A MECHANISM OF BLOOD DAMAGE
Clifford E Carnicom
Dec 14 2009

I am not offering any medical advice or diagnosis with the presentation of this information.  I am acting solely as an independent researcher providing the results of extended observation and analysis of unusual biological conditions that are evident.

An organism and a method that damages the condition of the blood has now been identified and it has been directly observed.  The blood variations reported here are in direct association with the existence of and the severity of the so-called "Morgellons" condition.

The degradation occurs, at least in part, as a result of the existence of a chlamydia-like organism that has been repeatedly called to attention within the research during the past several years. This organism, along with a pleomorphic form tentatively identified as a mycoplasma variation, as well as certain filamentous forms, have been identified as common denominators in past and active biological and environmental examinations.

It will be recalled from earlier studies that essentially all individuals observed thus far display the presence of these blood anomalies to varying degree; statistically it would certainly appear as though the general population is subject to these forms.  It has also been stated that the severity of the damage to the blood appears to occur in direct correlation with the manifestation of symptoms of the Morgellon's condition.

It is commonly perceived that skin anomalies and lesions (eruptions) are the major indicators as to the presence of the Morgellons "condition."  It is asserted by this researcher that this criteria is completely and totally inadequate to establish the existence of the condition.  A more comprehensive assessment appears to be that the presence of certain filamentous forms internal to the body and the presence of the chlamydia-like organism within the blood more positively establishes the existence of the condition.  The presence of skin lesions (eruptions) and or filaments appears to be simply an outward manifestation by a subset of the population of the underlying biological changes that have occurred within the body.   Thus far, all individuals studied show these changes within the body to varying degree.

The specific organisms (four specific forms in total, thus far) involved still require positive identification, as they have for several years now.  I do not claim any medical or biological expertise at the level that is required.  The size of the organisms alone is beyond conventional microscopy and they have been identified only with custom microscopic developments.  Chlamydia-like and mycoplasma-like identifications must only be regarded as tentative and they are based primarily upon observation, research and deduction.

One of the dominant characteristics of the Chlamydia genus is that its members are metabolically incomplete, and that they require the energy of the host to thrive; this is one reason why they exist as intracellular (within the cell) within the host.  In addition, intracellular organisms present a series of challenges to the immune system for detection and eradication, as recognition of a pathogen becomes much more difficult internal to the cell.

One of the dominant characteristics of the Mycoplama genus is that the species lack a cell wall, and hence the ability to assume various forms, i.e, pleomorphic.

Regardless of the eventual identifications that are to take place, the involvement of unconventional biology and genetic modification appears to affirmed by the unusual characteristics, enclosure and transport of these particular organisms under study.

The importance of this paper is that a specific organism and method of blood degradation that is in association with the Morgellons condition has been identified by function and has been observed and recorded, and that this same specific organism has been under study from several different vantage points for several years now.  This chlamydia-like organism remains a focal point of investigation with respect to both the Aerosol Operations and the Morgellons issue; from the current studies it is expected to remain so for some time.  The ubiquity and importance of this specific, (but still unidentified by species), organism will become even more apparent in future writings.  In general, it would appear that the chlamydia-like and the mycoplasma-like intrusions set the stage for broader systematic degradation, immune suppression and additional pleomorphic manifestations upon sufficient invasion.  In addition, genetic modification and transformation of the infective agents as well as the hosts are to be considered as very real possibilities.

The specific method of blood damage referred to in this paper is as follows:

1. The chlamydia-like organism appears to frequently exist in large numbers within the blood, i.e, the serum.  The erythrocytes (red blood cells) can appear to be in good form even with the presence of the chlamydia-like organism in the serum external to the cells.

2. The chlamydia-like organism does appear to be attracted to the outer wall of the erythrocytes.

3. In the early stages of intrusion, the chlamydia like structures can surround and bind to the outer wall of the erthryocyte, with no damage to the cell wall necessarily apparent.

4. Upon increased intrusion of the cell, the chlamydia-like organism will be seen to have been incorporated within the cell wall.  It is at this point that a breakdown of the integrity of the cell wall can often be observed.

5. Upon further intrusion, the chlamydia-like organism can exist in relatively large numbers within the erythrocyte.  Further damage to the integrity of the cell occurs.

6. In extreme cases observed thus far, the integrity of the cell wall is radically compromised, along with the general structure of the red blood cells.  Existence of the chlamydia-like organism can be rampant within the blood.  The functioning of the blood would appear to be seriously impaired at this point and this is expected to have a major impact upon the health of an individual. The pleomorphic organism under study (i.e., mycoplasma-like) is also commonly observed under these conditions.  Skin lesions (eruptions) and anomalies, such as filaments, may also be more common at this stage of the condition.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

Additional Note : The term "eruptions" vs. "lesions" has been introduced into this paper due to discussions with an individual of medical background.  This individual has studied and observed the dynamics of certain skin anomalies in detail.  It has been suggested that this term may be more accurate in describing the specifics of presentation, and it is correspondingly offered to the readership for consideration.  Appreciation is extended to this individual for the discernment that has been provided.

Carnicom Institute

AP IMPACT: Tons of drugs dumped into wastewater   

Sunday, 14 September 2008 14:18 

Tons of drugs dumped into wastewater

By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD

Associated Press Writers

U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain, pumping contaminants into America's drinking water, according to an ongoing Associated Press investigation.

These discarded medications are expired, spoiled, over-prescribed or unneeded. Some are simply unused because patients refuse to take them, can't tolerate them or die with nearly full 90-day supplies of multiple prescriptions on their nightstands.

Few of the country's 5,700 hospitals and 45,000 long-term care homes keep data on the pharmaceutical waste they generate. Based on a small sample, though, the AP was able to project an annual national estimate of at least 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging, with no way to separate out the drug volume.

One thing is clear: The massive amount of pharmaceuticals being flushed by the health services industry is aggravating an emerging problem documented by a series of AP investigative stories — the commonplace presence of minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals in the nation's drinking water supplies, affecting at least 46 million Americans.

Researchers are finding evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs.

The original AP series in March prompted federal and local legislative hearings, brought about calls for mandatory testing and disclosure, and led officials in more than two dozen additional metropolitan areas to analyze their drinking water.

And while most pharmaceutical waste is unmetabolized medicine that is flushed into sewers and waterways through human excretion, the AP examined institutional drug disposal and its dangers because unused drugs add another substantial dimension to the problem.

"Obviously, we're flushing them — which is not ideal," acknowledges Mary Ludlow at White Oak Pharmacy, a Spartanburg, S.C., firm that serves 15 nursing homes and assisted-living residences in the Carolinas.

Such facilities, along with hospitals and hospices, pose distinct challenges because they handle large quantities of powerful and toxic drugs — often more powerful and more toxic than the medications people use at home. Tests of sewage from several hospitals in Paris and Oslo uncovered hormones, antibiotics, heart and skin medicines and pain relievers.

Hospital waste is particularly laden with both germs and antibiotics, says microbiologist Thomas Schwartz at Karlsruhe Research Center in Germany.

The mix is a scary one.

In tests of wastewater retrieved near other European hospitals and one in Davis County, Utah, scientists were able to link drug dumping to virulent antibiotic-resistant germs and genetic mutations that may promote cancers, according to scientific studies reviewed by the AP.

Researchers have focused on cell-poisoning anticancer drugs and fluoroquinolone class antibiotics, like anthrax fighter ciprofloxacin.

At the University of Rouen Medical Center in France, 31 of 38 wastewater samples showed the ability to mutate genes. A Swiss study of hospital wastewater suggested that fluoroquinolone antibiotics also can disfigure bacterial DNA, raising the question of whether such drug concoctions can heighten the risk of cancer in humans.

Pharmacist Boris Jolibois, one of the French researchers at Compiegne Medical Center, believes hospitals should act quickly, even before the effects are well understood. "Something should be done now," he said. "It's just common sense."

___

Some contaminated packaging and drug waste are incinerated; more is sent to landfills. But it is believed that most unused pharmaceuticals from health care facilities are dumped down sinks or toilets, usually without violating state or federal regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency told assembled water experts last year that it believes nursing homes and other long-term care facilities use sewer systems to dispose of most of their unused drugs. A water utility surveyed 45 long-term care facilities in 2006 and calculated that two-thirds of their unused drugs were scrapped this way, according to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

An internal EPA memo last year included pharmaceuticals on a list of "major pollutants of concern" at health care businesses. Still, few medical centers keep comprehensive records of drugs they cast down toilets or into landfills. When data are kept, drugs and tainted packaging are combined in the same totals.

In an attempt to quantify the problem, the AP examined records in Minnesota, where state regulators have pushed hospital administrators to keep closer track than elsewhere. Fourteen facilities were surveyed, in a range of settings from rural to urban. The AP projected those annual totals onto the national patient population for hospitals and adjusted for the relatively lower pharmaceutical use of Minnesotans. Since long-term care facilities generate more drug waste than hospitals, the AP conservatively doubled the number.

That calculation produced an estimate of at least 250 million pounds of annual drug waste from hospitals and long-term care centers, further complicated by the fact experts say drugs might account for only up to half of pharmaceutical waste, while the rest is packaging.

The AP estimate excludes many other sources of health industry drug waste, from doctors' to veterinary offices. Smaller medical offices typically dispose of expired samples and unwanted drugs like ordinary consumers — with little forethought.

Alan Davidner, president of Vestara of Irvine, Calif., which sells systems to manage drug waste, says his limited sampling suggests the health care industry's contribution could even be higher.

Plus, untold amounts of pills and tablets are being thrown away each year at federal and state correctional institutions.

At a state prison in Oak Park Heights, Minn., nurse Linda Peterson says the hospital unit serving inmates statewide has been throwing away up to 12,000 pills a year. She says some heart medicines and antibiotics are simply chucked into the trash. Tightly regulated narcotics susceptible to abuse go down the toilet.

"We flush it and flush it and flush it — until we can't see any more pills," she says.

She notes the presence of nursing homes, a hospital and another prison in the same area. "So what are all these facilities doing, if we're throwing away about 700 to 1,000 pills a month?"

___

The EPA is considering whether to impose the first national standard for how much drug waste may be released into waterways by the medical services industry, but Ben Grumbles, the EPA's top water administrator, says a decision won't be made until next year, at the earliest.

So far, regulators have done little more than politely ask the medical care industry to stop pouring drugs into the wastewater system. "Treating the toilet as a trash can isn't a good option," says Grumbles.

Some think it's time to do more than ask. "It's strange that we have rules about the oil from your car; you're not allowed to simply flush it down the sewer," says U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa. "So why do we let these drugs, without any kind of regulation, continue to be flushed away in the water supply?"

Landfills are one alternative. At least they don't empty directly, and immediately, into waterways like some sewage.

Marjorie E. Powell, a lawyer for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, says landfills are "more environmentally friendly," while EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith contends that landfilling of hazardous pharmaceutical waste "poses little threat to the public."

Still, Grumbles acknowledges that landfills, while safer, are not a permanent solution. That's because pharmaceuticals can eventually reach waterways from landfills through leaks or intentional releases of treated seepage known as leachate.

An agency staffer wrote in a memo last year: "EPA recognizes that residuals in the leachate could contaminate groundwater supplies and ultimately reach water treatment plants, but disposal into the trash is currently considered a BMP" — or best management practice.

Already, researchers have detected trace concentrations of drugs — including the pain reliever ibuprofen and seizure medicine carbamazepine — in seepage or groundwater near landfills.

Environmental professionals outside government are reaching a consensus that incinerators are the best disposal method.

"That's the best practice for today because we don't really know what the hell to do with the stuff," says industrial engineer Laura Brannen, an executive at Waste Management Healthcare Solutions, of Houston. She says burning destroys more drug waste than all other methods, though some contaminants may escape in smoke and ash.

On a recent day at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, Mary Kuch was getting ready to squirt leftovers from a syringe of hydromorphone, a powerful morphine derivative, into a sink. When she started out in nursing 18 years ago, "I took it for granted, because I was a young nurse, and that's what other nurses did," she says. "But I did find it strange."

These days, only four gallons — drugs with high potential for abuse — go down the hospital's drains each year. Nearly all leftover medicine and contaminated packaging are instead tossed into black bins and rolled to a hospital storage room crammed with scores of 55-gallon drums.

There, waste-company employee Bryant Sears — dressed in a Teflon suit, rubber gloves and goggles — conducts a sorting operation. Pills, blister packs and liquid medicines collected in vials, along with syringes and IV bags, are separated out according to differing disposal standards and methods. Occasionally, he glances at a wall-sized placard with details on which drug goes where — hazardous waste in one barrel, nonhazardous in another. A roll of "hazardous waste" stickers hangs from a pole on the wall.

Sears points to some epinephrine, a heart drug, saying, "Now that it's past its expiration date, it's waste."

These leftovers and discards ultimately will be incinerated.

EPA's Smith says even municipal burners unapproved for hazardous waste "will destroy all but a minute fraction" of organic compounds — the kind found in pharmaceuticals.

But Stephen DiZio, a manager with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, says not so fast. "I don't think we're encouraging incineration of anything. The public outcry would be so great."

The push for incineration hides an irony. Several decades ago, drug waste was routinely chucked into the trash and burned in hospital or city incinerators.

Then came a national campaign against air pollution. Most hospitals shut down their burners, and city incinerator managers became pickier about what they'd accept. With options restricted, hospitals began shipping more drug waste to landfills — and dumping more into toilets and sinks.

___

A few choices are expanding. Some states have passed laws to make it easier to contribute unused drugs to charity pharmacies that supply low-income patients.

