Friday, June 24, 2016

Hillary's Official Calendar Is "Missing" A Lot Of Entries

ORIGINAL LINK

Little by little the public is starting to learn more about Hillary Clinton's time as US Secretary of State, beyond the official narrative . Most recently it was revealed that the State Department disabled its own security software to accommodate emails being sent from Hillary's private server, and also that Clinton omitted a key email discussing that very topic when turning over records to the State Department.

And now, courtesy of the AP, we learn that the official calendar that Hillary kept as secretary of state did not closely mirror the more detailed records of Clinton's daily meetings provided by her aides. The detailed schedules were included in files the State Department turned over to the AP after it sued the government in federal court.

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When the AP compared Clinton's 1,500 page official calendar with the detailed planning schedules, what the AP found was stunning. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, and at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests were not recorded or omitted from the official calendar.

Additionally, more than 60 other events listed on the detailed planners were omitted entirely from Clinton's calendar, noted as "private meetings", none of which named names of anyone who Clinton met with.

For example, in an entry on Clinton's schedule in September 2009 didn't contain the identities of major Wall Street and business leaders who met with Clinton for a private breakfast discussion at the New York Stock Exchange. The meeting occurred minutes before Clinton appeared in public at the exchange to ring the opening bell. However, the detailed planning schedules from the same day listed all of the names that were omitted from the official schedule.

More from AP

Despite the omission, Clinton's State Department planning schedules from the same day listed the names of all Clinton's breakfast guests — most of whose firms had lobbied the government and donated to her family's global charity. The event was closed to the press and merited only a brief mention in her calendar, which omitted all her guests' names — among them Blackstone Group Chairman Steven Schwarzman, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and then-New York Bank of Mellon CEO Robert Kelly.

 

Besides Schwarzman, Nooyi and Kelly, Clinton's other guests were Fabrizio Freda, CEO of the Estee Lauder Companies Inc.; Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Corp.; Lewis Frankfort, chairman of Coach Inc.; Ellen Kullman, then-CEO of DuPont; David M. Cote, CEO of Honeywell International Inc.; James Tisch, president of Loews Corp.; John D. Wren, CEO of Omnicom Group; then-McGraw Hill Companies chairman Harold McGraw III; and James Taiclet, chairman of the American Tower Corp. Also attending was then-NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer, who later accompanied Clinton when she rang the stock exchange bell.

 

Four of the attendees — Schwarzman, Nooyi, Cote and Kullman — headed companies that later donated to Clinton's pet diplomatic project of that period, the U.S. pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

 

All the firms represented except Coach lobbied the government in 2009; Blackstone, Honeywell, Omnicom and DuPont lobbied the State Department that year. Schwarzman and Frankfort have personally donated to the Clinton Foundation, and the other firms — except for American Tower and New York Bank of Mellon — also contributed to the Clinton charity.

The AP noted that Clinton's calendar also repeatedly omitted private dinners with political donors, policy sessions with groups of corporate leaders and "drop-bys" with old Clinton campaign hands and advisers. Among the names that were omitted from Clinton's schedule but again were found on the detailed planning documents were longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal, consultant and former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, former energy lobbyist Joseph Wilson and entertainment magnate and Clinton campaign bundler Haim Saban.

The lengths that AP had to go to in order to obtain these documents were significant, and no documents showed who specifically logged entries in Clinton's calendar or edited material. Once again, we find deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin's name in the mix, as Abedin held weekly meetings and emailed almost every day about Clinton's plans. Also, a stunning finding was made in that Clinton's official calendar was edited after each event.

The AP first sought Clinton's calendar and schedules from the State Department in August 2013, but the agency would not acknowledge even that it had the material. After nearly two years of delay, the AP sued the State Department in March 2015. The department agreed in a court filing last August to turn over Clinton's calendar, and provided the documents in November. After noticing discrepancies between Clinton's calendar and some schedules, the AP pressed in court for all of Clinton's planning material. The U.S. has released about one-third of those planners to the AP, so far.

 

The State Department censored both sets of documents for national security and other reasons, but those changes were made after the documents were turned over to the State Department at the end of Clinton's tenure.

 

The documents obtained by the AP do not show who specifically logged entries in Clinton's calendar or who edited the material. Clinton's emails and other records show that she and two close aides, deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin and scheduling assistant Lona J. Valmoro, held weekly meetings and emailed almost every day about Clinton's plans. According to the recent inspector general's audit and a court declaration made last December by the State Department's acting executive secretary, Clinton's aides had access to her calendar through a government Microsoft Outlook account. Both Abedin and Valmoro were political appointees at the State Department and are now aides in her presidential campaign.

 

Unlike Clinton's planning schedules, which were sent to Clinton each morning, her calendar was edited after each event, the AP's review showed. Some calendar entries were accompanied by Valmoro emails — indicating she may have added those entries. Every meeting entry also included both the planned time of the event and the actual time — showing that Clinton's calendar was being used to document each meeting after it ended.

 

The State Department said Friday that "extensive records" from Clinton's calendars were preserved. Spokesman John Kirby said he couldn't speak in more detail about practices during Clinton's tenure because of the AP's ongoing lawsuit.

Former department officials as well as government records experts said that secretaries of state have wide latitude in keeping their schedules, despite federal laws and agency rulings overseeing the archiving of calendars and warning against altering or deleting records.

"It's clear that any outside influence needs to be clearly identified in some way to at least guarantee transparency. That didn't happen. These discrepancies are striking because of her possible interest at the time in running for the presidency" said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

* * *

So we learn now that not only did Clinton omit key emails to the government, often times the official schedule omitted - if not outright "redacted" - key names and events as well while Clinton was the Secretary of State. Ironically, just as the case was with Abedin submitted an email that Hillary chose to keep from the government, the daily planning schedules from Hillary's aides now shines a light on the detail Clinton tried to keep from the public record once again. We're sure that's just an oversight on Clinton's part though, she was probably just too busy to make sure the official calendar accurately reflected what was taking place and who the US Secretary of State was meeting with.

Will anyone ask the question of what exactly was discussed when Hillary had these so called "private" meetings with Wall Street and big business? Probably not. However, for the sake of our readers and the so-called "posterity", we have decided to document what the rest of the media will ignore, and we will not forget.



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Thursday, June 23, 2016

CNN’s Clinton Cash ‘Fact-Check’ Ends in Embarrassment for Cristina Alesci and Laurie Frankel

Hawaii Governor Signs Bill Putting Gun Owners in Database

ORIGINAL LINK

Hawaii Gov. David Ige (EE'-gay) is signing a bill that makes the state the first to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.

Ige said in a statement Thursday the legislation is about community safety and responsible gun ownership. He says it will help law enforcement agencies protect Hawaii residents and visitors.

State Sen. Will Espero, who introduced the bill, and the Honolulu Police Department say the measure could serve as a model for other states. But critics say gun owners shouldn't have to be entered in a database to practice a constitutional right.

Ige also signed legislation that disqualifies perpetrators of stalking or sex assault from owning or possessing a gun or ammunition.



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CDC Zika information Zika has not yet been transmitted by mosquitoes in the continental U.S. As of...

ORIGINAL LINK
CDC Zika information

Zika has not yet been transmitted by mosquitoes in the continental U.S.

As of June 23 the U.S. had admitted at least 819 travelers infected with Zika into the continental U.S.

198 New York, 162 in Florida, 52 in California, 42 in Texas

One case of Zika in U.S. was “lab-acquired.”

