Lose Them Pounds

While the mainstream media has, by and large, dismissed the theory that SARS-CoV-2 was created and leaked from a high-security biocontainment lab in Wuhan, China, a number of high-ranking U.S. officials are sticking to it, and there’s probably good reason for this.
On the whole, if the virus was actually a natural occurrence, a series of improbable coincidences would have had to transpire. Meanwhile, a series of highly probable “coincidences” point to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) being the most likely source, and to dismiss them as a whole simply doesn’t make sense.
Media Struggle to Prop Up Unproven Zoonotic Theory

I first mentioned that the outbreak had the hallmarks of a laboratory escape in an article we posted well over a year ago, February 4, 2020. On the upside, some members of the media are now finally starting to inch toward more honest reporting on this — probably because U.S. officials keep leaning that way.
That doesn’t mean some aren’t still trying to defend the official narrative. Take The New York Times, for example. The original headline of its March 26, 2021, article about Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, read: “Ex-CDC Director Favors Debunked Covid-19 Origin Theory.”1
Three days later, that headline was toned down to: “The CDC’s Ex-Director Offers No Evidence in Favoring Speculation That the Coronavirus Originated in a Lab,”2 with a correction notice noting that the earlier headline “referred incorrectly to a theory on the origins of the coronavirus. The theory is unproven, not debunked.”
Well, the truth is, all other theories are equally unproven — and are riddled with far more holes. The theory that the virus arose through natural mutation, for example, looks like Swiss cheese in comparison to the lab-leak theory.
In a February 16, 2021, article3 in Independent Science News, molecular biologist and virologist Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., and Allison Wilson, Ph.D., a molecular biologist, reviewed the evidence for a laboratory origin and the reasons why a zoonotic origin “will never be found.” I also summarized their review in “How We Know SARS-CoV-2 Leaked From a Chinese Lab.”
The half-baked idea brought forth by the World Health Organization’s investigative team, that the virus somehow naturally evolved in some unknown part of the world and then piggy-backed into Wuhan on top of frozen food, is held together by even fewer facts.
Among the more compelling “coincidences” that hint at lab-origin are the facts that the WIV has admitted storing and working with bat coronaviruses collected significant distances away from the lab, and that it’s the only biosafety lab in China that studies human coronaviruses. These viruses include RaTG13,4 the closest known ancestor to SARS-CoV-2, obtained from miners who fell ill with severe respiratory illness after working in a Mojiang mine in 2012.
WHO COVID Report ‘Totally Flawed’

In a March 30, 2021, opinion piece in The Washington Post,5 Josh Rogin accurately points out that the WHO’s report6 on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is so flawed, “a real investigation has yet to take place.” We simply cannot count that report as the result of a true investigative effort.

“Determining the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus should have nothing to do with politics,” he writes.7 “It is a forensic question, one that requires thorough investigation of all possible theories, and one that should encompass both the scenario that the virus jumped from animals to humans in nature as well as one related to human error in a Wuhan lab.

But a fatally flawed investigation by the World Health Organization and Chinese officials and experts only muddies the waters, and it places the WHO further at odds with the U.S. government and the Biden administration.”

As noted by Rogin and many others, the investigation was far from independent and transparent, as China was allowed to select its members, who then relied on their Chinese counterparts when it came to data collection. It’s no surprise then that this team decided the natural origin theory is the most credible, while the lab-accident theory is summarily dismissed as unworthy of further consideration and study.
In a March 25, 2021, CNN interview,8 Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, “We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.” Rogin adds:9

“Specifically, declassified U.S. intelligence, confirmed by Blinken’s own State Department,10 alleges that the WIV was conducting undisclosed research on bat coronaviruses, had secret research projects with the Chinese military, and failed to disclose that several lab workers got sick with COVID-like symptoms in autumn 2019.”

Someone’s Not Telling the Truth

According to the WHO report, the labs “were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring program with no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019.” “In other words, the WHO is saying the U.S. intelligence is wrong,” Rogin writes.11
Not a word is mentioned in the report about U.S. government claims that the WIV engaged in the very research required to create a novel coronavirus with the specific affinity to infect human cells.
Recently, Shi Zhengli, who heads bat coronavirus research at the WIV spoke at a Rutgers University seminar, calling the WIV’s research “open“ and ”transparent.” Former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger disagrees. In an interview with Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, he said:12

“There was a direct order from Beijing to destroy all viral samples — and they didn’t volunteer to share the genetic sequences. There is a body of research that’s been taking place, conducted by the Chinese military in collaboration with the WIV, which has not been acknowledged by the Chinese government.

