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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Turn the Middle Aisles of Supermarkets into Ghost Towns






Life Arts

Turn the Middle Aisles of Supermarkets into Ghost Towns

 

By (about the author)     Permalink  





From flickr.com/photos/10506540@N07/7155710578/: Grand Rapids April 06, 2012 4
Grand Rapids April 06, 2012 4
(image by stevendepolo)

There are thousands, even tens of thousands of items in supermarkets. Most of them are highly processed, often un-nutritious or even dangerous and unhealthy. Some barely deserve to be called "food."

The worst of these can be found in the middle aisles of supermarkets. Of late, I've been enjoying totally avoiding those aisles. The sweet thing is, I'm not missing them at all.

Some of the aisles are basically collections of combinations of corn syrup with other products-- soda, chips, brownies, breakfast snacks, supposedly healthy granola products.

Others have so many preservatives and coloring agents in them, their ingredients look more like items for a chemistry lab.

I may zip through the frozen foods section looking for some frozen fruit and vegetables, but even that walk I seem to be doing less of.

You can even make a game of it. Count how many aisles you can totally ignore.

If you are going down any of those middle aisles, be sure to use the Buycott phone app to make sure you're not supporting companies that fund campaigns you would oppose-- like Koch brother companies, Monsanto, companies that fund ads opposing GMO labeling, etc.

Even better, try to do as much of your shopping at smaller local businesses than at big supermarkets. Join a local CSA (community supported agriculture) or a community garden or create your own garden and actually help plant and harvest the food you eat. And if you are buying produce at a big supermarket, try to buy locally grown food.

Learn about the health risks involved in eating animal products Learn about the heavy footprint meat casts on ecosystems. Learn the dirtiest foods, pesticide-wise, and buy organic for them.

There are all kinds of diseases that are appearing at much higher incidences now than even a decade ago. Part of the reason-- I think a big part-- is because of the food. Save your life and your family's health. Avoid those middle aisles and get food smart. 
 
 
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind.  Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives  one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big)  to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
 
 

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Most Popular Drug in America Is an Antipsychotic and No One Really Knows How It Works


 

The Most Popular Drug in America Is an Antipsychotic and No One Really Knows How It Works

 

The pharmaceutical industry has flooded America with antipsychotics.


 
Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term "Thorazine shuffle." Ads for Thorazine in medical journals, before drugs were advertised directly to patients, showed Aunt Hattie in a hospital gown, zoned out but causing no trouble to herself or anyone else. No wonder Thorazine and related drugs Haldol, Mellaril and Stelazine were called chemical straitjackets.
 
But Thorazine and similar drugs became close to obsolete in 1993 when a second generation of antipsychotics which included Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Abilify came online. Called "atypical" antipsychotics, the drugs seemed to have fewer side effects than their predecessors like dry mouth, constipation and the stigmatizing and permanent facial tics known as TD or tardive dyskinesia. (In actuality, they were similar.) More importantly, the drugs were obscenely expensive: 100 tablets of Seroquel cost as much as $2,000, Zyprexa, $1,680 and Abilify $1,644.
 
One drug that is a close cousin of Thorazine, Abilify, is currently the  top-selling of all prescription drugs in the U.S. marketed as a supplement to antidepressant drugs, reports the Daily Beast. Not only is it amazing that an antipsychotic is outselling all other drugs, no one even knows how it works to relieve depression, writes Jay Michaelson. The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify's method of action is "unknown" but it likely "balances" brain's neurotransmitters. But critics say antipsychotics don’t treat anything at all, but zone people out and produce oblivion. They also say there is a concerning rise in the prescription of antipsychotics for routine complaints like insomnia.
 
They are right. With new names and prices and despite their unknown methods of action, Pharma marketers have devised ways to market drugs like Abilify to the whole population, not just people with severe mental illness. Only  one percent of the population, after all, has schizophrenia and only 2.5 percent has bipolar disorder. Thanks to these marketing ploys, Risperdal was the seventh best-selling drug in the world until it went off patent and Abilify currently rules.
 
Here are some of the ways Big Pharma made antipsychotics everyday drugs.
 
Approval Creep
 
Everyone has heard of "mission creep." In the pharmaceutical world, approval creep means getting the FDA to approve a drug for one thing and pushing a lot of other drug approvals through on the coattails of the first one. Though the atypical antipsychotics were originally drugs for schizophrenia, soon there was a dazzling array of new uses.
 