CDC says serious illness from Zika virus is uncommon.

Many of them in the states that have the species of mosquito that can transmit the virus, which is how CDC says Zika will soon become endemic to the U.S.

Zika virus has been around since the 1940’s.

Zika is considered one of the mildest mosquito-borne viruses.

At least 80% of people who get Zika don’t become sick and have no symptoms.

For 70 years, Zika wasn’t linked to microcephaly birth defects. That only happened after a 2015 rise in microcephaly in Brazil coincident with a Zika outbreak.

Brazil’s Ministry of Health originally thought it had 4,180 cases of Zika-related microcephaly between October and December 2015. However, after scrutiny by experts, it reported that Zika and other infectious diseases were ruled out in a majority of the cases.

An Argentina doctors’ group said Brazil’s rash of microcephaly was noticed shortly after some communities began using the larvicide “pyriproxyfen” in drinking water. “It’s a hypothesis, a probability,” Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez, a pediatrician in Cordoba, Argentina and main author of the report told NPR. “And for us, it’s more likely that it’s the chemical larvicide and not Zika.” (“Pyriproxyfen” is also spelled “pyroproxyfen” in some publications.)

Read the Argentina doctors’ report on pyriproxyfen

After the doctors’ group report, one Brazilian state announced it would stop putting pyriproxyfen in drinking water.

Chemical interests and medical authorities, including the World Health Organization, attacked the Argentina doctors’ report and said there was no cause for concern about pyriproxyfen, which they said is safe to drink at low levels. Other pyriproxyfen supporters launched a campaign to declare concerns about it “rumor” and a “debunked,” “ridiculous” “conspiracy theory” by “cranks.”  including a propagandist known for pushing the pharmaceutical industry’s interests: David Gorski a/k/a “ORAC.”

WHO says

This dispute led to an edit war on Wikipedia.

Read the NPR report on why medical experts say there’s no concern about pyriproxyfen

Doctors say there’s no “smoking gun” that links Zika to microcephaly, but that all the evidence taken together indicates there’s an association.

There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes. Zika is spread primarily by just one of them: Aedes species  (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus). Most U.S. states do not have this species.

Within the continental U.S., the Aedes aegypti mosquito that has spread most Zika cases is common only in Florida along the Gulf Coast.

For the minority who actually get sick from Zika, symptoms may include joint pain and swelling, conjunctivitis and cold symptoms.

You’re not supposed to spray bug repellent on skin under clothing.

A pregnant woman applies mosquito repellant. Photo: CDC

The Obama administration has requested about $1.9 billion to fight Zika.

Half the requested taxpayer funds are for projects outside of the U.S.

Human travelers from Zika-ridden countries are not being screened…but primates are. Monkeys and apes imported into the U.S. undergo a mandatory 31-day quarantine period on arrival.

Microcephaly birth defects are not reported in monkeys and apes with Zika.

Once antibodies develop, a person or primate can no longer spread Zika. Humans are believed contagious for about a week.

Zika is not considered a fatal disease. CDC says it only “very rarely” contributes to death.

Zika was given emergency status though no cases had been transmitted in the continental U.S. That’s in stark contrast to the mysterious, contagious EV-D68 and AFM outbreak in 2014. CDC said that outbreak afflicted millions of Americans, occurred in every state, paralyzed at least 115 children and killed at least 14. There was no emergency declaration or funding request, and CDC deflected many questions and slow-walked a Freedom of Information request about EV-D68 and AFM.

Zika can rarely, possibly cause Guillain-BarrĂ© syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves causing paralysis. So can some vaccines, according to CDC, including flu and swine flu vaccines.

Microcephaly has also been associated with pregnant women using alcohol, drugs and getting other infections.

Some in the health sector have questioned a possible link to mirocephaly and Tdap vaccine introduced into the regimen for pregnant women in Brazil in late 2014.

The World Health Organization dismisses the possibility of a Tdap vaccine link saying the Brazilian government has one of the most stringent health regulatory authorities in the world.

At least 15 companies have been working on developing a Zika vaccine.

Congress and the Obama administration agree that at least $140 to $200 million tax dollars should go to vaccine development.

Normally, microcephaly occurs in about 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 10,000 of all births.



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FBI and Police are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention

ORIGINAL LINK

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.

As the city gears up to welcome an estimated 50,000 visitors, and an unknown number of protesters, some of the preparations and restrictions put in place by officials have angered civil rights activists. But the latest string of unannounced home visits by local and federal police mark a significant escalation in officials’ efforts to stifle protest, they say.

“The purpose of these door knocks is simple: to intimidate the target and others in efforts to discourage people from engaging in lawful First Amendment activities,” Jocelyn Rosnick, a coordinator with the Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote in a statement denouncing the home visits.

More than a dozen people in the Cleveland area have reported being visited this week by local police, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Secret Service.

Michael Nelson, an attorney and the president of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP, said that police officers visited the parents of one of his clients, a young woman who was among 71 people arrested in May 2015 following the acquittal of a police officer in the deaths of two unarmed people.

When the parents asked whether their daughter was in trouble and why they wanted to speak with her, the officers replied that they wanted to ask “about any information she might have about anybody engaging in violence, planning violence for the RNC.” Nelson and others have asked for a meeting with the agencies involved in the door knocks.

“Maybe we need to have a discussion about the Constitution,” he told The Intercept. “Last time we heard of anything like this was when Dr. King and J. Edgar Hoover were around.”

The FBI confirmed that visits have taken place. “In preparation for the upcoming RNC the FBI along with our federal, state, and local partners has been working collaboratively with members of the community,” a spokesperson for the FBI’s Cleveland field office told The Intercept. “As part of this preparation law enforcement is reaching out to individuals known in the community who may have information that could help ensure a safe and secure environment during the RNC.” Cleveland’s police department did not respond to requests for comment.

Maggie Rice, an organizer with Food Not Bombs, said that members of her group were visited by police but felt too “rattled” to speak to a reporter. The group is not planning to stage protests but has applied for permits to be in the RNC event zone in order to feed both protesters and Cleveland residents dealing with disruptions to public transportation and services like Meals on Wheels.

“A lot of Cleveland’s most vulnerable residents will be at risk,” Rice said. “The idea that the FBI would be coming in, knocking on our doors and asking questions of people that they know are not involved in organizing any protests and that are basically a humanitarian organization is completely unacceptable and very disturbing.”

“One FBI agent and one plainclothes Cleveland police officer, both white men, showed up and started asking questions about other Food Not Bombs members and our activities,” Rice said. “I personally believe that this is an attempt to intimidate because they know we play a vital role in helping people stay out longer and have their voices heard.”

In other visits, officers asked about people’s previous addresses, political and social affiliation, and convention plans, according to the NLG. “We are concerned these visits will chill the free speech activities of individuals wishing to lawfully protest,” said Rosnick. “And that individuals who are not planning to be involved in the RNC are being harassed due to their associations.”

The group is holding free legal training sessions for local activists and residents and has been monitoring law enforcement preparations ahead of the convention. To Cleveland organizers, the recent door knocks are just a reminder that they are being watched.

“Cleveland is no stranger to FBI interference and FBI entrapment,” said Rice. “I’d say most Cleveland activists and support organizations like ours are aware that every room we’re in probably has an FBI agent in it. And we act accordingly.”

