Food wars: It's us (consumers) v. them (the processors)

Please excuse the occasional scatological language the author uses in The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You. The information is solid. And, I hope, will alarm you enough to take action . . . at least to avoid the most egregious offenders. Someone needs to stand up against the processed foods juggernaut.

Ever since I realized I had to begin eating gluten-free, Sarita and I have attempted to become more diligent about reading our food labels (when we buy processed foods).

There are times--when we go out to eat--that we do the equivalent of the two (out of three) "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" monkeys. We cover our eyes and ears and simply eat what is put before us . . . as long as they tell us the food is gluten free.

But for everyday eating, we have become ever-more-diligent about reading our labels. Perhaps this article will encourage you to begin doing that, too.

In preparation for some of your label-reading, you can't do much better than The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You.

I've known about the top four lies ("Bulls**t Health Claims," "'Free Range' Chickens That Are Crammed Into a Giant Room." "Fake Berries," and "Ammonia-Infused Hamburger"). But I didn't know about Number 5 ("Zombie Orange Juice"--referring to that premium "Not From Concentrate" juice I have loved ever since I first discovered it) or Number 6 ("The Secret Ingredient: Wood").

Rather maddening--no, infuriating--to find out what the FDA permits in our food and to be said or implied about our food--so long as it has been processed.

Even more maddening what they won't permit to be said about natural, unprocessed foods . . . like walnuts and cherries.

School lunches

I was reading the latest This is True and ran across a most amazing story about a woman who works in a public school and decided to eat the same lunch that the kids are served every day. She blogged about it for the full year.

Her entire view of food was transformed during that year.

I just looked at the so-called "food" the children are being served and was appalled.

Check out the article by Rebecca Dube about the Fed Up With School Lunch blog: Year of mystery meat.

[O]n the first day of school last January, [Mrs. Q, an employee in a Chicago area school] made her way to the cafeteria with the kids. Since that day, her commitment to eat lunch there every day has been tested by the prepackaged peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that literally made her sick; by the monotony of processed, spongy meat patties; and by fears of being found out and losing her job. . . .

Day after day, patty after patty, she ate and she blogged, and began to find her voice: Her initial just-the-facts descriptions of gross meals evolved into funny stories about the kids at school and personal musings about food. She learned to drink the juice from the bottom of her fruit cup, just as the kids did. . . .

Mrs. Q almost didn’t do the lunch blog because of concerns it would take too much time away from her son, now 2, who suffered from chronic ear infections and colds when she started the project. But, ironically, he’s been the one to benefit most. As she wrote and thought more about food, and communicated with commenters on her blog, she realized her son’s health problems might be related to what he was eating. She cut out gluten and dairy from his diet, and his health improved dramatically.

“I wouldn’t have made those connections if I had not done this blog. I’ve seen a complete change in my son,” she said.

She and her husband are eating differently, too: “I would never have thought of feeding my family quinoa. It sounded too hippie. Now I like it.”

There's more in the story. And a whole lot more in the blog itself . . . which is continuing today with stories and photos of Mrs. Q's new and nutritious gluten- and dairy-free lunches.

Health insurance? Or disease and accident insurance?

A couple of months ago, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright featured a couple of articles in his newsletter that spoke to some of the issues that I've been slowly discovering through experience and sorting through in my mind.

In his lead article, Wright suggests we need to take a different approach to health insurance.

[W]hat's generally called "health insurance" really isn't about being healthy at all. It's about being able to pay for doctors, hospitals, and patent medicines--all of which are very expensive--just in case we get sick, or are in an accident. A more accurate term for this kind of insurance is "disease and accident insurance."

Real health insurance helps insure that we stay healthy! Real health insurance isn't cheap, but it's a lot less expensive than "disease and accident insurance." Real health insurance includes an excellent diet, appropriate exercise, a positive mental attitude, getting enough sleep, and avoidance of toxins, including tobacco and other addictive substances, and no more than a little alcohol.

