From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/06/ndental106.xml
Alan Johnson 'misleading' over fluoride benefits
By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, has been accused of overstating the benefits of adding fluoride to water in the fight against dental disease. Tooth decay in children across Europe has fallen irrespective of whether there is fluoride in the water, authors of a report have said. advertisement Mr Johnson has called for it to be added to all water supplies in the United Kingdom in an attempt to reduce the number of people seeking dental treatment. He said children in Manchester, where water is not fluoridated, were twice as likely to have tooth decay as those in Birmingham, where it is added. Mr Johnson said a review of evidence by York University had found that adding fluoride reduced the number of children with tooth decay by 15 per cent. But the authors said their findings have been used selectively and the impact of adding fluoride to water supplies was unclear. They accused the Government of giving "an over-optimistic assessment of the evidence in favour of fluoridation". "The Department of Health's objectivity is questionable," said Sir Iain Chalmers, the editor of the James Lind Library in Oxford, and Prof Trevor Sheldon, the deputy vice-chancellor at York University, who conducted the review. They said tooth decay in 12- year-olds has reduced across Europe irrespective of whether there is fluoride in the water. The countries with the biggest drop in childhood tooth decay - Sweden, Netherlands, Finland and Denmark - do not fluoridate the water. They said levels of tooth decay have fallen greatly in the past 30 years. "This trend has occurred regardless of the concentration of fluoride in water or the use of fluoridated salt, and it probably reflects use of fluoridated toothpastes and other factors, including perhaps nutrition." Evidence about the potential harm of adding fluoride to the water - some studies have suggested a link to bladder cancer and hip fractures - was not of sufficient quality to draw firm conclusions, Sir Iain and Prof Sheldon said. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they said: "Evidence on the potential benefits and harms of adding fluoride to water is relatively poor." Across the United Kingdom 5.5 million people use water with added fluoride and another half a million use a water supply where it occurs naturally. Over the next three years, £14 million will be available to strategic health authorities which decide, after local consultation, to add fluoride. Mr Johnson said: "Fluoridation is scientifically supported, it is legal, and it is our policy, but only two or three areas currently have it and we need to go much further in areas where dental health needs to be improved. "It is an effective and relatively easy way to help address health inequalities - giving children from poorer backgrounds a dental health boost that can last a lifetime, reducing tooth decay and thereby cutting down on the amount of dental work they need." A spokesman for the Department of Health said it "made no apologies" for "promoting the benefits to oral health which fluoridation offers". "No evidence of risks to general health have been identified at the 1 part per million concentration used for artificially fluoridating public water supplies," he said. "Nevertheless, the department is committed to further research to strengthen the evidence base on the effects of fluoridation."
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From http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Vaccine-Companies-Investigated-for-Manslaughter-49528.aspx Vaccine Companies Investigated for Manslaughter Mercola.com French authorities have opened a formal investigation into two managers from drugs groups GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur. Judge Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy also opened an investigation for manslaughter against Sanofi Pasteur MSD, a joint venture between Sanofi Aventis and Merck. The investigations follow allegations that the companies did not fully disclose side effects from an anti-hepatitis B drug used in a vaccination campaign in the 1990’s.From 1994 to 1998, almost two thirds of the French population, and almost all newborns, were vaccinated against hepatitis B. The campaign was suspended after concerns arose about side effects. Some 30 plaintiffs have launched a civil action, including the families of five people who died after receiving vaccinations.
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From http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Surge-In-Gout-Blamed-On-Sweet-Drinks-49525.aspx
Surge In Gout Blamed On Sweet Drinks
Mercola.com
Wednesday February 6, 2008
The increase in consumption of sugary drinks have been blamed for a surge in cases of the painful joint disease gout. Cases in the U.S. have doubled in recent decades. New research shows that men who consume two or more sugary soft drinks a day have an 85 percent higher risk of gout. Fructose is most likely the type of sugar that is to blame. The symptoms of gout include painful, swollen joints, mainly in the lower limbs. They are caused when uric acid crystallizes out of the blood into the joints. Previous research has shown that fructose increases levels of uric acid in the bloodstream.
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From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/real_id_for_cold_medicine/
DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine
Dan Goodin
The Register
Wednesday February 6, 2008
A senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines. "If you have a good ID ... you make it much harder for the meth labs to function in this country," DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker told an audience last month at the Heritage Foundation. Cold medicines like Sudafed have long been used in the production of methamphetamine. Over the past year or so, pharmacies have been required to track buyers of drugs that contain pseudoephedrine.His comment came five days after the agency released final rules implementing the REAL ID Act of 2005 that made no mention of such requirements. It mandates the establishment uniform standards and procedures that must be met before state-issued licenses can be accepted as identification for official purposes.
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Beyond boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings or nuclear facilities, there are no other official purposes spelled out in the regulations. And that's just what concerns people at the Center for Democracy and Technology. They say Baker's statement underscores "mission creep," in which the scope and purpose of the REAL ID Act gradually expands over time. "Baker's suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the slippery slope toward a true national ID card," CDT blogger Greg Burnett wrote here. He says requiring people to produce a federally approved ID to buy cold medicine is a good example of the "significant ramifications" attached to the act. So far, 17 states have formally opposed REAL ID, which takes effect on May 11. Residents of those states will be subject to additional searches and other inconveniences when flying and may be barred from entering federal buildings and nuclear plants. Baker's statement belying the official DHS position on REAL ID isn't the first time the agency has made confusing remarks about the legal requirements surrounding identification. According to travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, DHS officials continue to plant the misunderstanding that residents from states which don't comply with REAL ID requirements won't get on planes. They will, Hasbrouck asserts here. In fact, he says, airlines are prevented by law from requiring any kind of ID.
Nonetheless, the DHS website continues to claim a photo ID is needed to pass through security checkpoints. Hasbrouck has his suspicions about the motives for such statements."The most obvious explanation is that they want to use the implied (but legally and factually empty) threat of denial of air travel to intimidate states into 'voluntarily' complying with the Real-ID Act and its rules," he writes.
Sources:
BBC News February 1, 2008
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