The Shikimate Pathway: How Vaccines, Environmental Toxins and 5G Damage Immunity

Truth: Interview with RFJ Jr and Dr Zach Bush

December 2020

Film Review

This recent interview between Robert F Kennedy Jr and Dr Zach Bush concerns the essential role of the shikimate pathway in immunity. Found only in bacteria and other single cell organisms, the link between shikimate pathway and the immune system is the focus of two decades of intensive research. Scientists (and a growing number of doctors) worry a variety of toxic environmental pollutants are causing chronic illnesses to skyrocket by poisoning the gut bacteria responsible for our immunity.

Glyphosate (Roundup) is the most common and best studied of these environmental toxins, but PFAS (flame retardant chemicals), the mercury and aluminum found in vaccines, ultrasound and EMF radiation (associated with cellphones, WiFi and 5G) are also likely culprits.

Both Kennedy and Bush believe the poisoning of essential gut bacteria is largely responsible for a five-fold increase in chronic illnesses (eg autism, autoimmune disease and diabetes) since the 1940s.

 

According to Bush, these toxic exposures are rapidly increasing male infertility. At present, over 1/3 of Western men are infertile.

 

For me, the most interesting part of the interview concerns new evidence that neither our blood nor brain are sterile, as I was taught in medical school. Bush asserts there are thousands of viral and bacterial species present in both. In fact, specific brain microbes play an important role in safeguarding brain activity.

 

I was also intrigued to learn about the link between the introduction of arsenic and mercury pesticides in the late 19th century the appearance of a paralytic form of polio in the 1890s.* So-called “infantile paralysis” would reach epidemic proportions with the introduction of DDT following World War II. Likewise polio vaccine was relatively ineffective in eradicating polio prior to the banning of DDT in Western countries in 1972.

Bush, a physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care, has started a biotech company studying soil microorganisms (the original source of most of our antibiotics) and harvesting the therapeutic chemicals they produce for use in nutritional supplements. He’s also heavily involved in regenerative farming projects in schools and prisons. His website is https://zachbushmd.com/

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*According to Bush, human beings have lived in harmony with polio virus for thousands of years. It only began causing paralysis after environmental poisons killed the friendly bacteria that normal prevent it from invading the human nervous system.

 

How Polio Vaccine Didn’t Conquer Polio

 

Smoke, Mirrors and the Disappearance of Polio

Dr Suzanne Humphries (2011)

In this presentation, board certified nephrologist Dr Suzanne Humphries traces the real reasons for the decline of poliomyelitis (aka infantile paralysis) in the US. She begins by describing the natural course of polio virus infection. Ninety-five percent of infected patients have no symptoms whatsoever, 4% have fever, headache and flu-like symptoms and 1% develop poliomyelitis (paralysis). The reason paralysis develops is because a defect in cell mediated immunity (CMI)* allows the virus to enter the central nervous system.

Humphries has spent years tracking down toxic environmental exposures known to impede cell mediated immunity. She has identified four that closely correlate with increased rates of polio infection in the 1940s and 1950s.

The first was increased use of infant formula contaminated with high levels of DDT and arsenic (in the forties and fifties, dairy cows were heavily treated with DDT and arsenic to suppress infectious disease).

The second was heavy use of DDT, which can cause flaccid paralysis independent of infection with polio virus, in middle class schools and households. Children and their food were routinely sprayed with DDT in the 1950s to protect them against infectious diseases. In addition, there were a wide variety of household products containing DDT. Humphries believes this may be a primary reason why “infantile paralysis” was far more prevalent in upper middle class families than in poor families who couldn’t afford these products.

The third was an epidemic level of tonsillectomies (in the 1950s, 85% of American children received tonsillectomies). Not only does tonsillectomy remove the primary barrier preventing infectious bacteria from entering the airway and gut, but the surgical trauma allows the polio virus direct access to the central nervous system. The link between tonsillectomies and infantile paralysis has been well documented since the early fifties, and surgeons were strongly warned not to do these procedures during “polio season.”

The fourth was a big increase in consumption of white sugar and and flour treated with quick lime, bleach and other toxic chemicals to whiten it.

Nearly all of these environmental exposures (DDT, arsenicals, tonsillectomies, toxic sugar and flour bleaches) were either banned or drastically curtailed at the end of the 1960s. According to Humphries, this, rather than vaccination, was the primary reason for the so-called eradication of polio in 1979.

An important secondary reason was an improvement in diagnosis of infantile paralysis. Following the introducing of polio vaccine in 1954, the medical establishment, eager to promote its effectiveness, were more careful to separate out other common causes of paralysis that were being misdiagnosed as polio (DDT and arsenic poisoning, Guillain Barre and coxsackie virus infection).