But the most commonly consumed toxins--herbicides, pesticides, other agricultural and food chemicals, as well as artificial flavorings and preservatives--are somehow regarded as too costly to avoid.

Wright continues with a powerful argument for (doing what Sarita and I have begun to do in the last several months) avoiding conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables and eating organic instead. (See The Organic Center's report about the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods (19.5MB PDF) or, at least, the Executive Summary (1.8MB PDF).)

Are organics expensive? Oh, yes! But are they as expensive as the kinds of issues that the SAD (Standard American Diet) is creating in so many of us, the problems associated with obesity and inflammation and heart disease and diabetes? I don't think so.

On the other hand, as numerous people have pointed out, the federal government of these United States subsidizes the lousy foods (with our tax money) and then makes us pay full boat for the good stuff. (More about that subject in a later post.)

Wright concludes his article with the words,

While it's very important for optimal health to avoid as many herbicides, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals, it's also now well established that organically grown foods have not only higher levels of many important nutrients, but a wider, more diverse set of nutrients than conventionally grown foods.

Now that's really "health insurance"! Why not buy it for your family?

A couple of pages later, Wright then quotes a letter he received from a doctor (MD) who has been moving more and more toward a "natural" or "naturopathic" approach to medicine.

He wrote to Wright with the following story about "what I see in practice much too often."

I thought, "Good grief! This is my experience!"

"Dear Dr. Wright," he began,

Sometimes it is a curse to have generous health insurance.

Last week, I saw a 55-year-old woman who is very, very sick due to insurance-covered treatment with patent medicines.

Ten years ago she had her gallbladder removed. She never was told about needing to take bile salts with oily meals from then on so she'd absorb lipid-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. [I have to ask my daughter, who just had her gallbladder removed, whether she has been told any such thing. --JAH]

Eight years ago she was said to have "gastro-esophageal reflux disease" (GERD) and has taken a proton pump inhibitor ever since to suppress her stomach acid. Nobody ever told her that stomach acid helps break minerals from their matrix (for absorption), helps break down proteins into amino acids, and keeps the stomach free of intestinal bacteria. [Yeah. No one mentioned that when my doctor casually prescribed Famotidine for my gastric reflux. Oh, yes! It gave me almost immediate relief from a number of problems for which I had not realized I could enjoy relief. Wonderful! . . . Until I started reading about the downsides of this approach to acid reflux. --JAH]

Seven years ago she was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes mellitus (AODM), hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and was put onto an insulin pump (her condition was too brittle for anything else), a statin to lower cholesterol, and strong anti-hypertensive drugs. She started to get muscle aches, cramps, and very poor endurance. Nobody told her that statins interfere with the body's ability to make Co-Enzyme Q₁₀, nor did they put her on a healthy daily dose of Co-Enzyme Q₁₀. [Gee! Is this surprising? I had the same experience. "You've got elevated cholesterol. Let's put you on a statin." --Now that particular doctor also put me on CoQ₁₀, but he never explained that the two were related, nor that it might be possible to lower overall cholesterol and rebalance it through non-pharmaceutical means. --JAH]

Five years ago she started to get peripheral neuropathy (pain with numbness) and skin lesions, which she was told were of unknown cause. ("You have dry skin. Here, rub on this emollient cream.") More drugs for neuropathic pain.

Three years ago she was diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance ("MGUS"; overproduction of gamma-globulin from a single line of blood cells). Old Human tactic: if you don't know what it is, put a name on it to make it less scary.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with severe anxiety, so she was given Xanax and other psychotropics. . . .

Naturally, with all of this, her liver enzymes are up, and so is her creatinine (indicating early kidney failure)!

She is postmenopausal, but never has been tested, never been put on bio-identical hormone replacement. She can't sleep, of course, so there goes another patent medicine into the mix. . . .

Incredibly, the list of ailments and failed (and failing) pharmaceutical "fixes" continues!

