The Knee Surgeon Report Well, folks, it has been a year since I challenged the knee surgeon
and I met with him today (7/25/06) to discuss the terms of his surrender. J More seriously, in April 2005, he did complete X-rays from all
angels, pulled my legs around in 47 directions (complete ROM – range of motion
tests), and, based on the huge amount of pops and clicks the joints made and the grunts my
vocal chords made, he declared me as a candidate for joint replacement surgery. When I
asked how to stall this, he suggested Hyalgan® injections. I agreed and spent the next
couple months getting hypos in each knee joint every few weeks. By July 2005, we had met
to discuss whether or not that had worked and I declared that it provided “no
discernable relief.” He then wanted to schedule the first of two operations, during
which my knee joints would be replaced with artificial materials (plastic and metal with
Teflon-like coatings). Again, I balked, and asked him to schedule a follow-up for one
year, during which time I suggested I would beat this problem on my own. It has been one year and during that time, what I did was alter my
lifestyle. If you’ve been reading these newsletters faithfully, you know exactly what
I did during the past year. If you haven’t, then the briefest summary would be to say
that I have eliminated (by at least 90+%) the ingestion of toxins, either natural (e.g.,
mycotoxins) or synthetic (e.g., neurotoxins such as aspartame and many food additives).
That is, stop eating junk food, prepackaged prepared foods (TV dinners, breaded meats,
frozen pizza, etc. – all full of chemical preservatives and flavor enhancers) and
soda pop (or anything else with refined sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup). Today’s X-rays showed a slight improvement over last year’s
knee pix. What set the good doctor on his heels was that all inflammation, in all
joints (not just knees), along with the associated joint pain (which
is the official definition of Arthritis) is gone! G-O-N-E, gone! He went through the ROM
stuff again, but only half-heartedly because I am sure he already knew what he’d
find: no pops or clicks and not a single grunt from my mouth. Lannie was present in the
exam room for this session and can attest, I was not holding anything back, with
the possible exception that when the doctor asked me, “To what do you attribute this change?” knowing he would likely explode if I said, “No mycotoxins”
again, I answered only, “The elimination of junk food.” He did not respond
negatively to that statement. He did, however, state that he perceived my condition to be
a “dramatic improvement” and that his recommendation, as a matter of medical record, was that
“At this time, neither joint replacement
surgery nor pain drugs are indicated.” Well, given
that I have not taken those drugs that were specifically targeting the arthritis pain
issue in well over a year (ever since I discovered that Naproxen sodium, in the long term,
is actually destructive to joint tissues), I had no reaction to that part, but to hear a
person who makes his living by doing surgery to back off and say I did not need the
surgery – which he was positive I did need only one year ago –
that was cause for major celebration! Maybe at dinner tonight, I will have a whole glass
of cold raw milk. J I would love to have been a fly on the wall after we left the room,
to hear what he had to say about all this to his junior associate, who was also in the
room the entire time. You see, once again, by medical definition, “the cause of
arthritis is unknown and it there is no known cure.” That is what they learn
in college and that is what they repeat throughout their careers. Yet, I have done exactly
that: eliminated arthritis from my body in less than one year without the use of any
pharmaceuticals. Is it cured? Yes, provided I do not fall back into the old lifestyle
that caused it in the first place: way too much cheap crappy fast food, candy, and late
night Doritos® munching (washed down with copious amounts of Coke®) while surfing the
web into the wee hours. Oh, and by the way, my blood pressure is perfectly normal, my home
weight scale says 177 naked (doctor’s scale this morning said 187 clothed –
there’s always a 10-12 pound deviation), temperature and pulse normal, and for the
first time in 20 years, when the nurse asked my current level of pain, I could answer,
“None.” If you will stop believing that someone else
(your doctor?) is the only one who can fix you, and you will take ownership
of your problems and take responsibility to repair those problems, all of
you can do this. The entire path has been laid out in these newsletters. It’s your
choice. ----- “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest
his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of
disease.” – Thomas A. Edison Although I wish
Edison’s forecast had been accurate, was he ever wrong in that prediction! Some small
part of me (that part that is not seeking a different planet to live on) wishes I lived
back in those [good old] days, where guys like Edison, Bell, Tesla, etc., all invented
things for the pure joy of doing it – not because they were concentrating on profit
margins (I’m sure they hoped for some remuneration) by charging thousands of
times what the product is worth (e.g., big pharma, gasoline, government taxation).