We’ve seen the data. I’ve personally seen the data. We don’t know [why the military were in that lab]. It is a major lead that needs to be pursued by the press, certainly by the WHO.”

As noted by Pottinger, Shi published studies showing how bat coronaviruses were manipulated to render them more infectious to humans, and the U.S. government has in the past received reports of safety concerns due to lax standards at the WIV.

“They were doing research specifically on coronaviruses that attach to the ACE2 receptors in human lungs just like the COVID-19 virus,” Pottinger told Stahl.13 “It’s circumstantial evidence. But it’s a pretty potent bullet point when you consider that the place where this pandemic emerged was a few kilometers away from the WIV.”

US State Department Suspects Lab Leak

In a March 21, 2021, interview with Sky News Australia,14 David Asher, former lead investigator for the U.S. State Department’s task force that looked into the origins of COVID-19, also stated that the data they collected “made us feel the Wuhan Institute was highly probably the source of the COVID pandemic.”
According to Asher, three workers at the WIV who worked with the RatG13 coronavirus — the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date — appear to have actually been the first cluster of cases of COVID-19. They fell ill with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 as early as October 2019. At least one of the workers required hospitalization.
He also pointed out there is evidence in the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 suggesting it’s been synthetically altered. It has the backbone of a bat coronavirus, combined with a pangolin receptor and “some sort of humanized mice transceptor.” “These things don’t naturally make sense,” Asher said, adding that experts around the world agree that the odds of this configuration occurring naturally is “very low.”
Another troubling indicator that something was amiss at the WIV was the Chinese government’s taking down of a WIV database in September 2019. According to the Chinese, this was done because of “thousands of hacking attempts.”
However, Asher pointed out many other databases were taken offline around the same time as well.15 The Chinese even tried to remove data posted in a European database containing viral sequencing from patients exhibiting COVID-19-related symptoms. Interestingly, those sequences included adenovirus, which is a vaccine vector. This, Asher said, could indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is part of a vaccine developed in response to a biological weapon.
In an earlier article16 by The Sun, Asher is quoted saying the WIV “was operating a secret, classified program,” and that “In my view … it was a biological weapons program.” He stops short of accusing China of intentional release, however, which also would not make sense from a bioweapon point of view. Instead, he said he believes it was a weapon vector that, during development, “somehow leaked.”17
They were using these viruses in a BSL-2 lab and, we now know, infecting animals. So that creates the opportunity for a lab leak. It might not be the most likely scenario on how this virus got out, but it has to remain a scenario. ~ Dr. Scott Gottlieb
A March 27, 2020, assessment report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency also concluded SARS-CoV-2 was likely an accidental release from an infectious diseases laboratory, but stops short of calling it a biological weapon.18 Asher also told Sky News19 he’s never seen a more systematic cover-up, and The Sun20 quotes him as saying that “Motive, cover-up, conspiracy, all the hallmarks of guilt are associated with this.”
Former FDA Commissioner Weighs in on Lab Origin

March 28, 2021, former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, now a board member of Pfizer (producer of one of the COVID vaccines), weighed in on the origin of the pandemic in a Face the Nation interview, saying:21

“It looks like the WHO report was an attempt to try to support the Chinese narrative … You know, the lab leak theory doesn’t seem like a plausible theory unless you aggregate the biggest collection of coronaviruses and put them in a lab, a minimum-security lab in the middle of a densely-populated center and experiment on animals, which is exactly what the Wuhan Institute of Virology did.

They were using these viruses in a BSL-2 lab and, we now know, infecting animals. So that creates the opportunity for a lab leak. It might not be the most likely scenario on how this virus got out, but it has to remain a scenario. And I think at the end of the day, we’re never going to fully discharge that possibility. What we’re going to have here is a battle of competing narratives.”

WHO Enters Damage Control Mode

In response to growing critique, WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and 13 other world leaders have joined the U.S. government in expressing “frustration with the level of access China granted an international mission to Wuhan.” As reported by The Washington Post, March 30, 2021:22

“Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to member states … that he expected ‘future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing’ — the most pointed comments to date from an agency that has been solicitous toward China through most of the pandemic.