Top photo: “FBI Police Car” by Tony Hisgett using CC BY 2.0

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The post FBI and Police are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention appeared first on The Intercept.



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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Free Meals from Drug Companies Influence how Doctors Prescribe Drugs

ORIGINAL LINK

Doctors often feel they owe drug companies for buying them lunch

by Julie Fidler, Natural Society:

Drug companies don’t need to give doctors thousands of dollars in kickbacks to sway them to prescribe their medications and implant their devices. A new study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that doctors who received a free meal from a pharmaceutical company were more likely to prescribe the drug the company was promoting than doctors who received no such meals.

The findings of the study were based on an analysis of U.S. government data which tracked both industry payments to doctors and physicians’ from ‘Medicare Part D’ and prescriptions of drugs. Researchers analyzed payments and prescriptions in 2013 associated with 3 brand-name cardiovascular drugs and 1 antidepressant, The Wall Street Journal reports. All of the drugs had lower-cost alternatives.

Drug companies regularly shower doctors with not only free food, but all kinds of trinkets, cash, and all-expenses paid vacations to exotic locations. In 2008, so many complaints had been lodged about the industry’s efforts to influence doctors with gifts that the industry voluntarily gave up a lot of the items they offered to doctors, ranging from pens bearing a company’s name, to expensive equipment. However, attractive-looking drug reps still hand out gifts to doctors, even if it’s in the form of a pizza.

Just 1 Meal is Enough to Sway

Read: The Drug Industry Spent $27 Billion Marketing to Doctors in 2012

The study found that doctors who received just 1 meal, which often costs less than $20 on average, were up to 2 times more likely to prescribe a brand-name drug promoted by a company than a cheaper generic alternative, compared with physicians who did not accept a meal.

The team wrote:

Read More @ NaturalSociety.com



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Americans Are the Most Unhappy Parents Among Developed Countries, and Here's Why

ORIGINAL LINK
The absence of family friendly social policies helps explain why moms and dads aren't feeling so carefree.

“The days are long, but the years are short,” goes the old saying. That’s true of life itself, but the phrase has become a mantra of parents and caregivers, a reassuring bit of what’s called “everyday wisdom” for the perpetually sleep-deprived and stressed-out. Even parents with the deepest reserves of patience and caring need the occasional reminder that 5 am feedings, toddler tantrums and teen eye-rolls will, in the distant future, be affectionately missed when the nest is finally empty. Because while child-rearing is filled with moments of unadulterated joy and wonder, there’s another, far less-discussed open secret of parenting. And it’s that raising kids can sometimes be a real drag.

People are often loath to say that out loud, but social scientists have been confirming it for decades. The New York Times quotes scholar and UK-based author Nick Powdthavee, who cuts to the chase about what the research has to say. “Over the past few decades, social scientists like me have found consistent evidence that there is an almost zero association between having children and happiness,” Powdthavee writes. “But the warnings for prospective parents are even more stark than ‘it’s not going to make you happier.’ Using data sets from Europe and America, numerous scholars have found some evidence that, on aggregate, parents often report statistically significantly lower levels of happiness (Alesina et al., 2004), life satisfaction (Di Tella et al., 2003), marital satisfaction (Twenge et al., 2003), and mental well-being (Clark & Oswald, 2002) compared with non-parents.”

There’s plenty more where that comes from. Back in 2004, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman asked 909 working women in Texas to rate their daily activities based on the pleasure they derived from each. On a list of 19 items, childcare came in near the bottom, way down in 16th place. Only “morning commute,” “evening commute” and “working” scored lower, while “housework” actually placed higher. Another 2015 study focused on German parents found the “drop in life satisfaction during the year following the first birth [of a child] is even larger than that caused by unemployment, divorce or the death of a partner.”

Powdthavee notes that “the strains associated with parenthood are not only limited to the period during which children are physically and economically dependent.” He cites a 1981 study that found even parents whose kids have grown up and moved out are only as happy, or slightly less happy, than “non-parents of similar age and status.”

All this is proof that the “happiness gap” between those who have kids and those who don’t is an international phenomenon. But a new collaborative study by researchers at the University of Texas, Wake Forest University and Baylor University finds the size of the gap differs from country to country. The researchers studied 22 nations, all wealthy countries with similar birth rates. They discovered that American parents are 13 percent less happy than American non-parents, the largest gap in all the countries surveyed, and one significantly larger than the gap observed in Great Britain and Australia. When researchers drilled down to find out exactly why the gulf is so large in the U.S., they found out it had everything to do with social policies. More specifically, America’s shameful lack of family and parent-support laws explain why so many of the country’s parents fall short on the happiness meter.

“We looked at several specific government policies that we thought would make a difference in the lives of employed parents,” the researchers write in a brief at the Council on Contemporary Families, “the duration and generosity of paid parenting leave, the number of annual paid sick and vacation days guaranteed by law, the cost of child care for the average 2-year old as a percent of median wages, and the extent of work schedule flexibility offered to parents of dependent children.” They found that “the negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirelyexplained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations.” This held true for both mothers and fathers.

“We comprehensively tested every other alternative,” Jennifer Glass, lead author of the study, told the New York Times. “The two things that came out most strongly in explaining the variation were the cost of care for the average 2-year-old as a percent of wages and the total extent of paid sick and vacation days.”

The researchers also noted that countries with “better family policy ‘packages’ had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents.” That’s probably why countries with generous laws around parental leave—Sweden, France, Finland and Norway among them—have reverse gaps, with parents identifying as happier than their childless cohorts. In America, workers have no legal rights to paid vacation, sick days or maternity leave, and paternity leave isn’t even on the table. Couple that with the financial burden of child care in the U.S. In 2014, the annual average cost of child care for an infant outpaced a year of tuition at public colleges in 28 states and the District of Columbia, according to Child Care Aware of America. The built-in challenges of raising a kid—the long hours and exhausting demands—are compounded in a system that provides parents little to no support.

Americans see themselves as pretty happy in general, ranking their happiness levels somewhere between 8 and 10 on average of scale one to 10, which is higher than most other places. (Researchers note that the French, for example, “tend to rate their levels significantly lower—in the middle of the scale from 5-7.”) This is likely due to differing cultural notions around what qualifies as true happiness. Considering the fact that more Americans take antidepressants than the residents of any other super-rich country, it might do us good to push for the policies that made the happiness gap smaller or nonexistent in other nations. Researchers found that those policies also tended to contribute to everyone’s contentment:

The policies that helped parents the most were policies that also improved the happiness of everyone in that country, whether they had children or not. Policies such as guaranteed minimum paid sick and vacation days make everyone happier, but they had an extra happiness bonus for parents of minor children. The same pattern held even for policies such as subsidized child care, which one might assume would only benefit parents. Countries with cheaper out-of-pocket costs for child care had happier non-parents as well as parents.

"Having kids in the U.S. is brutal," Robin Simon, a Wake Forest sociology professor who co-authored the study, told the South China Morning Post. "The federal government requires that workplaces give six weeks maternity leave, but there is no requirement that it is paid. We just don't do anything to assist parents."

The stress of having to make up for America’s shameful lack of supportive social policies effectively wiped out other benefits the researchers expected to accompany the act of parenting among Americans. The South China Morning Post points out that “in ongoing work looking at 12 indicators of well-being, including physical health, self-acceptance and sense of purpose, Simon and her colleagues found that none, except lower alcohol use, was associated with parenthood in the U.S.”

