Yes, in fact I have changed my opinion many times. It's called adjusting outlook to the facts. I don't know why I would have to be brave to admit it, unless I'm a British politician which I'm not. When they make a correction the media bay for their blood after their "U-Turn". I wonder if they'd be happier if we drove off the edge of a cliff as long as nobody is seen to do a "U-Turn".

Anyway, yes. The light has dawned, someone gave me a full set if light bulbs on this issue and I can see that something is definitely wrong in Rath land. It adds fuel to my theory that it is not the corrupt or criminal elements out there that are the problem but, many times, it is the people who claim to "fight" them. Tilting at windmills ? Don Quixote ?

Normally I'd sigh and move on, but in this case I've seen some rather nasty work going on. A Brother destroyed by drugs both illegal and legal. A mother mistreated by Doctors. A Father fed antidepressants after the death of his wife until he went blotto and turned on his own children. Not a very pretty piece of work at all. No Siree. So when I see someone like Rath confusing these issues even further - he does seem to sometimes drown out other saner voices - I want to know what is going on.

Your opinion of course. I see that this desire to make bots fire everything does not give the SP something to do. It may be possible I suppose to have bots react to spotting and fire on targets but all the reports I've seen suggest that the tech to do that is simply not in the BF2 engine. A better thing might be to at least give the SP the ability to fire targetted / ranged artillery themselves to cover the AI.

Hello !

Thanks for SP so far. Been enjoying myself in there and I'm almost speechless as usual by the quality of the FH mod.

I was testing some maps from the old FHSP beta release and I was surprised to find that some of them copy across to the new release and seem stable. I saw one minor error - an anti tank soldier with two anti tank guns on his shoulder ... I don't know, maybe he was feeling energetic that day, but it looked like an error.

These ....

bardia\
gazala\
sidi_rezegh\
alam_halfa\

So those might provide some basis for future work (note: thanks to Redsand for the original release of these).

Another thing I noticed, in FH1 BG1942 was spotter binoculars in a bunker next to a mortar. So you could spot with those and then nip round to the mortar and get a camera view. I wonder if there is some way of doing this in FH2 so at least the player can target their own artillery even if bots can't ? 

Cheers. Sand in the ears may be a nuisance but if that occurs just shove your head further in. If you hear any rumbling then visualise herds of elephants. We would not want you thinking there are battalions of hurt and abused people rolling round the planet trying to actually help people.

Your're welcome to your "there is nor cure for cancer world", but I don't want any part of it. Why won't you and people like you get it ? It suits some very rich people to hypnotise people like you into thinking that "there is no cure for cancer". The actual cures for it are free and effective but you have been conned into living in a world where every step must come at a terrible price. How many more people have to die before your Saint like Pharma companies come up with their cures ?

Don't worry guys it's just round the corner - like it has been for the last thirty years.

Please carry on being sceptical about Rath ! We need skeptics to challenge and question things.

Of course it is natural for a company to try and make profits.

But would you fly in an Airline that put profits above customer safety ?

Would you buy a car from a manufacturer where they have skimped on the safety of the design ?

I would not, and yet millions pop those little pills with barely a thought about their safety. Why ?

When we know that companies regularly use skulduggery to fool consumers.

What is it about Health that makes people willing to take in what ever authority has told them ?

There are billions being made out of those drugs. Lilly was caught pushing their drugs into old people's homes when they knew that they cause suicides. This is not "naturally making profits". This is pure criminal activity. What do you think Psych Rights are trying to achieve ?

I am amazed by the Devils Advocate responses I get, not just here, but elsewhere. That system does not need any more Devils advocates believe me ! I have seen my family ripped apart by this war .. and it is a war ... in fact it is related to the drug war going on in the USA and Mexico right now. But I am fed up with people saying they are sorry that had to happen to me and then ignoring what I'm saying as if I just have some axe to grind.

Bleating "conspiracy theory" is the first level of defense to avoid having to come out of denial.