He said there is a particular need for a ‘full analysis’ of the role of animal markets in Wuhan and that the report did not conduct an ‘extensive enough’ assessment of the possibility the virus was introduced to humans through a laboratory incident …

The United States, Britain, South Korea, Israel, Japan and others issued a joint statement23 … expressing concern. ‘Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence,’ it reads …

Tedros said24 … that mission team members raised concerns to him about access to raw data needed for the report … ‘The team reports that the first detected case had symptom onset on the 8th of December 2019. But to understand the earliest cases, scientists would benefit from full access to data, including biological samples from at least September 2019,’ he said.”

WHO Investigation Team Accused of Spreading Disinformation

In a March 2020 interview with Independent Science News,25 molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology and member of the Institutional Biosafety Committee of Rutgers University and the Working Group on Pathogen Security of the state of New Jersey, called out the members of the WHO-instigated investigative team as “participants in disinformation.”
Ebright was one of 26 scientists who signed an open letter26 demanding a full and unrestricted forensic investigation into the origins of the pandemic, published in the Wall Street Journal and French Le Monde, March 4, 2021. When asked to describe the shortcomings of the WHO-China team’s investigation, he responded:

“A credible investigation would have had Terms of Reference that: 1) Acknowledged the possibility of laboratory origin, 2) Ensured access of investigators to records, samples, personnel, and facilities at the Wuhan laboratories that handle bat SARS-related coronaviruses,

3) Enabled collection of evidence, not mere meet-and-greet photo-ops, 4) Authorized an investigation of months, not mere days, and 5) A credible investigation also would have had conflict-of-interest-free investigators, not persons who were subjects of the research and/or closely associated with subjects of the investigation …

It is crucial that any team reviewing the issues include not only research scientists, but also biosafety, biosecurity, and science policy specialists.”

Ebright, who has repeatedly called the WHO mission “a charade,” stated that “its members were willing — and, in at least one case, enthusiastic — participants in disinformation.” Importantly, the terms of reference for the investigation were prenegotiated, and did not include even the possibility of a laboratory origin. He’s also highly critical of the inclusion of Peter Daszak, whose conflicts of interest alone are enough to invalidate the investigation.

“Daszak was the contractor who funded the laboratory at WIV that potentially was the source of the virus (with subcontracts from $200 million from the US Department of State and $7 million from the US National Institutes of Health), and he was a collaborator and co-author on research projects at the laboratory,” Ebright noted.

What Do We Know?

While another signer of the open letter, Dr. Steven Quay, claims to have calculated27 the lab-origin hypothesis as having a 99.8% probability of being correct, Ebright is unwilling to assign relative probabilities to either theory. Rather, he insists a truly thorough forensic investigation and analysis is what is required, as there is biological evidence going in both directions. He explains:

“The genome sequence of the outbreak virus indicates that its progenitor was either the horseshoe-bat coronavirus RaTG13, or a closely related bat coronavirus.

RaTG13 was collected by Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2013 from a horseshoe-bat colony in a mine in Yunnan province, where miners had died from a SARS-like pneumonia in 2012, was partly sequenced by WIV in 2013-2016, was fully sequenced by WIV in 2018-2019, and was published by WIV in 2020.

Bat coronaviruses are present in nature in multiple parts of China. Therefore, the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident, with a virus passing from a bat to a human, possibly through another animal. There is clear precedent for this. The first entry of the SARS virus into the human population occurred as a natural accident in a rural part of Guangdong province in 2002.

But bat coronaviruses are also collected and studied by laboratories in multiple parts of China, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Therefore, the first human infection also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with a virus accidentally infecting a field collection staffer, a field survey staffer, or a laboratory staffer, followed by transmission from the staffer to the public.

There also is clear precedent for this. The second, third, fourth and fifth entries of the SARS virus into human populations occurred as a laboratory accident in Singapore in 2003, a laboratory accident in Taipei in 2003, and two separate laboratory accidents in Beijing in 2004.

At this point in time, there is no secure basis to assign relative probabilities to the natural-accident hypothesis and the laboratory-accident hypothesis. Nevertheless, there are three lines of circumstantial evidence that are worth noting.

