(Subjects: Religion/Worship, Lightworkers, Food, Health, Prescription Drugs, Homeopathy, Innate (Body intelligence), New Age movement, Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version)

“…… Should I use Doctors and Drugs to Heal Me or Spiritual Methods?

"Dear Kryon, I have heard that you should stay natural and not use the science on the planet for healing. It does not honor God to go to a doctor. After all, don't you say that we can heal with our minds? So why should we ever go to a doctor if we can do it ourselves? Not only that, my doctor isn't enlightened, so he has no idea about my innate or my spiritual body needs. What should I do?"

First, Human Being, why do you wish to put so many things in boxes? You continue to want a yes and no answer for complex situations due to your 3D, linear outlook on almost everything. Learn to think out of the 3D box! Look at the heading of this section [above]. It asks which one should you do. It already assumes you can't do both because they seem dichotomous.

Let's use some spiritual logic: Here is a hypothetical answer, "Don't go to a doctor, for you can heal everything with your mind." So now I will ask: How many of you can do that in this room right now? How many readers can do that with efficiency right now? All of you are old souls, but are you really ready to do that? Do you know how? Do you have really good results with it? Can you rid disease and chemical imbalance with your mind right now?

I'm going to give you a truth, whether you choose to see it or not. You're not ready for that! You are not yet prepared to take on the task of full healing using your spiritual tools. Lemurians could do that, because Pleiadians taught them how! It's one of the promises of God, that there'll come a day when your DNA works that efficiently and you will be able to walk away from drug chemistry and the medical industry forever, for you'll have the creator's energy working at 100 percent, something you saw within the great masters who walked the earth.

This will be possible within the ascended earth that you are looking forward to, dear one. Have you seen the news lately? Look out the window. Is that where you are now? We are telling you that the energy is going in that direction, but you are not there yet.

Let those who feel that they can heal themselves begin the process of learning how. Many will be appreciative of the fact that you have some of the gifts for this now. Let the process begin, but don't think for a moment that you have arrived at a place where every health issue can be healed with your own power. You are students of a grand process that eventually will be yours if you wish to begin the quantum process of talking to your cells. Some will be good at this, and some will just be planting the seeds of it.

Now, I would like to tell you how Spirit works and the potentials of what's going to happen in the next few years. We're going to give the doctors of the planet new inventions and new science. These will be major discoveries about the Human body and of the quantum attributes therein.

Look at what has already happened, for some of this science has already been given to you and you are actually using it. Imagine a science that would allow the heart to be transplanted because the one you have is failing. Of course! It's an operation done many times a month on this planet. That information came from the creator, did you realize that? It didn't drop off the shelf of some dark energy library to be used in evil ways.

So, if you need a new heart, Lightworker, should you go to the doctor or create one with your mind? Until you feel comfortable that you can replace your heart with a new one by yourself, then you might consider using the God-given information that is in the hands of the surgeon. For it will save your life, and create a situation where you stay and continue to send your light to the earth! Do you see what we're saying?

You can also alter that which is medicine [drugs] and begin a process that is spectacular in its design, but not very 3D. I challenge you to begin to use what I would call the homeopathic principle with major drugs. If some of you are taking major drugs in order to alter your chemistry so that you can live better and longer, you might feel you have no choice. "Well, this is keeping me alive," you might say. "I don't yet have the ability to do this with my consciousness, so I take the drugs."

In this new energy, there is something else that you can try if you are in this category. Do the following with safety, intelligence, common sense and logic. Here is the challenge: The principle of homeopathy is that an almost invisible tincture of a substance is ingested and is seen by your innate. Innate "sees" what you are trying to do and then adjusts the body's chemistry in response. Therefore, you might say that you are sending the body a "signal for balance." The actual tincture is not large enough to affect anything chemically - yet it works!

The body [innate] sees what you're trying to do and then cooperates. In a sense, you might say the body is healing itself because you were able to give it instructions through the homeopathic substance of what to do. So, why not do it with a major drug? Start reducing the dosage and start talking to your cells, and see what happens. If you're not successful, then stop the reduction. However, to your own amazement, you may often be successful over time.

You might be able to take the dosage that you're used to and cut it to at least a quarter of what it was. It is the homeopathy principle and it allows you to keep the purpose of the drug, but reduce it to a fraction of a common 3D dosage. You're still taking it internally, but now it's also signaling in addition to working chemically. The signal is sent, the body cooperates, and you reduce the chance of side effects.

