December 3, 2007

Hundreds get sick from Gardasil cancer vaccine
More than 17 girls a week have been experiencing adverse reactions such as seizures and numbness after taking cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil since it became widely distributed in April. But the Department of Health and Ageing, while revealing the number of reactions, is refusing to release the details of them - despite growing controversy overseas, including links to at least seven deaths. There have been previous reports in Australia of young girls fainting, experiencing seizures, dizzy spells and paralysis, including 20 students at a Melbourne private school who reported being sick after having an injection in late May. The Daily Telegraph can reveal that as of November 30 there have been 496 adverse reaction reports filed to the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA).
Read article from the Daily Telegraph at news.com.au (Australia)

November 8, 2007

The EU is trying to trick developing countries into poor trade deals
These negotiations are flawed and unnecessarily hurried, say Alex Cobham and Sophie Powell
Peter Mandelson and Louis Michel, the EU's commissioners for trade and development, are staggeringly disingenuous in their broadside at those raising concerns about the impact on poor countries of the EU's stance in trade negotiations (This is not a poker game, October 31). They claim "The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) that the EU is negotiating with six African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions [will] take a trading relationship based on dependency and turn it into one based on diversification and growth." Such an outcome is unlikely if they insist on using every trick possible to extract more sweeping deals than ACP countries believe are in their best interests.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

September 28, 2007

Protests at EU deadline for third-world trade pacts
Anti-poverty campaigners demonstrated in more than 40 countries yesterday to protest at the European Union's insistence on sealing new free trade pacts with the world's poorest countries this year. Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, warned yesterday that 77 of the world's poorest countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific would face "less generous tariff rates" in trade with the EU unless they completed negotiations on new "economic partnership agreements" (EPAs) with Brussels by the year's end.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)

September 10, 2007

Antidepressants given to babies
Medical authorities are mystified and concerned at figures suggesting antidepressant drugs are being prescribed for children, some less than a year old. Records of the national drug buying agency Pharmac suggest thousands of prescriptions a year are being written for children under 10. Antidepressants are powerful psychiatric drugs with potentially severe side-effects.
Read article in the New Zealand Herald

September 7, 2007

Most people 'want Iraq pull-out'
Most people across the world believe US-led forces should withdraw from Iraq within a year, a BBC poll suggests. Some 39% of people in 22 countries said troops should leave now, and 28% backed a gradual pull-out. Just 23% wanted them to stay until Iraq was safe. In the US, one-in-four supported an immediate withdrawal, while 32% wanted Iraq's security issues to be resolved before bringing the troops home. The BBC World Service commissioned the survey of 23,193 people.
Read article at BBC News (UK)

August 12, 2007

Deaths spark painkiller ban
A PAINKILLER used by 60,000 Australians has been ordered off the shelves after the deaths of two people. The Therapeutic Goods Administration yesterday announced the urgent recall of the drug Prexige, used to treat osteoarthritis and acute pain.
Read article in the Brisbane Times (Australia)
Comment: The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) made the decision after receiving reports of eight people who suffered serious liver reactions, including two deaths and two liver transplants. Six of the reports occurred since the beginning of July.

July 30, 2007

MeNZB Approaches Another Milestone
The current cluster of meningococcal disease cases in the Wellington region has resulted in the MeNZB vaccine reaching a sad milestone. One hundred New Zealand children who were promised 'protection' by being fully vaccinated with the MeNZB vaccine have now contracted meningococcal disease. Unpublicised research published by the Ministry of Health also shows that the MeNZB vaccine actually increases the risk of babies getting the epidemic strain of meningococcal disease and does not protect babies as promised…
Read press release at scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)
Click here for a list of Open Questions for the Media to ask the New Zealand Minister of Health.

