Drug Firms Profiting From Addiction – Shipping Massive Quantities of Opioids To West Virginia

Mingo County has the fourth-highest prescription opioid death rate of any county in the United States. This county in West Virginia had a population of 26,839 in 2010 according to the census, and it has likely declined since. There are small four towns of similar population density and one city that make up Mingo County, according to Wikipedia. Kermit is is one of these towns, and it has a population around 400.

Over a period of just two years out-of-state drug companies have shipped nearly 9 million opioid pills to a single pharmacy in this town, Kermit, West Virgnia.

Related: U.S. Life Expectancy To Decline, CDC Blames Pharmaceutical Companies

In six years the drug wholesalers sold West Virgnia 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills. 1,728 West Virginians have been reported to have fatally overdosed on these painkillers, according to a Gazette-Mail investigation.

These numbers will shake even the most cynical observer. Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and should be no forgiveness.” – Former Delegate Don Perdue, retired pharmacist

In court cases, the companies have repeatedly denied they played any role in the nation’s pain-pill epidemic, but records show that the state’s southern counties have been maligned by a disproportionate number of pain pills and fatal drug overdoses. The wholesalers fought to keep the sales numbers secret in previous court actions brought on by the newspaper. The unfettered shipments amount to a total of 433 pills for each man, woman, and child in West Virginia. The nation’s three largest prescription drug wholesalers, McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., supplied more than half of all pain pills statewide. Be sure to check out the Charleston Gazette Mail‘s expose for more information; they did an amazing job on the report and the article itself.

Related: A History of Bad Medical Advice

Opioid-prescription shippments 2007-2012
Infogram

Good News: States Are Suing

New York City sued eight companies that make or distribute prescription opioids, for their responsibility in the deadly epidemic.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the lawsuit sought $500 million of damages to help fight the crisis. Reuters states that the opioid epidemic kills more people in the city annually than homicides and car accidents combined.

Big Pharma helped to fuel this epidemic by deceptively peddling these dangerous drugs and hooking millions of Americans in exchange for profit,” – de Blasio said in a statement

Defendants include the manufacturers Allergan Plc (AGN.N), Endo International Plc (ENDP.O), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.TA), and distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N), Cardinal Health Inc (CAH.N) and McKesson Corp (MCK.N).

On the 19th of Janurary, Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn sued Purdue Pharma LP and Endo International Plc, and retailers CVS and Walgreens. Two days ago Alabama became the latest state to file a lawsuit against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, and yesterday Baltimore City Solicitor Andre Davis announced lawsuits aimed at Purdue and their main distributor McKessen, and some of the local businesses that city officials describe as “pill mills.

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List Of States Attempting to Legislate Mandatory Vaccines

The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA) has listed states that are attempting to legislate mandatory vaccines. From the website:

A new year brings a flurry of legislative activity. Many states will be considering bills that limit vaccine choice, whether by eliminating or restricting exemptions or mandating vaccines for children or certain workers. Patients deserve a right to decide which medical treatments to receive, especially when there are safety concerns. There is plenty of scientific data that throws the safety of vaccine ingredients into serious question.”

Related: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

ANH-USA lists some facts on aluminum, a common vaccine ingredient:

  • Aluminum is a well-documented neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, asthma, hyperactivity, and Down’s Syndrome.
  • The FDA has set a limit on the amount of aluminum that can be in vaccines, but this number was based on the amount of aluminum required to enhance the effectiveness of the vaccine. The agency has not empirically determined the safest amount of intramuscularly injected aluminum, relying instead on the hope that current levels are safe. Note the word “injected.” It is one thing for the body to handle aluminum in our food, because our liver protects us. But it can’t protect us when we are injected with poison.
  • New studies provide stunning information about what happens to aluminum after it’s injected into muscle. In some mice, it travels to the brain, where it can still be detected a year later. It also travels to the spleen and lymph nodes, where it can still be detected 270 days after vaccination.

In addition to concerns about ingredients—including the mercury that is used as a preservative in flu shots, even for children—the national vaccine schedule has never been rigorously evaluated for safety. This was the determination not of some ‘anti-vaxxer’ group, but of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine), which advises the government on issues relating to medicine and health. In a 2013 report, the Academy concluded, ‘Key elements of the schedule—the number, frequency, timing, order, and age at administration of vaccines—have not been systematically examined in research studies.’ “

Click on your state’s link below to see what compulsory vaccine bills are pending and take action:

Florida
Hawaii
Iowa
Illions
Kansas
Maine
Minnesota
Missouri
Mississippi
New Hampshure
New Jersy
New York
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Virginia
West Virginia

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Florida Bill 1558 Would Make HPV Vaccine Mandatory for School Children

Florida has introduced Senate Bill 1558, legislature that would make the HPV vaccine mandatory for public school children. The bill would mimic similar vaccine mandate laws in Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington D.C.

