And the Hype Goes On

This morning’s headline yells “19 Children Dead from H1N1 Virus!” and I admit it raises some fear even in my mind but I have to take a deep breath and remember a few vital details.

First, it is true that more people are adversely affected by the flu vaccination than by the flu itself. According to an article by a Bill Sardi on Lew Rockwell.com “in 1993 the federal government hid a deadly flu vaccine that killed thousands of nursing home patients.” “The vaccine related mortality was so large that this set back the life expectancy of Americans for the first time since the 1918 Spanish flu!” This article, which is a must read, also points out that the vaccine administrated to children at the moment is a nasal spray of live virus. These children then go home and spread live virus amongst their family members and Bob’s your uncle, everyone has the flu. I’ll be damned.

Secondly, not one media source that I have listened to (and I admit I turn it off as soon as they start the vaccine hype) discusses what one can do to build up your immune system and thus avoid the flu. It is known that Vitamin D3 is very effective and I can tell you there is nothing easier to swallow than a D3 capsule or it even comes in a peppermint wafer that can be chewed. I personally meditate for 10 minutes every other day in front of my Sunsplash Renew Vitamin D lamps thus exposing my body to the benefit of Vitamin D producing rays.

If you don’t have the advantage of living near the equator or of possesssing a Sunsplash Renew Vitamin D lamp you need to take Vitamin D3. Generally the recommended amount of Vitamin D is 400 iu but this is simply inadequate to fight disease and increase your immunity to the flu and you should actually take 35 IU’s of Vitamin D3 per pound of body weight. That is for a child weighing 40 pounds about 1400 IU’s of Vitamin D3 and for an average adult male weighing 170 pounds the dose would be 6000 IU’s. When you expose your skin to summer sun 20,000 IU’s of Vitamin D are produced and there is no danger of overdose as your body can easily assimilate the unnecessary Vitamin D and or get rid of it. When taken in prescription form it is often Vitamin D2 which is much less effective and thus given in large doses in the range of 30,000 IU’s and 50,000 IU’s. In these cases the person has extremely low levels of Vitamin D3 and to prevent illness must get their levels up to at least 40 ng/ml. In any case, you need to have your Vitamin D levels checked with a simple blood test and then you want your levels to be between 50ng/ml and 65 ng/ml. If you are fighting cancer or a debilitating disease your levels should be closer to 90ng/ml.

Vitamin C is known to be very effective in building up your immune system. Vitamin C can be taken in large doses (to bowel tolerance) as what you don’t need will be removed in your urine. I know the joke about “all it does is produce expensive urine” but we know it helps you fight disease and if some is excreted so be it. I take 2500 mg of Quali-C every morning but it is a heart formula that also has L-lysine and L-proline. The Vitamin C Foundation sells a very high quality Vitamin C that is not sourced from corn and is made in the USA.

Selenium, is a trace mineral that if taken can  prevent the worst forms of H1N1 where the lungs fill up with fluid and you literally drown in your own fluid. Selenium can be found in nuts such as Brazil nuts but can also be taken in supplemental form. You want to closely monitor how much Selenium you take in any given day as it can have adverse effects if taken in excess of 250mg.

Lastly, when they scream “19 children have died” you must ask at least two other questions. “Were these children in any way compromised?” and “Were all these children from one state or from across the United States?” The favorite statement to make now is “and there were no underlying health problems”. Perhaps the child didn’t have asthma, or cancer or diabetes all of which could weaken their immune system but one they never like to talk about is that children fed a diet high in sugar, trans fats and simple carbohydrates (like Wonder Bread) have weakened immune systems and are unable to fight off simple illness much less H1N1 viruses. Perhaps they should inquire about the child’s diet to be totally accurate when reporting “no underlying causes”. Not to mention asking if they had been given Tamiflu and/or the H1N1 vaccine.

While I hate the thought of children dying  just like anyone else does the facts are children die. Children do die of side effects of the flu. 19 children isn’t even one per state and that is a death rate that is not considered abnormal or alarming and definitely not of pandemic proportions. When the media go on and on about such mundane statistics they are simply attempting to create a panic and they are most certainly pandering to the federal government because it is known that our government has invested billions of dollars in developing a vaccine and they don’t want those dollars wasted.

I think it is undoubtedly time to turn off the hype. If you want to be informed read your news, read it online, read it in the newspapers and magazines. Then open a dialogue with intelligent well informed people and discuss the pros and cons of vaccination. We do not become informed citizens by listening to McNews and falling prey to their hype. All you really have to do is keep a running tally of the commercials run during the morning and evening news and you will know precisely who has paid for the hype you just heard and then you can dismiss in its entirety.

My Dear Miss Piggy

As the so-called swine flu continues to hit the newspapers and television every other day or so I am sure pork producers suffer the wrath of the media. I haven’t heard specifically but I can only imagine that people won’t buy pork for fear of getting this much dreaded H1N1 virus. Why is that? Because people listen and/or read for a nanosecond and let’s face it you can only get so many facts in a nanosecond and it is usually all garbled and incorrect. I would like to say a few things to clarify and defend the much maligned porcine community.

