Wellness Articles

Peanuts, Peanut Butter, Aflatoxin, and Cancer
“The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 oils is terribly important to health.”
“The worst offenders are safflower oil and peanut oil (with extremely high
omega-6 to omega-3 ratios), cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil,
and corn oil.” p. 51
“Peanuts are forbidden. They are not nuts at all; they are legumes—and
legumes contain lectins and other antinutrients that can adversely affect
your health.” p. 126
The Paleo Diet
Loren Cordain, PhD
Professor in the Health and Science Department at Colorado State Univ.
Wiley, 2002
•••••••••••••••••••••••••
Aflatoxin is a mold toxin. p. 5
“Aflatoxin has been called one of the most potent carcinogens ever
discovered.” p. 5
“Peanuts often were contaminated with a fungus-produced toxin called
aflatoxin.” p. 34
Aflatoxin “was said to be the most potent chemical carcinogen ever
discovered.” p. 34
Peanuts and corn are the foods most contaminated with aflatoxin. p. 35
“All 29 jars of peanut butter we had purchased in the local groceries were
contaminated with levels of aflatoxin as much as 300 times the amount
judged to be safe in US food.” p. 35
The worst, moldiest peanuts are “delivered to the end of the conveyor
belt to make peanut butter.” p. 35
The China Study
T Colin Campbell, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University
Co-author of the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological study
ever published on human health and nutrition, the China Study.
Benbella Books, 2004

After a long vacation from being on the radio in Portland, I decided to start up another radio program. This time I will be broadcasting with another Chiropractor from Vancouver, Washington (Dr. Paul Reed). We are still deciding on the format and if we are going to be broadcasting live or if we are going to have to pre-record the show. So if you have any ideas for the show or topics about health and Chiropractic you would like to see covered, feel free to e-mail me your comments.

The principle of chiropractic was discovered September 18, 1895 by Dr. Daniel Palmer in Davenport, Iowa. On that day, Palmer was in his office carrying on a shouted conversation with the deaf janitor of the building, Harvey Lillard.

Lillard was explaining in shouts to Palmer that about 17 years earlier while working in a cramped, stooped position, something had “popped” in his back Since that time, his hearing had become progressively worse.

Dr. Palmer, a curious, intelligent man, examined Lillard’s back and found a painful, misaligned vertebra at the spot where something had “popped” 17 years earlier. He suspected a connection between this misaligned vertebra and Lillard’s impaired hearing-and reasoned that if something had gone wrong in his back and caused deafness, the correction of the misaligned vertebra should bring back Lillard’s hearing.

Using his hands, Palmer repositioned the vertebra with a gentle thrust. Lillard’s hearing improved immediately. In that moment, Palmer made the breakthrough that had eluded the greatest medical minds of all the ages … he had discovered the cause of nearly all human disease.

During the next few days, Palmer continued the hand treatments on Lillard’s spine. Within a week, Lillard was able to hear as well as anybody and was telling anybody who would listen about Dr. Palmer’s hand treatments.

Dr. Palmer’s fame quickly spread as he proved that the hand treatments were effective in all sorts of disease conditions. He became a world-renowned specialist in the spine and nerve system.

His research into the cause of disease had led him to the conclusion that misalignment of the spinal column interferes with normal nerve function and thus, an alteration of normal body functions.

I will be presenting a talk on “5 easy ways to reduce stress” at 12:30 on October 24, 2008 on the Seminar Stage at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland Oregon. You can find more details at the NW Womens Show website at www.portlandwomenshow.com. It’s going to be a great talk and I hope to see you there.

This a great article that I talk about in my office. The Winsor Autopsies were done in 1921 and published in The Harvard Medical Times. This study shows how nearly 100% of diseased organs may be a result of irritation or interference to the nerve that supplies that organ.

Chiropractic Validated by Medical Research
By Dr. Lloyd Fielder

Since chiropractic’s inception in 1895 there has been an understanding of the crucial relationship between the integrity of the spinal column and the function of the nerve system as a whole and specifically the tissues and organs that they supply. The interrelatedness of the spine and nerve system–even way back then–was evident in its simplest of understandings.

It was this basic observation that led to the profession of chiropractic focusing on the function of the nerve system and how it is the main source for transmitting the inborn intelligence and information one requires to express their fullest health potential. In essence, to the degree one maintained a healthy nerve system, one free of interference and aberrant communication in relation to the spine, is to the degree one was able to express the fullest potential for life and health.

Chiropractors influence the function of the nerve system through the spine and spinal subsystems thereby allowing the body to increase its own inborn ability to self-regulate and self-heal.

Why Don’t M.D.s Recognize the Importance of Nerve Function?

Fast forward 110 years later. I can’t tell you how many times I have a person in front of me to whom I explain these simple workings of the importance of nerve function in the role of their health. I know I am not the only chiropractor who hears this next line all too frequently, “Why didn’t my M.D. tell me that?”

My answer is usually something along the lines of, “Maybe they just simply don’t know and you should explain it to them.” In truth I do not know the answer, but my best guess would be that these understandings were firstly and continue to be associated with chiropractic and chiropractors. Their biasness professionally is that chiropractic ideas have not come from any medical research or any allopathic physician and therefore are not valid.

Well fret no longer; thanks to a wonderful M.D. who spent many long hours in the lab we have results that support the basics of the chiropractic view of a life and death relationship between the nerves and the function of the organs as they relate to the spine.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The Winsor Autopsies

Henry Winsor, a medical doctor in Haverford, Pennsylvania, asked the question:

“Chiropractors claim that by adjusting one vertebra, they can relieve stomach troubles and ulcers; by adjusting another, menstrual cramps; and by adjusting others conditions such as kidney diseases, constipation, heart disease, thyroid conditions, and lung disease may resolve–but how?”

Dr. Winsor decided to investigate this new science and art of healing–chiropractic.

Dissections

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Winsor was inspired by chiropractic and osteopathic literature to experiment. He planned to dissect human and animal cadavers to see if there was a relationship between any diseased internal organ discovered on autopsy and the vertebrae associated with the nerves that went to the organ. As he wrote:

“The object of these necropsies (dissections) was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other; or whether the two were entirely independent of each other.”

University Permission

The University of Pennsylvania gave Dr. Winsor permission to carry out his experiments. In a series of three studies he dissected a total of 75 human and 22 cat cadavers. The following are Dr. Winsor’s results:

“Two hundred twenty-one structures other than the spine were found diseased. Of these, 212 were observed to belong to the same sympathetic (nerve) segments as the vertebrae in curvature. Nine diseased organs belonged to different sympathetic segments from the vertebrae out of line.