Another indicator that failed to make its mark? The sense that raising kids makes one's own life more meaningful.

"I thought at least purpose and meaning in life would be higher for parents, and we find it's just flat," Simon told the outlet. "There is joy to having kids. But I think that for most people, the stresses that are associated with having kids overshadow those joys."

 

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

New Report Exposing Cover-Up of Fukushima Proves Conspiracy Theorists Right

ORIGINAL LINK
fukushima

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — According to a new report, the Japanese government worked in concert with TEPCO to purposely cover up the meltdown at Fukushima in 2011.

“I would say it was a coverup,” Tokyo Electric Power Company President Naomi Hirose announced during a press conference. “It’s extremely regrettable.”

Masataka Shimizu, president of TEPCO at the time of the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster, told employees not to go public with the term “meltdown” — allegedly in capitulation to pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office.

For two months, TEPCO officials euphemized the meltdown in public statements as “core damage,” even as they had full knowledge of the true extent of the catastrophe. Though a few company officials initially used the term “meltdown,” it abruptly vanished from public discussions just three days after the disaster struck.

According to the report, Shimizu rushed a note to Vice President Sakae Muto as he held a press conference that warned him against using the word meltdown.

“Considering this fact, it is presumable that the Prime Minister’s Office requested Shimizu to be careful about admitting to a meltdown in public,” the report states, as Japan Times noted.

Though the three lawyers who authored the report did not find direct evidence, they surmised it was “highly likely” governmental pressure was behind the amelioration of information about the scope of the disaster.

As CBS News reported, former officials from the Prime Minister’s Office denied all allegations a cover-up had taken place. In fact, former government spokesman and current secretary general of the opposition Democratic Party denounced the report as “inadequate and unilateral” — particularly as the lawyer-authors are allied with the current ruling party.

Attorney Yasuhisa Tanaka, who headed the panel investigation, admitted TEPCO likely didn’t intentionally cover up that a meltdown had occurred, saying,

“Looking at the situation back then, we think it was too difficult for Tepco to use the term meltdown because even the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency couldn’t use it,” because of pressure from the government,  Japan Times noted.

That agency had been Japan’s nuclear watchdog in March 2011, at the time of the disaster.

Notably, five years after the catastrophe, TEPCO revealed the existence of a company manual in which a meltdown is ‘official’ once 5 percent or more fuel rods have suffered damage. But, as Japan Times explained:

“As of March 14, 2011, Tepco estimated that 55 percent of the fuel rod assemblies in reactor No. 1 and 25 percent of those in reactor No. 3 were damaged but did not declare they were damaged until May that year.”

In euphemizing the meltdown, TEPCO and the Japanese government left countless civilians in peril; despite evacuations, many had been reluctant to leave their homes and might have done so sooner had the full scope of a meltdown been clear.

TEPCO remains embroiled in controversy over secrecy and alleged incompetent handling of the cleanup of Fukushima. In February this year, three former TEPCO executives were charged with negligence over the disaster.


This article (New Report Exposing Cover-Up of Fukushima Proves Conspiracy Theorists Right) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: YouTube. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.



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Robert Steele: Draft List of 58 Orlando False Flag Anomalies

ORIGINAL LINK
Robert David Steele

Robert David Steele

I have agreed to write a chapter on the anomalies identified by others (I have no direct knowledge). The below list of 58 anomalies is a starting point. I seek inputs from anyone who wishes to point out omissions or corrections. The chapter will be completed by this coming Friday, with graphics and selected photographs all compellingly questioning the official narrative.

NOTE: Most very senior people — whether in government, media, academia, the media, or business — are not broadly read and are not as open minded as they might think. In my view, the education of the public, and the liberation of the public from false government narratives and false government information (e.g. unemployment, vaccines, GMO, etcetera) is the center of gravity for restoring democracy and restoring the US Constitution as the foundation for the rule of law — one law for all, not one law for the 1% and another for the 99%. I serve America the Beautiful — and the Whole Earth — in my quest for the radical reform and advancement of education, intelligence (decision-support), and research. The balance of my life is dedicated to truth & reconciliation, to creating a prosperous world at peace, a world that works for all.

58 Anomalies  in the Orlando False Flag Attack

KEY QUESTION: Did anyone including Omar Mateen actually die?

Context: Who Benefits?

01 Event eclipses celebration of Muhamid Ali, a Muslim fighter?

02 Event shuts down US complaints over Israeli West Bank moves?

03 Vatican agenda enlisting strict Italian club owner?

04 Real dead punish G4S for joining divestment against Israel?

05 Fake dead enrich G4S, the “go to” contractor for false flag activities?

06 Who benefits? Israel, Gun-control lobby, police state complex?

07 Preliminary distraction from planned war against Russia over Syria?

Why Orlando, Why A Gay Club at Closing Time?

08 PSYOP 101 – Disney versus ISIS, families versus gays?

09 PSYOP 101 – Libertine gays “deserve” to die, blame it on ISIS?

10 DRILL 101 – Clear club of innocents, bring in the actors at closing time?

Evidence of Multiple Shooters

11 One to five armed individuals get past security without incident?

12 Omar Mateen overhead saying on cell phone he is the 4th shooter?

13 Many witnesses spoke of two to five shooters?

14 Skilled shooter & a semi-automatic can only fire 1-3 rounds a second?

15 Video of 24 shots in 9 second documents at least 4 shooters?

16 James Wesley Howell claims Mateen one of five trained shooters?

Media-Based Evidence of Complicity & Cover-Up

17 News of the attack released six hours prior to the attack?

18 Witnesses who diverge from script immediately cut off?

19 Calls for gun control included in the crisis actor scripts?

20 Government refuses to polygraph wife, sticks to scripted narrative?

21 Multiple instances of what appear to be scripted comments?

22 No mainstream media (MSM) has diverged from official narrative?

23 Mateen made prior posts and in-event calls to script?

24 Mateen alleged to have collected cell phones from 300 people?

25 Alleged motive – drunk gay armed devotee to ISIS is not proven?

26 Mateen allegedly emerged from bathroom guns blazing?

27 Lack of victim families outrage over failure of government to protect?

Government-Based Evidence of Cover-Up

28 Three hour stand-down while Omar Mateen holes up in bathroom?

29 Mateen’s calls to his handler during “stand-down” not released?

30 Marcus Robertson alleged CIA and FBI “trainer” not investigated?

31 Howell immediately arrested on pretext when he aborts California?

32 FBI does not produce a forensics report on bullet paths?

33 Multiple individuals including laughing winking cop on camera?

34 President and Vice President drop in but do not see bodies?

Omar Mateen’s Personal or Family History

35 Omar Mateen has a history with movies, Crisis Casting, & GS4?

36 Mateen passed both FBI and GS4 screening, licensed to be armed?

37 Mateen’s father has history with US politics & intelligence?

Omar Mateen’s Psychological Profile

38 Narrative about gay drunk wife-beater denied by wife?

39 All available photos of Mateen are benign non-ISIS related?

40 Mateen was allegedly cool and calm through-out?

Pulse Club as a Stage Set

41 Floor plan with eight working exits – no one uses seven of them?

42 Over eight CCTV’s common to nightclubs – no substance released?

43 49 killed and 53 wounded is far from 1:6 close combat reality?

