Thursday, 23rd May 2013

CBS News Enables FDA to Deceive Public

Posted on 12. Mar, 2013 by in Education, featured, Florida News, Opinions

by William Faloon

If you watched CBS News 60 Minutes last     night, you witnessed the kind of misleading     reporting that enables federal agencies to gain unbridled power.

60 Minutes accurately told     the story of an unscrupulous manufacturer of contaminated drugs that caused     48 deaths and over 700 serious illnesses.

60 Minutes omitted     the fact that the FDA     knew about this disaster-waiting-to-happen as far back as 2002, but failed     to stop it until Americans started dying in 2012.

FDA officials were     given free rein on national TV to blame this tragedy on a lack of regulatory authority.     As you’ll read here, the fault instead lies with bureaucratic incompetence at     the hands of the FDA and the state pharmacy board that permitted these     lethal deviations in good manufacturing practices to occur.

Particularly appalling is the FDA’s inability to     recognize that manufacturing as many as 17,000 vials of a drug all at once     under filthy     conditions was a far cry from compounding     one drug at a time in a sterile     environment.

The contamination problem, however, is not isolated     to one bad drugmaker. It turns out that these kinds of safely violations     were routine at drug factories that the FDA had certified as being safe.

Instead of blaming the FDA for ignoring this     lethal problem, CBS     News let FDA officials blame Congress for not giving the     FDA more regulatory power over pharmacies. >>>

The FDA pretends to     protect the public against contaminated drugs. The sordid facts reveal an     agency incapable of acting in a logical manner, and when the FDA does     something “after the fact,” they often create worse problems.

Such is the case of a     pharmaceutical manufacturer that made contaminated     injectable drugs that have killed 48 and sickened over 700 Americans. The     FDA identified problems with this manufacturer as early as 2002, but dropped     the ball into a state pharmacy board’s lap that failed to act. The FDA     again identified dangerous problems in 2006, but once more failed to     take actions other than send a “warning letter.” The FDA now     claims it needs more power and money to do its job.

This same unscrupulous     drug manufacturer was the focus of a 60     Minutes broadcast on March     10, 2013.

What the FDA does not     want the public to know is that the reason this shady manufacturer was able     to take over such a significant part of the market is that FDA actions     caused other     companies to stop making certain injectable drugs.

CBS News ignored House and Senate     investigations that documented the FDA’s egregious failings in this matter.     CBS instead allowed the FDA to blame this catastrophe on lack of regulatory     authority over compounding     pharmacies.

U.S. drug factories in ‘terrible shape’

Here’s how the New York Times     described conditions inside FDA-registered     drug factories:

“Weevils     floating in vials of heparin. Morphine cartridges that contain up to twice     the labeled dose. Manufacturing plants with rusty tools, mold in production     areas and — in one memorable case — a barrel of urine.”

The New York Times     emphasized that these were not reports about the injectable drug     maker that caused dozens to die from fungal     meningitis. These quality lapses were found at large drug companies     whose names are familiar to many Americans.

When these problems were     discovered, the FDA sent out “warnings” to these companies.     Instead of fixing the problems, many of these drugmakers decided it was     cheaper to simply discontinue making the drug(s). The result was severe shortages of the     drugs cited by the FDA. This opened up the market for disreputable companies     to make these drugs, who did so under the same kind of abysmal conditions     the FDA found at large drug factories.

The FDA would like to     take credit for stopping these problems, but in certain cases, it was     people working at the drug factories that came forward to complain about     unsanitary manufacturing conditions, or people dying from contaminated     drugs that prompted FDA action.

The sad fact is that     some drug companies are so greedy they will not stop their highly     profitable assembly lines to perform even the most rudimentary sterilizing     procedures.

Contaminated injectable drugs

Fungal     meningitis     causes inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord that result     in dreadful sickness and sometimes death.

A drug factory made     large quantities of a steroid (methylprednisolone)     that was injected into the joints and spines of aging humans in chronic     pain. It provided immediate but temporary relief.

The problem was this     drug was contaminated with a black     fungus that easily infected those who were injected with     it. Since injectable drugs bypass the natural barriers afforded by an     intact digestive/immune system, they have to be manufactured and maintained     in a sterile environment to avoid killing patients.

FDA inspections in 2002 and 2006 revealed     injectable drugs being made under substandard (non-sterile) conditions. It     was not until hundreds fell ill and scores died that the FDA took     meaningful action (in 2012).

