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vtravis

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION: HPV Vaccine Researcher Blasts Marketing - 0 views

  • AHRP's stated rationale for objecting to a policy mandating Merck's HPV vaccine in 11 year old girls [Link] is validated by an internationally recognized expert in the field who tested the vaccine in clinical trials.Dr. Diane M. Harper, a lead researcher in the development of the human papilloma virus vaccine, who says giving the drug to 11-year-old girls "is a great big public health experiment." Dr. Harper, a scientist, physician, professor and the director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire, said: "It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue." All of her trials have been with subjects ages 15 to 25. "This vaccine has not been tested in little girls for efficacy. At 11, these girls don't get cervical cancer - they won't know for 25 years if they will get cervical cancer."
  • She believes the ideal way of administering the new vaccine is to offer it to women ages 18 and up. At the time of their first inoculation, they should be tested for the presence of HPV in their system. If the test comes back negative, then schedule the follow-up series of the three-part shots.
  • But if it comes back positive? "Then we don't know squat, because medically we don't know how to respond to that," Harper said.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • She said that vaccinating little girls now is not going to protect them later. Since it can take a decade or more to even manifest itself as dysplasia, the HPVs against which this vaccine works may infect a little girl at the age she needs the vaccine most - meaning she will have to have a booster at the right point in time or she will not be protected. And, remember, it won't work at all if she was positive for the virus when she was inoculated in the first place.Merck knows this, Harper said. "To mandate now is simply to Merck's benefit, and only to Merck's benefit," she said.
  • Merck's vaccine was approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration, and recommended in June for females ages 9 to 26 by the Centers for Disease Control's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
  • "Also, the public needs to know that with vaccinated women and women who still get Pap smears (which test for abnormal cells that can lead to cancer), some of them will still get cervical cancer."The reason, she said, is because the vaccine does not protect against all HPV viruses that cause cancer - it's only effective against two that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.
  • According to Harper, the facts about the HPV vaccine are:. It is not a cancer vaccine or cure. It is a prophylactic - preventative -vaccine for a virus that can cause cancer. "Merck has proven it has zero percent effectiveness for curing cancer," Harper said. "But it is a very, very good vaccine that prevents types of HPV responsible for half of the high-grade cervical lesions that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers. For the U.S. what that means is the vaccine will prevent about half of high-grade precursors of cancer but half will still occur, so hundreds of thousands of women who are vaccinated with Gardasil and get yearly Pap testing will still get a high-grade dysplasia (cell abnormality).". It is not 100 percent effective against all HPVs. It is 100 percent effective against two types that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers.. The vaccine only works if the woman/girl does not have a current vaccine type related infection (in other words, the vaccine only works when the woman/girl does not have HPV 6, 11, 16 or 18 - the viruses that Gardasil targets when she receives her first vaccine shot).. The vaccine doesn't care if the girl/woman has been sexually active, Harper said. "HPV is a skin-to-skin infection. Although the only way to get cervical dysplasia is through an HPV infection, and HPV is most often associated with sexual activity, HPV is not just spread through sex. We have multiple papers where that's documented. We know that 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and women who have never had sex have been found to be positive for the cancer-causing HPV types.". Therefore, for example, if a girl is positive for HPV 16 when she is inoculated with the vaccine at any age, she will not be protected against it later, Harper said. "That means it's a failure and those people are at risk for getting the HPV 16 and 18 cancers later.". The only way to test for the presence of HPV is through a vaginal swab -which is inappropriate for young girls, she said.
  • So far more than 40 cases of Guillian-Barre syndrome - a dangerous immune disorder that causes tingling, numbness and even paralysis of the muscles have been reported in girls who have received the HPV vaccine in combination with the meningitis vaccine. Scientists already know that sometimes a vaccine can trigger the syndrome in a subject. "With the HPV vaccine, it is a small number but higher than is expected, and we don't know if it's the combination of the two, or the meningitis alone," Harper said.. In the end, inoculating young girls may backfire because it will give them a false sense of protection. And, for both young girls and women, because the vaccine's purpose has been so misinterpreted - and mis-marketed - Harper feels that too many girls and women who have had the vaccine will develop a false sense of security, believing they are immune to cancer when they are not, and failing to continue with their annual Pap exams, are crucial to diagnosing dysplasia before it can develop into cancer.Keep getting pap smears
vtravis

