chickenlil.org

Here are some pretty surprising/upsetting articles on MSG - Check it out!

MSG sprayed on crops as Growth Enhancer
http://www.benabraham.com/html/msg_sprayed_on_crops.html

MSG hidden in food under devious names
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html

If MSG isn't harmful, WHY is it hidden?
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/WebIndex.html

Adverse Reactions to MSG - including obesity, respiratory, neurological etc.
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/adversereactions.html

Health Experts to Re-Examine Autism, Vaccine Links

I always worry when the "experts" get ahold of this stuff.. (ed.)


Sun February 8, 2004 10:55 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A panel of independent experts will take a fresh look Monday at the possibility that vaccines, especially those made with a mercury preservative, may cause autism.

A panel from the Institute of Medicine will examine a raft of new studies on the subject, including a Danish study of nearly 500,000 children that found no link between vaccines and autism and a U.S. study that found a possible mechanism for mercury, lead and other heavy metals to cause such disorders.

The panel issued its last report on the subject in 2001, saying there was no evidence that vaccines caused autism, but noting there was not a lot of research either.

"Since the Institute of Medicine released its report on autism back in 2001, there have been new studies done since, and there are still ongoing concerns among parents about this issue," said Christine Stencel, a spokeswoman for the institute, which advises the federal government on health matters.

Several advocacy groups claim vaccines cause autism, a mysterious disorder with symptoms ranging from a lack of social skills to a crippling inability to relate to others.

Autism appears to be on the rise, although there are no clear studies showing whether it is occurring more often, or simply being recognized more as a disorder separate from mental retardation or mental illness.

Because it is usually diagnosed during the toddler years, when children receive many of the 18 or so early childhood shots, many groups believe vaccines are to blame.

The mercury preservative thimerosal is no longer found in childhood vaccines in the United States, but remains in the influenza vaccine and in vaccines in other countries. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public health Service recommended removing thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 1999 as a precaution.

BRAIN DAMAGE

Scientists say it is plausible that if thimerosal got into the brain, it could cause brain damage. In one study published last week, Richard Deth of Northeastern University in Massachusetts found that DNA damage done by thimerosal, lead and some other metals could damage nerve cell signaling.

Danish researchers will discuss what many scientists say is the most convincing study to date.
Anders Hviid and colleagues at the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen looked at 467,000 children born between 1990 and 1996, some of whom were vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing whooping cough vaccine and some who got one without the preservative.

They found no differences in autism rates between the groups.

Dr. Polly Sager of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease will also speak to the panel. She reviewed several studies that show babies eliminate the mercury found in thimerosal within days.

"The fact that it is excreted in stool really is pretty exciting," she said in a telephone interview. "It is a simple concept -- if a kid is pooping out mercury, it is not in their body, it is not getting to their brain, it can't do damage."

But Boyd Haley of the University of Kentucky will discuss a study that suggests autistic children have lower-than-expected levels of mercury in their hair, raising questions about whether mercury remains in their tissues and if they have an impaired ability to rid their bodies of the toxic metal.

Some experts note vaccines are not the biggest source of mercury in the body. Many fish contain high levels of mercury, as does the water supply in some parts of the country.

Link

Low-carbers booted out of buffet for meat-centric consumption

A couple who were on a low-carb diet were ejected from a Utah
all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant for eating too much meat.

"We've never claimed to be an all-you-can-eat establishment," said
Johanson. "Our understanding is a buffet is just a style of eating."

The general manager was carving the meat, and became concerned about
having enough for other patrons, Johanson said. So when Amaama went up
for his 12th slice, the manager asked Amaama to stop.


Link

thanks, boingboing.net

FDA Approved Genetically Engineered Soy and Corn in Baby Food
and Nutritional Supplements

http://greenpeaceusa.org/media/publications/babyfood.htm

FDA Approved: Genetically Engineered Soy and Corn in Baby Food and Nutritional Supplements

Laboratory analyses commissioned by Greenpeace have revealed the presence of transgenic DNA from genetically engineered (GE) foods in a popular brand of baby foods and in nutritional supplements used for tube feeding in hospitals and nursing homes. Gerber Mixed Cereal for Baby, a dry three-grain cereal mix for infants, tested positive for DNA from transgenic insect resistant "Bt" corn and herbicide tolerant "Roundup Ready" (RR) soybeans. The two supplements, Novartis' IsoSource and Ross Products' Osmolite both contained transgenic DNA from RR soy.

In addition to commissioning the analyses, Greenpeace sent a questionnaire to these and other makers of baby foods and supplements, requesting information about their policies regarding genetically engineered ingredients. The survey questions and responses are detailed in Appendix IV.

The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents over 115,000 doctors, released a report last month calling for a moratorium on the introduction of GE crops into the environment and food chain. Among other concerns, the BMA noted the potential for altered plants to add to the spread of antibiotic resistance, to lead to new and untraceable allergies, and to contain toxic by-products. The report suggests that precautionary action should be taken "for the foreseeable future...until the health and environmental impact of genetically modified organisms are fully assessed...."1

The altered corn found in the Gerber cereal includes genes that produce a bacterial toxin, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). When genetically altered Bt plants grow, they produce the toxin, which is an insecticide farmers use to ward off certain pests. In 1991, Dr. Rebecca Goldberg outlined the kind of assessment that should be required of Bt plants and stated, "…There is insufficient evidence to conclude that Bt plants should be accepted for human consumption."2 Yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never required the kind of comprehensive testing Dr. Goldberg suggested.

Instead, the FDA relies on the industry to voluntarily assess the safety of its products, despite the fact that the industry has not conducted long-term tests for effects on human health. The industry relies on chemical analyses or short-term animal feeding studies that typically last no more than ten weeks. No independent testing or review of industry data is required, and often studies are unpublished, making critical scientific analysis impossible.

More at Link

FUSING CHROMOSOMES PRODUCES OFFSPRING
Experiment of mice - and no men

BY ROBERT COOKE
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
April 22, 2004


Males may feel less useful now that Japanese researchers have created the
first mammals - mice - via virgin birth.

By forcing the chromosomes of two females to mesh inside a single egg, the
scientists found they could produce viable offspring, one of which survived
into adulthood. Papa, alas, was left out of the loop entirely.

The milestone was announced in today's issue of the journal Nature. All
offspring were female because no male Y chromosome was involved.

Led by Tomohiro Kono at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, the nine
researchers constructed hundreds of mouse eggs containing only the
chromosomes from two females. The manipulated eggs were implanted into
surrogate mothers, and from these they obtained two female mice. One matured
into an adult of normal size and weight. She was named Kaguya after a
Japanese fairy-tale character, and produced pups of her own via normal
mating.

"It is a fascinating and very credible report," said Dr. Arthur Beaudet,
chairman of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston. But "I don't see it as something that would have a serious
likelihood of happening naturally. And I certainly do not see it as
something that should be tried in humans."

Reproduction sans Dad is called parthenogenesis and is seen in many species,
including snakes and birds, but not in mammals. In mouse experiments,
parthenogenic embryos die by day 10 of gestation.

Kono and colleagues got around that by using two half-sets of female genes,
called haploid sets. One special haploid set contained mutations that kept
it from acting female. Its genes functioned as though they'd come from a
male. To the researchers' surprise, only two genes - H-19 and Igf-2 - were
involved in controlling the imprinting process. This mechanism is a
mysterious alternative means of gene control. Both mother and father try to
control how genes are used through imprinting, which alters what genes do
without causing genetic damage.

The imprinting process has been a biological puzzle for decades, and the
spermless births in Japan may help resolve it.

According to animal reproduction physiologist George Seidel at Colorado
State University, theoretically "there is no good reason why
[parthenogenesis] shouldn't work, apart from imprinting. It works in other
animals, from birds on down." He said it seems Kono's team has found a way
around genetic imprinting.

He said that may lead to a new way to create stem cells used to grow new
tissues for sick people, thus avoiding use of human embryos to harvest stem
cells. In any case, Seidel said, the new results "tell us something about
control of the imprinting process." That could be important because several
genetic diseases are known to result from faulty gene imprinting.

The team in Japan saw evidence that imprinting influences perhaps 1,000 or
so other genes, and "it's amazing that altering the expression of just two
imprinted genes can have a ripple effect on the rest of the genome,"
Australian scientists wrote in a commentary in the journal Nature.

David Loebel and Patrick Tam at the Children's Research Institute of the
University of Sydney added that the work provides evidence that "expression
of imprinted genes is one of the major reasons why natural parthenogenesis
has not been possible. What is not understood is why such a barrier in
single-parent reproduction has evolved."

Harvard biologist David Haig suggests it's a matter of continuing
competition between the sexes. He suggested that the father's genes and the
mother's genes compete to influence the future. For example, Dad's genes
want to make big, healthy males who are likely to pass his genes along.
Mom's genes try to steer energy into keeping her healthy, allowing her to
reproduce again, perhaps with different males, increasing chances of passing
her genes along.

In effect, it's perhaps the battle of the sexes - writ small.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

The Truth About Breast Implants

Sherrill Sellman, author of Hormone Heresy, interviews Ilena Rosenthal
<><><><><><><><><><><><>

*********************************

The Truth About Breast Implants - An Interview with Ilena Rosenthal

by Sherrill Sellman

Ilena Rosenthal is an incredibly courageous and passionate woman who
has been dedicated to raising awareness to the true and serious risks of
breast implants and other silicone products. She is a true inspiration
of the power of the Feminine to create healing and change in the world.
And it has not been easy. What began as a small research project for a
friend with tumors and cysts around her 20 year old saline implants in
August, 1995, has become an amazing adventure for Ilena beyond anything
she could have imagined.

Speaking out on the true dangers of a product so desirable and yet so
potentially harmful, sharing the too real stories of women who made the
fateful decision to have breast implants, almost immediately made her
the target of an unrelenting and incredibly vicious 6 year Defamation
Campaign which continues to date.