Seroquel was first approved in 1997 for schizophrenia but subsequently approved for bipolar disorder, psychiatric conditions in children and finally as an add-on drug for depression like Abilify. The depression "market" is so huge, Seroquel's last approval allowed the former schizophrenia drug to make  $5.3 billion a year before it went off patent. But before the add-on approval, AstraZeneca, which makes Seroquel, ran a sleazy campaign to convince depressed people they were really "bipolar." Ads showed an enraged woman screaming into the phone, her face contorted, her teeth clenched. Is this you, asked the ads? Your depression may really be bipolar disorder, warned the ad.
 
Sometimes the indication creep is under the radar. After heated FDA hearings in 2009 about extending Zyprexa, Seroquel and Geodon uses for kids--Pfizer and AstraZeneca slides showed that kids died in clinical trials--the uses were added by the FDA but never announced. They were slipped into the record right before Christmas, when no news breaks, and recorded as "label changes." Sneaky.
 
And there is another "creep" which is also under the radar: "warning creep." As atypical antipsychotics have gone into wide use in the population, more risks have surfaced. Labels now warn against death-associated risks in the elderly, children and people with depression but you have to really read the fine print. (Atypical antipsychotics are so dangerous in the elderly with dementia, at least 15,000 die in nursing homes from them each year, charged FDA drug reviewer David Graham in congressional testimony.) The Seroquel label now warns against cardiovascular risks, which the  FDA denied until the drug was almost off patent.
 
Dosing Children
 
Perhaps no drugs but ADHD medications have been so widely used and often abused in children as atypical antipsychotics. Atypical antipsychotics are known to "improve" behavior in problem children across a broad range of diagnoses but at a huge price: A National Institute of Mental Health study of 119 children ages 8 to 19 found Risperdal and Zyprexa caused such obesity a  safety panel ordered the children off the drugs.
 
In only eight weeks, kids on Risperdal gained nine pounds and kids on Zyprexa gained 13 pounds. "Kids at school were making fun of me," said one study participant who put on 35 pounds while taking Risperdal.
 
Just like the elderly in state care, poor children on Medicaid are tempting targets for Big Pharma and sleazy operators because they do not make their own medication decisions. In 2008, the state of Texas charged Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen with defrauding the state of millions with “a sophisticated and fraudulent marketing scheme,” to “secure a spot for the drug, Risperdal, on the state’s Medicaid preferred drug list and on controversial medical protocols that determine which drugs are given to adults and children in state custody.”
 
Many other states have brought legal action against Big Pharma including compelling drug makers to pay for the extreme side effects that develop with the drugs: massive weight gain, blood sugar changes leading to diabetes and cholesterol problems.
 
Add-On Conditions
 
It's called polypharmacy and it is increasingly popular: Prescribing several drugs, often as a cocktail, that are supposed to do more than the drugs do alone. Big Pharma likes polypharmacy for two obvious reasons: drug sales are tripled or quadrupled—and it's not possible to know if the drugs are working. The problems with polypharmacy parallel its "benefits." The person can’t know which, if any, of the drugs are working so they take them all. By the time someone is on four or more psychiatric drugs, there is a good chance they are on a government program and we are paying. There is also a good chance the person is on the  drugs for life, because withdrawal reactions make them think there really is something wrong with them and it is hard to quit the drugs.
 
Into this lucrative merchandising model came the idea of "add-on" medications and " treatment-resistant depression." When someone's antidepressant didn't work, Pharma marketers began floating the idea that it wasn't that the drugs didn't work; it wasn't that the person wasn't depressed to begin with but had real life, job and family problems—it was "treatment-resistant depression." The person needed to add a second or third drug to their antidepressant, such as Seroquel or Abilify. Ka-ching.
 
Lawsuits Don't Stop Unethical Marketing
 
Just as Big Pharma has camped out in Medicare and Medicaid, living on our tax dollars while  fleeing to England so it doesn't have to pay taxes, Pharma has also camped out in the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Arguably, no drugs have been as good for Big Pharma as atypical antipsychotics within the military. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on Seroquel and VA spent $125.4 million—almost $30 million more than is spent on a  F/A-18 Hornet.
 
Risperdal was even bigger in the military. Over a period of nine years, VA spent $717 million on its generic, risperidone, to treat PTSD in troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet not only was risperidone not approved for PTSD, it didn't even work. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the drug worked no better than placebo and the money was totally wasted.
 
In the last few years, the makers of Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa have all settled suits claiming illegal or fraudulent marketing. A year ago, Johnson & Johnson admitted mismarketing Risperdal in a  $2.2 billion settlement. But the penalty is nothing compared with the $24.2 billion it made from selling Risperdal between 2003 to 2010 and shareholders didn't blink. The truth is, there is too much money in hawking atypical antipsychotics to the general population for Pharma to quit.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides

HUFF POST Politics Daily!