How the FDA bungled investigation

The name of the company     that made the fungus-laced injectable drug is New England Compounding Center     (NECC). It pretended     to be a compounding pharmacy, but instead functioned as a large drug factory.

The FDA claims that it     lacks adequate regulatory authority over compounding pharmacies, but the     FDA’s inspection of NECC in year 2002     revealed problems with record keeping, sterility, and other     issues. That same year the FDA informed the Massachusetts State Board of     Pharmacy of an adverse reaction to methylprednisolone,     which is the same drug that in 2012 caused the fungal-meningitis     outbreak.

Had the FDA done their     job back in 2002,     they would have forced NECC to register as a drug manufacturer and     subjected NECC to stricter regulatory oversight, which may not have     prevented the problems since FDA-registered     drug makers were later found to have similar unsanitary facilities.

The FDA and     Massachusetts State Pharmacy Board’s most blatant failure in this matter     was to uncover horrific conditions inside NECC … and take no     practical steps to enforce safety compliance before tragedy struck.

Good Manufacturing Practices overlooked

According to     Massachusetts state regulators, the NECC drug factory failed to sterilize     injectable drugs, something that is mandatory for a substance that is going     to be injected into the body.

NECC did not keep     manufacturing equipment clean, operated a leaky boiler near the “clean     room” where injectable drugs were packaged, and shipped products     before receiving test results showing the products were sterile, which     violates good manufacturing guidelines.

In addition, NECC did     not test the manufacturing equipment used to sterilize injectable drugs on     a timely basis.

The result of a     multitude of quality lapses was injectable vials that contained black     matter inside, which turned out to be the fungus that caused 48 deaths.

FDA inspects after catastrophe

After hundreds had fallen ill from     fungal meningitis, the FDA conducted a thorough inspection of NECC’s drug     factory.

The FDA’s report cited     greenish-yellowish discoloration on sterilization equipment and non-sterile     raw ingredients. The FDA found that 25% of supposedly sterile vials were     contaminated with greenish-black foreign matter and that 100% of these     vials sent for analysis contained fungus.

The FDA noted that NECC     was unable to provide documentation that its steam autoclave devices were     capable of achieving product sterility, a critical factor when making     injectable drugs. In fact, FDA inspectors found greenish-yellow     discoloration inside the one cleaning autoclave and a tarnished     discoloration inside another.

NECC turned off its air     conditioning in “clean rooms” from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., which is     improper because failing to keep clean rooms at low temperature and low     humidity provides a fertile environment for fungal growth.

Particularly troubling     in the FDA report was documentation that NECC had found microbial     contamination, but did not enact cleanliness procedures to neutralize this     lethal threat.

Furthermore, “clean     rooms” used to make injectable drugs had been identified by NECC’s own     staff as detecting bacteria and molds in January 2012, but the FDA could find     no evidence that the company acted to fix these lethal problems.

The FDA’s belated     inspection of NECC did nothing to prevent the suffering and death of     hundreds of victims who contracted fungal infections from contaminated     vials of methylprednisolone     injected into their spines and joints.

Congress cites FDA failure

The House and Senate     held oversight hearings on the NECC tragedy that sickened over 700 and     killed 48 people.

Congress wanted to know     why the FDA didn’t do more to prevent the production and sale of the     tainted steroids.

As anticipated, the FDA     claimed that it didn’t have enough authority     to regulate pharmacies that compound drugs. FDA Commissioner (Margaret     Hamburg, M.D.) warned that if Congress doesn’t strengthen legislation,     another similar tragedy is inevitable. Dr. Hamburg stated before the House     committee:

If we fail to act, this type of incident     will happen again. It is a matter of when, not if.

What Dr. Hamburg may not     have expected was irrefutable documentation that the FDA and the     Massachusetts State Board of Pharmacy both repeatedly visited NECC and     found problems, but the strongest action the FDA took was the issuance of a     warning letter in 2006.

In response to Dr.     Hamburg claiming the FDA needed more “authority,” one     representative responded:

We’re just not buying it, doctor “…     “You lack the     authority to do anything, yet you send a letter like this? ”     (In reference to the FDA 2006 Warning Letter).

This warning letter     documented numerous violations of existing rules the FDA found in 2006, yet the FDA     failed to take action until citizens started dying.

