Ok, I know there are many people out there thinking ,this is way cool. Yes technology is very cool. I for one think they should be
1) working just as hard at finding out exactly what is killing the bees we already have and nature provides very efficiently on it’s own without help from robotics.
2) Stop the corporation from making the chemicals that are hurting the bees in the first place. Putting eco responsibility and the health of the planet before profits.
3) Consider that if the bees are in danger then the rest of the pollinators may be as well. Coming to the conclusion that the link in the eco cycle will be broken and the ramifications could be devastating, if left unchecked.
4) I would like to point out something that should be very obvious,but would not occur to many people. While this new technology is cool. What is to stop the bad guys from getting their hands on said technology and using it to their benefit?
It is obvious from the 2nd video that they do indeed have military and law enforcement applications. It would be naive to believe that their use will only be for lawful and beneficial purposes.
Just imagine the Boston Bombing with this kind of technological capability behind it?
Yes I am sure you see where I am going with this……
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second. To read more about this work, visit: http://hvrd.me/150Pq0y.
This is an update to the original post on April 17.
No, this is not a tabloid – it’s real. According to the latest video, which has now been posted below, robotic insects have made their first controlled flight. According to the creators of Robobee:
The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work . . . Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second.
In addition to the recent suggestion from insecticide producers that we should “plant more flowers” to aid the declining bee population, Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has been working with staff from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Northeastern University’s Department of Biology to develop robotic bees. These insectoid automatons would be capable of a multitude of tasks.
Autonomous pollination, search and rescue, hazardous exploration, military surveillance, climate mapping, and traffic monitoring – to name a few.
Harvard claims their “Micro Air Vehicles Project” was inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behaviors. While the researchers focused on the development of individual autonomous robots, they also plan to study coordinating large numbers of the robots to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently.
The robots are created through an incredible micro-engineering process specifically designed for mass production. Each “Bee” is designed with its own electronic nervous system and power source, and able to target tasks with a microscopic Ultra Violet targeting sensor.
These micro-engineering advances are increasingly similar to the military’s development of miniature drones. Shared knowledge and research in these technologies is resulting in a massive increase of processing power and flight time, as well as the potential for fully autonomous drone swarms.
Air Force Bugbots Nano Drone video gives a peak inside what nano-drone technology the Federal Government is currently implementing within the united states more than a scary thought or sci-fi movie, they have arrived.
The deadly, insect-sized drones of the future – Unobtrusive, Invasive, and Lethal are here as depicted in this old video
The Air Force is reportedly developing winged drones that can sneak up on a suspected enemy as stealthily as a mosquito
A law signed by President Barack Obama in February 2012 directs the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by September 30, 2015.
Nano sized Drones Combined With DNA Hacking Could Create A Very Scary Future for the United States in light of a law president Obama signed last year implementing a fleet of at least 30,000 spy drones to spy on small town USA no later than 2015 to spy on Americans.
Unfortunately this is a true story and as long as we continue to let politicians like President Barack Obama and other democrats pick apart and fundamentally change our constitution instead of protecting it, we move closer to an extreme communist state in our country.
In case you didn’t know it – and you probably didn’t – Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA re-authorization bill that President Obama signed into law that will put 30,000 flying drones spying on Americans across U.S. cities by government.
People are already nervous about the prospect of being watched by law enforcement (and possibly the military or DHS), but our leaders employ these tools nevertheless and “we the people” are letting them.
Even the liberal news huffington post has a video news story about this although they try to legitimize the reasons for needing this to save lives. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09…
The president has ordered 30,000 spy drones to be used within the United States to spy on Americans to be implemented by 2015
We are already seeing evidence of spy drones being used within the United States and NOT for border patrol
Tamerlan Tsarnaev (L) died after a police shootout, while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (R) is still at large
Tamerlan, 26, reportedly died in a shootout with police on Thursday night. His 19-year-old younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured late on Friday in Boston.
The brothers lived in the Massachusetts town of Cambridge, home of the prestigious Harvard University. They are thought to have been in the US since about 2001.
There has been mixed information about the route they took to get there. The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens from the troubled Caucasus region of southern Russia. Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim area that has fought for full independence from Russia in the past.
“Dzhokhar” is a popular Chechen name and, on his page on the Russian social networking site VKontakte, the younger of the two brothers is a member of Chechen groups.
The page also reveals that he attended school in the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan. The family only lived there for a couple of years after arriving as refugees from Central Asia in the late 1990s.
That’s where Dzhokhar was born, but his elder brother, Tamerlan, appears to have lived in Chechnya in the early 1990s. The family fled from there at the height of the first Chechen War.
Information is slowly being pieced together about their lives in the US. The family went to the United States in 2001, though their father has now returned to Dagestan.
‘Extremist material’
Anzor Tsarnaev told the BBC that his younger son Dzhokhar was hoping to be a brain surgeon and that he believed the secret services had framed his sons.
“My children never had guns, they never saw them, maybe only on TV,” he said.
We know that Dzhokhar attended the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and that in 2011 he received a scholarship awarded to promising local high school seniors wanting to pursue further education.
The FBI has released several images of the suspects
According to a photo slideshow featuring Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old was an amateur boxer who had taken a semester off from the Bunker Hill Community College in Boston to train for a big competition.
