Candida International

UN Banning Natural Therapies, Promoting Nuclear Industry - Time to Ban the UN?

2011-03-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Cartoon by Emma Holister www.art-margin.com

There is little I can say regarding this latest man-made catastrophe at Fukushima Japan. I am desperate and powerless to help my Japanese friends and am increasingly concerned for my American friends as fall-out from the nuclear meltdown will not remain confined to Japan alone. It has been drifting across the sea to the American continent and the prospects are grim for everyone, for the planet.

As ever I am disgusted with the greed and shameless dishonesty of the political bodies that have been imposing nuclear energy upon us for decades and who continue to hail it as the 'best and only energy choice for the future'. A future they are swiftly deleting. The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is, of course, a disgrace.

Supermarket Psychosis

2010-06-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister

This series of images is close to my heart because of its visually emotional revolt against the madness of consumerism.

Its place on the Net has always been on my art website www.art-margin.com but I feel that it belongs as much these days on my natural health blog as I focus increasingly on permaculture and removing from my life the remaining vestiges of dependence on supermarkets.

In fact I have developed the perverse pleasure of going on unshopping-sprees, where I walk through the radioactively luminous corridors of products and count all the things that I used to think essential and that I have now gleefully banished from my life.

Growing my own organic foods has been a bit scary, being of the non-green-fingered sector of the population, but much of this anxiety has been assuaged by learning about wild perennial (grows back from roots each year) foods and forest gardening; albeit in the small enclosure of my courtyard. All I can say is thank goodness for wild roquette (creeping yellow cress), plantains and jerusalem artichokes (sunroots), that seem to be indestructible and require virtually no gardening skills whatsoever. However, being the brave gardening Amazon I am, I have continued to battle it out with the slugs and snails forever lusting after my precious sunflowers, the seeds of which I use throughout the year to grow microgreen salads in my kitchen window. And I have valiantly embarked upon new projects each year, be it Welsh onions (like giant chives), courgettes and runner beans. All very useful for their generous yield per plant and simplicity for growing and harvesting seeds, not to mention the fact that they are marvellous anti-candida foods. So the food autonomy side of things is going quite well really.

Although I have to admit that striking sanitary towels from my shopping list was a challenge. But even those have now been replaced by nifty washable ones that I sew by hand, the pattern for which I will soon be putting up in the Permaculture Design section along with patterns for simple home-made clothes from sheets, blankets and curtains. I may sound like the contents of a laundry basket but you'd be surprised how normal I look despite this recent eccentricity in my wardrobe's contents. It has certainly helped to learn how to crochet, nothing like a bit of home-made lace to make those sheets look extra fancy! And I am particularly looking forward to the day I never buy underwear again . . . because yes, knickers and bras, you can make them yourself, even frilly ones!

Anyway, back to Supermarket Psychosis, the first sketches of this series were done many eons ago in 1991. I finally did the drawings with the first round of colour prints in 2004. I have since redone the colour prints and the three main images are soon to become paintings as well.

Artwork by Emma Holister www.art-margin.com

Martin J Walker 'Science is the New Politics'

2010-06-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

Martin J Walker's latest essay Science is the New Politics reads like an encyclopedia of juicy (if rather unappetising) facts on the relationship between government organisations and pharmaceutical/chemical companies.

It also reads like a horror story from the diaries of Dr Frankenstein.

It is an essential body of research for anyone wishing to back up their opinions on political corruption and corporate science with minutely detailed references.

When I wrote my last piece: Controlled Opposition, Twenty Questions You Never Dared to Ask, I deliberately refrained from naming names and pointing fingers because such volatile accusations of corruption require the most rigorous investigation and evidence of the sort to be found in hair-raising abundance in this latest essay of Martin Walker's.

Basically, for those wishing to understand who is who and who does what with what dirty money and how, this is a must read.

The following three paragraphs are a small sample of this hefty opus, that can be found in full on his website www.slingshotpublications.com

(p.50 Science is the New Politics)

In the nineteen nineties, science education and policy came under the wing of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and from that time, corporate science and its organisations breached the boundaries of government and took control themselves of educating both MPs and the public about science. In 1998 with the New Labour's emplacement of the billionaire shopping magnet Lord Salisbury in the DTI, industry took over science policy. In Britain, greedy corporations met irresponsible government and together both parties began a campaign to deny all adverse reactions or other failings to the techniques or products of corporate science.

With government and corporations organised against the laity, the legal system is often the people's first defence. The United States of America is a large diverse country with a legal system that appears to be able to be used on behalf of the people. On the other hand, Britain is two small islands with a tightly unified and controlling class, and a legal system populated with men and women who can no longer find the word principle in their dictionaries. In the US lawyers have fought for claimants against corporations,88 while in Britain lawyers and other powerful sectors have simply chosen to agree with the opposition that corporate science has never harmed anyone while doing under the table deals with government. In Britain health consumers have been deprived not only of their right to chose health therapies and produce, but also their right to defend themselves against harm from corporate science and its products.

The pharmaceutical industry specifically, and the allopathic health industry generally, are worth billions, and along with the bio-agricultural industry they represent the apex of corporate science and the carry round with them a new ideology. It is then hardly surprising, that amongst the industrial and post-industrial lobbies, the 'quackbusting' movement, funded by the pharmaceutical industry, became one of the first to come out publicly in conflict with what the industry considered competitive alternative health therapies and products. This lobby was building on firm foundations, with lobbies and PR fronts having been well established in industries like the asbestos and chemical industries in the 1950s and 1960s.

Controlled Opposition : Twenty Questions You Never Dared to Ask

2010-06-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister

1) What is a controlled opposition group ?

A controlled opposition group is one that claims to be fighting the multinational drug and chemical cartels but that is in fact controlled by the very industries it alleges to be fighting, usually via funding or shared board members from those same industries.

Although the links can be obvious in many cases, in others they may be more deeply embedded, taking the more subtle form of 'common interests', be they ideological, political or legislative. Grassroots campaigns that could potentially achieve a profound and positive effect against the industrial giants are therefore diverted or derailed into actions that will either fail or be subsumed into the established channels in compliance with industry needs.

In most cases such groups maintain that their actions are not hindered by the funding or compliance with their mortal foes. The relative merits of this line of reasoning can be discussed ad nauseam, usually over cocktails in the executive lounge of some five star hotel during the board of directors annual meeting.

2) Is there such a thing as a controlled opposition individual ?

Yes.

3) How do I recognise a controlled opposition group ?

Most of the time you can spot them by visiting their website’s partners and funders page. If a group claiming to represent the interests of the natural health movement is sponsored by the pharmaceutical or pesticide industry this may give you a clue as to whether or not you can trust them.

Often doing research on the board members’ CVs can provide useful pointers. If they worked for major pharmaceutical companies or were formerly directors of military intelligence, that is also a strong clue.

Unfortunately not all companies are known to the general public and so it can be a challenge to figure out which are the ones with strong ties to the drug cartels. Becoming familiar with the industry at large is useful, finding out which giant company owns this or that company, asking around, doing research on companies’ histories and campaigns.

4) Are there other names for controlled opposition ?

Sometimes they are called controlled interest groups, Trojan horses, Astroturf, front groups, or simply traitorous scum-bags or scabs.

5) Is denouncing controlled opposition counter-productive and divisive ?

Divisive yes, counter-productive no.

6) If I denounce a controlled opposition group will they retaliate by accusing me of being controlled opposition myself ?

Yes. This usually goes along the lines of ‘You’re a controlled opposition group !’ . . . ‘No I’m not, you are !’ . . . ‘No, you are’, etc.

7) How can I best oppose controlled opposition efforts ?

Denouncing them and warning people about their subversively destructive methods is the only thing to do. Often directing people to internet pages setting a good example of how to denounce fake or corrupt activist groups that are derailing true grassroots activism is a good way to start.

8) Can good, honest activists be working for the cause of controlled opposition without even knowing it ?

Yes, and this is often the case. Therefore, when someone manages to pull off a truly devastating piece of sabotage on an anti-drug-cartel activist movement, more often than not this individual may not be in the pay of the drug industry at all. However, the likelihood that they have been brushing shoulders for many years with individuals whose financial ties are less irreproachable than their own is inevitable in a movement that is saturated with industry concerns, whether directly or indirectly.

The Health Freedom Movement is kept moving as much by doctors, scientists and company directors as it is by ex-patients. To what extent any individual can get through nearly a decade of conventional medical or industrial training and not absorb at least part of the industry’s ethical blindness is always going to be a grey area.

However, the innocent, well-meaning individuals are not necessarily the most common or useful instruments of controlled opposition. It is usually those individuals with egos on the rather large side, eager for finding ways to get a little more glory (or money), who are the most likely candidates to be gently guided into doing the dirty work of industry concerns. Even if it is simply a case of those individuals wishing to gain more public acceptance by espousing views that are more palatable to the establishment at large.

From this we can therefore conclude that controlled opposition is not only a form of industrial sabotage of a grassroots movement, but literally a force of nature.

9) Can I have a controlled opposition thought ?

Yes. These are quite common and most frequently take the form of thoughts such as ‘Fighting amongst ourselves is exactly what They want, we all have to get along, work together and be friends if we’re going to beat the enemy’. This type of woolly thinking can be remedied by reading the history of the Nazis and their symbiotic relationship with the French Vichy government, as well as taking a shower and scrubbing vigorously all over with 100% organic soap.

10) What can I do if my friends support a controlled opposition group ?

Educate them by showing them the work of activists denouncing controlled opposition groups and general saboteurs. If that doesn’t work just call them a traitorous scumbag, that usually sorts most issues out quite effectively.

11) Do controlled opposition groups always appear to fight the enemy ?

No. In fact the most accomplished controlled opposition efforts result in brandishing brazen support of the enemy's views and labelling it alternative. This can best be illustrated by the Complementary Alternative Medicine Industry : CAM (not to be confused with the original Alternative Medicine movement). CAM is the establishment’s answer to dealing with grassroots activism. Whilst appearing on the surface to be representing Alternative Medicine, they are a watered-down version preaching subservience to conventional allopathic practices first and foremost, and only using natural therapies as a nice way to make you feel good while you're doing your chemo or taking antiretrovirals. In fact, most of the time prominent members of the CAM industry like to put the public straight on Alternative Medicine and make it perfectly clear that it probably has no therapeutic benefits whatsoever.

12) How common is it to fall into a controlled opposition trap ?

Falling into a controlled opposition trap is as easy as walking into doggy-doo. Don’t despair, no activist can say with any degree of honesty that they have never crossed the path of controlled opposition or supported one of their campaigns. The advice in number 9 is equally applicable to this situation. Basically, they are everywhere and we are all contaminated . . .

13) If I want to denounce a controlled opposition effort but don’t want to use the words controlled opposition, is that OK ?

Yes, this is fine, and is generally the preferred method of grown-ups.

14) Will fighting controlled opposition cause conflict and confusion amongst my friends and family ?

Yes.

15) If I denounce a group for being controlled opposition, will they threaten me with a lawsuit ?

Quite likely. That and calling you the spawn of the devil. However, rather than being downcast, you should take it as a compliment.

16) I have been told that fighting controlled opposition is giving them what they want because they wish to divide and conquer. Is this true ?

‘United we stand, divided we fall’ is a controlled opposition slogan. Simply replace it with ‘Divided we stand, united we fall’ and you’ll have gone a long way to resolving the problem.

17) If I wear a deodorant that says ‘100 percent natural’, but on reading the ingredients I discover this to be a total lie, does this make it a controlled opposition deodorant ?

Yes. Fortunately however, ceasing to use it and denouncing the company that manufactures it is the type of daily civil disobedience that can be practised freely without fear of losing one’s friends.

18) Are controlled opposition individuals under electronic mind control ?

Not necessarily, although there is always a chance. One way of jamming mind control chips is to apply a magnet to the forehead of the person you suspect. This will block the electronic signal of the microchip implanted in their brain. If you cannot find a magnet in your local hardware store, children’s magnetised plastic alphabet letters for sticking on fridges are quite as effective.

Coming soon . . . questions 19 and 20

Crochet Your Way to Free Food!

2010-03-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister

Knowing how to make fractal technology like this....

Will enable you to make high tech agricultural technology such as this....
(skills: basic crochet / investment: 10 euros / employment requirements: 3 hours / strategic placement: window)

Which will enable you to branch out into financially profitable ventures such as this....
(financial investment: 0 euros)

Leading to revolutionary culinary experiences such as this....

Be Mad about Crochet . . . !!!

Here are the latest creations in my mission to never go into a clothes shop again.

I did it all without any patterns or any ability to read patterns for that matter . . . it's all very simple to do once you know the basic body and sleeve shapes/measurements of a standard jumper that fits you. This can be copied from a favorite jumper you already have.

I will publish the instructions for making the simplest of clothes in my permaculture section at some point, including how to hand sew a pair of tropical baggy (casual chinese) trousers for free - and from bed sheets! I wore mine all summer for keeping cool, and as pyjamas in winter. One sheet provided me with three pairs!

Anyway, back to crochet . . .

Here is a warm winter cotton jumper in seed stitch . . .

Below is a sample of seed stitch which is no more than the two beginner stitches - 'double' + 'treble' crochet (UK) - alternated. These beginner stitches can be learned on youtube short videos in half an hour. By alternating them you get this kind of psychedelic effect.

I prefer to use the French terms because they are more visual, less mathematical and far less confusing than the hundred year battle going on between the English and American ladies with their contradictory numerical terms! In French it's simply 'tight' stitch + 'braid' stitch alternated, with shell lace edging (itself just a sequence of braid, tight and chain stitch) .

The reason a lot of people don't understand patterns and therefore never learn the invaluable art of crochet is because they are visual learners needing images, rather than linear numerical learners. We can blame the British and Americans for holding up the crochet revolution as a result.

The best way of all to learn is via the diagramatic Japanese stitch chart system (examples below) which gives each of the basic crochet stitches a symbol - for example tight stitch (UK double crochet, US single crochet) is a plus sign.

Below is the stitch chart for the shell lace edging.

Symbols:
chain stitch = ovals
tight stitch (UK double crochet, US single crochet) = crosses
braid (UK treble crochet, US double crochet) = crossed Ts

Hexagon stitch chart using the same beginner stitches and their symbols (including 'slip' stitch, a dot - ignore the triangles, that's for colour change) . . .

Here (again) is my crocheted salad hanger I made from that chart in two hours, with string, so as to have free, organic and nutritious microgreen salads hanging aestheticly in my kitchen all year round:

And for staying warm . . . Blue cotton jumper, Shell + V stitches alternated . . .

Here is a sample of this robust lace which is Shell + V stitch alternated.
Shells and Vs are also composed of simple combinations of the beginner 'tight', 'braid' and 'chain' stitches (UK: 'double cr', 'treble cr' and 'chain')

Lacey indoor gloves for busy ladies who can't afford a lot of heating in the winter . . . one pair can be made in two hours with a two euro ball of wool or cotton . . .

Grey version . . .

Manly ninja gloves for reading and typing in chilly rooms . . .

Finally, a girly fan lace jumper for Spring!

And at last, the traditional granny doily, but this time the fancy lace version, joined together, mysteriously, as only grannies know how to do . . .

And now, for those of you who have read this far, that is, those who have a genuine curiosity about the wonders of crochet, here is the Queen of Roumania, one hundred years ago, on the subject of the ladies' arts of tatting, crochet and knitting, there is much in this subject we have overlooked . . .

By H.M. The Queen of Roumainia

‘Woman’s work’ has become nowadays a word with such a very different meaning than in former days, that one is nearly obliged to explain what one means. When I say woman’s work, I don’t mean man’s work done by women; I don’t mean either the Amazons or the Beehives, as both are unsexed. I mean the work of women who can afford to stay at home, to have ten or twelve children, and be happy in bringing them up to be good, and clever, and useful. For the woman at home this book is written.

The Amazon-woman, the bee-woman, the man-woman need not even open it. But the solitary woman, who has time for reading and thinking – and there are many – may find pleasure in imitating some of our inventions and in adding some inventions in her turn.

To the solitary woman this book does go with the wish to become a companion. Here is pretty work to do during reading – much prettier than knitting. Nowadays work has become a great luxury, as everything useful and necessary is done by machines. Then let the luxury be as beautiful as we can make it. We offer here a kind of lace that long years of constant work have brought us to. It is such quick work – pretty to look at, and ceturies won’t destroy it. It is quick work for clver fingers, just as the lacemaker’s fingers seem to fly, but it takes a great deal of quick working to arrive at making a large piece of lace stuff. But once one is clever enough to read and to work at the same time, it is pleasant indeed.

I have known and loved a solitary woman, Miss Fanny Lavater, who used to embroider, as one did in the last century, in petit-point – scenes that look like water-colour painting. And whilst she did that fairy-work she always had a book open before her that she learnt by heart. It was delicious when she spoke about authors : how she could say by heart what they had written.

Nowadays nobody has time to do that, and learning by heart is disdained. My great-aunt, the Princess Louise of Wied, who never married, and who was the great friend of the Queen Adelaide of England, used to learn by heart every day, in order to keep her memory fresh. She wrote poems in English at the age of eighty-six – one very sweet one, ‘My little room’. I don’t know if the Amazon and bee-ladies would write a poem about their solitary little room nowadays; the silence of it would become oppressive, as they would not hear the voices of their dear ones talking to them, as my aunt used to do. She sometimes talked to them quite loud.

I have often pitied men – in the first place because they can’t know motherhood, in the second, because they are bereft of our greatest comfort – needlework. Our needlework is so much better than their smoking; it is so unobtrusive. Our quiet needle or shuttle, or whateer the instrument may be with which we can produce our modest kind of art, is a true friend, a safe companion, very busy and very discreet. The needle and the shuttle have never betrayed us; the spinning-wheel and the weaving-loom are a little louder, but oh! what a peasant noise! Even knitting and crochet are a comfort, as it occupies the hands when we feel restless.

What a help when in coversation we not wish to contradict; we seem to grow silent over some intricate bit of work, and none can guess the little volcano that is covered with the lava of our work.

Some men don’t like when the ladies work. It is a mistake. Atavistically we can scarcely help ourselves, as our great-great-grandmothers did nothing else. We get into a kind of fever with doing nothing. A very wise country clergyman allowed the women to knit during his sermons; never had a preacher more attentive listeners: not one of them dropped asleep, as overworked women are apt to do when they for once sit down. They grow drowsy and can’t keep their eyes open. Allow them to knit or to tat and they will be able to tell you almost every word they have heard.

How much care and sorrow, how much deep anxiety, what profound sorrow and sadness is put into silent woman’s work. One ought always to look at it with awe and reverence, not only on account of the patience it teaches, but much more for the silently borne pain it has to hide. Many a woman can say: ‘What a blessing that my work cannot speak! It would be very startling if it were to lift its voice and begin to reveal the thoughts under whose wing it was hatched.’

Luxury – perhaps! But so much more comfort than luxury, so much more rest than the harassing fatigue of bread-winning!

Tatting has the charm of lacemaking and weaving combined. It is the same shuttle as in the weaving-loom, only that the loom is our fingers and the shuttle obeys our thoughts and the invention of the moment. The joy when a new stitch is found is very great. I don’t know if Madame Curie felt much happier when she found the Radium! Of course our work is small and modest and will never shake the world. A woman may shake the world once in many centuries, but she can find things in the quiet of her little room that give her complete and intense satisfaction.

Don’t despise our needle and our shuttle, don’t think that our thoughts need be small for all that! The mothers of very great men could only knit or spin. The weaving of Penelope has become symbolical.

I am atavistically mediaeval in my tastes. I love the ‘chatelaine dans son donjon’ looking out over the lands and working with a lot of laughing and singing maidens weaving and embroidering around her. The minstrel must not be wanting, and the solitude need not be oppressive.

Woman is mostly solitary, even in her household, even doing man’s work. Only when she is made into the part of a machine does she stop being a woman.

Is there a prettier picture than a Roumanian peasant girl with her red or orange skirt, a yellow kerchief over her black locks, with dark-fringed large luminous eyes, the green pitcher on her head, walking through the fields and spinning, or the Roumanian woman, draped in the splendid folds of her white or yellow veil, sitting and weaving before her loom?

A woman’s hand is never so graceful as when working some lovely piece of art.

Open our book, dear solitary, lonely, worried or content woman, who is not condemned to earn a hard bread with hard work, and think of the peaceful hours it may bring you, and you will feel that we loved you well in publishing the result of our own loneliness.

Carmen Sylva.

Coming soon: how to make your own thread by using thigh-rolled nettle stalks . . . with or without pain . . .

Candida Is "AIDS" And You Can Die Of It - Or Not - It's Up To You

2010-01-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

By Emma Holister

Below is an email I wrote to a friend in which I express my personal views on Candida and modern degenerative diseases.

As for candida . . . candidiasis is generally the underlying cause of most modern chronic and degenerative diseases, and it is only medical industrial propaganda that has trivialised it as a superficial 'infection' and which has prevented most people from looking at it as a root-cause disease rather than as a minor symptom of some other condition, if any at all.

The reason is quite clear; candidiasis is a chronic iatrogenic disease caused by industrial (pharmaceutical and environmental) poisoning, where all of the organs have been knocked out of kilter and the only way to remedy it is via life long, on going work to re-establish some type of balance.

The drug industry are therefore liable and open to lawsuits if ever the alternative and dissident view were to take precedence over the mainstream medical definition of this disease as a (minor) condition of 'something else'.

So, basically, the search for another underlying cause of one's continuing symptoms may be quixotic . . . although, with each individual the candidiasis itself may possibly be relieved by removing some 'underlying cause' of the candida's virulence; for example, many say vitamin B deficiency is one cause of its chronic and continuing spread, others say it's an enzyme problem . . . As for me, I don't know, I'm still searching.

Anyway, as a root-cause disease it can give rise to diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, 'AIDS', Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia. . . you name it, candidiasis can cause it.

The symptoms are massively diverse but usually have an underlying connection to endocrine (hormonal) and blood-sugar imbalance which, in turn, if allowed to continue without remedy, produce by-product toxins in the body that create disease but also addictions and difficult to break habits/vicious circles. In my opinion, this is owing to the ethanol and opiate effect. ["Acetaldehyde - A Common and Potent Neurotoxin" John Cleary]

As you know, so far, the only really helpful remedies I have found are the abstention from blood-sugar and yeast-load aggravators (sugar, alcohol, yeast, dairy, starch, etc.) and to focus on green, chlorophyll-rich foods.

I'm totally convinced that our spiritual practice has a HUGE effect on our immune system but also on our ability to discern what may be causing our particular weaknesses to take hold, whether physical or emotional.

What I and so many people in the natural health and health freedom movement are struggling with is the way in which modern medical science has hobbled people's consciousness when it comes to the perception of disease.

It takes a long time to overcome brainwashing and I'm no exception, having cured myself of a hideous skin disease that was eating away my flesh for the last seventeen years, simply because I realised that despite all my years of fighting that same brainwashing, I had still swallowed hook, line and sinker fundamentally distorted theories on disease. It was within two weeks of rejecting that last vestige of deadly-infectious-disease germ-theory that my skin disease disappeared.

So much of our illness is our body's response to our mind's fundamental belief in the dogma of modern medical science, which is nothing more than witchcraft. If you tell a person they are going to die within the next year, backing that death sentence up with the entire scientific medical elite's immense authority, then that person, in many cases, terrified, convinced, will shrivel away and die in a state of emotional and physical helplessness.

The stress of the deadly-disease diagnosis (and fear of that diagnosis) - the 'you are going to die because of this incurable disease' stigma - is such a deeply traumatising experience that the body literally oozes with adrenalin, cortisone; the worst types of stress-related substances are secreted from the glands as a result of living in mortal fear and submission to an inescapable death sentence.

So fear, powerlessness and ignorance themselves become the cause and propagation of the disease. A person simply cannot be healthy if they believe they are dying of a deadly disease.

Basically, in believing in the deadly virus, the deadly cancer, the deadly 'whatever' in whose grip we are helpless victims, the medical industry not only deals us the first fatal blow to our immune systems but then delivers the final deadly blow with its poisonous and mutilating treatments.

I try to explain to people who see candidiasis as a non-fatal disease that they've got it all wrong.

By trying to get people to see that candida is the cause of most modern degenerative diseases, I am trying to make them realise that there is no 'other more serious cause' behind their symptoms.

They needn't worry about their symptoms being caused by the 'more serious' AIDS because they already have AIDS.

They needn't worry about their illness being caused by the 'more serious' cancer, because they already have cancer.

They already have diabetes, they already have Alzheimer's.

The worst has already happened, the cataclysm and deadly chronic disease is already well installed in their damaged body - the deadly disease is already under way.

But yet they are still alive, their immune system still hanging in there. And what is more surprising is that even with this deadly disease that is crippling them bit by bit, they can, and do, turn in the opposite direction and take a path to health that can literally abolish all symptoms and signs of disease. So finally, the deadly disease is not deadly at all, it never was.

The person who laid the foundation for this incredibly important scientific theory on disease was Bechamp, the man who Pasteur usurped, plagiarised, and whose work he destroyed.

It was a religious issue, not medical. It was all about politics and industrial power over the people, not science.

And we are still dying in droves, ever since history took that fatal turn.

I really do believe that the only way to liberate our bodies from illness is to first liberate our minds from the shackles and lies of the last several hundred years of medical supremacy over the masses. This history goes back to the Middle Ages.

Informative books on the historical and social construction of the medical myth in our psyches are: Ivan Illich's 'Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis'
and 'Confessions of a Medical Heretic' by Robert Mendelsohn

OK, Ivan Illich died of a horrid tumour but then again, he was a very amiable, sociable man who loved to drink wine and eat biscuits with his visitors on a regular basis . . . Modern degenerative diseases increase in proportion to an increase of bodily pollution. It's nothing to do with the germ or genetics or anything mysterious or foreign at all. It's all to do with the terrain.
[Biological Terrain Vs The Germ Theory]

Victorian Sexual Prejudice and Modern Medical Science

2009-10-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Words and Artwork by Emma Holister

Pope Vincent the Stupid is a cartoon character I developed on another art site I have. Although his name derives from the Latin for 'to prevail' or 'to conquer', Vincent is quite the buffoon.

He embodies the victory of Victorian values, Protestant and Catholic united for once on the all-important issue of sexual morality. And ultimately a smooth shift from Roman Catholic values and sexual hang-ups to modern, medical 'Pastoral' science. From the imperialist racism of Victorian prudes, we have progressed to the imperialist racism of the AID$ industry and the germ theory of Pasteur, the 'saint' of modern medical rationale (and lies).

In fact, any historian will tell you that the Victorian obsession with so-called sex-rampant Africans was no more than the projection of Imperial Britain's sexual obsessions and hang-ups onto a convenient 'other'. One they could label inferior, animalistic, more prone to sexual deviance and generally evil behaviour. A significant 'other', most distinguishable from the image of white Pastoral purity represented by the Church. A justification for colonialism indeed; saving souls is a gruelling but necessary mission. And that mission has continued from Bush and Gates to Obama, the white front of pharmaceutical holiness and charity, saving the black man from his social and moral corruption, his deadly sex-problem disease.

Pope Vincent the Stupid is therefore a poorly disguised sexual deviant with a saintly horror of frightening sex germs and a sad inability to look at himself in the mirror.

Virology is Religion

2009-10-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

by Emma Holister

I have taken the liberty of quoting several paragraphs, respectively, from Olivier Clerc's 'Modern Medicine: The New World Religion' and Sylvie Simon's chapter from the Ten Biggest Lies about Vaccines, 'Lie No. 1: Pasteur was the Benefactor of Humanity'.

I do this in the hope that friends, family and others will question their deep-rooted belief and trust in the dogma of medical industrial 'science', and more particularly that of virology. I believe the doctrines of virology to be at the heart of our culture's ideological and emotional fixations on disease, our relationship to authority and the nature of reality itself.

I would also strongly encourage people to read Anthony Brink's Letter to MEGA TV, 'Manufacturing Greek Consent' on the issue of HIV-AIDS and the corporate media.

It is a revelation in how easily and unthinkingly we have fallen into a state of trust in a racist, corporate regime.

The pdf file can be downloaded at this url: http://www.tig.org.za/MEGA%20TV%20letter.pdf

I have often shared Anthony Brink's eye-opening photographs of an AZT bottle, the substance that the governing bodies of the world are terrorising people into taking, or even forcing them.

I have tried again and again to point out that there is something fishy going on when world-wide drug-industry campaigns are targeting the gay, black and hispanic populations, coercing them into doing polyreactive tests where a sore throat, pregnancy or a run-down immune system can land you with a death sentence you'll never escape. Not to mention the accompanying barrage of harassment to take deadly, toxic drugs, mandates looming on the horizon, electronic data-basing and tracking of 'high-risk patients' top on every government's list of priorities.

Why is it so very hard to believe that the multinational drug giants who brought us the Nazi gas chambers, Agent Orange, pesticides and war funding galore would want anything other than to pursue their time-honoured mission of genocide? A mission focused most passionately on those of 'questionable sexual orientation' and black people - who for that matter are equally filed under 'questionable sexual orientation', since the sex disease HIV-AIDS is not only a 'gay disease' but a 'black disease'. One that is apparently spread by Africans who, despite starving in their millions, seem to be having non-stop, uncontrollable sex orgies, with monkeys even, and spreading their killer sex disease to the many alarmed white people in decent civilised society. What a shocking threat to national security indeed. Roll in the HIV testing mandates before we're contaminated and soil the sacred purity of our white bodies and souls. . .

I wish I knew why I haven't been able to shake this unmoveable faith that even my most intelligent friends have embraced. I take comfort in the work of people such as Anthony Brink, Sylvie Simon and Olivier Clerc who, unlike me, manage to find the words that explain this cultural, spiritual, in fact religious crisis that is tearing our world apart.

EXTRACTS from 'Modern Medicine: The New World Religion' by Olivier Clerc

. . . the hidden religious dimension of modern medicine inhibits the free debating of already fixed beliefs, preventing them from being properly re-examined and criticized. Indeed, dogmatism, irrationality, and passions - all characteristic of the religious experience - take precedence over any calm and carefully thought-out argument, even over the most tenuous facts. The same vehemence that led Galileo to be condemned by the Church for his theories, in spite of the scientifically demonstrable facts, is now being used by medicine to reject any thesis that is contrary to its own dogmas. Science has learned its lessons well from the Church, it seems.

***

With an obstinacy so stunning that it can truly only be described as religious, (Pasteur) defended the idea of "the quasi-virginal state of the human body, created in the image of God." By placing the cause of illness outside the human body, in the atmospheric environment, Pasteur was reaffirming man's original purity, in the Garden of Eden. God has created man pure, without contamination of any kind: thus "evil" - which, in this conception, takes the form of sickness - can only come from without. In this world-view, both health and sickness come from outside of man and are exterior and alien to him.

***

Equally, in this sense, it should be noted that the very name "Pasteur" (shepherd, in French) probably played a rather non-trivial role in the collective unconscious. Just as Jesus, the "Good Shepherd" who came to save his "lost sheep", Pasteur became the incarnation of the new Saviour who, instead of bringing redemption for the sins of the world, would bring the ultimate salvation from the ills of mankind (by vaccination). As a result, questioning Pasteur and his work became a form of heresy, an unconscious rejection of the Christian doctrine.