Remember when doctors made house calls, and the fee was one chicken? Watchdog Correction to last issue: I noted that scientists had just
discovered cancer’s use of the glycolytic pathway for its sugar and
oxygen, then I found this: In the 20’s Otto Warburg, a German physician was
awarded a Nobel Prize for first uncovering cancer cells’ massive dependence on
sugar as a fuel source. He discovered further that some cancer cells developed the
ability to switch over to an ancient, oxygen-free route, the glycolytic pathway. What is
remarkable, they continue to use this pathway even when access to oxygen is restored.
Though this so-called Warburg Effect has since been confirmed, the role
played by glycolysis in cancer has been largely ignored. Few have attempted to attack specific points along the
glycolytic pathway to gain a therapeutic effect. Full article at Dr. Z’s site (Dr. Peter
Zeischegg): http://www.drz.org/asp/NL/NL_Sugar_Cancer_OL_7.23.06.htm#1 So
we have known this since the 1920s? And where have all our cancer specialists been hiding
their noses? (Ummmm... up Big
Pharma’s skirts?)
“Let’s burn it out” with a chemical that is so toxic, those making it have
to wear biohazard suits, yet they inject it directly into your veins. Stupid
morons! 1. Here’s one from Dr. Mercola: A survey of over 1,000 adults found that while 80 percent of Americans read food labels at the grocery store to check for things like calories, fat content and sugar, 44 percent will still buy the item, no matter how bad the label looks. The AP-Ipsos poll, conducted May 30 to June 1 (I was involved in this poll), found some interesting insights that may shed some light on why two-thirds of Americans are overweight. · 65 percent of women checked labels, compared to 51 percent of men. · Women were more likely than men, 82 percent versus 64 percent, respectively, to view nutrition content as important. · 76 percent of married men checked labels, compared to 65 percent of unmarried men. Further, while 39 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 29
said they look at calories on food labels, 60 percent of this age group was more likely to
buy unhealthy foods -- even after checking the label. While experts believe that most
people do read labels, they stress that it’s not just for weight loss purposes.
People with diabetes check labels to steer clear of sugars, those with high blood pressure
check for salt and others look just out of curiosity. His source was:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/06/food.labels.ap/ and I have to protest the numbers. The
first bullet says only 51% of men read labels, yet the third bullet suggest it is between
65-76%. Which is right? Perhaps neither? That might make sense if they were to say, “of
those men who do check labels, married men check them more than unmarried men,” but
even then, the two numbers would have to equal 100%, and they don’t. Clearly, this
survey’s results are flawed. However, they do make one good point: no one is checking
for toxic chemicals. True, some are looking for sugars and salts, but I’d guess the
average American wouldn’t know how dangerous most of the stuff in processed food is
until it kills them, and even then they’d say they don’t know why they’re
dying. Please pay closer attention to what you are putting into your body. 2. The NY Times just ran an article (7/2/06) about high
fructose corn syrup getting a bad rap: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02syrup.html?ex=1153713600&en=397c41080cbd9dbb&ei=5070 The corn syrup, some experts say, is no worse than refined white sugar,
and even the two scientists who first opened the debate that the sweetener may be linked
to obesity have backed off, saying their paper was just a “suggestion” for
further study. Clearly these guys (Willet and Popkin)
got sufficient peer pressure and a nasty face from the corn syrup industry to back off,
even though no one in that article bothered to point out that refined white sugar is also
a killer. I then noticed that Mercola also picked up on this story and I find his rant
very refreshing, so I include it here for your enjoyment:
Great article from the NY Times that shows that our site and many others have been successful at informing the public about the major problems with high-fructose corn syrup. The main expert they cite in this article, Dr. Bray, is one that I
have used many times before on this topic and pointed to his classic study in the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition as the landmark review in this area. Here is a link to the
free full-text article from April of 2004. I consulted with one of my good friends who is a pharmacologist and toxicologist, Russ Bianchi, managing director of Adept Solutions, Inc, a global food and beverage formulation firm in Soquel, CA. He is one of the brightest people I know in the sweetener industry and these are his comments: Willet and Popkin either do not understand that fructose from HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is NOT the same molecule that is in sucrose, or for that matter fruit laevulose, or are taking the latest Corn Lobby tactic of confusing the debate, intentionally, because they have sold out, through smoke and mirrors.