New Page 4 - 0 views

  • Vienna, Virginia - The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the nation's leading vaccine safety and informed consent advocacy organization, is urging state legislatures to investigate the safety and cost of mandating Merck's HPV vaccine (GARDASIL) for all pre-adolescent girls before introducing legislation amending state vaccine laws. In an analysis of reports made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) since the CDC's July 2006 universal use recommendation for all young girls, NVIC found reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, joint pain and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. In a separate evaluation of costs for young girls being vaccinated in private pediatrician offices, NVIC discovered that parents living in the Washington, D.C. area will be paying between $500 and $900 to have their daughters receive three doses of GARDASIL. "GARDASIL safety appears to have been studied in fewer than 2,000 girls aged 9 to 15 years and it is unclear how long they were followed up. [1] VAERS is now receiving reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, arthritis and other neurological problems in young girls who have received the shot," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "At the same time, parents who take their daughters to private pediatricians are going to be shocked to find that they will be paying two to three times the widely publicized $360 cost for the three-dose series. The cost is going to break the pocketbooks of parents and break the banks of both insurance companies and taxpayers, when the reality is that almost all cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer can be prevented with annual pap screening of girls who are sexually active." Between July 2006 and January 2007, there have been 82 reports of adverse events filed with VAERS following receipt of GARDASIL by girls and boys ranging in age from 11 to 27 years. Reaction reports have come from 21 states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia. All but three of the reports were for adverse events which occurred within one week of vaccination and more than 60 percent occurred within 24 hours of vaccination. "The most frequent serious health events after GARDASIL shots are neurological symptoms," said NVIC Health Policy Analyst Vicky Debold, RN, Ph.D. "These young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, slurred speech, fainting, involuntary contraction of limbs (seizures), muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet and joint pain. Some of the girls have lost consciousness during what appears to be seizures." Debold added "The manufacturer product insert should include mention of syncopal episodes, seizures and Guillain-Barre Syndrome so doctors and parents are aware these vaccine adverse responses have been associated with the vaccine."
  • HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and most persons naturally clear the infection from the body without symptoms. [3] However, many years of chronic HPV infection is associated with a higher risk of pre-cancerous changes in the cervix that can lead to cancer unless diagnosed and treated promptly. High risk factors for chronic HPV infection include smoking, long-term use of oral contraceptives and co-infection with HIV, herpes and chlamydia. [4] There has been a more than 70 percent drop in cervical cancer deaths in American women since the 1950's due to routine pap smears and nearly all cervical cancers can be prevented with regular pap smear screening and treatment. [5]
vtravis