Also, a small share of unused drugs is shipped back to manufacturers for credit — and incineration, waste consultants say. But the drugs are supposed to be sent back in original packaging — sometimes impractical because the packaging is discarded or damaged.

Several long-term care residences want to deploy automatic drug-dispensing machines that suppliers would refill often to reduce waste.

While not yet practical, there are several experimental technologies, such as destroying trace drugs with an electrical arc, microwaves, or caustic chemicals.

Increasingly, some bureaucrats and health professionals are suggesting that drug makers help pay costs of managing drug waste. But the pharmaceutical industry says there's insufficient evidence of environmental harm to warrant the expense.

But impatience is mounting. Even the EPA has begun to take such suggestions seriously. Grumbles says drug makers "should do more for product stewardship and meds retrieval now." He says it would be unwise to wait for all the proof.

For now, many health facilities, especially small ones, are put off by the cost of proper handling. Drugs deemed hazardous by the EPA — about 5 percent of the market — might cost up to $2 a pound to incinerate in a certified hazardous waste incinerator, says Vestara's Davidner. A pound might cost 35 cents to burn in a regular trash incinerator.

Tom Clark, an executive at the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, wonders: "When you can flush it down the toilet for free, why would you want to pay — unless there's some significant penalties?"

___

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate (at) ap.org

(Copy of Email sent to all Arizona State Senate and House members)
From Dick Fojut in Tucson, AZ
9-19-9

In a one-sided "frenzy," our Major Corporate "news" Media are trying to convince us we MUST all get the SWINE FLU VACCINE, declaring the vaccine totally safe!

In a back room of New Scientist's offices in London, I sit down at a table with the Russian biochemist Mikhail Shchepinov. In front of us are two teaspoons and a brown glass bottle. Shchepinov opens the bottle, pours out a teaspoon of clear liquid and drinks it down. He smiles. It's my turn.

I put a spoonful of the liquid in my mouth and swallow. It tastes slightly sweet, which is a surprise. I was expecting it to be exactly like water since that, in fact, is what it is - heavy water to be precise, chemical formula D₂O. The D stands for deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen with an atomic mass of 2 instead of 1. Deuterium is what puts the heavy in heavy water. An ice cube made out of it would sink in normal water.

My sip of heavy water is the culmination of a long journey trying to get to the bottom of a remarkable claim that Shchepinov first made around 18 months ago. He believes he has discovered an elixir of youth, a way to drink (or more likely eat) your way to a longer life.

Many anti-aging medications are based on supplementing your body's own defenses with antioxidant compounds such as vitamin C and beta-carotene, though there is scant evidence that this does any good.

Shchepinov realized there was another way to defeat free radicals. While he was familiarizing himself with research on aging, his day job involved a well-established - if slightly obscure - bit of chemistry called the isotope effect. On Christmas day 2006, it dawned on him that putting the two together could lead to a new way of postponing the ravages of time.

The basic concept of the isotope effect is that the presence of heavy isotopes in a molecule can slow down its chemical reactions.

All of this is conventional chemistry: the isotope effect was discovered back in the 1930s and its mechanism explained in the 1940s. The effect has a long pedigree as a research tool in basic chemistry for probing the mechanisms of complex reactions.

Shchepinov, however, is the first researcher to link the effect with aging. It dawned on him that if aging is caused by free radicals trashing covalent bonds, and if those same bonds can be strengthened using the isotope effect, why not use it to make vulnerable biomolecules more resistant to attack? All you would have to do is judiciously place deuterium or carbon-13 in the bonds that are most vulnerable to attack, and chemistry should take care of the rest.

Curtain Fall on the Aspartame Follies

By Betty Martini, D.Hum
April 2008

http://www.thenhf.com/articles/articles_699/articles_699.htm

"The 25 Questions"

Guidelines for Determining the Development of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EH)

Adapted from Electric UFOs: Fireballs, Electromagnetics and Abnormal States by Albert Budden (London: Blandford, 1998)

1. Do you frequently get severe shocks from door handles, car bodywork, and other surfaces?

2. Do you feel uncomfortable in synthetic materials, such as acrylic, polyester, or nylon?

3. Are you sensitive to perfumed products, aerosols, cigarette smoke, gasoline, natural gas, make-up, aftershave, and similar substances.?

4. Does electrical equipment go wrong or behave oddly in your presence?

5. Are there any foods or drinks that you either avoid or consume large amounts of? Do you have food allergies, for example, to chocolate, coffee, milk, orange juice, food with artificial coloring or flavors, or wheat products?

6. Did you have a happy childhood? If no, give reason(s) briefly.

7. Do you ever have hairs on your body stand on end, feel suddenly cold or overheated, or experience tingling or numbness?

8. Do you ever get a metallic taste in your mouth?

9. Do you get deja vu strongly and often?

10. Do you ever get the overwhelming sensation that someone is in the room with you, watching, although you cannot see anyone?

11. Are you very sensitive to light? (Sunlight? Flickering light? Do you wear tinted glasses?)

12. Are you sensitive to medications, especially antibiotics?

13. Do you have what could be called psychic experiences, such as ghostly encounters or out-of-body-experiences (OBEs)?

14. Do you find that objects in your home go missing or sometimes seem to behave oddly in any way?

15. Do light bulbs or batteries seem to last for a very short period of time in your home?

16. Have you ever been close to a lightning strike or suffered major electrocution? Or defibrillation? Or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)?

17. Do you ever see small lights darting about the room?

18. Does fluorescent light bother you at all?

19. Do you ever have periods where you lose all concentration, feel over-heated, see light flashes, lose muscle power in your legs, or feel tingly and heavy?

20. Are there any of the following features near your home: a quarry, radio mast, power lines, reservoir, hill, military base, TV or radio station, radio ham?

21. Does time ever seem to slow down or pass in a flash?

22. Have you ever had periods of time for which you cannot account?

23. As an activity, do you write very much?

24. Have you ever had the experience of everything going very still, timeless, and silent?

25. Do you ever get painful electrical rippling sensations under the skin?

Psychic Phenomena and the EM Hypothesis

by William Patrick Bourne

With development of the experimental understanding of electromagnetic

(EM) energy during the nineteenth century, it was natural that

parapsychology researchers would entertain the notion that some

psychic phenomena, for example telepathy, might be a manifestation of

direct brain-to-brain communication using EM carrier waves of some

sort.

EM waves are used today for a variety of purposes, including radio

and television communication. It has also been demonstrated that the

human body and nervous system produce EM energy of various

frequencies.

Although EM signals of some type between people might be significant

over short distances, they cannot explain the great accumulated body

of evidence in the parapsychology literature.

The total electrical power emitted by the human brain is very weak,

less than 0.000001 watts. We know that the strength of an

electromagnetic signal drops off very quickly as it travels, and yet

long range telepathy and PK experiments have been performed which

indicate that psychic prowess does not seem to diminish with distance.

Furthermore, successful telepathic reception of target information

has been achieved while the subject was enclosed within an

electromagnetically shielded chamber called a Faraday cage. Although

extremely low frequencies (ELF) may still penetrate such a chamber,

the information-carrying capacity of these long wavelengths seems to

be too low to account for the quality of the psychic signal in, for

example, remote-viewing experiments.

Physicist Z.V. Harvalik published an interesting series of papers

during the 1970s in American Dowser Quarterly Digest. Working with

expert dowser Wilhelm De Boer, he showed that the subject reacted

with great sensitivity to changes in a magnetic field. By placing

strips of magnetic-shielding material on the dowser's body, Harvalik

determined that biological dowsing sensors seem to be located at the

kidneys as well as in the vicinity of the pineal gland within the

brain. When one of these two areas was shielded the dowsing signal

was completely extinguished, but when both areas were shielded the

dowser's sensitivity returned and even seemed enhanced. This would

seem to indicate that a non-EM sensory system was available to take

over.

The evidence is strong that signals with unknown characteristics,

certainly unlike electromagnetic waves, exist within Nature.

Further reading:

Harvalik, Z. V. (1973-1976). American Dowser Quarterly Digest

(Danville, Vermont).

Krippner, Stanley (Ed.) (1987). Advances in Parapsychological

Research, Vol. 5. North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (See pages 112-

116.)

Targ, Russell, & Harold Puthoff. (1977). Mind Reach. New York: Dell

Publishing.

August 2009
Last Temptation
An interview with Wendell Potter

The former mouthpiece for insurance giant Cigna divulges his role in misleading the public, the emotional day that led to his whistle-blowing, and what should really scare you.

potter300.jpgIn June 2007, Wendell Potter was head of corporate communications at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance companies in America, when he attended the U.S. premier of Michael Moore’s Sicko. Potter was part of the team charged with discrediting Moore’s film, which advance word said was highly critical of the health insurance industry. Potter “sat quietly in the back and took notes,” but soon realized he had a problem. “When I saw the movie, I’ll be honest: I thought it was a real good documentary. I knew from my own studies of other healthcare systems that it was an accurate portrayal of those systems and how they are able to provide universal coverage.” Yet he was being paid by Cigna to tell people the opposite, that the film was full of lies.

Just a few weeks later, Potter, who is from Tennessee, read in a local paper about a free healthcare expedition being held in Wise County, Virginia. He decided to check it out. Walking through the fairground gates, Potter saw hundreds of people waiting in the rain while physicians attended to patients in animal stalls or on gurneys lying on the rain-soaked pavement. Tents had been pitched across the fairground lawns, creating a scene “like something that could’ve been happening on a battlefield or in a war-torn country.” Tears mixed with the rain to cloud Potter’s vision. “What I thought was: ‘Is this the United States?’ It was so remote from my reality. It just seemed impossible.”

In months and years prior, Potter had grown increasingly skeptical about his job as chief spokesman for Cigna. Though he insists he never intentionally lied to a reporter, he began to spout what he thought were either misleading or less than honest statements. Moreover, his job required him to hype new programs he felt were not in the best interest of patients or the U.S. healthcare system—particularly when it came to high-deductible, or “consumer driven” plans. He came to feel he was on the wrong side of the healthcare debate and would catch himself gazing into a mirror, wondering, “Who is this? How did this happen to me?” After Sicko and Wise County, he resigned.

Since then, Potter has become an outspoken advocate for healthcare reform. Why reform? Because of statistics like these: The U.S. healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, with each person spending more than twice as much on care than people in other industrialized nations. Yet our system ranks 29th in infant mortality, 28th in healthy life expectancy, and 37th overall. In June, Potter testified before the Senate on the devastating effects that Wall Street has on our healthcare system. The overwhelming demand to satisfy investors, Potter told the committee, is what causes insurance companies to “confuse their customers and dump the sick.”

With twenty years of industry experience—he was head of corporate communications with Humana before moving on to Cigna—Potter is an important voice in the healthcare debate. As a former insider, he is uniquely positioned to reveal the industry’s secrets, like its obsession with the medical-loss ratio—the difference between what health insurance companies pay out in claims and what it has left over—which, Potter says, causes otherwise good people in the industry to allow patients to die in order to increase profits. Yet in another sense, Potter is not so unique. We’ve seen them before, former insiders who reap huge financial benefits from an industry or system only to publicly denigrate it years later. If things were so bad, we’re left wondering, why didn’t Potter say something earlier? I recently spoke with Potter by phone.

—Jake Whitney for Guernica

Guernica: During your time in the industry, you created health insurance front groups to mislead the public. Can you give me an example of one of these front groups?

Wendell Potter: When the Clinton plan collapsed [in 1994], there was an effort to pass legislation that would give enrollees in managed care more protections. The industry saw this as anti-managed care legislation, so they established a group called the Health Benefits Coalition. The Health Benefits Coalition, with the funding it got from the insurance industry, killed off the effort to get a Patient’s Bill of Rights passed. A more recent example of a front group I was involved with was trying to blunt the effect of [Michael Moore’s documentary] Sicko. Through a PR firm, the industry created a front group to disseminate misleading information about the healthcare systems featured in Sicko—particularly in Canada, the U.K., and France. This front group was set up specifically to try to counter [Moore’s positive depiction of them].

Guernica: What were your duties with these front groups?

Wendell Potter: To help form messaging and develop strategy with public relations firms. PR firms help create the front groups and serve as the back offices to get the work done. The insurance industry contributes advice and counsel and feedback, but the real work gets done by the PR firms that the insurance industry hires.

Guernica: Was it difficult for you to discredit a movie you felt was accurate?

Wendell Potter: It was very difficult. I was beginning to hate my job. I’d look in the mirror and say, “Who is this? How did this happen to you?” But I had a job to do and was being paid quite a bit, so I soldiered on. I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did if I didn’t believe that the company I worked for was honest and trying to meet the needs of people. I believed I was making some kind of positive contribution. As I was climbing up the corporate ladder, I got to understand more about how the companies make money and how they are so beholden to Wall Street—both investors and Wall Street analysts—and the things that they do to meet Wall Street’s expectations.

Guernica: You worked in the industry for twenty years. It doesn’t seem like it should have taken so long.

Wendell Potter: You don’t really focus on it or understand the significance of it. I’ll admit I knew that Wall Street looked at the medical-loss ratio. I knew it was an important measure. I didn’t know until, frankly, very recently how important it was. As recently as fifteen years ago, the medical-loss ratio in this country was 95 percent. Since then, there’s been great industry consolidation to the point that now there are seven companies that dominate. They’re all for-profit. During the time that this consolidation, this shift to for-profit occurred, the medical-loss ratio has continued to drop. Now it’s around 80 percent. That means twenty cents of every dollar goes to something other than paying medical claims. Just fifteen years ago, ninety-five cents of every dollar went to paying medical claims. This trend is due to pressure from Wall Street. If a company misses Wall Street’s expectations—if the medical-loss ratio starts to inch up—the company will suffer. I’ve seen companies lose 20 percent of their stock value in one day by disappointing Wall Street with their medical-loss ratio.

