Could a virus with a sweet tooth become a weapon against cancer?
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/virus-cancer-sugar-adenovirus
Researchers harnessed a virus’ natural behavior to attack tumors
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How Advertising Shaped the First Opioid Epidemic | Science | Smithsonian
▻https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-advertising-shaped-first-opioid-epidemic-180968444hen historians trace back the roots of today’s opioid epidemic, they often find themselves returning to the wave of addiction that swept the U.S. in the late 19th century. That was when physicians first got their hands on morphine: a truly effective treatment for pain, delivered first by tablet and then by the newly invented hypodermic syringe. With no criminal regulations on morphine, opium or heroin, many of these drugs became the “secret ingredient” in readily available, dubiously effective medicines.
In the 19th century, after all, there was no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the advertising claims of health products. In such a climate, a popular so-called “patent medicine” market flourished. Manufacturers of these nostrums often made misleading claims and kept their full ingredients list and formulas proprietary, though we now know they often contained cocaine, opium, morphine, alcohol and other intoxicants or toxins.
Products like heroin cough drops and cocaine-laced toothache medicine were sold openly and freely over the counter, using colorful advertisements that can be downright shocking to modern eyes. Take this 1885 print ad for Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Teething Children, for instance, showing a mother and her two children looking suspiciously beatific. The morphine content may have helped.
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Purdue Pharma provided physicians with starter coupons that gave patients a free seven to 30-day supply of the drug . The company’s sales force—which more than doubled in size from 1996 to 2000—handed doctors OxyContin-branded swag including fishing hats and plush toys. A music CD was distributed with the title “Get in the Swing with OxyContin.” Prescriptions for OxyContin for non-cancer related pain boomed from 670,000 written in 1997, to 6.2 million in 2002.
But even this aggressive marketing campaign was in many ways just the smoke. The real fire, Alexander argues, was a behind-the-scenes effort to establish a more lax attitude toward prescribing opioid medications generally, one which made regulators and physicians alike more accepting of OxyContin.“When I was in residency training, we were taught that one needn’t worry about the addictive potential of opioids if a patient had true pain,” he says. Physicians were cultivated to overestimate the effectiveness of opioids for treating chronic, non-cancer pain, while underestimating the risks, and Alexander argues this was no accident.
Purdue Pharma funded more than 20,000 educational programs designed to promote the use of opioids for chronic pain other than cancer, and provided financial support for groups such as the American Pain Society. That society, in turn, launched a campaign calling pain “the fifth vital sign,” which helped contribute to the perception there was a medical consensus that opioids were under, not over-prescribed.
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Weedkiller products more toxic than their active ingredient, tests show | US news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/08/weedkiller-tests-monsanto-health-dangers-active-ingredientMike DeVito, acting chief of the National Toxicology Program Laboratory, told the Guardian the agency’s work is ongoing but its early findings are clear on one key point. “We see the formulations are much more toxic. The formulations were killing the cells. The glyphosate really didn’t do it,” DeVito said.
A summary of the NTP work stated that glyphosate formulations decreased human cell “viability”, disrupting cell membranes. Cell viability was “significantly altered” by the formulations, it stated.
Mais, bizarrement,
DeVito said the NTP first-phase results do not mean the formulations are causing cancer or any other disease. While the work does show enhanced toxicity from the formulations, and show they kill human cells, the NTP appears to contradict an IARC finding that glyphosate and/or its formulations induce oxidative stress, one potential pathway toward cancer. The government still must do other testing, including examining any toxic impact on a cell’s genetic material, to help add to the understanding of risks, according to DeVito.
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The Opioid that Made a Fortune for Its Maker — and for Its Prescribers - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/02/magazine/100000005878055.app.htmlFor Insys, Chun was just the right kind of doctor to pursue. In the late 1990s, sales of prescription opioids began a steep climb. But by the time Subsys came to market in 2012, mounting regulatory scrutiny and changing medical opinion were thinning the ranks of prolific opioid prescribers. Chun was one of the holdouts, a true believer in treating pain with narcotics. He operated a busy practice, and 95 percent of the Medicare patients he saw in 2015 had at least one opioid script filled. Chun was also a top prescriber of a small class of painkillers whose active ingredient is fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times as powerful as morphine. Burlakoff’s product was a new entry to that class. On a “target list,” derived from industry data that circulated internally at Insys, Chun was placed at No. 3. The word inside the company for a doctor like Chun was a “whale.”
In the few months since Subsys was introduced, demand was not meeting expectations. Some of the sales staff had already been fired. If Burlakoff and Krane could persuade Chun to become a Subsys loyalist, it would be a coup for them and for the entire company. The drug was so expensive that a single clinic, led by a motivated doctor, could generate millions of dollars in revenue.
Speaker programs are a widely used marketing tool in the pharmaceutical business. Drug makers enlist doctors to give paid talks about the benefits of a product to other potential prescribers, at a clinic or over dinner in a private room at a restaurant. But Krane and some fellow rookie reps were already getting a clear message from Burlakoff, she said, that his idea of a speaker program was something else, and they were concerned: It sounded a lot like a bribery scheme.
But the new reps were right to be worried. The Insys speaker program was central to Insys’ rapid rise as a Wall Street darling, and it was also central to the onslaught of legal troubles that now surround the company. Most notable, seven former top executives, including Burlakoff and the billionaire founder of Insys, John Kapoor, now await trial on racketeering charges in federal court in Boston. The company itself, remarkably, is still operating.
The reporting for this article involved interviews with, among other sources, seven former Insys employees, among them sales managers, sales reps and an insurance-authorization employee, some of whom have testified before a grand jury about what they witnessed. This account also draws on filings from a galaxy of Insys-related litigation: civil suits filed by state attorneys general, whistle-blower and shareholder suits and federal criminal cases. Some are pending, while others have led to settlements, plea deals and guilty verdicts.
The opioid crisis, now the deadliest drug epidemic in American history, has evolved significantly over the course of the last two decades. What began as a sharp rise in prescription-drug overdoses has been eclipsed by a terrifying spike in deaths driven primarily by illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids and heroin, with overall opioid deaths climbing to 42,249 in 2016 from 33,091 in 2015. But prescription drugs and the marketing programs that fuel their sales remain an important contributor to the larger crisis. Heroin accounted for roughly 15,000 of the opioid deaths in 2016, for instance, but as many as four out of five heroin users started out by misusing prescription opioids.
By the time Subsys arrived in 2012, the pharmaceutical industry had been battling authorities for years over its role in promoting the spread of addictive painkillers. The authorities were trying to confine opioids to a select population of pain patients who desperately needed them, but manufacturers were pushing legal boundaries — sometimes to the breaking point — to get their products out to a wider market.
Even as legal penalties accrued, the industry thrived. In 2007, three senior executives of Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in connection with a marketing effort that relied on misrepresenting the dangers of OxyContin, and the company agreed to pay a $600 million settlement. But Purdue continued booking more than $1 billion in annual sales on the drug. In 2008, Cephalon likewise entered a criminal plea and agreed to pay $425 million for promoting an opioid called Actiq and two other drugs “off-label” — that is, for unapproved uses. That did not stop Cephalon from being acquired three years later, for $6.8 billion.
Subsys and Actiq belong to a class of fentanyl products called TIRF drugs. They are approved exclusively for the treatment of “breakthrough” cancer pain — flares of pain that break through the effects of the longer-acting opioids the cancer patient is already taking around the clock. TIRFs are niche products, but the niche can be lucrative because the drugs command such a high price. A single patient can produce six figures of revenue.