You can't put things in boxes of yes or no when it comes to the grand system of Spirit. You can instead use spiritual logic and see the things that God has given you on the planet within the inventions and processes. Have an operation, save your life, and stand and say, "Thank you, God, for this and for my being born where these things are possible." It's a complicated subject, is it not? Each of you is so different! You'll know what to do, dear one. Never stress over that decision, because your innate will tell you what is appropriate for you if you're willing to listen. ….”

Monsanto / GMO - Global Health


(Subjects: Big pharma [the drug companies of America] are going to have to change very soon or collapse. When you have an industry that keeps people sick for money, it cannot survive in the new consciousness., Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version)
"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Lose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Pedal wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)
"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)
"THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS" – Sep 29, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: ... I'm in Canada and I know it, but I will tell those listening and reading in the American audience the following: Get ready! Because there are some institutions that are yet to fall, ones that don't have integrity and that could never be helped with a bail out. Again, we tell you the biggest one is big pharma, and we told you that before. It's inevitable. If not now, then in a decade. It's inevitable and they will fight to stay alive and they will not be crossing the bridge. For on the other side of the bridge is a new way, not just for medicine but for care. ....) - (Text Version)

Pharmaceutical Fraud / Corruption cases

Health Care

Health Care
Happy birthday to Percy Julian, a pioneer in plant-drug synthesis. His research produced steroids like cortisone. (11 April 2014)

Monday, January 30, 2012

Drug companies join forces to combat deadliest tropical diseases

Bill Gates gets pharmaceutical giants to promise drug giveaways and unprecedented pledge to share research on new antidotes

The Guardian, Sarah Boseley, health editor, Monday 30 January 2012

A Guinea worm is extracted by a health worker from a child's foot in
 Savelugu, Ghana. The new initiative is likely to see the disease given
the $60m  the Carter Foundation says it needs to eradicate it completely. Photograph: Olivier Asselin/AP

The heads of 13 of the world's biggest drug companies, brought together by Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men, have agreed to donate more medicines and, unprecedentedly, to work together to find new ones in a bid to end many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that kill and maim some of the poorest people on the planet.

The 10 diseases targeted affect 1.4 billion people. They include lymphatic filariasis, river blindness, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease. Often the treatments that exist are ineffective and sometimes they even kill the patient.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is putting in $363m (£231m) over five years to help with the control and elimination of these diseases, while the Department for International Development has announced £195m until 2015. USAid and the World Bank are also committing money and help.

"Today, we have joined together to increase the impact of our investments and build on the tremendous progress made to date," said Gates. "This innovative approach must serve as a model for solving other global development challenges and will help millions of people build self sufficiency and overcome the need for aid."

The most likely disease to be eliminated is Guinea worm, which has been the target of the Carter Foundation for decades. Last year, the former US president Jimmy Carter said they needed just $60m more to finish the job in the single remaining endemic country – South Sudan. That money will now be available.

The biggest contribution of the pharmaceutical companies, including Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, the US giants Pfizer and Abbott and many others, is in drug donations. Those that already had donation programmes are extending them to 2020. Millions of tablets will now be distributed.

Unusually, some of the companies have agreed to co-operate to try to develop badly needed new drugs. Abbott, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are working together, under the direction of the public/private partnership DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative), on new drugs for worm infections, particularly those causing river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.

All 11 companies have agreed to open up their compound libraries – details of potential drug treatments that have gone through some tests but not found a commercial use – to DNDi, which hopes better drugs for neglected tropical diseases may be discovered.

The initiative is a response to a World Health Organisation blueprint – a plan to tackle these diseases that impede development by preventing the poorest children from accessing education as well as limiting adults' ability to work. WHO's director general, Margaret Chan, set an ambitious timetable during the launch at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

"These ancient diseases are now being brought to their knees with stunning speed," she said. "With the boost to this momentum being made today, I am confident almost all of these diseases can be eliminated or controlled by the end of this decade." Some experts were less optimistic, however, and critical of the drug donation focus.

Medécins sans Frontières (MSF), the volunteer doctors' group that helped found DNDi, said while it was delighted neglected diseases were now getting the attention they deserved, it wanted to highlight what was missing. Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis were slated for elimination by 2020, but the WHO and others were underplaying the difficulties, it said.

MSF cited sleeping sickness, caused by the bite of the tsetse fly, as an example. New diagnostic tools – to catch the disease before it becomes very hard to treat — as well as new drugs that could be used by healthcare workers with only basic training in remote areas of Chad, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

Drugs were not the only topic on the agenda. "In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where about three-quarters of reported cases of sleeping sickness have been detected, there is a strong national control programme. However the funding for this programme, provided by the Belgian government since 1997, will be withdrawn by next year. Nothing offered at the London NTD meeting on 30 January 2012 will address this looming crisis," MSF said. In the Central African Republic, the national programme consisted of four people for the entire country.

