News

What Big Pharma frauds say about your health decisions (VIDEO)

2011-11-26T18:07:09Z

So here it is, listen carefully to learn why you should be eating a plant-based, starch-strong, plant-strong, Novickian, Esselstynian, McDougall or Nutritarian diet (take your pick).

An article came out this week entitled Merck Pays $950 Million for Vioxx Illegal Marketing and Dangers…But No Jail Time.

The article talks about crimes and deliberate frauds committed by Merck, a leading pharmaceutical company. In a nutshell, Merck lied about the safety of this drug in order to sell more of it and delay its removal from the market since it is actually quite lethal. They sold an enormous amount and made many billions -- and many people were killed and injured since, as Merck knew at the time and now we all know, the drug was actually quite dangerous.

Merck has agreed to pay almost $1 billion to settle criminal and civil suits.

They aren't the only one. GlaxoSmithKline reached a settlement three weeks earlier to pay $3 billion because of fraud they committed with its diabetes drug Avandia. And Pfizer paid $2.3 billion while Eli Lilly paid $1.4 billion in recent settlements. More info.

All of this is shrugged off by Wall Street as the "cost of doing business" because if a drug company can earn $6 billion off of a drug through lying and fraud, and only pay out $1 billion in fines and no CEO goes to jail, well that's a great business model. Imagine if you could rob a bank, take $5 million dollars, and your only penalty is that you have to give back $1 million.

Well where corporations are concerned, that's the American way.

Corporations are "people" in the US only to the extent that they can use money to influence elections and control politicians, but not in any way that includes personal responsibility. If you or I did what Merck does, we would be imprisoned or put to death. But Merck and the rest of Big Pharma is still out there, readying to introduce the next line of dangerous drugs on a propagandized public.

I saw this video below the other day of William Black, the former lead prosecutor on the S&L frauds of the 1980s. Black is a very intelligent, knowledgeable guy who successfully prosecuted thousands of criminal banking frauds in the S&L debacle. He was the Senior Regulator for the US during the time. This is a guy who prosecuted powerful CEOs and CFOs and went up against the brightest defense lawyers and rich defendants with unlimited litigation budgets. Yet he and convicted nearly 90% of the criminal Savings & Loan operators they indicted.

It is well worth watching his 15 minute talk in which Black details how our current government, both the Obama administration together with the Republicans, have opted to allow immunity to the bankers who committed massive, provable frauds and ultimately crashed the economy and ripped off everyone. Obama doesn't want individual states to even investigate the fraud. Watch:

This is not to get political -- ignore that the talk is part of an OWS "teach in." I am only sharing this as it underscores the point that your government, both left and right, is owned lock, stock and barrel by the big banks, and by big companies like Monsanto, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Elil Lilly -- and pretty much any huge corporation that seeks to protect and expand a monopoly, or which profits while doing harm to the public.

In short: the game is rigged against you. And if you haven't learned that yet and opted to step away from the medical propaganda that predominates, then you are likely in for the health issues that predominate.

The "dietary guidelines" are like the drugs Merck markets -- they will largely hurt not help you. They are for the benefit of a big company, not you. The "nutrition advice" from outfits like the American Dietetic Association are also largely money-driven. Just like your government, they are owned lock, stock and barrel by Big Food, and must produce very tame and inaccurate advice which will not offend their donors.

And the media? With a few occasional exceptions (think: CNN's 1-hour show on Dr. Esselstyn and Bill Clinton reversing heart disease through plant-based nutrition), the media has to answer to the same entrenched financial interests which own and operate your government. Don't look for a lot of truth there.

This is not to say that everyone who is in government or in the ADA or working for a drug company or in the media are craven whores. Just that the institutions themselves are set up that way, and by and large this is their output.

So it is up to you to educate yourself and find a way to protect your assets -- of which your health is most important. If you are going to rely on Big Medicine's "research," its pills, potions and surgeries, just know that for the most part what you receive is designed to benefit a company more than you and your health. That's just a fact.

The alternative is to step out of the herd and discover that what you put into your body through your mouth every day -- is the most important determiner of your health.

Educate yourself, take control of your health by making intelligent decisions at the dinner table. Read some books, watch some video presentations, get to know the experts we help promote at VegSource, check out their websites, their studies, get to know the community of people who follow their programs who have dramatically improved their health and well-being.

Discover the proven truth that to a very large degree you can control your health outcome. But only by taking control yourself, and not relying on what is largely a greed-driven system set up to benefit someone else.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition -- Buy It Now!