Florida’s HPV vaccine rates are lower than the rest of the country. Sen. José Javier Rodríguez (Dem) introduced this bill on January 4th. If it’s passed the bill is said to be titled “Women’s Cancer Prevention Act”. It would begin taking effect July 1st of 2018.

The good news is that only 1 in 5 parents believe the mandate to be a good idea, according to the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

From Dr. Mercola:

Review of HPV Vaccine Trials Conclude Effectiveness Is Still Unproven

Last year, a systematic review10 of pre- and post-licensure trials of the HPV vaccine by researchers at University of British Columbia showed that the vaccine’s effectiveness is not only overstated (through the use of selective reporting or “cherry picking” data) but also unproven. In the summary of the clinical trial review, the authors state it quite clearly:

“We carried out a systematic review of HPV vaccine pre- and post-licensure trials to assess the evidence of their effectiveness and safety. We found that HPV vaccine clinical trials design, and data interpretation of both efficacy and safety outcomes, were largely inadequate. Additionally, we note evidence of selective reporting of results from clinical trials(i.e., exclusion of vaccine efficacy figures related to study subgroups in which efficacy might be lower or even negative from peer-reviewed publications).

Given this, the widespread optimism regarding HPV vaccines long-term benefits appears to rest on a number of unproven assumptions (or such which are at odds with factual evidence) and significant misinterpretation of available data.

For example, the claim that HPV vaccination will result in approximately 70% reduction of cervical cancers is made despite the fact that the clinical trials data have not demonstrated to date that the vaccines have actually prevented a single case of cervical cancer (let alone cervical cancer death), nor that the current overly optimistic surrogate marker-based extrapolations are justified.

Likewise, the notion that HPV vaccines have an impressive safety profile is only supported by highly flawed design of safety trials and is contrary to accumulating evidence from vaccine safety surveillance databases and case reports which continue to link HPV vaccination to serious adverse outcomes (including death and permanent disabilities).

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Trump’s CDC Director Resigns After Tobacco Investments Discovered

Brenda Fitzgerald reportedly said she resigned because she could not divest from certain financial interests “in a definitive time period.” A Politico article from Tuesday reports that Fitzgerald purchased shares in a tobacco company shortly after becoming CDC director.

The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially resigned her position today after just six months, due to “complex financial interests.” She was repeatedly forced her to recuse herself from the agency’s activities, unable to testify before lawmakers on public health matters. And on Tuesday, January 30th,  Politico reported:

The Trump administration’s top public health official bought shares in a tobacco company one month into her leadership of the agency charged with reducing tobacco use — the leading cause of preventable disease and death and an issue she had long championed.

The stock was one of about a dozen new investments that Brenda Fitzgerald, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made after she took over the agency’s top job, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. Fitzgerald has since come under congressional scrutiny for slow walking divestment from older holdings that government officials said posed potential conflicts of interest.

Fitzgerald is 71 one years old. She is a physician who served as the Georgia public health commissioner until her appointment to the CDC post this last July. She said she and her husband had divested from many stock holdings in an interview late last year, but that she and her husband were legally obligated to continue certain investments in cancer detection and health information technologies. Fitzgerald apparently had to avoid government business that might affect those specific financial interests.

It is unacceptable that the person responsible for leading our nation’s public health efforts has, for months, been unable to fully engage in the critical work she was appointed to do.” – Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash

Dr. Fitzgerald’s tenure was unfortunately the latest example of the Trump Administration’s dysfunction and lax ethical standards. I hope the incoming Secretary of Health — nominated because his predecessor resigned for using taxpayer dollars for his personal luxury travel — will encourage President Trump to choose a new CDC Director who is truly prepared to focus on families and communities.” – Sen. Murray

Senator sent Fitzgerald a letter saying that the necessary recusals prevented Fitzgerald from engaging on public health issues like cancer and the massive opioid epidemic. Murray had voiced his concerns regarding Fitzgerald’s financial investments and the recusals necessary to avoid the aforementioned conflicts of interest since July. In December, the senator sent Fitzgerald a letter saying those recusals prevented her from fully engaging on public health issues including cancer and the opioid epidemic.

Fitzgerald had dismissed those concerns, saying that she was following ethics rules laid out by HHS and that her recusals were “very limited.”

About three hours after HHS announced Fitzgerald’s resignation, the CDC’s chief operating officer, Sherri Berger, sent an agencywide email that announced Fitzgerald’s resignation and said Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy, will be acting director effective Wednesday.

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GM Rice From China – They Don’t Want It, So We’re Getting It?

Genetically modified rice developed in China has passed safety inspections by the U.S. FDA, the first step for the rice to be exported to the U.S. The good news is that neither China nor the U.S. has approved the genetically modified rice for mass cultivation. The FDA’s letter says that the agency has reviewed the data submitted and has no further questions at this time.