In November, 1995, she created the only Usenet Newsgroup,
alt.support.breast-implant, to provide a place for support and a way for
women and
their families to connect. She obviously got in the way of the Silicone
and Plastic Surgery Industries and their Public Relations Machine well
greased by silicone dollars. Nothing was too personal nor too untrue
for her Enemies to post or email about her. To learn more of her personal
encounter with the forces who wanted to silent her warnings and her
message, visit her website at http://www.humanticsfoundation.com

SS: What is your background and what you made become involved in
exposing the dangers of breast implants.

IR: Over 30 years ago I received my BA in Psychology from the
University of Colorado. During college, I did volunteer counseling in the
very
early days of Planned Parenthood. I have always been active in women's
issues, and was honored to have been a part of a team to form the first
Woman's Crisis Center in a small mountain town in No. California 25
years ago.

After hearing story after devastating story from women harmed by breast
implants, in September, 1995 I began to investigate the issue for a
beautiful and confused friend. As U2 says, "I got stuck in a moment" and
now, 7 years later, I am more committed to warning women internationally
about the very real dangers, which include vast disinformation
campaigns by the silicone manufacturers and the wealthy plastic surgeons
groups.

SS: What are the proven dangers of breast implants?

IR: Among other problems:

1. Implants can rupture during mammography.

2. Implants make routine self exams and mammography more difficult.
More views are necessary, meaning additional radiation each time.

3. Implant rupture can go undetected for years and silicone is known to
migrate through the lymph system and has been found in the brains,
spinal fluid, ovaries, livers, and other organs of implanted women.

4. Implants are not lifetime devices, and may need to be replaced (even
without systemic problems) more than once a decade.

5. At any time infections are possible, including fungal and antibiotic
resistant bacterial infestations.

6. Loss of breast sensation, especially around the nipple area is
reported, as well as hyper-sensitivity to touch.

7. Capsular contracture can be very uncomfortable, to the point of
severe pain and deformation.

8. Many women have experienced severe necrosis and other forms of
breast tissue loss.

9. Many women have experienced serious autoimmune diseases post
implantation including: rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, multiple
sclerosis,
Sjogrens Syndrome (severe dry mouth, eyes, etc.), and lupus. Those
women with pre-existing compromised immune systems are now warned to avoid
implants.

10. Disproportional numbers of implanted women have reported
neurological and cognitive complications, as well as endocrine disruption
including hysterectomies, miscarriage.

11. Children born of implanted women have experienced the same
autoimmune conditions and have been seriously inadequately studied.

12. Breast implants often negatively affect the ability to produce milk
for breast-feeding.

13. Health insurance carriers are routinely denying coverage for
implanted (and explanted) women.

SS: Are all implants dangerous? For instance, what about saline
implants?

IR: We are all like snowflakes, no two of us alike.
An implant is aforeign invader and that alone can create problems for some. Some peoplecan die from peanuts, or strawberries. Breast implants contain many
toxic ingredients such as platinum and silica and organic solvents that can
cause reactions in various women.

Unfortunately, the saline implant has a whole series of complications,
such as fungal infections and a very, very high rupture rate requiring
additional surgeries.

Glamour Magazine did a very good expose on them, which can be found at:

http://www.humanticsfoundation.com/glamour-saline.html


Further, the clinical studies done by Mentor and McGhan are listed on
the FDA webpage with information as to the complications in the first
few years. This can be found at:

http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/breastimplants/

It was only in May, 2000 that any implant got FDA approval. At that
time, the FDA determined that saline implants were "safe enough" despite
very high complication rates.

SS: Why are breast implants so popular now? How did the industry
manage to re-establish credibility and safety?

IR: Advertising pays! So do enormous Public Relations budgets.

The breast implant manufacturers and Plastic Surgeons groups have
inundated the news media with any "positive" slanted story and ignore the
ones exposing the harmful effects. The manufacturers are funders of the
"junk science" campaign which calls any findings that will hurt their
bottom line "junk" and mis-label corporate funded "science" as sound.

For example, when the National Cancer Institute found a correlation
between breast implants and deaths from respiratory and brain cancers, the
media broadcast skewed findings such as "most cancers not connected"
and other misleading headlines. When extraordinarily high rupture rates
were reported by the FDA two years ago, the media again was virtually
silent. The same with information of high suicide rates and links for
women with ruptured implants and fibromyalgia.

Also, the plastic surgeons and manufacturers fund websites that pretend
to be "support groups" and which are staffed by those paid to help sell
more implants. They censor any critics and offer very one-sided advice.

One of these even touts the very dangerous "belly button" method of
implantation, which the FDA specifically warns against. Never mentioned on
these sites are that ruptured saline implants can not be removed by the
belly button, and I strongly believe the women getting implants via
this method thinking they will forever be "scarless" are being duped.

The bottom line is no one in the world wants to believe that breast
implants can and do ruin as many lives as they do. Unfortunately, it is a
multi-billion dollar a year business, while concurrently, billions are
still unpaid to the victims of faulty implants. All of this makes the
issue "controversial" with enormous PR to support the sides with the
money.

Most of the women activists in this issue are ill themselves, many have
lost not only their breast implants, but their own breast tissue, their
health, their jobs, their insurance, and often their families.

It's their word against some of the largest and most powerful companies
in the world, like Papa Dow Chemical, Baby Dow Corning, and Bristol
Myers Squibb.

SS: What do you recommend to women who have implants? How can they
protect their health? What do they need to know? What are the signs of
silicone poisoning or allergic reactions?

IR: No one wants to relieve that her breast implants could be harming
her health. No one. Every woman has a large emotional, physical and
financial investment in them.

Early warning signs are numbness in the extremities, shooting pains and
severe headaches. Dry eyes are also often early signals. Painful joints
and swelling are common.

Unfortunately, most physicians will deny any connection of implants and
these symptoms, yet alone lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis and
other disproportionately seen autoimmune illnesses.

Ruptures with silicone gel implants can go undetected for years,
although saline filled silicone implants tend to go flat fairly soon when
leaking.

Just like the decision to become implanted is one of the biggest women
make in their lives, so is the decision to explant permanently. Some
women (Jenny Jones, Sally Kirkland among them) had 5 separate sets of
implants before finally removing them without replacement.

I do advise women to speak with others who have long-term experiences
with implants. I am proud that there are thousands of women from all
over the world connected via my support group founded 7 years ago. There
are so many who generously share their experiences with new members.

It is also very important to find plastic surgeons who know how to
properly and safely remove implants, if they choose this route.

Most of all, women must be honest and gentle with themselves. Trust
their instincts. Make their decisions out of love for themselves, not just
fear.
SS: Is there a greater danger to teenagers and young women if they
get implants?

The FDA finally added some restrictions for women under 18 years of
age. Because most women believe that implants are a lifetime product, this
means a constant assault on a woman's immune system by having a foreign
body inside of her for several decades. Even without systemic problems,
this would mean years of re-operations, usually with no insurance, each
time with a chance for an opportunistic infection to occur. I believe
this is a very dangerous decision for a young woman to make.

SS: Are there any safe, effective breast augmentation techniques or
supplements?

IR: I have heard of good results with some supplements, although they
appear to be somewhat temporary. One very good friend of mine had
liposuction and the fat from that implanted into her breasts. The results
were good for a couple of months. Then the fat drifted away and she
looked the same before surgery (although her derriere remained smaller).

While it is true that not every woman will experience serious problems,
the risks are enormous. I recommend women learn to love themselves as
they are and stay as healthy as possible.

SS. How can women support your efforts?

IR: Spread the word of the very real dangers to those who don't yet
know. Read as much unbiased information as possible. Our website has many
great links on it.

http://www.BreastImplantAwareness.org
Our non profit foundation, The Humantics Foundation, like many others,
has had most all of its donations virtually stop after 9/11. It takes
funding for websites, support groups and lists and most of it I have
funded myself for the last 7 years.

With approximately 5 new women a day asking for help and support, tax
deductible donations in any amount will help us be able to continue this
vital work.

Many thanks, Ilena, for your time and wisdom.

....for more on women's health issues, see chickenlil.org

NATURE & NURTURE
Genes' impact can be alteredGenetic information can lead to helpful interventions for those needing
assistance to mitigate problems

BY GARY MARCUS
Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, is the author
of "The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexity
of Human Thought." This is from the Los Angeles NewsDay

April 22, 2004


The human brain has been described as everything from the "last frontier"
and "biology's greatest challenge" to "the most elaborate structure in the
known universe" and Woody Allen's "second-favorite organ."

With rapid advances in genetics, neuroscience and psychology, we will soon
have a radically improved understanding of the contribution of genes to the
developing brain.


Used wisely, that knowledge could lead to an entirely new approach to
social intervention. But doing so will require overcoming common
misconceptions about how genes operate.

Genes are widely seen as either blueprints or deterministic dictators.
Neither view is correct. A single organism's collection of genes - its
genome - can lead to many different outcomes, depending on the surrounding
environment.

The African butterfly bicyclus anyana, for example, can take on two
different forms - colorful in the rainy season and dull brown in the dry
season - depending on how its genes are switched on and off.

The consequences of the responsiveness of genes to the environment may be
even more profound in a human. A butterfly's coloration pattern may only be
skin deep, but the switching of human genes in response to the environment
may profoundly shape our personalities.

Contrary to our usual belief that genes force us toward one possibility
rather than another, biology is revealing a different picture in which genes
arm us with ways of responding to different environments.

One example: A recent study - still preliminary, but breathtaking in what it
might mean - suggests that people who bear a particular version of an enzyme
known as MAO-A are predisposed to violence, but only if raised in abusive
environments.

This particular version of MAO-A is better thought of not as a gene "for
violence" but as a gene that leads its bearers to different kinds of
strategies, depending on their environments.

Given that genes themselves are responsive to the environment, and
responsive in different ways in different people, a bold new possibility
suggests itself, akin to an idea that has taken hold in medicine under the
name of pharmacogenetics.

The idea behind pharmacogenetics is that different people respond
differently to different drugs depending on their own individual chemistry.
Depending on your genes, one version of a drug may be more effective,
another less so.

Doctors are already beginning to incorporate this sort of information into
the prescription of certain powerful drugs, and they will do so more and
more as our understanding of genes grows.