Fentanyl is extremely powerful — illicitly manufactured variations, often spiked into heroin or pressed into counterfeit pills, have become the leading killers in the opioid crisis — and regulators have made special efforts to restrict prescription fentanyl products. In 2008, for instance, the F.D.A. rebuffed Cephalon’s application to expand the approved use for a TIRF called Fentora; in the company’s clinical trials, the subjects who did not have cancer demonstrated much more addictive behavior and propensity to substance abuse, which are “rarely seen in clinical trials,” F.D.A. officials concluded. An F.D.A. advisory committee reported that, during the trials, some of the Fentora was stolen. The agency later developed a special protocol for all TIRF drugs that required practitioners to undergo online training and certify that they understood the narrow approved use and the risks.
Despite these government efforts, TIRF drugs were being widely prescribed to patients without cancer. Pain doctors, not oncologists, were the dominant players. This was common knowledge in the industry. Although it is illegal for a manufacturer to promote drugs for off-label use, it is perfectly legal for doctors to prescribe any drug off-label, on their own judgment. This allows drug makers like Insys to use a narrow F.D.A. approval as a “crowbar,” as a former employee put it, to reach a much broader group of people.
That points to a major vulnerability in policing the opioid crisis: Doctors have a great deal of power. The F.D.A. regulates drug makers but not practitioners, who enjoy a wide latitude in prescribing that pharmaceutical companies can easily exploit. A respected doctor who advocates eloquently for wider prescribing can quickly become a “key opinion leader”; invited out on the lucrative lecture circuit. And any doctor who exercises a free hand with opioids can attract a flood of pain patients and income. Fellow doctors rarely blow the whistle, and some state medical boards exercise timid oversight, allowing unethical doctors to continue to operate. An assistant district attorney coping with opioids in upstate New York told me that it’s easy to identify a pill-mill doctor, but “it can take five years to get to that guy.” In the meantime, drug manufacturers are still seeing revenue, and that doctor is still seeing patients, one after another, day after day.
Kapoor believed that he had the best product in its class. All the TIRF drugs — for transmucosal immediate-release fentanyl — deliver fentanyl through the mucous membranes lining the mouth or nose, but the specific method differs from product to product. Actiq, the first TIRF drug, is a lozenge on a stick. Cephalon’s follow-up, Fentora — the branded market leader when Subsys arrived — is a tablet meant to be held in the cheek as it dissolves. Subsys is a spray that the patient applies under the tongue. Spraying a fine mist at the permeable mouth floor makes for a rapid onset of action, trials showed.
Once the F.D.A. gave final approval to Subsys in early 2012, the fate of Insys Therapeutics rested on selling it in the field. The industry still relies heavily on the old-fashioned way of making sales; drug manufacturers blanket the country with representatives who call on prescribers face to face, often coming to develop personal relationships with them over time.
The speaker events themselves were often a sham, as top prescribers and reps have admitted in court. Frequently, they consisted of a nice dinner with the sales rep and perhaps the doctor’s support staff and friends, but no other licensed prescriber in attendance to learn about the drug. One doctor did cocaine in the bathroom of a New York City restaurant at his own event, according to a federal indictment. Some prescribers were paid four figures to “speak” to an audience of zero.
One star rep in Florida, later promoted to upper management, told another rep that when she went in search of potential speakers, she didn’t restrict herself to the top names, because, after all, any doctor can write scripts, and “the company does not give a [expletive] where they come from.” (Some dentists and podiatrists prescribed Subsys.) She looked for people, she said, “that are just going through divorce, or doctors opening up a new clinic, doctors who are procedure-heavy. All those guys are money hungry.” If you float the idea of becoming a paid speaker “and there is a light in their eyes that goes off, you know that’s your guy,” she said. (These remarks, recorded by the rep on the other end of the line, emerged in a later investigation.)
As a result of Insys’s approach to targeting doctors, its potent opioid was prescribed to patients it was never approved to treat — not occasionally, but tens of thousands of times. It is impossible to determine how many Subsys patients, under Kapoor, actually suffered from breakthrough cancer pain, but most estimates in court filings have put the number at roughly 20 percent. According to Iqvia data through September 2016, only 4 percent of all Subsys prescriptions were written by oncologists.
Insys became the year’s best-performing initial public offering, on a gain of over 400 percent. That December, the company disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the Office of the Inspector General at Health and Human Services, an ominous sign. But a CNBC interviewer made no mention of it when he interviewed Babich a few weeks later. Instead he said, “Tell us what it is about Insys that has investors so excited.”
In 2014, the doctors each averaged one prescription for a controlled substance roughly every four minutes, figuring on a 40-hour week. A typical pill mill makes its money from patients paying in cash for their appointments, but Ruan and Couch had a different model: A majority of their scripts were filled at a pharmacy adjacent to their clinic called C&R — for Couch and Ruan — where they took home most of the profits. The pharmacy sold more than $570,000 of Subsys in a single month, according to Perhacs’s criminal plea. Together the two men amassed a collection of 23 luxury cars.
Over dinner, according to the Boston indictment, Kapoor and Babich struck a remarkable agreement with the pharmacists and the doctors, who were operating a clinic rife with opioid addiction among the staff: Insys would ship Subsys directly to C&R Pharmacy. An arrangement like this is “highly unusual” and a “red flag,” according to testimony from a D.E.A. investigator in a related trial. As part of the terms of the deal, the pharmacy would make more money on selling the drug, with no distributor in the loop. And there would be another anticipated benefit for all involved: Everyone could sell more Subsys without triggering an alert to the D.E.A.
The local medical community felt the impact of the raid. Because refills are generally not allowed on controlled substances, patients typically visited the clinic every month. For days, dozens of them lined up outside in the morning, fruitlessly trying to get prescriptions from the remaining staff or at least retrieve their medical records to take elsewhere. But other providers were either booked up or would not take these patients. “Nobody was willing to give the amount of drugs they were on,” a nurse in the city said. Melissa Costello, who heads the emergency room at Mobile Infirmary, said her staff saw a surge of patients from the clinic in the ensuing weeks, at least a hundred, who were going through agonizing withdrawal.
Two months after the raid in Mobile, Insys’ stock reached an all-time high.
Insys itself is still producing Subsys, though sales have fallen considerably. (Overall demand for TIRFs has declined industrywide.) The company is now marketing what it calls the “first and only F.D.A.-approved liquid dronabinol,” a synthetic cannabinoid, and is developing several other new drugs. Some analysts like the look of the company’s pipeline of new drugs and rate the stock a “buy.” In a statement, the company said its new management team consists of “responsible and ethical business leaders” committed to effective compliance. Most of its more than 300 employees are new to the company since 2015, and its sales force is focused on physicians “whose prescribing patterns support our products’ approved indications,” the company said. Insys has ended its speaker program for Subsys.
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Selon les données d’Iqvia jusqu’en septembre 2016, seulement 4% de toutes les prescriptions de Subsys ont été écrites par des oncologues.
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In 2014, the doctors each averaged one prescription for a controlled substance roughly every four minutes, figuring on a 40-hour week. A typical pill mill makes its money from patients paying in cash for their appointments, but Ruan and Couch had a different model: A majority of their scripts were filled at a pharmacy adjacent to their clinic called C&R — for Couch and Ruan — where they took home most of the profits. The pharmacy sold more than $570,000 of Subsys in a single month, according to Perhacs’s criminal plea. Together the two men amassed a collection of 23 luxury cars.
Je relève pour chercher des infos sur les condamnation de ces medecins & pharmatien·nes
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▻http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/37546844/case-study-drs-john-p-couch-and-xiulu-ruanSentence: 20 and 21 years in prison, respectively and owe more than $32 million in restitution to the U.S. government.