In a letter to the Lancet, Dr Tim Allen from the London School of Economics and Dr Melissa Parker from Brunel University also said that simply providing more drugs was not enough. They said there were problems with mass drug handouts designed to prevent disease such as schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, and soil-transmitted helminth infections.

"These include the undermining of already fragile and overstretched healthcare systems with the introduction of large, internationally-funded, vertical programmes rolling out free drugs to adults and children, irrespective of their infective status; difficulties with relying on volunteers to assist with the distribution of drugs in targeted communities; limits in knowledge surrounding the safety and efficacy of combining drugs for some NTDs; and a growing tendency for those promoting mass drug administration programmes to overlook the fact that the evidence base for how effective they are is more limited than often suggested."

Their own work in some communities had found that take-up of free drugs in some villages was much higher than others, because of political, economic and social circumstances. In some places, people refused out of the belief that the drugs were intended to harm them. "We are concerned by the way in which competition for multimillion-dollar grants is closing off debate and restricting critical analysis of what is actually occurring on the ground," they wrote.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Alternative healer cures breast cancer with leeches

Antara News, Thu, January 26 2012

Pekanbaru (ANTARA News) - A practitioner of alternative medicine claims he has cured hundreds of women of breast cancer with the help of a most unorthodox medium - leeches.

(Photo: Wikipedia)
H Ismail who runs an alternative medicine clinic at his modest home on Jalan Hangtuah here told Antara his cure for breast cancer makes it possible for women with the disease to recover without undergoing surgery that often implies the loss of one or both of the organs.

"I have not kept a record of the numbers but I think I have treated hundreds of women over the years and most of them were cured," Ismail said.

Ismail`s standard method of treating breast cancer is putting two leeches on the diseased breast and allowing them to remain there for some time. At the initial stage, the procedure must be repeated by the patient herself three consecutive times.

Then, the patient can take a break of three days and undergo a medical check to see if there is any change in her condition. If there is a change but no complete cure yet, the patient must continue the leech therapy while taking vitamins to keep fit.

"In most cases , it is not enough to do the therapy only three times. Often, it has to be repeated many more times and the patient must exercise patience," he said.

Editor: B Kunto Wibisono
Related Article:


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Red = don't reanimate!

RNW, 24 January 2012, by Maike Winters

 (Photo: albert schweitzer ziekenhuis)
              
An unusual experiment is due to start in February in the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the Dutch town of Dordrecht. Patients who do not want to be reanimated will be given red wristbands.

Specialist Valentijn Drexhage explains the problem:

“The patient’s wishes are normally noted in the medical file, except sometimes when it has been forgotten. If the file isn’t in the room where the patient needs reanimating, it’s an acute situation. It’s a question of split seconds and you can’t waste time looking for a file. That’s the dilemma. We have sometimes started something that later we regretted, not to mention the patient, of course, and the family members.”

Patients have a variety of reasons to elect not to be reanimated. Old people are sometimes no longer so keen to continue living and some patients are fearful about the risks of reanimation. A spokesperson for the hospital points out that the impact of reanimation of the patient and close relatives is serious: “The majority of patients suffer lasting damage from being reanimated.”

Vegetable

One patient in the oncology department of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital is all in favour of the experiment. She is opposed to reanimation for religious reasons. The advantage of the wristband is that doctors can see right away what to do:

“It’s usually a hectic situation when something happens and when they have to decide whether or not to act. Life after reanimation is pretty grim. I have no desire to live like a vegetable.”

Playing safe

Patients aren’t always recognised at the critical moment and if there was the slightest doubt doctors have, understandably, always played safe and gone for reanimation. Patients are normally asked on admission whether they have any objection to reanimation. Drexhage:

“Sometimes the problem was with patients who came to us from the outpatient clinic and have passed from one department to another, but we now have departmental secretariats which will keep a closer eye on this in future.”

Sensitivity

The experiment will continue until mid-May then a decision will be taken whether to continue. A spokesperson for the Dordrecht hospital is enthusiastic:

“We were worried there would be too much sensitivity about this kind of system, but it looks as though the opposite is true.”


Related Article:

Afghan mother in 'extremely rare' sextuplets birth

BBC News, 24 January 2012

Doctors say that the six babies - who have not been named yet -
are well but under-weight

Related Stories 

An Afghan mother has given birth to six children at a hospital in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The woman was not aware she was carrying more than one child and had not received fertility treatment.

Doctors say the mother arrived in hospital on Monday and gave birth on the same day to three boys and three girls. It was her first pregnancy.

Doctors say that having six children without fertility treatment is extremely rare.

Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world.

'Brave'

The mother, named as Sharah, 24, arrived in Mazar-e-Sharif hospital from a remote village in Balkh province. 

Sharah is exhausted after the
unexpected birth of her six children
Provincial Health Director Mirwais Rabi told the BBC that all six babies are well but under-weight, with one only weighing about 700g (25oz).

Mr Rabi said the sextuplets were being kept inside incubators and a special team of nurses and doctors are looking after them.

The mother is said to be in good health but exhausted.

Doctors say that had they been aware that she was carrying six children, she would have been in hospital at least several days in advance.

The BBC's Bilal Sawary in Kabul says Sharah's story has made headlines on Afghan television and radio stations.

"She is brave, she is amazing," one resident said, "I don't know how she carried six children. The government should help her now."

A 2010 survey revealed that infant and under-fives mortality rates appeared to be decreasing.

Experts say that despite recent improvements, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a pregnant woman or a young child.

One in 10 children in Afghanistan still dies before they are five years old, the survey said.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

First patients shown to improve with embryonic stem cells

Reuters, by Sharon Begley, NEW YORK, Mon Jan 23, 2012

(Reuters) - Before treatment, the 51-year-old graphic artist was legally blind, unable to read a single letter on a standard eye chart. She has suffered from Stargardt's disease, the most common form of macular degeneration in young patients, since she was a teenager, and it was getting progressively worse.

A second patient, aged 78, suffered from dry macular degeneration - the leading cause of blindness in the elderly -and could not even see well enough to go shopping.

But after being treated with stem cells from a donated human embryo, both women have improved dramatically, researchers said on Monday. Stem cells are master cells that can differentiate into any of the 200 kinds of cells in the human body.

Their results are the first-ever report of the medical use of stem cells taken from human embryos, making them crucial barometers of whether the controversial technique will ever find widespread therapeutic uses.

In a paper published online in The Lancet on Monday, physicians at the University of California, Los Angeles, and scientists at biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology report that the first two patients in the clinical trial suffered no adverse health effects from the treatment and seem to have benefited from it.

A week after having cells derived from a days-old embryo injected into her eye, the graphic artist could count fingers, and after one month she could read the top five letters on the eye chart. She can see more color and contrast, has started using her computer, and for the first time in years can read her watch and thread a needle. The macular degeneration patient recently went to the mall for the first time in years.

The safety findings, not any vision improvement, is what people should focus on, said Dusko Ilic, senior lecturer in stem cell science at Kings College London, who was not involved in the work.

"If everyone expects that the blind patients will see after being treated ... it will end up as disaster," he said.

Nevertheless, advocates for the blind are already hailing the results. "At last we are seeing fruits of human embryonic stem cell research entering clinical trials," said Peter Coffey, Director of the London Project to Cure Blindness.

OBJECTIONS AND RISKS

Using human embryonic stem cells for research or treatment has incited controversy for ethical and medical reasons. Some opponents argue that because removing stem cells from days-old human embryos almost always destroys the embryo, the technique amounts to murder.

ACT is the only company currently testing human embryonic stem cells in study patients. Last November, stem-cell pioneer Geron announced that it was halting what had been the first-ever clinical trial of the cells-testing them in patients with spinal cord injuries-and leaving the field.

When Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of ACT, approached ophthalmic surgeon Steven Schwartz of UCLA about leading the clinical trial, Schwartz asked for ethical advice from two of his patients: elderly nuns. They gave him the go-ahead, he said last year.

Even scientists who support stem cell research argue that they could be dangerous to use therapeutically. The very property that makes them so valuable in research - stem cells can morph into any of the kinds of cells in the human body - also makes them risky.

They can form teratomas, a type of tumor that arises when stem cells differentiate into a profusion of cell types.

Another concern is that transplanting cells derived from human embryos could be rejected by the patient's immune system. The ACT team got around that by targeting the eye, which is an "immunoprivileged" site that does not produce a strong immune response to foreign tissue.

In the study, physicians led by Schwartz injected what are called retinal epithelial cells into one eye of each patient. RPE cells lie at the back of the eye and bathe the retina's rods and cones in substances called growth factors. When RPE cells die, as they do in macular degeneration, so do the photoreceptors, eventually causing blindness.

Transplanting RPE cells grown from stem cells, Lanza reasoned when he began this research almost a decade ago, might rejuvenate the eye's rods and cones, restoring lost vision.

To produce RPE cells, Lanza and his colleagues arranged to obtain days-old embryos created by in vitro fertilization. The parents, who no longer wanted the embryos, donated them for research. The scientists then removed a single stem cell from one embryo, grew it in the lab to obtain millions of cells, and differentiated them into RPE cells.