In the accompanying captions, he tells the photographer that he is hoping to win enough fights to be selected for the US Olympic team and be a naturalised American. Tamerlan also says that unless Chechnya becomes independent, he would rather compete for the United States than for Russia.
Anzor Tsarnaev, father of the Boston Marathon bombings suspects, say his sons were set upAnzor Tsarnaev described 19-year-old Dzhokhar, who is on the run from police, as a ‘true angel’ in an interview from Dagestan.His eldest son Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a gunfight with police overnight after he was identified as a suspect by the FBI last night.
Mr Tsarnaev said: “Somebody clearly framed them. I don’t know who, but they framed them.
“And they were so cowardly that they shot the boy dead.”
The family’s origins are from Chechnya, and the youngest attended a school in a region which has become the epicenter of the Islamic insurgency.
Somebody clearly framed them. I don’t know who, but they framed them
Anzor Tsarnaev – father of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects
Mr Tsarnaev added: “They were set up, they were set up!
U.S. Marines and Afghan police in Afghanistan. A new study estimates the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost $4 to $6 trillion.
The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been declared officially over, but America has barely begun to pay the bill, says a new study. That could make defending the nation and paying the government’s bills even tougher to do in the future.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars will together cost $4 to $6 trillion, according a new study from Harvard University’s Kennedy School. A large share of those bills has yet to be paid: the study finds that the U.S. has spent around $2 trillion thus far on the two controversial wars, and that growing commitments to spending on military personnel and veterans will drive much of the spending in the decades to come. The study notes that the Veterans’ Affairs budget has tripled since the start of the wars.
“Assuming this pattern continues, there will be a much smaller amount of an already-shrinking defense budget available for core military functions,” writes Linda Bilmes, senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard and the study’s author.
Bilmes has been studying the costs of the two wars for years, and she says that the estimates of the total cost continue to climb as the cost of continuing care for veterans mounts.
“What has happened is the number of injuries and the number of claims and the complexity of claims…in these conflicts has been much higher than in previous wars,” she says. She notes that after Vietnam, veterans averaged around two and a half to three conditions per claim, whereas veterans now have over eight conditions per claim.
Of the nearly 1.6 million troops that have been discharged from the wars, over half have received Veterans’ Affairs medical treatment and will also receive benefits for the rest of their lives. Those costs will stack up as more troops are discharged and need benefits. The study finds that providing medical and disability benefits to vets will eventually cost over $836 billion.
Together they’ll be the most expensive in U.S. history, costing as much as $6 trillion over time, a new analysis says. Veterans’ care will probably be the biggest future expense.
A view of downtown Baghdad with the Dome of the 17 Ramadan Mosque in the foreground. The U.S. government has already spent $134 billion on medical care and disability benefits for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. (Ali Arkady / Metrography/Getty Images / March 28, 2013)
By Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles TimesMarch 29, 2013
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ultimately cost between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, with medical care and disability benefits weighing heavily for decades to come, according to a new analysis.
The bill to taxpayers so far has been $2 trillion, plus $260 billion in interest on the resulting debt. By comparison, the current federal budget is $3.8 trillion.
The costs of the wars will continue to mount, said the study’s author, Linda Bilmes, a public policy expert at Harvard University.
The largest future expenses will be medical care and disability benefits for veterans, Bilmes predicted. “The big, big cost comes 30 or 40 years out,” she said.
The wars, taken together, will be the most expensive in U.S. history — and not just because of their duration. The government has greatly expanded the services available to veterans and military personnel over the last decade. Compared with past conflicts, a far greater proportion of returning service members are seeking medical care and benefits.
Of the 1.56 million troops that have been discharged, more than half have received treatment at Veterans Affairs facilities and filed claims for lifetime disability payments, the study found.
“You don’t have to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Oprah,” Tolbert, a Harvard-educated attorney, told CBS in the video above. “We can do it wherever we are, with whatever we have, and for me, I have a home that I can make available.”
Tolbert had never met the recipients. He found them through Alexandria House, a shelter for women and children. Felicia Dukes, a mother of four, couldn’t believe the deal when she heard it.
It has long been known that volcanic activity can cause short-term variations in climate. Now, researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) have found evidence that the reverse process also occurs: Climate affects volcanic activity. Their study is now online in the international journal “Geology”.
In 1991, it was a disaster for the villages nearby the erupting Philippine volcano Pinatubo. But the effects were felt even as far away as Europe. The volcano threw up many tons of ash and other particles into the atmosphere causing less sunlight than usual to reach the Earth’s surface. For the first few years after the eruption, global temperatures dropped by half a degree. In general, volcanic eruptions can have a strong short-term impact on climate.
Conversely, the idea that climate may also affect volcanic eruptions on a global scale and over long periods of time is completely new. Researchers at GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and Harvard University in Massachusetts (USA) have now found strong evidence for this relationship from major volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ocean over the past 1 million years. They have presented their results in the latest issue of the international journal “Geology”.
The basic evidence for the discovery came from the work of the Collaborative Research Center “Fluids and Volatiles in Subduction Zones (SFB 574). For more than ten years the project has been extensively exploring volcanoes of Central America.
The tentacled artificial creature, made from silicon, has been dubbed “Medusoid” because of its resemblance to the snake-haired character from Greek mythology whose gaze turned people to stone.
It is able to mimic the swimming movement of a jellyfish thanks to muscle cells from rat hearts which were implanted onto its silicon frame and grown into a pattern similar to the muscles of a real jellyfish.