Federal agents say that 240 patients died under their care.–—
Ici Kapoor le patron du labo InSys qui vendait le SubSys
▻http://www.14news.com/story/37768286/5-doctors-indicted-for-overprescribing-opioids-for-kickbacks
–—Si j’ai compris le recrutement des medecins préscripteur se faisait par John Kapoor dans des club de strip-tease sous cocaine avec des medecins en instance de divorce pour qu’ils se payent des voitures turgescentes de bitards. Autant de #masculinité concentré c’est remarquable
Et Kapoor à été arrété mais pas encore condamné.
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kapoor -
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@madmeg : en prévision d’un livre sur la famille Sackler à paraître en juillet chez C&F éditions.
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J’ai hate de le lire @hlc
Je prépare de mon coté un dessin sur ce sujet d’ou mon interet pour la famille Sackler et mon epluchage de tes articles sur seenthis. Je met mes trucs ici : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/695685
Je vais y ajouté tes tags si ils n’y sont pas deja–—
sur Kapoor voire aussi ici : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/641068
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/641061 -
@madmeg Yep, j’y travaille... On a essayé d’avoir des illustrations de Nan Goldin, mais elle ne répond pas à nos mails. Dommage.
C’est quoi ces images en préparation ? -
Un patriarche pas mal accessoirisé, sur la base de cette image :
Ca sera un dessin de 140x220 cm environ à l’encre de chine dans le genre de celui là ►http://www.madmeg.org/p24 mais en mieux j’espère.Comme j’ai pas encore commencé et que ton livre sort en juillet ca me semble trop tard pour que je fasse le dessin dans tes délais de publication. C’est bien domage. Je pense qu’il me faut un bon gros mois pour faire ce dessin plus une semaine pour le faire numérisé et j’ai pas mal de déplacements à faire en juin et juillet pour des expos ce qui va ralentir ma production. Je mettrais l’avancement de mon boulot ici ►https://seenthis.net/messages/695685 comme ca tu pourra voire si c’est jouable et si ca te branche. Je risque de faire les sackler en tête de bite sur les 3 chandeliers du premier plan. Et plein de boites d’opioides sur la table. Sur l’affiche je sais pas encore ce que je vais écrire. Et pour le bonhomme il aura une tete d’insecte pas encore choisie et ses médailles de faux-masson seront remplacé par des caducés, logos de labos et ce genre de motifs. Dans les mains je voulait lui mettre un spray de SubSys et un autre de Naxolone.
Je me demande si c’est les mêmes labos qui spéculent aujourd’hui sur la naxolone et si c’est pas encore PURDUE & co.
En tout cas toutes les infos que tu as mises me sont très utile et je lirait ton livre avec grand interet. Vive @seenthis c’est trop bien.
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Hello @hlc j’ai une ou deux questions pour toi. J’espère que je te dérange pas mais comme je suis sur le même sujet que toi et que tu as beaucoup d’avance sur moi, je me pertmet de sollicité ta science. Si d’autres seenthisien·nes ont la réponse ne vous genez pas pour me faire profiter de vos lumières.
J’ai vu que les traitements precrits coutaient dans les 20.000$ par personne et je sais pas comment les gens aux US ont pu se payé ca. Est-ce que c’etait remboursé dans le Obama Care ? Est-ce que c’etait pris en charge par les mutuelles ?
Merci :) -
@madmeg La plupart du temps, les soins sont remboursés par les assurances (pas des mutuelles, on est aux States) ou par Medicare. Un des argument de Purdue est sa soi-disant non-accoutumance, qui justifiait donc un remboursement, ainsi que le message (faux) que deux pilules suffiraient alors que très vite, l’effet diminuant, il en fallait trois ou quatre. Mais si cela se savait, les assurances menaçaient de ne plus rembourser.
Je n’ai pas trouvé le prix. 2000 $, ce serait pour combien de temps ? Source ?
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J’avais retenu 20.000$ mais ca me semblait délirant. Je croi que c’etait dans un article sur Kapoor. Je vais voire si je retrouve.
Merci pour tes réponses @hlc -
C’est ici mais pour SubSys pas Purdue peut être que Purdue est moin cher ; ►https://seenthis.net/messages/641068
Insys a été l’un des premiers bénéficiaires de cette « épidémie ». Son Subsys, un spray sublingual à base de fentanyl, a été autorisé par la FDA, l’agence de santé américaine, en 2012. Malgré son coût – un mois de traitement coûte jusqu’à 20 000 dollars (17 215 euros) –, le médicament a connu un succès immédiat : selon le rapport annuel de la société, les ventes ont connu un pic à 330 millions dollars en 2015, avec une marge supérieure à 90 %. Le vent a commencé à tourner en 2016, avec les premières révélations sur les conditions de prescription du Subsys : les ventes ont chuté de 26 % et l’année s’est achevée par l’arrestation à Boston de six dirigeants de l’entreprise.
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DoD: At least 126 bases report water contaminants linked to #cancer, birth defects
▻https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/04/26/dod-126-bases-report-water-contaminants-harmful-to-infant-developmentThe foam used to put out aircraft fires has been tied to cancers and childhood development issues, and the military is working on developing a replacement.
#eau #APFO #PFOA #etats-unis
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Space-age planet mapping technique could be used to help fight cancer - Manchester Evening News
▻https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/space-age-planet-mapping-technique-14568799
But now scientists at the University of Manchester are putting it to another, more down to earth, use - helping to fight cancer.
Specialists from the university and the Manchester Cancer Research Centre hope the precise number-crunching method - known as a machine learning approach - will help assess the effectiveness of tumour treatments.
Initial findings suggest it could be four times as accurate as conventional techniques at measuring changes in tumours.
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#OGM - Mensonges et vérités
La #controverse entre pro-OGM (organismes génétiquement modifiés) et anti-OGM rend le débat passionnel et parfois incompréhensible. Ce tour d’horizon mondial démêle le vrai du faux, preuves scientifiques à l’appui.
Depuis plus de vingt ans, les OGM (organismes génétiquement modifiés), en particulier les plantes, ne cessent de s’étendre sur la planète, dans le but d’améliorer les rendements de soja, maïs, coton, colza, riz, etc. Dix pays, sur les vingt-huit qui en cultivent, représentent, à eux seuls, 98 % de la superficie mondiale des cultures transgéniques – soit 11 % des terres cultivées –, essentiellement sur le continent américain, le sous-continent indien et en Chine. Aux États-Unis, où les premières plantations de soja transgénique ont été introduites en 1996, les OGM représentent environ 90 % des cultures de soja, de maïs et de coton. Selon leurs défenseurs, ils sont indispensables pour répondre aux besoins d’une population en forte croissance. C’est l’argument du géant du secteur, le semencier américain Monsanto, qui produit aussi le célèbre Roundup, un herbicide total dont la substance active, le glyphosate, épargne les plantes OGM.