Wright says this is a good description of "what 'great insurance coverage' can do to good health. It's a tragic description of how 'health insurance' can do exactly the opposite, actually insuring a more rapid progression of illness, as well as allowing disease to proceed because patent medicines never, ever address causes, but just cover up symptoms for a variable period of time."

How do you get off the conveyor belt of declining health? Wright suggests eating healthy foods and pursuing naturopathically oriented doctors like those you'll find through the American College for Advancement in Medicine, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, or the International College of Integrative Medicine. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to read a well-researched and heavily referenced newsletter like the one Wright publishes.

Properly mineralized agriculture better than modern medicine?

One of my new favorite magazines, Acres USA, included a striking opinion piece this month.
"Newspapers, magazines and electronic media outlets all over the world recently announced a breakthrough vaccine that will hopefully protect women against breast cancer," the author began.

He then referenced a report from CBS News (5/31/2010):

In the current study, genetically cancer-prone mice were vaccinated -- half with a vaccine containing the antigen and half with a vaccine that did not contain the antigen. None of the mice vaccinated with the antigen developed breast cancer, while all the other mice did.

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., the principal investigator on the project, said, "We believe this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children. If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental."

All well and good. Indeed, exciting.

But, asked the author of the Acres USA article, if this research is worthy of excitement, why have so few people heard of research conducted close to 60 years ago that produced similar results based solely on diet changes?

Specifically, why have so few of us ever heard of the pioneering work of Dr. Maynard Murray, M.D., who conducted multiple experiments from 1938 through the 1950s that showed that animals fed vegetables, fruits and grains that had been fertilized with sea minerals were able to overcome cancers that the same animals fed the very same foods grown in more conventional ways were not?

Murray first became interested in sea minerals when he realized that he had never found a sea creature suffering from cancer, even though cancers are very common in similar species that live in freshwater. "For example, fresh-water trout all develop terminal cancer of the liver at the average age of five and one-half years; cancer has never been found in sea trout. It is also known that all land animals develop arteriosclerosis, yet sea animals have never been diagnosed as arteriosclerotic." (Sea Energy Agriculture, p. 30)

So what kind of experiments did Murray do?

In 1954 he had Ray Heine and Sons Farms of Rutland Township, Illinois, grow oats, corn and soybeans--approximately half of each of these crops the normal way, and the other half exactly the same except for one difference. The experimental crops were grown in soil that received an application of 2,200 pounds of sea solids (sea salts--including whatever trace elements were present in the sea water before evaporation) per acre.

Murray was interested in how the crops grew. (The crops grown with the sea solids did better.) But then, after the crops were harvested, Murray wanted to see if these crops, now used as feed, would offer any differential benefits to the animals that ate them.

Researchers from the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University conducted the experiments.

They mixed up similar blends of the control grains and experimental grains--one part soybeans, two parts oats, and four parts corn--and fed them to different kinds of animals.

For example,

C₃H mice were obtained. . . . This strain of mice has been bred so all females develop breast cancer which causes their demise. The mice were two months of age when received and started on the feeding experiments. The life expectancy of this strain for females is no more than nine months which includes the production of two or three litters. The experimental and control groups both consisted of 200 C₃H mice and those fed on control food were all dead within eight months, seven days. The experimental mice that were fed food grown on the sea-solids-fertilized soil lived until they were sacrificed at 16 months; definitive examination revealed no cancerous tissue. The experimental group produced ten litters compared to the usual two to three litters and none developed breast cancer.

--Ibid., pp. 50-51

Then there were the Sprague Dawley rats: 25 controls and 25 experimentals were all injected with Jensen Carcino-Sarcoma (cancer).

All of the rats fed on the control diet died within 21 days of cancer. Nine of the rats that were fed the experimental diet died of cancer within 40 days; 16 lived five months until they were sacrificed; there were no cancer "takes" in the 16 . . . survivors that were fed experimental food.

--Ibid., p. 51

And the 24 rabbits, 12 experimentals and 12 controls. This time, both groups were fed a high cholesterol diet for six months and then fed their respective soybeans, oats and corn diets.