These figures cannot be expected to exactly coincide … for an organ may receive sympathetic filaments from several spinal segments and several organs may be supplied with sympathetic (nerve) filaments from the same spinal segments. In other words, there was nearly a 100 percent correlation between minor curvatures of the spine and diseases of the internal organs.”

Diseases examined:

Stomach Diseases
All nine cases of spinal misalignment in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9) had stomach disease.

Lung Disease
All 26 cases of lung disease had spinal misalignments in the upper thoracic spine.

Liver Disease
All 13 cases of liver disease had misalignments in the mid thoracic (T5-T9)

Gallstones
All five cases with gallstone disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracic.

Pancreas
All three cases with pancreas disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracics.

Spleen
All 11 cases with spleen diseases had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracics.

Kidney
All 17 cases with kidney disease were out of alignment in the lower thoracics.

Prostate and Bladder Disease
All eight cases with kidney, prostate and bladder disease had the lumbar (L2-L3) vertebrae misaligned

Uterus
The two cases with the uterine conditions had the second lumbar misaligned.

Heart Disease
All 20 cases with heart and pericardium conditions had the upper five thoracic vertebrae (T1-T5) misaligned.

Dr. Winsor’s results are published in The Medical Times, November 1921, and are found in any medical library.

That’s right, folks: 1921.

Modern Research Also Shows Benefits of Chiropractic

What is incredible is that there is much more research, a majority of it done in recent years, that shows the benefit of chiropractic care in many aspects of health such as the immune system. Wouldn’t you want to know that chiropractic care could allow your family’s immune systems to be as healthy as they are meant to be?

The latest research shows people without any symptoms at all who receive chiropractic care IMPROVE their health.

That means there is valid scientific documentation that as you incorporate chiropractic care into your lifestyle you continue to get healthier even if you don’t have any current symptoms!

Now let me just acknowledge that many in our profession of chiropractic educate people to know that judging their health based upon symptoms is not wise and that even in the absence of symptoms someone can be quite sick. I am not disagreeing with that at all.

However, I am simply shifting the focus onto creating health, wellness and wholeness. We have no choice in that life is a continuous process that goes on with or without us. We do have a choice in either taking a passive and unaware role in the processes of creating a downward spiral of sickness and disease, or an informed and active one in creating an upward spiral of health and vitality. Which would you choose for yourself? How about for your child?

How Many of us Receive Chiropractic Care?

Our profession has been educating, talking about, asking, and sometimes pleading with people to get checked for nerve interference by a chiropractor for over 100 years. Over 85 years ago the medical community itself validated chiropractic’s reasoning with science.

Sadly to this day only 10 percent to18 percent of our country’s population has gotten under some type of chiropractic care according to various statistics.

We continue to get sicker as a country that encompasses something like 5 percent of the world’s population–who consume around 60 percent of the world’s pharmaceuticals. This concept of better health through better drugs is not working and, more importantly, it is killing us. Conservatively speaking, the third leading cause of death in this country is the medical profession.

So whether you have a disease, an illness or symptoms, are without a symptom and want to create more health, or want to find out more about your body, the state of your spine, if you have nerve interference and more importantly how much or little you are expressing your health potential, you could benefit from a chiropractor.

Many of my colleagues across the country and world give health care classes, new patient orientations and speak to all sorts of groups. Please see the wonderful chiropractor locator and schedule yourself an appointment–or at the very least find out when the chiropractor nearest you is giving a talk about health, wellness and chiropractic as it relates to you and your family’s lives.

I promise you it is the greatest gift you can give yourself and your family, now that you have started to understand how the body actually works!

Dr. Lloyd Fielder is the chiropractor who regularly adjusts me to optimize my nervous system. He was born in Brooklyn, NY and lived most of his life in the town of Oceanside on Long Island. He completed his undergraduate studies at the State University of New York at Albany before receiving his Doctor of Chiropractic degree at The National College of Chiropractic in Lombard, Illinois. He also has Bachelor of Science degrees in both biology and human biology. He has successfully owned and operated Schaumburg Chiropractic Wellness Center in Schaumburg, IL for the last seven years. Dr. Fielder commonly refers to his office as “one that is driven by possibilities to improve a person’s life and health.” For seven years Dr. Fielder has transformed the practice into one that is focused on the inborn innate ability of each person to achieve and express their full health potential.

Reference:

Much of this article was modified from an original article from Tedd Koren, D.C.

All quotes from: Winsor, H. Sympathetic segmental disturbances — II. The evidences of the association, in dissected cadavers, of visceral disease with vertebral deformities of the same sympathetic segments, The Medical Times, November 1921, pp./ 267-271

Let Me Show You How I Help Protect My Brain from Cell Phone Radiation
Cell phone radiation is no laughing matter. Luckily, a FERRITE BEAD is a simple and inexpensive device that may reduce your exposure to harmful cell phone radiation. So, what are you waiting for? Protect your brain (and your family’s) today.

Discover How

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Dr. Fielder has been a friend of mine for many years. He is a local chiropractor who has helped me to understand the value of chiropractic to optimizing health. Dr. Fielder provides me with regular chiropractic adjustments to optimize my nerve system, and really helped me to understand that one of the basic foundations of chiropractic and one of their 33 founding principles is the recognition that there is an intrinsic life force that they call innate, which guides and directs the body’s healing process.

Many chiropractors hold this philosophical perspective and call it “vitalism,” and it is one that I strongly resonate with. For more on this topic you can read Vitalism: Turn Your Power On, which was written by Dr. Ben Lerner, another talented chiropractor and author of the excellent resource Body By God: The Owner’s Manual for Maximized Living.

This article can be viewed on Mercola.com at http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/06/30/chiropractic-validated.aspx

After my last post I was reading through Dr. Mercola’s website and came upon this article.

A month after 13 year old Jenny Tetlock was vaccinated against the HPV virus, she missed the lowest hurdle in gym class. It was the first sign of a degenerative muscle disease that 15 months later left her nearly completely paralyzed.

Her father, Philip Tetlock, a professor at UC-Berkeley, has embarked on an odyssey to find out whether the vaccine, Gardasil, is to blame.

Tetlock is not the only one concerned. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch has been periodically obtaining adverse event reports on Gardasil from the FDA. 10 deaths have been linked to Gardasil since September 2007, and there have been 140 reports so far this year of serious side effects such as miscarriage and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Sources:
U.S. News and World Report July 2, 2008
A Judicial Watch Special Report: Examining the FDA’s HPV Vaccine Records June 30, 2008

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:
Once you educate yourself and know the facts about Gardasil, the truth about HPV, and the statistics of cervical cancer, it will become quite clear just how outrageously useless — and dangerous — this vaccine really is.