Our current reality is far scarier than the fear-mongering. What people have now is a corporate bureaucrat who stands between a person and his or her doctor.

Guernica: So are you saying our healthcare system would be better off if medical insurance companies weren’t publicly traded?

Wendell Potter: We would not have the same problems. Just look at what’s happened since 1993, the beginning of the conversion to for-profit status. The two biggest companies now are Wellpoint and United. In 1993, they were very small. They’ve grown to their size and influence through very aggressive acquisition strategies. In Wellpoint’s case, they bought up many non-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans around the country, which have since converted to for-profit status. United has had a similar strategy. Aetna and Cigna are third and fourth in size, and they, too, have grown largely by acquisition. The fixation that Wall Street has with the medical-loss ratio has created huge problems because investors look at that measure even more than they look at earnings-per-share, which is the primary measure that investors look at in most industries.

Guernica: Shifting to President Obama’s plan: critics often say that Obama’s healthcare plan would be detrimental to care because it would take decisions away from doctors and patients and put them in the hands of a government bureaucrat. Is this a legitimate concern?

Wendell Potter: No. But it is one of those talking points the industry repeats every time we have a debate about reform. They said it in 1993. They say it whenever the industry is under threat of increased government involvement. What I’m telling people is that our current reality is far scarier than the fear-mongering. What people have now is a corporate bureaucrat who stands between a person and his or her doctor. That’s much scarier than the specter of more government. In any event, there is nothing in any healthcare plan that is being proposed that would put a government bureaucrat between a person and his or her doctor.

Guernica: Why is a corporate bureaucrat scarier?

Wendell Potter: Because every person who works for a for-profit company knows that the company has to meet Wall Street’s expectations. Every manager of the company has to pull his or her weight to make sure he and his team are doing all that they can to help the company meet that objective. That includes medical directors. Same with the nurses. They know what the company has to do to meet Wall Street’s expectations and to stay in the good graces of investors.

Guernica: So in other words, corporate bureaucrats have a profit incentive to deny care to people who are enrolled in their plans.

Wendell Potter: Absolutely. It doesn’t have to be stated directly to them that you will be paid a particular bonus if you deny X number of claims; it’s known, and it’s part of the culture.

Guernica: You said you’re familiar with the healthcare systems featured in Sicko and believe them to be superior to the U.S. system.

Wendell Potter: They’re better in many regards. No system is perfect. Every system has flaws and challenges.

Guernica: What about the long wait times we’re warned about, and that government-run healthcare would be one step on the path to socialism? Is there any legitimacy to these claims?

Wendell Potter: No. In fact, we can look at the wait times in this country as more horrific than anything you’ll see in the Canadian system, for example. For elective procedures in many of these countries, yes, you might wait longer for some elective procedure. You might wait longer for an MRI than you would in this country because, on a per capita basis, there are often more machines here than in some of those other systems. But life expectancy in almost every one of these other countries is greater than ours. People do not have to wait long for urgent or necessary care. In fact, in many countries it’s more likely that you would be able to get a same-day appointment with a doctor than here.

Guernica: How do you know?

Wendell Potter: I’ve traveled abroad a lot and I’ve studied them. I’ve been a student of statistics of these other systems, so I do know this, and yes, I have been there.

Guernica: Much was made during the Democratic primaries of health insurance contributions to Democrats. I believe Hillary Clinton raked in a record amount from healthcare companies. Do you think these donations have helped stall legislation?

Wendell Potter: Oh, absolutely. Every step of the way. Let me tell you a story. I am a great admirer of Hillary Clinton’s. I think she’s done terrific things for this country and is a great public servant. But money talks and relationships make a difference. These [insurance] companies contribute more to Democrats than they used to, and they’ve begun hiring lobbyists from the Democratic side of the aisle. They look for the best-connected lobbyists. The CEO of Cigna [H. Edward Hanway] wanted to spend a few minutes with Hillary when she was running for president. One of the lobbyists that Cigna hired was known to be very close to the Clintons, and Hillary Clinton, in particular. Lo and behold, she was able to arrange a meeting for [Hanway] to come to Washington and spend a few minutes with Hillary. I don’t think that [Hanway] necessarily persuaded her to see things from his point of view. She’s not a huge fan of insurance companies. But he was able to get in the door and spend a few minutes with her. And that’s what I’m talking about. It’s the influence insurance companies have been able to buy through hiring people who are well-connected, often former members of Congress or former staff members.

Guernica: Then there are the Blue Dog Democrats and their role in holding up legislation. What’s their motivation?

Wendell Potter: The industry has contributed so heavily to the Republicans over the years that they are pretty much assured that every single Republican in Congress will vote exactly the way they want on any issue pertaining to healthcare. This has not occurred just with campaign contributions. It’s also ideology. The industry has been very determined to carve out its niche on the right side of the political spectrum and, along with the business community, be advocates of a free-market approach to any aspect of our economy—and make sure that there is minimal regulation of any economic sector. So there is a great ideological kinship between the insurance industry and the Republican Party. And this is close to the ideology of the Blue Dog Democrats, who tend to be in border states of the south or where there are more Republicans. Industry has been feeding the Blue Dogs talking points and working overtime to make sure they see things from their philosophical and business perspectives.

Guernica: It was reported late last month [July 29] that a tentative agreement was reached with the Blue Dogs in the House that would omit the “public option.” Do you think that’s a good thing?

Wendell Potter: There have been some compromises that have been made to the Blue Dogs. But Nancy Pelosi said today that the public option is not being sacrificed. I think the leadership in the House and Senate will be fierce defenders of the public option. The Blue Dogs are insurers’ best hope of gutting healthcare reform and removing the public option from legislation. So they are very, very important to the industry, which is why you’re hearing so much about them right now.

Guernica: Do you think the public option is important?

The reason I started speaking out is I knew the insurance industry would come out with guns blazing to kill reform. It’s the same old playbook. I know it because I essentially helped write it.

Wendell Potter: It’s essential. Reform without the public option would be far less meaningful and effective. The public option may not go as far as people would like in some ways, but we need a mechanism that controls costs and makes healthcare more available to citizens. It would go a long way toward keeping the insurance industry more honest, as the president has said.

Guernica: Conservatives’ opposition to the public option is confusing. Shouldn’t conservatives welcome a system that gives more choices to the consumer, which is supposed to be a tenet of conservatism?

Wendell Potter: It doesn’t make a lot of sense. On the one hand, they’re saying that [a public option] would put the private sector at an unfair disadvantage, while they’re also saying that the private sector can operate more efficiently. They are trying to have it both ways. But the reality is that the free-market simply does not work in the healthcare sector as it might in other sectors. A public insurance plan wouldn’t need to have the sales, marketing, and underwriting expenses—and would certainly not need to pay executives exorbitant salaries, and would not need to set aside a significant chunk of every premium dollar to pay shareholders—that private plans do.

Guernica: The [July 30] New York Times had a story that said this: “Obama’s ability to shape the healthcare debate appears to be waning as opponents portray the effort as a government takeover.” Apparently conservative messaging is working.

The industry knows through many years of focus group testing what messages scare people. “Government takeover,” is one of those terms.

Wendell Potter: The reason I started speaking out is I knew the insurance industry would come out with guns blazing to kill reform. I knew the tactics they’d be using and buzzwords they’d be repeating—especially through their shills in Congress, media and business. It’s the same old playbook. I know it because I essentially helped write it. I knew that when the time came, they’d be unleashing that crap. And I knew that it would have the impact it’s having on people and Congress. It’s basically a political contest. At first, it seemed like Obama was just going to walk into office and transformative healthcare legislation would get passed. But I knew it would be a contentious fight—that the industry would be throwing everything conceivable to keep significant reform from happening. Because we’re talking about billions and billions of dollars at stake for those companies and investors. But it’s not a lost cause. Over the next few weeks, we will see one hell of a battle in the districts and over airwaves as proponents and opponents of change spend tons of money on TV and radio advertisements. We’ll be hearing fear mongering like we’ve never heard before, but also be hearing, I hope, effective advertising from the proponents of reform.

Guernica: The Times story really attests to the power of opponents of healthcare reform; don’t most Americans favor reform and some type of universal coverage?

Wendell Potter: They are in favor of it, yes. But the industry knows through many years of focus group testing what messages scare people. And the term you mentioned a few minutes ago, “government takeover,” is one of those terms that they’ve tested and know will scare the bejesus out of people. They know that in the past, people have been so afraid of anything that approaches socialism that you’ll hear that comparison all the time; that if we go with reform, we will have a government takeover of healthcare; that we’ll be on the slippery slope toward socialism.

Guernica: But what about programs like Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration? These are large, extremely effective, government-run programs that have been around a long time, despite the slippery slope rhetoric.

Wendell Potter: The health insurance industry knows this. That is why they’re so careful with language. Medicare is far more popular than almost any private health insurance program in the country. And people in other programs you mentioned are certainly very grateful. But many of them don’t know that it’s a public program.

Guernica: But we’ve heard this exact same talk of socialism decades ago during the battles over Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc. And I don’t think very many people want to lose these programs now.

Wendell Potter: Conservatives are so bound to ideology they refuse to take a serious, open-minded look at how for-profit insurance companies have wrecked our healthcare. They don’t want to take the blinders off. What gives me hope is that despite all the lies and all the disinformation that opponents of reform have spread over the years, real reform has nevertheless been enacted. Like the Medicare program during the Johnson years; like the Medicaid program that is such an essential safety net for so many of our people; the Veteran’s program you mentioned. We have plenty of examples of government programs that work great and have done so much for so many billions of people over many years.

Guernica: You’ve mentioned that when you worked for Cigna, you liked your co-workers. You’ve said that you respected your bosses and still do. Have you had contact with them? Are they aware of what side you’re on these days?

Wendell Potter: Oh, there’s no doubt they know what side I’m on. I have not had contact with my former boss or CEO. My former boss was the company’s general counsel [Carol Ann Petren]. She reports to the CEO [Hanway]. I worked and served [Hanway] throughout my career, knew him very well, and like him personally. But he’s one of those people who we just talked about who are committed to privatizing all aspects of the economy. And he’s benefited enormously—earning many millions of dollars in compensation [According to Forbes, Hanway earned over $30 million in 2007]. So has my former boss, also one of the most highly compensated employees [Petren made $2.18 million in 2008]. She is of the same philosophy. I respect their right to have those opinions. But they’re dead wrong.

Guernica: This is an industry that allows people to die so it can increase profits. I would think that it would be difficult to respect people who remain in that industry.

Wendell Potter: When you’re in an executive office in a skyscraper, and you’ve got people bringing your lunch, who take you home in a company-owned limousine with a driver on the company payroll, you get a very skewed understanding of America. You are removed from the reality of how most people live. And the number—46.7 million people without insurance—remains just a number when you’re in that environment. It’s only when you let yourself be around people who are without insurance, who are underinsured, who wait in line... [long pause]

Guernica: Hello?

Wendell Potter: [Choked up] Yes, I’m here.

Guernica: Sounds like this is very emotional for you.

Wendell Potter: Yes. It’s crazy but I still get choked up when I remember the Wise County experience. Talking about it brings back the vision of all those people standing in line in the rain to get care in animal stalls.

Guernica: Did you ever express your concerns with colleagues at Cigna?

The tragic thing about these town hall meetings is how some of these angry citizens are being manipulated.

Wendell Potter: I talked to friends, but I didn’t muster the courage to [talk to co-workers]. When I decided to quit, I thought I’d just kind of go quietly. I announced it as a retirement, but I could have made a lot more money had I stayed. But I was okay with that. I wasn’t ready to go fishing, but I was ready to take a break. At one point, I thought I might have a chance to change things inside the company and the industry. But I realized very quickly that that was just wishful thinking. The industry is controlled by Wall Street investors. These companies are for-profit. Their first rule is to enhance shareholder value. That is what’s important. If what I said hindered a company’s profitability, I was not going to be listened to, plain and simple.

Guernica: What I’m getting at is this: You’ve become a significant voice in the healthcare debate. But there’s a portion of the public that looks at you skeptically. We’ve seen this before—Scott McClellan is a recent example—someone who is in an industry or system, they make a lot of money, they get out and that’s when they start crying corruption. They write a book and make a little more money. Some are left wondering; “If it was such a bad industry, why didn’t you speak up earlier?” Maybe you could have made a difference in the nineteen nineties.

Wendell Potter: I understand that completely. Looking back, I wish there had been a moment when I could’ve spoken up. On the other hand, I needed to spend time in the industry to gain the perspective I have. I bought into the industry and what it was doing for many years. The company treated me very well for fifteen years, and I didn’t want to be fired; I had to think about the needs of my family. So there was a lot I had to think about as I was sorting through everything. But I can’t help people from thinking that. To those that question my motives, I’d just like to say that I’m doing this because I think it’s the right thing to do. And the timing was something that… I don’t know if it would have been better had I done this earlier. Maybe so; I don’t know. But the way it’s turned out may be just as effective. Right now, the debate is at its peak.

Guernica: Let’s talk about these contentious town hall meetings. What role, if any, does the industry play in causing the disruptive, or what Senator Claire McCaskill called “rude” behavior?

