Vaccines & Prions: Keys to the Autoimmune Disease Puzzle

Gaia Health
by Heidi Stevenson

 Apparently, the issue of pig rendering workers developing a neurological disease isn’t supposed to worry the rest of us. The Lancet has reported that there’s no infectious agent. The cause is tiny bits of pig brains being breathed in so that they enter the body through the nasal passages, resulting in an autoimmune disorder. So, we’re supposed to sit back, heave a big sigh of relief, and stop worrying.

I don’t think so. To the contrary, this may be the key that ties a host of neurological disorders, prions, and vaccines together into one neat package—with a tie-in to genetically modified organisms.

Workers who have breathed in aerosolized pig brain mist in abattoirs have been developing a nasty neurological disorder with striking similarities to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as mad cow disease), kuru (a disease that struck southern Pacific cannibal islanders), multiple sclerosis, Gulf War syndrome, and macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), a new neurological disorder known to be associated with the vaccine adjuvant aluminum.

Prions

Prions are a medical mystery. They’re believed to cause mad cow disease. They aren’t, though, infectious agents in the usual sense because they aren’t living in any sense. They don’t even contain fragments of DNA or RNA!

Bacteria are single-celled organisms. Some cause diseases, while others are necessary for life. Each bacterium contains a DNA molecule and RNA, which performs tasks directed by the DNA and carries messages to and from DNA.

Viruses are almost-cells. They have most of the factors of a cell, but are often not considered living organisms. They infect by invading cells and fooling them into creating more of the virus.

Prions, though, are not alive in any sense. Therefore, they cannot be killed, even at extreme temperatures. They are simply bits of proteins—literally parts of molecules. Originally, it was believed that they infected because they were misshapen, abnormally folded. The guess was that they infected cells by causing normal prions to become misshapen, too. That theory, though, has been proven false, though it is still commonly believed. (See Sanctuary: Bad Bad Prions from Discover, dated 9 January 2009 for an example of the ongoing belief.)

The first serious attack on the prion-as-infectious-agent theory was reported in Medical Hypotheses in 1997. The article makes the case that prions trigger an autoimmune response.(1) As becomes clear the more one looks into the issue, this makes sense and fits the facts as known.

The prions-as-infectious-agents theory has never fit the facts, nor does it make any logical sense. Infectious agents are things with a life imperative to keep them functioning and reproducing. Nothing about prions can be demonstrated to have any life. They do not contain any sort of self-maintained existence. An organism becomes infected when another organism, or semi-organism like a virus that contains a genetic code, invades. The invader uses the infected organism to survive and reproduce. There is no life force in a prion to seek out and infect another organism.

Prions are merely bits of protein—not even whole proteins—that are similar to bits of protein in our own bodies. Rather than trying to imply the implausible, that prions have a drive to replicate, it makes far more sense to suggest that their similarity to a molecule in an organism triggers an autoimmune response.

When a prion enters an organism abnormally, such as by inhalation or injection, the immune system sees them as foreign and manufactures antibodies to them. These antibodies seek out anything that’s similar to the protein bits—prions—to destroy them.

In the case of prions, the danger is their similarity to parts of our own bodies. Antibodies that develop to fight prions will attack cells in their own bodies with disastrous results. This is, in fact, the definition of an autoimmune disorder—the immune system going haywire and attacking the body’s own substance.

Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system disease in which the immune system has gone awry, attacking the myelin sheath, which is the covering layer of nerves. The symptoms consist of anything that can be affected by the nervous system. All areas of the body can be affected, but each individual is affected differently. One person may suffer great pain and deranged limb movement. Another may suffer mental impairment and visual loss. Each patient is different.

MS was first diagnosed in 1868 by Jean-Martin Charcot, professor of neurology at the University of Paris. Often referred to as the father of neurology, he examined the brain of a patient who had died from tremors and movement disorders. He found scars, usually referred to as plaques, in the brain.

Before World War II, it was known that some people vaccinated for viral illnesses, especially rabies, developed a neurological disease similar to MS. It had been assumed that the cause was rabies virus that hadn’t been completely inactivated. This, though, proved to be false.