Just as pharmacogenetics tailors medical intervention to individual genetic
profiles, a new field of "social-intervention genetics" could be tailored to
individual genetic profiles.

For example, other things being equal, society would get the most for its
social intervention buck by specifically offering certain social welfare
programs to those with the predisposing form of the MAO-A gene.

Genetic information should never be used to dictate who gets to (or, worse,
doesn't get to) reproduce; nor should society mandatorily impose
intervention where it is not wanted. But by helping to make social
interventions available to those who need them most, our growing
understanding of nature could help us get the most out of nurture.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

Depressing News on Depression

Published: April 23, 2004 NYTimes

Antidepressant drugs are being widely administered to children and adolescents despite increasing concern that the benefits have been oversold and some potentially dangerous side effects minimized. The jury is still out on whether the modest benefits of some of these drugs outweigh the small risks they impose. But the escalating debate makes us wonder, uneasily, whether doctors have been dispensing the pills far too cavalierly despite a dearth of evidence to support their value.

The issue that has dominated recent discussion is whether the most commonly prescribed antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. British health authorities have cautioned against using most of them in children under 18, and a top expert at the United States Food and Drug Administration considers most of the drugs too risky. But the F.D.A. as a whole is not yet convinced that the risks outweigh the potential benefits.

Not a single participant in trials of the drug has actually committed suicide, and there is uncertainty as to whether all the events classified as suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts were really what they seemed. The F.D.A. has contracted for an evaluation of the evidence by outside experts. For now, the agency is simply urging doctors to monitor their patients closely and is seeking stronger warning labels for 10 antidepressant drugs.

It is extraordinarily important to get the final judgment right. Depression, left untreated, is a major cause of suicide, and there is ample testimony from many young people and their doctors that the pills are vital for their well-being even if the overall evidence of effectiveness is weak. It remains to be determined whether, on balance, it is riskier to give the drugs or to withhold them.

What seems most astonishing is the skimpy evidence that these drugs work at all in most young patients. All the antidepressant drugs were approved for marketing based on clinical trials in adults, but once they were on the market, doctors were free to prescribe them for any patients and any purpose. Under a federal law that was drawn up to coax drug companies into studying the effects of their drugs in young people in exchange for an extension of patent rights, the major manufacturers studied their antidepressants in patients under 18. So far, only Prozac has shown enough evidence of effectiveness and safety to win approval from the F.D.A. and British health authorities. The discouraging results underscore the need to test all drugs in children that will be used in children because the effects are often different from those found in adults.

Many leading psychiatrists are convinced that the drugs have value in young people, based on what they deem positive results from some studies. But a critical evaluation by Australian researchers in a recent British Medical Journal article concludes that the authors of the largest published studies "have exaggerated the benefits, downplayed the harms, or both," possibly because of financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Clearly, the companies and medical experts who believe that antidepressants can help young patients have a lot more work to do to make their case. The issue would seem important enough for the government, perhaps through the National Institute of Mental Health, to finance a large and well-designed study to get a definitive answer.

http://www.rense.com/general51/contain.htm
Chicken 'Nuggets' May
Not Contain Any Chicken
By Kirsty Needham
Sydney Morning Herald4-15-4

Warm, bite-sized and sort-of white, they are the favoured fast food of millions of children who believe they are eating chicken.
Twenty-five years after the first boneless, reconstituted chunk was sold to McDonald's by a supplier, the chicken nugget leads sales of "value-added" poultry products.
It is a "McFrankenstein creation", according to the New York judge who, in a court case involving McDonald's last year, identified a long list of nugget ingredients, including "anti-foaming agent".
A large Australian chicken processor describes a nugget as a mouthful of batter, water, soybean (sometimes passing as chicken), skin, fat and - entirely dependent on how much you've paid - chicken meat particles.
In 2002, the Australian Consumers Association tested 14 popular nugget brands. The study found chicken filling often made up less than half of each nugget. Fat per average serve was as high as 31 grams. And none contained real chicken chunks, but "manufactured" or "formed" chicken.
The consumer group wants tougher labelling. "The labels won't say if 57 per cent chicken is a nice piece of chicken breast or skin and off-cuts," says its food policy officer, Clare Hughes.
Philip Tana, manager of operations and part-owner of Red Rooster, does not like the term "manufactured" chicken. "We prefer 'further-processed' chicken. The chicken is still grown and they then harvest the meat."
Red Rooster nuggets are 56 per cent "formed" chicken, but Mr Tana says the ingredients are "not different to what any housewife or chef would use.
"If we took them off the menu there would be an outcry."
Perth-based Canon Foods processes 80 million nuggets each year. Chief executive Richard Pace says
chicken is ground to five-millimetre particles, then skin and soybean added with water to make an emulsion.
Canon's nuggets vary depending on the client, with the more expensive one containing white meat. An average nugget contains one-third batter, up to 10 per cent water, and skin.
"Depending on the price, water can be a replacement for chicken to make the nugget cheaper," Mr Pace says. Soybean is also often used as a chicken substitute, but not by Canon, he says.
Steggles recently changed its nugget recipe to lower the fat and salt level and whiten the meat.
McDonald's Australia would not comment on whether the recipe used here was the same as that in the US, described by the New York judge as having "twice the fat of a hamburger".
A spokeswoman said local nuggets were "65 per cent chicken".

While we're on the subject...Ineffectiveness of vaccinations: Even With Vaccination, the 'Whoop' Is Back. Jane E. Brody March 2, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/02/health/...

One problem is that because women who were vaccinated as little girls don't' have the natural immunity to give to their babies through the placenta. Therefore we now find increasing numbers of babies susceptible to, and dying of whooping cough. What's the answer? The MDs say, "Vaccinate more people of course." It doesn't work so let's do more? The article does not discuss the numbers of babies who die from or are injured by the vaccine.
(from Tedd Koren's newsletter - you can subscribe and it is excellent)

Govt's own vaccine data leads scientists to shocking discovery

CHILDREN 27-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP AUTISM WITH EXPOSURE TO MERCURY- CONTAINING VACCINES.

Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Institute of Medicine will hold a one-day meeting to review important new research on the link between thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in vaccines, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
Tedd's comment: The CDC had the data and never put it together. Why are they collecting the data if they never look at it? It took an independent investigator, using private monies. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040209/nem019_1.html
Under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes children are 27-times more likely to develop autism after exposure to three thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), than those who receive thimerosal-free versions. Dr. Mark Geier is the lead investigator in the discovery. A medical doctor with a Ph.D. in genetics. Among a host of other physicians and researchers presenting will be Dr. Jeff Bradstreet who will discuss his study which concluded that urinary mercury concentrations were 6 times higher in children with autism vs. controls.

Lymphatic Circulation & Breast Cancer

Bras and Breast Cancer
by Ralph L. Reed, Ph.D.
Although I am an environmental chemist (Ph.D in biochemistry), I have been
doing a lot of literature research on breast cancer since I saw an article
on the National Library of Medicine database over a year ago. That article
documented an increase in breast cancer rates between women who do wear bras
versus those that do not.
That Harvard study fascinated me and I searched the medical literature for
possible explanations. In January 1996, I discovered the book by Singer and
Grismaijer and their explanation of impaired lymphatic flow intrigued me. I
have since read everything that I can find on lymphatic flow. What I have
found has amazed me, but that is another story. I can supply you with lots
of info if you like. In essence, what Singer and Grismaijer found was that
the odds of getting breast cancer dramatically increased with bra-wearing
over 12 hours per day.
Women who wore their bras 24 hours per day had a 3 out of 4 chance of
developing breast cancer (in their study, n=2056 for the cancer group and
n=2674 for the standard group).
Women who wore bras more than 12 hour per day but not to bed had a 1 out of
7 risk.
Women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day had a 1 out of 152
risk.
Women who wore bras rarely or never had a 1 out of 168 chance of getting
breast cancer. The overall difference between 24 hour wearing and not at all
was a 125-fold difference.
The results of this study are compelling, even considering that it was not a
"controlled study" for other risk factors. Bear in mind that known
(published in medical journals) risk factors for breast cancer are mostly in
the range of less than three-fold differences. It should also be noted that
Singer and Grismaijer surveyed bra-wearing behavior of the past, which is
excellent for a disease with such a long development period. In their book,
the authors show how most of the known risk factors can be related to
bra-wearing behavior and/or the lymphatic system.
For example, breast feeding and pregnancy cause full development of the
mammary lymphatics. Also, women of higher economic status have higher breast
cancer rates, and one would expect that they would wear their bras more
hours per day. Women who excercise have lower risk, which could relate to
better lymphatic circulation (and I would add, more breast movement).
To this discussion, I would like to add that lymphatic circulation in many
tissues (especially the primary lymphatics) are highly dependent on
MOVEMENT. When you sit for a long time on an airplane flight, your feet and
ankles can swell, because lymphatic circulation goes to near zero. Wearing a
bra, especially a constricting one with underwires, and especially to bed,
prevents normal lymphatic flow and would likely lead to anoxia (lower than
normal oxygen content), which has been related to fibrosis, which has been
linked to increased cancer risk.
Women evolved under conditions where there was BREAST MOVEMENT with every
step that they took when they walked or ran. My reading of the scientific
literature about lymphatic flow shows me that this may be as important as
the constriction factor. Every subtle bounce of the breast while moving,
walking, running, etc. gently massages the breast and increases lymphatic
flow and thus cleans the breast of toxins and wastes that arise from
cellular metabolism.
Of course, there may be other mechanisms for the damage that bras apparently
cause. One such mechanism could be temperature. Breasts are external organs
and have a naturally lower temperature. Cancers can be
temperature-dependent. Breast cancer is hormone-dependent. Temperature can
alter hormone function. Breast temperature changes throughout the monthly
cycle.
All these facts are from the medical literature. By whatever mechanism,
someone will eventually explain why Singer and Grismaijer found a 125-fold
difference in cancer rates between bra-free breasts and those constricted by
24-hour-per-day bra-wearing.
If you haven't already done so, I suggest that you read the book by Singer
and Grismaijer (Dressed to Kill,Avery Press, 1995). (By the way, I have no
connection to the authors; I think that they live in Canada.)
Also, just for an interesting experiment, the next time you walk down the
street, notice visually how constricting bras are. On many women you can
actually see "dents" around the sides of their chests where there bras are,
even in something as opaque as a black t-shirt.
A physical therapist friend of mine, after reading Dressed to Kill, said
that she was amazed at what she saw in her practice at a local medical
clinic. She noticed how many women have red creases and grooves on the their
bodies caused by their bras. Singer and Grismajer also suggest that you
simply stop wearing one for two weeks and see how you feel.
By the way, I have heard that they are currently working on a new study. The
research is to study whether benign fibrocystic breast disease can be
treated by stopping bra-wearing for eight weeks. That should be very
interesting; this time they are involving medical doctors, from what I've
heard.
Years ago, many people thought that the idea of cigarettes causing lung
cancer was funny. Even if further research with highly controlled studies
only shows a difference of 5-fold, or even 2-fold, it will be no laughing
matter.

