Political leaders have long appreciated the importance of creating “enemies” to divert the masses from the real problems deserving attention, like education and infrastructure. In Europe and the Middle East, this approach led to centuries of religious wars.
For many years last century, the Cold War with the Soviet Union served that purpose in the U.S. Now we have the War on Terror.
I wonder if our public health authorities haven’t been applying the same lessons. We’ve had the War on Cancer, the War on Drugs. More recently, with the food contamination outbreaks from spinach and lettuce, public health officials have been demanding additional funds to hire inspectors and fight the scourge of e.Coli 0157:H7 in our food chain.
Just as the politicians have always been loathe to figure out ways to get along better with “our enemies,” the same sense seems to apply to the bacteria we fear so much.
The recent discussion between Mary McGonigle-Martin and Ken Conrad got me thinking along these lines. While these two have been debating for a while now, a particular comment by Mary to Ken last week seemed to me to capture the essence of the disagreement :
“We are both right. I can intellectually grasp where you are coming from, but emotionally I go insane at the thought of anyone contracting E.coli 0157:H7.”
As open-minded as Mary is being, and she’s being pretty open minded, she just can’t let go of her fixation on “the enemy”—E.coli 0157:H7. If we could only vanquish this enemy, we would all be safer, she argues.
What Ken is telling her in his steadfast way is that vanquishing the enemy is a false hope. We must have faith in the power of the human immune system to learn to live with the many other life forms.
What Ken is saying further is that there is no room for a half-way approach. The germ theory is incompatible with the immune theory. It’s an either-or choice. Mary wants both, but Ken is saying that’s impossible. You can’t live your life encouraging your family to use its natural immune system to learn to live with the other life forms out there, and have this little vendetta against one of them—E.coli 0157:H7. When E.coli creates disease, then we must accept the likelihood of an imbalance in the afflicted person’s immune system, rather than blame the bacteria.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that this all is a lot easier said than done. That’s because we’ve all been so conditioned to accept the germ theory. Fully accepting the immune-based theory Ken (and others) promote is difficult because it means discarding so much of what we routinely accept as true about not only food, but disease in general.
All of which leads me back to raw milk as hugely symbolic in this debate, in two ways. First, it’s been portrayed by public health authorities as a major public health enemy because it harbors all kinds of bacteria, So if it turns out we can drink it safely, the question that comes up is this: what have all the years of fuss by public health officials been about?
Compounding this problem is another that is even worse for the authorities to consider: the possibility that raw milk actually helps us build up immunity to diseases, allergies, and chronic conditions. Now the questions become downright nasty. Why have we been treating this food as an enemy when it is not only harmless, but a true friend?
These questions raise a basic question that Mary and Ken have been driving toward: Should the real goal of our public health and medical system be to build up immunity rather than to kill germs? It’s enough to give the regulators real nightmares.
***
I’m finally over jet lag from my trip to France. And glad to be back at my own computer…using the European keyboards at Internet cafes was painful–the A and Q letters are reversed, a period requires hitting the shift key, etc., etc. Trying to interact with my blog software under those conditions became impossible, so thanks to Jason Gumpert, my son, for posting my emails into blog form.
It was quite an interesting trip, between the dedication of the Holocaust museum in Montegut and the visit to the French raw milk dairy. A couple other experiences left strong impressions as well:
–The practice in many hotels to use the room-entry card as a conservation device. In order to activate the electricity in your room, you have to place the card into a holder on the wall. Of course, when you leave the room, you have to take the card with you so you can get back into the room later, but removing the card automatically shuts off all the electricity when you leave. Moreover, some of the newer hotels also seem to be using motion detectors to activate hallways lights.
–Another unusual conservation technique, this one at a small town’s Saturday evening “Festival” celebrating the summer solstice. This was kind of the equivalent of an American church supper, except instead of ham and beans, the French version was a four-course meal, including an apertif wine, steak, more wine, and a whipped cream puff for dessert that was beyond decadent. Anyway, as I was starting to say before I interrupted myself with food remembrances, about 100 people attended this event, and when the time came to eat, they all pulled out of purses and bags their plates, napkins, and eating utensils (all real stuff, no paper and plastic).