2011-09-12T01:36:34Z

First, let's get something straight -- this is not a book just for beginners or "idiots." This is the healthy vegan diet made easy, for everyone.

Even if you're a longtime vegan who follows all the well known vegan MDs and dietitians, there is a lot in this well written and entertaining work that make it an important addition to your library.

Wondering what constitutes a healthy diet and why? This is the book. Want a great read to explode all the major myths raised against the plant-based diet? Check. Want a handy reference book to look up any nutrition question you may have about any nutrient, mineral, vitamin or health condition? This is your book.

Author Julieanna Hever MS RD is famous in the health and fitness universe, known as the "plant-based dietitian." She has recently released a brilliant and entertaining new documentary called "To Your Health," and is also the Executive Director of EarthSave, and Coordinator -- and "Director of Enthusiasm" -- of EarthSave's Meals For Health program.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition is the healthy guide for the vegan diet. If you're vegan, or thinking about it, you'll be glad you bought this book.

Julieanna has researched and compiled the latest information about reversing diabetes, heart disease, and cancer through diet. She goes into the most recent and compelling points like:

• Where to get nutrients that others get from meat and dairy.

• How to avoid the vegan pitfall of overfed but undernourished.

• How to spot hidden animal ingredients in packaged foods.

• Tips for eating at restaurants.

• Special considerations for children and seniors.

There is a very good reason The Complete Idiot's Giuide to Plant-Based Nutrition has the highest reader rating possible on review sites and on Amazon.com: It is chalk full of valuable info you really hoped someone would sit down complie and offer in one place. Julieanna Hever has done just that! And with detailed contents, indexes, references and appendixes in the book, it is incredibly easy and quick to dip into this book to find loads of important information you might be looking for.

This gets our HIGHEST recommendation! Order yours right now!

Click here to order your copy now!

Fast Food Shopping with Jeff Novick (VIDEO)

2011-07-22T13:44:40Z

UPDATE: The video below is now the FULL shopping segment of Jeff talking about the ingredients he uses in his FAST FOOD DVD -- approx 15 minutes.

Jeff's DVD FAST FOOD provides quick, easy and tasty tricks to lose weight, get healthy, and save money while you're doing it.

You'll never be without something yummy in your fridge.

Take Jeff's advice and learn which basic ingredients to keep in stock: canned no-salt-added beans and tomatoes, plenty of frozen veggies and fruit, and lots of potatoes and brown rice. Then eat all you want, get to your ideal weight, and stay happy and satisfied at your goal weight.

Enjoy shopping tips from Jeff Novick, SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH VIDEO:

MORE INFO AND ORDER JEFF NOVICK'S FAST FOOD - CLICK HERE

Potatoes bad? Not so fast (VIDEO)

2011-07-02T23:44:49Z

Recently a Harvard study concluded that potatoes are bad for those wanting to lose weight and be healthy. You can read about the study here.

But is this true and accurate? Or another example of shoddy "science?"

Well, if we are discussing French Fries, Potato Chips, and the standard versions of mashed, boiled and baked potatoes (covered with cheese, butter, bacon and sour cream) then yes, the potato looks like "bad news."

However, if we are talking about the plain old baked potato, then this study has no impact. Both the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization declared 2008 "The International Year of the Potato" -- based on the potato's importance to the health, welfare -- and survival -- of the human race.

You can read some interesting articles by Jeff Novick MS RD on the superior nutrition of the baked potato by clicking here and here.

Meanwhile, if you're ready to be schooled about just how wonderful the potato is for human health, WATCH THIS VIDEO OF DR. MCDOUGALL:

To watch Dr.McDougall's full hour-plus video talk The Starch Solution, click here.

Early man was NOT a hunter-gatherer (VIDEO)

2011-06-18T17:27:20Z

There is this fable out there that for millions of years before the advent of agriculture, man was a hunter-gatherer.

John McDougall MD has some news for you, in this video excerpt.

Humans were not so much "hunter-gatherers," as:

gatherer-hunters.

So what does it mean that hunting in actuality played a tiny role in the diet of man's longest development?

It means a lot.

It means man was primarily a vegetarian who, as his tools improved, got "lucky" from time to time and could eat animals for very brief moments, before the animal rotted and would produce illness if eaten.

The facts show that the importance of hunting has been vastly overrated -- and vastly overstated -- for one reason: men did it. And we all know that whatever men do is considered the most important thing to be regarded (in patriarchical societies). What women and children do is a distant second.