In 1935, Dr. Thomas Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute demonstrated that injecting myelin tissue into laboratory animals would produce a disease similar to MS, thus showing that MS had nothing whatsoever to do with the rabies virus, or any other. Rather, vaccine-induced MS results from an autoimmune response to injected tissues similar to one’s own. The laboratory form came to be known as experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE).

Scrapie

The first known spongiform encephalitis is scrapie, a disease of sheep. It’s believed to be caused by prions. It has been transmitted by innoculation to several other animals, including hamsters, mice, rats, voles, gerbils, mink, cattle, and some species of monkeys. Scrapie has been known for only 250 years, first found in Europe and reaching the US in 1947.

Scrapie is believed to be transmitted between sheep in one of two ways. The more common belief is that it’s transmitted from the ewe to offspring, though how is unknown. The other guess is that it’s harbored in pastures and eaten. Since scrapie is a kind of spongiform encephalitis, which we now know can be transmitted by inhalation, it may be that sheep inhale scrapie prions—protein bits—as they snuffle in their foraging. Many sheep are also fed artificial foods that include animal and fish products. They may inhale protein bits that result in a prion autoimmune disease.

Kuru

Kuru is a prion disease similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. It is known to have existed only among the cannibalistic Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, and was first found and studied during the mid-twentieth century.

Accelerated Aging Could be Result of Chronic Anxiety

Natural Society
Kelsey Coy

Recent research from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston suggests that chronic panic, phobia and similar anxiety disorders may lead to accelerated aging by shortening telomeres, the DNA-protein complexes whose lengths serves as biomarkers of cells’ biological ages.

Chronic Anxiety Could Result in Accelerated Aging In the study, telomere length was analyzed in 5,243 randomly selected women, 42 to 69 years of age. High phobic anxiety, as measured by the Crown-Crisp Experiential Index, was associated with shorter telomeres, even after accounting for additional factors known to affect telomere length such as paternal age-at-birth, smoking history, body-mass-index and physical activity. Researchers noted that the magnitude of difference in telomere length in the most phobic women corresponded to six years mored aged than average.

Earlier studies have demonstrated the link between chronic stress and accelerated telomere shortening- and consequent biological accelerated aging, but this is the first to so specifically examine anxiety’s role in the process. Accelerated telomere shortening has also been linked to DNA damage that may contribute to cancer, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and dementia.

In their discussion of this phenomenon, the authors of this study emphasize that “phobic anxiety is treatable; thus, any potential impacts on telomere shortening may be amenable to prevention through early identification and treatment.”

There is certainly more investigation to be done in terms of fully understanding this process, its potential consequences and its potential treatments, but it is fairly safe to say that the amelioration of anxiety disorders, the most common mental illness in the U.S., currently affecting 18% of the adult population and more children than ever before, merits our attention.

Rather than feed our anxiety epidemic with this new information, why not slow down, take a deep breath, and consider adding yoga for depression and anxiety? You can also try forest bathing, or simply known as a walk in the woods. Surely the six years you stand to gain will be worth it. Additionally, there are numerous methods to prevent aging – all you must do is recognize them and implement them in your daily life. Accelerated aging can be prevented – you just have to know how to do it!

N. America’s West Coast to be most contaminated by Fukushima cesium of all regions in Pacific in 10 years — “An order-of-magnitude higher” than waters off Japan

ENE News

In the following years, the tracer cloud continuously expands laterally, with maximum concentrations in its central part heading east. While the northern portion is gradually invading the Bering Sea, the main tracer patch reaches the coastal waters of North America after 5–6 years, with maximum relative concentrations ( > 1 × 10−4) covering a broad swath of the eastern North Pacific between Vancouver Island and Baja California. Simultaneously some fraction of the southern rim of the tracer cloud becomes entrained in the North Equatorial Current (NEC), resulting in a westward extending wedge around 20°N that skirts the northern shores of the Hawaiian Archipelago. After 10 years the concentrations become nearly homogeneous over the whole Pacific, with higher values in the east, extending along the North American coast with a maximum (~1 × 10−4) off Baja California. The southern portion of the tracer cloud is carried westward by the NEC across the subtropical Pacific, leading to increasing concentrations in the Kuroshio regime again...