▻https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/057483-000-A/ogm-mensonges-et-verites#film #documentaire #reportage #vidéo
#BT #maïs_BT #rentabilité #TH #soja #Roundup #USA #Etats-Unis #monoculture #agriculture #élevage #Argentine #Monsanto #pommes_De_terre #risques #génie_génétique #toxine_BT #pesticides #industrie_agro-alimentaire #glyphosate #herbicide #super_mauvaises_herbes #darwinisme #soja_roundup_ready #atrazin #business #santé #cancer #Mexique #propriété_intellectuelle #brevets #Percy_Schmeiser #sécurité_alimentaire #Ghana #malformation_congénitale #justice #biodiversité#USAID (qui lie #aide_au_développement et utilisation de OGM dans le pays qui va recevoir l’aide)
#Gates_Foundation (qui finance des tests de plantes OGM au Ghana)
#biotechnologie_agricole #coton #Bukina_Faso #coton_BT #Sofitex #rendements #Geocoton #Roundup_Ready_Flex_Cotton #néo-colonialisme
#MON810 #maïs_MON810 #riz_doré #riz #Philippines #golden_rice #Syngenta #technologie #dengue #oxitec #moustiques_transgéniques #AGM #animaux_génétiquement_modifiés
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Une ONG présentée dans le film, au Ghana :
#Food_sovereignty_ghanaFood Sovereignty Ghana is a grass-roots movement of Ghanaians, home and abroad, dedicated to the promotion of food sovereignty in Ghana. Our group believes in the collective control over our collective resources, rather than the control of our resources by multinational corporations and other foreign entities. This movement is a product of Special Brainstorming Session meeting on the 21st of March, 2013, at the Accra Freedom Centre. The meeting was in response to several calls by individuals who have been discussing, writing, or tweeting, about the increasing phenomenon of land grabs, the right to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right, water privatization issues, deforestation, climate change, carbon trading and Africa’s atmospheric space, and in particular, the urgent issue of the introduction of GM food technology into our agriculture, particularly, its implications on food sovereignty, sustainable development, biodiversity, and the integrity of our food and water resources, human and animal health, and our very existence as a politically independent people. These calls insisted that these issues need to be comprehensively addressed in a systematic and an organized manner.
Foremost in these calls was the need for a comprehensive agricultural policy that respects the multi-functional roles played by agriculture in our daily lives, and resists the avaricious calculations behind the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for international agribusiness. The trade in futures or speculation involving food have pushed food prices beyond the reach of almost a billion of people in the world who go to bed, each day, hungry. Even though we have have doubled the amount of food to feed everybody in the world today, people still don’t have access to food. The primary cause of this is the neo-liberal agenda of the imperialists, such as the SAP, EPA, AGOA, TRIPS, AoA, AFSNA, AGRA, which have the focus on marginalising the small family farm agriculture that continues to feed over 80% of Africa and replacing them with governance structures, agreements and practices that depend on and promote unsustainable and inequitable international trade and give power to remote and unaccountable corporations.
We came together in order to help turn a new leaf. We see a concerted effort, over the years, to distort our agriculture to such an extent that today, our very survival as a free and independent people crucially depend on how fast we are able to apply the breaks, and to rather urgently promote policies that focus on food for people, and value our local food providers, the arduous role of the resilient small family farm for thousands of years. We need to resist imperialist policies such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the World Bank and the IMF which rolled away 30 years of gains towards food sovereignty in the 1970s and 80s. Those African countries that graduated from the SAP were subsequently slammed with HIPIC. In all these years, the imperialist countries fortified their agricultural production with heavy government subsidies, as Africa saw the imposition of stringent conditionality removing all government subsidies on our own agriculture. The effect has been a destruction of our local food production capacity and a dependence on corporations for our daily food needs. This has had a devastating effect on Africa’s agriculture, and our ability to feed ourselves.
We believe that a proper analysis of the food crisis is a matter that cannot be left with trade negotiators, investment experts, or agricultural engineers. It is essentially a matter of political economy. As Jean Ziegler succinctly puts it, “Every child who dies of hunger in today’s world has been murdered.” Our Food Under Our Control! is determined to make sure that such a crime becomes impossible in Ghana. Our number one mission is to switch the language from food security to food sovereignty as the goal, to repeat the words food sovereignty at every opportunity and say we don’t want food security, that can still be dependence, we want food sovereignty, we need food sovereignty. This is not the same as “food security”. A country can have food security through food imports. Dependence on food imports is precarious and prone to multiple risks — from price risks, to supply risks, to conditionality risks (policy conditions that come with food imports). Food sovereignty, on the other hand, implies ensuring domestic production and supply of food. It means that the nationals of the country (or at the very least nationals within the region) must primarily be responsible for ensuring that the nation and the region are first and foremost dependent on their own efforts and resources to grow their basic foods.
Aims and objectives:
1. To help promote the people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and to generally ensure the priority of domestic food crops produced by small farms over export crops.
2. To help create mass awareness about the political, economic, health and environmental impacts of genetically modified food technology and defend the right of the people to define their own food and agricultural systems.
3. To help ensure small farms are sustained by state provision and facilitation of necessary infrastructure: Security of land tenure, Water, Financial credit, Energy, Fertilizers, Transport, Storage, Extension service, Marketing, Technology and Equipment for production, harvesting, storage and transport, and Insurance against crop failures due to climate changes, or other unforeseen circumstances.
4. To help resist the theft, destruction, and loss of the Commons, our natural and indigenous resources, by means of laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes, and to generally serve as the watch-dog over all aspects of agricultural sustainability in Ghana.
5. To help protect and preserve public access to and ownership of the Commons: Water, Land, Air, Seeds, Energy, Plants, Animals, and work closely with like-minded local, national, and international organisations in the realization of the foregoing objectives.
▻http://foodsovereigntyghana.org -
Un chercheur, #Damián_Verzeñassi de l’#université_de_Rosario, mentionné il y a une année dans un article de Mediapart :
Argentine : soja transgénique voisine avec maladies
Avia Terai, ville de 10 000 habitants, est exposée aux pulvérisations incessantes sur ses champs de soja et de coton de glyphosate, le composant de base de l’herbicide de Monsanto. Un pesticide que l’Organisation mondiale pour la santé a étiqueté cancérogène en 2015. Ici, des enfants naissent avec des malformations, des troubles neurologiques sévères et le taux de cancer est trois fois plus élevé que la moyenne nationale, selon l’étude du docteur argentin Damián Verzeñassi de l’université de Rosario. De son côté, Monsanto nie catégoriquement l’authenticité de ces études et considère que la #toxicité de son produit phare Roundup n’a pas encore été prouvée.
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/studio/portfolios/argentine-soja-transgenique-voisine-avec-maladies
Le chercheur a fait une étude dans laquelle il montrait un lien entre le glyphosate et le développement de cancer :
“Hay una incidencia del glifosato en los nuevos casos de cáncer”Desde 2010 se hicieron relevamientos en 32 localidades de la región pampeana y se relevaron más de 110 mil personas. Según Verzeñassi, si se encontró en estas localidades, donde se aplicó el modelo productivo con transgénicos a base de agrotóxicos, un pico muy importante de casos de cáncer, hipotiroidismo y abortos espontáneos.
▻https://rosarionuestro.com/hemos-encontrado-un-incremento-en-la-incidencia-del-glifosato-en-los -
#Red_de_Médicos_de_Pueblos_Fumigados (Argentine)
La Red Universitaria de Ambiente y Salud (REDUAS) es una coordinación entre profesionales universitarios, académicos, científicos, miembros de equipos de salud humana en sus distintos niveles y demás estudiosos, preocupados por los efectos deletéreos de la salud humana que genera el ambiente degradado a consecuencias de la actividad productiva humana, especialmente cuando esta se da a gran escala y sustentada en una visión extractivista.
La REDUAS surge como una de las decisiones tomadas en el 1º Encuentro de Médicos de Pueblos Fumigados, realizado en la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba y organizado por el Modulo de Determinantes Sociales de la Salud de la Cátedra de Pediatría y por la Cátedra de Medicina I de dicha Facultad; concretado el 26 y 27 de agosto de 2010
La REDUAS se construye para unir, coordinar y potenciar el trabajo de investigación científica, asistencia sanitaria, análisis epidemiológico y divulgación ,difusión y defensa del derecho a la salud colectiva, que realizan equipos que desarrollan este tipo de actividades en 10 provincias distintas de la Republica Argentina y que se encuentran activados por el problema del daño a la salud que ocasiona la fumigación o aspersión, sistemática de más de 300 millones de litros de plaguicidas sobre casi 12 millones de personas que conviven con los sembradíos de cultivos agroindustriales.
