“Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry”, wrote Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, in March 2004 [1]. In the same year, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, lambasted the industry for becoming “primarily a marketing machine” and co-opting “every institution that might stand in its way.” Read more.
Archives for December 2022
Giving Up the Belief in Flu Shots
“An appraisal of experience for the past three and a half years indicates little progress in control of influenza. The basic assumptions of the control program must be reassessed. There is little evidence that recent vaccines have significantly prevented clinical illness, as well as equally little evidence to evaluate effects on mortality. How long such a program should be continued without better scientific evidence is problematic. Sounder bases are needed for an influenza control program.” Read more.
Is Immunity Debt Real, or Should You Keep Kids in a Bubble?
Millions acted out of the best intentions, but trusting this ‘bubble science’ could have unintended long-term consequences (including asthma, allergies and worse), which will make your blood boil. What can you do to mitigate them? Read more.
What the Media Does and Doesn’t Tell You
ANH latest infographic on pharma and natural health perspectives of Alzheimer’s, obesity, hypertension and cholesterol. View here.
Explaining the FDA’s New Homeopathy Policy
There’s been some confusion about what the FDA’s newest attack against homeopathy means—let us untangle some of these knots. Action Alert! Last week, we reported on the release of the FDA’s final version of a document describing how the agency will treat homeopathic medicines moving forward. The headline of that article was “FDA Declares Homeopathy Illegal.” Consumers have been justifiably outraged by this move by the FDA, but there has been some confusion about what specifically is happening. Read more.
New $3.5 Million Drug Shows Our “Sick” Healthcare System
Big Pharma continues to outdo itself in charging exorbitant prices for prescription drugs, illustrating how broken our healthcare system is. Action Alert! If you have hemophilia, you’re in luck? The FDA just approved a new gene therapy to treat the disease. All you need to pay is…$3.5 million! With this price tag, Hemgenix became the most expensive drug in the world, supplanting Zolgensma, which was approved in 2019 to treat spinal muscular atrophy and priced at $2.1 million. Read more.
Vanquishing Long COVID
Long Covid is a complex disorder that resembles ME/CFS—a real clinical challenge. But because of the pervasiveness of Covid, there are a lot of research dollars committed to unraveling the mysteries of its aftermath. Early in the pandemic, the NIH allocated $1.15 billion to study Long Covid; critics have argued that research efforts have bogged down amid bureaucratic snafus, and that the pace of rollout of effective treatments reflects a lack of urgency. Read more.
FDA Supplement Censorship Strikes Again
The FDA’s censorship of free speech about the benefits of supplements has now extended into heart health supplements like vitamin B3 and fish oil. When will this lunacy end? Action Alert! In a slew of warning letters, the FDA has targeted seven companies for claiming that their supplements treat heart disease. Well, not heart disease exactly: what the FDA has issue with is these supplements claiming to be able to lower cholesterol, even though we know they can. Read more.
Increasing Concerns About Flying
I was invited to travel recently and fly cross-country for two work events. I used to love to travel, but the idea of being stuck in a metal container with intense Wifi bouncing around for hours, with hundreds of people, many of them potentially sick, has me very selective regarding my agreements. An additional concern was then added from a conversation at a dinner party. The subject of flying came up with the President of the US Freedom Flyers. An American Airlines pilot, 37-year-old Josh Yoder, informed me that the rates of disability in pilots at American Airlines increased 300% during the first six months of 2022. Read more.
Taking Away Your Anti-Aging Supplement
MetroBiotech, a company co-founded by David Sinclair, Ph.D., is taking a key anti-aging supplement away from you so they can make a fortune. Action Alert! MetroBiotech is in the process of creating a monopoly on a key anti-aging supplement, β-NMN (beta-nicotinamide mononucleotide, or simply NMN)—one of the best precursors of NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), which is on the cutting edge of lifespan research. David Sinclair, Ph.D., a Harvard professor and popular author and lecturer, is a co-founder of the company and an outspoken proponent of NMN’s role in longevity, so it stands to reason that he played a large role in the company’s effort to create a monopoly. Read more.