44 Plans to demolish the club (destroy evidence) already in motion?

45 Target club 300 miles away from Mateen’s home and work?

Medical Characteristics of Alleged or Real Victims

46 Alleged difficulty identifying the dead, all of whom carry ID?

47 No photos of dead, blood pools, real wounds, anywhere?

48 Video of alleged wounded includes wounded doing high fives?

49 No evidence of real ambulance mobilization or use?

50 Alleged stacked gurneys have no blood and no blood trails?

51 Alleged doctors did not exist prior to the event?

Contextual Complicity of Government

52 CIA Director Brennan gives false testimony to Congress on ISIS?

53 CIA has made false flags a standard, public has accepted for years?

54 Justice Anton Scalia murdered in Texas weaken Supreme Court?

55 Hundreds of political and activist murders not investigated by FBI?

56 FBI has entrapped 175 others including homeless & retards?

57 ISIS was created by USA and Saudi Arabia with CIA training?

58 So many obvious anomalies it’s as if loyal insiders want discovery?


My direct email is robert.david.steele.vivas [at] gmail [dot] org. I believe that we all need to think together and seek help in reflecting on the Orlando event.

See Especially:

Kevin Barrett: Is Orlando a False Flag? Update 13: Floor Plan – 8 Exits Over 8 CCTV Cameras – New Hypothesis — FBI Continues to Cover Up

Robert Steele: Connecting Some Dots — Blacks in Prison, Police Militarization, Persecution of Whistleblowers, and False Flag Operations — All Obstacles to a Prosperous World at Peace

Understanding False Flag Operations In Our Time

See Also:

False Flag @ Phi Beta Iota



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Matrix Deprogramming and the Prohibition of Nature’s Red Pill

ORIGINAL LINK

Dylan Charles

Contributor, ZenGardner.com

Editor, Waking Times

“Remember. All I’m offering is the truth. Nothing Else.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Are we merely sentient programs, bound from birth to death to the directives of our masters and the chains of the Matrix? Or are we multi-dimensional beings, continuously striving for deeper and deeper connection to spirit, whether conscious or not of this automatic effort? What tools have we been given to find the answers to these questions, and why are they prohibited?

Medicine for the Matrix

Full-spectrum dominance of our well-being is carried out by the joint efforts of government, corporations, social engineering programs, consumer training through marketing and peer pressure, the modern medical establishment, and the entertainment industrial complex.

The definition of ‘medicine’ has been co-opted in recent decades by the pharmaceutical paradigm which seeks to find only symptoms then sell us temporary masks for those symptoms… for insane profit. For the entirety of human history up to the present, medicine has been an integral part of human life, as important as air, food and water, and the purpose of healing has always been to drill straight down to the root of an issue and resolve it completely, once and for all.

A singular part of what has popularly become known as ‘the Matrix,’ the corporate/medical establishment has become the chief prison warden of the mind, body and spirit, whose role it is to incarcerate us in a state of degraded physical, mental, and spiritual health. This is the the slave master that keeps us in line when the symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, sickness and despair, the results of our enslavement to the Matrix, become so overwhelming that we seek external help for survival.

READ: Ayahuasca and Iboga – Messengers of Truth from Mother Earth

For centuries, millennia even, human kind has depended on medicine in it’s natural, not chemical forms, and now a total shift towards dependence on prescription based medicine has re-trained us to shun the very cures which have the most potential to liberate us into health and happiness. There is no doubt that those self-tasked with permitting which remedies are available in our society have a vested interest in keeping us locked into this paradigm, for, a person who has knowledge of self and access to the medicines which most properly serve and honor our individuality is inescapably free.

“You’re a ghost, driving a meat skeleton made of stardust on a rock hurtling through space.” -Unknown

Human beings have two inherent identities. Most familiar to us is the visceral human form that binds us to the material world in flesh and bone, acting as transport for mind and spirit in our journey from birth to death. The higher self, our soul, is the part of us which exists infinitely as cosmic consciousness, fueled by love, knowing everything at once and for all, existing in total freedom from the constraints of time and space.

“We, as humans, live simultaneously in 2 worlds. I will refer to these 2 worlds as the physical world and the spirit world. These 2 worlds exist simultaneously and both worlds are wrapped around and through the other. To understand Life, one must know what is happening in both worlds.

We are all very familiar with this physical world. We are aware of it through our 5 physical senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Everything we perceive through these senses tells us about the nature of physical world.

But we also have senses that allow us to know the nature of the spirit world such as intuition and spiritual vision seen through the ‘third eye.’ Generally speaking, most people don’t understand these senses or how to use them to understand what is happening in the spirit world. In most cultures outside of central Africa, most people have forgotten how to use these senses. As a result, the senses of the physical world become dominant and only under unusual conditions are these spiritual senses realized.” – Gary Cook, Iboga Wellness

The Matrix has as it’s primary objective the task of disconnecting us from the soul and the extreme aggrandizement of the material, so that we may be used as batteries and as automatons to fuel the lavish existences of our controllers. It achieves this through desensitization by overexposure to violence, hatred, fear, pollution and scarcity, while limiting deep connection to each other, to nature, and to the most humane experiences.

Acts of terror are amplified, echoed and repeated in the mainstream media, while the achievements of love and compassion are minimized, ridiculed and diminished in their meaning and significance.

We are prevented from realizing the depths of our enslavement by the limits placed on our spiritual discovery, rarely if ever able to even glimpse at the totality of the damage that has been inflicted upon the psyche by the continual bombardment of fear, conflict, war and nihilism. Our shock is weaponized and used against us, and we find little, if any, solace, in the corrupt and tired religious traditions of the modern world.

Pharmaceuticals, by design, dull the emotional being and narrow the range of human feeling. Alcohol is recommended and pimped in our culture to further numb the senses and amplify negativity. Food is denatured, devoid of nutrition, and poisoned to weaken the body and darkly color the mind.

As shining examples of success, those that do the most damage to the natural environment are held in great esteem as pioneers of capitalism, teaching us the false value of trading life for profit and encouraging disrespect for that which sustains us.

Our communities and infrastructure have been engineered to discourage human interaction because without an abundance of human contact we are unable to fully grasp the true state of the human condition: despair. We only take notice of the outer appearances of our brothers and sisters, their consumer adornments and their extrinsic, soulless possessions, thus we predictably over-appreciate material accomplishments.

READ: 16 Signs That You’re a Slave to the Matrix

The rich human history of relation to spirit, and the triumphs of the heart are continuously erased and supplanted with memories of conquest and destruction, the worst of all human endeavors. All of this horror is pumped into the psyche without reprieve, deepening the abyss of our condition.

FLickr - Red Pill Blue Pill - Paul L Dineen

The Real ‘Red Pill’

“Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” -Morpheus, The Matrix

There is a genuine ‘Red Pill‘ that reveals, confronts and combats the tyranny of the matrix and each of its attempts to debilitate the mind, body and spirit. It is called iboga, and it is prohibited by law in most western nations.

For perhaps thousands of years, the root bark of the rather unassuming jungle shrub, tabernanthe iboga has been consumed by indigenous rainforest cultures of ecuatorial Africa as a medicine and teacher for life. It’s usage is not complicated, however, it’s effect on the human being is simply indescribable with language, something that can only be understood through direct experience.

Under the guidance of a proper shaman, the bark from the plant’s roots is scraped, collected and ingested…

“…opening up an introspective experience where a connection is made with an over-soul or cosmic consciousness that assists the mind in a deep examination of the self from an objective, omniscient and timeless perspective. In this, a process of self-revelation unfolds which unravels one’s past, offering life-changing insights and liberation from accumulated self-judgments and harmful thought patterns.

