Addicted to coffee? You may be dopamine deficient

Natural News

Many of us depend on an early morning "Jo" to get us on the go. Some of us need refills as the day progresses.

Still others use coffee to get over depression or anxiety, even though caffeine can create more fight or flight hormones and tax our adrenal glands by pumping us with adrenaline. The adrenaline rushes lead to more retention of cortisol, leading to a vicious cycle of more stress and anxiety.

Many of us may have to look into our coffee drinking habits to determine whether to decrease consumption or quit altogether, even with the threat of withdrawal symptoms.

Although caffeine is in some foods and beverages, for example chocolate and tea, the bulk of our caffeine consumption is carried by coffee.

The first thing to consider is whether you can do without. If not, there is some level of addiction. There is a way to ease caffeine withdrawal mentioned later in this article.

How coffee elevates our moods and gets us going

Caffeine is a naturally occurring chemical stimulant called trimethylxanthine. It can be addictive and debilitating as well as helpful, as both Bach and Beethoven, heavy coffee drinkers, would attest.

Caffeine stimulates the brain to produce the neurotransmitter dopamine by occupying the brain's adenosine receptors. Adenosine is what helps us feel like sleeping, but the adenosine receptors don't discriminate between adenosine and caffeine.

Dopamine elevates our moods to make us feel better and stave off depression, which is why there is so much coffee consumption in areas that lack sunshine for extended periods, such as the USA Pacific Northwest and Scandinavia. Dopamine also helps create motivation and contributes toward conscious body motion.

Some research even points to coffee drinkers having fewer problems with depression and Alzheimer's disease than non-coffee drinkers. While feeling better from the dopamine, the caffeine also increases the brain's activity and neuron firing.

This alerts the pituitary gland to release hormones that signal the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline (aka epinephrine) for "fight or flight." The adrenaline rush makes you more alert.

Adrenaline injections are sometimes administered to help overcome extreme breathing problems or cardiac issues. Caffeine can help get over an asthma attack by elevating one's mood, increasing heart rate, and dilating bronchial passages.

Coffee's adverse effects and kicking the habit

But as the adrenaline wears off toward a crash, cortisol slowly builds up. If this cycle is repeated often enough, the cortisol builds up and creates the same effects as chronic stress: Fatigue, anxiety, nervousness, irritability, and lowered immunity. A recipe for disaster is working a stressful job and drinking lots of coffee to cope with it! Adrenaline rushes can be addictive, just ask any gambler or sports nut.

But it appears dopamine's mood elevation may be the hook that makes it hard to kick caffeine and remove the adrenal stress that causes long term negative health effects.

Sometimes the caffeine from drinking coffee habitually can cause gluten intolerance or Celiac disease. Caffeine is a cross reactive substance, meaning it can create gluten intolerance even though it doesn't contain wheat. Ironically, wheat products usually accompany that cup of Jo.

Many experts consider the caffeine cure for dopamine deficiency the most addictive quality of coffee drinking. Getting off caffeine slowly or cold-turkey can create withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, irritability, mild depression, and mental fogginess.

Nutritional consultant and author of The Body Ecology Diet, Donna Gates, recommends a naturally sourced non-essential amino acid supplement L-Tyrosine to help you kick the caffeine habit effortlessly. It is a natural precursor to the brain's dopamine production and it helps people be alert.

The "Monsanto Rider": Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?

TruthOut
By Alexis Baden-Mayer, AlterNet

While many Americans were firing up barbecues and breaking out the sparklers to celebrate Independence Day, biotech industry executives were more likely chilling champagne to celebrate another kind of independence: immunity from federal law.

A so-called "Monsanto rider," quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation's food supply.

Unless the Senate or a citizen's army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.

In a statement issued last month, the Center For Food Safety had this to say about the biotech industry's latest attempt to circumvent legal and regulatory safeguards:

Ceding broad and unprecedented powers to industry, the rider poses a direct threat to the authority of U.S. courts, jettisons the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) established oversight powers on key agriculture issues and puts the nation's farmers and food supply at risk.

In other words, if this single line in the 90-page Agricultural Appropriations bill slips through, it's Independence Day for the biotech industry.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has sponsored an amendment to kill the rider, whose official name is "the farmers assurance" provision. But even if DeFazio's amendment makes it through the House vote, it still has to survive the Senate. Meanwhile, organizations like the Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, FoodDemocracyNow!, the Alliance for Natural Health USA and many others are gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures in protest of the rider, and in support of DeFazio's amendment.