I was drugged in the 70's with a hideous chemical called Impramine - made by the same company that made DDT. Imipramine was discovered in 1958 by the company "Geigy". This is the same company who invented DDT ( http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1948/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt ). Many drugs are based on insecticide type chemicals and yet they are "safe". All very organic and natural I'm sure.

India moves to protect traditional medicines from foreign patents

India fights to protect ancient treatments from western pharmaceutical companies

man doing yoga

Yoga: could become 'public property' to prevent it becoming a brand. Photograph: Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

In the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as "public property" free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a "brand".

The move comes after scientists in Delhi noticed an alarming trend – the "bio-prospecting" of natural remedies by companies abroad. After trawling through the records of the global trademark offices, officials found 5,000 patents had been issued — at a cost of at least $150m (£104m) — for "medical plants and traditional systems".

"More than 2,000 of these belong to the Indian systems of medicine … We began to ask why multinational companies were spending millions of dollars to patent treatments that so many lobbies in Europe deny work at all," said Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which lists in encyclopaedic detail the 200,000 treatments.

The database, which took 200 researchers eight years to compile by meticulously translating ancient Indian texts, will now be used by the European Patent Office to check against "bio-prospectors".

Gupta points out that in Brussels alone there had been 285 patents for medicinal plants whose uses had long been known in the three principal Indian systems: ayurveda, India's traditional medical treatment; unani, a system believed to have come to India via ancient Greece; and siddha, one of India's oldest health therapies, from the south.

Researchers found that in Europe one company had patented an Indian creeping plant known as Brahmi — Bacopa monnieri — for a memory enhancer. Another patent was awarded for aloe vera for its use as a mouth ulcer treatment.

"We have shown the authorities that ayurveda, unani and siddha medicinal uses were known in India. We would like the patents therefore lifted," said Gupta.

In the past India has had to go to court to get patents revoked. Officials say that to lift patents from medicines created from turmeric and neem, an Indian tree, it spent more than $5m. In the case of the neem patent, the legal battle took almost 10 years.

"We won because we proved these were part of traditional Indian knowledge. There was no innovation and therefore no patent should be granted," said Gupta.

Yoga, too, is considered a traditional medicine and one that is already a billion-dollar industry in the US. Gupta said the Indian government had already asked the US to register yoga as a "well-known" mark and raised concerns over the 130 yoga-related patents issued.

"We want no one to appropriate the yoga brand for themselves. There are 1,500 asanas [yogic poses] and exercises given in our ancient texts. We are transcribing these so they too cannot be appropriated by anyone.

"We have had instances where people have patented a yoga technique by describing a certain temperature. This is simply wrong."

India is also unusual in that it has seven national medical systems — of which modern medicine is but one. Almost four-fifths of India's billion people use traditional medicine and there are 430,000 ayurvedic medical practitioners registered by the government in the country. The department overseeing the traditional medical industry, known as Ayush, has a budget of 10bn rupees ($260m).

India's battle to protect its traditional treatments is rooted in the belief that the developing world's rich biodiversity is a potential treasure trove of starting material for new drugs and crops. Gupta said that it costs the west $15bn and 15 years to produce a "blockbuster drug". A ­patent lasts for 20 years, so a pharmaceutical company has just five years to recover its costs — which makes conventional treatments expensive.

"If you can take a natural remedy and isolate the active ingredient then you just need drug trials and the marketing. Traditional medicine could herald a new age of cheap drugs."

Medicines ancient and modern

Ginger: Patented to treat obesity. However, officials have found that in a Siddha preparation, extracts of ginger root are used in a treatment for obesity

Citrus peel extract: Patented to treat skin disorders and injuries. Recorded in Ayurvedic texts as a key ingredient to treat skin diseases

Phyllanthus amarus (Himalayan stem herb): Patented "for the inhibition of the replication of a nucleosidic inhibitor resistant retrovirus and/or a non-nucleosidic inhibitor-resistant retrovirus, wherein said retrovirus is an HIV." Indian traditional texts show the drug is used for immuno-suppressive emaciating diseases

