By Tim O'Shea, D.C.
When once you interfere with the order of nature,
there is no
knowing where the results will end.
- Herbert Spencer
It was great while it lasted: The "Age of Antibiotics". Sure
came and went in
a hurry, though, didn't it? Left me with a few questions:
How did antibiotics run their course already in just
50 years?
How did we get so sick?
Where does all the money go?
Why aren't we making any progress?
What's going to happen now?
These are the questions for which you can almost never get a
straight
answer. Unless you look beyond Newsweek, beyond the San Francisco
Chronicle,
beyond 20/20, or Ted Turner, beyond the media which year
by year seem
to cater to an ever-dwindling level of literacy and
awareness.
Questions like these involve some famous people: Pasteur,
Bechamp, Koch,
Bernard, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Fleming, all of whom we'll
mention. But before
we launch off into all that, let's turn back the clock for a
moment and go
back to 1350 A.D. Place: the European continent.
In less than two years' time, the BubonicPlague wiped
out half the
population of Europe. Fleas bit rats and then bit man, but no one
knew it. An
estimated 25 million people died in 14 months. Some individual
cities had a
mortality as high as 90%. Bodies were piled into carts and
dragged away to be
burned in common graves. It was a most grotesque way to die:
bleeding and
screaming and having one's organs literally liquefy. From
infection to death
took perhaps one week. Prior to that outbreak, bubonic plague had
been absent
for nearly 1000 years. Scholars of the day attributed the cause
of the plague
to evil spirits, divine retribution, etc. All this time, even up
to the
present, other scientists have been asking the question: why did
some die and
some survive? What made the difference? Today we know the
answer.
Go forward now a few centuries to France in the 1870s.
Three
scientists were conducting experiments in the area of chemistry,
particularly
having to do with fermentation, yeast, and the new discovery of
little
organisms called bacteria. All were involved in similar research
but there was
much competition and "borrowing" of discoveries, always with the
undercurrent
of politics and influence, as usual. The men were Louis Pasteur,
Antoine
Bechamp, and Robert Koch, a German. These men were not
colleagues, but worked
independently. They all knew they had entered a whole new area of
human
discovery and the race was on to influence the medical world.
It was Pasteur who won the race of politics and
influence so that
today students memorize that Louis Pasteur "discovered" the
GermTheory.
Not only is this not accurate, and not only is the Germ Theory
itself
unsubstantiated even today, but Pasteur himself in one of the
most quoted
deathbed statements perhaps of all time, recanted the Theory and
admitted that
his rivals had been right, and that it was not the germ that
caused the
disease, but rather the environment in which the germ was found:
"Bernard
acail raison; le terrain c'est tout, le germe c'est rien."
What exactly was this Germ Theory? Very simply, the Germ
Theory stated that
there were separate diseases and that each disease was caused by
a particular
microorganism. It was the job of science, then, to find the right
drug or
vaccine that would selectively kill off the offending bug without
killing the
patient.
That would be great, but nature rarely is so black and white
about things,
ever notice that? For one thing, bacteria and viruses tend to be
"environment-specific." That's why some people get colds and
others don't.
That's why some survived the Bubonic Plague. That's also why some
doctors and
nurses seem to be immune to disease even though they're
surrounded by it every
day. The Germ Theory has as many holes as a Swiss cheese, and it
is likely
that Pasteur knew it. But a little research shows us that Pasteur
had a gift
for PR. He rarely let his research keep him away from an
opportunity to
address royalty or medical society in the most prestigious
university
settings. He was quoted and published and offered practically
every honorary
title and chair in Europe. The records however not only cast
suspicion, but
seem to establish fairly clearly that Pasteur "borrowed" the
research for some
of his most famous discoveries, and then capitalized on the
celebrity of being
there first.
Before he died, Pasteur instructed his family not to release
some 10,000
pages of lab notes after his death. Not until 1975, after the
death of his
grandson, were these "secret" notes finally made public. An
historian from
Princeton, Professor Geison, made a thorough study of Pasteur's
lab notes.
Geison presented his findings in an address to the American
Association for
the Advancement of Science in Boston in 1993. Dr. Geison's
conclusions:
Pasteur published much fraudulent data and was guilty of many
counts of
"scientific misconduct," violating rules of medicine, science,
and ethics.
Like Koch, Pasteur was very motivated by money. In the race for a
vaccine for
anthrax, for example, not only did Pasteur not test it on animals
before using
humans; it was also established that Pasteur actually stole the
formula from a
colleague named Toussaint. Unable to prove his claim at the time,
Toussaint
died a few months later of a nervous breakdown.
The same was true with the earlier work on fermentation, which
supposedly
formed the basis for the Germ Theory. Fermentation means changes
in living
matter, like souring milk, rotting meat or fruit, or making wine.
It turns out
that much of these research findings were lifted from another
contemporary,
AntoineBechamp. Proof for this is quite clear and was the
subject of a
book published in 1932 that is still in print: Bechamp or
Pasteur? This
book was written by E. Douglas Hume, who it turns out was
actually a woman who
had to disguise her name as male to get the book published.
Antoine Bechamp
was the most respected researcher and teacher in France at the
time,
department head at the university at Lille. But Bechamp was too
busy to be
bothered with conventions and awards and politics. He was a
professor and a
researcher, and that took every moment of his time until his
death at 93.
Bechamp's view was that it was not the bug that caused disease,
but rather the
condition, or the terrain, in which bugs lived. Disease
happens when an
imbalance allows some of the more pathological that is, bad,
bacteria to take
over. What causes that? Low resistance, weak immune system. Seems
like such a
simple idea, but that is really the foundation of the whole
controversy all
along. In the end everyone, even Pasteur, agreed that bugs -
bacteria and
viruses - do not alone cause disease.
A little research uncovers the following amazing possibilities
about
Pasteur, which the reader is encouraged to further
investigate:
Pasteur had no training or credentials in either medicine or
physiology; he was a chemist
Pasteur very likely created the disease known as "hydrophobia," rather
than found a cure for it.
Pasteur initiated the practice of vivisection with horrific
animal experiments. Hundreds of thousands of laboratory animals have
been needlessly killed by atrocious experiments in the ame of "science," not only
at Pasteurian Institutes, but pervasively throughout the entire
empire of medical research laboratories worldwide, even to the present time
Rather than protect the human race from disease, Pasteur was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people who were inoculated with unproven vaccines and injections, and directly or thousands more in whom disease was introduced by the administration of unproven
pasteurian procedures
Pasteur may be seen more as a merchant than a scientist,
with his
frequent reporting of false test findings and data, which had two
designs:
self-promotion and profiteering from the sale of drugs and
vaccines that were
often made mandatory by legislators
Pasteurian treatment for a disease he did not even have
actually killed
Alexander, the King of Greece
Pasteur did not work on naturally diseased subjects, but
instead
introduced the idea of inducing sickness by giving morbid
(diseased)
injections into healthy subjects
As far as his Germ Theory goes, there was much opposition to
it among many
researchers of his own time. In a lecture given in London on 25
May 1911, M.L.