The FDA, in not-so-rare form, insists there’s no medical reason to be worried about the side effects of Gardasil. “We’re monitoring the safety of the HPV vaccine very carefully, and the only adverse event that causes some concern is fainting after the vaccine,” says Robert Ball, director of the FDA’s office of biostatistics and division of epidemiology.

He continues to say, “Higher rates of Guillain-Barré have been associated with the swine flu vaccine and possibly with the meningitis vaccine Menactra, but it is no more common in those who get Gardasil than in those who don’t.”

Alright. Let’s say you agree with the idea that the cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome are pure coincidence, despite the fact that they occur within days or weeks of vaccination.

But what about the deaths?

Infant deaths following Merck’s rotavirus are routinely disguised under the label SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). So what do we have when healthy teenagers drop dead for no reason? SAD — Sudden Adolescent Death? Will that be the next big thing? Will there be SAD campaigns, with physicians educating the public about proper sleeping positions until you’re well into your 20’s?

Let’s get real.

I recently read a comment online from one mother who said she’d do anything in her power to make sure her children were protected, and she couldn’t understand “the narrow-minded opinions” and “fear mongering” of Gardasil nay-sayers.

“Would you rather your daughters died of cervical cancer?” she wrote.

Well, that’s just it, right there! As I will show you, the chances of your daughter dying of cervical cancer are already VERY LOW, and the possibility of Gardasil sparing them from cervical cancer is so RIDICULOUSLY LOW that no reasonable person could argue for the use of this HPV vaccine if they knew all the facts.

How Likely are You to Develop and Die From Cervical Cancer?

According to the CDC, cervical cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States. However, in the past 40 years, the number of cervical cancer cases and the number of deaths thereof have decreased significantly. It is believed that this decline is the result of many women getting regular Pap tests, which can find cervical pre-cancer before it turns into cancer.

According to the U.S. Cancer Statistics: 2004 Incidence and Mortality report, 11,892 women in the U.S. were told that they had cervical cancer in 2004, and 3,850 women died from the disease. The American Cancer Society mirrors these statistics, estimating that about 3,870 women will die from cervical cancer in the U.S. in 2008.

Well. We’ve already lost 18 girls, some as young as 12, in the effort to spare them from the mere possibility of cervical cancer later in life. Others have developed debilitating and potentially life-threatening ailments within weeks of being vaccinated, and others still have had spontaneous abortions or given birth to babies with birth defects.

Also consider this: Cervical cancer usually develops in your late 20s to mid 30s. The protection period of Gardasil is estimated to be 5 years. That means, if you receive your first set of shots when you’re 10 years old, you’d need at least 2 to 4 additional booster shots to make it through your 30s. And THAT means you’ll have to expose yourself to the potential side effects of Gardasil over and over and over again.

But now to the real clincher, and I want you to read the following section as many times as you need to let this truly sink in…

U.S. statistics show there are 30 to 40 cervical cancer cases per year per one million women between the ages of 9 and 26, which is the age bracket that Gardasil targets (and was tested on).

According to Merck, Gardasil was shown to reduce pre-cancers by 12.2% to 16.5% in the general population. So, instead of ending up with 30 to 40 cases of cancer per million, per year, in that age bracket, the HPV vaccine can potentially bring it down to 26 to 35 cases of cervical cancer.

What that means is that you would have to vaccinate one million girls to prevent cervical cancer in 4 to 5 girls.

Further, about 37 percent of women who develop cervical cancer actually die from the disease, so vaccinating ONE MILLION girls would prevent 1 to 2 DEATHS per year, at the bargain-basement price of $360 million per year, plus potentially lifelong suffering for an untold number of women, which has no price tag.

Is this REASONABLE?

Understanding the HPV – Cancer Connection

There are more than 100 types of human papillomaviruses (HPVs). Of them, about 40 types of HPV affect your genitals or sex organs, and can cause genital warts, for example. 10-30 strains can lead to cervical cancer. The remainder can cause to skin infections and common warts on your hands and feet.

The CDC web site states that certain types of HPV can infect your cervix and lead to cervical cancer over many years. (This may be one of the reasons why cancer rates keep dropping, because there’s sufficient amount of time to treat any abnormalities if you’re getting regular Pap smears.)

It also says that in 90 percent of women infected, HPV clears up on its own within two years, at which point your cervical cells go back to normal. It is only when the HPV virus lingers for many years that these abnormal cells could turn into cancer.

Additionally, it’s important to know that the vast majority of abnormal Pap tests do NOT equate to cancer. Even abnormal Pap tests showing pre-cancerous cells of the CIN II grade clear by themselves without treatment 40 percent of the time.

And, current treatment of pre-cancers has limited the progression to actual cancer to only 1 percent. So, just like the polio vaccine, Merck’s HPV vaccine is coming out at a time when cervical cancer is already on a steady decline, and anyone who starts talking about how Gardasil has reduced cervical cancer rates in the next few years is likely talking absolute nonsense.

Informed Consent: Understand the Numerous Dangers of the HPV Vaccine

First of all, the Gardasil vaccine contains just four types of HPV out of the more than 100 strains. So if you contract one of the 96+ types that aren’t included, you’re out of luck. And, if you’ve already been exposed to one of the four types of virus in the vaccine, it doesn’t work against those either.

This means that even if you accept the risks and get vaccinated, your chances of getting some form of HPV are still very high. Whether or not the HPV virus will lead to genital warts or cervical cancer, however, depends in large part on the state of your immune system.

Gardasil, on the other hand, can damage your immune system, and can potentially lead to death. The main causes of death include blood clots, acute respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, and “sudden death” due to “unknown causes” shortly after receiving the vaccine. Again, 11 of the reported deaths occurred within 2 weeks of vaccination, and 7 within 2 days, so whatever the mechanism that induces death, it’s quick and efficient.

Other side effects include:

Miscarriages and spontaneous abortion
Genital wart outbreak, even in patients who had tested negative for HPV and genital warts prior to vaccination
Facial warts and warts on hands and feet
Anaphylactic shock
Loss of consciousness
Grand mal seizures
Coma
Paralysis
Says Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, “Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to reevaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children.”

It’s also important to know that Merck has NOT evaluated Gardasil’s potential carcinogenity or genotoxicity.

There is currently no way of knowing how the HPV vaccine affects fertility, birth defects, cancer, if it can pass through breast milk, or if it can alter your genes or the genes of your future children (genotoxicity).