Inventing the AIDS Virus

Introduction To The Book: "Inventing the AIDS Virus, by Peter H. Duesberghttp://www.oralchelation.com/viewpoint/karl_loren/article2b.htmLife Glow Plus

Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
The following was written by Kary Mullis for the introduction to the book "Inventing the AIDS Virus" by Peter H. Duesberg (Regnery Publishing, INC; Washington DC, 1996):

In 1988 I was working as a consultant at Specialty Labs in Santa Monica, CA, setting up analytic routines for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). I knew a lot about setting up analytic routines for anything with nucleic acids in it because I invented the Polymerase Chain Reaction. That's why they hired me.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), on the other hand, was something I did not know a lot about. Thus, when I found myself writing a report on our progress and goals for the project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, I recognized that I did not know the scientific reference to support a statement I had just written: "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS."
So I turned to the virologist at the next desk, a reliable and competent fellow, and asked him for the reference. He said I didn't need one. I disagreed. While it's true that certain scientific discoveries or techniques are so well established that their sources are no longer referenced in the contemporary literature, that didn't seem to be the case with the HIV/AIDS connection. It was totally remarkable to me that the individual who had discovered the cause of a deadly and as-yet-uncured disease would not be continually referenced in the scientific papers until that disease was cured and forgotten. But as I would soon learn, the name of that individual - who would surely be Nobel material - was on the tip of no one's tongue.
Of course, this simple reference had to be out there somewhere. Otherwise, tens of thousands of public servants and esteemed scientists of many callings, trying to solve the tragic deaths of a large number of homosexual and/or intravenous (IV) drug-using men between the ages of twenty-five and forty, would not have allowed their research to settle into one narrow channel of investigation. Everyone wouldn't fish in the same pond unless it was well established that all the other ponds were empty. There had to be a published paper, or perhaps several of them, which taken together indicated that HIV was the probable cause of AIDS. There just had to be.
I did computer searches, but came up with nothing. Of course, you can miss something important in computer searches by not putting in just the right key words. To be certain about a scientific issue, it's best to ask other scientists directly. That's one thing that scientific conferences in faraway places with nice beaches are for.
I was going to a lot of meetings and conferences as part of my job. I got in the habit of approaching anyone who gave a talk about AIDS and asking him or her what reference I should quote for that increasingly problematic statement, "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS."
After ten or fifteen meetings over a couple years, I was getting pretty upset when no one could cite the reference. I didn't like the ugly conclusion that was forming in my mind: The entire campaign against a disease increasingly regarded as a twentieth century Black Plague was based on a hypothesis whose origins no one could recall. That defied both scientific and common sense.
Finally, I had an opportunity to question one of the giants in HIV and AIDS research, DL Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, when he gave a talk in San Diego. It would be the last time I would be able to ask my little question without showing anger, and I figured Montagnier would know the answer. So I asked him.
With a look of condescending puzzlement, Montagnier said, "Why don't you quote the report from the Centers for Disease Control? "
I replied, "It doesn't really address the issue of whether or not HIV is the probable cause of AIDS, does it?"
"No," he admitted, no doubt wondering when I would just go away. He looked for support to the little circle of people around him, but they were all awaiting a more definitive response, like I was.
"Why don't you quote the work on SIV [Simian Immunodeficiency Virus]?" the good doctor offered.
"I read that too, DL Montagnier," I responded. "What happened to those monkeys didn't remind me of AIDS. Besides, that paper was just published only a couple of months ago. I'm looking for the original paper where somebody showed that HIV caused AIDS.
This time, DL Montagnier's response was to walk quickly away to greet an acquaintance across the room.
Cut to the scene inside my car just a few years ago. I was driving from Mendocino to San Diego. Like everyone else by now, I knew a lot more about AIDS than I wanted to. But I still didn't know who had determined that it was caused by HIV. Getting sleepy as I came over the San Bernardino Mountains, I switched on the radio and tuned in a guy who was talking about AIDS. His name was Peter Duesberg, and he was a prominent virologist at Berkeley. I'd heard of him, but had never read his papers or heard him speak. But I listened, now wide awake, while he explained exactly why I was having so much trouble finding the references that linked HIV to AIDS. There weren't any. No one had ever proved that HIV causes AIDS. When I got home, I invited Duesberg down to San Diego to present his ideas to a meeting of the American Association for Chemistry. Mostly skeptical at first, the audience stayed for the lecture, and then an hour of questions, and then stayed talking to each other until requested to clear the room. Everyone left with more questions than they had brought.
I like and respect Peter Duesberg. I don't think he knows necessarily what causes AIDS; we have disagreements about that. But we're both certain about what doesn't cause AIDS.
We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most of the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus called HIV. There is simply no scientific evidence demonstrating that this is true.
We have also not been able to discover why doctors prescribe a toxic drug called AZT (Zidovudine) to people who have no other complaint other than the fact that they have the presence of antibodies to HIV in their blood. In fact, we cannot understand why humans would take this drug for any reason.
We cannot understand how all this madness came about, and having both lived in Berkeley, we've seen some strange things indeed. We know that to err is human, but the HIV/AIDS hypothesis is one hell of a mistake.
I say this rather strongly as a warning. Duesberg has been saying it for a long time.

The Monsanto Soy Empire -
Nearly Everywhere In Our Food
href="The Monsanto Soy Empire">http://www.rense.com/general18/ev.htm

The Monsanto Soy Empire - Nearly Everywhere In Our FoodCommentary From Sheryl Jackson
People are now becoming aware of the Neurotoxicity of Soy that was genetically
engineered by Monsanto, but most people are unaware of the many faces of Soy
and how it is put into all the food of America. If people would read more
labels, they would be appalled that Soy is in canned tuna, all packaged products,
and even your dairy products.

We must really question it when the scientists of Scandinavia, who have the
largest plant base data system in the world, could not identify the third
molecule Monsanto put into their Soy. One was from the pansy plant, one was
from a cockroach(????) and the third was unidentifiable.

Nathanson warned that such weapons could be delivered to humans not only in the
anticipated forms such as gas and aerosol but also might be introduced into
water supplies. Backing off of any suggestion that such weapons might be
capable of eliminating the majority of the world's population all at once, he
suggested that the weapons might be used not only to induce death but to cause
sterility and deformed births in the targeted groups. The result, just as
certain as genocide but a slower, more insidious and therefore potentially
undetectable attack.

Current estimates of the cost of developing a "gene weapon" were placed at
around $50 million, still quite a stretch for isolated bands of neo-Nazis but
well within the capabilities of covert government programs. (quote from article
on genetic bio-weapons and their use. Rense 01-04-02).

We have been forced to eat this for the last 25 years. Soy, Hydrolyzed Soy
Protein, Lecithin, Carrageenan, Dextrose, Sucrose, Maltodextrin, Dextrine,
Skim Milk (modified milk solids), Xanthan Gum, Microcrystalline Cellulose,
Cellulose, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Erythrobate, modified food starch,
bleached wheat flour, unbleached wheat flour, miso carob gum, guar gum, and
guargeenum. Carrageenan, guar gum and guargeenum are seaweed derivatives.

Why do we need seaweed in our dairy products? These are all mixed with Soy
because of the lecithin that is considered an emulsifier. One excuse after
another that forces to eat Soy by Monsanto. And now that the Scandinavians have
released their findings, Monsanto appears to be going bankrupt. Just one more
money exchange after another.

Has anyone forgotten how we were given money from the government to "pay the
utility bills" that the same government allowed to gouge in high prices in one
more energy "crisis" that has since disappeared?

There was no energy crisis, they knew what was coming and wanted their share
first. They knew that they would not be able to raise the prices of gas after
9/11. Why would Americans pay more for gas from the Middle East? It is all
connected. Greed and Avarice are the Gods of the NewWorldOrder.

Think people. Think about what you were taught and what you have observed.
Think about why 72 million acres of Soy are grown in this country every year.
Think about what you saw on 9/11. Have you ever watched a building implode?
Remember what it looked like? Now think about the WTC towers. Think and remember.

Sheryl Jackson

The Role of the Thyroid in the Hormonal System

http://www.nice2people.com/sellman/hormone-heresy1.htm

Links to parts 2-4 below on above url

Part 1: The Role of the Thyroid in the Hormonal System

Exploring the Hormone Heresy: An Interview with Women's Health Advocate
Sherrill Sellman

by Mary J. Shomon

Sherrill Sellman is psychotherapist and health researcher and writer. She is
author of "The Hormone Heresy: What Women MUST Know About Their Hormones."
Mary Shomon: First, I want to thank you Sherrill, for taking the time to
share your knowledge about women's hormonal medicine. Can you tell us a
little about your background, and how you've become a women's health
advocate and educator in the area of hormonal health?

Sherrill Sellman: Thank you Mary for the chance to share my many years of
research with your subscribers. It's through people, like yourself who are
totally committed to investigating and sharing the most truthful health
information as well as the many safe and effective options, that enables all
of us to be truly empowered and informed decision makers.