Will Congress do the right thing and keep what are arguably already-weak safeguards in place, to protect farmers and the environment? Or will industry win yet another fight in the battle to exert total control over our farms and food supply?

Biotech's 'Legislator of the Year' behind the latest sneak attack

Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) – who not coincidentally was voted "legislator of the year for 2011-2012" by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont. As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a "champion of America's biotechnology industry" who has "helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States." Kingston clearly isn't interested in the survival of America's farmers.

Aiding and abetting Kingston is John C. Greenwood, former US Congressman from Pennsylvania and now president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. No stranger to the inner workings of Congress, Greenwood lobbied for the "farmers assurance provision" in a June 13 letter to Congress, according to Mother Jones and Bloomberg, claiming that "a stream of lawsuits" have slowed approvals and "created uncertainties" for companies developing GE crops.

Greenwood was no doubt referring to several past lawsuits, including one brought in 2007 by the Center for Food safety challenging the legality of the USDA's approval of Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa. In that case, a federal court ruled that the USDA's approval of GMO alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of Roundup. The USDA was forced to undertake a four-year study of GMO alfalfa's impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). During the four-year study, farmers were banned from planting or selling the crop – creating that 'uncertainty" that Greenwood is so worried about.

The USDA study slowed down the release of GMO alfalfa, but ultimately couldn't stop it. As Mother Jones reports, in 2011, the USDA deregulated the crop, even though according to its own study, the USDA said that "gene flow" between GM and non-GM alfalfa is "probable," and threatens organic dairy producers and other users of non-GMO alfalfa, and that there is strong potential for the creation of Roundup-resistant "superweeds" that require ever-higher doses of Roundup and application of ever-more toxic herbicides. The report noted that two million acres of US farmland already harbor Roundup-resistant weeds caused by other Roundup Ready crops.

In another case – which perhaps paved the way for this latest provision now before the House - the USDA in 2011 outright defied a federal judge's order to halt the planting of Monsanto's controversial Roundup-Ready GMO sugar beets until it completed an Environmental Impact Statement. The USDA allowed farmers to continue planting the crop even while it was being assessed for safety on the grounds that there were no longer enough non-GMO seeds available to plant. Who loses if Monsanto wins this one?

Among the biggest losers if Congress ignores the DeFazio amendment and passes the "farmers assurance provision" are thousands of farmers of conventional and organic crops, including those who rely on the export market for their livelihoods. An increasing number of global markets are requiring GMO-free agricultural products or, at the very least, enforcing strict GMO labeling laws. If this provision passes, it will allow unrestricted planting of potentially dangerous crops, exposing other safe and non-GMO crops to risk of contamination.

As we've seen in the past, farmers who grow crops that have been inadequately tested and later found dangerous, or whose safe crops become contaminated by nearby unsafe crops, risk huge losses and potentially, lawsuits from their customers. Ultimately, the entire US agriculture market and US economy suffers.

We have only to look back to the StarLink corn and LibertyLink rice contamination episodes for evidence of how misguided this provision is. In October 2000, traces of an Aventis GM corn called StarLink showed up in taco shells in the U.S. even though the corn had not been approved for human consumption because leading allergists were concerned it would cause food allergies. The contamination led to a massive billion dollar recall of over 300 food brands. The 'StarLink' gene also turned up unexpectedly in a second company's corn and in US corn exports, causing a costly disruption to the nation's grain-handling system, and spurring lawsuits by farmers whose crops were damaged.

A similar disaster occurred for US rice farmers in 2006. In august of that year the USDA announced that mutant DNA of Liberty Link, a genetically modified variety of rice developed by Bayer CropScience, a then-German agri-business giant, were found in commercially-grown long-grain rice in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Missouri. LibertyLink rice, named for Bayer's broad-spectrum herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, was never intended for human consumption. Following the announcement of contamination, Japan banned all long-grain rice imports from the U.S., and U.S. trade with the EU and other countries ground to a halt. Rice farmers and cooperatives were forced to engage in five long years of litigation against Bayer CropScience in an attempt to recoup some of their losses.