There are over 35 years of HARD empirical evidence of refined man-made fructose metabolizing to triglycerides and adipose tissue (that means fat), UNLIKE the fructose molecule linked to a glucose molecule, found in sucrose (cane or beet), which is converted to blood glucose. Sucrose raises blood glucose and then crashes it, below fasting baseline, within 25 minutes of ingestions -- A FACT. HFCS or crystalline fructose or hydrolyzed fructose from insulin, convert to triglycerides and adipose tissue, within 60 minutes of ingestion, not blood glucose -- A FACT. The cheapest ingredient in the American food chain (profit factor) after air, water and salt is HFCS -- A FACT. In 1970, zero pounds of HFCS existed in the U.S. food chain, or the SEMANTICALLY legislated equivalent in the EU, ‘iso-glucose,’ which is High Fructose Wheat or Beet Syrup. Today HFCS is about 68 pounds per year per person in the USA -- FACT. In 2005, if one looks at the actuarial curve on cardiovascular disease, obesity, hypoglycemia, and diabetes, they all parallel [the] HFCS increase in the food chain -- A FACT. Corn starch converted to a man-made molecule falsely called ‘fructose’ is NOT sugar from cane or beet nor metabolized the same -- A FACT. MDs have no nutritional or metabolic training in med school -- A FACT. MDs have no methodology in their teaching to prevent, as opposed to only treat -- A FACT. Does HFCS significantly contribute to ill health in the U.S. food chain? Yes, follow the insurance companies scrambling in actuarial panic with a sudden and unexplained spike in heart attack death pay-outs among baby boomers ingesting too much HFCS and telling MDs to warn patients to get off soda and HFCS-laden products, for profit -- A FACT. Are Willet & Popkin liars? -- YES. Ask Willet why “sugar diabetes” is no longer a term in the medical lexicon. The answer is western medicine has known since 1924 sugar and refined sweeteners cause or trigger diabetes, yet the AMA cut ‘sugar’ out of the diabetes description in the early ‘60s because they knew they could make more money on treatment, not prevention or cure ... They have betrayed The Hippocratic Oath -- “First, Do No Harm ...” 3. From the “this is scary” department: If you think beauty can’t go more than skin deep, swallow this: Health officials on Thursday said drug companies could start gussying up their pills with pigments like those that give cosmetics a pearly sheen. Do we really want drugs to look like M&Ms? How will children feel about that? Will you find them getting into your heart medicine because they thought it was candy? How many of you remember eating a whole package of Ex-Lax because you thought it was chocolate? (I do, I do!) Making drugs more attractive is a huge mistake! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13960366/ 4. The Agriculture Department is cutting its
tests for mad cow disease by about 90 percent, drawing protests from consumer
groups. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13970287/ Compared to other countries, our level
of testing was already almost non-existent. This is stupid! 5. An electronic capsule that becomes a sort
of mini-laboratory when swallowed won federal approval, giving doctors another way
to diagnose an uncomfortable stomach condition, its inventors said Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13961385/ I already warned you this was coming.
