INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE 1918 & 2008 FLU & VITAMIN D

Every year as fall arrives, most people know that the cold and flu season is upon us. Not everyone gets the cold or flu every year, and for that we are grateful.

The flu virus changes from year to year, therefore to avoid contacting the virus, a flu shot is suggested by many doctors. This is the fastest mutating organism existing today.

What makes the run of the mill flu different from an epidemic that kills millions instead of thousands is its degree of mutation and duration.

Let’s consider the Spanish Flu of 1918. Its origination was in Asia, from fowl. The number of afflicted was so vast, that the media was not allow to publish information, fearing the publics response. Spain was the only country talking about it, hence the name Spanish Flu. In America the medical establishment called it the Blue Death, attributed to cyanosis,
lack of oxygen to the blood.

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/magazine/archive/Mag_Fall04/prologues/index.html

This epidemic was the third most devastating viral outbreak to this day. The death toll was estimated conservatively at 21 million. There are those that believe thirty to forty million died.

This pathogen circled the globe three times; with each successive wave mutating, in an ever aggressive form. This process is called “The Drift”. Change, mutate, re-infect. These three waves occurred within one year with only short intervals between them. In contrast the 1889 Influenza epidemic’s three waves traveled around the globe in three years, resulting in a drastically lower death toll.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm

The first reported case was at Fort Riley, Kansas, in March with five hundred cases among the service men.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/

Those most sensitive to infection were healthy 15-34 year olds. There death rate was twenty times higher than all other ages. Death was attributed to an “over reaction of the bodies immune system.” In contrast the seasonal flu strikes the very young, the elderly and the infirm. It was documented that contacting the virus in the first wave, gives a person only limited immunity.

The World Health Organization has called the Swine Flu of 2008 a pandemic, because there has had sustained transmission for three to six months.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agHVPFaC5R.M&refer=worldwide

Although we are seeing mild cases of H1N1 at the present time, medical authorities are bracing for a second and more virulent form of this virus in the fall. If our annual yearly flu is stronger than H1N1, then this second wave will not happen.

http://johnmbarry.com/newsletter.htm

Historical literature on the subject provided interesting information pertaining to the transmission of this sickness.

Deep sea fishermen didn’t get sick, but those working in high temps were more susceptible to illness. Patients in mental asylums were less likely to get sick than there attendants.

The British Medical Journal stated that postal workers became sick after handling mail.

Lastly there was a belief that the position of the planets and atmospheric conditions influenced the spread of disease. There are those in this present day, which would agree.

This disease spread faster than human contact!

I would like to mention the Bird Flu, H5N1. In short the human nose is too cold for growth and replication of this pathogen on a wide scale. The virus thrives in the gut of fowl at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, in contrast to the human nose which is 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/05/15/human-nose-too-cold-for-bird-flu-virus.html

As I close this article, I would like to leave you with a bit of hope. I have provided a couple of links to articles and a video about doctors’ experiences with influenza and vitamin D.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--NqqB2nhBE

Vitamin D advocates push for higher doses
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-vitamind1-2009aug01,0,1740936,full.story

Please Pass The Mooshine!

Please Pass The Mooshine!

Deerfield Farm, Durham, CT

PLEASE PASS THE MOOSHINE
By Marjorie Tietjen

Throughout history people around the world have consumed unpasteurized and unhomogenized milk products, along with other unprocessed foods, with resulting vitality and strong constitutions. It is only in recent times that this nourishing food has been subjected to high heat and other unnatural processes.

In the book "Enzyme Nutrition", the author Edward Howell, expresses his concerns. "Medical enthusiasm for milk as a therapeutic agent suffered an abrupt ending with the advent of pasteurization and it's killing of milk enzymes. An important conclusions emerges from studying the long history of milk as food and medicine: When one takes enzymes away from milk, it loses some of it's health value and most of it's curative properties. The virtue of effective foods resides in their possession of all the nutritional factors nature gave them. The status raw milk gained as a remedy for chronic diseases, throughout hundreds of years, vanished with the coming of pasteurized milk."

If fresh unprocessed milk, from grass fed cattle, is so beneficial for humans, where did the pasteurization process originate and why?