Leverson, MD stated:
The entire fabric of the germ theory of disease rests upon
assumptions
which not only have not been proved, but which are incapable of
proof, and
many of them can be proved to be the reverse of truth. The basic
one of these
unproven assumptions, wholly due to Pasteur, is the hypothesis
that all the
so-called infectious and contagious disorders are caused by
germs.
The discoverer of the cell theory, Rudolf Virchow, with
respect to the Germ
Theory, commented simply:
"Germs seek their natural habitat."
Virchow felt that the presence of germs identified the tissue
as diseased, but was not the cause of disease. A weakened or diseased tissue
may be a
target area for microorganisms, a hospitable environment in which
they can set
up shop. But that's quite different from germs having caused the
weakened
state.
Bernard Jensen likens the germ theory of disease to his "rat
theory of
garbage." Rats do not cause garbage; they are attracted by it, in
quite the
same way as opportunistic bacteria are attracted to weakened
tissues.
Robert Koch was racing Pasteur to find the cause of a
disease called
anthrax, from which great numbers of cattle in Europe were dying.
Taking blood
from the diseased cattle and isolating bacteria from it, Koch
then injected
mice with the bacteria. When the mice died, Koch then cultured
blood from them
and compared it to the original bacteria form the catlte. He
developed
procedures and his Postulates are still memorized by medical
students the
world over as the foundation of the Germ Theory:
Koch's Postulates
1. the organism must be present in every case
2. must be isolated
3. must cause the disease in a healthy host
4. must be able to be isolated again
Also from the top medical journal Lancet, 29 Mar
1909, we
find:
Koch's Postulates are rarely, if ever, complied with.
Each postulate has been disproven, then and now, but that has
not cheated
them of their place as basic tenets in the Germ Theory religion.
Both Koch's
and Pasteur's vaccines for anthrax were colossal failures, with
thousands of
sheep killed all over Europe as part of the "experiment,"
especially in Italy
and Germany. It is also interesting to note that both Koch and
Pasteur did
everything possible to alter and cover up the results of these
failures.
Koch made the first vaccine for tuberculosis, employing these
same
Postulates. He called the vaccine tuberculin. In Berlin alone,
2000 patients
were inoculated with tuberculin. Unfortunately they died at a
higher rate than
TB patients who hadn't been treated at all. Tuberculin simply did
not work.
More distressing for Koch was the admission by the Prussian
government that
they'd made an exclusive agreement with Koch to sell the remedy
and divide the
profits. Not only was this a political disaster for the Prussian
government
and for Koch himself, but it was an enormous embarrassment when
all the
prestige of the scientific method suddenly suffered this blow.
Koch never
recovered his credibility and is remembered today only for his
"Postulates."
But Koch helped set the stage for the marriage of science and
marketing, for
which divorce does not appear likely any time soon, especially at
present.
At the turn of the century, tuberculosis was the leading cause
of death in
America.
Antoine Bechamp, from whose research Pasteur plagiarized
whatever he
thought was useful, came up with an interesting point of view
that has never
been refuted. Bechamp discovered tiny organisms he called
"microzymas" which
are present in all things - animal, vegetable, and mineral,
whether living or
dead. Depending upon the condition of the host, these microzymas
could assume
various forms. Bad bacteria and viruses were simply the forms
assumed by the
microzymas when there was a condition of disease. In a diseased
body, the
microzymas became pathological bacteria and viruses. In a healthy
body,
microzymas formed healthy cells. When a plant or animal died, the
microzymas
lived on. To this day, the whole theory of microzymas has never
been
disproved.
Later researchers like Naessens and Enderlein followed the
same line of
reasoning and developed their own systems of how these microzymas
operate.
Although their ideas were never proven false by opposing
research, they were
generally persecuted by mainstream medicine, which makes sense.
Because
without an enemy that can be identified and killed, what good is
it to develop weapons? And developing weapons, that is, drugs, has been the
agenda of the
industry set up by Carnegie and Rockefeller even down to the
present day, as
we shall see. New drugs mean new research funding and government
money and the
need for prescriptions and for an entire profession to write
those
prescriptions.
How did Pasteur's ideas become the foundation of organized
medicine?
Politics. Pharmaceutical economics.
Early in his career, Pasteur was decorated by the Emperor
Napoleon. His
position as a scientist was thereby secured, even though he was
only a chemist
and had no credentials at all in medicine or physiology.
Scientists in both
France and Germany at that time were grappling with mankind's
first look at
fundamental questions about the nature of living matter
itself:
what makes something alive or dead?
where does it come from?
why do things rot, ferment, or decompose?
is there something in the air, or something inside the
organism that
has these effects?
what effects can manmade chemicals have?
For the first time in history, things were coming into focus.
Discoveries
were being made about these fundamental issues. Ideas were coming
fast, but
piecemeal. It was perfect timing for an opportunist to take
advantage of the
general uncertainty and lack of understanding and to claim that
he understood
all the issues involved, and furthermore had thought of them
first. Pasteur
was noted for his habit of playing both sides of the fence on
issues he didn't
understand, and then later, to quote the parts of his earlier
writing that
supported the later finding, always with the claim that he had
been there
first. Only the scientists understood the complexities of these
emerging
ideas. The royal court and the press just knew that something was
going on,
and though they didn't know what, were going to act as though
they did. And
for them, a chameleon like Pasteur was the perfect frontman.
Politics never changes. The same type of thinking that
imprisoned
Galileo long ago for discovering that the earth went around the
sun, the
rulers' eternal attempt to control the minds of their subjects,
these are the
forces that cast Pasteur, an ambitious opportunist, into a
position he may not
have deserved - the supposed Trailblazer in the science of modern
biomedicine.
Funny how things often don't really get "discovered"
until the
commercial aspects of that discovery have been worked out.
Howard Hencke, in his 1995 book "The Germ Theory: A
Deliberate
Aberration", notes that it was critical for the new medical
industry
"... to indoctrinate the public in the Western world with the
belief that
the salvation from all, especially physical ailments, lay
outside the
individual's system and responsibility, because it was caused by
external
factors...and that chemical remedies (drugs) will keep him free
from disease,
independent of his own vigilant responsibility."
We're talking about marketing here, yes?
The author of the long-suppressed work Pasteur or
Bechamp?
states:
"Had it not been for the mass selling of vaccines, Pasteur's
germ theory of
disease would have collapsed into obscurity."
- E. Douglas Hume
Some 17 years before Pasteur, the most famous nurse in
history,
Florence Nightengale, put it like this:
Diseases are not individuals arranged in classes like cats and
dogs, but
conditions growing out of one another. The specific disease is
the grand
refuge of the weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule
in the
medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are
specific
disease conditions.
-Florence Nightengale 1860
Sound familiar?
Pasteurian inoculations ran into a few snags. Actually it was
more than a
few, as even the most cursory investigation into vaccination
demonstrates.
From the beginning, the whole idea of piercing the skin with a
needle for any
reason was suspect, let alone introducing new proteins and agents
into what
was supposed to be an inviolable environment: the circulatory
system.