Franklin Roosevelt, who actually suffered from Guillain Barre, was the most famous person to be misdiagnosed with polio.

Humphries also briefly touches on the disaster caused by the introduction of the Salk vaccine and the 1955 Cutter incident, in which 220,000 children were accidentally infected with live polio virus, resulting in 200 cases of permanent paralysis and ten deaths.

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*In cell mediated immunity (CMI), which is separate from the humoral immunity (involving antibodies), special attack cells kill the invading organisms. Vaccines only stimulate antibody production – they have no effect whatsoever on CMI.

 

The Mythology of Science and Technology

Pandora’s Box: A Fable from the Age of Science

Directed by Adam Curtis (1992)

Film Review

Pandora’s Box is Curtis’s first documentary (at least that I can find on YouTube) about the history of perception management, mass indoctrination and collective thought control. His films, a treasure trove of the hidden history that is censored in our schools, offer a unique perspective on the role of government and media in manipulating the way we view ourselves and our relationship with society and the ruling elite.

First appearing on BBC television in 1992, the six-part series explores the collusion between engineers, corporate oligarchs and the public relations industry to hoodwink the industrialized world into believing science and technology would solve all the world’s problems. It was a process that granted a dangerous amount of power to pseudo-rational engineer/technocrats – who in many instances proved far less rational than the general population.

As Curtis demonstrates in Part 1, a parallel process occurred in the non-capitalist Soviet Union under Stalin.

Part 1 The Engineer’s Plot – concerns the powerful impetus to electrify and industrialize the Soviet Union after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin, who believed industrialization was vital to the success of Communism, was famous for the dictum: “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification.”

Part 2 To the Brink of Eternity – concerns the development of Game Theory at the Rand Corporation (a right wing think tank closely allied with the Pentagon and US intelligence) and whiz kids like Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who nearly led us into a global nuclear holocaust. Clips depicting McNamara’s use of Game Theory to manage the Vietnam War are particularly comical.

Part 3 The League of Gentleman – concerns the capture of British economic policy by Milton Friedman’s pseudo-scientific monetarism under Margaret Thatcher. This would result in the total decimation of Britain’s manufacturing base and skilled workforce (and economy).

Part 4 Goodbye Mrs Ant – concerns the glorification of the chemical industry after World War II, resulting in the total contamination of the environment (and our bloodstreams) with DDT and similar synthetic pesticides. Curtis also traces the backlash against this environmental destruction that started with Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring and culminated with the birth of the ecology movement at the University of Wisconsin in 1968.

Part 5 Black Power – concerns the destructive myth perpetuated by Wall Street and the World Bank that massive technology projects would magically solve the problem of third world poverty. Curtis specifically examines the massive Volvo damn project the World Bank funded for Ghana (and Kaiser Aluminum) in 1960. And how shameless exploitation by Kaiser (and the collapse in the world cocoa price) left the country worse off than ever.

Part 6 A is for Atom – concerns the massive snow job the nuclear power industry did on the US, British and Russian public in promoting nuclear energy as a totally safe and cheap form of virtually unlimited energy. According to Curtis, nuclear engineers knew as early as 1958 that nuclear power was far more expensive than other energy sources – and would require massive government subsidies. They also knew by the early sixties that standard safeguard features were unreliable in preventing nuclear accidents. When they pointed this out to the Atomic Energy Commission, the government bureaucrats decided too much money had been invested in nuclear power to admit they were wrong.

British ObGyns Speak Out on Toxic Exposures

New British Recommendations for Pregnant Women

In May 2013, Britain’s the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) recommended that pregnant and nursing women minimize or eliminate their use of canned and plastic wrapped food and commercial household and beauty products. Thus in addition to avoiding prescription drugs and shellfish, pregnant and nursing women should avoid processed food and the use of commercial personal care products such as sunscreens, moisturizers, fragrances, shower gels, hair sprays and shampoo. The RCOG also strongly cautions against the use of commercially manufactured baby lotions, powders and shampoos, as they commonly contain phthalates.

The RCOG published their recommendations in a scientific impact paper titled Chemical Exposures During Pregnancy. Unfortunately American women missed out on these important recommendations, as the US corporate media gave it a miss.

Already Implicated in Cancer and Infertility

British obstetricians are chiefly concerned about the endocrine disruptors contained in these products. An endocrine disruptor is a chemical with the potential to interfere with one or more hormone systems in the body. Obviously women’s hormone systems play critical roles in normal fetal development. Endocrine disruptors that behave like estrogens (female hormones) are already implicated in epidemic levels of breast and prostate cancer and infertility (i.e. low sperm counts). See Buyer Beware: Are Americans Systematically Poisoning Themselves. They’re also linked to birth defects.