MILK FROM FACTORY FARMS

In the 1800's many distilleries began to appear in American cities and as the cities grew, pasture lands began to disappear. A cheap source of food for the cows housed in the emerging factory farms, was the swill or refuse from the nearby distilleries. Even though this waste product lacked the nourishment of the cattle's natural diet (fresh grass), it did cause the cows to produce more milk at less cost. Despite the increased profits and the increased production of milk, the overall health of the cattle suffered greatly. Because the distillery slop was not the natural diet of these animals, they became emaciated and sickly. There were other factors which also contributed to the unhealthy state of the cattle and the milk. These animals were packed into extremely crowded areas where they stood in their own excrement and were not allowed to move for up to 18 months....if they lived that long.The mortality rate in these dairies was extremely high.

People began acquiring illnesses such as diphtheria, tuberculosis and scarlet fever. Often these illnesses were traced back to the milk produced in the distillery factory farms. When animals are raised under unhealthy conditions and as a consequence lose their immunity and vitality, we can logically predict what will happen to the next consumer who is higher up on the food chain. "We are what we eat" is not just a flippant unscientific wives tale. This statement can be proven if we will only take the time to observe this obvious example of cause and effect.

Similar conditions exist today in the modern factory farms. The animals live in very close quarters, receive no exercise and are fed mostly grain, instead of their natural diet of fresh grass. They are given hormones to force them to produce more milk than they would under natural conditions. When the focus is on quantity, the quality of the milk decreases. Antibiotics are also used extensively and traces wind up in the milk. All of this will consequently affect the health of the milk consumer.

Concerns over high yields and profits are the driving motives behind the continued adulteration of one of our most valuable health resources.......unprocessed, full fat, pasture fed milk. Due to this economic pressure, it is illegal in most states to sell unpasteurized milk. Consequently, those who have realized the many benefits of unprocessed milk will go to great lengths to obtain their "Mooshine". Some people travel long distances across state lines. Others have developed cow share programs in order to circumvent this unwanted and unneeded law. When one buys shares of a particular cow, then legally this means the shareholder owns part of the cow and is therefore allowed by law to drink the unprocessed milk of this cow. You can find out more information concerning obtaining raw milk in your area by visiting http://www.rawmilk.com/.

I am grateful to live in Connecticut where it is legal for small farmers to sell unpasteurized certified milk to stores or directly ....on the farm to the consumer. To be certified to sell unprocessed milk, the farm must comply with strict health regulations and the milk is periodically tested for unwanted bacteria. For those of you who have never tasted grass-fed, full fat, unprocessed milk, I want to express how vast the difference is between the untreated farm fresh milk and the processed factory farm milk. Fresh unheated wholesome milk from a certified farm is so delicious that once most people have tasted this natural healing elixir, they will never go back to the processed milk.

BUILT-IN IMMUNE FACTORS

Cows who are allowed to graze on uncontaminated pastureland and who are fed a minimum of grain, produce milk which has built in protective factors. Raw unheated milk is designed for mammals whose immune systems are immature. Unpasteurized milk contains inhibins. These are elements which hinder the growth of bacteria. Heating milk inactivates many of these protective factors and in so doing it encourages the growth of harmful bacteria.
(-Dold, H., Wizaman, E., and Kleiner, C., Z. Hyt. Inf., "Antiseptic in milk," The Drug and Cosmetic Industry, 43,1:109, July, 1938.)

Another benefit of consuming food products from grass-fed cattle, is the abundance of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) present in the milk and the meat of these animals. CLA is an omega-6 fatty acid. In the book "The Untold Story of Milk" the author, Ron Schmid ND, talks about the disease protection provided by this important fatty acid. "Nonfat dairy products contain no CLA. A recent article in "The Journal of Dairy Science", reported that milk from grass fed cows contains up to five times more CLA than milk from conventionally fed cows." Studies have shown that CLA has strong anticancer effects. For example, rats fed CLA at 1.5 percent of their total calories showed reduction of tumor size of up to 60%. CLA may help explain the lowered incidence of breast cancer in women working on farms in the Finnish Milk Study."

HEAT SENSITIVE ENZYMES IN MILK:

LIPASE - aids in absorption and digestions of milk fats

PHOSPATASE - helps in the absorption of calcium and other minerals.

LACTASE - promotes the digestion and absorption of lactose.

Pasteurization of milk seriously alters the structure and activity of the fats, enzymes, proteins and sugar present in unheated milk. The heating process also kills the "good bacteria" which colonizes our digestive tract and helps to create our second immune system. When the essence of a natural food is destroyed, it can no longer work in harmony with the body to produce health, immunity and vitality. Is it any wonder that pasteurized homogenized milk has become one of the most highly allergenic foods?