Para avanzar en ese sentido se propone aportar al debate público por la necesidad de construir prácticas productivas que permitan una supervivencia feliz de la especie humana en la superficie terrestre y de la responsabilidad publica, privada, colectiva e individual en el resguardo de esas condiciones ecológicas.
Considerando al derecho a la salud, como uno de los valores sociales que debemos tratar de privilegiar en el análisis de las decisiones políticas y económicas que se toman en nuestra sociedad, creemos necesario ampliar la difusión del conocimiento de los datos científicos que se dispone, y que muchas veces se invisibilizan; aportar a la generación de nuevos datos e informaciones experimentales y observacionales – poblacionales; y potenciar la voz de los equipos de salud, investigadores y pobladores en general afectados en sus derechos por agresiones ambiéntales generadas por practicas productivas ecológicamente agresivas.
▻http://reduas.com.ar
#résistance -
#Madres_de_Ituzaingo_Anexo-Cordoba
▻http://madresdeituzaingoanexo.blogspot.frMadres de #Ituzaingó: 15 años de pelea por el ambiente
En marzo de 2002 salieron a la calle por primera vez para reclamar atención sanitaria ante la cantidad de enfermos en el barrio.Lograron mejorar la zona y alejar las fumigaciones, nuevas normas ambientales y un juicio inédito. Dicen que la lucha continúa. Un juicio histórico
▻http://www.lavoz.com.ar/ciudadanos/madres-de-ituzaingo-15-anos-de-pelea-por-el-ambiente
#Sofia_Gatica -
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Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in #Oaxaca, Mexico
Concerns have been raised about the potential effects of transgenic introductions on the genetic diversity of crop landraces and wild relatives in areas of crop origin and diversification, as this diversity is considered essential for global food security. Direct effects on non-target species1,2, and the possibility of unintentionally transferring traits of ecological relevance onto landraces and wild relatives have also been sources of concern3,4. The degree of genetic connectivity between industrial crops and their progenitors in landraces and wild relatives is a principal determinant of the evolutionary history of crops and agroecosystems throughout the world5,6. Recent introductions of transgenic DNA constructs into agricultural fields provide unique markers to measure such connectivity. For these reasons, the detection of transgenic DNA in crop landraces is of critical importance. Here we report the presence of introgressed transgenic DNA constructs in native maize landraces grown in remote mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico, part of the Mesoamerican centre of origin and diversification of this crop7,8,9.
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Gilles-Éric Séralini, né le 23 août 1960 à Bône en Algérie1, est un biologiste français, professeur de biologie moléculaire à l’université de Caen2. Il est cofondateur, administrateur et membre du conseil scientifique du CRIIGEN3, parrain de l’association Générations Cobayes4 et lanceur d’alerte5. Il est aussi membre du conseil scientifique de The Organic Center6, une association dépendant de l’Organic Trade Association (en)7, « le principal porte-parole du business bio aux États-Unis »8, et parrain de la Fondation d’entreprise Ekibio9.
Il s’est fait notamment connaître du grand public pour ses études sur les OGM et les pesticides, et en particulier en septembre 2012 pour une étude toxicologique portée par le CRIIGEN mettant en doute l’innocuité du maïs génétiquement modifié NK 603 et du Roundup sur la santé de rats10,11. Cette étude, ainsi que les méthodes utilisées pour la médiatiser, ont été l’objet d’importantes controverses, les auteurs étant accusés d’instrumentaliser de la science, ou même suspectés de fraude scientifique12,13. En réalité, les agences de santé européennes et américaines réagissent sur le tard, indiquant les lacunes et faiblesses méthodologiques rédhibitoires de la publication (notamment un groupe de contrôle comportant un nombre d’individus ridiculement bas). Certains dénoncent aussi un manque de déontologie pour s’assurer d’un « coup de communication ». La revue Food and Chemical Toxicology retire l’étude en novembre 2013.
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles-%C3%89ric_S%C3%A9raliniDans le documentaire on parle notamment d’un article qu’il a publié dans la revue « Food and chemical toxicology », que j’ai cherché sur internet... et... suprise suprise... je l’ai trouvé, mais le site de Elsevier dit... « RETRACTED »
Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize
▻https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637Il est par contre dispo sur sci-hub !
▻http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005voici la conclusion :
In conclusion, it was previously known that glyphosate con- sumption in water above authorized limits may provoke hepatic and kidney failures ( EPA ). The results of the study presented here clearly demonstrate that lower levels of complete agricultural gly- phosate herbicide formulations, at concentrations well below offi- cially set safety limits, induce severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic and kidney disturbances. Similarly, disruption of biosynthetic pathways that may result from overexpression of the EPSPS transgene in the GM NK603 maize can give rise to com- parable pathologies that may be linked to abnormal or unbalanced phenolic acids metabolites, or related compounds. Other muta- genic and metabolic effects of the edible GMO cannot be excluded. This will be the subject of future studies, including transgene and glyphosate presence in rat tissues. Reproductive and multigenera- tional studies will also provide novel insights into these problems. This study represents the first detailed documentation of long- term deleterious effects arising from the consumption of a GM R- tolerant maize and of R, the most used herbicide worldwide. Altogether, the significant biochemical disturbances and physi- ological failures documented in this work confirm the pathological effects of these GMO and R treatments in both sexes, with different amplitudes. We propose that agricultural edible GMOs and formu- lated pesticides must be evaluated very carefully by long term studies to measure their potential toxic effects.
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RiskOGM constitue depuis 2010 l’action de recherche du ministère en charge de l’Écologie, du Développement durable et de l’Énergie pour soutenir la structuration d’une communauté scientifique et le développement de connaissances, de méthodes et de pratiques scientifiques utiles à la définition et à la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques sur les OGM.
Le programme s’appuie sur un Conseil Scientifique et sur un Comité d’Orientation qui réunit des parties prenantes.
Les axes de recherche prioritaires identifiés portent sur les plans de surveillance générale des OGM, la coexistence des cultures, la gouvernance, les aspects économiques, éthiques et sociaux ou encore la démarche globale d’analyse de la sécurité des aliments contenant des produits transgéniques,
3 projets en cours ont été soutenus après un 1er appel à proposition fin 2010. Fin 2013, suite à un deuxième appel, le projet (#PGM / #GMO90plus) a été sélectionné et soutenu à hauteur de 2,5 M€. Il vise à une meilleure connaissance des effets potentiels sur la santé de la consommation sur une longue durée de produits issus des plantes génétiquement modifiées.
▻http://recherche-riskogm.fr/fr
#programme_de_rechercheUn projet dont fait partie #Bernard_Salles, rattaché à l’INRA, interviewé dans le documentaire.
Lui, semble clean, contrairement au personnage que je vais un peu après, Pablo Steinberg -
Projet #G-Twyst :
G-TwYST is the acronym for Genetically modified plants Two Year Safety Testing. The project duration is from 21 April 2014 – 20 April 2018.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has developed guidance for the risk assessment of food and feed containing, consisting or produced from genetically modified (GM) plants as well as guidance on conducting repeated-dose 90-day oral toxicity study in rodents on whole food/feed. Nonetheless, the long-term safety assessment of genetically modified (GM) food/feed is a long-standing controversial topic in the European Union. At the present time there are no standardized protocols to study the potential short-, medium- and/or long-term toxicity of GM plants and derived products. Against this backdrop the main objective of the G-TwYST project is to provide guidance on long-term animal feeding studies for GMO risk assessment while at the same time responding to uncertainties raised through the outcomes and reports from recent (long-term) rodent feeding studies with whole GM food/feed.