Wendell Potter: One of the big PR firms [for] the insurance industry is APCO Worldwide. They’ve represented the industry for quite a long time. They’re skilled at setting up front groups to spread disinformation to challenge proposals. So they will get talking points into the hands of conservative radio talk show hosts and editorial writers at conservative publications. It all comes from the health insurance industry, but they spread this stuff in such a way that their fingerprints are not directly on it. A guy named Bill Pierce works for APCO; he is an executive there. He used to work as a spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Bush Administration. So if you called the number for Healthcare America, you would be connected with Bill Pierce’s office at APCO... The tragic thing about these town hall meetings is how some of these angry citizens are being manipulated. When you see these stories about the meetings and how the participants are so concerned about government takeover of our healthcare system, they use the very words that were fed to them by the health insurance industry, not realizing that that’s where they came from, not realizing that they are unwitting pawns of the industry. Because they hear that stuff from people they believe are credible, like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.
Guernica: What are the chances that the industry is actually busing people in to disrupt the meetings?

I am very aware of the efforts the [healthcare] industry goes to to bus people to Washington. It’s one of the most sophisticated grass-roots operations you will find in any industry.

Wendell Potter: I think indirectly they are. APCO and other PR firms do stuff like that. It would be hard to trace it directly because they go through a lot of trouble to funnel the money in ways that it’s not directly traceable to them. When I say money, of course we’re talking about insurance premiums that people pay, and it’s being used for these purposes.

Guernica: So you’re saying these PR firms could potentially be sticking people on buses and sending them to these town hall meetings in order to disrupt them?

Wendell Potter: Yeah, they know where to go, what kind of organizations to turn to to get that kind of stuff done. There’s no doubt about it. On the other hand, I’m sure there are individuals who show up at these meetings who show up on their own and feel like they need to make sure their voices are heard... But other people there are very orchestrated.

Guernica: When you were with Cigna, did you have any first-hand knowledge of these kinds of tactics?

Wendell Potter: I am very aware of the efforts the industry goes to to bus people to Washington. It’s one of the most sophisticated grass-roots operations you will find in any industry. They have a long list of senior citizens, for example, who are enrolled in the Medicare Advantage plan. Insurance companies will pay for these people to fly to Washington for a day of citizen lobbying. [The senior citizens] will give the impression that they are there speaking on their own, but it’s completely orchestrated by the industry. What these seniors don’t know is that the only way they would lose their Medicare HMO is if the insurance company dumps them because they don’t think they’re profitable enough anymore. That happened back in the nineties, Cigna did it, Aetna did it—all the insurance companies that participated in the Medicare HMO program did it. That’s when Congress reduced the reimbursements a little bit, these big insurance companies dumped seniors by the millions...

Guernica: You’ve said that Cigna purges small businesses whose employees have serious health problems by raising premiums on these businesses until they can’t pay them. Senator Rockefeller recently asked Cigna about this practice, but I believe they denied it.

Wendell Potter: Cigna denied it, but there is evidence in a transcript that Rockefeller has in which the president of Cigna Healthcare uses the exact word: purging. So within the last couple of days, Rockefeller sent them a letter asking them to prove that they don’t purge. Because Cigna is saying they don’t [purge], but there’s evidence that they do. So essentially Rockefeller has caught them in a lie.

Guernica: How do we get other health insurance industry executives to see this from the point of the view of the uninsured?

Wendell Potter: It’s hard. My own process of doing this—it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. To say: “Okay, I’ve got a good job here, I’ve got a family to support, I’ve got a mortgage, I’ve got kids in college; but I’m going to quit my job and do what’s right”—that just doesn’t happen every day. And when you’re in a company, you also are thinking, “I am making a positive difference?” The people who work at these companies by and large are not evil people. But they only see their small part of it; they don’t see the broader picture of what the industry is doing to our healthcare system.

Guernica: If you had a few minutes in a room with some of these executives—maybe some of your former colleagues and friends like Hanway and Petren—who look only at profits. What would you say to them to get them to change their minds?

Wendell Potter: I’d say: “Look at what has happened to our healthcare system and look honestly at the role the insurance industry has played in that. Be honest as you look at this. You know what I’m saying is true. If you were like me, you probably don’t want to think about it. But look at what I’ve been saying, and you’ll recognize what I’m saying as true. You know it’s true. Do the right thing—which in my view is stepping away from the industry and speaking out.” I would also like to say to the critics of healthcare reform: “Open your minds a little bit and take a realistic look at our healthcare system and what has happened to it and the reasons for it. I think you’ll come to the same conclusions that I did.”

Guernica: Knowing people like Hanway, Petren—do you think they will ever come around to seeing things your way?

Wendell Potter: I’m doubtful. I’ve read that people are basically hard-wired to feel the way they do and see the world the way they do. Many people are just born Republican and Conservative. They’re just inclined to believe that the free market is the best thing regardless of in what sense of the economy it is. They have that element; those are the people who control these companies. They might just be hard-wired to see the world like that.


==================

Compensation fund - James Hardie non-executive directors barred from being directors - accountability (think ACC's Board)

Why the Hardie finding will be good for corporate governance
Date: August 21 2009


By Elisabeth Sexton



Since the former board of James Hardie was found guilty of corporate misconduct in April, a torrent of business commentary has suggested that the law expects too much, particularly of non-executive directors.

These are the part-time stewards of a company charged with setting strategy and supervising its management.

The gist has been that the NSW Supreme Court decision was just about a single media release.

OK, it was about the politically sensitive subject of compensation for asbestos diseases. And, yes, it turned out the rosy assertion in 2001 that a new $293 million trust would be ''fully funded'' was, by 2004, about $1.5 billion out.

Even so, the argument goes, the non-executive directors had paid too heavy a price in the damage to their reputations and careers for a one-off lapse about PR. And more broadly, Justice Ian Gzell's ruling had set an unrealistic standard by expecting boards to check every media release and micro-manage executives.

This sentiment was summed up in a June headline in The Australian Financial Review: Is this the death of the non-executive director?

If it wasn't clear enough from Justice Gzell's decision in April, his reasons yesterday for banning the directors from boardrooms for five years spell out that their breach of duty was more than an inadvertent slip. The board's approval of the media release in 2001, ''while isolated, was highly significant,'' the judge said yesterday.

The non-executive directors knew from their board papers that James Hardie had to convince the public there were sufficient funds in the new trust to meet all legitimate asbestos claims, he said. They were aware of the significance of what the release would say about the level of funding. The advice they had received did not support its emphatic wording.

Their approval of the release was a deliberate attempt to gain acceptance of the plan to remove asbestos claims from the James Hardie group into the new trust.

''This was a serious breach of duty and a flagrant one,'' the judge said.

These views might be overturned on appeal in a higher court. But that possibility does not alter the gravity of what was at stake in this case.

It was about convincing the federal and state governments that, in undertaking a major corporate restructure, James Hardie could be trusted to look after people suffering from vicious diseases.

Thousands of Australians are expected to contract mesothelioma and asbestosis from exposure to James Hardie products for decades to come.

One testimonial filed in the case was from the investment banker Peter Hunt, who advised the then chairman Meredith Hellicar during the three-year negotiations for the new compensation scheme which replaced the underfunded trust in 2007.

Hunt, the executive chairman of Caliburn, described a task made difficult by uncertainties - in projecting future claims, economic growth rates, investment returns and James Hardie's performance and funding capacity for at least 40 years - and by the complexity of the legal issues involved and the public and media spotlight on the negotiations.

Hunt praised Hellicar for her hard work yet his account of how much was involved in achieving the new scheme underlined the directors' shabby job of addressing these same uncertainties and complexities in 2001.

Directors and advisers hyperventilating about the wider impact of the penalties handed down yesterday should consult a note sent by law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler to its clients about Justice Gzell's main decision in April. ABL was involved in the case, representing the former non-executive director Dan O'Brien.

It began by noting the judgment had caused ''widespread alarm within the business community'' and that ''some in the media have gone so far as to label the decision 'a blow against good corporate governance' which will distract directors from their primary function of guiding a company's strategy''.

The law firm said rather than being such an attack on good governance, ''the case simply reaffirms that directors must actively participate and scrutinise matters discussed at board meetings'' and should satisfy themselves about the accuracy of ''announcements of importance to the company and the public''.

You don't need to be an expert in corporate law to work that out.

The result is a system that achieves higher customer satisfaction than the private sector, higher quality of care by a number of measures and lower mortality rates � at much lower cost per patient. Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of veterans have switched from private physicians to the V.A. The commander of the American Legion has proposed letting elderly vets spend their Medicare benefits at V.A. facilities, which would lead to better medical care and large government savings.

Think about that: they won�t let vets on Medicare buy into the V.A. system, not because they believe this policy initiative would fail, but because they�re afraid it would succeed.

In 2003, however, the Bush administration pushed through the Medicare Advantage program, which offers heavy subsidies to H.M.O.�s. According to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 11 percent more per person than traditional Medicare. Oh, and mortality rates in these plans are 40 percent higher than those of elderly veterans covered by the V.A. But thanks to the subsidy, membership in Medicare Advantage plans is surging.

On the other side, ideology and fealty to interest groups make them willing to waste billions subsidizing private H.M.O.�s.

source link

By edema excessive fluid gather in body parts or greater areas of the body, making the areas swollen. Edema is most often a problem in the legs, but can occur anywhere in the body.

There are several types of edema, and many cases are also a mixture of more than one type. By lymphedema the drainage from the tissues through the lymph vessels are impaired or excessive fluid goes through the blood capillary walls into the spaces between the cells in a tissue. Edema can also occur because of poor drainage of blood through the veins towards the heart. Edema can further be caused by general accumulation of excessive fluid in the body.

The causes of edema are many. Edema is a symptom by most inflammations. Insufficient heart action by congestive heart failure can cause edema. A too high intake of salt can cause general water retention in the body. Sitting and standing long in the same position can cause edema in the lower limbs. A still sitting life without exercise can cause or aggravate edema.

Insufficiencies of the liver or kidneys can cause fluid retention and thereby edema. Edema can be a side effect of antihypertensive drugs, steroids surgery and radiation therapy. Further causes of different types of edema are varicose veins, cancer, hypothyroidism, blood clots, constipation and physical injuries.

To treat edema, it is important to treat the underlying disease or injury. However, medical treatment does not always cure the underlying condition or the cause is wholly or partially lifestyle aspects. Therefore various measures targeted directly against the edema are useful. These are presented here:

Pharmacological treatments: The physician will sometimes prescribe diuretics to reduce fluid retention in the body and thereby reduce edema. This treatment should however be used for serious edema or edema persistent when other measures do not work.

Salt intake restriction: Restriction of salt intake is an important measure by edema. People suffering from edema should avoid adding great amount of salt into their food or consume preprocessed food with a salty taste.

Diet: A good general diet that alleviates chronic inflammation is useful. The diet should especially contain enough sources of omega-3-fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids, like: Fat fish, seafood, flax oil, olive oil, almonds, rape oil and canola oil. Also vegetables and fruit in a natural shape are useful.

Avoiding constipation: Constipation should be treated, since a stomach engorged by excessive content can cause impairment of fluid circulation.

Variation of corporeal position: You should avoid sitting or standing still a long time during the day. When sitting during work or rest, you should change position with regular intervals.

Exercise: Every day you should have some exercise adjusted to your health condition. This could be walking, cycling, swimming, running or any other sport activity where you use greater parts of your body. Doing regular stretching exercises or yoga is useful. By severe edema special therapeutic exercises should be prescribed by a professional.

High position of limb: When you are sleeping or resting the swollen body parts can be placed in an elevated position by means of pillows, pads or by resting in an adjustable bed or chair.

Massage: By minor edema yourself, your spouse or a friend can massage the affected body part to alleviate the edema. The massage should be done in the direction of natural flow of blood and lymph that is towards the heart. You should however avoid massaging distinctly injured or distinctly inflamed body parts. By severe edema a professional massager should be engaged to perform the massage type called "manual lymphatic drainage".

Elastic bandaging: You can use elastic gloves, stockings, tapes or bandages around the swollen body parts during the day or during physical activities after instruction from a professional person.

Inflatable garments: There are inflatable garments to be found that can be used around the engorged body parts some times of the day. Also these should be used after professional instruction.

Sequential gradient pump therapy: One can get special electric pumps connected to inflatable garments. The pump inflates and deflates the garments repeatedly. Each garment has several rooms that are inflated sequentially in the direction of the natural fluid stream towards the heart. In this way the fluid is dynamically pumped the right way out of the engorged body part. This type of therapy is used in professional settings or at home after instruction from a professional.

Skin care: The skin on a body part affected by severe edema should attain special care to avoid and treat sores. Proper cleaning, daily use of moisturing creams, proper rinsing of skin injuries, antiseptic creams by injuries.

Complete decongestive therapy: This is a complete set of edema treatment techniques done by a professional person combined with self-care instructed by the professional. The techniques used are: Manual lymphatic drainage, compression bandaging, therapeutic exercise and skin care.

Herbal and natural products: Many herbs and products composed of a blending of these herbs are used against edema. Such herbs are: Dandelion, Gingko biloba, horse chestnut, buchu, goldenrod, corn silk, horsetail, juniper, butchers broom, cleaver and ginger. Some people have experienced a good effect from using apple cider vinegar.

The flavonide rich product pycnognenol extracted from the bark of the French maritime pine has shown promising effects against edema according to scientific studies. The flavonides hydroxyethylrutosides also seem to have good effect against edema. Other natural substances that may help to treat edema are the flavonids diosmin and hesperidin and vitamin C.

Oil pulling: The procedure called "oil pulling" may help for edema. It consists of rinsing the mouth with one tablespoon of natural oil for 15-20 minutes and then spitting the oil out. It is done in the morning before eating. Sesame or sunflower oils are usually recommended for this use.

By Rebecca Sato / Source: Daily Galaxy

Contrary to popular belief, recent studies have found that there are probably ways to regenerate brain matter.

Animal studies conducted at the National Institute on Aging Gerontology Research Center and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for example, have shown that both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting along with vitamin and mineral intake, increase resistance to disease, extend lifespan, and stimulate production of neurons from stem cells.