However, five subjects who got the vaccine around the time of conception had babies with birth defects, whereas no birth defects occurred among the subjects who received a placebo. Likewise, earlier last year when there were “only” 1,637 adverse reports, 18 of 42 women who had received the vaccine while pregnant experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to fetal abnormalities.

Also remember that you cannot sue Merck if your child dies after receiving the vaccine.

Drug companies have cleverly manipulated the government so that they are immune from prosecution. Instead they’ve made the U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for the hundreds of millions of dollars that are paid out to families of children who are harmed or killed every year from vaccines.

And even though it is nearly impossible to get one of these payments, more than $1.5 billion has been paid out to affected families already. So ponder on these stats if you haven’t already taken a firm position on the vaccine issue.

Good Example of How to Fake a Safety Study

In yet another less-than-ethical twist, Merck was permitted to use an aluminum-containing placebo instead of a standard saline placebo. Since Gardasil contains 225 mcg of aluminum, using an aluminum-containing placebo may paint an entirely inaccurate picture of its level of safety, since you’re apt to get similar, detrimental side effects in the placebo group.

In fact, about 60 percent of those who received either Gardasil or the aluminum placebo had systemic adverse events including:

Headache
Fever
Nausea
Dizziness
Vomiting
Diarrhea,
Myalgia (muscle pain)
Gardasil recipients had more serious adverse events such as gastroenteritis, appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, asthma, bronchospasm and arthritis.

You should also know that aside from being injected with four types of HPV proteins, girls and women who receive this vaccine also receive the following adjuvants:

1. Aluminum adjuvants, which have been linked to neurological damage including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease

2. Polysorbate 80, which has been linked to infertility in mice.

3. Sodium borate, a main ingredient in roach killer.

How To Reduce Your Risk of Cervical Cancer to Virtually Zero

The following have been shown to be associated with increased risk of cervical cancer:

Nutritional deficiencies, especially vitamin A and folate
Mineral deficiency (zinc, selenium, calcium and iron)
Smoking
Birth control use
Douching
It is believed that smoking has more to do with the progression of an HPV infection to cervical cancer than any other single factor, as smokers with HPV go on to develop cervical cancer much more frequently than infected non-smokers.

Cervical cancer is also well documented to be caused by an infection acquired through sexual contact. So in addition to avoiding smoking and eating a nutritious diet, it is behaviorally avoidable.

According to a New England Journal of Medicine study, the use of condoms reduces the incidence of HPV by 70 percent, offering FAR better protection than Gardasil’s protection rate of 12.2 to 16.5 percent.

As I’ve already mentioned, in 90 percent of all cases, your immune system is strong enough to clear up an HPV infection without ANY treatment. So maintaining a strong immune system is vital to beat HPV as well as any other infection or disease.

GARDASIL Cancer Vaccine Probed For Link To 18 Deaths

New York Post
by Susan Edelman and Bruce Golding
July 6, 2008

http://w ww.nypost.com/seven/07062008/news/nationalnews/f eds_warning_shot_118716.htm

GARDASIL – a new cervical-cancer vaccine heavily marketed to young girls in ubiquitous ads on TV and in movie theaters – is under investigation for possible links to paralysis, seizures, and 18 deaths.

Federal health officials have logged 8,000 “adverse events” in girls and women injected with the Merck & Co. vaccine introduced two years ago, more than 500 of them from New York.

And lawyers last month filed the first two claims on behalf of girls with ailments blamed on Gardasil under a federal program to compensate victims of vaccine-caused illness, The Post has learned.

Both girls got the injections at their middle schools.

One is Jesalee Parsons, now 15, of Oklahoma, who began vomiting the day she got a Gardasil shot and developed pancreatitis, her claim says.

“It makes me mad because they’re saying how great it is, but they never mention how many people have been hurt by it,” Jesalee told The Post.

Healthy all her life, her family says, Jesalee has been hospitalized on and off for more than a year. She restricts her diet, takes pain pills and misses many school days.

“I’m pretty sick all the time,” she said.

The other claim was filed for Jessica Vega of Nevada, who came down with Guillain-Barr̩ Syndrome, an immune-system disorder, at age 14 Рa week after her second Gardasil shot.

Thirty others have reported the syndrome after getting the vaccine.

JESSICA’S mom, Rhonda Vega, says the girl’s lower legs and arms were paralyzed, but she’s learned to walk again. “Protecting girls against cervical cancer is a fabulous thing, but if this is what’s going to happen, they need to research it more,” she said.

In Florida, the mother of 13-year-old Brittany LeClaire said her daughter suffered headaches and lethargy after a Gardasil shot last Aug. 13. On Sept. 2, Brittany’s left leg became paralyzed. After months on a walker, she limps.

Her pediatrician “highly recommended” the vaccination, mom Christina Bell said. “He told me it was a cancer preventative. I thought it was the right thing to do. You see it advertised on TV every 15 minutes.”

Brittany’s case is one of six being prepared for filing by Boston vaccine lawyer Kevin Conway. He said other cases include “paralysis, seizures and brain damage.”

Gardasil was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2006 for females ages 9 to 26. Sold worldwide, it’s been given to more than 8 million US girls and women, Merck says.

The vaccine is aimed at warding off strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can lead to cancer. The vaccinations cost a total $360.

Securities and Exchange Commission documents show Merck made $1.5 billion in Gardasil sales last year.

ONE doctor who helped conduct clinical trials on Gardasil told The Post the vaccine has been aggressively marketed to girls too young to need it.

“There’s a huge push for giving this to girls 11 and 12 years of age,” said Dr. Diane Harper of Dartmouth Medical School. “There’s no hurry. You can give it to someone who is 20, 25 or 30 and still have the same level of protection.”

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, run by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has collected thousands of reports of health problems after Gardasil shots.

The fatalities include:

* A 17-year-old New York girl who collapsed and died on Feb. 22 this year, two days after the last of three Gardasil injections. An autopsy could not pinpoint the cause, but doctors suspect a heart- rhythm disorder.

* An 11-year-old who suffered a heart attack in May 2007, three days after a Gardasil shot. The nurse who reported it said a doctor blamed it on “an anaphylactic [severe allergic] reaction to Gardasil.” The feds could not confirm the case.

* A 12-year-old girl with no prior medical problems who died in her sleep on Oct. 6, 2007, three weeks after a Gardasil shot.

TEE-OFF FOR A LONGER LIFE

Go ahead; take the afternoon off to play a round of golf—it’s good for your health and can lead to a longer life, provided that you walk the course instead of ride in the golf cart.

