Acetaminophen Drug Linked to Liver Failure
July 6th, 2009 by Rick
Via MPP, we learn that on last Tuesday that a Food and Drug Administration panel voted on the fate of Acetaminophen, commonly found in Tylenol, Excedrin and other medication:
- 21-16 to lower the current maximum daily dose of nonprescription Acetaminophen.
- 24-13 to limit the maximum single dose of the drug to 650 milligrams.
- 1,000-milligram dose should only be available by prescription.
- 24-13 to keep the products on the market.
According to the FDA, Acetaminophen is the leading cause of liver failure, having sent around 56,000 people to the hospital every year. It is also linked to acute renal failure. Total sales of Acetaminophen drugs reached $2.6b, with 80% not having to be prescribed.
Fox News Relays “Weed Causes DNA Damage”
June 18th, 2009 by Russ
Fox News is about the last organization on the planet to willingly affiliate itself with genuine scientific inquiry. Except when it serves Fox’s agenda, that is. That’s why, this week, Fox News gleefully announced a study cleverly entitled, Marijuana Not Only Gets You High, It Damages Your DNA.
NORML’s blog was quick to offer a counterattack, though. They point out that not only are the claims made by the Fox article far stronger than those that the scientists made themselves, there is a huge body of countervailing evidence that has shown that weed not only is far less harmful than tobacco, it actually contains several cancer-preventing and regenerative compounds.
The study itself (cited by Fox News) is almost impossible to penetrate — it’s written entirely in lab-work jargon, obviously never intended for an average audience to interpret. Fortunately, we here at tFS specialize in sniffing-out bunkum and hooey from jargon-based sources.
The entire study that Fox News is so proud of, studies not the effects of cannibis per se, but of a compound called Acetaldehyde. In fact, the first sentence of their study says that:
Acetaldehyde is an ubiquitous genotoxic compound that has been classified as a possible carcinogen to humans.
Did you notice the word “ubiquitous” in there? Yeah, in plain human speak, the study is granting that this Acetaldehyde element is literally everywhere. It’s in ripe fruit, coffee, bread, and virtually all plant matter. So, you’re just as likely to consume Acetaldehyde from car exhaust, or sitting by a campfire, than from smoking marijuana.
And yet, Fox News didn’t title their story, Campfires Can Damage Your DNA. This is because Fox News has no particular agenda against campfires. But it does have an agenda against pot. It’s a good thing that the Fox folks don’t seem to be particularly literate when it comes to science, or they could be a lot more effective at spreading around their propaganda-fueled bullshit.
Tobacco Company Spins Wheels with New Prototypes
June 16th, 2009 by Rick
According to Join Together, British American Tobacco (BAT) has developed prototypes of cigarettes with different filters and tobacco that burns less toxic smoke, by treating it with special enzymes.
That’s actually scary that they could place enzymes into a cigarette that changes it’s properties… makes you wonder what else they could add. Apparently a shitload of ingredients because it’s already been done.
200 very lucky people in Hamburg, Germany will get the chance to try these bad boys while they are exposed to various scientific tests measure their biological reactions as well as to ascertain if they will consume less toxins with these prototypes.
Editor’s note: I doubt reinventing the way a cigarette burns and changing a filter will reduce the toxins. The key to reducing the toxins is eliminating the sheer number of chemical additives that are in a cigarettes that become toxic when they burn And why is it that cigarettes are the only product that exists that doesn’t list ingredients? Perhaps it’s just the reality of Big Tobacco.
Study Suggests Weed Causes Cancer & DNA Damage
June 15th, 2009 by Rick
According to one of the American Chemical Society’s journals, Chemical Research in Toxicology, in the June 15 issue it says that Rajinder Singh and researchers at the University of Leicester “discovered” information that the drug warriors have been searching high and low for: marijuana damages DNA and may cause cancer. Eep!
Researchers wrote:
These results provide evidence for the DNA damaging potential of cannabis [marijuana] smoke, implying that the consumption of cannabis cigarettes may be detrimental to human health with the possibility to initiate cancer development. [...] The data obtained from this study suggesting the DNA damaging potential of cannabis smoke highlight the need for stringent regulation of the consumption of cannabis cigarettes, thus limiting the development of adverse health effects such as cancer.