House members repeatedly     berated regulators     who failed to prevent the fungal meningitis outbreak, stating the FDA and Massachusetts state regulators     both knew as far back as 2002     that there were problems at NECC, which distributed tens of thousands of     doses of contaminated steroids.

Dr. Hamburg was     lambasted by House Committee members who stated:

This is a complete and utter     failure on the part of your agency.”

This is one of the worst public     health disasters ever caused by a contaminated drug in this country.”

After a tragedy like this the     first question we all ask is ‘Could this have been prevented?’ After an     examination of documents produced by the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy     and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the answer here appears to be,     ‘Yes’.”

You can take a regulator to a     problem but you can’t make him regulate.”

It’s an absolute tragedy without     any question that 32 people have died.

Other House members came     to Dr. Hamburg’s defense, arguing that a solution needed to be found     instead of seeking to “prosecute     the Food and Drug Administration.

Senate more harshly critical of FDA

The day after the House     hearing where the FDA asked for more authority, a bipartisan staff of the     Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee issued a report     detailing how federal and state regulators knew nearly a decade ago of     serious safety concerns with the NECC tied to hundreds of meningitis cases,     but failed to act decisively. The report concluded that “bureaucratic inertia appears to     be what allowed a bad actor to repeatedly risk public health.”

While acknowledging the     lack of clarity in what the FDA’s role should be in regulating compounding pharmacies,     the Senate cited plenty of evidence that the FDA should have taken action     against NECC, which clearly was functioning as a drug factory.

The Senate investigators     wrote, “Both     federal and state regulators were well aware that NECC and its owners posed     a risk to the public health” and “repeatedly failed to demonstrate     that the company could safely compound sterile products.”

One senator told of an     elderly patient from her state whose mouth had become infiltrated with mold     that “she had     to be swabbed free of black fungal matter before she died.”

The Senate report     uncovered an internal FDA memo in 2003     that concluded there was “potential     for serious public health consequences if NECC’s compounding practices, in     particular those relating to specific sterile products, are not improved.”

The Senate confirmed     that NECC-produced methylprednisolone “had previously been a suspected cause of at least     two cases with bacterial meningitis-like symptoms” in 2002, leading to     an FDA inspection … with no meaningful action taken.

Most senators expressed     skepticism that the FDA could effectively use widened authority under any     new law, one stating “the     FDA has failed to use its existing authority,” with     another stating, “This     has been going on since 2002 … It took all this time, and nobody did     anything.”

Regrettably, some     senators still believe that giving the FDA more tax dollars will     solve these issues of bureaucratic incompetence and mismanagement.

At the Senate hearing,     FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg conceded:

Perhaps we should have been more     aggressive,” referring to the FDA’s failure to inspect     NECC and follow up on the 2006     warning letter. “There     was a lot of debate within the agency about whether to proceed.”

Senators repeatedly     questioned the FDA’s sending NECC a warning letter in 2006 and a letter     in 2008     saying that it planned to inspect, but not following through until after     the fungal meningitis outbreak occurred in late 2012.

What Congress overlooked

What was not discussed     in congressional hearings was the FDA’s history of abusing and misusing whatever     authority     that Congress gave it.

For example, when the     FDA first discovered problems at NECC (in 2002), it chose to direct its     limited resources to prosecuting a man named Jay Kimball who     sold a drug (liquid deprenyl) that harmed no one.

In 2006, while FDA     did not think it needed to stop NECC’s lethal manufacturing practices, it     somehow found the time to censor claims by cherry growers that cited scientific     studies on their website showing cherries conferred health benefits.

What few understand is     how the FDA has abused     its authority in a discriminatory     manner. The new “authority” the FDA is seeking would enable the     agency to pick out small, well-run compounding pharmacies and regulate them     out of business using minor technical arguments that have no bearing on     safety.

How much more FDA failure will Americans     tolerate?

In 1906, a book called     “The Jungle”     was published that described appalling conditions inside America’s meat     packing industry. The revelations in this book resulted in the     establishment of federal laws that mandated standards of strength, purity     and quality of foods and drugs.

Conditions inside some     of America’s drug factories are eerily similar to those described in     “The Jungle,” yet the FDA has been around for more than 100     years! How much longer is the public expected to wait before the FDA     effectively spends its $4     billion annual budget on real consumer protection, as     opposed to threatening walnut and cherry growers for claiming health     benefits for their foods?

