Saturday, October 6, 2012
Synthetic Marijuna Fact Sheet
1. What is Synthetic Marijuana? Synthetic Marijuana is a man made drug that is not marijuana.
It was invented to act like marijuana; however, it is more powerful and more dangerous than marijuana.
This fake marijuana, often called Spice, K2 or Legal Phunk, is sprayed on real plant products, like leaves, and sold as incense or potpourri. It is usually smoked,but can be eaten too.
When used, it can be very dangerous. Other names for this include Lava Red, Aroma, Dream, Mr. Nice Guy, and many more.
Beware of name changes as they are changed often as is the chemical make‐up.
2. Where is K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana) sold?
K2/Spice can be bought very easily on the internet. They can also be found in head shops, smoke shops,convenience stores and some gas stations.
Government officials are trying to make them illegal, but as of yet, they remain legal.
3. Why is K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana) sold if they are drugs and harmful?
K2/Spice are sold in a way that outsmarts state and local regulations by stating on the package that they are “not for human consumption.” Because of this, it is very difficult to regulate and track. It is cheap, easy to purchase, sold as fake (synthetic) marijuana that doesn’t show up on standard drug tests.
4. How does K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana) affect you?
People who use K2/Spice or any other synthetic marijuana experience:
Fast heart rate Convulsions (seizures)
Seeing things (hallucinations) Weakness
Dry mouth Passing out (coma)
Death has resulted in some cases!
5. What happens to the people who use K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana)?
When people use K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana), they can have heart attacks, brain damage, kidney failure and scary hallucinations (seeing things) that last for many days.
6. Who uses K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana)?
K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana) are used by all people, regardless of age, gender, or status.
Bottom Line: K2/Spice (synthetic marijuana)
A. It is very easy to get.
B. It is very dangerous and can lead to heart attacks, brain damage, kidney failure and scary images/hallucinations.
For More Information
www.upstatepoison.org
synthetic_marijuna_fact_sheet_public.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Link: http://www.upstate.edu/poison/pdf/news_releases/synthetic_marijuna_fact_sheet_public.pdf
....................................................................................
P.S. This information is posted here because medical marijuana is sometimes used to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, cancer and 'aids'. This is a warning to not cut corners and to not use anything but the Real McCoy when it comes to treating your m.s. symptoms.Marijuana has gained the status of alternative medicine... .
synthetic_marijuna_fact_sheet_public.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Friday, October 5, 2012
Robotic device helps WakeMed patients walk - Health/Science - NewsObserver.com
Patient wears a robotic exoskeleton to help him walk at WakeMed Rehab in Raleigh on Thursday, September 27, 2012. WakeMed is one of sixteen sites across the country that are starting to use the robotic exoskeleton, designed by Ekso Bionics, to help patients learn or re-learn to walk.
For now, the Ekso is an aid for physical therapy clinics with the help of therapists trained in its use, but the company is working on a sleeker, cheaper model for home use, which it hopes to begin selling in two years.
WakeMed began using the device this week. Initially the hospital is using it on patients with spinal cord injuries who can’t walk on their own, but it plans to eventually use it on other kinds of cases, such as stroke patients.http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/09/27/2373685/wakemed-gets-wearable-robot.html
Elsewhere, the device is already used for patients with other health problems, including multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and traumatic brain injuries.
For patients who spend significant amounts of time in wheelchairs, being able to spend at least a little time in the device regularly is likely to offer improvements in a host of functions, such as circulation, respiration and digestion, said Cathy Smith, director of outpatient rehabilitation at WakeMed.
It may help those with partial spinal cord injuries regain some function more easily.
Harder to quantify are intangible benefits, such as what it means for someone who has been in a wheelchair for decades to simply to be able to stand, walk around and look people in the eye again.
The Ekso looks like a kind of mechanized, computerized combination of a backpack and leg braces. Patients wear it with straps below the knees, on the thighs, around the stomach and over the shoulders. Plates under each foot are attached to motors and lift up. More than two dozen sensors feed information into the Ekso’s computer, which uses it to decide how and when to step.
Patients must have at least some upper body strength to use Ekso because they must use a walker or crutches when wearing the device to ensure their balance. For the current model, they also must be lighter than 220 pounds and between 5 feet 2 inches and 6 feet 2 inches in height.
The device has three modes. In the most advanced, fully automatic mode, the device takes a step when the patient shifts his weight to the side and leans forward.
They have to work up to that, though. In the most basic mode, therapists talk the patient through the proper motions, and one of them uses a hand-held remote control to trigger each step. In an intermediate mode, the patient triggers each step via a button on one crutch.
The learning curve
Ayscue was still in the first mode Thursday, and all the patients using it will be for a while as they and the WakeMed therapists learn how to use it.
Eventually he will transition to trigger his own steps with buttons on one crutch.
The batteries last about three hours, but can be quickly swapped out for fresh ones.
The Ekso is designed to carry its entire weight, about 45 pounds, but the patient’s weight goes through the patient’s own legs, something the company believes will help fight the loss of bone density, a common problem for those who spend significant time in wheelchairs.
About 350 patients nationwide have used the device so far, said Bender, the company CEO. So far, there have been no falls. But using it in a controlled environment with trained experts just inches away is much different from using it at home.
A home model will be more elaborate in its function, but lighter, slimmer, and have a look that’s more low-key, he said.
“We have to design a system that’s comfortable enough and appealing enough that’s it’s something you would be proud to wear,” he said. “There could be more than one model, and eventually it could become like when we choose our pants in the morning, the jeans of the future.”
That first “personal unit” also will need to have fall-prevention features. Also, cost and who pays are key issues. The current model costs $140,000, with a $10,000 annual service contract, Bender said.
The company is trying to reduce the cost and working with several rehab hospitals on research into the health benefits of getting people back on their feet and walking each day. If the various health benefits can be quantified, he said, the device could become a reasonable thing for insurance companies to cover.
The long-term potential that the Ekso suggests is limited by little more than the speed of improvements and imagination, Bender said.
“Maybe devices could help arthritis suffers with their mobility, or help people like you and me do something outrageous like climb Mount Kilimanjaro,” he said.
The potential market is huge, with nearly 70 million people worldwide who need wheelchairs, many in a position to benefit from assisted walking.
The company has a couple of competitors, Bender said, but it expects more. “It’s just too obvious,” he said. “Just look at all the unbelievable developments we have seen for amputees.
“Now it’s time for people with neurological problems – their time is now and this is just the beginning.”
As Ayscue was being strapped into the Ekso he quipped that he felt like astronaut John Glenn. And WakeMed’s CEO, Bill Atkinson, who had joined a small crowd of other hospital employees marveled at what he was seeing.
“A lifetime of changes in health care and rarely does it walk right in front of you,” Atkinson said. “For these patients, this is like the first steps on the moon.”
After a few dozen steps, the motors overheated and Ayscue had to pause and sit until they cooled.
Company technicians said the problem was that Ayscue still has limited muscle function and his own muscles were fighting the machine, which has been programmed to take relatively slow, short steps until he’s adept enough to go faster.
New software is on the way that will allow them to dial down the assist from the robot so it can more easily accommodate patients with at least limited function. For now, he needs to dial down himself. If he can.
“The motion just feels so natural, I guess in my mind I think I can walk just like I used to,” he said. “That’s the deal with the machine. I need to get used to it so that we can work together.”
Source link: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/09/27/2373685/wakemed-gets-wearable-robot.html
Robotic device helps WakeMed patients walk - Health/Science - NewsObserver.com
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Knee Replacement May Be a Lifesaver for Some - NYTimes.com
Knee Replacement May Be a Lifesaver for Some - NYTimes.com
Stuart Bradford
Stuart BradfordBy the time 64-year-old Laura Milson decided to undergo total knee replacement after 12 years of suffering from arthritis, even a short walk to the office printer was a struggle.
After her surgery last August at the Rothman Institute at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Ms. Milson spent a week in rehabilitation and says she hasn’t stopped walking since. “My son says to me, ‘You have to slow down,’ and I say, ‘No, I have to catch up!,’ ” she said. “It’s a whole different life.”
For Ms. Milson, who lives in Shrewsbury, Pa., replacing the joint in her right knee came with a surprising bonus: a 20-pound weight loss in two months. “I joked with my doctor, ‘I think you put a diet chip in my knee,’ ” she said. “The weight just sort of came off.”
Now she has joined Weight Watchers to drop a few extra pounds and is training for a three-day breast cancer walk in October.
For years surgeons have boasted of the pain relief and improved quality of life that often follow knee replacement. But now new research suggests that for some patients, knee replacement surgery can actually save their lives.
In a sweeping study of Medicare records, researchers from Philadelphia and Menlo Park, Calif., examined the effects of joint replacement among nearly 135,000 patients with new diagnoses of osteoarthritis of the knee from 1997 to 2009. About 54,000 opted for knee replacement; 81,000 did not.
Three years after diagnosis, the knee replacement patients had an 11 percent lower risk of heart failure. And after seven years, their risk of dying for any reason was 50 percent lower.
The study, presented this month at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, was financed with a grant from a knee replacement manufacturer. It was not randomized, so it may be that these patients were healthier and more active to start with.
Still, the researchers did try to control for differences in age and overall health. And the findings are consistent with large studies of knee replacement and mortality in Scandinavia. Given the big numbers in the study and the size of the effect, the data strongly suggest that knee replacement may lead to improvements in health and longevity.
The theory behind knee replacement, said the study’s lead author, Scott Lovald, senior associate at Exponent, a scientific consulting firm in Menlo Park, is that it improves quality of life. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to figure out if quantity of life increases as well,” he added, noting that the team was conducting a similar review of Medicare data on the long-term benefits of hip replacement surgery.
The founder of the Rothman Institute, Dr. Richard H. Rothman, who has performed 25,000 joint replacement surgeries in his career, urged caution in interpreting data that are not randomized and controlled. Not every patient with knee arthritis is a candidate for joint replacement surgery, he said.
“People can tolerate a lot of knee disability for reasons we don’t totally understand,” he went on, adding, “If the pain is acceptable, you live with it; if it’s not acceptable, we’ll operate on you.”
Dr. Rothman said that whether patients experience better health after surgery depends on motivation — how motivated they were to stay fit before surgery and how motivated they are now to become more active.
“For the motivated patient, it allows them to walk through that portal and become better conditioned and lose weight,” he said. “It’s not a weight-reduction program. It’s a potential avenue to improve your level of fitness, weight, cardiovascular health and mental health.”
Edward Moore, a 94-year-old retired chemist in Woodbury, N.J., underwent knee replacement three years ago after pain began limiting his activity. Given his age, his own daughter had worried that the recovery would be too difficult. But Dr. Rothman agreed he was healthy enough for the procedure.
“I didn’t do much mulling about it,” Mr. Moore said. “It just seemed like the knee would be hampering me for the rest of my life, and that sounded like a bad idea.”
Mr. Moore said he had an uneventful recovery, and in September, two days after his 94th birthday, he took his wind surfer to Lakes Bay near Atlantic City. “I got up on the board, and I sailed,” he said.
William Mills, 63, of Philadelphia, had been suffering for about four years with severe pain in both knees when he opted for double knee replacement in 2006. He said his activity had dropped off, and while he could still play golf, he could no longer walk the course. Even going to a restaurant had become a burden if he couldn’t find a parking space nearby.
“I think one of the things people don’t understand about knees is how bad it is,” said Mr. Mills, a bank executive. “It changes everything. I couldn’t walk two city blocks. It was just slowly but surely changing my life where I was unable to really enjoy things.”
