If every time we did
something that would bring eventual harm to ourselves, to society or to the
environment, we were given a convincing jolt of electric shock, most problems
facing humanity would be almost instantly solved.  But that’s not the way things are.  Other than sticking our hand in a fire or
falling off a cliff, or similar easy lessons in living, most choices require
intelligent foresight, a measure of potential consequences perhaps far into the
future. 

Therein lies our
problem.  We like to cheat, are lazy,
pleasure-for-the-moment driven, too clever with alibis and excuses and
particularly good at self-justification.  
We continue whatever suits our fancy until eventually we are
sufficiently harmed, or the contrary evidence becomes so overwhelming that we
change due to the brute force of public opinion.  

Although cigarette
smoking, industrial smog, water pollution, radiation, toxic gases emitted from
modern construction materials, and sedentary living are all proven to cause
harm, even grievous life-threatening harm, they continue because immediate ill
effects do not occur, or change would mean inconvenience or sacrifice.  Then there is Uncle Josh, who is now a robust
ninety-four, and yet has smoked a cigar, chewed tobacco and swigged whiskey
since he was sixteen.  There is the
brother-in-law who works in the nuclear plant and has never developed
cancer.  There is the classmate you saw
at the recent reunion who doesn’t exercise, watches virtually every soap opera
and eats pounds of chocolates every week but yet looks more trim and fit than
you in spite of your tofu and jazzercise. 
Or how about the NBA All-Star who eats greasy fast foods, additive-laden
soft drinks, and candy bars?  Using such
logic to justify poor life choices is like pointing to people who drive drunk
habitually and have done so for decades without ever getting in a wreck.
  Just because people can escape immediate harm
does not mean such a course is wise and that the odds are not against you.

Here is an even better
rebuttal to this myopic view of life choices. 
The medical image here is a computed tomographic scan of the head of an
inebriated man admitted to the hospital. 
In the side view, note an approximately 2” nail embedded in the back
part of the skull.  In the front view,
see that this nail is in the center of the brain.  The patient disclosed that some twelve years
earlier he had attempted suicide during a depressive episode, and had used a
nail gun directed between the eyes to end his life.  Since that time, he has done just fine. 

http://www.wysong.net/nail_head.htm

Everything is a matter of
odds.  If you can shoot nails into your
brain and survive essentially unscathed, then certainly you might be able to
smoke, lead a sedentary life, breathe toxic fumes, be unfit, and eat almost
anything and possibly escape damage too. 

For most of us, however,
it would be much smarter to weigh the odds in our favor and use our brain
(minus nails) to exercise judgment and foresight and make decisions now that
increase the odds for a better, longer, happier life.

Legislation is getting legs to further curtail your
use of nutritional supplements.  Not too long ago, prior to passage of the
Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) – which was accomplished by
millions of letters to legislators by people like you – the FDA acted like a
Gestapo against supplements, manufacturers and professional advocates. They
would raid at gunpoint the medical offices of doctors advocating the merits of
nutritional supplements, shut down manufacturers, harass stores, confiscate
products and prevent education of the public on nutritional labels. You
know, because so many people were dying of supplements like Coenzyme Q-10 and
herbs like the natural sweetener stevia.

Not really. Actually, not at all.  While they were busy making sure
natural and safe substances were tightly controlled, millions of people were
becoming ill and dying from their “approved” pharmaceuticals. 
It’s like a policeman arresting jaywalkers while letting rape occur in the
alley. 

I’m all for regulation that makes sense. The tight
control over nutritional substances, however, is nonsense. Yes, there can
be found evidence somewhere that some natural substances have caused
harm.  But so can water and oxygen cause harm if not used properly. 
Everything has a risk, but many things have great benefit, too. That is why
full and honest disclosure is important and should not be impeded.  This
is actually a free speech issue that we should insist upon.

The FDA is basically an arm of the conventional medical establishment.
Supplements and self-care are a threat to that establishment, and the resultant
paranoia is what underlies onerous and picayune regulatory intrusion.

