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Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food

Ann N. Martin
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Under the U.S. freedom of information Act, I have requested all documentation related to these tests. Some of my unanswered questions include: 1) Can DNA survive the rendering process? 2) Can DNA survive the processing of the raw material, the "preconditioning state," where the raw material undergoes a steam process and extrusion (a kneading and cooking process)? The FDA/CVM acknowledged my faxed request in March 2002. In June and again in August, I contacted the FDA/CVM with the freedom of information Act, and requested the status of my request.
Freedom of Information Act and the FDA In May 2001, I filed a request under the freedom of information Act (FOIA) asking for the results of the first ten samples of the study, plus the subsequent seventy-five samples that were tested. In September 2001, I received a letter from Marilyn Broderick from the Office of Communication, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services as a result of my FOIA request. She provided informa-rion on the initial testing method used to determine the levels of sodium pentobarbital in dry dog food.

Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You

Andreas Moritz
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In actual fact, the research used in the study mentioned above was collected from data obtained under the freedom of information Act. And, as you may have guessed, the data came from the CDC's own archives. It is still perplexing to me that an institution that was meant to protect people against illnesses gives its blessing and active support to a procedure involving injection of mercury into an eight, 12 or 16 pound infant.

Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food

Ann N. Martin
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Finding an answer to that question led me on a wild goose chase that forced me to turn to the freedom of information Act (FOIA). First I inquired at the National Veterinary Services in Ames, Iowa, a lab that undertakes most of the testing of suspect cattle. I did not receive any information, and was referred to various government offices. Eventually, I filed a request for this information under the FOIA and waited eleven months for the reply.
In some situations I had to use the freedom of information Act. When you are dealing with a multi-billion dollar industry that wants to continue in the same mode, using the same dubious ingredients, and condoning inhumane research on animals, change will only come in small increments. This is a battle that will continue. Getting answers may take time. Getting changes, and perhaps regulations, will take even more time—but it is something that anyone who cares about their pets must question and hopefully, demand reform.
In June and again in August, I contacted the FDA/CVM with the freedom of information Act, and requested the status of my request. As of press time in Winter 2002, I still have not received a response. I am suspicious of whether DNA testing after the rendering process can detect anything because of the destruction of DNA. Peter Faletra, PhD, explains how heat breaks the bonds between the two strands of DNA: "The cells of the organism are degraded by the heat, and that liberates enzymes, called DNAses that eat away the DNA. The cell destroys its own DNA when it is dying.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer

Devra Davis
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Brophy, executive director of the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers/Sarnia, wrote When we asked the union to use the freedom of information Act and acquire the Ministry of Labour fde on Holmes we discovered among the pages of inspection and hygiene reports an epidemiological study prepared for the Ministry. It reported that the Holmes workers were dying of lung cancer 6 times higher than the rate for the Ontario population; 4 times higher from all other malignancies, and 11 times higher from respiratory causes.

Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation

Charles Barber
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Arif Khan, a psychiatrist and researcher in Washington state, used the freedom of information Act to obtain the FDA clinical trial database for antidepressant drugs, which included Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Serzone, Remeron, Wellbutrin, and Effexor. Khan examined 45 trials, involving about 9,000 patients, and found there was an average symptom reduction of 44 and 48 percent in patients treated with the drugs, and 36 percent with patients treated with placebo after eight weeks of treatment. At the end of the day, an unimpressive difference, unworthy of the hype.

Mainstream media criticizes Wikipedia because it represents a decentralization of their information monopoly

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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That's usually a good thing for everyone else; it means freedom of information and decentralization of censorship and content control. And although there are some isolated cases of Wiki vandalism and spamming, they are extremely rare given the enormous collection of content covered by Wikipedia. That's why Wikipedia is really a milestone in the history of the internet and the history of free information, and that's exactly why it is under constant assault by the traditional institutions that influence public opinion in this country, such as the press, the White House, and large corporations.

Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You

Andreas Moritz
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In 1995 the agency was forced, under the freedom of information Act, to release a list of ninety-two aspartame symptoms reported by thousands of victims. In 1996 the FDA stopped taking complaints and now denies the existence of the report. On Sept 30, 1980 the Board of Inquiry of the FDA concurred and denied the petition for approval of aspartame as a food additive. In 1981, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, ignored the negative ruling and approved aspartame for dry goods.

What If Medicine Disappeared?

Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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One important and different kind of meta-analysis used the freedom of information Act to obtain FDA reviews of every clinical trial—published or unpublished—of SSRIs between 1987 and 1999. On average, placebos were 80% as effective as the SSRIs. According to Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, the difference between treated and untreated groups "is very unlikely to be of clinical significance.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

Alex Steffen
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While the freedom of information Bill is still pending in Parliament, Kenyans have generated their own de facto version of freedom of information: they are relishing their right to know, and as a result have forced the government and those involved in scandals to respond to demands for information. Things can no longer be swept under the rug. The Anglo-Leasing scandal in Kenya reveals more than just the insidious nature of corruption in government: it also demonstrates the impact that investigative journalism and freedom of the press can have in fighting corruption.

Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods

Jeffrey M. Smith
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He relied on 14 applications for GM crops presented to the FDA, which were obtained only through official freedom of information Act requests. William Freese, former research analyst for Friends of the Earth, also pored through industry submissions and government documents that most scientists working in the field have never seen.

Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You

Andreas Moritz
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Judicial Watch obtained the reports from the Food and Drug Administration using the freedom of information Act. The reports were filed through the FDA's vaccine adverse event reporting system. In Melbourne, Australia, 25 girls at a Catholic high school experienced headache, nausea, and dizziness after receiving their first injection of the vaccine, the Age reported. Merck, the manufacturer of this vaccine, is the same company that made Vioxx, the drug that killed over 60,000 people and that tried to conceal the facts of Vioxx's deadly side effects.

Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients

Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
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Public Citizen had used freedom of information laws to get access to internal FDA documents about the original scientific studies. This data seemed to contradict the rosy picture painted in The Lancet publication, and the Public Citizen team argued the article exaggerated the drug's benefits.11 They also pointed out that five of the six authors who wrote the influential paper were drug company employees, as had been disclosed in the article.

Best Choices From the People's Pharmacy

Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.
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Through a freedom of information Act request (Number F95-00866), we discovered that the FDA was aware of this risk even before the drug was approved. These lines were included in a memo from Paul Leber, MD, who headed the section that reviewed the drug, to Robert Temple, MD, director of the FDA's Office of Drug Evaluation I: "Used appropriately, Imitrex is reasonably safe; used in the patient with pre-existing cardiovascular disease, however, it may tie dangerous, even deadly. . . .

Neurologist Dr. Fred Baughman talks about the fraud of ADHD and the poisoning of U.S. children

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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At any rate, Gary Bell and I did a freedom of information request for all the deaths and injuries related to Ritalin or methylphenidate, and for 1990-1997 there were 160 deaths from methylphenidate Ritalin. There were another 26 deaths for 1998 to 2000, 186 deaths for the decade. Mike: Again, these are only voluntary reports. Dr. Baughman: These are voluntary reporting schemes to MedWatch, 1 percent of actual incidents the FDA says. That means there may have been 18,600 for that decade.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived

Dr. Timothy Scott
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In 2002 a freedom of information Act request led to the discovery that the drug companies (who must submit all their drug studies to the FDA) had been sharing only their "successes" with the public in their antidepressant advertising.11 That is no more fair than a major league baseball player not having to count strikeouts in calculating his batting average.

The Whole Soy Story: The dark side of America's favorite health food

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
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All these ill effects, however, are emphasized in the first version of this study for the FDA and obtained through the freedom of information Act. It is most interesting that this study was concluded in 1987, forgotten for more than a decade, and then reborn and published with a more favorable spin in 2002.44"46 PROMOTING AND/OR CAUSING CANCER Whenever protease inhibitors cause cell proliferation (hyperplasia), cancer becomes a distinct possibility. Rapidly growing tissues are more susceptible to chemical carcinogens.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived

Dr. Timothy Scott
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Kirsch and his colleagues submitted a freedom of information Act request. They wanted to see the data the drug companies submitted for gaining FDA approval for the six antidepressants which were most widely prescribed between 1987 and 1999—Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Serzone, and Celexa. The FDA released to the researchers the data for the 47 clinical trials used for gaining approval for the six antidepressants. From this information at least five facts were learned that I believe would greatly surprise most Americans and most physicians.