Dr Hyde on hepatitis B vaccine and CFS/Chronic fatigue syndrome - 0 views

shared by vtravis on 11 Mar 08 - Cached
  • He defines CFS as an epidemic illness, one which occurs primarily in the late summer and fall. It is typified by an acute onset of symptoms which vary from malaise to severe non-stop headaches and body pains now known in the US as fibromyalgia or myalgias. It is also accompanied by muscle weakness which develop alongside the pain symptoms and changes in brain function. The change in brain function is in several areas with one, a measurable decrease in the expected IQ, and, two, major cognitive losses that is, loss of sensory abilities to define one’s environment. which is very traumatic for the patients. Physicians have found very few physical modalities of the disease to help them to further diagnose the disease. The disease process, he adds, very much resembles poliomyelitis in its incubation period. Prior to 1962, before polio immunization became generalized. epidemics of CFS like disease occurred concurrently with polio epidemics. A lot of people at that time felt that there may be a type of poliomyelitis-type injury without the paralytic dysfunction. "My supposed expertise with hep B immunisation. And I say "supposed" because we know almost nothing….We know very little about hep B disease. We have no statistics in Canada, serious statistics. We don’t know, for instance, how many children in Canada die of it every year. There are no statistics. We don’t know who the people who fall ill with hep B are. Are they Haitian immigrants? Are they people who have just arrived from China? There are no government statistics on this information…. Why are we, in a time of major economic, medical and financial difficulty, spending literally a billion dollars, because that is what it would cost to immunise everybody in Canada against hepatitis B, for something in which we have the lowest risk in the world, for which we have no statistics, and for which there is no serious investigation on the side effects? I would not for a minute say not to take hep B immunisation if you work in a hospital dealing with blood products….We have to know what we are doing in medicine before we go and immunise tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children…Because if they develop brain dysfunction after hep B immunisation when they’re in kindergarten, who in the world will know the reason if they fail grades one, two, three and four? Was it because they were stupid, not motivated, not intellectually able, or on drugs? Who is going to know if it is that or if they were brain dysfunctions due to immunisations that, we know, occur to minor degrees in many types of immunisations? I did have a chance to spend a couple of evenings with the man in charge of getting the American soldiers ready for the Gulf (in Baton Rouge). He was in charge of anti-chemical, anti-germ warfare. He told me that many of the Gulf War Syndrom people were hospitalised immediately after massive immunisations and never got to the Gulf. I have never seen that written up. It is very interesting to note that hep B immunisation was only given to those people sent to the Gulf who were mediacl personnel, because they did not feel there was a risk for the regular soldier. Now, if the American government did not feel it was a risk to people in combat, it makes us wonder why we are giving it to our children today. We looked at hep B immunisation in Quebec province because one nurse phoned us saying she had CFS after having hep B immunization.....About a month later the same nurse called again, she now had 5 other nurses in the area who had fallen ill with CFS-like symptoms after the vaccine, all were unable to return to work. I told her to phone the maker, Merck. She told me she did and they said the 6 nurses were the only persons in the whole world that had ever had a serious side effect and therefore there couldn't possibly be a link. And, they told her that she was the only person who had ever phoned....she said that when her doctor phoned, he too was told he was the only person in the world that had ever called, and when each of the doctors of the other nurses called in, each was told the same thing. I also called Merck...and they said.."Oh Dr Hyde, you are the only doctor in all of Canada that has ever contacted us with such a complaint."
  • This same nurse....(had) amassed 20 or 30 names of individuals, all post hep B immunisation cases...We received close to 120 calls from nurses and health care workers in the Quebec area with problems...many were severely disabled." Dr Hyde. Dr Hyde mentioned that the investigation into the hep B vaccine raised after his efforts was funded, organised and run by a pharmaceutical company. He was not invited. "Nor was Dr. Phaneuf who has over 100 cases of post-hepatitis B immunisation in Quebec…Nobody who had ever published a paper on post-hepatitis immunisation adverse reaction was invited (to the Toronto conference on hepatitis B). So it was a very one sided meeting." All paid for by Merck. When he asked the government for a copy of the research they said they had completed using the list of hepatitis B "victims" he had provided, he was told that it had been destroyed for lack of space! Reproduced with permission of Here’s The Key Inc, CP309, Waterloo, Qc JOE 2NO, Canada. Tel: 001 450 297 2533. Fax: 001 450 297 4140 Selected extracts taken from The Trial of the Medical Mafia by Jochim Schafer ISBN 2921783029. Available from: Whale Books, UK. Tel: 01981 240 125. To reach Guylaine Lanctot, M.D. Tel: 001 514 297 4128. Fax: 001 514 297 4140 [Vaccination]  [CFS/ME & vaccines]  [Dr Lanctot]
vtravis

Vaccination Liberation Index page - 0 views

shared by vtravis on 11 Mar 08 - Cached
  • "Free Your Mind....From The Vaccine Paradigm" www.vaclib.org document.writeln("Page last modified: - - ",document.lastModified) document.write(document.location) Page last modified: - - 03/02/2008 19:43:13 http://www.vaclib.org/indexdoc.htm#avoid
vtravis

