Female Mice Turned Into Male Mice Scientists have found a way to turn female mice into aggressive, pelvic-thrusting masculine lotharios in an experiment that challenges established dogma.
For years, scientists have searched in vain for the bits of the brain that underpin the dramatic differences between males and females.
Now biologist say that all these efforts may have been in vain because such differences may not arise in the brain at all, thanks to a study that could may help ... (more)
|
|
Child use of antidepressants up four-fold The use of antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs among schoolchildren has more than quadrupled in the last decade, it is revealed today.
New figures show that GPs are prescribing pills in record numbers to combat stress, violent behaviour and even tiredness. Under-16s were given drugs for mental health problems more than 631,000 times last year, compared to just 146,000 in the mid-Nineties.
The huge increase has been blamed o... (more)
|
|
UK needs a two-child limit, says population reportFamilies should restrict themselves to having a maximum of two children to stabilise the effect on the environment of Britain's rapidly growing population, a thinktank warns today.
According to the Optimum Population Trust, Britain's rising birth rate, currently growing at the highest rate for nearly 30 years, should be considered an environmental liability.
"Each new UK birth, through the inevitable resource consumption and pollution that UK affluence generates, is... (more)
|
|
'Use children as medicine guinea pigs' Children should be used as guinea pigs in clinical research to speed up medical breakthroughs and improve treatment for them, a leading expert says.
About 40 per cent of medicines prescribed to children have never been tested on them. For newborn babies, the figure rises to 90 per cent.
But scientists will only make real breakthroughs in children's medicine if they include children in research programmes as well as adults, Prof John Warner, a... (more)
|
|
New Drug Deletes Bad MemoriesDo you have a really bad memory, or past heartache, that you would prefer to forget?
Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.
In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of trau... (more)
|
|
GM crops: 'Point of no return in ten years'EUROPE will increase its genetically modified (GMO) crop area by 50,000-100,000 hectares a year over the next decade, US biotech giant Monsanto has said.
"It will be slow but within ten years GMOs will have reached the point of no return," said Jean-Michel Duhamel, Monsanto's director for southern Europe.
"The technology will not impose itself on consumers but consumers will better understand the usefulness of GMO technology as farmers increasingly adopt it," he a... (more)
|
|
Autism and Vaccines: Why are They Afraid to Look?Last week in Washington, DC, parents got a chance to present their side alleging that vaccines caused their child's autism. This is the most heated medical controversy in the nation and it has no signs of going away.
Part of the reason the debate is guaranteed to continue is because of what officials can't tell about us about autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downplayed autism at every opportunity. It is infuriating to parents who have no reasonable explan... (more)
|
|
Life under the World State"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do."
"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called 'education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade ... (more)
|
|
'Zombie crops' funded by British taxpayers to 'get round' GM ban "Zombie" GM crops - so called because farmers will have to pay biotech companies to bring seeds back from the dead - are being developed with British taxpayers' money.
The highly controversial development - part of a £3.4m EU research project - is bound to increase concerns about the modified crops and the devastating effect they could have on Third World farmers.
Environmentalists charge that it appears to be an attempt to get round a worldwide ba... (more)
|
|
UK troops receiving 'trigger happy' drug BRITISH troops are being prescribed with a controversial drug which has been blamed for making US pilots "trigger-happy" and causing friendly fire deaths.
The Ministry of Defence has admitted that it prescribes the amphetamine dexedrine, which is capable of keeping users awake for as long as 60 hours.
While the MoD has refused to say what it uses the Class B drug for, leading narcotics experts say that the main purpose is to keep soldie... (more)
|
|
Alarm over gender-bending chemicalAn unusual mix of public health advocates, environmentalists and laundry workers joined yesterday in a petition demanding that federal authorities ban a chemical additive found in some household detergents and other cleaning agents.
The petition, which was submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, also called for studies of human risks related to the dirt-lifting agents called nonylphenol ethoxylates, or NPEs.
Studies have shown NPEs to be potent gen... (more)
|
|
Drugs giant faces criminal charges over clinical trialThe US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been slapped with criminal charges in Nigeria over a notorious clinical trial it conducted on children during a meningitis epidemic a decade ago. Patients became unwitting guinea pigs for a new, untested antibiotic and many of them either died or were left with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer and its representatives will be called to account at hearings due to begin next month in the Nigerian state of Kano, where public anger over the clinical... (more)
|
|
Well-connected drug company obtained anthrax vaccine contracts despite side effectsTwo former high-ranking health officials with close ties to the Bush administration helped a Michigan-based pharmaceutical company secure sole-source, multi-million dollar federal contracts for the purchase of its controversial anthrax vaccine, a RAW STORY investigation has found.
Last month, Emergent BioSolutions announced that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) intended to purchase more than 18 million doses of its Biothrax v... (more)
|
|
Parents give children Ritalin at exam time Pushy parents are giving healthy children Ritalin bought on the Internet in an attempt to boost their exam performance, a leading psychologist claimed.
They believe the potent hyperactivity drug will prolong their children's concentration at school, while studying at home and in the exam hall itself.