Injections are a total violation of nature. Normally nothing is
introduced
into the bloodstream without going through the laboratory of the
entire
digestive system. That is how nature protects the blood from
external
intrusions. Here are just a few of the hundreds of researchers
opposing
inoculation:
"The most serious disorders may be provoked by the injection
of living
organisms into the ood...into a medium not intended for them may
provoke
redoubtable manifestations of the gravest morbid phenomena."
-Bechamp
A medical doctor reporting from the battlefields of South
Africa during the
Boer War in the early part of this century, Walter Hadwen, MD, in
his book
Microbes and War notes that the war itself killed 86,000
men. With a
100% inoculation rate, there were an additional 96,000 casualties
from disease
alone!
In 1915, another medical doctor wrote an article for the top
British
medical journal Lancet. Dr. Montais studied 21 cases of
tetanus, each
of whom had received Pasteurian inoculation. The conclusion of
the article,
which appeared in the 23 Oct 1915 issue, was that in every case,
the tetanus
had been caused by the inoculation. Dr. Montais said that
"Pasteur had
created a new form of disease."
We should understand that it was Pasteur who began the fashion
of studying
artificial disease conditions: "inducing sickness by morbid
injections in
human and animal subjects, instead of studying naturally diseased
subjects. He
initiated the practice of vivisection and horrific animal
experiments."
Without going on for pages and pages with data that
substantiate the above
ideas, suffice it to say that Pasteurian methods may not have
been quite the
success we have always been taught that they were. The reader is
encouraged to
continue the investigation on his own.
So with most of the major researchers eventually coming around
to the same
conclusion, how is it that on the threshold of the 21st century,
organized
medicine in this country still acts as though the Germ Theory is
carved in
stone, and all policy proceeds from this premise? And most people
still
believe it?
The answer to that is out there too, and can be gotten to with
just a
little more patience.
Roll forward into the 1880s and 1890s. The Industrial
Revolution, the age
of coal, of oil, of electricity, of machines, of railroads and
automobiles.
Two figures towered over this era, wielding more power over
science, industry,
finance, and politics than possibly anyone else in history. Of
course we're
now speaking of Andrew Carnegie and J.D.
Rockefeller.
The control of Carnegie and Rockefeller over most aspects of
American life
is something to marvel at and appreciate, extending even to the
present day.
Change was taking place faster than the politicians could control
it, and for
once in our history, control was in the private sector. Without
going into a
long political harangue, I just want to touch on one aspect of
the way that
power was expressed - the rise of organized medicine.
Before 1880, most medicine consisted of folk remedies, basic
herbs, and
crude surgery and dentistry. For centuries, there had not been
much radical
change in the area of medicine. Superstition was as much a part
of medicine as
the actual remedies themselves. The use of leeches and bleeding
was still
common, the reason being to "let out the bad blood," which was in
the same
category with getting rid of evil spirits. Even drilling holes in
the skull -
the art of trephination - which had been around since the time of
the
Pharaohs, was still done.
In Renaissance Europe, barbers and surgeons actually were the
same
profession, combining the services of shaving, pulling teeth and
blood-letting. The origin of the red and white striped
barber-pole is
well-known: an enterprising barber/surgeon, having just bled a
famous
nobleman, proudly displayed a bloody white towel used in the
procedure by
wrapping it around a pole outside his establishment. In the
1700s, King Edward
IV of England instituted a corporation of "barber-chirurgiens"
who performed
the above services. Not until 1800 did King George II separate
barbers and
surgeons into two separate professions.
Among many other things, Carnegie and Rockefeller controlled
the oil and
coal industries. By 1900, they became aware that these industries
were
producing mountains of waste year by year. An original idea was
presented, no
one knows by whom: what if these chemical waste materials could
somehow be
turned to profit? Capital idea, but how? Medicines, that's how.
But medicines
like the world has never seen. Medicines made from chemicals.
Pharmaceuticals.
Brilliant idea. But how could the people be made to accept
such a strange
notion? That was the problem. They just took natural cures and
occasionally
consulted the country or local doctor for something "serious."
The way to gain
general acceptance of the new medicines soon became obvious:
standardize the
education, training, and credentialling of medical doctors and
raise their
economic status to a level where they would follow policy. And
the policy
would come from above.
About 1904 Andrew Carnegie noticed that the workers in his
factories
actually made more money than most medical doctors. Consulting
with the
president of MIT, Henry Pritchett, they set up the Carnegie
Foundation with
$10 million. Its original purpose was to provide a pension fund
for retiring
professors. But soon a new application emerged: control of
education. The name
was changed to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching, and
Pritchett expanded its original purpose, now calling it
" a great agency devoted to strengthening American education
through
scientific inquiry and policy studies."
Any time rich guys tell you they're going to devote themselves
to something
for you, that's usually the time to check your wallet. Ever
notice that?
The Foundation became immensely successful. Control of
educational
standards came about in this way: in order to qualify for the new
pension
system, a participating institution had to meet standards set by
the
Foundation. In the first year, only 52 of the 421 colleges who
applied were
accepted. The Foundation soon took on a life of its own.
Abraham Flexner, a nonphysician teacher, was hired by
the Carnegie
Foundation to travel throughout the country and "observe" medical
education.
His landmark study, known as the Flexner Report, was published in
1910. Upon
his recommendations, the Foundation branched out from being
merely a pension
plan for professors to an entirely new area: research funding.
Schools which
met Flexner's, i.e., the Foundation's, standards were awarded
research funds
and endowments. Those who did not got nothing. In this way the
giants of
industry came to dictate the type of medical care that would
flourish in
America. Traditional, natural methods of healing were passed
over, in favor of
the more "scientific" approach, which coincidentally meant those
schools with
the likelihood of disseminating the products of the newborn
pharmaceutical
industry. The big universities in the medical hierarchy that rule
today were
aligned with the Carnegie Foundation at that time:
Case Western Reserve
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Institute of Chicago
University of Chicago
Harvard School of Medicine
University of North Carolina
Not to be outdone by the Carnegie Foundation, The Rockefeller
Foundation
also came into ascendancy at this time. Again employing the
direction of
Abraham Flexner, the Rockefeller Foundation developed national
standards for
medical schools that were seeking "philanthropic" support. Good
word. Schools
had to be connected to a large university. Universities had to be
linked with
clinical departments with laboratories and a university hospital.
Using
Rockefeller funds, Flexner was able to develop a small group of
elite medical
schools that were clinically oriented. The raw materials for the
new drugs
were there. What had been lacking was an academic power-base to
legitimize
their development and general use.
The infrastructure for education, funding, research and the
organization of
medicine that persists today was created in a few short years.
Ever wonder how
simple folk medicine which had been around for centuries was just
chucked out
the window so fast? Set up under the guidance and specifications
of two of the
biggest economic forces in history, Carnegie and Rockefeller,
organized
medicine became an industry, with its focus on market growth. An
industry
concerned with disease is not about to abolish itself by curing
the diseased,
now is it? This is why all these years, effective inexpensive
non-pharmaceutical remedies have been systematically suppressed.
It's just
good business.
Against this backdrop, the flailing Germ Theory was
revived and
trotted back out for a second run. The fact that it had been
repudiated by its
founder and most of his contemporaries was no longer mentioned in
circles who
expected next year's funding. The Germ Theory fit well with the
new
market-oriented paradigm of medicine: if bad bugs are out there
causing
diseases, we better find drugs to kill them. It was a natural, a
marriage of
expediency, like Bill and Hillary, or Wayne and Garth.
