of bird flu that is causing illness and deaths in China cannot spark a pandemic in its current form – but he added that there is no guarantee it will not mutate and cause a serious pandemic.

In an exclusive interview at the Reuters Health Summit in New York, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said more than 2,000 people have been in contact with infected individuals, and only a handful have become ill.

Virtually all of the rest have had direct contact with poultry, the identified cause of the virus.

FILE - Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, is shown at the agency's headquarters, Sept. 3, 2009.
FILE – Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, is shown at the agency’s headquarters, Sept. 3, 2009.

“This particular virus is not going to cause a pandemic because it doesn’t spread person-to-person,” Frieden said. “But all it takes is a bit of mutation for it be able to go person-to-person.  I cannot say with certainty whether that will happen tomorrow, within 10 years or never.”

The new strain of bird flu known as H7N9, which began infecting people in February, has so far sickened at least 127 people and killed 27. According to the latest CDC estimates, the flu kills about 20 percent of the people it infects.

Read Full Article Here

 

iHealthTube iHealthTube

Published on May 7, 2013

http://www.ihealthtube.com http://www.facebook.com/ihealthtube
Journalist Liam Scheff has done research into the vaccine system in the United States. He also has an interesting family history in the practice. He discusses some of the things vaccines still contain and how the premise behind vaccines is flawed.

Image Source

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Rumor: New ‘sex superbug’ found in Hawaii

The Associated Press, which first reported the story about the “sex superbug,” has since withdrawn its story.

FALSE

AP first reported on apparent ‘sex superbug,’ but has since withdrawn story

The rumor began on May 1, when The Associated Press printed a tiny note from Honolulu. State health officials had reportedly confirmed two cases of H041, a drug-resistant gonorrhea. As the AP reported, the “superbug” had first been discovered in Japan in 2011. Others quickly pounced on the story. AP’s competitor UPI trotted out a naturopathic physician to give them the “this might be a lot worse than AIDS” scare quote. And British tabloid The Sun called the bug a “global killer” even though, as it later pointed out, it hadn’t actually killed anyone yet.

But AP then published this story, withdrawing the previous story about the “sex superbug,” saying “The Hawaii State Department of Health says the two cases are a different strain of the disease, and no cases of the new strain have been confirmed.” Had H041 actually been found on the island, it would have been as big a deal as the AP and others said it was. As NBC News points out, that particular strain of gonorrhea is resistant to ceftriaxone, “the last-resort treatment for the sexually transmitted infection.”

But it wasn’t H041. The two cases in Hawaii, as the AP later corrected and as NBC discovered, were actually a different strain, H11S8, that’s resistant to a different antibiotic. As of now, H041 hasn’t been seen since 2009, when it was revealed that a Japanese sex worker was infected.

 

Read Full Article Here

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Sex Superbug, Antibiotic-Resistant

Gonorrhea, Is Not ‘Worse Than AIDS,’ Experts Say

Posted: 05/07/2013 10:41 am EDT

Gonorrhea Superbug

By: Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Senior Writer
Published: 05/06/2013 05:51 PM EDT on MyHealthNewsDaily

Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is a serious public health issue, but comparing the illness to AIDS, as a recent article did, is misleading, experts say.

A recent CNBC article with the headline “Sex Superbug Could Be ‘Worse Than AIDS’” quoted Alan Christianson, a naturopathic doctor, as saying that an antibiotic-resistant strain of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea “might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly.”

However, some experts called the comparison hyperbolic.

“I disagree with the general comparison,” said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an attending physician in infectious diseases at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

“The rate of complications from gonorrhea in terms of systemic problems is so much lower than the rate of complications from untreated AIDS infection,” Hirsch said.

The CNBC article says that this particular strain of gonorrhea “might put someone into septic shock and death in a matter of days.” But Hirsch said that the rate of life-threatening complications, such as sepsis, from gonorrhea, is about 1 percent, while the rate of death from untreated AIDS is 98 percent.

 

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