But they are risking serious health complications ranging from inadvertent over-dosing to sleeplessness and loss of appetite, warned Pau... (more)
|
|
Judicial Watch Uncovers Three Deaths Relating to HPV VaccineJudicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing 1,637 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. Three deaths were related to the vaccine. One physician’s assistant reported that a female patient “died of a blood clot three hours after gett... (more)
|
|
Medical experiments to be done without patients' consent WASHINGTON — The federal government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers to conduct some kinds of medical experiments without first getting the patients' permission.
The $50 million, five-year project, which will involve more than 20,000 patients in 11 sites in the United States and Canada, is designed to improve treatment after car accidents, shootings, cardiac arrest and other emergencies.<... (more)
|
|
Monsanto, GM Foods, Preparing for Worldwide Genetic ControlMonsanto India: GM foods, crops - preparing for worldwide genetic control
Despite rules to the contrary, GM (Genetical Modification) experiments have been going on across India with the complicity of the Indian Government.
In the 67th Meeting of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee [GEAC] held on 22 May 2006, the GEAC brushed aside all such concerns and in utter defiance of the spirit of a Supreme Court Order it has rubberstamped an astonishing 91 GM (Genetica... (more)
|
|
Government To Allow Creation Of Animal-Humans, Fatherless Children, ‘Hybrid’ EmbryosNew fertility laws say dads not needed to make babies
A major relaxation of IVF rules was announced by ministers today.
The changes will make it easier for single people and lesbians to receive fertility treatment on the NHS.
The move, which is part of a shake-up of laws on the use of human tissues, will also allow the creation of " Frankenstein" embryos - human and animal cells mixed together - for medical research.
Under current laws,... (more)
|
|
Children 'bad for planet' says environmentalist group HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.
The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New ... (more)
|
|
School hands out 345 morning-after pills to students - without telling parentsA school has admitted handing out 345 morning-after pills to teenage girls without telling their parents.
The figure for contraceptives distributed at Lutterworth Grammar School and Community College over four years is believed to be the highest in England and Wales.
Parents and family groups were outraged at the "disgusting" and "wicked" scheme which they say encourages promiscuity and could put children at risk of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases.
... (more)
|
|
GM crop failure a warning, says US adviserA former agricultural adviser to US presidents says the failure of a genetically modified field pea trial should act as a warning for future GM crop testing.
The 10-year CSIRO trial was abandoned when tests found the peas were making mice seriously ill.
Dr Charles Benbrook, who advised presidents Carter, Bush senior, Reagan and Clinton says the field pea trial failure shows current GM crop testing is grossly inadequate.
"I don't believe that this new ... (more)
|
|
Scientists want to put hormones in baby food 'to beat obesity' FEEDING babies a special infant formula containing hunger-suppressing hormones could stop them getting fat later in life, researchers believe.
Scientists are currently studying the prospect of adding leptin to baby and children's foods as part of the solution to obesity.
They admitted that their work was still in the very early stages, and larger studies were needed.
Concerns have also been raised over the repercussions of tampe... (more) Related: Who Controls the Food Controls the People |
|
Sweeping Forced Abortions Used in Regime's Birth Control EnforcementCHINA—Recently, governments in Shandong and Guangxi Provinces are forcing pregnant women to abort their babies. Among these pregnant women, some of them are in the late stages of their pregnancy.
After being injected with drugs, a Christian who was seven months pregnant gave birth to a dead child on April 18. The nine month old fetus of another woman did not move for 48 hours after she was forcibly injected with drugs. Birth Control Departments and hospitals in Guangxi Provi... (more)
|
|
'Puppy Prozac' Promises to Ease Pet Separation AnxietyMore than 10 million dogs across the country deal with pet separation anxiety — barking, whining and showing signs of stress when their owners leave the house.
But a pill dubbed "puppy Prozac" promises to change that.
The latest hype in pet prescriptions is a new drug called Reconcile, a beef flavored pill that dogs can take to help alleviate its anxiety. According to veterinarian Dr. Marty Becker, Reconcile could help ease a real pet problem.
... (more) "Oh foolish man, what can you not be made to believe?" - Adam Weishaupt |
|
Killer blood given to kidsBRITISH doctors used kids as guinea pigs by giving them blood riddled with HIV and deadly hepatitis, the Sun can reveal.
Medics knew some donors were heroin-injecting prisoners in American jails, but still tested their “high risk” blood on young Brit haemophiliacs.
Victims were aged from just three months to 15.
The truth emerged as Lord Archer of Sandwell opened a public inquiry in London into the scandal.
Yesterday, one he... (more)
|
|
Intelligence drugs could be 'common as coffee' It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: a new generation of drugs that make people more intelligent.
But they are precisely the kind of mind-altering substances that students and businessman could be taking in the future to pass exams and boost work performance.
Foresight, a Government think-tank, believes that "cognitive enhancers" could be "as common as coffee" within a couple of decades to help a person think faster, relax and sl... (more) Intelligence does not come in a pill. |
|
The SSRI Pushers: Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing YearsDrug makers are hell-bent on recovering the antidepressant customer base represented by women of childbearing years. With doctors now reluctant to prescribe the drugs to pregnant women, a new recruitment scheme has cropped up. Screening programs are being set up all over the country to screen every pregnant woman for mental disorders.
The name-brand selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants, or SSRIs, with a stake in this controversy, include Paxil, by GlaxoSmithKline... (more)
|
|
|