Up into the 1920s, the burgeoning medical industry was gaining
strength. It
was aided by the declining incidence of infectious diseases due
to improved
sanitation, for which medicine took credit. That is an entire
story in itself,
and a good starting point would be Walene James' Immunizations
- The
Reality Beyond the Myth. The politics of medicine was
becoming stronger
year by year, as new institutions were built and funding was
doled out for
those research projects that had the best potential for future
market value.
The worldwide flu epidemic of 1918 that killed millions proved
that the new
"scientific" approach still had a lot to learn about disease
prevention. There
was simply no cure, as the virus tore through the world's
population.
The still-unproven Germ Theory came to be accepted as policy
largely
because any opposition to it had little chance of getting
published. A small
group of scientists, however, aware that the work of Bechamp was
a much more
reasonable view of physical reality, continued to develop
research in a
direction other than germs as the cause of disease. "Science" was
off and
running, the thoroughbred of the new drug market, but the
scientific method
had been left in the dust. The Germ Theory was enshrined as the
underlying
dogma of the new Religion. But many, like J.H. Tilden, MD,
were not
going to church services, apparently:
"...doctors fight the imaginary foe without ceasing. The
people are so
saturated with the idea that disease must be fought to a finish
that they are
not satisfied with conservative treatment. Something must be
done, even if
they pay for it with their lives, as tens of thousands do every
year. This
willingness to die on the altar of medical superstition is one
very great
reason why no real improvement is made in fundamental medical
science."
- Toxemia Explained 1926
1926? Sounds like 1996. More deja vu.
In 1928, however, the Germ Theory got a power boost that has
lasted almost
to the present day. Dr. Alexander Fleming, a British
scientist,
accidentally discovered that his cultures were being destroyed by
a certain
mold. For the next 14 years, scientists in England and America
were successful
in isolating and testing penicillin, in secret. However, in 1942
a fire at The
Cocoanut Grove, Boston's oldest nightclub, killed and injured
hundreds of
people. Penicillin was rushed to Boston in time to prevent
infection from
burns in hundreds of patients. The news exploded, and the race to
mass-produce
penicillin, the Wonder Drug, was on. By 1944, all American
military
requirements for penicillin could be met. Merck to the rescue.
This one event, the discovery of penicillin, did more
to bring
credibility to organized medicine than probably anything else in
its history.
To be able to prevent infection was certainly a miraculous and
wonderful
power. Thousands and thousands of people had died from infection
down through
the ages. Finally here was proof positive of the correctness of
the Germ
Theory: these patients had died from bad bacteria, and now if
only the
bacteria were killed with penicillin, the patients would
live.
But once again, nature was to show that she does not deal in
black and
white. And Mother Nature always bats last.
In his early research looking for better ways to formulate
penicillin,
Alexander Fleming knew very well that living things could change
or adapt when
stressful substances were added. He knew, perhaps better than
anyone, the
dangers of resistance from overuse of penicillin, and warned
against that
overuse from the very beginning, as expressed in an interview he
gave to the
New York Times in 1945:
"The greatest possibility of evil in self-medication is the
use of
too-small doses, so that instead of clearing up infection the
microbes are
educated to resist penicillin..."
Think of it this way: the oldest living things on earth are
bacteria and
viruses. They have been around for billions of years. They have
persisted
through myriads of changeful environments - hot, cold, wet, dry,
with oxygen,
without oxygen, earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers - you name it.
They're still
around. Thousands of species of plants and animals have come and
gone because
they couldn't adapt. So it's pretty safe to say that on this
planet, the
masters of adapting are bacteria and viruses.
Now suddenly in the 1940s, we introduce a new substance into
the human
population: penicillin, a substance which kills all bacteria. Do
you think
bacteria have run into some other stresses in the past 10 billion
years?
Probably have. How did they survive? They changed - doctors say
'mutated.' The
ones that mutated survived; the rest died.
Even from the very beginning of the Antibiotic Age in the
1940s, doctors
noticed the signs of mutation. Exposed to antibiotics, if
bacteria can change
and survive, they are said to be drug-resistant.
Since the 1940s, many antibiotics have been developed
until today there
are about 160 types. The problem is that most are just slightly
different
versions of a few main types. And resistance to those main types
has increased
year by year. Drug resistance is today one of the leading causes
of death in
the U.S.: More than 70 thousand patients die each year
from it,
according to the National Institutes of Health. These patients
acquired the
infection while they were in a hospital being treated for
something else,
according to the May 1997 documentary The Coming Plague.
No known
antibiotics can help these patients, and they die.
Increased mortality from infectious disease is on everyone's
mind. A 1992
study by the CDC's Institute of Medicine showed that mortality
from infectious
disease has risen 22% worldwide from 1980-1992. (
Emerging
Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the U.S., Centers for
Disease
Control)
Here's a good example of drug resistance:
in 1952, almost 100% of Staphylococcus infections could
be cured by
penicillin.
In 1982, fewer than 10% of staph cases could be cured
by
penicillin.
Today it is less than 5%.
In the 1960s, doctors switched the resistant staph patients to
another
antibiotic called methecillin. That worked for awhile, but not
for long. By
1992, at least 40% of these staphylococcus
infections were
resistant to methecillin, according to the New England Journal
of
Medicine, 28 Apr 94.
By 1993, only one surefire Staphylococcus killer remained:
vancomycin.
Vancomycin was the big gun. However today that is no longer true.
Today there
are many strains of staphylococcus that are resistant to
vancomycin. That
means also resistant to penicillin and to methecillin. What's
left? Nothing.
Out of drugs.
Let's talk strep. Many of the resistant Streptococcus
infections have made
headlines in the past few years if the patients die a
particularly gruesome
death. Examples of this are stories of the "flesh-eating disease"
which appear
from time to time in the news. This is a strain of Group A
streptococcus that
is resistant to all antibiotics and can attack flesh, muscles,
and organs. Now
we all know that newspapers are generally not reliable sources of
information
because they tend to twist facts and overdramatize things and
create crises in
order to sell more papers. So things have not yet reached the
state of affairs
that we saw in the movie "Outbreak" with Dustin Hoffman. But many
credible
medical authorities have been quoted as saying that it's no
longer a question
of if a scenario like the Ebola epidemic portrayed in that
movie could
happen. Rather it's a question of when.
Today 30% of Strep pneumoniae are resistant to
penicillin, once the
drug of choice with almost 100% results.
Today 30% of gonorrhea cases are resistant to both
penicillin and
tetracycline, which ten years ago was almost 100% effective. The
CDC no longer
recommends these two drugs for gonorrhea.
Fred Tenover, PhD of the Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta has
said:
"We even have some strains [of streptococcus] now, although
not all, that
are resistant essentially to all of our clinically useful
antibiotics."
How serious is this problem of resistant bacteria, the
superbugs? I guess
death is a fairly serious outcome: 70,000 Americans are
dying annually
from bacterial infections they caught in the hospital,
which no
antibiotics could cure. According to the New England Journal
of
Medicine, of the 40 million patients hospitalized every year,
2 million
acquire infections after they get to the hospital. That's a one
in 20 chance.