On to pet food regulation. Here it gets even more ridiculous. The freedoms
extended by DSHEA to humans are not given to animals. Why? Because
legislators forgot to write it in.  So pet food regulators approve
“dehydrated garbage” (actual listing in the pet food regulators’
handbook) and “dried poultry waste,” but ban beneficial substances
like Coenzyme Q-10, most amino acids, pollen, chondroitin, glucosamine,
quercitin, ginkgo, certain omega-3 fatty acids and many others. 
Regulators busy themselves editing pet food labels to make sure the lethal
“100% complete and balanced” claim is stated carefully and placed in
the right label spot, and issue “stop sale” orders on products with
labels not perfectly complicit.  (To review these issues in detail, see
Chapter 21 in The
Truth About Pet Foods http://www.wysong.net/page/WOTTPWS/PROD/EDUAIDS/ED349.) 
Each state (count ‘em – 50!) has its own regulatory body, which can have its
own rules. Plus there are regulations from The American Association of Feed
Control Officials (AAFCO) as well as the FDA and USDA. The cost to
manufacturers for scrapping and rev
ising labels adds huge costs to the end
consumer … and not only brings no benefit but creates immeasurable harm by
distracting from the central issue of pet health, namely, pets should be fed in
variety and enjoy fresh foods offered, not force fed so-called “100% complete”
processed foods at every meal.

How do regulators justify not at least extending the freedoms of DSHEA to
animals?  Well, they say what is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) in
humans may not be in animals. They can then cite the potential toxicity of
chocolate or aspirin in cats. These are the same people who justify millions of
animals tortured in laboratories to prove the safety of drugs in humans. In
other words, GRAS substances should not be used in animals because human
physiology is different than animals, but pharmaceutical substances and
biocides can be used in humans if they are deemed safe in animals. You figure
the logic in that.   

I’m sure there are many well meaning, hard working, honest folks in regulatory
agencies.  They are just doing what law mandates. On the other hand,
there are some budding little Hitlers amongst the groups as well.

But this is America and in America the
government is supposed to be servant to the people, not vice versa. Your voice
is important and does have incredible power.  Legislators want votes and
that is the currency you can use to swing the system to your favor.

Tell regulators and legislators you want at least
the rights afforded under DSHEA maintained. 

Please go to

http://www.wysong.net/ehealth/appropriationscommittee.htm

For contact information

E-mail your senators today.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Ask them to vote to preserve your rights to free
access to dietary supplements and that you would like your pets to have these
rights as well. Fax also is effective, but mail will be too slow and may not
even be opened for fear of terrorist bugs. Forward this to your friends and
encourage them to take action also.

Perhaps one of the most insidious dangers in modern
technology is medical testing.   Although it would be nice to be able
to visit our doctor and get all hooked up with electrodes, inflatable cuffs,
probes, needles and catheters and have a read-out telling us exactly how we are
working and where there is a problem, that is a myth, not the reality. 

Such testing creates false confidence and the illusion for people that they are
being wise and practicing “preventive medicine.”  But prevention is not
detecting existing disease.  Diagnosis is
not to be confused with cause or cure. 
Not only do patients have these misconceptions, the entire medical
industry does as well.  Modern medicine
is focused on naming diseases and treating symptoms, not preventing disease and
addressing causes.

Medical tests (done on yourself or by others) give a false sense of control and
knowledge.  The better choice is to take every step we can to modify
life-style and nutritional habits to actually create health, not simply live
life with gusto and have yearly stress tests and mammograms.  Waiting for
disease (reacting to injury, which disease is) to strike and then taking action
is certainly not an intelligent approach.

None of this speaks to the waste in much of the
$200+ billion a year that is spent on laboratory and clinical tests.  Not only do they drain our economy and not
create health, they are often inaccurate and unnecessary.  Some 75% of doctors surveyed admitted to
performing more tests than necessary.  In
one study of 25,000 tests, only 20% of them reproduced the same result 90% of
the time.  In another study, 197 out of
200 were “cured” by simply repeating the same tests. (Wysong,
RL.  Laboratory self-testing.  Wysong Health Letter.  March 1992.)

This brings me to a serious danger of laboratory testing:  a false positive or false negative.  If
the test is falsely positive, the emotional trauma from believing you may have
a serious disease can be enough to create a disease.  Thus a test can make
a well person sick.  A false negative
could send you on your way happily believing that everything is fine and that
no life modifications are necessary.  Meanwhile, the disease continues to
incubate and spread.

