Female sexual dysfunction created by the drug industry

10/01/2010

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From the Independent


Female sexual dysfunction 'was invented by drugs industry' By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor


Female sexual dysfunction – which is claimed to affect up to two thirds of women – is a disorder invented by the pharmaceutical industry to build global markets for drugs to treat it, it is claimed today.

Drug companies have invested millions in the search for a female equivalent of Viagra, so far without success. But while doing so they have stoked demand by creating a buzz around the disorder they have created, according to Ray Moynihan, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Corporate employees worked with medical opinion leaders, ran surveys aimed at portraying the problem as widespread and helped create the diagnostic instruments to persuade women that their sexual difficulties deserved a medical label. But sex problems in women are far more complex than they are in men, encompassing lack of desire, lack of arousal and lack of orgasm and the drug industry's narrow focus is failing them.


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Pharmaceutical addictions leading to increase in crime

09/28/2010

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Pharmaceutical drug addiction causing massive increase in crime
Monday, September 27, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer


(NaturalNews) It used to be that thieves targeted wealthy homes filled with expensive things like jewelry to rob, but according to officials, a new kind of thief is on the loose: the pharmaceutical drug addict. They say prescription drugs like opiate painkillers are responsible for causing a widespread increase in crime against sick and elderly people whose medicine cabinets are loaded with legal narcotics.

The problem has gotten so out of control that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently held a nationwide drug take-back day in which citizens were encouraged to take their old and unused pharmaceutical drugs to one of 4,000 drop-off points to be properly disposed of.

"We're seeing people desperately and aggressively trying to get their hands on these pills," Janet T. Mills, the attorney general in Maine, is cited as saying in a recent New York Timespiece. "Home invasions, robberies, assaults, homicides, thefts -- all kinds of crimes are being linked to prescription drugs."

According to recent reports, a masked man forcibly entered the home of a 77-year-old Maine woman and proceeded to knock her to the ground, stealing her Oxycontin pills at knifepoint. And in Massachusetts, a similar event took place when three armed men broke into a home, tied up the owner's hands and feet with duct tape, and ravaged the home in search of Oxycontin.

Desperate addicts have even gone so far as to pose as potential home buyers at open houses, where they proceed to the nearest medicine cabinet to snatch whatever they can find.

"One will distract the realtor while the other goes and trifles through the medicine cabinet looking for pain medication," explained Matthew Murphy, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's New England field division in Boston.

Officials are urging members of the public to properly dispose of any expired, unused or unneeded medicines as soon as possible to avoid becoming victims of pharmaceutical crimes.


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Food Investigations: Pharmaburger (video)

09/23/2010

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Cocaine addicts to be given Ritalin

09/07/2010

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Anything but marijuana, otherwise it would lead to a short lived economic collapse, initiated by the death of prison privatization but only to be soon left in the dust of prosperity when the money starts to flow into progressive projects instead of the bank accounts of corporate conspirators.
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FROM PHYSORG: Ritalin improves brain function, task performance in cocaine abusers September 7, 2010
Methylphenidate normalizes functional magnetic resonance imaging cingulate responses and reduces impulsivity on a salient cognitive task in individuals with cocaine addiction. Above is an axial map that shows the caudal dorsal anterior cingulate (cdACC) and rostroventromedial anterior cingulate (extending to the medial orbitofrontal cortex, rvACC/mOFC) — cortical regions that showed enhanced responses to methylphenidate as compared to placebo in cocaine addicted individuals. These regions are crucial for the ability to regulate behavior, cognition and emotion.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Brain-scanning study shows Ritalin improves impaired brain function in people addicted to cocaine, implying it could play a role in facilitating recovery from addiction.

A brain-scanning study at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, conducted with collaborators from Stony Brook University, reveals that an oral dose of methylphenidate, commonly known as Ritalin, improves impaired brain function and enhances cognitive performance in people who are addicted to cocaine. The study — to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of TKTK, 2010 — suggests that methylphenidate, combined with cognitive interventions, may have a role in facilitating recovery from drug addiction.

“Previous studies have shown that methylphenidate does not decrease cocaine use or prevent relapse in addicted individuals, so it wouldn’t work to treat cocaine addiction directly, the way methadone works to treat heroin abuse,” said Rita Z. Goldstein, a psychologist who leads the neuropsychoimaging group at Brookhaven Lab. “But other studies show that methylphenidate does decrease behaviors such as risk taking and impulsivity and improves brain function and cognitive performance in a range of other conditions that also affect the brain’s prefrontal cortex, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), some forms of dementia, and certain kinds of brain injury. If it also has these positive effects in cocaine-addicted individuals, then it could be a useful component of a treatment strategy that helps increase recovering addicts’ impulse control.”

To find out, Goldstein’s group performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 13 cocaine users and 14 healthy control subjects who were asked to perform a cognitive task after being given either a low oral dose of methylphenidate (20 milligrams) or a placebo. The task involved pushing a button to correctly identify the color of a printed word; some words had to do with drug use, others were “neutral.” Subjects received monetary rewards for correct answers. 



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More drugs to keep people eating shit say scientists!!

08/12/2010

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Free Statins With Fast Food Could Neutralize Heart Risk, Scientists Say

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2010)

 — Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralise the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London suggest in a new study.

Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy "LDL" cholesterol in the blood. A wealth of trial data has proven them to be highly effective at lowering a person's heart attack risk.

In a paper published in the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

Dr Francis, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, who is the senior author of the study, said: "Statins don't cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It's better to avoid fatty food altogether. But we've worked out that in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it."

One statin, simvastatin, is already available in low doses (10mg) over the counter at pharmacies without a prescription. Other statins are so far only prescribed by doctors, and limited by cost to patients at particular risk of heart attack or stroke. However, the cost of the tablets has fallen sharply in recent years (from ~£40/month to ~£1.50/month), such that the cost to the NHS of seeing a doctor is much greater than the cost of the tablet.

"It's ironic that people are free to take as many unhealthy condiments in fast food outlets as they like, but statins, which are beneficial to heart health, have to be prescribed," Dr Francis said.

Statins have among the best safety profiles of any medication. A very small proportion of regular statin users experience significant side effects, with problems in the liver and kidneys reported in between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people.

"Everybody knows that fast food is bad for you, but people continue to eat it because it tastes good. We're genetically programmed to prefer high-calorie foods, and sadly fast food chains will continue to sell unhealthy foods because it earns them a living.

"It makes sense to make risk-reducing supplements available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are provided free of charge. It would cost less than 5p per customer -- not much different to a sachet of ketchup.

"When people engage in risky behaviours like driving or smoking, they're encouraged to take measures that minimise their risk, like wearing a seatbelt or choosing cigarettes with filters. Taking a statin is a rational way of lowering some of the risks of eating a fatty meal."

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