Water, Health, Sustainability
Elements of this email required for community sustainability:
- water supply
- mechanism for getting problems / obstacles on the table and dealt with, “social ingenuity”
- manageable healthcare costs
This is part of a submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
If I’ve made errors, PLEASE let me know.
I don’t want to give the College ammunition for the charge that I am a lunatic!
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CONTENTS
(1) PREAMBLE
(2) OBSTACLES TO ADDRESSING THE CAUSES OF DISEASE (most of you know this & will skip it)
(3) HUGE PROBLEMS FOR SOCIETY FROM PHARMACEUTICALS:
(a) THE DRUGS ENTER OUR WATER SUPPLY. WE ARE WATER.
(b) MICRO-ORGANISMS EVOLVE TO BECOME RESISTANT. IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG. (TB example)
(c) THE PATHWAY OF A LUNATIC
(4) MUST FIND A DIFFERENT PATH
(5) CREATED MY OWN UN-DOING
(6) A GREEN ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY EMERGES WHEN EXTERNALITIES AND MULTIPLIER EFFECTS ARE ADDRESSED
(7) REFERENCES
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(1) PREAMBLE
In the beginning I didn’t know whether to have confidence in the naturopathic doctor, but I believe that in life you have to be open to trying different ways, IN SOME CASES, and IF the information you have tells you that current ways are not working. It’s called effective problem solving!
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(2) OBSTACLES TO ADDRESSING THE CAUSES OF DISEASE
Western (called “allopathic”) medicine has developed good tools for diagnosis and for things like fixing detached retinas, etc. etc . But they are off-base in treating the SYMPTOMS of illness (using drugs) with little of addressing the CAUSES of illness.
It is difficult to get western medicine back on-base because there are very large financial interests in the status quo (in addition to normal human resistance to change):
- the drug companies are among the world’s richest companies.
- (WRONG.) Medical practitioners make lots of money and don’t have to face the challenge of changing the status quo. I don’t think that’s the problem. The system is not working well; the way it’s designed, medical practitioners are under enormous pressure to churn a burgeoning load of patients through the turn-style. Change requires support, motivation, time to update your information base and to experiment with alternatives. If the workload is stressful, it is draining. If you are drained, you cannot summon the energy required to motivate yourself to deal with change. If you have the energy to deal with family matters, the balancing of other personal necessities for
health, you are doing extremely well. There’s nothing left to energize the change required in the workplace. We know that is the case for doctors, but we don’t do effective problem solving to change it. (We lack “Social Ingenuity”!) - As long as you continue to treat symptoms and not causes, there is a guaranteed and growing flow of money through the growing number of patients.
Ironically, our indicator of economic success, GDP (Gross Domestic Product), tells us we are doing just great! when disease increases (high expenditures on medicare, drugs and healthcare).
A recent article in the Globe & Mail:
– cancer will soon overtake heart as the leading cause of death, confirmation that our “address the symptoms” approach does not deliver the goods.
What we see: under the pharmaceutical or drug approach to healthcare, disease has risen significantly. Under the use of pesticides, the amount of “weeds” has risen. We use more drugs and more chemicals and the problems escalate. ?? Smart?
In this network we fight hard to try and force Governments and disease organizations to deal with CAUSE. Unfortunately there is little money to be
made by vested interests if we accomplish our goal (it is largely lip service that is given to “preventive medicine” as evidenced by the failure around pesticides at the Federal and Provincial levels, including some municipal levels).
Dealing with cause is a huge threat to the profitability of the pharmaceutical companies because they own the chemical companies, and together they are the biotechnology companies. They ALL have a lot to do with the CAUSES of disease. They are corrupt companies that corrupt the Government. But good news! in spite of the vested interests, we are beginning to see the results of our work. It’s coming.
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(3) HUGE PROBLEMS FOR SOCIETY FROM PHARMACEUTICALS:
(3a) THE DRUGS ENTER OUR WATER SUPPLY. WE ARE WATER.
Treating symptoms with drugs is creating huge problems that affect the whole population, other species and the environment: pharmaceuticals, in enormous quantities are entering our water supply.
Saskatoon gets its water from the South Saskatchewan River. Calgary is upstream, along with Medicine Hat and other communities – Outlook, SK for example. The Calgary area, alone has a million people. Many people are on drugs, lots of different ones: birth control pills, hormone replacement drugs, ritalin, anti-depressants, insulin, heart pills, chemotherapy drugs, … the list is long.
Those drugs go through our bodies, some remains in the body, but large quantities exit through urine. Urine goes through the sewer lines, through the water (sewage) treatment plant, and back into the River.
