Fallout Families – The Price Big Agra was Willing to Pay for Profits – Unfortunately, we Underestimated the Price

In 1968 when I was born, not one person in my extended family had an endocrine or autoimmune disease, regardless of the ages under consideration.  Now fully 67% of my family suffers from a severe life impacting Endocrine-Immune-Biome Disruption. One could investigate epidemiology; begin to speculate avenues of initial research, possible hypotheses, reduction hierarchies, etc.  But then one would of course be falling subject to apophenia. I am so glad that we have the wisdom of Social Skepticism to protect us with critical thinking. Via critical thinking skills, I can dismiss my family chart below, along with the incumbent expenditures, and chalk it all up to imagination.  Thank you Social Skepticism for putting my mind at ease.

When Critical Thinking is Bliss.

“You’ve got a very high TSH and low free T3. I suspect you may have hypothyroidism.” So says the doctor, at my son’s collegiate junior year annual checkup. His flatmate was just diagnosed with diabetes at age 21 and has had rheumatoid arthritis since age 15. My son should feel fortunate, because hypothyroidism is the least horrid of the modern array of epidemic autoimmune disorders which now plague American society. Yes I say American society, because I have conducted medical strategies for several nations, gathering and processing enormous amounts of health data, and observing their populations’ health and diet habits first hand. Their populations do not exhibit these endemic rates of autoimmune disorder we have in the United States (although if they are shipped American foods in any significant scale, this principle is no longer correct). But what do I know? In Social Skepticism you learn quickly that in order to do real science, you must avoid asking tough questions, stay away from first hand observations, and stay out of the field. There is no data which cannot be overcome by a clever one-liner or circular recitation.

Alas, rest your mind at ease, as nothing new has occurred and nothing significant exists behind these apparent numbers. Social Skepticism possesses the antidote for anxiety-inducing observations. Critical thinking allows one to dismiss thyroid disease and the full array of autoimmune disorders plaguing your family and your nation. There is actually nothing to worry your credulous little head over. The remedy resides in an impressive sounding word, with miraculous powers to induce healing bliss.

Apophenia – /æpɵˈfiːniə/ is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.¹

Ignore the chart to the right here, as all is well. No need to do ‘investigations’ or become a conspiracy theorist merely because you misinterpreted meaningless data. It is meaningless of course because it was that way to begin with. I am not sure how one presupposes data to be meaningless, in absence of analytical research. But I am sure there is a license granted for just such a declaration somewhere within Social Skepticism. I bet it comes along with a cool sounding catch phrase as well.

Let me be clear here, the ramification of this set of maladies not only includes an enormous amounts of suffering inside my family, but carries an incumbent cost of anywhere from $ 55,000 – $ 100,000 depending upon which medical and lifestyle expenditures, adopted solely to mitigate the effects of these diseases, are taken into consideration.  Needless to say, the impact on our family, our society, or nation is enormous. In 1968, my family spent $ 0 on these maladies, and they mostly lived into their 90’s, relatively free of this modern array of autoimmune symptoms.

What changed?

In 1968, smack dab in the age of perchlorates, nuclear testing, DDT, acid rain, agent orange, dioxin, aluminum chlorhydrate, mercury, changing your motor oil with bare hands, fluoridated water, hexavalent chromium, runaway pollution, asbestos, and red dye #40 – in that age – NO ONE had autoimmune disorders.

Blaming Fred: Endocrine-Immune-Biome Disruption (EIBD)

Well almost no one. Fred later in 4th grade had them; the one guy in our class of 268 who had a ‘glandular problem.’ I am forgetting about Fred. Remember Fred? He was the guy who sat by himself at lunch with a specially packed meal his mom made for him; the guy who everyone teased and shunned for looking like a blimp.  He was that new fat word that we had learned in school, /oh-bees’/ with the long ‘e’ and the soft ‘s’. And if you asked a snotty socialite back then, they would let you know in no uncertain terms that Fred ate too much. They had it all figured out; bearing magic insight into his every habit and hour of the day. What I understand now, is the abject courage by which Fred and his mother lived every day of their lives. She packed his lunch with a dogged love, and a knowledge about the impact of food on her child, a knowledge which the 67% of us are just now beginning to understand. At our 20th high school reunion I could still witness the pain and recalcitrance in Fred’s eyes. Glancing momentarily into mine to ascertain the level of judgement in my eyes, and then back down to the floor, a habit of just as many decades of crushed esteem. Still standing in the corner, still alone was Fred – still judged by those who fancy not a single clue, yet know everything.