This article, by itself, is very interesting, but the future implications are scary. 6. For those of you contemplating surgical fat removal: WASHINGTON, July 23 — Four of every 10 patients who undergo weight-loss surgery develop complications within six months, the federal government said Sunday. The whole story can be read at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/health/24health.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 7. NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Despite a
raging national controvery over the obesity epidemic, the fast food industry continues to
expand its offerings of gigantic new kinds of cheeseburgers. From the Marketers’ point of
view: http://adage.com/article?article_id=110461 8. More FDA skeletons: A survey of the FDA’s own scientists revealed the agency to be a center of intimidation and censorship, where scientists routinely fear “retaliation” for merely raising safety concerns about prescription drugs. Pressuring scientists to alter their findings appears to be routine, this survey reveals, and most scientists who work at the FDA don’t even believe the agency tells the truth to the public about the dangers of FDA-approved drugs! Read more at: http://www.newstarget.com/019717.html 9. 15 Jul 2006 - Fertility treatments designed to suppress the immune system and help women who suffer repeated early miscarriage may be based on bad science. More at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9552-major-flaw-in-miscarriage-test.html 10. 16 Jul 2006 - Around the United States, health workers and patients are clashing when providers balk at giving care that they feel violates their beliefs, sparking an intense, complex and often bitter debate over religious freedom vs. patients’ rights. My feeling is that you knew the ethics issues when you took that job, so if your religion or other beliefs are in the way, quit your damn job right now! However, if your ethical issues tell you that the doctor is about to murder his patient with bad drugs, steal the patient and both of you leave together. More at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071500846.html 11. 16 Jul 2006 - They’re the
“conscientious objectors” of the public-health world: parents who resist giving
their children vaccines. Their numbers are increasing, public-health officials say,
although nobody knows exactly how many there are. Does
this mean doctors will stop having the parents arrested so they can inject toxins into
their children? Or will that only happen in Seattle? http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2003130272_resisters16m.html 12. 17 Jul 2006 - A growing number of researchers in academia are receiving private funds for conducting research, and scientists who accept industry money need to follow a set of rules - 19, to be precise - for handling ethical issues, according to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). But will they stick to it? Read more at: http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23966/ 13. 17 Jul 2006 - Tagging surgical sponges with RFID chips - detectable by a scanning wand - could ensure they are not accidentally left inside a patient’s body. I know these things happen – they are whispered about a lot – but a surgeon who leaves a sponge inside a patient then sews him up ought to be fired. We don’t need to make the operating room idiot proof; we need to keep idiots out of that room. More at: http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9566-radio-wand-to-reduce-dangerous-patient-stitchups.html 14. Decoding a person’s genome is
at present far too costly to be a feasible medical procedure. But the goal now being
pursued by the N.I.H. and by several manufacturers, including the company decoding Dr.
Watson’s DNA, is to drive the costs of decoding a human genome down to as little as
$1,000. At that price, it could be
worth decoding people’s genomes in certain medical situations and, one day, even
routinely at birth. … Already, every newborn baby endures its heel being
pricked to draw a few drops of blood, which are tested for a handful of enzymic
deficiencies. But when genomes can be decoded for $1,000, a baby may arrive home like a
new computer, with its complete genetic operating instructions on a DVD. This article reads like these doctors think it is not only necessary,
but that they have the right to read your genetic codes. I refuse to let them have
this! Who would protect the security of such information? How would it be used (or
misused)? There are already too many agencies that have more information on me than they
should be allowed to have. But you decide. More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18dna.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2 15. The issue is not new, but experts say it has acquired greater urgency as obesity has ballooned in the past 25 years, accompanied by sharp increases in diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, conditions that used to be largely the province of those middle-aged or older. In 1980, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 7 percent of children and 5 percent of teenagers were overweight; today the figures hover around 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Doctors at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, where 38 percent of patients are obese, say that in recent years they have treated a 9-year-old who suffered a heart attack, a child with a body mass index of 52 (a 5-foot-6 adult with a BMI of 52 would weigh 322 pounds) and several others so dangerously fat that they underwent gastric bypass surgery. So why are many doctors reluctant to mention an obvious problem? The reasons are many, experts say: fear of alienating a family or hurting a child (not speaking up is hurting them more); uncertainty about what weight loss approaches have the best outcomes -- or work at all; accelerating time pressures coupled with the requirement that doctors cover an increasing number of topics in a visit; and an insurance system that often does not reimburse doctors for follow-up visits to treat obesity alone. So I guess that last one really tells why doctors refuse to call a fat kid “fat.” There’s no money in it. Read their version at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071700952.html If you don’t really believe America is getting fatter, in spite of what you see every time you visit Bugger Kringe or McBarf Buggers ? Us, then check out this CDC animation to see the fattening of America: http://health.msn.com/reports/obesity/default.aspx 16. 18 Jul 2006 - Patients could see more life-threatening prescription errors, experts are warning. A sharp drop in the number of clinical pharmacologists, combined with inadequate prescribing-training to medical students, could exacerbate the problem, they say. Are you ready for even more Death by Medicine? http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9574-experts-warn-on-dangerous-drugprescribing-errors.html 17. WASHINGTON, July 18 — In an internal review, a federal drug
safety official concluded that a controversial antibiotic made by a French drug company
should be withdrawn, according to e-mail messages exchanged among top agency
officials. The official, Dr. David Graham, part of the Food and Drug Administration’s
drug safety office, wrote in a message dated June 16 that the agency’s approval of Ketek, an
antibiotic made by Sanofi-Aventis that is also known as telithromycin, was a mistake.