For 12-24 hours the patient lies still, with blindfolded eyes, in a bizarre dream-like state where the brain behaves as if in REM sleep, but, while the conscious mind remains awake, very alert and able to interact with and direct the content of the mental journey.

As the experience deepens, the barrier between the conscious and sub-conscious mind seems to dissolve, and the information in the sub-conscience becomes available for review and rejection by the reflective self. In this, a lifetime’s worth of learned mental processes, memories, emotional impressions, false judgments and psychological conditioning that combine to inform and instruct the self are presented to the patient in rapid fire fashion… a sort of high velocity behind-the-scenes tour of one’s personality. A multi-dimensional impression of one’s character emerges, and they are given an incredible opportunity to re-assess or reject misunderstood feelings, traumatic events, implanted suggestions, negative self-images, and habitual behaviors.” -Dylan Charles, Opiates, Iboga and the Roots of Self-Destruction

Full-Specturm Matrix Deprogramming

The type of multi-dimensional self-revelation and curative introspection brought forth by a spiritual journey of this magnitude has three fundamental properties: physical healing, spiritual healing and spiritual discovery. 

Attacking at once every pillar of the Matrix, revealing in vivid, high-definition clarity its various strangleholds on the sub-conscious, it is common for westerners to experience their first journey as a heavy, full-spectrum examination of the most warped and damning contents that infect the mind and spirit.

Fear is a weapon of mass destruction, one that we are encouraged to feel, but discouraged to confront. Iboga cuts right through our reluctance to stare into this abyss, presenting the initiate with a visceral opportunity to dive into the harsh truth that we carry buried with us in our daily lives. Through an intoxicating spiritual trance, iboga can behave as a semi-automatic, virtual-reality, worse-case-scenario generator of sorts, allowing us to finally see just how disturbed and jaded we’ve become and how thoroughly we are able to cover and conceal our darkness. All the horrors the haunt us from behind the veil of consciousness are finally brought into the light.

Renowned for its ability to cleanse and decalcify the pineal, opening wide the third eye, iboga reaches out to us in crystal clear inner vision, allowing us to see with intense clarity the events, memories and repressed suggestions, that subjugate our goodness and harden the heart.

Highly respected as well for its effective and hasty treatment of PTSD, iboga unlocks the cages within the mind that limit our capacity to see beyond the terrors of being human in these troubling times. Trauma, such as the kind suffered in violence and sexual abuse, is exposed, then rendered powerless in the process of bearing full witness.

Revered for its ability to interrupt addiction to drugs, self-destructive behaviors and toxic thought processes, the medicine offers desperate liberation for those stuck in perpetual conflict with themselves. The highly alkaline shamanic medicine also performs a complete physical and mental detox, leaving in its wake lightness and ease in the body, along with intense mental clarity and focus.

READ: Opiates, Iboga and the Roots of Self-Destruction

Leading Us Home

As an entheogenic plant medicine that permits direct contact and consultation with an ancient earthly and unmistakably benevolent spirit, once the heaviness of our contemporary existence is uncovered and diffused, to complete the journey, iboga reveals its true nature of loving intention to the participant. First expanding the lower, darker ranges of our human experience, it springs us from the traps which bind and hold us back, with the aim of freeing us into the stunning totality of our highest selves.

To do so, it takes us soaring into the vast and limitless cosmos of the self to find, hold council with, seek guidance and forgiveness from, and re-connect with our very own individual soul, as well as the souls of our ancestors, so that we may recapture our personal history, and experience the unconditional love that is the true foundation of being human.

The end result is liberation and enduring happiness.

Home

It is precisely due to this genuinely holistic capacity to heal and enlighten that our rat-race, driven-from-the-top culture has shunned, persecuted and even outlawed the usage of iboga: for the matrix cannot and will not permit freedom of this depth and significance.

The matrix simply cannot have a world full of free-spirited, happy souls, for it is impossible to enslave someone who lives with certainty of their own power and purpose, liberated from fear and loving of the self.

About the Author

Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.

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Obama's EPA caught covering up high heavy metals pollution across U.S. cities as federal government wages multi-faceted WAR against its own citizens

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Tap-Water-Kitchen-Sink.jpg (NaturalNews) Our citizen-powered EPA Watch program has now resulted in the open source publishing of heavy metals contamination tests of 230 municipal water samples across America. The results show that two to three per cent of the U.S. water is highly contaminated with toxic heavy...


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Monday, June 20, 2016

Is Orlando The New 9/11?

ORIGINAL LINK

Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Last week America was rocked by the cold-blooded murder of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Unlike the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Orlando shooter appears to be a lone gunman who, while claiming allegiance to ISIS, was not actually working with a terrorist group. About the only thing Orlando has in common with 9/11 is the way power-hungry politicians and federal officials wasted no time using it to justify expanding government and restricting liberty.

Immediately following the shooting, we began to hear renewed calls for increased government surveillance of Muslims, including spying on Muslim religious services. Although the Orlando shooter was born in the US, some are using the shooting to renew the debate over Muslim immigration. While the government certainly should prevent terrorists from entering the country, singling out individuals for government surveillance and other violations of their rights because of religious faith violates the First Amendment and establishes a dangerous precedent that will be used against other groups. In addition, scapegoating all Muslims because of the act of one deranged individual strengthens groups like ISIS by making it appear that the US government is at war with Islam.

The Orlando shooting is being used to justify mass surveillance and warrantless wiretapping. For the past three years, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Department appropriations bill limiting mass surveillance. But, last week, the same amendment was voted down. The only difference between this year’s debate and previous debates was that this year defenders of the surveillance state were able to claim that the Orlando shooting justifies shredding the Fourth Amendment.

The fact that the Orlando shooter had twice been investigated by the FBI shows that increased surveillance and wiretapping would not have prevented the shooting. Mass surveillance also creates a “needle in a haystack” problem that can make it difficult, or impossible, for law enforcement to identify real threats. Unfortunately, evidence that giving up liberty does not increase security has never deterred those who spread fear to gain support for increased government power.

The Orlando shooter successfully passed several background checks and was a licensed security guard. But, just like those who used Orlando to defend unconstitutional surveillance, authoritarian supporters of gun control are not allowing facts to stand in the way of using the Orlando shooting to advance their agenda. Second Amendment opponents are using Orlando to give the federal government new powers to violate individuals’ rights without due process. One pro-gun control senator actually said that “due process is what’s killing us.”

Ironically, if not surprisingly, one of those calling for new gun control laws is Hillary Clinton. When she was sectary of state, Clinton supported interventions in the Middle East that resulted in ISIS obtaining firearms paid for by US taxpayers!

Mass surveillance, gun control, and other restrictions on our liberty will not prevent future Orlandos. In fact, by preventing law-abiding Americans from defending themselves, gun control laws make us less safe from criminals. Similarly, mass surveillance and warrantless wiretapping erode our rights while making it more difficult for law enforcement to identify real threats.

If Congress really cared about our security and liberty, it would repeal all federal gun laws, end all unconstitutional surveillance, and end the hyper-interventionist foreign policy that causes many around the world to resent the US.



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Feed Me, Pharma: More Evidence That Industry Meals Are Linked to Costlier Prescribing

ORIGINAL LINK

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by Charles Ornstein

Evidence is mounting that doctors who receive as little as one meal from a drug company tend to prescribe more expensive, brand-name medications for common ailments than those who don’t.