June 2017 update:

Fred died two weeks ago. His family all having passed on previously, and he living alone, his remains were cremated and dispersed. No one was there, except for the ceremonial staff.

Love is a reasoned commitment to serve – and it fades into a whisper. Where eventually it must reemerge to clash with the imperious rationality of the blessed and loud elite.  Rest in peace Fred… TES.

Peter Attia, MD contends that diabetes is caused by an underlying effect, that obesity is simply a proxy for something else going on.  He contends that we cannot afford the luxury of the glutton/lazy accusation arrogance any longer (see his excellent TedMed talk here: Our Beliefs About Obesity Diabetes and Insulin Resistance are Wrong). Well, there are clues as to what is going on, great big glaring clues, if we had the ethics to take a look at them.

Social Skepticism is just the modern grown up version of the clueless snotty social teasing and shunning of glandular problem Fred. Except, it’s not just Fred any more. It is 67% of us. Clueless pawn Social Skeptics spend every ounce of their unethical activism to keep the blame placed squarely and errantly on Fred. Well people of character are standing up and saying “No more. I want real science, not Social Skepticism.”

“With the rapid increase in autoimmune diseases, it clearly suggests that environmental factors are at play due to the significant increase in these diseases. Genes do not change in such a short period of time,” says Virginia T. Ladd, President and Executive Director of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA). She goes on to label the current state of autoimmune disease an epidemic that should be of great concern to the government and health professionals.”

Let’s call “obesity” what it really is – as you can see here, it clearly sits in a group of maladies appropriately entitled Endocrine-Immune Disruption (EID) disease:

• Thyroid Disease                          130%       ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Diabetes                                      28%        ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Lupus                                           27%        ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Inflammatory/Irritable Bowel     3000%   ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Fibromyalgia                               unknown
• Obesity                                        45%        ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Rosacea                                       160%      ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Celiac/NCGS Disease                 600%     ’99-’09 decade growth rate
• Autism Disorders                         800%     ’99-’09 decade growth rate

WebMD, Information and Resources Top 10 Most Prescribed, Top Selling Drugs 2014

1. Synthroid, 22.6 million                            Autoimmune
2. Crestor, 22.5 million                               LDL Cholesterol Allergic Suppression
3. Nexium, 18.6 million                               Esophageal allergic response suppression
4. Ventolin HFA, 17.5 million                      Asthma allergic response suppression
5. Advair Diskus, 15.0 million                    Asthma allergic response suppression
6. Diovan, 11.4 million                                COPD asthma allergic response suppression
7. Lantus Solostar, 10.1 million                   Diabetes management
8. Cymbalta, 10.0 million                          Anxiety and Depression
9. Vyvanse, 10.0 million                            ADHA treatment
10. Lyrica, 9.6 million                                 Nerve, joint and Fibromyalgic inflammation²

*** Food Consumption Caused or Related – ALL of THEM……

Steven Novella, contends as an activist and celebrity skeptic, that much the above stems simply from an “increase in awareness” (read that as ‘fear mongering’), fully clueless to the suffering plight of families like mine.  There is a reason for this, because his cronies have been hired to protect the food and pharma industries from the fallout which is building around EID.

“I was also taking care of diabetic and autoimmune patients.  There was a sudden merger that occurred in 2009 where I realized that what was happening under the microscope, and in my cancer patients in my clinical trials was really the same process that was happening in the diabetic patients and patients with autoimmune disease. It was all coming down to a state of chronic inflammation and dysregulation of the immune system.”