But while the rehabilitation of both knees was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he has no regrets. Six months after surgery he took part in a 250-mile bike ride in Germany. He has made a few compromises — he no longer skis, and plays doubles tennis instead of singles — but he says he now rarely thinks about his knees.
“Before surgery, I felt like I was 10 or 15 years older than I was,” he said. “Now I probably feel like I’m 10 or 15 years younger than I am.
“I can understand why people might live longer, because you want to. You really feel good again.”
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Walk More
DocMikeEvans's Channel - YouTube: ""
The Doctor has many more of these self-help videos on his channel.
'via Blog this'
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Go Back
The Inca were not only skilled engineers and warriors but also successful surgeons. Five hundred years ago, without the benefit of steel scalpels or antibiotics, the Inca performed a type of operation called trepanation—literally carving holes in patients' skulls. How did they do it, and why? In this audio slide show, bioarcheologist Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University explains http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
Operation Lion Heart
Pulitzer Prize award winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice won the highly respected award in 2005 for the photographic essay “Operation Lion Heart.”
“Operation Lion Heart” is the story of a 9-year-old Iraqi boy who was severely injured by an explosion during one of the most violent conflicts of modern history – the Iraq War. The boy was brought to a hospital in Oakland, CA where he had to undergo dozens of life-and-death surgeries. His courage and unwillingness to die gave him the nickname: Saleh Khalaf, “Lion Heart”.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Prosthetics: Life Without Limitations
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Ossur came to this blog's attention while reading about Oscar Pistorious who wears their equipment in his running career. The Cheetah prosthetic legs may carry Oxcar in his dream to compete in the Olympics against able-bodied athletes.
About Össur the publicly traded company
http://www.ossur.com/
Company Background
Founded in 1971, Össur has amassed wide-ranging expertise in the development, manufacture and sale of non-invasive orthopaedics. An assertive acquisition strategy has complemented ambitious organic growth over the last ten years and the Company is now a leading global player in the industry.
Össur continues to conceive and harness the very best in design and technological advances in its award-winning pursuit of “life without limitations”. Recognized by the World Economic Forum as a "Technology Pioneer", the Company invests significantly in research and product development, and Össur’s innovative R&D unit helps ensure a consistently strong position in the market.
The business employs a staff of around 1,600 across 14 strategic locations. Össur has extensive operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, with numerous distributors in other markets. The Company’s headquarters are in Iceland.
The Company is named after Össur Kristinsson, an Icelandic prosthetist who, in the early 1970’s, focused on designing a better interface for prosthetic sockets. He soon discovered the ideal properties of silicone and put them to work in the form of the Iceross® liner. Within a short space of time his invention was helping thousands of amputees across the world to secure their prosthesis to their limb in a far more effective and comfortable way than ever before.
Building on that pioneering tradition, Össur has added numerous life-changing products to its portfolio, dynamic braces such as the Unloader One® to relieve the pain of osteoarthritis, and the unique prosthetic foot PROPRIO FOOT®, the world's first intelligent prosthetic foot incorporating Bionic Technology by Össur.
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Mission: To improve people's mobility
Fueled by a determination to seek out and seize new opportunities, the Company’s mission is simply to improve people's mobility. Its vision is to become the leading company in its field, exceeding the expectations of its customers and maintaining a strong focus on continuous improvement.
As part of Össur’s ambitious and global working environment, the organization fosters three core values:
Honesty
We aim always to show respect by adhering to facts, by fulfilling promises and admitting failures. We nurture honest communication throughout the company.
Frugality
We use resources wisely, with effective planning and communication and optimized processes each helping to minimize costs across all areas of the business.
Courage
Open to change, we strive constantly for improvement and challenge unwritten rules. We show initiative and take risks, while taking responsibility for our decisions and actions.
■Contrary to myth, plant-based diet won’t weaken you
Contrary to myth, plant-based diet won’t weaken you
By: Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Friday, January 27th, 2012
The scientific and medical communities have long acknowledged that smoking, lack of exercise and emotional stress adversely affects cardiovascular health and physical strength. Diet has also been directly linked to heart health.
New studies seem to point out that a plant-based diet is needed for optimal cardiovascular and physical health. Dr. Dean Ornish, MD, in his program called Reversing Heart Disease, cited Olympic-class athletes such as champions Edwin Moses (undefeated in eight years of running the 400-meter hurdles), Dave Scott (American triathlete and six-time winner of the Ironman Triathlon World Championship) who was on a plant-based diet, maintained superior physical conditioning, strength and skills.
If these Olympic medalists could achieve such feats without animal food, then the average person would surely benefit from such a diet. “Even a single meal high in fat and cholesterol may cause the body to release a hormone, thromboxane, which causes the arteries to constrict and the blood to clot faster—one reason heart patients often get chest pains after eating a fatty meal and why so many of them end up in the emergency room after a rich thanksgiving or other holiday feast,” Ornish said.
Ideal four-diet plan
The ideal and basic four-diet plan, preferably using indigenous sources, includes seeds and nuts (in moderation), fruits, vegetables and whole grains (unrefined). Dr. Neil Nedley, MD, author of “Proof Positive (How to Reliably Combat Disease and Achieve Optimal Health through Nutrition and Lifestyle),” said that if we were to subsist wholly on these four good groups, we could prevent a whole host of diseases, and improve both our quality and quantity of life.
“It is high time we set aside the great meat and protein myth. Preoccupation with meat and its protein, rather than improving health, has contributed to many degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis (high protein diet robs body of calcium), kidney failure and kidney stones, Nedley said.
Nedley added that plant sources of nutrition are generally modest in protein and reasonable in fat content; furthermore, they never contain any cholesterol. With our growing understanding of protein physiology, a plant-based diet has emerged as the optimal way to eat for those interested in maximizing longevity and the quality of living.
Nedley also cited various studies linking animal protein consumption with increased risk of cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, kidney and womb (endometrium).
By: Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Friday, January 27th, 2012
The scientific and medical communities have long acknowledged that smoking, lack of exercise and emotional stress adversely affects cardiovascular health and physical strength. Diet has also been directly linked to heart health.
New studies seem to point out that a plant-based diet is needed for optimal cardiovascular and physical health. Dr. Dean Ornish, MD, in his program called Reversing Heart Disease, cited Olympic-class athletes such as champions Edwin Moses (undefeated in eight years of running the 400-meter hurdles), Dave Scott (American triathlete and six-time winner of the Ironman Triathlon World Championship) who was on a plant-based diet, maintained superior physical conditioning, strength and skills.
If these Olympic medalists could achieve such feats without animal food, then the average person would surely benefit from such a diet. “Even a single meal high in fat and cholesterol may cause the body to release a hormone, thromboxane, which causes the arteries to constrict and the blood to clot faster—one reason heart patients often get chest pains after eating a fatty meal and why so many of them end up in the emergency room after a rich thanksgiving or other holiday feast,” Ornish said.
Ideal four-diet plan
The ideal and basic four-diet plan, preferably using indigenous sources, includes seeds and nuts (in moderation), fruits, vegetables and whole grains (unrefined). Dr. Neil Nedley, MD, author of “Proof Positive (How to Reliably Combat Disease and Achieve Optimal Health through Nutrition and Lifestyle),” said that if we were to subsist wholly on these four good groups, we could prevent a whole host of diseases, and improve both our quality and quantity of life.
“It is high time we set aside the great meat and protein myth. Preoccupation with meat and its protein, rather than improving health, has contributed to many degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis (high protein diet robs body of calcium), kidney failure and kidney stones, Nedley said.
Nedley added that plant sources of nutrition are generally modest in protein and reasonable in fat content; furthermore, they never contain any cholesterol. With our growing understanding of protein physiology, a plant-based diet has emerged as the optimal way to eat for those interested in maximizing longevity and the quality of living.
Nedley also cited various studies linking animal protein consumption with increased risk of cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, kidney and womb (endometrium).
How to Have a Healthy Heart For Life
Content provided by:
How to Have a Healthy Heart For Life
Aviva Patz
Ready for some exciting health news? "Ninety-nine percent of heart disease is preventable by changing your diet and lifestyle," says Dean Ornish, MD, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. What's more, scientists are discovering that we don't have to ban all fat and salt to stay healthy. Instead, you just need to cut back on saturated fat (which comes from meat and whole-fat dairy) and trans fats (found in partially hydrogenated oils in fried and many processed foods). These types of fat seem to increase levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, which lines arteries with plaque and can cause a heart attack or stroke.
Good fats, on the other hand— — such as monounsaturated (think olive oil and avocados) and polyunsaturated fats, like omega-3 fatty acids (found in sunflower oil, soybeans, and some fish) — —lower LDL levels and raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. Meanwhile, a 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association challenges the notion that we all need to slash our salt intake, suggesting that going low-sodium is more important if you're at high risk of heart disease—say, you have a family history of the condition, you have diabetes, or you smoke.
Whether or not you have these risk factors, though, prevention is key. And it starts on your plate. See how three women staged their own heart-healthy dietary interventions, and follow in their footsteps to keep your heart pumping strong now and in the decades to come.
Build a better diet
Lily Lin, 31, recently got a serious health wake-up call: She was diagnosed with prehypertension at 30, then prediabetes the next year — —both conditions that up your chances of developing heart disease. She was placed on blood pressure medication as a result. Then her maternal grandmother died from a stroke. Lin knew that her dad had high blood pressure and her mother had high cholesterol — —heart disease risk factors that she had a chance of inheriting. "I'd thought I had years before I needed to worry about those things," she says.
Lin, a business analyst in New York City, decided to take charge of her health and went to the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, which focuses on reversing heart disease and other conditions through lifestyle changes. Pritikin doctors advised Lin to lower her intake of animal protein, due to its saturated fat content, so she traded her deli meat lunches for tofu, beans, and grilled fish.
Lin also learned to limit refined carbohydrates, including muffins and her 100-calorie cookie snack-pack breakfasts. Moderate to heavy consumption of simple carbs like these can double your risk of heart disease, a 2010 Archives of Internal Medicine study suggests. Instead, she now fills up on fiber-full complex carbohydrates such as oatmeal. "I learned that fiber carries cholesterol out of my body instead of into my bloodstream," Lin says. Adding in more fruit made a difference, too; in fact, scientists have just discovered that the effects of the gene most closely linked with heart disease can actually be modified by eating plenty of fruits and raw vegetables.
Lin's efforts have paid off: She was recently told she could stop taking her blood pressure meds. "I've never felt so good," she says. "My friends and family see the changes in me. I used to live to eat, but now I eat to live."
Moves to make in your 30s: Talk to your MD about your family history of heart disease, and ask about any other personal risk factors to watch for. For example, if you had gestational diabetes or preeclampsia when you were pregnant, your risk of heart disease is at least doubled. If you're at low or no risk, get your blood pressure checked every year and get a cholesterol baseline, too. "If results are normal, you can wait till your 40s to repeat the test," says Jacob DeLaRosa, MD, author of the Heart Surgery Game Plan.
Go for the best new tests
At 45, Stephanie Corn looked and felt healthy. Her cholesterol tests were normal. But because her mother had suffered three arterial blockages and undergone open-heart surgery in 2008, her doctor decided last year to go beyond the standard screenings and give her a new type called an LDL particle test which, while not routine, can give a fuller picture of heart-disease risk. In fact, major organizations like the American College of Cardiology and the American Diabetes Association now believe that your concentration of LDL particles— — which adhere to the arterial wall and deposit cholesterol there — —is a better predictor of heart disease risk than high LDL cholesterol levels in and of themselves.