Brassica rapa (mustard): Patented to normalise bowel function or for the prevention of colonic cancer. Unani has for years prescribed it for stomach ailments

~~~

So suck on that suckers. While you are believing propaganda about Chemo Therapy, Anti depressants and how natural treatments "don't work, and are unproven" .. those very same Pharma companies have been patenting the treatments that they are trying to keep you away from.

LOL !

Thankyou N24Reporter ! 

This is why I live for forums. I don't think I would have found that link on my own. It will take me a while to check it out.

No, I don't think you are a NAZI ! I do not live in, or at least I try not to live in a world where there is just "them and us". Help can come from unexpected sources, and God works in mysterious ways.

I still think you're wrong about Chemotherapy though, but if you choose to use it ... I would whisk you off to my health re-education camp ...

"You vill have ze aroma-therapy !"

Nah, only joking. I stand by what I have said though. I do not support a therapy based on Mustard Gas research. Neither does Rath. Neither does MindFreedom who stand against similiar treatments (although they also support the right of a patient to use it if they so choose). Other organisations are also out there like The Health Ranger, The Alliance for Natural Health and The International Coalition for Drug Awareness.

Rath does not produce Homoeopathic treatments unless you can show me otherwise.

So people, what about this ?

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog/nami-drug-money-laundering-is-illegal.html

Rath not mentioned a single time. How do you explain this ? An entire different bunch of people fighting the same fight.

NAMI - Drug Money Laundering is Illegal

The National Alliance for Mental Illness is the latest member of the psycho-pharmaceutical cartel whose Big Pharma money trail is under investigation by the US Senate Finance Committee, with Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley leading the charge.

In an April 6, 2009 letter, Grassley asked NAMI to disclose all funding from drug makers and industry created foundations.

 The director of MindFreedom International, David Oaks, says Senator Grassley deserves thanks for doing what NAMI’s board of directors has refused to do.

“MindFreedom has pointed out for years that NAMI is one of the main large mental health industry organizations to refuse to disclose, even to its own members, the amount of money they receive from the pharmaceutical industry,” he reports.

After receiving Grassley’s letter, NAMI’s executive director, Michael Fitzpatrick, sent out an email to many NAMI supporters and stated in part:  “NAMI does not engage in product promotion, endorsement, licensure or certification of any product, service or program owned by a corporate sponsor.”

 On the popular website, Furious Seasons, Philip Dawdy was quick to point out the falsity of that claim. “Fitzpatrick has certainly engaged in product pimpery for J&J/Janssen,” he wrote in his daily blog. To substantiate his comment, Dawdy provided a link to previous blog written on December 21, 2006, in response to a press release put out by J&& promoting its Risperdal’s me-too drug, Invega, with Fitzpatrick touting the drug using his title of “Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness.”

“We are pleased that innovative delivery technologies are being applied to new treatments for schizophrenia,” said Fitzpatrick in the press release.

“New and efficacious treatment options, like INVEGA, provide significant opportunities for more people with schizophrenia to manage their disease as they work with their treatment teams to live more fulfilling and productive lives,” he stated.

At the time, Dawdy wrote in his blog: “Now, what the hell is the ED of NAMI doing in a company press release much less mouthing the product name in all-caps?”

 ”When I last talked with Fitzpatrick about two years ago, he assured me that NAMI National had really cut back on its pharma habit. So this is just disappointing,” he noted. Judging from the yearly grant reports of Eli Lilly and Pfizer, Dawdy has a right to be not only disappointed but outraged.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Pfizer’s report shows NAMI received $132,000 for a campaign that best describes the funding aim of Big Pharma called the Campaign for the Mind of America.

NAMI groups across the country collectively received an additional $13,500 in the fourth quarter.

In the third quarter, Pfizer gave NAMI another $225,000 to fund the Campaign for the Mind of America. Various NAMI groups combined also received over $63,000 in other grants. During the first quarter of 2008, Pfizer gave three NAMI groups grants totaling $5,567.