[The letter] also reminds the developer that it is responsible for ensuring the safety of any food it puts on the market – thus absolving the FDA of all responsibility if anything should go wrong!” – GM Watch

Related: The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs

The insect-resistant rice called “Huahui 1” passed FDA safety and nutrition inspections. The rice had previously passed safety inspections by the EPA regarding pesticide residue levels.

Having passed safety inspections by the FDA and EPA, Huahui 1 and its products are able to be exported to the US for consumption. It suggests safety evaluations by Chinese testing institutes of Huahui 1 have been fully recognized by institutes in the US.” – ChinaDaily

Related:  Scientists Against GMOs, Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research

The species is said to be able to resist destruction caused by insects such as larva, and can “greatly reduce the use of pesticides during production.” Huahui 1 was successfully bred by a university in China in 1998 and was awarded with a biosafety certificate by China’s Ministry of Agriculture in 2009, following safety evaluations that lasted for almost 10 years, according to the university.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

GM foods including this rice breed is not likely to win approval in China for large-scale production any time soon; the Chinese population has no interest in GMO foods. Researchers in the university are looking to the US for commercial use. China Daily also states,

China has the world’s most strict safety evaluation system for GM products, and all GM products that have passed inspections by the authorities in China are safe, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.”

Related: How to Avoid GMO Apples


Being Outdoors Improves Children’s Ability to Learn

A study recently published in the academic journal, Frontiers in Psychology, found that teaching a lesson to children outside allowed teachers to retain the attention of the kids for almost twice compared to a subsequent indoor lesson.

We wanted to see if we could put the nature effect to work in a school setting. If you took a bunch of squirmy third-graders outdoors for lessons, would they show a benefit of having a lesson in nature, or would they just be bouncing off the walls afterward?” – Ming Kuo, lead study author

Recommended: Common Bad Parenting Advice You Should Ignore

The study was conducted over a 10-week period in a Midwestern elementary school. Two third-grade classrooms participated. One of the classrooms had a teacher who was enthusiastic about the concept while the other teacher who was skeptical, thinking like many do that there would be too many distractions. Each teacher held one lesson a week outside before returning to their regular classroom setting.

The outdoor classroom was a grassy spot just outside the school, within view of a wooded area. Following the outdoor lesson, class engagement was assessed in four ways: the teacher’s perception of the students’ level of engagements; the students’ ratings of theirs and their classmates’ engagement; the number of ‘redirects’ during the lesson, when teachers had to call the kids’ attention back to the lesson; and independent photo ratings, where ratings of classroom engagement by an independent observer were based on photos of the observation period.” – TreeHugger

Recommended: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

What was the effect of lessons outside regarding classroom engagement? Does outdoor learning leave pupils too excited to focus? In this study, classroom engagement was improved after lessons in nature. The advantage of the time outside held true for “four of five measures of classroom engagement.”

We found higher levels of classroom engagement after lessons in nature than after carefully matched classroom-based counterparts; these differences could not be explained by differences in teacher, instructional approach, class (students, classroom, and class size), time of year, or time of day, nor the order of the indoor and outdoor lessons on a given topic. It would seem that lessons in nature boost subsequent classroom engagement, and boost it a great deal; after a lesson in nature, teachers were able to teach for almost twice as long without having to interrupt instruction to redirect students’ attention. This nature advantage persisted across 10 different weeks and lesson topics, and held not only for a teacher with positive expectations for nature-based lessons but also for a teacher who anticipated negative effects of such lessons. The findings here suggest that lessons in nature allow students to simultaneously learn classroom curriculum while rejuvenating their capacity for learning, or “refuel in flight.” Because providing children with more contact with nature in the course of the school day is likely to yield a whole host of additional dividends as well, including improved physical and mental health (see Chawla, 2015 for review), the findings here argue for including more lessons in nature in formal education.

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This video takes things a step further, check it out!



Did Trump Just Ruin Mandatory Vaccine Laws?

President Donald Trump has been ignoring his campaign promises regarding vaccine safety. He proposed creating a vaccine safety committee to be led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but it didn’t happen. There is good news for anti-vaxxers, however. President Trump has created a division within the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights called the “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.”

Related: We Consume Livestock Vaccines When We Ingest Meat

Law protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced. No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice. For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.” – Press release

This new division is said to allow doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers to be able to “decline to participate in care that goes against their religious beliefs.” Vaxxter.com reported on the story and is hopeful that the new division could allow anyone a formal means to register complaints of infractions on basic religious freedoms and receive protection. This protection could conceivably benefit those who may be forced to vaccinate lest they are removed from school or lose their job.

Related: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

Will this protection lend itself to those who are mandatorily forced to take vaccines or be removed from a public school or lose their job? It seems that President Trump has created a form for those who want to report totalitarian abuses by the system.” – Vaxxter.com

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was helped make this new division a reality,

In the past this office sent the message, now is not the time for freedom, it is time for you to conform. What a difference one year makes.”

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Trump’s Vaccine Stance In 2014