 The Precautionary Principle

The beauty industry is a multibillion dollar global business, and the British obgyns are a lot more courageous than their American counterparts. I’m still waiting for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists to challenge the Susan G Komen Foundation for allowing Avon, which refuses to sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, to hijack their Pink Ribbon Campaign for breast cancer research (see The Corporatization of Breast Cancer).

The RCOG justifies their position based on the growing body of research linking common chemical exposures to birth defects and developmental problems. Thus following the Precautionary Principle, British obstetricians argue that use of these products should be minimized or eliminated until they are proven safe.

 The main chemicals that concern the RCOG are

• DDT and PCBs (currently banned in the US, these chemicals continue to be used in the third world and persist in the food chain, particularly in oily fish). Recommendation: pregnant and nursing women should reduce their intake of oily fish to no more than once a week.
• Phthalates and bisphenol A (found in plastic containers, the lining of cans and numerous personal care products). Recommendation: eliminate or greatly reduce consumption of food and beverages sold in cans or plastic containers and use of commercially manufactured sunscreens, moisturizers, fragrances, shower gels, hair sprays and shampoos.
• Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDES) used in flame retardants and perfluorinated compounds (PFCS) used to make materials waterproof and stain-resistant. Recommendation: pregnant and nursing women avoid purchasing new furniture, fabrics, non-stick frying pans and automobiles

The impact paper also recommends avoiding the following substances:

• Over the counter pain killers
• Chemical insecticides and fungicides (e.g. products that kill mold)
• Liver and other sources of Vitamin A (Vitamin A toxicity in the fetus can also cause birth defects)

 Alternatives?

For women (and men concerned about cancer and maintaining their sperm count) who need alternatives to commercial household and beauty products, it’s amazingly simple (and cheap) to produce safe and effective homemade alternatives with a food processor and traditional ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, bar soap and calcium carbonate. I will post some easy recipes next week.

photo credit: Espen Klem via photopin cc

NZ’s Dioxin Legacy: Lies and Cover-up

The the long battle to get the New Zealand government to acknowledge the major health problems of dioxin-exposed New Plymouth residents (see my last post) first began in 1973. Instead of attempting to understand and address residents’ health problems, the New Zealand government, an Ivon Watkins Dow (IWD) partner though share holdings and subsidies, became the first clients of New Zealand’s first public relations firm (Consultus).

Records show that Consultus was first hired to ensure the ongoing availability and use of 2,4,5-T. A 1981 case study from the international journal PR News – about Consultus’ first PR campaign – is entitled  Countering an Activist Campaign to Have a Product Banned from Use. This “media management” response seems to be very typical of New Zealand’s approach to toxic waste management. In the words of one IWD survivor, the goal is to “delay and deny until we die.”

In the mid to late nineties, local activist Andrew Gibbs helped found a new research group, the Paritutu Dioxin Investigation Network. When his de facto partner, a long term resident of Paritutu (the suburb closest to IWD) developed chronic fatigue syndrome and unexplained anemia, her family and friends informed him of the reproductive and immune problems other Paritutu families were experiencing.

Gibbs, alarmed by 1985 Paritutu studies showing dioxin residues comparable to Vietnamese regions sprayed with Agent Orange, tried to get the government to do blood tests on his partner and other Paritutu residents. It would turn out that both National and Labour governments were far more interested in managing public opinion about dioxin.

The Government Gives in to Grassroots Pressure

In 2001, Minister of Health Annette King finally agreed to test the serum levels of 100 Paritutu survivors. When many were found to have elevated dioxin levels, the Labour-led government responded by setting up a Ministry of Health unit to manage “financial risks” related to potential government liability.

Spin, Cover-up, and Statistical Manipulation

They subsequently commissioned a 2004-2005 study by Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) to “analyze” Taranaki District Health Board cancer and birth defect records. The researchers subjected the data to some bizarre statistical manipulations to produce the conclusion the government was looking for, i.e. that high rates of cancer and birth defects in Paritutu and Motorua households were unrelated to dioxin exposure.

For example, they deliberately re-targeted the study design to focus on residents living in Paritutu between 1974-87, who were known to have lower exposure levels based production changes between 1969 and 1973 that reduced dioxin contamination. They also altered 2005 data to make it appear that ongoing exposure occurred between 1974-87, as well as using inaccurate half-life figures to skew pre-1974 results. Finally they excluded high rates of diagnosed cancer between 1970-74 as being too close to the period of toxic exposure, which they misrepresented as occurring between 1962-87, when it actually occurred between 1960-73. See (*) below for actual data.