I have been trained as a psychotherapist specializing in mind-body
approaches for the past twenty years. I also had a very successful Human
Resource and Development company that facilitated personal development and
stress management programs for both the corporate and public sectors. Until
a year and a half ago, I was living and working in Melbourne, Australia
where I have resided for the last 18 years. I'm now enjoying life as an
Oklahoman!!

Around the age of 45, I began to be plagued by a number of rather
debilitating symptoms. I would have gripping anxiety attacks every night at
about 3 am . As a psychotherapist, I assumed they had some psychological
cause, but no amount of therapy resolved them. I also experienced mood
swings (what seemed like a lifetime affliction), fatigue, weight gain, low
libido and the appearance of those dark little hairs that began peeking out
from my chin!!! But it wasn't until the night sweats appeared on the scene
that I suddenly had to start thinking "hormones". I would wake up most
nights perspiring profusely.

In my need to find solutions to these perimenopausal symptoms, I came across
information about natural progesterone, a transdermal cream that has the
bio-identical molecular structure as the progesterone made in our bodies. I
decided to give it a try. And, lo and behold, after just one month, the
night sweats vanished....along with the anxiety attacks, mood swings, excess
weight, fatigue, low libido and after about 4 months even those unsightly
dark hairs disappeared!!! Well, needless to say, this really got my
attention and I began to delve into the world of female physiology,
menopause and hormone replacement therapy...subjects that I had been rather
ignorant about. After my initial confusion from all the seemingly
conflicting information about hormones and menopause, the picture that
emerged from my research revealed the dark side of steroid hormone use. What
I learned about the many myths, misinformation, and dangers concerning the
use of steroid hormone treatments as found in HRT, the Pill and even
fertility drugs, so alarmed and outraged me, that I was compelled to share
my research with other women. My book "Hormone Heresy: What Women MUST Know
About Their Hormones" was borne out of that journey and my passion for
empowering women with truthful information was kindled.

Hormone Heresy has now become a best selling book in Australia, Canada and
is also presently doing really well in the US. I have returned to the States
to live and now travel extensively throughout the US and Canada, presenting
lectures and seminars to women of all ages, informing them what they really
MUST know about their hormones...which is a very different message from what
we're told my our doctors, pharmacists and media!!!

Mary Shomon: It seems that only in the past year or so has there been more
attention paid to the thyroid as a critical hormone for women's health.
Previously, most of the focus was on estrogen and progesterone. Why do you
think the thyroid has been so overlooked, but now seems to be gaining some
attention?

Sherrill Sellman: Medicine, like all other facets of our culture, goes
through fads at which time one theory has its heyday...only to be replaced
by another in vogue hypothesis! It appears that the focus on the thyroid was
eclipsed as the spotlight was moved to the new rising steroid hormone stars,
estrogen and progestins which appeared on the medical scene in 1960's.

>From my years of delving into me realm of hormone imbalances, what has
become most evident is that women's hormone imbalances and their health
issues, in general, have become big business. With the trend in the past 40
or so years for medicine to specialize and rely almost exclusively on
pharmaceutical drugs, the various symptoms that were once easily recognized
as classical thyroid imbalances have been assigned as separate conditions.
So we now have drugs that treat depression, infertility, high cholesterol,
weight gain, migraines, fatigue and menstrual irregularities.

We also know that the traditional blood tests for thyroid are inadequate and
inaccurate. With the very recent development of saliva testing for thyroid
function, a more comprehensive picture of the rather complicated endocrine
system is emerging.

The history of medicine has ignored women's unique physiology. The
misogynist bias in medicine had assumed the female functioning was a
duplicate of male physiology. Since the female's monthly hormonal cycling
made them unfit for controlled experiments, most all of the studies until
recently were done on men and then extrapolated for women. Even the early
studies exploring estrogen and heart disease (another incorrect hypothesis)
were initially done on men! Fortunately this is changing and it is now
acknowledged that women's bodies function in some significantly different
ways from men. It seems that throughout history, women's hormonal nature has
always been somewhat of a mystery to medical science. And I must say, that
with most traditional medical doctors, it still is!

The emerging holistic paradigm has a clinical model based on finding the
root cause of imbalance which is a much more feminine approach to healing,
not just symptom suppression as focused on in allopathic medicine. The
holistic model recognizes the existence of the intimate connection of all of
the body's processes. This paradigm along with new diagnostic techniques,
has developed a more sophisticated understanding of endocrine functioning,
in general, and the thyroid, in particular.

Mary Shomon: What importance do you think the thyroid has, in terms of a
woman's overall hormonal health?

Sherrill Sellman: The thyroid is a major player when it comes to hormonal
health since it stimulates and synchronizes all metabolic cellular
functions. All tissues in the body are stimulated by the thyroid.

The thyroid hormone is required to convert cholesterol into the vital
anti-aging steroid hormones, pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA.
Pregnenolone converts to progesterone and DHEA in the body. Progesterone and
DHEA are precursors for more specialized hormones, including estrogen,
testosterone, and cortisol.

As we know, thyroid disorders are more common in women than men. In women,
adequate binding of T3 is dependent upon sufficient progesterone. A low
level of progesterone is a common experience in both young and older women.
According to research by Dr. Jerilynn Prior, an endocrinologist from
Vancouver, BC, more than 25% of women in their 20's are not ovulating each
month. This anovulatory pattern means they are not producing adequate
progesterone each month, leading to progesterone deficiency. This is also a
similar condition that occurs for perimenopausal women. The major cause of
these anovulatory cycles include an poor diet, nutritional deficiencies,
skipping meals, emotional and physical stress, and over-exercising.

Thus, low progesterone levels in young women interferes with thyroid
efficiency and is also one of the most frequent causes of infertility. One
study showed that 94% of women with PMS were hypothyroid. Progesterone
deficiency in perimenopause or menopausal years can predispose a woman to
hypothyroidism during this time of her life.

Estrogen dominance -- an excess of estrogen in relation to progesterone--
inhibits thyroid function and can result from taking birth control pills,
hormone replacement therapy, or exposure to environmental estrogens. Also, a
poorly functioning liver, exhausted adrenal glands, insulin resistance,
compromised digestion and candida can also contribute to estrogen dominance.

What is often misunderstood when we talk about the hormones estrogen and
progesterone is the fact that they aren't just about overseeing
reproduction. There are, in fact, receptor sites for both these hormones in
every cell throughout the body. Thus the immune system, the nervous system,
the circulatory system, the digestive system the vascular system, the
respiratory system all are effected my the flow and proper balance between
these two hormones.

A healthy thyroid is intimately linked to a balanced endocrine system. The
health of the endocrine system will reflect our overall health.

Part 2: The Role of the Thyroid in the Hormonal System
Part 2: The Myths and Realities About Osteoporosis
Part 3: Too Much Estrogen, Not Enough Progesterone?
Part 4: How to Take Estrogen / Progesterone, The Soy Issue
Link to read more

Reprinted with Permission of Sherrill Sellman

Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life
from New Dawn magazine (0nline) Check it out!
Part Two
By Alan Cantwell, Jr., M.D.After a century of "modern" medical science, we still don't know the cause
of cancer, heart disease, and many other chronic diseases that kill millions
of people every year. The reason for this, in my view, is that medical
science refuses to recognise the role that microbes (smaller than bacteria
and larger than viruses) play in these diseases.

Much of the fault lies in the dogma left over from the nineteenth
century by such scientific icons as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, who are
revered as fathers of microbiology and bacteriology. At a time when viruses,
nanobacteria and astrobiology were unknown and when "the germ theory of
disease" was in its infancy, both scientists held rigid views as to what was
possible and not possible in biology. And neither Pasteur nor Koch could
fathom the concept that living organisms might arise from non-living
sources.

Unfortunately, Pasteur (1822-1895) had no medical training. He was
consumed with fermentation experiments and with proving "air germs" were the
basis for human disease, although he provided no explanation for the origin
of atmospheric germs or how life began on Earth. Koch (1843-1910), who
discovered the bacteria that caused tuberculosis, was obsessed with
classifying microbes grown in the laboratory into exact species, depending
on their size, structure, physical, and chemical properties. He insisted the
species that were created were pure and stable; and that species were unable
to change back and forth between each other. According to Koch, each species
of bacteria produced a separate and distinct disease. Each germ also had to
originate from similar "parent" germs - which reproduced by dividing in half
by "binary fission."

Not every physician of that era believed all the pronouncements of
Pasteur and Koch. A few physician-scientists challenged them because they
knew what was often "proven" in laboratory experiments might not always be
applicable to what was going on with bacteria hidden within the human body.

Antoine Bechamp (1816-1908) was no slouch in the science department
and was well-known as a scientific rival of the famous Pasteur. The
Frenchman was not only a Doctor of Medicine and Science, but at various
times was also Professor of Medical Chemistry and Pharmacology, and
Professor of Physics, Toxicology, and Biological Chemistry. There is also
some evidence that Pasteur plagiarised much of Bechamp's original research.

Pasteur, however, is credited in history with saving the French beer
and wine and silkworm industries, and with pasteurisation and vaccine
research. Bechamp, despite his brilliance, was eventually eclipsed by the
younger man. The details of the scientific controversy and plagiarism
accusations are chronicled in E. Dougles Hume's book, Bechamp or Pasteur?: A
Lost Chapter in the History of Biology (1923), remarkably still in print.

Bechamp had his own ideas concerning the origin of life and the germ
theory of disease. In animal and plant cells he observed infinitesimal
microscopic "granulations" that he considered the incorruptible elements of
all life. After many laboratory experiments and microscopic examinations of
these granules, the physician-scientist claimed these so-called "microzymas"
were capable of developing into common living organisms that go by the name
of bacteria.

In his view, Pasteur's "air germs" had nothing to do with the origin
and appearance of these microzymas in tissue. In fact, Bechamp wrote that
Pasteur's air germs most likely derived from dying life-forms. Like Folk a
century later [see Part One of this article], Bechamp found barely visible
microzymas/bacteria in chalk and limestone that he interpreted as survivor
life-forms of past ages. Although all the microzymes looked similar, they
varied in their chemical abilities. Each tissue, or organ, or gland had
microzymas that differed from each other.