The verdict: Corn's particle number was about 1,700. The ideal number is under 1,000— — meaning she was at high risk of heart disease. "I just about cried," says Corn, a finance officer for the city of Claremont, North Carolina. To get her out of the danger zone quickly, Corn's doctor put her on statins — —drugs that lower cholesterol— — but for long-term results, he encouraged her to change her diet, which, for this Southerner, meant saying good-bye to her beloved fried fish and its trans fats. He also warned her to stay away from soda: A 2011 study from the University of Oklahoma shows that women who drink two or more sweetened beverages a day are more likely to gain weight, increase waist size, and develop other risk factors for heart disease. In just one year, Corn brought her particle number down to 900 and is no longer at high risk. "I wouldn't have known I was in any danger without the test," Corn says. "It saved my life."
Moves to make in your 40s: If your chances of getting heart disease are above average, ask for a blood test to measure your LDL particles in addition to a standard cholesterol test. Women without risk factors should still get a standard cholesterol test at least every five years beginning at age 40, since plaque on your arterial walls can become more problematic with age. Being overweight or obese ups your odds of getting heart disease, too, so now's a good time to get your diet in check to help halt the middle-age spread.
Eat your superfoods
Maryann Chiaro, 54, of Valatie, New York, had gotten a clean bill of health at every checkup for decades. So when she saw a new doc last year, she was surprised to learn that her total cholesterol was high. "He told me that if I didn't get my levels down, I'd be going on Lipitor," says the upstate New York mom. Chiaro does have a family history of hypertension; her mother suffered a heart attack at age 62. She'd thought being a vegetarian was keeping her healthy, but, she admits, she was only getting in two veggies a day — "barely." Instead, she built meals around her favorite food: cheese.
To avoid following in her mother's footsteps, Chiaro worked with her doctor and a dietitian. They identified super-foods that Chiaro makes sure to eat every day, including oatmeal, dark green veggies, nuts, and olive oil. "I'm eating kale, turnips— — things I'd never had before," she says. She also lowered her saturated fat intake by giving up cheese entirely, getting her protein instead from hummus, beans, and salmon.
In only five months, Chiaro has lowered her cholesterol from 181 to 138— — without medication. Those are results anyone can achieve: "The more you change," Dr. Ornish says, "the more your heart health improves."
Moves to make in your 50s: Have your cholesterol and blood pressure checked every year, and ask your doctor about getting a blood-sugar test to rule out diabetes. On a daily basis, simply eating well and staying slim will go a long way toward keeping the cardiologist away.
Source:
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cholesterol/how-to-have-a-healthy-heart-for-life
How to Have a Healthy Heart For Life
Aviva Patz
Ready for some exciting health news? "Ninety-nine percent of heart disease is preventable by changing your diet and lifestyle," says Dean Ornish, MD, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. What's more, scientists are discovering that we don't have to ban all fat and salt to stay healthy. Instead, you just need to cut back on saturated fat (which comes from meat and whole-fat dairy) and trans fats (found in partially hydrogenated oils in fried and many processed foods). These types of fat seem to increase levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, which lines arteries with plaque and can cause a heart attack or stroke.
Good fats, on the other hand— — such as monounsaturated (think olive oil and avocados) and polyunsaturated fats, like omega-3 fatty acids (found in sunflower oil, soybeans, and some fish) — —lower LDL levels and raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. Meanwhile, a 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association challenges the notion that we all need to slash our salt intake, suggesting that going low-sodium is more important if you're at high risk of heart disease—say, you have a family history of the condition, you have diabetes, or you smoke.
Whether or not you have these risk factors, though, prevention is key. And it starts on your plate. See how three women staged their own heart-healthy dietary interventions, and follow in their footsteps to keep your heart pumping strong now and in the decades to come.
Build a better diet
Lily Lin, 31, recently got a serious health wake-up call: She was diagnosed with prehypertension at 30, then prediabetes the next year — —both conditions that up your chances of developing heart disease. She was placed on blood pressure medication as a result. Then her maternal grandmother died from a stroke. Lin knew that her dad had high blood pressure and her mother had high cholesterol — —heart disease risk factors that she had a chance of inheriting. "I'd thought I had years before I needed to worry about those things," she says.
Lin, a business analyst in New York City, decided to take charge of her health and went to the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, which focuses on reversing heart disease and other conditions through lifestyle changes. Pritikin doctors advised Lin to lower her intake of animal protein, due to its saturated fat content, so she traded her deli meat lunches for tofu, beans, and grilled fish.
Lin also learned to limit refined carbohydrates, including muffins and her 100-calorie cookie snack-pack breakfasts. Moderate to heavy consumption of simple carbs like these can double your risk of heart disease, a 2010 Archives of Internal Medicine study suggests. Instead, she now fills up on fiber-full complex carbohydrates such as oatmeal. "I learned that fiber carries cholesterol out of my body instead of into my bloodstream," Lin says. Adding in more fruit made a difference, too; in fact, scientists have just discovered that the effects of the gene most closely linked with heart disease can actually be modified by eating plenty of fruits and raw vegetables.
Lin's efforts have paid off: She was recently told she could stop taking her blood pressure meds. "I've never felt so good," she says. "My friends and family see the changes in me. I used to live to eat, but now I eat to live."
Moves to make in your 30s: Talk to your MD about your family history of heart disease, and ask about any other personal risk factors to watch for. For example, if you had gestational diabetes or preeclampsia when you were pregnant, your risk of heart disease is at least doubled. If you're at low or no risk, get your blood pressure checked every year and get a cholesterol baseline, too. "If results are normal, you can wait till your 40s to repeat the test," says Jacob DeLaRosa, MD, author of the Heart Surgery Game Plan.
Go for the best new tests
At 45, Stephanie Corn looked and felt healthy. Her cholesterol tests were normal. But because her mother had suffered three arterial blockages and undergone open-heart surgery in 2008, her doctor decided last year to go beyond the standard screenings and give her a new type called an LDL particle test which, while not routine, can give a fuller picture of heart-disease risk. In fact, major organizations like the American College of Cardiology and the American Diabetes Association now believe that your concentration of LDL particles— — which adhere to the arterial wall and deposit cholesterol there — —is a better predictor of heart disease risk than high LDL cholesterol levels in and of themselves.
The verdict: Corn's particle number was about 1,700. The ideal number is under 1,000— — meaning she was at high risk of heart disease. "I just about cried," says Corn, a finance officer for the city of Claremont, North Carolina. To get her out of the danger zone quickly, Corn's doctor put her on statins — —drugs that lower cholesterol— — but for long-term results, he encouraged her to change her diet, which, for this Southerner, meant saying good-bye to her beloved fried fish and its trans fats. He also warned her to stay away from soda: A 2011 study from the University of Oklahoma shows that women who drink two or more sweetened beverages a day are more likely to gain weight, increase waist size, and develop other risk factors for heart disease. In just one year, Corn brought her particle number down to 900 and is no longer at high risk. "I wouldn't have known I was in any danger without the test," Corn says. "It saved my life."
Moves to make in your 40s: If your chances of getting heart disease are above average, ask for a blood test to measure your LDL particles in addition to a standard cholesterol test. Women without risk factors should still get a standard cholesterol test at least every five years beginning at age 40, since plaque on your arterial walls can become more problematic with age. Being overweight or obese ups your odds of getting heart disease, too, so now's a good time to get your diet in check to help halt the middle-age spread.
Eat your superfoods
Maryann Chiaro, 54, of Valatie, New York, had gotten a clean bill of health at every checkup for decades. So when she saw a new doc last year, she was surprised to learn that her total cholesterol was high. "He told me that if I didn't get my levels down, I'd be going on Lipitor," says the upstate New York mom. Chiaro does have a family history of hypertension; her mother suffered a heart attack at age 62. She'd thought being a vegetarian was keeping her healthy, but, she admits, she was only getting in two veggies a day — "barely." Instead, she built meals around her favorite food: cheese.
To avoid following in her mother's footsteps, Chiaro worked with her doctor and a dietitian. They identified super-foods that Chiaro makes sure to eat every day, including oatmeal, dark green veggies, nuts, and olive oil. "I'm eating kale, turnips— — things I'd never had before," she says. She also lowered her saturated fat intake by giving up cheese entirely, getting her protein instead from hummus, beans, and salmon.
In only five months, Chiaro has lowered her cholesterol from 181 to 138— — without medication. Those are results anyone can achieve: "The more you change," Dr. Ornish says, "the more your heart health improves."
Moves to make in your 50s: Have your cholesterol and blood pressure checked every year, and ask your doctor about getting a blood-sugar test to rule out diabetes. On a daily basis, simply eating well and staying slim will go a long way toward keeping the cardiologist away.
Source:
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cholesterol/how-to-have-a-healthy-heart-for-life
Cardiac Rehabilitation
Stamford Hospital now offers intensive cardiac rehabilitation program
By Stamford Hospital
STAMFORD, CT - Stamford Hospital is the first hospital in Connecticut to offer heart disease patients the Dr. Dean Ornish Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation (ICR) program to Reverse Heart Disease. This unique and life-saving program is now covered by Medicare and is provided by Stamford Hospital’s cardiac rehabilitation professionals.
The program provides a comprehensive approach to preventing heart disease and reducing future cardiac events for patients with cardiovascular disease. Patients undergo an intensive nine-week program that encourages lifestyle and behavior changes. The program relies on four lifestyle components essential to the heart disease reversal process: diet, exercise, stress reduction and group support.
ICR is led by a multidisciplinary team of cardiac rehabilitation professionals who work together to heal patients physically, spiritually and emotionally. Registered dieticians instruct participants how to reduce their dietary fat intake to 10% or lower and use education, recipes and cooking demonstrations to help them acquire lifelong tools for a heart-healthy diet. American College of Sports Medicine-certified exercise physiologists lead two weekly one-hour sessions of exercise instruction, designed to improve aerobic and musculoskeletal capacity and instill the importance of regular exercise. In addition, stress management and yoga instructors help patients integrate gentle stretching skills, breathing techniques, relaxation, meditation and yoga practices. Finally, licensed mental health professionals lead group support sessions to foster a sense of connection and community among participants as well as to help them develop tools for enhancing interpersonal relationships.
“Patients who participate in the ICR program can expect a number of different benefits, including longer life expectancy, fewer coronary events, improved heart circulation, less angina, less by-pass surgery, improved exercise capacity, less depression, stress and hostility, reversal of coronary artery disease, and an overall improved healthy lifestyle.” said Murray Low, EdD, Program Director, Cardiac Rehabilitation.
The Stamford Hospital Cardiac Rehabilitation Department has been re-certified by the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR). Certified AACVPR programs are recognized as leaders in the field of cardiovascular rehabilitation because they offer the most advanced practices available. The AACVPR certification process requires extensive documentation of the program’s practices, and the certification is valid for three years.
Stamford Hospital is a not-for-profit provider of comprehensive healthcare services in lower Fairfield County and the region. The mission of Stamford Hospital is to provide, together with its physicians, a broad range of high quality health and wellness services focused on the needs of our communities. Stamford Hospital is a member of the Planetree Alliance, a group of hospitals nationwide focused on patient-centered care. Stamford Hospital is affiliated with New York Presbyterian Health System and is a major teaching affiliate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
© Copyright by ConnecticutPlus.com. Some articles and pictures posted on our website, as indicated by their bylines, were submitted as press releases and do not necessarily reflect the position and opinion of ConnecticutPlus.com, Canaiden LLC or any of its associated entities. Articles may have been edited for brevity a
Dr. Ornish on the Power of Love, Chocolate, and Snacking
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
- John Muir
Dean Ornish Health Tips From Escape Fire Documentary
Dr. Ornish on the Power of Love, Chocolate, and Snacking
snacking · healthy living · dieting tips · exercise motivation
We had a chance to chat with Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, over the weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. He's a featured health expert in the new documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, which examines the current state of our health care system and provides hopeful solutions based on lifestyle and dietary changes. A big proponent of chronic disease prevention through healthy habits, Dr. Ornish offered up some sound advice and simple changes we can all make to improve our health — chocolate included!