With the advent of agriculture somewhere between 12,000 to 50,000 years ago, large numbers of people were able to feed themselves plant foods based on the labor of a small number of people (farmers).

Over time, some of the more powerful and wealthy were then able to afford to take those cultivated plant foods and start feeding them to animals, and in turn eat the animals. Those who did this, for example were the pharoahs of Egypt (who we now know suffered from rampant heart disease), and then kings and queens and royalty, who could eat a rich animal-based diet (and who were also among the least healthy people of their time, compared to those who could not afford a rich animal-based diet).

Today in the 21st century, everyone can eat like pharoahs, kings and queens -- and we get the same awful diseases which used to be limited to the rich and powerful of the past.

Watch Dr. McDougall explain the history of food:

Read this related article that shows fossil evidence is against the hunter-gatherer theory; in fact man was hunted through most of development, not a hunter. READ ARTICLE

Learn more about Dr. McDougall at www.DrMcDougall.com

Study: Vegetarian diets HEALTHIER IN EVERY WAY than diets with meat

2011-06-14T21:46:23Z

Vegetarian diets are not just better for weight management, they are more nutritious than diets that include meat, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. With two out of three Americans needing to lose weight, the message is more urgent than ever.

The new findings are based on a study including 13,292 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Not only were vegetarians slimmer than their meat-eating counterparts, their fiber intake was 24 percent higher and calcium intake was 17 percent higher. Vegetarians also consumed more magnesium, potassium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, and vitamins A, C, and E, and less total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

The study was accompanied by an editorial concluding that “the benefits of following a plant-based diet can be valuable beyond weight loss goals.” Specifically, the editorial noted, vegetarians have lower cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and “lower risk for many disease states including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension.”

At PCRM, we have often used vegan diets to help people lose weight or improve diabetes or other health problems. In our 2006 review, 38 of 40 published studies comparing vegetarians and nonvegetarians showed that vegetarians weighed less. We also found that adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet brings a dramatic improvement in nutrition. Cholesterol and saturated fat intake plummet, while fiber, beta-carotene, and important vitamins increase. Using the Harvard School of Public Health’s Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) score, we have found that vegan participants excel in every AHEI category.

So this raises the question: If meat tends to crowd out nutritious vegetables, beans, and whole grains, and increases the risk for disease, why would anyone recommend it? The answer is that they shouldn’t.

When the USDA released its new MyPlate diagram on June 2, it looked very much like PCRM’s Power Plate developed in 2009 in that it included no meat group. However, instead of PCRM’s “legume group,” USDA opted for a “protein” group that includes beans and soy products, as well as meat. While USDA is slowly moving in the right direction, there is no scientific reason to include meat at all. Avoiding animal products is a key step for maximizing good nutrition and good health.

Farmer B, Larson BT, Fulgoni VL, Rainville AJ, Liepa GU. A vegetarian dietary pattern as a nutrient-dense approach to weight management: an analysis of the National health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2004. J Am Diet Assoc. 2011;111:819-827.

Turner-McGrievy GM, Barnard ND, Cohen J, Jenkins DJA, Gloede L, Green AA. Changes in nutrient intake and dietary quality among participants with type 2 diabetes following a low-fat vegan diet or a conventional diabetes diet for 22 weeks. J Am Dietetic Assoc. 2008;108:1636-1645.

Berkow SE, Barnard NB. Vegetarian diets and weight status. Nutr Rev. 2006;64:175-188.

Study: Exercise is a memory booster

2011-05-26T20:10:47Z

Editor's Note: The message is clear: Get out and move your body if you want to keep it together mentally as you age!

Why, as we grow older, do we forget where we parked the car, and could exercise sharpen our recall? Those questions, of considerable interest to any of us who possess a brain as well as those with cars, is motivating a series of remarkable new experiments by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine, during which young and older volunteers watch pictures flash onto a screen, while the scientists watch their brains.

Creating and accessing memories are complicated processes, with the specific physiological mechanisms still largely unknown. But, using brain scans, neuroscientists already have established that quite a bit of the electrical activity and blood flow associated with memory processing occurs in the dentate gyrus, a part of the brain within the hippocampus, a larger portion of the brain known to be involved with learning and thinking.

So for their latest study, published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers used advanced magnetic resonance imaging machines to scan the dentate gyrus and other areas within the brains of people at the very moment that they were in the process of trying to create and store certain new memories.