No matter how many times     the FDA fails to protect consumers against contaminated drugs, there     are no calls for meaningful reform.

Instead of recognizing     FDA ineptitude, cries ring out to give the FDA more money and power … as     Americans perish from contaminated drugs the FDA should have stopped.

No free market!

What the public doesn’t     yet understand is that contaminated drugs are the result of draconian regulations that limit     free market     competition. By restricting drug factories to only those     overseen by incompetent bureaucrats, the inevitable result will be     shortages, poor quality and high prices.

One of the challenges in     dealing with the NECC catastrophe is that there may be new shortages of     injectable drugs because there are not enough drug factories in the U.S. to     meet patient demand. Shortages create opportunities for unsavory companies     to dump even greater amounts of overpriced and contaminated drugs into the     bodies of unsuspecting victims.

This kind of problem     would not continue in a free     market, but ever-increasing regulations are exacerbating the     problems of drug shortages, deadly manufacturing practices, and obscenely     high prices.

We will re-publish this     response to the FDA’s deceptive tactics aired last night on 60 Minutes in     greater detail later this year in Life     Extension Magazine®.

I thought it critical to     alert members immediately about this misleading propaganda as it may     influence policy makers into giving the FDA more authority. The facts     clearly show that the FDA failed to use the power it already has to     stop contaminated drugs from poisoning the American public.

For longer life,

William Faloon signaturewilliam faloon, life extension foundation

 

William Faloon

 

 

SAVE THE WOLVES – A MUST-READ

Posted on 13. Nov, 2012 by in Education, featured, Florida News, Opinions

Moments ago the Center for Biological Diversity and allies filed a federal suit against Wyoming’s disastrous policies promoting unlimited killing of wolves across most of the state.

Since wolves in Wyoming lost their Endangered Species Act protection last month, 49 wolves have been killed in state-sanctioned

49 Wolves Already Dead in Wyoming.
Help Save Wolves Today.

hunts and unregulated killing in “predator” zones. In the three Rocky Mountain states where wolves have been delisted — Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — 177 wolves have been killed after just one month of hunting and trapping. Many of these wolves are part of highly social groups simply looking for a safe place to raise their families.

Left unchecked, these state policies will result in hundreds more wolf deaths that will damage the species’ recovery.

While we fight these policies on the ground in Wyoming with our allies, we know we need to gear up fast to safeguard wolves throughout the West. That’s why the Center is launching a bold campaign to protect Pacific Coast wolves — and we need your help.

Please make a gift today to the Wolf Defense Fund and help us hire a full-time staffer to organize in defense of wolves along the Pacific Coast.

It’s going to take an all-out, boots-on-the-ground effort through California, Oregon and Washington to ensure state and federal policies put the recovery of wolves first. A passionate defender of wolves is offering a special challenge grant so we can afford to hire for this essential position. He will match every gift between now and Thanksgiving.

Our Pacific Coast organizer will work with other environmental groups, the public, hunting organizations, community leaders and elected officials in defense of strong wolf protections. The Center’s organizer will be at the forefront of a multi-state effort to educate decision-makers, bring wolf advocates and citizens together, and generate positive media about wolves.

The Center has already had some key victories on the West Coast, including getting California wolves a step closer to state protection and saving one of Oregon’s wolf packs from government sharpshooters. But that’s not enough. Wolves on the Pacific Coast deserve a safe future, free from persecution, so that their families can thrive and grow.

We need to raise funds right now to hire our new wolf organizer, and we need your help to do it. As part of this special challenge grant, your gift by Thanksgiving will go twice as far. Please consider giving as generously as you can today to the
Wolf Defense Fund, and then share this with your family and friends.

We need to stop the massacre in Wyoming and make sure it never happens on the Pacific Coast. Help us make the most of this generous challenge grant and hit the ground running to save wolves.

Thank you in advance for your support.

For the wolves,

 
 
Kierán Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity

A vital letter from Bill McKibben (350.org)

Posted on 19. Jul, 2012 by in Climate, Education, Environment, featured, Florida News, Opinions

Dear friends,

There’s a piece of mine on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine today that I think may be the most important writing I’ve done since The End of Nature, way back in 1989. (And no, it’s not the profile of Justin Bieber)

Warning: it’s pretty long, and it’s not entirely cheerful. Indeed, it shows that the business plans of the fossil fuel industry will wreck the planet — that they’ve already got enough carbon in their reserves to drive the heat past anyone’s definition of okay.

