In Episode 77 David reads some feedback and comments on recent news, on a wide variety of subjects, with links, where they are available:
- Some negative feedback was received from two people who are opposed to abortion, and one of these people felt that it was generally men who were getting abused in family court, not children or mothers.
- An article in the Washington Post indicates that there may be more guns that people in the USA. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/05/guns-in-the-united-states-one-for-every-man-woman-and-child-and-then-some/
- A woman has an ex-husband loaded with weapons, and is worried about her daughter’s safety, when she visits, and also worries that he might come after her. But the police refuse to investigate.http://gunvictimsaction.org/news/convicted-domestic-abuser-amassing-an-arsenal-lets-wait-until-something-happens-say-police/
- Police in the US are upset with laws that force them to sell guns that they seize: http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/2015/10/21/police-chief-guns/index.html
- A British general’s mental health is destroyed, probably by Mefloquine/Lariam. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/612802/Exclusive-drug-lariam-malaria-destroy-hero-general-army-British-sanity
- The New York Times points out that new guidelines to reduce the number of mammograms are unlikely to be followed, and talks about other situations where interventions are proved useless, or even harmful, yet doctors (and often patients) are reluctant to give up on them. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/upshot/new-screening-guidelines-wont-assure-fewer-mammograms.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
- New guidelines are that women should completely abstain from alcohol while pregnant, even though the best evidence is that modest alcohol consumption is not harmful to the fetus (or the mother).http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/10/pregnant_women_should_not_drink_at_all_says_american_academy_of_pediatrics.html
- Not surprisingly, sadly, a new FDA commissioner has very strong ties to a company that was an FDA lobbyist on behalf of other companies. http://www.mintpressnews.com/obamas-new-appointee-to-head-the-fda-is-a-big-pharma-mega-lobbyist/210458/
- Now is flu season and David mentions a 2013 BMJ paper criticizing the flu vaccine, a new Cochrane study criticizing flu drugs, and a 2012 Canadian article documenting that although several thousand flu deaths are claimed, actually numbers of deaths are in the single digits. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008965.pub4/abstract (Cochrane study on flu drugs) and http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/flu-deaths-reality-check-1.1127442 (CBC article on flu deaths)
- On the subject of vaccination, a listener asks if there is any information he should give a woman who hasn’t vaccinated her child, but is convinced that the polio vaccine is an exception, and must be taken.
- One listener wrote to say he was not going to listen any more because the episode on judicial abuse of children, with the Loudon sisters, was unfair to fathers. After this feedback, David responds, and the Loudon sisters phone in their response.
- Huffington post has a stunning (and lengthy) expose on Johnson & Johnson’s anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, specifically how the company was forbidden from recommending it for children or the elderly, but went to great lengths to amp up profits by specifically targeting these groups, and for illnesses other than schizophrenia. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/miracleindustry/americas-most-admired-lawbreaker/