Specifically, the volunteers, wearing head sensors, were shown a series of pictures of everyday objects, like computers, telephones, pineapples, pianos and tractors, and asked to press a button indicating whether each object typically was found indoors or outside. They were not asked to remember the images. But later they were shown another set of images and asked whether they remembered seeing that specific photo before or a similar photo, or whether the picture was completely new to them. The researchers tracked brain activity throughout both tasks.

It turned out that young adults were quite good at differentiating the images into those that were brand-new, already seen or similar to but not exactly the same as earlier pictures (a baby grand piano instead of a full grand, for instance). The brain activity in each young person’s dentate gyrus responded accordingly. “There would be a lot of activity when young people saw either new or similar objects,” said Michael A. Yassa, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins and lead author of the study. The young people’s brains were, this activity indicates, learning and storing the new images as new images, even when they were quite similar to the images they had seen before.

The brains of the older volunteers, ages 60 to 80, though, did not seem to work as well. Their dentate gyri typically showed far less activity when they were shown a similar but not identical image. Their brains apparently did not create a completely new memory to correspond to the slightly different picture, so that the photo of the baby grand registered as no different than the one of the full grand. In turn, they usually referred to pictures that were similar but not identical to ones they’d seen earlier as “old” photos.

None of these lapses were severe. But they do indicate, Dr. Yassa said, that the older adults were less successful at pattern separation, or the ability to differentiate between things that are quite similar.

There are many different types of memory processing, of course, but one of the more important for everyday functioning is pattern separation. “Take breakfast,” Dr. Yassa said. Most of us follow a routine and eat much the same thing at the same time for breakfast most days, he said. But each morning’s meal is unique and should produce a unique set of memories. “You need to be able to separate those memories and keep them apart,” Dr. Yassa said. “Otherwise they can override one another and confuse things.”

Study: One in five young adults had hypertension (most don't know it)

2011-05-26T20:00:57Z

Close to 19% of young adults may have high blood pressure, and just half of them are aware of it despite this condition's strong link to heart attack and stroke risk, according to a new study.

"There is a sleeping epidemic among young adults," says study researcher Kathleen Mullan Harris, PhD, the interim director of the University of North Carolina’s Carolina Population Center in Chapel Hill. "We tend to think of them as a rather healthy group, but a prevalence of 19% with hypertension is alarming."

The new findings, which appear in Epidemiology, are much higher than previous estimates of the prevalence of high blood pressure in this same age group. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2008 showed that 4% of people aged 20 to 39 had high blood pressure.

Comparing Studies

Exactly why there is such a wide gap between the two estimates is not fully understood. "Both were carefully done and highly reputable studies, and the true prevalence is probably somewhere in between these two estimates," says Harris.

Both studies analyzed blood pressure measurements of similar age groups around the same time (2007-2008), and both studies defined high blood pressure as 140/90 or higher.

The new 19% prevalence estimates are based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which looked at more than 14,000 men and women aged 24 to 32.

The Add Health study is one of the first to focus solely on the heart health of young adults. The participants have been followed for cardiovascular risk factors including obesity since 1995. When participants were aged 12 to 19, 11% were obese; five years later, 22% were obese; five to six years later when they were aged 24 to 32, 37% were obese, the new study shows.

Studies: Drugs and procedures covered by Medicare are often worthless

2011-05-26T19:41:22Z

Editor's note: Here's a great piece from the New York Times about how many of the very expensive procedures paid for by Medicare are worthless or actually harmful to the patient...things like stents (which don't extend life), colonoscopies (which carry risk and are advised against by the Department of Health and Human Services), and many others. In other words, much of the medical "care" and treatment in our healthcare system is worthless to the patient -- but very valuable to the doctors, hospital and drug companies profiting from them.

Squandering Medicare’s Money

MEDICARE has suddenly taken center stage in American politics, with Democrats now trying to score an advantage from the unpopularity of the Republican plan to overhaul the government health insurance program. Apart from the politics, though, Medicare’s financing challenges are worsening: this month, Medicare’s trustees projected that the insurance program would become insolvent by 2024, five years earlier than previously estimated.