As many as 60% of those 2 million infections involve
antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. In some ICUs, there can be as high as a 70% chance of
nosocomial
infection! Nosocomial means acquired IN the hospital.
Let's look at TB for a moment. At the turn of the century,
tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the U.S.
Then drugs were
found that controlled TB for several decades. Recently however,
there is no
more control, because of the increase in the amount of what
doctors call MDR
TB. That stands for multiple drug-resistant TB. When the immune
system becomes
suppressed, by junk food, prescription drugs, bad lifestyle,
etc., mutant
strains of TB are encouraged. That means resistant to one or more
of the 5
drugs used to treat TB. The two main TB drugs are isoniazid and
rifampin. In
New York City by 1992, 35% of TB patients were resistant to one
drug, and 20%
were resistant to them both. Many strains of TB are resistant to
all 5 drugs
and that percentage is growing steadily. Such cases are generally
fatal,
according to the World Health Organization. The WHO is predicting
that in the
next decade, world deaths from TB will increase from 3 million to
30
million!
Doctors have actually gone on record saying that they
personally would not
venture into certain inner city areas of New York City for any
amount of money
because of the danger of TB infection.
TB is a mycobacterium . Mycobacteria can survive in tissues
for years, in a
latent state, waiting for an opportunity such as a depressed
immune system to
become active and multiply.
So what are most doctors doing about this situation of
antibiotic
resistance? They are in a very tough position, that is certain.
Because of the
control of information, most of the population today is unaware
of the extent
of drug resistance in this country. Even if they encounter a
doctor who is
cautious enough to tell them that perhaps they or their child do
not need an
antibiotic at the first sniffle, the patient will often go to
another doctor
to get the antibiotic. So usually the physician will just come
across: some
recent studies have shown 10 out of 10 doctors will simply
prescribe an
antibiotic for minor colds, with no culture. It is astounding to
learn that
the average child of nine in this country has already had 17 runs
of
antibiotics in his lifetime! Why is that a problem?
The word is attenuation. Attenuation means that the
bacteria weren't
killed; only half-killed. There are two reasons why this may have
happened:
1. Most people stop taking the antibiotic as soon as they feel
better.
Isn't that true? They think they're fine, but what they just did
was allow
some bacteria to survive in a mutated form which is now resistant
to the
antibiotic they just took. Which means that next time the drug
won't work
2. The bacteria mutated and survived the full course of
antibiotics.
Here's another interesting word: prophylactic. We're
not talking
about birth control here. This is another sense of the word. If
you have a
cold, it's usually virus. So why do they give you antibiotics,
which only kill
bacteria? The word is "prophylactic"; we're gonna give you a
prophylactic dose
of antibiotics. That means just in case you develop a "secondary"
bacterial
infection as a "complication" of the viral infection. Is that
likely? Not
very. The problem is, antibiotics are not M&Ms. They are
powerful drugs
which kill all your body's bacteria every time you take them.
This is what is
known as a Side Effect. What's wrong with killing all my body's
bacteria a few
times a year when it's not particularly necessary?
Probiotics, that's what. Huh? Probiotics. Good
bacteria. There are
some 300 types of good bacteria at work in the colon which are
necessary for
many life functions, including complete digestion, absorption of
vitamins and
nutrients, and keeping the numbers of potentially pathological
bacteria in
check. Antibiotics kill all of them. It may take weeks or months
for the body
to rebuild its normal bacteria, which are called flora. This
makes for
incomplete digestion, also known as putrefaction, rancidity, or
rotting of
intestinal contents. Like John Wayne. Autopsy showed 44 pounds
of
undigested food in his intestines when he died! Think how heavy
that would
feel all those years. Guess nobody ever told The Duke about
probiotics,
because he sure didn't have any.
Another problem with killing all the body's bacteria is that
it is no
longer possible. The pervasiveness of antibiotics through the
human race by
pills, food, and the animals we eat has promoted the survival of
mutant
(resistant) bacteria. Scientists have now made the amazing
discovery of
finding antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the bodies of African
tribesmen who
live in total isolation from 'civilization,' with no access to
drugs
whatsoever. The point is, in 50 years, virtually everyone has
developed some
degree of immunity to antibiotics, directly or indirectly. The
mutant
strains are now normal flora. So the more we now take "broad
spectrum"
antibiotics, the more we destroy the old non-resistant strains.
What's left?
The mutants.
Most medical authorities in the National Institutes of Health,
the Centers
for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization agree on
one idea:
antibiotic resistance will be the #1 health challenge of the 21st
century.
That will be the area in which we will see the greatest increase
in the death
rate: infections with no cure.
One hidden source of antibiotics is food. Half the antibiotics
produced in
this country, which totals 50 million pounds per annum,
according to
federal statistics, are given to animals like poultry and cattle.
80% of
animal antibiotics are given to promote growth, not health.
Antibiotics are
also used extensively on fruit trees and other plants, and even
in fish
hatcheries. Food processing does not destroy the antibiotics.
When we take
them in with the food, many of these animal antibiotics are still
strong
enough to have an effect on our body's bacteria. This further
complicates the
problem of resistance. Today people may be resistant to
antibiotics they never
even got from the doctor.
The animal antibiotics are getting stronger all the time.
According to the
Journal of the South American Veterinary Association,
1996, a recent
antibiotic called salinomycin was given to a herd of cattle. The
drug killed
10% of the cattle from heart failure!
Antibiotics is a $23 billion / year industry in the
U.S. Its overall
purpose is not, nor ever was, health. Its purpose is market
growth. As an
industry, it is a victim of its own success. Stuart Levy, MD
writes that
having taken antibiotics as though they were M&Ms for so many
years has
"caused a destruction of the armor of antibiotic, what I call
destroying the
miracle."
Now maybe you're saying, oh don't worry about drug resistance
- they'll
come up with something new. Think again.
Nothing responds to change like a market growth industry. The
drug
companies know better than anyone about the advent of the
Post-Antibiotic Era.
An article in the journal Clinical Infectious Disease, 1997
Supplement,
stated that :
...few new antibiotics are in the development pipeline, and
indeed no novel
class of antibiotics has been introduced into medical practice in
more than 20
years. All recently introduced antibiotic compounds are
permutations (improved
versions) of pre-existing compounds.
Two of the major limitations ... are the high cost - about
$300 million per
new chemical entity - and the observation that many of the larger
multinational companies have actually decreased their activities
or even
ceased to invest in the discovery of new antibiotics
What a surprise. So much for selfless dedication to humanity.
Thanks a lot,
guys.
Want to talk about money? Here is a chart of U.S. hospital
purchases of
antibiotics, published in Jeffrey Fisher's book The Plague
Maker.
1962 $
94,000,000
1971
$218,000,000
1991 $3,000,000,000
1997 $8,000,000,000
Any questions?
