By Gary Null, Ph.D., and Martin Feldman, M.D. Part 1 Sixteen years have passed since Prozac, the antidepressant drug, was introduced to the U.S. market and quickly achieved the label of a “wonder drug.” During that time, Prozac has indeed helped many people who suffer from severe depression. But the early claims that Prozac would alleviate depression without causing harmful …
MAYBE OBAMA’S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS “DEEP CONCERN” OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS
The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions. Today, one of the Obama administration’s …
SSRIs: Are They As Safe As Promised? Part 2
By Gary Null, Ph.D., and Martin Feldman, M.D. Part 2 In Part 1 of this two-part article, we looked at how Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) came to lead the market for antidepressants in the 1990s. These drugs have been taken by tens of millions of people, including a growing number of children, even though they have …
Trade Deals Will Supplant Democracy with Corporate Tribunals, Warn Critics
Provisions of international trade deals currently under negotiation threaten domestic sovereignty while giving corporations special legal rights, charges a letter signed by more than 100 law professors and sent on Wednesday to congressional leaders and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. The letter (pdf), organized and released by the Washington, D.C.-headquartered Alliance for Justice (AFJ), specifically opposes the inclusion of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) language in the …
DOES DISTURBING THE LAND BOOST HUMAN DISEASE?
Recent outbreaks of Ebola, SARS, and other zoonotic infectious diseases that transmit from animals to humans have made the relationship between human disease and environmental management an especially hot topic. In East Africa, community ecologist Hillary Young’s fieldwork has examined the direct impacts of human disturbance on landscape and wildlife, as well as a variety of factors affecting infectious disease risk. …
Selling Pandemic: Sound Science versus Propaganda Alchemy
By, Richard Gale & Gary Null October 26, 2009 In any discussion about swine flu, one must walk a very narrow line. On the one hand, it is both necessary and prudent to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic that could infect, sicken or kill large numbers of individuals. Therefore it is completely understandable, even appreciable, that President Obama …
Why Obama’s Hopes of Decapitating the Islamic State Won’t Work
Unveiling “Operation Inherent Resolve” against the Islamic State back in September, President Obama made it clear that his principal strategy would be the same as that pursued in other recent campaigns: assassination. Deploying his preferred macho euphemism, he reminded us “we took out Osama bin Laden, much of al Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and leaders of al Qaeda …
The New American Folly in Libya
By, Dr. Gary Null April 1st, 2011 “I call them (the Libyan rebels) freedom fighters… now they are retreating… after all that, does the world community stand by and watch the freedom fighters get crushed? The president [Barak Obama] pledged that there would be no US troops on the ground.. but today we learned that CIA operatives are on the ground, so what …
The UN’s Mercury Treaty Favors Corporate Wealth Over Children’s Health
By, Gary Null and Richard Gale January 30, 2013 After almost four years of demanding negotiations, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) announced that 140 nations reached agreement to begin ratifying the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The Convention will be an international binding treaty to reduce and eventually eliminate mercury compounds altogether from polluting industries, such as gold mining and …
Iran’s Ayatollah Khameini Derides GOP Letter as ‘Collapse of Political Ethics’
Iran’s highest leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday sharply rebuked an open letter released by GOP senators last week, charging that the missive demonstrates “the collapse of political ethics in the United States.” The letter, organized by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and signed by 47 Republican senators, directly threatened Iranian leaders that, if a nuclear deal were reached, it would not last …