All the other ways this provision is just plain bad

There's a reason we have laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Plant Protection Act of 2000, which was specifically designed "to strengthen the safety net for agricultural producers by providing greater access to more affordable risk management tools and improved protection from production and income loss . . .". The 'farmers assurance provision" is a thinly disguised attempt by the biotech industry to undermine these protections. Worse yet, it's an affront to everyone who believes the US judicial system exists to protect US citizens and public health.

Why should you be outraged about this provision? For all these reasons:

· The Monsanto Rider is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. Judicial review is an essential element of U.S. law, providing a critical and impartial check on government decisions that may negatively impact human health, the environment or livelihoods. Maintaining the clear-cut boundary of a Constitutionally-guaranteed separation of powers is essential to our government. This provision will blur that line.

· Judicial review is a gateway, not a roadblock. Congress should be fully supportive of our nation's independent judiciary. The ability of courts to review, evaluate and judge an issue that impacts public and environmental health is a strength, not a weakness, of our system. The loss of this fundamental safeguard could leave public health, the environment and livelihoods at risk.

· It removes the "legal brakes" that prevent fraud and abuse. In recent years, federal courts have ruled that several USDA GE crop approvals violated the law and required further study of their health and environmental impact. These judgments indicated that continued planting would cause harm to the environment and/or farmers and ordered interim planting restrictions pending further USDA analysis and consideration. The Monsanto rider would prevent a federal court from putting in place court-ordered restrictions, even if the approval were fraudulent or involved bribery.

· It's unnecessary and duplicative. Every court dealing with these issues is supposed to carefully weigh the interests of all affected farmers and consumers, as is already required by law. No farmer has ever had his or her crops destroyed as a result. USDA already has working mechanisms in place to allow partial approvals, and the Department has used them, making this provision completely unnecessary.

· It shuts out the USDA. The rider would not merely allow, it would compel the Secretary of Agriculture to immediately grant any requests for permits to allow continued planting and commercialization of an unlawfully approved GE crop. With this provision in place, USDA may not be able to prevent costly contamination episodes like Starlink or Liberty Link rice, which have already cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The rider would also make a mockery of USDA's legally mandated review, transforming it into a 'rubber stamp' approval process.

· It's a back-door amendment of a statute. This rider, quietly tacked onto an appropriations bill, is in effect a substantial amendment to USDA's governing statute for GE crops, the Plant Protection Act. If Congress feels the law needs to be changed, it should be done in a transparent manner by holding hearings, soliciting expert testimony and including full opportunity for public debate.

If we allow this "Monsanto Rider" to be slipped into the FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, consumers and farmers will lose what little control we have now over what we plant and what we eat.

If you would like to join the hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens who have already written to Congress in support of the DeFazio amendment, please sign our petition here.

Study Reveals That One in Ten Teens Suffers from Liver Disease

Gaia Health
by Heidi Stevenson

In a shocking report that bodes ill for the future health of the generation now entering adulthood, ten percent of today’s teens in the United States suffers from nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was examined by Marilyn Vos of Emery University. NHANES recorded data on 10,359 teenagers aged 12-18 from 1988-2008. Vos and co-researchers found that 9.9% have NAFLD.

Even more ominously, Vos stated that NAFLD “seems to be increasing faster than the prevalence of obesity.” Previously, the disease has been very closely associated with obesity. Now, though, it’s clear that there’s more than excess weight driving the increase in liver disease.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is known to be associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Now that we’re seeing this once-rare disorder affecting one in ten teenagers, one must wonder how health agencies like the FDA can continue to ignore the devastation resulting from out-of-control Agribusiness, which is clearly profiting from the devastation of the people’s health.

Instead, though, Dr. Vos is advocating the creation of community and school programs to promote healthy food, exercise, and weight loss. This is not addressing the root cause. It is, in fact, effectively blaming the victims for their poor health.

Difficulty Avoiding Fructose

The fact is that it’s becoming more and more difficult to obtain a healthy diet. Our society is now designed around the dictates of Agribusiness. Go into any supermarket and you will see aisle after aisle of prepared foods. If you read package ingredients, it’s horrifying to see that most of it contains massive amounts of sugar, fructose, and artificial sweeteners—not to mention all the other toxic ingredients.