Because research “in the public interest” in North America has been increasingly under funded (due to the influence of the pharmaceutical/chemical/biotech companies not only in Government but also in our universities) we do not have the body of research that is available in Europe – they have decades-long documentation of the pharmaceuticals in the water supply. In Canada there are studies of the lake water near some northern communities that show the ingredients of aspirin in the water. And through one study by the DFO (Dept of Fisheries & Ocean) we know that fish downstream from sewage treatment plants are “feminized” (sterile), which tells you that the pharmaceuticals and chemicals are not all removed by “water treatment”. Water keeps recycling through the rain-evaporation cycle and through our bodies. What went through people two thousand years ago is still cycling through us. What we put into the water is profoundly important.
Drugs are chemicals; they, along with the chemicals enter the water supply (think of what goes down the drain from latex paint, to chemicals that are strong enough to dissolve body hair or tree roots in sewer lines, to run-off from agriculture and lawns.)
We know what is happening to the water supply. If there isn’t enough evidence in North America, there is in Europe. We have to resolve this, not only for the human species but for the sake of other species. We are all totally dependent for life on the gift of water. If we poison it, it has no option but to poison us.
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may2000/958588306.An.r.html
“Different people have different percentages of their bodies made up of water. Babies have the most, being born at about 78%. By one year of age, that amount drops to about 65%. In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water. However, fat tissue does not have as much water as lean
tissue.
In adult women, fat makes up more of the body than men, so they have about 55% of their bodies made of water. Fat men also have less water (as a percentage) than thin men.”
As David Suzuki says, water IS us, we are water. You can’t separate us out.
We must develop the SOCIAL INGENUITY to remove the obstacles that are blocking effective problem-solving. This is my contribution to that attempt. Put it out on the table. Stop hiding the problem.
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(3b) MICRO-ORGANISMS EVOLVE TO BECOME RESISTANT. IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG.
The second large problem with the drugs is that organisms evolve to become resistant to the current drugs. The development of TB strains that are
resistant to current drug protocol is a rising threat in the world. The drug companies are in a race to be the first one out with a more potent drug that can kill the newly evolved TB micro-organisms now found in Africa, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. The fact that I (not from a “vulnerable” population) have TB is to me, an indication that yes, TB is definitely on the rise, and there is a lot of money to be made in the future in treating TB. But I also know that world-wide there won’t be the money available to buy the drugs to treat Africans, Eastern Europeans and others. Many, but not all North Americans and western Europeans will have access to the drugs.
(The race to find a “cure” for TB and the corruption in the drug companies and Governments is the subject of John Le Carre’s recent book, made into a movie – “The Constant Gardener”. Le Carre is the author of thriller spy and espionage novels, based in a very real world.)
The “treat the symptom” drug approach is of course, quite stupid. It is as obvious as my nose that more and more potent drugs, over time, guarantee the development of yet more virulent organisms. It is the way of Nature. If you think of the TB drugs, just the current ones make some people nauseated and sick. That is natural – the drugs required to kill the TB organisms are potent.
The drug required to kill the evolved MORE VIRULENT TB organism is obviously going to make us sicker than the current drug protocol, because it is MORE POTENT. The organisms will continue to evolve – we are in a deadly spiral.
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(3c) THE PATHWAY OF A LUNATIC
It is lunacy to continue along this pathway. Yet Western medicine does it. Curiosity and creativity would address resistant organisms, pharmaceuticals in the water supply, and the role of the pharmaceutical companies. If the educational system left ingenuity intact, we might by now be onto a new path.
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(4) MUST FIND A DIFFERENT PATH
SO! the information leads me to think that we must find a different path. We will never find the path if we don’t search for it.
I saw the naturopathic doctor.
His analysis is that the reason I have TB is most likely because I have a fungal infestation in my body that is producing a large load of myco toxins
(a form of toxaemia, I believe). The infestation is not visible of course. I am uncertain about the familiarity of allopathic doctors with the production and role of myco toxins in health. My experience with TB suggests there is an information gap.
The evidence to date says that the naturopathic doctor is right. Four months after taking anti-fungal and supporting treatment and diet, I no longer suffered the symptoms of the TB. And my vitality returned. (There is more to this story, told in later postings.)
IMPORTANT: I am very fortunate. In my case the TB is “encapsulated” and therefore not contagious at this point. I cannot infect other people at this stage. I hope to arrest and reverse the growth of the TB.
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(5) CREATED MY OWN UN-DOING
When the TB was over-powered it felt so good to have my energy and vitality back, and there is so much that I want to do with my work, that I began to neglect the treatment. The diet says no sugars because yeast is a fungus. From making bread you know that without sugar the yeast
can’t grow. The diet works with the treatment: an anti-fungal kills the yeast, and you cut off the food supply for the fungus (yeast) so there is nothing to feed what doesn’t get killed.
The diet says no alcohol because in similar fashion it feeds the yeast.