Much has been said about the growing gap between the program’s spending and revenues — a gap that will widen as baby boomers retire — but little attention has been focused on a problem staring us in the face: Medicare spends a fortune each year on procedures that have no proven benefit and should not be covered. Examples abound:

• Medicare pays for routine screening colonoscopies in patients over 75 even though the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts financed by the Department of Health and Human Services, advises against them (and against any colonoscopies for patients over 85), because it takes at least eight years to realize any benefits from the procedure. Moreover, colonoscopies carry risks of serious complications (like perforations) and often lead to further unnecessary procedures (like biopsies). In 2009, Medicare paid doctors more than $100 million for nearly 550,000 screening colonoscopies; around 40 percent were for patients over 75.

• The task force recommends against screening for prostate cancer in men 75 and older, and screening for cervical cancer in women 65 and older who have had a previous normal Pap smear, but Medicare spent more than $50 million in 2008 on such screenings, as well as additional money on unnecessary procedures that often follow.

• Two recent randomized trials found that patients receiving two popular procedures for vertebral fractures, kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty, experienced no more relief than those receiving a sham procedure. Besides being ineffective, these procedures carry considerable risks. Nevertheless, Medicare pays for 100,000 of these procedures a year, at a cost of around $1 billion.

• Multiple clinical trials have shown that cardiac stents are no more effective than drugs or lifestyle changes in preventing heart attacks or death. Although some studies have shown that stents provide short-term relief of chest pain, up to 30 percent of patients receiving stents have no chest pain to begin with, and thus derive no more benefit from this invasive procedure than from equally effective and far less expensive medicines. Risks associated with stent implantation, meanwhile, include exposure to radiation and to dyes that can damage the kidneys, and in rare cases, death from the stent itself. Yet one study estimated that Medicare spends $1.6 billion on drug-coated stents (the most common type of cardiac stents) annually.

Boosting 'good' cholesterol useless, study finds

2011-05-26T19:34:25Z

Boosting “good” cholesterol does not protect against heart attacks and strokes, according to an eagerly awaited study that was abruptly stopped when the outcome became clear, officials said Thursday.

The federally funded study of more than 3,400 U.S. adults at high risk for heart attacks and strokes was halted 18 months early after researchers realized that the drug niacin failed to cut the risk — as was hoped and suggested by many earlier, smaller studies, officials said. In fact, niacin appeared to increase study participants’ risk for one particular type of stroke.

The findings are a major blow to what had been one of the most promising hopes for reducing the toll from cardiovascular disease, which kills about 800,000 Americans each year, making it the leading cause of death in the United States.

“Seeking new and improved ways to manage cholesterol levels is vital,” Susan B. Shurin, acting director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the $52.7 million study, said in a statement. “Although we did not see the expected clinical benefits, we have answered an important scientific question.”

Heart attacks and strokes have been dropping, in part by cutting “bad” LDL cholesterol, which can clog arteries. Many researchers hoped that the next big advance would come from a new generation of drugs that boost “good” HDL cholesterol, which is thought to clear LDL. A large body of research had found that people with low HDL levels were more likely to be stricken by heart attacks and strokes.

Doubts about the HDL-hiking hypothesis began to emerge, however, when the HDL-raising drug fenofibrate failed in 2005 to cut heart attacks and strokes among diabetics. Another study the following year found a different HDL-raising drug, torcetrapib, actually increased the risk. But researchers held out hope that niacin might be beneficial.

High-Fat Diet During Pregnancy Programs Child for Future Diabetes, Study Suggests

2011-05-26T05:35:53Z

A high-fat diet during pregnancy may program a woman's baby for future diabetes, even if she herself is not obese or diabetic, says a new University of Illinois study published in the Journal of Physiology.

We found that exposure to a high-fat diet before birth modifies gene expression in the livers of offspring so they are more likely to overproduce glucose, which can cause early insulin resistance and diabetes," said Yuan-Xiang Pan, a U of I professor of nutrition.

The high-fat diet that caused these changes was a typical Western diet that contained 45 percent fat, which is not at all unusual, he said.

"In recent years, the American diet has shifted to include many high-energy, high-fat, cafeteria-type, and fast foods," he noted.

Because the epigenetic marks can be easily evaluated, Pan hopes that the study will give doctors a diagnostic tool to screen newborns born with this propensity so they can help children keep their blood sugar in a normal range and give them their best chance of avoiding diabetes.

In the study, Pan and doctoral student Rita Strakovsky fed obesity-resistant rats either a high-fat or a control diet from the first day of gestation. Because the animals were not obese before the study began, the scientists were able to determine that diet alone had produced these effects.

"At birth, offspring in the high-fat group had blood sugar levels that were twice as high as those in the control group, even though their mothers had normal levels," Strakovsky said.