FitSugar: What do you think is the most simple, overlooked thing people can do for their health?
Dr. Ornish: Love more. What you eat, how you respond to stress, how much you exercise, whether or not you smoke, how much love and support you have. But of all those, probably the love and support. Study after study has shown that people who are lonely and depressed are 10 times for likely to die or get sick. You're more likely to smoke and abuse yourself if you're lonely and depressed. It's not enough to just work at a behavioral level and give people information; you have to work at a deeper level.
FS: Everyone has days where they don't want to exercise, how do you motivate yourself on those days?
DO: If I really don't want to, I don't, and then I'll do more the next day. What matters is your overall way of eating and living. So if you don't do something one day, do a little more the next. If I don't have time to meditate for an hour, I'll do it for a minute. It's not all or nothing at any age, and it's really up to you.
FS: People like to stick with their daily habits; how do you get individuals to change their behavior towards healthier choices?
DO: It's about helping people connect the dots between what they do and how they feel, and giving them the tools. Fear is not a sustainable motivator. You can scare people into changing for a few weeks, but not for very long. When you make changes, most people find that they feel so much better so quickly, it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living, and that's what makes it sustainable. Also, to realize that it's not all or nothing. Instead of saying this is good food and this is bad food, and don't ever eat meat, be a vegetarian — I never tell people that. I used to a long time ago and then I realized I was actually not only not helping people, but making it worse. It turns people off because even more than being healthy, people want to be free, so when you tell people what to do they stop listening. If you eat meat five times a day, eat it three times a day or have a meatless Monday and see how you feel. If you don't exercise one day, do a little more the next. Then you start to feel better and then it comes out of your own experience, not because some doctor or some book told you.
To find out Dr. Ornish's surprising favorite indulgence and his take on snacking just read more.
FS: Why is now the right time to tackle this huge health care issue?
DO: I've been doing this for 35 years and I think what's changing is that so many things are reaching a tipping point at the same time. The limitations of high-tech medicine are becoming more apparent, and the power of low-tech, low-cost interventions like diet and lifestyle are becoming clearer. The costs are reaching a tipping point and it's unsustainable in government with $2.7 trillion in healthcare costs annually, three-fourths of which are for chronic diseases that we can largely prevent or reverse with change in diet or lifestyle. Even on the genetic level we found that when you change your lifestyle you can change your genes. It's very empowering for people to know that. Often people think, "I've got bad genes — what can I do?" It turns out you can do a lot much more quickly than people had once thought.
FS: Everyone has a favorite guilty pleasure food, what's yours?
DO: Chocolate. It's a nonguilty pleasure, though, since chocolate is actually good for you in small quantities.
FS: Are you a fan of snacking?
DO: I'm more of a grazer. I think it's actually better for you.
Source: http://www.fitsugar.com/Dean-Ornish-Health-Tips-From-Escape-Fire-Documentary-21456377
- John Muir
Dean Ornish Health Tips From Escape Fire Documentary
Dr. Ornish on the Power of Love, Chocolate, and Snacking
snacking · healthy living · dieting tips · exercise motivation
We had a chance to chat with Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, over the weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. He's a featured health expert in the new documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, which examines the current state of our health care system and provides hopeful solutions based on lifestyle and dietary changes. A big proponent of chronic disease prevention through healthy habits, Dr. Ornish offered up some sound advice and simple changes we can all make to improve our health — chocolate included!
FitSugar: What do you think is the most simple, overlooked thing people can do for their health?
Dr. Ornish: Love more. What you eat, how you respond to stress, how much you exercise, whether or not you smoke, how much love and support you have. But of all those, probably the love and support. Study after study has shown that people who are lonely and depressed are 10 times for likely to die or get sick. You're more likely to smoke and abuse yourself if you're lonely and depressed. It's not enough to just work at a behavioral level and give people information; you have to work at a deeper level.
FS: Everyone has days where they don't want to exercise, how do you motivate yourself on those days?
DO: If I really don't want to, I don't, and then I'll do more the next day. What matters is your overall way of eating and living. So if you don't do something one day, do a little more the next. If I don't have time to meditate for an hour, I'll do it for a minute. It's not all or nothing at any age, and it's really up to you.
FS: People like to stick with their daily habits; how do you get individuals to change their behavior towards healthier choices?
DO: It's about helping people connect the dots between what they do and how they feel, and giving them the tools. Fear is not a sustainable motivator. You can scare people into changing for a few weeks, but not for very long. When you make changes, most people find that they feel so much better so quickly, it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living, and that's what makes it sustainable. Also, to realize that it's not all or nothing. Instead of saying this is good food and this is bad food, and don't ever eat meat, be a vegetarian — I never tell people that. I used to a long time ago and then I realized I was actually not only not helping people, but making it worse. It turns people off because even more than being healthy, people want to be free, so when you tell people what to do they stop listening. If you eat meat five times a day, eat it three times a day or have a meatless Monday and see how you feel. If you don't exercise one day, do a little more the next. Then you start to feel better and then it comes out of your own experience, not because some doctor or some book told you.
To find out Dr. Ornish's surprising favorite indulgence and his take on snacking just read more.
FS: Why is now the right time to tackle this huge health care issue?
DO: I've been doing this for 35 years and I think what's changing is that so many things are reaching a tipping point at the same time. The limitations of high-tech medicine are becoming more apparent, and the power of low-tech, low-cost interventions like diet and lifestyle are becoming clearer. The costs are reaching a tipping point and it's unsustainable in government with $2.7 trillion in healthcare costs annually, three-fourths of which are for chronic diseases that we can largely prevent or reverse with change in diet or lifestyle. Even on the genetic level we found that when you change your lifestyle you can change your genes. It's very empowering for people to know that. Often people think, "I've got bad genes — what can I do?" It turns out you can do a lot much more quickly than people had once thought.
FS: Everyone has a favorite guilty pleasure food, what's yours?
DO: Chocolate. It's a nonguilty pleasure, though, since chocolate is actually good for you in small quantities.
FS: Are you a fan of snacking?
DO: I'm more of a grazer. I think it's actually better for you.
Source: http://www.fitsugar.com/Dean-Ornish-Health-Tips-From-Escape-Fire-Documentary-21456377
Performance through new technologies:
The first athlete that runs at the Olympics with carbon prostheticThe 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, will have a hero with a remarkable life story. An athlete from South Africa qualified for the race of 400 meters, although he doesn’t have legs. He managed, with prosthetics, to become one of the fastest people on the planet.
“The dream that I have is to participate in the Olympics one day. I think that certainly will happen in 2012,” said Oscar Pistorius, athletes qualified for The 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Not talking about the Olympics for disabled people. But of great Olympics, next year in London. Oscar will be the first athlete in the world to compete without legs. He managed to qualify and to Athletics World Championships in South Korea.
In life, not all start with equal chances. Oscar Pistorius and legs were stolen from blockstart. He stood up, he believed in, fought prejudice and mercy of men. But it gave great war with fate. And won!
Only a true athlete can understand the incredible will of the young South African. With an Olympic gold medal and nine world titles in the record, Gabriela Szabo is impressed by the story of Oscar.
“What could be nicer than to see an athlete with both legs amputated that runs with prosthesis on high-performance” believes Gabriela Szabo, the best athlete in the world in 1999.
Who would have imagined such a turn of fate, 24 years ago? South African athlete was born without the fibula in both legs. At 11 months, they have been amputated.
Call for sport and competition was too great. Even for him. He became an accomplished athlete. He played even rugby. But when asked to participate in competitions for people without disabilities, and complaints began. Suddenly, people have looked with pity or admiration, but with suspicion.
“I cannot imagine how it feels to look at prosthetics as an advantage,” said Oscar Pistorius, athletes qualified for the Olympics in London.
He was suspended from competition for two years. International Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Academy and returned to the track. The Olympics will have a chance to change history and become the fastest athlete in the world, with or without legs.
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (born 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, Gauteng) is a South African sprint runner. Known as the “Blade Runner” and “the fastest man on no legs”, Pistorius, who has a double amputation, is the world record holder in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (sport class T44) events and runs with the aid of Cheetah Flex-Foot carbon fibre transtibial artificial limbs by Ossur.
In 2007 Pistorius took part in his first international competitions for able-bodied athletes. However, his artificial lower legs, while enabling him to compete, generated claims that he has an unfair advantage over able-bodied runners. The same year, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) amended its competition rules to ban the use of “any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device”. It claimed that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. After monitoring his track performances and carrying out tests, scientists took the view that Pistorius enjoyed considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs.
On the strength of these findings, on 14 January 2008 the IAAF ruled him ineligible for competitions conducted under its rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. This decision was reversed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 16 May 2008, the Court ruling that the IAAF had not provided sufficient evidence to prove that Pistorius’s prostheses give him an advantage over able-bodied athletes
Source: Transhuman Medicine by on Aug 4, 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Össur
Oscar Pistorius is a world champion sprinter who has broken his own world records some 30 times. A fierce advocate of Life Without Limitations and a bilateral amputee, he is the first ever Paralympian to win Gold in each of the 100m, 200m and 400m sprints (Beijing 2008), and his international reputation as the "fastest man on no legs" is gaining momentum with every race.
The South African phenomenon has retained his position as world record holder in his category for the three top sprint events, setting a brand new record for the 400m in May 2011 at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, UK. Then, in July 2011, he made history in Italy with a personal best of 45.07 seconds for the men's 400m, a result that saw him qualify for the South African national team and the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea (Aug 2011). Here he made history yet again, running against non-disabled athletes and qualifying for the 400m semi-finals.
NEW 2011-12-15 1
Oscar Pistorius has been nominated for two 2012 Laureus World Sports Awards - the Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year Award and the Laureus Disability Award. See the other 2012 nominees on www.laureus.com.
Accompanying Oscar on his remarkable journey to the very pinnacle of his sport have been his prosthetic running feet – the Flex-Foot® Cheetah® from Össur. The unique design of these passive feet, which dates back to 1997, has become the gold standard internationally for elite athletes with limb loss. It has also given rise to Oscar's affectionate alias the Blade Runner.
http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=13008
http://www.oscarpistorius.com/ his official website
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Operation Chaos
Operation Chaos:
From Monterey Pop to Altamont
OPERATION CHAOS
The CIA's War Against the Sixties Counter-Culture
by Mae Brussell, November 1976
(unpublished)
I DEATH, DRUGS, AND DEPRESSION
II THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
III THE ENEMY
IV THE BATTLEGROUND
V THE FINALE...Helter Skelter, Gimme Shelter
I DEATH, DRUGS, AND DEPRESSION
American and British pop/rock music during the 60's created an art form that has been described as one of the most important cultural revolutions in history.
Within a few years, between 1968 and 1976, many of the most famous names associated with this early movement were dead. Mama Cass Elliott (earlier with the Mamas and Papas), Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Brian Jones (helped form the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), Janis Joplin were all at the Monterey Pop celebration, summer 1967.