Medical tests have inherent dangers like any other
medical procedure and should be submitted to only with that understanding.  Even entering a hospital or doctor’s office
poses the risk of exposure to infectious disease (nosocomial infection).  A “sterile” needle to draw blood could result
in a fatal (albeit rare) systemic infection. 
Squeezing breasts for a mammogram can activate dormant cancerous tissue
and increase the spread of cancerous cells (metastases) by 80%. (Greenburg,
DS.  NCI blasted for mammography confusion.  The Lancet.  345(8942): 129.)  Pap
smears are performed millions of times a year yet have never been proven to
change morbidity or mortality.
  (McCormick,
JS.  Cervical smears: a questionable
practice?  The Lancet.  2: 207-209. 1989.)  Ultrasound may influence fetal growth. (Newnham,
JP, et al.  Effects of frequent
ultrasound during pregnancy: a randomized controlled trial.  The Lancet.  342(8876): 887-91.)  X-rays are always dangerous (carcinogenic)
and their effects are cumulative over a lifetime.  Vaginal and rectal exams can introduce
infection.  Cancers penetrated with
biopsy needles may increase the spread of cancer to sentinel lymph nodes by as
much as 50% over lump excision.  It is
estimated 1 in 20 liver biopsies result in new tumors. (Evans,
GH, et al.  Safety of and necessity for
needle biopsy of liver tumours.  The
Lancet. 1: 620.  1987.)  Let the buyer (patient) beware.

Health is something you do to yourself, not
something others do to you with machines or analysis.  Health “by the numbers” of cholesterol, blood
pressure, prostate antigens, white cell count and the like is a fantasy.  Subscribing to this idea will start you on a
slippery slope of medications, medications to treat the side effects of medications,
surgeries and other interventions that destroy health, not build it.

This is not to suggest that diagnostic tests are
not important for refractory diseases or those to which no reasonable cause can
be assigned.  But as a “preventive”
measure for healthy individuals the benefits of the practice are dubious at
best.  (See article on medicine as the
greatest threat to health http://www.wysong.net/health/hl_884.shtml
by the author.)

The best test of health is to evaluate yourself.  If you feel well, leave well enough alone, no
medical test should convince you otherwise. 
The best test is to examine your life-style and nutritional practices
against the standard of genetic context. 
We are adapted to fresh air and water, sunshine, exercise and fresh
natural foods. (See CD  the master key  http://www.wysong.net/page/WOTTPWS/PROD/FD/EDCD21 by the author).  If you are not living as you are genetically
programmed, do it.  By so doing you will not only be preventing, but
reversing disease.  It’s easy, cheap and has
passed the “test” of time in being the best medicine ever invented.

If one were to judge by television advertising and
news reports, it would seem that the “war on cancer” is all but won. What are
the weapons being heralded? Drugs, research, tests and exams. They miss the
point.

“Prevention” is promoted as meaning catching the disease early. Really. That
also misses the point. Is it “prevention” if you call 911 when you come home
and see smoke billowing from all your windows? Do we
just live with a carpe diem
philosophy and wait for the doctor to tell us we have a lump in our
breast or a swollen nodular prostate? Is the cause of cancer a lack of one of
the new cancer drugs? Is the cause of cancer really unknown, requiring endless
research?

First, let me put to rest the propaganda that the war is being won. Since
President Nixon declared the war (1971) and after over 200 billion dollars have
been spent on research (remember, one billion is a thousand million), more
Americans will die of cancer in the next 14 months than have died in all U.S. wars ever
fought combined! (Where are the protest marches?) Soon, cancer will overtake
heart disease as the number one killer.

Decades ago, early in the war, there were some dramatic successes such as with
Hodgkin’s disease and some forms of childhood leukemia. There can be little
doubt that debunking (surgical removal) of large cancers brings benefits. But
the big killers such as colorectal, lung, prostate and breast cancer remain as
threatening as ever. Survival gains are measured primarily in additional months
(not years) added to life, not in cures. The placebo effect is by and large
ignored. (People getting a sugar pill placebo in cancer studies have been known
to lose their hair and some actually cure themselves by simply thinking they
will be cured.) A percentage of people can experience remissions spontaneously
and from simple lifestyle adjustments, but the cancer therapy is always
credited with the cure.

Investigations

“Placebo Learning: The Placebo Effect as a
Conditioned Response,” 1985; 2(1):23.