Hume claims Bechamp and his colleagues showed these tiny microzymas
were, in reality, "organised ferments" with the potential to develop into
bacteria. In this development, they passed through certain intermediary
stages. Some of these intermediate bacterial stages were regarded by people
like Koch as different species, but to Bechamp they were all related and
derived from microzymas. Adding more heresy to Pasteur's dogma, Bechamp
wrote that without oxygen, microzymas do not die - they go into a state of
rest. Bechamp preached, "Every living being has arisen from the microzymas,
and every living being is reducible to the microzymas."

Like Bechamp, Henry Charlton Bastian's (1837-1915) studies
investigating the origin of life were closely tied into his understanding of
the origin of infectious disease. He was also the last of the great
scientists to uphold the theory of "spontaneous regeneration", by concluding
that life could come from non-life. Like Reich a century later, he argued
that microorganisms were produced as by-products of the disease process, not
as opportunistic infections, but from degenerating tissue by a process
Bastian termed "heterogenesis." Heterogenesis is the idea that living
organisms can arise without parents from organic starting materials - an
idea certainly not in accord with Pasteur and Koch.

Bechamp and Bastian's research was also a threat to the followers of
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), whose evolution theories revolutionalised
science. Like Pasteur, Darwin was not a medical doctor and had no training
in human pathology. And while doctors like Bechamp and Bastian and others
were discovering new forms of life emanating from human diseased tissue and
from the bowels of limestone, Pasteur, Koch and the Darwinians simply
disregarded all this in favour of their own research and pronouncements.

Bastian paid dearly for his unorthodoxy (and for some well-publicised
but failed experiments) and his once-famous name is largely forgotten.
Microbiologist and science professor James Strick has recently revived
interest in Bastian's books and research and his books on the origin of
life; and a six-volume set reprinting much of his work has been recently
published. Strick is also the author of Sparks of Life (2000), which
chronicles the famous nineteenth century scientific and bacteriologic
debates over Darwinism and spontaneous generation.

Pleomorphism and the Classification of Bacteria

Koch, famous for his tuberculosis discoveries, was rigid in his belief
that a specific germ had only one form (monomorphism). And he opposed all
research showing some germs had more than one form (pleomorphism) and
complex "life cycles." Thus, from the very beginning of bacteriology there
was conflict between the monomorphists and the pleomorphists, with the
former totally overruling the latter and dominating microbiology to this
day.

In the attempt to "classify" bacteria as the lowest forms of life
known at that time, there was no consideration given to any possible
"connection" between the various species of bacteria. The dogma was that a
coccus remained a coccus; a rod remained a rod; and there was no interplay
between them. There was no "crossing" from one species to another, and the
research of the pleomophists suggesting otherwise was ignored.

When viruses were discovered they were made separate from bacteria,
although bacteria are also known to be susceptible to viral infection.
Viruses were put in one box; bacteria in another. As a result, the
spectacular number of "filterable" pleomorphic microbial forms that form a
bridge between the "living" bacteria and the "dead" viruses are still
largely unstudied and considered of no great importance in clinical
medicine.

Most doctors simply want to know the name of the microbe, if any,
cultured in the lab from their specimens; and what antibiotics the germ is
"sensitive" to. Thanks to Pasteur, common "skin" bacteria like cocci and
bacilli are often viewed as suspicious "contaminants" or "secondary
invaders" or "opportunistic infections" of no great importance as etiologic
agents.

Koch's postulates became dogma to prove that certain bacteria cause
disease, but the postulates did not work very well for viruses. And even
when "filterable" pleomorphic bacteria were shown to cause disease and Koch'
s postulates were fulfilled, the research was still generally ignored
because such germs were not considered "valid" life-forms.

As a result of all this dogma and rigidity, medical thought was
completely turned off to the possibility cancer was caused by bacteria. But
to the minds of some medical heretics, these century-old scientific beliefs
were wrong, wrong, wrong.

Cancer and the "Cancer Microbe"

As some scientists are finally realising, there is a large realm of
microbial life-forms that lie between "bacteria" and "viruses." It is this
relatively uncharted never-never land of microbiology that lies at the heart
of life, disease, cancer, death, regeneration, and perhaps even immortality.

In the life of every researcher there is a person or group of people
to whom a great debt is owed. In my scientific life as a practising
dermatologist and as a clinical researcher, there are four women who are my
icons in medical science. All four I knew personally as valued friends, and
each contributed greatly to my understanding of the greatest mystery of
medical science: the origin and cause of cancer.

The combined reported research of Virginia Wuerthele-Caspe Livingston
(a physician), Eleanor Alexander-Jackson (a microbiologist), Irene Diller (a
cell cytologist), and Florence Seibert (a chemist famous for developing the
TB skin test), is indeed a treasure-trove for anyone seeking to learn about
"the cancer microbe" and the heretical microbiology of cancer. I wrote about
these now deceased women in my book, The Cancer Microbe (1990), and I
connected their cancer research to Bechamp's and Bastian's discoveries in
the nineteenth century, as well as to Wilhelm Reich's condemned cancer and
orgone research.

In 1950, Wuerthele-Caspe Livingston and Alexander-Jackson, along with
John A. Anderson (head of the Department of Bacteriology at Rutgers), James
Hillier (head of electron microscopy at the RCA Victor Laboratories at
Princeton), Roy Allen (a cell histologist), and Lawrence W. Smith (author of
a well-known pathology textbook used in medical colleges), all combined
their talents to write a paper entitled "Cultural Properties and
Pathogenicity Obtained from Various Proliferative and Neoplastic [cancerous]
Diseases," published in the December issue of The American Journal of the
Medical Sciences. The characteristics of the cancer microbe in blood,
tissue, and culture, were described in detail; and the extreme pleomorphic
nature of the organism was revealed in photos taken with the electron
microscope at a magnification of 31,000X.

The cancer microbe (which she later called Progenitor cryptocides) was
filterable through a pore designed to hold back bacteria. But in the
filtrate were "virus-sized" microbial forms, which grew in time to the size
of conventional bacteria. For the next two decades these four women and
their colleagues continued publishing details about the microbiology of
cancer. Livingston's two books, Cancer: A New Breakthrough (1972) and The
Conquest of Cancer (1984) are unfortunately now out-of-print.

Livingston believed everyone carried cancer microbes in their blood
and tissues. And the microbe was essential for life. In 1974, she discovered
some cancer-associated bacteria produced an HCG-like hormone - the human
choriogonadotropin hormone, which is an essential hormone needed to start
life in the womb. But she also thought the microbe was the germ that did
most people in as they aged. The microbe was Mother Nature's built-in
terminator to force old people off the planet and to make room for new life
on the planet.

At the time of her death in 1990, Livingston was widely regarded among
the cancer establishment as a quack. Even though her research was published
for three decades in reputable medical journals, the American Cancer Society
still claims her "cancer microbe" does not exist. An ACS-sponsored Internet
web page states: "One report on the bacteria Progenitor cryptocides, which
Dr. Livingston-Wheeler claimed caused cancer, found that the bacteria does
not exist but is actually a mixture of several different types of bacteria
which Dr. Livingston-Wheeler labelled as one." Who was the author of the
report claiming her microbe did not exist? According to the ACS, the author
was "anonymous."

Over the past four decades I have tried to keep this research alive by
showing pleomorphic cancer bacteria in human cancer and in certain other
diseases of unknown origin. For readers with Internet access, some of my
photos of cancer microbes are presented on the web site of the on-line
Journal of Independent Medical Research (www.joimr.org); and abstracts of my
medical publications can be found on the National Library of Medicine's
"PubMed" web site (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/). Simply type in "A Cantwell
+ cancer bacteria".

In my research I have observed germs grown in the lab from cancerous
tissue. Frequently they grow as simple round cocci, or as a mixture of cocci
and rod-shaped bacilli, and rarely as streptococci. From diseases like
scleroderma, I have seen "old" cultures evolve into peculiar and highly
pleomorphic fungus-like "actinomycete" organisms, or evolve into bacteria
resembling tuberculosis-type bacteria. Not infrequently, expert
microbiologists could not agree on what to name these pleomorphic bacteria.

I have seen microbes change from one species to another, depending on
what they are fed in the laboratory - staphylococcus germs that turn into
rod-forms of corynebacteria and back again to "pure" staphylococcus,
depending on the lab media for growth. But most importantly, I have seen
these bacteria in specially-stained (acid-fast stain) tissue sections made
from cancerous tissue, indicating these microbes are not contaminants
falling out of the air. And decade after decade all cancer microbe research
remains forgotten, ignored, and overlooked because physicians cannot
conceive of such bacteria as causing cancer.

Milton Wainwright at the University of Sheffield, UK, is a rare
microbiologist who has written sympathetically about the bacteriology of
cancer, titling some of his recent publications: "Nanobacteria and
associated 'elementary bodies' in human disease and cancer" (1999); "The
return of the cancer germ; Forgotten microbiology - back to the future"
(2000); "Highly pleomorphic staphylococci as a cause of cancer" (2000); and
"Is this the historical 'cancer germ'"? (2003).

In, Can Bacteria Cause Cancer?: Alternative Medicine Confronts Big
Science (1997), David J. Hess charts the history of bacteria as etiological
agents in cancer. An anthropologist at Renssalear University, he claims this
research has not only been forgotten or disregarded, but actively
suppressed. Hess cites financial and professional interests, as well as more
general cultural factors to help explain the suppression.

Body Blood Bacteria

The idea that the blood contains bacteria related to cancer has been
repeatedly raised by various cancer microbe researchers. But the idea was
never taken seriously because bacteria grown from cancer patients were never
considered anything more than inconsequential bacteria like staph, strep,
and various common bacilli of no etiologic significance. Furthermore, these
bacteria are believed to be frequent laboratory 'contaminants.' Physicians
still expect disease-causing bacteria to be of a specific species type and
to cause a "specific" disease. And medical doctors believe each form of
cancer is "different." The variety of different species of pleomorphic
bacteria recovered from various forms of cancer makes physicians highly
dubious about a bona fide cancer microbe specific for cancer.