Duane Allman Berry Oakley (helped form Allman group with Duane and Gregg Allman), Tim Buckley, Jim Croce, Richard Farina, Donald Rex Jackson (road manager for Grateful Dead) Michael Jeffery (Jimi Hendrix' personal manager), Brian Epstein (Beatles manager), Al Jackson (drummer for Wilson Pickett, back-up drummer for Otis Redding), Vinnie Taylor (Sha-Na-Na) Paul T. Williams (choreographer for the Temptations, and one of the original Temptations), Clarence White (Byrds), Robbie McIntosh (drummer Average White Band), Jim Morrison (Doors), Pamela Morrison (Jim's wife), Rod McKernan "Pig Pen" (Grateful Dead), Phil Ochs, Gram Parsons (Byrds, Flying Burritos, International Submarine Band, singing with Emmylou Harris), Sal Mineo, Meredith Hunter (victim of ritual killing at Altamont Festival), Steve Perron (lead singer of Children, wrote hit songs for ZZ TOP), and Jimmy Reed (influenced many groups, combined harmonica with guitar) were a few possible victims.
Family and friends accepted the musicians depressions or accidents as having to do with alcohol, drug usage, or both. Was anything added to their beverages or drugs to cause personality changes and eventual suicides?
Almost every death was shrouded with unanswered questions and mystery.
Persons around the musicians had strange backgrounds and were often suspect.
All of these musicians were at the peak of a creative period and success at the time they were offered LSD. Their personalities altered drastically. Optimism and gratification were replaced with doubt and misery.
Why would young people with so much talent and influence as Phil Ochs, Janis Joplin, Gram Parsons, or Brian Jones wallow in suffering, self doubt, and despondency? They were all loved, doing important contributions to their concerts and compositions, cutting new records, recognized for their talent. It just doesn't make sense.
Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass Elliott, Steve Perron choking from their vomit? I doubt it!!
Phil Ochs just happened to be touring Africa when a native "robber" jumped after him and cut his throat so that it affected his singing? The most political symbol of protest against the war in Vietnam, songwriter for Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and many others, is selected from millions of U.S. tourists for assault to his vocal chords. Incredible!!
Way back in 1966 the American Broadcasting Co. was planning to merger with International Telephone and Telegraph Co.(ITT). ABC had put aside $100,000 advance for the first television special by writer-poet Bob Dylan. The production was to climax the season.
On Saturday, July 30, 1966, Bob Dylan had a motorcycle accident. Dylan never got on the air, and ABC never merged with ITT. The merger required a lack of protest from the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. No comment. By now you know what I am thinking!!!
In addition to Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, and the Dave Mason band, many others suffered near fatal accidents.
The nine years in which the musicians allegedly overdosed, drank themselves to death, drove over cliffs, hung themselves, choked, crashed their motorcycles, went insane, or freaked out without any reasonable explanation, were the same years that the FBI and CIA waged a domestic war against any kind of dissent.
Was Lennie Bruce the first victim? How about Jack Kerouac? Did Bruce pay his dues for comparing United States police to Hitler's Gestapo. Was all the fuss about dirty words only a cover story?
An important part of neutralizing any group is to kill or discredit the leaders.
Monterey Pop set the combined Government agencies in motion.
"Never again was there a festival such as the one that took place that weekend of 1967. Never was there another event where over thirty rock groups were inflated by no more that the joy of an enraptured audience and the gorgeous pleasure of performance itself. There were eight, nine, ten times as many people running rock festivals taking place only two years later. There was never another Monterey! The weekend was too intoxicating, too radiant, too pure."
"Janis Joplin, Buried Alive"
Myra Friedman
Myra Friedman
Chrissie Shrimpton described how Mick Jagger's mind was affected after he started taking acid. Jagger had a nervous breakdown in the United States, June 1966, some months after he started taking acid. His collapse came just weeks before the start of a new concert tour.
Several friends from America visited Jagger and Chrissie and surreptitiously slipped acid into her drink. She was literally out of her mind. A short while later, Chrissie attempted to kill herself.
"Henry Schneiderman, a sinister American, or Canadian...he had so many passports no one was certain of his origin, brought to Keith Richards home a suitcase...which contained several pounds of heroin, cannabis, pills acid, DMT, every herb and chemical to stab or stroke the mind...along with choice LSD from San Francisco.
Schneiderman had let believe he was really bending the law all over the world. He was on a James Bond thing, the CIA or something."
"Mick Jagger"
Tony Scaduto
Brian Jones had a complete personality change after taking LSD.
Janis Joplin's first LSD was administered surreptitiously. When she discovered what happened, she ran to spit it out.
Before Watergate, long before our understanding of Government agents interfering with our privacy or right to assemble, many autopsies and descriptions of mental conditions were never challenged. Today there is healthy suspicion.
When Tim Buckley died, following a successful concert in Dallas, Texas, his death was first attributed to a heart attack. Ten days later, Buckley's cause of death was discovered to be brought on by a drug overdose.
UCLA graduate student Richard Keeling was finally charged with murder after it was discovered that Buckley had sniffed heroin-morphine-ethanol. A police eyewitness actually saw Buckley ingest the powder.
Robbie McIntosh sniffed cocaine at a party.
The cocaine was laced with heroine and strychnine. Host Kenneth Moss was charged with murder.
In the cases of rock musicians becoming ill or passing away, there were so many variations of possibilities that could have been narrowed down toe facts if the doctors had been aware of all the circumstances. Jimi Hendrix was given a tab of acid just before his show at Madison Square Garden where he was playing with Buddy Miles and Bill Cox. The audience, as well as Hendrix, were completely freaked out by his irrational behavior. The result was that Hendrix was discredited.
The effect of one LSD dose could cause permanent brain injury. Anything Hendrix did after this experience, up to and including the time of his death, could be attributed to that earlier event.
Government manufactured LSD included countless combinations of chemicals.
New York State Psychiatric Institute was granted the first known contract for research into psychochemical drugs. The purpose was to determine the psychological effect of psychological chemical agents on human subjects. These subjects were given derivatives of LSD and mescaline. Other chemicals that were tested, which could be distributed at a later date included morphine, demerol, seconal, scopolamine, ditan, atrophine, psilocybin, BZ (benzilate), glycolate, atrophine substitutes, dimethyl, tryptamine, chlorpromazine, LSD with Dibenzyline (blocking agents), LSM (Lysergic acid morpholide), LSD like compounds, psilocybin, and various chemical glycolate agents.
It is no easy feat to alter society's consciousness. An arsenal of weapons was available.
Included among the chemicals were also choking agents, nerve agents, blood agents, blister agents, vomiting agents, incapacitating agents and toxins.
"The glycolates cause incapacitation by interfering with muscle, gland functions and the central nervous system, they depress or inhibit nervous activity. In addition to delirium there is physical incoordination, blurred vision inhibition of sweating and salivation, rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, increased body temperature and , at high doses, vomiting, prostration, and stupor or coma. The onset may be minutes, hours, or days."
U.S. Army "Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research"
Released from the Pentagon March 1976
II THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
"How does it feel
to be
One of the
Beautiful people?"
The Beatles "Baby, You're Rich Man"
Magical Mystery Tour Album
Magical Mystery Tour Album
Robert Hall, a private detective in Hollywood, was killed by a single bullet on July 22, 1976.
So far, there has been a wire service news blackout on the implications of Hall's murder for obvious reasons. The facts in this case should expose more than the tip of Watergate. What was going on is Los Angeles is part and parcel of the Washington, D.C. scandals.
If one Army report alone exposes that millions of dollars were spent using and testing chemical combinations for operational purposes, then somebody has to be around to distribute the poison.
Managers of seven rock groups, seven different groups, had hired private eye Hall to find out how their stars were getting "stoned."
Turning on or feeling "high" doesn't warrant hiring the professional assistance of a detective. That they were obviously complaining about was that the stars were being altered in such a way that it hampered with their public appearances, credibility, personal lives, and recordings.
Hall's inquiry revealed the drugs were coming from two pharmacies with which he had been employed.
Hall used to own a drug store in Hollywood with co-partner Jack Ginsburg, an admitted pornographer, who was charged with Hall's murder.
Gene LeBell, 44, the other man arrested along with Ginsburg, refereed the Muhammed Ali bout with a Japanese wrestler in July, '76. LeBell, a professional wrestler, is the son of Aileen Eaton, a well known boxing promoter who owns and operates the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The reports that Hall concluded for the managers of the rock musicians included the names of two physicians and one dentist as having supplied false prescriptions. The cause of apparent freaking out was centered in a small area of operation.
This information was turned over to the proper authorities for arrests before Hass was murdered. No actions were taken by the police. No arrests have been made.
The same frustrations plagued Robert Hall that bothered Phoenix, Arizona reporter Don Bolles. The higher-ups get police and law protection. The investigators get killed.
Don Bolles and Robert Hall were investigating some of the same people, an actual who's who of the cold war.
Hall's contacts were important because they touched the prime movers of our politics, movies, electoral processes, entertainment, and also our tastes in music and in sounds.
Within moments of Hall's murder, his name was linked with possible murder for hire, kidnapping plans for millionaire financier Robert Vesco's son, gun running to Vesco in Costa Rica, the unsolved stabbing of actor Sal Mineo, blackmail, the lost safe deposit box of Howard Hughes that could contain his original will, Beverly Hills financier Thomas P. Richardson (recently convicted of a $25 million stock fraud), Hollywood's most famous celebrities in drug and sex scandals, exposures of televisions stars and high Washington officials, drug traffic from Los Angeles to the Malibu community, international sports events, the Los Angeles Police Department (one of their former agents is now retired, heads the Police Science Department at L.A. Valley College and supplied the fatal weapon used to kill Hall), Los Angeles Police Department Chief Ed Davis (because of his links to the FBI and CIA) a possible plot to kidnap Bernard Cornfeld (associate of Robert Vesco), past contacts with Mickey Cohen, the long drug addiction of singer Eddie Fisher, contract employment of Hall by Howard Hughes Summa Corp., the two burglaries of Hughes headquarters in Van Nuys and on Romaine Street. The burglary on Romaine Street set off the Glomar Explorer scandal of Hughes fronting the contract for the CIA.
Hall sent his pals to New York. Dr. Max Jacobson, titled Dr. Feelgood, the source of John F. Kennedy's happy time vitamins. Roy B. Loftin, contractor for NASA, Texan, with a long association and friendship for Bobby Baker, Lyndon Johnson's protege, knew Hall.
Investigations into the slain Burbank private detective caused Beverly Hills Police Captain Jack Eggers, on the force seventeen years, to resign.
Hall worked as a double agent for the Beverly Hills Police and the Los Angeles Police.
The relationship between law enforcement, drug traffic, and personalities as varied as politicians and musicians makes it sometimes impossible to get an impartial investigation of certain deaths. What appears as suicide can be murder.
At the time of Hall's murder, his possessions included tranquilizer guns, drug loaded darts that fire gas canisters, electronic bugging equipment of all kinds, and a wide variety of chemical formulas.
The chemicals were possibly a combination from the many tested by the U.S. Government from 1953 to 1963.
III THE ENEMY
Why were Hippies such a threat, from the President on down to local levels, objects for surveillance and disruptions?
Many of the musicians had the potential to become political. There were racial overtones to the black-white sounds, the harmony between people like Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, and Jimi Hendrix. Black music was the impetus that got the Rolling Stones into composing and performing.
The war in Vietnam was escalating. What if they stopped protesting the war in Southeast Asia and turned to expose domestic policies at home with the same energy? One of the Byrds stopped singing at Monterey Pop to question the official Warren Report conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a "lone assassin."