By applying an electric current to a container of conducting liquid, the scientists demonstrated they could “shock” the muscles into contracting so that it began to move through the water.
The “reverse-engineering” project by researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University was published on the website of the Nature Biotechnology journal.
Janna Nawroth, lead author of the study, said that most researchers working in tissue engineering have attempted to copy tissue or organs by simply recreating its major components, regardless of what their function is and whether they could be replaced by something simpler.
She said: “A big goal of our study was to advance tissue engineering. Our idea was that we would make jellyfish functions — swimming and creating feeding currents — as our target and then build a structure based on that information.”
Her colleague Prof John Dabiri added: “I’m pleasantly surprised at how close we are getting to matching the natural biological performance, but also that we’re seeing ways in which we can probably improve on that natural performance. The process of evolution missed a lot of good solutions.”
Jellyfish use a pumping muscle to propel themselves through the water, meaning their movement is based on a mechanism similar to a human heart.
This makes them a useful model for tissue engineering, technology which could one day be used to create synthetic hearts or other organs for human patients.
Prof Kevin Kit Parker, one of the study’s authors, said: “I saw a jellyfish at the New England Aquarium, and I immediately noted both similarities and differences between how the jellyfish pumps and the human heart. The similarities help reveal what you need to do to design a bio-inspired pump.
“The jellyfish provides a design algorithm for reverse engineering an organ’s function.”
Prof Dabiri added: “A lot of work these days is done to engineer molecules, but there is much less effort to engineer organisms.
“I think this is a good glimpse into the future of re-engineering entire organisms for the purposes of advancing biomedical technology.”
The Health Ranger interviews neurosurgeon, author and researcher Dr. Russell Blaylock, also known as the foremost authority on excitoxins such as MSG and aspartame. Dr. Blaylock is the author of “Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills.” In this part of the interview, Dr. Blaylock covers topics such as:
* MSG, aspartame and other dangerous excitotoxins that can cause neurological diseases
* Nutrition and it’s affect on the brain and recovery from brain injuries
* What “MSG Syndrome” is and just how toxic MSG really is
* What MSG does to the brain and brain function, especially in young children
* How MSG has contributed to the obesity epidemic in America and American children
* How food companies hide dangerous food additives under many different names
Learn more at:
RussellBlaylockMD.com
BlaylockWellnessCenter.com
Dr. Russell Blaylock M.D. is a retired neurosurgeon and author whose trailblazing research has tirelessly documented the fact that there is an epidemic of neurological disorders in the western world which are directly connected to toxins in our environment, and how this relates to the larger global eugenics program behind population reduction. In this fascinating interview, Blaylock reveals how depopulation programs forged by the Rockefeller foundation in association with the Nazis were the basis of modern day incarnations of eugenics like fluoride poisoning and vaccinations.
Blaylock explains how the eugenics movement began in America through Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie funding and what originated as The Science of Man project, which was an effort to socially engineer humanity to weed out those deemed “undesirable” to the elite. Rockefeller funding via major universities then bankrolled eugenics programs for the next several years, information about which was gleaned and exchanged with the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. Once eugenics had attracted the negative connotations of racial superiority and genocide, the pseudo-science was reborn under the umbrella of molecular biology and DNA.
The goal is to alter behavior by chemically changing the way in which the brain functions. One of the primary methods through which this is achieved is by fluoridating water and food supplies. Blaylock explains how fluoride opportunists seized upon falls in dental cavities, which were occurring naturally as a result of increased calcium intake and better diets in the west, to claim that mass fluoridation was the answer, while burying a plethora of studies that proved adding fluoride to water did not reduce cavities at all and in fact in several instances increased dental cavities.
Blaylock highlights how independent study after study has shown that fluoride increases cancer rates, increases bone disorders, which as Blaylock points out is a good way of increasing mortality rates amongst the elderly, and also leads to profound neurological disorders. Blaylock highlights the research of Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D, who during her tenure at Harvard University conducted one of the largest studies into fluoride’s effects on the brain in animals. Mullenix found that offspring of animals who had been fed fluoride became hyperactive (ADHD) and that if you gave an animal fluoride after birth they became very lethargic and apathetic. Mullenix discovered that fluoride tends to accumulate in the part of the brain that controls behavior. After revealing the truth about fluoride, Mullenix was later shunned and attacked by the medical establishment that she had once been a part of.
Blaylock delves into the dangers of vaccines and how they are part of the eugenics assault, pointing out that America’s infant mortality rates are impossibly high for a nation that is supposed to be a global leader in health care. Blaylock puts the number down to the fact that American babies are now being shot up with more vaccines than ever before, the rising number of which correlates exactly with levels of infant mortality. “When you over-vaccinate, it interferes with the development of the brain and then the child has difficulty learning, they have behavioral problems, and their brain cannot develop normally,” states Blaylock.
This is a key interview to watch if you want to get a firm grasp of how we are under attack from modern day eugenics. Blaylock frames the information in clear and easily understood verbiage so everyone can obtain a coherent understanding of how we are being targeted and what we can do to defend ourselves against this chemical and behavioral assault on humanity.
A shortage of properly packaged drugs could be putting patients at risk, federal health officials said on Thursday. They warned about clinics giving injections to more than one patient from vials designed for use for just one patient.
