CMA: Obama Admin Should Prioritize Curing Patients, Not Fighting Research Ruling

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 /Standard Newswire/ — Since the Obama administration has now filed a challenge to the federal court ruling that the administration likely violated the law by funding embryo-destroying research, the Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org), a party to the original lawsuit that led to the preliminary injunction against the administration, today stated that politics and greed have driven grants toward embryonic stem cell research — not a rational strategy to develop cures.

“The Obama administration should prioritize curing patients — not fighting the court ruling that has stopped their illegal funding of embryonic stem cell research,” said CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens. “The irrational insistence on diverting hundreds of millions of federal dollars away from proven sources of cures and toward speculative embryonic stem cell research has been driven by a political calculus and by a tax-dollar-dependent research community — not by a medical calculus that prioritizes real treatments for real patients.

“Some researchers would have us believe, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, that somehow embryonic stem cells, which are incredibly unstable and form tumors, are actually the path to cures. But consider the source of such claims. The researchers making these claims are indelibly stamped with bias, since they depend government on federal grants to fund their labs and research.

“Consider also that some of the most prominent academic institutions — Stanford, the University of Wisconsin and Harvard University — actually hold patents on embryonic stem cell lines. They have focused on embryonic stem cell research not as a purely scientific endeavor, but also as a way to make money. Any medical journal would require them to state this conflict of interest when publishing an article about their research claims, but their allies in Washington never bother to note this self interest and bias, and the media seldom report it.

“Embryonic stem cell research is a long and difficult scientific path that could take decades to produce any useable results. Even in that unlikely event, cures would be too expensive for most patients. That is why savvy private investors are not putting money into speculation on such research.

“The administration should focus our tax dollars on the quickest, surest path to cures. We are already seeing tremendous, proven results with stem cells that do not involve destroying an embryo. There are 1,970 clinical trials with patients underway with adult stem cells, compared to only one with embryonic stem cells, and that one is highly controversial due to patient safety concerns. Over 80 diseases are being treated using adult stem cells, and more are being added. Induced pluripotent stem cells don’t involve the destruction of human beings, are readily available, cheaper to use and tissue-match the patients.

A Rasmussen Poll released on Friday August 27, 2010, reveals that “only 33% of U.S. voters believe that taxpayer money should be spent on embryonic stem cell research” and 57% of those polled OPPOSE taxpayer funding for controversial stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos.

Dr. Stevens asserted, “Lets put our federal research dollars where we can get real cures real fast. Let’s advance ethical stem cell research without using human embryos as lab rats.”

Standard Newswire

New Report on Teens Contradicts Planned Parenthood Propaganda

Washington, DC (09 July 2010) – The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a new study last month showing that most teens are virgins – contrary to propaganda disseminated by sex-education giant Planned Parenthood.

“This study has huge significance for our nation’s public and even private schools – many of whom have been regurgitating Planned Parenthood’s dangerously inaccurate sex-education curriculum,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League.

In the 2006-2008 period, 58 percent of never-married teen girls and 57 percent of never-married teen boys between the ages of 15 and 19 reported that they had never had sexual intercourse.

The numbers did not substantially change since a similar report was released in 2002. The reason most often cited for abstaining was that it is “against religion or morals.”

Entitled Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Child Bearing, National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the report debunks Planned Parenthood’s constant mantra that most teens will not abstain. This ideology is illustrated by the words of Planned Parenthood Federation of America vice president of medical affairs, Vanessa Cullins, from a YouTube video directed toward teens: “…admit that you are a sexually active individual like most of us, and that you are going to have sex and that you need to take precautions in order to stay healthy.”

The report builds a solid case against Planned Parenthood’s promotion of sex education devoid of morality or religious influence – except for secular humanism espoused by Planned Parenthood.

The report also revealed that “the vast majority of never married teenagers had not had intercourse in the month before the survey (76% of females and 79% of males, unchanged from 2002.)”

The number of “sexually experienced” teens peaked in 1988 at 51%. The steady decline in sexually active teens coincides with the popularity and availability of abstinence education in the 1990s and into the 2000s.

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Teenagers in the United States:Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, National Survey of Family Growth (June 2010)

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_030.pdf

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Salted Popcorn Soon to Be a Federal Offense?

By Tom DeWeese

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is planning an assault on salt. The government intends to set regulations to limit the use of salt intake by Americans. The regulations would set “legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.”

Of course, the excuse is “protection” of the health of the American people. Say the feds, limiting salt would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease.

In a complicated process, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads, and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market.

The main culprits behind the effort to have the FDA regulate salt is the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which has led a fight against salt for 30 years. CSPI wants the FDA to revoke salt’s GRAS statue (Generally Recognized As Safe).