Bob Dylan's "Bringing it All Back Home" album has a picture of Lyndon Johnson on the cover of Time.
By 1966, LBJ had ordered all writers and critics of his Commission Report on the JFK murder to be under surveillance.
That research was hurting him. Rock concerts and Oswald. What next?
While preacher preach of evil fates
teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
to stand naked.
Bob Dylan
"It's Alright Ma"
Bringing it All Back Home album
John and Yoko Lennon were protesting the Vietnam war. The State Department wrote documents describing them as "highly political and unfavorable to the administration." It was recommended their citizenship be denied, and they be put under surveillance.
Mick Jagger, before he was offered Hollywood's choicest women and heavy drugs, was concerned about the youth protests in Paris, 1968, and the anti-war demonstrations at the London Embassy.
"War stems from power-mad politicians and patriots. Some new master plan would end all these mindless men from seats of p
power and replace them with real people, people of compassion."
Mick Jagger
Woodstock, summer of 1969, was the turning point of rock festivals. Time magazine described this happening as "one of the most significant political and sociological events of the age."
One half million American youth assembled for a three day rock concert. They were non-violent, fun-loving hippies, who resembled the large followings of Mahatma Gandhi in India and Rev. Martin Luther King in the USA, both strong advocates of non-violence. And both assassinated.
It is important to understand the kinds of drugs and agents available to stifle dissent, the mentality of people hell-bent on changing the course of history, in order to comprehend that cultures and tastes can be moved in directions according to game plans in the hands of a few people.
Adolf Hitler's first targets in Nazi Germany were the Gypsies and the students. LSD was a youth oriented drug; that was perfected in the laboratory. When it was combined with other chemicals, and given the wide distribution necessary all that remained were the marching orders to go to war.
IV THE BATTLEGROUND
July, 1968, the FBI's counterintelligence operations attacked law abiding American individual's and groups.
The stated purpose of these assaults was to disrupt large gatherings, expose and discredit the enemy, and neutralize their selected targets.
Neutralization included killing the leaders,if necessary. Preferably, turn two opposing segments of society against each other to do the dirty work for them.
Remember that among these dangers to the security of the United States were persons with "different lifestyles" and also "apostles of non-violence and racial harmony."
CIA Director Richard Helms warned National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Feb. 18, 1969, that their study on "Restless youth" was "extremely sensitive" and "would prove most embarrassing for all concerned if word got out the CIA was involved in domestic matters."
The FBI sent out a list of suggestions on how to achieve their goals. They can all be applied to what happened to musicians, youngsters at folk rock festivals, and hippies along the highway.
Gather information on their immorality. Show them as scurrilous and depraved. Call attention to their habits and living conditions. Explore every possible embarrassment. Send in women and sex, break up marriages. Have members arrested on marijuana charges. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them. Send articles to the newspapers showing their depravity. Use narcotics and free sex to entrap. Use misinformation to confuse and disrupt. Get records of their bank accounts. Obtain specimens of handwriting. Provoke target groups into rivalries that may result in death.
"Intelligence Activities and Rights of Americans"
Book II, April 26, 1976
Senate Committee Study with Respect to Intelligence
The IRS admitted that "people who attend rock concert festivals" were listed among targets for investigation by its special staff. Agent Leon Levine said that "ideological groups such as rock festival patrons were to be watched."
A San Diego police officer was penalized for throwing rocks at a concert that injured a 17 year-old girl. She was treated for a fractured nose and facial lacerations.
John and Yoko's legal problems began when marijuana was planted in some binoculars while moving. After Mr. Schneiderman showed the British police his full suitcase of drugs during the bust with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Robert Frazier, Schneiderman left town. He was never arrested. The Stones went to jail. Mick Jagger was then put on the International Red List as a possible narcotics smuggler every time he went through customs.
Cable Splicer III, martial law plans, set to control civil disturbances, May 1970, described as dangerous "love-in type gatherings in the parks where in large numbers freak out, peace marches, rock festivals where violence is commonplace and sex is unrestrained."
Chicago Police Chief Rockford, overall commander during the police clashes at 1968 demonstrations, was also in charge of the police who fired a volley of shots, wounding one youth in a riot at the 1970 rock festival in Grant Park.
Louis Tackwood, agent provocateur with the Los Angeles Police Department, exposed CREEP and the Republicans who were going to turn San Diego into a scene of violence during the conventions in 1972. Part of the plans were to seal off and them bomb a hundred thousand demonstrators attending a rock concert on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay, San Diego.
Employees at the CIA's Langley, Virginia, headquarters don't have to stand in line to get tickets to these events. They have a top-secret ticketron outlet for rock concert appearances.
A similar top-secret ticketron outlet is administered by the National Security Agency at For George Meade, Md.
Howard Hughes organization ordered "all rock concerts prohibited in Las Vegas."
Fortune, January 1969, described the Movement as encompassing "hippies and doctrinaire Leninists, anarchists and populists, revolutionaries, whose domain is the human mind, rock bands and cultural guerrillas."
During the 1968 riots in Washington, D.C. group singing was outlawed by the police department. They were aware that people "get high" singing together.
Records of Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, Alice Cooper, Simon and Garfunkel, Jethro Tull and others were burned at the Hollywood Christian Academy in Hollywood, Fla. Rock music was described as being "of the devil, having no place in a Christian life."
The rock group Black Cat won a $570,000 slander suit against a minister in Arkansas. Their concert had been prevented, claiming they were a "mongrel group of Satanic origins."
Following the slaying of two Americans in South Korea in August, the government issued tighter controls on long hair and "decadent music." Korea has a list of 260 decadent rock-folk and protest songs. Among them is "I Shot the Sheriff" and "We Shall Overcome." A survey of Quebec policemen showed that more of them were hostile to hippies or beatniks than they are toward criminals.
Art Linkletter, a television personality, told a Congressional committee investigating drug abuse that the "Beatles were the leading advocates of an acid society." This is an example of turning one hostile group against another. There is every reason to believe that the LSD that caused Dr. Frank Olson and Diane Linkletter to leap from buildings to their death could be manufactured from the same laboratories. With justified anger, Linkletter became a mouthpiece. Meanwhile, the so-called straight society Linkletter was defending, spent sixteen years and millions of dollars perfecting LSD into an operational weapon.
Los Angeles Police arrested 511 persons attending the Pink Floyd concert. There were no mass arrests at Elton John's performance in the same city, around the same time.
Somebody is selecting their targets, because there is plenty of grass at Elton's concert.
"Peace Pills" were distributed at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds for a folk-rock festival. Youngsters were hospitalized. A strange drug was handed out freely and poured into drinks.
All of those who took the drug were treated, but sent home without any knowledge of the psychological damage.
This pill was blamed for the death of Mrs. Loid Dodd de Lattre, wife of a beatnik priest. Mrs. de Lattre's heart burst under the stimulation of the drug. Under its influence, she tore out her hair and threw herself on the floor.
A man had jumped on the musician's platform and announced they had 4,000 pills to hand out. The pills caused "marked disorientation as to time and space, inability to sustain directed thought, presence of a trance-like state."
This kind of scene was so common that large groups were discouraged from performing in the manner they had before these assaults took place.
The irreplaceable loss of lives and talent has been noticed by persons sensitive to the rock-folk music.
We can't bring them back to life. We might take time to examine their deaths, if only to stop the still going attack upon certain artists and musicians.
Some of my information on the details of these deaths is incomplete. The circumstances surrounding them caused me to ask some hard questions.
JOHN CARPENTER, 45 yrs, Sept. 18, 1976, killed by hit and run driver, Ben Lomand, Calif. Part of the earliest rock scene, once managed Grace Slick, wrote for Rolling Stone from issue one through eight, disc jockey at KPFK, music critic for L.A Free Press. Got "totally crazed" and committed himself to a mental institution for a while.
TIM BUCKLEY, 28 yrs, June 29, 1975, Los Angeles. Just returned from a concert in Dallas, Texas, about to make a movie of Woodie Guthrie's "Bound for Glory." Death caused by heroin-morphine-pentathol. Police eyewitness to his taking the drug. Joe Falsia, Buckely's manager "never knew Tim used drugs." Richard Keeling charged with his murder.
THE CHASE, August 11, 1974, Four in rock group killed, airplane crash. Bill Chase, Jazz trumpeter with Woody Herman, Walt Clark, drummer, John Emma, guitarist, and Wallace Wouhne, organist. Three years ago the Chase had a single, "Get It On," that became a hit. Popular with radio stations. Played often in Las Vegas, Japan, Africa, released three albums.
JIM CROCE, 30 yrs. old, Sept. 20, 1973. Airplane crash, Louisiana. Recorded hit albums, including "Bad, Bad LeRoy Brown." Degree in psychology from Villanova U., sang at small colleges. Croce's widow filed a $2.5 million suit against Federal Aviation Administration. Allegations that preparation of maps on the airport runway were faulty, leaving a tree unmarked which the fatal plane struck.
BRIAN JONES, July, 1969, London. One of the original members of the Rolling Stones. Unique musician, helped the group get started, under control of drugs by 1966, took LSD that caused personality changes and depression. Seemed to have brain damage and disintegrated. Compared his arrests and planted grass to the treatment Lennie Bruce had received, forced to drop from the group. Keith Richards, of the Stones, said,
"Some very weird things happened the night Brian died. We had these chauffeurs working for us, and we tried to find out. Some of them had a weird hold over Brian. I got straight into it and wanted to know who was there and couldn't find out. The only cat I could ask was the one I think who got rid of everybody, and did a whole disappearing thing so that when the cops arrived, it was just an accident. Maybe it was. I don't know. I don't even know who was there that night, and finding out is impossible. It's the same feeling with who killed Kennedy. You can't get to the bottom of it."
"Mick Jagger"
Tony Scaduto
MAMA CASS ELLIOT, 33, former member of Mamas and Papas, London. Found dead in her apartment. "Probably choked to death on a ham sandwich," or "possibly of heart attack. The coroner said it "appears the singer had not died of natural causes." She was propped up in bed, and had been dead for a considerable time before her body was found. Had just completed two weeks at the London Palladium, was ready to tour Britain, was in excellent mental spirits. Performed at the Monterey Pop.
JANIS JOPLIN, 27 yrs., Oct. 3, 1970, Los Angeles. Cause of death listed as "drug overdose, accidental." Lawsuit in 1974 claimed "it was possible that something unknown triggered a fatal reaction." Fought alcohol and drug usage most of her adult life. Body at autopsy didn't show large amounts of morphine. The night she died, Janis was with a mysterious character who accompanied her to the Landmark Hotel, L.A. She made three calls to her drug "connection" on the hotel switchboard. No arrests or effort to locate this party. Went to the lobby, bought cigarettes, talked, walked back to her room, and fell on the floor inside the door. Was taking pills to stop drug habit? Engaged to be married, slim, tan, recording what was to be a tremendous success, Pearl, happy with her band, climbing out of darker days when she dropped dead. Sang at Monterey Pop with Big Brother and the Holding Company. One of the top blues-acid rock stars.
DONALD REX JACKSON, 31, Sept. 28, 1976. Automobile accident. Manager for the Grateful Dead, just set group up for a national tour. Car swerved off the road, killed instantly.
AL JACKSON, 39 yrs., October, 1975. Former drummer with Booker T. and the MG's. Back up drummer for Otis Redding. Shot to death five times, Memphis, Tenn. Cause of death "apparent robbery." Produced Stax Records.
