The ostrich approach to parasites--- O ye of little faith...

[Guest guest]

Jay and others,

Perhaps we are not that far apart on our view of parasites, especially since I

think it behooves us all to steer clear of the fundamentalists on both ends of

any spectrum. Fundies tend, perhaps as a reaction to violent rejection, to

stretch and belabor their case to make their point. It's my feeling that HULDA

CLARK, or her lackies, have, in their quest to make a point, to make their

mark on the world, have done exactly that.

I'm no groupie myself, in fact I try to avoid books that have the word

" ALL " in it. That's just one area where, IMO, she went over the top and into

the fundy world. By staking her reputation on one fluke, or tying " all " disease

to one theory of etiology, she has jeapordized her entire reputation as a

scientist. It's likely that once the McCarthy/Ashcroftian Quackbusters get done

eviserating her, her good work could also be irredeemably lost. She's been

sued and will most likely wind up in prison like other extremists, nuts,

pioneers, visionaries, revolutionaries, and geniuses. In more violent days,

Copernicus, Galilo and other visionaries could lose their heads to

fundamentalistic lynch mobs and the goons of the Inquisition.

In summary, I think Dr has applied some clairvoyance, some intuition,

and some genius to the flat world of scientific thought which allowed her to

temporarily burst free from the stiffling manacles of the reigning scientific

paradigm and breathe some clean air. Her most-true insights may someday

be redeemed, pulled from the smoldering ashes below the witch-burning

stake and salvaged. For the time being, we all lose, mostly due to her own

self-sabotage. Her message has been conflated into some reductionistic and

literalized graphic gobbletygook that people have rushed into popularity.

Additionally and regrettably, her work has also been prostituted into

commercial venues for gain, and that is a terrible pollution and loss of the

good that was very likely to have been there. It's unfortunate that the

censorial, myopic and provincial Puritans who savagely attacked her, and

perhaps provoked her to retreat to weird extremes, are probably just as

wrong, have cooked their own books to make their case, and are perhaps far

more dangerous to the society we live in than the Hulda s of the world.

For those who think parasites are the machinations of fearmongers, the

ignorant and the simpleminded, I think you are in for a rude awakening. And

soon. Americans who refuse to look at the GLOBAL VILLAGE we all live in

now are living in the past. In every war we have had millions of GIs returning

bearing unknown bugs. The first wave of Desert Storm troops (over 500,000)

cannot give blood because of their exposure to Leishmaniasis from the Sand

Flies. Viet Nam was even worse. Immigration laws being ever more relaxed

we have a steady stream of parasite-laden people flowing into our country

daily. Thanks to NAFTA and WTO we have millions of tons of raw fruit,

vegetables, meat, fish, eggs and dairy products innundating our homes,

institutions, supermarkets and restaurants. The list of new problems is far too

long to list here. With the conservative CDC reporting over 50 million cases

of food-borne illnesses annually ( and 9000 known deaths/year) we are

going to be learning a whole lot more about parasites in the near future.

Average T-lymphocyte killer cell counts, which are one measure of the

immune system, should be over 200 and are now down to an average of 25

in the US. Environmental toxins and pollutants increase daily in the food, air

and water thanks to ever more lax legislation, regulation and enforcement.

The WHO now counts parasites as one of the Top 6 killers of people in the

world as parasites kill more people than cancer. WHO and other

organizations estimate that 55 million US children have parasites. There are

over 100 parasites that can live in the human body with over 1/3 of them

residing in the digestive system. Candida albicans alone can generate

thousands of waste products known to be neurotoxins. Oh, yes, we are going

to be seeing more bugs.

Hello! Can you say " Cryptosporidium " , " Blastocystis " , " Giardia " , " Entamoeba " ,

" Trichomonas " , " Candida " , " Borrelia " , or " Toxoplasma " ? I look into my crystal

ball and see more Latin terminology coming into everyone's vocabulary in the

near furture,

Will in Minneapolis