In addition, fasting has been shown to enhance synaptic elasticity, possibly increasing the ability for successful re-wiring following brain injury. These benefits appear to result from a cellular stress response, similar in concept to the greater muscular regeneration that results from the stress of regular exercise.

Additional research suggests that increasing time intervals between meals might be a better choice than chronic calorie restriction, because the resultant decline in sex hormones may adversely affect both sexual and brain performance. Sex steroid hormones testosterone and estrogen are positively impacted by an abundant food supply. In other words, you might get smarter that way, but it might adversely affect your fun in the bedroom, among other drawbacks.

But if your not keen on starving yourself, there are other options. Another recent finding, stemming from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and Iwate University in Japan, reports that the herb rosemary contains an ingredient that fights off free radical damage in the brain. The active ingredient, known as carnosic acid (CA), can protect the brain from stroke and neurodegeneration such as Alzheimer’s and from the effects of normal aging.

Although researchers are patenting more potent forms of isolated compounds in this herb, unlike most new drugs, simply using the rosemary in its natural state may be the most safe and clinically tolerated because it is known to get into the brain and has been consumed by people for over a thousand years. The herb was used in European folk medicine to help the nervous system.

Another brain booster that Bruce N. Ames, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, swears by his daily 800 mg of alpha-lipoic acid and 2,000 mg of acetyl-L-carnitine, chemicals which boost the energy output of mitochondria that power our cells. Mitochondrial decay is a major factor in aging and diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes. Elderly rats on these supplements had more energy and ran mazes better.

Omega-3s fatty acids DHA and EPA found in walnuts and fatty fish (such as salmon, sardines, and lake trout) are thought to help ward off Alzheimer's disease. (In addition, they likely help prevent depression and have been shown to help prevent sudden death from heart attack).

Turmeric, typically found in curry, contains curcumin, a chemical with potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In India, it is even used as a salve to help heal wounds. East Asians also eat it, which might explain their lower rates (compared to the United States) of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, in addition to various cancers. If curry isn’t part of your favorite cuisines, you might try a daily curcumin supplement of 500 to 1,000 mg.

Physical exercise may also have beneficial effects on neuron regeneration by stimulating regeneration of brain and muscle cells via activation of stress proteins and the production of growth factors. But again, additional research suggests that not all exercise is equal. Interestingly, some researchers found that exercise considered drudgery was not beneficial in neuronal regeneration, but physical activity that was engaged in purely for fun, even if equal time was spent and equal calories were burned, resulted in neuronal regeneration.

Exercise can also help reduce stress, but any stress-reducing activity, such as meditation and lifestyle changes, can help the brain. There is some evidence that chronic stress shrinks the parts of the brain involved in learning, memory, and mood. (It also delays wound healing, promotes atherosclerosis, and increases blood pressure.)

It should go without saying that short-term cognitive and physical performance is not boosted by fasting, due to metabolic changes including decrease in body temperature, decreased heart rate and blood pressure and decreased glucose and insulin levels, so you’re better off not planning a marathon or a demanding work session during a fasting period.

As part of a healthy lifestyle the prescription of moderating food intake, exercising, and eating anti-oxidant rich foods is what we’ve long known will boost longevity, but it’s good to know that we can bring our brains along with us as we make it into those golden years without being the 1 in 7 who suffers from dementia. Keep your fingers crossed and eat some rosemary chicken.

Little or No Evidence Supports Conventional Medical Treatments

About the author

Mercury Fillings Shattered! FDA, ADA Conspiracy to Poison Children with Toxic Mercury Fillings Exposed in Groundbreaking Lawsuit

Why the FDA has to be sued to do its job of protecting consumers

Why the FDA is as mad as a hatter

What's next for the FDA

The FDA remains steadfastly clueless about mercury

Exclusive interview with Charles Brown, Consumers for Dental Choice

The environmental impact of mercury fillings in dentistry

Why dentists are walking away from mercury fillings

Arresting top FDA officials and charging them with crimes against the People

Meet Consumers for Dental Choice

Why conventional dentists are so arrogant about mercury and fluoride

How to stop the FDA with a lawsuit

Prologue

I'm writing to alert readers to a crucial email from a I'm I'm I'm writing to alert readers to a crucial email from a physician who has evidence vitamin D is protective against H1N1 and to ask you, the reader, to contact your representatives in Washington to help protect Americans, especially children, from H1N1 before winter comes.

Dear Dr. Cannell:

Your recent newsletters and video about Swine flu (H1N1) prompted me to convey our recent experience with an H1N1 outbreak at Central Wisconsin Center (CWC). Unfortunately, the state epidemiologist was not interested in studying it further so I pass it on to you since I think it is noteworthy.

CWC is a long-term care facility for people with developmental disabilities, home for approx. 275 people with approx. 800 staff. Serum 25-OHD has been monitored in virtually all residents for several years and patients supplemented with vitamin D.

In June, 2009, at the time of the well-publicized Wisconsin spike in H1N1 cases, two residents developed influenza-like illness (ILI) and had positive tests for H1N1:

one was a long-term resident; the other, a child, was transferred to us with what was later proven to be H1N1.

On the other hand, 60 staff members developed ILI or were documented to have H1N1:

of 17 tested for ILI, eight were positive. An additional 43 staff members called in sick with ILI. (Approx. 11-12 staff developed ILI after working on the unit where the child was given care, several of whom had positive H1N1 tests.)

So, it is rather remarkable that only two residents of 275 developed ILI, one of which did not develop it here, while 103 of 800 staff members had ILI. It appears that the spread of H1N1 was not from staff-to-resident but from resident-to-staff (most obvious in the imported case) and between staff, implying that staff were susceptible and our residents protected.

Sincerely,

Norris Glick, MD

Central Wisconsin Center

Madison, WI

Dear Dr. Glick:

This is the first hard data that I am aware of concerning H1N1 and vitamin D. It appears vitamin D is incredibly protective against H1N1.

Dr. Carlos Carmago at Mass General ran the numbers in an email to me. Even if one excludes 43 staff members who called in sick with influenza, 0.73% of residents were affected, as compared to 7.5% of staff. This 10-fold difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). That is, the chance that this was a chance occurrence is one less than one in a thousand.

Second, if you read my last newsletter, you will see that children with neurological impairments, like the patients at your hospital, have accounted for 2/3 of the childhood deaths for H1N1 so far in the USA. That is, the CDC knows, because they reported it, that patients with neurological impairments are more likely to die from H1N1.

The problem is that I cannot get anyone in authority at the CDC or the NIH to listen. I need readers to email or call their senators and congresspersons in Washington.

Ask your senator or congressperson to contact the CDC and NIH to complain about CDC and NIH inaction on Vitamin D and H1N1. Also, ask your senators and representative to demand congressional hearings on Vitamin D and H1N1, before it is too late. Here is the link below, just click it and follow instructions to contact your own represenatives.

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

John Cannell, MD

President

Vitamin D Council

585 Leff Street

San Luis Obispo, CA 93422

Dr. Eisenstein's Comments:

Even though the virus is not becoming more deadly the vaccine army comes marching on. However, they have not been able to scare nurses, doctors or in England pregnant women.

When will they give up?

No one knows what treatment will be effective against the H1N1 Flu. However, the data from Dr. Norris is very compelling, that Vitamin D will be protective for H1N1.

To lower your families incidence of colds and flu this winter and to lower your probability of Swine Flu, start by measuring their vitamin D levels, keep it above 50ng/ml and by giving the whole family daily probiotics and vitamin D.

LACK OF VITAMIN D CAUSES CANCER

Gabe Mirkin, M.D. http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/1337.html

Twenty-two years ago, Drs. Cedric Garland and his brother, Frank, proposed that many cases of cancer were caused by lack of vitamin D. The medical community treated these respected epidemiologists as if they were nuts. Vitamin D was discovered in 1922 as the vitamin that prevents and treats rickets, a disease that causes children and adults to have such weak bones that they bend.

The Garland brothers showed that people who live in the northern parts of the United States have more than three times as many colon cancer deaths as those who live in the South. They explained that very few Americans meet their needs for vitamin D from the food, so we have to meet our needs for vitamin D from sunlight. Sunlight is less intense in the northern latitudes, and people in the colder climates often do not go out in the winter; therefore, they often suffer from lack of vitamin D.

The July, 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that 42 percent of African American women have low blood levels of vitamin D, compared to only 4.2 percent in Caucasians. That means that African Americans are ten times more likely to suffer from vitamin D deficiency than Caucasians. Lack of vitamin D interferes with immunity and a person's ability to kill germs and cancer cells. Every day, the human body makes millions of cancer cells. Your immunity then filters out these cells and prevents them from growing. When immunity is impaired, the cancer cells can grow to form solid cancers, such as cancer of the breast, prostate or colon.

All men will develop prostate cancer if they live long enough, but the average Caucasian develops prostate cancer after age 85, while the average African American develops it many years earlier. People of color require far more ultraviolet light to make vitamin D than those who have lighter skins. Lack of vitamin D damages immunity to cause cancers, diabetes and infections.

My advice is for you to think about your vitamin D status. A person with light skin can get enough vitamin D from a few minutes spent in sunlight each day, but the darker your skin, the more sun exposure you need to meet your daily requirements. You can get vitamin D from vitamin supplements, fish oils, fish, breakfast cereals, and a tiny bit from milk fortified with vitamin D. If you do not eat fish at least four times a week, take vitamin D supplements or vitamin D fortified breakfast cereals. If you are not sure if you are getting enough vitamin D from food or sunlight, go to your doctor and request a blood test for vitamin D. If your blood level of vitamin D is below 15 micrograms /liter, you should take 400 international units or 5 micrograms of vitamin D each day. I am convinced that you will be protecting yourself from cancer and infections. Women will also be protecting their future babies from infections and possibly birth defects. Don't wait for the medical community to agree on this.

The mainstream media are now reporting the onset of a swine flu “emergency.” Yet  controversy is raging over the safety and efficacy of the government-approved vaccine.

The strain known as H1N1 supposedly hits children and young people the hardest. The elderly are said to be similarly at risk. Deaths are being reported, as are shortages of vaccine at some locations.

Government officials are making the TV rounds,  including Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius,  who says  the vaccine is “safe and secure” and “right on target with an immune response.”

Yet Americans are deeply skeptical. According to a poll by AOL news, 61 percent say they do not plan to get the vaccine. Only 21 percent are “very worried” about the flu outbreak.

In fact the alliance between the federal government and the big pharmaceutical companies to push the H1N1 vaccine has ignited a populist revolt. The debate that is raging on Capitol Hill over national health care insurance had already exposed the health care industry as being far more concerned with profits than they are with people. H1N1 came along just in time to carry the revolt a step further.

An example of how the pharmaceutical industry is obsessed with the bottom line is shown by the difference in prices between proprietary medicines and their generic equivalents. A report by Life Extension magazine found that such well-known drugs as Celebrex, Lipitor, and Prozac had enormous mark-ups, topped by Xanaz, marked-up from 2.4 cents to $136.79 per 100 tablets!

No wonder many people are turning to alternative remedies, including improved nutrition or use of supplements such as vitamin C. To combat this, the government has gone on the attack, with the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission sending warning letters to over 140 product vendors. On the list is famed alternative healer Dr. Andrew Weil for statements on his website about his Immune Support Formula containing astragalus, an herbal mainstay of traditional Chinese medicine that is said to increase the body’s immune response.

Another natural preventive for flu and many other illnesses is simply to drink plenty of clean, filtered water, preferably fresh spring or well water, or water that has been ionized through an alkanization process. Recently the Natural News website published an interview done several years ago with a Dr. Batmanghelidj, who published extensive research that demonstrates how many illnesses for which doctors prescribe expensive and dangerous drugs are really caused by dehydration, including many diseases affecting the elderly.  Click Here

One result of dehydration, for instance, is deterioration of the walls of blood vessels. In order to repair the damage, the body produces more cholesterol, which Dr. Barmanghelidj calls “a waterproof bandage” for the cardio-vascular system. Then, when this extra cholesterol shows up in blood tests, doctors prescribe powerful drugs like Lipitor which can have devastating side-effects. It would most likely be better simply to tell people to drink more water.

Finally, the enormous pressure being brought to bear on the population to take the H1N1 vaccine has added to a huge and growing controversy over whether vaccines are safe at all. An increasing number of commentators are linking the growing use of vaccines to what some call an epidemic of childhood autism and other neurological disorders. Recall that the swine flu scare of 1976 led to discontinuation of the vaccine back then when it caused a number of deaths and a surge in paralysis from Guillan-Barre syndrome.

See for instance, the work of Dr. Andrew Moulden of Canada, whose work has linked vaccines to a “sludging” effect in the tiniest blood vessels in the brain which may be related to onset of such diseases as dementia, multiple sclerosis, autism, and even schizophrenia, along with many childhood learning disabilities. Dr. Moulen has even suggested a possible link between the frequent administration of flu vaccines to the elderly and the onset of alzheimer’s. Click Here

But there is an even deeper problem with modern medicine, which is that it is almost completely materialistic in its assumptions and approach.

Modern medicine views disease as a mechanistic process, caused either by “germs,” chemical imbalances, or genetics. This leads to the assumption that for every illness, there is a physical cure, either by killing the offending micro-organism, restoring chemical balance through a pill, or cutting out the failed or offending body part by surgery.

The materialistic outlook has even taken over the practice of psychiatric medicine. If a person is depressed, disturbed, anxious, or unhappy, don’t look at the possible causes in that person’s outlook, environment, diet, habits, addictions, or value system. Just give them an anti-depressent or even an anti-psychotic. Never mind that these drugs may just suppress symptoms or even reduce the person to almost a vegetative state. On the surface, at least, they seem to be “getting better” or at least causing less trouble!