Health Information [NCCAM] - 0 views

shared by vtravis on 11 Mar 08 - Cached
  • Health Information Chat now or call 1-888-644-6226 Monday – Friday 8:30 – 5:00 ET ASK your patients. TELL your providers. TALK about CAM. Most Popular Health Topics Acupuncture Arthritis Black Cohosh Cancer Chelation Chiropractic Dietary Supplements Depression Echinacea Ephedra Ginkgo Ginseng Glucosamine Homeopathy Herbs at a Glance Meditation Menopause St. John's Wort All diseases and conditions All treatments and therapies Información de salud en español More at Other Organizations MEDLINEplus: Alternative Medicine (National Library of Medicine) MEDLINEplus: Herbs and Supplements (National Library of Medicine) DIRLINE — directory of health organizations and research resources (National Library of Medicine) NIH Office of Dietary Supplements NCI Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine All links to other government agencies Understanding CAM What Is CAM? Biologically Based Practices Energy Medicine Manipulative and Body-Based Practices Mind-Body Medicine Whole Medical Systems Statistics on CAM Use Understanding Dietary and Herbal Supplements Be an Informed Consumer Are You Considering Using CAM? Selecting a CAM Practitioner CAM Use and Children Paying for CAM Treatment 10 Things To Know About Evaluating Medical Resources on the Web Time to Talk — Tell your doctor about your use of CAM
vtravis

Pap Test - [Medical Test] - Quest Diagnostics Patient Health Library - 0 views

  • A Pap test is done to look for changes in the cells of the cervix . During a Pap test, a small sample of cells from the surface of the cervix is collected by your health professional. The sample is then spread on a slide (Pap smear) or mixed in a liquid fixative (liquid-based cytology) and sent to a lab for examination under a microscope. The cells are examined for abnormalities that may indicate abnormal cell changes, such as dysplasia or cervical cancer.It is important to have your first Pap test within 3 years of having sex for the first time or by age 21. You may be able to stop having regular Pap tests after you are 65 to 70 years of age, if you have had 3 normal Pap tests in a row, you do not have a high risk of cervical cancer, and you have not had any new sex partners over the last 3 years. If you do not have a uterus, you don’t need a Pap test as long as cervical dysplasia or cervical cancer was not the reason your uterus was removed. You may need more frequent Pap tests if you have had an abnormal Pap test in the past. Talk with your health professional about how often you should have Pap tests.A high-risk type of the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause of most cases of cervical cancer. In women older than 30, an HPV test may be done at the same time as a Pap test. A vaccine (Gardasil) is available to prevent infection with the types of HPV that are most likely to cause cervical cancer.
vtravis

Vaccine Safety - Concerns - 0 views

shared by vtravis on 11 Mar 08 - Cached
  • Vaccine Safety Concerns Most parents today have never seen a case of diphtheria, measles, or other once-common diseases now preventable by vaccines. As a result, some parents wonder why their children must receive shots for diseases that do not seem to exist. Myths and misinformation about vaccine safety abound and can confuse parents who are trying to make sound decisions about their children's healthcare. Vaccination is a common, memorable event, and association of events in time often signals cause and effect. While some of the sickness or reactions that follow vaccination may be caused by the vaccine, many are unrelated events that occur by coincidence after vaccination. Therefore, the scientific research that attempts to distinguish true vaccine side effects from unrelated, chance occurrences is important. Recent Health Concerns Entertainment as a Source of Health Information Questions About Vaccine Recalls Kawasaki Syndrome and RotaTeq Vaccine Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine and Autism Guillain Barré Syndrome and Menactra® Meningococcal Vaccine fact sheet and frequently asked questions Mercury and Vaccines (Thimerosal) Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal-free Vaccines Frequently Asked Questions about Mercury and Thimerosal Timeline: Thimerosal in Vaccines (1999–2008) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Archived Health Concerns Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (updated March 2004) Cancer, Simian Virus 40, and the Polio Vaccine (updated April 2004) fact sheet and frequently asked questions Chronic Diseases Diabetes (updated May 2004) Febrile Seizures After MMR and DTP Vaccinations Hair Loss Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the Measles Vaccine Multiple Vaccinations and the Immune System (updated May 2004) Multiple Sclerosis and the Hepatitis B Vaccine (updated September 2004) Additives in Vaccines Intussusception and Rotavirus Vaccine Page last reviewed: February 29, 2008 Page last updated: February 29, 2008 Content source: Immunization Safety Office, Office of the Chief Science Officer
Invader Hog