July 22, 2007

Globalisation backlash in rich nations
A popular backlash against globalisation and the leaders of the world's largest companies is sweeping all rich countries, an FT/Harris poll shows. Large majorities of people in the US and in Europe want higher taxation for the rich and even pay caps for corporate executives to counter what they believe are unjustified rewards and the negative effects of globalisation. Viewing globalisation as an overwhelmingly negative force, citizens of rich countries are looking to governments to cushion the blows they perceive have come from the liberalisation of their economies to trade with emerging countries.
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)

July 16, 2007

Joint therapeutic agency plans shelved
New Zealand has shelved plans to set up a controversial joint agency with Australia to regulate therapeutic products, amid claims it would have grossly inflated the price of vitamins and other herbal remedies. New Zealand State Services Minister Annette King said the Therapeutics Products and Medicines Bill would be postponed until there was more support in parliament for the scheme.
Read article in The Age (Australia)

June 25, 2007

BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree
The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood. "Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived", said the bank. The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

June 15, 2007

Committee fails to reach agreement on therapeutics bill
The select committee charged with considering the polarising Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill has been unable to reach agreement, it reported today. The government administration select committee said it had examined the bill and was unable to reach agreement, and therefore could not recommend the bill be passed. The impasse leaves the bill in the hands of the Government. It had become increasingly unlikely the bill would be passed in its present form. The bill squeaked through its first reading on a vote of 61 to 60, but the Government's ability to pass it has been in doubt since independent MPs Taito Phillip Field and Gordon Copeland said they would vote against it. The bill has been deeply divisive, with those from the medical devices and pharmaceutical industries largely for it, but many in the complementary health sector against it. Under the regime, a joint Australia/New Zealand agency would regulate therapeutic products.
Read article in the New Zealand Herald

May 22, 2007

Vaccine linked to sickness
FEDERAL Health Minister Tony Abbott and health authorities have urged parents not to panic over reports that dozens of teenage girls have been sickened by a new cervical cancer vaccine. In one case being investigated, a girl was left temporarily paralysed and unable to talk after receiving the Australian-developed Gardasil vaccine. Health authorities have denied the cases are directly related to the immunisation.
Read article at news.com.au (Australia)

May 18, 2007

Nationwide Protests Against The ‘Anti-Vitamin Bill’
Nationwide Protests Against The ‘Anti-Vitamin Bill’ Continue Tomorrow
Turnout across New Zealand expected to double, organisers say
A second round of nationwide protest action against the proposed Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill will be held tomorrow (Saturday, May 19) with organisers expecting numbers to treble in Auckland. Opponents of the controversial bill will congregate at red umbrella marches and rallies once again in Auckland, Christchurch, Whangarei and Tauranga, and for the first time tomorrow protests will also take place in Dunedin and New Plymouth. Thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets during the first round of nationwide protests on Saturday, April 28.
Read press release at scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)

April 24, 2007

The best way to give the poor a real voice is through a world parliament
Global governance as it stands is tyranny speaking the language of democracy. We need a directly elected assembly
It was first proposed, as far as I can discover, in 1842, by Alfred Tennyson. Since then the idea has broken the surface and sunk again at least a dozen times. But this time it could start to swim. The demand for a world parliament is at last acquiring some serious political muscle. The campaign for a UN parliamentary assembly is being launched this week on five continents.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Click here to go to the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly website

Australia adopts NZ nutrient levels
A joint agency agreement between Australia and New Zealand edged closer after Australia moved to adopt New Zealand limits for selenium, vitamin A and niacin (vitamin B3). The move has been welcomed by the New Zealand natural product industry, and is seen as eliminating a hurdle for New Zealand manufacturers of health supplements. By falling inline with New Zealand levels, the Australian permitted levels of vitamin A will be raised to 10,000 International Units (IU), niacin will now be 100 mg, and selenium will be raised to 150 micrograms, up from 26 micrograms.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

April 19, 2007

Pan Pharmaceuticals court action "a witchhunt"
The Australian Democrats has demanded the federal government apologise for forcing Pan Pharmaceuticals to conduct a mass product recall four years ago, sending it into administration. Democrats leader Senator Lyn Allison said the recall was ordered because of inconsistent quality concerns, not because of adverse reactions. "It was a pointless exercise targeting complementary medicines and it sent hundreds of small businesses broke," she said.
Read article at ibnnews.org (Australia)
Read the Australian Democrats’ Press Release
Comment: To find out what was really behind the world’s largest recall of health care products, click here.

March 27, 2007

Indigenous communities consider social justice commissioners
South Australian Indigenous communities are looking at appointing Aboriginal social justice commissioners to replace the failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. Tauto Sansbury is a consultant with the State Government's Social Inclusion Unit, which is helping to address youth crime and other issues in Aboriginal communities across the state. Mr Sansbury says the communities feel they are not represented at a state or federal level but the appointment of commissioners could change that.
Read article at ABC News Online (Australia)