Antibiotics really were a miracle drug and they really did
save thousands
of lives. But that time is coming to an end. The 1990s have
brought a
resurgence of bacterial and viral diseases, after almost 50 years
of complete
control over infectious diseases, according to the Apr 94 New
England
Journal of Medicine. If dissemination of antibiotics had been
controlled
by scientists instead of by drug reps and doctors and HMO execs,
perhaps the
epidemic of resistance which has now befallen us would not exist.
At least not
so soon. I'm talking about the scientists who have known all
along what
Fleming knew, what Bechamp knew, and what Pasteur himself finally
admitted:
that bugs don't cause disease and that drugs don't cure them.
Antibiotics were
and are for one thing only: life-threatening infections. Not
minor colds. Not
minor ear infections. Children need to be sick sometimes. That's
how they
build their own immune defenses. It's OK to get a cold once in
awhile; it
gives the body a chance to use its powers of defense, like fever,
inflammation, coughing, and swelling. These symptoms are not the
illness. They
are just signs that the body is successfully attempting to
restore its own
balance. To attack the symptoms is to fight the body itself and
make it that
much more difficult to return to a state of normal health. A body
allowed to
heal itself will be far more resilient, more RESISTANT in the
future. That's
the kind of resistance we want.
What we call disease is very often simply Nature's
method for ridding
the body of poisons.
Take fever, for example. Fevers are generally good. The
brain raises
the temperature of the body for a reason - something has
triggered an
inflammation and the body is trying to make an inhospitable
environment for
the irritant and throw it off. Basic detox. Tylenol, ice baths,
and drugs may
interfere with the body's most instinctive first line of defense.
Think how
arrogant that is. Who knows better than your body when to turn up
the
thermostat? Now in that rare one-in-5-million event where there's
a danger of
meningitis or the patient is delirious and remains in a very high
fever for
days on end - that may be the time to consider drugs. Like I
said,
life-threatening situations. But how often does that happen? When
do we take
antibiotics? Usually the first sign of a cold or fever. When
we're young, they
work. But most people use up all their ammunition early. Remember
- average is
17 runs of antibiotics by the age of nine. Then when something
serious
happens, drugs fail. Not only are the bacteria now resistant; the
body has
never been given the opportunity to develop its own defenses, its
own immune
system. The result is just what the market growth drug industry
wanted: a
nation of people who are always sick, get colds a few times a
year, have
frequent headaches and digestive disorders and every few years
get a "major"
illness. Oh yes, and two thirds of whom will die either of heart
disease or
cancer.
Or coughing. Why are we coughing in the first place?
Coughing is a
cleansing reflex of the respiratory system. It is good, not bad.
An irritant
such as dust or a chemical or an inflammation is disrupting the
air passages.
The body's natural response is to try and clear it by forcefully
expelling
air. Is this rocket science so far? The cough was not the
problem. The
irritant was the problem. OK, so what do we do? Go to the doctor
or the
drugstore for what - a cough suppressant. Drug the body's
ability to
clear its own airways. But then we have two problems: first, the
irritant is
still in the airway and has now been protected by the cough
suppressor and is
allowed to become more entrenched. And second, these cough
medicines have
serious side effects on the digestive tract. They are not foods,
but must be
dealt with by the digestive system. And they destroy normal
flora.
Yes I hear you saying, but what about deep chest colds with
coughing that
might turn into bronchitis or pneumonia? Exactly. What about
them? What will
cough suppressants do to help the body clear itself?
Same with infection. Infection follows inflammation. Some
antigen has been
identified and the body has mobilized its forces - the white
cells - to wall
off the area. The invader is attacked and many white cells are
killed in the
process. Pus is simply the accumulation of dead white cells that
have done
their job. Limited infection is not an emergency. It simply means
that the
body's defenses are working.
Again Dr. Tilden nails it:
every so-called disease is a crisis of Toxemia; which means that
toxin has
accumulated in the blood above the toleration point, and the
crisis, the
so-called disease - call it cold, flu, pneumonia, headache, or
typhoid fever -
is a vicarious elimination. Nature is endeavoring to rid the body
of toxin.
Any treatment that obstructs this effort at elimination baffles
nature in her
effort of self-curing.
Not your average medical doctor. Bet he didn't get
invited to give
many keynote speeches at Harvard.
The only way anyone gets better from most illness is the
body figures
out a way to restore balance. It's not showy, and it's not always
immediate.
But it lasts.
No one who studies what is going on today in the area of
antibiotic
resistance comes away with the idea that things are going to be
fine just as
soon as some new drugs are invented. You come away with the idea
that the
party's almost over. Just as it was before penicillin, the only
determinant in
disease control will be preparing a strong defense: bolstering
the immune
system. Those who continue to weaken their immune system will no
longer be
able to look to antibiotics to save them. They will die early.
So, what is the immune system? Lot of people talk
about it,
but just ask them what it is and see what they say.
The immune system is complicated, so let's just do the
short version
for now.
In general the immune system consists of two things that
continually
circulate through the body looking for foreign items. And the two
are
1. Specialized blood cells, called lymphocytes or white
cells
2. Specialized proteins called antibodies.
This constant monitoring of your cells is going on every
second, 24 hours a
day, all through the body. In the healthy immune system, the
identification of
something foreign triggers an attack. The attack usually takes
the form of
inflammation, swelling, or heat. If the attack turns into a
battle, it may
become an infection. These are normal physical responses and will
be effective
if left alone, in the vast majority of cases. They do not usually
require
drugs, surgery, or any freaking out. If the body's own defenses
are allowed to
do their job and to win, not only will the patient recover with
no side
effects, but more important, he will have built stronger
resistance for the
future.
Some doctors often talk about the Second Immune System.
Researchers like
Dr. Khem Shahani call the intestinal good bacteria the
second immune
system. They have learned with chronic allergies, for example,
that most are
due to undigested food. After weeks or months, the rotting food
in the
intestines may get absorbed into the bloodstream and spread to
anywhere in the
body. Doctors call this condition Leaky Gut Syndrome. The
result is a
variety of symptoms, which we commonly call "allergies."
Allergy shots
have a very poor success rate, overall. Usual reason: they treat
symptoms, not
the cause. The stuffy nose and clogged sinuses are not the
problem; they are
just indications of the problem.
A better idea is to remove the mass of undigested food from
the intestines;
not by hosing it out of there, but by complete digestion. The
only lasting way
this can be accomplished is to restore the good bacteria. - the
body's
probiotics, also called flora. Patients who take this approach
consistently
lose allergies that they've had for years. It's so obvious: find
the
underlying cause and remove it. Result: no more allergies.
Food allergy is the most common of all disease, affecting over
60% of the
population, according to the director of the American College of
Allergists,
James Breneman, MD.
Here's a flash: the cure for AIDS is actually
known:
At the International AIDS Conference in Berlin in 1993, the
minutes showed
that
A large number of women prostitutes have been discovered in
Africa. Each
prostitute has had numerous encounters with men who have AIDS.
Not one has
contracted AIDS. Studies show that the women have
exceptionally strong
immune systems. This is the only difference between these
prostitutes and
others who have contracted AIDS.