Click here to read and share the piece: www.350.org/rollingstone

If you read it, you’ll get a sense of the direction 350.org is headed.

I’ll be hosting a video chat early next week to help cover all of these topics – in particular Keystone and the article I just released – and if you’d like to join that particular conversation, I’m told you can RSVP by clicking here: act.350.org/sign/bill-video-chat-july/

In the meantime: as we see it, we’ve got iconic battles underway in every part of the country, and against all the forms of fossil fuel. And they’re beginning to coalesce into a true movement against the heart of this most dangerous industry.

1) Keystone XL.

Centered along the pipeline route in the middle of the country, this battle against opening Canada’s vast tarsands has been in a holding pattern for a while, but that’s changing. On the southern half of the pipeline, our friends in Texas are actively planning for civil disobedience. Meanwhile, thanks to your efforts, a narrow Congressional plurality has blocked GOP attempts to force through the northern half of the pipeline this year. Now the ball is back in the State Department’s court — and so far they’re fumbling it. They need to conduct a new review, but they’ve not even agreed to look at the climate effects of the project (my take on how Sec. of State Hillary Clinton is mishandling this particular issue is here). We’re going to need your help to put pressure on them — and also to help mobilize against metastasizing tarsands pipelines, like the so-called Trailbreaker project across New England. Mitt Romney has promised opening Keystone will be his first act; we’re by no means certain Obama wouldn’t bend to corporate power either. We may need to go back to jail; no matter what, we’ll do our best to keep figuring out the incredibly murky Washington politics and trying to work out useful plans.

2) Coal ports.

Stymied by great organizing against coal-fired power in this country, the mining giants are scouting new markets in Asia — and building the ports along the Pacific to let them send that carbon overseas to be burned. People are mobilizing effectively to try and block those plans (and three coal-train derailments last week made it a little clearer to everyone what a bad plan this is). Meanwhile, mountaintop removal foes continue to press their case across Appalachia. Together we’ve all managed to blacken coal’s name considerably, and we can’t let up.

3) Fracking.

Opposition to fracking for gas has been loudest along the East Coast, atop the Marcellus Shale. We’ve been working in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York (and other places, like Vermont, where a statewide ban on fracking was enacted this spring). Given the deep pockets of the gas companies it’s a hard battle, but you’d be amazed at the depth of the local organizing; the drillers are being met by an aroused citizenry wherever they go!

So — oil, coal, gas; Midwest; Pacific; East. These fights are all crucial, but they’re also all part of the much larger battle, which is against carbon in the atmosphere. We’ve got to fight them all, but we can’t win one pipeline or port at a time. We’ve also got to change the basic ground rules.

Which is why we’re also engaged, right through election day, in the fight against fossil fuel subsidies. It’s gaining momentum — almost 60 Senators and Representatives have signed on in support of the Sanders/Ellison bill to end the giveaways to the richest industry on earth. Teams of people are fanning out across the country this week and next to ask their public officials: “Where do you stand on removing fossil fuel subsidies?”

All this activity is playing out, of course, against the backdrop of one of the greatest heatwaves and droughts in American history, a constant reminder just how high the stakes are. People are noticing — the polling indicates steady increases in concern about climate change — and now our job is to build that diffuse sentiment into a strong movement.

I’m awfully glad you’re a part of this movement, and hope you’re managing to stay cool.

On we go,

Bill McKibben for the crew at 350.org

P.S. And if you have reactions to and thoughts about that Rolling Stone piece please send them in to “thoughts@350.org“. The analysis — the math — that’s in there is going to form the basis of a lot of our work going forward, and it would be useful to hear how it strikes you.

 

Important Word from Bill McKibben

Posted on 05. May, 2012 by in Climate, Environment, featured, Florida News, Opinions

Dear Friends—

The Heartland Institute—a main climate-denial front group—chose an interesting day
to put up billboards around Chicago in advance of their next meeting.

This morning—even as the first actions of Connect the Dots day were taking place in
the Pacific—they unveiled the signs, which have big pictures of Ted Kacynzki and Charles Manson, two convicted mass murderers, with the question: “I Still Believe in Global Warming, Do You?”

 

The message couldn’t be clearer—anyone who’s worried about climate change is
abnormal, weird, sick, twisted.

