Upon my return from my bicycle ride around the Great Lakes in 1987. I suffered from an acute bacterial infection that began as what I thought was just another bad case of strep throat. This would have passed into obscurity amongst an array of experiences that I have had if not for the fact that this week, in the news is the threat that prophylactic antibiotic use poses to our food supply. My own way, my knowing is based on first hand experience. When I first moved to Green Bay, I started getting what the doctors called strep throat. The more often I got it, the more conversational the doctors became about what it was. Apparently, many local pediatricians called it "Green Bay Throat", though they always refused to write that down on paper. I asked, believe me.
Consequently, I was prescribed antibiotics several to half a dozen times each year,which meant 30-60 days each year I would get antibiotics. Almost ten percent of the time, up to nearly twenty percent of the time. I loved getting away to Springfield, Illinois to spend summers with my dad, because that is the only time I never got sick. There was an awareness of the tragic chemical soup that was in the river that flowed past our house and I knew that the smell in the air was taking a toll on my health when I was young, but I did not understand how that chemical exposure could lead to bacterial infections in the first place. My near death experience was a combination of toxic metal poisoning and the bacterial infection that got so bad that it was hard to breathe, nearly impossible to swallow and so painful that I wanted to die. I could barely speak and was reduced to writing notes. Whatever bacteria it was just laughed at the several types of antibiotics they tried. I crawled tot he bathroom, ran insane fever and slowly watched my skin turn green, my eyes yellow and bruises go through me from coughs and chills so severe that I thought I would hurt myself permanently or die from the experience.
What saved me were techniques that I now use to heal others as well as myself. It will sound odd to those who have not heard of this kind of thing before, but a witchy woman used a pendulum to diagnose and treat me with what we had in the house. By that time I had learned a lot about staying healthy and understood vitamins, how the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances) were arrived at and the major functions of each nutrient and mineral. I knew about using herbs for health and eating a diet suited to keeping the body healthy under normal conditions, but I knew little about therapeutic healing using herbs and vitamins. My experience with getting sick was going to the doctor. In retrospect, being under a doctor's care for twenty eight days and having them deliver me to death's door, nothing could be worse right? Even in my delirium and flagging condition, I took what this woman had to offer with several grains of salt. (pun intended) I always carried a good dictionary that included many chemical substances. The pendulum led my witchy friend to and eventually responded to our questioning with a "prescription" of five Tablespoons of Cream of Tartar, two immediately, two four hours later and one four hours after that. I had someone retrieve my dictionary and read all that I could find about Cream of Tartar. From what I read, it sounded as if it was like a wanton salt, looking for metals and material that might be too small for my immune system to recognize, this structural matrix had lots of bonding sites and the molecular structure was large, then as the adhesion of these tiny materials would inevitably take place, my own immune system could begin to eliminate what was weakening my whole body that allowed the infection to take me over in the first place.
I did what the pendulum said and by noon the next day, the pain lessened enough that I could drink water with less pain and by supper I had eaten my first solid food in nearly a month! How is this related to bacterial threats in the food supply? Well, the resistance to antibiotics that nearly killed me was brought on by only having to adapt to antibiotics administered ten to twenty percent of the time. most livestock in the United States of America are dosed nearly constantly with antibiotics. The resistant strains of bacteria that thrive in our food supply can kill us. The system is broken and the monied interests tell us that without our food system, many people around the world would die. This is the last death rattle in a chorus of well-intentioned lies that were first perpetrated upon the Earth as the "Green Revolution". "Science" had "proven" that more food could be grown with monocultures dosed with expensive fertilizer, requiring expensive seed, chemical weed and pest control and always more mechanization. most third world countries are still staggering under the debt brought on by that series of well-meaning lies. The ugly truth is that these production measures, followed to their inevitable conclusion are what we are seeing today.
Farmers in most of the world are not expected to do what is best for their fields or herds, the soils or their neighbors. They work for the bank, the seed company, the petro-chemical interests and the machinery dealers. If a farmer wants credit, they have to abide by the terms laid out by their lender and this means a slippery slope of insurance, treatments and standards that reduce every decision to a cost/benefit analysis. I know a lot about creatures, humans included and none of us benefit from being seen as dollars on the hoof or "an investment" as many liberals like to say. No one can be let off the hook for objectifying another creature. be it man, woman, child or beast, we are all creations of the infinite. for my purpose here, it is not important whether you call it God or Goddess, Allah or he who cannot be named. If we all agree to disagree about what to call it, we can begin to talk sense. I know that the infinite power in the universe did not give us intellect to squander on capitalism, or poisoning our soils. Creator did not want us to risk being overwhelmed by microscopic creatures that are only breeding because we have poisoned so much of the planet, including our own tissues.
I realized today that we try to understand each issue that we confront as if it is a pyramid. Often, we barely distinguish the tops, the apex or peaks of the pyramids around us, thinking that we are keeping things straight in our minds. But lost in the clouds far below are a myriad of foundation stones, tier after tier of occurrences, labors and understandings that needed to occur, perhaps thousands or tend of thousands of years ago on which were built the first levels of these ideas, experiences and thoughts that we use to navigate our way through the world. every technology that we have invented to date has brought with it increased costs and more expensive benefits. I am sure that, if not for something as mundane as Cream of Tartar, I would be dead. What I have learned about bacteria since nearly dying from an infection of antibiotic resistant bacteria is that the way we utilize antibiotics in the food system is a serious public health threat and in every way I know how, I will fight the corporations who continue to risk human health for profit.