CSPI is the undisputed leader among the food police. It has launched an all out campaign against the eating habits of Americans, attacking Italian, Chinese, fast foods, soft drinks, French fries, extra cheese pizza, and almost anything else that tastes good. You might guess that Michael Jacobson, the head of CSPI, is a rabid Vegetarian, horrified by nearly anything man chooses to eat.

CSPI calls for taxes on foods with fat, sugar, and sodium (called the “Twinkie Tax”). They want government-mandated warning labels on high-fat, high-calorie menu items. They advocate that broadcasters be required to give free “equal time” to government-advertisements of “healthy” foods every time Burger King runs an ad. They want warning labels of contamination from fresh, unpasteurized juices. And they constantly threaten restaurants with legal action over nutritional labeling. CSPI opposed consumption of animals (no meat or fish) and all of their byproducts, including cheese, milk, and ice cream. They oppose any consumption of alcohol, calling for hefty increases in beer taxes, even restrictions on adults, and poster size warning labels in restaurants. All of that action, of course, serves only to drive up the cost of food while robbing Americans of a freedom to choose what they eat.

CSPI has attacked nearly every food product on Earth, begging the question, “What’s left to eat.” Jacobsen suggests a sandwich of lettuce and bread – but be careful, because the bread has salt in it and the lettuce may have been sprayed with chemicals. In fact, he advises a near starvation diet of not much more than potatoes and carrots (don’t over indulge in them). And he says, the American public cannot be trusted to make their own choices, so he must do it for them.

Now salt has become the main target in CSPI’s war against eating. And it has bombarded the FDA relentlessly with demands to revoke salt’s GRAS, to the point it is now moving to invoke government-mandated blandness, controlling our ability to decide if we like our food a little more tasty or not.

Like Obama’s health care mess, the attacks against salt use and its imagined dangers are both wrong and unpopular. According to scientific research, something rarely used in CSPI’s attacks, salt is not a danger. Research from UC-Davis last fall found that “our bodies naturally regulate the amount of salt we take in,” making government intervention pointless. In recent Rasmussen survey, just 33% of Americans think the government should set limits on salt we can eat. 55% say NO. The Wall Street Journal said meddling in salt is “an illegitimate form of government intervention” parading as paternalism “run amok.”

What will result, if the FDA takes away salt’s GRAS status, is a rampage of law suits by the food police. Whole industries will be destroyed. The government will set regulations for how much salt we can use in everything we eat. And so the American people will be even less free to decide for themselves.

There is one more point that must be considered in why the government is moving now to control salt. Obamacare. Now that the government has appointed itself as our caregiver, it has to watch the bottom line on expenses. Remember when members of congress denied as absurd, charges that Obamacare would lead to rationing? Well, this is how it will be done. If they believe salt causes health problems, then it must be stopped – to cut costs and protect the people. That, of course, is the reason the government enforced seat belt laws – because people getting hurt in accidents cost government money for rescue services, 911 operators and emergency room services. Since government foots the bill for that in the name of the taxpayers, you have to toe the line and buckle up. It’s the same with salt bans.

So, will the government send agents to confiscate the salt shakers? Will we have to send in an application for permission to salt our pop corn? Or will we call the FDA in mass and say “get the hell out of my life!” You better decide quickly, before we can’t even work in the salt mines to survive the ravages of Big Brother.

Fewer Than One in 10 Women Believe Premarital Sex is Wrong

Canada.com has a story today that illustrates how thoroughly the West has lost any vestige of Christian morals. It’s interesting that the only book cited in the article as having a positive impact on young girls regarding premarital sex is the vampire series, Twilight. The Bible didn’t make the cut. What a profound statement about the loss of Christians as salt and light in the West.

Fewer than one in 10 Canadian brides-to-be believes in abstaining from sex until their wedding night, despite a “save yourself” drumbeat that in recent years has reverberated through everything from school programs to pop-culture phenols such as Twilight and Glee.

The 1,241-person survey, published this month by Canada’s Weddingbells magazine, reveals that only eight per cent of engaged women agree with the statement “sex before marriage is not a good idea,” with just four per cent saying they feel strongly about it.

Researchers say the findings suggest perceptions of virginity are finally aligning with the reality of what’s been happening behind bedroom doors for decades. In other words, the behaviours aren’t new to women so much as newly outwardly approved by them. Read story here.

FRC Praises Vote to Maintain Federal Blood Safety Rules

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Family Research Council praised today’s decision by the federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability to reject any change in current blood donation rules. Current policy provides that men who have had sex with men at any time since 1977 are permanently “deferred” from acting as blood donors, because of the high rates of HIV infection in that population. The panel, which offers non-binding advice to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, voted 9-6 on Friday afternoon against recommending any immediate change in the policy.

Peter Sprigg, FRC’s Senior Fellow for Policy Studies, offered testimony to the panel prior to the vote, urging that the current policy be maintained. After the vote, Sprigg said, “This panel heard a day and a half of testimony, including the latest research on HIV risks in the blood supply, but in the end they recognized that there is no alternative screening policy that can be shown to maintain the safety of the nation’s blood supply.”