The high-fat offspring also had epigenetic modifications to genes that regulate glucose metabolism. One of these modifications, the acetylation of histones, acts by loosening the DNA, making it easier for the gene to be transcribed, she said.

Pan said these epigenetic marks would not be erased easily. However, if people were aware of them, they could change their diet and lifestyle to compensate for their predisposition, delaying or even preventing the development of diabetes.

"We'd like to see if diet after birth could alleviate this problem that was programmed before birth," he said.

Although their study points to using epigenetics as a diagnostic tool, Strakovsky stressed the importance of making dietary recommendations for pregnant women more available so they are able to prevent this health problem.

"Obstetrics patients rarely see a dietitian unless they're having medical problems like gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia. Doctors now tend to focus on how much weight a woman should gain in a healthy pregnancy. Although healthy weight gain is extremely important, nutritional guidance could be invaluable for all pregnant women and their babies," she said.

Pregnant women should consume a balanced diet low in saturated fats, which are usually found in fattier cuts of meat, fast foods, pastries, and desserts. But they should also consume appropriate amounts of healthy fats, including good sources of omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, which are important for their baby's brain and neuron development.

Cold-water fish that are low in mercury, flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, soybean and cod liver oils, walnuts and winter squash are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Eggs, corn oil, whole-grain bread, poultry, and sunflower seeds and oil provide omega-6 fatty acids.

"Until now we didn't realize that a mother's diet during pregnancy had a long-term effect on the metabolic pathways that affect her child's glucose production," Pan said. "Now that we know this, we urge pregnant women to eat a balanced low-fat diet that follows government guidelines. Then a woman can prime her child for a healthy life instead of future medical struggles."

The study was funded by the USDA.

Reports Detail More Drug Industry Ties to Medical Societies

2011-05-20T19:49:03Z

As we reported earlier this month, there are often deep financial ties between professional medical societies and the drug and medical device industries. This week, other news outlets chimed in, detailing how recommendations made by two medical societies raise at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Professional groups represent physicians in specialized areas of medicine. They are responsible for writing the guidelines that those physicians use to decide on treatments and care. The organizations also lobby for the interests of their members. But recent reports question whether some of the groups' recommendations are in the best interests of patients or are tainted by industry support.

The National Lipid Association, for example, has been working on recommendations for the screening and treatment of a group of genetic disorders that can lead to premature coronary artery disease. It turns out the development of those recommendations was supported by $112,500 in grants from six drug companies that stand to profit from the results, according to the website Cardiobrief. Many societies explicitly ban such funding for guideline writing because of the appearance of conflict.

The association told Cardiobrief that the grants were among various sources of funding for the development of the guidelines, but it did not specify what percentage of the funds came from drug companies. The Lipid Association hasn't responded to our request for comment, but it gave the following response to Cardiobrief (the genetic disorder is known as familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH):

"The [National Lipid Association] maintained full control over the planning, content, quality, scientific integrity, implementation, and evaluation of the FH conference and resulting recommendations, as well as the FH public education campaign. All related activities are free from commercial influence and bias."

The guidelines recommend increased screening of children as young as 2, which one expert said would be excessive. One of the companies that sponsored the guidelines -- and that has a drug in the pipeline for the condition -- has been quick to promote the association's new recommendations. Aegerion Pharmaceuticals obtained early copies, apparently as a result of a publishing mistake, and sent them to physicians with an accompanying message, saying, "These publications illustrate the need for wide-spread screening and early diagnosis and treatment of FH."

In another recent case, reported by BNET, the U.K.'s Royal National Institute of Blind People came out against the use of a cheap alternative for treating a type of macular degeneration. The institute, as it happens, has long received support from Novartis, the U.K. marketer of Lucentis, which is 40 times more expensive than an alternative drug. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health recently found that a much-cheaper drug, the cancer treatment Avastin, is just as effective, though it is not formally approved for treating macular degeneration. (In the United States, both Lucentis and Avastin are marketed by Genentech.)

But the Royal Institute criticized the British government for encouraging the use of the cheaper Avastin, saying, "Safety should not be compromised by cost." In written comments to ProPublica, the organization elaborated on its position, saying, "There is still insufficient data to draw firm conclusions on the comparative safety of these drugs."

BNET details a number of financial ties between Novartis and the institute, including a recent grant worth more than $500,000. The institute pointed out that the grant, which Novartis issued this year, is a tiny percentage of the organization's funding, representing about 1 percent of all donations received last year.

