Stephan: Here is what may be a first account of a wonderful development that could end an epidemic that has taken tens of millions of lives the world over -- 1.8 million died in 2010.
A panel of US health experts has for the first time backed a drug to prevent HIV infection in healthy people.
The panel recommended US regulators approve the daily pill, Truvada, for use by people considered at high risk of contracting the Aids virus.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not required to follow the panel’s advice, but it usually does.
Some health workers and groups active in the HIV community have opposed the approval of the drug.
However, correspondents say the move could prove to be a new milestone in the fight against HIV/Aids.
Truvada is already approved by the FDA for people who are HIV-positive, and is taken along with existing anti-retroviral drugs.
Studies from 2010 showed that Truvada, made by California-based Gilead Sciences, reduced the risk of HIV in healthy gay men – and among HIV-negative heterosexual partners of people who are HIV-positive – by between 44% and 73%.
June decision
The Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee, which advises the FDA, voted 19-3 in favour of prescribing the drug to the highest risk group – non-infected men who have sex with multiple male partners.
They also approved it, by majority votes, for uninfected people with HIV-positive partners and for other groups considered at risk […]
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Stephan: Sir Richard Branson is a very smart and insight man as his extraordinary accomplishments make clear. This idea is not as inconceivable in Spain as it would be in the U.S. -- yet. In bordering Portugal decriminalization of all drugs has caused almost no increase in social damage, in fact giving considerable social benefit. As a result drugs have become a non-issue in that country. The Spanish know this of their neighbor. I would give this a small probability of occurring, but not zero, given Spain's financial situation. It is interesting that the media in the U.S. hardly discusses this. On a fact basis Portugal shows that all the hysteria over legalization is just that -- hysteria. Profitable to cartels, corporations, and government agencies, but destructive of millions of lives, and of little positive social utility.
The official opening of Barcelona’s Cannabis Museum yesterday proved to be the perfect opportunity for experts to renew calls for the legalisation of the drug, with Richard Branson saying that Spain could solve its deficit problem by legalising cannabis alone.
The multi-millionaire founder of the Virgin emporium is also a member of a global commission on drugs policy which includes five ex-presidents and Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, and which concluded last year that the war on drugs had failed and called for experiments in decriminalisation.
Branson said that if Spain were to legalise cannabis use and collect taxes on its consumption, marijuana could go a long way towards solving its current economic problems: ‘it would help get the country back on its feet’, he said.
Branson was in Barcelona to receive an award from the promotors of the new Cannabis Museum – the biggest in the world at 900 square metres – in recognition of the work the commission has done since 2004 to promote the acceptance of the plant in all its forms and the reintroduction of cannabis for medicinal purposes.
The British multimillionaire took the opportunity to praise the initiative taken by the village of Rasquera (Tarragona), whose […]
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JUSTYN HORNOR, - Cleantech Authority
Stephan: I believe LENR technology is coming, and I think this is an important consideration if it does. This is far from the final word but, at least, the subject is now being discussed.
A burning question has been slowly simmering to the surface in alternative energy forums: If LENR (a low-energy nuclear reaction device) works, what’s going to happen to solar power or other energy sources? As organizations like Defkalion, Brillouine, Andrea Rossi, and others try to bring a LENR-based product to market within the year; people are starting to wonder if solar will survive if-and that’s a big ‘IF
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JENNIFER WELSH, Staff Writer - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Because the nations of the world on the whole do not yet make wellness a priority billions are spent on new technologies, but only pennies are allocated for the toxins and waste they produce. Thus, we come to this.
Click through to see the video. The The study mention in this report was published on May 9th in the journal Biology Letters.
The great Pacific garbage patch is giving sea striders a place to breed out on the open ocean, changing the natural environment there, new research suggests.
The average American throws away three and a half pounds of trash each day. You may be surprised that some of that is ending up in the ocean, with much going to what is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. At twice the size of Texas, one woman has made cleaning this vast space her mission.
The great Pacific garbage patch, known to scientists as the North Pacific Subtropial Gyre, is a large patch of mulched up plastic and other garbage, often said to be the size of Texas, floating in the Pacific Ocean.
‘This paper shows a dramatic increase in plastic over a relatively short time period and the effect it’s having on a common North Pacific Gyre invertebrate,’ study researcher Miriam Goldstein, graduate student at the University of California San Diego, said in a statement. ‘We’re seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic.’
The sea strider, Halobates sericeus, is related to pond striders seen in freshwater lakes. It usually lays its eggs on floating objects in the ocean, like […]
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TOM PHILPOTT, - Mother Jones
Stephan: This is how the system is corrupted, and why it is increasingly difficult for an ordinary person to know who and what to trust.
Click through to see the graphs.
Last week, the University of Illinois’ College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) in Champaign-Urbana made a momentous announcement: it has accepted a $250,000 grant from genetically modified seed/agrichemical giant Monsanto to create an endowed chair for the ‘Agricultural Communications Program’ it runs with the College of Communications.
The university’s press release quotes Monsanto’s vice president of technology communications giving a taste of its vision for the investment:
With the population expecting to reach 9 billion by 2030, farmers from Illinois and beyond will be asked to produce more crops while using fewer resources. At Monsanto we are committed to bringing farmers advanced ag technologies to help them meet this challenge. Effectively communicating farmers’ efforts to feed, clothe and fuel a rapidly growing population is a major part of the solution.
A cynic might translate that statement this way: In order to maintain our highly profitable and hotly contested business model, we’ll need a new generation of PR professionals to construct and disseminate our marketing message.
Monsanto’s latest gift isn’t its first dalliance with the prestigious college, which is located in a city surrounded by millions of acres of fields planted with Monsanto’s GMO corn and soy seeds, both […]
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