But in some circles, an entirely different world-view is emerging. We know, for instance, about the holistic approach to medicine that sees a person as not just a bundle of chemical reflexes but a complete human being with a mind, heart, body, and spirit, all of which need to work more or less in harmony for optimum health to result.

But how often is this knowledge really practiced by people day-in and day-out?

A whole new industry of holistic health practitioners has come into existence, including those who practice acupuntrure, acupressure, reiki, hypnosis, massage, and body-work, including yoga, tai-chi, qi-gong, etc.There is also a growing awareness that a regular practice of prayer and spiritual devotion also benefits the whole person, including the physical body.

The deepest of these holistic practices may in fact be meditation. Meditative or contemplative prayer is a central component of religious practice within both the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, and meditation is the central discipline of all lines of Buddhism. Yoga also includes meditation, and in some types of yogic practice is the core discipline.

Are people who meditate more healthy? I am not aware of any scientific studies, but based on my own experience with many different types of meditation which includes association with various groups, schools, and teachers of meditation, I would have to say they appear to be. Or at least they worry less about their physical health, take illness more in stride, and are able to recover faster when it occurs.

One thing is sure: long-term practice of meditation on a daily basis seems to raise the energy level of the body. This makes a difference because the body is like an energy-filled vessel. If this energy leaks through negative emotions, unnecessary physical tension, and the constant churning of the mind, the body will suffer a general state of depletion, which is bound to make it more susceptible to disease. It also makes a difference if one avoids much of the jarring imagery churned out by the mass media through violent and disturbing films, TV programming, video games, etc.

These health-related factors which have been understood by traditional societies for millennia are also starting to be realized by millions of ordinary people in every walk of life. Combined with a nutritious diet, physical exercise, positive relationships, and productive work, a rich inner life of prayer and meditation produces a multitude of benefits, not the least of which seems to be improved physical health and greater resistance to infections such as swine flu.

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html

By Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

People with high cholesterol live the longest. This statement seems so incredible that it takes a long time to clear one´s brainwashed mind to fully understand its importance. Yet the fact that people with high cholesterol live the longest emerges clearly from many scientific papers. Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with a high cholesterol.1 Supporters of the cholesterol campaign consistently ignore his observation, or consider it as a rare exception, produced by chance among a huge number of studies finding the opposite.

But it is not an exception; there are now a large number of findings that contradict the lipid hypothesis. To be more specific, most studies of old people have shown that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for coronary heart disease. This was the result of my search in the Medline database for studies addressing that question.2 Eleven studies of old people came up with that result, and a further seven studies found that high cholesterol did not predict all-cause mortality either.

Now consider that more than 90 % of all cardiovascular disease is seen in people above age 60 also and that almost all studies have found that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for women.2 This means that high cholesterol is only a risk factor for less than 5 % of those who die from a heart attack. 

But there is more comfort for those who have high cholesterol; six of the studies found that total mortality was inversely associated with either total or LDL-cholesterol, or both. This means that it is actually much better to have high than to have low cholesterol if you want to live to be very old.

High Cholesterol Protects Against Infection

Many studies have found that low cholesterol is in certain respects worse than high cholesterol. For instance, in 19 large studies of more than 68,000 deaths, reviewed by Professor David R. Jacobs and his co-workers from the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, low cholesterol predicted an increased risk of dying from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.3 

Most gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases have an infectious origin. Therefore, a relevant question is whether it is the infection that lowers cholesterol or the low cholesterol that predisposes to infection? To answer this question Professor Jacobs and his group, together with Dr. Carlos Iribarren, followed more than 100,000 healthy individuals in the San Francisco area for fifteen years. At the end of the study those who had low cholesterol at the start of the study had more often been admitted to the hospital because of an infectious disease.4,5 This finding cannot be explained away with the argument that the infection had caused cholesterol to go down, because how could low cholesterol, recorded when these people were without any evidence of infection, be caused by a disease they had not yet encountered? Isn´t it more likely that low cholesterol in some way made them more vulnerable to infection, or that high cholesterol protected those who did not become infected? Much evidence exists to support that interpretation. 

Low Cholesterol and HIV/AIDS

Young, unmarried men with a previous sexually transmitted disease or liver disease run a much greater risk of becoming infected with HIV virus than other people. The Minnesota researchers, now led by Dr. Ami Claxton, followed such individuals for 7-8 years. After having excluded those who became HIV-positive during the first four years, they ended up with a group of 2446 men. At the end of the study, 140 of these people tested positive for HIV; those who had low cholesterol at the beginning of the study were twice as likely to test postitive for HIV compared with those with the highest cholesterol.6 

Similar results come from a study of the MRFIT screenees, including more than 300,000 young and middle-aged men, which found that 16 years after the first cholesterol analysis the number of men whose cholesterol was lower than 160 and who had died from AIDS was four times higher than the number of men who had died from AIDS with a cholesterol above 240.7

Cholesterol and Chronic Heart Failure

Heart disease may lead to a weakening of the heart muscle. A weak heart means that less blood and therefore less oxygen is delivered to the arteries. To compensate for the decreased power, the heart beat goes up, but in severe heart failure this is not sufficient. Patients with severe heart failure become short of breath because too little oxygen is delivered to the tissues, the pressure in their veins increases because the heart cannot deliver the blood away from the heart with sufficient power, and they become edematous, meaning that fluid accumulates in the legs and in serious cases also in the lungs and other parts of the body. This condition is called congestive or chronic heart failure.

There are many indications that bacteria or other microorganisms play an important role in chronic heart failure. For instance, patients with severe chronic heart failure have high levels of endotoxin and various types of cytokines in their blood. Endotoxin, also named lipopolysaccharide, is the most toxic substance produced by Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Salmonella, Serratia and Pseudomonas. Cytokines are hormones secreted by white blood cells in their battle with microorganisms; high levels of cytokines in the blood indicate that inflammatory processes are going on somewhere in the body.

The role of infections in chronic heart failure has been studied by Dr. Mathias Rauchhaus and his team at the Medical Department, Martin-Luther-University in Halle, Germany (Universitätsklinik und Poliklinik für Innere Medizin III, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle). They found that the strongest predictor of death for patients with chronic heart failure was the concentration of cytokines in the blood, in particular in patients with heart failure due to coronary heart disease.8 To explain their finding they suggested that bacteria from the gut may more easily penetrate into the tissues when the pressure in the abdominal veins is increased because of heart failure. In accordance with this theory, they found more endotoxin in the blood of patients with congestive heart failure and edema than in patients with non-congestive heart failure without edema, and endotoxin concentrations decreased significantly when the heart’s function was improved by medical treatment.9

A simple way to test the functional state of the immune system is to inject antigens from microorganisms that most people have been exposed to, under the skin. If the immune system is normal, an induration (hard spot) will appear about 48 hours later at the place of the injection. If the induration is very small, with a diameter of less than a few millimeters, this indicates the presence of "anergy," a reduction in or failure of response to recognize antigens. In accordance, anergy has been found associated with an increased risk of infection and mortality in healthy elderly individuals, in surgical patients and in heart transplant patients.10

Dr. Donna Vredevoe and her group from the School of Nursery and the School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles tested more than 200 patients with severe heart failure with five different antigens and followed them for twelve months. The cause of heart failure was coronary heart disease in half of them and other types of heart disease (such as congenital or infectious valvular heart disease, various cardiomyopathies and endocarditis) in the rest. Almost half of all the patients were anergic, and those who were anergic and had coronary heart disease had a much higher mortality than the rest.10 

Now to the salient point: to their surprise the researchers found that mortality was higher, not only in the patients with anergy, but also in the patients with the lowest lipid values, including total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol as well as triglycerides. 

The latter finding was confirmed by Dr. Rauchhaus, this time in co-operation with researchers at several German and British university hospitals. They found that the risk of dying for patients with chronic heart failure was strongly and inversely associated with total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and also triglycerides; those with high lipid values lived much longer than those with low values.11,12

Other researchers have made similar observations. The largest study has been performed by Professor Gregg C. Fonorow and his team at the UCLA Department of Medicine and Cardiomyopathy Center in Los Angeles.13 The study, led by Dr. Tamara Horwich, included more than a thousand patients with severe heart failure. After five years 62 percent of the patients with cholesterol below 129 mg/l had died, but only half as many of the patients with cholesterol above 223 mg/l. 

When proponents of the cholesterol hypothesis are confronted with findings showing a bad outcome associated with low cholesterol--and there are many such observations--they usually argue that severely ill patients are often malnourished, and malnourishment is therefore said to cause low cholesterol. However, the mortality of the patients in this study was independent of their degree of nourishment; low cholesterol predicted early mortality whether the patients were malnourished or not.

Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome

As discussed in The Cholesterol Myths (see sidebar), much evidence supports the theory that people born with very high cholesterol, so-called familial hypercholesterolemia, are protected against infection. But if inborn high cholesterol protects against infections, inborn low cholesterol should have the opposite effect. Indeed, this seems to be true.

Children with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome have very low cholesterol because the enzyme that is necessary for the last step in the body’s synthesis of cholesterol does not function properly. Most children with this syndrome are either stillborn or they die early because of serious malformations of the central nervous system. Those who survive are imbecile, they have extremely low cholesterol and suffer from frequent and severe infections. However, if their diet is supplemented with pure cholesterol or extra eggs, their cholesterol goes up and their bouts of infection become less serious and less frequent.14

Laboratory Evidence

Laboratory studies are crucial for learning more about the mechanisms by which the lipids exert their protective function. One of the first to study this phenomenon was Dr Sucharit Bhakdi from the Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Giessen (Institut für Medizinsche Mikrobiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), Germany along with his team of researchers from various institutions in Germany and Denmark.15

Staphylococcus aureus α-toxin is the most toxic substance produced by strains of the disease-promoting bacteria called staphylococci. It is able to destroy a wide variety of human cells, including red blood cells. For instance, if minute amounts of the toxin are added to a test tube with red blood cells dissolved in 0.9 percent saline, the blood is hemolyzed, that is the membranes of the red blood cells burst and hemoglobin from the interior of the red blood cells leaks out into the solvent. Dr. Bhakdi and his team mixed purified α-toxin with human serum (the fluid in which the blood cells reside) and saw that 90 percent of its hemolyzing effect disappeared. By various complicated methods they identified the protective substance as LDL, the carrier of the so-called bad cholesterol. In accordance, no hemolysis occurred when they mixed α-toxin with purified human LDL, whereas HDL or other plasma constituents were ineffective in this respect. 

Dr. Willy Flegel and his co-workers at the Department of Transfusion Medicine, University of Ulm, and the Institute of Immunology and Genetics at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany (DRK-Blutspendezentrale und Abteilung für Transfusionsmedizin, Universität Ulm, und Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg) studied endotoxin in another way.16 As mentioned, one of the effects of endotoxin is that white blood cells are stimulated to produce cytokines. The German researchers found that the cytokine-stimulating effect of endotoxin on the white blood cells disappeared almost completely if the endotoxin was mixed with human serum for 24 hours before they added the white blood cells to the test tubes. In a subsequent study17 they found that purified LDL from patients with familial hypercholesterolemia had the same inhibitory effect as the serum.

LDL may not only bind and inactivate dangerous bacterial toxins; it seems to have a direct beneficial influence on the immune system also, possibly explaining the observed relationship between low cholesterol and various chronic diseases. This was the starting point for a study by Professor Matthew Muldoon and his team at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They studied healthy young and middle-aged men and found that the total number of white blood cells and the number of various types of white blood cells were significantly lower in the men with LDL-cholesterol below 160 mg/dl (mean 88.3 mg/l),than in men with LDL-cholesterol above 160 mg/l (mean 185.5 mg/l).18 The researchers cautiously concluded that there were immune system differences between men with low and high cholesterol, but that it was too early to state whether these differences had any importance for human health. Now, seven years later with many of the results discussed here, we are allowed to state that the immune-supporting properties of LDL-cholesterol do indeed play an important role in human health.

Animal Experiments

The immune systems in various mammals including human beings have many similarities. Therefore, it is interesting to see what experiments with rats and mice can tell us. Professor Kenneth Feingold at the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and his group have published several interesting results from such research. In one of them they lowered LDL-cholesterol in rats by giving them either a drug that prevents the liver from secreting lipoproteins, or a drug that increases their disappearance. In both models, injection of endotoxin was followed by a much higher mortality in the low-cholesterol rats compared with normal rats. The high mortality was not due to the drugs because, if the drug-treated animals were injected with lipoproteins just before the injection of endotoxin, their mortality was reduced to normal.19

Dr. Mihai Netea and his team from the Departments of Internal and Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, injected purified endotoxin into normal mice, and into mice with familial hypercholesterolemia that had LDL-cholesterol four times higher than normal. Whereas all normal mice died, they had to inject eight times as much endotoxin to kill the mice with familial hypercholesterolemia. In another experiment they injected live bacteria and found that twice as many mice with familial hypercholesterolemia survived compared with normal mice.20

Other Protecting Lipids

As seen from the above, many of the roles played by LDL-cholesterol are shared by HDL. This should not be too surprising considering that high HDL-cholesterol is associated with cardiovascular health and longevity. But there is more.

Triglycerides, molecules consisting of three fatty acids linked to glycerol, are insoluble in water and are therefore carried through the blood inside lipoproteins, just as cholesterol. All lipoproteins carry triglycerides, but most of them are carried by a lipoprotein named VLDL (very low-density lipoprotein) and by chylomicrons, a mixture of emulsified triglycerides appearing in large amounts after a fat-rich meal, particularly in the blood that flows from the gut to the liver.

