kland,

The ones doing the study had a clear bias against HMA tests before they performed their experiment, and they looked for every possible flaw to come back in the results. When you are looking for something, it's easier to find it, and easier to miss something else that you were not looking for. The results can only be biased.

I read the actual article in JAMA. It's been a few years now, but I remember them saying that their samples were all taken from one woman with long hair, who gave it up for the sake of the experiment. Therefore, it seems less than certain to me that all of the hair sent to the labs was taken from near the scalp. Perhaps some was, and some not. There can be huge differences in the mineral content of older vs. newer hair, not only from differences in the body but also from differences in external exposures (contamination).

Let's just say, for example, that the hair near the scalp was sent along with each sample, but the hair itself was left long. Some parts of the hair would have been longer than others, and therefore could reflect minerals from different time periods. On the other hand, they may have actually selected hair from different parts for the test. Who knows?

However, the writers of the article are clearly pushing conventional medicine. Conventional doctors use pharmaceutical drugs as directed by the medical insurance industry. Medical insurance does not want to pay for HMA tests. They want you to pay for those OTC drugs this thread is about, along with other, more expensive ones given under prescription. The doctors are pressured and bribed (by certain perks from pharma representatives) to use those drugs. Doctors are given X amount of free samples of the drugs, etc. along with various gifts and coupons, which then makes them feel obligated toward the makers of the drugs. (And I call this form of "persuasion" bribery.)

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Merck Hit with $8 Million Verdict in Fosamax Trial

Drugmaker Merck & Co. said it will challenge its first loss in a trial blaming its osteoporosis drug for destroying a patient's jawbone after a federal jury on June 25, 2010, awarded $8 million to a Florida woman.

The U.S. District Court jury in New York awarded that amount in compensatory damages to Shirley Boles, 72, of Fort Walton, Florida, who alleged Merck's Fosamax destroyed her jawbone near her ears, causing serious pain and disablity. --Press-Enterprise, June 26, 2010.

Suzanne

The evidence must have been overwhelming.

Painkillers Darvon, Darvocet Being Withdrawn

The widely prescribed medications are linked to serious heart rhythm abnormalities.

The makers of Darvon and Darvocet announced Nov. 19, 2010 that it would stop marketing the widely used painkillers in the U.S. because a new study links the active ingredient to serious and sometimes fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.

The FDA requested the withdrawal and urged doctors to stop prescribing the drugs immediately. But it advised patients to keep taking their medications while consulting quickly with physicians to find an alternative. Pain management experts said the drugs are easily replaceable.

The decision follows years of controversy about Darvon's dangerous side effects.

Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen's Health Research Group blasted the FDA's action as too late and called for congressional hearings into why the agency took so long. Public Citizen tried for more than 3 decades to limit use of the drug and petitioned the FDA to ban it in 2006.

Known generically as propoxyphene, Darvon is an opioid used to treat mild to moderate pain. Made by Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Newport, Ky., the drug was approved in 1957.

The FDA estimated that propoxyphene was used by 10 million people in 2009, with most of them receiving it in combination with acetaminophen, a compound known by the trade name Darvocet.

Many doctors who prescribe propoxyphene do so simply bcause it's been around so long and they're familiar with it, said Al Anderson, a Minneapolis family practitioner and president of the American Academy of Pain Managemnt board of directors. He said the withdrawal would hurt a few patients who can't tolerate other painkillers, but most patients have many alternatives, such as oxycodone, morphine and Nucynta.

Propoxyphene was effectively pulled from the British and European Union markets earlier because of regulator's health concerns: Britain in 2005 and the EU in June 2009.

In January 2009, an FDA advisory committee voted 14-12 against continued marketing of propoxyphene. The FDA rejected that recommendation but required a study of the drug's cardiac effects. That study showed an increased risk for heart arrhythmias even in healthy patients, not just those weakened by illness. "We concluded the the pain-relief benefit no longer outweighed the health risks," said John Jenkins, director of new drugs in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Wolfe said the FDA should have acted much sooner. Data about heart toxicity was available from an animal study 30 years ago, he said, and at least 1,000 people in the U.S. have did from using propoxyphene since Britain's 2005 ban. He labeled the agency's inaction "a serious indictment of the FDA's long-lasting unwillingness to protct people in this country from a deadly but barely effective painkiller." --Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2010

Suzanne

It seems that prescription drugs are worse than the health issue, whatever it may be.

Antibiotics are prescription drugs...

And......?

And they are the reason the surgery ward is no longer sending a majority of its patients to the morgue.
And in transforming many varieties of pneumonia from death sentences into a relatively minor illness.
And is a reason we will not have a plague epidemic as long as antibiotics are still useful.

True, but at the same time it doesn't mean antibiotics aren't harmful. They may very well cause damage, but the damage is considered less than death. I'm not so sure one could argue the same with pain killers. From what I know, the reason people take pain drugs is either addicted/imagined/exaggerated reasons or it's due to hoof-to-mouth disease which results in a cause and effect need for pain drugs. So, by a lifestyle choice, people are in turn being poisoned. Antibiotics are over prescribed and over taken causing all kinds of problems for lack of adequate drugs when they are really needed, plus the damage done to the individual taking them. I understand it kills your intestinal bacteria and then in the void, the bad kind can take over. So one would only take them if really needed, knowing they will cause harm, but their present conditions require immediate action.

Which is unlike vaccinations, which are also drugs with very bad ingredients besides some containing the toxic element mercury. One may argue the benefit outweighs the harm, but there are no present conditions requiring immediate action. Only supposed thought.

There are times when you have an all but immobilizing pain. Then, in the choise between squirming on the floor like a worm in pain and taking painkiller, well, painkiller suddenly comes in a much brighter light.

Everything which is good can be used or misused for lesser purposes. As you point out, antibiotics can save your life, but taking one without having the proper need will decrease your general body balance.
Another example is water, you cant live without it, but you also cannot live with too much of it, it will then drown you.

The same which is true for antibiotics is true for vaccination. You will have to make the cost/gain analysis for yourself. Is the ill of a miniscule amount of Hg a too high price to pay for not getting the brain-eating infection on your mission trip to Mongolia? Is the Hg in the vaccin too high a price to pay for your child to get a smallpox compared with the risk of dying (30%) or living the rest of your live covered in scars?
..Oh, thats right, vaccinations have already removed smallpox from the threats to human health. My mistake..