In his testimony, Sprigg noted, “The principal motivation of those who seek a change in the current policy is to reduce what they perceive as ‘discrimination’ against homosexual or bisexual men. … However, the blood donation policy does not exist to serve socio-political purposes, nor should it be changed to advance them.”

A change in the permanent deferral policy for men who have sex with men had been urged by homosexual activist groups such as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and a group of liberal members of Congress, led by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “Social and political concerns about ‘discrimination’ and ‘stigma’ cannot be allowed to trump the health of those who need life-saving blood transfusions,” Sprigg declared.

The Food and Drug Administration’s website states, “Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence … 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first time blood donors and 8000 times higher than repeat blood donors.”

Click here to watch video of Peter Sprigg’s testimony.

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America’s Blood Safety Threatened

June 10 /Christian Newswire/ — With the public focused on the calamity of the Gulf oil spill, another disaster that could affect millions of lives is in the making. The federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability is holding meetings on June 10 and June 11 to consider lifting the ban on gay blood. Cliff Kincaid, president of the public policy group, America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI), is scheduled to testify in favor of the ban.

If the ban is lifted, Kincaid argues, the five million Americans a year who receive blood transfusions could be exposed to the AIDS virus or other infections in the diseased blood of sexually active homosexuals. Kincaid’s testimony, available at www.usasurvival.org, consists of the expert views of Dale O’Leary, a writer who has followed the AIDS epidemic since the beginning and written extensively on the subject of sexually transmitted diseases.

Gay activists, who are expected to dominate the proceedings and intimidate federal policy makers, insist that the ban is discriminatory and homophobic and are demanding the “right” to donate blood.

Kincaid asks, “Do you or your loved ones want to die in order to advance the gay rights agenda?”

In advance of the Thursday and Friday meetings on blood safety, a federal notice has reiterated that male homosexuals “have an increased incidence and prevalence of several currently recognized transfusion-transmitted diseases” — Hepatitis B virus, HIV, syphilis, and cytomegalovirus.

It also says, “There is a theoretical concern that MSM [men who have sex with men] populations may also be at increased risk for other unrecognized transfusion-transmitted agents.” That means another infectious agent could be lurking in the blood that the homosexuals want to have the “right” to donate to the nation’s blood supply.

The move to lift the ban is being spearheaded by the militant homosexual “rights” organizations and gay lobbies which contribute to the campaigns of liberal Congressional candidates. These organizations, working with liberal members of Congress, have pressured the federal government to hold the June 10 and 11 meetings to consider lifting the ban on gay blood.

Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with jurisdiction over the blood supply, is a political appointee of the Obama Administration.

The pressure campaign has already forced the American Red Cross and two other blood groups to previously argue for lifting the ban. But the FDA, after reviewing the policy in 2006, reiterated the prohibition, which has been in effect since 1983 and applies to MSM since 1977, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

Kincaid commented, “Once again, as we have seen in the gays in the military debate, the gays are constantly screaming about their rights, oblivious to the point of madness about the rights of others. In this case, it’s our right to be free of infected blood when our loved ones get a blood transfusion. But unless the public quickly offers its comments and raises an outcry with the federal authorities coming under the influence and intimidation of the gay rights lobby, the ‘right’ to donate blood could soon be extended to a politically-connected special interest group that has a demonstrated propensity to acquire life-threatening and deadly diseases.”

Christian Newswire

Stanek: Vaccines with Fetal Cells Causing Autism?

Jill Stanek has a column at Worldnetdaily.com on the recent news about the potential connection between autism and the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines. She writes:

EPA researchers publishing a study in the Feb. 16 issue of Environmental Science & Technology were “surprise[ed]” to find a worldwide jump in the incidence of autism beginning in 1988.

Thus, the study concluded, “Although the debate about the nature of increasing autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous environmental stressors exists.”

According to the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, 1988 was the year the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices added a second dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to its list of recommendations.

SCPI actually found three “change points” in autism trends – 1981, 1988 and 1995. Here is what correlated to those years: Read the column here.

Women’s Breast Cancer Group Rebukes Obama, Pelosi and Reid

MEDIA ADVISORY, March 9 /Christian Newswire/ — The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer today sharply rebuked President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and others in Congress for aggressively pursuing an effort to include an abortion mandate in healthcare reform, despite having been informed of overwhelming evidence showing the U.S. National Cancer Institute deliberately misled women with its 2003 workshop that purported to conduct a “comprehensive review” of an abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link. [1] On January 20, 2010, the Coalition sent a letter to Obama and members of Congress which notified them of the NCI’s misconduct and called for a Congressional investigation of the agency. [2]

“It is despicable that Obama and others in Congress are striving to force taxpayers to pay for abortions, even though an abortion mandate would result in more breast cancer deaths and premature births among women with abortions,” said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition. “Obviously, they don’t care if women die and babies develop cerebral palsy.

