A Heretic's View of Flu's Role in He... 
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Dr. Tenpenny says it so well...
We’ve all been taught that germs are bad and they are lurking around every corner, waiting to invade defenseless humans. Doctors and the media talk about swine flu as though getting the flu is an inevitable catastrophe unless, of course, we are injected with the life-saving flu shot.We go to great lengths to combat these potential invaders: frequent hand-washing, learning to cough in our sleeves and grimacing at the thought of eating a morsel retrieved from the floor. Is all this necessary? Or is there a different view?One of the chiasms between conventional medical doctors and those who embrace alternative practices is the view of how the Germ Theory of Disease (credited to Louis Pasteur) impacts health. Many assume a discussion about the Germ Theory is a moot point. Questioning its validity elicits divisiveness and hostility among medical practitioners and laypersons alike. Why? Because challenging Pasteur’s mechanistic idea of disease—finding the right cure (drug) for each germ—was the seed of the pharmaceutical empire. Nonetheless, it is most unfortunate that Pasteur’s premise was accepted as complete to the exclusion of all others.There is little doubt that by the 21st century, a 19th century concept should have evolved. The frailty of the immune system is a medical myth. We need a better understanding of the relationship between humans and microbes to live in optimal health.The Immune System Explained
The immune system is the complex interaction between white blood cells, antibodies, hormones, proteins, enzymes, and inflammatory molecules called cytokines. All act in silent synchrony to maintain health. The body is exposed to billions of microbes on the skin, in the mouth, in the digestive tract, and on everything we touch. Microbes that coexist with humans are called symbionts—organisms we have a beneficial relationship with, and are considered to be part of, our normal flora. The immune system can easily recognize non-symbionts and effectively eliminates them. This process occurs thousands of times per day with little fanfare. However, it is not the “invasion” by external microbes that leads to symptoms known as an infection; it is the compromise of the immune system due to the contamination of the terrain that allows this to occur.By most historical accounts, Pasteur is considered a luminary hero. Some of his discoveries were undoubtedly noteworthy. For example, Pasteur has been credited with the development of a process known as pasteurization, a method by which microbes are destroyed by heat. Examining his germ theory premises and generally accepted medical history is monumentally difficult, especially regarding someone with the stature of Pasteur. However, there is another view of disease which challenges Pasteur’s 150-year-old premise: Health is about the condition of the body called the “terrain,” or its “soil,” and only when the immune system’s soil is disrupted and contaminated can pathogens propagate.Renewing the Germ Theory Debate
The germ theory and the opposing view are part of the fabric woven around the history of medicine. Many notable individuals throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s were involved with the debate, but the most vocal figures were Pasteur and his two contemporaries, Claude Bernard and Antoine Béchamp. Both strong critics of Pasteur’s work, it was Bernard—a physiologist and heralded as the Father of Experimental Medicine—who made the statement amidst a group of physicians and scientists,“The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing,” creating the great debate. As contrary as it seems, germs are attracted to the diseased tissues; they are not the primary cause of it. A quote from Dr. Rudolph Virchow, the Father of Modern Pathology, supports this idea: “If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat—diseased tissue—rather than being the cause of dead tissue. In other words, mosquitoes seek the stagnant water, but do not cause the pool to become stagnant.” The symptoms of the flu or pneumonia—fever, chills, cough, and excess mucous production—are actually secondary illnesses; the first “illness” was loss of health in the underlying tissues.Bernard’s view is that disease is an “inside-out job,” meaning that when the body is disrupted by today’s toxicities—vaccines, chemicals, heavy metals, processed food, preservatives, etc. – disease occurs. These molecules create a cellular shift toward an acidic state. When cells become acidic, pathogens find a favorable environment to replicate.What is little known is that throughout his career, Pasteur had doubts about his own assumptions. On his deathbed, Pasteur said “Bernard avait raison. Le germe n’est rien, c’est le terrain qui est tout.” (“Bernard was right. The germ is nothing; the soil is everything.”) However, by the time of Pasteur’s death, the germ theory of disease had become so profitable that modern medicine dismissed his final confessions as nothing more than the ramblings of a dying man. It should always be remembered: The money is in the medicine—not the cure.The Benefit of Pathogens?
It may be that the role of both the bacteria and the virus is to induce an inflammatory response, a low-level and modified cytokine storm, to help the body to detoxify. It would be very interesting to test the secretions that are expelled during a bout of the flu for chemicals and heavy metals. For example, if a person reportedly died from “viral pneumonia,” perhaps the body was trying to expel a huge amount of chemical-containing mucous. If the person’s immune system was too weak to muster an adequate response or his lymphatics were too congested to drain the accumulated debris—and more chemicals are added during the acute episode, such as aspirin, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and steroids—the body may have become overwhelmed, leading to the person’s demise.In the presence of faulty detoxification processes, toxic overload occurs. Maybe microbes are handy to have around, inflaming the system and cleaning out the muck. If everything on this planet is here for a reason and there are no mistakes, perhaps an episode of the flu, with the increased mucous, cough, nasal drainage, and diarrhea is the act of cleaning out the internal dross.Supporting the body through this elimination process with homeopathy, herbs, and Chinese medicine – instead of suppressing the symptoms with Western medicine’s tools – may be the key to long-term health and longevity. From this perspective, instead of being the problem, viruses may be part of the solution, the “clean-up crew.”It should be noted that the human race evolved because of its relationship to microbes, not in spite of it.What a novel thought! Instead of fearing the flu and doing everything possible to avoid it – including spending billions of dollars to create an experimental vaccine – it may be okay to spend a week or two in bed, clearing out accumulated toxicities. I’m sure many will think of this heresy bordering on the ridiculous. But in the words of Mark Twain, “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Article by Dr Sherri Tenpennyhttp://drtenpenny.com/HereticOnTheFlu.aspx
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This is a reply to # 1,623,243"Achtung! Pay no attention to these nasty "Deniers" who would question the germ theory of disease! Have they no respect for the dead? Consider the millions who have perished because of those hateful, fascist Germs! Arrest the reprobates for "Denial" and send them to prison for six years for their daring cheekiness! Never forget: Germs are evil. Germs must perish! Germs cause disease!!!!!"