Then, as dessert was being served, people wiped off their dinner plates, and turned them upside down to hold the whipped cream puff pastry. Voila! For coffee, they just used their plastic wine glasses. One woman collected steak leftovers from others at our table and deposited them into a plastic bag she brought along to bring home to her cat (or so she said).
Now wouldn’t that be an interesting addendum to a party invitation: BYOPUC (bring your own plates, utensils, and cups).
This last post makes me wonder why Mary even bothers writing to any of you. Are you kidding me? This sounds like you are saying, Roll the dice and if you get sick, its your immune systems fault and too bad for you if you get sick or even die. GEEZ….I THINK YOU ARE ALL NUTS!
"The fund will be a 501(c)(4) organization with the right to engage in politcal activities such as lobbying and campaigning during elections. It will create business models for small farms and consumers, and will have an 800 telephone hotline for questions with access to attorneys who can provide advice and counsel." (Summary extracted from the Late Spring 2007 Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association newsletter.)
I’m excited to hear that the Fund is finally being launched, and I hope that small farmers and consumers will rely on it when challenged by government agencies.
On another subject, from conversations with my farmer this weekend I learned that the bills in the Ohio House and Senate that would provide a legal mechanism for raw milk sales will supposedly be quietly dropped and will die in committee. My farmer is a member of the Ohio Raw Milk Producers Assocation so I’m pretty confident in its validity, but it still is second-hand information so treat it accordingly. 🙂
My farmer said that the bill’s sponser, representatives from the raw milk producers, Dept. of Agriculture and Health had a recent meeting and demands were tabled to obtain the names & addresses of all current and future shareholders, farms offering herdshares, inspection schedules and other intrusive requirements. It was evidently decided to stick with the recent court decision recognizing private herdshare contracts and not attempt to legalize on-site raw milk sales or invite government regulation of herdshares.
Unfortunately this does leave us vulnerable to a change in the PMO banning herdshares directly being adopted into the Dept. of Agriculture’s regulations, but that possibility is still a few years away if it ever does happen.
Its not that I want to vanquish e-coli 0157:H7 or any pathogen, because I dont think that is possible and I do believe whole heartedly that more people need information about building up their immune system to help with the prevention of contracting viral and bacterial diseases. I believe the issue of total health involves both the germ and immune theories.
We teach our childen to wash their hands before they eat and after they go to the bathroom. Is this bad? No. It helps prevent spreading germs. We teach our children to cover their mouths and noses whenever they cough or sneeze. Is this bad? No. It prevents spreading germs. In the old days, when a person became ill with an infectious disease, they were quarantined. Is this bad? No. It helps prevent spreading germs. These are all common sense approaches to good heath.
Would someone go into surgery and not be scrubbed down with antibacterial everything and not have the doctors and nurses scrub down—–NEVER. They could get an infection and die. A patient isnt going to say to the OR team, I have a strong immune system because I eat a healthy diet so you dont have to bother with making everything sterile. Bacteria happens in nature so Im not going to worry about it. Hey, even turn up the heat, its a bit cold in here.
I think Im making my point. I believe there needs to be a common sense approach to the pathogens in our food supply. Would it be so bad to wash all fruits and vegetables with the non toxic combination of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar? (thank you Anna for this info) This has been proven to kill deadly pathogens. Would it be bad to have signs hanging in the grocery stores educating people about e-coli in our food supply (meat and produce department) and things they can do to prevent contamination, including building up the immune system (vitamin C, Echinacea, probiotics, homeopathic remedies and of course a good diet).
Im envisioning an all around common sense educational approach to this subject. Is this so bad? Remember, I have a bias here. I work in education which is the great equalizer.
The Article was reporting on the complexity with which genes express themselves in humans, thereby questioning the Biotech industry’s basic premise that you can find (and then patent) a particular gene as if, science actually understood what it does (the legal underpinning for getting a patent in the first place is that the matter which is patented, is singular and unique). The issue of complexity is not confined to humans, and the Article goes on to suggest that the claims of safety in, for example, GMO foods may well be misplaced. If the genes are not fully understood (and companies are not required to share all their science with regulators, so the companies probably know much more than the farmers who use their products and the public who eats them), then the claims of safety cannot be properly evaluated. If, indeed, they can be evaluated at all.
As the old saying goes, Mother Nature always bats last.