The primary purpose of the clinical trial was to determine whether the implanted cells caused any harm. So far, neither patient has experienced inflammation, an indication that their immune system is not attacking the foreign cells.

And there is no evidence that a teratoma formed in either patient. Researchers also found that the RPE cells still survive after being implanted four months ago.

NOT A CURE FOR THE BLIND

The goal of the study was to determine safety and, at most, see whether the therapy can slow down or arrest vision loss, not restore it. "The fact that we're seeing measurable improvements in their vision, persisting for more than four months, is a bonus," Lanza said in an interview.

Although rods and cones cannot be brought back from the dead, he explains, "until you lose them completely you can rescue them." He believes that the transplanted RPE cells both bathed the deteriorating rods and cones in nourishing growth factors and gobbled up fragments of dead rods and cones, keeping the retinal environment healthier for the survivors.

The UCLA physicians plan to enroll a total of 12 Stargardt's patients and 12 macular degeneration patients in the ongoing clinical trial, with groups of three patients each receiving a different number of retinal epithelial cells.

The two patients being reported on Monday each received the smallest dose, 50,000 cells. Other patients will receive at least twice that many. The trial is also expanding across the Atlantic: the first patient was treated at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London last Friday. In a later trial, they hope to treat patients with earlier-stage disease, before so much of their vision has been lost.

David Prentice of the Family Research Council, a pro-life group that has opposed the use of human embryos for research, says the results will require more scrutiny.

"You have to follow the patients longer to know if it's safe," he told Reuters. "People will also want to know if there are other routes to the same end," using sources of stem cells other than human embryos.

Lanza is planning just that. He believes that skin cells "re-programmed" to revert to embryonic status might prove just as good a source or RPE and other specialized cells as human embryonic stem cells. Called IPS (for "induced pluripotent stem") cells, they can be derived from a patient's own skin cells and pose no risk of immune rejection.

"I think we can be up and running in the clinic with IPS cells in one or two years," Lanza says.

(Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Cynthia Osterman)

(Photo: Urban don)

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) SoulsReincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !


"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

Magic mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists

Active ingredient could allow sufferers to relive happier times, says team including former government adviser David Nutt

guardian.co.uk, Sarah Boseley, health editor, Monday 23 January 2012 

Magic mushrooms' active ingredient psilocybin enables users to
experience more vivid recollections. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

A drug derived from magic mushrooms could help people with depression by enabling them to relive positive and happy moments of their lives, according to scientists including the former government drug adviser, Professor David Nutt.

Two studies, for which scientists struggled to find funding because of public suspicion and political sensitivity around psychedelic drugs, have shed light on how magic mushrooms affect the brain.

Nutt, from Imperial College London, was sacked as a government drug adviser after claiming tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than cannabis and psychedelic drugs such as ecstasy and LSD.

He believes prejudice and fear have prevented important scientific work on psychedelic drugs. Research began in the 1950s and 60s but was stopped by the criminalisation of drugs and stringent regulations which made the work costly.

"Everybody who has taken psychedelics makes the point that these can produce the most profound changes in the state of awareness and being that any of them have experienced," said Nutt.

The drugs had been used for millennia, he said, since psychedelic mushrooms grew in the Elysian fields of Greece. Aldous Huxley wrote The Doors Of Perception about the insight such drugs gave him into the life of the mind.

The studies, led by Robin Carhart-Harris, also of Imperial College, looked at the effect that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, has on the brain through the use of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The first study on healthy volunteers, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), surprised the researchers. They had assumed the drug might increase activity in certain parts of the brain. Instead, it decreased it in the "hub" regions which link different areas.

"This loss of connectivity might mean consciousness is less constrained by inputs from the outside world via the senses, which could explain why people can imagine things very vividly," said Nutt.

The 10 men and five women who volunteered experienced changes in visual perception, extremely vivid imaginings and changes in their perception of time and of size and space.

The MRI scans showed lowered bloodflow to regions linked to the ego, the sense of self and personality.

A second study, to be published on Thursday in the British Journal of Psychiatry, gave volunteers cues to remember positive events in their lives such as their wedding or performance in a play. Their recollection became very vivid. "It was almost as if rather than imagining the memories, they were actually seeing them," said Carhart-Harris. "This could be very useful in psychotherapy, for instance in people with depression who find it very difficult to remember good times and are stuck in the negative."

The team are now hoping to do a further study which will involve giving psilocybin to depressed people who are undergoing psychotherapy, in the hope that it will allow them to relive times of past happiness.

