Natural Selection

~Robert Smithson

Oliver Cromwell

~Albert Einstein

Just finished watching the new FoodMatters film “Hungry for Change” which you can watch absolutely free for another 5 days. It is a must see for anyone who is overweight or has ever tried to lose weight by dieting. The film presents some radical ideas about the nature of the food and dieting industry and how both of them actually promote weight gain. The food industry via the use of nutrient poor and addictive ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, aspartame and flavor enhancers not only cause adverse effects on the body such neurological problems and bone demineralization but contribute to the addictive nature of these nutrient poor foods thereby causing weight gain.

The diet industry still promotes the idea of deprivation to the body which is never sustainable. In order to lose weight (and heal disease), the body truly needs nourishment and detoxification and a rebuilding of self love and self esteem. The film delivers some motivational interviews from experts in the field as well as everyday people who have healed themselves by nourishing themselves from the inside out.

Saw a fascinating documentary on the weekend called “The Greater Good”. It presents a balanced argument in the palpably emotive and polarised vaccination debate which is rare given the one sided bent of the pro-vaccination media. It presents in a very logical way the benefits of vaccination (aka herd immunity) and in a very personal way the risks, via three case studies of vaccine damaged children. The viewer gets an insight into the family lives of Gabi, whose young life has been disabled by long term neurological damage from the controversial Gardasil vaccine, Jordan who has autism and, perhaps most heartbreaking, the Christener family whose baby daughter, Victoria, died following her vaccinations. 

The film is not anti-vaccine, the makers interview some prominent pro-vaccination advocates and highlights the obvious benefits of eradicating life threatening and disabling conditions such as polio but it does highlight the very real risks of the toxicity of the adjuvants contained in vaccines (mercury and aluminum) and poses the question of the possible risks involved in subjecting children to the ever expanding numbers of vaccines and why these risks are not identified via rigorous scientific study.

I guess the most poignant message from the film is it’s posing of the question, so what? So what if there are people who suffer from vaccine damage if it means the herd is protected? The film puts faces on these children and the people who care for them. These children, that are lucky enough to survive, suffer lifelong pain and disability.  Although the film provides a snapshot into their lives they are not just affected in the present. There are potential relationships and careers and families that may not eventuate for these children. As a society are we OK with that? In the families involved there is grief, there is financial ruin and marriage breakdowns. Is that OK?

I am not anti-vaccine by any means. I believe they are a wonderful public health measure if they are safe. From a practitioners point of view my main criticism is that it is obvious that vaccines do injure some people, whether it be via heavy metal toxicity, the sheer number involved or the vaccine itself (there would be no vaccine compensation scheme in the US if this was not the case). One of the key philosophies of the Hippocratic Oath is “do no harm” so why not do the studies to work out why some people are susceptible to damage? Why not implement longitudinal studies on the health of vaccinated vs non-vaccinated children? Does it cost too much or perhaps governments are afraid of the answer. 

I guess this film raised more questions for me than it answered. By far the most important one being: why is it acceptable for real people to be collateral damage for the greater good.

Make up your own mind. Watch the film for yourself.

http://www.greatergoodmovie.org/

Just thought I’d share with you one of the sessions of a seminar I attended on Sunday on Mental Health, Childhood and Autism. The particular session, delivered by Rob Santich, an Herbalist with 25 years experience was on resilience in children and the emerging factors in today’s society which place ever more pressures on children to be as resilient as ever.

Whether you agree with them or not here are some of the factors that really struck a chord with me

1. The fact that we live in an economy instead of a community, which values predatory capitalism. This capitalism breeds a culture of consumerism which, in turn, favours a false sense of self-esteem created by over-permissiveness. It also paints a picture of success which is dictated by the number of possessions a family owns. Advertising in the consumer world creates expectations which can never fully be achieved and which therefore results, in the long run, in low self esteem.

2.The role of the media in promoting the unrealistic aims of consumerism not only in advertising but in placing social identities on pedestals which promote narcissism as the ideal. 

3. Capitalization also favours urbanisation which physically reduces the amount of green spaces children can play in, thereby creating a disconnect with nature and corresponding increase in behavioural problems. This is interesting for me as I did quite a bit of research in my health promotion days on the link between adequate green spaces and physical activity. Evidently there is also a direct link on child mental health, not just via the increased exercise involved in improved access to green spaces.

4. An education system which currently has an ideology rooted in continuous standardised assessment rather than the promotion of free thought and opinion.  This current system is placing undue stress on the families of primary school children.

Arthur Ashe said “Success is a journey, not a destination” and if you consider childhood as the start of one long journey it seems to me these pressures create a generation of children that have very little hope of being happy, successful adults. As a society there needs to be a complete shift in consciousness, a re-evaluation of what is truly important in life. 

Ever wonder what a particular little organ or gland is up to in your body. My favourite website at the moment is ‘I Heart Guts’. it describes exactly what the bits of our body do with cheeky lil cartoons. I wish this was around when I was learning anatomy and physiology!

e.e. cummings (my favourite poet)

Watched this documentary the other night on the slaughter of dolphins in one small cove in Japan. It is must see viewing if you care about these intelligent animals but also a good example of how governments have the power to poison their their own people under the guise of food security or ‘pest control’ or whatever they like to call it (dolphins have high levels of mercury).

Ralph Waldo Emerson