Milk has been highly promoted as a bone strengthening food. The baby boomer generation was raised on large quantities of pasteruized milk products and has also been encouraged to take plenty of calcium supplements. It appears that this generation is experiencing an extremely high incidence of osteoporosis, despite taking the previously mentioned precautions. Of course there are many factors involved with the absorption of calcium but could pasteurization (the inactivation of phosphatase) be helping to promote the high incidence of osteoporisis we are experiencing? Is the destruction of this enzyme preventing a large portion of the calcium in pasteurized milk from being absorbed?

Most of the vitamin C found in raw milk is also destroyed during the heating processs. This lack of vitamin C has actually produced scurvey in infants fed unfortified pasteurized cow's milk. For a basic understanding of the negative effects of processed food on the human body, I would highly recommend the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Dr. Weston Price. This book is a classic, a comprehensive study comparing the bone structure and overall health of people who lived in remote areas of the world and ate a natural unprocessed diet, to those who lived in the "civilized" areas and were being introduced to the processed modernized foods. The many photos in this book clearly show the obvious physical degeneration in the populations who consumed the processed foods.


If one does not have access to unprocessed milk, one way to get back some of it's nutritious protective properties is to ferment the pasteurized milk. The process of fermentation has long been used by many cultures around the world to preserve and to naturally add enzymes and nutrition to the food. In a future issue of Peer Observations I will talk more about fermented foods and how easy it is to make your own probiotics ( aged foods which contain high enzyme activity and other health building properties).

One of the other possible health risks associated with processed milk is the fact that it is homogenized. This is a process which consists of the breaking up the natural sized fat particles into very unnatural small size particles ( a process used so the fat does not rise to the top of the milk). There are legitimate concerns as to the effect that this process may have on our health. Considering that homgenization is employed soley for convienence purposes, we should be questioning whether this step needs to be eliminated from the milk manufacturing process. For more information on homogenization, politics and the health benefits of unprocessed milk, I highly recommend Dr. Ron Schmid's book, The Untold Story of Milk.

In order to preserve the integrity of our food supply ( one of our most precious natural resources ) we need to first become knowldgeable as to what is being done to our food and why it is being done. One will learn why pasteurization and irradiation is degrading our national health instead of improving it. Killing the life force of our food is not in our best interests nor is it for our protection. Once we understand the political and economic reasons behind this needless processing of our food, then we will be able to address this situation and take action. A good place to begin is with the books that I mentioned previously and at the http://www.realmilk.com/ website.

Let's claim our inherent right to food the way nature intended it to be.

HR 2749

Insane Food Bill 2749 Passes House On 2nd Try
HR 2749: Totalitarian Control Of Our Food Supply

From Lori
7-31-9

A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped. HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse. HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas. To read a detailed account of the bill, go to: http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-15june2009.htm (Read the section on tracing. That is NAIS, isn't it? ­ highly disguised yet triggered by the word "trace." ) Alarming Provisions: Some of the more alarming provisions in the bill are: * HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any "facility" that holds, processes, or manufactures food. [isn't this every home in the US, every garden?] Although "farms" are exempt, the agency has defined "farm" narrowly. [What is the definition?] And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times. [Yes. There are laws against this corporate-size-destroys-the-little-guy policy, aren't there? Are home bread or cheese or lacto-fermented vegetable makers who make for their own families included in this?] * HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers. [This astounding control opens the door to CODEX. WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will. There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one's own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all. Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished. So, it's obvious where control will take us. And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?] * HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including "prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area." [This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.] Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area. [This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.] * HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. [If these bills cover all who "hold food" then this allows for taking of records of anyone at any time on no basis at all.] Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers. [NAIS for animals and all other foods?] * HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each "person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food" [Is this not every home in the US?] would have to "maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food," and "establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons." The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods. With all these ambiguities, [with all these ambiguities, it is dangerous, period, separate from the money] it's far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers. [It is massive and absurd and burdensome beyond the capacity of people to comply - is this not fascism? - so it is a set up for being used to impose penalties endlessly and/or to eliminate anyone at will.] * HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals. [Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a defined set of "crimes"? Or is it entirely ambiguous and left to the whim and sole power of "the Administrator"? Who is that person set to be? Is it Michael Taylor, Monsanto lawyer and executive, as Food Democracy has said? That is, do these bills set up an agency by which the entire US food supply will be turned over to the control of a multinational corporation under WTO regulations (and not to US farmers and not to US laws under the Constitution), with boundless freedom to do what it wants, and one infamous for harm to farmers and lack of safety of food?] If it was not clear before how frightening these bills were, this small section of provisions, should make their actual fascism clear now. It goes way beyond "food safety" to absolute control over farms, animals, food, and us, including our movements and access to food at all. Action to Take: Contact your Representative now! Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food issues. Tell them you are opposed to the bill. Some points to make in telling your Representative why you oppose HR 2749 include: The bill imposes burdensome requirements while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where the real food safety problems lie. Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety; lessening the regulatory burden on them will improve food safety. The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past while making the agency less accountable for its actions. HR 2749 needs to be defeated!! Please take action NOW. To contact your Representative, use the finder tool at www.Congress.org or send a message through the petition system (the petition will be on our website this evening) athttp://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. To check the status of HR 2749, go to www.Thomas.gov and type "HR 2749Åç in the bill search field. First published June 18, 2009 http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/hr-2749-totalitarian-control-of-the-food-supply/