1. First, the outbreak occurred in Wuhan, a city of 11 million persons that does not contain horseshoe-bat colonies; that is tens of kilometers from, and that is outside the flight range of, the nearest known horseshoe-bat colonies. Furthermore, the outbreak occurred at a time of year when horseshoe bats are in hibernation and do not leave colonies.

2. Second, the outbreak occurred in Wuhan, on the doorstep of the laboratory that conducts the world’s largest research project on horseshoe bat viruses, that has the world’s largest collection of horseshoe-bat viruses, and that possessed and worked with the world’s closest sequenced relative of the outbreak virus …

3. Third, the bat-SARS-related-coronavirus projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology used personal protective equipment (usually just gloves; sometimes not even gloves) and biosafety standards (usually just biosafety level 2) that would pose very high risk of infection of field-collection, field-survey, or laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2.”

Who’s Qualified to Opine on Viral Origin?

When asked “What would you say to the scientists who declined to comment on the open letter because it does not come from virologists?” Ebright responded:28

“The claim is unsound. There were virologists among the signers of the Open Letter. There even were coronavirologists among the signers of the Open Letter. More important, COVID-19 affects every person on the planet. Not just virologists …

Microbiologists and molecular biologists are as qualified as virologists to assess the relevant science and science policies. Virology is a subset, not a superset, of microbiology and molecular biology. The sequencing, sequence analysis, cell culture, animal-infection studies and other laboratory procedures used by virologists are not materially different from the procedures used by other microbiologists and molecular biologists.”

Is Gain-of-Function Research Ever Justifiable?

Clearly, getting to the bottom of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is crucial if we are to prevent a similar pandemic from erupting in the future. If gain-of-function research was in fact involved, we need to know, so that steps can either be taken to prevent another leak (which is not likely possible) or to dismantle and ban such research altogether for the common good.
As long as we are creating the risk, the benefit will be secondary. Any scientific or medical gains made from this kind of research pales in comparison to the incredible risks involved if weaponized pathogens are released, and it doesn’t matter if it’s by accident or on purpose. This sentiment has been echoed by others in a variety of scientific publications.29,30,31,32
Considering the potential for a massively lethal pandemic, I believe it’s safe to say that BSL 3 and 4 laboratories pose a very real and serious existential threat to humanity.
Historical facts tell us accidental exposures and releases have already happened, and we only have our lucky stars to thank that none have turned into pandemics taking the lives of tens of millions, as was predicted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seeing how scientists have already figured out a way to mutate SARS-CoV-2 such that it evades human antibodies, as detailed in “Lab Just Made a More Dangerous COVID Virus,” having a frank, open discussion about the scientific merits of this kind of work is more pertinent than ever before.
If SARS-CoV-2 really was the result of zoonotic spillover, the easiest and most effective way to quash “conspiracy theories” about a lab origin would be to present compelling evidence for a plausible theory. So far, that hasn’t happened, and as noted by Latham and Wilson, the most likely reason for that is because the virus does not have a natural zoonotic origin, and you cannot find that which does not exist.
Summary

Ideally, we need to reevaluate the usefulness of the WHO. Strong evidence indicates it is heavily influenced, if not outright controlled by Bill Gates. On the whole, it seems it would be far wiser to decentralize pandemic planning from the global and federal levels to the state and local levels. Both medicine and government work best when individualized and locally applied.
Sadly, even though this is clearly the best strategy for successfully addressing any truly serious infectious threat, the likelihood of this happening is very close to zero.
This is largely due to decades of careful planning by the technocrats that have carefully placed their surrogates in virtually every arena of global government, finances and media, which allows them to easily dictate their propaganda campaigns and censor or deplatform virtually anyone who disagrees and seeks to provide a balanced counter-narrative.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/09/who-enters-damage-control-mode.aspx

It’s estimated that 1 in 3 Americans is deficient in at least 10 minerals, including potassium, manganese, magnesium and zinc, putting them at risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.1
“The Mineral Fix,” written by James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., with whom I co-wrote “Super Fuel,” and Siim Land, author of “Metabolic Autophagy,” provides a comprehensive guide about the role of essential minerals and why you need them to optimize physiological function and survival. There are 17 essential minerals, broken down into seven macrominerals and 10 trace minerals. There are another five minerals that are possibly essential.
The primary role of minerals is to act as cofactors for enzymes, but that’s just the bare minimum. “They literally are the shields for oxidative stress,” DiNicolantonio said, “because they make up our antioxidant enzymes. They help us produce and activate ATP, help us produce DNA, protein, so literally every function in the body is dependent, in some way, on minerals.”
Minerals’ role in the creation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) alone is a clue to their importance. As the energy currency in your body, ATP is essential for cellular functions throughout your body, including in your heart, which is dependent on sufficient amounts of ATP to function properly. DiNicolantonio believes that not getting enough minerals in your diet can be just as damaging as eating an unhealthy diet focused on sugar and seed oils.
Three Reasons Why You May Be Deficient in Minerals