In order to achieve this, G-TwYST:
Performs rat feeding studies for up to two years with GM maize NK603. This includes 90 day studies for subchronic toxicity, 1 year studies for chronic toxicity as well as 2 year studies for carcinogenicity. The studies will be based on OECD Test Guidelines and executed according to EFSA considerations
Reviews recent and ongoing research relevant to the scope of G-TwYST
Engages with related research projects such as GRACE and GMO90plus
Develops criteria to evaluate the scientific quality of long-term feeding studies
Develops recommendations on the added value of long-term feeding trials in the context of the GMO risk assessment process.
As a complementary activity - investigates into the broader societal issues linked to the controversy on animal studies in GMO risk assessment.
Allows for stakeholder engagement in all key steps of the project in an inclusive and responsive manner.
Provides for utmost transparency of what is done and by whom it is done.G-TwYST is a Collaborative Project of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities. The proposal for G-TwYST was established in reponse to a call for proposals on a two-year carcinogenicity rat feeding study with maize NK603 that was launched by he European Commission in June 2013 (KBBE.2013.3.5-03).
Attention : ce projet semble être sous forte influence des lobbys de l’OGM...
Fait partie de ce projet #Pablo_Steinberg, interviewé dans le documentaire.
Pablo Steinberg est d’origine argentine, il est également le toxicologue du projet « #GRACE : GMO Risk Assessment and communication evidence », financé par l’UE :
GRACE was a project funded under the EU Framework 7 programme and undertaken by a consortium of EU research institutes from June 2012 - November 2015. The project had two key objectives:
I) To provide systematic reviews of the evidence on the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM plants – considering both risks and possible benefits. The results are accessible to the public via an open access database and other channels.
II) GRACE also reconsidered the design, execution and interpretation of results from various types of animal feeding trials and alternative in vitro methods for assessing the safety of GM food and feed.
The Biosafety Group was involved in the construction of the central portal and database (CADIMA; Central Access Database for Impact Assessment of Crop Genetic Improvement Technologies) that managed the information gathered in the pursuit of the two objectives and in the dissemination of information.
▻http://biosafety.icgeb.org/projects/grace
La conférence finale de présentation du projet GRACE a été organisée à Potsdam... un 9 novembre... date-anniversaire de la chute du mur...
Voici ce que #Joachim_Schiemann, coordinateur du projet, dit à cette occasion (je transcris les mots prononcés par Schiemann dans le reportage) :« Nous aussi, avec nos activités, nous essayons d’abattre certains murs et de faire bouger certaines positions qui sont bloquées. Je trouve que c’est très symbolique d’avoir organisé cette conférence à Potsdam, à proximité de Berlin et des vestiges du mur »
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Prof. Potrykus on #Golden_Rice
#Ingo_Potrykus, Professor emeritus at the Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zurich, is one of the world’s most renowned personalities in the fields of agricultural, environmental, and industrial biotechnology, and invented Golden Rice with Peter Beyer. In contrast to usual rice, this one has an increased nutritional value by providing provitamin A. According to WHO, 127 millions of pre-school children worldwide suffer from vitamine A deficiency, causing some 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness every year. This deficiency is responsible for 600,000 deaths among children under the age of 5.
▻https://blog.psiram.com/2013/09/prof-potrykus-on-golden-rice
Ce riz, enrichi de #bêtacarotène pour pallier aux carences de #provitamine_A, a valu, à Monsieur #Potrykus, la couverture du Time, une première pour un botaniste : -
Golden Illusion. The broken promise of GE ’Golden’ rice
GE ’Golden’ rice is a genetically engineered (GE, also called genetically modified, GM) rice variety developed by the biotech industry to produce pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene). Proponents portray GE ’Golden’ rice as a technical, quick-fix solution to Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), a health problem in many developing countries. However, not only is GE ’Golden’ rice an ineffective tool to combat VAD it is also environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and compromises food security.
▻https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Genetic-engineering/Golden-Illusion
#rapport -
#MASIPAG (#Philippines)
MASIPAG a constaté que les paysans qui pratiquent la production agricole biologique gagnent en moyenne environ 100 euros par an de plus que les autres paysans, parce qu’ils ne dépensent pas d’argent dans des fertilisants et pesticides chimiques. Dans le contexte local, cela représente une économie importante. En plus, l’agriculture biologique contribue à un milieu plus sain et à une réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Malgré cela, le gouvernement philippin poursuit une politique ambiguë. En 2010, il a adopté une loi sur la promotion de l’agriculture biologique, mais en même temps il continue à promouvoir les cultures génétiquement modifiées et hybrides nécessitant le recours aux intrants chimiques. La loi actuelle insiste également sur une certification couteuse des produits bio par les tiers, ce qui empêche les #petits_paysans de certifier leurs produits.
▻http://astm.lu/projets-de-solidarite/asie/philipinnes/masipag
#paysannerie #agriculture_biologique -
Le saumon AquAdvantage (#AquAdvantage_salmon® pour les anglophones, parfois résumé en « #AA_Salmon » ou « #AAS ») est le nom commercial d’un saumon transgénique et triploïde1.
Il s’agit d’un saumon atlantique modifié, créé par l’entreprise AquaBounty Technologies (en)2 qui est devenu en mai 2016 le premier poisson génétiquement modifié par transgenèse commercialisé pour des fins alimentaires. Il a obtenu à cette date une autorisation de commercialisation (après son évaluation3) au Canada. En juillet 2017, l’entreprise a annoncé avoir vendu 4,5 tonnes de saumon AquAdvantage à des clients Canadiens qui ont à ce jour gardés leur anonymat4. L’entreprise prévoit de demander des autorisations pour des truites5, des tilapias 5 et de l’omble arctique génétiquement modifiés6.
Selon les dossiers produits par AquaBounty à la FDA, deux gènes de saumons Chinook et deux séquences provenant d’une autre espèce (loquette d’Amérique) ont été introduits7, (information reprise par un article du New-York Times8 et un article scientifique évoquent aussi un gène provenant d’un autre poisson (loquette d’Amérique9). En 2010, AquaBounty, produirait déjà au Canada sur l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard les œufs de poissons destinés à des élevages en bassins enclavés à terre au Panama10 pour des poissons à exporter (alors que l’étiquetage n’est toujours pas obligatoire aux États-Unis)10.
Ce poisson est controversé. Des préoccupations scientifiques et environnementalistes portent sur les risques d’impacts environnementaux à moyen et long terme, plus que sur le risque alimentaire. La FDA a considéré que la modification était équivalente à l’utilisation d’un médicament vétérinaire (hormone de croissance et modification transgénique)11 et a donc utilisé son processus (dit « NADA12 ») d’évaluation vétérinaire. Dans ce cadre, la FDA a conclu que ce poisson ne présentait a priori pas de risques pour la santé, et pouvait être cultivé de manière sûre. Mais en 2013, l’opportunité d’élever un tel poisson reste très contestée13 notamment depuis au moins 1986 concernant les risques qu’il pourrait poser à l’égard de l’environnement14, l’autorisation de mise sur le marché pourrait être à nouveau repoussée15.
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage
#saumon #saumon_transgénique #AquaBounty_TechnologiesAussi appelé...
#FrankenFish -
En Amérique du Nord, l’enjeu premier est celui de l’#étiquettage concernant la présence ou non d’OGM...
A ce sujet, le #documentaire Modifié, de #Aube_Giroux (Canada, 1h27, 2017)
►https://www.modifiedthefilm.com
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The Importance of Diversity in Cartography | Trajectory Magazine
►http://trajectorymagazine.com/importance-diversity-cartographyExploring the meaningful influence of female and minority mapmakers
(...) In nations with less social parity, the information delivered by these humanitarian mapping projects has life-changing implications. Women in Africa, South America, and other parts of the world are often forced to either travel long distances for services such as HIV testing and counseling, cancer screenings, and OB-GYN services, or to forgo those services altogether. Many times, these services are available locally, but are not advertised or marked in existing maps. Accurate, up-to-date maps containing information pertinent to women’s health can prevent deaths or injuries as a result of HIV/AIDS and maternal complications—the top two causes of death globally for women ages 15-44.