A study published online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine found significant evidence that doctors who received meals tied to specific drugs prescribed a higher proportion of those products than their peers. And the more meals they received, the greater share of those drugs they tended to prescribe relative to other medications in the same category.

The researchers did not determine if there was a cause-and-effect relationship between payments and prescribing, a far more difficult proposition, but their study adds to a growing pile of research documenting a link between the two.

A ProPublica story published in March found that doctors who took payments from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries prescribed a higher proportion of brand-name medications than those who didn’t. It also found that the more money a doctor received, the higher the percentage of brand-name drugs he or she prescribed, on average.

Similarly, a Harvard Medical School study published in May found that Massachusetts physicians prescribed a larger proportion of brand-name statins — the category of drugs that treat high cholesterol — the more industry money they received. There was no significant increase in brand-name prescribing for those who received less than $2,000.

What makes the current study different is that it looked at specific drugs.

In an editor’s note, Dr. Robert Steinbrook wrote that the recent analyses “raise a broader question. Is it necessary to prove a causal relationship between industry payments to physicians and the prescribing of brand-name medications?”

Other than for research and development, and related consulting, Steinbrook wrote, “it is already evident that there are few reasons for physicians to have financial associations with industry. Outright gifts, such as meals, may be legal, but why should physicians either expect or accept them?”

Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group, said the latest study creates more confusion than clarity. In part, that’s because the researchers acknowledge that they could not determine whether the drugs were prescribed before or after doctors received meals paid for by companies.

“This study cherry-picks physician prescribing data for a subset of medicines to advance a false narrative,” Campbell wrote in an email. “Manufacturers routinely engage with physicians to share drug safety and efficacy information, new indications for approved medicines and potential side effects of medicines. As the study says, the exchange of this critical information could impact physicians’ prescribing decisions in an effort to improve patient care.”

Since 2013, the government has required all pharmaceutical and medical device makers to publicly report their payments to doctors. The government has released data on transactions from August 2013 to December 2014; data from 2015 is set to be made public next week. Those payments can be searched in ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs tool.

In the study released today, a team led by Colette DeJong at the University of California San Francisco examined four classes of medications, including those that treat high cholesterol, heart rhythm disorders, high blood pressure and depression. The researchers identified one heavily marketed brand-name drug in each class – Crestor, Bystolic, Benicar and Pristiq – for which there are cheaper, equally effective options.

DeJong and her colleagues then looked at physicians who received meals specifically tied to those drugs (companies have to list the products associated with each of their payments) and their 2013 prescriptions in Medicare’s drug program. The researchers excluded physicians who received other types of payments—such as for promotional speaking and consulting–in an effort to isolate any relationship to the meals alone.

Though only a relatively small percent of physicians who prescribed the drugs examined in the study received payments from their makers, those doctors prescribed the drugs more often than other doctors.

Physicians who received meals related to Crestor on four or more days prescribed the drug at almost twice the rate of doctors who received no meals. The difference was even more marked for the other drugs. Physicians who received meals prescribed Bystolic at more than 5 times the rate of their uncompensated peers, Benicar at a rate 4.5 times higher, and Pristiq at a rate 3.4 times higher.

Higher rates of prescribing were also observed when doctors received just a single meal, even after taking into account a physician’s specialty and region of practice.

Dr. R. Adams Dudley, a professor of medicine and health policy at UCSF and one of the study’s authors, said he and his colleagues expected to see “some evidence that doctors were responsive to incentives, what with their being humans and all.”

Still, he said, “I think we were probably surprised that it took so little of a signal and such a low value meal…It has changed our thinking.”

DeJong said the researchers don’t think the meals themselves cause doctors to prescribe more of a drug, but rather the time they spend interacting with drug reps when they drop off those meals.

“There’s really no way that a $10 bagel sandwich can influence a doctor in a gift way,” she said. “We think it represents more reciprocity, the time spent with the drug rep and the fact that the doctor is listening to this 10-minute pitch.”

Dudley suggested that patients talk to their doctors and ask “Is there a generic that’s just as good?”

“Hopefully they can get the doctor off of the prescribing behaviors that we’re observing.”

Deputy data editor Olga Pierce contributed to this report.

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New Monetary Science

ORIGINAL LINK

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Around 150 AD Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria (Ptolemy) wrote perhaps the most significant ancient astronomical text, his Mathematike Syntaxis. Part of its durability was due to Ptolemy’s careful and laborious summation of ancient thought up to that time. Divided into 13 books, it was the last five that added most of his original work. They...

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Anti-Obesity Report Calls for High-Fat Diet Recommendations

ORIGINAL LINK

By Dr. Mercola

The idea that a low-fat diet is the answer if you struggle with weight gain and/or have risk factors for heart disease is a persistent one. For the past 50 years, obesity and heart disease have steadily risen. The question is why? Are dietary fats really to blame?

And if they are, which fats gave rise to these problems? It's unfortunate, but researchers have frequently failed to take into account the fact that not all fats are created equal. Some do harm, while others are vitally important for optimal health.

Even more tragic, harmful and beneficial fats have been confused, leading to a situation where people are encouraged to eat the unhealthy ones and avoid the beneficial ones.

In more recent years, a number of scientists have stepped forward to promote a healthier view of dietary fats. But trying to change public policy is a difficult task that often takes one or more decades.

Anti-Obesity Campaigners Urge Britons to Ditch Low-Fat Diets

The British National Obesity Forum (NOF) and Public Health Collaboration (PHC) report on obesity is a perfect example. The report, which is based on the analysis of 43 studies, warn that the policy to encourage people to eat a low-fat diet is having a "disastrous impact on health."1,2

Calling for an overhaul of official dietary guidelines, which they claim are based on flawed science that has resulted in higher consumption of net carbs and junk food, the report notes that eating healthy fat does not make you fat. According to Reuters:3

"The NOF/PHC report, entitled 'Eat Fat, Cut The Carbs and Avoid Snacking To Reverse Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes' ... said snacking in-between meals is what is making people overweight.

'The role of poor dietary advice has been ignored for too long. Specifically, the 'low fat' and 'lower cholesterol' messages have had unintended disastrous health consequences,' the report said."

According to NOF chairman Dr. David Haslam:4

"As a clinician treating patients all day every day, I quickly realized that guidelines from on high suggesting high carbohydrate, low-fat diets were the universal panacea, were deeply flawed.

Current efforts have failed, the proof being that obesity levels are higher than they have ever been, and show no chance of reducing despite the best efforts of government and scientists."

Key Findings

The key findings of the NOF/PHC report include the following:

Eating fat does not make you fat

High-fat, low-net-carb diets are superior to low-fat, high-net-carb diets for weight loss and heart health.

Calorie counting doesn't work

Calories are not created equal. They have differing metabolic effects depending on their source, so counting calories is useless for successful weight loss.

You cannot outrun a poor diet

Obesity cannot be conquered simply by increasing exercise as obesity is rooted in metabolic dysfunction that leads to abnormal energy partitioning.

Saturated fat does not cause heart disease

Saturated fat and cholesterol has little to do with the development of heart disease, and a new analysis of evidence from 40 years ago does not support restricting saturated fat. 

One of the original researchers was Ancel Keys, Ph.D. — the man who initially proposed the link between saturated fat and heart disease — and it's believed he was largely responsible for suppressing these damning findings, as they don't support his original hypothesis.