When these statistical manipulations were challenged in a 2006 TV3 documentary entitled “Let us Spray,” the government and their risk management unit dismissed the bulk of the alleged misrepresentations and blamed others on “typographical” errors.

New Zealand health officials also repeatedly ignored recommendations by ESR and the local ethics review board that they undertake a geo-spatial study of families with elevated dioxin levels. Gibbs eventually undertook his own study of all residents living within 500 meters of Ivon Watkins Dow between 1963-66. He achieved his primary goal – proving that a historical cohort could be identified – at a total cost of $1000. This was in contrast to the hundreds of millions of dollars the New Zealand government had paid Consultus, ESR, their “financial risk” management unit.

The Government Compromise: Free Health Checks

Gibbs continues to fight to get Dow and the New Zealand government to acknowledge the health problems of Paritutu and Motorua residents who worked at or lived adjacent to IWD prior to 1969. In 2008, the government finally granted Paritutu survivors three free health checks (primary care isn’t covered under New Zealand’s National Health Service).

Gibbs dismisses the government move as a PR ploy. Mainly because it circumvents the issue of intergenerational effects (i.e. birth defects in subsequent generations). A 2006 study showed that New Zealand veterans and their offspring suffered DNA damage as a result of dioxin (Agent Orange) exposure in Vietnam.

The Cover-up that Cost More Than the Truth

The question yet to be answered is why the New Zealand government was so determined to cover all this up. Why spend millions of dollars on PR consultants, a “financial risk” management unit, flawed research and a vexatious Broadcast Standards Authority (BSA) complaint – when it would have cost far less to treat the health problems of 500 New Plymouth households.

Gibbs believes an official government admission of dioxin-related health problems would open them to liability – both from New Zealand veterans and Vietnamese civilians exposed to Agent Orange. Because the New Zealand government was a shareholder, as well as subsidizing 2,4,5-T production from 1969 on, they are co-liable with IWD.

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*A look at the Taranaki District Health Board (TDHB) 2002 data reveals a large increase in neural tube birth defects in Moturoa and Paritutu residents between 1965 and 1972. It also reveals that New Plymouth rates of hydrocephaly, hypospadias, spina bifida and anencephaly recorded at New Plymouth Maternity Hospital between 1965 and 1971 were respectively 3.2 times, 3.8 times, 4.2 times and 9.7 times the crude rates found in offspring of US Vietnam veterans:

“The 1966-1972 rate of still-births was 1 in 7 versus the expected N.Z rate of 1.1 still-birth in 100 births. The 1966-72 rate of linked NTD (neural tube development) defects was 1 in 10.5 vs the N.Z range of 1 NTD in 222 to 1 NTD in 400. The 1966-72 rate of birth defect cases was *1 in 7 versus the N.Z expected rate of 1 case in 50 births  This conservative rate is based on the 2002 TDHB review of addresses for only 17 of 167 birth defect cases 1965-70 so does not include the other 150 defects or three defects reported by Zone A mothers.” (from link and PDF).

The TDHB data also reveals a significant increase in 1976-85 cancer rates living within 500 meters of IWD in 1963-1966:

“From a Study of 165 Paritutu Zone A 1963-1966 residents living within a 500 metres of Ivon Watkins Building 03 plant:

“1976-85 rate of 0-64 year age group cancer mortality was 4.5 times expected. Five deaths where 1.1 was expected based on mean of 1976 and 1985 NZ census rates. Four of the 5 deaths were in 1981 and 1982. Two in five NZ 1976-85 cancer deaths were in 0-64 ages. All five Zone A cancer deaths were in 0-64 ages. Two 1981 cancer deaths were parents aged 35 and 48 of 1969 and 1970 miscarriage and still-birth cases. There were 13 deaths 1976-85 for Zone A 1963-66 residents with 13.4 all cause deaths expected, 5 were cancer deaths with 2.9 expected and there were 3 lung cancer mortalities where less than 1 was expected (link).”

For more background and historical documents, go to Paritutu Inside the Spin: How the New Zealand Government Rewrote History

photo credit: pixiduc via photopin cc

New Zealand’s Love Canal

(Note: this post should be of particular concern to Americans, as Dow is trying to get the USDA to approve a dioxin-related toxin, 2,4-D, as a weedkiller)

“I have long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation and of establishing the world headquarters of the Dow company on truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society.” Dow chairman Carl Gerstacker 1972 (Exporting Environmentalism).