Drugs depress the immune system; not just antibiotics, but all
pharmaceuticals. That's why no drug will ever be found that cures
AIDS. That's
why AZT has never been proven to extend anyone's life even one
day. That's why
the search for the ultimate AIDS drug is futile. The virus does
not exist in
isolation and cannot be selectively killed without affecting the
entire
system. The whole approach, the whole military philosophy of
seek- and-destroy
is fundamentally flawed. HIV is not the cause of AIDS; it's a
sign of AIDS.
The discovereer of AIDS himself, Dr. Luc Montagnier, has
repeatedly stated
that HIV alone does not cause AIDS, but requires other co-factors
in
addition.
In an article in USA Today, 26 Nov 97, the WHO revised
its earlier
estimate. Last year they said there would be 22 million people in
the world
with AIDS by this time. Now they have revised that figure to
30
million.
Know what's going to happen with AIDS? Exactly what happened
with every
other disease ever encountered by the human race, except for the
brief era of
success with antibiotics: it will run its course through the
species. AIDS
will kill those with the weakest immune systems, and then it will
be gone.
As with Pasteur's anthrax vaccine and his rabies vaccine,
drugs can
actually bring new diseases into the human race. Like the unlucky
French
mailman, Pierre Rascol. He and his friend were attacked by a dog.
The friend
was severely bitten, but not Pierre. The dog's teeth did not
puncture Pierre's
skin. The friend did nothing and was fine. The dog was fine. The
postal
authorities found out about the incident however, and forced an
unwilling
Pierre to be treated by Pasteur. After one week, Pierre was dead,
a victim of
Pasteur's inoculations. Look it up.
The same phenomenon has been demonstrated more recently in
Desert
Storm. The Washington Times was the only newspaper
that carried the
amazing story of Dr. Yvonne Hewitt-Vaughn, who was an Army staff
physician.
Dr. Hewitt-Vaughn's job was to inject all personnel with an
anthrax vaccine,
which was untested. Knowing that to do so without informing the
subjects was
against the Nuremburg Codes, she refused. For that, Dr.
Hewitt-Vaughn was
given 30 months in prison - the longest sentence for anyone in
the entire war.
It is interesting to note that Desert Storm involved 657,000
personnel. To
date 72,000 of these have reported a new mystery illness that has
yet to be
diagnosed. At first the army denied responsibility. But then with
such an
overwhelming number of cases, the army struck a deal: it agreed
to treat these
cases provided that they first sign a form stating that they
would never file
a lawsuit against the army. Be all that you can be, huh?
So are germs the cause of disease or aren't they? Bechamp said
that there
was enough truth in that notion to make it seem reasonable at
first glance.
Sure we can sometimes identify certain types of bacteria in
certain disease
conditions. And it's undeniable that organisms can be found
rampant within
populations suffering from epidemics and outbreaks, as Laurie
Garrett
describes in The Coming Plague. But consider this: what if many
more people than those who actually get a disease have the "bug"?
Usually the
only people we test are the ones who get sick. So it looks like
they're the
only ones who have the 'causative' organism in measurable
amounts. From
Pasteur to the present, there is an entire other point of view
that has been
supported: maybe the bad bugs are commonly present in many normal
people, but
only multiply out of control when allowed to because of a weak
immune system.
They're harmless until they proliferate. This is a
fundamental notion.
"Bacteria and parasites cannot cause disease processes unless
they find
their own peculiar morbid soil in which to grow and
multiply."
-Henry Lindlahr, MD
Founder of Lindlahr Sanitarium
In view of the overall failure of the one-drug-one-disease
approach, it's
obvious there must be a bigger picture. So here it is: the body
is poisoned
year by year, leading to general toxemia
(blood-poisoning.) The reasons
are noted above: chemicalization of commercially available food,
chemicalization of all medical drugs, and stressful toxic
lifestyle. The body
tries to detoxify itself by its normal processes of digestion and
immune
response. But it's too big of a job; there are too many weird
chemicals.
Digestion is blocked. The blood stagnates. The white cells and
antibodies
can't circulate. And things breed. Favorable environments are
created for the
proliferation of normally harmless organisms. Result: disease.
Totally
different paradigm.
In the early 1980s, before AIDS had been named and before HIV
had been
pronounced as the cause, researchers like James Curran of the
CDC were
studying the new disease that was occurring among urban gays.
There wasn't
enough money or manpower to fully investigate the problem, but
scientists
realized that this was a unique disease and they knew it was
going to be big.
Collecting all the data they could, they studied the gay
lifestyle in detail.
One of the few things they could say for sure was that these
people as a
population had one of the most severely depresssed immune systems
ever
studied. To find a group of people with worse immune defenses
than them, you
would have to look in a Third World country. These people didn't
just get AIDS
- they had astronomically higher than normal incidences of any
immune-deficient condition you can name, including
Herpes Simplex I
Herpes Simplex II
Gonorrhea
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Cytomegalovirus
Mononucleosis
Syphilis
Influenza
Candida albicans
Entamoeba histolytica
Cryptosporidium
TB
E. coli
Staphylococcus aureus
Klebsiella
Pneumocystic pneumonia
Why bother to list them? The patients got these diseases on
their way to
getting AIDS. They also had proliferation of many other bacteria
that are
normally harmless. The point is, when there's no immune system,
anything can
grow. Favorable environment. The terrain. Le terrain. AIDS
patients don't die
of AIDS. They die of pneumonia or of flu. They die because they
have no CD-4
cells, no immune system to fight off even the most harmless
invader. And they
die from drugs.
When you start to look at the epidemiology of AIDS in Africa
and then in
Asia, all the talk is about genes and microbe vectors and modes
of
transmission and villages and patterns of migration of the virus,
and numbers
of the population already infected, and virulence, etc. But you
can take the
whole picture, all this information, and pick it up and rotate it
5 degrees to
one side, and look at it just a little differently and something
else comes
into focus. What if we're wasting our time looking for a cure for
AIDS or
trying to figure out why it appeared in this or that village in
Africa or this
brothel in Thailand or trying to unlock the elusive patterns of
recombinant
viral DNA with computer sequencing or encouraging a new group of
"disease
cowboys" to get out there, or identifying Patient Zero, or even
educating
people about protection...? What good is all this? Look at the
numbers: by
July of 1982 there were 177 known deaths from AIDS. By summer
1997, over 7
million have died. An estimated 30 million people worldwide are
now infected.
Are we getting better or worse at holding this disease in check?
Is the talent
and research money thrown into the fight becoming more available
or less
available? What if this disease is simply going to run its course
throughout
Homo sapiens no matter what we do, just like the plagues
did, just like
the majority of all other diseases have? May sound fatalistic,
but it's
precisely what's actually taking place. Ask yourself this: what
did urban gays
and junkies have in common with the Africans and Asians who were
being swept
away by this deadly tidal wave? In a word, susceptibility. Why?
Third world
people are possessed of fragile, tenuous immune systems because
of
malnutrition, squalor, overcrowding, and appalling medical
practices. They
also have been targets for mass inoculations with unproven
vaccines. These
people are physically stressed almost to the breaking point,
normally. With
overpopulation, all these adverse conditions are magnified. It's
been proven
that the AIDS virus has been around for decades both in monkeys
and in humans.