A study conducted by the Swedish medical university Karolinaska Institutet, and recently published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, tracked the health of 300,000 Swedish golfers. Results from this study indicate that avid golfers of any sex, age, and socioeconomic background can increase their life expectancy by five years. Golfers with a low handicap have the longest life expectancy.

The average round of golf can last 4 to 5 hours, which includes walking at a fast pace for several miles. This is where the real health benefits are found. Of course, this study does not rule out that other lifestyle factors—such as healthy eating—can play a part in prolonging life.

Other interesting data collected from this study suggests that golfers from blue-collar professions will experience greater health benefits from golf, compared to golfers that come from white-collar professions. Either way, it’s clear that exercise is a vital key to longer living.

[Source: Karolinska Institutet, www.ki.se ]

This is an article written by my good friend Dr. Harte. I am sure most of you remember hearing me talk about this on my radio show for over four years. I will be back on the air on a new station shortly with Dr. Reed from Vancouver.

WHY DO YOU STILL BELIEVE?

“The great enemy of truth is often not the lie… deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth…persistent, pervasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations, and we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – JFK

Just a few months ago, the incredibly marketing statin (cholesterol-lowering) drug, Vitorin, was found, by research, to be, well… useless. Did it work? Yes! Confused? Good. At least now, you know.

NOTE: For those who are not taking statin drugs, don’t have a loved one taking statin drugs, or are otherwise uninterested in this particular issue, PLEASE READ ON. This discussion has an importance that reaches to every corner of Medicine.

Vitorin did succeed in lowering three “risk” markers in the blood, LDL (low density, or “bad,” cholesterol), triglycerides, and C-reactive proteins. All these factors are supposed to, believed to, have a massive effect upon “cardiovascular health,” or what passes for health in medical circles. (In this area, “health” means NOT getting a hear attack or a stroke, not necessarily maximal function.) So, lowering not one, not two, but all three of these factors should have a profound effect upon morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death). By this “logic,” Vitorin should have accomplished this.

The results of the research? Taking Vitorin resulted in absolutely no improvement in morbidity, no improvement in mortality, in both the general test population, and in all sub-groups. In other words, the administration of this drugs was found to do… nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Vitorin, and its pharmaceutical cousins, have numerous adverse effects, some serious, some potentially fatal. These include muscle damage and pain, and/or liver damage. When they say, in the TV commercials, that your doctor will test you, regularly, for potential liver damage, many don’t. Besides, by the time your liver tests show up positive, you may be in very deep water. Perhaps the most “colorful” adverse effect is rhabdomyalosis, which is a sudden breakdown of muscle tissue into the bloodstream, backing up the kidneys, leading to death. Some years ago, a member of my practice lost her husband (who was “otherwise healthy”) to rhabdomyalosis. (In the PDR, the Physicians’ desk reference, this adverse effect appears as a “Black Box Warning,” the sternest warning short of pulling the drug.)

So, if Vitorin has been proved to be useless, while bearing many dangerous side effects, one can easily extrapolate to the other statin drugs, Zocor, Mevachor, Prevachol, Zetia. After all, they are all trying to do essentially the same thing, reduce “cardiovascular risks” that are, in fact, mythological. Yes, I said mythological.

Would you risk you life for a medical myth? I suppose that They still expect YOU to do that. Did the maker of Vitorin have any plans to suspend or stop marketing, let alone pull the drug? Of course not. The news releases, of course, all bore the admonition, “Consult your physician.” Well, if your physician wants you to take a drug or drugs that are useless, at best, and dangerous, at worst, why employ him or her? Use your head.

Some of my older practice members are taking Coumadin, or Warfarin, a blood thinner that is the active ingredient in rat poison. They were all given good medical “reasons” why they must take this drug, and take it for life. They believe that the lab tests show that their blood “thickness’ is just right. How can this be, when I see all kinds of bruises on their arms and legs? I explain to them that if there is bleeding where you can see, there is bleeding inside, where you can’t see.

Clearly, the Emperor has no clothes. Why do you still believe? Why does society still believe to the point of worship? Why do the politicians try to whip us up that we need more of what already doesn’t work? With the addition of prescription drugs to Medicare, in the last two or three years, has the health of senior citizens improved?

Or was this “benefit” just a benefit for the pharmaceutical corporations?

What is “accepted” by “everyone” about what is called “health care” may not be correct. How many “miracle drugs” have been taken off the market, after killing thousands, sometimes tens of thousands? What ever happened to frontal lobotomies? Radium nasal suppositories for sinus problems? Bleeding? Thalidomide? Vioxx? In the sixteenth century in England, doctors were well versed in astrology (perhaps as well as modern pharmaceutical companies are in marketing) and used in extensively in diagnosing, and even in the harvesting of herbs. The cure for all ailments of the eye was to blow desiccated dog dung into the eye. Well, it was probably much safer than taking statin drugs.

By now, if you have had an open enough mind to follow me to this point, I know that you have one burning question in your mind: “If I can’t trust my doctor, who can I trust? What else can one do?” Well, as Cat Stevens sung, about thirty-five years ago, “The answer lies within.” Your body has, within itself, the ability to run itself, and to heal itself when sick. In Chiropractic, we call this the Innate Intelligence. Everything is controlled and coordinated by the brain and the nervous system. When there is interference to the nervous system from old injuries in the spine (painful or not, new or decades old), the body fails to run itself properly. Blood pressure may become elevated. Cholesterol levels may become abnormal. The heart may not beat in a healthy manner. The condition of the blood may not be good. However, everyone is different. What constitutes a normal level of this or that kind of cholesterol will be different from one person to another, and will be different within one person as conditions change. The M.D. doesn’t know what the levels should be, nor does the lab, nor do I. Your own Innate Intelligence knows.

What to do, in real life? Have you been looking for health in all the wrong places?

One may call a chiropractor for back pain, but that is not the reason for Chiropractic. We remove interferences to the nervous system, allowing the Innate Intelligence to do its thing. It’s thing is to get you healthy and keep you healthy.

So, why do you still believe what everybody else believes? Maybe the only reason is that everybody else does. Use your own common sense. Think for yourself. Get chiropractic care for yourself and your family, and tell everyone you know. Begin to help others look for health IN THE RIGHT PLACES.

Exactly how powerful is the experience of receiving a chiropractic adjustment? New evidence suggests that chiropractic care does much more than alleviate back pain—it positively affects body chemistry all the way down to the cellular level. In a nutshell, chiropractic adjustments strengthen the body, making cells and DNA more resistant to disease.