The studies showed that psilocybin worked on the same areas of the brain as the SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac, as well as talking therapies and meditation as carried out by skilled practitioners. But the advantage over pills, the team believes, is that the positive effect could be long-lasting.


Related Articles:

Monday, January 23, 2012

One hundred years of the war on drugs

RNW, 23 January 2012, by John Tyler

Opium use on the island Java, Indonesia. (Photo: Tropical Museum)
                
 One hundred years ago today, the war on drugs started in The Hague. On 23 January, 1912, twelve countries met to sign the first international agreement regulating the drug trade, the International Opium Convention. Little has changed in those hundred years; the United States still aggressively pursues a policy of prohibition while the Dutch still prefer to regulate drug use.

Marcel de Kort, author of a history of drug policy in the Netherlands, says this country was never keen on using repressive measures.

"[The Dutch] always had their doubts about the international approach of prohibition. Already in the 1920s they called the US approach 'destructive idealism.' "

Profit motive

At the time of the opium convention, Dutch doubts about prohibition were fueled by money. The international drug trade was big business. The trade in opium and morphine had been steadily expanding during the second half of the 19th century. Germany, the United Kingdom and France were all profiting - but none held a candle to the Netherlands.

Plantations on Java gave the Dutch East India company a commanding position in the market, and they reported a profit of 26 million guilders from opium in 1914 before the convention had taken effect.* Cocaine also proved to be a lucrative business for at least one Dutch company which sold the drug to both sides during World War I.

So if the drug trade was such good business, why did the Netherlands host the 1912 convention in the first place? Marcel Kort says the Dutch decided, 'if you can’t beat them, join them.' Active participation in what was considered an unwelcome but inevitable development would do more to help protect Dutch economic interests than more stalling.

Delaying tactics

The Hague almost missed out. The United States, backed by China, had been trying for three years to get the major players to agree to a treaty, but European powers kept putting it off. But an American physician - the main force behind the convention - finally had enough. Upon hearing of yet another delay, the doctor tracked down the vacationing Dutch ambassador in a remote area in the state of Maine and sternly instructed him to set a date for the convention. Otherwise, the doctor threatened, he'd organise the event himself in Washington, DC. The plan worked and after six weeks of face-to-face haggling, the first international treaty regulating drugs was signed in the Netherlands.

Turning point

The Netherlands and other European powers did manage to water down the 1912 convention, keeping the emphasis on regulating trade, rather than prohibiting drug use altogether. The deal covered four drugs - opium, morphine, cocaine and heroin. It did not regulate synthetic drugs, thanks to lobbying by the German-dominated pharmaceutical industry.

Implementation of the agreement was stalled until after World War I, but then it was included in the Treaty Of Versailles that ended the war. This mean that, in one fell swoop, 60 countries were bound by the convention rather than just the original 13.

In addition to regulating international trade, the convention also required all signatories to pass domestic legislation controlling drug use.

One hundred years of bickering

The diplomatic bickering about regulation versus prohibition which began with the 1912 convention negotiations has continued ever since. The United States walked out of a 1925 conference on the grounds that it wouldn’t be tough enough, and it wasn’t until 1961 that the US finally succeeded in pushing through a more prohibitive treaty.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, established in 1997, adopted the zero-tolerance policy favoured by the United States. Dutch drugs policy today is still slanted towards regulation, but a number of measures have been adopted recently which tend more towards prohibition.

Ironically, as the Netherlands seems to be backpedaling on its liberal approach, a number of other countries are turning to policies which deal with drug-use as a public health and social welfare problem rather than a criminal one. And an increasingly loud chorus of voices from the scientific, political and social spheres are declaring that the war on drugs has been lost and it's time zero-tolerance was traded in for tolerance-under-strict-conditions.

* figure from Economic Histories of the Opium Trade, by Siddharth Chandra, University of Pittsburgh

To read more about the history of drug control, check out the Transnational Institute's article, The development of international drug control.


Pot-based prescription drug looks for FDA OK

Associated Press, By LISA LEFF, Jan 22, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A quarter-century after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first prescription drugs based on the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, additional medicines derived from or inspired by the cannabis plant itself could soon be making their way to pharmacy shelves, according to drug companies, small biotech firms and university scientists.

(AP Photo/ GW Pharmaceuticals)
A British company, GW Pharma, is in advanced clinical trials for the world's first pharmaceutical developed from raw marijuana instead of synthetic equivalents- a mouth spray it hopes to market in the U.S. as a treatment for cancer pain. And it hopes to see FDA approval by the end of 2013.

Sativex contains marijuana's two best known components - delta 9-THC and cannabidiol - and already has been approved in Canada, New Zealand and eight European countries for a different usage, relieving muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis.