~Zach Bush, MD, Director of Clinical Affairs, Endocrinology and Metabolism at Revolution Health Center in Scottsville, VA

Disruption (EIBD) Caused by New Environmental Factors → Dysbiosys → Immune Defects → Metabolic Impact → Disease

In this chain of Endocrine-Immune-Biome Disruption resulting maladies, it is not that any one expression is skyrocketing.  The concern is over the fact that ALL of the maladies in this chain are both connected AND skyrocketing; in the last 20 years in particular. EIBD is not a disorder, as a disorder is a condition a person has or inherits as part of their individual makeup. This malady is a disruption, because really almost everyone is now experiencing it to one degree or another and its impetus comes from outside factors invalidly affecting body systems. But just what are those factors? The Social Skepticism movement has been hired to desperately block the data collection, hypothesis development, testing and peer review necessary in you finding out. Rest assured that they will do anything – anything, to perform this role. But their battle is already being lost, through the most recent advances in science. In particular, some of the advances in the causes of cancer, are shedding light into the chain reaction of maladies which occur in the human body as a result of the introduction of auto-immune inducing environmental influences.  Why is pancreatic cancer skyrocketing 5:1 in just the last 10+ years? (see: Glyphostate and Skyrocketing Pancreatic Impacts). Are we simply now getting horribly ‘unlucky’ then as of late? Institutional Medicine, in an article push and propaganda series in January 2015, errantly cited much of cancer as simply being – the luck of the draw (see: http://skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia150.html). This graphic on the right from Science, Translational Medicine – January 2015, illustrates the latest findings, from real oncology science, as to why we should be very concerned about recent 15 – year changes in our food.‡ Inevitably the forces of health skepticism and Science Based Medicine are going to lose. Because the science is going to bypass them, and step right into the home and lives of every American family. The whole pseudoscience of ‘can’t take observations from average citizens’ is going to fall by the wayside.

People are becoming informed and upset – an no manner of shill science nor insult is going to intimidate the revolution which is about to occur

The most common and typically first Endocrine-Immune-Biome Disruption (EIBD) outcome, thyroid disease, not only represents the most prescribed-for malady experienced in the United States, but is also the fastest growing medical malady in terms of numbers of new patients each year.  Thyroid disease comes from disruption of the immune system and the production of damaging Hashimoto Antibodies. None of my relatives had this in 1968 – today fully 50% of us do, along with the full slate of autoimmune maladies.  As you can see from the first 9 top prescribed US medicinals, my family is not alone in this trend. Must simply be my imagination though, because science had been abjectly blocked from looking into the causes of this pandemic. Why, because remember the first principle we need to get crystal clear, as the science was manifestly conclusive before the diseases even arrived:

It’s not the food – It’s not the food – It’s not the food – It’s not the food – It’s not the food – It’s not the food

Repeat this over and over until you feel better. I can show you 64 media articles where various spokespersons repeat this statement over and over too, if you like. You will be guaranteed to feel much better. Lots of talk about “studies” and “science” and India growing GMO “crops” (cotton in fact, but implying that they are growing GM Food). So whatever you are observing to have happened in the last 15 years, it is a mirage, a manifestation of irrationality.  Move along. If you are concerned about our food supply, then you are anti-GMO, irrational and anti-science. It is not the food. You just inherited a strange physiology, are deluded by fringe groups, and need to exercise more and eat less; and remember, avoid your “triggers.”

Well the alarm has already sounded, because there is one chief factor which has changed commensurate with this sudden rise in EIBD related disorder and disease.  GM food alterations for compatibility to glyphosate (see: Glyphostate and GM Crops 20 Year Growth Model).

Now never mind that we conducted ALL the rat death safety studies on Bt/Stack Corn AFTER it was already released to the American public as the majority of their food supply. Never mind that Big Agra really just ran the same experiment over and over, and called that finished science. After already irreversibly tainting the entire US corn production base.  Never mind that its chief purpose was to enable broad scale expansion of the employment of Toxicant Class III glyphosate to save a little in P&L expense. Later, when

“The physiological and psychological differences between humans and rodents are so diverse that you simply cannot compare the two when determining the health impact of any food or ingredient.”

~ Corn Refiners Association response to being informed that a 2014 National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation study had found death rates among mice consuming corn syrup, to be 1.87 times higher than control group.†

All this revelation knowledge by food producers!! Mice science is proof when it is in your favor and is pseudoscience when it is not.  Balderdash. Who needs science when you have omniscience I guess?  Just make up the answer you want then and declare it to be so.

