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Many of the articles below refer to vital reference material in various Blaylock Wellness Reports. Remember that if you sign up for any one of the newsletters, you will have access to all of Dr. Blaylock’s Wellness Reports - a value of over $100. To get his latest report and all archives Go Here Now.

1. Nutrasweet Linked to Leukemia

A new study has linked the popular artificial sweetener aspartame - “Nutrasweet” - to leukemia in rats.

As readers of the Blaylock Wellness report know, Dr. Blaylock has warned about the very dangerous effects, he says are linked to several brain diseases and other maladies. [For info Go Here Now]

The European Journal of Clinical Oncology study, carried out at the Cancer Research Centre in Bologna, Italy, found that many 8-week-old female rats fed varying concentrations of aspartame developed leukemia or lymphoma. The risk increased with the size of the dose.

The researchers said the study raises concerns and “urgent re-examination” of aspartame’s safety is needed, “especially to protect children.”

But they pointed out that it was unlikely the sweetener was harmful to humans to the same extent as to rats.

And Dr. Elaine Vickers, cancer information officer at Cancer Research in Britain, said: “If a risk to humans does exist, it will almost certainly be very small.”

The European Food Safety Authority has set an Acceptable Daily Intake, or ADI, for aspartame. An adult would have to consume 14 cans of a sugar-free drink every day to reach the ADI, if the sweetener was used in the drink at the maximum allowable level.

Editor’s Note:

• Read Dr. Blaylock’s report detailing the effects of Nutrasweet - Go Here Now.
• Also read how omega-3 fatty acids can help protect you from Nutrasweet’s effects - Go Here Now.

Harvard University is investigating an allegation that a dentistry professor downplayed research showing an increased risk of bone cancer for boys who drink fluoridated tap water.

Chester Douglass, who heads Harvard's Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology, received a $1.3 million grant in 1992 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to conduct a study of fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

Douglass' 1992-1999 study found that the odds of having osteosarcoma after drinking fluoridated water were "not statistically different" from those who drank non-fluoridated water.

But Elise Bassin, a doctoral student who Douglass supervised, reported in her 2001 thesis that boys who drink fluoridated water appear to have an increased risk of developing the bone cancer. Her findings were based on some of the same people used in Douglass' study.

The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., filed an ethics complaint against Douglass last month after discovering that Douglass cited Bassin's research in his final grant report. In it, he said her work supported his claim that there was no significant risk from fluoridated water, even though Bassin had found a strong link between fluoride levels in tap water and an increased osteosarcoma risk for boys.

Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the environmental group, also said there is a conflict of interest between Douglass' research and his position as editor-in-chief of The Colgate Oral Health Report, a quarterly newsletter funded by Colgate-Palmolive Co., which makes fluoridated toothpaste.

"It's safe to say that he appears to be one of the leading members of the fluoride apologists group of scientists," Wiles said. "Clearly, the fluoride-using industry, the dental industry, has an interest in the image of fluoride as being a healthy, good thing."

A woman who answered the phone on Wednesday at Douglass' office said he was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Harvard Medical School spokesman John Lacey said the school will work with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to review Douglass' research.

"The Harvard School of Dental Medicine takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and has a standard system for reviewing allegations of research impropriety. The school is assembling an inquiry committee to review the questions raised concerning the reporting of this work," the school said in a statement.

Christine Bruske, a spokeswoman for NIEHS, said the institute is reviewing the letter it received from the Environmental Working Group alleging "scientific misconduct" by Douglass.

Bassin declined to comment when reached at her home Wednesday.

Her thesis has not yet been published and is not available to the public. The environmental group, which obtained Bassin's thesis, cited excerpts in a letter to sent to Douglass last month.

"Among males, exposure to fluoride at or above the target level was associated with an increased risk of developing osteosarcoma," Bassin wrote. "The association was most apparent between ages 5-10 with a peak at 6 to 8 years of age."

Douglass' study looked at men and woman of all different ages who drank fluoridated tap water. Bassin looked at the boys and girls used in Douglass' study and verified fluoride levels in tap water for each year of the child's life.

"She found the strongest association ever between fluoridated tape water and bone cancer among boys," said Wiles.

Fluoridation of tap water in the United States began in the 1950s and was seen as an effective way to fight tooth decay.

Controversy over the practice began to grow in the 1970s after a study found a high incident in bone structure defects in Newburgh, N.Y., one of the first communities in the country to fluoridate its water, when compared with the rate in the non-fluoridated town of Kingston, N.Y.

A study completed in 1991 by the U.S. Public Health Service found that the rates of osteosarcoma were significantly higher among males under 20 who lived in fluoridated communities than in communities with non-fluoridated water.

Several other major studies have reached the opposite conclusion, including a 1995 study by the New York State Department of Health that found fluoride exposure does not increase the risk for childhood osteosarcoma.

Wiles said the Environmental Working Group is not opposed to fluoridated toothpaste because most of the fluoride in toothpaste has contact with the teeth and is not ingested. He said when fluoride is ingested through tap water, it can stimulate growth at the end of bones, where osteosarcoma occurs.