The control group did develop hardening of the arteries and all had died within ten months. The experimental group did not exhibit hardening of the arteries.

--Ibid., p. 52

Murray was very careful in the way he reported these results:

I want to emphasize that these feeding experiments and the results are only preliminary and it must be kept in mind that the mice, rabbits and rats used in these feeding experiments have a different physiology than human beings. The results are not definite but merely indicate an interesting trend and further research should be done to further document the findings. . . . In no way . . . do I suggest that the same results would occur in a human being due to the preliminary stage of research.

--Ibid., p. 50

Sounds like good science to me! So why don't we hear about it? Has it been disproven? Not that I've seen!

So what has become of Murray's work? What has the medical establishment done with it?

As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it has to do with money . . . and the cozy relationship between the major pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. After all, the FDA can't permit people to think of foods as possessing healing qualities!

As reported by Mike Adams in Natural News back in May of this year:

[The FDA] has structured the rules to categorize anything that treats or prevents disease as a drug. So if you eat walnuts, and those walnuts lower high cholesterol (which they do), the FDA declares your walnuts to be "drugs."

Existing law dictates that if anything is advertised as providing health benefits without the FDA's approval, it's automatically considered to be an "unapproved drug", even if it's a common, everyday food like walnuts, cherries, grapes or oranges.

Amazingly, references to peer-reviewed scientific studies are not allowed to be made by companies without permission from the FDA because the agency considers this to be an illegal health claim. So if you sell walnuts, and your website merely links to published scientific studies that describe the cholesterol-lowering benefits of walnuts, then you can be threatened, arrested, imprisoned and fined millions of dollars by the FDA for selling "unapproved drugs."

If you flee the country, you can be then be listed on INTERPOL as an international fugitive wanted for "drug offenses." This is exactly what happened to Greg Caton, who was recently kidnapped from Ecuador by U.S. agents working on behalf of the FDA, brought back to the USA against his will, and sentenced to federal prison where he remains to this day. . . .

If you're skeptical that what I'm saying here is true, take a look at the warning letter the FDA sent to Diamond Food, Inc. back in February concerning the health claims the company had been making about its walnuts.

There's plenty more where that came from!

And it's enough to make me angry.

How is our federal government serving us, helping us, by engaging in this kind of behavior?

And then there was this gem from Dr. Jonathan Wright's Nutrition and Healing newsletter (received 5/8/2009):

For decades, the FDA has been a danger to you and your family's health. Nearly 20 years ago, the government's own General Accounting Office (GAO) wrote: "GAO found that of the 198 drugs approved by FDA between 1976 and 1985...102 (or 51.5%) had serious post-approval risks...the serious postapproval risks...[included] heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness."

That terrible record continues into the 21st century (Vioxx is just one example that springs immediately to mind).

And to add insult to injury, while it has been busy approving all those potentially lethal patent medicines, the FDA has also been actively fighting against your right to keep yourself healthy with foods and food supplements! Picking on cherries is just one recent example. All the way back in 1949, former FDA commissioner Dr. George Larrick said: "The activities of...so-called health food lecturers have increasingly engaged our attention....[we are fighting] the good fight against dried vegetables, vitamins, and similar products."

Sure is comforting, isn't it?

Follow-up to DCA post

You may recall my post on a potential semi-universal cure for cancer.

One of my readers contacted a professional cancer researcher, a friend-of-a-friend, who offered the following input:

• A quick literature search indicates that there have been promising in vitro studies (using cells grown on plates) which show cancer cells dying after treatment. However,
  
• In vivo there has only been one animal study using rats to show a decrease in tumor size (one lab did it with Michelakis as first author on the paper).
  
• Keep in mind that nothing is really believable until it can be replicated in other labs.
  
• Many other papers indicate that ingestion of DCA in mice caused liver cancer and another showed damage to peripheral nerves.
  
• Basically, there are no human or even monkey studies to support the claims of DCA being a safe and effective drug for cancer treatment.