Now let’s take a closer look at the words used:
- potential
- implying
- possibility
- suggesting
A study should be factual, ensuring every possible angle is covered and this one doesn’t seem to be very bullet-proof in their findings. The claim that smoking marijuana has the potential to cause cancer is interesting seeing how another study done in Spain says that components of marijuana actually slow tumor growth. In fact that study was first conducted in 1974 but like anything that places marijuana in a positive, medicinal light, the journals were suppressed.
Which study was/is more scientific? How can this plant cause cancer and then turn around and fight tumor growth? I’m no rocket scientist (although I play one on TV) but I’m fairly sure that the cancer might be connected somehow to tar intake… from burning the plant, not the plant itself.
Why then wouldn’t they run studies with vaporizers (alternate forms of marijuana intake) and see if marijuana was still damaging DNA… and had the “potential” to “initiate cancer development”?
Cocaine Study Suppressed By U.S. Government
June 11th, 2009 by Rick
In a bombshell of a suppressed March 1995 study of cocaine by the UN World Health Organization (WHO), it is now confirmed that the U.S. government forced WHO to suppress their publication by threatening to withhold funding, because it directly contradicted the myths that have perpetuated the war on drugs for years.
Two of the main points of the report:
Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.
Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users. [See Page 1]
So, legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco create greater health problems and generally cocaine problems are more common for the sniffing veterans than the social snorters. That just sounds like common sense and now we have a WHO report (warning: PDF) to support it.
The Transform Drug Policy Agency cites many other examples in the report, which leaves the government with egg on their face and both feet in their mouth. Unfortunately, this report was never published and is denied to even exist. Project advisors from the report are now trying to have it published, much to do with the fact that it has already been leaked.
Canada to Conduct Research for Heroin Replacement
June 4th, 2009 by Rick
Free heroin is planned to be given to over 300 addicts in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Montreal, as part of a three year project called Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness, research designed to find drug replacements to the highly addictive opiate.
In the first stage of the study, researchers plan on injecting some addicts with Dilaudid — a prescribed painkiller that derives from the same opioid family while a control group receives heroin. In the second stage they plan to give the addicts a pill form of Dilaudid and heroin — eliminating the need for nursing assistance.
Trish Walsh, executive director of the InnerChange Foundation, an advocacy group for addicts that funds drug research, said:
We have the potential to revolutionize treatment on an international basis. [...] It gives addicts the opportunity to move from a very unsafe, back-alley drug to taking an oral tablet.
Dr. Martin Schechter, who works at the the School of Population and Public Health at the University of B.C. said the Canadian Institute of Health Research is going to fund the research costs for the study, while the Vancouver Coastal Health and the Quebec Ministry of Health are to fund the clinical costs of the study.
WSU Professor Receives Marijuana Grant
June 3rd, 2009 by Rick
An upcoming (and recently funded) two year pot study out of Washington state plans to compare the medicinal mysteries of marijuana — working alone as an anti-pain agent — against its success at alleviating pain when combined with synthetic anti-pain medications (such as morphine).
Professor of psychology, Michael Morgan, at Washington State University (WSU), qualified to receive a $148,438 grant from the National Institutes of Health, who in turn received their funding from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — the economic stimulus package signed in February.
Morgan talked about the proposed study at a press conference:
This research is innovative in the field. [...] Currently there are no other projects that are studying this chemical relationship using these parameters.
Ironically enough, the project is funded by stimulus dollars and was selected because of ”its potential to stimulate the economy and create or retain jobs within the community.” Another merit was the chance of making documented scientific progress within a short time span. Remember, two years is the blink of an eye to most research scientists (especially those on 15 year double-blind medication trials.)
THC Potency Claims in Question
June 2nd, 2009 by Rick
For the past couple of weeks, the media has been running a series of reports stating that according to new statistics, marijuana is more potent than ever!
The Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi was responsible for the study and report, passing it on to the ONDCP. According to Bruce Mirken, of the Marijuana Policy Project, the full report sheds light on the actual findings.
For instance, the mainstream news has been reporting that THC levels from certain samples had reached a 10.1% – Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske even confirmed that in a statement. The full report shows that only when they mixed hashish with the marijuana that the ten percent THC threshold was crossed.
The average marijuana potency was 8.52%, while the hashish had a THC infused 20.76%. It doesn’t take a PhD in Theoretical Physics to realize that the combination of the two different sources of THC would pump the THC level and ultimately skew the results. Whether it means poor researching on all the mainstream media counterparts, or a clear sign that the media is indeed the 4th branch of the government, the verdict is still out.
