Caustic Commentary, Winter 2017

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PURE VINDICATION
Earlier this year (Spring 2017), we reported on a talk by Dr. Salim Yusif at Cardiology Update 2017, a symposium presented by the European Society of Cardiology (youtube.com/watch?v=RwGteseHyas). Yusif gave us a taste of the data from the PURE study, a large ongoing epidemiological study carried out in eighteen countries. Well, the results are in and they are definitely not politically correct. The PURE study looked at the dietary intake of over one hundred thirty-five thousand individuals over seven years. During this period the participants suffered almost six thousand deaths and almost five thousand major cardiovascular disease events. Higher carbohydrate intake—not higher fat intake—was associated with an increased risk of total mortality while higher intake of total fat and higher intake of each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality. Higher saturated fat intake was associated with lower risk of stroke. Total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality. The researchers concluded: “Global dietary guidelines should be reconsidered in light of these findings” (Lancet 4 Nov 2017:390 (10107);2050-2062). They certainly should! (But don’t hold your breath for changes any time soon.)

POPULATION IMPLOSION
If you were in college in the late 1960s (as I was), you may remember posters for Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, which predicted that by the year 2000, we would be eating dogs and children and living on the moon due to lack of space on earth. The message of those posters was clear: college students should not burden the earth by having children. Ehrlich’s book had a similar message to that of eugenicist Thomas Malthus, who predicted that the world would run out of food by 1890. Now scientists are waking up to the real population crisis—that half the world’s nations have fertility rates below the replacement level of just over two children per woman. If recent trends continue, Germany and Italy, for example, could see their populations cut in half within the next sixty years. The consequences of a world in which children are rarities are dire—with huge amounts of resources taken up with care of the elderly (already a reality in Japan), economic downturn and a decline in innovation (New Scientist, Nov 16, 2017). Researchers are blaming prosperity, the availability of birth control, the Internet and many other factors for the population decline, while ignoring the most obvious one: the worldwide replacement of animal fats with vegetable oils. Drs. Price and Pottenger predicted this population implosion years ago. They knew that animal fats support fertility while vegetable oils do not.

GUT FLORA AND AUTISM
Not only are we having fewer children, but so many of the precious children we are having suffer from autism and related disorders. A new study has found that an altered intestinal microbiome results in impaired social behavior in mice. Specifically, when a type of bacteria that produces bile acids and contributes to tryptophan metabolism is reduced, the result is marked gastrointestinal dysfunction and behavior that mirrors autistic conduct in humans. These results point to the many factors in the modern environment that can adversely affect gut flora: vaccinations, genetically engineered food, glyphosate, C-sections, a hyperclean environment and lack of lacto-fermented foods.

ALUMINUM AND AUTISM
An explosive new study has found that the levels of aluminum in the brains of autistic individuals are consistently high—some of the highest values for aluminum in human brain tissue yet recorded. The aluminum was found in the neurons but also “intracellularly in microglia-like cells and other inflammatory non-neuronal cells in the meninges, vasculature, grey and white matter.” In other words, the toxic metal was everywhere (Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology 40 (2017) 30–36). There is only one way the aluminum could have gotten into the brain in such quantity—by injection directly into the blood through vaccination. Our body has many mechanisms (including gut flora) to prevent the absorption of aluminum in food and water.

SEIZURES AFTER MMR
Vaccination proponents argue that the dangers from measles far outweigh the dangers of the vaccine. But a letter from Shira Miller, president, Physicians for Informed Consent published in the British Medical Journal presents a dissenting view. Miller notes that a large 2004 Danish study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that the risk of febrile seizures after an MMR vaccination is one in six hundred forty, a five-fold higher risk of febrile seizure than the risk of seizure from measles. Applying this number to the 3.64 million U.S. children receiving the MMR vaccination every year results in about five thousand seven hundred MMR-related seizures annually. A large 2007 epidemiological study found that 5 percent of febrile seizures result in epilepsy. Miller concludes: “There is insufficient evidence that mandatory measles vaccination results in a net public health benefit (bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5104/rr-13).

IN UTERO FLUORIDE EXPOSURE
Pregnant women should be careful about drinking fluoridated water. That’s the conclusion of a recent study published in Environmental Health Perspectives (September 2017:125(9)), which found a drop in scores on intelligence tests for every 0.5 milligram-per-liter increase in fluoride exposure beyond 0.8 milligrams per liter found in urine. The researchers found no significant influence from fluoride exposure on brain development once a child was born. The scientists noted that “Community water, salt, milk, and dental products have been fluoridated in varying degrees for more than 60 years to prevent dental caries, while fluoride supplementation has been recommended to prevent bone fractures.” Pregnant women need to take extra precautions to avoid these sources of fluoride.