The same researcher then forwarded original versions of two articles:

1. A popular article from Nature magazine, written in March 2007 (almost three years ago, and just a month after the DCA story first came out in the scientific press: Cancer patients opt for unapproved drug

and,

2. An academic (but relatively readable) article by Dr. Michelakis, the researcher who first brought DCA to the attention of cancer researchers: Dichloroacetate (DCA) as a potential metabolic-targeting therapy for cancer. (This article was published in September 2008, but was first received for publication in December 2007.)

The first article takes a generally antagonistic stance toward patients who would ingest "unapproved" drugs:

Jim Tassano, who owns a pest-control and marketing company in Sonora, California, came across DCA when researching alternative cancer therapies to help his dying ballroom-dance instructor. He wanted something that was effective, safe and that he could lay his hands on: DCA fit the bill. He ordered some from chemical supply companies, teamed up with a chemist friend and they worked out a way to synthesize the compound themselves. “I couldn’t walk away from it,” Tassano says. “It could do so much good for so many people.”

Tassano set up two websites. The first of these (thedcasite.com) hosts information on DCA and a patient chatroom. On the second (buydca.com) Tassano is selling his homemade DCA. . . . Many patients taking DCA — acquired from Tassano, chemical companies or other sources — are reporting their progress on thedcasite.com.

And the problem with this, according to Dr. Michelakis and others?

Although DCA seems safe overall, they point to a clinical trial that was stopped early because those taking the drug developed damage to their peripheral nerves (P. Kaufmann et al. Neurology 66, 324–330; 2006). Without a control group, they point out, it will be impossible to tell whether any improvement in the patients’ condition is caused by the drug. Patients could also be taking DCA that is not of pharmaceutical grade and might contain harmful impurities.

Michelakis says the patients could end up undermining efforts to do a controlled clinical trial if, for example, some develop harmful side effects and the drug earns a bad reputation. “It’s destroying efforts to do this right,” he says. “Any way you look at this, it’s a negative development.”

"Any way you look at it," it's a negative development? From the perspective of the patients who have, otherwise, been given no hope?

The article's author continues:

The battle between dying patients who want immediate access to unapproved drugs and doctors who urge trials and caution is a perennial one. Some patients argue that they cannot wait for trials and should have the right to take unapproved drugs, regardless of the risks.

But there are arguments against this. An estimated 95% of cancer drugs that enter clinical trials do not get approval, many because they are ineffective or unsafe, so patients risk shortening their life or making their last days more uncomfortable.

Okay. But shouldn't it be up to the patients themselves to determine whether they are willing to take the risks? On what grounds should that decision be left to the government or the "powers that be" who get to "approve" drugs for trial?

Oh. And then there's another argument "against" permitting patients to make their own decisions about whether to use "unapproved" drugs:

[I]f patients can access DCA — or other unapproved drugs — there is no incentive for them to enter a clinical trial. So in terms of public health, ethicists argue, more people will be helped if access to unapproved drugs is restricted and proper trials performed.

So, apparently, selflessness is to be mandated by law. You must, by law, sacrifice yourself for the potential of helping others--"one day, maybe, long after you're dead, if we can just get the funding."

Peter Jacobsen, an expert in ethics, health and law at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, doubts whether any good can come of the patients’ efforts. They are so desperate to see results, he says, that there is no way they can report unbiased results and no mechanism to ensure the reports are accurate. “I don’t trust the data,” he says. “It’s hard enough to rely on them in clinical trials, let alone this.”

Okay. I'll buy that. I'll buy the need for caution and the need for skepticism. But . . .

Then I read Michelakis' article.

Remember that clinical trial that was "stopped early because those taking the drug developed damage to their peripheral nerves"? Michelakis notes,

[T]he first two randomised control trials of chronic oral therapy with DCA in congenital mitochondrial diseases were reported in 2006. In the first, a blinded placebo-controlled study was performed with oral DCA administered at 25 mg kg^-1 day^-1 in 30 patients with MELAS syndrome (mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes) (Kaufmann et al, 2006). Most patients enrolled in the DCA arm developed symptomatic peripheral neuropathy, compared with 4 out of 15 in the placebo arm, leading to the termination of the study.

