“Stop wasting your money on multivitamins and supplements. They aren’t doing a damn thing!” is the message researchers of a new study send out to all its readers. How far is this true?

The message is particularly meant for people who already have a “reasonably good” diet and does not come as good news for an industry worth $53 billion in the United States of America. According to statistics, approximately 53 percent of all Americans take at least one supplement each.

The new article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that three studies looking into the benefits of supplements and multivitamins found none. The study involved analyzing the effects of supplements on cardiovascular disease, cancer, mortality, and cognitive decline. They found that there were no significant differences between people who took vitamin supplements and people who didn’t.

Researchers noted that buying supplements is a complete waste of money, especially for those who don’t have any vitamin deficiency and those who include adequate vitamins in their diet.

Herbal Supplements

Herbal supplements account for a $5 billion industry. Many people turn to herbal alternatives instead of prescribed drugs to improve their health. One reason is that they are marketed as “natural” and “organic.” […]

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The big banks have laundered hundreds of billions of dollars for drug cartels. See this, this, this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis).

The HSBC employee who blew the whistle on the banks’ money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels says said: ‘America is losing the drug war because our banks are [still] financing the cartels’, and ‘Banks financing drug cartels … affects every single American’.

And yet the banks refuse to provide banking services for LEGAL marijuana in states like Colorado which have blessed the sale of pot.

The Feds are a big part of the problem. After all, they support some ruthless, criminal drug cartels.

On the other hand, the sale of marijuana is still illegal under Federal law pursuant to the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.

This is true even in California and other states which have allow medical or recreational marijuana. U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Co-op (2001) 532 U.S. 483 (medical necessity is not an exception to 21 U.S.C., §841(a)(1) governing the federal prohibition against manufacture and distribution of marijuana).

As the New York Times reported in May of 2011:

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A newly released US Surgeon General’s report shows that cigarette smoking is even more hazardous than previously thought. The report reveals that smoking causes more diseases, kills more people and costs the United States more in medical bills and other economic losses than has previously been reported.

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids president Matthew L. Myers said cigarettes were more deadly today than they were 50 years ago because of actions taken by the tobacco industry.

‘Smokers’ risk of death from all causes, compared to those who never smoked, has gone up significantly over the past 50 years,” said Myers on the report, which comes 50 years after the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health.

Citing the report, Myers further said: ‘Today’s cigarette smokers, both men and women, have a much higher risk of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than smokers in 1964 despite smoking fewer cigarettes.”

The report points to changes in the design and composition of cigarettes as the only reasonable explanation for the increased risk of lung cancer.

It is said that the United States has actually made remarkable progress in the past 50 years and cut smoking rates to 18.1 percent in 2012, or by more than half […]

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Do the wealthy Chinese know something we don’t?

A new report shows that 64 percent of Chinese millionaires have either emigrated or plan to emigrate-taking their spending and fortunes with them. The United States is their favorite destination.

The report from Hurun, a wealth research firm that focuses on China, said that one-third of China’s super rich-or those worth $16 million or more-have already emigrated.

The data offer the latest snapshot of China’s worrying wealth flight, with massive numbers of rich Chinese taking their families and fortunes overseas. Previous studies show the main reasons rich Chinese are leaving is to pursue better educations for their kids, and to escape the pollution and overcrowding in urban China.

But analysts say there is another reason the Chinese rich are fleeing: to protect their fortunes. With the Chinese government cracking down on corruption, many of the Chinese rich-who made their money through some connection or favors from government-want to stash their money in assets or countries that are hard for the Chinese government to reach.

According to WealthInsight, the Chinese wealthy now have about $658 billion stashed in offshore assets. Boston Consulting Group puts the number lower, at around $450 billion, but says offshore investments are […]

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There’s a popular talking point coming from climate change denialists that all people who accept the science and the need to act on it are somehow blinded by faith.

In Australia, climate science contrarian columnists can barely touch their keyboards without typing out the words “global warming faith” or explaining how human-caused global warming is some sort of “new religion”.

This ‘climate religion” narrative often goes hand-in-hand with another favourite denialist talking point where climate scientists are only doing what they do because there’s a dollar in it.

Presumably the laws of physics, the melting ice sheets, the increasing risk of bushfires, the hottest decades on record and the acidifying oceans are also waiting for their cash.

Maurice Newman, the man hand-picked by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be the government’s top business advisor, loves both of these debating points.

Newman has described climate scientists as being a ‘global warming priesthood” and belonging to a new ‘religion”. In a second opinion column in two weeks in The Australian, Newman repeats his cynicism over the IPCC and climate scientists, describing them as a “cartel” that “will deny all contrary evidence”. Newman even repeats the myth that in the 1970s scientists were certain the world […]

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