Heat Leaves Ranchers a Stark Option: Sell

Zen Haven

As a relentless drought bakes prairie soil to dust and dries up streams across the country, ranchers struggling to feed their cattle are unloading them by the thousands, a wrenching decision likely to ripple from the Plains to supermarket shelves over the next year.

Ranchers say they are reducing their herds and selling their cattle months ahead of schedule to avoid the mounting losses of a drought that now stretches across a record-breaking 1,016 American counties.

Irrigation ponds are shriveling to scummy puddles. Their pastures are brown and barren. And they say the prices of hay and other feed are soaring beyond their reach.

“If we’re running out of grass and we’re not growing enough feed crops to feed them the other six months of the year, what do you do?” asked R. Scott Barrows, director of Kansas State University’s Golden Prairie District extension office. “You liquidate.”

So, in the latest pangs of a withering heat wave that has threatened crops and sparked furious wildfires, ranchers are loading up their cattle and driving to towns like Torrington, an old byway on the Oregon Trail near the Nebraska border. They come, reluctantly, to sell.

On a normal summer Wednesday, the Torrington Livestock Markets would be quiet, and cows and their calves would be out on waving fields of buffalo grass, gaining weight for the autumn.

But it is doing four times as much early-season business as usual, driven by parched conditions. Last month, 17,144 head of cattle were auctioned off, compared with 3,336 in June 2011.

“They’re getting frustrated, and they’re at a loss for what to do with their cattle,” said Michael Schmitt, an owner of the livestock market. Many cattle producers are selling off less-profitable animals with the hopes of holding onto part of their herd. But the smaller the rancher, the deeper their troubles, and the more they are cutting.

On this 90-degree July morning, anxious ranchers and poker-faced beef buyers filled the theater seats around the auction floor, ready to sell 1,700 cattle at a new weekly special: a drought sale.

“We’ve just been sitting here crying,” said a sixth-generation rancher named Mae Ann Manning, as she and a few friends sat in the cafeteria and waited for the day’s bidding to start. She was half joking. But half not. “We don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Ms. Manning and her daughter Debbie Murray came to sell 160 year-old steers. There had been little winter snow to moisten the ground at their ranches near Lost Springs, and the spring was hot and dry.

A wildfire burned three of their pastures. Now, with the summer sun frying what little grass remained and hay selling for $200 a ton, they decided to winnow the herd.

Because the cattle being sold now are younger and lighter than those fed all summer on prairie grass, ranchers are losing $200 to $400 for each one they are dumping early. That can mean the difference between a year’s profit and loss when multiplied out over herds numbering in the hundreds or thousands.

“It’s going to take two to three years to recover,” said Brit Moen, who was selling 150 black steers. He had raised them on grass under Wyoming’s endless skies, but after they tramped through the manure-covered auction floor, silent and nervous, they were likely bound for a feedlot in Kansas, Nebraska or Iowa, where they would be fattened up for slaughter.

“We’re all cutting down, and we’ll never be able to replace what we’ve got now,” he said. “If this is to go on for another year, it’ll put a lot of people out of business.”

Further down the line, the sales of cows and calves that might have otherwise produced more cows and more calves may play a role in reducing beef production, potentially driving prices higher, experts say.

But right now, ranchers selling early are getting less money per head because of tremors in the markets for corn and other cattle feed.

In its latest forecasts, the Agriculture Department expects overall American beef production to fall by about one billion pounds, to 25.1 billion pounds in 2012 from 26.2 billion a year earlier, and forecasts yet another fall in 2013.

High beef prices, which entice ranchers to sell more of their stock, and a long-term drop in domestic cattle supplies are also factors in the decline.

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Diet for Breast Cancer Patients Should Include Omega-3 Fats

Natural Society
by Elizabeth Renter

More research shows how omega-3 fats should be included in a diet for breast cancer patients. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil have been repeatedly linked to breast cancer prevention and even in positive treatment results. Scientists say more research is needed, as they commonly do, but the findings thus far are promising and definitely make a good argument for adding high quality sources of omega-3 fats to your diet.

