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On July 27, 2007 the U.S. government's Centers for Disease Control issued a press release apparently promoting the sale of anti-depressants to pregnant women. "Use of certain antidepressants, selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors most commonly known as SSRIs, during pregnancy does not significantly increase the risk for most birth defects," the CDC wrote.

The press release cited a new CDC study released in the New England Journal of Medicine and further stated, "a second study on SSRI and birth defects, also published in the June 28 issue of NEJM, did not find such an association with birth defects overall, but did find significant associations between specific SSRIs and several birth defects."

"When you are lighter, people pay more attention to you. It makes you more important and the rich men find you attractive," the sentiments of an Accra-based woman with light skin and dark knuckles.

Yet, the self-hate phenomenon of skin-bleaching is not limited to black women alone. The music fans of men like Michael Jackson and the famous Lumba Brothers, Charles Kwadwo Fosu (Daddy Lumba) and Nana Acheampong, have seen the skin of the stars go lighter and lighter with every album hit. Through multiple surgeries, Michael Jackson has arguably become transracial.

Bleaching is often attributed to extreme low self-esteem, and a misplaced desire to be better appreciated.

But, there is a growing repugnance within black communities worldwide against bleaching.

THURSDAY (HealthDay News) - Yoga's postures, controlled breathing and meditation may work together to help ease brains plagued by anxiety or depression, a new study shows.

Brain scans of yoga practitioners showed a healthy boost in levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) immediately after a one-hour yoga session. Low brain levels of GABA are associated with anxiety and depression, the researchers said.

In the past, choosing not to eat meat or animal-based foods was considered unusual in the United States. Times and attitudes have changed dramatically, however. Vegetarians are still a minority in the United States, but a large and growing one. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has officially endorsed vegetarianism, stating "appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."

Editor's note: Alternatives to modern Western medicine exist that are effective and safe. Homeopathy, used by millions worldwide but without enormous advertising budgets to make itself well known, is one of those and is based on its own unique, valid, and scientific principles.

When I walked into the office of Raymond Seidel, MD, in 1972, I never thought that it would change my life. I was new in Philadelphia and looking for a doctor. Someone sent me to Dr. Seidel. During the next eight years, I found that the old doctor changed my health dramatically. By the time he passed away in 1980, I had found homeopathy and the way to take charge of my own health. I also had discovered a philosophy that fascinated me and a colorful history filled with amazing people.

CHERTHALA, Kerala, (IPS/IFEJ) - Lulled by social indices that compare with the developed world's and tourist brochures that gush over 'God's Own Country', the deaths of 125 people from an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease, chikungunya, has come as a reality check for people in this southern state.

If Big Pharma [large medical drug production corporations - eds.] cared one iota about the unborn fetus, at a bare minimum, it would call off its hired-guns traveling around the country peddling SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors - eds.] antidepressants to pregnant women by convincing doctors to prescribed the drugs and ignore the studies and FDA warnings that say SSRIs are associated with serious birth defects.

Less than a month ago, on October 16, 2006, the first lawsuit in the nation was filed against GlaxoSmithKline in which an infant charges that his life-threatening lung disorder was caused by exposure to the SSRI Paxil in the womb during his mother's pregnancy.

Eric Jackson was born in Denver, Colorado on October 28, 2004, with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN), a condition in which the infant's arteries to the lungs remain constricted after birth and limit the amount of blood flow to the lungs and oxygen in the bloodstream.

Immediately after birth Eric had to be placed on a ventilator and eventually had to be placed on an oscillating ventilator for a month.

In his 2 short years on earth, Eric has undergone two cardiac catherizations, and another procedure to combat gastral reflux caused from being on a ventilator for so long. Since birth, he has remained on oxygen and medications to help him breathe and he continues to suffer with eating and digestive problems.

(IPS) - Ahead of World Diabetes Day, marked on Nov. 14, a leading British medical journal has issued a grim warning to Asian countries. Type-2 diabetes among the region's children has reached ''epidemic levels,'' says a paper published in 'The Lancet.'

''The onset of type-2 diabetes in younger age-groups is likely to result in major economic burdens for countries in Asia due to premature ill health and death,'' it says. ''People in Asia tend to develop diabetes with a lesser degree of obesity at younger age, suffer longer with complications of diabetes, and die sooner than people in other regions.''

Type-2 diabetes is as troubling among the continent's adults, notes the paper, whose principle writer is Prof. Kun-Ho Yoon, a South Korean diabetes specialist at the Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital in Seoul. ''The proportion of people with type-2 diabetes and obesity have increased throughout Asia, and the rates of increase show no signs of slowing.''

BOGOTA, Sep 21 (IPS) - Decimated by a flu epidemic and driven from their territory by the civil war, Colombia's Nukak indigenous people are teetering on the brink of extinction.

"It is absolutely essential for the Colombian government to find a way to let the Nukak return to their own land, otherwise they will not survive in the long term,"Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, warned Wednesday. The London-based non-governmental organisation works to support the self-determination of tribal people.

Fewer than 500 Nukak have survived, their numbers cut in half since their first contact with outsiders in 1988. They live in the Amazon jungle, and are considered one of the world's most mobile nomadic people. Their introduction to Western culture was less an encounter than a head-on collision.

Editor's note: Please see "Revolt Against the HIV Doctrine" at http://www.proutist-universal.org/archives/000720.html for more on the HIV-AIDS scam.

AIDS: handicapped by politics or nothing more than politics?

AIDS "activists have fought furiously against the idea that AIDS targets those who engage in selective behaviours."

"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told conference attendees that "It's difficult to imagine how the world can grow unless we tackle AIDS." In fact world population growth is fastest in areas hardest hit by AIDS. Japan, conversely, has almost no AIDS cases yet its population has stopped growing."

Calls for prevention highlighted the opening day of the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto on Sunday. Alas, it's too late. On the same day, one of America's two most influential newspapers, the Washington Post, carried a photo on its front page depicting a man wearing a T-shirt reading: "We all have AIDS." Toss out those condoms; forget abstinence, and don't bother getting tested. Or what part of "all" don't you understand?