Why did they test this food on rats, when we have already started pulling corn, wheat and soy from pet foods because of the observed damage to the health of pets? These are the type of questions you squelch, when you protect profits with pseudoscience.

I find it interesting that in contrast to the Big Agra example with Bt/Stack Maize, Colgate, which sells a toothpaste containing 0.3% Triclosan, in their defense of the employment of the ingredient, cited several things about testing for human consumed products:

Colgate Total^® is the most clinically tested toothpaste in the world. Its safety and effectiveness is supported by more than 80 scientific studies, involving 19,000 people. (http://www.colgatetotal.com/triclosan-faq)

It is clear that in the case of triclosan, Colgate not only tested the product prior to release, which Monsanto did not do with Bt/Stack Corn, but they continued to test the product by monitoring its potential subtle effects on humans. Something which the food industry has refused to do with high genetic distance foods.  The US Food and Drug Administration, further goes on regarding triclosan:

Animal studies have shown that triclosan alters hormone regulation. However, data showing effects in animals don’t always predict effects in humans. (http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm205999.htm)

Well, I’ll be. Data showing effects in animals don’t always predict effects in humans.  Well in the case of Bt/Stack corn, it was presumed that Rat Deaths = 0, would equate to totally healthy human consumption. Case closed.  I guess if you brush your teeth with it and spit it back out, then that product requires intensive human monitoring.  But if you ingest it 2 to 4 times a day 7 days a week for life, then the same rat test, run over and over, after the product is already fully released to the public constitutes then sufficient science. More consumption = less diligence need. Makes total sense inside Social Skepticism, the pawn activists working for Big Agra and our Corrupt Oligarchists.

And finally, regarding Colgate toothpaste:

The most recent research includes a five-year clinical study completed in 2012, which continues to affirm the safety of Colgate Total®. Our research is shared with regulatory agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Europe. (http://www.colgatetotal.com/triclosan-faq)

Colgate continues to monitor the impacts of their products on humans. Something which the food industry refuses to do. After all, Big Agra is saving money through economies of scale and ‘reducing carbon footprint’ and costs of crop production. With all this benefit I guess, there is no need to monitor human health impacts or listen to families like mine who have dramatically improved their health by completely eliminating high genetic distance foods from our household diet (with our doctor’s quiet encouragement).

Setting all that family autoimmune increase and food sensitivity stuff aside as minor, despite this you should not fear these malady and autoimmune statistics anyway, as they stand simply as a pseudo-effect of finding that for which one is looking. Observation expressed through merely an increase in the ability to diagnose, not an increase in the actual rates of the disease. You see, your family had these autoimmune disorders back in 1968, they just did not know it. After all, Man has been genetically modifying his food for 12,000 years! For this, we have another key term which again can put our mind at ease. Its remedy resides in an impressive sounding principle, with miraculous powers to induce healing bliss.

Confirmation bias – also called ‘myside bias,’ is the tendency to favor information that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses.³

For the armchair SSkeptic, this definition includes the corollary-base incidence where ‘my side’ happens to be synonymous with ‘my profession.’ In any other world, this would be a matter of national security.  But in the fairy tale land of magical Social Skepticism, it is no big deal. Through the magic wand of being too smart to fall for this, we can solve it all from the comfort of the study lounge chair.  Our job here is done.

Put your mind at ease. Social Skepticism has come to our rescue, and in its arms resides intellectual bliss.

¹  Wikipedia: Apophenia.

² Collected from the various foundations established to combat and increase awareness for each individual disease, tabulated into equivalent decade long growth typically from 1999 – 2009 timeframes.

² WebMD, Information and Resources Top 10 Most Prescribed, Top Selling Drugs http://www.webmd.com/news/20140805/top-10-drugs?src=RSS_PUBLIC&ecd=soc_tw_newsbot.

³ Wikipedia: Confirmation bias.

†  Reuters, “Corn syrup more toxic than table sugar in female mice: study;” Jan 5, 2015;  http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-usa-health-cornsyrup-idUSKBN0KF03820150106

‡  Cancer and the gut microbiota: An unexpected link, Science Transitional Medicine, 21 January 2015: Vol. 7 no. 271 pp. 271ps1DOI:10.1126/scitranslmed.3010473