In March 2006, the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research published a landmark study that offered a long-awaited scientific explanation for why chiropractic patients experience positive health benefits. The article stated that chiropractic care could stimulate basic physiological processes that help diminish bodily stress and enhance DNA repair.

In the study, a diverse group of 76 people were divided into three categories. Group one received short-term chiropractic care. Group two received long-term chiropractic care. Group three was the control group that did not receive chiropractic adjustments. Results indicated that long-term chiropractic care of two or more years produced healthier bodies. Age, sex, nutritional supplements and prior health conditions did not hinder or enhance these results. Basically stated, chiropractic adjustment improved the overall health of everyone in groups one and two.

To look at the study results on a deeper, more scientific level, let’s examine the average human body. Everything from your career, to your family dynamic, to your eating and sleeping habits produces physical, chemical and emotional stress in your body. These stresses can obstruct and negatively affect your nervous system, which in turn hinders your body’s ability to produce naturally occurring antioxidants that fight off disease and other illness.

However, chiropractic adjustment works to remove obstructions to the nervous system. This allows internal body processes to begin functioning at normal levels, thus enhancing the body’s ability to produce healthy chemicals that work to protect cells and DNA from becoming mutated by disease.

[Source: Medical News Today, March 2006]

April 2008

Research shows adjustment’s impact on brain function
According to a study conducted by Dr. Heidi Haavik-Taylor, director of research at New Zealand College of Chiropractic, chiropractic adjustments may alter cortical somatosensory processing and sensorimotor integration, that is, the way the brain and nervous system function.

“The process of a spinal adjustment is like rebooting a computer. The signals that these adjustments send to the brain, via the nervous system, reset muscle behaviour patterns,” said Dr. Haavik-Taylor.

“By stimulating the nervous system we can improve the function of the whole body. This is something that chiropractors and their patients have known for years; and now we have some scientific evidence to prove it.”

According to a press release from the New Zealand Chiropractors Association, Haavik-Taylor has spent the last seven years researching the effects of chiropractic adjustments on the nervous system. In her latest research, carried out in conjunction with fellow New Zealander, Dr. Bernadette Murphy, she was able to measure how brain waves are altered before and after spinal adjustments.

“This is the first time that anyone has used EEGs to prove that there are definite changes to the way the brain processes information after chiropractic care,” she said in the release.

The research report, “Altered Sensorimotor Integration With Cervical Spine Manipulation,” was published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (Volume 31, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 115-126).

According to the abstract of the report, the objective of the research was to investigate changes in the intrinsic inhibitory and facilitatory interactions within the sensorimotor cortex subsequent to a single session of cervical spine manipulation using single- and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation protocols.

Twelve subjects with a history of reoccurring neck pain participated in this study. Short interval intracortical inhibition, short interval intracortical facilitation (SICF), motor evoked potentials, and cortical silent periods (CSPs) were recorded from the abductor pollicis brevis and the extensor indices proprios muscles of the dominant limb after single- and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation of the contralateral motor cortex. The experimental measures were recorded before and after spinal manipulation of dysfunctional cervical joints, and on a different day after passive head movement. To assess spinal excitability, F wave persistence and amplitudes were recorded after median nerve stimulation at the wrist.

After cervical manipulations, there was an increase in SICF, a decrease in short interval intracortical inhibition, and a shortening of the CSP in abductor pollicis brevis. The opposite effect was observed in extensor indices proprios, with a decrease in SICF and a lengthening of the CSP. No motor evoked potentials or F wave response alterations were observed, and no changes were observed after the control condition.

The researchers conclusion was that “spinal manipulation of dysfunctional cervical joints may alter specific central corticomotor facilitatory and inhibitory neural processing and cortical motor control of 2 upper limb muscles in a muscle-specific manner. This suggests that spinal manipulation may alter sensorimotor integration. These findings may help elucidate mechanisms responsible for the effective relief of pain and restoration of functional ability documented after spinal manipulation.”

Haavik-Taylor is the recipient of two grants from the Australian Spinal Research Foundation to further her studies on how chiropractic care affects the function of the nervous system and alters muscle function.

Earlier this year Haavik-Taylor was recognized by her peers and she received the New Zealand College of Chiropractic Alumni Chiropractor of the Year 2007 award in recognition of her research and her passion for the discipline.

“(Dr. Haavik-Taylor’s) work is ground-breaking on an international level by proving that chiropractic adjustments do alter and benefit the nervous system,” said Dr. James Burt, president of the New Zealand Chiropractors Association.

It’s all over the news this week; people taking the potentially life-threatening, cholesterol lowering medication, Vytorin, should think twice before continuing its use.

Vytorin is a widely popular anti-cholesterol drug that is prescribed to about 4 million Americans. Yet when a major study, recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine, compared this medication to other drugs in its category, Vytorin’s benefit claims fell flat. It was also shown to cost about five times more than other similar drugs that perform on a similar level.

Wait, the bad news just gets worse.

In 2004 when pharmaceutical companies were pushing for Vytorin’s release to the public, the FDA’s very own pharmacology reviewer found that even the smallest dose of Vytorin caused severe toxicity in laboratory animals and recommended against its approval. Yet somehow this dangerous drug still got FDA approval and has now raked in over 5 million dollars for its manufacturers, Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp.

Since its approval, scores of people taking Vytorin have reported all kinds of serious side effects that have dramatically reduced the quality of their life, often times leading to hospitalization. The side effects of this drug can be so bad that New England Journal of Medicine says is should only be taken as a last resort.

Despite the public’s outcry to know the truth about Vytorin, the two pharmaceutical companies behind the pill are shrugging off the concerns, saying they will continue to make and promote their drug.

It’s clear that pharmaceutical companies are in the business of making money, not health. The good news is that you can drastically enhance your health by taking simple steps, like eating plenty of fresh produce (think vegetables and fruits), and avoiding processed foods and foods high in sugar. You’ll be surprised at what an impact your diet has on internal body processes—like the ability to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease.

Another simple way to improve your health is to schedule regular chiropractic adjustments. By maintaining a healthy spine, you’ll be opening the door to health in other areas of your body, as well.

[Source: Consumer Affairs report Doctors Warned About Vytorin, 3/31/08, and CNN.com/health report “Trial: Popular cholesterol drug fails to improve heart disease”]

Vaccines, Depression and Neurodegeneration After Age 50: Another Reason to Avoid the Recommended Vaccines.

By Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., CCN

It has been estimated that 14.8 million Americans suffer from major depressive disorder and of this number 6 million are elderly. If we include anxiety disorders, which commonly accompany depression, the number jumps to 40 million adults.

Depression later in life tends to last longer and be more severe than at younger ages. It is also associated with a high rate of suicide. Previously, it was thought that major depression was secondary to a deficiency in certain neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly the monoamines, which include serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine.

While alterations in these important mood-related neurotransmitters is found with major depression, growing evidence indicates that the primary culprit is low-grade, chronic brain inflammation.

This exclusive article will review in detail the functions and impact of various agents on depression and neurodegeneration, including:

The impact of MSG on your brain and mood
The link between elevated brain glutamate and inflammation
The connections between pesticides and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
How vaccinations cause brain inflammation
The impact of an expanding vaccine schedule for the elderly
The shocking truth, linking brain inflammation to neurodegenerative diseases
How vaccine additives such as mercury and aluminum impact your brain health
The real danger of live virus vaccines
Current recommendations by the CDC for adult vaccinations include a total of 14 separate inoculations with infectious agents and powerful immune adjuvants.

According to CDC recommendations, multiple vaccinations for a single disease are separated by no more than 4 weeks, which is close enough together to trigger a smoldering process of brain inflammation and excitotoxicity that can not only result in depression, anxiety and high suicide rates, but can increase your risk of developing one of the neurodegenerative diseases as well.

We have also seen that in many cases a person will be injected with several vaccines during a single office visit and this means that their body is exposed to a very large dose of immune adjuvant. Compelling studies, using many animal species as well as humans, have shown that this overactivates brain inflammatory mechanisms that can last for years.

I urge you to read Dr. Blaylock’s full-length article, Vaccines, Depression and Neurodegeneration After Age 50: Another Reason to Avoid the Recommended Vaccines, a Mercola.com exclusive, for a fascinating in-depth look at how neurodegenerative diseases are created, and how to protect yourself from what many consider to be simply side effects of the ravages of time — but are anything but a natural byproduct of aging.

If you have been to any of our talks than this should come as no surprise to you. I have been talking about this kind of stuff at our Chiropractic Clinic called Discover Chiropractic in Beaverton Oregon for years. If you review the available research, the fact that most drugs don’t work as expected is not the real issue, but that these drugs cause very serious side effects. The scariest thing I have seen prozac linked to is the school shootings that have happened over the past years. From reports, all of the school shooters were on prozac, ritalin or another version of these drugs.

Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists
Analysis of unseen trials and other data concludes it is no better than placebo
Full text: the PLoS paper
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A single Prozac capsule. Photograph: Alamy

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.

The only exception is in the most severely depressed patients, according to the authors – Prof Irving Kirsch from the department of psychology at Hull University and colleagues in the US and Canada. But that is probably because the placebo stopped working so well, they say, rather than the drugs having worked better.

“Given these results, there seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed,” says Kirsch. “This study raises serious issues that need to be addressed surrounding drug licensing and how drug trial data is reported.”

The paper, published today in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine, is likely to have a significant impact on the prescribing of the drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) already recommends that counselling should be tried before doctors prescribe antidepressants. Kirsch, who was one of the consultants for the guidelines, says the new analysis “would suggest that the prescription of antidepressant medications might be restricted even more”.

The review breaks new ground because Kirsch and his colleagues have obtained for the first time what they believe is a full set of trial data for four antidepressants.

They requested the full data under freedom of information rules from the Food and Drug Administration, which licenses medicines in the US and requires all data when it makes a decision.

The pattern they saw from the trial results of fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone) was consistent. “Using complete data sets (including unpublished data) and a substantially larger data set of this type than has been previously reported, we find the overall effect of new-generation antidepressant medication is below recommended criteria for clinical significance,” they write.

Two more frequently prescribed antidepressants were omitted from the study because scientists were unable to obtain all the data.

Concerns have been raised in recent years about the side-effects of this class of antidepressant. Evidence that they could prompt some young people to consider suicide led to a warning to doctors not to prescribe them for the under-18s – with the exception of Prozac, which was considered more effective than the rest.

In adults, however, the depression-beating benefits were thought to outweigh the risks. Since its launch in the US in 1988, some 40 million people have taken Prozac, earning tens of billions of dollars for the manufacturer, Eli Lilly. Although the patent lapsed in 2001, fluoxetine continues to make the company money – it is now the active ingredient in Sarafem, a pill sold by Lilly for premenstrual syndrome.

Eli Lilly was defiant last night. “Extensive scientific and medical experience has demonstrated that fluoxetine is an effective antidepressant,” it said in a statement. “Since its discovery in 1972, fluoxetine has become one of the world’s most-studied medicines. Lilly is proud of the difference fluoxetine has made to millions of people living with depression.”

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, said the authors had failed to acknowledge the “very positive” benefits of the treatment and their conclusions were “at odds with what has been seen in actual clinical practice”.

He added: “This analysis has only examined a small subset of the total data available while regulatory bodies around the world have conducted extensive reviews and evaluations of all the data available, and this one study should not be used to cause unnecessary alarm and concern for patients.”

MONTEL WILLIAMS: HEALED BY CHIROPRACTIC

While I was on vacation last week, it seemed like almost every day there was some positive report about Chiropractic in the news. There was a report about how much headaches and migraines were helped with Chiropractic. Also there was the report about how people with high blood pressure were having their blood pressure normalized by removing spinal misalignments in the neck. Then I saw this with Montel Williams. This is stuff we see all the time in our practice, but its nice to see it in the mainstream media as well.

Popular talk show host Montel Williams is singing the praises of chiropractic adjustments. This comes after a nearly instantaneous recovery from pain upon receiving his first chiropractic treatment.

After years of rough scholastic sports, adult boxing and martial arts training, Montel Williams, now age 51, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The diagnosis came after he sought medical treatment for severe pain in his legs and feet that lasted 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 365 days year. The pain was so severe that often times Williams could not stand up straight. In attempts to lessen the pain in his feet, Williams would shift his weight from leg to leg. Something had to be done.

That’s when Williams met Patrick Kerr, Doctor of Chiropractic.

Doctor Kerr began by taking X-rays of Williams spine, focusing attention on the neck and how the head sat on the neck. X-rays confirmed that Williams was suffering with a severe misalignment of the Atlas vertebrae—the vertebrae at the very top of the spine that supports the head. This misalignment was putting pressure on nerves that lead from the brain stem. In short, the misaligned Atlas vertebrae was interfering with brain messages and causing pain in Williams’ legs and feet.