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The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Surprising Human Reasons Behind the Collapse
▻http://www.history.com/news/reasons-berlin-wall-fallGreat events do not always have great causes. One of history’s biggest surprises is how sometimes a series of small, seemingly insignificant events can suddenly add up to momentous change.
That’s how it happened with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the point-of-no-return moment in the collapse of the Cold War order. While there were broader historical forces at play, the Wall, a powerful symbol that had separated communist East Berlin from the democratic West for 28 years, would not have opened when and how it did without the last-minute decisions of a secret police officer named Harald Jäger. Struggling with the fear that he was dying of cancer, and angry over insults from higher-ups, he disobeyed direct orders and started letting East Germans through the gate.
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Goldman asks: ’Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’
►https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution.”
“The potential to deliver ’one shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies,” analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. “While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”
(…) “GILD is a case in point, where the success of its hepatitis C franchise has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients,” the analyst wrote. “In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise.”
#économie #recherche #pharma #biens_publics #merci @archiloque
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FDA chief: Cancer treatment comes with ‘financial toxicity’
▻https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/fda-chief-cancer-treatment-comes-with-financial-toxicityThe head of the Food and Drug Administration said far too many patients find themselves in “a financial no-man’s land” because of shouldering the costs of cancer medications.
The comments are the latest attack from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on drug prices and insurers.
“Rising co-pays and co-insurance are pushing far too many patients into a financial no man’s land where sometimes they must literally choose between exhausting their bank accounts, or going without access to potentially effective treatments,” Gottlieb said in prepared remarks for a speech at the 2018 Community Oncology Conference Thursday outside Washington.
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Consumption of ultra-processed foods and #cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort | The BMJ
▻https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k322Firstly, ultra-processed foods often have a higher content of total fat, saturated fat, and added sugar and salt, along with a lower fibre and vitamin density.101112131415161719 Beyond nutritional composition, neoformed #contaminants, some of which have carcinogenic properties (such as #acrylamide, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), are present in heat treated processed food products as a result of the Maillard reaction.20 Secondly, the packaging of ultra-processed foods may contain some materials in contact with food for which carcinogenic and endocrine disruptor properties have been postulated, such as #bisphenol A.21 Finally, ultra-processed foods contain authorised,22 but controversial, food additives such as sodium #nitrite in processed meat or #titanium_dioxide (#TiO2, white food pigment), for which carcinogenicity has been suggested in animal or cellular models.2324
In this large prospective study, a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing (nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neoformed contaminants) in these associations.
#agro_industrie #aliments_transformés #additifs #santé #cancer
Via 60 millions de consommateurs
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The silent cancer refugees crisis – Cancerworld
▻http://cancerworld.net/featured/the-silent-cancer-refugees-crisisRather than the easier to treat communicable diseases that aid workers were dealing with, they now face non-communicable diseases such as diabetes or cancer, which are much more expensive to treat and require a very different skill set and expertise.
“The problem is not with the doctors, but with the healthcare system. In Lebanon, there are limited hospitals that offer treatment for children with cancer. The hospitals are well equipped, but the patients have no financial coverage most of the time”
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Hold Your Tongue and Offer Your Heart Instead
▻https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/hold-your-tongue-and-offer-your-heart-insteadWhen my mom was dying of cancer, I occasionally got messages from well-meaning people who wanted to offer what they thought was valuable information about how mom could cure her cancer. Eat raw...
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Men will live as long as women by 2032 because fewer men are now smoking | Daily Mail Online
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5542909/Men-live-long-women-2032-fewer-men-smoking.htmlMen will live as long as women by 2032 - for the first time since records began.
According to a new report published this week, life expectancy will be the same for both sexes within 15 years.
Rather than facing years of widowhood, a woman who marries at 30 will typically enjoy 58 years and six months with a husband of the same age - just short of a diamond wedding anniversary.
Experts said the biggest reason for the narrowing of the life expectancy gap is the changing levels of smoking between the sexes cigarettes account for about 100,000 deaths a year in the UK from cancer and heart disease.
After the Second World War, more than 80 per cent of men smoked, while female smoking peaked at 40 per cent.
Men have quit the habit faster than women, with both now down to about 16 per cent.
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Mahmoud Abbas’ health deteriorates, and Israel prepares for bloody succession fight -
Head of West Bank’s Palestinian Authority was hospitalized for tests in U.S. at end of February
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-health-of-palestinian-leader-mahmoud-abbas-82-deteriorates-in-rece
Amos Harel Mar 07, 2018
❝In recent months there has been a deterioration in the health of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who will be 83 at the end of the month. Information about his health has been submitted to Israeli political and security officials.
Although the security cooperation between Israel and the PA continues to be managed well, Israel is readying itself for the possibility that a continued worsening of Abbas’ health will intensify the succession wars in the PA and undermine the relative stability that now prevails in the West Bank.
At the end of last month, while he was in the United States to address the UN General Assembly in New York, Abbas was hospitalized for a few hours for tests in a Baltimore hospital. He also underwent tests in a Ramallah hospital last July. In both instances, the PA spokesman issued denials regarding illnesses Abbas supposedly had and insisted that his medical condition was satisfactory. Abbas himself, in an interview with Palestinian television on February 22, said he was in good health.
However, Palestinian activists opposed to Abbas’ regime claim that he’s ill and getting worse. There was even a claim on social media that he was suffering from cancer of the digestive system. This claim was never confirmed.
Some 20 years ago Abbas was operated on for prostate cancer, and the surgery was said to be successful.The PA president has cut down his work hours over the past year. People around him say he seems to be getting more short-tempered and argumentative with his aides and other senior PA officials. Aside from his health and advancing age, Abbas’ behavior seems to indicate that the PA, and his leadership, are facing a crisis.
The main reason is the bad relationship with the Trump administration and the United States clearly positioning itself on Israel’s side with regard to its diplomatic dispute with the Palestinians. This American position is accompanied by other moves that are liable to undermine the Palestinian economy, like pushing the Taylor Force law through Congress (which limits American aid to the PA because of its financial support for imprisoned terrorists and their families) and the plan to reduce support for UNRWA, the United Nations’ refugee agency.
At Abbas’ orders, the PA security agencies are continuing to closely coordinate with the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service, and they are regularly assisting in the rescue of Israelis who stray into Area A, which is under PA control. In closed forums with foreign diplomats, senior PA officials admit that the IDF is showing restraint in the West Bank and its approach is preventing violent flare-ups.
But as Abbas’ health gets worse, the battle among the many contenders hoping to succeed him will intensify. There are nearly 10 Palestinian politicians and security officials who see themselves worthy of the job, and there could be temporary alliances formed between some of them in an effort to win the leadership of PA. Israel is concerned about the instability that could ensue the closer the end of Abbas’ tenure seems – and is concerned that the internal tension will impact the degree to which the PA security services will work to prevent attacks on the IDF and Israeli civilians in the West Bank. -
Ex-GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines passes away
▻https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-05-ex-gamestop-ceo-j-paul-raines-passes-awayRecently resigned executive lost after recurrence of cancer
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Could heat improve the immune system’s response to cancer?
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/immune-system-cancer-defense-immunotherapyScientists are applying old ideas in more inexpensive and precise ways
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Scientists want to harness our microbiomes for cancer treatments
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/bacteria-cancer-link-immune-system-antibioticsMicrobes’ fight for survival can help cancers thrive or help us treat it
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BRCA genes are more complicated than most people think
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/brca-genes-breast-cancer-dna-repairGenes long considered risk factors are about much more than cancer: they do DNA repair
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Palestinian prisoner dies of cancer in Israeli prison
an. 20, 2018 5:15 P.M. (Updated: Jan. 20, 2018 5:15 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=779770NABLUS (Ma’an) — A Palestinian prisoner died on Saturday while in Israeli custody after battle with cancer.