Ten patients in Arizona and Delaware were hospitalized with serious infections they got when clinic staff injected them with drugs taken from vials meant for one-time use in recent months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Another patient was found dead at home after getting one of the injections, although it couldn’t be proven the infection killed the patient. Last April, staff at one clinic in Delaware managed to infect nine patients with bacteria from their own bodies.
The CDC said the cases illustrate a growing problem — there have been 20 such incidents since 2007.
Staff at both clinics said they had trouble getting specially designed vials for multiple uses, the CDC said. There have been nationwide shortages of some of the drugs because of manufacturing problems. So staff diluted single-dose packages and used them in several patients, spreading infection. “Medications labeled as ‘single dose’ or ‘single use’ typically are preservative-free and should be dedicated for single-patient use to protect patients from infection risks,” the team of investigators wrote in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease.
At one clinic in Arizona, staffers diluted a vial of contrast agent, used to help make x-rays clearer when preparing patients for injections of strong pain medications. They injected 10 patients from this one diluted vial. Three patients were infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA, a serious and hard-to-treat bacterial infection.
All had to be hospitalized with meningitis, blood infections or abcesses – one for 41 days. “The fourth recipient of diluted contrast from the afternoon vial was found deceased at home, six days after treatment at the clinic. The cause of death was reported as multiple-drug overdose; however, invasive MRSA infection could not be ruled out,” the health officials wrote.
In Delaware, seven patients ended up in the hospital for three to eight days after getting injections for joint pain from the same orthopedic clinic last March. “When a national drug shortage disrupted the supply of 10 mL single dose vials, office staff members began using 30 mL single dose vials of bupivacaine for multiple patients,” the investigators wrote.
CDC experts tested the patients and they all were infected with an identical strain of S. aureus – and it matched a strain found living in two of the clinic workers. The workers were colonized – meaning the bacteria lived in their noses or on their skin but didn’t make them sick.
“This report reminds health-care providers of the serious consequences of multipatient use of single-dose vials that can occur even when health-care workers believe they are being careful,” the report reads. There are ways to safely use smaller vials for multiple patients, but the CDC and state health officials in Arizona and Delaware said clinic staff need special training.
How can patients protect themselves? Infection control experts say it’s best to be a squeaky wheel — always ask doctors, nurses and other clinic staff if they have washed their hands before touching you. Patients receiving injections should ask if the equipment is sterile and if it has been prepared according to procedure. And anyone who has been to a clinic or hospital recently should immediately check with a doctor if they develop a fever, rash or cough.
People who live in or travel to the Northeast or upper Midwest this summer should take precautions to avoid contracting babesiosis, a tick-born disease native to those areas, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2011, more than 1,100 cases of babesiosis from 15 states were reported to the CDC.
Ninety-seven percent of cases occurred in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. Most cases — 82 percent — occurred in the summer months (June through August). More than half of infected people were over age 60.
Babesiosis is caused by the parasite Babesia microti, which infects red blood cells. Symptoms can include fever, nausea and headache, although most people infected with the parasite feel fine, the CDC says.
In recent years, cases of babesiosis in the United States have increased, and the disease may be spreading into new regions. Last year was the first time health officials reported cases of the disease to the CDC using a standard definition of the illness. Surveillance for the disease occurred in 18 states.
To prevent babesiosis infection, people who live in or travel to regions where the disease is found should take the following precautions: avoid tick-infested areas, apply repellents, wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts when outdoors, shower soon after being outdoors, and check their entire bodies for ticks, the CDC says.
Tick bites are the most common way babesiosis is transmitted, but people can also become infected through blood transfusions, and the disease can pass from mother to child during pregnancy.
In 2011, 10 people were suspected of contracting babesiosis through blood transfusions, and one case of congenital transmission of the disease was reported.
Treatments for babesiosis are effective, and usually involve a combination of anti-malarial drugs or antibiotics, such as quinine and clindamycin, according to the New York State Department of Health. But most people do not become sick enough to require treatment, and the CDC says people who do not have symptoms should not be treated with drugs.
Because there’s no way to screen the blood supply for the babesiosis parasite, people known to have had the disease should refrain from donating blood indefinitely, the CDC says.
Ongoing surveillance for the disease will allow officials to develop effective prevention and control measures to reduce the burden of babesiosis, the report says.
The report will be published July 13 in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The RevecoMED International offices in Fullerton, Calif.
By Myron Levin and Stuart Silverstein
FairWarning.org
For several years, doctors and medical spas around the country have touted a fat-melting device called the LipoTron 3000, or Lipo-Ex, as a revolutionary way for people to slim down.
Signature Medical Spa in Tampa, Fla., in an online pitch for its “Lipo-Ex Spring Fling Fat-Off!,” described the technology as “truly the only non-invasive way to reduce fat.”
Praise also came from Sculpt Medical Spa in Chicago, which called the procedure “the most innovative, effective, and technologically advanced” non-surgical method of removing fat.
Doctors have appeared on TV news shows in Houston, Phoenix and Miami to promote LipoTron treatments.
These testimonials have translated into millions of dollars in sales for physicians, med spas, and the device’s manufacturer, RevecoMED International of Fullerton, Calif.
But there’s a problem: The LipoTron, which targets fat with radiofrequency waves, has never been cleared or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which would make it illegal under federal law to sell or promote it for weight loss.