Only parts of the trial's results were ever published, leaving out the controversial finding that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oil had NO benefit on mortality.

While vegetable oils lowered total cholesterol levels by 14 percent after one year, this did NOT result in improved health and longevity, which is the conventional belief.

Instead, the research showed that the lower the cholesterol, the higher the risk of dying.

For every 30-point drop in total cholesterol there was a 22 percent increased chance of death. In the 65 and older category, those who received vegetable oil experienced roughly 15 percent more deaths compared to seniors in the saturated fat group.

The vegetable oil also did not result in fewer cases of atherosclerosis or heart attacks.

On the contrary, autopsies revealed that while both groups had similar levels of arterial plaque, 41 percent of the vegetable oil group showed signs of at least one heart attack compared to just 22 percent of those in the saturated fat group.5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

Avoid foods labeled "low-fat" or "low cholesterol"

There's no evidence to suggest avoiding saturated fat or dietary cholesterol reduces heart disease or death from heart disease.

Meal frequency influences your weight

Excessive snacking is a significant contributing factor to obesity. To lose weight, you need to reduce your meal frequency.

I recommend limiting it to two meals per day, either breakfast/lunch or lunch/dinner, within a six- to eight-hour window each day. It's also beneficial to avoid eating at least three hours before bedtime to protect your mitochondrial function.

Commercial influences have corrupted public dietary guidelines

The report accuses the food and beverage industries of manipulating public health organizations and corrupting the dietary guidelines for commercial gain.

Why Public Policy Is so Hard to Change

As in the United States, the U.K. encourages people to eat high amounts of carbohydrates. While high-fiber carbs like vegetables are important for good health, net carbs (total carbs minus fiber; think sugars and starches) really need to be restricted if you want to optimize your health and weight.

The report has not been well received, however. Public Health England's (PHE) chief nutritionist, Alison Tedstone, Ph.D., called the recommendation to eat a high-fat, low-net-carb diet "irresponsible and potentially deadly," while Associate Medical Director for the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Dr. Mike Knapton, said the report was "full of ideas and opinions."13,14

The U.K.'s Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) called the report "a muddled manifesto of sweeping statements, generalizations and speculation,"15 and the British Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO) has gone on record saying it "does not endorse the content of the report as it contradicts current evidence ... "16 

This kind of backlash is to be expected. Rarely if ever is it quick or easy to make course corrections in public policy.

The problem stems from the fact that careers are invested in certain recommendations. Not to mention the fact that government organizations can rarely afford to admit they were wrong, since public trust is at stake. Industry interests are also at play.

Today's diet is a boon to the food industry, as the primary ingredients are far cheaper to produce and have a far greater profit margin than nutrient-dense whole foods. My recent interview with British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra addresses some of these concerns.

Healthy Dietary Fats Actually Promote Burning of Body Fat

Your body can use both carbs and fat for fuel, but they're in no way equal. When your body burns glucose as its primary fuel, it actually inhibits your body's ability to access and burn body fat. With an ever-present supply of carbs, your liver downregulates the entire fat burning process because it's not needed.

So, if you eat the standard American diet, chances are you've radically reduced your ability to burn body fat for fuel. How do you rev up your body's fat-burning engine? Part of the equation is to eat more healthy dietary fats. The other part of the equation is to limit net carbs. Fat is a far preferable fuel for your body as it burns far more efficiently and "cleaner" than carbs.

To effectively burn body fat, you may need as much as 50 to 85 percent of your daily calories to come from beneficial monosaturated and saturated fats, which include:

Olives and olive oil (make sure it's third party-certified, as 80 percent of olive oils are adulterated with vegetable oils. Also avoid cooking with olive oil. Use it cold.)

Coconuts and coconut oil (excellent for cooking as it can withstand higher temperatures without oxidizing)

Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk

Raw nuts, such as macadamia and pecans

Seeds like black sesame, cumin, pumpkin and hemp seeds

Avocados

Grass-fed meats

Lard and tallow (excellent for cooking)

Ghee (clarified butter)

Raw cacao butter

Organic-pastured egg yolks

Animal-based omega-3 fat such as krill oil and small fatty fish like sardines and anchovies

So, while it may sound ironic, eating more fat and fewer net carbs will ultimately help your body to burn more fat. There are other methods that can help you switch over to fat-burning mode too. One reason so many struggle with their weight (aside from eating processed foods in lieu of real foods) is because they rarely if ever skip a meal.

As a result, their bodies have adapted to burning sugar as the primary fuel, which down-regulates enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat. Intermittent fasting can change that. By abstaining from food, your liver runs out of glycogen and then, just like that, starts to use up glycogen stored in your fat cells.

Harmful Dietary Fats to Avoid

Fats can be harmful, but it's important to be specific. For an in-depth review of dietary fats, please see the Weston A. Price Foundation's article, "Saturated Fat Does a Body Good."17 In summary, harmful fats that contribute to heart disease are primarily:

1. Trans fats. By acting as a pro-oxidant, trans fat contributes to oxidative stress that causes cellular damage.

2. Highly refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils (PUFAs, such as peanut, corn and soy oil), which are high in damaged omega-6 and produce toxic oxidation products like cyclic aldehydes when heated.

These oils promote oxidized cholesterol, which becomes destructive when entering into your LDL particles. Additionally, omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, when taken in large amounts, cannot be burned for fuel. Instead, they're incorporated into cellular and mitochondrial membranes where they are highly susceptible to oxidative damage, which damages the metabolic machinery. 

To protect your mitochondrial function, limit PUFAs to less than 10 percent of your daily calories. At higher levels, you will increase the PUFAs concentration in the inner mitochondrial membrane, which makes it far more susceptible to oxidative damage. Also avoid exceeding 5 percent of your daily calories as omega-6 fats.

In comparison, healthy saturated fats such as those found in animal products and coconut oil:

  • Increase your large, fluffy LDL particles that are NOT associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
  • Increase your HDL levels, which is associated with lower heart disease risk. This also compensates for any increase in LDL.
  • Do NOT cause heart disease as made clear in a large number of studies.18,19,20,21,22,23
  • Do not damage as easily as other fats because they do not have double bonds that can be damaged through oxidation.
  • Serves as a "clean-burning fuel" for your brain and mitochondria, producing far less damaging free radicals than sugars and non-fiber carbs.

Diets High in Healthy Fats and Low in Net Carbs Solve Several Problems

Mounting evidence suggests high-fat, low net-carb diets may be the key that many people have been looking for, as it solves more than one problem. Not only does it help you shed excess body fat, it does so while improving metabolism, boosting overall energy levels, lowering inflammation, promoting optimal health and maximizing longevity in a number of different ways. One effective way to optimize your fat-burning system is to:

  • Limit your net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) to a maximum of 30 to 40 grams per day. You can consume as many high-fiber veggies as you like. They're carbs, but since they're high in fiber, they're typically quite low in net carbs.
  • Limit protein to a maximum of 1 gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass.
  • Increase your intake of healthy fats to 50 to 85 percent of your daily calories.

As mentioned, you can kick the entire process up a notch by implementing intermittent fasting, at least for a finite period of time while your body returns to a balanced state. After that, assuming you're still eating right, you'll only need to intermittent fast on a maintenance basis. The fear of healthy dietary fat is actually part of why we're currently struggling with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease of epidemic proportions.





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