But not until 1982 did people start dying of it. And then who was
it, and who
is it that is dying? The ones with what? That's right - the ones
with the
worst immune systems on the planet. Then and now. Viruses don't
care if you're
gay or you're a monkey or you're living in squalor, or in a
townhouse. They're
just looking for a place to set up shop.
This point of view redefines the problem. Instead of worrying
about what
are we going to do about AIDS, tracking it, fighting it, and
relating it to
antibiotic resistance, let's consider focusing instead on the
only thing that
will ever overcome AIDS or any other disease: a strong immune
system.
Oversimplification? Looks like it may be time for one.
What does the future hold? Let's stop listening to the media
magpie/spin
doctors for a second and follow the pertinent literature to its
logical
conclusion - is antibiotic resistance becoming greater or less
each year?
Greater. Let's give antibiotics a best case scenario guess:
another 20 years.
OK, do bacteria cause disease? Definitely not always. What is
always present
in diseases? Answer: depressed immune system. With a healthy
resilient immune
system, disease is rejected, no matter how serious. J.H. Tilden,
MD put it
this way:
Normal persons are deadly to all germs and parasites peculiar
to the human
habitat.
- Toxemia Explained
So putting these ideas together, a notion comes into focus so
clear that
even a lawyer could see it: soon we will be living in the
Post-Antibiotic Era.
The paramount issue in health and survival will then be the
immune system.
Drugs, alcohol, smoking, air pollution, processed food, white
sugar, white
flour, radiation, stress, and bad living will still be doing
their number on
that immune system. But it will be performing without a net, this
time. On its
own. What will people turn to in order to strengthen their immune
system?
Answer: Alternative Medicine, just like before all of this
went down.
Actually, it's already started.
Ask your physician that one. Want to see a blank look? Ask
your HMO doctor
what he can give you to boost your immune system.
Out of the $1 trillion/year medical budget, about one point
four per cent
is today being spent for Alternative Medicine. That's not much,
but it's
growing. Alternative medicine's purpose is to use natural means
to strengthen
the immune system. Whole food enzymes, antioxidants, natural
herbs, aloe,
probiotics, pure water, clean diet, spinal adjustment, massage,
martial arts,
and exercise have all been proven to be helpful. One reason
things won't be
completely the same as they were in the pre-antibiotic age is
that our
knowledge of holistic therapeutics has deepened exponentially,
sort of as a
by-product of the advances in biomedical technology in the past
50 years. An
increasing number of people are learning what it feels like to
build up their
immune system, their resistance to illness. Once you've done
that, even one
time, you know you can overcome practically any health challenge
out there by
cleaning up your blood, simple detox, and following the basics.
Taken as a
whole complete self-regulating being, the body is simple and just
needs a few
things to maintain itself without disease, premature aging, or
chronic
poisoning. Things get complicated when the body is approached
with what I call
the Kragen Method - as in auto parts - meaning pretending that
the body is
simply a group of individual parts that can be treated in
isolation from each
other, one by one, like spark plugs and carburetors. Then we get
into some
heavy theorizing, dangerous chemical experimentation, and
pathologically long
words. Health then becomes a side issue, the focus is economic,
and the
patient becomes the mark. And this is the controlling philosophy
in health
care today.
You get a funny feeling, like an awakening, when it finally
dawns on you
that all this time scientific "research" has not really been
progressing along
with an intent to uncover deeper knowledge of nature or physical
things, or to
seek the truth, or to serve mankind, like they always say it is.
Such altruism
is carefully crafted and presented as the motivation for
research, but the
actual way it works may be quite different. It is not negativity
or paranoia
but rather the loss of naiveté that makes you realize that
they don't
really want a cure for cancer or AIDS or infectious disease or
the common cold
or obesity or depression or any other illness. No, for these
drive the
industry. The game is pharmaceutical economics.
Here is what a normal life should be like:
You're born. You get no drugs and no vaccinations. During
childhood you
have the usual illnesses, but conservative treatment gets you
through them
without antibiotics or drugs, and you build your natural immune
defenses. You
don't eat white sugar, white flour, too much meat or cheese, or
drink milk or
soft drinks. You concentrate on whole grains, fruits, vegetables,
and a clean,
natural diet. You never learn to drink coffee or to smoke
cigarettes. The only
pills you take are powerful whole food vitamins and enzymes and
minerals,
which are part of your daily intake. You drink at least 1 liter
of water every
day. Into adulthood, you never get sick: no colds, no flu, no
headaches, no
diabetes, no ADD, no "thyroid problems," no panic attacks,
growing pains,
fatigue, or digestive disorders, no high blood pressure. The only
pains you
experience come from accidental injury. Perhaps you do moderate
exercise or
sports activity to maintain mobility and general fitness. You
look to the care
of your spine. Your entire adulthood is spent in this
disease-free mode. As
you age, your mind gets sharper. You experience no arthritis or
osteoporosis,
no Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Finally one day after 90 or 100
years, you
flicker like a candle and go out.
The above paragraph may be useful in choosing a doctor. Some
will say all
this is impossible; which for them is true. So don't choose them.
All this
is possible; moreover, thousands and thousands of people
are living it.
So listen only to those who can help you achieve such a condition
of living
health. Because now we've arrived at the threshold of a time when
good health
and a powerful immune system are not only advisable; they are the
very
determinants of survival. Coming soon to your town - the
Post-Antibiotic
Era.
- Tim O'Shea
REFERENCES
Guyton, Arthur MD "Textbook of Medical
Physiology"
1996
James, Walene "Immunizations: The Reality behind the
Myth"
CDC "Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to
Health in the
U.S." 1992
Garrett, Laurie "The Coming Plague " 1994
Turner Broadcasting Network "The Coming Plague" May
1997
Tilden, J.H., MD "Toxemia Explained" 1926
International AIDS Conference, Minutes 1993
Hadwen, Walter, MD "Microbes and War"
Lindlahr, Henry, MD "The Philosophy of Natural
Therapeutics"
1918
Hume, Edith Douglas "Bechamp or Pasteur?" 1932
Howell, Edward, MD "Enzyme Nutrition" 1985
Whang, Sang "Reverse Aging" 1990
Pearson, R.B. "The Dream and Lie of L. Pasteur" 1942
Sumeria Press
Robbins, John "Reclaiming Our Health" 1996
H J Kramer, Inc
Hencke, Howard "The Germ Theory: A Deliberate Aberration"
1995
Dubos, Rene "Man Adapting" 1965
USA Today :27 Nov 97
Fisher, Jeffrey MD "The Plague Makers" 1994
New England Journal of Medicine 1994; 28 Apr
Preston, Richard "The Hot Zone" 1994
Anchor Books, Doubleday
Clinical Infectious Diseases, 1994 Supplement, S19:
"Evolution and Dissemination of b-lactamases"
Slavkin, Harold, MD: "Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious
Diseases"
Journal of American Dental Association 1997;
Jan
Carrell, Alexis MD "Man, the Unknown"
Chopra, Deepak MD "Quantum Healing"
Philllips, Alan "Dispelling Vaccination Myths"
http://www.liveChiroZine.com/sumeria/health/myth2.html
Jensen. Benrnard "Empty Harvest" 1990
For comments or questions, contact Dr. O'Shea at: doc@thedoctorwithin.com
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