Andy Burnham Plans to Regulate Chinese Medicine and Herbal Remedies

High-street herbal remedies, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture are to be more tightly regulated. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said he was “minded to legislate” so that all providers of unlicensed medicines had to register with a regulator.

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council will ensure that practitioners are properly trained and operating a safe business. A pilot study is also planned to analyse how acupuncture could be used within the NHS to help conditions such as lower back pain. Critics say that the proposals, due to be implemented later this year, do not go far enough.

It is estimated that Britons spend about £1.6 billion a year on alternative and complementary remedies, with one in five people having tried the medicines or therapies. The CNHC, the only regulatory body for complementary healthcare that has official government backing, currently issues “charter marks” to registered practitioners of 11 therapies, including massage, aromatherapy and yoga.'

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90 Percent of Parents Want to Know More About Alternative Medicine, Survey Reveals

Ninety percent of parents would like to know more about alternative medical approaches for their children, according to a survey conducted by Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota (Children's), a nationwide leader in integrative medical approaches.

Integrative medicine combines traditional Western medicine with medical therapies from other traditions, including acupuncture, massage and nutrition.

The survey also found that 90 percent of parents have a strong desire to eliminate their children's pain and improve their quality of life, while 85 percent would like to minimize their dependence on drugs. Parents felt especially strongly about reducing drug treatment for mood or behavioral problems such as anxiety or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sixty-eight percent of parents believed that integrative treatment could be effective, and more than 75 percent said that hospitals should offer experts on both conventional and alternative treatments.'

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Dr. John Cannell on Vitamin D

Five Things the Corporate Media Don't Want You to Know About Cannabis

Recent scientific reports suggest that pot doesn't destroy your brain, that it doesn't cause lung damage like tobacco -- but you won't hear it in the corporate media.

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Codex Threatens Health of Billions

Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Yet, according to the projections based on figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a minimum of 3 billion people will die from the Codex mandated vitamin and mineral guideline alone.

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How to Detox Fluorides from Your Body

You can rid you body of most fluorides with some easy natural remedies. Fluorides have been linked to a variety of severe chronic, even acute health issues. First a quick review summary of fluoride.

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Alternative Medicine Goes Mainstream

At one of the nation's top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient's bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive.

They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, calls it "mystical mumbo jumbo." Still, he's a fan.

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Disgusting: Psychiatrists Warn About Warnings on Antidepressant Drugs (They'd Rather Have No Warnings at All)

Strong warnings by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about suicide risks linked to antidepressant use in children and young adults have had a "spillover effect" on depression care in older adults, researchers said on Monday.

They said the warnings resulted in a lasting decline in depression diagnosis and treatment, even for older adults, and urged the FDA to revise its policy.

"Policy actions are required to counter the unintended consequences of reduced depression treatment," Anne Libby of the University of Colorado and her colleagues wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

U.S. and European regulators sent out a series of public health warnings on use of antidepressant drugs beginning in 2003 after clinical trials showed they increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and teens.

In February 2005, the FDA added its strongest warning, a so-called black box, on the use of all antidepressants in children and teens to draw attention to the possible risks of these medications. In May 2007, it extended the warnings to young adults aged 18 to 24.

Many psychiatrists have criticized the warnings, saying they scare people away from effective treatment for depression, the leading cause of suicide.

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Electromagnetic Load a Factor in Many Illnesses

Dr. Thomas Rau, Medical Director of the world renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Lustmühle, Switzerland says he is convinced ‘electromagnetic loads’ lead to cancer, concentration problems, ADD, tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, arrhythmia, Parkinson’s and even back pain. At Paracelsus (www.paracelsus.ch), cancer patients are now routinely educated in electromagnetic field remediation strategies and inspectors from the Geopathological Institute of Switzerland are sent to patients’ homes to assess electromagnetic field exposures.

Of note, Dr. Rau says a strategy to consider for those experiencing ‘electrical sensitivity’ symptoms is to remove the electromagnetic ‘hot spot’ in the head created by the presence of metal fillings. Concern is thus not only for the ‘neurotoxic’ aspect of mercury in fillings, an increasingly understood hazard, but because fillings themselves act as antennas in the presence of electromagnetic fields from cell phones and cell towers, wi-fi networks, portable phones, and other sources of radiofrequency radiation.

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Britain 'Needs to be More of a Nanny State'

Dr Alan Maryon Davis said that people needed new laws to "save us from ourselves" and actually welcomed state attempts to "micro-manage" their health.

The president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, which sets standards for health professionals, said that recent campaigns to cut down on binge drinking, smoking and obesity were not as unpopular as generally believed.

"On the contrary, there's plenty of evidence that people want to see the government doing more to help us avoid big killers like heart disease, stroke and cancer," he said.

"I see an increasing acceptance that we, all of us, need not only more information and guidance from government, but also more legislation to save us from ourselves."

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What Is Left?

Who will weep for our lost Nation? How many citizens will cry in anguish for our republic, devastated and destroyed by an elite group of insiders who, bit by bit, through stealth, lies, deceit, chicanery, and outright criminal fraud have wreaked Constitutional havoc. Checks and balances are gone. Congress is bought and sold by corporate lobbyists. Congress no longer works for us. The judiciary, packed with neocons, then shoves new "legal interpretations" down our own throats or disregards time-honored ones.

Our country is no longer "we, the people." Now, it is "we, the corporations."

Is this not fascism?

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Microsoft Wants To Get Under Your Skin

Microsoft's HealthVault, the medical records database, is to be integrated with VeriMed's human-embedded RFID tags, allowing doctors to access the medical records of unconscious patients with a quick scan of the arm.

VeriMed consists of an RFID tag that is embedded in the arm of a hopefully willing participant, and responds with a 16-digital identity code when queried at 134KHz. This code can then be used to identify the person through VeriChip's website, and will soon be able to link to their medical records as stored on Microsoft's HealthVault system.

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More Than 10% of Children Use Alternative Treatments

A surprisingly large number of children — nearly 12% — are using herbal supplements and other complementary and alternative therapies, according to the first national study on the subject, released Wednesday.

"We were struck by the high use in children," given that few children suffer from the chronic aches and pains that drive many adults to unconventional treatments, says report co-author Richard Nahin of the National Institutes of Health.

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