Consequently, I was prescribed antibiotics several to half a dozen times each year,which meant 30-60 days each year I would get antibiotics. Almost ten percent of the time, up to nearly twenty percent of the time. I loved getting away to Springfield, Illinois to spend summers with my dad, because that is the only time I never got sick. There was an awareness of the tragic chemical soup that was in the river that flowed past our house and I knew that the smell in the air was taking a toll on my health when I was young, but I did not understand how that chemical exposure could lead to bacterial infections in the first place. My near death experience was a combination of toxic metal poisoning and the bacterial infection that got so bad that it was hard to breathe, nearly impossible to swallow and so painful that I wanted to die. I could barely speak and was reduced to writing notes. Whatever bacteria it was just laughed at the several types of antibiotics they tried. I crawled tot he bathroom, ran insane fever and slowly watched my skin turn green, my eyes yellow and bruises go through me from coughs and chills so severe that I thought I would hurt myself permanently or die from the experience.
What saved me were techniques that I now use to heal others as well as myself. It will sound odd to those who have not heard of this kind of thing before, but a witchy woman used a pendulum to diagnose and treat me with what we had in the house. By that time I had learned a lot about staying healthy and understood vitamins, how the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances) were arrived at and the major functions of each nutrient and mineral. I knew about using herbs for health and eating a diet suited to keeping the body healthy under normal conditions, but I knew little about therapeutic healing using herbs and vitamins. My experience with getting sick was going to the doctor. In retrospect, being under a doctor's care for twenty eight days and having them deliver me to death's door, nothing could be worse right? Even in my delirium and flagging condition, I took what this woman had to offer with several grains of salt. (pun intended) I always carried a good dictionary that included many chemical substances. The pendulum led my witchy friend to and eventually responded to our questioning with a "prescription" of five Tablespoons of Cream of Tartar, two immediately, two four hours later and one four hours after that. I had someone retrieve my dictionary and read all that I could find about Cream of Tartar. From what I read, it sounded as if it was like a wanton salt, looking for metals and material that might be too small for my immune system to recognize, this structural matrix had lots of bonding sites and the molecular structure was large, then as the adhesion of these tiny materials would inevitably take place, my own immune system could begin to eliminate what was weakening my whole body that allowed the infection to take me over in the first place.
I did what the pendulum said and by noon the next day, the pain lessened enough that I could drink water with less pain and by supper I had eaten my first solid food in nearly a month! How is this related to bacterial threats in the food supply? Well, the resistance to antibiotics that nearly killed me was brought on by only having to adapt to antibiotics administered ten to twenty percent of the time. most livestock in the United States of America are dosed nearly constantly with antibiotics. The resistant strains of bacteria that thrive in our food supply can kill us. The system is broken and the monied interests tell us that without our food system, many people around the world would die. This is the last death rattle in a chorus of well-intentioned lies that were first perpetrated upon the Earth as the "Green Revolution". "Science" had "proven" that more food could be grown with monocultures dosed with expensive fertilizer, requiring expensive seed, chemical weed and pest control and always more mechanization. most third world countries are still staggering under the debt brought on by that series of well-meaning lies. The ugly truth is that these production measures, followed to their inevitable conclusion are what we are seeing today.
Farmers in most of the world are not expected to do what is best for their fields or herds, the soils or their neighbors. They work for the bank, the seed company, the petro-chemical interests and the machinery dealers. If a farmer wants credit, they have to abide by the terms laid out by their lender and this means a slippery slope of insurance, treatments and standards that reduce every decision to a cost/benefit analysis. I know a lot about creatures, humans included and none of us benefit from being seen as dollars on the hoof or "an investment" as many liberals like to say. No one can be let off the hook for objectifying another creature. be it man, woman, child or beast, we are all creations of the infinite. for my purpose here, it is not important whether you call it God or Goddess, Allah or he who cannot be named. If we all agree to disagree about what to call it, we can begin to talk sense. I know that the infinite power in the universe did not give us intellect to squander on capitalism, or poisoning our soils. Creator did not want us to risk being overwhelmed by microscopic creatures that are only breeding because we have poisoned so much of the planet, including our own tissues.
I realized today that we try to understand each issue that we confront as if it is a pyramid. Often, we barely distinguish the tops, the apex or peaks of the pyramids around us, thinking that we are keeping things straight in our minds. But lost in the clouds far below are a myriad of foundation stones, tier after tier of occurrences, labors and understandings that needed to occur, perhaps thousands or tend of thousands of years ago on which were built the first levels of these ideas, experiences and thoughts that we use to navigate our way through the world. every technology that we have invented to date has brought with it increased costs and more expensive benefits. I am sure that, if not for something as mundane as Cream of Tartar, I would be dead. What I have learned about bacteria since nearly dying from an infection of antibiotic resistant bacteria is that the way we utilize antibiotics in the food system is a serious public health threat and in every way I know how, I will fight the corporations who continue to risk human health for profit.
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