Too many of today’s harassed and stressed parents often find it difficult, both in terms of finances and time, to provide decent diets for their children. Even those who manage to find the time and money to provide good food often don’t know what it is, since they’ve never seen it themselves and the agencies that should be providing information often produce lies. The FDA classes fructose as GRAS—generally recognized as safe.

As a result, HFCS and other forms of fructose are found in nearly every type of product on supermarket shelves, including ones that aren’t supposed to be sweet. It’s replacing sugar in candies and soft drinks, so children in particular are at risk. Avoiding it means avoiding nearly all prepared foods, including ones intended to aid in home cooking, like bottled sauces sauces.

Fructose Metablism

Fructose is not metabolized in the same way that glucose (regular sugar) is, so treating it as equivalent is absurd:

Fructose is metabolized completely by the liver, but only 20% of glucose metabolism is by the liver. This adds to the load that the liver must carry.

Fructose results in storing three times more fat than glucose, thus fueling the obesity epidemic.

Fructose is probably the culprit behind a serious increase in gout because its metabolism creates uric acid.

The truth is that fructose consumed outside of fruit, where it’s tightly bound and therefore released slowly during digestion, is creating havoc with people’s health. It’s obviously a major factor in the health destruction of at least one in ten teens. These young people face severely shortened lives with tragically limited options because of ill health.

Fructose Damage

NAFLD affects the liver’s ability to perform many critical functions, including regulation of blood glucose and cholesterol, fat burning, metabolism of hormones, vitamin A storage, and elimination of toxins, which is of course, becoming a more and more critical function in this increasingly polluted world.

Fatty liver disease leads to diabetes, hepatitis, cirrhosis, and cancer. It also means that overall health of the entire body is harmed, so that the victim’s enjoyment of life is proscribed.

Nonetheless, there is no attempt to address the cause, Agribusiness that’s run so rampant it can control nearly all aspects of our access to food. Instead, researchers who clearly document how rampant NAFLD is—to the point that one-tenth of teens are now sick with it—prefer to focus on the creation of ever-more government programs that will drain ever-more money from the populace and won’t do a bit of good.

Behavioral Disorders in Children from Cellphone Use During Pregnancy

Natural Society

Moms-to-be might want to add a little distance between their unborn children and cell phones. The Yale School of Medicine released a study on the effect of radiofrequency radiation on fetal mice this week. Researchers concluded that it would be “sensible” for pregnant women to limit babies’ exposure to all wireless devices, as simply using the devices could help lead to behavioral disorders in children.

Behavioral Disorders in Children, ADHD and Unborn Mice

“This is the first experimental evidence that fetal exposure to radiofrequency radiation from cellular telephones does in fact affect adult behavior,” said Dr. Hugh S. Taylor, head author of the study.

For the experiment, Taylor and other researchers placed a silenced cell phone above the cage of pregnant mice for all 19 days of gestation. All rodents born in the exposed group faced a series of psychological and behavioral tests; the exposed mice were more hyperactive and had reduced memory capacity. Taylor believes the exposure affected the rodents’ development of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

“The rise in behavioral disorders in human children may be in part due to fetal cellular telephone irradiation exposure,” Taylor concluded, though admitting more research was needed.

Differences in Mice and Men

Meanwhile, experts from the University College of London scorned the study as alarmist for comparing mice—smaller in size with a significantly shorter gestation period—to people.

The dose of radiation the unborn mice were exposed to was, in their view, disproportionate to the amount received by a human fetus due to size and brain development stage differences between the two species – essentially saying that behavioral disorders in children due cellphone radiation exposure simply isn’t an issue. One might note, however, that 9 months of gestation compared to 19 days might change the results, too.

More Studies Needed

The DailyMail received word from the Health Protection Agency, however, that the latter “constantly monitors and reviews this scientific research and will consider this study, along with other peer reviewed research, as part of that process.”

Keep in mind: two years ago, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, concluded in a study involving 29,000 children that behavioral disorders in children were more likely to occur due to cellphone exposure. In fact, those exposed to cell phones in utero were 30 percent more likely to have behavioral problems by age 7. Skeptical scientists claimed that other factors—such as the attentiveness of mothers obsessed with cell phone use—might have been at play.

How Dr. Drew Sold His Cred to Big Pharma

The Atlantic Monthly

The health journalist for HLN comes under scrutiny after admitting he helped a major drug company promote antidepressants to consumers.