***

Without wishing to minimize the importance of these factors (the financial influence of the medico-pharmacological lobby), there are solid reasons to believe that they represent nevertheless a secondary factor. The essential element that has ensured the durability of the Pasteurian myth is precisely the very fact that . . . it is a myth! The continuing pull of Pasteur's doctrines and of the man himself as a medical celebrity are due to the strength of the religous elements that are unconsciously associated with them, in the public opinion as well as in the world of medicine. One of the beauties of this arrangement is that rational arguments make no inroads into disturbing the beliefs of those who put their faith into the pastoral myth, as we all do without knowing it. In fact, since rational ideas have little (or no) impact on irrational beliefs, the pertinent critiques that can be made from a rational point of view against the myth of pastoral medicine do not even manage to scratch the surface. Often, they actually reinforce the evangelical aspect of this doctrine by making the arguments of the detractors appear as dangerously heretical.

***

Almost imperceptibly, medicine has taken on a saving or messianic role, the characteristics of which we must examine. Medicine can be said to display qualities that have characterized the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries: autocracy, centralization, the control and manipulation of people, censorship, propaganda, total obedience, infallibility, the destruction of heretics, the stamping out of individuality. All this, of course, has been done in the name of public health and the general good, just as the Church acted for mankind's salvation.

***

Although medicine sees itself as exclusively scientific and rational, with no room for spiritual or human dimensions (such as psychic healers or shamans, who are dismissed as charlatans), it organizes itself and functions in a way that can be described as intrinsically religious. The paradox is that by rejecting any spiritual dimension, medicine, in fact, becomes the toy of the forces and myths it tries to ignore and cannot control. Mere denial of something's existence has never made it disappear, except perhaps in our conscious mind. Instead, it is banished to our subconscious mind, where, beyond our control, it can roam free, wreak havoc, and wield even greater power.

EXTRACTS from 'Lie No. 1: Pasteur was the Benefactor of Humanity' by Sylvie Simon:

In a 250-page thesis on Antoine Béchamp, Marie Nonclercq, doctor of pharmacy, explains the clear advantage that Pasteur had over Béchamp: "He was a falsifier of experiments and their results, where he wanted the outcomes to be favourable to his initial ideas. The falsifications committed by Pasteur now seem incredible to us. On deeper examination, however, the facts were in opposition to the ideas developed by Pasteur in the domain of bacteriology . . . Pasteur wilfully ignored the work of Béchamp, one of the greatest 19th-century French scientists whose considerable work in the fields of chemical synthesis, bio-chemistry and infectious pathology is almost totally unrecognised today, because it had been systematically falsified, denigrated, for the personal profit of an illustrious personage (Pasteur) who had, contrary to Béchamp, a genius for publicity and what today we call 'public relations. . .'"

***

As for Prof. Michel Peter, of the Academy of Medicine, he angrily criticised Pasteur's methods and wrote to Dr Lutaud, editor-in-chief of the Journal de médecine de Paris: "I agree with you on all points: the medication of Mr Pasteur, the so-called protector from rabies, is both an error and a hazard." For this eminent member of the Academy of Medicine, it was for reasons "little to do with science" that Pasteur was going to such pains to make people believe in the frequency of rabies. Indeed, Pasteur then conjured up hundreds of cases of rabies that could put lives in mortal danger.

"Now, rabies in humans is a rare disease, very rare: I have seen two cases of it in thirty-five years of hospital and civil practice, and all my hospital colleagues, in the town, as in the countryside, can count in single units and not in dozens (less still in hundreds) the cases of human rabies that they've observed. In order to exaggerate the benefits of his method and to mask his lack of success, Mr Pasteur has a vested interest in making people believe that there is a higher rate of mortality in France from rabies. But this is in no way in the interest of truth." This procedure based on fear would be taken up again later by the laboratories manufacturing vaccines and by their accomplices.

***

What was less forgivable was his animosity towards Béchamp, the founder of enzymology, who was able to identify minute corpuscles smaller than cells, microzymas. These microzymas are the elements that are truly responsible for life, whether human, animal or vegetable. Microzymas can span centuries but are also able to evolve throughout time. In humans, their form varies according to the general state of the biological terrain they inhabit and from which they feed. They are as constructive as they are destructive, capable as they are of transforming, mutating and evolving. Had this theory of polymorphism been recognised it would have shaken to its foundation our perception of health and disease. When an imbalance disrupts the normal functioning of microzymas - malnutrition, poisoning, physical or emotional stress - the microzyma transforms into a pathogenic germ, in other words a microbe, and illness follows. From this perspective, all that is necessary is to reinforce the health of the person in order for the internal pathogenic germs to regain their original form and their protective function. . .

. . . This research prompted Béchamp to judge vaccination as an outrage, because "It neglects the microzymas' own independent vitality within the organism."

In brief, for Pasteur the microbe is the origin of disease, for Béchamp it is the disease that permits the microbe to express itself. This duality of standpoints has lasted officially for more than 100 years. On his deathbed, Pasteur was said to have affirmed that it was Claude Bernard who was right, that the microbe was nothing and the biological terrain was everything. Indeed, if the microbe were the only agent responsible, how could it be explained that nurses treating tuberculosis were not contaminated whilst other people who were far less exposed to the bacillus rapidly fell ill? Claude Bernard, in pondering this question, came to develop the idea of receptivity to disease, admitting that there must be an innate or acquired tendency to develop certain pathologies.

And Prof. Jean Bernard is not far from adhering to this theory when he asks the question: "If, in the fight against cancer, we have not advanced as fast as in other domains, it is probably because we have been too attached to the theories of Pasteur. . . These viruses, are they really outside ourselves? Might they not in fact come from our own damaged organisms?"

In his work 'The Crack in the World', André Glucksmann attempts to explain the Pasteurian illusions: "The vanity of Pasteurism reveals - more than a certain science and less than an effective art - a religion. Pasteur has transposed into terms of biopower the constitutive equation of modern nations, cujus regio, ejus religio." (As goes the country, so goes the religion.)

Related articles:

Victorian Sexual Prejudice and Modern Medical Science by Emma Holister

Lie No. 1 : Pasteur is a Benefactor of Humanity - from ‘The Ten Biggest Lies about Vaccines’ by Sylvie Simon

2009-10-16T03:28:00.000-07:00

Translated by Emma Holister from 'Les 10 plus gros mensonges sur les vaccins'

"Each and every problem we face today is the direct and inevitable result of yesterday's brilliant solutions." Henry Bergman

Praise for Pasteur is heard across the world and he is considered to be one of the most prestigious heroes of humanity, a reference to be reckoned with.

Although the story of vaccination began at the end of the 18th century when the English doctor Edward Jenner undertook to inoculate with cowpox, a disease specific to cows, in order to protect humans from smallpox, it is Pasteur (1822-1895) who remains the father of vaccination and it is with him that the long string of lies begins.

This clever, brilliant, hard-working man was an expert communicator and kept up to date with the work of his peers. His tactics never changed; he knew how to recognise good ideas but would begin by openly criticising them, then would shamelessly appropriate them to himself, claiming to be the discoverer. It is in this way that he became the benefactor of humanity and, above all, an untouchable myth.

And in April 2005, during a television programme that clearly illustrated the decline of information and cultural standards, he was represented as second only to Charles de Gaulle amongst the “greatest Frenchmen of all time”. Adding yet another to the lies surrounding Pasteur, Prof. Axel Kahn, member of the National Consultants Committee on French Ethics, Director of Research at Inserm and one of Pasteur's most faithful supporters, didn't hesitate to affirm that it was thanks to Pasteur that women no longer died of puerperal fever during childbirth. In reality this discovery belonged to the Hungarian doctor Ignace Semmelweis, who had observed that women no longer died when those assisting took hygiene precautions such as washing their hands. It is worth pointing out that he provoked ridicule amongst his colleagues and was unable to convince them despite clear evidence. They claimed that the statistics he'd published were false and faked and he was suspended. And it would seem that women in childbirth may possibly have been infected in an attempt to discredit the truth of this observation. A despairing Semmelweis committed suicide. His work, published in 1861, was only given recognition in 1890 and this delay cost lives. Revolted by the behaviour of Semmelweis’s colleagues, another doctor, this time a writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, hotly defended him in publishing his biography in 1937. Evidently Axel Kahn has not read it. It is clear therefore that the myth of Pasteur persists on a foundation of totally false assumptions, but that the public at large blindly believes it because they 'saw it on the television'.

However, numerous facts reported in perfectly authenticated texts, coming from those who were close to him or from historians such as Dr Lutaud, Dr Philippe Decourt, Dr Xavier Raspail, Adrien Loir, Ethyl Douglas Hume, Emile Duclaux, Gerald Geison and others, should suffice in pushing him from his pedestal. But the Pasteurian dogma is so deeply rooted in people's minds that nothing yet has been able to shake it and the French continue to idolise an imposter. It is forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to lay a finger on the man who vanquished rabies. And to date, as Pasteur is no longer here to pillage the work of his peers, it is others who pillage in his name.

The subject of vaccines is no different from the case of Pasteur: there is no end to the lies that are unveiled. I can therefore only suggest to readers that if they want to learn of them all, they should refer to the authors cited above and to Eric Ancelet's book 'Pour en finir avec Pasteur' ('To Finish with Pasteur'), which masterfully reveals what is hidden behind Pasteur’s character, in stark contrast to the idealised image that is portrayed officially.

Pasteur doctored the results of experiments that turned out unfavourably for him, in the manner of a true forger, with the aid of his accomplices. And in order to gain honours and glory, he appropriated to himself various works of other researchers, including Antoine Béchamp (1816-1908), one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century, doctor, biologist, naturalist, professor in medical and pharmaceutical chemistry at the Faculty of Montpellier and professor of bio-chemistry and physics at the University of Paris, as well as Dean of the Free Faculty of Lille. Béchamp proved the veracity of Claude Bernard's views on the importance of the biological terrain of each individual and was the first to understand the microbial cause of infectious pathologies.

However, his work is virtually unheard of these days, because it was systematically discredited and falsified to the profit and personal interests of Pasteur.

In June 1865, Pasteur was nominated by the government to study silkworm diseases, whereas Béchamp had already determined and published on the parasitic origin of pébrine (silkworm disease). Pasteur criticised the work of Béchamp, affirming that it was a matter of constitutional disease, that the small bodies (as they called microbes in those days) that Béchamp considered to be exogenous parasites, coming from the exterior, were only the diseased cells of the worm itself. In a letter addressed to a minister, Pasteur wrote: “It is an error to say that this disease is simply parasitic and not constitutional. In fact, I believe that these people (Béchamp and his co-worker) are insane. An unfortunate madness indeed that so compromises Science and the University with such culpable nonsense.”

In 1868, Pasteur realised that Béchamp was right – and since that time the 'parasitic' theory has been recognised universally – But Pasteur declared to the Academy of Science and to the Minister of Agriculture that he had been the first to demonstrate the parasitic origin of pébrine that was “entirely unheard of before my research”. An unparalleled impudence.

In 1870 he published an article on silkworm diseases that he dedicated to the Empress, as he had for a long time been cultivating relationships within the Imperial Court which allowed him to forge useful friendships with ministers and official representatives of foreign countries.

At that time, Pasteur pronounced himself strongly “pro-Napoleon”, but after the fall of the Empire and the arrival of the Republic, he did an about-turn, as the 9th February 1983 edition of the journal Impact Médecin pointed out. He obtained via the Republican physiologist Paul Bert, a member of the budget commission, approval from the National Assembly of a payment of a 'national reward' in the form of a yearly salary of 12 000 francs – later raised to a salary of 25 000 francs – for having saved the silkworm industry.

Indeed, Paul Bert, all-powerful at the time in government, ardently wished to be admitted to the Institute, which did not want in its ranks a man openly declaring his revolutionary and atheist ideas. According to Paul Bert, Pasteur sought him out and offered him a deal: he used his influence in the Academy of Science in order to get Paul Bert nominated, who in return guaranteed him the award of his salary. Which was effected, to the detriment of Davaine, for whom the chair at the Academy had been intended, and who consequently died, apparently of grief. Davaine, a friend and protector of Pasteur, also saw Pasteur attribute to himself part of his work.

Pasteur was thus rewarded for his lie on 'parasitic' theory, so stripping Béchamp of a part of his work. He then plotted to make his adversary lose his post at the University.

The 'soluble ferments' affair, that gave rise to a controversy in 1878 that lasted more than 18 months, between Pasteur and the chemist Berthellot, reveals a similar imposture, as Pasteur refused to recognise the evidence and held fast to his belief in the theory of spontaneous generation.

PASTEUR'S RABIES

At school we are taught that Pasteur “saved the little Joseph Meister, bitten on the hand by a rabid dog”. In fact, it was uncertain as to whether or not the dog was actually infected with rabies; no other bite had been reported. Furthermore, even had it been, the risk for the young Meister would have been small, as an animal that is genuinely infected with rabies – which is extremely rare – transmits the disease in only 5 to 15% of cases.

The rabies affair is a perfect example of Pasteur's lies being repeated and introduced by his admirers into the collective memory, to the point of becoming truth to the average mortal. Contrary to what we are taught, the anti-rabies vaccine was not created by Pasteur but by Henri Toussaint, professor at the Veterinary School of Toulouse, and whose name has not left its mark on history. This man succeeded in reducing the virulence of the virus by heating the preparation and adding to it an antiseptic.

Pasteur's vaccine, based on dessicated marrow, was very dangerous and was soon abandoned, and the young Meister was very fortunate to have escaped it. Moreover, Pasteur's collaborator, Emile Roux, had surmised that the application of the Pasteur vaccine was too dangerous and he refused to be associated with the first trials of the so-called “intensive-treatment”, consisting of several injections over a period of twelve days.

The most characteristic aspect of Pasteur's and his collaborators' dishonesty was the story of a twelve-year-old child who died from the effects of the vaccination adminstered by Pasteur. The young Edouard Rouyer was bitten on 8th October 1886 by an unknown dog. Pasteur inoculated him with his vaccine using the intensive method and on 26th October the child died. A legal enquiry was opened to determine the cause of his death and Professor Brouardel was put in charge of it. This man, a high-ranking official richly endowed with titles, was a friend of Pasteur's.

In Emile Roux's laboratory, they inoculated a part of the child's brain stem into rabbits' brains and, several days later, the rabbits died of rabies. But Brouardel, in agreement with Roux, decided to submit a false witness statement before a justice, to hide the truth. It was a question of avoiding official recognition of a failure that would entail, as Brouardel put it, “an immediate jump backwards of fifty years in the development of science”, as well as the dishonouring of Pasteur, as Philippe Decourt recounts in “The Undesirable Truth, the Case of Pasteur”. The report submitted to the procurer contained a monumental lie:

“The two rabbits are today, 9th January 1887, in good health, that is to say forty-two days after the inoculations. The negative results of the inoculations performed with the brain stem of this child allow us to dismiss the hypothesis that the young Rouyer succumbed to rabies.” Pasteur declared that the child had died of uraemia.

Not satisfied with falsifying the facts, Pasteur and his two accomplices, Roux and Brouardel, set about silencing their opponents who knew the truth. Brouardel even went so far as to affirm that of the fifty people treated with the intensive inoculations, no one had died.

In 1886, in France as abroad, the deaths officially counted amongst the failures of Pasteur's method had already risen to seventy-four: forty foreigners and thirty-four French people. Some died showing symptoms of classic rabies, others succumbed to a new condition that was called “laboratory rabies”. These showed symptoms of a rabid form of paraplegia that had been observed in rabbits being used in the culture of the Pasteurian virus (La Méthode Pasteur contre la rage par le Docteur Xavier Raspail 1888). Moreover, Pasteur himself pointed out that during the period of 9th November 1885 to 30th December 1886, out of the eighteen vaccinated of those infected, nine died within the three weeks following the bite.

In the month of March 1886, Pasteur declared to Dr Navarre: “From now on I will not permit the questioning of my theories and my method; I will not tolerate anyone coming and overseeing my experiments.” Thus Pasteur initiated the now institutionalised scientific lie, proffered with impudence by men of science haloed with an usurped prestige.

History has noted only the success of this vaccine, but neglects to mention that it had multiplied the deaths from rabies. In fact, far from triumph, it was a failure, because no one was ever able to prove its efficacy; first of all because it was practically impossible to demonstrate proof that the accused dogs were ill with rabies and second, because the number of those vaccinated who died was too high for anyone to want to take register it. Léon Daudet told of the dreadful deaths of six Russian land labourers bitten by a wolf and then vaccinated by Pasteur (Souvenirs des milieux littéraires, politiques, artistiques et médicaux de 1880 – 1905). On this issue, the writer protested at the time against what he called “la nouvelle morticoli” (French play on words, 'the new death') and wrote a series of articles on the subject.

As for Prof. Michel Peter, of the Academy of Medicine, he angrily criticised Pasteur's methods and wrote to Dr Lutaud, editor-in-chief of the Journal de médecine de Paris: “I agree with you on all points: the medication of Mr Pasteur, the so-called protector from rabies, is both an error and a hazard.” For this eminent member of the Academy of Medicine, it was for reasons “little to do with science” that Pasteur was going to such pains to make people believe in the frequency of rabies. Indeed, Pasteur then conjured up hundreds of cases of rabies that could put lives in mortal danger.

“Now, rabies in humans is a rare disease, very rare: I have seen two cases of it in thirty-five years of hospital and civil practice, and all my hospital colleagues, in the town, as in the countryside, can count in single units and not in dozens (less still in hundreds) the cases of human rabies that they’ve observed. In order to exaggerate the benefits of his method and to mask his lack of success, Mr Pasteur has a vested interest in making people believe that there is a higher rate of mortality in France from rabies. But this is in no way in the interest of truth.” This procedure based on fear would be taken up again later by the laboratories manufacturing vaccines and by their accomplices.

In addition, before his peers at the Academy, Prof. Peter accused Pasteur not only of having increased the incidence of rabies but of having “provoked cases of paralytic and even convulsive rabies”, rather than having made it disappear completely, as he had pompously announced. “The method of Mr Pasteur could not be less considered from the viewpoint of anaylsing the cases of death, the clinical analysis indicating that a certain number of these fatal cases are due to the Pasteurian inoculations, which explains the rise in deaths from rabies in humans.” Prof. Peter concluded: “Mister Pasteur does not cure rabies, he spreads it!”

THE VACCINE AGAINST ANTHRAX

It was in such a way, thanks to countless lies, that rabies became Pasteur's first great triumph, but before that there was the vaccine against anthrax, a disease that was ravaging livestock.

At the time, Pasteur firmly set up his theories in opposition to those of Henri Toussaint, who had discovered the inoculable nature of anthrax and the possibility of vaccinating against this disease with weakened cultures. Pasteur claimed Toussaint's procedure was ineffective and dangerous, and that his own vaccine was superior. In order to prove it, he authorised an experiment which took place on 28th August 1881 at Pouilly-le-Fort, near Melun.

Fifty sheep were selected of which only twenty five were vaccinated. All fifty were inoculated fifteen days later with the virulent strain of anthrax. Pasteur affirmed that the non-vaccinated sheep would die and the others would survive.

On the day of the experiment Pasteur confided in his collaborators that he was going to use, not his vaccine, but Toussaint's, which contained an antiseptic that reduced the virulence of the anthrax bacteria.

For a long time Pasteur had tried in vain to obtain this reduction using oxygen from the air. The sheep received the vaccine that Toussaint had developed to which potassium bichromate had been added, a powerful poison that kills microbes, but which induces cancer. Evidently no one was going to worry about the cancers that the sheep would later develop. As predicted, the twenty-five sheep who had received the vaccine diluted by potassium bichromate survived. It was a triumph for Pasteur and everyone believed once again that it was 'his vaccine' and not Toussaint’s antiseptic that had saved the sheep.

Pasteur's own nephew, Adrien Loir, reported these facts in detail in a work entitled 'In the Shadow of Pasteur' but few people have read it and even fewer today know that the Pouilly-le-Fort experiment was nothing more than a lamentable confidence trick.

Prof. Peter judged the anthrax vaccine quite as severely as the rabies one and reported to Dr Lutaud the results of the vaccinations used from 10th August 1888 at the Odessa Institute of Bacteriology where “following Paris' example, the vaccine is made in accordance to Mr Pasteur's model”. Indeed, an anti-anthrax vacine, made in Odessa and sent to Kachowka in central Russia, consequently brought about no fewer than 3,696 deaths out of the 4,561 sheep vaccinated and amongst the 1,582 ewes inoculated, 1,075 were killed by the inoculation, that is, 61%.

Prof. Peter comments also on another inoculation used on the flocks at the Spendrianow farm: “The first flock consisted of neutered sheep aged between 1, 2 and 3 years old, a total of 1,478, and the other 1,058, younger and older. . . Out of 4,564 sheep vaccinated, only 868 survived the inoculation, that is, 19%. This is what they are calling 'preventive inoculations'!” which could be added to the list of Pasteur's customary hoaxes. His methods were always the same. While denouncing the methods of others, he'd finish by appropriating them to himself and so manage to crown himself with glory.

In a 250-page thesis on Antoine Béchamp, Marie Nonclercq, doctor of pharmacy, explains the clear advantage that Pasteur had over Béchamp: “He was a falsifier of experiments and their results, where he wanted the outcomes to be favourable to his initial ideas. The falsifications committed by Pasteur now seem incredible to us. On deeper examination, however, the facts were in opposition to the ideas developed by Pasteur in the domain of bacteriology . . . Pasteur wilfully ignored the work of Béchamp, one of the greatest 19th-century French scientists whose considerable work in the fields of chemical synthesis, bio-chemistry and infectious pathology is almost totally unrecognised today, because it had been systematically falsified, denigrated, for the personal profit of an illustrious personage (Pasteur) who had, contrary to Béchamp, a genius for publicity and what today we call 'public relations. . .'”

An American historian of science, Gerald Geison, from the University of Princeton, for twenty years studied Pasteur's laboratory notes, until that date kept secret on the orders of Pasteur himself. He eventually communicated the result of his research to the annual Congress of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and the English paper The Observer published it on 14th Februrary 1993. The following week, the medical magazine Science denounced what it called “The Pasteurian Deception”.

If this bickering between scientists had little consequence, one might consider it of only relative importance, but it was a far more serious issue for that era, for the industrial revolution was under way and opening up a matter of considerable economic stakes: that of the vaccine industry.

Between 1869 and 1872, Pasteur expounded three erroneous basic postulates that are still used today as the foundation of vaccination. The first put forward that asepsis reigns amongst our cells: the cell is clean, all microbes are exogenous (they come from outside) and attack it, and these germs have an existence that is independent from living organisms. The second is that each illness corresponds to a specific agent, microbial or viral, against which one can protect oneself, thanks to vaccines; the illness has one cause alone, therefore one remedy alone. Finally, immunity is aquired by the production of antibodies in response to the introduction of antigens via the vaccine and these antibodies give protection.

It has been well known for some time that these postulates are false, the latest discoveries in immunology contradict them totally. However, the vaccinators feign ignorance of these studies. If each germ provoked an illness, life on Earth would be long gone. Pasteur was wrong, but in this case he is forgiven, it was a simple case of human error.

What was less forgivable was his animosity towards Béchamp, the founder of enzymology, who was able to identify minute corpuscles smaller than cells, microzymas. These microzymas are the elements that are truly responsible for life, whether human, animal or vegetable. Microzymas can span centuries but are also able to evolve throughout time. In humans, their form varies according to the general state of the biological terrain they inhabit and from which they feed. They are as constructive as they are destructive, capable as they are of transforming, mutating and evolving. Had this theory of polymorphism been recognised it would have shaken to its foundation our perception of health and disease. When an imbalance disrupts the normal functioning of microzymas – malnutrition, poisoning, physical or emotional stress – the microzyma transforms into a pathogenic germ, in other words a microbe, and illness follows. From this perspective, all that is necessary is to reinforce the health of the person in order for the internal pathogenic germs to regain their original form and their protective function.

Thanks to his theory, Béchamp was able to take census of bacteria that were several million years old. The polymorphism of microzymas can therefore transform them into viruses, bacteria, mycelium, prions or other, as yet unknown, organisms. But they can also set off the opposite process and transform back into basic microzymas. This research prompted Béchamp to judge vaccination as an outrage, because “It neglects the microzymas' own independent vitality within the organism.”

In brief, for Pasteur the microbe is the origin of disease, for Béchamp it is the disease that permits the microbe to express itself. This duality of standpoints has lasted officially for more than 100 years. On his deathbed, Pasteur was said to have affirmed that it was Claude Bernard who was right, that the microbe was nothing and the biological terrain was everything. Indeed, if the microbe were the only agent responsible, how could it be explained that nurses treating tuberculosis were not contaminated whilst other people who were far less exposed to the bacillus rapidly fell ill? Claude Bernard, in pondering this question, came to develop the idea of receptivity to disease, admitting that there must be an innate or acquired tendency to develop certain pathologies.

And Prof. Jean Bernard is not far from adhering to this theory when he asks the question: “If, in the fight against cancer, we have not advanced as fast as in other domains, it is probably because we have been too attached to the theories of Pasteur. . . These viruses, are they really outside ourselves? Might they not in fact come from our own damaged organisms?”

In his work 'The Crack in the World', André Glucksmann attempts to explain the Pasteurian illusions: “The vanity of Pasteurism reveals - more than a certain science and less than an effective art - a religion. Pasteur has transposed into terms of biopower the constitutive equation of modern nations, cujus regio, ejus religio.” (As goes the country, so goes the religion.)

Related articles:

Victorian Sexual Prejudice and Modern Medical Science by Emma Holister

Why Macrobiotics is my Favorite Big Word - A children's book by Emma Holister

2009-10-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

Originally published in 1998 in black and white by the Kushi Institute. Now available here online, in colour and free!

Hello, my name is Lucy and I like big words. Sometimes people don't understand what I'm saying . . .

. . . So I'll try not to use too many big words.

One of my first ever favorite big words was 'vegetarian'. I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat meat because I like animals and I don't want to eat them, if you see what I mean.

My Mum and Dad used to eat a lot of meat, especially beef and pork. So from time to time I would try to offer them a little friendly information . . .

This is the story of how the word 'macrobiotics' became my favorite big word.

My Mum wasn't feeling well so she went to the doctor's. He told her she had cervical cancer. A serious illness in the place in her tummy where babies come from

We were all very worried.

When Mum's friend, Brenda, found out she had cancer, she came round right away and gave Mum a book on the macrobiotic diet. She said it could get rid of the cancer.

Mum was very happy that she could do something to help herself. She decided to give it a try.

She gave up meat, sugary food and drinks, processed food and dairy products like cheese, milk and cream.

And she started cooking whole foods including lots of fresh, organic, green vegetables.

At first it didn't go too well. . .

But Mum doesn't give up easily and she asked Brenda, who knew a lot about the macrobiotic diet, to come over and help her.

Dad made fun of Brenda and said she ate 'macro-slime' and that Mum was going on the 'macro-slime-diet'.

Mum said she would show him he was wrong and sent him out of the kitchen.

And before long she proved that she was right. She began to make delicious, healthy meals. All she needed was patience, determination, and support from us.

The person who wrote the book said it was also important to chew every mouthful at least fifty times, preferably a hundred. This is to make sure that when the food is swallowed it is completely liquid. This improves digestion a lot and helps the body fight illness. It is also important not to overeat, if the tummy is too full its job of digesting food is made harder.

Going out and enjoying the beauty of nature was recommended too, so going out for walks everyday is a good idea. Walking is an excellent form of exercise.

The author also encouraged other forms of gentle exercise.

He said it was good to develop spiritually.

My Mum is a Buddhist. She believes in the mystic universal law of life. And my Dad is a Christian. He believes in God.

I like to see myself as an agnostic. . . I choose not to practise a religion. . . also, it's a really good big word.

So, while my Mum chants more. . .

And my Dad prays more. . .

I like to develop my skills in levitation*

*to lift yourself into the air through the power of your mind

I didn't have much success with levitation, but something else happened which was really good.

Mum and Dad lost weight!

They seemed to be falling in love with each other all over again, which was great. Although I was a little concerned when they began to talk vegetable language. . .

It wasn't just that they were slimmer and falling in love again. They had more energy in general. What's more, Mum stopped being so crabby and Dad stopped getting so stressed all the time.

In fact, I was amazed. They seemed so much younger altogether.

When Mum went back to the doctor's, he said that the cancer was regressing. That means that it was shrinking. She seemed to be getting better.

Now that she knew for sure that the macrobiotic diet was working, she continued even harder, as well as trying out the other natural therapies that were recommended such as hip baths. . .

. . . and singing everyday. . . although I never understood why they said it is supposed to be relaxing. They keep telling me that their favorite song is an old Motown classic. Well, if that's what music from Motown sounds like, I never want to go there!

Apart from the horrible singing, a couple of good things happened. First of all, my eczema went away when I stopped eating sugar and cheese and drinking milk. Eczema is when your skin goes dry, red and itchy. Sometimes mine got so bad it would bleed. you can imagine how pleased I was that it went away.

And my Dad was delighted when his dandruff went away too. . . so was Mum.

In fact, Dad was so pleased about his dandruff that he decided to take up cooking too. Although this did have a rather strange effect on Mum. . .

It wasn't just us that changed. The house changed too. Dad had the house filled with plants, because they help clean the air and provide lots of oxygen for us to breathe. Mum had read that doing daily yoga breathing exercises was excellent for purifying the blood. . . she got quite carried away sometimes. . .

The next time we went to the doctor's he was off sick, but the lady who was replacing him gave us some wonderful news.

We were all very happy!

Mum even said that she was glad she had got the cancer because thanks to her illness she was able to change lots of negative things in her life.

She sometimes says to me, ' Just think Lucy, if I hadn't got cancer your Dad would never have got rid of his dandruff!' And then she laughs a lot. . . although I don't exactly know why.

I'm pleased because I learnt a new big word. That wasn't a snake after all in the doctor's office. It's what they use to hear people's hearts and lungs.

And Outside of the Left or Right Healthcare Systems?

2009-09-10T02:52:00.000-07:00

Questions about the NHS, the alternatives, the lack of alternatives, and other burning questions...that may remain unanswered...

By Emma Holister www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

I can't be the only person in the world who is horrified by what both left-wing and right-wing political parties have lumped us with in terms of healthcare, surely?

On the right is the chaotic plethora of private insurance companies - that cover mainly allopathic treatments, that generally ignore natural health methods and that people often opt out of because they don't want to (or can't) pay for it - along with various government-run (or non-government-run) spill-over schemes for the poor that nevertheless leave huge amounts of people with terrifyng medical bills if they get 'unlucky'.

On the left you've got 'universal healthcare' which has produced staggeringly high government spending on, again, allopathic treatments care of the Medical Industrial Complex. A mandatory no-opt-out scheme that extorts vast sums of money from people's taxes for the honour of being handed over to, amongst other undesirables, the pharmaceutical industry. Who in turn, delighted with this business deal of the century, makes billions with the 'industry of disease', using the tax payer as fodder. This type of government-controlled healthcare system, such as the NHS in the UK or the French 'carte vitale' social security system, is in my mind the more frightening, because the deal is this: if you have an accident and need your arm sewn back on, we'll do it for 'free' (or at least take it from everyone's taxes and generally not bill you for it at the hospital) and with that reassuring promise, we insist that you comply with all other aspects of government-ordained healthcare, including toxic chemo, vaccines, AZT, statins, synthetic hormones, antibiotics, antidepressants, anti-retrovirals, radioactive x-rays and russian-roulette unreliable tests galore. All the usual poisons and lies that produce the type of mass misdiagnoses and side-effect-induced chronic diseases that will ensure ill-health and doctor-dependance for a lifetime. Looming ever nearer, with France leading the way as example, this type of government-mandated healthcare comes with other government-mandated 'treats' such as vaccine mandates, not to mention endless talk of a dreamy future of HIV-testing mandates, anti-retroviral mandates, chemo mandates, mammogram mandates; basically anything they can get away with mandating, they must mandate you upto the eyeballs. And the more toxic and ineffective the mandated treatment the better.