JIMI HENDRIX, 27 yrs., Sept. 18, 1970. Cause of death clouded. Suggestions of drug plants, mafia connections, murder. Kidnapped shortly before he died. Surrounded by groupie females, one of whom boasted giving him his first acid trip. Affected by acid, depression, interfered with performances. One of top stars at Monterey Pop. Into rock-blues, jazz. Media assumption of "suicide" or "drug overdose" like Joplin. Earned millions. Freaked out and couldn't do his serious music.
JIM MORRISON, 27 yrs., July 3, 1971. Paris, France. Lead singer for the Doors. Cause of death "heart attack," or "pneumonia" or "died peacefully of natural causes." Best known hit "Light My Fire." Author "The Lords," "The New Creatures." Poet, UCLA graduate, writer, musician, politically controversial. Completed tour of Europe, South Africa, writing a movie script in Paris. Sometime irrational behavior on stage. Harassed by police, some false arrests, some charges later dropped. Described as "appearing to be in a hypnotic trance." Found guilty of using "lewd and lascivious conduct" in Miami, Florida, March, 1969. His arrest the excuse for "rally for decency" by singers, TV personalities. Deeply affected by the death of Brian Jones. (Janis Joplin died a month after Jimi Hendrix. Jim Croce died a day after Gram Parsons.) Group broke up after Morrison's death.
PAMELA MORRISON, April 27, 1974, Hollywood, Calif. Wife of Jim Morrison. Cause "an apparent drug overdose." A hypodermic syringe discovered in the apartment. No mention of drugs in her system or if there were needle marks.
RICHARD FARINA, Carmel Valley, Calif. Motorcycle crash. Author, musician, just completed a book, attended autographing party, drove down the road, met fatal crash. Brother-in-law of Joan Baez, married to Mimi. Recorded a new album "The Falcon." "Celebrations for a Gray Day," as described on the jacket, "Goldwater was about to win the California primary and the skies were somewhat uneasy."
ROBBIE McINTOSH, 28 yrs., Sept. 23, 1974, Los Angeles, died from heroin and strychnine that he believed was cocaine. Host Kenneth Moss, Freelandia Airlines, might have been singled as the target. Moss formed new charter, low cost airline. Cher Bono at the party, saved the life of Alan Gorrie. Gregg Allman working for Jimmy Carter's nomination at the time. Allman's drug arrests just before elections, Cher's attending a party where drugs with poison administered, might have caught McIntosh as innocent victim. Moss was charged with murder. (Janis Joplin's known drug connection was not held for her death.)
SAL MINEO, 1975, Los Angeles. Stabbed in back. One time singer, actor, whose next role was to play Sirhan Sirhan. Controversial movie about the hypnotic state of Sirhan, and LAPD suppression of evidence on the Robert Kennedy assassination. Robert Hall was allegedly following Mineo the night he was killed.
ROD McKERNAN, "PIG PEN" 27 yrs. old, March 1973, Corte Madera, Calif. Member of Grateful Dead, organist, singer. Body found in an apartment by neighbor who hadn't seen him for a few days. Coroner's office reports, first accounts probably natural causes, probably liver disease. Had been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, swelling of blood vessels in his throat. No explanation for his sudden death, or why not at the hospital, or gone for help. Hadn't touched alcohol for two years.
PHIL OAKS, 35 yrs. old, April 1976, New Jersey. "Death by hanging." No suicide notes, nobody sure why Oaks died. Active during Vietnam war, got depressed 1971, using alcohol. Sang at Madison Square Garden, with Bob Dylan, "An evening with Salvadore Allende" in 1974, obsessed with JFK assassination. Developed two personalities, John Train and Phil Oaks. Talked of death, had erratic behavior. "Band of robbers" in Africa one of the reasons for his depression. Oaks was attacked Hendrix was kidnapped just before his death. Known as the troubadour of the "New Left," one of the FBI's target groups.
STEVE PERRON, 28 yrs., Aug. 8, 1973. San Antonio, Texas. Died from inhaling vomit fumes during sleep. Composer, writer, lead singer for Children. Was off drugs, preparing to cut new album for Ode Records. Wrote "Francine" for ZZ TOP, hit records. Composed over 100 songs. Married, child, happy, productive composing when died.
GRAM PARSONS, 26 yrs., Sept. 19, 1974, Calif. Cause of death shrouded in mystery. Autopsy report "inconclusive." Body taken off airplane on way to Louisiana, cremated 200 miles away from L.A. Composer, singer, musician. Former theology student from Harvard who went into country-western music, sang with the Byr
Byrds, Flying Burritos, Submarine Blues, and Emmylou Harris. Made some informal recordings with actor Brandon DeWilde, child star of "Shane" and "Member Of The Wedding", who died in July 1972 in a car accident in Denver, Colorado. DeWilde was driving to a stage play performance of "Butterflies Are Free", in which he was starring.
Once happy family life, conventional, turned on to LSD, drugs, alcohol, became depressed, left mysteries about what happened to him. Phil Kaufman, ex-convict charged with drug smuggling, lived with Charles Manson two months, managed Parsons. Kaufman took Gram to Joshua Tree Inn, where he died, and removed the coffin to the desert, where the body was assured of never having another autopsy.
OTIS REDDING, 26 yrs., December 1967. Airplane crash over Wisconsin. First star of Monterey Pop to die. Brought soul to every American city. Best known hit record "By the Dock of the Bay." A poll before his death claimed Redding the most popular musical star in Europe.
JIMMY REED, 50 yrs., Aug. 29, 1976. Natural causes, "died the night before he was set for a California tour." Blues writer, harmonica player, influenced Dylan, Steve Miller, Grateful Dead.
VINNIE TAYLOR (CHRIS DONALD), 25 yrs., April 1974, Virginia. Lead guitarist for Sha-Na-Na. Found by National Guard in motel room following a concert in Va. On way to appear in Pittsburgh, Pa. for a sell-out performance.
CLARENCE WHITE, Car crash. Los Angeles, Calif. One of the Byrds. Close friend of Gram Parsons.
PAUL WILLIAMS, 34 yrs., Aug. 23, 1973, Detroit, Michigan. Found dead in the car, gun on his lap. One of the original Temptations. Did the choreography for Temptations. Had solved drinking problems, emotional crisis. Dead only a few blocks from Motown, where first records made.
V FINALE
Helter Skelter and Gimme Shelter
War, Children
It's just a shot a-way,
It's just a shot a-way
See the fire sweeping our very street today,
Barns like a red coal carpet, ma
Mad bull lost its way
Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away
Gimme Gimme Shelter
or I'm gonna fade away
Love sister,
It's just a kiss away.
Mick Jagger
Keith Richards
"Gimme Shelter"
Let it Bleed Album
By the end of 1969, the folk-music festival was killed in spirit and was over as a cultural happening. It never was the same again. There are musical performances, but it just isn't the same feeling.
The two most popular groups, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, would be identified, through media and factual distortions, with cold blooded murder and violence.
Helter Skelter, the name of a Beatles song, would become the title of Manson Family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book.
What a strange twist of fate!!
Gimme Shelter, the name of a movie depicting the ritualistic murder of a black man attending the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont Racetracks, California, is from a song by the Rolling Stones.
How did this all happen?
Coincidence or conspiracy?
There are so many published Government documents today, and Congressional Hearings exposing illegal CIA and FBI domestic activities, that it is almost impossible to ride the coincidence coat tails much longer.
Just as pocket calculators add numbers faster, history's dates also put pieces of the puzzle into better perspective.
FACT 1 Social structures are rearranged by architects. Politica, the game plan for overthrowing Salvador Allende's elected government in Chile was arranged by Abt. Associates, Cambridge, Mass., in 1965.
Abt. was a front for the Pentagon and CIA. They had another plan titled Camelot.
Was Camelot the military answer to future dissent in America that would follow other necessary assassinations? The war in Vietnam escalated Nov. 24, 1963, with no known provocation from North Vietnam. It was only a matter of time before the natives at home would find out what was happening, before Norman Mailer would be writing "Why are We in Vietnam?"
FACT 2 In 1972, at time the Watergate, E. Howard Hunt was employed by the White House to forge secret State Department papers. The sole purposes of this procedure was to distort history and make the late President Kennedy responsible for the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam. There would be attempts to blame Kennedy for the assassination plot against Fidel Castro, in spite of massive evidence to the contrary.
For all who remembered Kennedy kindly, who complained about his assassination, history was being arranged with a scissors and scotch tape.
Kennedy would come out a scummy killer himself.
This wasn't taking place in some strange office, or dark cellar, but in the same White House offices where Nixon was screaming "Manson did it."
If President Nixon went to so much trouble to identify murder with an innocent man like Kennedy, there is every reason to believe his hatred of anti-war hippies and their folk-rock musicians could also be identified with murder. Make them all look violent. Bring it all down.
FACT 3 In 1969, the combined agencies of the CIA, Army, and FBI, were put into full operational use. The Sharon Tate-La Bianca murders happened August, 1969.
The Altamont violence and filmed movie was Dec. 6, 1969.
CIA The CIA prepared for defense against American youth unrest in 1965, the same year as Camelot and Politica.
With full knowledge of their illegal activities, they joined forces with the CIA and the Army.
By August 1967, Special Operations group went after the youth. By July, 1968, Operation Chaos, identical to Chilean "Chaos," went after the "Restless Youth." This wasn't a study. It was an attack.
Mid-summer of 1969, one month before the Manson Family massacres, Operation Chaos went into the most tight security of any assignment ever accomplished inside the CIA.
From 1956-63, they had perfected enough LSD to cause every violent act or symptom associated with the violence in Los Angeles or at Altamont.
It was identical to giving poison candy at Halloween. LSD was the moving force, the cause for the Sharon Tate-La Bianca slaughters. It was fed at the Spahn ranch for a steady diet.
LSD was the moving force behind Altamont killing and violence Dec. 6, 1969. Thousands of tablets were distributed to the Hell's Angels, who then went totally berserk and started cracking skulls.
FBI May, 1964, after the JFK assassination, the FBI formed their COINTELPRO, counterintelligence program.
July, 1968, explicit orders went out to proceed, accompanied with instructions, to neutralize segments of our society, including those restless youth.
By 1969, the SSS, Special Services Staff of the FBI, combined with the Justice Department, and with CIA's Operation Chaos.
August, 1969, was the Sharon Tate-La Bianca slaughter.
December 6, 1969, was the Altamont concert of the Rolling Stones.
ARMY The Army began their chemical testing of LSD, the youth drug, in 1956, the same year they were planning Politica and Camelot in Cambridge, Mass.
Contracts for testing LSD and chemical agents continued through 1975.
January 21, 1969, the army reported "the LSD tests are rewarding. It is recommended that the actual application of LSD be utilized in real situations on an experimental basis."
Acid was distributed, surreptitiously, to large masses of the population. It was the chemical that was to link Helter Skelter and Gimme Shelter with blood and gore.
FACT 4 There is more to the creation of the Manson Family, and their direction than has yet been exposed.
There is more to the making of the movie Gimme Shelter than has been explained.
This saga has inter-connecting links to all the beautiful people Robert Hall was associated with.
The Manson Family and the Hell's Angels were instruments by which enemy forces could attack and discredit hippies and critical American youth who had dropped out of the establishment.
The violence came down from Neo-Nazi racists, adorned with Swastikas both in L.A. and in the Bay Area at Altamont.
The blame was placed on persons not even associated with the causes of death at all.
When it was all over, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the icing on this cake, this presentation, to rub musicians into a racist, neo-nazi plot.