About a third of the U.S. population is likely deficient in the below 10 minerals (estimated % not hitting RDA/AI or estimated % deficient):2

Boron (> 75%)
Manganese (~ 75%)
Magnesium (52.2-68%)
Chromium (56%)

Calcium (44.1-73%)
Zinc (42-47%)
Iron (25-34%)

Copper (25-31%)
Selenium (15-40%)
Molybdenum (15%)

DiNicolantonio cites three primary reasons why so many people are deficient, including the fact that our foods are more nutrient-depleted. People also aren’t selecting the right foods to hit optimal intakes of minerals, and chronic diseases states are compounding the problem.
For instance, gastrointestinal damage can decrease the amount of minerals you absorb, while if you are living in a high state of inflammation, it’s taxing to your system, which will increase the burn rate of minerals. Kidney damage increases the excretion of minerals, while high insulin levels will cause minerals to be excreted in your urine. “Those three key factors are why so many of us are depleted in so many minerals,” DiNicolantonio said.
Minerals for Antioxidant Defense and Immunity

You may associate antioxidants with vitamins, such as vitamins C and E, but minerals were the first antioxidants in living organisms. DiNicolantonio uses the example of blue-green algae that lived billions of years ago, producing oxygen and creating an abundance of oxidative stress. They utilized selenium and iodine as antioxidants. In humans, we use these similarly.
Iodine is an essential mineral that helps prevent polyunsaturated fats from oxidizing, provides your thyroid with the necessary nutrients to produce thyroid hormones, and is a natural antibacterial agent. Thyroid hormones are essential for normal growth and development in children, neurological development in babies before birth and in the first year of life, and in regulating your metabolism.3
However, DiNicolantonio said, thyroid hormones also act as antioxidants, with effects 100 times stronger than vitamin C, vitamin E and glutathione. You need minerals, including iodine and selenium, to form your thyroid hormones, and your levels of powerful antioxidants like glutathione are directly dependent on your selenium and magnesium status.
There’s also superoxide anion, the product of a one electron reduction of oxygen, which is the precursor of most reactive oxygen species and a mediator in oxidative chain reactions.
These oxygen free radicals attack the lipids in your cell membranes, protein receptors, enzymes, and DNA that can prematurely kill your mitochondria. Superoxide dismutase neutralizes superoxide anion, but it depends on copper and zinc. DiNicolantonio explained:

“If you’re low in copper and zinc, you can’t neutralize the superoxide, it combines with nitric oxide, reducing your nitric oxide levels, increasing blood pressure, leading to atherosclerosis and heart disease, and then you form the toxic peroxynitrite. So it goes to show you how just having a low mineral status can lead to high inflammation.”

RDAs Are Inadequate

The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for many minerals may be inadequate to protect your health and don’t get you to the levels needed to optimize your antioxidant defenses, DiNicolantonio said, calling this issue the crux of their book.
RDAs are based on studies to make sure you’re not deficient, but this level isn’t the same as the one that will give you optimal health. In the case of enzymes dependent on vitamin C, for example, you need to consume 120 milligrams (mg) to 150 mg of vitamin C to make sure those enzymes are highly optimized, which is far more than the 6 mg to 8 mg of vitamin C needed to prevent scurvy.
“You can have up to a 1,000-fold difference between preventing deficiency and optimal intake,” according to DiNicolantonio. Magnesium is another example but with lower differences between deficiency and optimal. You only need about 150 mg to 180 mg a day to prevent deficiency, but optimal levels are closer to the 600 mg/day level.
For comparison, the RDA for magnesium is around 310 mg to 420 mg per day depending on your age and sex.4 But like DiNicolantonio, many experts believe you may need around 600 mg to 900 mg per day. As noted in Open Heart:5