In a series of papers (1970-1979) using the electron microscope and
various testing procedures, an Italian team of researchers headed by Guido
G. Tedeschi showed that the erythrocytes (red blood cells) and the blood
platelets of both normal and diseased patients are cryptically infected with
pleomorphic bacteria. Electron-dense "granular bodies" were found within the
erythrocytes, and a variety of microbial forms and species were reported as
mycoplasma-like and corynebacteria-like L-forms of bacteria, staphylococcus
epidermidis, micrococci, cocci, and cocco-bacillary forms.

Such microbes are similar to what various cancer microbe researchers
have reported over the past century. Some of Tedeschi's microbes were
acid-fast, a staining quality characteristic of Livingston's cancer microbe.

All of this indicates that human blood is definitely not sterile, and
should raise suspicion these tiny blood bacteria could be involved in the
production of disease - a conclusion Wilhelm Reich came to a half-century
ago. Like Reich, Tedeschi's team suggested the evolution of cocci and
diphtheroids taking origin from cell-wall-deficient forms seems not to be
related to a particular state of illness, but to be the consequence of a
generalised crypto-infection.

A more recent study entitled "Are there naturally occurring
pleomorphic bacteria in the blood of healthy humans?", by R.W. McLaughlin
and associates in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (December 2002),
confirms the presence of a wide diversity of microorganisms within the blood
of healthy people. And with new research showing nanobacteria in the blood,
it is apparent there is much to learn about the bacteriology of the blood
and what it contains normally and what it contains in disease.

As they have done for a century, microbiologists will undoubtedly
quibble about what to name these organisms. But what is much more important
than a name is to determine what they "do" - not in the laboratory, but in
the human body. What is the energy force that allows these microbes to exist
in harmony with us? And what turns them into killers?

Science, Soul, Spirit, and Immortality

Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) is the controversial founder of the
science of Theosophy, a philosophical and spiritual group with a keen
interest in the origin of life. In researching this article, I came across
her name on a web page connected to Bastian's nineteenth century studies on
tiny bacteria in limestone. Her ideas about the origin of life are amazingly
prophetic in light of current findings of nanobacteria in microbiology and
geology, and her idea of a "vital force" seems similar to Reich's "orgone
energy."

Blavatsky wrote: "Life is not the expression of the organism, but, on
the contrary, the organism is the expression of some prior and
indestructible vital force. Nothing ever dies. Life's opposite is not death,
but latency. Indeed. one is compelled to ask whether all humanity, past and
future is not imprisoned in latent form in the rocks and sands of our
terrestrial sphere."

In The Secret Doctrine (1888), she claims: "Everything that is, was,
and will be, eternally IS, even the countless forms, which are finite and
perishable only in their objective, not in their ideal Form. They existed as
Ideas, in the Eternity, and, when they pass away, will exist as
reflections."

Science has little or nothing to say about spirit, soul, and the
hereafter. And skeptics are always seeking "proof." But if a disease like
cancer is indeed caused by microscopic bacteria, it would indicate
physicians have been unable to see what was quite plain for some nineteenth
and twentieth century scientists to observe using simple light microscopy.
And with powerful electron microscopes there is now little excuse for not
"seeing" bacteria. With this in mind, it would behoove scientists,
especially cancer experts, to do a little soul-searching (pun intentional).

In addition, scientists cannot seem to agree where life begins. So can
we trust them completely to know when life ends? If human life continues
after death, it must exist largely as energy. And can energy ever be
destroyed? Einstein tells us matter and energy are interconnected and
essentially different forms of the same thing. And physicists are excited
about the possibilities of quantum physics, which is beyond my ken.
Professor of Mathematical Physics, Frank Tipler, confidently proclaims
physics will lead to the immortality of humankind. In his controversial book
The Physics of Immortality (1994) he states, "Either theology is pure
nonsense, a subject with no content, or else theology must ultimately become
a branch of physics. The Goal of physics is understanding the ultimate
nature of reality. If God is real, physicists will eventually find Him/Her."

In the Bible, God tells us we came from dust - and to dust we shall
return, which is not terribly encouraging for those not confident about an
afterlife. But what if dust contained elements and building blocks that
could re-make life over and over again for all eternity? And isn't Earth
basically a big pile of dust? And couldn't this be "God's little secret" He
wants us to unravel?

And what is life if it is not pulsating with cosmic energy? If the
tiniest of life forms can exist in meteors millions or billions of years
old, and if we are composed and descended from the tiniest forms of life,
why can't we live forever?

All we might need is a speck of dust and a little "faith" to ignite
that spark of life that would get us going again.


____________________________________________________________________
Dr. Cantwell is a researcher on AIDS, cancer, and biological warfare. His
book on man-made AIDS, Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot, is
available through the New Dawn Book Service. Many of his writings can be
found on google.com and the New Dawn web site. His published medical papers
are listed on PubMed.

Bacteria!

That last post - from Rumi, via Kaleidescope has haunted me.
Keeping your eyes and your wanting still...for fifty years...
to begin to cross over from confusion...Hmmmmmm

In an effort to cross over from confusion, I am going to attempt
to revive this blog, to use it for a peaceful purpose. I will blog here
as frequently as possible, any and all information that seems to be
worthwhile to chickenlil's list ... health, nutrition and positive advice.

Personal, political and spiritual posts will remain on C. Little, no less -
and anything which is questionable (?) or experimental I will post
further on down the road....

So let's get started! Next...The Bacteria!
...cancer and the Origin of Life:

Part One
By Alan Cantwell, Jr., M.D.

Is new life merely just the beginning of eventual death, as scientists
believe? Or is death the beginning of "eternal life," as religions teach? Or
could life be a never-ending cycle of life/death/life/death reincarnations?
Can new life develop from non-living things? Or was all life and the
universe created eons ago by the Creator, or through some freak accident of
the cosmos? Where did I come from? What will happen to me after death? These
are questions human beings have attempted to answer for centuries.

Nanobacteria, NASA and Astrobiology
Robert Folk is a geologist who specialises in microscopic examinations
of limestone. Working in Italy in the 1980s with a new scanning electron
microscope (SEM) with magnifications up to 100,000X, he repeatedly came
across "hordes of tiny bumps and balls" entombed within the rock that he
initially passed off as artefacts or laboratory contamination, as had every
other geologist using the SEM.

However, after a year of doubts and some reading in microbiology, Folk
learned that exceedingly small cells called 'ultramicrobacteria' did in fact
exist. With further microscopic work, he realised the enormous numbers of
tiny grape-like and chain-like clusters were indeed bacteria. Most amazing
was these "nanobacteria" could be easily cultured as common forms of
bacteria, known as cocci, bacilli, staphylococci and streptococci.

His first scientific presentation of these astounding findings was met
with "stony silence" and "howls of disbelief" from many microbiologists. To
this day, some scientists contend these so-called nanobacteria are simply
too small to contain the necessary genetic material for life.

In microbiology, the ultramicroscopic bacteria are regarded as stressed
or resting forms of big bacteria, and are thought to be both rare and
dormant. Geologists prefer the spelling "nannobacteria" to conform with the
spelling of extremely tiny "nannofossils", a common term in geology dating
back to the nineteenth century.

But Folk claims nanobacteria are enormously abundant in minerals and
rocks and they form most of the world's bio-mass. If so, how could they have
been missed for so long? Folk says microbiologists have little or no
interest in bacteria found in soils or rocks; and for fifty years it has
been standard microbiological dogma that bacteria smaller than 0.2
micrometers cannot exist.

Size does matter, even when discussing the tiniest forms of life. The
term "ultramicroscopic" is applied to bacterial cells smaller than 0.3
micrometers. At this size, bacteria are still barely visible as the tiniest
of dots discernable with the light microscope. The ordinary light microscope
can magnify objects up to 1000X and objects smaller than 0.25 micrometers
cannot be seen. The electron microscope is able to photograph objects at
magnifications of 300,000X, or higher.

Nanobacteria are the smallest of living creatures, measuring in the
0.05 to 0.2 micrometer range (a micrometer is 1/1000 of a millimeter). This
puts nanobacteria as an intermediate life-form between normal bacteria and
viruses. Viruses are around 0.01 to 0.02 micrometers in size and cannot be
seen with the ordinary light optical microscope.

The size of bacteria, nanobacteria and viruses is exceedingly important
to bear in mind because it is connected to more than a century of
microscopic study into the germ origin of infectious disease. Furthermore,
the "dividing line" between bacteriology and virology has been the customary
"filter pore size" of 0.2 micrometers. Microbiologists have always assumed
such a filter pore will catch all bacteria, and fluid running through a 0.2
micrometer filter pore would be bacteria-free.

When geologists photographed 0.1 micrometer "bumps" they passed them
off as contamination, never believing they could be living bacteria. Folk
says, "You see what you are looking for and what you have faith in!"

By the early 1990s these nanobacteria were investigated by a team of
biologists in Finland, headed by Olavi Kajander. Since that time
nanobacteria have been found in kidney stones, dental plaque, the gall
bladder, in calcified arteries and heart valves, and in certain skin
diseases. Kajander's team also reported nanobacterial forms as small as 0.05
microns in human blood, and have retrieved DNA on particles as small as 0.2
microns. Most disturbing are reports showing nanobacterial contamination of
fetal bovine serum used in the production of many viral vaccines. This adds
concern to the controversial problem of "vaccine-induced illness" and the
fear some people have of contaminated vaccines.

Are nanobacteria connected with the origin of life on Earth?
Nanobacteria-like "fossils" have been observed in several meteors, such as
the Martian meteorite found on the Antarctic ice shelf in 1984. This
meteorite is believed to be 4.5 billion years old, and is thought to have
left Mars 16 million years ago. Supporters of nanobacteria research insist
these bacteria have implications for how life began on Earth and other
planets like Mars.

NASA, the US space agency, has an Astrobiology Roadmap program, which
consists of more than 200 scientists and technologists. Astrobiology
addresses three basic questions: How does life begin and evolve? Does life
exist elsewhere in the universe? What is the future of life on Earth and
beyond?

According to Roadmap, there are revolutionary changes going on in the
world of microbiology.