FDA approval would represent an important milestone in the nation's often uneasy relationship with marijuana, which 16 states and the District of Columbia already allow residents to use legally with doctors' recommendations. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes pot as a dangerous drug with no medical value, but the availability of a chemically similar prescription drug could increase pressure on the federal government to revisit its position and encourage other drug companies to follow in GW Pharma's footsteps.

"There is a real disconnect between what the public seems to be demanding and what the states have pushed for and what the market is providing," said Aron Lichtman, a Virginia Commonwealth University pharmacology professor and president of the International Cannabinoid Research Society. "It seems to me a company with a great deal of vision would say, `If there is this demand and need, we could develop a drug that will help people and we will make a lot of money.'"

Possessing marijuana still is illegal in the United Kingdom, but about a decade ago GW Pharma's founder, Dr. Geoffrey Guy, received permission to grow it to develop a prescription drug. Guy proposed the idea at a scientific conference that heard anecdotal evidence that pot provides relief to multiple sclerosis patients, and the British government welcomed it as a potential way "to draw a clear line between recreational and medicinal use," company spokesman Mark Rogerson said.

In addition to exploring new applications for Sativex, the company is developing drugs with different cannabis formulations.

"We were the first ones to charge forward and a lot of people were watching to see what happened to us," Rogerson said. "I think we are clearly past that stage."

In 1985, the FDA approved two drug capsules containing synthetic THC, Marinol and Cesamet, to ease side-effects of chemotherapy in cancer patients. The agency eventually allowed Marinol to be prescribed to stimulate the appetites of AIDS patients. The drug's patent expired last year, and other U.S. companies have been developing formulations that could be administered through dissolving pills, creams and skin patches and perhaps be used for other ailments.

Doctors and multiple sclerosis patients are cautiously optimistic about Sativex. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has not endorsed marijuana use by patients, but the organization is sponsoring a study by a University of California, Davis neurologist to determine how smoking marijuana compares to Marinol in addressing painful muscle spasms.

"The cannabinoids and marijuana will, eventually, likely be part of the clinician's armamentarium, if they are shown to be clinically beneficial," said Timothy Coetzee, the society's chief research officer. "The big unknown in my mind is whether they are clearly beneficial."

Opponents and supporters of crude marijuana's effectiveness generally agree that more research is needed. And marijuana advocates fear that the government will use any new prescription products to justify a continued prohibition on marijuana use. .

"To the extent that companies can produce effective medication that utilizes the components of the plant, that's great. But that should not be the exclusive access for people who want to be able to use medical marijuana," Americans for Safe Access spokesman Kris Hermes said. "That's the race against time, in terms of how quickly can we put pressure on the federal government to recognize the plant has medical use versus the government coming out with the magic bullet pharmaceutical pill."

Interest in new and better marijuana-based medicines has been building since the discovery in the late 1980s and 1990s that mammals have receptors in their central nervous systems, several organs and immune systems for the chemicals in botanical cannabis and that their bodies also produce natural cannabinoids that work on the same receptors.

One of the first drugs to build on those breakthroughs was an anti-obesity medication that blocked the same chemical receptors that trigger the munchies in pot smokers. Under the name Acomplia, it was approved throughout Europe and heralded as a possible new treatment for smoking cessation and metabolic disorders that can lead to heart attacks.

The FDA was reviewing its safety as a diet drug when follow-up studies showed that people taking the drug were at heightened risk of suicide and other psychiatric disorders. French manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis, pulled it from the market in late 2008.

Given that drug companies already were reluctant "to touch anything that is THC-like with a 10-foot- pole," the setback had a chilling effect on cannabinoid drug development, according to Lichtman.

"Big companies like Merck and Pfizer were developing their own versions (of Acomplia), so all of those programs they spent millions and millions on just went away..." he said.

But scientists and drug companies that are exploring pot's promise predict the path will ultimately be successful, if long and littered with setbacks.

One is Alexandros Makriyannis, director of the Center for Drug Discovery at Northeastern University and founder of a small Boston company that hopes to market synthetic pain products that are chemically unrelated to marijuana, but work similarly on the body or inhibit the cannabinoid receptors. He also has been working on a compound that functions like the failed Acomplia but without the depressive effects.

"I think within five to 10 years, we should get something," Makriyannis said.


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Friday, January 20, 2012

‘Stop backstreet abortions: change the law’

RNW, 19 January 2012 , by Maike Winters     

(Photo: Urban don)

Millions of desperate women around the world still end unplanned pregnancies by resorting to backstreet abortions or knitting needles. Worldwide the number of unsafe abortions has risen, a recent study found. The majority of abortions in Africa and Latin America are unsafe. Legalising abortion is the way to save lives, says Women on Waves, a Dutch organisation that campaigns for safe abortion.