Pro-Abortion - 0 views

  • Pro-abortion - TodayThe pro-abortion agenda has matured from back alley abortions, to abortion on demand in all 50 states up to 24-25 weeks after fertilization, and even to the point of allowing partial birth abortions. Pro-abortion advocates believe in the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. There are even laws now dictating abortion rights of teenagers and their parents. Is the law on the side of pro-abortion, or isn't it?
  • Pro-abortion - The ProblemPro-abortion - Is the verdict really in? Abortion is legal in all 50 states. On the other hand, murder is illegal in all 50 states. Herein lies the problem -- How can we say it is against the law to kill and allow the abortion rate of 1 in 4 pregnancies to continue? When does the origin of life begin? Were we created at conception, knit together in our mother's womb right from the beginning? Or is it the air in our lungs that changes our status from a fetus to a life? Of course, the pro-abortion position must advocate that life doesn't begin until some time late in the gestation process. However, God's position has always been that we are each a unique individual created by Him for a special purpose from the moment of conception. Recent discoveries in biochemistry confirm what the Bible has declared for centuries, that each of us is "fearfully and wonderfully made." From the moment the sperm miraculously fertilizes the egg, God begins the process of creating our inmost being and knits us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13-14).
Jawn Keem

Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana? - 0 views

  • The war on drugs is an expensive battle, as a great deal of resources go into catching those who buy or sell illegal drugs on the black market, prosecuting them in court, and housing them in jail. These costs seem particularly exorbitant when dealing with the drug marijuana, as it is widely used, and is likely no more harmful than currently legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. There's another cost to the war on drugs, however, which is the revenue lost by governments who cannot collect taxes on illegal drugs. In a recent study for the Fraser Institute, Economist Stephen T. Easton attempted to calculate how much tax revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana.
  • The study estimates that the average price of 0.5 grams (a unit) of marijuana sold for $8.60 on the street, while its cost of production was only $1.70. In a free market, a $6.90 profit for a unit of marijuana would not last for long. Entrepreneurs noticing the great profits to be made in the marijuana market would start their own grow operations, increasing the supply of marijuana on the street, which would cause the street price of the drug to fall to a level much closer to the cost of production. Of course, this doesn't happen because the product is illegal; the prospect of jail time deters many entrepreneurs and the occasional drug bust ensures that the supply stays relatively low. We can consider much of this $6.90 per unit of marijuana profit a risk-premium for participating in the underground economy. Unfortunately, this risk premium is making a lot of criminals, many of whom have ties to organized crime, very wealthy. Stephen T. Easton argues that if marijuana was legalized, we could transfer these excess profits caused by the risk-premium from these grow operations to the government: If we substitute a tax on marijuana cigarettes equal to the difference between the local production cost and the street price people currently pay--that is, transfer the revenue from the current producers and marketers (many of whom work with organized crime) to the government, leaving all other marketing and transportation issues aside we would have revenue of (say) $7 per [unit]. If you could collect on every cigarette and ignore the transportation, marketing, and advertising costs, this comes to over $2 billion on Canadian sales and substantially more from an export tax, and you forego the costs of enforcement and deploy your policing assets elsewhere. One interesting thing to note from such a scheme is that the street price of marijuana stays exactly the same, so the quantity demanded should remain the same as the price is unchanged. However, it's quite likely that the demand for marijuana would change from legalization. We saw that there was a risk in selling marijuana, but since drug laws often target both the buyer and the seller, there is also a risk (albeit smaller) to the consumer interested in buying marijuana. Legalization would eliminate this risk, causing the demand to rise. This is a mixed bag from a public policy standpoint: Increased marijuana use can have ill effects on the health of the population but the increased sales bring in more revenue for the government. However, if legalized, governments can control how much marijuana is consumed by increasing or decreasing the taxes on the product. There is a limit to this, however, as setting taxes too high will cause marijuana growers to sell on the black market to avoid excessive taxation. When considering legalizing marijuana, there are many economic, health, and social issues we must analyze. One economic study will not be the basis of Canada's public policy decisions, but Easton's research does conclusively show that there are economic benefits in the legalization of marijuana. With governments scrambling to find new sources of revenue to pay for important social objectives such as health care and education expect to see the idea raised in Parliament sooner rather than later.
wesmills