People say that the NHS used to be good 'before it was taken over by big business', but that doesn't make sense. The NHS has been pumping billions into the allopathic petro-chemical-pharma ideological regime of the Medical Industrial Complex from the start. It was never 'free', it was certainly never free from giant corporations. The carrot dangled under the nose of the 'people' was: all people, regardless of income, will receive treatment if injured or sick. As it has turned out, not everyone is in fact 'treated', and most of those who are 'treated' spend the rest of their lives regretting it.

I can understand how people, faced with two choices, one monstrous system or another, will inevitably opt for one monstrous system or another. What I don't understand is why there don't seem to be more people creating think-tanks and groups to come up with alternatives to these hideous social calamities, both left and right.

How on earth can we create a diversity of systems, grassroots groups, networks, companies, associations, charities - whatever - that will ensure that, on the one hand, if the arm needs sewing back on, it will get sewn back on, without financially ruining a person for the rest of their life? And on the other hand, will protect people from politicians and corporations, hungry to gain power over the masses in order to - preferably - monitor, over-medicate, submit to endless unnecessary surgical interventions, with devastating, often deadly results, whilst making them pay for it all through the nose?

How can we find a way to protect all people, regardless of income and nationality, from these threats to our lives, without selling ourselves to the devil, as we have always done, and seem destined to do forever? How can the individual, groups of individuals, reorganise a whole society's, a whole civilisation's perception of social structure in healthcare?

It is not just a question of a change of consciouness, one involving becoming responsible for one's own health, being one's own doctor when dealing with the issue of health and disease, but also of social organisation and economics on a simple, understandable, grassroots level. The moment that financing the sewing-back-on-of-the-arm (and all that other medical stuff) becomes an intellectually incomprehensible issue only understandble by medics, lawyers and politicians, then the person whose arm gets sewn back on (or not) loses control not only of their body and life, but also (and for some more importantly) their bank account. They also lose control of their minds. Because how many people feel qualified to decide where their taxes should be spent when it comes to medical issues? How many people understand virology, open-heart surgery, oncology, gynaecology and the rest of it? How many people understand the financing of all those 'ologies' or, rather, medical ideologies?

I haven't met many people at all, no matter how intelligent, educated and wise, who have really considered these issues in depth and who have themselves, personally, become liberated from the coercion and brain-washing of the Medical Industrial Complex.

Artwork by Emma Holister www.art-margin.com

Growing sprouts, step by step photos

2009-08-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

by Emma Holister www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

Sprouts are hugely nutritious, cheap, home grown organic food...the ultimate survival food....everyone should know how to grow them! The best ones to start with are mung, sunflower, all types of lentils, fenugreek and chick pea.

1- Put the organic beans in a cleaned bean or coffee jar, fill with water, cover with mosquito net or muslin and fix with elastic bands.

2- Cover with a towel so that light cannot reach the beans. Leave them over night to rehydrate.

3- In the morning they will have swollen.

4- Drain the water. You might want to hold the elastic band with your hand in case it comes off, as you don't want to lose your beans in the sink. Fill with water again and drain again in order to rinse them thoroughly. If you use hot water by accident, which is easier to do than you'd realise, you will kill the sprouts, so always be careful which tap you're using!

5- Place the drained beans on a dish rack or some other type of rack (cleaned shower bottle-rack for example) at a slight angle so that the water can drain out, but not completely upside down with the beans crammed against the net. Maximum air is necessary for them to breathe. Place the rack in a bowl or tray to gather the drops of water.

6- Cover. Rinse morning and evening, or three times a day, depending on how hot the weather is - the hotter the weather the more rinsing is needed to avoid mould developing.

7- After a few days, mung beans, fenugreek and large yellow lentils tend to have grown quite fast and therefore need to be divided into two jars. The green ones on the right here are mung and need to be rejarred. On the left we have chick peas that don't expand as much. They are more vulnerable to mould, however, especially in hot weather, and are less difficult if grown in the winter. It is usually enough to rinse them more often.

8- Now you have three jars of sprouts, if you'd been doing large yellow lentils there would be even more. All of the sprouts are edible at this point, even though they can grow a lot more than this. However, if you're in a hurry to eat them, they are very nice in salads at this stage.

9- Cover, continue rinsing twice or three times daily, as usual.

10- After a few days, up to a week, you will have lots of teeming sprouts ready to eat, either in salads or stir fries. Once they begin to fill the jar be careful to remove them or they are likely to get so crammed that they will be difficult to remove without damaging them.

11- If ever beans start to get a bit smelly, put them in a colander and rinse very well, shaking them a bit with the fingers. Taking them out of the jar makes it easier to clean them more thoroughly and exposes them to more air, reducing the risk of mould. Chick peas are particularly vulnerable to mould so it's important to keep a close eye on them. Always be sure to sniff your beans before and after rinsing, to make sure they're not going mouldy.

12- Either leave them on the kitchen counter...

13- ....cover and leave to grow for a few more days as usual....

14- ...or, after having rinsed and left to drain for a while, pour them into a kitchen towel....

15- ....tie the corners with an elastic band....

16- ...and put them in the fridge, where they will remain fresh for several days, and even continue to grow, very slowly. Once in the fridge, they don't usually need to be rinsed as the cold prevents them from going mouldy.

Finally, remember that growing sprouts is a versatile art. Although the jar method is one of the most effective, the colander method is also good, although it takes up a bit more space on the kitchen counter. Jars, on the other hand, can be stacked up one upon the other.

Another very useful method of growing sprouts is in the towel itself, as above. Simply rinse by dunking the towel with the sprouts in water and hang it to drain above the sink. This method is particularly useful for travelling, as living sprouts ensure that your packed lunch will remain fresh as long as you continue to rinse them twice a day, because they are alive, and rather than going stale or rancid like most packed lunches, they become tastier the more time goes by. Suspending the sprouts towel-pouch inside an open topped plastic bag or bathroom toiletries bag will contain the drips, this can be attached to your rucksack and transported wherever you go, for days.

Growing Micro-greens Salad, Photos Step by Step

2009-08-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

Growing your own micro-greens is not only the easiest, cheapest and most rapid way to grow your own salads, but is also a guarantee of the highest nutrient level, freshness and organic purity of your food.

Sprouts and micro-greens have a far higher nutrient content than normal vegetables, for example lettuce, even if that lettuce is organic and freshly picked, something you are anyway unlikely to obtain from your local shop. I recently saw in a central Nimes store a tiny handful of these same sunflower greens, packaged in polystyrene and plastic, being sold for over seven euros. With rising food prices and the poor quality of the chemical-ridden produce sold in most stores, learning to grow your own organic greens indoors is potentially a life-saving art. It is also a means to become self sufficient if you are able to produce your own organic seeds. Two of the most delicious micro-green salads are black sunflower seeds and snow peas.

This demonstration is with black sunflower seeds. You can grow the flowers in your garden throughout the summer and harvest the seeds to provide you with fresh salads throughout the year. Sunflowers are easy to grow in a variety of climates. I grew this batch of micro-greens end February/early March. Because they are grown indoors next to a window in any warm room, it is possible to grow these salads throughout most of the year. Only in the very dark and cold months of winter might this method need a supplement of electric lighting to boost its growth. The average tray of micro-greens takes about a week to reach full maturity, at which point you simply harvest them with a pair of scissors and put the used soil mat into your compost bin where it will be recycled into fresh nutrient-rich compost within two to three months. A rotation system of two compost bins can be set up outside or even under a table in your kitchen. This method will be explained at the end of these instructions.

Black organic unhulled sunflower seeds are the best for growing micro greens because the seed pods come off the leaves more easily, producing a neater crop. Attempting to grow greens from hulled sunflower seeds will produce messy crop full of rotten seeds, as not all of them are whole or alive after hulling.

1) Put three table spoons of seeds in a jar

2) Fill the jar with water, preferably spring water or filtered

3) As the seeds are full of air, they will float. Some people like to jam them down with some type of weight. However, I find that simply pushing them with the fingers so that they all become fully wet is sufficient, even if they continue to float.

4) As with your normal sprouts, cover the jar with mosquito net or muslin attached with an elastic band

5) Cover so that the light cannot reach them, leaving them preferably in a shadey corner to assure maximum darkness for the seeds to flourish. (The only time that seeds should ever be exposed to light is when they are pushing through soil to reach sunlight in the form of leaf shoots. Therefore it is important to remember that all your dry seeds should always be stored in a dry, air-tight glass jar in a dark cupboard. The jar needs to be air-tight to avoid mites getting in and feasting on the seeds.)

6) The next day your seeds will have rehydrated and swollen in size

7) Pour out the water and hold the elastic band in place if you're not sure it's tight enough, otherwise you may risk dropping all the seeds in the sink. As with all sprouts, refill the jar with water and empty it again, in order to rinse the seeds. Always be very careful that you are indeed using the cold tap and not the hot, an easy mistake to make which will kill your seeds.

8) Put the seeds to sprout in just the same way as you do for your normal sprouts, on a dish rack, at an angle where the water can drain out easily onto a dish and the airflow is not blocked so that the sprouts can breathe easily.

9) Cover well to prevent any light from reaching the jars. Light will inhibit the growth of sprouts. Leave overnight, and the next day rinse the seeds and put them back to drain on the rack under the towel in order to grow for another day and night. As with all sprouts, give them a rinse twice a day, morning and evening.

10) After a day or two the seeds will have begun to sprout white shoots outside of their hulls. They are now ready to plant in a shallow soil tray.

11) Either buy a seedling tray from your local gardening store or make your own by drilling drainage holes in a shallow plastic undertray for a potted plant. This one has a diameter of 31cm.

12) You will be placing your tray of planted seeds in another slightly larger tray for catching the water. Your seedling tray will need to be elevated so as to permit the water to fully drain out of the soil rather than having it sit in a puddle. Here I have used a floor tile broken into bits to provide four stable stones of equal height for elevating the seed tray.

Note for cat owners: if your cats roam freely in the same room as your seedling trays, you will notice that they rapidly transform into cat litters, as fresh soil is irresistable to our feline friends. Either make sure that your beloved fluffies are shut out of the room for the period that you are growing the greens, or attach a system of protective mesh around the whole set up. This can be done with sticks of bamboo tied to the table legs, around which you can attach the wire mesh.

13) Put the seedling tray on top of the stones in the under-tray and add two centimeters of (preferably organic) potting compost into the seedling tray and tamp down gently with your hand to provide a flat surface. You can buy potting compost from any garden store and as you will be putting the remains, after harvesting the greens, into your own compost bin, you will soon be using your own home made compost free of charge.

14) Water the soil so that it is fully moistened. The smaller the watering can the better because a larger spout is likely to disrupt the surface of the soil with an overly heavy flow. I find that a children's watering can is perfect.

15) Now the soil tray is ready to receive the seeds. Take your jar and scatter the seeds onto the surface of the moist soil. A few seeds will remain stuck in the jar, just turn it upside down and give the bottom of the jar a few knocks to make them fall out, if any still remain, gently remove them with your fingers.

16) Now, very gently so as not to damage the fragile shoots, spread the seeds out evenly on the tray of soil.

17) Sprinkle a light layer of soil on top of the seeds, just enough to cover them, and very gently tamp down. This will prevent sunlight from harming the baby shoots that will now begin to grow upwards towards the sunlight of their own accord.

18) The top soil you have just put onto the seeds is dry and will need moistening. However, pouring water on with a watering can will disrupt the surface of this fine layer of soil, exposing the seeds you have just covered. Therefore, only ever moisten the top soil with a garden spray of water, as shown below.

19) After two or three days you will see that the little sunflower leaves are beginning to push through. You will need to use your own wisdom with how much to water the soil in the first three days. Often it is not necessary to water them at all, but in the hot months of summer, it is important to check that the soil doesn't dry out. If it dries out in the first couple of days, moisten only with the spray so as not to disrupt the soil. However, once the leaves are pushing through, as in the picture below, you will notice that they rise up and at the same time raise chunks of soil into the air. At this point the watering can is very useful so that water can seep through the soil to make it fall back down to root level. Naturally, having soil suspended in the air in chunks above the leaves can prevent the sunflowers from growing efficiently. If, after watering, there are still large lumps of soil suspended above the leaves, you can help it fall back down again by very gently poking it with the tips of the fingers, being careful not to flatten the whole mass down and trap the uprising shoots.

20) Here you can see how the soil naturally falls back down to root level after each watering session, exposing more of your leaves to the air and sunlight. It is the sunlight which produces the beautiful green in your shoots. This chlorophyl has highly healing properties as it cleans the blood and body in general of toxins, including the widely prevelant candida.

21) After a couple more days your shoots will be rising up and out of the soil and beginning to lose their black hulls.

22) Here you can see a tray of sunflower greens that have very nearly reached maturity. If any shoots have been completely uprooted with their roots being pushed upside down and upwards into the air along with the leaves, then just gently poke the roots back down into the soil with the tip of your finger.

23) After watering, when the leaves and remaining black hulls are moist, gently brush the tops of the leaves to help remove loose hulls.

24) Sometimes the black hulls can be rather stubborn and can be removed individually by very gently pulling the hull off with an extremely light squeeze. If you apply too much pressure you will pull the leaves off entirely and lose a perfectly good shoot. Avoid removing the hulls when they are dry as this is when they are stuck more fastly to the leaves. The hulls can also be gently levered off by catching the lower, sharp point of the hull under the tip of the finger and lifting it up and off the leaves. Any few remaining hulls will come off after the harvesting when you wash them in a bowl of water.

25) After a few more days, being sure to water the greens regularly, you should have a full tray of mature micro-greens ready to eat.

26) Take hold of them in a bunch and crop, with a pair of scissors, close to the base of the stems, but not so close you get lots of dirt.

27) Put the harvested leaves in a bowl and wash, ready to eat. The best way to keep them fresh after harvesting is to wrap them loosely in a kitchen towel and leave in the fridge. The remaining leaves in the tray can continue to grow on your window sill, but be sure to harvest them before the shoots begin to sprout another pair of leaves per shoot, as that is when they become more bitter and lose their tastiness.

28) Do your favorite salad dressing, mix with other sprouts if you want, or eat them on their own.

29) When you've harvested all the greens, you can compost the remaining root mat in your own compost bin so that after two or three months of recycling your soil mats and vegetable scraps, you can use your own compost rather than having to buy it from your local gardening shop. Doing a compost system is very simple, with a pair of bins. To start off, take a bin, drill holes in it for drainage:

30) The bin will need to be elevated for drainage, I have used three equal height broken bricks for this. Set them up either outside...

31) ...or inside, on a large plant pot tray to catch any drips or stray dirt. The final set up of two bins, one for putting in your fresh soil mats and vegetable scraps, the other one full and sitting for two or three months to reach maturity, can be put in a kitchen corner, under a table, or in a cupboard.

32) Put your remaining soil mat into the bin.

33) Chop it up with a small hand spade.

34) Add your kitchen vegetable scraps.

35) Mix well with a gardening hand fork.

36) And cover.

This method of reclaiming topsoil is as important a skill to learn as growing the shoots themselves. Knowing how to produce good quality soil is essential. The art of composting is the foundation of self sufficiency. Just buy a handful of compost earthworms from your local gardening shop and this method is complete. Once the first bin is full, begin filling the second, only returning to the first to turn it once a week and it will reach maturity and be ready to use again after two or three months.

Construction of a Humanure Compost Bin on a Paved Courtyard with Step by Step Photos

2009-08-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

Written by Emma Holister www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

Construction by David Roure

A humanure compost bin such as this one is where the contents of your compost toilet are transformed into top quality compost. This simple set up totally eliminates the need for costly and polluting plumbing infrastructure, sewerage stations and sceptic tanks.

The following photos show how we improvised our compost bin, using Joseph Jenkins' design for a humanure hacienda in 'The Humanure Handbook' as a rough guide. Because of lack of space and funds we were unable to build the whole hacienda (two bins with a rooved section between them for straw) so we decided to do it bit by bit and build just one bin to start with, and next year we will build a second. A bin like this should take about a year to fill with our small family, and once it is full, we will leave it for a second year for the compost inside it to mature, while filling the second. After two years the compost in the first bin can be emptied and used, which liberates the bin for the next year's new load. In this way a two year rotation can go on indefinitely.

We live in a residential street in a country town and only have a paved courtyard with a tiny strip of earth at the back. Most people wanting to build a humanure hacienda will have fewer problems than we did because as long as you have a small amount of lawn, the bins can simply be built straight onto the earth as explained in Joseph Jenkins' book. However, we couldn't decide which of several options to choose from for the drainage of the leachate (outflow of compost juices) which, if you don't have the bins on a lawn, is your main problem. Because of this indecision the bin was built, dismantled and rebuilt three times! This was because I didn't want to condemn our back soil trench which was our only piece of earth that wasn't raised garden or pots. In the end, condemning the trench was the only sensible option.

We initially built the bin with its drip-off tray over the edge of the soil trench. But on completion, it was clear that the whole set-up was unsatisfactory because the soil trench was cut off from light and sight by the bulk of the bin, so we'd pretty much lost it anyway, and it took up too much space in the sunny central area of the courtyard. So, seeing that my wish to save the trench had been thwarted, we dismantled it, pushed the whole thing back by about a meter and put it directly over the soil, hoping it would drain that way. However, the workings of the hole we made in the corrugated base of the bin made it too complicated and it was likely to leak, especially in heavy rains, because the trench is very narrow so its drainage is slow. Now the back drip-off tray goes directly into the gutter that leads to the mains drain. Joe suggested that had we wanted a completely closed system we could have had the leachate drain into a bucket with sawdust that could be thrown back into the bin, but in the end laziness won out and the mains drain gets the leachate!

We used larch, which we were told is a strong pinewood that fares well outside and doesn't rot. For the base of the bin we used some cheap sheets of galvanised metal corrugated roofing. For our straw (the compost's cover material) we currently put it on a palette covered with a tarpaulin. As for the water needed to rinse the buckets, we have a water butt that is attached to the house's gutter.

The reason we decided to do this, despite our restricted space, is that we wanted to show to people who live in towns that it's possible to set up an attractive, cheap and efficient humanure composting system even if you don't live out in the wilderness. It is not unheard of for people in cities to go through crises where water and electricity is cut off. Under such circumstances this type of knowledge is essential for townies.

Here are a few of the tools we used. The metal brackets are for holding the frame of the compost bin together with screws. The pillars and planks can be cut with a hand saw if you're brave or have no electricity. Fortunately we had electric saws etc to speed the work up. The t-square, level and a long builder's metal rule are used to make sure the various levels and angles are right. We built the whole structure at a slight incline backwards towards the gutter so that the liquids will drain easily in that direction.

Our bin is 1m50 x 1m50 and 1m25 in height, so David cut the posts and beams to size. Ideally it should be 1m60 squared, but the lengths of plank we'd bought made that too difficult. If you make your bin too small the thermophilic bacteria necessary for converting the pathogens into nutrient-rich compost won't have enough volume to get going with their important job. The compost must ideally reach temperatures of 62 degrees centigrade (143.6 degrees F), or a slower decomposition heat at 43 degrees centigrade (109.4 degrees F). For checking this on a regular basis it's good to have a compost thermometer.

Strong metal brackets were attached to support the cross beams at a height to create legs (the legs were later increased in length owing to the bin's change of location).

Here you can see a close up of how the brackets are placed at all the joins of the beams. Very few screws were needed because once all the planks are in place, the structure holds itself together snugly.

Here is a view of the completed under-structure as it was built initially. You can see the slope of the whole bin. David thought that the back feet weren't necessary and used metal brackets instead. As it turned out, this mistake turned to our advantage when we had to shove the whole structure back a meter where it rested on the back wall of the trench as you'll see in the following photos.

Three planks were nailed to the bottom beams to support the sheets of metal corrugated roofing. When we bought the sheeting it was quite thin so we added a couple more planks after this for extra support before we layed it on.

David cut the corrugated sheets to fit the size of the bin, with an overlap at the back so that it jutted over the back gutter. The green metal brackets attached to the front pillars will be explained later, they are part of the system for slotting in the front planks.

Here is a side view where you can see the compost underneath the bin from our second abortive attempt....

As you can see, the corners were cut to fit the four posts.

Here's a close up of one of the corners....as well as our scruffy back gutter...

The first planks are nailed around the lower edges.....However, the side edges and corners will leak onto the courtyard if they remain like this because of the gaps....

So the cracks were filled up with cement to prevent the leachate from seeping out where it isn't supposed to.

It is important for the concrete to go right up to the far edges to prevent leakage.

For the front gap, as we wanted all the front planks to be removable, David screwed/stuck a narrow plank perpendicular to the bottom front plank to cover the slit and act as a mini 'roof'. We hope that as this is at the high end of the slope and the contents of the buckets always get thrown to the center of the compost when emptying them, there will be little risk of leaking even with rainfall. This way, when the compost is ready to be removed, all the front planks can be removed including this bottom one which is attached with screws rather than nails. If it doesn't work we'll just cement that bottom gap up like the rest and make do with pulling the compost over this little ledge.

And the rest of the planks go up...In this photo below you can see the evacuation holes created by the corrugated roofing where the leachate will drain out of the compost bin and into the gutter.

In these two photos below you can see the system David used for the front planks so that they can be easily removed. They are slotted between a vertical plank at the front and a metal bracket at the back.

1cm deep wedges are placed between the planks as they are attached in order to create airholes. Once the planks are nailed in place the wedges can be removed, apart from for the front planks, because as they are not attached with nails but slotted in, one on top of the other, they need permanent wedges attached to their bottom edges so that the planks can sit on one another with a 1cm gap.

This is how the back of the compost bin looks, with the corrugated base jutting over the gutter so the leachate can run off into the drain. We will eventually attach a more closed gutter system so that it is neater and less exposed.

Here below is our compost, it has moved around so much that all the little compost critters must think it's a travelling circus...
After putting it in, I pulled this straw and compost away from the center and towards the edges, to leave a small depression in the middle of it, in preparation for the contents of my full buckets from the compost toilets. This creation of a hole in the middle of the compost's mass can be done with a pitch fork. After each time you throw in the contents of your buckets (which is the only time you ever get a waft of smelliness in the whole compost toilet process) fresh straw is then layed on top of it as a cover material to stop any odours getting out, to prevent flies, as well as being the perfect material to create small air pocket layers inside in the compost so that it breathes, ferments and heats up efficiently. To this mix it is good to add kitchen scraps, dead leaves and vegetation to create the optimum environment for all the little compost creatures to do their work. As this compost is not exposed to soil, we will buy compost worms from the local gardening shop as well as maybe an organic compost activator if we suspect it's not heating up and compacting down fast enough.

Voila! The completed humanure bin. We will put metal covers on the four exposed tops of the corner posts to prevent them from rotting before the rainy season begins. People here do this the simple way by placing empty tin cans over them. However, David will cut out some small non-rust metal squares and fit them on top of the posts neatly. We will also get some chicken wire mesh to cover it with just in case any rogue animals ever want to get in there.
So, I am finally able to get my buckets out!...

And chuck their contents into the very center of the compost where I'd created a dip with a pitch fork for it to fall into without spilling towards the edges. This is the only time ever that you will get a smell from your buckets, as the contents, kept odourless by the cover material while in your loo, become exposed and slosh out into the bin. (The photo below was taken before we dismantled the whole thing and redid it with slotted-in front planks...). As you can see I'm in my very scruffy work clothes. However, if you want to empty your compost buckets in your high heels and fancy town get up, feel free....

I give the bucket a rinse with water from my butt using a watering can which is useful for efficiently rinsing the bucket.

I take the bucket back to the bin and chuck the liquid with the remaining dregs into the compost.

Then I return to the butt and give the bucket a good wash with ecological washing up liquid...

....and a scrub with a toilet brush...

And I give it a final rinse to get the soap off. For two buckest you don't need to use more than a total of, say, eleven or twenty litres depending on how efficient your cleaning method is.

A final wipe down...
If the plastic bucket begins to be a bit smelly after a period of time, either leave it outside for a day in the fresh air or, as it's only the base that can start to smell slightly, put sawdust into it right after cleaning and this immediately stops any odour.

I put some fresh sawdust into the bottom so that it's ready to go back to the bathroom....

...where I put it back in my avant-guarde toilet and admire the view....as well as bask in the joys of being free from the water grid.....

A few facts to remember about compost toilets:

1) They do not smell!! The organic cover material such as sawdust or dead leaves blocks all odours completely to the point where you can have your ravishing, state of the art toilet in the comfort of your bedroom and be done with long treks to the bathroom during the night.

2) By no longer using flush toilets you save about forty litres per person per day and become significantly more independant from the costly, wasteful and polluting water grid. Say goodbye forever to costly plumbing, toxic sewerage and septic tanks.

3) You show your friends and family that people in rich countries are capable of taking responsibility for the environment by sharing knowledge that will resolve the most serious problems in poor countries ravaged by epidemics caused by lack of adequate sanitation. This type of toilet is the solution to the world wide problem of water pollution and water scarcity.

4) By applying the simple composting methods taught in 'The Humanure Handbook' by Joe Jenkins www.humanurehandbook.com you can produce your own top quality compost to use either on your own vegetable garden or to sell to local compost dealers.

Crochet: Reclaim a Traditional Survival Art and Halt the Clothes Industry Slave Trade

2009-08-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

by Emma Holister

Emma Holister www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

I am learning to crochet with the aim of never buying another item of clothing ever again...as well as doing my bit to avoid contributing to child slave labour in the international clothing industry: (Radiohead - 'All I Need': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV1hQSt2hSE&feature=channel_page)

For me it has been a way to connect to the women folk in my life, especially my mother who taught me the first beginner stitches, as well as reclaiming an ancestral survival art that the clothes industry has tried to make us forget. During the potato famine in Ireland many women were able to support their families by crocheting clothes to sell.

Here is my first attempt at making something, I skipped making scarves and hats and threw myself in at the deep end with a button up tank top. Not bad for a first ever project without a pattern, eh? All totally free too as I made it out of an old jumper that mum and I unravelled (well, mostly mum unravelled it actually...very hard!). I made lots of mistakes, but learnt a lot. A top like this takes about a weekend going at a slow beginner's rate. The stitches are the most basic ones.

Rocket stove: how to build one in an afternoon

2009-08-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

by Emma Holister

www.art-margin.com and www.candida-international.org

If the price of gas and electricity is getting you down, build a simple rocket stove and cook with twigs! It's free and it's sustainable. Cooking with a rocket stove is another big step towards freedom from extortionate energy bills and the multinational giants ransacking our planet and our bank accounts.

A rocket stove can be used outside in the summer, on your terrace or balcony, or indoors in the winter, hooked up to a chimney with a hood. Because of the insulated interior, this stove gives off far less smoke and carbon monoxide than a normal fire. Only when igniting and putting out the fire is there really any smoke worth speaking of. This simple design creates a strong air suction that makes the cooking flame very intense with just a few twigs. Using bigger and more twigs gives a stronger flame which will heat your pans faster than a gas hob. You can reduce the flame by reducing the amount or size of the twigs.

I built this rocket stove in an afternoon, using the information and explanation video at http://rocketstoves.org

My rocket stove is very rudimentary. I've never done metal work before so I was as new to this as the next person. You'll need to forgive the unintentional advertising for the sunflower cooking oil...the 25 litre / 5 gallon tin was perfect for my stove! In Europe it's quite difficult to find this size barrel and you may need to go begging at the back door of your local restaurant for their empties. If you are worried about the paint on the barrel then put it in a fire to burn away the thin layer of paint. However, once I got my stove going, the main part of the barrel, being well insulated with ash, doesn't get hot at all, only the top edge gets charred.

In the photo below you can see the 25 litre tin of sunflower oil I found dumped next to the public garbage bins in my neighbourhood. It needed a bit of a scrub to remove the excess oil and a bit of rust that had started to build up. Inside this barrel will go my old iron stove pipe, one straight piece and one elbow piece, that I got out of my cellar. It has a diameter of 13cm (approx 4 inches). In the video the chap uses a thin tin stove pipe that he then changed his mind about as it can release toxins. My stove pipe is a tough old iron thing that had to be cut with an electric metal disk saw. However, cutting it with a metal handsaw would have been possible, had I been brave...

The tools you'll need:

Leather gloves to protect your hands - without them you will gash yourself!
A felt tip pen for marking where you'll cut
A chisel and hammer to make the first hole in the tin before cutting
Tin snips to cut the tin barrel
A metal file to smooth off the rough edges of the cut tin
Either an electric disk saw for cutting the iron stove pipe or a good metal hand saw (and plenty of patience)
Pliers to grip, bend and squeeze the tin into shape
A ruler, tape measure or piece of wood to measure the length of stove pipe

The first thing to cut in the barrel is the bottom hole where the wood will be fed into the stove pipe. This is done easily by using your pen to trace around the diametre of your stove pipe placed 5cm (approx 2 inches) above the bottom of the barrel. This gap is to prevent the base of the rocket stove overheating. Next, take the hammer and chisel, hold the barrel so it doesn't slip, give the chisel a good whack in the centre of the traced circle to create a hole in the tin, then work the tin snips into that hole, cut towards the edge, then all around the edge till the hole is complete. Cutting slightly inside the traced line will give you a neater, tighter fit with the stove pipe, if it's too small you can always make it bigger, but not vice versa.

After cutting the bottom hole, it's time to cut the top of the tin off...If you're not sure of cutting a straight line all the way around, trace one first with your pen using a stick or measure to guide your pen evenly.

The edges of the tin will be very rough and must be filed down carefully so as not to cut your hands.

The tin snips can sometimes get a bit stuck so I'd occasionally pull the tin apart with my pliers so as to make cutting easier.

And back to filing off those nasty rough edges...

Once the edges were filed, I wanted to create a rounded-off top edge and so I set about bending the edge of the cut tin inwards, gripping only about four millimetres of tin for the inward folding flap.

I then squeezed that narrow flap down, creating a fold in the tin that will not cut the hands. This top ridge needs to be pretty even so check it with a level if you're a perfectionist - which I'm not - I just gave it a whack with a hammer here and there where it went up too high and checked by eye that the cooking grill sat evenly on it.

And here below, an exciting moment....slotting in the stove pipe elbow...it juts out of the tin's exterior by about 4 to 5cm (measuring at the top edge).

Here's the view of that exciting moment from above...

Then I slotted in my straight length of stove pipe onto the elbow. I wanted the central pipe to sit about two or three cm below the rim of the outer tin, so I rested a thin length of wood from the outer edge to the central column, inclined it down the pipe a couple of cm and marked that point with a pen.

Then I took that same thin strip of wood, drew a little line on it the same length for the stove pipe I'd marked, and then continued drawing the line around the pipe using the length of wood and its marker to keep the line even all the way round. A tape measure could also have been used, but I was too lazy to go and get it out of my tool box....

True to my usual methods, this was all guess-work. When fitted in place the entire vertical length of the inner stove pipe, from its top edge to the base inside the elbow piece is 32cm.

The line I drew was rough but accurate enough, thanks to guiding my hand with the length of wood... I then got David to cut it with the electric disk saw while I held it in place. The disk saw gives off a lot of sparks and you must protect your eyes with goggles as well as using gloves and keeping your hands well away from the cutting area when you hold or clamp the pipe down so it won't move during the cutting.