“Investigations of the macro- and micro-nutrient supply in Paleolithic nutrition of the former hunter/gatherer societies showed a magnesium uptake with the usual diet of about 600 mg magnesium/day …

This means our metabolism is best adapted to a high magnesium intake … In developed countries, the average intake of magnesium is slightly over 4 mg/kg/day … [T]he average intake of magnesium in the USA is around 228 mg/day in women and 266mg/day in men …”

Another important point that DiNicolantonio makes is that simply increasing your mineral intake by taking supplements may not be enough, because you need to be insulin sensitive to utilize the minerals properly. If you’re insulin resistant, you can’t drive the minerals into the cells to work well, and you’ll be eliminating the minerals in urine as well.
“So really the first step,” he says, “is to eliminate the harmful substances that are causing you to be insulin resistant in the first place. That’s automatically going to boost your mineral status, because you’re going to be able to utilize those minerals better.”
Top Food Sources of Minerals

The best way to increase your mineral intake is via healthy foods. For copper and iron, for instance, DiNicolantonio recommends pairing muscle meat with liver, or eating oysters, which are also high in zinc. A lot of oysters may be contaminated with cadmium, however, so they should be eaten in moderation depending on where they’re sourced from.
One of the foods with the highest minerals overall are mussels. They’re high in manganese, chromium and copper, which are minerals many people are deficient in. Liver is another nutrient-dense food that’s rich in minerals, but it’s possible to overdo it.
According to DiNicolantonio, in terms of mineral consumption, one-half to 1 ounce of liver per day is the ideal amount, which will give you vitamin A, folate and copper. He recommends pairing this with about 10 to 12 ounces of pastured red meat per day, for the vitamin B12, protein, zinc and iron it provides.
If you don’t like the taste of liver, try a blend of meat made with pastured liver, heart and muscle meat. You can add in more pastured ground beef to make it more palatable and still reap the rich mineral benefits.
Women need more than twice the amount of iron as men, so animal-based sources of iron, which are 10 times more bioavailable than plant sources, are important. For those who don’t eat meat, combining vitamin C with beans, spinach and other iron-rich greens may help make the iron more bioavailable.
Benefits of Mineral Waters

It’s important to balance animal foods with alkaline minerals like potassium and magnesium from plant foods or mineral waters, which will balance out the acid and help protect your kidneys. Mineral waters that contain bicarbonate can help with this acid-base balance, while providing an additional source of minerals like calcium and magnesium.
Drinking mineral water with a meal is also beneficial and can increase mineral absorption while lowering postprandial blood sugar. It’s also useful to sip mineral water throughout the day, DiNicolantonio said, citing a study that found consuming 7 ounces of mineral water seven times a day increases magnesium absorption and retention by 40%, versus consuming larger amounts twice a day. He continued:

“It’s that slow infusion, which mimics more of an evolutionary intake — we would have just drank water throughout the day and it would have been natural. It wouldn’t be these artificially softened waters, it would be natural waters that contain bicarbonate, that contain magnesium, that contain calcium. So it’s something that I do.”

Less-Known Minerals That You May Be Missing

Minerals like boron often get overlooked, yet they’re extremely important for well-being and health. Boron, consumed at levels of about 3 mg daily, is beneficial for bone health and testosterone, but it’s thought that most Americans only consume about 1 mg.
The highest concentrations of boron are found in bones and tooth enamel and, according to the Natural Medicine Journal, it “appears to be indispensable for healthy bone function,”6 as it reduces excretion of calcium, magnesium and phosphorous.
There may also be other, as yet poorly understood, mechanisms by which it benefits bone-building and other aspects of health. The optimal dosage is unknown, but you can get significant amounts of this trace mineral by eating small amounts of raisins, peaches, prunes, dates, black currants and avocadoes.
A trace mineral supplement can also be helpful in optimizing your levels of “overlooked” minerals like boron, chromium and molybdenum. Chromium, which has been linked to improved blood sugar levels,7 can be found in mussels, lobster, crab and shrimp, as well as broccoli, in smaller amounts.
Further, chromium is lost in sweat, so you if sweat a lot due to living in a hot climate, sauna usage or exercise, a chromium supplement may be necessary, especially if you don’t regularly consume chromium-rich foods. Copper is another mineral lost through sweat, and since most people don’t consume much copper, it’s possible to lose more copper than you’ve taken in if you sweat heavily for about an hour a day.
Molybdenum is another often-overlooked mineral, which is an essential catalyst for enzymes to help metabolize fats and carbohydrates and facilitate the breakdown of certain amino acids in your body. The best dietary source of molybdenum, according to DiNicolantonio, is liver.
If you want to learn more, or are concerned that you’re not getting enough minerals, “The Mineral Fix” goes much more in-depth about the role of the 17 essential minerals your body needs, including optimal intake levels, symptoms of deficiency, how to test your mineral levels and best food sources.