Politics Daily


Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides




SALINAS VALLEY, Calif. – Locals call this place the world's salad bowl. Dole, Naturipe and Fresh Express are here, where much of the global fruit and vegetable trade emerges in neat green fields just over the hills from the Pacific Coast.

The difficulties facing migrant workers who plant and pick the crops is an old story. But in Salinas, a new story is emerging -- one with serious implications for the rest of the country and with an ending that has yet to be written.

It is here that University of California, Berkeley public health professor Brenda Eskenazi and her colleagues have spent the past 12 years studying mothers and children who are exposed to pesticides used in the fields.

The Center for Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) is a joint project of UC Berkeley, the Natividad Medical Center, Clinica de Salud Del Valle de Salinas and other community organizations. Its goal is to assess exposure to pesticides and other pollutants in pregnant women and young children to determine the effects on their health, and to try to prevent contact with the chemicals.



After forming partnerships with local health care providers, the researchers were able to recruit 600 women, who submitted to a series of tests to measure pesticide levels in their bodies. Investigators tracked the women throughout their pregnancies, waiting at hospitals as babies were born to collect the umbilical cord blood. As the children grew, Eskenazi and her team also charted their growth, mental development and general health.

This group is now 10 ½ years old, and Eskenazi's work has set off alarms among public health officials. She and her colleagues have found that at age 2, the children of mothers who had the highest levels of organophosphate pesticide metabolites in their blood had the worst mental development in the group. They also had the most cases of pervasive developmental disorder.

At age 5, the children whose mothers were most exposed during pregnancy had poorer attention spans compared to those born to a mother who had lower levels of pesticide metabolites in their urine. Metabolites, as referred to here, are compounds that are formed as a chemical breaks down in the body. They are evidence that someone was exposed to a chemical.

"We have very, very high reports by the mother of behaviors consistent with pervasive developmental disorder," said Eskenazi at a recent neurotoxicology conference. "These include signs like the child is afraid to try new things, can't stand anything out of place, and avoid looking others in the eye. This is considered to be autism spectrum behavior."

Researchers are currently studying whether children whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during the pregnancy are more likely to develop learning disabilities, behavior problems, asthma, diabetes and obesity than other children.

The levels of pesticide metabolites found in the pregnant women in CHAMACOS are higher than women who don't live in agricultural settings. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found evidence that the pesticides contaminating kids around the country, regardless of proximity to agriculture, is high enough to raise questions about the impact those pesticides may have on their growing brains. These days, children are exposed to pesticides used in their homes, pesticide residue on foods and sprays that drifts into playgrounds and other sites. Eskenazi's work is being considered by the EPA as the agency decides what to do with dozens of pesticides and other chemicals suspected of being developmental neurotoxicants, that is, chemicals that can rewire the brain and nervous system while a fetus is growing and continuing to affect the brain in early life.

On a sunny day last summer, Eskenazi and Associate Director Kim Harley visited an old trailer, which serves as headquarters for the center, squeezed between a hospital and a county jail.

The trailer is cozy, with low couches for the kids, teddy bears and dolls, videos of movies and cartoons. On the wall is a map of Salinas, with pins showing the neighborhoods where the participants live. The group has visited many of the participants at home, collecting samples of pesticides and using a GPS to determine how far they are from the fields.

Off the main room are small offices where technicians take blood and urine samples from the children and their mothers, and examiners administer a battery of tests designed to assess their memory, attention span, IQ and other cognitive and emotional indicators.

On this day, child examiner Helen Aguirre is working with a 9-year-old boy. He is shy, but they coax him into allowing them to check his height. Then he follows them into the room for the other tests. They tell him a story about a fishing trip, and then ask him to repeat the salient facts. They talk about something else for a while, then ask him how much he remembers about the fishing tale. They allow breaks for snacks and a bit of television. The whole thing takes between 2 ½ and 3 ½ hours.

This is considered an observational study, but the researchers refer the parents to a doctor if they find any health problems, such as asthma, which is increasingly prevalent in Salinas, or high blood pressure. Next door is a hospital, where almost all of the kids were born, and just across the street, rows of lettuce, celery and broccoli.

"We have a high amount of pesticides used near this building," said Eskenazi. "There are fields close by. When the wind is right, the pesticides blow in."

The project has been so successful that the federal government has funded the researchers to add a few more chemicals to the testing.

Their work also served as a model for the recently launched National Children's Study, run by the National Institutes of Health, which seeks to examine the effects of the environment on 100,000 children, tracking them from before birth until age 21.