For many years it has been known that sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused by bacterial growth in the blood, is associated with a high level of triglycerides. The serious symptoms of sepsis are due to endotoxin, most often produced by gut bacteria. In a number of studies, Professor Hobart W. Harris at the Surgical Research Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital and his team found that solutions rich in triglycerides but with practically no cholesterol were able to protect experimental animals from the toxic effects of endotoxin and they concluded that the high level of triglycerides seen in sepsis is a normal immune response to infection.21 Usually the bacteria responsible for sepsis come from the gut. It is therefore fortunate that the blood draining the gut is especially rich in triglycerides.

Exceptions 

So far, animal experiments have confirmed the hypothesis that high cholesterol protects against infection, at least against infections caused by bacteria. In a similar experiment using injections of Candida albicans, a common fungus, Dr. Netea and his team found that mice with familial hypercholesterolemia died more easily than normal mice.22 Serious infections caused by Candida albicans are rare in normal human beings; however, they are mainly seen in patients treated with immunosuppressive drugs, but the finding shows that we need more knowledge in this area. However, the many findings mentioned above indicate that the protective effects of the blood lipids against infections in human beings seem to be greater than any possible adverse effects.

Cholesterol as a Risk Factor

Most studies of young and middle-aged men have found high cholesterol to be a risk factor for coronary heart disease, seemingly a contradiction to the idea that high cholesterol is protective. Why is high cholesterol a risk factor in young and middle-aged men? A likely explanation is that men of that age are often in the midst of their professional career. High cholesterol may therefore reflect mental stress, a well-known cause of high cholesterol and also a risk factor for heart disease. Again, high cholesterol is not necessarily the direct cause but may only be a marker. High cholesterol in young and middle-aged men could, for instance, reflect the body’s need for more cholesterol because cholesterol is the building material of many stress hormones. Any possible protective effect of high cholesterol may therefore be counteracted by the negative influence of a stressful life on the vascular system. 

Response to Injury

In 1976 one of the most promising theories about the cause of atherosclerosis was the Response-to-Injury Hypothesis, presented by Russell Ross, a professor of pathology, and John Glomset, a professor of biochemistry and medicine at the Medical School, University of Washington in Seattle.23,24 They suggested that atherosclerosis is the consequence of an inflammatory process, where the first step is a localized injury to the thin layer of cells lining the inside of the arteries, the intima. The injury causes inflammation and the raised plaques that form are simply healing lesions. 

Their idea is not new. In 1911, two American pathologists from the Pathological Laboratories, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Oskar Klotz and M.F. Manning, published a summary of their studies of the human arteries and concluded that "there is every indication that the production of tissue in the intima is the result of a direct irritation of that tissue by the presence of infection or toxins or the stimulation by the products of a primary degeneration in that layer."25 Other researchers have presented similar theories.26

Researchers have proposed many potential causes of vascular injury, including mechanical stress, exposure to tobacco fumes, high LDL-cholesterol, oxidized cholesterol, homocysteine, the metabolic consequences of diabetes, iron overload, copper deficiency, deficiencies of vitamins A and D, consumption of trans fatty acids, microorganisms and many more. With one exception, there is evidence to support roles for all of these factors, but the degree to which each of them participates remains uncertain. The exception is of course LDL-cholesterol. Much research allows us to exclude high LDL-cholesterol from the list. Whether we look directly with the naked eye at the inside of the arteries at autopsy, or we do it indirectly in living people using x-rays, ultrasound or electron beams, no association worth mentioning has ever been found between the amount of lipid in the blood and the degree of atherosclerosis in the arteries. Also, whether cholesterol goes up or down, by itself or due to medical intervention, the changes of cholesterol have never been followed by parallel changes in the atherosclerotic plaques; there is no dose-response. Proponents of the cholesterol campaign often claim that the trials indeed have found dose-response, but here they refer to calculations between the mean changes of the different trials with the outcome of the whole treatment group. However, true dose-response demands that the individual changes of the putative causal factor are followed by parallel, individual changes of the disease outcome, and this has never occurred in the trials where researchers have calculated true dose-response.

A detailed discussion of the many factors accused of harming the arterial endothelium is beyond the scope of this article. However, the protective role of the blood lipids against infections obviously demands a closer look at the alleged role of one of the alleged causes, the microorganisms.

Is Atherosclerosis an Infectious Disease?

For many years scientists have suspected that viruses and bacteria, in particular cytomegalovirus and Chlamydia pneumonia (also named TWAR bacteria) participate in the development of atherosclerosis. Research within this area has exploded during the last decade and by January 2004, at least 200 reviews of the issue have been published in medical journals. Due to the widespread preoccupation with cholesterol and other lipids, there has been little general interest in the subject, however, and few doctors know much about it. Here I shall mention some of the most interesting findings.26

Electron microscopy, immunofluorescence microscopy and other advanced techniques have allowed us to detect microorganisms and their DNA in the atherosclerotic lesions in a large proportion of patients. Bacterial toxins and cytokines, hormones secreted by the white blood cells during infections, are seen more often in the blood from patients with recent heart disease and stroke, in particular during and after an acute cardiovascular event, and some of them are strong predictors of cardiovascular disease. The same is valid for bacterial and viral antibodies, and a protein secreted by the liver during infections, named C-reactive protein (CRP), is a much stronger risk factor for coronary heart disease than cholesterol. 

Clinical evidence also supports this theory. During the weeks preceding an acute cardiovascular attack many patients have had a bacterial or viral infection. For instance, Dr. Armin J. Grau from the Department of Neurology at the University of Heidelberg and his team asked 166 patients with acute stroke, 166 patients hospitalized for other neurological diseases and 166 healthy individuals matched individually for age and sex about recent infectious disease. Within the first week before the stroke, 37 of the stroke patients, but only 14 of the control individuals had had an infectious disease. In half of the patients the infection was of bacterial origin, in the other half of viral origin.27

Similar observations have been made by many others, for patients with acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). For instance, Dr. Kimmo J. Mattila at the Department of Medicine, Helsinki University Hospital, Finland, found that 11 of 40 male patients with an acute heart attack before age 50 had an influenza-like infection with fever within 36 hours prior to admittance to hospital, but only 4 out of 41 patients with chronic coronary disease (such as recurrent angina or pervious myocardial infarction) and 4 out of 40 control individuals without chronic disease randomly selected from the general population.28

Attempts have been made to prevent cardiovascular disease by treatment with antibiotics. In five trials treatment of patients with coronary heart disease using azithromyzin or roxithromyzin, antibiotics that are effective against Chlamydia pneumonia,yielded successful results; a total of 104 cardiovascular events occurred among the 412 non-treated patients, but only 61 events among the 410 patients in the treatment groups.28a-e In one further trial a significant decreased progression of atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries occurred with antibiotic treatment.28f However, in four other trials,30a-d one of which included more than 7000 patients,28d antibiotic treatment had no significant effect. 

The reason for these inconsistent results may be that the treatment was too short (in one of the trials treatment lasted only five days). Also, Chlamydia pneumonia, the TWAR bacteria, can only propagate inside human cells and when located in white blood cells they are resistant to antibiotics.31 Treatment may also have been ineffective because the antibiotics used have no effect on viruses. In this connection it is interesting to mention a controlled trial performed by Dr. Enrique Gurfinkel and his team from Fundación Favaloro in Buenos Aires, Argentina.32 They vaccinated half of 301 patients with coronary heart disease against influenza, a viral disease. After six months 8 percent of the control patients had died, but only 2 percent of the vaccinated patients. It is worth mentioning that this effect was much better than that achieved by any statin trial, and in a much shorter time.

Does High Cholesterol Protect Against Cardiovascular Disease?

Apparently, microorganisms play a role in cardiovascular disease. They may be one of the factors that start the process by injuring the arterial endothelium. A secondary role may be inferred from the association between acute cardiovascular disease and infection. The infectious agent may preferably become located in parts of the arterial walls that have been previously damaged by other agents, initiating local coagulation and the creation of a thrombus (clot) and in this way cause obstruction of the blood flow. But if so, high cholesterol may protect against cardiovascular disease instead of being the cause!

In any case, the diet-heart idea, with its demonizing of high cholesterol, is obviously in conflict with the idea that high cholesterol protects against infections. Both ideas cannot be true. Let me summarize the many facts that conflict with the idea that high cholesterol is bad.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of atherosclerosis, people with high cholesterol should be more atherosclerotic than people with low cholesterol. But as you know by now this is very far from the truth.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of atherosclerosis, lowering of cholesterol should influence the atherosclerotic process in proportion to the degree of its lowering. 

But as you know by now, this does not happen.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of cardiovascular disease, it should be a risk factor in all populations, in both sexes, at all ages, in all disease categories, and for both heart disease and stroke. But as you know by now, this is not the case

I have only two arguments for the idea that high cholesterol is good for the blood vessels, but in contrast to the arguments claiming the opposite they are very strong. The first one stems from the statin trials. If high cholesterol were the most important cause of cardiovascular disease, the greatest effect of statin treatment should have been seen in patients with the highest cholesterol, and in patients whose cholesterol was lowered the most. Lack of dose-response cannot be attributed to the knowledge that the statins have other effects on plaque stabilization, as this would not have masked the effect of cholesterol-lowering considering the pronounced lowering that was achieved. On the contrary, if a drug that effectively lowers the concentration of a molecule assumed to be harmful to the cardiovascular system and at the same time exerts several beneficial effects on the same system, a pronounced dose-response should be seen.

On the other hand, if high cholesterol has a protective function, as suggested, its lowering would counterbalance the beneficial effects of the statins and thus work against a dose-response, which would be more in accord with the results from the various trials.

I have already mentioned my second argument, but it can’t be said too often: High cholesterol is associated with longevity in old people. It is difficult to explain away the fact that during the period of life in which most cardiovascular disease occurs and from which most people die (and most of us die from cardiovascular disease), high cholesterol occurs most often in people with the lowest mortality. How is it possible that high cholesterol is harmful to the artery walls and causes fatal coronary heart disease, the commonest cause of death, if those whose cholesterol is the highest, live longer than those whose cholesterol is low? 

To the public and the scientific community I say, "Wake up!"

References 

1. Krumholz HM and others. Lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity and all-cause mortality in persons older than 70 years. Journal of the American Medical Association 272, 1335-1340, 1990.

2. Ravnskov U. High cholesterol may protect against infections and atherosclerosis. Quarterly Journal of Medicine 96, 927-934, 2003.

3. Jacobs D and others. Report of the conference on low blood cholesterol: Mortality associations. Circulation 86, 1046–1060, 1992.

4. Iribarren C and others. Serum total cholesterol and risk of hospitalization, and death from respiratory disease. International Journal of Epidemiology 26, 1191–1202, 1997.

5. Iribarren C and others. Cohort study of serum total cholesterol and in-hospital incidence of infectious diseases. Epidemiology and Infection 121, 335–347, 1998. 

6. Claxton AJ and others. Association between serum total cholesterol and HIV infection in a high-risk cohort of young men. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes and human retrovirology 17, 51–57, 1998.

7. Neaton JD, Wentworth DN. Low serum cholesterol and risk of death from AIDS. AIDS 11, 929–930, 1997.

8. Rauchhaus M and others. Plasma cytokine parameters and mortality in patients with chronic heart failure. Circulation 102, 3060-3067, 2000.

9. Niebauer J and others. Endotoxin and immune activation in chronic heart failure. Lancet 353, 1838-1842, 1999.

10. Vredevoe DL and others. Skin test anergy in advanced heart failure secondary to either ischemic or idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. American Journal of Cardiology 82, 323-328, 1998.

11. Rauchhaus M, Coats AJ, Anker SD. The endotoxin-lipoprotein hypothesis. Lancet 356, 930–933, 2000.

12. Rauchhaus M and others. The relationship between cholesterol and survival in patients with chronic heart failure. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 42, 1933-1940, 2003.

13. Horwich TB and others. Low serum total cholesterol is associated with marked increase in mortality in advanced heart failure. Journal of Cardiac Failure 8, 216-224, 2002.

14. Elias ER and others. Clinical effects of cholesterol supplementation in six patients with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS). American Journal of Medical Genetics 68, 305–310, 1997.

15. Bhakdi S and others. Binding and partial inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus a-toxin by human plasma low density lipoprotein. Journal of Biological Chemistry 258, 5899-5904, 1983.

16. Flegel WA and others. Inhibition of endotoxin-induced activation of human monocytes by human lipoproteins. Infection and Immunity 57, 2237-2245, 1989.

17. Weinstock CW and others. Low density lipoproteins inhibit endotoxin activation of monocytes. Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis 12, 341-347, 1992.

18. Muldoon MF and others. Immune system differences in men with hypo- or hypercholesterolemia. Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology 84, 145-149, 1997.

19. Feingold KR and others. Role for circulating lipoproteins in protection from endotoxin toxicity. Infection and Immunity 63, 2041-2046, 1995.

20. Netea MG and others. Low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient mice are protected against lethal endotoxemia and severe gram-negative infections. Journal of Clinical Investigation 97, 1366-1372, 1996.

21. Harris HW, Gosnell JE, Kumwenda ZL. The lipemia of sepsis: triglyceride-rich lipoproteins as agents of innate immunity. Journal of Endotoxin Research 6, 421-430, 2001.

22. Netea MG and others. Hyperlipoproteinemia enhances susceptibility to acute disseminated Candida albicans infection in low-density-lipoprotein-receptor-deficient mice. Infection and Immunity 65, 2663-2667, 1997.

23. Ross R, Glomset JA. The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. New England Journal of Medicine 295, 369-377, 1976.

24. Ross R. The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and update. New England Journal of Medicine 314, 488-500, 1986.