Using a special machine called the Atlas Orthogonal, Doctor Kerr gave Williams a very precise, and completely pain-free chiropractic adjustment to the Atlas vertebrae. By moving this vertebra back into proper alignment, brain messages sent through the spinal cord were no longer blocked, and nerve pressure was relieved. This allowed the body to send proper messages to Williams’ legs and feet, instead of sending messages of pain.

“It’s the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me!” says Williams. “I experienced almost instantaneous relief from pain with my first adjustment.”

Misalignment of the spine is often associated with trauma, such as car accidents (big or small), sports injuries, and slips and falls. But the danger doesn’t stop there. Bad sleeping habits, incorrect lifting and carrying, and even poor posture can—over time—cause spinal misalignments.

That’s why it’s so important to schedule regular chiropractic adjustments. If you don’t currently experience physical pain or discomfort, chiropractic adjustments can be used as a preventative measure. If you already experience frequent discomfort, ask your doctor of chiropractic for a complete spinal examination and a treatment schedule that will put you on your way to an improved quality of life.

To view Montel Williams’ complete chiropractic testimony, visit You Tube: http://www.yourspine.com/NewsResearch/Montel%20Williams.aspx

This was an interesting article I found that talks about what we have seen in our practice for a while at Discover Chiropractic in Beaverton, Oregon. We have witnessed in our office in Beaverton how a child who is diagnosed with ADHD responds favorably to Chiropractic care without any negative side effects. I have often joked how we should put out a TV commercial about Chiropractic and list off all the side effects at the end like; improved immune system function, better reaction time, loss of headaches, improved cognitive function, etc…

In a November 12, 2007 BBC report, researchers reported that drugs taken for Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are not only ineffective over the long term, they may deliver a negative effect on normal childhood growth.

The long-term study, called the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD, closely monitored 600 children across the United States.

Comprehensive data showed that while ADHD drugs may help a child behave better in the short run, the effect of the drugs will wear off over time. In addition, ADHD drugs are now being found to stunt a child’s height and weight.

ADHD is one of the most common neurobehavioral disorders of childhood and can persist through adolescence and into adulthood. A person with ADHD has a chronic level of inattention, impulsive hyperactivity, or both.. Scientists do not know what causes this disorder.

(Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88431.php)

This a very interesting and thought provoking article I just read. It is written by Dr. Kent who I have heard speak personally many times.

By Christopher Kent, D.C., J.D.

Recreational drugs, including cocaine and heroin, are responsible for an estimated 10,000-20,000 American deaths per year [1,2]. While this represents a serious public health problem, it is a “smokescreen” for America’s real drug problem. America’s “war on drugs” is directed at the wrong enemy. It is obvious that interdiction, stiff mandatory sentences, and more vigorous enforcement of drug laws have failed.
The reason is simple. Cause and effect have been reversed.
The desire to solve problems by taking drugs is a product of our culture. When a child is taught by loving parents that the appropriate response to pain or discomfort is taking a pill, it is obvious that such a child, when faced with the challenges of adolescence, will seek comfort by taking drugs.
Drugs are Dangerous Whether Pushed or Prescribed
While approximately 10,000 per year die from the effects of illegal drugs, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that an estimated 106,000 hospitalized patients die each year from drugs which, by medical standards, are properly prescribed and properly administered. More than two million suffer serious side effects. [3]
An article in Newsweek [4] put this into perspective. Adverse drug reactions, from “properly” prescribed drugs, are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. According to this article, only heart disease, cancer, and stroke kill more Americans than drugs prescribed by medical doctors. Reactions to prescription drugs kill more than twice as many Americans as HIV/AIDS or suicide. Fewer die from accidents or diabetes than adverse drug reactions. It is important to point out the limitations of this study. It did not include outpatients, cases of malpractice, or instances where the drugs were not taken as directed.
According to another AMA publication, drug related “problems” kill as many as 198,815 people, put 8.8 million in hospitals, and account for up to 28% of hospital admissions. [5] If these figures are accurate, only cancer and heart disease kill more patients than drugs. Has the situation improved since the publication of this information? Hardly. Null [6] et al have published the most comprehensive and well-documented study I have seen of deaths associated with medical practice. In this report, their research revealed some shocking facts. The findings are summarized in the abstract:
“A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.”
Drugs Number One Killer
The authors conclude: “When the number one killer in a society is the healthcare system, then, that system has no excuse except to address its own urgent shortcomings. It’s a failed system in need of immediate attention. What we have outlined in this paper are insupportable aspects of our contemporary medical system that need to be changed — beginning at its very foundations.”
A recent article in Archives of Internal Medicine [7] stated that in the seven year period from 1998 through 2005, reported serious adverse drug events increased 2.6-fold, and fatal adverse drug events increased 2.7-fold. The authors noted that reported serious events increased 4 times faster than the total number of outpatient prescriptions during the period. Another study concluded that the majority(86%) of the adverse drug reactions for which patients were admitted to a medical intensive care unit were preventable. [8]
One proposed solution to the illegal drug problem was encouraging potential users to ignore peer pressure and “just say no.” Interestingly, this strategy is not being recommended for prescription drugs. Bruce Pomeranz, MD , one of the authors of the JAMA paper, said he is not warning people to stay away from drugs. “That would be a terrible message,” he said. Lucian Leape, MD, of the Harvard School of Public Health said, “When you realize how many drugs we use, maybe those numbers aren’t so bad after all.” [4]
Does that mean that the number of deaths due to illegal drugs, suicide, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, accidents, and drunk driving “aren’t so bad” either? Does it mean that we shouldn’t discourage drunk driving or unsafe sex?
The folly of such double standards should be obvious to all. It is time to address the real drug problem — the cultural notion that the first solution to seek for relief of life’s problems is a drug. That’s the drug culture we need to address.

References
1. “Drug deaths.” Globe & Mail (Canada). February 27, 1998.
2. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. CDC. 2007;56(05):93-96.
3. Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN: “Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients.” JAMA 1998;279:1200.
4. Kalb C: “When drugs do harm.” Newsweek. April 27, 1998. Page 61.
5. “Reaction.” American Medical News. January 15, 1996. Page 11.
6. 1. Null G, Dean C, Feldman, M, Rasio, D, Smith D: “Death by Medicine.” Life Extension. March, 2004. www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm
7. Moore TJ, Cohen MR, Furberg CD: Serious adverse drug events reported to the Food and Drug Administration, 1998-2005. Archives of Internal Medicine 2007;167:1752-1759.
8. Rivkin A: Admissions to a medical intensive care unit related to adverse drug reactions. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 2007;64(17):1840-1843.