 In 2008, Pfizer also gave NAMI groups $20,500 for annual conferences, $7,500 for Mental Health Awareness, and over $50,000 more in other grants.

Eli Lilly’s grant reports show Lilly is also funding the Campaign for the Mind of America, to the tune of close to a half million dollars a year. NAMI received grants for $450,000 from Lilly for this specific program in both 2007 and 2008.

In addition, Lilly provides extra funding to groups all over the US for a campaign called “Walk for the Mind of America.”  In 2007, the gang’s walking money totaled $17,000 in the first quarter, $11,500 in the second and $13,000 combined for the third and fourth quarters.

 For the year 2008, from first to last quarter, Lilly’s “Walk for the Mind” totals were: $11,500, $24,000, $12,500 and $2,000. Lilly’s 2008 report also shows a $350,000 grant for a program titled: In Our Own Voice.

In addition, the drug maker threw NAMI groups around the country over $90,000 to sponsor their annual conferences in 2007, and about double that amount for their annual meetings in 2008. The grant reports are filled with additional gifts to NAMI groups all over the US, too numerous to mention here.

Lilly is the most prolific funder of front groups obviously because it has the largest drug portfolio to peddle, with Zyprexa, Prozac, Cymbalta, and Symbyax, a combination of Prozac and Zyprexa, as well as the ADHD drug Strattera.

Pfizer markets Zoloft, the antipsychotic, Geodon, and Chantix, a smoking cessation drug. The company also markets Viagra, a big seller in part, likely due to the all the sexual side effects of psychiatric drugs.

The leaders of these “non-profit” drug pushing operations are also well compensated. In 2006, for a 35 hour work week, Michael Fitzpatrick, was paid a salary of $212,281 and another $10,090 in employee benefit contributions and deferred compensation plans, according to NAMI’s 2006 Tax Form 990

In her new book, Side Effects, Alison Bass reports the story of how the president of NAMI from 2002 to 2004, Jim McNulty, failed to disclose that he was being paid thousands of dollars from drug companies for promoting their products to NAMI members and others at various speaking engagements.

“In a particularly intriguing twist,” she writes on her website blog, “McNulty laundered this drug company money through a state chapter of NAMI.”  Bass further explains:

“This is how the scheme worked, according to McNulty himself and others in the know. He would be paid thousands of dollars to speak about the benefits of various antidepressants — McNulty himself suffered from depression — and rather than pay him directly, companies such as Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, and GlaxoSmithKline, which made Paxil, would give his speaking fees to the Rhode Island chapter of NAMI, which would then cut McNulty a check.”

Senator Grassley has his work cut out for him now that he’s zeroing in on Big Pharma front groups because there are several with drug money laundering operations every bit as flagrant as NAMI’s. He might want to check out Mental Health America next, formerly known as the National Mental Health Association.

The group’s 2002 tax returns show the CEO and President, Michael Faenza, received compensation of $306,727, and another $35,275 in contributions to employee benefit plans and deferred compensation that year, for a 35 hour work week.

 This operation has a Campaign for America’s Mental Health.  Pfizer’s 2008 report lists a one grant for $200,000 and another for $300,000 to fund it. In light of the psycho-pharmaceutical cartel’s push for Congress to pass the Mother’s Act to set the stage for the screening of pregnant women for a long list of “anxiety” and “mood” disorders, the most worrisome gift to Mental Health America is Pfizer’s donation of $20,000 to a Georgia group for: Project Healthy Moms: Education for Prevention/Treatment for Perinatal Depression Disorders, in the fourth quarter of 2008. Among the largest of countless donations from Lilly in 2008, Mental Health America received one grant worth $600,000 in the second quarter.

The group’s 2006 annual report shows it received over $1 million each from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly and Wyeth. Janssen and Pfizer gave between $500,000 and $1,000,000, and AstraZeneca and Forest Labs donated between $100,000 and $499,000. GlaxoSmithKline gave between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2006.

Evelyn Pringle

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Scoop Independent News)

Massive corruption. Remember The Fugitive ?