The FDA is aware of the activity. But an investigation by FairWarning found that the agency has not taken enforcement action — even though it has known about the situation at least since January, 2010. At that time, two whistleblowers, one a former LipoTron distributor, provided sales records and a trove of other documents to an FDA criminal investigator.
The case spotlights the booming, multi-billion-dollar business of aesthetic medicine—and the willingness of some doctors and med spas to use unapproved devices as they vie to be first with the latest technologies to smooth wrinkles, tighten skin and sculpt the body.
The FDA won’t say if it is investigating Reveco, citing a policy not to discuss investigations or acknowledge if there is one.
For his part, RevecoMED President James S. Rosen said the agency hasn’t contacted the company. He asserted that, “As of today, we are compliant with the FDA.”
Still, for observers such as Dr. Patricia K. Farris, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Tulane University and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology, the situation is baffling.
Told of the unauthorized sales, Farris responded: “It shocks me the FDA would not have cracked down on them.”
“I mean, radiofrequency is an electrical device, and you can’t just be throwing these things in the marketplace without doing the right studies to make sure that, A, the device is safe and, B, that the thing does something and has some benefit.”
Dr. Suzanne Yee, a Little Rock, Ark., plastic surgeon whom Reveco asked several years ago to take part in a LipoTron study, said she was surprised to learn that the company already was selling the device.
She noted that some medical spas have falsely stated on their websites that the LipoTron is FDA-approved. “It’s not FDA-approved,” Yee said. “I think that’s dishonest.”
There have been scattered incidents of patients receiving minor shocks and burns from LipoTron treatments, but no known reports of serious injury.
While the FDA has failed to act, the Texas Department of State Health Services issued a warning letter last September to a Fort Worth distributor for marketing the LipoTron without FDA clearance. According to an agency report, Mark Durante, managing partner of Advanced Aesthetic Concepts, told state investigators that the LipoTron had been cleared by the FDA, but later corrected himself to say paperwork had been filed but no clearance yet given.
Durante told FairWarning that, in response to the warning, his company changed some language on its website. However, a spokeswoman for the Texas agency said it recently opened a second complaint investigation of Advanced Aesthetic Concepts.
Selling for as much as $85,000, the LipoTron passes radiofrequency waves through the body to heat, and destroy, fat cells. According to Reveco, the procedure targets subcutaneous fat, which is just below the skin, as well as visceral fat surrounding the vital organs, but without harming adjacent tissues. Spas typically recommend six to eight treatments for about $400 each.
According to interviews and records, Reveco first sought a green light from the FDA in 2007. It chose the FDA’s market clearance procedure, which is less demanding than the formal approval process.
To get a new device cleared this way, the manufacturer must show it is similar in safety and effectiveness to products that are already on the market.
However, Reveco’s bid failed. The company’s initial application “wasn’t in-depth enough,” Rosen said, and the FDA repeatedly sought additional data. Finally, according to Rosen, “We said, ‘You know what, it’s not worth it.”
According to interviews and a document reviewed by FairWarning, the FDA then told Reveco that the device could not be marketed.
LipoTron sales continued, however. Rosen wouldn’t disclose how many of the devices have been sold, but the number is believed to be in the low hundreds.
In 2011, Reveco took another tack with the FDA. It classified the LipoTron as a massager used for relief of minor pain. That would make it, in FDA parlance, a Class 1 device — a category that includes such simple, low-risk items as elastic bandages and examination gloves.
The advantage for Reveco is that massagers can be sold without a green light from the FDA. They automatically are exempt from FDA review and can be put on the market once a notice is filed.
Yet doctors and med spas have been promoting the device on the Internet not for massages but for removing fat.
Rosen said that was not Reveco’s responsibility, stating that the company can’t dictate what doctors do or “police everything out on the Internet.”
Asked who would pay $85,000 for a massager, Rosen replied: “Anybody that wants to buy it.”
Physicians are free under federal law to prescribe unapproved, or “off-label,” uses of drugs or medical devices — but only if the products have been cleared or approved for another purpose, according to the FDA.
FDA spokeswoman Sarah Clark-Lynn said in an email that if a device is not legally on the market, “a physician should not have been able to obtain it, much less use it on a patient.”
Dr. Sherwood Baxt, a New Jersey plastic surgeon who advertised the procedure in a promotional video, said that when he bought the LipoTron he wasn’t troubled by its lack of FDA clearance. He explained that he had used unapproved devices before and, while he considered the agency’s green light a marketing advantage, he didn’t consider it necessary.
Besides, Baxt said, “We were told FDA approval was imminent.” It didn’t work out that way, however, and, he said, “After two years, I just stopped asking.”
He continues to use the device for skin tightening on certain patients but quit using it for fat reduction. For fat reduction, Baxt said, “It wasn’t as effective as I thought it was going to be.”
The FDA was informed of the unauthorized sales through an anonymous call. Paige Peterson, a former LipoTron distributor, and Belinda W. Worley, a marketing consultant who worked with her, told FairWarning they dialed in from a hospital phone in hopes the call could not be traced.
But they agreed to meet with criminal investigator Evan Rae a few days later at a Hilton inn in Waco, mid-way between Rae’s office in Austin and Dallas, where Peterson and Worley lived.
They found a quiet spot in the lobby bar, which was closed in the morning, and talked for a couple of hours. Peterson said she gave Rae a detailed statement, a computer flash drive and copies of records, including emails, memos and invoices. Rae taped the conversation and snapped photos of the LipoTron 3000 the women had brought along. Rae declined to be interviewed.