EPIC/PI - Privacy & Human Rights 2000 - 0 views

  • This survey, by EPIC and Privacy International, reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. The survey examines a wide range of privacy issues including, data protection, telephone tapping, genetic databases, ID systems and freedom of information laws. The report finds that there is a worldwide regocnition of privacy as a fundamental human right. Many countries around the world are enacting comprehenisve data protection law to safeguard individual privacy increase. However at the same time, privacy is increasingly being undermined by technical advances and the demands of intelligence and law enforcement agencies for increase surveillance powers. There is a strong need for improved oversight and stricter enforcement of current laws to ensure that legal protections are not ignored as threats to personal privacy increase.
  •  
    Privacy and human rights.
vtravis

US Death Toll Associated with HPV Vaccine Jumps to 11 with 3779 Adverse Reactions Reported - 0 views

  • WASHINGTON, DC, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, yesterday released new documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing a total of as many as eleven deaths related to Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil.  Those deaths resulted between June 8, 2006 - when the vaccine received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - and August 2007 when the latest data was available. The adverse reports coming from the HPV vaccine are increasing daily at an alarming rate.  A LifeSiteNews.com report which scanned a publicly available database of adverse affects coming from the HPV vaccine found 3,137 adverse effects reported on September 28, 2007.  Today the US Government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) lists 3,779 adverse effects.  52 of the cases were deemed "life threatening" and 119 required hospitalization. In one case highlighted by Judicial Watch a 17 year old girl who was vaccinated in June 2007 died the very day she was vaccinated.  According to the report, she "was vaccinated with a first dose of Gardasil…During the evening of the same day, the patient was found unconscious (lifeless) by the mother. Resuscitation was performed by the emergency physician but was unsuccessful.  The patient subsequently died." Other serious reported side effects associated with Gardasil include paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures.  Says one report: "Initial and follow-up information has been received from a physician concerning an "otherwise healthy" 13 year old female who was vaccinated with her first and second doses of Gardasil.  Subsequently, the patient experienced…paralysis from the chest down, lesions of the optic nerve…At the time of the report, the patient had not recovered." "In light of this information, it is disturbing that state and local governments might mandate in any way this vaccine for young girls," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  "These adverse reaction reports suggest the vaccine not only causes serious side effects, but might even be fatal." The toll from the HPV vaccine may be greater still.  Judicial Watch filed its request on August 20, 2007, and received the adverse event reports from the FDA on September, 13 2007, in what the agency described as a "partial response." On October 3, 2007, Judicial Watch filed a new lawsuit against the FDA for its failure to fully respond to Judicial Watch's FOIA request as required by law.
bclearman