U.S. READING SKILLS PLUMMET
Reading scores of U.S. fourth-graders have been declining over the past few years. The U.S. ranked fifth in the world in 2011 but now has dropped to thirteenth place, with the biggest drop in students “in schools with higher free- and reduced-lunch rates, a rough proxy for poverty.” Martin West, an education professor at Harvard University notes that “efforts to improve educational outcomes for the most challenged students are not paying off” (Washington Post, December 5, 2017). Of course, professors of education are looking in all the wrong places to explain the decline. It has nothing to do with “educational efforts” and everything to do with the damage inflicted on our childrens’ vulnerable brains by vaccinations, fluoridated water and lowfat, high-sugar diets as typified in free- and reduced-rate school lunches.

MUMPS OUTBREAK
A recent article about a mumps outbreak at three Washington, DC universities caught my eye. The article noted that officials are taking steps to control the infectious disease by moving infected students to a separate unoccupied space and suspending offering the chalice at communion. Conspicuously absent from the article was any mention of vaccination—presumably because all the infected students were already vaccinated. The article also lists as symptoms “fever, headaches and swollen and tender glands under the ears.” The report made no mention of the really serious side effect in young men—painful swelling of the testicles, often leading to permanent sterility. This is what happens when through vaccination, you don’t allow boys to get the mumps when they are young (Washington Post, November 6, 2017).

OUR TOXIC WORLD
The number of chemicals applied to vegetables sold in supermarkets has increased by up to seventeen-fold over the past forty years, according to data presented at a conference organized by the Epidemiology and Public Health Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, November 20 of this year. Even worse, regulators test only the single active ingredient in pesticide formulations, and not the many adjuvants added to enhance the effectiveness of the active ingredients. No one is looking at the combined effects of these pesticide formulations, or the results of exposure to multiple pesticides. Pesticides are linked to hormone disruption, low sperm quality, miscarriage and decreased fertility. Exposure to very low doses of the Roundup herbicide—far below the permitted levels—caused non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in rats. Today about 25 percent of the population in the U.S. and Europe suffers from NAFLD. Big Ag argues that it is impossible for farmers to manage without pesticides, a view contested by the final speaker at the conference, Peter Melchett. Melchet has been an organic farmer for nineteen years and was a conventional farmer before that. He reported that since converting to organic, he has only had to spray a single field once—when he planted two related crops in the same field two years in a row. Farmers like Melchett use crop rotation, barrier methods against pests, cultivating hedge rows and planting cover crops to minimize the need for pesticides and herbicides (http://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/17988).

VITAMIN A FROM LIVER
In these pages, we like to keep our readers up to date on any research involving vitamin A. But I recently stumbled on a 1994 paper that compared the results from taking a retinol supplement (either orally or as an injection) with eating liver. Those given the supplement had higher plasma concentrations of retinyl palmitate compared to those who ate liver, but they also had much higher levels of all-trans retinoic acid in their blood. All-trans retinoic acid is considered to be the teratogenic form of vitamin A—the form that causes birth defects. Said the researchers: “Advice to pregnant women on the consumption of liver based on the reported teratogenicity of vitamin A supplements should be reconsidered” (Human & Experimental Toxicology (1994) 13, 33-43). In other words, pregnant women should eat liver rather than take vitamin A supplements.

MORE DEATHS WITH STATINS
Even conventional scientists have to admit that evidence that taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs is “sparse and conflicting,” particularly for patients aged seventy-five and older. Even worse, new evidence indicates that taking statins may make you more at risk for dying. Researchers at the division of geriatric medicine and palliative care, New York University, performed a secondary analysis of data from the ALLHAT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack) trial. Earlier researchers claimed that the group taking statins had lower all-cause mortality, but that is not what the New York University researchers found. They focused on twenty-eight hundred older participants who had hypertension and “moderate hypercholesterolemia” but no atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease at baseline. Half received the statin pravastatin and the other half had no statin “therapy.” After six years there were one hundred forty-one deaths in the pravastatin group versus one hundred thirty in the control group. “This represents a nonsignificant trend toward increased mortality with statin therapy. The results were similar, with pravastatin providing no significant benefit regarding coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and cancer events” (Cardiology News, May 24, 2017). Moral: when your doctor offers you a statin, just say No!

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