Once it was cut I slotted it into the elbow piece. So this inner pipe sits a couple of cm below the outer edge of the rocket stove so that the flames don't get blocked by the bottom of your saucepan.

Just in case, I got David to file off with the disk saw the enamel and paint where the pipe comes through the bottom hole because I was in two minds about filling the slightly uneven gaps (I'm no expert with those tin snips!) with some type of soldered metal....but in the end, the ash insulation is tightly packed and doesn't fall out as long as you don't knock the stove around. In this photo below you can see how the final stove pipe looks with elbow and vertical piece slotted together.

Now I filled the gap between the stove pipe and its outer tin casing with ash from last winter's log fire, being sure to pack it down tight and push it firmly under the elbow pipe.

I filled it to a level that left a depth of about 8 or 9cm from the outer tin's top rim to the surface of the ash.

Then I hunted around for the top piece of metal to slot over the stove pipe to keep it snugly in place along with the ash. The original lid of the tin exterior was no good....so I grabbed another lid from an old tin of paint and cut that up instead. Again, if you want to get rid of the layer of paint on the can, burn it first in a fire.

I measured the diameter of the rocket stove's outer tin and cut out a circle from the tin lid with the same diameter. Luckily for me, the interior line of the lid was almost exactly the same diameter so I didn't need to draw a line. Had I not had that stroke of luck, I'd have put the rocket stove onto the lid, traced a line around its base, and cut the circle a few milimetres inside the line to compensate for the difference in diameter between the outside of the tin and the inside.

I left three little flaps to fold down and give the lid a bit of extra anchorage. I filed down the rough edges and with the pliers bent the outer edge slightly downwards so that it would curve down into the ash instead of curving up where it could get caught or scratch.

I then placed a piece of stove pipe in the center of the lid, using my pen as a measure to gauge the length between the outer edge and the pipe, making sure it was even all round and therefore centered properly. Then I held it firmly and traced a line around the pipe for where I was going to cut the hole.

Here below is the final traced line, ready to cut out. I placed it in the rocket stove just to check I hadn't completely bodged the diameter, it's a rough job, but good enough.

Out come the chisel and hammer again. I whacked a hole in the center...

...got my tin snips out again and cut the circle out...

....filed off the rough edges and slotted it into place over the central stove pipe. This keeps the pipe in place and holds the ashes down. I did a rough job (I'm a beginner after all) and there is a little ash around some of the edges still, but this doesn't affect the efficiency of my stove at all.

Now the final touches, putting in the stove's twig shelf. You cannot just put the twigs straight into the stove pipe without a shelf because they need to be raised in order to allow air to flow underneath, as with a vent, to get the fire going. I could have used the tin top but I used another scrap of tougher tin I found lying around. This shelf has to be long enough to hold the twigs but not so long that it intrudes into the bent part of the pipe's elbow, that's where the flames belong.

I cut it with folded-down edges so that it could be wedged into the pipe quite firmly.

I gave it a final tap with the hammer to push it in snugly. I should really have allowed part of the shelf to jut out to give the twigs an extra platform, but as I use bricks to support the ends of the sticks I didn't bother.

And hey presto, the stove is ready to fire up - that is, once you've put the oven/barbecue grill on top and removed the curious cat...

This pot is perfect for two reasons: one, it is black, so when the bottom gets blackened by the flame it doesn't show, and two, it's cast iron, which retains the heat. So once you've got your soup or rice boiling you can remove it from the fire and place it in an insulated box where the heat gets trapped and the soup continues cooking. An insulated box can be made by putting one smaller wooden box on little legs inside a bigger box, filling the gap with ash (cold ash, naturally) or sawdust, boxing it in, and covering with a lid that is also insulated. This way you don't need to stand over your rocket stove for long. You cannot leave a rocket stove to cook the way you can with gas or electric hobs. Rather than seeing this as a disadvantage it might be worth thinking of all the lives that can be saved, as leaving pans on the hob is one of the biggest causes of house fires. If you leave a rocket stove unattended it will simply go out after about five minutes. Therefore, learning a few tricks with insulated passive cooker boxes and keeping your blackened utensils away from other dishes, will make life with the rocket stove a lot simpler.

David had to get cracking because I wanted my dinner...he made me a marvellous curry...

The twigs can be set alight by placing a handful of straw in the pipe's elbow, adding more straw if they are slow to take. With long sticks, bricks can be placed underneath them for support. When you want to put the twigs out, have a little pot with sand handy to plonk them into.

And finally, below is a nice view of the flames from above...

Permaculture Design - The only path to health is radical change in lifestyle and environmental consciousness

2009-08-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister, creator of Candida International

Crochet your Way to Free Food

'Growing Micro-greens Salad, Photos Step by Step' By Emma Holister

'Growing sprouts, step by step photos' by Emma Holister

'Construction of a Humanure Compost Bin on a Paved Courtyard with Step by Step Photos' by Emma Holister

'Rocket stove: how to build one in an afternoon' by Emma Holister

'Crochet: Reclaim a Traditional Survival Art and Halt the Clothes Industry Slave Trade' by Emma Holister

The only path to health is radical change in lifestyle and environmental consciousness

When I created Candida International about ten years ago, little did I know that it would be such a rocky path of self-discovery and revelation about the way our culture perpetuates an ideology of dependance and sickness.

Over the years I have found myself repeating to people that no, there is no miracle cure, no, there is no magic pill or enlightening and exotic diagnosis that will get rid of severe candidiasis with this or that product. And that those companies making such claims are doing so for one simple reason, money.

The only route to recovery with a severely damaged immune system - and the myriad symptoms and diseases that go with that - is to radically change our eating habits and lifestyle routines.

And that is the biggest issue.

Faced with the prospect of giving up booze, giving up industrial dairy and sugary foods, pastries, bread, pizzas and other junk products, people feel utterly powerless. And so the pharmaceutical industry and medical/industrial complex as a whole remain in their self-satisfied positions of power over the average individual who is continually tormented by the labyrinth of health problems that is iatrogenic disease (iatrogenic=caused by medicines/doctors). They are on to a winner with candidiasis because the average person would rather listen to dreamy lies of pharmaceutical 'cures' and 'remedial' surgery than face the demon of their own addictions and unhealthy lifestyles.

What's more, this overwhelming desire to have a quick fix solution is not confined to those who are poorly informed or uneducated. Addictions afflict everyone regardless of education and intellectual development. I have watched, dismayed, as even the most well-informed people within the natural health movement itself have launched themselves desperately into the arms of the medical industry, where they have been funnelled into the market of fraudulent diagnoses, toxic products and lies along with the 'ignorant masses' they formerly sneered at. Such is the power of addiction and self-deception.

Even the most intelligent, discerning people run into the arms of the medical industry. Even the most well-informed cannot give up that life-long conviction that the men in white coats must somehow have the answers, and that we ourselves are ultimately powerless to change our health problems.

Most of the time I have found that people almost inevitably end up choosing to betray their own lives by running to the industrial giants, indeed the perpetrators of genocide, for help - demanding as they do that their family and friends support them in their choices. The entire problem, on a human scale, comes down to addictions and an inability to recognise that most health problems can be eliminated by kicking our worst habits.

What ensues is a soul-destroying process of following the crowd in an insane wild goose chase, clambering after the Holy Grail of simplistic diagnosis and quick-fix solutions. It is no ordinary wild goose chase, the stakes are high in this mad dash for instant gratification. We are herded in our masses into the trucks bound for the slaughterhouse. The abandoning of our autonomy when it comes to iatrogenic disease and immunity deficiency comes at a very high price. We, willingly, blindly, walk into a world of terrifying diagnosis, toxic pharmaceuticals, debilitating surgery and devastating side effects on an ever-escalating scale, till death do us part from our dear, beleaguered, battered and chemical-ridden bodies.

When faced with that choice, to give up their favourite foods and drinks or run into the comforting arms of the medical industry to lap up their lies about magic pills and miracle cures, people sadly choose the latter. It's the easiest choice. But it brings with it the hardest lessons.

I remember for years, in the past, while I was running like a headless chicken to the doctors, getting repeatedly lied to, poisoned and brutalised, that in my head I kept saying to myself, surely this must be candida... I would even ask them if it could be the fact that I consumed bread and alcohol on a daily basis that I had these recurrent intestinal and gynaecological problems - only to be slapped down and treated like a fool.

Of course, the addict in me wanted them to slap me down and tell me there was no connection between my health problems and my consumption of alcohol and bread. That they had the answers, the technology and knowledge to define and cure me of my health problems, and I could continue to indulge my 'little pleasures' for the the rest of my life.

For the rest of my short life.

And so it went on and on and on. Because I couldn't face up to the fact that as long as I was addicted to alcohol and flour products that I would never get better. Giving up alcohol was just an impossible option, so I had to run to the doctors instead.

I have lost many loved ones to the medical industry and their toxic products; they were all of them hopeless addicts to everything that was bad for their health. When telling your loved ones they should stop consuming alcohol and chocolate in order to give their immune system a chance to recover, many people reply 'I'd rather die'. And that is what I have witnessed them doing, slowly, painfully, in prolonged grief and in fear.

Finally, I ask myself, why should I imperatively 'respect' the 'choices' of those who have decided to wilfully destroy themselves, dragging through their hell, as they do, their loved ones, who remain with the memories and scars of the horrors of the modern medical industrial complex?

Are people so incredibly self-righteous about how we should respect a person's choices when it comes to heroin addiction? Do they lecture us about respecting people's choices and accepting, honouring their lives by supporting them in that?

No, they don't, because being a smack addict is 'wrong'. And complying with a murderous medical/industrial regime of lies is 'right'.

So, after years of campaigning in the hope of helping people, years of informing people about the huge benefits of changing one's diet and removing chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, from one's life, and doing so with activism, cartoons, articles and networking, I have reached a point of saturation. The David and Goliath fight will eventually reduce a person to a state of exhaustion and compassion fatigue.

And as I sat in the ruins of a life devoted to helping those who more more often than not do not want to change, but rather want a quick fix, the instant gratification offered by the 'expert's advice, I found myself turning to modes of life that severed all painful reminders of the chemical-pharmaceutical industries and gave me a strange and invigorating sense of freedom and hope.

It happened almost organically, without my really being aware.

Sickened by the pollution of our water systems, our environment and our health by the chemically treated tap water pumped into our homes by, yes, once again, the multinationals, I removed myself from that dependance and changed from flush toilets to compost toilets, began harvesting rain-water and becoming free of that flood of poisonous fluoride, chlorine and goodness knows what other horrors that gush forth from those pipes. Now I no longer urinate and defecate in precious drinking water while millions die of thirst in poverty-sticken countries. I use a toilet that can be used by rich and poor alike and that collects the precious resources from our bodies to produce high-quality soil for growing organic, nutrient-rich food.

Sickened by the dependance on an electrical grid fuelled by nuclear power plants leaking radioactivity into the land, I built a rocket stove and studied alternative methods of cooking with twigs that allowed me to no longer pay extortionate bills for the luxury of destroying the planet.

Sickened by a clothes industry that uses child slavery in third world countries and preys on women with anorexia-inducing fashion advertising, I learnt to crochet and sew simple garments so that I would never again have to walk through the hall of mirrors and harassment that the international clothes industry inflicts upon us.

And finally, sickened by the food and drug industry that damaged my body and shattered so many lives of those whom I have loved, I learnt how to grow sunflowers in my courtyard with my own organic compost. And from the seeds, I produce the most highly nutritious and organically pure micro green salads that, thanks to their chlorophyl and high vitamin content, help keep my body free of disease; a disease that is the inheritance of a life lived in a world ruled by poison.

There is an oriental saying that goes, 'In the West, they believe that right thought creates right action. In the East they believe that right action creates right thought'.

For me, I realised that so many people want to analyse and dissect every thought or piece of information, something they ultimately feel unqualified to do in fact, so that analysis is meekly handed over to the experts in white coats. The result is 'evidence-based medicine' that uses the torture of animals in monstrous laboratories to justify an endless supply of FDA-approved deadly pharmaceuticals on a market gone to hell. Thalidomide, Vioxx, AZT, so many killing and maiming drugs, all met with the stamp of approval of 'evidence-based medicine' and the expert committees.

So we can think and think and think, and before we know it we have 'thunk' ourselves into oblivion.

I wash my hands of that ideology of analysis and 'reason', of 'scientific rationality' and 'objective evidence and proof'.

Now, the only evidence of value for me is the thrilling liberation, of body and mind, with every step I take into the sustainable way of life that is permaculture.

Martin J Walker Reports on the Case of Dr Andrew Wakefield, Autism and MMR Vaccine Damaged Children

2009-05-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

Cartoons by Emma Holister http://www.art-margin.com/doctoringcolversion.htm

For more information see www.cryshame.co.uk and www.slingshotpublications.com

The book:

Silenced Witnesses

http://www.slingshotpublications.com/silenced.html

In July 2007 the General Medical Council, the regulatory body for doctors in Britain, began a ‘trial’ of Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch. The three doctors were charged under some seventy headings after having published the conclusion of research and clinical practice that suggested a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease and regressive autism in some children.

The hearing was ordered by the New Labour government and the single complainant was a pro-MMR Sunday Times journalist. The GMC took almost four years to produce the evidence and the hearing itself is expected to last around two years, making it one of the longest quasi-legal proceedings in British history.

The parents of MMR vaccine damaged children who all support the three doctors, have not been allowed a voice in the GMC hearing because their complaint on behalf of their children is against the pharmaceutical companies, the New Labour government and themedical establishment. This book is written almost entirely by these parents and for the first time it gives voice to the injustice that has been done to them and their children.

Articles:

The Urabe Farrago

A Recent Historical Example of Corporations and Governments Hiding Vaccine Damage for the Greater Good

You must assume the liability for the collateral damage.
Vaccines have side effects. We demand informed consent.
We demand greener vaccines. We demand choice for our children.

There are very powerful people in positions of great authority who have staked their reputations on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves.

On a blustery day in April 1998, Richard Barr and his colleague Kristin Limb wandered onto a large city railway station in England looking for a man called George. Barr and Limb worked for the law firm that was suing three pharmaceutical companies on behalf of 2,000 parent claimants for adverse reactions caused to their children by MMR. George had rung Barr's practice on a couple of occasions before speaking to him; he had, he insisted, important information he wanted to give to Dr Andrew Wakefield, the expert witness in the parents claim.

Continue reading: http://slingshotpublications.com/urabe.pdf

To Encourage the Others

http://www.slingshotpublications.com/damage.html

Chance is a word void of sense;
Nothing can exist without a cause.
Voltaire

There are no accidents.
Master ShiFu in Kung Fu Panda.

When police and paramedics arrived at the house of the distraught Fisher family, on the morning of January 19th 2006 they found two-year-old George Fisher dead and were unable to resuscitate him. He was declared dead exactly 10 days after his MMR vaccination. His lungs and blood examined during the autopsy, showed measles virus, while his enlarged spleen showed he was fending off a virus.

Over three days, two and a half years later, in November 2008 Coroner Alan Crickmore presided over the Inquest into George Fisher's death. Apart from the bereaved parents, the amphitheatre court was full of pharmaceutical company representatives and vaccine and immunological department apparatchiks, including Dr Liz Miller, formerly of the Public Health Laboratory Service and more recently head of the Immunisation Department of the Health Protection Agency.

Crickmore, a solicitor with a one-man-band practice in a small black fronted office resembling a funeral director's on the High Street in Cheltenham, deals with everything from divorce to licensing and conveyancing and civil partnership to cohabitation. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1980 he became the Coroner for Gloucestershire a decade later. Making a formal complaint against him following the Inquest the Fisher family described him as 'a man without any social skills'. The Fishers maintain that he was brusque and rude to them throughout the hearing and acted with a condescending and authoritarian abruptness to their female counsel.

Continue reading: http://slingshotpublications.com/MMR-Damage.pdf

An Appeal For Funds

Martin Walker, one Britain's few independent investigative writers, author of Dirty Medicine, has been deeply committed to the campaign against vaccine damage denial being waged by thousands of parents in Britain and the US. For almost two years now, he has attended the General Medical Council (GMC) fitness to practice hearing against Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith, being held in London.

This is an entirely self-interested prosecution in which the GMC pays the prosecution, picks the jury (or panel) and even employs the legal assessor who sits with the panel. The trial has proceeded with hundreds of charges based originally on the word of a journalist, Brian Deer. Deer works for The Sunday Times, which is owned by News International whose Chief Executive, James Murdoch, now sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline, a manufacturer of MMR. The intention of the hearing is to damage Dr Wakefield's name and reputation, and get him struck off the medical register, thereby stopping him from giving evidence, anywhere, against MMR or its adverse reactions. Although the hearing was meant to last three months, the prosecution has been dragged out to become one of the longest regulatory trials in British history.

Walker has followed and written about the hearing not just because he is committed to exposing ways in which the drug companies and the GMC manipulate legal and other realities, but because a large number of parents of autistic and otherwise vaccine-damaged children, who have been air-brushed out of this show trial, have great difficulty in attending it. Walker is now finding it difficult to fund coverage of the last stages of the hearing. He says:

"In the beginning and at different occasions, autism-related individuals in the US have supported my work. Recently, however, I have had to depend on the parents of vaccine-damaged children who support Dr Wakefield. These parents are already under considerable financial pressures and I can no longer ask them for, or accept, their contributions.

As the hearing nears its end I feel like a marathon runner who can see the tape but whose knees are buckling and I am fearful that I will collapse. From the roadside I will be forced to watch hoards of disinterested mercenary journalists who have joined the marathon in the last hundred yards pass me to write their received and opportunist opinions about vaccines, vaccine damage and the GMC manipulation of evidence against the three doctors.

I need funding for my expenses in the last three months, on and off, of this hearing, I need this funding by the beginning of June when the hearing resumes again. I don't think that I need to state the obvious, that the trial is of real importance not just to Dr Wakefield and the two other defendants, but to the freedom of medical research and independent health practice in Britain. I will, however, state something that has not been quite so obvious over the last two years. Despite these three doctors being orthodox, and even conservative practitioners, there practices have been partly based upon nutritional and environmental approaches to the cause and diagnosis of gut and bowel disorders.

I will personally acknowledge any funding that is sent to me and if individuals provide me with their email address and a land address, I will send them copies of my most recent essays about hearing issues. I will also keep any contributors informed, by email, of my work and this appeal in the next four months. All my writing about the GMC hearing, well over 400 pages now, can be read on the CryShame web site. Any money in excess of that which I need to attend the hearing, will go towards the production of a book that I hope to publish after the trial ends in August."

Cheques should be made out to Martin J Walker and sent to:
Slingshot, BM BOX 8314, London WC1N 3XX.

Online Payments can also be made on the Slingshot Publications site at: www.slingshotpublications.com

The Village Voice Buries the Bodies

2009-04-03T04:56:00.000-07:00

Liam Scheff

http://liamscheff.com/daily/2009/04/03/the-village-voice-buries-the-bodies/

April 3rd, 2009

There are at least 200 dead children lying in the wake of the high-dose drug studies done by Columbia Presbyterian on orphans in NYC. The perpetrators won’t release a single medical record, not even to participants.

Children weren’t paid, families weren’t paid, weren’t asked.

The children and infants used in major drug trials were often orphans.

This week’s Village Voice doesn’t trouble the reader with this information in a meaningful way. They excuse it.

The Voice calls me a “Denialist” because I ask appropriate questions about HIV tests and AIDS drugs.

The questions are appropriate because questioning multi-national corporations is appropriate. Questioning the use and design of a technology – HIV testing – which is used to tell 30 million around the world that their lives are over, they’re sexual lepers, they must embark on a life-long course of potentially-fatal and body-altering drugs, which have killed adults at normal doses – asking the question, “how good is this test?” is necessary. And if you don’t ask the question, you give totalitarian power to a small, but immensely funded private sector of the international drug industry.

But. The Voice won’t list or talk about any of the drugs in detail.

The Voice Won’t talk about HIV tests in detail.

They assert that those who talk about these things in detail are no better than, essentially, Holocaust Denialists. A very effective slander, that pushes most people away from having the courage to talk about the issue.

The Voice directly uses (and acknowledges) my sources, but claims I’m not a reporter.

They retrace an article I did three years ago ( Inside Incarnation NYPress), using the same sources, and more or less acknowledge that they’re doing so. But I’m not a journalist, they say. I didn’t bring them all of this information. But, I did, and they say so. They therefore contradict themselves in trying to libel me.

The VERA Institute, essentially given a mandate to cover up the story, was paid three million dollars to admit that many children died, and to publicly assure the public that no drug could possibly be to blame. They excuse high dose Black Box drugs used on infants and children, up to 7 and 8 drugs at a time, each of which is capable of killing an adult.

They do this while simultaneously admitting that they were FORBIDDEN from looking at a SINGLE medical record for ANY of the children. The VERA researcher then tells the Voice reporter, Elizabeth Dwoskin, that they really can’t be sure of their assertion, or any assertion, because they had no access to medical records.

That’s a nice three million dollars worth of bullshit.

I broke this story. It’s a national and international scandal. The data and information I provided is now the permanent record. Nobody disputes any detail, they’ll suppress it, but they won’t dispute it, they won’t allow it to be argued, because all of this is true and demonstrates the profound corruption that has become part of the medical and AIDS industry:

Children were used without permission in drug trials. Many died.
The drugs were almost to a one FDA Black Box labeled drugs, meaning they’d killed or maimed adults at normal doses, some with horrifying, literally skin-peeling toxicity.

I published that list of studies years ago, and from the start named the drugs, the major studies, and the major pharmaceutical companies who were benefiting from the free use of orphans, who they were able to kill children in trials without punishment.

HIV tests are polyreactive, and they are the justification for labeling these children as ‘dead already,’ as expendable.

No children or families were compensated for their use, or their death. No money was paid to use, or use up these children.

These children were orphans, and the use of orphans in trials like this nationally was further exposed by John Solomon doing his own investigation for the AP.
So let’s look at the response by the AIDS police –

“Attack Liam Scheff. Distract from the many dead children. Attack. Distract. Attack. Distract.”

“Don’t pay these kids who we’ve ruined, or killed. Don’t pay their families. Don’t admit publicly that HIV tests are polyreactive, and non-standardized. Don’t admit publicly that these drugs kill very well on their own.”

“Do attack Liam Scheff. Do misquote him, do ascribe to him any variety of statements or beliefs, or behaviors that certainly don’t have to be true or hold up to any scrutiny. Just say them loud, and repeatedly, and don’t give him a chance to respond.”

And there you go. There you go, liberal NYC. You’ve got a lot of blood on your hands, and you want somebody to wipe it on.

You can wipe it on yourselves. You can wipe it on the AIDS industry. You owe these children, and this community. You owe Washington Heights, you owe a lot. More than you can bear to pay.

My correspondence with the Voice reporter, Elizabeth Dwoskin is here. and here She was a self-declared ‘science illiterate,” who was unable to get through a single medical paper on HIV testing; she lied plainly to me about her intentions for the story, she begged for leads and sources and information, which I provided her, and she perhaps was a tool for her editor – read for yourself if you want to know some of what the paper suppressed.

I am available for radio and television interview. Please contact me via my website.

Sicko - Why Michael Moore is flat out wrong about healthcare...

2007-09-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

by Mark Hyman, M.D.

http://www.ultrametabolism.com/blog/?q=blog

I just watched Michael Moore's new movie, "Sicko." Today, I'd like to talk about what I saw.

This is not my usual solution-oriented blog about health problems.

But stay with me, because I want to help you understand what has to happen for meaningful change to occur in our "sick" healthcare system.

And it is NOT what Michael Moore suggests.

Now back to the movie.

I must say I was disappointed. I was hoping for a novel look at the problem of not only access to healthcare, but of the type of healthcare that is practiced.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm all for more access to healthcare, better healthcare, and lower costs.

But I am not for getting more people access to a broken healthcare system that creates more problems than it solves.

Consider this.

Our healthcare system itself is the leading cause of death overall, followed by heart disease and cancer!

If our healthcare system is responsible for more than 700,000 deaths a year from medical errors, hospital infections, bed sores, surgical errors, drug reactions, and more, which lead to an extra $250 billion in costs, do we want more people to be exposed to this type of care?

I don't think so!

Moore's answer to all our healthcare woes is to have a single payer system, like Canada.

I went to medical school and internship in Canada -- and I can tell you, the picture is not as rosy as it seems. I worked with a poor family doctor who had to see more than 50 patients a day just to earn a basic living.

And when the doctors went on strike because they were unhappy with the system, the death rate actually went down.

If the Canadian healthcare system is so great, why have so many of my medical school class migrated south of the border to the US?

Universal coverage may be part of the solution -- or not -- but Moore really missed the whole point.

If we improve a broken system just by reorganizing how it is paid for, we still have a broken system.

He didn't address that in any way.

In fact, Moore's movie is a distraction from the real problem.

The type of medicine we are practicing is antiquated, often dangerous, and based on the wrong premises and outdated approaches.

Instead, it must be founded on the laws of biology that help us address the true causes of disease, not just find better drugs or procedures to deal with them once they occur.

Getting more people access to the wrong treatments does not help us in the long term to create a sustainable model of health for society.

The thing Moore misses is a direct discussion and analysis of the lack of QUALITY in our healthcare system.

And quality is defined as the health of our population, which is clearly worse than almost every developed nation and worse than many third world countries. We are 45th in life expectancy, coming after Bosnia and just ahead of Albania!

I do not dispute the inherent problems in healthcare, where the whole system profits from reducing access to care, denying care, avoiding preventive care, or shifting costs to employers.

When Starbucks pays more for the healthcare of its employees than it does for coffee beans, then we know we are in trouble.

What Michael Moore ignores is that the entire ecosystem of business and products and services related to the health of our population has its whole orientation backwards.

You see, the healthcare industry and the food industry profit from us being sick and fat. All the incentives are backwards.

==> Until it is PROFITABLE for everyone to help create health rather than disease, we will not thrive as a society.

So we need to find a way to line up all the incentives for everyone involved in healthcare:

* For the insurers (or government, which actually pays 60 percent of all healthcare bills through Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, tax deductions, and other incentives);
* The pharmaceutical industry;
* The hospital industry;
* The food industry, where the sale of products that support health would bring in more profits than foods that destroy health; and
* The doctors, who would be paid more for creating health than doing procedures.

Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University says:

"It is difficult to think of any major industry that might benefit if people ate less food; certainly not the agriculture, food product, grocery, restaurant, diet, or drug industries. All flourish when people eat more, and all employ armies of lobbyists to discourage governments from doing anything to inhibit overeating." (1)

Clearly, something needs to change.

"Sicko" did have some interesting points.

The best part of the film was the part where a British doctor described how he was paid more for helping people lose weight, stop smoking, improve their blood sugar, and lower their cholesterol.

If an American doctor does that, he or she LOSES money. The British doctors actually get a BONUS for keeping people healthy!

The American doctor gets paid thousands of dollars for doing angioplasties and stent procedures and maybe 30 dollars for talking to someone about their cholesterol.

Though doctors are generally well meaning, well-intentioned people, the healthcare system appeals to their dark side.

Do more procedures, provide more invasive care, and get paid more -- EVEN if it ultimately does not benefit the patient.

What is absolutely frightening is that the system of payment for care and the system as a whole almost NEVER address the issue of VALUE of the care we get.

Value is the benefit and improved outcome of care, divided by the cost of the care. (VALUE = OUTCOME/COSTS).

Think of it this way.

If you paid for a fancy new car but it had no engine or no tires or didn't run when you put the key in the ignition, the car company would go out of business.

But in medicine in America today, we have a shiny new system that just doesn't run very well despite paying 40 percent more for healthcare than any other nation in the world.

That's almost $7,000 per person, or close to $2 trillion total (one-third of which is for administration costs).

In American healthcare, the outcome of that care is mostly ignored -- namely, the health of the patient!

In a landmark 2001 report from the Institute of Medicine called "Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century," the authors said:

"Between the healthcare we that we have now and the healthcare that we could have lies not just a gap, but a chasm."

So what is the real solution?

Even though I know where we need to end up, I don't have all the answers.

But I do know this.

We have to change the competing needs in the healthcare industry and related industries.

Promoting and treating sickness should not generate more profit. Creating health should.

So how can we, as a society, line up all the needs and interests of all stakeholders in our "sick" healthcare system?

If we follow the trail through our healthcare forest, it will be clear that an alignment of values, needs, and interests must occur if there is to be meaningful change.

It will also be clear that no one component can be separated from any other and that if we create change in one area of the system, often negative forces will fill in the blank space.

Let's follow the trail of a simple soda and French fries, for example.

The government subsidizes farmers to grow corn and soy crops with $30 billion a year, which fuels the fast and junk food industry with high-fructose corn syrup and trans fatty acids, which are used to produce energy-dense, poor-quality, disease-creating foods such as soda and French fries. (2)

At the same time, funds for local schools are limited. So they cannot provide students with quality food choices and physical education.

Then the food industry steps in, encouraging children to subsist on nutrient-poor, energy-dense foods from vending machines for their breakfasts and lunches.

The marketing for these products exceeds $30 billion a year (more than $13 billion of which is aimed at children), increasing demand.

These are tax-deductible expenses to corporations, which are in effect further subsidies by our government.

These children, then, become obese and diabetic in their 20s and require care for heart disease and amputations before they are 30, for which the government in part must pay.

So what is the answer?

I know that with the creative intelligence and ingenuity of this country, we can find a solution. I don't know exactly what it is, but I do know this.

As long as the any one party has to lose for another to win, we are doomed to failure. In order for things to work, everyone has to win!

We have to make it profitable to improve the quality of our food supply, to encourage physical activity and to reduce stress in our lives.

When a hospital diabetes prevention program is so successful in helping patients improve their health and reduce amputations and complications of diabetes that it has to be shut down because the hospital LOSES money by charging only $60 for a nutrition consult instead of getting $6,000 for a toe amputation -- then we know something is seriously wrong with our incentives.

We have to make it profitable to help patients get healthy, and have business MAKE money by providing preventive care and lifestyle programs that create health.

The politics of food, agriculture, environment, and education cannot be divorced from the traditional healthcare stakeholders: patients, providers, insurers, employers, payers, and government.

We have to address the roots of the problems and create a system where everyone involved thrives.

And despite Michael Moore's laser focus on a single payer system as the answer to all our healthcare problems, we need a much broader and bigger change in healthcare.

What should those changes involve? I think this topic is so important that I'll be discussing it in next week's blog, too. Stay tuned!

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Have you seen "Sicko" yet?

What did you think?

What parts of the healthcare system do think need fixing most?

What ideas do you have for fixing our healthcare system?

What do you totally agree or disagree with?

Please click on the Add a Comment button below to share your thoughts.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

(1) Nestle, M. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (California Studies in Food and Culture, 3). Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press; 2003.

(2) Bitton A, Kahn JG. MSJAMA: Government share of healthcare expenditures.
JAMA. 2003;289(9):1165.

Shiatsu Massage - Interview with John Kozinski of the Kushi Institute

2007-08-08T04:05:00.001-07:00

Author's note: Since this article was first published in 2004 the situation in France has changed, with a certain amount of progress being made thanks to the creation of various associations for the promotion of holistic massage. However, only time will tell as to whether or not these associations will continue to be a protective force, in view of the pressures on most associations to conform to escalating regulatory measures imposed by government and industry.