"We have relationships with a number of companies whilst always maintaining our independence," an institute spokeswoman said via email.

Novartis told us it works with many organizations to support education and raising awareness for different medical conditions and that all financial support they provide is compliant with industry guidelines. The money does not buy influence, the company said.

"How patient groups choose to spend funding provided by Novartis is entirely their decision," the company wrote in an email.

As we reported earlier this month, financial links between these professional societies and the drug and device industries are a widespread concern. The Heart Rhythm Society got nearly half of its $16 million in donations last year from companies that make drugs and devices used to control abnormal heart rhythms. The Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions took in $4.7 million, more than half of its total receipts in 2009, from drug and device manufacturers.

As we put it then:

Professional groups such as the Heart Rhythm Society are a logical target for the makers of drugs and medical devices. They set national guidelines for patient treatments, lobby Congress about Medicare reimbursement issues, research funding and disease awareness, and are important sources of treatment information for the public.

The groups say the industry money helps them provide better education and that their members develop better treatments. They say they have guidelines to ensure the money doesn't buy influence.

But as our nifty interactive graphic shows, it does buy -- or at least get your name on -- just about everything else, including tens of thousands of dollars for coffee cup sleeves at the annual conference, $15,000 for goodie bags, or as much as $70,000 to get your name on hotel key cards.

We also reported that Heart Rhythm Society tip sheets tout the effectiveness of some medical devices without mentioning dangerous side-effects. The sheets are posted on the society's website and are meant to help patients research options for treatment. But the sheet for one defibrillator, for example, says the device is 99 percent effective while failing to mention that it can deliver unnecessary and painful jolts. The makers of these devices are among the society's biggest funders.

As the Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Steven Nissen told us, "What you're exploring here is the subtle ways in which the companies and professional societies become partners and -- wittingly or unwittingly -- physicians become agents on behalf of the interests of the sponsoring company."

Dollars for Doctors: Financial Ties Bind Medical Societies to Drug and Device Makers

2011-05-06T17:25:16Z

SAN FRANCISCO — From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week’s Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches for drugs and medical devices.

St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads are splashed on buses, banners and the stairs underfoot. Logos splay across shuttle bus headrests, carpets and cellphone-charging stations.

At night, a drug firm gets the last word: A promo for the heart drug Multaq stood on each doctor’s nightstand Wednesday.

Who arranged this commercial barrage? The society itself, which sold access to its members and their purchasing power.

Last year’s four-day event brought in more than $5 million, including money for exhibit booths the size of mansions and company-sponsored events. This year, there are even more “promotional opportunities,” as the society describes them.

Concerns about the influence of industry money have prompted universities [9] [9] such as Stanford and the University of Colorado-Denver to ban drug sales representatives from the halls of their hospitals and bar doctors from paid promotional speaking.

Yet, one area of medicine still welcomes the largesse: societies that represent specialists. It’s a relationship largely hidden from public view, said David Rothman, who studies conflicts of interest in medicine as director of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.

Professional groups such as the Heart Rhythm Society are a logical target for the makers of drugs and medical devices. They set national guidelines for patient treatments, lobby Congress about Medicare reimbursement issues, research funding and disease awareness, and are important sources of treatment information for the public.

Dozens of such groups nationwide encompass every medical specialty from orthopedics to hypertension.

“What you’re exploring here is the subtle ways in which the companies and professional societies become partners and — wittingly or unwittingly — physicians become agents on behalf of the interests of the sponsoring company,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

“It has a not very subtle effect on medicine,” said Nissen, an expert on the impact of industry money.

‘This is our business’

Nearly half the $16 million the heart society collected in 2010 came from makers of drugs, catheters and defibrillators used to control abnormal heart rhythms, the group’s website disclosed.

Officials of the Heart Rhythm Society say industry money does not buy influence and is essential to developing new treatments. Still, on Thursday the group unveiled a formal policy that, among other things, requires more detailed disclosure of board members’ industry ties.

“This is our business,” said Dr. Bruce Wilkoff, the incoming society president. “We either get out of the business or we manage these relationships. That’s what we've chosen to do.”

The society is one of a handful of groups that make public details about their finances. Most don’t. As non-profits, they must disclose their tax returns but not their specific sources of funding.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, requested the information [11] [11] from the Heart Rhythm Society and 32 other professional associations and groups that promote disease awareness and research.