Hussein Husni Atallah, 57, from the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus, died while inside Israel’s Ramla prison.
Atallah’s son, Muhammad, told Ma’an that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officially informed the family of the news after a severe deterioration in his health.
Muhammad Atallah added that his father was sentenced to 35 years in prison and had served 23 of them.
According to Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer, as of December, there were 6,171 Palestinians being held in Israeli prison, 479 of whom were serving a sentence longer than 20 years.
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Dispatch from Tehran | Warscapes
▻http://www.warscapes.com/blog/dispatch-tehran#undefined.uxfsThe historical residue of abrupt revolutions and precarious state identities has done little to subdue popular discontent. A significant number of Iranians believe either one historical narrative or the other, resulting in a deep and dangerous political division in society. The resultant political conversations are held in people’s dining rooms and bedrooms. Consistently, the Shah’s era is presented by those opposing the current regime as a golden age of Iran, when people were free, had better rights and access to jobs. And suddenly in private conversations too, people’s anger has swelled to a level where they will even throw themselves behind an obsolete idea of an historically glorious Persian monarchy and are not in a mood to acknowledge that the former Shah was, too, an authoritarian dictator. They choose not to remember that the Shah also had a terrible record of dealing with the opposition, forgetting, for example, the Jaleh square massacre which left eighty two people dead. How could he be thought as better on economic or human rights? But soon I figured out that people are using these discourses only to point at deeper crises.
A few days ago, protests against the government of President Rouhani, which originated in the city of Mashhad, were hijacked by anarchic groups of local people to challenge the entire clerical rule. Yesterday evening when my English student came over for her lessons, we got into a conversation about the protests and the people most affected by economic instability. What she told me got me thinking about the complexity of Iran’s broken economy. She said “the reason you don’t see poor people in the streets is because they are clothed and provided for by the people themselves.” In this very neighborhood, stories are rife about people’s economic distress.
Very recently a young woman in her thirties lost her husband and was left with a six year old son and her elderly mother and soon after she was diagnosed with cancer. The government did nothing to help. The woman’s neighbors raised money to provide for her family including covering rent during her prolonged illness. When she passed away, neighbors were left with her son and old aged mother who they could not shun. They ended up buying a house for the family, an extraordinary gesture.
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The Israeli Sports Minister Is Using the NBA to Further an Anti-Palestine PR Campaign
The NBA in fact was shocked by Regev’s PR offensive. It may have been particularly disturbing for the league offices because Regev is best known for whipping up hatred against African migrants, calling them “a cancer” in 2012. She has also been accused of whipping up violence against these impoverished refugees. The NBA not only does a great deal of work in Africa, and it not only has several star players from the African continent, but their brightest young star is arguably Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was born to Nigerian migrants in Greece, where African immigrants have become the targets of Greek fascists exploiting the global refugee crisis—like Regev and Trump—to achieve political power.
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/the-israeli-sports-minister-is-using-the-nba-to-further-an-anti-palestine
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Australian film ‘Stone Cold Justice’ on Israel’s torture of Palestinian children on Vimeo
▻https://vimeo.com/86575949Il y a 4 ans
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Nice Palywood fake news.
What about the reality on the ground ? :
–> ▻http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23904/Default.aspx?article=related_storiesIsrael, and in particular Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, is joining forces with Christians in Australia to provide life-giving medical care to Palestinian Arab children.
Project Rozana is a collaboration between Hadassah Australia, Anglican Overseas Aid and Hadassah Hospital, which has two locations in Jerusalem. The project has the full support and assistance of the Palestinian Authority health minister.
The project was inspired by the recent case of 5-year-old Rozana Ghannam, a Palestinian girl from Ramallah. About a year ago, Rozana fell out the window of her 9th-floor apartment.
“I didn’t expect that Rozana was still alive. I was shouting and weeping, asking anybody to help,” wrote Rozana’s mother, Maysa Ghannam, in a statement read aloud at the launch of Project Rozana in Melbourne, Australia.
Naturally, first responders wanted to take little Rozana to nearby Ramallah Hospital. But her mother refused, insisting that the broken little girl be rushed to Hadassah Hospital, widely regarded as one of the finest medical facilities in the region.
Doctors at Hadassah were indeed able to save little Rozana’s life. “Rozana is now a miracle of life, a Palestinian girl who returned to life at the hands of doctors - Jews and Arabs,” wrote her mother.
Those behind project Rozana, including the Israeli Foreign Ministry, hope via Jewish and Christian outreach arms in Australia to raise at least $500,000 a year. The entirety of the funds will be used to cover the treatment of Palestinian Arab children at Hadassah Hospital, as well as to provide training to Palestinian doctors and specialists.
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–> ▻http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9049Official PA daily acknowledges
Israeli hospital’s medical care
for Palestinian children and training of doctorsby Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
The official PA daily reported on a visit by the PA Minister of Health, Hani Abdeen, to Israel’s Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. The daily noted that 30% of the child patients in Hadassah are Palestinians and that the Israeli hospital is training “60 Palestinian medical interns and specialist physicians who will be returning to the [Palestinian] Authority areas to carry out their work.” The hospital has a special program to train Palestinian doctors to treat cancer among children, reported the PA daily.
The following is the report:
“[PA] Minister of Health, Hani Abdeen visited the [Israeli] Hadassah Hospital yesterday [May 5, 2013]. This is the first visit by a Palestinian minister to one of the most important Israeli hospitals, according to the hospital’s announcement.
Minister Abdeen who was accompanied by a delegation that included senior officials of the ministry and of the PA, met with the Director of Ein Karem Hadassah Hospital, Yuval Weiss. He [the minister] visited Palestinian patients being treated in the hospital, and he distributed gifts. [Hospital director] Weiss said: ’We relate to patients without regard to nationality and religion. We treat Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other nationalities without bias, and 30% of the patients who are children are Palestinians.’
He went on to say: ’We’ve begun cooperating with the Palestinians. We now train teams of physicians from the hospital in Beit Jala in the southern West Bank, to treat cancer among children. We have about 60 Palestinian medical interns and specialist physicians who will be returning to the [Palestinian] Authority areas to carry out their work.’”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 6, 2013]
This article documenting Israel’s medical care for Palestinian children is a change from common PA accusations that Israel intentionally tries to hurt Palestinians, for example by spreading drugs intentionally among Palestinian youth.
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What Needs to Change in Cancer Treatment for Young Adults - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/what-needs-to-change-in-cancer-treatment-for-young-adultsFor a while, oncologists didn’t get it. Many were, both during and after these young patients’ treatment, often oblivious to and ill-equipped to meet their needs.Photograph by U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Peter DeanI treated an inspiring teenage girl in my clinic the other day. Although Sadie has made a complete recovery from her liver cancer and bears no physical scars from the treatment, anxiety and depression followed her through childhood and adolescence. Last year, I introduced her to our local support group for these adolescent young-adults patients, 13thirty Cancer Connect, and she’s blossomed. She hangs out at their local center weekly, has countless new friends, all of whom had or have cancer, and goes on field trips and other programs with them. Her comfort in her own skin (...)
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Cancer medicines shortages in Europe, 2017
▻http://www.eiu.com/graphics/marketing/pdf/ESMO-Cancer-medicines-shortages.pdfA report by The Economist Intelligence Unit
Supported by the European Society for Medical Oncology
Cancer medicines shortages in Europe
Policy recommendations to prevent and manage shortages
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