O’Regan B, et al. 1993. Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated
Bibliography. Sausalito, CA.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0943951178/103-3301155-6416668?v=glance

Talbot M. 1991. The Holographic Universe. New York. Harper Collins
Publishers

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060922583/103-3301155-6416668?v=glance

Townsend Letter, 2004; 251:32-3

http://www.townsendletter.com/June2004/June2004.htm

Statistics can always be massaged to create the result desired. This practice
is rampant in cancer research. Animal models (euphemism
for real living and feeling caged creatures being tortured by the
millions) do not prove effectiveness across species boundaries to humans.
Neither do laboratory cell lines. That’s why all the “breakthroughs”
based on tumor shrinkage never pan out. For-profit drug companies and National
Cancer Institute grant-based research ignore metastases (the spreading cells of
cancer through the body) in their positive reports.  Instead they highlight and focus on more
easily obtained lab results, such as “tumor shrinkage,” and on easily
manipulated clinical data such as “five-year survival.”

Twelve new “improved” drugs introduced in Europe
between 1995 and 2000 were no better than the drugs they replaced. But the
prices were all higher, in one instance by a factor
of 350 times. One new
“revolutionary” drug, Erbitux™, found to “shrink” tumors
but not extend the lives of patients at all costs $2,400 per week. Avastin™,
another costly chemotherapeutic, by the best calculation, extended the lives of
400 colorectal patients by 4.7 months. 
Tamoxifin™ is proven to be effective in decreasing breast
cancer.  Risk is decreased by about 15%
but what is not equally heralded is the fact that it increased the risk of
endometrial uterine cancer by about 15%. 
(Patient Information: Nolvadex, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals)

Are such results worth the financial devastation
and miserable life that chemotherapy, radiation and surgery impose? Is that the
way to spend one’s remaining days? If such therapy does add a couple of months,
are those couple of months really worth the poking, prodding, pain, unrelenting
nausea, disfiguring, destruction of the immune system and increased
susceptibility to other diseases? “Yes” would be a hard answer to
justify.

In the face of a cancer diagnosis most people just throw up their hands in
terror and surrender to the conventional cancer therapy death process. The
feeling is that something must be done, and, since “doctors know
best,” one must begin the “fight” by following the advice of the
doctor. But fighting does not mean surrendering to the will of another person
who has their own personal agenda and narrowed field of view dictated by the
club they belong to. That misses the point. You must do something.

Here’s the on-point best approach:

1. Prevention means adjusting your life right now
so that you are living in tune with your design. Cancer is, quite simply, the
reaction of cells subjected long enough to an environment they are not designed
for. The genetic apparatus loses its bearings, becomes insane, if you will, and
regresses to embryonic infancy and just begins multiplying recklessly. What is
the proper environment? It is that food, air, water and lifestyle you are
genetically designed for. The proper healthy preventive living context is
encapsulated in the Wysong Optimal Health Program™ http://www.wysong.net/optimal_health_page1.shtml.

2. If you get cancer,
don’t panic. First thing is follow #1 advice. Learn. Gather as much information
as you can from all resources, not just what the medical establishment
provides. We try to gather such information for you in: The Wysong Directory of
Alternative Resources

http://www.wysong.net/page/WOTTPWS/PROD/EDUAIDS/MM028

3. Think about what has happened in your life that
has caused the disease. It is caused, it does not just happen. Correct your
life.

4. You take control of your own body and you make
the decisions. Determine to set right what is wrong and do it. Taking control
is essential to not feeling like a helpless victim and sinking into hopeless
despair – a sure mindset to speed the disease along.

5. Think long and hard before submitting to
unproven cancer therapies. If the doctor cannot prove effectiveness (at least
prove that you will be better off with the therapy than without) and if you are
not willing to take the risk of all the contraindications, then don’t submit
because you think it is “all that can be done.” It isn’t. See #2
above.

All good things in life are hard. In our modern
world, good health takes effort and attention. Preventing and reversing disease
also takes effort – your effort. Begin today to take charge of your health and
be the best you can be. Most chronic degenerative diseases have long latency
periods, the time between when the disease begins and it manifests in overt
symptoms. Most everyone reading this has such disease brewing within at this
very moment. So take advantage of the window of opportunity and give your body
a chance by living the life you were designed to live. That will not only prevent
disease from gaining a foothold, but reverse disease that is incubating within.

Okay,
so you think you are doing pretty well with your diet.  You prepare most of your meals at home, don’t
eat much junk food and aren’t a fast food eater only rarely.  You think vitamins are pretty much
nonsense—particularly since you are eating so well—and besides, you feel pretty
healthy.

Well
let me rain on that parade a little.