Well, when I go to conferences or weddings (not usual, I’ve been at 2 weddings and 3 conferences lately!), I go off the diet. I ate desserts loaded with sugar, drank some wine, and coffee (caffeine). And I don’t get the rest needed to enable my body to have extra resources for fighting the fungus and TB. The weather is such that I can no longer lay out in the healing sun. Coincidentally I ran out of the anti-fungal, etc, treatments and didn’t re-stock immediately. Although I felt energetic, there was obviously still fungus and TB organisms floating around inside because the symptoms of the TB are back again. Damn! It is nothing to mess around with – a million people world-wide die of TB each year and the number is rising if the disease incidence is rising. (If you would argue that my lack of discipline is proof that the drug treatment should be used, I counter with the argument that there are many people who contract TB and are prescribed drug therapy who never complete the 8 month drug protocol which is known to then contribute to the evolution of resistant TB strains because incomplete treatment leaves only the strongest organisms behind. There has to be experimentation with alternatives, and like it or not, I am in a position to provide research information.)
I go back to the TB Control Centre, November 3rd, for x-rays to see where the TB is at. I expect it will show that I have a small amount yet to deal with, significantly down from where it was during my last visit. Then I will see the naturopathic doctor on November 7th. Working with both
allopathic and alternative practitioners will work if I maintain discipline. It is sooo easy to let down your guard, especially when confronted by a chocolate brownie, or the sociability of a glass of wine. Easy and also stupid (I admit!).
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(6) A GREEN ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY EMERGES WHEN EXTERNALITIES AND MULTIPLIER EFFECTS ARE ADDRESSED
My Grandmother-in-law, from Brandon, MB had tuberculosis in the 1940’s. She spent 2 years at the sanatorium in the Qu’Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan and was cured of the disease without the use of drugs. She lived a healthy life into her 80’s. I doubt she was given any anti-fungal treatment. With anti-fungal treatment, I believe it will turn out that in my case, the disease could have been overcome in, say 6 months. (Please see the February 2012 posting on the “cure” of my TB; in the end it involved more than the anti-fungal treatment.)
Drug treatment is a large drain on the economy of Saskatchewan. All the profits are siphoned out of the province by foreign transnational corporations. If you consider “the externalities”,
- the cost of resistant organisms
- the cost of poisoned water
- the cost of long term unknown side effects, AND
- the cost of very low multiplier effects (“multiplier effects” of keeping the money here circulating and available in our own communities)
- the opportunity costs of lost meaningful jobs
you would conclude that a return to a sanatorium-type cure, employing local care givers, would address the problems effectively. Or you may have some other idea that would move us onto a sound path forward. We need the debate and the experimentation. It could lead to the establishment of model health care facilities that would attract TB patients from around the world, just as my Grandmother-in-law was attracted from Manitoba to Saskatchewan. Opportunity and job creation. You know the demand is rising. We COULD develop a world-class treatment centre, attractive because:
- it doesn’t add to the problem of resistant organisms
- it demonstrates how it is possible to stop the flow of pharmaceuticals into water supplies.
Very innovative!
I’d be impressed.
It is unfortunate when Medicare promotes allopathic medicine as a sole answer (it is almost unheard of not to take the drug protocol for TB). In spite of the cost of going to alternative therapies, many people find the money to use them. But then many are prevented because they can’t round up the funds. In my case, I view it that my “life” depends on it.
I could take the drug protocol, of course and right away “save” my life (I might be nauseated for 8 or 9 months). But there will have been no long term evaluations to see whether down-the-road I will suffer from other maladies that become manifest only in the long term. If a fungal overgrowth is the root of the problem, and goes unaddressed because only the TB has been treated, it is pretty well guaranteed that I will have recurring health problems.
Also, there is responsibility on my part to force the issue, along with others who are doing the same. I am aware of the consequences for my children and theirs if we do not exercise our social ingenuity to remove the obstacles that prevent us from moving forward, from addressing the issues of pharmaceuticals in the water supply and our knowing contribution to the development of resistant organisms, a deadly game.
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(Note: Please see the February 2012 posting regarding “cure” for TB. It involved more than elimination of the myco-toxins.)
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(7) REFERENCES
(a) * Some of my information and the diet is from the book, “Complete Candida Yeast Guidebook, Revised 2nd Edition, Everything You Need to Know About Prevention, Treatment & Diet” by Jeanne Marie Martin with Zoltan P. Rona, M.D., (2000).
One problem with the symptoms listed in the book, or maybe MY problem, is that the symptoms experienced by different people are so many and varying that almost anything could be a symptom! And of course, those symptoms could also be the symptoms of many other illnesses. Other than that (which is likely MY problem) I found the book to be very informative.
(I suspect that the symptoms are many because a fungal infestation in different parts of the body would create different symptoms.)
(b) The information on the USDA web-site about myco toxins in our food supply, so far as it is related, is consistent with the information from the book. We have talked about it: THE INCREASE IN FUSARIUM (A FUNGUS) FOUND IN FOOD CROPS TREATED WITH ROUNDUP (GLYPHOSATE) – a concern because it is another vector through which myco-toxins can enter the food supply.