>>>>> Click Here <<<<<
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/10/most-people-are-mineral-deficient.aspx

1 The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from:

Making laws

Making laws that protect freedom of speech
Making laws that ensure a free press

Making laws that restrict freedom of speech
According to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …” Elected officials in Congress who are calling for censorship are breaking the law. Learn more.

2 Which country became the first to require vaccine certificates for entry into many public spaces?

Israel

Israel became the first country to require vaccine certificates for entry into restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, swimming pools and other public venues. Activists warn it’s become a two-tiered society where the unvaccinated are now ostracized. Learn more.

Sweden

Brazil

Venezuela

3 The bottled water crisis may be outpaced by a mask crisis not only because their materials make them likely to persist and accumulate in the environment, but also because masks:
May be contaminated with viruses

Are not being recycled

Not only are masks not being recycled, but their materials make them likely to persist and accumulate in the environment. Learn more.

Are clogging drain pipes

Are not yet recognized as a source of pollution

4 Which of the following American companies played a central role in the Holocaust by facilitating the identification and tracking of Jews?

Microsoft

Apple

IBM

IBM aided the Nazi regime in its efforts to eradicate Jews. Without its information technology, Hitler would not have been able to accomplish this genocide at the scale he was able to. Learn more.

Samsung Electronics

5 The origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is still an open question, but a number of U.S. officials, including former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger and former lead investigator for the U.S. State Department’s COVID-19 task force David Asher, have stated the most likely theory that SARS-CoV-2 is the result of:

Intentional release of a bioweapon

Natural mutation from zoonotic origin

Natural mutation of human cold virus

A laboratory accident

A number of U.S. officials have admitted that the lab-accident theory either remains the most credible, or needs to remain an option open for inquiry. Learn more.

6 Not getting enough minerals in your diet may be just as damaging as:

Eating an unhealthy diet

DiNicolantonio believes that not getting enough minerals in your diet can be just as damaging as eating an unhealthy diet focused on sugar and seed oils. Learn more.

Staying up late

Exposure to pollutants

Riding a bicycle without a helmet

7 When you need a root canal procedure, which of the following dental professionals should you see?
A conventional dentist (general dentistry)

An endodontist using regenerative technologies such as ozone and laser therapy
If you need a root canal procedure, see an endodontist who is trained in the use of regenerative technologies such as ozone and laser therapy. Learn more.

An orthodontist

A periodontist specializing in holistic dentistry

 
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/12/week-177-health-quiz.aspx

The following sections are the foreword1 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote for my new book, “The Truth About COVID-19 — Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal,” co-written with founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, Ronnie Cummins.
In it, we investigate the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and how the technocratic elite are using the pandemic to erode liberty, freedom and democracy. We also review strategies that can help protect you against this infection, and what you can do to fight back against the technocratic takeover. While it won’t be available until April 29, 2021, you can preorder it on Amazon.