Peterson told FairWarning she had made 39 LipoTron sales, even though she was aware the device had not been cleared by the FDA. The evidence she gave Rae “was just as damning of me as everybody else. I have zero assurances that the FDA is not going to arrest me.”
Peterson admitted there was no love lost between her and Reveco. She said she had paid out-of-pocket for some research costs aimed at getting FDA approval, but had not been reimbursed. And she said the company dumped her as a distributor in favor of another sales group.
But Peterson also said Reveco had misled her with repeated assurances it was taking all proper steps and FDA approval was imminent—and spread this misinformation to some anxious customers.
“I had run out of acceptable answers to give the doctors that had purchased the LipoTron,” she said. “I needed to fall on my sword and tell the truth.” Better to come clean, Peterson decided, than to wait for the FDA “to come knocking on my door.”
While declining to comment on Peterson’s statements, Rosen said she had gone over to “the dark side.”
“She’s a person that’s vindictive,” he said. “She’s doing it out of spite.”
For her part, Peterson says that after 2½ years she is surprised and frustrated by the apparent lack of action.
“Why do we have an FDA?” she asked.
“I tried to do what I thought was right, and nobody’s doing anything about it. Everybody gets to thumb their nose at the law.”
NEW YORK — One in eight people with the painful condition fibromyalgia self-medicate with pot and other cannabis products, according to a new Canadian study
“That is not unusual behavior, in general, for people with chronic medical illnesses for which we don’t have great treatments,” said Dr. Igor Grant, who heads the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California and was not involved in the study.
“People start looking around, they look for other types of remedies, because they need the help,” he told Reuters Health.
The question is if self-medicating with cannabis is really helpful for people with fibromyalgia, researchers say.
Marijuana has been shown to ease certain types of pain in patients with HIV and other conditions. But Grant said he doesn’t know of any research showing the drug can relieve the pain associated with fibromyalgia.
And the question of whether it helps fibromyalgia sufferers regain some of their daily functions, such as housekeeping or working, remains up in the air, too.
“We don’t want to just see pain reduction, but an improvement in function,” said Peter Ste-Marie, a pain researcher at McGill University in Montreal, who worked on the new study. “If it’s not helping them get back into a daily life pattern, is it helping them?”
Teaching children to cook found pivotal in their ability to make healthy food choices
By Raw Michelle
(NaturalNews) While it’s obvious that children (and even adults) who like fruits and vegetables are more likely to eat them, researchers are trying to identify the pivotal variable that causes individuals to like them. The study comes from Alberta, Canada, where researchers conducted a province-wide study on the eating habits of students in the fifth grade. Students from over 150 schools were surveyed, in an attempt to appraise the eating patterns that were being established so early in life….
Using probiotic enriched foods can optimize your health
By Dr. David Jockers,
(NaturalNews) Our ancestors’ utilized probiotic enriched foods on a regular basis. This was necessary as a means of food preservation without the advent of refrigeration. Many ancient medicine men and physicians began utilizing them to treat certain ailments. Probiotic enriched foods are one of the most important attributes of a healthy diet and lifestyle. In the early 20th century, Nobel Prize winning scientist Ilya Ilyich Mechinikov attributed the remarkable health of a group of Bulgarian people…
Ward off cancer, protect against radiation, and ease irritable bowel syndrome with mint
By Carolanne Wright,
(NaturalNews) A seemingly humble herb, mint offers a variety of exceptional health enhancing features. Research has shown that certain varieties of mint have properties that help defend against cancer and damaging radiation. Not only does this herb offer protective benefit, but it also provides those who suffer from irritable bowl syndrome much needed relief. Mentha piperita (peppermint) is native to the Mediterranean and nutrient rich. The fresh herb contains ample amounts of vitamin A, C, B12…
Not getting enough vitamin D could cause you to lose mobility, become disabled
By Ethan A. Huff,
(NaturalNews) There is no longer any doubt that regular, unfiltered sunlight exposure, which helps promote and maintain optimal blood levels of vitamin D, plays a critical role in health promotion and disease prevention. And a recent study published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Science further confirms this, having found that inadequate blood levels of vitamin D can lead to decreased mobility and even disablement, particularly among the elderly. Based on data collected from the comprehensive…
Use these supplements to stop cravings, burn fat and energize your workouts
By PF Louis, July 11 2012
(NaturalNews) Maybe you’ve noticed – people on low or no fat diets tend to remain fat or regain it quickly. Food fat issues are overrated. We need good fat to help build cell walls and brain cells. Calorie sources and how they’re metabolized are the real issues. A more recent, more accurate assessment points to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is in almost all processed and junk foods, even those that don’t taste sweet. Almost half the calories of HFCS are not used for energy. They’re stored…
A beloved family cat in Colorado is dying of a type of cancer very likely caused by a vaccine. Hozart, who belongs to the Gorden family of Colorado Springs, has developed vaccine-associated sarcoma (VAS), probably as the result of a feline leukemia vaccination.
The Gordens have spent thousands of dollars to save their pet, but things don’t look good for Hozart. The family wishes they had been told the risks vs. benefits of the vaccines he was given. They had no idea the FeLV vaccine is linked to cancerous tumors in cats. Nor did they know indoor-only cats like Hozart have no need for the vaccine.