Whoa! Sounds bad!

But he continues:

Seventeen out of 19 patients had at least partial resolution of peripheral neurological symptoms by 9 months after discontinuation of DCA. . . . No other toxicities were reported.

Beyond this,

It is important to note that peripheral neuropathy often complicates MELAS because of primary or secondary effects on peripheral nerves; for example these patients also have diabetes and diabetes-related peripheral neuropathy.

And then,

In contrast [to the negative results of this one study that was terminated], another randomised placebo-controlled double-blinded study failed to show any significant toxicity of DCA, including peripheral neuropathy. In this study only one of 21 children with congenital lactic acidosis treated with DCA orally at 25 mg kg^-1 day^-1 for 6 months demonstrated mild peripheral neuropathy. Serial nerve conduction studies failed to demonstrate any difference in incidence of neuropathy in the 2 arms (placebo vs DCA). Sleepiness and lethargy, muscular rigidity of the upper extremity and hand tremor were reported in one patient in each group (Stacpoole et al, 2006).

So what is Michelakis' view of the divergent results with respect to neuropathy?

The higher incidence of peripheral neuropathy in adult MELAS patients may represent an intrinsic predisposition to this complication in MELAS or its associated conditions, that is, diabetes mellitus; this toxicity might also be age-dependent. . . . [Moreover, a]s peripheral neuropathy is a frequent complication of taxane, platinum and vinca-alkaloid chemotherapies, the risk for DCA-associated peripheral neuropathy may depend on whether cancer patients have prior or concurrent neurotoxic therapy. . . . [But i]n summary, peripheral neuropathy is a potential side effect of DCA that appears to be largely reversible.

I want to quote one more section from Michelakis' article. Before I do, however, I would like to add some weight to what he said in the section I have just quoted. One of the moderators on thedcasite.com, Jay C, comments,

Researchers at the University of Alberta have reported that DCA is relatively non-toxic, since it has already been used as a medicine on adults and children to treat metabolic disease, and for hypertension. It has been known to have some mild side effects in a minority of patients and they include a change in gait [and] some nerve problems, but both of these symptoms appear to be reversible upon cessation of DCA. This is certainly in positive contract to most of the poisons being administered today as "chemo", including IL-2 (requires on[e] week in ICU), Interferon, and DTIC.

So why the apparently special concern over possible complications from DCA? Is it really scientific objectivity at work here? Or, possibly, something else? [Fear of losing power on the part of gatekeepers like the FDA? Fear of lost profits on the part of major pharmaceutical companies? "The preclinical work on DCA (showing effectiveness in a variety of tumours and relatively low toxicity) (Bonnet et al, 2007), its structure (a very small molecule), [and] the low price (it is a generic drug) . . ., provide a strong rationale for rapid clinical translation," Michelakis says early in his article. Oh. I should probably include the last comment that I elided from the immediately preceding quote. One other factor that ought to provide a rationale for rapid clinical translatioin? " . . . and the fact that DCA has already been used in humans for more than 30 years" (presumably without notable safety concerns).]

The concluding paragraph in Michelakis' article adds another note of interest to this reader:

[E]ven if DCA does not prove to be the ‘dawn of a new era’ (Pan and Mak, 2007), initiation and completion of clinical trials with a generic compound will be a task of tremendous symbolic and practical significance. At this point the ‘dogma’ that trials of systemic anticancer therapy cannot happen without industry support, suppresses the potential of many promising drugs that might not be financially attractive for pharmaceutical manufacturers. In that sense, the clinical evaluation of DCA . . . will be . . . [a] paradigm shift.