October 31, 2004

It comes as rather a surprise to people in countries such as the UK and the US, where alternative medicine is still practised relatively freely, to learn that in the more medically repressive countries such as France, shiatsu massage is a crime punishable by law. With massage having been 'colonised', redefined and controlled by the medical authorities, the only legitimate form permitted (unless you choose to sneak off and bravely practise on the black market) is what you'll get from the official knee-cracking 'kinesithérapeutes' who wouldn't know a shiatsu from their big toe.

So before the current tide of prohibitive legislation jump steps the rest of the world into line with countries such as France, it would be a worthwhile aim to learn about this valuable therapy whose roots reach back to antiquity.

In the following interview, John Kozinski - counsellor and tutor at the Kushi Institute Massachusetts - explains macrobiotic shiatsu, Do-In (a relative of shiatsu practised on oneself) and the macrobiotic view of supplements.

EH: Could you explain why, in your opinion, shiatsu has been gaining so much popularity worldwide? How can shiatsu help those with candida?

JK: I think there are several reasons. Shiatsu and related massage therapies from China are superbly effective methods of healing in the hands of a skilled and healthy practitioner. In developed countries, a different kind of stress has arisen; a stress from poor diets, inactive lifestyles, a lack of social supports and other trappings of modern lifestyles. Shiatsu is very effective for helping to melt the tension in the body that is created by these causes.

EH: Do-In is also becoming more popular recently. Is Do-In a 'do-it-yourself-shiatsu'? What are the advantages?

JK: Do-In is the Japanese name for what in China was called internal exercise, 8 Brocades, Tao-Yin, Nei Gung and recently (in the last 50 years, Chi Gung). There are hundreds of forms. I believe that the increased popularity is related to the same reasons that Shiatsu is gaining popularity plus when done correctly it is incredibly energizing. The effects of practising high level do-in or qigong can go much deeper than Shiatsu

EH: Could you explain the difference between traditional and macrobiotic shiatsu?

JK: Macrobiotic Shiatsu incorporates 1) an understanding of the effect of diet and lifestyle in creating a person's condition. A Macrobiotic Shiatsu practitioner can tell what foods have contributed to a person's health condition through touch and 2) the use of a form of Asian diagnosis that shows which organs are troubled and how food and lifestyle was a major cause. Macrobiotic shiatsu practitioners focus also on keeping their diets and lifestyles balanced so that their own ki ( life force ) is functioning well. Through a healthy condition, they are able to transmit energy to the receiver.

EH: Thought differs amongst macrobiotic therapists as to the benefits of supplements. What would you say is your position on the subject?

JK: The nutrients in vitamin supplements are very different from the nutrients in foods. When you isolate nutrients from foods, the activity of the vitamin is lost. Some effect is achieved. In the long run, ingesting isolated substances will have very negative effects on a person's health. I feel that certain vitamins may be used for short times, and become harmful after a few months. It has been my experience that it is difficult for a person to eat balanced whole foods when taking vitamins. Strong craving arise for sweets, fats, excess flour products, and proteins

I would suggest for serious deficiencies in vitamins and minerals, that a person seek out vitamin and mineral supplements from food concentrates. Several companies produce these types of supplements. They are derived from foods.

I do not believe that vitamins and mineral supplements should be outlawed or only prescribed by doctors. You and others have written about the movement afoot to ban supplements. This would be a tragedy. Once certain supplements are outlawed, it is only a matter of time before other natural foods, and substances, such as herbs, are regulated. I applaud the work that you and others are doing in opposing the outlawing and regulating of supplements.

EH: Do you know of any supplements that may be of value to candida sufferers?

JK: Soil based pro-biotics can be of great benefit for 3-6 months or longer. If these are taken with a balanced macrobiotic whole foods diet, the effect is amplified and sustained.

Foods that benefit the candida sufferers are fermented foods such as miso, and unpasturized pickles. This recommendation would take some explaining because, as you know, people diagnosed with candida are, often, suggested to avoid fermented foods.

From my studies, candida, at its root, is caused by an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in the colon. Healthy bacteria keep the naturally small amounts of candida, yeast, in check. The enzymes in miso, and unpasturized pickles, such as sauerkraut, aid the pancreas in digesting foods fully, and promote healthy bacteria in the colon. The only caution is use soybean miso for the first 2 months of introducing miso. After this period, barley miso would be best.

High quality oils in the form of extra-virgin olive oil and sesame oil are, also, very helpful for the candida sufferers. This oil helps the body to fully digest proteins in foods. If the proteins in foods are not fully digested, the protein may rot and form harmful bacteria. 1-2 teaspoons, at each meal, would be best. This can be eaten in the form of dressings, in soup and very lightly sautéed.

EH: What is your view on magnet therapy? Could you explain a little about the basic principals of this therapy?

JK: Magnet therapies vary in the way they affect people.
The majority of the magnets are placed on the body with the negative pole facing down. People also sleep on magnetic pads which have this polarity. These pads or applications can be very useful for people who have pain or are exhausted from eating too many sweets and refined foods. In my health counselling, I recommend magnetic products on a case by case basis. From a macrobiotic view, people who have hard, tight ( or yang ) conditions from eating too much meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, salt or hard baked flour products, should not use magnetic products. Magnetic products tighten and contract loose tissues, and organs.

EH: Many candida sufferers are prone to alcoholism and addiction to foods that may make them ill. What do you think might be the solutions to the widespread problem of alcohol, drug and food addictions?

JK: This is a larger question, and would require a much more extensive answer. I would be happy to answer this in more detail. In general, I feel that modern diets and lifestyles are prone to creating hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar in many individuals. My sense is that this is the trigger that leads people to medicate their discomfort with alcohol, drugs and foods. After the initial trigger, these substances become a coping mechanism, a self-sustaining cycle. This occurs, on a biochemical level, because sugar, drugs, caffeine, and alcohol stimulate the production of the feel good neurotransmitters in the brain. The problem is after a period of use, the body requires more of these stimulants to create the feel good effect.

You can cause the body to produce these neurotransmitters without the drugs, alcohol or sugar. To do this, at each meal, a person needs to eat properly prepared ( fermented) whole grains, such as brown rice, and millet, a healthy fat, and a protein rich foods ( beans, fish or if still eating them, naturally raised animal products).

I know of many who have broken the cycle of addiction and created healthier and happier lives.

EH: Support and understanding from family and friends when making changes in one's diet are not always guaranteed. Especially when there is currently so much black-listing and harassment of alternative medicine therapists by certain politicians, medical authorities and members of the press who are protecting the financial interests of the large pharmaceutical industries.

JK: I think that it is important to be aware that there is a concerted effort to keep people in line with social pressures to conform. Anything different that a person wants to do is often criticized by friends and family. Once a person becomes aware of this, he or she can cope with and break out of the cycle
How can an over-worked mother ease her family away from a poor diet when faced with such opposition?

I've worked with many women in this sort of situation. I would suggest to begin by education. Learn about the problem, and slowly make changes in your diet and lifestyle. Find friends who will support you in doing something different and healthy from the rest of the crowd. Although some of his ideas are somewhat hard to accept, David Icke explains quite well in his books the situation of the social pressures of doing and thinking anything different. I would suggest :"An Introduction to Macrobiotics" by Oliver Cowmeadow and 7 Days to Better Health by Jon Sandifer as 2 wonderful books to help improve a person's health.

EH: Macrobiotic cooking is generally very sparing with the oil. However, candida sufferers, not being able to eat much sugary food often turn to oil for flavour and enjoyment. What's more, olive oil, which is used less in macrobiotics, has the property of inhibiting the candida bacteria's tendency to change into it's fungal form. What are your views on oils? Are there any studies that support the benefits of increasing oil as opposed to reducing it?

JK: Oil is harder to digest for many people with candida.. I suggest that people with candida begin to add oil to their diets, slowly. I would suggest, as a starter, to include two teaspoons of olive oil at each meal. If a person can digest this amount of fats, they can then experiment with more.

After counselling people with the macrobiotic approach for 25 years, and observing many health conditions, I have come to the conclusion that most people need more oil than is in most of the macrobiotic cookbooks. Some candida sufferers have had some success with the use of coconut oil, also.

EH: Thank you John

Michael Moore Applauds French Medical Hegemony

2007-06-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister, France

A recent interview with Michael Moore, 'Sicko' spawns Moore fever in Cannes, by Jill Lawless, concludes, after lavishly praising the Cuban, British and French healthcare systems:

"Are there flaws in those systems? Absolutely. But those are flaws for the people in those countries to correct, not me." And with that, he disappeared into another cheering crowd.

Speaking as an ex-patient who has lived many years in France, I'd like to know how 'we' are supposed to correct the fact that our system of government-controlled universal healthcare has effectively outlawed naturopathy by making it illegal for anyone other than a vaccination-chemo-ARV-pushing allopathic doctor to practise 'natural therapies'. I'd like to know how we are supposed to correct the fact that you can go to jail for not 'immunising' your children with poisonous vaccines, and how we are supposed to recover the right to self treat with herbal remedies from our back gardens when it has been made an offence under the laws forbidding the 'illegal practice of medicine'. I'd like to know how we are supposed to stop the medical authorities from harassing the true naturopathic practitioners, such as yoga instructors, closing down their workshops, accusing them of being 'gurus of dangerous sects'.

Moore's film is clearly praise for the drug industry masquerading as criticism. It is the total annihilation of true alternative medicine that he is supporting with his campaign to promote universal healthcare. The real face of universal healthcare in France is far less about helping poor people gain access to 'life-saving medical treatment', and far more about forcing mandatory toxic treatments upon all people and preventing them from using natural means and true disease prevention to look after their own health.

Wagging an admonishing finger at right-wing corporatism and applauding government-controlled (aka 'socialised') healthcare systems certainly hits a popular note these days; we're all tired of fascism and injustice. However by playing into the totally mainstream political paradigm of Left versus Right, Democrat versus Republican politics, Moore is doing nothing revolutionary or anti-establishment, certainly nothing even remotely anti-medical industry.

Oh, that ever-burning question 'Who is going to take care of the poor?'. Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We know that right-wing governments certainly aren't going to, but does this automatically mean that left-wing governments or systems of 'socialised' healthcare do? Are human rights and the individual's health truly more protected and respected by the Government in a left-wing-style or, further still, in a Communist health regime?

Ultimately the question is 'Will the beast of corporate fascism be beaten by universal healthcare?' The British National Health Service is proof of the contrary, as is the 'saintly' French healthcare set-up, both systems slavishly devoted to the pharmaceutical-medical-industrial complex. Whether in France or in the UK, a visit to the doctor is most likely to mean sitting long hours in a waiting room. On arrival at his desk, the patient is greeted with a rushed interview, discouraged from expressing an opinion, is told peremptorily what they need, which is more often than not a prescription for pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals that produce vicious side effects that have the patient running back to the doctor for help, when once again more pharmaceuticals will be prescribed, with the added bonus, if the doctor is so inclined, of being put on a waiting list for surgery. So the medical industry under universal healthcare is well fed; in fact, like Moore, it is veritably obese.

One could argue that the French and British healthcare systems, although both of them have embraced universal healthcare over the last few decades, are so different as to be diametrically opposed, given the still relatively liberal approach in the UK where true alternative medicine has not yet been banished and rendered illegal, as opposed to the draconian regime in France. It is still possible in England to run away from the government-run healthcare system and take refuge in alternative therapies, which is indeed what a vast sector of the population does, finding it preferable to pay for natural healthcare out of their own pockets rather than be subjected to the medical-industry robots in the UK government's medical programme.

These differences between the universal healthcare in France and the UK only create confusion when one tries to initiate discussions between Europeans and Americans. While certain Americans' hair stands on end at the spectre of 'socialised medicine' in the UK, quail as they do at the sight of a country gone to the 'Commie Dawwgs', many English people scratch their heads and express confusion over the fact that if the UK were a 'Commie country', how is it that we've always lived in an overtly capitalist society with many years of right-wing corporate-hungry governments, not to mention left-wing corporate-hungry governments? Furthermore, the average English or French person may wonder what on earth is so superior about the American healthcare system for them to be getting into such a state about ours. So one can understand how the many Americans who express a horror of 'socialised medicine', a term coined by the American Medical Association, formerly opposed, now pro, do not succeed in convincing the French and English that our system is inherently evil. It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

However, to assume therefore that socialised medicine or universal healthcare must be 'good' is a trap many fall into. In the UK it is difficult to imagine that we may lose our right to flee from the government-run pharmaceutical-medical-industry-oriented system into the reassuring arms of our alternative medicine practitioners who get by well enough despite being outside the mainstream medical structure. We cannot imagine losing that right. We hope, expect, that some future government will welcome alternative medicine into its programme.

And there lies the trap that awaits us. The trap is the fact that we trust that some government will genuinely care about the individual's health above big industry concerns. Hands up who really trusts politicians to put individual health rights above the dictates of big industry. The trap that has been laid out before us is across the Channel. It is France's healthcare regime where alternative medicine has apparently been integrated into the mainstream medical paradigm with acupuncture and homeopathy being offered by some mainstream doctors. Do not be fooled. What exists in France is the prostitution of the complementary and integrative medicine camp to the allopathic mainstream medical industry and the result is the prohibition of true alternative medicine.

The French social security system, like the UK's NHS, has long been poisoning and mutilating the population 'for free' (or rather not so free as it comes heavily from our taxes). In the UK, if you're lucky, the prospect of a huge waiting list for mainstream treatment may force you to revert to natural self treatment and alternative therapies. However, in France that is illegal.

France is the pioneer in this hybridisation of 'naturopathy', complementary/integrative medicine and mainstream medical practice. And it has long been the case that alternative medicine is dead in France, one of the most over-medicated countries in the world. It is a country of medical victims.

In this complementary/allopathic marriage and Utopia of universal healthcare, 'disease prevention' is sucked up and reinvented by the dominant medical industry, supported lovingly by its complementary/integrative disciple. Prevention is no longer really about improving diet and lifestyle but more about mandatory vaccinations, blood tests, electronic patient-tracking systems and x-ray cancer screenings to feed the chemo industry.

Furthermore, as the CAM/allopathic system pushes ever more towards 'evidence-based' and industry-friendly 'complementary' medicine, the tiny amount of alternative medicine practices that have been integrated into the system do not remain reimbursed/'free' for long, as in the case of the recent severing of homeopathy by the French system. So integration into the system means nothing more than tighter restrictions on alternative medicine followed by cuts that force you to pay anyway for what little is left on offer.

To get back to the question of the 'poor poor', how can anyone be helped by a healthcare system that inflicts abusive medical practices upon them against their will? How can 'the poor', or anyone, be happy when basic human rights are flushed down the toilet as government-controlled mandatory medication of the population becomes the norm?

One of the only journalists who is clearly and consistently exposing the betrayal of true grassroots alternative medicine by the influential armies of complementary/integrative medicine marching in step with the mainstream allopathic Medical Industry is Peter Chowka.

The following is a selection of his articles from his website http://chowka.com

Peter Barry Chowka is an investigative journalist and medical-political analyst who specializes in reporting on alternative and innovative therapies and the politics of health care. Since the 1970s, he has broken a number of important stories, including the federal government's cover-up of its own promising research on diet and cancer, the Hoxsey herbal cancer therapy, and the suppression of Dr. Linus Pauling's research on vitamin C and health. In April 1994 Peter did the last interview with Dr. Pauling before the two-time Nobel prize winner died at age 93 four months later.

Peter's work has been published widely, both in print and, over the past decade, on the Internet. He has appeared in major documentary films, has written for television, and has been a guest on several hundred radio and TV talk shows, most recently the nationally syndicated Coast to Coast AM on April 24, 2007. Between 1992-'94, Peter was an advisor to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine.

Recently, Peter has been investigating the push for "universal health care" which he sees as the most serious threat to Americans' freedom, autonomy, and choice in medicine since the country was founded.

His Web site is http://chowka.com

Universal Health Care Marches On And Other Outrages

(June 1, 2007) It continues to be popular in many CAM (complementary alternative medicine) circles to focus on issues (or non-issues) like the FDA's CAM Guidance document or this or that piece of proposed Congressional legislation that might at some future time negatively impact the public's ability to access nutritional supplements. In this writer's opinion, this kind of preoccupation is equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship is bearing down on the fatal iceberg.

The “iceberg” looming ahead for proponents of CAM and alternative medicine, as well as for every American who believes in freedom of medical choice, is universal (government-controlled) health care. And surveying the political landscape, seventeen months before the 2008 Presidential and Congressional elections, it looks like it will take a miracle to stop its final advance.

“Universal health care” is a clever, Orwellian attempt at Newspeak – giving a palatable or neutral name to government-run (or completely socialized) conventional medicine and shoving it down the throats of the American people. Clearly, the spin has been largely successful. Continue reading . . .

Tempests in a Teapot Brew and Subside, and Other Real and Accurate Alternative Medical News

(May 15, 2007) As I reported on May 1, a classic tempest in a teapot was brewing all spring as a number of self-styled “health freedom” groups and individuals attempted to foment a massive Internet-driven e-uprising to challenge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) supposed intention to regulate complementary alternative medicine (CAM). Continue reading . . .

New Controversies Challenge the Health Freedom Movement - Health Freedom Rights and Universal Health Care Make It to National Talk Radio

(May 1, 2007, last updated 5/2/7 09:04 GMT) In recent weeks, few Internet users have not been subjected to a large number of “sky is falling” e-mails, emanating from a variety of groups, calling attention to alleged imminent threats to Americans' continued access to nutritional supplements and other CAM (complementary alternative medicine) modalities at the hands of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and, more recently, the Congress in the form of a U.S. Senate FDA reform bill, S. 1082 (see end of this article for an update on S. 1082). A number of blogs have now taken up the cause, this one at Daily Kos being an example.

The ball got rolling in this area on April 5, when something called the Natural Solutions Foundation (NSF) began sending out hyperbolic-sounding mass e-mails on a sensational new subject. Continue reading . . .

Government Begins to Enforce Conventional (Allopathic) Medicine Mandates on Americans

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. – Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956) p. 247

(April 15, 2007) The concept of “universal health care,” reportedly so popular with the American electorate now, may at first glance sound appealing. We are told that under a “single payer” (government-run) system, one can just sit back, theoretically at least, and stop worrying as cradle to grave health care will be made available to everyone on an equal basis – the best that American medicine has to offer, infinitely more affordable, possibly even free, to masses of people who are currently losing sleep over the possibility of going bankrupt under the problematic status quo health care delivery system (a mix of the free market and big government programs like Medicaid and Medicare) or who have no health insurance at all.

As usual, however, there are prices to be paid for such a Faustian bargain, with the uncontrolled financial costs and other downsides rarely if ever made apparent, or admitted, at the onset of a new government program.

Among the indirect costs are the emerging plans to set up huge new government databases (tapping into and mining private commercial databases) and large new bureaucracies to “track down” and enforce compliance on residents who fail to buy approved medical coverage. Continue reading . . .

April Fool’s Alt Med News Updates

(April 1, 2007) I wish these developments were April Fool’s jokes, but unfortunately each one is all too true.

As I have been documenting in recent articles, the advance toward “universal health care” (socialized medicine) in the United States is continuing, with ever greater momentum in the political and media spheres. In fact, it is impossible for one person, no matter how much time he has on his hands and Internet access and searching skills he has at his disposal, to keep up with it all.

Each day, there are scores if not hundreds of new articles, Op-Ed opinion pieces, white papers, public opinion polls, scientific journal articles, blog entries, political speeches, proposed laws, and more – all advancing the idea that conventional allopathic health care is a “right” which must be guaranteed to and forced on all U.S. residents by the government. Continue reading . . .

The Mandatory HPV Vaccine: Where O Where is the Alt Med Community?

(March 15, 2007) In the wake of surprisingly widespread and vocal public opposition to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s order on February 2nd that all girls who attend school in his state must receive the new vaccination for HPV (the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus) when they enter the sixth grade – a series of three shots that can cost a total of $360 or more and have, according to some critics, unknown health and medical impacts – the Texas House voted 119-21 on March 13th to support a bill by a Republican legislator that says the vaccine cannot be a condition for school entry. The corrective legislation will go next to the Texas Senate, which is expected to pass it, and then to the governor, who may veto it.

The nationwide momentum on the part of conventional physicians, drug industry lobbyists, and politicians to mandate the vaccine, called Gardasil and manufactured by Merck, for girls ages 10-12 has not slowed, however. On March 1st, Virginia's Democrat Gov. Tim Kaine announced that he would sign a bill that will require sixth grade girls to receive the HPV vaccine beginning Oct. 1, 2008. An indication of mainstream media spin is the Washington Post's editorial “A Shot of Common Sense” (March 9th), which says that Kaine's decision “brought some much-needed sense” to the “increasingly irrational national debate” about mandating HPV vaccines. Continue reading . . .

Alternative Medicine

(January 1, 2007) In this space early in 2005, I asked the question “Is Alternative Medicine Dead?” My analysis then was somewhat equivocal. As the New Year 2007 dawns, however, the answer, in my opinion, would have to be an unqualified “yes.”

Throughout the past year the signs of alternative medicine's demise were increasingly unmistakable, although, for most interested observers, they were probably well below or completely off the radar screen of awareness. That's because the non-threatening, watered down hybrids, called “CAM” (complementary alternative medicine) or “integrative medicine,” that have virtually replaced primary alternative medicine are now entrenched and well accepted – providing people who are inclined to, or profiting from, natural healing with a false sense of reassurance.

A sign of this phenomenon might be my experience in walking through a large Macy's department store at the fashionable Fashion Valley mall in San Diego last month. Plastered on a floor to ceiling advertising kiosk in the cosmetics department was a larger than life black and white photo of “the foremost authority on integrative health,” Andrew Weil, M.D., selling skin beauty creams. Clearly, CAM (or “integrative health”) has arrived. Continue reading . . .

RELATED ARTICLES BY OTHER WRITERS

The French Prohibition on Words Related to Healing By Emma Holister, France

A Veritable Dictatorship By Sylvie Simon, France

No Freedom, Thankyou, We're French! by Jacques Valentin, France

The French Prohibition on Words Related to Healing

2007-06-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

By Emma Holister

Author's note: Since this article was first published in 2004 the situation in France has changed, with a certain amount of progress being made thanks to the creation of various associations for the promotion of holistic massage. However, only time will tell as to whether or not these associations will continue to be a protective force, in view of the pressures on most associations to conform to escalating regulatory measures imposed by government and industry.

October 9, 2004

On reading the book "Healing, an Illegal Practice" by Sylvie Simon we not only discover the truth about the brutal repression of alternative medicine in France but that the very title of her book itself is causing a scandal.

Those in Alternative Medicine in France are faced with the confusing task of having to dance around in a baffling battle of semantics in order to be able to use most natural, traditional, effective remedies. Simon's title is aptly chosen.

In France, merely using certain words pertaining to health matters is against the law(L4161-1). Any therapist claiming the 'therapeutic' or 'medicinal' properties of a natural treatment risks being denounced and dragged before the law courts for 'Illegal Practice of Medicine'. Worse still, they risk being denounced as gurus of dangerous sects. The repression is often both medical and religious in nature.

Practitioners of alternative medicine as well as patients and parents choosing alternative means to treat their children, are pursued, harassed, criminalized and even imprisoned at the whim of the pharmaceutically dominated medical authorities. There have been cases of parents losing custody over their children for child neglect for not complying with the laws on compulsory vaccination of children against diphtheria, tetanus, polio and tuberculosis. Most of which are no longer a threat, thus rendering the vaccinations redundant anyway. A school has the right to refuse access to a child who has not been injected with these dubious and frequently toxic chemicals, products that are harmful to the child's health and immune system.

The 'Inquisitors', as Simon calls them, do their utmost to stamp out the population's desire for alternative medicine. The general practitioners who prescribe pharmaceutical products daily may occasionally flaunt an acupuncture needle around as a token gesture to the French medical practice having 'successfully integrated' alternative medicine into its program. However, do not be fooled. By law, no one other than a doctor from the mainstream pharmaceutically oriented schools of medicine is allowed to prescribe, diagnose symptoms, or claim medicinal, therapeutic or healing benefits, for anything other than what is officially permitted by the medical authorities and therefore the pharmaceutical industry.

It is against the law for anyone other than a mainstream doctor to practise acupuncture and homeopathy. A contradiction? The truth of the matter is that the only way to officially see an alternative medicine practitioner is to go to your mainstream doctor, who naturally, more often than not, will prescribe you more antibiotics, synthetic hormones, anti-depressants, whilst claiming that acupuncture and homeopathy are 'very good' but are 'slower and less effective' than allopathic drugs. It is difficult to get through several years of medical school without having been won over by these views. Alternative medicine in France has been hijacked.

What is the result of this on the French language? Some therapists in alternative 'medicine' (don't say that word) have accepted the bitter pill of censorship and optimistically claim to have no problem with this legal obstacle. They argue that it is simply a question of abandoning all vocabulary pertaining to health in order to practise natural 'therapies' (be careful with that word) 'freely' (and that one).

What is more worrying is that the general feeling of aversion towards doctors that is now occurring in this over-prescribed country has lead to a predictable prejudice against sensitive words such as 'doctor', 'medical', 'cure'. Sylvie Simon has even been criticised for having used the words 'Healing' and 'Illegal' in her book, pointing out that alternative 'medicine' (don't say that word), does not 'cure' because the patient 'cures' himself, that alternative 'medicine' (or alternative whatsit) is not illegal as long as we don't use the vocabulary of doctors, because natural therapies have nothing to do with 'medicine', 'doctors' and 'cures', these now being dirty words that the pharmaceutical industry are welcome to keep, we don't want them anyway.

Well, let's see, what does that leave us with in terms of vocabulary?

When the massage therapist Savatofski was pursued by the medical authorities for using the word 'massage' (permission to use this word is only granted to the official 'kinésithérapeutes') the problem was aptly overcome by changing the word 'massage' to 'touching', which so far, is not against the law. So whilst the alternative medicine practitioners jump for joy for having found a way to continue practising their healing art without more ado, the clients may find themselves in the strange position of having to say 'I'm going to get touched' instead of 'I'm going to have a massage'.

What has the good old-fashioned health-promoting massage been reduced to? Getting touched in a non-therapeutic manner? That does indeed sound vaguely illegal.

What does a Chinese Doctor become? A Chinese Thingy? What does Oriental Medicine become? Oriental Stuff? What does Oriental Diagnosis become? Oriental What-ja-ma-call-it?

France may be the only country in the world to have an official government committee which studies all the new words occurring in French culture and which determines which of those words will be officially allowed or disallowed.

So before anyone could confiscate my old dictionary with its old fashioned terms, I got it out sneakily and discovered that nowhere is it stated that these 'medical' words are the exclusive property of the pharmaceutically oriented modern medical world. In fact, looking at my dictionary of word origins, I discovered that these words all have ancient origins in Greek and Sanskrit that trace the entire history of humanity. So in reality these terms, historically speaking, describe what has now ironically come to be known as 'Alternative Medicine'.

Seeing as our predecessors in all world cultures have always used these words, having always had the right to diagnose disease and prescribe healing remedies, it is difficult to understand why we must suddenly change and only allow the pharmaceutically oriented doctors to use them. Particularly in view of the fact that modern medicine is the leading cause of death in the world, and that is not even taking into account of the deaths caused by this same industry's commerce in pesticides and chemical warfare.

References:

Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto
Publishers: Bloomsbury Reference

Diagnosis:

The underlying meaning of Greek diagnosis was 'knowing apart'. It was derived from diagignoskein 'distinguish, discern,' a compound verb formed from the prefix dia- 'apart' and gignoskein 'know, perceive' (a relative of English 'know'). In post-classical times the general notion of 'distinguishing' or 'discerning' was applied specifically to medical examination in order to determine the nature of a disease.

Know:

The words for 'know' in the various Indo-European languages mostly belong to one large many-branched family which goes back ultimately to the base gn-, which also produced English can and ken. Its Latin offspring was noscere, from which English gets cognition, incognito, note, quaint, etc. From its Greek branch come English agnostic and diagnosis. And in other Indo-European languages it is represented by, among others, Sanskrit janati 'know'. Old Irish gnath 'known', and Russian znat. In the other Germanic languages it is the immediate relatives of English can (German and Dutch kennen, Swedish kanna, Danish kende) that are used for 'know': know itself, which was originally a reduplicated form, survives only in English.

The -ledge of knowledge was probably originally the suffix -lock 'action, process,' which otherwise survives only in wedlock. Acknowledge is derived from knowledge.

- agnostic, can, cognition, diagnosis, incognito, ken, knowledge note, quaint, recognise.

Medicine:

Latin mederi 'heal' underlies all the English 'medical' words (it was formed from the base med-, which also produced English remedy). From it was derived medicus 'doctor,' which has given English medical: and on medicus in turn were based Latin medicina 'practice of medicine' (source of English medicine) and medicari 'give medicine to' (source of English medicament and medicate).
-remedy

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary 1983

Diagnosis:

The identification of a disease by means of its symptoms: a formal determining description.

Diagnose:

To ascertain from symptoms, as a disease.

Diagnostic:

Distinguishing, differentiating that by which anything is known: a symptom.

Prescribe:

To lay down as a rule or direction: to give as an order: to appoint: to give directions for, as a remedy: to limit, set bounds to: to claim by prescription: to lay down rules: to give or make out a prescription: to make a claim on account of long possession: to become of no force through time.

Prescription:

The act of prescribing or directing: a written direction for the preparation of a medicine: a recipe: enjoyment, possession, use, etc. from time immemorial or for a period of time fixed by law by which a legal right or title is acquired: any claim based on long use, or an established custom taken as authoritative. : limitation of time within which action may be taken.

A Veritable Dictatorship

2007-06-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

By Sylvie Simon, France

From the book 'Healing: An Illegal Practice'

Translated by Emma Holister

"We have grown accustomed to believing that no illness can be cured without medicine. However, this is just a superstition. Medicines are always dangerous".
Gandhi

According to Plato, Socrates was condemned to death because he did not believe in the gods recognised by the State. Today, these gods have been replaced by bureaucrats and experts. Like Socrates, a great number of doctors who refuse to idolise the thought processes of these new masters are brought before a 'tribunal of exclusion', Le Conseil de l'Ordre (the Council of the Order of Doctors), who have assigned to themselves a regal power and abuse it with total impunity, all with the complicity of the health insurance organisations.

Throughout the centuries, unable to tolerate the deviations of those who drift from the established way of thinking, men of power have always found various methods to gag or prevent from 'causing damage' those who have dared to think and act differently.

In this country, 'exporter' of human rights, most people feel that the Inquisition is a practice of the past as we no longer torture in the name of God. However, we continue to torture doctors and patients in the name of a so-called medical science whose limitations and misdeeds can be constantly observed.

All doctors should have the freedom to act according to their conscience as the Hippocratic Oath declares. Furthermore, article 7 of the Code of Medical Ethics states: "The doctor is free to prescribe that which he considers the most appropriate according the circumstances". As for the Helsinki declarations (1964) and those of Tokyo (1975) that prohibit the Huriet law, the international conventions taken to national law are very clear: "In the treatment of a sick patient, the doctor must be free to resort to a new diagnostic or therapeutic method if he considers that it offers a hope of saving the life of a sick patient, returning them to health, and relieving their suffering."