Rabies vaccines (which Hozart was given at the same time) have also been linked to VAS in cats, but since those vaccines are required by law, our recommendation is to never give more than one vaccine at the same time.
Whether your pet is a cat or a dog, it’s important to learn about veterinary vaccines – which are core, which are non-core, which vaccines your pet truly needs — and how often.
Dr. Deborah Germeroth, a veterinarian in Colorado Springs puts it this way: “There’s no cookie-cutter recipe for animal vaccines, but you don’t need everything under the sun,” Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
Several studies in both humans and animals over the last half dozen years provide evidence that calorie-restricted diets supplemented with omega-3 fatty acids can help pets lose weight
Omega-3’s reduce the effect of inflammatory enzymes produced by body fat, which is likely the mechanism by which they also help with weight loss.
Fish body oils like krill oil are by far the most effective method for supplementing your pet’s diet with omega-3 fats.
The potential for weight loss is only one of many important health benefits omega-3 fatty acids provide to both people and pets.
There are general guidelines for how much krill oil to give healthy pets, but it’s best to consult with your holistic vet to arrive at an optimum amount for your individual dog or cat.
Many have asked so Linus now has a Facebook fanpage! Visit http://www.facebook.com/LinusTheBoxer
Our daughter has never hesitated to quickly and loudly let us know when she is even slightly unhappy. If he were hurting or upsetting her in any way… it would be clear.
Eldon Taylor joins Dr. Rita Louise on Just Energy Radio where he discusses the power of our beliefs and the affect they have on our lives.
About Eldon Taylor
Eldon Taylor is the host of the popular radio show, Provocative Enlightenment. He is an award winning, New York Times best selling author of over 300 books, and audio and video programs. He is the inventor of the patented InnerTalk technology and the founder and President of Progressive Awareness Research, Inc. who has been featured as an expert in films, print, television and radio. He has been called a ³master of the mind² and has appeared as an expert witness on both hypnosis and subliminal communication.
‘Foie gras’ duck meat produced by force-feeding ducks, geese until their livers expand
By Ethan A. Huff,
(NaturalNews) A delicacy in French cuisine, foie gras is served all around the world in some of the finest restaurants where food enthusiasts flock to get their fix of this rare and unusual fare. But in order to produce this controversial cuisine, farmers have to gorge ducks and geese with ghastly amounts of corn feed administered through a force-feeding tube, which causes the birds’ livers to artificially expand in size, and may cause them severe pain and distress. Though the practice has been…
The ‘Monsanto Rider’: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?
By Ronnie Cummins,
(NaturalNews) While many Americans were firing up barbecues and breaking out the sparklers to celebrate Independence Day, biotech industry executives were more likely chilling champagne to celebrate another kind of independence: immunity from federal law. A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require – the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation…
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
Dr. Russell Blaylock M.D. is a retired neurosurgeon and author whose trailblazing research has tirelessly documented the fact that there is an epidemic of neurological disorders in the western world which are directly connected to toxins in our environment, and how this relates to the larger global eugenics program behind population reduction. In this fascinating interview, Blaylock reveals how depopulation programs forged by the Rockefeller foundation in association with the Nazis were the basis of modern day incarnations of eugenics like fluoride poisoning and vaccinations.
Blaylock explains how the eugenics movement began in America through Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie funding and what originated as The Science of Man project, which was an effort to socially engineer humanity to weed out those deemed “undesirable” to the elite. Rockefeller funding via major universities then bankrolled eugenics programs for the next several years, information about which was gleaned and exchanged with the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. Once eugenics had attracted the negative connotations of racial superiority and genocide, the pseudo-science was reborn under the umbrella of molecular biology and DNA.
The goal is to alter behavior by chemically changing the way in which the brain functions. One of the primary methods through which this is achieved is by fluoridating water and food supplies. Blaylock explains how fluoride opportunists seized upon falls in dental cavities, which were occurring naturally as a result of increased calcium intake and better diets in the west, to claim that mass fluoridation was the answer, while burying a plethora of studies that proved adding fluoride to water did not reduce cavities at all and in fact in several instances increased dental cavities.
Blaylock highlights how independent study after study has shown that fluoride increases cancer rates, increases bone disorders, which as Blaylock points out is a good way of increasing mortality rates amongst the elderly, and also leads to profound neurological disorders. Blaylock highlights the research of Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D, who during her tenure at Harvard University conducted one of the largest studies into fluoride’s effects on the brain in animals. Mullenix found that offspring of animals who had been fed fluoride became hyperactive (ADHD) and that if you gave an animal fluoride after birth they became very lethargic and apathetic. Mullenix discovered that fluoride tends to accumulate in the part of the brain that controls behavior. After revealing the truth about fluoride, Mullenix was later shunned and attacked by the medical establishment that she had once been a part of.
Blaylock delves into the dangers of vaccines and how they are part of the eugenics assault, pointing out that America’s infant mortality rates are impossibly high for a nation that is supposed to be a global leader in health care. Blaylock puts the number down to the fact that American babies are now being shot up with more vaccines than ever before, the rising number of which correlates exactly with levels of infant mortality. “When you over-vaccinate, it interferes with the development of the brain and then the child has difficulty learning, they have behavioral problems, and their brain cannot develop normally,” states Blaylock.