“It’s as if every principle governing the review and approval of new drugs
was abandoned or suspended where telithromycin is concerned,” Dr. Graham
wrote. More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/health/19fda.html Obviously, the FDA was paid enough to
ignore the safety issues. 18. 20 Jul 2006 - Scientists have
uncovered evidence of a new class divide: the lower our social standing, the
faster we age. The claim follows the discovery of accelerated ageing among working
class volunteers, leaving them biologically older than those higher up the social ladder. http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1824680,00.html Didn’t it ever occur to these same
scientists that they should relate other factors to these two groups? Such as: low-class
(low-income) people eat more junk, which contains more toxins, etc. And what do they mean
by the word “age”? I suspect, in this context, it means more age-related
diseases (arthritis, skin problems, etc.) all of which point directly at eating cheap crap (full of corn and corn products, artificial
ingredients, etc.). 19. The latest round of criticism was set off last
week by the release of a Kaiser Family Foundation report. The report tracked the number of
food and fast-food marketers on TV who’ve created websites targeting children. It
gave ammunition to critics who decry the use of advergaming, particularly those
sites that require proof of purchase to play games or qualify for rewards. Children
logging onto Kraft Foods’ Postopia.com, for example, can unlock secret levels or gain
extra lives and secret powers with Postokens. In order to get Postokens, though, children
have to get a code found in specially marked boxes of Post cereals. The site also carries
the following disclaimer: “The
games and other activities on this website include messages about the products Kraft
sells.” … Dale Kunkel, a professor of
communication at the University of Arizona, said that using viral marketing to reach children
was an untoward attempt to co-opt kid-to-kid e-mails, essentially “rewarding children
for becoming agents of the advertiser.” He questioned whether children under 8
even understand what advertising is. … “I think a lot of parents don’t understand the damaging
effects of constant media exposure -- the manipulation of children’s
minds by advertisers -- and they don’t exercise responsibility or believe they
have the tools to do so,” she said. Full story at: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=110682
Sorry to say, but most
adults also do not understand how their minds are being manipulated by advertisers.
You are eating a bunch of crappy (unhealthy) food because some jerk tells you, in a very
convincing way, that it is good and you’ll love it, and you probably will love it,
all the while it is killing you. 20. Think antacids are the best thing for heartburn? Think again: They may be exactly the worst treatment of all. Most heartburn is actually caused by too little acid in the stomach, not too much. More at: http://www.newstarget.com/019756.html 21. A compound found in the bark of the
white birch tree -
betulonic acid, a derivative of betulinol - may finally have been rendered a
water-soluble, bio-available drug, and is already showing the potential to be a possible agent against prostate cancer -
in cell culture and in an animal model. More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19032 Here we go again, folks! We have already told you that we believe
cancer is caused by fungi, and what is the major reason we recommend using birch xylitol
instead of sugar? Not only does it not feed fungi, but birch bark is antifungal! Of course
it will help in a fight against cancer. 22. Hey, FDA, listen up! 16 Jul 2006 -
Australia’s top government science organization has completely rewritten its policy
on public comments by staff this week, after admitting that the existing policy had
discouraged staff from speaking about their research in public. Hey, FDA, AMA, FTC, US Govt., try this on for size: http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23951/se Date: 7/25/2006 |