25. Klotz O, Manning MF. Fatty streaks in the intima of arteries. Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. 16, 211-220, 1911.

26. At least 200 reviews about the role of infections in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease have been published; here are a few of them: a) Grayston JT, Kuo CC, Campbell LA, Benditt EP. Chlamydia pneumoniae strain TWAR and atherosclerosis. European Heart Journal Suppl K, 66-71, 1993. b) Melnick JL, Adam E, Debakey ME. Cytomegalovirus and atherosclerosis. European Heart Journal Suppl K, 30-38, 1993. c) Nicholson AC, Hajjar DP. Herpesviruses in atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Etiologic agents or ubiquitous bystanders? Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology 18, 339-348, 1998. d) Ismail A, Khosravi H, Olson H. The role of infection in atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. A new therapeutic target. Heart Disease 1, 233-240, 1999. e) Kuvin JT, Kimmelstiel MD. Infectious causes of atherosclerosis. f.) Kalayoglu MV, Libby P, Byrne GI. Chlamydia pneumonia as an emerging risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American Medical Association 288, 2724-2731, 2002.

27. Grau AJ and others. Recent bacterial and viral infection is a risk factor for cerebrovascular ischemia. Neurology 50, 196-203, 1998.

28. Mattila KJ. Viral and bacterial infections in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Journal of Internal Medicine 225, 293-296, 1989.

29. The successful trials: a) Gurfinkel E. Lancet 350, 404-407, 1997. b) Gupta S and others. Circulation 96, 404-407, 1997. c) Muhlestein JB and others. Circulation 102, 1755-1760, 2000. d) Stone AFM and others. Circulation 106, 1219-1223, 2002. e) Wiesli P and others. Circulation 105, 2646-2652, 2002. f) Sander D and others. Circulation 106, 2428-2433, 2002.

30. The unsuccessful trials: a) Anderson JL and others. Circulation 99, 1540-1547, 1999. b) Leowattana W and others. Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand 84 (Suppl 3), S669-S675, 2001. c) Cercek B and others. Lancet 361, 809-813, 2003. d) O’Connor CM and others. Journal of the American Medical Association. 290, 1459-1466, 2003.

31. Gieffers J and others. Chlamydia pneumoniae infection in circulating human monocytes is refractory to antibiotic treatment. Circulation 104, 351-356, 2001

32. Gurfinkel EP and others. Circulation 105, 2143-2147, 2002.

About the Author

Dr. Ravnskov is the author of The Cholesterol Myths and chairman of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (thincs.org).

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Risk Factor

There is one risk factor that is known to be certain to cause death. It is such a strong risk factor that it has a 100 percent mortality rate. Thus I can guarantee that if we stop this risk factor, which would take no great research and cost nothing in monetary terms, within a century human deaths would be completely eliminated. This risk factor is called "Life." 

Barry Groves, www.second-opinions.co.uk. 

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Familial Hypercholesterolemia - 

Not as Risky as You May Think

Many doctors believe that most patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) die from CHD at a young age. Obviously, they do not know the surprising finding of the Scientific Steering Committee at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England. For several years, these researchers followed more than 500 FH patients between the ages of 20 and 74 and compared patient mortality during this period with that of the general population.

During a three- to four-year period, six of 214 FH patients below age 40 died from CHD. This may not seem particularly frightening but as it is rare to die from CHD before the age of 40, the risk for these FH patients was almost 100 times that of the general population. 

During a four- to five-year period, eight of 237 FH patients between ages 40 and 59 died, which was five times more than the general population. But during a similar period of time, only one of 75 FH patients between the ages of 60 and 74 died from CHD, when the expected number was two. 

If these results are typical for FH, you could say that between ages 20 and 59, about 3 percent of the patients die from CHD, and between ages 60 and 74, less than 2 percent die, in both cases during a period of 3-4 years. The authors stressed that the patients had been referred because of a personal or family history of premature vascular disease and therefore were at a particularly high risk for CHD. Most patients with FH in the general population are unrecognized and untreated. Had the patients studied been representative for all FH patients, their prognosis would probably have been even better. 

This view was recently confirmed by Dr. Eric Sijbrands and his coworkers from various medical departments in Amsterdam and Leiden, Netherlands. Out of a large group they found three individuals with very high cholesterol. A genetic analysis confirmed the diagnosis of FH and by tracing their family members backward in time, they came up with a total of 412 individuals. The coronary and total mortality of these members were compared with the mortality of the general Dutch population. 

The striking finding was that those who lived during the 19th and early 20th century had normal mortality and lived a normal life span. In fact, those living in the 19th century had a lower mortality than the general population. After 1915 the mortality rose to a maximum between 1935 and 1964, but even at the peak, mortality was less than twice as high as in the general population.

Again, very high cholesterol levels alone do not lead to a heart attack. In fact, high cholesterol may even be protective against other diseases. This was the conclusion of Dr. Sijbrands and his colleagues. As support they cited the fact that genetically modified mice with high cholesterol are protected against severe bacterial infections. 

"Doctor, don’t be afraid because of my high cholesterol." These were the words of a 36-year-old lawyer who visited me for the first time for a health examination. And indeed, his cholesterol was high, over 400 mg/dl. 

"My father’s cholesterol was even higher," he added. "But he lived happily until he died at age 79 from cancer. And his brother, who also had FH, died at age 83. None of them ever complained of any heart problems." My "patient" is now 53, his brother is 56 and his cousin 61. All of them have extremely high cholesterol values, but none of them has any heart troubles, and none of them has ever taken cholesterol-lowering drugs. 

So, if you happen to have FH, don’t be too anxious. Your chances of surviving are pretty good, even surviving to old age.

Scientific Steering Committee on behalf of the Simon Broome Register Group. Risk of fatal coronary heart disease in familial hypercholesterolaemia. British Medical Journal 303, 893-896, 1991; Sijbrands EJG and others. Mortality over two centuries in large pedigree with familial hypercholesterolaemia: family tree mortality study. British Medical Journal 322, 1019-1023, 2001.

From The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnvskov, MD, PhD, NewTrends Publishing, pp 64-65. 

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By Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield MBBS LRCP MRCS

Medical Advisor to Thyroid UK

There is a daunting amount of research studies showing that the widely acclaimed benefits on fluoride dental health are more imagined than real. My main concern however, is the effect of sustained fluoride intake on general health. Again, there is a huge body of research literature on this subject, freely available and in the public domain.

But this body of work was not considered by the York Review when their remit was changed from “Studies of the effects of fluoride on health” to “Studies on the effects of fluoridated water on health." It is clearly evident that it was not considered by the BMA (Britsh Medical Association), British Dental Association (BDA), BFS (British Fluoridation Society) and FPHM, (Faculty for Public Health and Medicine) since they all insist, as in the briefing paper to Members of Parliament - that fluoridation is safe and non-injurious to health.

This is a public disgrace, I will now show by reviewing the damaging effects of fluoridation, with special reference to thyroid illness.

It has been known since the latter part of the 19th century that certain communities, notably in Argentina, India and Turkey were chronically ill, with premature ageing, arthritis, mental retardation, and infertility; and high levels of natural fluorides in the water were responsible. Not only was it clear that the fluoride was having a general effect on the health of the community, but in the early 1920s Goldemberg, working in Argentina showed that fluoride was displacing iodine; thus compounding the damage and rendering the community also hypothyroid from iodine deficiency.

Highly damaging to the thyroid gland

This was the basis of the research in the 1930s of May, Litzka, Gorlitzer von Mundy, who used fluoride preparations to treat over-active thyroid illness. Their patients either drank fluoridated water, swallowed fluoride pills or were bathed in fluoridated bath water; and their thyroid function was as a result, greatly depressed. The use in 1937 of fluorotyrosine for this purpose showed how effective this treatment was; but the effectiveness was difficult to predict and many patients suffered total thyroid loss. So it was given a new role and received a new name, Pardinon. It was marketed not for over-active thyroid disease but as a pesticide. (Note the manufacturer of fluorotyrosine was IG Farben who also made sarin, a gas used in World War II).

This bit of history illustrates the fact that fluorides are dangerous in general and in particular highly damaging to the thyroid gland, a matter to which I shall return shortly. While it is unlikely that it will be disputed that fluorides are toxic - let us be reminded that they are Schedule 2 Poisons under the Poisons Act 1972, the matter in dispute is the level of toxicity attributable to given amounts; in today’s context the degree of damage caused by given concentrations in the water supply. While admitting its toxicity, proponents rely on the fact that it is diluted and therefore, it is claimed, unlikely to have deleterious effects.

They could not be more mistaken

It seems to me that we must be aware of how fluoride does its damage. It is an enzyme poison. Enzymes are complex protein compounds that vastly speed up biological chemical reactions while themselves remaining unchanged. As we speak, there occurs in all of us a vast multitude of these reactions to maintain life and produce the energy to sustain it. The chains of amino acids that make up these complex proteins are linked by simple compounds called amides; and it is with these that fluorine molecules react, splitting and distorting them, thus damaging the enzymes and their activity. Let it be said at once, this effect can occur at extraordinary low concentrations; even lower than the one part per million which is the dilution proposed for fluoridation in our water supply.

The body can only eliminate half

Moreover, fluorides are cumulative and build up steadily with ingestion of fluoride from all sources, which include not just water but the air we breathe and the food we eat. The use of fluoride toothpaste in dental hygiene and the coating of teeth are further sources of substantial levels of fluoride intake. The body can only eliminate half of the total intake, which means that the older you are the more fluoride will have accumulated in your body. Inevitably this means the ageing population is particularly targeted. And even worse for the very young there is a major element of risk in baby formula made with fluoridated water. The extreme sensitivity of the very young to fluoride toxicity makes this unacceptable. Since there are so many sources of fluoride in our everyday living, it will prove impossible to maintain an average level of 1ppm as is suggested.

What is the result of these toxic effects?

First the immune system. The distortion of protein structure causes the immune proteins to fail to recognise body proteins, and so instigate an attack on them, which is Autoimmune Disease. Autoimmune diseases constitute a body of disease processes troubling many thousands of people: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Asthma and Systemic Sclerosis are examples; but in my particular context today, thyroid antibodies will be produced which will cause Thyroiditis resulting in the common hypothyroid disease, Hashimoto’s Disease and the hyperthyroidism of Graves’ Disease.

Musculo Skeletal damage results further from the enzyme toxic effect; the collagen tissue of which muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones are made, is damaged. Rheumatoid illness, osteoporosis and deformation of bones inevitably follow. This toxic effect extends to the ameloblasts making tooth enamel, which is consequently weakened and then made brittle; and its visible appearance is, of course, dental fluorosis.

The enzyme poison effect extends to our genes; DNA cannot repair itself, and chromosomes are damaged. Work at the University of Missouri showed genital damage, targeting ovaries and testes. Also affected is inter uterine growth and development of the foetus, especially the nervous system. Increased incidence of Down’s Syndrome has been documented.
Fluorides are mutagenic. That is, they can cause the uncontrolled proliferation of cells we call cancer. This applies to cancer anywhere in the body; but bones are particularly picked out. The incidence of osteosarcoma in a study reporting in 1991 showed an unbelievable 50% increase. A report in 1955 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed a 400% increase in cancer of the thyroid in San Francisco during the period their water was fluoridated.

My particular concern is the effect of fluorides on the thyroid gland

Perhaps I may remind you about thyroid disease. The thyroid gland produces hormones which control our metabolism - the rate at which we burn our fuel. Deficiency is relatively common, much more than is generally accepted by many medical authorities: a figure of 1:4 or 1:3 by mid life is more likely. The illness is insidious in its onset and progression. People become tired, cold, overweight, depressed, constipated; they suffer arthritis, hair loss, infertility, atherosclerosis and chronic illness. Sadly, it is poorly diagnosed and poorly managed by very many doctors in this country.
What concerns me so deeply is that in concentrations as low as 1ppm, fluorides damage the thyroid system on 4 levels.

1. The enzyme manufacture of thyroid hormones within the thyroid gland itself. The process by which iodine is attached to the amino acid tyrosine and converted to the two significant thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and liothyronine (T3), is slowed.

2. The stimulation of certain G proteins from the toxic effect of fluoride (whose function is to govern uptake of substances into each of the cells of the body), has the effect of switching off the uptake into the cell of the active thyroid hormone.

3. The thyroid control mechanism is compromised. The thyroid stimulating hormone output from the pituitary gland is inhibited by fluoride, thus reducing thyroid output of thyroid hormones.

4. Fluoride competes for the receptor sites on the thyroid gland which respond to the thyroid stimulating hormone; so that less of this hormone reaches the thyroid gland and so less thyroid hormone is manufactured.
These damaging effects, all of which occur with small concentrations of fluoride, have obvious and easily identifiable effects on thyroid status. The running down of thyroid hormone means a slow slide into hypothyroidism. Already the incidence of hypothyroidism is increasing as a result of other environmental toxins and pollutions together with wide spread nutritional deficiencies.

141 million Europeans are at risk

One further factor should give us deep anxiety. Professor Hume of Dundee, in his paper given earlier this year to the Novartis Foundation, pointed out that iodine deficiency is growing worldwide. There are 141 million Europeans are at risk; only 5 European countries are iodine sufficient. UK now falls into the marginal and focal category. Professor Hume recently produced figures to show that 40% of pregnant women in the Tayside region of Scotland were deficient by at least half of the iodine required for a normal pregnancy. A relatively high level of missing, decayed, filled teeth was noted in this non-fluoridated area, suggesting that the iodine deficiency was causing early hypothyroidism which interferes with the health of teeth. Dare one speculate on the result of now fluoridating the water?...

Displac