On Monday night, Dr. Drew Pinsky's program on HLN -- the network formerly known as CNN Headline News -- explored the everyman's dilemma of "how to tell if your doctor is hooked on drugs." Informative as the segment proved to be, one surefire signal your doc's hooked didn't come up. Any time federal prosecutors release a cache of documents proving that a pharmaceutical company paid your doctor $275,000 as part of a criminal plan to market its antidepressant for unapproved uses, your doctor has a drug problem. Dr. Pinsky is one of many physicians GlaxoSmithKline (formerly Glaxo Wellcome) sent around to trump up Wellbutrin's potential uses outside of FDA ground rules. His activities, elaborately decorated as a public educational campaign, amounted to a convenient contraption GSK used to launder illegal marketing messages.

"Dr. Drew" is a board-certified addiction specialist who rose to national prominence through his long-running radio show, Loveline, which delivers sexual health and relationship advice to its confused, vulnerable, and curious callers. MTV picked up the show, catapulting the telegenic Dr. Drew into true media stardom. He's built a wide-ranging career including shows like "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," and since last year he's hosted a nightly program for HLN. Dr. Drew's minor empire is built on audiences who've grown to trust his medical opinion.

Though GSK pled criminally guilty and will fork out $3 billion in penalties for violations ranging from illegal marketing to misreporting drug prices, Pinsky's role as GSK's enabler doesn't constitute a crime. But the extent to which he deceived his audiences as part of the GSK-prescribed program, which involved town halls, writings, and media appearances, ought to end his career with CNN. Aware that Wellbutrin's main competition, the class of drugs known as SSRIs, came with the unfortunate risk of lowering libido, GSK's sales department developed an ingenious plan to use Dr. Pinsky as the face of a public education campaign getting the word out about these side effects and "other effective antidepressants that do not disrupt sexual desire and function," as GSK's website said. Other antidepressants then available that didn't seem to depress sex drive included Serzone, which is now off the market, and Remeron. But both had other complicating factors that made Wellbutrin the better choice in such situations.

Dr. Drew hasn't apologized and has instead issued a statement saying his comments about Wellbutrin were based on his own clinical experience. That's the claim most doctors make when pressed about giving remarkably on-message pharma-sponsored talks. Whether or not you buy his claim that GSK's money made no difference to him, Dr. Drew's role was suspect in speaking to an audience that was both unwitting of his paid status and medically unsophisticated. Similar to the audience tuning in to him on HLN every night, he was speaking to people who were relying on his medical authority. Clinical audiences have a base of knowledge they can use to evaluate claims that Dr. Drew aired, such as his assertion on one radio program that Wellbutrin can make women multiorgasmic. The general public does not.

The other CNN host facing charges of public trust violation, Piers Morgan, has so far survived calls for his resignation over his alleged but unproven link to Britain's phone hacking scandal. Now CNN, mired in its lowest ratings in decades, faces a similar decision accompanied by fewer options. When I brought up the Piers Morgan affair in an interview, Turner Broadcasting spokesperson Carolyn Disbrow tried to distance HLN from CNN at large. "You know we're separate, right?," she said.

According to documents available on the Justice Department's website, Dr. Drew broadcast GSK's intended message while keeping audiences in the dark about being a paid spokesman. Pinsky has also admitted as much in a statement. Although Turner told me that Dr. Drew's GSK payments "occurred well before the time he became affiliated with [HLN]," Dr. Drew's habit of taking money from pharma doesn't appear to end there. ProPublica's "Dollars for Docs" database reports that Johnson & Johnson paid Dr. Drew $74,500 just two years ago. Was that more undercover messaging? Dr. Drew's brief statement doesn't address J&J or the most important questions: what else are we missing, and what's going on now?

While pondering Dr. Drew's next move in this scandal, I reached out to Dr. Daniel Carlat, a psychiatrist who once made big bucks giving talks for Wyeth about its antidepressant Effexor. Dr. Carlat went on to redeem himself by founding a pharma-free continuing medical education company, writing about his experience, and is now serving as director of the Pew Prescription Project, which aims at getting the Physician Payments Sunshine law implemented as quickly as possible. Calling Dr. Drew's actions improper, Carlat says "doctors would think twice about accepting such payments if a strong disclosure law were in effect." Recently, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services delayed its estimated Sunshine implementation date until January 2013. Though all physicians must make plans for 2013, back in 1999 Dr. Drew could never have predicted the confluence of events that brought his $275,000 deal into public view today.