In reality, however, therapeutic freedom does not exist in the land of human rights, of citizens' rights, despite certain declarations by our politicians who unanimously claim their adherence to freedom of therapeutic choice. Thus, during a dinner debate organised on February 5th 1998 at the Hotel Concorde Saint-Lazare by the association of friends of L'Evénement du Jeudi, without fear of ridicule Bernard Kouchner, the then Secretary of State for Health, declared before more than eighty people that in France "we have therapeutic freedom". Several people, suffering from illness, who were present at the debate were surprised to hear this as they had seen their medicines - not approved in France but liberally sold elsewhere - confiscated by the police a few months earlier by order of the Ministry of Health.

However, Bernard Kouchner has not always delivered this type of speech. In June 1995 he confided to the Revue des deux mondes, in an article entitled: "Medicine and Cruelty":

" . . . Our medical system has become perverse to the point that the interests of doctors can sometimes be at variance with those of the sick . . . And I will not even mention here the staggering number of appendixes that have been removed for no justifiable pathological reason in French clinics during a certain period. Nor the bladders that the surgeons - but do they still deserve that name? - have removed simply to increase their business figures, nor the trafficking in prostheses amongst certain dishonest orthopaedists who attempt to profit from a diabolical system . . . We have made great progress in medical science but we have lost sight of the most important thing: people! . . . The social security system that the French hold so dear will soon crumble if we don't seriously modify it. Small reforms will only slow down the decline. A critique of the beliefs and medical practices is necessary in our country. Let us reform medical training, where too many statistics are learned (most of which, moreover, are falsified, full of lies, erroneous and fallacious!), and not enough humanism; the CHU must give priority to the human and social sciences! . . ."

We can only agree, but why two different speeches as time goes by and circumstances change? The reality is very different from all these nice declarations we hear from the irresponsible 'people of responsibility'.

As a prosecutor once claimed back in 1930 during the trial of a healer: "It matters little that the guilty have cured their fellow beings! The only thing that interests me is if they have the right to cure. Only people holding diplomas have the right to heal and even to kill. Get a diploma, you the guilty, and you will have the right over life and death."

It is currently the case that doctors are stricken from the register and thus accused of the illegal practice of medicine, whilst still in possession of an incontestable diploma, but once removed from the register they find themselves forbidden to practise medicine and are often treated as "charlatans". So nothing has really changed since 1930 and the indictments of the modern-day prosecutors strangely resemble those of their forefathers, every time that a doctor is brought before a tribunal for having treated his patients with a substance that is 'not authorised' by the Faculty (Order) and hence considered dangerous, even if the evidence of its efficacy is manifest. These indictments produce the same litany: "The question is not whether you have cured but that you did not have the right to do so!". An accusation which could well be replaced by "non-assistance of a person in danger", if the censured doctor had not intervened.

The discrimination to which hundreds of doctors are victim is ignored by no political party, but the subject is carefully avoided by our elected representatives who wish to remain, above all, 'politically correct'.

The Ordre des médecins, the organisation of private law and public interest whose mission it is to serve the public was created on October 7th 1940 by the Vichy government, four days after the promulgation of the Jewish Statute. Its aim was, amongst others, to 'purify' the profession. A role which it has fulfilled and which it continues to fulfil, as the texts of the period and the current political repression testify. It was dissolved during the liberation, but an order on September 24th 1945 rendered it legitimate even though it had never been ratified by Parliament as the Constitution decrees.

The connections between the Order during the occupation and the current Order are clear. The Order remained the sole agent of its archives during the war period and Doctor Portes, who was president of the Order in 1943-1944, then from 1946 to 1950, is still a moral reference for the current president Bernard Glorion. His recent repentance is in total contradiction to what he declared in March 1994, "I was 13 years old in 1941. I am also one of those people who were completely unaware of 'things' at the period when they were happening".

Ever since, the method of functioning of the national Order and its departmental or regional vassals, like that of its disciplinary sectors, has hardly evolved. Any disciplinary sector operates like a court of exclusion and scorns with impunity the basic principle of open debate. The doctor in question is judged by his associates who have no judicial competence and therefore nothing can guarantee either independence or impartiality, as it is common to find doctors who have interests within the pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, in the sector of social insurance, certain judges, with salaries from health insurance funds, are both judge and jury.

What is more, until just recently, the defendant was not heard publicly: he is at present, but generally witnesses who could contribute to clearing his name are not allowed to be heard. Once condemned, the accused cannot request compensation for damage, even when this has been flagrant and no matter what the consequences, whether on a personal or a professional level.

Already, in the 1950s, in the name of the national Union of Medical Doctors, Doctor Topsen had addressed a circular to all the candidates for the legislative elections asking them if they intended to maintain an institution inspired by the occupation, four days after the Jewish Statute.

". . . the near totality of French doctors - with the exception evidently of the members of the different Order Committees - ardently desire to be rid of this organisation which has turned out to be both useless and harmful. Created by Pétain at the request of the occupation, against doctors and not for them - in order to render them servants and not to serve them - it has been since its creation an instrument of oppression in the hands of the enemy and its supporters and has not succeeded in liberating itself from the totalitarian spirit which presided at its conception."

This situation is criticised by a growing number of doctors who consider that the existence of a Conseil de l'Ordre can be justified as a guarantee of the respect for medical ethics, but that it should withhold power from its disciplinary sector.

Certain doctors denounce their actions, which prompts Alain Dumas to say:

"In fact, the Order operates the combination of the three powers, executive, legislative, judicial, and as Montesquieu declares in spirit with the law: 'All would be lost if the same man or the same body of principles, or the nobility, or the people, exercised the three powers: that of making laws, that of executing public decisions, and that of judging crises or the differences between individuals.'

The danger of a corporatist and sectarian deviation had already been the object of a warning from the State Council in 1958. Condemned doctors cannot make an appeal to civil or penitentiary tribunals. As for the State Council, if it gives an opinion on the content, it can never judge until the end; it maintains a constant jurisprudence adhering obstinately until now to considering as inapplicable to disciplinary jurisdictions the dispositions of the article 6 - 1 of the European Convention that protect human rights and fundamental liberties: 'All persons have the right to have their case heard fairly, publicly and within reasonable delay by an independent and impartial tribunal . . .'.

Questioned recently on the aims of the Order, its president Pr. Glorion declared: 'The Ordre des Médecins does not have the competence to scientifically judge the quality of a treatment, only that of assuring that the treatment be officially validated.'

This is a confession of total submission to the French Agency for Medicine and to pharmaceutical power; moreover, it is confessing that a beneficial treatment for a patient, if it is not validated, can lead to its administrator being suspended from practice. In this line of argument, the sick patient no longer exists as an individual, but is subjected to the whims of the protocols. It is a dramatic confession and the end of Medicine with a human face". (Cf. Votre Santé: May 2000)

Effectively, in March 2000, Bernard Glorion was evoking the need to reform the ordinal institutions in his last work Medicine of the 21st Century. According to the current president, the threat of the suppression of the Ordre des Médecins, envisaged and promised by candidate François Mitterand in 1981, "revived bad memories and certainly calmed high feelings. Careful to be as discreet as possible, the members of the Conseil de l'Ordre fell into a certain lethargy . . . From the sessions of the committee to the writing of reports via contacts and meetings, deceit led to fantasy as nothing ever happened". The suggestions for reform of the permanent national committee remain secret.

The day after a disciplinary decision was taken regarding a famous cancer therapist in 1991, "the Order's wish to reform thrilled us with the Terquem report". This report included changes in the composition of the departmental councils that were more representative of the diversity of activities at the heart of the profession. It foresaw a more independent disciplinary jurisdiction with a magistrate from the beginning, with the regional council. "Other, more meticulous measures were to complete this operation which had as its aim the modernisation of an institution whose existence was no longer contested", commented the President. Coming up against a unanimous refusal, "these visionary and premonitory ideas would now be taken up and accepted with many fewer difficulties". For Bernard Glorion, the rules enunciated in the Code of Ethics are not to be ignored if one wishes to conserve the human side of the medical act. "An order of doctors that is reformed and adapted to social change constitutes an efficient rampart against the deviations of a modernism that is rash . . . The order of doctors must be representative of a large number of different forms of practice. It must be an open and transparent organisation, of service to society, thus harmonising with the motto of the British Medical Council that one could translate as: protection of the sick, guidance for doctors."

At the end of a lyrical flight of fancy about the exceptional mission of the Order to preserve health and to respect human beings throughout their lives until death, this president-doctor turns to the subject of the rights of ill people: "Of course, it may seem utopian, even hurtful, to speak of the rights of the ill. Isn't this judicial formula in contradiction to the notion of service, of generosity and devotion that constitute the honour of the world of medicine?" All whilst recognising that it is unfortunately sometimes necessary to remind doctors that they have duties, he suggests going further, to "also speak of the duties of the patients and the rights of the doctors. The future of healthcare depends on the sharing of responsibilities as in a reciprocal mutual assistance". The current president nevertheless refrains from suggesting that there be representatives of patients at the heart of the Ordre des Médecins, as is the case in the United Kingdom.

So, according to professor Glorion, the ideas regarding the reform of the permanent national committee of the national Order were never revealed after the electoral promise to suppress it by the future president of the Republic in 1981. And despite this wish to reform, the Terquem report, with its "visionary and premonitory ideas", was unanimously rejected in 1991. According to the present Secretary of State for Health: "It would however be currently accepted without difficulty"; nevertheless, he is not sure that this project of reform should be integrated into the governmental text for the modernisation of the health system.

Why, under such conditions, in twenty years, has this desire for reform been clearly expressed only by the partial opening of closed doors? Why did Professor Glorion, who claims to support an Order that is representative of a diversity of practices, not react when his homeopathic colleagues were called "recruiters for sects" by the Secretary of State for Health?

The same month that his book came out, the Green Party deputies took their turn in opposing the organisation and practices of the departmental sectors of the Order, accusing it of "partiality, union favouritism and fraudulent electoral procedures". Of course the French ecologists refer only to the "serious deviations of certain departmental sectors that have filed a complaint against certain referring doctors with the sole aim of obstructing the establishment of a legal system", but one can hope that the parliamentary commission that they are asking for will not remain a pious wish and will be the point of departure for indispensable reform in depth of the Order, leading it to total conformity with human rights.

Following the opposition of the Greens, the President of the national Order agreed to an interview with the paper Libération. He recognised the abuses of certain doctors holding positions in the departmental Order all whilst being union elected or members of an ordinal jurisdiction. According to him, certain departmental councils are even "organised like small feudalities". In confessing to "having requested, for seven years, modifications to our system", he justified on the other hand the necessity for in-depth reform of this archaic order of doctors (luxuriously installed at the Boulevard Haussmann, after having moved from the Boulevard La Tour Maubourg) and stated the impotence of this desire to reform. Despite these criticisms, March 25th 2001, during a channel 2 programme on the Ordre des Médecins, the president did not hesitate to affirm that: "The Order guarantees the independence of doctors", whilst Dr Bernard Debré admitted that the Order was "corporate".

In his work A Split World (La fêlure du monde) André Glucksmann tells of

"the adventure of a certain surgeon, at the time president of the Order of Doctors, therefore spokesman for the ethics and morality of the medical world . . . In the early eighties he was given a blood transfusion. Two or three years went by and a colleague recommended a test. He thought this sensible and complied: negative. 'And then?' asked a journalist, seven years later. 'And then; nothing', he answered. Relieved on his own account, he did not warn the thousands of people who had received transfusions in these years of ignorance. All of them ran a similar risk to his own. President, ex-president, never once did the thought occur to him to make a public announcement. . . This doctor, ill at ease, regretful . . . referred to the long, spiritual blindness that led him to neglect his own interests, then those of his constituents, finally those of a whole population, as 'a blind spot'. . . He became as suicidal as he had previously been almost homicidal."

As for the CNAM (Caisse nationale d'assurances maladies - National Health Insurance Fund), although they fiercely defend themselves to the contrary, they are even more dogged than the Order when it comes to pursuing those who stray from the beaten track. Their national counsellor-doctor, Pr. Hubert Allemand, insists: "cases of harassment (of liberal doctors by the health insurance's counsellor-doctors) do not exist" and he "guarantees a medical service that does a difficult job with a great deal of rigour, that is to say, precision" (cf. Le Quotidien du médecin February 23rd 2000). These statements provoked an outcry from liberal doctors. "Mr. Allemand's statements are unacceptable, but certainly reveal the state of mind of many of the leaders and executives in health insurance: arrogant certainty of the total authority of the administration, refusal to be aware of and admit their errors, refusal to accept any responsibility related to their everyday decisions. Democracy is in a bad way when the administration adopts such a stance." replied Dr Patrick Gérard de Nantes in the publication Le Quotidien du médecin March 8th 2000. Dr Martial Groboz commented that he is a "victim of the tribunals of exclusion that the CMR represents".

"Yes, harassment exists, whether or not Pr. Hubert Allemand agrees. His declarations to the contrary will not succeed in hiding the truth for long", says Dr Roch Menes de Clermont-Ferrand in the same magazine. "Rather than deny the evidence, Pr.Allemand would no doubt be advised to pay careful attention to the control of the funds and to attempt to put them into some order. . . But it is easier and more politically correct to take it out on the practitioners than to fight the malfunctioning of health-insurance funds.".

Back cover description of

Healing: an Illegal Practice

By Sylvie Simon

How is it possible to legally practise medicine, respect the Hippocratic Oath and the rights of ill people, in the face of the dictatorship of the Conseil de l'Ordre, in addition to that of the pharmaceutical lobbies?

This question, essential to the well-being of each one of us, is at the heart of Sylvie Simon's book. The author, who has gathered statements from courageous doctors, gives us access to the cogs of a machine that is controlled by the Conseil de l'Ordre, a tribunal of exclusion. She reveals how this Order uses and abuses its regal power in order to muzzle doctors who choose to heal their patients solely according to their knowledge and their conscience.

This book therefore, through the experiences of various practitioners, helps us to understand the pain of those who give their lives to curing the sick and who suddenly find themselves forbidden to practise on the pretext that they dare question a system that is on the whole riddled with the rot of medical and economic authority.

No Freedom, Thankyou, We're French!

2007-06-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

Note: I translated this article by Jacques Valentin in 2004. Now that Michael Moore is claiming that the French Medical system is the best in the world, I'm hoping this, along with the other articles about the French healthcare system on this blog, will help shed a little light on his mistake.

No Freedom, Thankyou, We're French!

by Jacques Valentin, France

Extract:

"The constant hammering by the media about the links between psychotherapy, charlatanism and sects has become so insistent and encounters so little resistance that we are witnessing a massive impregnation of the collective and individual unconscious which has taken on considerable proportions during the last few years. All users and practitioners of psychotherapy and personal development can only be struck by the way in which the theme is now omnipresent and it is perhaps a source of worry and anxiety amongst certain patients. It is equally impossible to present a therapy to the press without journalists fretting about legitimising a sect-like approach."

"This essentially repressive text is clearly inspired by the measures used for the illegal practice of medicine. We rediscover with this amendment, practically word for word, the measures within the field of medicine that permit the harassment of healthcare professionals who are not doctors (nutritionists, healers, naturopaths, osteopaths et al.) for the illegal practice of medicine. This includes the harassment of innovative doctors searching to develop new health systems and who are pursued for "unproven medical practices" or, to use the deliberately stigmatising expression of the Council of the Order of Doctors, for 'charlatanism'. Let us not forget that these measures already make France, in the domain of medicine, a completely backward country compared to other developed countries."

France is getting ready to adopt the most restrictive law in the world to regulate the practice of psychotherapy.

http://gestionsante.free.fr/

Translation by Emma Holister

The context and current situation

For at least the last ten years, a large media campaign has been trying to persuade the French that going to see a psychotherapist puts the security of patients at considerable risk; the reasons given are that many people without qualifications take up the practice of psychotherapy, that the sector has been infiltrated by sects, and finally that many of the methods are not scientifically valid.

It is for this reason that an amendment put forward covertly by the deputy, Doctor Accoyer, vice-president of the UMP group at the assembly (president Chirac's party), was unanimously voted by the 13 deputies present, in accordance with the well-polished technique for passing the sensitive dossiers through without debate, scorning universal and workers' suffrage and the work of a parliamentarian. It still has to go before the Senate in January 2003 according to the letter from the psychotherapy journal SNPPSY. He not only reserves the TITLE but also the PRACTICE of psychotherapy exclusively to psychiatric doctors (see text in French), general practitioners and clinical psychologists, by dispensation and by jury, according to function, qualifications and experience, to psychotherapists who have practiced for the last five years. The fact that the right of PRACTICE is reserved is the central issue, but it's a point that is too little focused on, even by professionals who rightly oppose the project. This reserved right of practice, which represents the main danger of the project, is a veritable act of war aimed at the non-medical forms of psychotherapy and more generally against all techniques of personal development, of relationship therapy and personal fulfilment.

The text offers no guarantee as to the quality of future psychotherapists; quite the opposite.

No guarantee and no precision are offered by the text as to the minimum training of this new caste of psychotherapists who will benefit from virtually no education in psychotherapy throughout their studies. Furthermore, hardly any training in clinical psychology is envisaged for general practitioners and even psychiatrists, and for the latter it is very brief, taking into account that the training is mainly geared towards physical disorders and the biological sphere.

The author is happy to point out that:

"Psychotherapies constitute therapeutic tools used in the treatment of mental disorders. The different categories of psychotherapy are fixed by decree of the Minister of Health. Their application can only be undertaken by psychiatric doctors, general practitioners and psychologists with the required professional qualifications stipulated by this same decree. The National Bureau of Health Evaluation and Accrediting offers its examination for the establishment of these conditions."

It is noteworthy that the notion of psychotherapy is not even specifically formulated, as the text does not indicate whether the forms of psychotherapy use psychological techniques in the treatment. This allows for the avoidance of specifying that psychotherapy is distinct from other aspects of medical practice with regard to treating mental disorders and therefore requires specific training.

The text is quite as elusive on other major points. For any other text pertaining to law, regulating a title, and that is furthermore the practice of a profession as in the current case, it would be stipulated that the professionals concerned must have followed training in official schools for a minimum period of so many hours and years, of which the course must have a certain minimum theoretical content. Likewise, the text does not allude at all to the necessity of supervision and continual training, whilst all professionals recognise and agree that this is absolutely indispensable. The "debate" at the assembly, if that's what we can call the few completely destitute paragraphs that accompany the amendment proposal, offers no supplementary information, especially regarding the expected training of the professionals or on the balance between legal text and decree.

There is good cause to wonder whether it occurred to the author(s) of the amendment to consider a few thematic courses in the line of continual training. Perhaps a few sections such as "practice of psychotherapy" in the initial training course, as well as, just for good measure, a course in gardening in a hospital environment, which would be a good enough first step towards becoming a psychotherapist. We here witness the magic that a medical diploma yields (reluctantly extended to psychologists), conceived by some sort of priesthood that magically bestows upon its recipients as much intrinsic competence as a common mortal would have who has undergone the most scrupulous training and who has much personal experience.

Essentially, the proposed legislation represents the management of privilege, very far indeed from a real management of competence. We are therefore heading towards having professionals who benefit from the title, are trained at a discount, and towards major problems of competence for the patients who are being exposed to risk, all whilst claiming to protect them with a title and a reserved right of practice. It took a great deal of nerve, but in this social climate of 'normalisation' the worst ineptitudes pass for a wise and well-considered move.

The list of the authorised forms of psychotherapy fixed by decree!

As if that weren't enough, the cherry on the cake is that Dr Accoyer has proposed that, incredibly, the list of the authorised methods of practice in psychotherapy should be set by the State. No other country in the world has ever proposed such measures, not even totalitarian and communist states, but that which the 'father of the people' had not considered, Dr Accoyer thought up and dared to write into law. In fact on reading the text we discover that:

"The different categories of psychotherapy are fixed by decree, by the Minister of Health. Their application can only be undertaken by psychiatric doctors, general practitioners and psychologists with the required professional qualifications stipulated by this same decree."

Thus, by putting into effect or proposing either a form of psychotherapy (if one does not have the title of psychotherapist) or a non State-authorised form of psychotherapy (if one has the title of psychotherapist) it will constitute, de facto, in the first case the illegal practice of psychotherapy and in the second an infraction in the practice of a non-authorised therapy.

This essentially repressive text is clearly inspired by the measures used for the illegal practice of medicine.

We rediscover with this amendment, practically word for word, the measures within the field of medicine that permit the harassment of healthcare professionals who are not doctors (nutritionists, healers, naturopaths, osteopaths et al.) for the illegal practice of medicine. This includes the harassment of innovative doctors searching to develop new health systems and who are pursued for "unproven medical practices" or, to use the deliberately stigmatising expression of the Council of the Order of Doctors, for 'charlatanism'. Let us not forget that these measures already make France, in the domain of medicine, a completely backward country compared to other developed countries.

But the measures used for psychotherapy are, on examination, even more suicidal with regard to freedom than those used for medicine.

In the medical world, the pursuit of charlatanism is initiated by the Councils of the Order, bastion of medical conservatism and of "all medicine". Despite the scandalous arbitrary power of the Councils of the Order, the scope of what constitutes a proven practice remains, at least in theory, open, and is not pre-defined, which is normal, as the field of medical science is in perpetual evolution.

On the contrary, for psychotherapy they want what is proven or not, to be fixed at the State's discretion, without consulting those involved, and without any possibility of an appeal. In future, psychoanalysis or any form of psychotherapy can therefore be forbidden by this procedure. Even supposing there were to be a very great liberalism amongst the authorities, which is clearly not the case today, it would be impossible to reference all the forms of therapy within this fast-growing field in perpetual evolution. It is likely however that these very restrictive measures will be fully used to block to the maximum the awarding of a discretionary pass to the therapists who are not doctors or psychologists but have more than five years of experience.

French fantasies concerning the fight against sects

We will now turn to one of the most astonishing taboo subjects in French contemporary culture, the fight against sects. It is a sensitive subject to approach as the simple fact of saying that the fight against sects leads to certain excesses and loss of control in France will result in your being suspected of being a sympathiser. An apparently very efficient threat, as dissent is the exclusive work of alternative personalities who are outside the media and sacred intellectual circles.

However, it is difficult for an objective observer not to notice the large barrier that has progressively been erected over the last twenty years, cutting off certain "sensitive" subjects, and in a remarkable way, subjects that, on first analysis, would seem rather peripheral to the sect issue. In fact, one generally considers sects to be highly structured movements that put forward an imposing ideology often compared to indoctrination. On the face of it, it is nothing to do with psychotherapy and alternative medicine, where in fact it is diversity and creativity that prevail. False! According to the "theoreticians" in the fight against sects, who claim that sects are actually much more supple and informal structures that indeed colonise and infiltrate these therapies, it's even one of their priorities. Of course, this is because psychotherapy and the methods in alternative medicine are, in essence, not scientific. They belong to the modern rationale that scientific progress is much too slow to eradicate. In this domain affirmation is worthy of demonstration, and the result is disastrous. We are therefore in a situation whereby the periphery, alternative medicine and psychotherapy, in their hypothetical and unproved relationship with sects, become the centre, the heart of the problem.

It is noteworthy that the question of the fight against sects has a strong connection to the consensus on the politics regarding the frontiers between science and the rest of our culture. The prevailing scientism, subjugated to social, economic and cultural interests, is much more powerful than before. In this context the opponents of sects use social and political repression to extend the field of scientism. They are opposed to respectable cultural manifestations such as alternative medicine and psychotherapy. The former consensus is broken and scientism has launched itself into new politics of territorial annexation.

The constant hammering by the media about the links between psychotherapy, charlatanism and sects has become so insistent and encounters so little resistance that we are witnessing a massive impregnation of the collective and individual unconscious which has taken on considerable proportions during the last few years. All users and practitioners of psychotherapy and personal development can only be struck by the way in which the theme is now omnipresent and it is perhaps a source of worry and anxiety amongst certain patients. It is equally impossible to present a therapy to the press without journalists fretting about legitimising a sect-like approach. This issue can also affect the family environment, being at times the cause of serious conflicts in cases where there is disagreement about continuing the practice. Any problem that a couple may have that turns bad (in a country where 50% of relationships end in divorce) and where a therapist is concerned can therefore add fuel to the 'anti-sects brigade' with juicy stories supplied by a "victim" whose words are of course taken as proof.

It is striking to see how psychotherapists from other countries visiting France are often stupefied when faced with the consequences as well as the general climate, the "atmosphere", that are created by this French speciality: the fight against sects. This fight and the sectarian problem seem not to exist anywhere else to such an outrageous extent.

The sectarian question is, in our opinion, largely beside the point when it comes to the problems posed in undertaking psychotherapy; it gives rise to vague apprehensions and is a source of anxiety fixation of a different origin. It creates a hazy anxiety instead of a questioning process that would be more appropriate for the person involved.

When a person makes contact with a psychotherapist, rather than wondering if the therapy or therapist gives off, like the devil, a "sect-like" odour, it would be more useful for them to ask themselves the following questions. Is the therapeutic method appropriate for them and do they agree with its philosophy and methodology? Is the psychotherapist pertinent in his or her interventions? Is there too big a dissonance between the personality of the therapist and that of the patient? Is the therapist sufficiently firm to be able to put forward his analysis, when faced with the resistance of the patient, without being sharp, aggressive or intrusive? Is he flexible enough to respect both the pace of the patient's evolution and the overcoming of their difficulties? Does he adhere to a coherent theoretical framework allowing him to organise his therapy? Is the encounter with the patient for him in fact a chance to go back to the theory in order to adapt it to the patient (and not the opposite)? Etc.

All these questions, if they are dealt with honestly, help avoid many errors (starting with the possible risk of sects), given that dogmatism, incompetence, and psychological violence in therapy are problems that have little to do with the titles and diplomas of the therapist.

Of course, there can be problems with psychotherapy, as with any social activity. One manoeuvre of the French 'anti-sects campaign', since they've had psychotherapists in their sights, has moreover consisted of scrupulously gathering all the problems that they can find in order to discredit the profession.

To reason on the failures, the limits, the real or supposed impasses of a psychotherapeutic method and more generally the examination, without prejudice, of a technique from a constructive, critical perspective is very interesting and useful. I am the first to regret that the people interested in psychotherapy are not more often inclined towards this type of work.

Furthermore, in order to be useful, they require extended knowledge, probity and a faultless intellectual honesty. We are therefore leagues away from what the anti-sect websites are writing on the subject, leaving, it must be said, a nauseating impression, the prejudice, the doctrinaire attitude, the will to do damage as palpable as it is, polluting the analyses made of them.

All whilst not denying that certain psychotherapists can be dangerous people, incompetent or completely irresponsible. My point is that there are probably not more than in a profession that elects to be hand-picked, such as that of doctors.

It is worth imagining the result if they were to do the same thing to other professions, looking only at the errors, failures, incompetence, and dishonesty that exist in any technical profession that has major consequences for the user, from doctors to car mechanics, from plumbers to accountants. We would obviously all have the same apocalyptic and totally false vision. In fact, compared to the other professions mentioned, the psychotherapist's patient has, without a doubt, a much greater chance of judging in good time the quality of the professional that he is dealing with and can pull out of the situation before suffering physical or moral prejudice or irreparable financial damage. Under these conditions as well as a better self-organisation of the profession, anything that moves in the direction of encouraging the user of therapy to be sensible, balanced and unbiased would seem useful and necessary.

Finally, is it necessary to remind ourselves that people follow a therapy above all in order to achieve a better foundation and sense of existential security in their everyday lives? How many specific techniques have such a praise-worthy aim in our society? What extraordinary duplicity and irresponsibility to deliberately present psychotherapy as a high-risk course of action. In any case, there is a very significant inversion of values triumphing everywhere in our society.

But why then this omnipresence of the sect theme?

The fight against sects is a very French phenomenon that has been slowly but surely developing in France since the coming to power of the socialists in 1981, and gaining the dimensions of a veritable national obsession. As far as it is possible to establish, it basically acts as a smokescreen to the corruption and incompetence of the country's ruling class. A ruling class that is widely discredited in the public opinion, with all parties in a confused mix, especially since the left, once in power, took off to the right in the most unbridled wheeling and dealing. France, and above all its media, culturally and traditionally, associates the left with a certain moral discourse; the result has been an acute and profound moral crisis. The fear of sects has succeeded in rather efficiently distracting the attention of the public from the enormous financial corruption, towards secondary problems related to sects, sometimes real and even dramatic, but most often blown out of proportion or even totally imaginary. But from the outset one wonders if this campaign isn't in order to compensate primarily for a disorientation and loss of bearings most particularly marked amongst journalists themselves.

In France only certain papers specialise in the fight against sects and they publish alarmist articles on the subject fairly regularly. But they all repeat the stereotypical sect-speeches that often revolve around the subjects of contamination, infiltration, that are very revealing of the scapegoat theme so well developed by René Girard. Elsewhere, quite as revealing, is the type of amazement that strikes the press once a problem in society that one could consider, in one way or another, "contaminated" by the sect problem, such as natural or alternative health, or in the present case, psychotherapy, enters the news forum. In other words, there is a remarkable locking away of information in the media.

The theme of the infiltration of sects, through the use of a scapegoat, could also probably itself be viewed as a process of attention displacement. Which is the western country where the political elites have the most difficulty in recruiting new members? Which is the country where the highest rank of the civil service monopolises all of the highest posts within the civil service and private sectors? Hence practising a faultless solidarity amongst themselves to the detriment of the public welfare (e.g. the 'shipwrecking' of the French bank Credit Lyonnais as well as so many other public affairs). Which country has the heaviest presence of Freemasons within the ranks of political and economic power? In which country does the fossilised medical elite clamp down on any progress in the medical world? Which is the country where journalists consort the most with politicians, never criticising them? So here too the theme of sect infiltration seems to be a smokescreen to hide the serious fossilisation process which has beset the leading elite of this country. It encourages people to believe that these leaders are firmly and bravely fighting the infiltration by sects, thus partially restoring, in an illusionary manner, some of these leaders' lost virtue.

A Deaf, Mute and Blind Media

The October and November headlines in France amused the gallery with a debate which is all the rage about the wearing of veils to school, an issue concerning probably a few hundred young girls at most.

At the same time, no debate was opened regarding a project to regulate a whole profession, that of psychotherapy, which plays a major role in this country. A project that was nevertheless highly questionable and that, furthermore, had been introduced in the most scandalous manner via an amendment, whereby this event will have a considerable effect on the daily lives of millions of French people. Mention by the press was reduced to, for example in the French newspaper Le Monde's 'daily references', a few little allusive lines the day before the passage of the amendment, and then nothing more on the subject. With the newspaper Liberation, it was necessary to wait for more than 15 days before an article appeared which didn't really convey the reality of the situation but which at least considered alerting some of the people who would be affected (including yours truly). And it did follow up shortly after with the publication of a response by an organisation representing psychotherapists. There were also a few morsels in the medical press. One might add that no article reproduced the legislative text, which was nevertheless not very long, but no doubt this was in order to avoid having to comment on it. There was even less information about it on the TV, of course. Finally and after interminable hesitations Le Monde finally proposed a dossier on the subject, nearly a month after the vote. Naturally, Dr Accoyer, deputy, promoter of this project, benefited from a particularly deferential interview which totally deprived the reader of any contradictory line of argument. And no chance was given to representatives of psychotherapists to express themselves. The newspaper Le Figaro, shortly after, produced one article (only), which was a much more balanced view than that in Le Monde. Apparently nothing in the Express. Nothing either in the Nouvel Observateur (on checking their titles on the Internet). In Le Point ( le bloc-notes de Bernard-Henri Lévy ) 21/11/03 there was a condemnation of the Accoyer project which was accurate although it limited itself to the practice of psychoanalysis.