So our message back need to be just as clear and firm:
in fact, its normal people around the world who are engaged in the fight
against climate change.
Some are famous—the pope, the Dalai Lama, the
patriarch of the Orthodox Church—but most of us are just ordinary citizens. And
we’re worried about climate change because we can see what’s going on around us
with our own eyes.

The industry is terrified to talk about extreme weather
that has led a big majority of Americans to back action on climate change, and
they are terrified of the beautiful movement that is growing all across this
country
. That’s why groups like the Heartland Institute are so desperate—that’s why they’re insisting that it’s serial killers and not scientists and citizens who care
about climate change.

We have no idea why companies like Microsoft continue to support the Heartland
Institute, and you can sign a petition here letting them know it’s a bad idea
to encourage this kind of hatred
. But the most important thing
you can do is turn out everyone you know for tomorrow’s day of action.

Citizens like us taking action in our communities may be the only way that we can fight
back against an industry with so much money and ill-will at their disposal.
This weekend we can show the real face of climate change – both the impacts
that are already roiling our world, but also the people who are taking action
to stop it.

They’re
getting desperate, which is a good sign.

–Bill McKibben

A main climate change denial front group is comparing believing in climate change with mass murder.
If you agree that’s reckless, we need you to take action to Connect the Dots this weekend, and call out their corporate sponsors by signing on below:
www.350.org/heartland

 


More Info and Links

 

Is Sugar Toxic?

Posted on 03. Apr, 2012 by in Education, featured, Florida News, Opinions

(CBS News) If you are what you eat, then what does it mean that the average
American consumes 130 pounds of sugar a year? Sanjay Gupta reports on new
research showing that beyond weight gain, sugar can take a serious toll on your
health, worsening conditions ranging from heart disease to cancer. Some
physicians go so far as to call sugar a toxin.

 

 


The following script is from “Sugar” which aired on April 1, 2012. Dr.
Sanjay Gupta is the correspondent. Denise Schrier Cetta and Sumi Aggarwal,
producers.

The chances are good that sugar is a bigger part of your daily diet than you
may realize which is why our story tonight is so important. New research coming
out of some of America’s most respected institutions is starting to find that
sugar, the way many people are eating it today, is a toxin and could be a
driving force behind some of this country’s leading killers, including heart
disease.

60 Minutes Overtime

Sugar and kids: The toxic truth »

 As a result of these findings, an anti-sugar campaign has sprung up, led by
Dr. Robert Lustig, a California endocrinologist, who believes the consumption of
added sugars has plunged America into a public health crisis.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Is sugar toxic?

Dr. Robert Lustig: I believe it is.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Do you ever worry that that’s– it just sounds a little bit
over the top?

Dr. Robert Lustig: Sure. All the time. But it’s the truth.

Dr. Robert Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of
California, San Francisco and a pioneer in what is becoming a war against sugar.

Motivated by his own patients — too many sick and obese children – Dr.
Lustig has concluded that sugar, more than any other substance, is to blame.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: What are all these various diseases that you say are linked
to sugar?

Dr. Robert Lustig: Obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease
itself.

Lustig says the American lifestyle is killing us.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: And most of it you say is preventable?

Dr. Robert Lustig: Seventy-five percent of it is preventable.

While Dr. Lustig has published a dozen scientific articles on the evils of
sugar, it was his lecture on YouTube, called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” that
brought his message to the masses.

[YouTube Video: I'm standing here today to recruit you in the war against
bad food.]

By “bad food” Dr. Lustig means the obvious things such as table sugar, honey,
syrup, sugary drinks and desserts, but also just about every processed food you
can imagine, where sugar is often hidden: yogurts and sauces, bread, and even
peanut butter. And what about the man-made, often vilified sweetener, high
fructose corn syrup?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Is it worse than just table sugar?

Dr. Robert Lustig: No. ‘Cause it’s the exact same. They are basically
equivalent. The problem is they’re both bad. They’re both equally toxic.

Since the 1970s, sugar consumption has gone down nearly 40 percent, but high
fructose corn syrup has more than made up the difference. Dr. Lustig says they
are both toxic because they both contain fructose — that’s what makes them
sweet and irresistible.

Dr. Robert Lustig: We love it. We go out of our way to find it. I think one
of the reasons evolutionarily is because there is no food stuff on the planet
that has fructose that is poisonous to you. It is all good. So when you taste
something that’s sweet, it’s an evolutionary Darwinian signal that this is a
safe food.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: We were born this way?