Seriously... Traveling through rural parts of a certain South East Asian country for several months on several occasions was an eye opening experience. Would you believe that those people had powerful immune systems and almost never got sick? Even when their sanitation wasn't quiet up to snuff? Very few women died in childbirth and very few children died at birth... home birth at that. This was when they were eating their traditional diet, mind you. When someone cut his foot on a sharp bamboo root in a stream with water buffalo wallowing (and crapping) a few yards away, I thought he'd be infected and dead within a week. The vicious cut never even became infected. Did people wash their hands before they ate? Well they'd pour some water over their hands to wash off the dirt, but nobody used bacteriacidal soap; and their water came from surface wells and contained no chlorine so you know it was full of nasty, fascist germs! Interesting experience.
FYI many of the older people smoked like chimneys, huffing down hand rolled cigarettes, stuffed with home grown tobacco that made Camels seem mild. No chemical additives and no cancer!- Awesome Stuff! Re: GASP! RE:Heretic'... NaturalRN
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This is a reply to # 1,623,617
It's awesome to hear from someone who's been in the trenches with those 'nasty germs' and survived to tell the tale! Seriously though...you had me scared when I read the first paragraph and I thought you were ready to send me to jail. LOL
- Awesome Stuff! Re: GASP! RE:Heretic'... NaturalRN
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- Re: A Heretic's View of Flu's Role i... Dquixote1217
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This is a reply to # 1,623,243“Most diseases are the result of medication that has been applied to relieve and take away a beneficient and warning symptom on the part of Nature."
- Elbert Hubbard-
Re: A Heretic's View of Flu's Role i... NaturalRN
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This is a reply to # 1,669,116Awesome quote...that's definitely one to remember! Elbert Hubbard's essay, "An Alliance With Nature" is also very insightful, especially considering the time period in which it was written...
An Alliance with Nature
My father is a doctor who has practised medicine for sixty-five years, and is still practising.
I am a doctor myself.
I am fifty years old; my father is eighty-five. We live in the same house, and daily we ride horseback together or tramp thru the fields and woods. To-day we did our little jaunt of five miles and back 'cross country.
I have never been ill a day--never consulted a physician in a professional way, and in fact, never missed a meal through inability to eat. As for the author of the author of A Message to Garcia, he holds, esoterically, to the idea that the hot pedaluvia and small doses of hop tea will cure most ailments that are curable, and so far all of his own ails have been curable--a point he can prove.
The value of the pedaluvia lies in the fact that it tends to equalize circulation, not to mention the little matter of sanitation; and the efficacy of the hops lies largely in the fact that they are bitter and disagreeable to take.
Both of these prescriptions give the patient the soothing thought that something is being done for him, and at the very worst can never do him serious harm.
My father and I are not fully agreed on all of life's themes, so existence for us never resolves itself into a dull, neutral gray. He is a Baptist and I am a Vegetarian. Occasionally he refers to me as "callow," and we have daily resorts to logic to prove prejudices, and history is searched to bolster the preconceived, but on the following important points we stand together, solid as one man:
First. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred who go to a physician have no organic disease, but are merely suffering from some symptom of their own indiscretion.
Second. Individuals who have diseases, nine times out of ten, are suffering only from the accumulated evil effects of medication.
Third. Hence we get the proposition: Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficent and warning symptom on the part of wise Nature.
Most of the work of doctors in the past has been to prescribe for symptoms; the difference between actual disease and a symptom being something that the average man does not even yet know.
And the curious part is that on these points all physicians, among themselves, are fully agreed. What I say here being merely truism, triteness and commonplace.
Last week, in talking with an eminent surgeon in Buffalo, he said, "I have performed over a thousand operations of laparotomy, and my records show that in every instance, excepting in cases of accident, the individual was given to what you call the 'Beecham Habit.'"
The people you see waiting in the lobbies of doctors' offices are, in a vast majority of cases, suffering thru poisoning caused by an excess of food. Coupled with this goes the bad results of imperfect breathing, irregular sleep, lack of exercise, and improper use of stimulants, or holding the thought of fear, jealousy and hate. All of these things, or any one of them, will, in very many persons, cause fever, chills, cold feet, congestion and faulty elimination.
To administer drugs to a man suffering from malnutrition caused by a desire to "get even," and a lack of fresh air, is simply to compound his troubles, shuffle his maladies, and get him ripe for the ether-cone and scalpel.
Nature is forever trying to keep people well, and most so-called "disease," which word means merely lack of ease, is self-limiting, and tends to cure itself. If you have appetite, do not eat too much. If you have no appetite, do not eat at all. Be moderate in the use of all things, save fresh air and sunshine.
The one theme of Ecclesiastes is moderation. Buddha wrote it down that the greatest word in any language is Equanimity. William Morris said that the finest blessing of life was systematic, useful work. Saint Paul declared that the greatest thing in the world was love. Moderation, Equanimity, Work and Love--you need no other physician.
In so stating I lay down a proposition agreed to by all physicians; which was expressed by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and then repeated in better phrase by Epictetus, the slave, to his pupil, the great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and which has been known to every thinking man and woman since: Moderation, Equanimity, Work and Love!
http://www.online-literature.com/elbert-hubbard/love-life-and-work/25/
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