It’s fairly common for the US and other European countries to ask New Zealand, owing to our lax environmental regulations, to manufacture and or test hazardous substances that are too controversial in their own countries. The issue is of special concern to me as a New Plymouth resident. I have numerous friends and former patients who have had their health and lives ruined by the government’s refusal to oversee or regulate the activities of Dow AgroSciences (formerly known as Ivon Watkins Dow).*

IWD produced extremely hazardous dioxin-related compounds between 1948 and 1987. After World War II, chlorinated hydrocarbons (aka organochlorines), such as 2,3,7,8 TCDD (dioxin), 2,4,5-T and 2,4 D  were developed as herbicides (weed killers). Dioxin, also known as Agent Orange, was extensively sprayed during the Vietnam War to expose guerrilla positions by defoliating the jungles. The damaging health effects of these compounds were noted in many returning GIs and Vietnamese civilians and their children and grandchildren.

As early as 1957, the New Zealand Royal Society cautioned that these toxins needed to be thoroughly investigated, owing to the potential hazard they posed to human health. The warning went unheeded. In the 1950s and 1960s, New Zealanders experienced the highest per capita exposure to DDT and related pesticides and 2,4,5-T. This appears to be a major culprit in the doubling of New Zealand’s cancer rate between 1960 and 2012 – and the halving of Kiwi sperm counts between 1987 and 2007. This drop is the most dramatic in the developed world. Neither Australia nor the US have experienced a comparable decline in sperm counts.

All kinds of alarm bells should have been going off, given the staggering increase in birth defects in families downwind of IWD. Between 1965-1971, one out of thirty newborns at New Plymouth’s Maternity Hospital had birth defects. These included a strikingly high proportion of the neural tube defects commonly associated with dioxin exposure, such as anencephaly (the absence of a brain), hydrocephalus and spina bifida.

Cancer, Infertility and Toxic Breast Milk

Meanwhile New Zealand’s overall birth defect rate was one of the highest in the world. During the 60s and 70s, everyone ingesting New Zealand meat and dairy products accumulated substantial blood and fatty tissue concentrations of dioxin, owing to the massive amount of 2,4,5-T Kiwi farmers used to clear gorse and scrub. In 1961, the US banned New Zealand beef exports, owing to excessive residues of chlorinated hydrocarbons, such as DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, and BHC.

Even more alarming, a 1972-73 study of Dunedin infants published in the Lancet revealed that breast milk (which also accumulates dioxin) was less healthy than formula. In a survey of 1000 children, those breastfed four weeks or longer were twice as likely to suffer from allergies or asthma in later childhood.

The US Bans 2,4,5-T

In 1969, IWD upgraded their 2,4,5-T plant’s “rudimentary” emission controls to reduce dioxin levels in their air emissions and the herbicide they produced. From 1973 on, after the US banned 2,4,5-T in all food crops except rice, the NZ government required IWD to treat their herbicide with a solvent that reduced dioxin levels even further.  Both national and regional agencies were charged with monitoring the dioxin content of IWD’s incinerator emissions. However according to available records, monitoring was limited and sporadic.

Cancer Rates Climb

Meanwhile overseas studies continued to link dioxin exposure to many of the same health problems New Plymouth residents were describing. In addition to birth defects, miscarriages, crib deaths and chronic childhood illnesses, downwind families were experiencing unprecedented levels of brain and spinal tumors, sarcomas, lymphomas, prostate and respiratory cancers and multiple sclerosis, as well as neurodevelopmental (mainly autism, Asperger’s disorder, mental retardation and ADHD) problems in their kids

IWD Shuts Down Dioxin Production in 1987

Finally in 1987, in response to massive local pressure and scores of studies documenting dioxin-related health problems, Ivon Watkins Dow (IWD) shut down all 2,4,5-T production. It’s of note this occurred without Dow or the New Zealand government acknowledging any negative health effects from dioxin exposure. Former IWD employees and residents in close proximity to IWD were left with a legacy of chronic health problems – and nowhere to turn for help.

*While Ivon Watkins (incorporated in 1944) prided itself on research and development geared towards New Zealand conditions, several major international chemical firms had substantial financial interest in the company including Monsanto (USA), the American Chemical Paint Company (USA), Geigy (Switzerland), Cela (Germany) and the Union Carbide Corporation (USA). Solidifying such connections, the company became Ivon Watkins-Dow Ltd (IWD) in 1964 after Dow Chemicals USA bought a 50% interest (Sewell 1978 – see http://www.dioxinnz.com/pdf-NZ-RAD/RAD-Thesis-BWC.pdf).

For more background and historical documents, go to Paritutu Inside the Spin: How the New Zealand Government Rewrote History

To be continued.

photo credit: PhillipC via photopin cc