This is a key interview to watch if you want to get a firm grasp of how we are under attack from modern day eugenics. Blaylock frames the information in clear and easily understood verbiage so everyone can obtain a coherent understanding of how we are being targeted and what we can do to defend ourselves against this chemical and behavioral assault on humanity.
Proposed Poultry Inspection Rule Could Privatize Food Safety, Lead To Higher Rates Of Contamination
Food safety advocacy groups are fighting a proposed rule that would allow private companies to assume some of the food inspection duties currently handled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service currently oversees all poultry for blemishes and defects before the carcasses are fully processed, but under the new rule, poultry plants would assume those responsibilities.
Could high-power ultrasound protect produce from pathogens?
A litany of food scares–and rules for organic produce–have pushed the industry to seek new solutions for food safety. Perfectly sanitized dimpled spinach leaves or tender greens like baby lettuce has been high on the wish
World Wide Obesity Epidemic Some 68% of all Americans are overweight, and obesity has almost doubled in the last couple of decades worldwide. As International Business Tribune reports: Studies conducted jointly by researchers at Imperial College London and Harvard University, published in the medical journal The Lancet, show that obesity worldwide almost…
It was originally approved in 1998, and Pfizer was required to do the safety study in 2006 after Celebrex was approved as a treatment for juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company said the Food and Drug Administration released it from its requirement.
(AP) CHICAGO – A father lost his job at a medical device company that is facing a new tax. A young woman got back on her parents’ insurance and was able to get surgery for an injury that could have hobbled her. A part-time sales woman stopped …
Resistance to antibiotics could bring “the END OF MODERN MEDICINE AS WE KNOW IT”
The world is entering an antibiotic crisis which could make routine operations impossible and a scratched knee potentially fatal, the head of the World Health Organisation has claimed.
Bacteria are starting to become so resistant to common antibiotics that every antibiotic ever developed is at risk of becoming useless, making once-routine operations impossible. This would include many of the breakthrough drugs developed to treat tuberculosis, malaria, bacterial infections and HIV/AIDS, as well as simple treatments for cuts. We could be entering into a “post-antibiotic era”.
Replacement medicines could become more expensive, with longer periods of treatment required to bring about the same effect. “Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill.
Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units. For patients infected with some drug-resistant pathogens, mortality has been shown to increase by around 50 per cent.”
The stark warning comes shortly after the World Health Organisation published a new book warning of the “global crisis”, entitled “The evolving threat of antimicrobial resistance. The current situation was blamed largely on the misuse of antibiotics, which are not prescribed properly and used too frequently and for too long. The WHO has now appealed to governments across the world to support research into the antimicrobial resistance.
(NaturalNews) Statistical evidence shows that lung issues such as asthma and COPD have risen considerably over the past two decades. While there may be a few factors behind this, hardly anyone includes chemtrails as one of them. Scientists and governments have allowed some “limited hangouts” (partial disclosures) on chemtrails or stratospheric geo-engineering, framing it as “experimental.” They openly discuss geo-engineering as “potential” solutions for weather control and protection against global…
(NaturalNews) Man, it seems, was never meant to be woken abruptly, in darkness, by loud, sudden buzzing, beeping and/or siren-type noises. Rather, our ancestors woke naturally, and gently, each day with the rising of the sun. There are different levels of sleep, with the deeper levels (Deep Sleep and REM sleep) being utilized for repairing and rejuvenating your body. The human body is designed to wake up during light sleep, either before entering this repair stage such as during a quick nap, or…
Recover from ADD, ADHD, and depression without drugs
By Allison Biggar,
(NaturalNews) Chances are you’ve been prescribed antidepressants or know someone who has. According to the Centers for Disease Control, eleven percent of Americans over the age of 12 take antidepressants. Between 1996 and 2005 alone, the number of people taking antidepressants doubled to 27 million. Concurrent with this pharmaceutical boom, we have also seen the rise of the ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) diagnosis. According to the National Institute of Mental health, 3 to…
Dental “treats” and specially-formulated diets are available to improve cat and dog dental health. Look for the Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC) Seal of Acceptance, which endorses such products. Keep both your relationship and your pets’ breath …
As animal health professionals are seeing an increase in distemper this year, some pet owners are taking extra precautions. “I like to see the animals vaccinated and well taken care of,” said Dr. Annette Jensen, who administered shots at the …
Troyer Cheese, Inc. Recalls Backroad Country Caramel Puffcorn Sold in 8oz and 16oz Plastic Bags Because of Undeclared Milk
Troyer Cheese, Inc. is recalling specific expiration dates of their Backroad Country Caramel Puffcorn sold in 8 and 16 ounce plastic bags because they may contain undeclared milk. People who have allergies to milk run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products.
California Firm Recalls Chicken Caesar Wraps Due to Misbranding and Undeclared Allergens
LSG Sky Chefs, a San Jose, Calif. establishment, is recalling approximately 1,784 pounds of grilled chicken Caesar wraps because the Caesar dressing used in the wrap products contains egg, a known allergen not declared on the wrap product label.
Capitol Briefing: Removal of food sales tax debated
Bill Graves, a Republican who signed into law several tax cuts in the 1990s, Graves told him that if he could do it over again, he would have pushed for removing the sales tax on food. Quote of the week “I think it’s safe to say that other …
The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.
In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.
U.S. Marines and Afghan police in Afghanistan. A new study estimates the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost $4 to $6 trillion.
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Lilly Fowler/ FairWarning.org