Consider
this. In order for nutritional researchers to determine the required levels of
nutrients, diets must be designed of known nutrient content with a specific
deficiency in the nutrient being studied. Then varying doses of the nutrient
can be added to the diet to determine at what level symptoms of deficiency disappear. 

In
the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a vitamin C-depleted real
meal menu is described. The diet consists of the following choices:

Breakfast:  Apple Juice, Applesauce, Raisin Bran, Shredded
Wheat, Unprocessed bran, Hominy grits, Cream of Wheat, Eggs (scrambled or hard
poached), Cheddar cheese, French toast, Syrup, Yogurt (plain or strawberry),
Bran muffin, Glazed doughnut, Mini bagel, Cream cheese, White toast or bread,
Wheat toast, Margarine, butter, Honey, Peanut butter, Sugar substitutes,
Low-fat cream cheese, Coffee (regular or decaffeinated), Tea (regular or
decaffeinated), Cream, White milk (whole, 2%, or skim), Chocolate milk,
Buttermilk.

Lunch:  Chicken noodle soup, Cream of
chicken soup, Croutons, Escalloped chicken, Pork chops, Brown gravy, Garlic
herb pizza, Grilled cheese sandwich, Tuna chunks, Yogurt (plain, vanilla or
blueberry), Rice royale, Black beans, Rice, Pretzels, Applesauce, Diet Jell-O™,
Cookies (chocolate chip or sugar), Ice cream (vanilla or chocolate), Bread
(white or wheat), Saltines, Margarine, Butter, Sour cream, Peanut butter,
Mustard, Mayonnaise, Sugar substitute, Relish, Coffee (regular or
decaffeinated), Tea (regular, decaffeinated or iced), Cream

Dinner:  Chicken and rice soup, Cottage
cheese, Croutons, Fried shrimp, Roast beef, Brown gravy, Macaroni and cheese,
Cheeseburger, Chicken salad, Yogurt (plain or peach), Pinto beans, Rice, Diet
Jell-O™, Vanilla ice cream, Angel food cake, Bread (white or wheat), Margarine,
Butter, Peanut butter, Coffee (regular or decaffeinated), Cream, Tea (regular,
decaffeinated or iced)  

Evening Snacks:  Peanut
butter crackers, Graham crackers, Chocolate chip cookie, Popcorn, Ginger ale,
Diet cola  

If
you review these choices you should note something familiar. They are the very
foods that the majority of people now consume! 
By eating these foods a person will restrict vitamin C intake to less
than 5 mg per day. The bare minimum RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) so far established
for vitamin C is 90 mg per day for men and 75 mg per day for women — and this
is highly contested as being far too low. There is a huge body of research now
demonstrating that humans need several hundred milligrams (some believe more
than a thousand) per day to achieve optimal health.

Vitamin
C is a critically important nutrient for humans since our bodies are unable to
synthesize it.  In the wild, fruits and
vegetables would be the main source. 
Vitamin C bolsters the immune system and is critical to connective
tissue integrity and health.  In its
absence, the nutritional disease scurvy occurs resulting in a sort of meltdown
of the basic structure of the body. 
Teeth fall out, internal bleeding occurs and it can cause a miserable
death.  In days gone by, ancient mariners
feared the disease more than capsizing. 
But left out to sea long enough with only bread and salted meat they
were almost sure to suffer it to one degree or another.

Heart
disease is a leading killer in modern society. 
Dental disease is epidemic.  Both
of these conditions can be initiated or fostered by vitamin C deficiency.  There presence may in fact be the very marker
that vitamin C deficiency is widespread. 
Coronary and cerebral vessels lose their integrity leading to heart
attacks and strokes, and periodontitis (gum recession, bleeding and oral
infection) leads to loss of teeth, foul breath and seeding of the body’s organs
with pathogens.

Vitamin
C is not a silly nutrient to be ignored or played with.  Don’t assume that because you seem healthy at
the moment that chronic degenerative disease is not incubating within.  In fact, if you are eating exclusively
processed modern fare, you can count on it. 

Convert
the diet to more fresh and raw foods (See authors The Thinking Person’s Master Key to Health (CD). Note that
there were no fresh foods in the test diet. And certainly taking daily vitamin
C supplements (500-1000 mg per day) is prudent insurance given that normal
dietary fare is clearly vitamin C deficient.

Am J Clin Nutr, 1997; 65(5):1434-40
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9129473