Diet for Breast Cancer Patients and Omega-3 Fats

These fats are called essential, not because they are important or necessary (though they are), but because your body doesn’t produce them on its own, so it is essential that you get them in your diet. Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in fatty fish, nuts, and some plant sources.

One study looked at women who regularly use fish-oil supplements, the most common omega-3 supplements on the market. It found that women who took the supplements daily had a 32% reduced risk of developing the most common form of breast cancer.

The study selected just over 35,000 post-menopausal women and interviewed them about their supplementation practices. After following the women for six years, 880 had developed breast cancer, but the risk was definitely lower for the fish-oil consumers.

Another related study examining the inclusion of omega-3′s in a diet for breast cancer patients examined the relationship between omega-3 fats and breast cancer outcomes. It found that women who consumed the most EPA and DHA (omega-3s) had a 26 – 28% reduced risk for breast cancer recurrence than those women who consumed the least amount of the fats.

One major difference between the two studies was that the first looked specifically at fish oil supplements and the second was specific to dietary sources of omega 3 fats. As a matter of fact, in the second study, researchers found no link between supplements and breast cancer outcomes.

So, what does this mean for you? While the first study used fish oil supplements, it did not preclude dietary sources of omega 3 fats as being any less useful. Because the second study did find that supplements weren’t as effective as the food sources, you would likely be better off getting your omega 3 fats from food in order to see the most promising breast cancer prevention and treatment results.

The best sources of these fats are fish. But as with any fish, being cautious about mercury consumption is important. Fortunately, some of the fish with the highest levels of omega-3 fats also have the lowest levels of mercury. Salmon and sardines are perhaps the best of both worlds. Also, if you aren’t a fish-eater, include plant based sources like flax seeds, walnuts, and even tofu occasionally.

In addition to omega-3 fats, a diet for breast cancer patients should undoubtedly include the spice turmeric. Proving that beating cancer with nutrition is possible, research has shown that turmeric can slow down the spread of breast cancer. Lastly, a breast cancer prevention diet should also include pomegranates, as they have also been shown to prevent and help treat breast cancer.

Propecia Causes Permanent Impotence in Some Men: Merck and FDA Knew About It

America First

Big Pharma, Merck in this case, is well aware of the problems some of their “wonder drugs” cause. It’s disturbing how our government approves drugs that regularly ruin the lives of a small minority of those prescribed, yet has declared an all out war on natural products like marijuana and raw milk.

This story also shows how vain Americans have become. What’s more important, a full head of hair, or your sexual function, ambition, and overall happiness?

Kevin Malley was almost 30, and he was starting to lose his hair. He went to his doctor to see if there was a way to keep from going bald, and his doctor prescribed Propecia.

“I looked young for my age, so I wanted to hold off my hair loss for a little bit,” Malley said. “I didn’t plan on taking Propecia for more than a year.”


Malley started taking the drug in May 2011, and by October he was completely impotent and had no sex drive whatsoever. His body changed, even his genitals shrank, and he slipped into a mental fog that he just couldn’t clear. His doctor told him the side effects would go away if he stopped taking the drug, so he did. But nothing changed.


“I kept expecting the side effects to go away, but they did not, they only got worse,” he said.


For 96 percent of the men, the sexual problems lasted for more than a year after they stopped taking the drug.


“Our findings make me suspicious that this drug may have done permanent damage to these men,” said Dr. Michael Irwig, the author of the study. “The chances that they will improve? I think it’s lower and lower the longer they have these side effects.”
http://news.yahoo.com/video#video=29966302

Later in the story we learn that the FDA and Merck knew that some men would face long-term impotence by taking Propecia:

FDA, Merck Know of Drug’s Side Effects


Finasteride works by blocking the conversion of testosterone into a more potent form, called DHT, which contributes to hair loss. It was originally developed in 1992 by drug giant Merck as a treatment for enlarged prostates and sold as the drug Proscar.


Propecia was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1997, and at that time Merck noted that a few men reported sexual side effects during clinical trials of the drug. On its website, the agency said those side effects were resolved when patients stopped taking the drug.
http://gma.yahoo.com/men-propecias-sexual-side-effects-may-long-lasting-215732153–abc-news-wellness.html

The moral of the story? Don’t trust big companies and the FDA with your health. Only take drugs and supplements that are absolutely necessary. Find natural relief and cures when possible.