NO GOODBYE TO FARMERS MARKETS!

www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

The “food safety” bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc. All are associated with the opposite of food safety.

What is this all about then?

In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning. Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.

Slow Food was right - limit your food to what comes from your region and from real farmers, and slow down to cook it and linger over it with friends and family, and the world begins to change for the better.
And as we face an unprecedented economic crisis, and it is hard to be sure what has value, one thing that always does is food. Which is why the corporations are after absolute control over it. But what obstacles to a complete lock on food do they face? All the people in this country who are “banking” on organic farming and urban gardens and most of all, everyone’s deepening pleasure in and increasing involvement with everything about food.
Farmers markets. Local farmers. Real milk. Fresh eggs. Vegetable stands.
Those are things we not only all want, but things we are actively getting involved in, and things we very much need. And where they are truly good, they are growing.

The international financial corporations which have wreaked havoc around the world with astounding nonsensical “solutions” that are destructive of everyone but them, are brothers to the international agribusiness giants (Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.) which are just as aggressively after their own form of “taking.” Just seeds, animals, water, land.
And freedom.

Because human beings are by in large good and by in large incredibly resilient and clever, and left to their own devices - that is, free - they would handle this gargantuan financial stupidity the corporations brought us with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and all other globalized schemes (which they hope to eventually top off with CODEX). How? By being productive in real ways and locally. And farming is the solid ground under that. Farmers produce something of real value (something we used to take for granted), and from that base, businesses grow up. Local markets, local food processors, local seed companies, local tool and supply companies, local stores … And an economy based on reality and something truly good for us, too, begins to grow.

So, look again at what has been exciting us - Farmers markets. Local farmers. Real milk. Fresh eggs. Vegetable stands. - and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building. And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic - and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.
And it is all those things that threaten the corporations … Which is why we now have these massive “fake food safety” bills in Congress. Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs. To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:
Farmers markets. Local farmers. Real milk. Fresh eggs. Vegetable stands.
And how will those who contaminate our country’s food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that? Why, by setting standards for “food safety” that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage. Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up. That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers. Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have. Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into … A corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.

Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.
And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country? Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves.

How it works:

Tyson helps Bill Clinton get into office. Bill Clinton immediately and significantly lowers contamination standards for poultry as a thank you. And it is such contaminated waste from transnational poultry factories which is now implicated as the source of bird flu. Then fortunes on made on that fear. And then poultry industry uses the crisis they created to push out small farmers and take greater control than ever. Their mantra? Biodiversity not only be damned but be eliminated. And get rid of those damn farmers who protect it while we’re at it.
The bills would require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally - a fruit stand, at a farmers market - no one could manage it. And THAT is the point. The whole dirty tricks point. The whole “be in tight control of everything needed for survival because it’ll be worth a fortune” point.

So, if you like farmers markets, local farmers, fresh milk, fresh eggs, vegetables stands, and freedom, let your friends know that it’s all on the line right now with those “fake food safety” bills brought to us with well-planned evil and more of it to come, by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.

Slow Food reminds us of just where we need to be (and notice how much would help any local economy):

1.Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems;
2. Developing an “Ark of Taste” for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated;
3.Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation;
4. Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products);
5. Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada);
6.Promoting “taste education;”
7. Educating consumers about the risks of fast food;
8.Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms;
9. Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties;
10.Developing various political programs to preserve family farms;
11. Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy;
12.Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering;
13.Lobbying against the use of pesticides;
14. Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners; and
15.Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces.

But we need to stop these bills first or we are left with no money from the financial bailout and no food from the food stealout.

Send a message to Congress!

We need millions to be fighting this. Contact Eli Pariser at MoveOn moveon-help@list.moveon.org to tell him MoveOn is badly needed.
And below, where Oped News offers a means of writing your local newspaper, take advantage of a chance to vent.