"Our ongoing exploration has led to continued discoveries of life in
environments that have been previously considered uninhabitable. For
example, we find thriving communities (of microbes) in the boiling hot
springs of Yellowstone, the frozen deserts of Antarctica, the concentrated
sulfuric acid in acid-mine drainages, and the ionizing radiation fields in
nuclear reactors. We find some microbes that grow in the deepest parts of
the ocean and require 5000 to 1000 bars of hydrostatic pressure. Life has
evolved strategies that allow it to survive even beyond the daunting
physical and chemical limits to which it has adapted to grow. To survive,
organisms can assume forms that enable them to withstand freezing, complete
desiccation, starvation, high levels of radiation exposure, and other
physical and chemical challenges."

In addition, astrobiologists tell us that huge amounts of bacteria and
possibly viruses are contained in Earth's upper atmosphere. It is estimated
a ton of these organisms arrive on Earth every day!

Quorum Sensing and Communication Between Bacteria In an amazing discovery, scientists have learned that bacteria can
communicate with each other. When enough microbes gather to form a "quorum",
they release a hormone (a pheromone) which allows them to "talk" to one
another and plan strategies, and even make some genetic changes to allow
survival. Not only do similar bacteria talk to each other, they also talk
between species.

Barbara Bassler, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, is a
leading pioneer in quorum sensing. Writing about her work for Wired magazine
(April 2003), Steve Silberman says that communicating microbes are able to
collectively track changes in their environment, conspire with other
species, build mutually beneficial alliances with other types of bacteria,
gain advantages over competitors, and communicate with their hosts - the
sort of collective strategizing typically ascribed to bees, ants, and
people, not to bacteria."

Quorum sensing has profound implications in the war against
disease, particularly now that so many bacteria are becoming resistant to
antibiotics. According to Silberman, "Bassler's research points to new ways
of fighting disease that will aim not to kill but to scramble data in the
bacterial network. One approach would be to block the receptors that receive
the molecular signals so that cells never become virulent; another would
target the DNA-replication mechanisms set in motion inside cells when the
signals are received."

Not everyone in microbiology is convinced bacteria can communicate. But
if some clairvoyants can talk to dead people, why can't bacterial cells talk
to one another? And don't all the cells in our body "talk" to each other in
some way?

Viruses, Bacteria, and the Beginnings of Life
Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was published in 1859 and is the
seminal book giving rise to biology, as well as to the scientific and
religious controversies that continue to this day. People were incensed to
think humans could have arisen from monkeys and apes. Now some scientists
think we developed side-by-side along with bacteria.

Every human, plant and animal cell has genetic material inside a
nucleus. Surrounding the nucleus is a jelly-like cytoplasm which contains
the "mitochondria", which are considered to be tiny chemical factories that
process the nutrients which provide energy to the cell.

Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts
believes the ancestors of all life are the bacteria, which fused into higher
forms of life. Margulis follows in the footsteps of American biologist Ivan
Wallin, who in 1927 first claimed mitochondria originated as free-living
bacteria. Wallin thought ancient bacteria and their host cells evolved
together to establish an inseparable symbiotic partnership. He even claimed
to have removed mitochondria from cells and to grow them. Needless to say,
Wallin's ideas were ridiculed and almost universally rejected.

But Margulis also theorises the origin of the mitochondria in our cells
is derived from separate organisms that long-ago moved into other cells and
entered a symbiotic (sort of a co-dependant) relationship with
multi-cellular forms of life. Remarkably, the DNA in the mitochondria is
totally different from the DNA in the rest of the cell, which lends support
to this idea.

Margulis subscribes to the vision that the Earth, as a whole, is a
living being. In What is Life? (1955), co-written with Dorion Sagan, she
maintains all life is bacteria - or descends from bacteria. In short, life
is bacteria. And, as such, bacteria are closer to immortality than animals
with bodies.

Bacteria account for the vast majority of life forms on Earth, and are
essential to maintain the conditions for life on the planet. They are the
smallest living cells that can replicate without a nucleus, and are indeed
the building-blocks of life. In comparison, the fertilised human egg is
about 150-200 micrometers in size - about the size of a grain of sand and
barely visible with the naked eye.

What can microbes tell us about our origin and our destinies? And could
we be immortal like our one-celled ancestors?

Creating "life" in the Laboratory
What is the lowest form of life? And can life be created from non-life?
Some scientists believe viruses are the lowest form of life. We are told
viruses need to penetrate a cell and use the cell's genes to survive. In the
process, disease can be produced. But are viruses "alive" or "dead"?
Scientists can't agree.

In 1991 Eckard Wimmer and his associates created a polio virus for the
very first time - outside a cell and in a test tube. They extracted a soup
of proteins from human cells, and then added genetic material from a polio
virus. After a few hours, assembled polio viruses appeared in the mix.

According to a New York Times report (Dec. 13, 1991), Wimmer was
asked, is the product in the test tube living or nonliving? Some consider
viruses to be simple living organisms, others consider viruses to be very
complicated chemicals, said Wimmer. But "when it hits the cell it is very
much alive. Some argue that one attribute of life is that it can reproduce
itself. Well, that is what viruses do when they get into the cells. The
debate on whether viruses are alive has been going on since they were
discovered 100 years ago."

Although the cause of most cancers remains a mystery, research over the
past half-century has focused on cancer viruses as a probable cause. With
research focused on viruses, it would seem ludicrous to ask - can bacteria
cause cancer?

The mere thought of bacteria causing cancer drives most cancer experts
up the wall! However, with the recent interest in nanobacteria and their
discovery in the blood and in various diseases of unknown origin, the
question should not be so easily dismissed.

Furthermore, in the past decade physicians have come to accept the fact
stomach ulcers can be produced by bacteria (Helicobacter pylori), and some
ulcers eventually lead to stomach cancer. For many decades, it was dogma
that bacteria could not live in the acid environment of the stomach. Also,
pathologists could never see or detect bacteria in the stomach lining around
ulcers. With the discovery of Helicobacteria and special staining
techniques, doctors can now demonstrate bacteria in many ulcers - proving
that microbiologists and pathologists were unable to "see" microbes, even
though they are now clearly visible once they accepted the possibility
microbes might be present.

Cancer, New Life, and Reich's "T-Bacilli"
Although the origin and cause of cancer is mysterious, there is no
doubt cancer is the body's futile and often fatal attempt to create new life
and new growth. That is why cancer is so intimately connected with theories
about the origin of life.

One of the most controversial physicians of the last century was
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), a psychiatrist and cancer researcher who claimed
to discover "orgone energy" - an energy that pervades the world and is
intimately connected with our physical and mental well-being.

In The Cancer Biopathy (1948), he wrote that cancer is a systemic
disease caused by emotional despair and resignation and the chronic
thwarting of natural sexual functioning. And this was just a few of his
highly unorthodox beliefs based on his many observations and experiments.

Reich also uncovered infectious "T-bacilli" (bacteria) in cancer that
resulted from the degeneration of cancerous tissue. In his view, these
bacteria formed a bridge between the living and the non-living. The
T-bacilli were present in the blood and tissue before the cancer tumour
developed; and these microbes were intimately connected to "bions" and the
loss of biological energy. Reich's heretical bions were the carriers of
biological energy; and the staphylococcus and streptococcus germs he found
connected to cancer were actually formed from the degeneration of the bions.

Just as there is no clear dividing line between life and non-life,
there is no clear boundary between healthy and diseased individuals. Reich
claimed the cancer cell developed as the body's attempt to resist the
build-up of the T-bacilli in energy-depleted tissue.

"The first step in the development of the cancer tumour is not the
cancer cell. it is the appearance of T-bacilli in the tissue or in the
blood." But T-bacilli were not only found in cancer; they were also present
in the blood and tissues of both healthy and sick non-cancerous individuals.
However, sick and cancerous patients showed a larger number of these forms,
and Reich developed a blood test to show this. T-bacilli were always found
where there is degeneration of protein, and in that respect, Reich wrote:
"All humans have cancer."

The orgone energy of the body determined the resistance of the body to
these microbes. As long as the tissues and blood are "organotically strong,
every T-bacillus will be destroyed and eliminated before it can propagate,
accumulate, and cause damage", wrote Reich. Because cancer germs were
present in healthy people, Reich knew this would be a very difficult concept
for physicians to consider and accept.

Reich wanted scientists to look at science in a new way and to try and
see it from the point of view of "energetic functionalism."

For example, "The bacteriologist, for instance, sees the
staphylococcus as a static formation, spherical or oval in shape, about 0.8
micron in size, reacting with a bluish coloration to Gram stain, and
arranged in clusters. These characteristics are important for orgone
biophysics, but are not the essentials. The name itself says nothing about
the origin, function, and position of the blue coccus in nature. What the
bacteriologists calls 'staphylococcus' is, for orgone physics a small energy
vesicle in the process of degeneration. Orgone biophysics investigates the
origin of the staphylococcus from other forms of life and follows its
transformation. It examines the staphylococcus in connection with the
processes of the total biological energy of the organism and produces it
experimentally through degenerative processes in bions, cells, etc."

Through his scientific experiments with orgone energy, Reich hoped to
harness orgone for the treatment of disease and the good of humanity.

Needless to say, Reich's entire life's work was considered hogwash, and
a scientific inquisition eventually ensued. Branded a menace and a quack, he
ran afoul of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which claimed his
experimental "orgone accumulator" was being used illegally to treat cancer -
and that it was nothing more than a perverted sex box.

Refusing to obey a court injunction, Reich was sentenced to prison. His
books were burned, his equipment destroyed by FDA agents, and he died at the
federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in March 1957, at age 60.

His research into the origin of life, and his belief orgone energy
contained within the tiniest forms of life that could not be destroyed, make
him one of the most misunderstood and hated physicians of the twentieth
century.

But, as we shall discover, there are other heretics in medicine, now
mostly ignored and forgotten, who also believed cancer was connected with
bacteria of human origin. Like Reich, they claimed a study of these microbes
would not only lead to the infectious cause of cancer - but to a cause of
life itself.

Next – Part Two