Gaia Health
by Heidi Stevenson

Two attenuated vaccine viruses have swapped genetic material to form a new and more virulent disease in Australian chickens—an indictment of both Agribusiness farming and vaccine technology.

The viruses from two different vaccines have recombined to form two new and even deadlier diseases than the original. The vaccine virus strains are attenuated, so that they can’t produce serious disease. Nonetheless, these two weakened strains produced more virulent disease than the one they’re meant to prevent.

According to Science, one of the authors of the paper documenting this development, veterinary microbiologist Glenn Browning, states:

This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to think about it.

The disease the vaccines are intended to prevent, infectious laryngotracheitis (ILTV), is no laughing matter. It’s a herpes virus that causes respiratory illness. Chickens can choke on blood and mucus, resulting in the deaths of up to one-fifth of those affected. However, the two new viruses produce even more severe disease.

The Study

Clearly titled “Attenuated Vaccines Can Recombine to Form Virulent Field Viruses”, the study investigated the cause of the new ILTV diseases(2). They performed whole-genome sequencing of the three strains of viruses found in the vaccines and the two new disease strains. The results were consistent with interspecies recombination. They then confirmed those results by comparing the sequences of the new viruses with those of the vaccine viruses. They found the specific regions of genetic crossover, thus confirming that the new viruses are a result of a gene exchange in the attenuated vaccine viruses.

After that, they tested the new viruses for virulence by seeing how rapidly they reproduced. They found that “both recombinants had significantly increased virulence or replication compared with their parent strains.”

The authors concluded:

The rapid emergence of two virulent recombinants suggests that recombination between attenuated herpes virus vaccines and resultant restoration of virulence may be rare but can bring about a fitness advantage, with severe consequences. The findings from this study raise concerns about the use of multiple distinct attenuated herpes virus vaccines under conditions that favor recombination. These findings have implications for the use of herpes viruses, and possibly other DNA viruses, as attenuated vaccines or vaccine vectors.

ABC reports Browning as saying:

We suspect that this sort of event could potentially happen in other animal species as well and with other viruses in addition to infectious laryngotracheitis virus. So we believe that what we’ve seen here has potentially wider implications than just this particular disease in poultry.

Implications

This is not only one way in which vaccines can create more virulent diseases. As reported in Whooping Cough Epidemic Caused by Virulent New Pertussis Strain—And It’s the Result of Vaccine, the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine has caused a new and more virulent form of pertussis, which is responsible for most of the current outbreaks. This new form of pertussis probably already existed, but was kept in check by the variety for which the vaccination was made.

In the case of the oral polio vaccine, currently in heavy use in Africa and India, the attenuated virus has apparently evolved in human bodies, rather than in the wild as has been the case with pertussis. This seems to have happened on several occasions, but the result is new and more virulent forms of polio in circulation, as discussed in Mutated Polio From Vaccine Is Spreading in Africa.

Further, vaccines may be fueling increases in seemingly unrelated diseases. Vaccines May Be Fueling the Increasing Rate of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Cancer examines this likelihood.

The Inherent Error

Of course, as shown in the video on the right, the methods now used to raise chickens and eggs are likely the primary reason vaccines are needed to prevent ILTV. Battery farming, where birds are inhumanely crowded in tiny cages stacked on top of each other for their entire lives weaken them so they’re susceptible to even the most minor illness. If one catches something, it’s bound to spread like wildfire.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is at work demonstrating that there’s a price to be paid for trying to circumvent nature rather than work with it. By raising animals in such inhumane and unnatural ways, they’re made unhealthy. That lack of health then requires further unnatural methods. As we’re now seeing, the piper must ultimately be paid. A new and more virulent disease has been created.

At some point, these maniacs need to come to grips with a basic fact: We are part of nature. When we try to operate outside it, we will pay a price. The longer we get away with it, the greater the price becomes. Playing at god does not make us gods. Nature will ultimately restore the balance that we have the hubris to believe doesn’t include us.