Dr. Drew happens to sell ad spots on his Twitter account. He dutifully identifies his sponsored messages on Twitter, unlike the messages he delivered for GSK. He tries not to overdo it. "It's treacherous. I don't want people to think I'm exploiting my followers," Dr. Drew once told a CNN reporter. That's exactly what I'm thinking.
* * *
From Forbes:

The complaint

A transcript of Dr. Drew’s appearance on a radio show

Invoices to Glaxo from the public relations firm Cooney Waters for paying Dr. Drew’s speaking fees.

Other documents included in the DOJ’s complaint

Natural News

British registered company, GlaxoSmithKline, faces $3 billion in penalties after pleading guilty to the biggest health care fraud case in history. GSK admitted that physicians had been bribed to push potentially dangerous drugs in exchange for Madonna tickets, Hawaiian holidays, cash and lucrative speaking tours. They also admitted distributing misleading information regarding the antidepressant Paxil. The report claimed that it was suitable for children, but failed to acknowledge data from studies proving its ineffectiveness in children and adolescents.

GSK faced charges that they had used the gifts to sell three drugs that were either unsafe, or used for purposes that were not approved. The first drug, Paxil also known as Seroxat, was touted as safe and effective for children and adolescents. The ineffectiveness of Paxil, and the link to suicides, meant that it was banned for kids under 18-years-olds in 2008.

The second drug, Avandia was used in Britain to treat diabetes until it was withdrawn due to safety fears, including increased risk of heart attacks. The US government claimed that GSK had attempted to conceal the data surrounding the dangers.

The third drug, Wellbutrin is used in the UK for treating depression, but it was alleged that GSK had recommended physicians used it for ADHD, lost libido and as a slimming aid. None of which were approved uses for the drug.

The moral code of Big Pharma companies exposed

Sir Andrew Witty, chief executive of GSK said "Whilst these offenses originate in a different era for the company, they cannot and will not be ignored. On behalf of GSK, I want to express our regret and reiterate that we have learned from the mistakes that were made. We are deeply committed to doing everything we can to live up to and exceed the expectations of those we work with and serve. In the US, we have taken action at all levels in the company. We have fundamentally changed our procedures for compliance, marketing and selling."

US attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz said: "The GSK sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations to paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to a European pheasant hunt, to tickets to Madonna concerts."

This is the biggest settlement in the history of drug industries, ahead of the 2009 Pfizer case in which it was fined $2.2 billion for promoting four drugs for unapproved uses. In 2010, GSK paid $96 million to a whistle-blower who exposed contamination problems and a management cover up in Puerto Rico.

The practice of pushing drugs for unapproved uses is endemic within the drug industries. Two of the largest drug companies have been caught and fined huge amounts for chasing sales targets using any means necessary. It proves that the health of customers, even children, ranks lower on the companies' agenda than profit. Using bribes to get doctors to prescribe drugs shows a complete lack of moral fiber from both sales teams and the doctors. After this case, surely the doctors also need to face the courts for their conduct.

Whilst the amounts of money seem to be a huge punishment for GSK, the settlement is merely a slap on the wrist for a company whose market value is $133 billion. Can we trust another multinational that promises to clean up its act, when others have promised the same, only to behave just as recklessly but much more surreptitiously.

Aspartame links to birth defects and autism

The "smoking gun" for the cover-up about aspartame


From "When Science Sleeps" by Dr. Woodrow C. Monte:

In an article published in 1985 warning about potential health dangers posed by the methanol from aspartame, I stated that the scientific literature contained no studies addressing the critical question as to whether aspartame or methanol would cause birth defects. I was incorrect in saying that, but only because I was purposefully prevented from seeing a key FDA memo dated September 11, 1978 describing the details of birth defects and serious developmental brain damage found in the offspring of laboratory rabbits whose mothers had been feed aspartame during pregnancy. This memo and the research data it describes were kept secret for over thirty years until January of 2011, when the memo was finally released as the result of a Freedom of Information request.

Read the full chapter from "When Science Sleeps" here.