Around the world, 43.9 million abortions were carried out in 2008. Almost half of them took place in unsafe conditions, according to research by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The total number of abortions has stabilised.

Knitting needles

Rebecca Gomperts of Women on Waves works to provide safe abortions for women in parts of the world where abortion is outlawed. The rise in the number of unsafe abortions doesn’t surprise her. “Particularly in countries where abortion is illegal the procedure is carried out unsafely,” she says. “Unsafely means that women do it themselves by jumping down the stairs, or using knitting needles, or going to someone who’s had no training. But not every illegal abortion is necessarily unsafe.”

For example, abortion can be induced safely by a woman herself using the drug Misoprostol, says Gomperts. “The pills were used to prevent stomach ulcers. But because the authorities now know that Misoprostol can be used for other purposes, women in Thailand, Brazil and the Philippines, for instance, haven’t been able to get them for the past couple of years. Because of that there’s been an increase in the number of unsafe abortions in these countries.”

Complications

One in eight women who undergo an unsafe abortion die, according to WHO figures, and 8.5 million women a year are left requiring medical treatment. Gabie Raven of the Dutch Society of Abortion Doctors has seen it happen in practice. “I’ve worked in Africa myself and if you see the way they go to work with herbs and pots and pans to induce an abortion, it’s obviously unsafe. It’s something that’s always happened. But I’m surprised there’s been no improvement.”

Eight out of ten women in developing countries face strict laws against abortion. Because of the illegality, Gabie Raven says, many abortions take place in dangerous settings. “Even if someone’s trained to do abortions, there’s always a chance of complications. In the Netherlands we’re prepared for it, but with a backstreet abortion it’s a different story.”

Information

Legalisation is essential to stop the number of unsafe abortions from continuing to rise, Gomperts says. “It’s extremely important that abortion is legalised. But that’s a hard thing to achieve. In countries where it’s illegal, you first have to provide women with good information on how they can induce an abortion safely themselves using pills.”

Good information on contraception is also needed to bring down the number of unplanned pregnancies. Dutch Deputy Development Cooperation Minister Ben Knapen sees a role in this for the Dutch government. “More than in other countries, we talk about sensitive matters like abortion and sexuality without taboos. I’ve made sexual health one of my priorities to enable girls and women to make their own choices about reproduction and sexuality. We know that this leads to a fall in unplanned pregnancies, abortions, and maternal mortality.”


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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) SoulsReincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around"DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

"... I want to define life for you - not biological life, but spiritual life. So for all those intellectuals, just hold on, for many won't like this. Spiritual life, as measured by Spirit, is when a Human has free choice. When is that? It's when they take their first breath. Not in utero. There will be those who will say, "That's wrong, that's wrong. The soul in the woman's body is alive!" Just wait. I'm talking about spiritually. That which Spirit sees, and it's when you come from the other side of the veil and take your first breath.

A child with the mother has no free choice. That child is linked to the choice of the mother until it is born. It is, indeed, a soul in preparation for free choice, and there are many attributes that are spiritual that we have discussed before about how that soul reacts. But now I'm discussing life with polarity [duality], free choice. ..."

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Obama administration to make drug companies disclose money paid to doctors

The Raw Story, by Eric W. Dolan, Monday, January 16, 2012

The Obama administration plans to establish new rules requiring pharmaceutical companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors, according to the New York Times.

The new rules are being issued under the new health care law and will make pharmaceutical companies report money they have given to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The payment data will be made available to the public online.

Companies that fail to comply with the new rule could be subject to a penalty up to $10,000 for each payment they fail to report. 

The close relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies has been a concern for years. Drug companies have paid doctors up to $400 an hour to act as key opinion leaders and some doctors earn more than $25,000 a year in advisory fees.

Critics say this encourages doctors to over-prescribe medication and harms public health.

Doctors who take money from pharmaceutical companies are more willing to prescribe medication despite potential risks, according to an analysis by the Times.

In addition, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health found drugs that pharmaceutical companies marketed most aggressively to doctors tended to offer less benefits and more harm to patients.

“This is not a random occurrence, but rather a repeating, planned scenario in which drugs, discovered with good science for a specific set of patients, are marketed to a larger population as necessary, beneficial and safer than other alternatives,” Howard Brody, a professor and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at UTMB Health and co-author of the study, explained.

Another study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and University of Chicago failed to find evidence that atypical antipsychotic medication, a top-selling class of drugs, actually helped most patients. The study was published January 2011 in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.

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