By rearranging the facts, cutting here and there, distorting evidence, neighbors and family feared their own youth wandering through the communities.
Charles Manson made the cover of Life, with those wide eyes, like Rasputin.
Charles Watson didn't make the cover. Why not? He participated in all the killings. Manson wasn't inside the house. Because Manson played a guitar and made records. Watson didn't.
Charles Watson was too busy taking care of matters, at the lawyer's office prior to the killings, or with officials of the Young Republicans.
What were Watson's protections in Texas, where he remained until his separate trial prevented him from being psychologically linked to all the deaths he actually committed?
"Pigs" was written in Sharon Tate's house in blood. Was this to make blacks become targets and suspects for stalking white territory?
Credit cards of the La Bianca family were purposely deposited in the black ghetto after their massacre. The intention was to stir racial fears and hatred.
Who wrote the first article, "Did Hate Kill Tate?", blaming the Black Panthers for the murders? Army intelligence agent Ed Butler, Lee Harvey Oswald's old pal from New Orleans. They made a record together so that Oswald could pass himself off as a Marxist. Another deception.
Glasses were left on the floor of Sharon Tate's home the day of the murder. They were never identified.
Who moved all the bodies after the killers left and before the police arrived?
The Spahn ranch wasn't a hippie commune. It bordered the Krupp ranch, and has now been combined and incorporated to make a German Bavarian beer garden. Howard Hughes knew George Spahn. He went to this ranch daily while making The Outlaw.
Howard Hughes bought the 516 acres of Krupp property in Nevada after he moved into that territory. What about Altamont? What distortions and untruths forced that movie?
Why did Mick Jagger order "the concert must go on"?
There was a demand the filmmakers be allowed to catch this concert. It couldn't have happened the same in any other state.
The Hell's Angels had a long working relationship with some of the law enforcement, particularly in the Oakland area.
They became heroes of the S. F. Chronicle and other papers when they physically assaulted the dirty anti-war hippies protesting the shipment of arms to Vietnam.
The laboratory for choice LSD, the kind brought to England for the Stones, came from the Bay Area and could be consumed easily by this crowd attending their free love-in.
Persons at the concert said there was "a compulsiveness to the event." It had to take place.
Melvin Belli, Jack Ruby's lawyer, made the legal arrangements. Ruby had complained that Belli had prohibited him from telling the full story on why he killed Lee Harvey Oswald. (another media event) There are so many layers of cover-up, and there are just so many persons whose names reappear, only in different scripts.
Sen. Philip Hart, a member of the Senate Committee investigating illegal intelligence operations inside the USA, claimed that his children were telling him all these things were happening. He had refused to believe them. The Senator felt it was his obligation to defend his country rather than look at the evidence.
November 18, 1975, Sen. Hart realized matters were not only out of hand, but that the past has to be made believable in order to prevent the same things happening over and over again.
The trick now is for this committee to be able to figure out how to persuade the people of this country that indeed it will go on. And how shall we insure that it will never happen again? But it will happen repeatedly, unless we can bring ourselves to understand and accept that it did go on.
Senate Hearings, Vol. 6, p. 41
Meanwhile, it still does go on. Flo and Eddie, the musical group formed after the Turtles, had to cancel their fully booked one year tour of the U.S. and Britain.
Their lead guitarist either fell or was pushed from a ninth-floor hotel room of the Salt Lake City Hilton.
First notice of this murder appeared November 9, 1976, in a small column from the S.F. Chronicle.
John Austin wrote "the accident has not yet been reported, as the gendarmes are trying to keep the lid on it."
A few days before, their manager, Jim Taylor, was threatened.
There were hints the syndicate might be taking over the pop music business.
Was that the next process, once the counter-culture was removed?
Bibliography
I.
Department of the Army, Office of the Inspector General, Washington, D.C. Declassified March, 1976.
U.S. "Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research" Chapter IX Intelligence Corps Experimentation with Hallucinogenic Drugs, pages 135-147.
Chapter X, Contracts with Civilian Institutions, pages 152-166. "Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research."
Attachment "C" U.S. Army pages 212-247 Contracts for testing Chemical Agent Research. Section III, Contract Costs 1950-1975.
II.
Intelligence Activities. Book I, April 26, 1976 Foreign and Military Intelligence.
III.
Senate Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book II, April 26, 1976 Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans.
IV.
Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the
United States. June 1975. Rockefeller Report.
Scaduto, Tony, Mick Jagger, David McKay, New York, 1974.
Friedman, Myra, Janis Joplin, Buried Alive, Bantam, New York, 1973.
DEPARTMENT OF ARMY REPORT ON THE USE OF CHEMICAL AGENT RESEARCH, INTELLIGENCE CORPS EXPERIMENTATION WITH HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS.
Dept. of the Army, Office of the Inspector General and Auditor General, Released March 1976.
1950
LSD considered by Army as method for interrogation, and also for defense against enemy interrogation.
May 1956
CHEMICAL WARFARE LABORATORIES, EDGEWOOD ARSENAL, MD. Started tests on human volunteers.
Page 136, Army Report. "All beverages served to volunteers had included sufficient LSD, EA 1729, for effective dosage, or additional dosage administering before volunteering."
1956-1957
ARMY INTELLIGENCE, FT. HOLABIRD, combined with ARMY CHEMICAL CORPS, edgewood Arsenal, FOR LSD TESTS.
Tests included many other chemicals. Also included LSD on electrode implants. Doses as high as 1600 micrograms, normal LSD, street level, 160 micrograms.
March 1958
THE HEIGHT OF LSD TESTING
Used on memory impairment, motor reactions, affects upon isolation, stress under LSD.
READY TO BE USED FOR "OPERATIONAL ADVANTAGE"
Jan. 21, 1959
CONCLUSIONS: LSD TESTS REWARDING
"IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT ACTUAL APPLICATION OF LSD BE UTILIZED IN REAL SITUATIONS ON AN EXPERIMENTAL BASIS."
Jan. 8, 1960
ARMY FIELD INSTRUCTIONS FOR G-2, ADMINISTRATION OF LSD. TOLD TO COORDINATE WITH FBI, CIA.
Dec. 1960
CIA, ARMY INTELLIGENCE, U.S. CHEMICAL CORPS WORKING TOGETHER on LSD TESTS.
April 28, 1961
OPERATION THIRD CHANCE
Overseas "testing," LSD. Causing mental diseases, not recognized by physicians, to get diagnosis to discredit.
July 1961
LSD READY FOR OPERATIONAL PURPOSES.
Feb. 1962
OPERATION DERBY HAT
Hawaii military bases, LSD experiments.
April 19, 1963
LSD TESTING CONTINUED
No records of "volunteers"
Existing records "incomplete"
Most records "totally inadequate"
THE SENATE FOUND THIS REPORT AND MINIMIZED THE FINDINGS.
U.S. ARMY, U.S. CHEMICAL CORPS. SPENT $26,501,446
TESTS WERE FROM 1951 TO 1971
48 INSTITUTIONS WERE USED AS COVER: HOSPITAL, PRISONS, COLLEGES,
MENTAL HOSPITALS, ARMY PERSONNEL.
SUMMARY OF CIA TESTING OF LSD, CHEMICALS FOR ALTERING HUMAN BEHAVIOR WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF METHODS.
Foreign and Military Intelligence
Book I. April 26, 1976
Senate Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities.
1947
CIA EXPERIMENTS BEGIN FOR ALTERING HUMAN BEHAVIOR
1947, same year Nazi doctors brought to USA, continued their tests and experiments.
1947-1953
OPERATION CHATTER
For the purpose of interrogation.
1953-57
OPERATION BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE
Sodium Pentathol Injections, hypnosis Purpose; erase memory, create double, triple personalities, resist torture, conduct covert operations without memory later.
1/8/53
Death of Dr. Harold Blauer
Injections of Synthetic Mescaline Derivative. U.S. Chemical Corp. NY State Psychiatric Inst.
1967-70
OPERATIONS MKNAOMI
Provide stockpile of INCAPACITATING, LETHAL MATERIAL.
To be used by Technical Services Division. Make sure complete predictability of results. Toxins, shellfish, poison darts, pills, Biological weapons. Drugs to silence animals. Worked with the Army from 1952.
1953-1963
MKULTRA, CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL AGENTS
Radiation
electrode implants
Electroshock
LSD + electrodes
psychology
psychiatry
"10 years of tests," then operational. Tested all social levels of society. Native Americans, wide variety of persons used. Army Hospitals. Vacaville Prison, Calif. Lexington, Ky. National Institute of Mental Health.
1961-1971
MKULTRA BECAME MKDELTA: OPERATIONAL USE
Allen Dulles 100,000,000 LSD
Millions of Dollars
Universities, pharmaceutical houses, hospitals. State, Federal institutions.
Special and unique items for dissemination. Combined MKULTRA with Army, Projects Derby Hat, Project Third Chance.
Purpose: TO CONTROL BODIES, WILLING OR NOT, WHERE DRUGS COULD BE USED TO HARASS, DISABLE, OR KILL.
Dec. 1963
MKULTRA, MKDELTA
Used as an OPERATIONAL WEAPON
PRESIDENT, CONGRESS NEVER KNEW
Purpose "DISCREDIT, IMPLANT SUGGESTIONS, MENTAL CONTROL, ELICIT INFORMATION.
CAN PRODUCE A PSYCHOSIS IN CHRONIC FORM PARTICULARLY IN LATENT SCHIZOPHRENIA.
CAN CAUSE PERMANENT CONDITION OF INSANITY.
SUMMARY OF FBI COUNTER INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS AS APPLIED TO STATED "APOSTLES OF NON-VIOLENCE," "NEW LEFT," "ADVOCATES OF NEW LIFESTYLES"
Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans
Book II, April 26, 1976
Senate Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities
1964-1970
THE FBI JOINED WITH THE CIA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY IN ILLEGAL, DOMESTIC ACTIVITIES.
1964, May
COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM STARTED
July 1968
ORDERS FROM FBI HEADQUARTERS: INSTRUCTIONS FOR OPERATIONS Selected "enemy" were to be 1) exposed 2) disrupted
3) neutralized.
METHODS SUGGESTED BY SUPERIORS FOR THESE OPERATIONS, PUT INTO WRITING, AS GUIDELINES.
Gather information on their immorality.
Show them as scurrilous and depraved.
Call attention to their habits and living conditions.
Explore every possible embarrassment.
Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them.
Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity.
Use narcotics and free sex for entrapment.
Have members arrested on marijuana charges.
Exploit the hostilities between various persons.
Use cartoons and photographs to ridicule them.
Use misinformation to confuse and disrupt.
Get records of their bank accounts.
Obtain specimens of handwriting.
Provoke target groups into rivalries that resulted in deaths.
1969
SSS, SPECIAL SERVICES STAFF
Started targeting groups, individuals
(After Woodstock, just prior to Manson Family and Altamont.)
FBI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, COMBINED INTO A LARGER OPERATION, INTER-DIVISIONAL INFORMATION UNIT, IDIU, JUSTICE DEPT.
FBI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, COMBINED INTO A LARGER OPERATION, INTER-DIVISIONAL INFORMATION UNIT, IDIU, JUSTICE DEPT.
Aug. 1969
FBI, PLUS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, PLUS NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, COMBINED WITH CIA'S OPERATIONAL CHAOS.
FBI and Justice Dept. knew CIA operations in USA were illegal.
They agreed to work together, keep it highly secret, not put CIA names on meeting memos, and give concealed names to keep CIA FROM BEING OBSERVED.
PRESIDENT, CONGRESS NEVER KNEW
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