First of all, you may or may not have heard or read this small, insignificant detail but YOU CANNOT GET THE H1N1 VIRUS FROM EATING PORK. Secondly, I do not support large hog operations (the H1N1 virus may have started on a 950,00+ hog confinement farm in Mexico) where the hogs are raised in filth, never see the light of day, are filled with hormones and antibiotics and never have a life.I do support and consume healthy pasture raised pork.

Conventionally raised pork that you buy in your local supermarket is not raised under humane conditions. They are literally crammed in to buildings where they cannot move, they never see the light of day much less feel the sun on their backs. They are filled with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Their manure which is collected in gigantic cesspools pollutes the surrounding areas often even contaminating the ground water and the reek of  toxic fumes can be inhaled for miles (I used to live a mile or two from a pig operation run appropriately enough by a family called Sewer). Those fumes have been found to cause high rates of disease on factory farms especially respiratory diseases like bronchitis. If a person should have the misfortune of falling in one of these cesspools they will most likely die of asphyxiation from the toxic fumes.

Pasture raised pork is a nutritious, humanely raised “other white meat”. Pastured pork is high in vitamin E and healthy Omega-3 fats. Pastured pigs get to enjoy the freedom to behave in natural ways even being able to create nests for their piglets and live in family groups. They spend their day rooting and grazing in the sun and fresh air and even in winter they are raised on deep beds of straw in hoop houses that enable them to be exposed to fresh air and sunshine but protected from the extremes of winter.

If  you would like to enjoy pork again, barbecue some succulent pork ribs, roast a nitrate free ham or make Cuban Spiced pork shoulder roast I can highly recommend Pasture’s A Plenty in Kerhoven, MN. It is a farm run by the VanDerPol family and they make monthly trips in to the Twin Cities and sell their wonderful pork to local co-ops and restaurants but also have drop offs for individual orders. They make about 5 stops in different parts of the Twin Cities and I am lucky enough to live close to one drop off point. If you do not live in Minnesota but have an interest in buying humanely raised pork check out CawCaw Creek and U.S. Wellness Meats. I have personally dealt with US Wellness Meats and found their products to be wonderful. I know nothing of Caw Caw Creek meat but their site is too cute.

We are so lucky here in the Twin Cities to have farmers like the VanDerPols bring our food to us. How wonderful is it to be able to buy your food directly from the farmer? Wouldn’t you like to know how your food is raised and know the people who raise it? The VanDerPols offer an open house every autumn and you can attend and check out the environs that your meat is raised in. I think this is as close to perfection as you can get and even Miss Piggy would give Pastures A Plenty and the other farmers who are dedicated to humanely raising pigs a big thumbs up for making a pigs life happy.

Swine Flu;Benign Flu

Yes, the media is taking the Swine Flu by the tail and beating it to death but you can hardly blame them. If your entire livelihood depended on all the news you could generate in a 24 hour period, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year you, too, would ride this little piggy to market with the same gusto.

There is now quite a bit of speculation that this flu bug was born in a laboratory somewhere and that seems about right. The suspicious part of me thinks that someone in the media or government isn’t above unleashing something like this to create news and deflect concern on to things other than the economy and the war in Afghanistan (oh and now Pakistan). Suspicion aside apparently H1N1 is showing many different characteristics that relate it not to just swine, but bird and human so man MAY have created it and now man MAY have spread it.

What to do, what to do? First panic, no just kidding. First wash your hands thoroughly whenever you have been out and about. I use Tropical Traditions liquid soap in a foamer bottle and then grab my scrub brush to clean under nails and in the cuticle. If you are a songbird like me singing the ABC song is sufficient time to completely clean your hands and make yourself smile while you are at it. Washing hands at least 10 times a day is recommended and then keep your fingers and hands away from your face.

Secondly, get your sleep. 7-9 hours a night is the recommended amount and you should wake feeling fully rested and ready to take on whatever your day presents to you. I think if your night is interrupted a power nap during the day never hurt anyone after all Churchill took a 2 hour nap every day and look at the greatness of that man.

I personally ordered Baseline Nutritionals Viragon just now. It is a tincture full of antiviral compounds including garlic, ginger, onion, horseradish, olive leaf extract, liquid ionic zinc, oil of wild mountain oregano, grapefruit seed and habanero. It doesn’t taste “purty” but that compound should wipe out any virus that even tries to enter my immune system. At my house we are drinking raw milk kefir mixed with wild raw honey to keep our gut healthy and spending 15-20 minutes in the late morning sunshine to keep our Vitamin D3 levels optimum.

It goes without saying, that if either of us starts feeling “under the weather”, if we develop a streaming nasal issue, if our muscles ache or we develop some unusual gastro-intestinal problems we will stay home and keep our problems limited to the walls of our domain. Personally if I had just returned from Mexico I might see it as prudent to isolate my family for 24 hours until I know we all just feel great from those sun soaked hours on holiday.

What we will not do is take Tamiflu in any way shape or form. We will not panic and get a flu shot.. There are reports (none substantiated) that many of the people who died in Mexico had been given a flu vaccine in a vain attempt by their government to stem the spread of the virus. The only thing that vaccine did was weaken their already compromised immune systems and those poor slobs were unable to fight anything much less “swine flu”. I think I can also say we will not be travelling outside the USA until this apparent pandemic is squelched. I do not relish the possibility of being held in a quaratine room with other vaccinated or “Tamiflued” victims. I want to fight H1N1 my way and be assured that I will win.