News: South Pacific Rim
» 2008
November 25, 2009
TGA moves to legislate food as medicine!
Hippocrates said "let food be thy medicine". This did not mean that our food should be regulated as dangerous drugs that need to be treated as potentially life threatening! Hundreds of years later the observation of Hippocrates still stands, yet the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) want to go one step further and class our food as a hazardous medicine similar to dangerous synthetic pharmaceutical drugs? The TGA wants to do this by changing legislation that makes our food in capsule or tablet form a drug! Does this mean that Kellogg's Special-K or shredded wheat cereals in a capsule could soon be a drug here in Australia? Certainly such health products like Chlorella, Wheat grass, Barley grass and Spirulina will be soon classified as a drug if the TGA has its way!
Read article on the website of the Alliance for Health Freedom Australia (AHFA)
November 16, 2009
Government wants right to detain sick people
Health authorities want the power to detain people for up to three months if they refuse testing or treatment for infectious diseases. Under draft legislation proposed by the State Government, someone with swine flu, measles or meningococcal disease could be forcibly held, examined and treated.
Read article from The Advertiser at adelaideNow.com.au (Australia)
Comment: The South Australian state’s proposed Public Health Bill would also give authorities the power to override parents who refused orthodox drug treatment for their children with infectious conditions. Moreover, the new powers would come with a substantial increase in fines - up from $60,000 to $1 million and 10 years' jail. Other diseases that could be declared under the bill include AIDS, polio, rabies, salmonella and cholera, and even non-communicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
August 19, 2009
A Nuremberg for Guantánamo
AT the end of World War II, the Allied powers found themselves in charge of thousands of captured enemies, many of whom had committed unspeakable crimes. Some among the victors thought that the prisoners should simply be shot. Others, including many in the American government, steadfastly insisted that these men should be subjected to criminal proceedings. Thus the Nuremberg trials were born, tribunals that meted out justice for some of the 20th century’s worst atrocities while demonstrating the return of the rule of law on the European continent and the superiority of democratic values over Fascist lunacies. The Guantánamo detainees pose a similar conundrum today.
Read Op-Ed article by Guénaël Mettraux in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: As Guénaël Mettraux points out in this article, by giving a fair trial to the Guantánamo detainees, the United States would reassert its core values and bring the nation back within the tradition of law and justice that it so forcefully defended during WWII and the subsequent Nuremberg trials. In the same way, the principle of law and justice forms the backbone of the campaign for a trial against the pharmaceutical drug cartel. “A Nuremberg for the Pharma Cartel” would ensure that the fraudulent business model of the pharmaceutical drug cartel is finally ended and that the health and interests of six billion people and all future generations would be placed above those of the special interests behind the business with disease. To learn what you can do to help bring about such a trial, click here. To send your personal testimony, click here.
July 10, 2009
Medvedev given first coin of future supranational currency at G8
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he had been given an example coin of a possible global currency at the G8 summit in Italy, adding that all aspects of reserve currencies were under discussion. "We are discussing both the use of other national currencies, including the ruble, as a reserve currency, as well as supranational currencies," the Russian leader said at a news conference following the G8 summit. Medvedev showed reporters an example of a coin of a supranational currency, which he called a "united future world currency."
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
May 20, 2009
GMO Ban Bill Passed
Tasmania’s ban on the release of genetically modified organisms to the environment will continue for at least another five years under a Bill passed by Parliament today. The Minister for Primary Industries and Water, David Llewellyn, said today that the State’s GMO-free status is a key factor in the Tasmanian Brand. “Tasmania’s GMO-free status is a vital factor for our primary producers, helping them realise their full potential in international and interstate markets,” Mr Llewellyn said.
Read media release on the Tasmanian State Government website (Australia)
Comment: The commercial release of genetically modified food crops is now banned in Tasmania until November 2014.
May 19, 2009
Nurses paid to scout for Vioxx drug firm
Australian marketing staff from pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co paid specialist nurses half-a-million dollars to "hunt" through patient records for potential candidates for their blockbuster anti-arthritis drug Vioxx. The Federal Court was told the company aimed to identify 100 patients of each targeted general practitioner who were not taking Vioxx and could be recommended to take up the drug for their condition. Known as the "bone and joint care program", the marketing initiative employed "bone care" nurses -- via an independent third party -- to go through patients' records with permission of their general practitioner.
Read article in The Australian (Australia)
January 25, 2009
Child shock therapy
CHILDREN younger than four who are considered mentally disturbed are being treated with controversial electric shock treatment.
Read
article in the Herald Sun (Australia)
Comment: A report confirms that altogether more than 18,000 of these brutal treatments were conducted in a single Australian state, Victoria, in 2007-2008.
January 21, 2009
Farm spray a suspect in hatchery cancer trend
Evidence has emerged of a possible cancer cluster next to the Queensland hatchery where bizarre double-headed fish embryos have been discovered. All four households backing on to Cooloothin Creek near the Noosa River-based Sunland Fish Hatchery and a large macadamia plantation have had a cancer death or a cancer diagnosis since fish deformities and deaths began about four years ago. Sunland Fish Hatchery foreman Bernard Gevers has just begun treatment for suspected bowel cancer. "When I see what's happening with the fish hatchery and read about the chemicals being used, it leaves me with a very large suspicion it's from agricultural chemicals," he said. Another resident who asked not to be identified said: "The spray drift goes on to our roofs and washes straight into our drinking water."
Read article in The Australian
January 6, 2009
CCF says Fiji election possible by December
Fiji ’s Citizens Constitutional Forum says an election is possible by the end of this year. 25 months have passed since the military seized power and despite Commonwealth statements that elections should be held within two years of a coup, Fiji’s interim regime is yet to say when it considers relinquishing power.
Read article on the Radio New Zealand International website