Marijuana Uses - Dr. Lester Grinspoon's Marijuana Uses - 0 views

  • "Marijuana unlocks the ability of my mind to think in new and creative ways, takes me to new heights of ecstasy in the appreciation of music and art, and provides a catalyst for the exploration and deepening of my relationships with others. When marijuana prohibition is ended and the experience of marijuana becomes more free and open, I believe that our culture and society will benefit more from the creative ways of thinking and the more intimate ways of interacting with others that are encouraged by the use of marijuana."
  • I personally use marijuana for a number of reasons. Marijuana unlocks and opens up parts of my mind and psychology that I otherwise would not be aware of, and encourages me to think in new and untested ways. Sensory stimulation, in the form of music, food, sex, and the like, becomes more vivid and pleasurable. The combination of new patterns of thought with more vivid sensory stimulation leads to an enhanced appreciation of art. I sometimes get high and spend my time simply enjoying the experience of listening to music or browsing a collection of artistic works.
bclearman

Marijuana facts-separating fact from fiction. - 0 views

  • Historical : During the 1930s, the American media propagated numerous false stories as marijuana facts and depicted weed as an extremely dangerous drug, thus marijuana and hemp were effectively banned in 1938. Hemp has an estimated 50,000 non-drug commercial uses including paper, textiles, fuels, food and sealants, but these uses are also banned by existing laws. Medical Marijuana Facts: No one has ever died from marijuana use. Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency. Marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco and people smoke less of it at a time. No independent government panel that has studied marijuana has ever recommended jail for users. Marijuana leads to non-violence and pacifism. Marijuana for medicinal use is also gaining renewed recognition. Marijuana is a medicinal herb that has hundreds of proven, valuable therapeutic uses - from stress reduction to glaucoma to asthma to cancer therapy, etc. Marijuana was a major active ingredient in 40-50% of patent medicines before its ban. Marijuana could replace at least 10-20% of prescribed drugs now in use.
vtravis

Vaccination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

shared by vtravis on 11 Mar 08 - Cached
  • Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (the Vaccine) to produce immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by a pathogen. It is considered to be the most effective and cost effective method of preventing infectious diseases. The material administrated can either be live, but weakened forms of pathogens such as bacteria or viruses, killed or inactivated forms of these pathogens, or purified material such as proteins. Smallpox was the first disease people tried to prevent by purposely inoculating themselves with other types of infections; smallpox inoculation was started in India or China before 200 BC.[1] In 1718, Lady Mary Wortley Montague reported that the Turks have a habit of deliberately inoculating themselves with fluid taken from mild cases of smallpox and she inoculated her own children.[2]Before Edward Jenner tested the possibility of using the cowpox vaccine as an immunisation for smallpox in humans in 1796 for the first time, at least six people had done the same several years earlier: a person whose identity is unknown, England, (about 1771), Mrs. Sevel, Germany (about 1772), Mr. Jensen, Germany (about 1770), Benjamin Jesty, England, in 1774, Mrs. Rendall, England (about 1782) and Peter Plett, Germany, in 1791.[3] In 1796 Edward Jenner inoculated using cowpox (a mild relative of the deadly smallpox virus). Pasteur and others built on this.[1] The term vaccination was first used by Edward Jenner an English physician 22 years later, in 1796. Louis Pasteur further adapted in his pioneering work in microbiology. Vaccination (Latin: vacca—cow) is so named because the first vaccine was derived from a virus affecting cows—the relatively benign cowpox virus—which provides a degree of immunity to smallpox, a contagious and deadly disease. In common speech, 'vaccination' and 'immunization' generally have the same colloquial meaning. This distinguishes it from inoculation which uses unweakened live pathogens, although in common usage either is used to refer to an immunization. The word "vaccination" was originally used specifically to describe the injection of smallpox vaccine.[4] Vaccination efforts have been met with some controversy since their inception, on ethical, political, medical safety, religious, and other grounds. Early success and compulsion brought widespread acceptance and mass vaccination campaigns were undertaken which are credited with greatly reducing the incidence of many diseases in numerous geographic regions. The eradication of smallpox, which was last seen in a natural case in 1977, is considered the most evident success of vaccination. Contents
bclearman

On the Legalization or Not of Marijuana - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog - 0 views

  • While marijuana is, in fact, remarkably free of toxicity, the consequences of annually arresting 300,000 mostly young people were not. Once I grasped the absurdity of this prohibition, I became devoted to the cause of changing these laws.
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