We witnessed therefore, initially, a general blackout, then a few crumbs of news on a subject that must surely interest readers. Furthermore, not one organ of the press expressed indignation that a major issue concerning society be dealt with in almost total secrecy in the form of an amendment. All this whilst considering it useful to organise a commission and long debates concerning the wearing of veils and religious objects in schools.

At the beginning of December 2003, the great majority of people who did not follow the news closely, even cultivated people involved in psychotherapy or personal development, had not heard of this project, or if they had, only very vaguely, and they had no idea of where it was leading.

How can this media blackout be explained? When can something be called deliberate misinformation? Especially with regard to 'psychological blockages' concerning "the sect theme", to incompetence and to the inability to do the work of a journalist, to point out and explain information.

Noteworthy, for example, is the case of the weekly publication Marianne which shortly after the vote on the amendment on psychotherapy came out with a substantial article in one of its editions on the plague of sects. It is difficult to describe this article as anything other than a remarkable show of vulgarity, as it put together totally unrelated information in order to falsely construct an argument on how sectarianism was running a rampage through the minds of the French. Sects may stagnate or regress as organisations, but in a still more insidious fashion, the newspaper Marianne explains, they may be on the point of triumphing, in a Machiavellian fashion, over the layman's valiant 'antibodies' that had until now protected society and our minds. Society is therefore on the point of losing its sanity and of being devoured by sectarian ideologies which are particularly prevalent in . . . yes, guess where . . . of course, in the domain of psychotherapy. 'Fortunately' a courageous deputy has just submitted an amendment . . . In fact this information, which was not a main item in this edition of Marianne, but which appeared in a few lines at the end of one of the articles, was, to the alerted reader, the key theme around which the whole of the weekly edition seemed to be written. It is difficult not to notice that the article is totally circumstantial. Reader-manipulation replaces debate and honest opinions. It is a precise example, and most astonishingly so, of the influence of the anti-sect networks within the press, and what probably constitutes the main danger of this network is its capacity to extract itself from the usual left-right divisions in order to short-circuit all free debate.

There was an even more blatant and brutal example of manipulation in a documentary on the TV channel France 2, November 19th 2003. The psychotherapy journal SNPPsy wrote, "this documentary is a biased piece of reporting, an anthology, manipulating public opinion." You can read for yourselves the request for a right to reply addressed to France 2 from the SNPPsy.

In my opinion this manoeuvre clearly shows that behind the surface politeness towards psychotherapists, who were received by Dr Accoyer and the Health Ministry's councillors, the "ultras" who serve Dr Accoyer still hope not to change one comma of their amendment. They continue to unscrupulously motivate their politically controlled men in the media. Is it really necessary to hold a courteous dialogue with a man who continues unperturbed as he ties the hangman's knot in the rope that you will be hanged with? The psychotherapists' unions are doing their best no doubt, but I hope they do so without too much naivety. Dialogue will perhaps end up winning anyway, with the possibility that other players from unexpected intermediaries may arrive.

All this is nevertheless extremely serious as, thanks to the label of 'sect', forms of treatment for certain social problems have already been denounced. Denounced by the liberal media who are deeply reactionary and participating in an atmosphere of social cleansing with all political orientations in one melting pot.

It is important to stress that beyond the media, there is also a remarkable resignation amongst French intellectuals. Not one voice has been raised in the last 20 years against the consequences of the influence and abuse engendered by the fight against sects in society. Careerism and collusion with the media, a generation crisis, stagnation in intellectual circles, serious disconnection with what the concrete problems in daily life are, outmoded ideas of what the laity is. These are probably the determining elements of this scandalous attitude where cowardice and blindness prevail.

Finally, in considering these people of responsibility (who sometimes have too comfortable a disassociation from responsibility) we can only be struck by their inability to organise themselves in order to defend the people most concerned: the psychotherapists, the specialists in personal development, the specialists in alternative medicine and in natural healthcare and the countless people who use these techniques. Perhaps this is the most worrying sign in this situation, leading us inevitably to pessimism as to the future and the possibility of a resistance to this 'normalisation' process. I emphasise that what is described here reveals above all that France is confronted with a very specific cultural crisis.

Situation in February 2004 after the Senate's vote:

From December 2003 (date of the publication of this article), to February 2004, a strong and unexpected reaction swept across French society. Users of psychotherapy, open-minded psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychiatrists came together to warn of the dangers of the proposed Accoyer Law and projects aimed at bringing psychotherapy under State control via a "medicalised" psychiatric system.

Shortly before it's passing through to the Senate, reports in the mainstream media, on radio and television, forced as they were to deal with the subject, albeit in an often simplistic and distorted manner, nevertheless allowed opponents of the project to send out an alert, especially on the Internet. It was the biggest public reaction the Senators have seen in years, such was the anxiety amongst voters caused by the Accoyer project.

The government came under pressure and finally decided to abandon the initial Accoyer amendment. However, they did not really have any alternative project to put forward and remain very hostile to psychotherapists. Everything had been conducted in a climate of nervous improvisation.

The most ardent and determined opponents came together very quickly and formed the group Coordination Psys, thus regrouping psychotherapists who are not psychoanalysts and also bringing together the Freudian Jacques-Alain Miller school of psychoanalysts, all of which are represented by JAM.

Many psychoanalysts, scornful as they are of anything that is not strictly psychoanalysis, consider this alliance to be unnatural, despite being unable to suggest an alternative. A number of them were against the project, others were for it, on condition that psychoanalysis be a recognised therapy and that their competitors' therapies be eliminated by the new law.

The government sought to divide people by negotiating separately with the psychoanalysts who were not within Coordination Psys. They satisfied the psychoanalysts by excluding them from the initial ruling.

Finally, the result was a vote by the Senate of an amendment originating from the Government, which is particularly badly written and no longer relates to the Accoyer project. It foresees the obligatory registration of psychotherapists at the Prefecture, that psychoanalysts will be sought via their profession's directories, but that general practitioner doctors and psychologists are relieved of any registration at all! Absolutely no qualifications in psychotherapy will be required. Application requirements are foreseen although it's difficult to see upon what they will be based. Basically it's a text that is as confused as it is useless.

In reality the informed observer will understand that this improvised and circumstantial text will be replaced again once it passes before the National Assembly in April. Dr Accoyer's supporters, harshly shaken as they were by this unexpected resistance to their manoeuvres, are trying to reorganise in order to support a new version of the Accoyer project. So vigilance remains more than ever necessary.

Coordination Psy supported, unsuccessfully, an amendment in the Senate by Mr Gouteyron who was suggesting the creation of a governmental organisation divided into four departments (psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy) that would have dealt with ethical questions in the domain of psychotherapy. It would have been the mouthpiece and council to the government for all proposed legislation.

Coordination Psy has decided to create an association based on this idea. It already brings together all psychotherapists and attempts to link up with as many psychoanalysts as possible, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists. A difficult but essential task that will consolidate the representatives of the Coordination in order to discuss the situation with the deputies before April.

In fact, just having one recognised non-governmental public interest organisation that brings together the maximum amount of professionals and gets them used to talking to one another, would be acceptable.

It is essential to reject any public organisation where the representatives are nominated by the State (as in the Gouteyron amendment) which could once again be vulnerable to manipulation. It would appear that Coordination Psy has understood this problem and is heading in the right direction by creating this association.

This article expresses the individual opinion of Gestion Santé. Although it defends the free practice of psychotherapy, it does not claim to represent the position of psychotherapists or of their representatives regarding the current plans for regulation.

Interview with Christine Tomlinson PhD, Founder of the National Candida Society

2007-05-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

by Emma Holister

EH: Of all the theories about Candidiasis flying around the Net, I feel that the one explored on your website "Is Candida an Endocrine Disorder?" delves furthest into the heart of this complex issue. Have your experiences over the years given you more conviction about this hypothesis?

CT: I am sure that it is one significant cause of candida. Any hypothesis about the cause(s) of candida has to be able to account for its epidemiology. We know that it is mainly women who suffer from it – estimates are 60% women, 20% men and 20% children. All other explanations for candida such as antibiotics or mercury don’t satisfy that criterion. However, I don’t think it is the sole cause of candida; I never did. The article on our website is one of several that first appeared in our quarterly newsletter, the Candida Digest, exploring possible causes. A recent (2006) edition of the Candida Digest featured another article on causes, so I’d like to quote from that in answering your question:

Candida is multifactorial, which means that there is not one sole cause of candida, but several contributory factors. This does tend to complicate things, because the cause of my candida may not be the same as the cause of yours.

Candida albicans, (and other types such as C. krusei, C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis) are opportunistic which means that they live in us in small numbers, ready to grow out-of-control, if given half a chance. It is important to understand that Candida albicans is not a pathogen that invades the body from the outside. People often think that their immune system has let them down when they have candida, but this is not so. It is not a failure of defence, but a failure of internal regulation. Physiologists have a name for this internal regulation and the balance it achieves. They call it ‘homoeostasis’. Candida is a sign that homoeostasis is being breached; that the body is struggling in its attempts to maintain the balance of our ‘internal terrain’. The degree of Candida albicans overgrowth indicates the degree of the imbalance. There are three types of imbalance of our internal terrain which could lead to candida:

1. Of the microbes residing in our digestive system. No doubt you are aware that all of us have several pounds of microbes (mainly bacterial) which digest our food for us. It is critical that the microbes are present in the correct ratios. Imbalances here are usually caused by taking broad-spectrum antibiotics or other medication, and are aggravated by poor dietary choices.

2. Of the regulatory system of the body i.e. the endocrine system. In brief, Candida albicans overgrows in the presence of progesterone which is why so many women have thrush when they are pre-menstrual. You can have relatively high progesterone by having relatively low oestrogen, and a number of things block oestrogen receptors e.g. mercury, and steroidal drugs such as the contraceptive pill and HRT.

3. Of the cells and organelles such as:

- sugar imbalance (which is why the symptoms of candida and hypoglycaemia are so similar, and why diabetics regularly succumb to fungal infections);

- acid-alkaline imbalance (see Volume 7 Issue 3 of the Candida Digest);

- insufficient oxygen: evolutionary biologists tell us that fungi first appeared on our planet when there wasn’t much oxygen around, so candida naturally thrives when oxygen levels plummet. Oxygen kills fungus, helping to stop it spreading. Insufficient oxygen is often caused by a lack of iron in the blood (anaemia), making anaemia a prime cause of candida. People who are chronically tired with candida, often think that their tiredness is caused by the candida, but this isn’t necessarily so. In some cases, both the candida and the tiredness are caused by the anaemia. If you are chronically tired and haven’t been tested for anaemia, I would urge you to ask your GP for a test. Ask to be tested for both haemoglobin and ferritin.

It stands to reason that if anaemia is behind your candida problem, you will not get well without increasing your iron levels, and an overly-restrictive diet could do more harm than good.

EH: The natural products recommended for hormonal problems are, amongst others, Black Cohosh, Red Clover, Siberian Ginseng, Dong Quai and Wild Yam. Could these be more effective than the more frequently recommended Evening Primrose Oil?

CT: For menstrual difficulties, I tend to favour GLA over Evening Primrose Oil. The other products you mention are more helpful for menopausal symptoms. The two products that I would NOT recommend for candida sufferers are Agnus Castus and Natural Progesterone Cream. Based on my experience and that of members, those products exacerbate candida symptoms.

EH: Am I right in thinking that on your site you suggest that antibiotics may not necessarily be the worst culprit when it comes to causing Candidiasis? And that hormones such as the pill and HRT could be even worse?

CT: Candida is multifactorial so the prime cause varies from person to person. My impression is that for women, the trigger is often steroidal pills or creams, whilst for children and men, it is more likely to be antibiotics. To give a more complete answer, I shall quote from another Candida Digest that discussed causes:

Candida is part of a cascade of causes and effects, indicating that the body is out-of-balance i.e. that homoeostasis is being breached… I prefer the term ‘contributory factors’ to causes because whilst these factors do cause candida in susceptible people, they do not affect healthy people. The main contributory factors that can result in a loss of homoeostasis leading to candida are:

1. Prolonged use of broad-spectrum or strong antibiotics which destroys the good bacteria in the digestive system. During the course of a long interview with the editor of CAM (a magazine for health professionals), in 2004, Dr Nigel Plummer described a trial undertaken by BioCare that demonstrated Candida albicans overgrowth in the human caecum following the use of antibiotics in 50% of subjects; 33% had mucosal surface colonisation by yeast; 15% of subjects had (what appeared to be) persistent colonisation giving rise to a low-grade inflammatory response. He said that because the inflammation never becomes systemic, the immune system is incapable of resolving it. This means that people end up with a low-level chronic inflammatory condition that gives rise to fatigue, periodic aches and pains, muscle pain, joint pain, intermittent fever, depression, loss of concentration, brain-fog, i.e. symptoms of candida.

2. Use of hormonal products such as HRT, contraceptive pill, or Natural Progesterone Cream. It doesn’t help that these products are usually taken when the body is already undergoing hormonal havoc. The female body is more susceptible to candida at times of puberty, pregnancy, and menopause; and during the post-ovulation stage of the monthly menstrual cycle.

3. Use of steroids such as hydrocortisone, beconase, and prednisolone which block oestrogen receptors.

4. Long-term use of drugs for medical conditions such as immuno-suppressive drugs following organ transplants.

5. Dental mercury amalgam poisoning, or mercury from other sources, e.g. fish. Make sure your Omega 3 is free from mercury. Mercury blocks oestrogen receptors.

6. Chemical poisoning from the home, garden, or workplace. This is particularly relevant for some occupations e.g. hairdressing and farming. Most of our farmer-members cite the handling of sheep-dips and other chemicals as precipitating their candida.

7. Heavy metal poisoning (other than mercury) e.g. lead, cadmium.

8. Stress leading to adrenal exhaustion.

9. As a complication of a medical condition such as diabetes, and/or of the treatment e.g. cancer or AIDS.

10. Vaccinations. There is increasing concern that babies are now given too many vaccinations (25 per year) when their immune systems are underdeveloped. This may predispose them to chronic illness, including candida, later in life. Our adult members who cite vaccinations as the cause of their candida had to have their injections twice because the first one ‘didn’t work’.

11. Poor dietary choices - eating an excessive amount of refined sugar, processed foods, inorganic produce etc.

Some causes indicate specific treatments e.g. detoxification or specific diets. For example if the cause is hormonal then soya and cow’s milk are best avoided, although sheep and goats’ milk may be ok. Conversely, food intolerances of milk and soya should alert a woman to the possibility that her candida has an hormonal cause.

EH: I believe that Candidiasis is the root cause of many modern illnesses. What is your opinion on this?

CT: I don’t think candidiasis is the root cause, because I think that it is a symptom – a sign that homoeostasis is being breached, and whatever is causing that imbalance is the root cause. The reason why I stress that point, is because people need to address the underlying cause in order to make a full recovery from their candidiasis/candida. If they see candida as the root cause then they won’t look beyond that. For many people, that is a crucial mistake. When they fail to recover using a self-help book, they blame themselves for not following the diet religiously, and embark on a dangerously restrictive diet, and fruitless search for the ‘best antifungal’ and the ‘best probiotic’. They run the risk of malnourishment and even more entrenched candida.

I get many telephone calls from people who tell me that they “know all about candida” as they have read the books and surfed the internet, and all they want from us is the definitive diet and the best anti-fungal. I find their self-assurance truly alarming – it takes so much effort to turn them around, to get them heading in the right direction. After 16 years’ involvement with candida, including a decade of intensive research, I certainly don’t feel that I know all there is to know about candida. Sometimes, I think I have barely touched the surface, which is probably what maintains my interest.

I also find that this simplistic view of candida can give rise to misunderstandings between sufferers and therapists. It can lead to a situation where sufferers appreciate the therapists who follow a strategy that they recognise from the self-help books, but are critical of those therapists who have a more fundamental (e.g. integrated medicine) approach, focused on identifying and treating underlying causes, rather than candida per se.

Having said all of that, candida does cause its own symptoms so it must be addressed. What I do think is that candida is implicated in a huge number of illnesses, but as part of a cascade of causes and symptoms, rather than as the root cause.

EH: Do you think that Candidiasis is a 'women's issue'? Do you think that the high incidence of misdiagnosis of Candida and the subsequent prescription of antidepressants has anything to do with this?

CT: Undeniably, it affects far more women than men, and many female members report that their mothers, daughters, and sisters suffer from it too. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it does affect boys as well as girls, and both sexes of the elderly, and even men in their prime when they are weakened by chemicals or drugs such as steroids or antibiotics. My fear is that it will be more prevalent in the next generation becoming a “children’s issue”, as more women with candida give birth. These mothers pass their abnormal gut flora to their offspring, because a human baby is born with a sterile gut and acquires most of its gut flora from its mother.

I don’t really have a view on the second part of your question, other than to say that it is certainly very depressing to find yourself with an illness that is not medically recognised. I find it hard to imagine that antidepressants can be a solution to a physiological problem; and given their addictive nature, they often serve to compound it.

EH: The moment a person suspects they may have Candida, they are at once bombarded by a tidal wave of sales ploys for this or that miracle cure. Attempting to get better can then become an expensive and fruitless journey for the average Candida sufferer. What would be your advice to someone who thinks they may be suffering from Candidiasis?

CT: They need to understand the cause of their candida. Most of my work is geared towards helping sufferers realise that, and not to assume that because one product or approach worked for someone else, it will work for them too. We have trialled about two dozen supplements. The trials are informal; usually a dozen members try a product for one month. The usual pattern of results is that a couple of people experience significant improvement or even a cure; most report some improvement, and one person says that the product made him, or her, worse. Clearly, there are huge individual differences in reactions to the products. They all seem to work for some people, but they don’t work universally. I don’t find this too surprising, given the range of causes. If we had found a product that worked for everybody we would be shouting it from the hill-tops, but that hasn’t happened.

Similarly, I don’t believe that there is a universal anti-candida diet. I’m not a fan of overly restrictive diets, as I feel that they can do more harm than good. Candida feeds on sugar, so it is important to give up sucrose and glucose. Fructose is more controversial; some sufferers can tolerate it; others cannot. We recommend testing for food intolerances. In theory, sufferers should be able to tolerate yeast, as yeast doesn’t feed on yeast, but in practice, many sufferers find that they are intolerant to it.

EH: I think trying to inform others about Candida is a deeply frustrating process for many reasons. What would you say are the obstacles to progress that you find recurring the most in your line of work?

CT: It appears to me that recognition of candida has languished because of the challenges it makes to the prevailing reductionist medical paradigm. It violates Pasteur’s germ theory. In fact, I would go further and say that candida invalidates it. Pasteur’s germ theory is crude but it is deeply ingrained in our culture, so people have to go through a huge learning curve to really understand candida. It requires a paradigm shift, and that is always painful.

A lack of research evidence for candida. I know that the researchers at Southampton University went all over the place to try to get funding for their research, but were repeatedly turned down. Eventually, after several years of effort, AllergyUK funded the candida research in 2005-2006. I understand that the research went well, although I am still awaiting the detailed results. There is some other research evidence, but on the whole it is sparse. If researchers cannot get funding, this is to be expected.

To the uninitiated, Candida albicans is synonymous with thrush, which has unfortunate connotations. I suspect that is why we have failed to attract a high-profile patron and trustees, despite my endless begging letters.

We can anticipate that some vested interests may not take kindly to exposés about the causes of candida, but that hasn’t been a problem for us yet. This could probably be avoided altogether if we were advocating a narrow pharmaceutical solution, but we are not, as I doubt that the body can be drugged into homoeostasis, would expect toxic side-effects, and know that resistance to anti-fungals e.g. fluconazole, is already an issue.

EH: People suffering from all sorts of immunity diseases including AIDS in particular, have Candidiasis. Do you have many AIDS sufferers coming to your organisation for help?

CT: No we don’t. We do get the most distressing emails from people around the world who have systemic candidiasis (as opposed to chronic candidiasis) and they are obviously terribly ill – often terminal, I would think - but that is usually cancer-related. We have had requests for information from African countries about candida and AIDS. But my only UK involvement with AIDS was to accept an invitation to a major teaching hospital in London, to talk to the nutritionists about the anti-candida diet for their AIDS patients. But I’m not sure that they liked what I said, because yet again, they wanted the definitive diet with no ifs or buts.

I do, however, have strong views about AIDS. I am of the firm opinion that AIDS cannot be caused by any retrovirus, and that the most plausible explanation for AIDS is the one put forward by the Perth Group. This leads me to another point. There are three grades, possibly stages, of candida or candidiasis:

Superficial: thrush, skin and nail infections, nappy rash etc.

Chronic: usually what we mean by ‘candida’.

Systemic: Concomitant with serious illness e.g. cancer and AIDS.

Superficial and systemic are recognised medical conditions – chronic is not. We need to campaign to get chronic candidiasis medically recognised, but in addition I am not totally convinced that the prevailing view of superficial candidiasis and systemic candidiasis is correct. I think that needs revisiting as well. The medical view of superficial candidiasis is that it is a local, somewhat trivial, problem, but there is contradictory evidence, for example vaginal thrush is accompanied by candidiasis in the gut. I consider superficial candidiasis to be an early warning that homoeostasis is being breached.

Systemic candidiasis is viewed as an opportunistic infection that arises when a person’s immune system is shot to pieces. That may happen when someone’s immune system is deliberately suppressed, e.g. with immunosuppressant drugs following a liver transplant, but I’m not so sure about diseases. I think that there is convincing evidence that candidiasis is an integral part of the disease process of cancer, AIDS, and even diabetes. The candidiasis may, of course, progress as a side-effect of the treatment of these serious illnesses, but that’s not the same thing.

EH: The National Candida Society is a pioneer in the field and an inspiration for newer groups appearing world-wide. You have founded an international organisation, how is this coming along?

CT: I am very proud of what we have achieved, but it edges forward ever so slowly. We currently have 700 members. We have had 6,000 members in total; about 85% of them were UK residents, and the rest lived in just about every country in the world, showing that candida is a world-wide problem. These early years have been foundational, and we are ready to use the knowledge gained to start campaigning for candida to be recognised as a medical illness. Achieving that goal will enable us to help many more sufferers, and most importantly to raise awareness into causes and prevention. What is holding us back is lack of resources for staff, premises etc. So far, I have failed to attract trustees and a patron, who will be able to help us draw in the financial resources that we need to expand. If you know of anyone who might be able to help in any capacity, I’d love to hear from them as soon as possible. There’s a huge amount of good rewarding work to be done.

The National Candida Society

Candidiasis - A Macrobiotic Perspective - The Overlooked Condition and the Missing Link to ‘Intractable’ Disease

2007-05-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

by Mitja Fajdiga

http://www.macrobiotics.co.uk/candidiasis.htm

Foreword

I am hopeful this essay will draw the attention of the macrobiotic community to a very common, yet frequently overlooked subject/condition and will prompt macrobiotic counsellors to seriously check out the possibility of candidiasis whenever approached by patients with an immunocompromised condition.

Below, I will substantiate my assertion that candidiasis, the forerunner of systemic acidosis, is one of the most common destroyers of the immune system in humans. In my opinion, the condition of patients with ‘incurable’ disease can be causally related to candidiasis through the mechanism of acidosis and huge acid-alkaline imbalance.

Furthermore, according to macrobiotic literature and my personal experience, macrobiotic teachers and counsellors, renowned for their expertise in Oriental diagnosis, keep failing to diagnose it or they don't see its relevance to a compromised immune system. This is a serious diagnostic error and possibly fatal as well.

This is also to elaborate briefly why the standard macrobiotic diet has been found unacceptable by many novices to macrobiotics—it is directly related to the more and more ubiquitous condition of candidiasis. In counselling my suggestion to macrobiotic experts is the following: Be on alert for candidiasis and focus your advice on treatment of systemic candidiasis (and acidosis thereof) as the core condition when auto-immune deficiency has been diagnosed.

It is my experience and observation that in a candidiasis treatment the reversal of acidosis is the leverage of utmost importance, thus making immunocompromised patients again immunocompetent in the process. Also, this is the only natural way of reversing several ‘intractable’ diseases such as juvenile diabetes mellitus, Crohn's disease, cancer, excessive body weight, plausibly hepatitis C etc.

My lifelong adventure with candidiasis, my acquaintance with ancient diagnostics, and consultations rendered to a number of co-tormented have corroborated my findings on candidiasis and lead to this report.

The Candidiasis Comes for Rescue to Macrobiotics (and Calls for Immediate Attention)

This is to expose systemic candidiasis as the most frequent condition (i.e. fungemia and acidosis thereof) in modern men and to draw the attention of macrobiotic teachers and counsellors to this treacherous and sneaky condition. It is very likely a pivotal disorder that ought to be taken into account whenever looking for answers to health riddles of modern times not only by mainstream medicine but by macrobiotic counsellors, seemingly, as well.

The yeast organisms of several Candida species that are scientifically recognised as the cause of the systemic candidiasis will be left aside in this report, and I shall instead focus on manifestations of this condition in immunocompetent people before it turns into a full blown state; in addition I will make a brief list of Candida overgrowth manifestations in immunocompromised people that can be linked to the condition by the application of Oriental diagnosis.

Causes

Reading various macrobiotic essays I wondered on several occasions how come that the macrobiotic community totally neglected the issue of candidiasis. It dawned on me that it could be due, perhaps, to the prevalent notion that the common cause of candidiasis—taking a wide range of antibiotics or other strong artificial medications—was out of the question in those who adhere to macrobiotic principles and refrain from taking any medications whatsoever, thus the phenomenon of candidiasis should have no real existence amongst them.

However, the causes for Candida overgrowth are numerous and many of them are not even remotely pill-related. I am familiar with the following:

• Congenital and milk transmission. Candida bacteria (or fungi) are blood-transmitted from mother to the embryo during pregnancy, but more likely after birth by breastfeeding.

• Lowered intestinal flora due to a non-dietary cause such as chlorinated water, drug abuse, antibiotics, hormonal therapy, dental mercury amalgam fillings etc. In immunocompromised people Candida is replenished in their intestinal flora by their own saliva.

• Leaky gut syndrome, which is due to:

- Overeating in general; or

- Binging on food with strong expansive energy, such as sweets, sugary soft drinks, fruit diets etc.; or

- Taking antibiotics with strong yin energy; or

- Candida transmutation from a non-invasive, sugar-fermenting organism, into a fungal, invasive state; fungal form of candida can produce very long root-like structures, rhizoids; they penetrate mucosa or intestinal walls; or

- Intestinal colic as result of aggravated digestive stagnation (see * for more, below); or

- Intestinal parasite; or

• Geopathogenic stress, especially an underground water flow and sleeping close to a strong electromagnetic source such as electric trunk exchanges on the other side of the wall, location of house next to transformers or under power lines.

* Prolonged Candida overgrowth in the gastrointestinal tract which initially causes problems with poor digestion, flatulence, lazy intestines and occasional digestive stagnation, can,in turn, induce low blood sugar levels, and lead to unhealthy cravings, carbohydrate addiction and overeating in general. These dietary ailments combined frequently lead to chronic digestive stagnation.

This condition is aggravated by regular consumption of sweets, refined food and too much liquid. Usually, the stagnation takes place in the lower part of the small intestine, next to the beginning of the large intestine. Thus the pressure from stagnated food and heat build up (extreme yang), and the accumulated energy will eventually turn into their opposite, i.e. expansive and upward energy (extreme yin).

(This health concern is completely overlooked by mainstream medicine, for only yin-yang understanding of processes in the human body offers this insight.)

Eventually, intestinal colic turns the small intestine into a loose, stagnated place and makes the intestinal walls too porous; this is the energetic mechanism of leaky gut syndrome allowing wasteful food stuff—toxins and pathogenic bacteria, including Candida—to enter the bloodstream making the initial phase of systemic Candida overgrowth possible.

This digestive disorder is incredulously common, when you think of all potbellied people. Teenage girls and young women are not exempt. Even if they avoid overeating their young bodies show a high incidence of Candida overgrowth presence and the effects of harmful dietary patterns. You can see numbers of young people in the prime of their life already endowed with potbellies.

Symptoms of Candida Presence in Immunocompetent People

Candida overgrowth symptoms can be considered as extreme-yin or extreme-yang phenomena.

· Offensive or acetone smelling breath; or

· Dry mouth cavity or excessive saliva excretion; or

· Athlete's foot; or

· Swollen, enlarged nose tip or hardened one; or

· In people of Caucasian descent a year-round darkish or greenish or greyish complexion (or even brown complexion; not to be mixed up with a suntan) is apparent or translucent or constant reddish complexion; or

· Some Asiatic facial features, especially around the eyes, in immunocompromised children of non-Asian descent or protruding eyes; or

· Flat instep in children even after they reach the age of six or inwardly curved feet; or

· Constantly present horizontal lines or saggy area under the eyes that can already be observed in adolescence and with individuals in their 20's or darkish, even blackish, sometimes emaciated area under the eyes; or

· Dark coloured area in corner parts of eye-socket, especially in areas adjacent to the bridge of the nose ; or

· High cholesterol levels or mal-absorption of fat and protein nutrients; or

· Food addiction or 'holding back from any food intake' attitude; the latter may in some cases turn to anorexic behaviour; or

· Cravings for carbohydrate foods (carbohydrate addiction) or salt cravings; or

· Constant stressful facial expression though the person feels relaxed or sleepy, weary facial expression throughout the day.

Experts in Oriental diagnosis should be able to co-relate these symptoms to the state of the gastrointestinal tract, organ groups and body systems affected by acidosis in progress, i.e. candidiasis in the first place.

Some experts may oppose this list by saying the symptoms should be attributed to various well-known conditions like kidney weakness, diabetes mellitus or other serious conditions in progress. And they are right. However, these symptoms are also attributable to the overlooked underlying condition of candidiasis in progress.

Disorders Characteristic of Candida Overgrowth

They are as follows:

· Pregnancy diabetes; or

· Sour saliva taste in the morning irrespective of the food intake of the previous day; or

· Infections of the tissues adjacent to fingers or on toenails (paronichia); or

· All too often a cold or overheated body state; or

· Itchy anus; or

· Many perpendicular ridges in fingernails indicate several conditions, including acidosis (as a result of candidiasis); or

· The little fingernail lacks pinkish colouration while other fingernails exhibit it; or

· Swollen lower eyelids, gradually accompanied by swollen sacks or dark circles under eyes; or

· Salt cravings (including indulgence in tamari/shoyu, miso or any other macrobiotic spice with high salt content) on the one hand and binge cravings of any kind on the other hand; or

· Lasting periodontal trouble; or

· Presence of annoying whistle or humming sound in ears or early loss of hearing ability; or

· Slow loss of muscle mass or steady body weight gain in spite of regular physical exercise; or

· Evening bouts of hunger and frequent overeating; or

· Cellulites (in males and females) or dermal problem, including acne, dandruff-like skin or even leprosy; or

· Accumulation of fatty pads in the abdominal area in spite of dietary care; or

· Hair begin to grow grey at an early age, e.g. when person is in his/her 30's or even 20's, or an accelerated hair loss; or

· Osteopenia in younger women and osteoporosis later on; or

· PMS or infertility disorders in young women; or

· Physical-mental hypersensitivity (mood swings and food or environmental allergy); or

· Thyroidal problem due to frequent energy surges in the body resulting from chronic digestive stagnation, i.e. constipation in small intestines; and

· Many other ailments and diseases already listed on the internet and in Candida related bibliographies.

The line between the symptoms in immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals is indiscernible. It is rather subjective.

Inexpensive and Quick Saliva test

This test is described and equipped with an illustrationshown on many websites dealing with the condition of candidiasis.