"I think the industry realizes that the public may not make the distinction," Wiles said. If fluoride gets a big black eye in tap water then the public is going to wonder about this fluoride in my toothpaste."
© 2005 The Associated Press

Editor’s Note:

• Read Dr. Blaylock’s report “Why Fluoride Is Toxic” - and its dangers to people of all ages - Go Here Now
  

3. New Questions About Heart Surgery

Doctors are increasingly questioning whether heart bypass surgery and angioplasty actually prolong patients’ lives.

Clinical trials have shown that bypass surgery extends life or prevents heart attacks in only a small percentage of patients - those with severe heart disease.

And studies of angioplasty reveal that it reduces deaths mainly in emergencies, for people in the throes of a heart attack.

In a stunning pronouncement, Dr. Nortin M. Hadler, professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and author of “The Last Well Person,” declared that bypass surgery “should have been relegated to the archives 15 years ago.

“The overwhelming number of heart procedures done these days do not affect patients’ life span at all.”

Cardiac surgeons by and large dispute that view.

But with doctors performing “about 400,000 bypass surgeries and 1 million angioplasties a year - part of a heart-surgery industry worth an estimated $100 billion a year - the question of whether these operations are overused has enormous medical and economic implications,” according to Business Week.

The debate over heart surgery is just part of an overall controversy regarding medical procedures in general, with many health care experts saying that too many operations are being performed in the U.S.

When Dr. Elliott S. Fisher, professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, compared two regions of the country, he expected to find that the region where medical spending was 1½ to 2 times as high as the other would have better health.

The opposite was true.

“Patients have a substantial increased risk of death if cared for in the high-cost systems,” he said.

Additional physician visits and testing often lead to unnecessary procedures and hospitalizations, which carry risks, Dr. Fisher explained.

“My data suggest that we are wasting 30 percent of health-care spending on stuff with no benefit and perhaps causing harm.”

In the case of angioplasty, new evidence helps explain why the procedure doesn’t reduce the risk of heart attack.

Formerly it was believed that the slow accumulation of plaque inside arteries gradually narrows the vessels, reducing blood flow, causing angina - and eventually, a heart attack. Angioplasty opens these narrowed arteries.

Now, however, it’s thought that the real culprit is unstable plaque that breaks off and causes clots. The clots obstruct the arteries and bring about a heart attack.

“There is no evidence that opening chronically narrowed arteries reduces the risk of heart attack,” Dr. David Waters, chief of cardiology at the University of California at San Francisco, told Business Week.

There’s no doubt that bypass surgery and angioplasty relieve angina symptoms, and that can be a significant benefit.

But both procedures carry risks. Patients face a 1 to 2 percent chance of dying during a bypass operation, and complications such as strokes, blood clots and memory loss are not uncommon.

Patients undergoing angioplasty can suffer a heart attack during the procedure, and symptoms can reappear after a few years.

As many as 400,000 of the angioplasties done in the U.S. each year may be medically unwarranted, according to Dr. Roger J. Laham, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The bottom line, he said: “I’m sure we are way overtreating our patients.”

Editor's Note:

• Cure your heart disease before a doctor says you need heart surgery - read “The Heart Saver” - Go Here Now

4.  JAMA: Doctors Order Unnecessary Tests

More than 9 out of 10 doctors surveyed admit that they practice some form of "defensive medicine” - ordering unnecessary tests or jettisoning potentially troublesome patients to head off malpractice lawsuits.

The survey of 824 Pennsylvania physicians in six high-risk specialty practices, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found:

• Almost 60 percent said they often ordered more diagnostic tests than necessary. 
• 52 percent referred patients to other specialists even when the referral was unnecessary. 
• About 42 percent said concerns about malpractice lawsuits had forced them to restrict some practices - eliminating procedures prone to complications, such as trauma surgery, or avoiding patients with complex medical problems or those who appeared litigious. 
• When asked to cite their most recent defensive act, more than half of emergency physicians, orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons mentioned ordering an unnecessary imaging procedure - a CT, MRI or X-ray they didn’t believe was necessary. 
• Women may suffer more than men from the effects of defensive medicine, because doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology said they sometimes limited obstetric care and some radiologists reported that they had stopped reading mammograms. 
• Overall, 93 percent of doctors surveyed said they practiced defensive medicine.

"Defensive medicine is part of the social cost of a medical malpractice crisis," according to the researchers who conducted the survey. [Editor’s note: C-Reactive Protein is a test more critical than cholesterol and doctors rarely give it - more info here]

"Ordering costly imaging studies seems merely wasteful, but other defensive behaviors may reduce access to care and even pose risks of physical harm to patients."

A second study published in JAMA found that states enacting malpractice reforms, particularly caps on damages in lawsuits, showed a larger increase in the number of physicians than those states not enacting reforms.

"It is clear that both physicians and patients are victims of a seriously flawed malpractice system," Dr. William M. Sage, a law professor at Columbia University and director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"In particular, the process of airing and resolving claims through litigation is destructive for all concerned, while the market and regulatory dynamics of malpractice insurance drive premiums into crisis cycles with pernicious consequences."

According to JAMA, efforts to reduce defensive medicine should include educating patients and doctors regarding appropriate care in situations that often prompt defensive medicine, developing guidelines that target common defensive practices, and reducing the financial vulnerability of doctors in high-risk specialties.

Editor’s Note:

• Doctors order you to take unnecessary tests, but the most important tests they never give you. Make sure you read about the secret health exams your doctor doesn’t tell you about - Go Here Now