Dr. Robert Lustig: We were born this way.

Central to Dr. Lustig’s theory is that we used to get our fructose mostly in
small amounts of fruit — which came loaded with fiber that slows absorption and
consumption — after all, who can eat 10 oranges at a time? But as sugar and
high fructose corn syrup became cheaper to refine and produce, we started
gorging on them. Americans now consume 130 pounds per person a year — that’s a
third of a pound every day.

Dr. Lustig believes those sweeteners are helping fuel an increase in the most
deadly disease in America: heart disease. For years, he’s been a controversial
voice.

[Kimber Stanhope: Here is our oral isotope...]

But now, studies done by Kimber Stanhope, a nutritional biologist at the
University of California, Davis are starting to back him up. She’s in the middle
of a groundbreaking, five-year study which has already shown strong evidence
linking excess high fructose corn syrup consumption to an increase in risk
factors for heart disease and stroke. That suggests calories from added sugars
are different than calories from other foods.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The mantra that you hear from most nutritionists is that a
calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

Kimber Stanhope: And I think the results of the study showed clearly that is
not true.

Stanhope’s conclusions weren’t easy to come by. Nutrition studies are
expensive and difficult. Stanhope has paid groups of research subjects to live
in this hospital wing for weeks at a time, under a sort of 24-hour lockdown.
They undergo scans and blood tests – every calorie they ingest, meticulously
weighed and prepared.

Kimber Stanhope: They’re never out of our sight. So we do know that they are
consuming exactly what we need them to consume.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: And they’re not sneaking any candy bars on the side.

Kimber Stanhope: Yeah, right, exactly.

For the first few days, participants eat a diet low in added sugars, so
baseline blood levels can be measured.

[Research assistant: So remember you guys have to finish all of your
Kool-Aid. ]

Then, 25 percent of their calories are replaced with sweetened drinks and
Stanhope’s team starts drawing blood every 30 minutes around the clock. And
those blood samples? They revealed something disturbing.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: And what are you starting to see?

Kimber Stanhope: We found that the subjects who consumed high fructose corn
syrup had increased blood levels of LDL cholesterol and other risk factors for
cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: How quickly did these changes occur?

Kimber Stanhope: Within two weeks.

Kimber Stanhope’s study suggests that when a person consumes too much sweet
stuff, the liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts some of it into fat.
Some of that fat ends up in the bloodstream and helps generate a dangerous kind
of cholesterol called small dense LDL. These particles are known to lodge in
blood vessels, form plaque and are associated with heart attacks.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Did it surprise you when you first got these results
back?

Kimber Stanhope: I would have to say I was surprised because when I saw our
data, I started drinking and eating a whole lot less sugar. I would say our data
surprised me.

So imagine, for these healthy young people, drinking a sweetened drink might
be just as bad for their hearts as the fatty cheeseburgers we’ve all been warned
about since the 1970s. That’s when a government commission mandated that we
lower fat consumption to try and reduce heart disease.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: So with the best of intentions, they say, “Time to reduce
fat in the American diet?”

Dr. Robert Lustig: Exactly. And we did. And guess what? Heart disease,
metabolic syndrome, diabetes and death are skyrocketing.

Dr. Lustig believes that’s primarily because we replaced a lot of that fat
with added sugars.

Dr. Robert Lustig: Take the fat out of food, it tastes like cardboard. And
the food industry knew that. So they replaced it with sugar.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: This idea that sugar increases this particularly bad LDL,
the small dense particles that are associated with heart disease. Do most
doctors– do they know this?

Dr. Robert Lustig: No, they do not know this. This is new.

And it turns out, sugar has become a major focus in cancer research too.
Lewis Cantley, is looking at the connection.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: If you limit your sugar you decrease your chances of
developing cancer?

Lewis Cantley: Absolutely.

Cantley, a Harvard professor and the head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer
Center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone
insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers.

Lewis Cantley: What we’re beginning to learn is that insulin can cause
adverse effects in the various tissues. And of particular concern is cancer.

Why? Nearly a third of some common cancers — including breast and colon
cancers — have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin
binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose.

Lewis Cantley: This is your body…

Every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. But the trouble is, these
cancer cells also use it to grow.

Lewis Cantley: So if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors
on it then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that’s in the
bloodstream rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor.
And the tumor uses it to grow.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: So you’ve just seen that tumor turn blue which is
essentially reflective of glucose going into it.