Their responses and reporting by ProPublica showed wide disparities in money the groups accept from medical companies, what they disclose and how they manage potential conflicts of interest.

With billions of dollars at stake, companies can court entire specialties by helping to bankroll doctors’ groups. The Heart Rhythm Society’s 5,100 members represent a particularly lucrative market.

One implantable cardioverter defibrillator — a device that jolts the heart back to a normal beat — can cost more than $30,000. A single electrophysiologist, a physician specializing in heart-rhythm disorders, can implant dozens a year. World sales of the devices totaled $6.7 billion last year, according to JPMorgan.

Study: Fish oil increases aggressive prostate cancer

2011-04-26T13:41:51Z

Study after study shows omega-3 fatty acids, like those found in fish oil, are great for the heart. But new research suggests the same may not be true for men’s prostates.

Researchers with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA, said that their study found that men with the highest percentage of docosahexaenoic acid – an inflammation-lowering omega-3 fatty acid commonly found in fish – have two-and-a-half times the risk of developing aggressive, high-grade prostate cancer compared to men with the lowest DHA levels.

The researchers also found that men with the highest concentrations of trans-fatty acids, which are linked with heart disease, had a 50-percent reduction of high-grade prostate cancer.

Neither fats were associated with the risk of low-grade prostate cancer.

Lead researcher Theodore M. Brasky said in a statement that he and his colleagues “were stunned” by their findings,” and that they “spent a lot of time making sure the analyses were correct.”

“Our findings turn on what we know – or rather what we think we know – about diet, inflammation and the development of prostate cancer on its head and shine a light on the complexity of studying the association between nutrition and the risk of various chronic diseases.”

A full report on the study appears in the April 25 edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Pregnant women exposed to pesticides have children with slightly lower IQ, studies show

2011-04-25T17:31:27Z

Pesticides on fruits and vegetables may be harmful to a developing fetus — slightly. Children whose mothers were exposed to low doses of a specific class of pesticides may have a slightly lower IQ in later childhood, three new studies suggest.

The new research found children had a slightly lower IQ by age 7 if their mothers, mostly low-income and mostly Latina and black, had higher-than-average exposure in pregnancy to organophosphates, pesticides farmers still sometimes spray on fruits and vegetables. But some of the data are not as conclusive as they might seem at first glance.

All three studies, published Thursday in Environmental Health Perspectives, measured the presence of organophosphates in the mother’s urine or blood during pregnancy. Women could have ingested the pesticides by way of food or breathing the air — the pesticides were once common in households before the EPA banned their use in 2002, but in inner cities, these insecticides were still common in the mid-2000’s to control insect infestations. In the three studies, the children took an IQ test around age 7 that measured working memory and reasoning abilities.

In one study, researchers from Columbia University found that African American and Dominican women in New York City with the highest levels of chlorpyrifos, a type of organophosphate, in their umbilical-cord plasma had children with a slightly lower IQ by age 7 compared with those whose mothers had lower exposure — for every large increase in pesticide exposure, the children had about a 1- to 2-point decrease in IQ and 2- to 4-point decrease in working memory.

In another study, among Latinas and African American women in New York City, researchers from Mount Sinai found women with the highest levels of organophosphates in their urine had children with a slightly lower IQ — for every tenfold increase of a pesticide marker in the mother’s urine, children had a 3-point IQ drop at age 7.

And in a study of Mexican women in the agricultural town of Salinas, UC Berkeley researchers measured pesticide exposure in the urine of pregnant women and found a 7-point IQ discrepancy between children whose mothers had the highest exposure compared with those who had the lowest.

Many of the women were poor, and socioeconomic status is linked to lower IQs, so researchers in some of the studies controlled for variables such as income. Women were compared with other women in the data set, not a national average. And the exposure levels were low in all the studies — in the Columbia study, 43% of the women had levels that were undetectable, and in the Berkeley study, the median exposure was slightly above the national average.

The studies are the first to measure how low levels of pesticides affect children while they are still developing in the womb, said Brenda Eskenazi, a lead author on the Berkeley study, in an interview. Previous research looked at children, not fetuses, exposed to high levels of pesticides.

Organophosphates are known to affect the brain in animal studies, so their effect in children may be more potent while they are still developing, says Rudy Rull, a research scientist at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California in Fremont.

“These studies present compelling evidence of the potential effects on children’s neurodevelopment from exposure to chlorpyrifos and other organophosphate insecticides,” said Rull in an email.