It is a valid test attesting to the fact that Candida infested saliva is acidic and therefore tends to sink. The test has again and again proved to be one of the most precise and swiftly done tests available to anyone for validation or rejection of Candidosis suspicions. All the same, the test is ridiculed by the medical establishment. Perhaps, only a microbiological blood test surpasses the saliva test in accuracy.

Steps in Holistic Treatment

In my experience the required measures include the following:

1. Removal of non-dietary source of Candida proliferation (chlorinated water, drug abuse, antibiotics, hormonal or steroid therapy, geopathogenic stress, dental mercury amalgam fillings etc.).

2. Avoidance of Candida overgrowth proliferating food.

3. Direct suppression of Candida by taking natural alkaline forming remedies, concoctions and dishes.

4. Adjusted macrobiotic diet regimen that can be effective in some cases.

5. Recovery of intestinal peristalsis, measures for digestion improvement and occasionally restoration of healthy intestinal flora by taking probiotic foods.

6. Restoration of immune system by consuming more alkaline forming food on permanent basis and regular physical exercise (may take a year or longer).

This list of Candida treatment measures may need upgrading. Folk medicine is abundant in remedies for acidosis; however, their identification is required, and supplementation with dietary regimen is necessary. In case of ‘intractable’ disease an adjusted macrobiotic regimen is recommended to suit the individual’s condition.

Treatment Pitfalls

Any macrobiotic counsel should include measures for necessary peristalsis recovery of the small intestine, for loose intestinal walls need to regain their natural contracting strength and selective porosity for nutrients and fluids to prevent toxic waste from entering the bloodstream. In other words, if leaky gut syndrome has been the primary cause of the candidiasis flare-up, they combined create a vicious circle and its discontinuation is a must in almost any treatment of Candidosis.

Also, energy surges in the body due to chronic digestive stagnation shouldn’t be occurring again in order to facilitate a successful process of recovery during the early stages of treatment.

Standard Macrobiotic Diet Controversy Linked to Candidiasis

Macrobiotics offers natural remedies as well as alimentary recommendations for acidosis. However, even expert macrobiotic advice on dietary change is most likely destined to fail, if the bean part is not substituted for seeds and nuts, for Candida overgrowth is propelled by strong yin energy immanent in bean (especially soybean) and bean products. Only yang varieties of bean (adzuki, and perhaps, chickpeas and old broad beans) are favourable to a degree. Nevertheless, until considerable improvement toward restoration of acid-alkaline balance is achieved roasted or cooked seeds and nuts should be the main source of fat and protein nutrients.

In the past the adoption of an adjusted standard macrobiotic diet, supplemented with some special concoctions, external applications or special dish remedies was in some cases powerful enough to bring about inspiring recoveries. Lately, this has been less and less the case, which is due to the conduciveness of the diet's bean part to the candidiasis. It is due to this neglect that it has rendered the standard macrobiotic diet inappropriate and inefficient.

In case of ‘intractable’ disease an adjusted macrobiotic dietary regimen, recommended for more yin, and more yang and yin conditions should be supplemented by special remedies for candidosis; the latter is a must that will make the difference similar to an adjusted macrobiotic diet in the past.

In my belief effective treatment of candidiasis renders the majority of intractable diseases curable. It is a bold prediction, I know. Nevertheless, I am willing to bet everything on it...

However, due to many dilemmas concerning the necessary measures in the holistic approach to the candidiasis mutual efforts on this health issue would be helpful. This could well be undertaken by a macrobiotic forum. Will this report serve this purpose? I am hopeful.

Sundry Insights

· The daily volume of food intake diminishes considerably once Candidosis recedes. This is probably the major factor in solving the world’s food paradigm. It goes for industrialised as well as developing countries.

· With Candidosis taken into account many health controversies start unravelling. Tobacco smoking is one of them. Nicotine (yang substance) in tobacco products is a natural acidosis reducing agent and an anti-Candida herbicide, affecting it directly by soothing the acidic state of the respiratory system; with this in view there is a chemical justification to smokers’ intuitive compulsive need to alleviate an overly acidic state in lungs. I don’t condone tobacco smoking, yet I do see its relevance in suppressing acidosis of the respiratory system as result of Candidosis.

· The phenomenon of food binging as supposedly the primary cause of strayed macrobiotics has lately been receiving a flock of disciplinary finger wagging in the macrobiotic community. With the assumption that the candidiasis incidence, except for the rate of its flare-up, is almost the same in macrobiotics as in main stream eaters food binging could have been driven from within, i.e. induced by the condition of acidosis (uncured Candidosis).

· For a long time it was a great puzzle to me why buckwheat had constantly been downplayed and its frequent intake advised against. Especially, when I realised that buckwheat with its strong contractive energy was an energetic substitute for meat. After taking it several times in a row I didn’t feel well, indeed.

It remained a puzzle to me until the discovery of Candidosis that provides an explanation—the strong water energy of buckwheat provides ample booster energy to candidiasis and for that reason buckwheat hasn’t been, isn’t and won’t be appealing to the taste of humans, or should I rather say, to their common state of health. Buckwheat does well to the intestine only when candidiasis has already retired considerably.

· Herman Aihara's book Acid & Alkaline may offer some very helpful information as far as the direction of action at this health crossroads is concerned.

· It is a well known fact that the western civilisation is propelled by yang activities and by suppressing the yin aspects of life and nature, including our mother Earth. Is it possible that this day-to-day behaviour of the Westerners has been but an intuitive reaction to the prevalent state of an overly yin condition, called acidosis? Perhaps, when acid-alkaline (yin-yang) balance in humans is set on track to effective restoration the general population will begin to appreciate our common mother, planet Earth, and yin qualities of life, spirituality included.

About Mitja Fajdiga:

I came across macrobiotics in 1989 when due to my deteriorating health (I was experiencing slow but steady weight loss, though I had been slim from my childhood after recovery from celiac disease and jaundice) and I was desperately seeking for some sound explanation.

After my bitter encounter with orthodox medicine when the latter proved to be as much bewildered by my health problem as I was myself I decided to venture into esoteric disciplines and studied folk herbal medicine, radio-aesthesia, bio-energy healing, zodiac astrology, chromo-therapy and others.

Macrobiotics offered me basic insights into my personal and common health issues, human behaviour patterns and dynamics in society and nature.

I have been an average economics student and took a degree in international economic relations. However, upon getting familiar with the basics of Oriental diagnosis I became aware of my natural inclination to medicine. Michio Kushi's books Your Face Never Lies and (several years later on) Nine Star Ki gave me the initial impulse to embark on translation of macrobiotic books in Slovene.

Quality macrobiotic books, translation of recovery testimonials and of macrobiotic articles available on the internet were instrumental in my personal quest—becoming somewhat a self-reliant diagnostician. Along the way grew my desire to convey the corpus of gathered practical macrobiotic knowledge to my countrymen.

I gave my first lectures on Nine Star Ki but the response from Slovenian seekers was meagre. At the break of the new millennium, came the incentive of my long distance tutor, Mr. Alex Jack (the president of the Planetary Health organisation and the editor-chief of the Amberwaves Magazine) who presented the Saving Organic Rice Petition to general public in Slovenia; I resumed giving lectures in non-governmental associations, primary and secondary schools, health centres, libraries, youth camps etc. I detest politics yet I didn't hesitate to become a founder member of the Coalition for GMO-Free Slovenia.

In the meantime, through painful personal experience, I pinned down the energetic cause of intestinal colic, i.e. aggravated digestive stagnation. The resulting devastating effects of upward energy surges (for detailed explanation see the footnote in my report) range from cancer in upper parts of the body, yin migraine headaches, cerebral blood vessel enlargements and bursts, seminal emissions in men at night, varicoceles, to severe thyroid and general hormonal imbalance, and endometriosis in women.

My pioneer work is related to making this underrated disorder public by authoring an internet article about it (in English it would read Digestive Stagnation—Seemingly Slight Problem with Dire Consequence, 2004). However, at the time I wasn't aware there is another health concern at the roots of this still waiting to be brought to light.

As of the beginning of 2004, introductory macrobiotic cooking and advanced seasonal cooking classes took place in Slovenia year around with the help of certified macrobiotics cooks. My part in these seminars has been to present the basics of yin-yang understanding of phenomena in nature, yin-yang transformations in human body, the energetics of food, and the healing power of food and home-made remedies.

During all this time, my personal health related quest continued and ended successfully only in March 2006 upon taking a saliva test in a glass of water when it became evident to me that myself had been affected by this silent, and most common invader, called candidiasis.

The recollection process on my illnesses and ailments history combined with Oriental diagnosis revealed to me a striking fact that all my health issues—except for some bruises, cuts and ankle sprains—can be linked to this treacherous condition. I stopped paid counselling and resumed consultations for free until I recover from candidiasis.

Looking up the literature proved my suspicions about the candidiasis (candidosis or fungemia) as one of the most underscored disorders by main stream medicine and overlooked by macrobiotic counsellors and teachers, as well. Thus I decided to write this report.

I am grateful to the editor of The Macrobiotic Guide in the UK. for making this report public internationally and I thank everybody for reading this.

Menopausal Help Line on the Side Effects of HRT

2007-05-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

Maggie Tuttle writes to One Click

One Click Introduction

Investigative writer Martin J. Walker states:

“I was asked to write the HRT: Licensed to Kill and Maim book by Maggie Tuttle who set up an organisation called the Menopausal Help Line (MHL) in London, in 1996. Maggie, who herself had a bad experience with HRT, wanted more than anything to give a voice to the thousands of women with whom she had come into contact who had also been damaged.”

Before Maggie folded the Menopausal Helpline, she had received over 10,000 letters.

Since our publication of the BBC NEWS Report: HRT linked to ovarian cancer risk and our flagging of Walker’s book HRT: Licensed to Kill and Maim, Maggie Tuttle has been in touch with One Click. Here is what she writes.

Menopausal Help Line on the side effects of HRT

Regarding ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and many other chronic nervous diseases, as I have told you, I have so much research and a lot of leads came from the women calling the help line, then I or others would research it.

A lady who was a nurse in Liverpool and had been on HRT was also very poorly, but she was very aware that, as she said, something was going down in the mortuary with the autopsies, so she got herself transferred to the mortuary. On every form filled in on the autopsy reports, the pathologist had to check every dead person for their oestrogen levels and had to tick a box on the left side of the form which was for oestrogen levels.

So I and others started to research via the women on the database. I also spoke to many neurologists here in the UK and America. Oestrogen from the pill, HRT or any form of hormones prescribed, or from the chemicals en masse in the environment which mimic oestrogens, what happens is that oestrogens in the body go directly to the central nervous system which is the spine, which goes directly through to the brain. So when I linked from the database why so many women had all sorts of nervous problems to include severe headaches, tiredness, muscle pain, body shaking, legs only shaking, depression was reported big time. Suicide, memory loss, black outs, unable to walk or move at times including Narcolepsy, which is what I also use to have and is very frightening, Parkinson's Disease burning in the body and many other nervous disorders.

After listening to Dr Robert Aronowitz, a physician and Historian, of the medical university of Pennsylvania, he commented that when oestrogens entered the central nervous system, they also attacked the nerve endings which in turn attack the muscles. Then we have the problem as I have stated above, and this does make sense.

When I personally questioned the women, and remember I have questioned thousands of women via the help line, I also questioned women who are prescribed the pill which is in the same form as HRT. All hormones are a form of steroids which deplete the body of calcium, and that is why we have so much osteoporosis amongst women.

Then we go to the letter from the F.D.A in America and Martin Walker has also stated in the book HRT: Licensed to Kill and Maim, that all oestrogens are carcinogenic, so why are young girls and women prescribed oestrogens, when they all know oestrogens cause cancer?

I have also questioned many gay guys who have been prescribed hormones, they also have many of the same problems as we women. So if we go back to why in the present day in the autopsy reports, are they checking for oestrogens? They know from countless researches from around the world that oestrogens are playing havoc in the body. Including myself. So many of the women prescribed the pill and HRT are diagnosed with M.E, MS and chronic disorders.

My research is vast, even to the children born to mothers who had been on the pill. Babies are born with deformities, genital defects, and this I have also researched into. Is this why all mothers are being questioned as to the behaviour of children, and why many children are hyperactive?

A Professor Baum here in London publicly stated when he was asked to comment on babies born with defects. He said that it was either the contraception pill or something that is in the environment that was not there 40 years ago. Yes the chemicals used on the food we eat are mimicking oestrogens. Again I spoke to a professor Sweating at the water board, his exact words were, 'It is not the women's hormones that go down the loo it is the chemicals used 6/7 times to try and purify the water, the chemicals mimic oestrogens not women's pee'. Beer is made from water he also said, so I also researched in that field and found that the borough of Islington had also researched into why so many men were growing busts.

I have offered all the research that I have to governments, pharmaceutical companies, doctors and so on, but we are ignored. Cancer amongst women is a huge problem globally. If we go back in time to the 60s, we had cancer, yes, but not on an enormous scale like it is today. And just look around the world at the amount of cancer charities, organisations for cancer, research into cancer - it is never ending. So why from the 60s to the present day is there so much cancer in women and children? The answer is very clear: oestrogens. But look at the billions of Dollars lost if all of this was made public. Remember a database with over 11.000 women all having been questioned and sent a form to fill in. Here lies the truth.

Maggie Tuttle

Email: maggie@lamangahealthcentre.com

Please click on to http://www.lamangahealthcentre.com and go to the petition.

************************

Maggie Tuttle is a life time campaigner, speaking out for women in difficulties. For ten years she has helped women suffering adverse reactions to HRT, standing up to pharmaceutical companies, company loyal doctors and sometimes an indifferent media. Her tireless support for women affected by HRT has been at considerable cost to her self, both financially and emotionally.

Martin Walker is a campaigner and writer. HRT, Licensed to Kill and Maim is his ninth book. His other books include, with Geoff Coggan, Frightened for My Life: An account of deaths in British Prisons (1982), With Extreme Prejudice: An Investigation in Police Vigilantism in Manchester (1986) and Dirty Medicine: Science, Big Business and the assault on Natural Health Care (1993).

Slingshot Publications,
BM Box 8314,
London WC1N 3XX
http://www.zero-risk.org
http://www.slingshotpublications.com

The book can be bought from the website above.

To order this book by post, go to http://www.slingshotpublications.com or write to Slingshot Publications, B.M. Box 8314, London WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom

Feeling Alienated? Feeling Stressed? You Need Yoga for Aliens!

2007-05-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

As time goes by it is becomming clear that the Health Freedom Movement has taken off on a UFO. Those who wish to inform people about anti-pharma issues and those wanting government disclosure of UFO files share a common cause: that of struggling to overcome suppression of information by governments and mainstream press. So as movements they have always rubbed shoulders and even shared webspace on popular websites.

There are outcries from 'Where's your credibility as a movement?!' to 'The Greys have put a chip in my brain and I'm under mind control!' with the result that the average person is left floundering in information quick sand.

The truth is out there somewhere....but let's face it....with government/industry controlled mainstream media on the one hand and the wild mayhem of conflicting views on the Internet, we may not get to the bottom of this anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the increasing state of confusion and distress caused by such battles to find The Truth, is giving people a bit of a headache. Not to mention the poor Greys who seem to be getting a great deal of unfair bad press these days...

So, time to step back, switch off and relax with some traditional healing and intergalactic luurrrv.

Colour Prints: http://www.artmargin.com/alienyogacp.html

Charcoal drawings: http://www.artmargin.com/alienyogadrawing.html

Note: These sections of Art Margin are new and will be added to with more relaxing images from the Yoga for Aliens Series soon!

Let’s Not Be the Next Big Pharma

2007-04-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

How the natural health industry risks its credibility and cohesion by behaving as if it were nothing more than the world market replacement for Big Pharma.

by Emma Holister

Campaigning in the health freedom movement can, as one prominent campaigner once said to me, be like playing a game of chess while walking through a minefield. To take the image further one could say that the possibility of getting metaphorically blown off one’s feet while trying to navigate through the hair-raising political contradictions of this movement is a daily cause of stress amongst activists.

One example of the inner tensions springing up around us is the way in which anti-pharma-activist toes can be trodden on when the natural health/supplements industry behaves too much like a simple market replacement for the pharmaceutical industry.

Faced as we are with the threat of a worldwide ban on natural health products by Codex Alimentarius, the European Commission and other international health and finance regulators, it’s only reasonable that the natural health industry shout its alarm from every rooftop. As individuals who care about human rights it is vital that we support the campaigns fighting the bans.

However, legitimate and necessary as it is to draw people’s attention to the dangers of our current medical industry and our need to develop a healthcare system based on natural methods and respect for individual choices, the fact is that those who have the loudest voices in the natural health world are frequently the businesses.

Their language and perspectives occasionally clash with those of ordinary individuals or patients who may be fighting to free themselves from an unhealthy dependence on products, products and yet more products. In fact the situation is at times so marked that individuals and patients are increasingly referred to as ‘consumers’ and nothing else.

Many activists in the more medically repressive countries such as France and Spain are more concerned with their basic human rights, rather than their shopper’s rights.

They are fighting for the right to refuse compulsory vaccinations containing mercury, formaldehyde and anti-freeze amongst other toxins. They are fighting to retain custody over their children if ever they do refuse forced medical treatments. They are alarmed by laws that make it a legal grey area, or even illegal, to use healing plants from their own back garden. They are outraged by the ban on homemade organic nettle slurry, an effective natural fertilizer.

The scope of the medical-chemical-pharmaceutical industry’s interference with the average individual’s life and health is overwhelming. The pharmaceutical industry is nothing if not versatile, what with its thriving commerce in pesticides, chemical additives to our food and water, toxic household and body products and chemical weapons of mass destruction. The cherry on the cake is the intrusion into our lives of a medical industry that insistently drugs us with deadly poisons each time we get sick and ask it for help; sicknesses more often than not that have been caused by its reckless trafficking in environmental poisons. It is disturbing that patients are forced to turn for help to the very industry that made them ill in the first place.

So it can be irritating when supplement companies speak out for one’s right to be a consumer of vitamin pills above all other considerations. For the average immunity-damaged, medication-damaged and financially-damaged ex-patient, not only are we hounded for attempting to use natural therapies, be they free home remedies or purchased supplements, but we are quite literally swallowed up by a medical-pharmaceutical complex that forcibly assaults us and our children from every direction with a limitless barrage of toxic products.

The word that can make one bristle after a while is ‘product’. There are toxic chemical products, and there are good quality natural products. While we must do everything in our power to protect the latter, let’s not forget the ex-patient’s exasperation with a world in which one is obliged to pay for products each time the issue of health arises.

Moreover, nowhere is this type of industry-focused campaigning more pronounced than where there are the strongest ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The worst culprits of this money-product-consumer talk are the big companies who comply with the pharmaceutically-dominated vitamin associations such as IADSA, CRN and their respective national partners, such as SYNADIET and the FFD in France - all of whom, it is interesting to note, support the EU and Codex bans on supplements.

So, worse even than emulation, is the actual take-over that has already happened in the larger part of the natural health industry which already belongs to the pharmaceutical industry, be it directly, as in ownership of vitamin companies by the pharmaceutical giants, or indirectly, by very large supplement companies who, like the drug industry, will profit from the watering down of the supplement industry.

The big companies march in line with the major vitamin and natural health products trade unions, and any small companies wishing to survive and maintain the quality and purity of their products will have the industry dogs set upon them if they don’t toe the line with the big boys.

Those companies who may wish to distance themselves from the major trade unions in bed with the drug industry risk having government watchdogs set upon them. To use France as an example once more, this would be harassment from the Ministry of Finance’s DGCCRF fraud squad. Consequently the independent, small companies are running scared, finding it hard to break away from the stranglehold of their unions who are hell-bent on crushing them into submission.

The influence of the drug industry is pernicious and omnipresent. For example, prominent in the large vitamin unions is the company Capsugel, owned by Pfizer. Which vitamin company, be it one of the big ‘nasties’ or the little good guys, is able to produce supplements without using this pharmaceutical giant’s capsules? The drug industry have cornered the market in this domain. As a result, the small companies are shy and nervous about talking health freedom - who can blame them? What with their trade associations breathing fire down their necks and their drug industry suppliers keeping them in an arm-lock, it’s not easy to be a businessman and keep the health freedom banner flying.

This conflict of interests is clearly illustrated by two recent articles by NutraIngredients.com. The first, “Industry must step up as alternative to America's 'diseasification'” http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=74867&m=1NIU309&c=lmqbgluszkwtiej might be seen as a fair enough article in its support of a move away from a healthcare system based on pharmaceuticals and ‘diseasification’ to a healthcare system that encourages the use of supplements and holistic disease prevention. The conclusions are reasonable. Such an approach is far more effective for the consumer and far less costly for the taxpayer. However, the language of the article is still eerily money-focused with statements such as:

"The future will be determined by how effectively we inform the public of the value of our products." and “Trade associations are already gearing their activities with this goal in mind. For instance in 2006, the CRN announced its intention to build a multimillion dollar industry-wide project to counter a proliferation of bad news on the industry.”

The second article is a little harder to digest: “Industry must embrace politics, associations urge” http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=71547 sporting as it does statements such as:

“With annual contributions of approximately $1.8m, the dietary supplement industry ranks 74th out of the various lobbying industries in terms of the amount of money it gives to political action committees. Seckman said this is not nearly enough when considering the supplement industry is worth $23bn. ‘So, if it's not money, what makes this industry so influential?’ asked Seckman. ‘It's our grassroots.’ This 'grassroots' quality of the industry, according to Seckman, refers to how the consumption of dietary supplements affects the lives of the very voters senators are trying to reach. And, he added, this approach has not been lost on industry members. . . The president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, Steve Mister, encouraged industry members to join trade associations and Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association, urged trade association members in turn to make full use of these representative bodies to get their needs addressed.”

Are we therefore to take it that the international grassroots health freedom movement is the supplement industry’s great hope for making billions of dollars? This is the type of language that angers campaigners in grassroots organisations that are fighting to make their voices heard in a world where their health rights have been reduced to nothing more than market forces.

If market forces continue to be the main focus of attention in this war against takeovers and infiltration within the natural health industry, rather than basic human rights, small companies may risk losing their last pillar of support - the common people.

Prostitution - An Occupational Hazard in Mainstream Press

2007-03-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

The National and Medical press have really been treating us to a veritable frenzy of attacks against natural therapies lately haven't they . . . Their prostitution to the drug industry appears to be more rapacious than ever.

Here are a few key tussles that are currently taking place between the mainstream press and the world of alternative medicine.

JAMA - 'vitamins kill' - no they don't! by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH)

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?action=news&ID=273

Who's Confused about Alternative Medicine? by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH)

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_262.pdf

The Case of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) by Dr Rath Foundation

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/openletter_bmj.htm

The Natural Control of the AIDS Epidemic Is Possible.
Concluding Remarks By Dr. Rath To A Historic Public Debate With The New Yorker

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/newyorker_debate.htm

Videos + Cartoons

2007-03-10T05:46:00.001-08:00

Are Aliens from Planet Hollywood Taking over the Health Freedom Movement?

Around the end of 2006 I discovered that many of the health freedom groups I'd been supporting and working with had strong ties to the scientology movement (Tom Cruise, John Travolta etc). Whether through funding from large vitamin companies owned by scientologists or large vitamin companies selling their products to the scientology community in particular or giving public support of scientology, or scientology organisations giving out prizes to health freedom associations, wherever I looked I saw that the movement against medical genocide had been contaminated by this corrupt business masquerading as a religion. As a result I stopped working with all health freedom associations, because whether their connections to the scientology empire were direct or indirect, they were invariably present. It is my firm belief that the scientology movement has derailed and corrupted the true grassroots movement against medical tyranny and will assure the triumph of the genocidal pharmaceutical multinationals they claim to oppose.

A recent example of this development is the nature of the sanctions currently being waged against the scientology industry in France and Germany (see Guardian article 'Church of Scientology faces fraud trial in France' by Angelique Chrisafis). France and Germany are well know for being the pioneers in Europe's draconian attacks against natural health care and their blind promotion of the pharmaceutical industry and toxic medical mandating. Scientology is now being used as a 'justifiable' example and precedent for laws that will stamp out the 'illegal practice of medicine', in other words a campaign to outlaw naturopathy practices that can henceforward be easily condemned as 'dangerous sect activity'. What goes for scientology will ultimately go for any type of natural therapy which has a spiritual aspect to it, as most indeed do, such as yoga, acupuncture, shiatsu massage and so many more. Few people will see the establishment's fight against this 'evil sect' as a bad thing and so they will applaud legislation that will limit its freedoms. By the time they realise that the same measures used against scientology are being used against valid traditional therapies it will be too late.

This is my personal opinion and I declare my basic human right to express it and my right to create works of art based on this subject.

The Un-Funny TRUTH about Scientology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCGP-0545EU&feature=related

Some crazy scientology stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgqKA3w6T2U&feature=related

South Park Proved Right About Scientology XENU Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7EEOMbBIO8&feature=related

Tom Cruise tries to Silence SOUTH PARK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=374are79zis

Scientology Crazies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPol_m8wm8Y

Health Freedom

2007-03-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

UN Banning Natural Therapies, Promoting Nuclear Industry - Time to Ban the UN?

Supermarket Psychosis

Martin J Walker 'Science is the New Politics'

Controlled Opposition : Twenty Questions You Never Dared to Ask

Candida Is "AIDS" And You Can Die Of It - Or Not - It's Up To You

Victorian Sexual Prejudice and Modern Medical Science
Words and Artwork by Emma Holister

Virology is Religion by Emma Holister

Lie No. 1 : Pasteur is a Benefactor of Humanity - from ‘The Ten Biggest Lies about Vaccines’ by Sylvie Simon

And Outside of the Left or Right Healthcare Systems? by Emma Holister

Martin J Walker Reports on the Case of Dr Andrew Wakefield, Autism and MMR Vaccine Damaged Children

The Village Voice Buries the Bodies
Liam Scheff

WHY MICHAEL MOORE IS FLAT OUT WRONG ABOUT HEALTHCARE by Mike Hyman MD

MICHAEL MOORE APPLAUDS FRENCH MEDICAL HEGEMONY by Emma Holister

THE FRENCH PROHIBITION ON WORDS RELATED TO HEALING by Emma Holister

A VERITABLE DICTATORSHIP by Sylvie Simon, France

NO FREEDOM, THANKYOU, WE'RE FRENCH! by Jacques Valentin, France

Prostitution - An Occupational Hazard in Mainstream Press

'Let’s Not Be the Next Big Pharma' by Emma Holister
How the natural health industry risks its credibility and cohesion by behaving as if it were nothing more than the world market replacement for Big Pharma.

Is Mathematical Modeling of HIV Infection Good for Anything? by Rebecca Culshaw

2007-03-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

About Rebecca Culshaw:

Rebecca Culshaw worked on mathematical models of HIV infection for almost ten years. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics (with a specialization in mathematical biology) from Dalhousie University in Canada in 2002 and is currently an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Tyler. Her book, " Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?", is fast becoming a science best seller.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/

Dear Dr. Culshaw: Is Mathematical Modeling of HIV Infection Good for Anything?

Answer: Until very recently my answer to this question was something close to this.

It is an open secret in the mathematical biological community that there does not exist any satisfactory mathematical model of "HIV pathogenesis" and that "HIV modeling" is a dead-end field. The most well-known attempt to mathematically model HIV infection occurred in the Ho/Shaw papers of 1995. The influence of these papers had much more to do with the publicity department and editorial bias of Nature than the scientific merits of the work, as the manifest shortcomings of the papers were acknowledged (in private) by most mathematical biologists immediately following their publication, and then publicly in Nature Medicine in 1998 by Mario Roederer:

"There has been considerable debate about this simple hypothesis of Ho and Wei. Their 1995 Nature papers ignited a heated controversy that resulted in publication of several well-designed and informative studies, which raised serious doubts about this 'war'. In this issue of Nature Medicine, reports by Pakker et al. and Gorochov et al. provide the final nails in the coffin for Ho's and Wei's models of T cell dynamics, an illusion of faulty assumptions and poor measurement techniques."

Having said that, it is also true (and frequently pointed out) the abject failure to develop an adequate model of HIV infection does not mean that such a model does not exist, nor does it disprove that HIV causes AIDS. Yet after 20 years of intense effort resulting in failure, it does suggest that alternative models based on non-viral hypotheses of AIDS progression may merit study.

I wrote this very thing in a paper in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in the Winter 2006 number ("Mathematical Modeling of AIDS Progression: Limitations, Expectations, and Future Directions") where I outlined a model based on the intracellular antioxidant glutathione and on the shift from Th1 to Th2 (subtypes of CD4+) cells observed in AIDS patients. (1)

One problem with all existing mathematical models of HIV infection is the simplistic treatment of CD4+ cells, which HIV allegedly "destroys" in some poorly-understand fashion -- variability in CD4+ measurements makes them almost useless in mathematical models, and treating all CD4+ cells as equal ignores the documented shift in AIDS progression among all CD4+ cells from Th1 (that "help" in cell-mediated immunity) to Th2 (that "help" in extracellular immunity and antibody production). (2-4)

The Th1-Th2 shift is strongly associated with an abundance of oxidized glutathione:

"Glutathione is found in both the reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG) form. The ratio of GSH:GSSG has been shown to be important in regulating the Th1/Th2 balance. An excess of GSSG at the expense of GSH is generally considered a marker for severe oxidative stress. Also, GSH deficiency has been shown to inhibit NO [nitric oxide] synthesis, rendering the cellular immunity defense even more helpless. If the GSH:GSSG ratio declines, Th2 cells are preferentially manufactured, as Th0 cells are instructed to mature into Th2 cells. The net effect is a shift to Th2-dominance at the expense of Th1 cells, creating a reduced T-cell count in the bloodstream, and increasing susceptibility to opportunistic infections." (1) My suggestion does not require HIV as a variable, and offers a testable alternative to those produced by the "HIV infection" program.

Now that John Moore has been made aware of this paper, can we expect that he will write to the journal editor demanding a retraction?

Until very recently that would have been a sure bet. But if he was paying attention at the Fourteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections San Diego to what John Mellors was claiming, and what Mellors claimed finds its way from meeting abstracts to reputable journal, the odds-on becomes an odds-off. The journal will have no need to retract it as it will have become another of the tens of thousands of superfluous papers of HIV/AIDS research (but at least it will not be one of the deadly ones).

In something resembling a scientific farce, Mellors "defended" the conclusions of the "final nail" in the HIV/AIDS coffin of Rodriguez et al. by providing the following lead paragraph at the March 2 aids map news.

"The rate at which an untreated HIV-positive person's CD4 cell count is declining is a poor predictor of the risk of AIDS or death in individual patients the Fourteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections was told this week".

"This means that medium term CD4 decline – the quantity Rodriguez said was poorly predicted by viral load – is itself a useless predictor of progression to AIDS, because it is so immensely variable. In fact it is so difficult to calculate the gradient of a medium-term CD4 decline which may in fact feature short-term, abrupt increases and decreases such that the average statistical error in the calculation is 55 cells – almost equal to the average annual decline. In a quarter of the observations, the error of the slope is greater than the measurement of the slope itself," Mellors said.

Say that again? The rate of CD4 decline is not a predictor of AIDS? See why I quit HIV ?* - RC

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1. Culshaw, Rebecca V., 2007. "Mathematical Modeling of AIDS Progression: Limitations, Expectations, and Future Directions", Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 11 Number 4, Winter 2006, pp. 101-105.

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