Alternative Medicine News

The News Review:

- Life in Hong Kong
- East meets West: Author provides a different take on Jesus
- Labor releases grants to bankroll micro-enterprise projects
- Planters of nut looking for alternative ways
- Utah doctor to oversee Paralympics medicine
- Male Contraception: Progress Slow but Steady
- Amgen Develops Six Cancer Drugs as Anemia Sales Fall (Update2)

Life in Hong Kong
Telegraph.co.uk – Apr 11, 2008
Sally was a talented voice artist and scriptwriter, whose interests included astrology, alternative medicine and animal welfare. We have left the information below, written by Sally, as a resource for anyone seeking information on life in Hong Kong. For those in need of any additional advice, you can visit our Hong Kong.

East meets West: Author provides a different take on Jesus
Turkish Daily News – Turkish Daily News (subscription) – Apr 11, 2008
Chopra argues that Christ speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience. “I said to myself, ‘Why not write a book that takes Jesus’ teachings – and it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or not – and learn from this and improve your life,’” he told The Associated Press at the Chopra Center and Spa in midtown Manhattan. Considered a pioneer of mind-body alternative medicine, Chopra is president of the Alliance for a New Humanity and has been listed among Time magazine’s top 100 heroes and icons of the 20th century. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, with topics that range from aging and sexuality to golf and Buddha’s path to enlightenment. In 1995, he co-founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing with Dr. David Simon, which officially opened the following year. His fascination with Jesus’ life began during his lessons while attending a Roman Catholic school in India, Chopra said.

Labor releases grants to bankroll micro-enterprise projects
sunstar.com.ph – Apr 11, 2008
Lim, Zamboanga Sibugay. The IPA is using seed fund of P50,000 to begin the lagundi alternative medicine production project. The beneficiaries are mostly Subanon women. “With the help of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, we identified three sitios in R. Lim (formerly known as Surabay) that can serve as pilot areas for lagundi production,” Boteros added.

Planters of nut looking for alternative ways
Economic Times – Apr 11, 2008
You put it in your hair, drink its
water, grate and squeeze it for milk and use it as fibre. Experts feel you can
do even more with the
coconut. With coconut prices
failing to keep up with inflation trends and competition growing, planters of
this versatile nut are looking for alternative ways to enhance their incomes. Coconut has traditionally given oil; used for edible purposes, toiletry and
industrial use. Coconut is
also used for rafters in roofs, to make broomsticks and handicrafts. Kochi-based
Peekay Tree Crops Development Foundation?s PK Thampan said: ?Coconut
water-based vinegar is being produced on a commercial scale in a few units in
Kerala and the product is enjoying good consumer acceptance both within and
outside the state. ?

Of
the total production of coconuts, about 5% is consumed in the tender form for
drinking purposes… Solution Exchange for
the Food & Nutrition Security Community, a United Nations initiative to
share information within India, recently raised this issue and got some useful
hints about the versatile
plant. A coconut palm has 12
different crops at any point of time, from the opening flower to the ripe nut. Each part is a source of food, fibre, medicine or material for producing
handicrafts. New ideas are
coming up for tender coconut water sales too. Tender green coconut can be
trimmed, shaped and attractively marketed by shrink-wrapping to prevent
desiccation. Thailand has aptly used this method. In India, several companies
are innovatively marketing coconut water on green carts in Hyderabad, as
?Tender Fresh? in Bangalore and ?Coconectar? in
Kerala.

Utah doctor to oversee Paralympics medicine
Deseret News – Apr 11, 2008
A month ago, he was invited to interview. The questions were not those you’d routinely expect. He was asked how he felt about alternative medicines, since in Beijing athletes will have access to both Western and Eastern medicine. “I’m comfortable with that,” he told the Deseret Morning News. They talked about the fact the Paralympics fall during Ramadan, which has stirred some controversy. Not only is it a holy month for Muslims, but it brings with it food restrictions that may affect participating athletes who practice Islam. And there is, of course, the question of China and Tibet, a politically hot topic right now.

Male Contraception: Progress Slow but Steady
Forbes – Apr 11, 2008
"It has been slow," said Dr. Ronald Swerdloff, aresearcher in the quest to find feasible male contraceptivemethods. But there are good reasons for that slow pace, addedSwerdloff, an endocrinologist and chief of the division ofendocrinology at Harbor-UCLA and professor of medicine at theHarbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to take on a new productquickly because of untested liability issues, he said. And"one of the biggest single issues has to do with the fact thatcontraception in general is a difficult area it would be used bylarge numbers of healthy individuals. " The safety threshold,he noted, is high. Still, he added, more options are movingcloser… The researchers studied various dosesand then drew blood samples to measure hormone levels. Theyreported on the 119 men who complied and finished the study,concluding that the combination worked better to suppresssperm. "Intra Vas Device," or IVD — An alternative to avasectomy, this method involves inserting silicone plugs into thevas deferens, the tube sperm move through and the same tube cut ina vasectomy. "The sperm can't get past the plugs,"said Joe Hofmeister, president of Shepherd Medical Company in St. , the IVD developer. "Preliminary six-month datashow that 90 percent of 60 men [tracked to date] have zero motilesperm," he said.
Related: Healthy Living Hirsutism, diabetes, obesity all linked

Amgen Develops Six Cancer Drugs as Anemia Sales Fall (Update2)
Bloomberg – Apr 11, 2008
4percent this year. First Attempt Amgen's effort to discover cancer drugs began in 2001,fueled by revenue from the anemia business. Its first marketedmedicine was acquired in 2006 through the $2. 2 billion takeoverof Abgenix Inc. The product, Vectibix for colorectal tumors, waspredicted to generate $2 billion a year in sales. The drug was marketed to physicians and Wall Street as asafer and less expensive alternative to ImClone Systems Inc… 2 billion takeoverof Abgenix Inc. The product, Vectibix for colorectal tumors, waspredicted to generate $2 billion a year in sales. The drug was marketed to physicians and Wall Street as asafer and less expensive alternative to ImClone Systems Inc. Instead of being safer, Vectibix appeared to be more risky. A study of more than 1,000 newly diagnosed patients was halted inMarch 2007 after Vectibix raised the risk of death when used withAvastin. Vectibix ended up generating $170 million in its firstyear on the market.
Related: Tokyo shares outlook – Higher on Wall Street rebound; Takeda in focus

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