SHERI’S RANTS # 30: ON THE FLU: – Why Me? (part one)

Where SELF RESPONSIBILITY really gets testy with people is around illness.  In our culture, we do not accept responsibility for illness – we loooooovvvve the victim stance.  We say, “I’m sick because I was exposed to a bunch of sick kids this weekend” or “My whole family has been sick with this, it was only a matter of time” or “It’s going around the office”  and yet we will march our red-eyed, mucous dripping, coughing, wheezing asses in to work, to the store, around town, claiming we are not contagious. How does THAT work?  Look, if you believe in the contagion theory, at least be consistent!

THAT SAID, I can track most respiratory illness with my clients to direct incidences of inflammation resulting from poor food choices, and the standard 7-14 days it takes for that inflammation to resolve itself into illness.  I have years of experiential data on this.  For myself, I have been able to note the same responses.  Mine come down to whether or not the external loads I’ve placed on my body are ‘reasonable’ for my body – i.e. being ‘too busy’ kicks my ass.   HOWEVER, my drive to pay attention to the workings of illness is due to the following research, which I’d like you to read closely.  I’d encourage you to do the research, it’s there (obscure, but available).  Be prepared for another level of responsibility:

TERRAIN THEORY VS THE MEDICAL MODEL (GERM THEORY)

The germ – or microbian – theory of disease was popularized by Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), the inventor of pasteurization. This theory says that there are fixed, external germs (or microbes) which invade the body and cause a variety of separate, definable diseases. In order to get well, you need to identify and then kill whatever germ made you sick. The tools generally employed are drugs, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Prevention includes the use of vaccines as well as drugs, which – theoretically at least – work by keeping germs at bay.

Just prior to the time that Pasteur began promoting the “monomorphic” germ theory, a contemporary by the name of Claude Bernard (1813-1878) was developing the theory that the body’s ability to heal was dependent on its general condition or internal environment. Thus disease occurred only when the terrain or internal environment of the body became favorable to disease.

An extremely brilliant contemporary of Claude Bernard’s was Antoine Bechamp (1816-1908).  Bechamp had degrees in physics, chemistry and biology. In addition he was a medical doctor and a university professor. Bechamp built upon and extended Bernard’s idea, developing his own theory of health and disease which revolved around the concept of “pleomorphism.”

Through meticulous research and in contrast to Pasteur’s subsequent, misinformed promotion of “monomorphic” or single-formed, fixed state microbes (or germs), Bechamp had discovered tiny organisms (or microorganisms) he called “microzyma” which were “pleomorphic” or “many-formed.” (Pleo = many and morph = form.) Interestingly, these microzyma were found to be present in all things whether living or dead, and they persist even when the host has died. Many were impervious to heat as well.

Bechamp’s microzyma, including specific bacteria, could take on a number of  forms during the host’s life cycle and these forms depended (as Bernard contended)  primarily on the chemistry of their environment, or the biological terrain, or to put it a third way, the condition of the host. In other words there is no single cause of disease. Instead disease results when microzyma change form, function and toxicity according to the terrain of the host.   Bad bacteria, viruses and fungi are merely the forms assumed by the microzymas when there is a condition or terrain that favors disease and these “bad” microzyma themselves give off toxic byproducts, further contributing to a weakened terrain.

This is how Bechamp himself put it in his last book The Third Element of the Blood: “. . . the microzyma, whatever its origin, is a ferment; it is organized, it is living, capable of multiplying, of becoming diseased and of communicating disease. . . All mycrozyma are ferments of the same order – that is to say, they are organisms, able to produce alcohol, acetic acid, lactic acid and butyric acid.  . . In a state of health the microzymas of the organism act harmoniously, and our life is, in every meaning of the word, a regular fermentation. In a state of disease, the microzymas do not act harmoniously, and the fermentation is disturbed; the mycrozymas have either changed their function or are placed in an abnormal situation by some modification of the medium. . .”

Through his research, Bechamp showed that the essence of life is a “fermentation” process of digestion, assimilation, disassimilation and excretion. Interruptions in any of these functions would result in a lack of energy, full blown disease or even death. Rather than causing disease, Bechamp showed that harmful mycrozyma – which Pasteur took to be external germs attacking a host – actually arises when the body’s normal metabolic processes are disturbed.

Thus, according to Bernard, Bechamp and their successors, disease occurs to a large extent as a function of biology and as a result of the changes that take place when metabolic processes are thrown off. Germs become symptoms that stimulate the occurrence of more symptoms – which ultimately culminate in disease. A body thus weakend also naturally becomes vulnerable to external harmful microzyma – or if you prefer pleomorphic germs. So, our bodies are in effect mini-ecosystems, or biological terrains in which nutritional status, toxicity levels, inflammation, and pH balance play key roles.

For these and other reasons Bechamp argued strenuously against vaccines, asserting that “The most serious disorders may be provoked by the injection of living organisms into the blood.” Untold numbers of researchers have agreed with him. Nonetheless Pasteur and his like-minded contemporary Robert Koch – both being shameless self-promoters – easily won the propaganda war favoring the widespread use of vaccines – which then made boatloads of money for everyone associated.  In fact, according to researcher E. Douglas Hume, if it had not been for mass acceptance of vaccines, the germ theory might very well have died a quiet death.

Decades after Pasteur’s death researchers tried to expose the fact that Pasteur liberally “borrowed”, plagiarized and misinterpreted the work of others, especially that of Bechamp – which is how Pasteur came up with the “germ” theory. The efforts of these researchers unfortunately have had little effect on the practice of medicine or the way we think about disease.

Instead, as Dr. Bernard Jensen and Mark Anderson assert in their book Empty Harvest, “The germ theory is still believed to be the central cause of disease because around it exists a colossal supportive infrastructure of commercial interests that built multi-billion-dollar industries based upon this theory. To the scientific satisfaction of many in the health field, it has long been disproven as the primary cause of disease. Germs are, rather, an effect of disease.”

Interestingly and to this day, the whole theory of microzymas and how they operate has never been disproved – or proven false – by opposing research. To the contrary, decades of research – beginning with Pasteur himself – has only served to bolster the mycrozyma theory. Not only does the germ theory remain unsubstantiated today, but Pasteur himself recanted it in his private journal, writing the famous words which were revealed many decades after his death:

“It is not the germ that causes disease but the terrain in which the germ is found.”

For more information see the 1935 books Bechamp or Pasteur? and Pasteur Exposed, both by E. Douglas Hume.