“The NCI has declared the ABC link ‘non-existent,’ but research last year by NCI branch chief Louise Brinton revealed that she and her colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are convinced the link exists (and they found that women using oral contraceptives have a four-fold increased risk of the deadly triple-negative breast cancer). [5] Three studies last year (and dozens of studies since 1957) reported an ABC link. [3-5] Additionally, medical texts admit that childbearing sharply reduces breast cancer risk. No one can deny that abortion causes women to lose that protective effect.

“Three systematic reviews and meta-analyses last year confirmed a link between abortion and premature birth. [6-8] The Institute of Medicine identifies abortion as a risk factor for premature birth. [9] Premature birth puts babies at risk for neonatal death, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, epilepsy and difficulties walking, seeing and hearing.”

“Why do Obama, Reid and Pelosi hate women and children? Terrorists have not caused as many injuries and deaths among the American people, as have abortion enthusiasts in our government and the abortion industry,” charged Malec.

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women’s organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.

References available at:
www.abortionbreastcancer.com/press_releases/100309/ index.htm

Christian Newswire

Christians, Stand and Deliver a “NO!”

There have been responses from pro-family groups around the world regarding International Planned Parenthood’s report calling for comprehensive sex-ed for every child as young as 10-years-old. “EVERY child” being the operative phrase. Their demands fall in line with the “freedom of information” portion of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that would grant children the “right” to have comprehensive information on sex and contraception. Here is one group’s strong response. Christians, stand and deliver a thunderous “no!” to this group of perverts at Planned Parenthood. They can take their contraceptives and blueprint for the destruction of our children and hit the road.

SIOUX FALLS, SD, Feb. 10 /Christian Newswire/ — A new report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation is recommending that children as young as 10 years old receive mandatory graphic sex education, which includes teaching them the “pleasures of sex.”

The report, “Stand and Deliver” recommends — in fact, demands — that children as young as 10 should be seen as “sexual beings.” Further, the report criticizes religious institutions such as Catholicism and Islam for placing tremendous barriers on the ability of young people to receive information and services related to sex and that these teachings “deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex.”

Leslee Unruh, spokesperson for the Abstinence Clearinghouse, said, “They are intentionally ignoring the role of parents in this report. Parents have and should always be the primary sex educators of their children. However, Planned Parenthood knows that the earlier they capture the children’s minds, the greater the odds the children will adopt their secular world view. Further, coming from a group whose future relies on funding from failed contraception and abortions, the connection isn’t hard to make,” she said. “This is an aggressive political agenda, meant to make Planned Parenthood a lot more money.”

Lastly, Unruh stated, “Early graphic sex education is a proven failed strategy that only molests the minds of the children who experience it. We are committed to ensuring our nation’s greatest resource, our youth, is protected. Parents, will you stand with us to prevent this sexualization of our children from happening?”

The Abstinence Clearinghouse, with offices in Sioux Falls, SD and Washington, DC, was built on the foundation that parents are the primary sex educators of their children. The mission of the Abstinence Clearinghouse is to promote the appreciation for and practice of sexual abstinence until marriage through the distribution of age appropriate, factual and medically-referenced materials.

Christian Newswire

Death with Stupidity: The Tortured Reasoning of Montana’s High Court

E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics at The Culture of Life Foundation, writes the following about Montana’s recent decision regarding physician-assisted suicide:

In late December, Montana became the third state (behind Washington and Oregon) to permit physician assisted suicide to terminally ill patients. The State Supreme Court in Baxter et al. v. State of Montana was considering an appeal of a ruling from a lower district court dated December 2008 finding in Montana’s Constitution a “right” of the terminally ill to kill themselves with the assistance of physicians (implying that the doctors assisting them were to be shielded from prosecution under the state’s homicide laws). Interestingly, the court declined to rule on the question of the constitutionality of assisted suicide claiming to follow the judicial principle that courts should refrain from deciding cases at the level of the Constitution when an issue could be resolved by appeal to existing law. Having said this, Montana’s Supreme Court ruled that existing Montana law permits doctors without fear of prosecution to prescribe medications to terminally ill patients who wish to kill themselves.

The court’s tortured “reasoning,” as I will illustrate, is tendentious, shallow, and shot through with errors. It departs so far from commonly accepted ways of moral reasoning (which are not the province only of educated moral theologians, but available rationally to all thinking persons) that not only it but the system that tolerates it deserve criticism. Judges should not be able to engage in irrational textual or other argument just because they’re judges. Even less should they be permitted to introduce sweeping cultural changes through faulty reasoning, as the Montana High Court does in Baxter, et al. v. State of Montana. Read full article here