While I'm at it, I ought to include one last note. A "Note to Proof" appended by the editors of the British Journal of Cancer at the end of Michelakis' article:

Since the acceptance of this review two important papers have confirmed the novel anticancer effects of DCA in prostate and endometrial cancers: Wong JY et al, Dichloroacetate induces apoptosis in endometrial cancer cells. Gynecol Oncol June 2008; 109(3): 394–402 and Gao et al, Dichloroacetate (DCA) sensitizes both wild-type and over expressing Bcl-2 prostate cancer cells in vitro to radiation. Prostate 1 August 2008; 68 (11):1223–1231.

The land of the unfree . . . especially when it comes to medical care and health

I have been reminded, this last week, several times, of why I'm finding it harder and harder to sing the last lines of "The Star-Spangled Banner":

O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free . . . and the home of the brave?

Obviously, the banner still waves. The question is, does it still wave over a land of a free and brave people? Or of an enslaved and cowardly people?

I am beginning to think, more and more, we ought, rightly, to view ourselves as enslaved and cowardly.

I'll begin with the most recent issues, then go back to a few that have caught my attention in the semi-recent past.

Most recent: In my ongoing research into options for dealing with my rheumatoid arthritis--and very much thanks to Linda who brought this to my attention, I discovered a promising therapy called Low-Dose Naltrexone. (Besides this particular website, see also here, here, and here.

I wrote to my rheumatologist:

Dr. H:

I don't want to bore you with details of my somewhat successful, but mostly UNsuccessful pursuit of a dietary solution to my RA. If you would like the most recent details, you can find them on my personal blog at http://johnscorner.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-update.html.

Main point: I'm still looking for full relief and am just as motivated as ever to avoid the standard pharmaceutical "solutions." The side effects--and/or POTENTIAL side effects--creep me out.

Anyway. One of the readers of my blog suggested I look into LDN/low-dose naltrexone. I found this page (http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ and http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_ai.htm) and thought: "This sounds promising."

Your thoughts?

I imagine KP won't cover the drug. But, hey, I'm already looking outside the "system."

What do you think? Foolish? Worth a try?

THANKS.

He replied:

Interesting concept.

Apparently LDN is used in doses approximately 1/10 those used for drug/alcohol rehab purposes.

Looks like some folks are using it on an experimental basis for a whole bunch of "off-label" purposes, including autoimmune diseases.

It would really need more extensive testing before one could advocate its widespread use.

Yeah. But I'm not looking for you to advocate its widespread use. I'm wondering about getting a prescription for me!

I wrote him back:

So . . . would you be willing to prescribe it for me so I could acquire it at the dosage referenced on the referenced website?

Answer:

No. I believe we should stick with conventional RA treatments.

Great!

So I am aware of this promising therapy, but I'm not allowed to get it unless I get a doctor's prescription. I can't just do my own research and come to the conclusion that I'd like to try it. No. I have to have my doctor's permission.

Why? The government protecting me? Hardly! The only drugs my doctor has to offer include lethal and permanent-bodily-injury kinds of side-effects. And I come up with one that has no known significant or long-term side-effects and that appears to hold great promise, and I'm not allowed to try it?

Why can't I "simply" sign some kind of waiver of liability?

Nope.

I have to find a medical doctor who is willing, possibly, to put his or her medical license on the line (in case some overbearing bureaucrat decides he or she has failed to "toe the line" quite tightly enough to satisfy the FDA).

I'm looking.
******
So: Land of the free?

I don't think so!

And then there is the following.

Only hours before I came to the conclusions I have summarized above, I ran into this story by Mike Adams of the Natural News e-letter:

A new law passed by the state Senate in Massachusetts [now awaiting approval in the House] calls for mandatory vaccinations of all citizens and a $1,000 / day fine for those who refuse to cooperate. It also legalizes health care "interrogations" of Massachusetts citizens, forced entry into homes without a warrant, the on-site destruction of buildings or objects suspected of harboring a disease or condition dangerous to the public health, the government kidnapping of family pets, "involuntary transportation" of people into quarantine camps and . . . language that allows Massachusetts police . . . to arrest, detain and interrogate anyone who gets in their way.

