Secret documents reveal that government-funded experts were warned nearly 30 years ago that tranquillisers that were later prescribed to millions of people could cause brain damage.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) agreed in 1982 that there should be large-scale studies to examine the long-term impact of benzodiazepines after research by a leading psychiatrist showed brain shrinkage in some patients similar to the effects of long-term alcohol abuse.
Tranquilizers linked to brain damage 30 years ago
Unbridled printing of dollars called "the biggest risk" to the global economy.
Last Wednesday was a hinge point in history. The United States decided to drop all pretence of being interested in leading – or even being part of – a coordinated global policy response to the most serious economic crisis in more than 70 years.
Up until now, the rest of the world has been willing to tolerate unprecedented money-printing by the US – and the UK for that matter. QE has been used to help various financial institutions avoid facing up to their losses, while covertly recapitalising Western banks that are, to all intents and purposes, insolvent. Money-printing has also pumped up equity prices. After the latest Fed-induced "sugar rush", the FTSE global all-share index hit a two-year high.
Our Banana Republic
In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie. But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
Israel demolishes illegal mosque in Arab town
Israeli police demolished an illegally built mosque in this impoverished Arab town on Sunday, touching off rock-throwing protests by residents and fueling new grievances against the government by the country's Arab minority.
Before dawn, police armed with clubs and shields surrounded the area as a bulldozer knocked down the mosque in the southern desert town of Rahat. Arab residents shouted in protest and prayed close to the site. Later some hurled rocks at police, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. There were no injuries and five people were arrested, he said.
US military deliberately sent Shia and Kurdish commandoes into Sunni areas for torture
The revelation by Wikileaks of a US military order directing US forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the US military about detainee abuse.
But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger US strategy of exploiting Shia sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the US war.
Dead Coral Found Near Site of Oil Spill
A survey of the seafloor near BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico has turned up dead and dying coral reefs that were probably damaged by the oil spill, scientists said Friday. The coral sites lie seven miles southwest of the well, at a depth of about 4,500 feet, in an area where large plumes of dispersed oil were discovered drifting through the deep ocean last spring in the weeks after the spill.
The large areas of darkened coral and other damaged marine organisms were almost certainly dying from exposure to toxic substances, scientists said.
Cancer vaccine allows body to kill tumours
Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered how tumour cells protect themselves from the body's natural defences.
By turning off this process, they believe that the body would cure itself of the disease.
In the past attempts to harness the immune system have failed because a protein appears to shield – and even nurture – cancer cells.
But destroying this molecule leaves the cancer completely defenceless and it is killed by the immune system.
Ron Paul vows renewed Fed audit push next year
U.S. Republican Representative Ron Paul on Thursday said he will push to examine the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decisions if he takes control of the congressional subcommittee that oversees the central bank as expected in January.
"I think they're way too independent. They just shouldn't have this power," Paul, a longtime Fed critic, said in an interview with Reuters. "Up until recently it has been modest but now it's totally out of control."
Shattered glass and dreams: Shot at targeted woman wants Quaids heard
"The Quaids are victims and the government controlled media is aware of it. Call it ‘organized gang stalking’, microwave energy assaults, forced heart attacks, or otherwise - these are criminals assaults." - D. Miles
Author and technology consultant Darlene Miles knows unwanted intrusions, including constant following, can and often do escalate to physical violence, sometimes death.
Private Investigator, Bill Taylor told the writer, the greatest Americans are being targeted and hurt the most.
Page 706 of 1154