Counterthink roundup: Free Speech, Google News, and Big Brother (satire)

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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As far as they're concerned, they would have preferred the internet was never invented in the first place. freedom of information is a dangerous thing, you know. Maybe we'll soon have "free speech information zones" on the web, too. Meet your new Big Brother, Mayor Daley I'm always impressed when elected politicians have the backbone to endure the uproarious laughter that almost always follows their "save our city" proposals.

What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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Scientific Misrepresentation Documents released in 1994 (Posilac Labeling: FDA freedom of information Summary; White et al, J. Dairy Science, 77:2249-2260, 1994) disclosed previous false denials of adverse health effects of rBGH. Illustrative was a large-scale outbreak of mastitis in rBGH-treated cows at Cornell University. Four of 42 control cows, in contrast with 14 of 42 rBGH-treated cows, developed mastitis. This statistically significant observation was at first trivialized: "Health variables were not affected by treatment" (Bauman et al. J. Dairy Sci.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived

Dr. Timothy Scott
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Yet, if it were not for the freedom of information Act, no one would imagine that even the drug studies responsible for Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Serzone and Celexa receiving FDA approval found these drugs work only slightly better than a placebo. It is clear why this research team from the University of Connecticut and the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services chose to entitle their study, "The Emperor's New Drugs." patient would remit," the drugs should be prescribed.

Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill

Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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However, in an effort to get a better understanding of those patients who actually took Prozac during pre-marketing studies, Breggin, through the freedom of information Act, "went through each of these seventeen studies, one by one, to add up the number of Prozac patients who actually completed the four-, five-, or six-week trials used as the basis for FDA approval. The grand total turned out to be a meager 286 patients.

The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles

Bruce H. Lipton
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Kirsch, et al, 2002] Kirsch had to invoke the freedom of information Act in 2001 to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants: these data were not forthcoming from the Food and Drug Administration. The data show that in more than half of the clinical trials for the six leading antidepressants, the drugs did not outperform placebo, sugar pills.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived

Dr. Timothy Scott
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Listen to what one FDA scientist wrote (another freedom of information Act discovery). After acknowledging that the evidence as to whether or not the antidepressant had any true effect on depression, he wrote, "It is difficult to judge," but then made a terrible admission. "Similar findings for other SSRIs and other recently approved antidepressants have been considered sufficient to support the approvals of those other products."36 (My interpretation: "We helped out Pfizer, Merck and Wyeth. We can't say no to Forest Labs just because their research is garbage also."
Using a freedom of information Act request, the authors of the study obtained information from the FDA on clinical trials submitted to that agency by the drug manufacturers for seven leading antidepressants. Though there was a specific interest in suicide and suicide attempts among those on antidepressants compared with those on placebos, their study also looked at the ability of the active drugs to provide "symptom reduction.

What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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These include mastitis, injection site reactions, bloat and other digestive disorders, retained placenta and other uterine disorders, enlarged hocks, foot disorders, and the need for medication for such toxic effects. FDA freedom of information Summary for POSILAC, 1994 "The relative risk of a treated animal showing signs of clinical mastitis during the treatment period was about 1.79 times that of a control animal." Kronfeld, J. Am. Vet. Med. Assn.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived

Dr. Timothy Scott
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The FDA also knew these facts, but neither Pfizer nor the FDA ever revealed to the public the results of the research5 (except for data released by the FDA under freedom of information Act requests). Then something truly mysterious occurred. Pfizer combined the results of the two studies, juggled the statistics and published an article which found Zoloft was effective in treating depression in children. This article appeared in one of the world's most prestigious journals, the Journal of the American Medical Association).6 Greg Walden, the congressman from Oregon, was clearly skeptical.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.

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