Meanwhile, all state law enforcement and medical personnel are granted complete immunity from prosecution for their part in violating your Constitutional rights. So if they violate your right to due process, or they accidentally destroy your home, or they kill your family dog because they suspect it might be infected, you have absolutely zero recourse.

Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it. It's all written, clear as day.

You can read the bill itself here.

I got thinking: Why does this bill come up now? Because of the mildly problematic H1N1 virus that has received so much news coverage? Because of concern over the deadly HIV? (No! Not HIV! That is explicitly excluded from coverage (lines 456-458): "In this section, 'disease or condition dangerous to the public health' does not include acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).")

Adams comments,

Massachusetts . . . is the same state that rounded up the parents of schoolchildren who hadn't been vaccinated, then corralled them into a courtroom (with attack dogs standing guard outside) and forced vaccine injections onto all the schoolchildren under the threat of jail time for parents who resisted.

Remember, readers, that this is all taking place in the "land of the free," a nation that former President George Bush claimed was so envied around the world that terrorists attacked America because they "hate freedom" and wanted to destroy our way of life. But terrorists need no help attacking freedom as long as Massachusetts is in the vaccine game, because this latest form of "gunpoint medicine" destroys freedom for everyday Americans in a way that terrorists could have never hoped to accomplish with all the bombs in the world.

Massachusetts . . . [is about to turn] "free" Americans into medical slave subjects who no longer have any freedom to decide the details of their own medical care. All options [will be] stripped from them but one: The Big Pharma option. That's the one that involves using untested, unproven and potentially dangerous vaccines that could paralyze you or even kill you. All to defend you against a virus that's so weak, almost anyone with decent levels of vitamin D and basic nutrition can resist the virus without incident.

Thank God we don't live in Massachusetts! Right?

Maybe not!

Adams notes that Massachusetts isn't the first state in the U.S. to include these kinds of mandated vaccinations. The U.S. federal government got there first. Remember? (I did not. I have no recollection about this at all.)

Republican President George Bush signed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) in 2006.

It gives power to the Secretary of the U.S. government's Health and Human Services department (HHS) to declare any infectious disease a "national emergency" and therefore require mandatory vaccination of the entire population. Because of the existence of this PREP Act, the entire population of the USA is now but one pen stroke away from being subjected to mandatory swine flu vaccinations at gunpoint.

Those who resist such vaccines will be arrested and taken away for "isolation" in domestic prison camps. . . . [T]hose who refuse the vaccine [will be labeled] "a threat to national security" (enemies of the state) and [will be] imprison[ed] without trial, without charges and without any legal representation whatsoever.

Meanwhile, all those who take part in enforcing these crimes against the American people will be granted complete immunity. From the HHS website: "[The Secretary may] issue a declaration . . . that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency . . ."

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About four or five months ago, I ran into The Raw Truth About Milk by Dr. William C. Douglass.

Douglass tells the story of how raw, unpasteurized milk, a whole and wholesome food, slowly got squeezed out of the marketplace by its very much inferior replacement, homogenized and pasteurized milk--a product with fewer nutrients and more contaminants than its unadulterated cousin that comes from certified dairies.

I was so incensed at what I read, I decided I would see how our family might get raw milk.

Well. Legally, we can't. Not allowed. No one can sell us raw milk. It's against the law.

And yet a growing number of families are acquiring raw milk and drinking it.

We discovered that though no one can sell us raw milk, and--I wouldn't expect them to--no one will give us raw milk, it is still legal to own a cow (or a portion of a cow) and enjoy--without government interference--the milk it produces.

So we entered into a contract with a farmer. We bought a portion of one of her cows and are paying her an upkeep fee. We also pay her a delivery fee. And she makes sure we get a gallon of milk each week as our share of the cow. Total cost of the milk we receive under this arrangement is not too much more than it would cost us to purchase good quality organic milk from the grocery store.

Our family is happy. The farmer is happy. I just hope the State of Colorado will stay out of our hair as we engage in open trade of goods and services for money.
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Any stories you'd like to tell about freedoms--or lack thereof--that you've found in the health sphere?