Lewis Cantley: That’s right.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: So these cancers, much in the same way that muscle will
say, “Hey, I’d like some of that glucose, the fat says, “I would like some of
that glucose,” the cancers have learned how to do this themselves as well?

Lewis Cantley: Yes. So they have evolved the ability to hijack that flow of
glucose that’s going by in the bloodstream into the tumor itself.

Lewis Cantley’s research team is working on developing drugs that will cut
off the glucose supply to cancer cells and keep them from growing. But until
there’s a breakthrough, Cantley’s advice? Don’t eat sugar. And if you must, keep
it to a minimum.

Lewis Cantley: In fact– I– you know, I live my life that way. I rarely eat
sugar.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: When you see a sugary drink or if I were to offer you one,
what– with all that you know, what’s going through your mind?

Lewis Cantley: I probably would turn it down and get a glass of water.

But for most of us, that’s easier said than done…

Eric Stice: It turns out sugar is much more addictive than I think we had
sort of realized early on.

Eric Stice, a neuroscientist at the Oregon Research Institute, is using
functional MRI scanners to learn how our brains respond to sweetness.

Eric Stice: Sugar activates our brain in a special way. That’s very
reminiscent of, you know, drugs like cocaine.

That’s right. Cocaine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Let’s give it a shot…

I climbed into the MRI scanner to see how my brain would respond. That’s a
straw that’s been rigged to deliver a tiny sip of soda into my mouth.

Eric Stice: Stay as still as you can, ok?

Just as it hit my tongue, the scanner detected increased blood rushing to
certain regions of my brain. In these images, the yellow areas show that my
reward region is responding to the sweet taste. Dopamine – a chemical that
controls the brain’s pleasure center – is being released, just as it would in
response to drugs or alcohol.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: So dopamine is released. That sort of makes me feel good.
I’m experiencing some pleasure from having this Coke.

Eric Stice: Right, that euphoric effect.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: So far be it for people to realize this ’cause sugar is
everywhere, but you’re saying this is one of the most addictive substances
possibly that we have?

Eric Stice: It certainly is very good at firing the reward regions in our
brain.

Eric Stice says by scanning hundreds of volunteers, he’s learned that people
who frequently drink sodas or eat ice cream or other sweet foods may be building
up a tolerance, much like drug users do. As strange as it sounds, that means the
more you eat, the less you feel the reward. The result: you eat more than
ever.

Eric Stice: If you overeat these on a regular basis it causes changes in the
brain that basically it blunts your reward region response to the food, so then
you eat more and more to achieve the same satisfaction you felt originally.

With all this new science emerging, we wanted to hear from the sugar
industry, so we visited Jim Simon, who’s on the board of the Sugar Association,
at a sugar cane farm in Louisiana.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Would it surprise you that almost every scientist that we
talked to in researching this story told us they are eliminating all added
sugars. They’re getting rid of it because they’re concerned about the health
impacts.

Jim Simon: To say that the American consuming public is going to completely
omit, eliminate, sweeteners out of their diet I don’t think gets us there.

Simon cautions that eliminating sugar wrongly vilifies one food, rather than
working towards the long-term solution of reducing calories and exercising.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: You know, a lot of people, Jim, are saying that sugar is
different. That it is bad for your heart and is causing a lot of the problems
we’re talking about. It is addictive and in some cases might even fuel cancers.
What would you – I mean you’ve looked at this. You must have looked at some of
these studies. What do you say about that?

Jim Simon: The science is not completely clear here.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: But some of that’s, but some of these studies exist. I
mean, what is a consumer, what are they to make of all that

Jim Simon: Well, I would say to them, that they’ve got to approach, their
diet in balance.

Dr. Robert Lustig agrees — we need a balanced diet — but his idea of
balance is a drastic reduction in sugar consumption. To that end he co-authored
an American Heart Association report recommending men should consume no more
than 150 calories of added sugars a day. And women, just 100 calories. That’s
less than the amount in just one can of soda.

Dr. Robert Lustig: Ultimately this is a public health crisis. And when it’s a
public health crisis, you have to do big things and you have to do them across
the board. Tobacco and alcohol are perfect examples. We have made a conscious
choice that we’re not going to get rid of them, but we are going to limit their
consumption. I think sugar belongs in this exact same wastebasket.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

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