>>>>> Click Here <<<<< Foreword to ‘The Truth About COVID-19’ Government technocrats, billionaire oligarchs, Big Pharma, Big Data, Big Media, the high-finance robber barons and the military industrial intelligence apparatus love pandemics for the same reasons they love wars and terrorist attacks. Catastrophic crises create opportunities of convenience to increase both power and wealth. In her seminal book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” Naomi Klein chronicles how authoritarian demagogues, large corporations and wealthy plutocrats use mass disruptions to shift wealth upwards, obliterate the middle classes, abolish civil rights, privatize the commons and expand authoritarian controls. A consummate insider, the former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel is known for his admonition that vested power structures should “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” But this treadworn strategy — to use crisis to inflame the public terror that paves the road to dictatorial power — has served as the central strategy of totalitarian systems for millennia. The methodology is, in fact, formulaic, as Hitler’s Luftwaffe commander, Hermann Göring, explained during the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg: “It is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country.” Fear Is Weaponized to Justify Blind Obedience The Nazis pointed to the threats from Jews and Gypsies to justify the homicidal authoritarianism in the Third Reich. The dictatorial demagogue, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and the House Unamerican Activities Committee warned against communist infiltration of the U.S. State Department and film industry to rationalize loyalty oaths and the blacklist. Dick Cheney used the 911 attack to launch his “long war” against amorphous terrorism and the Patriot Act abridgments that laid the groundwork for the modern surveillance state. Now the medical cartel and its billionaire Big Tech accomplices have invoked the most potent, frightening and enduring enemy of all — the microbe. And who can blame them? Increasing the wealth and power of the oligarchy is seldom a potent vessel for populism. Citizens accustomed to voting for their governments are unlikely to support policies that make the rich richer, increase political and social control by corporations, diminish democracy and reduce their civil rights. So, demagogues must weaponize fear to justify their demands for blind obedience and to win public acquiescence for the demolition of civil and economic rights. Without Freedom of Speech, Democracy Dies Of course, the first casualty must always be freedom of speech. After stoking sufficient panic against the hobgoblin du jour, robber barons need to silence protest against their wealth and power-grabs. In including free speech in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison argued that all our other liberties depend on this right. Any government that can hide its mischief has license to commit atrocities. As soon as they get hold of the levers of authority, tyrants impose Orwellian censorship and begin gaslighting dissenters. But ultimately they seek to abolish all forms of creative thinking and self-expression. They burn books, destroy art, kill writers, poets and intellectuals, outlaw gatherings and, at their worst, force oppressed minorities to wear masks that atomize any sense of community or solidarity and prevent the subtle, eloquent nonverbal communication for which God and evolution have equipped humans with 42 facial muscles. The most savage Middle Eastern theocracies mandate masks for women, whose legal status — not coincidentally — is as chattels. The free flow of information and self-expression are oxygen and sunlight for representative democracy, which functions best with policies annealed in the boiling cauldron of public debate. It is axiomatic that without free speech, democracy withers. The most iconic and revered monuments of democracy therefore include the Athenian Agora and Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park. We can’t help feeling exhilaration about our noble experiment in self-government when we witness the boisterous, irreverent debates in the House of Commons, or watch Jimmy Stewart’s filibuster scene in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — an enduring homage to the inseparable bond between debate and democracy. To consolidate and fortify their power, dictatorships aim to replace those vital ingredients of self-rule — debate, self-expression, dissent and skepticism — with rigid authoritarian orthodoxies that function as secular surrogates for religion. These orthodoxies perform to abolish critical thinking and regiment populations in blind, unquestioning obedience to undeserving authorities. Iatrarchy Is Doomed to Fail Instead of citing scientific studies to justify mandates for masks, lockdowns and vaccines, our medical rulers cite WHO, CDC, FDA and NIH — captive agencies that are groveling sock puppets to the industries they regulate. Multiple federal and international investigations have documented the financial entanglements with pharmaceutical companies that have made these regulators cesspools of corruption. Iatrarchy — meaning government by physicians — is a little-known term, perhaps because historical experiments with it have been catastrophic. The medical profession has not proven itself an energetic defender of democratic institutions or civil rights. Virtually every doctor in Germany took lead roles in the Third Reich’s project to eliminate mental defectives, homosexuals, handicapped citizens and Jews. So many hundreds of German physicians participated in Hitler’s worst atrocities — including managing mass murder and unspeakable experiments at the death camps — that the allies had to stage separate “Medical Trials” at Nuremberg. Not a single prominent German doctor or medical association raised their voice in opposition to these projects. So, it’s unsurprising that, instead of demanding blue-ribbon safety science and encouraging honest, open and responsible debate on the science, the badly compromised and newly empowered government health officials charged with managing the COVID-19 pandemic response collaborated with mainstream and social media to shut down discussion on key public health and civil rights questions. They silenced and excommunicated heretics like Dr. Mercola who refused to genuflect to Pharma and treat unquestioning faith in zero-liability, shoddily-tested experimental vaccines as religious duty. Our current iatrarchy’s rubric of “scientific consensus” is the contemporary iteration of the Spanish Inquisition. It is a fabricated dogma constructed by this corrupt cast of physician technocrats and their media collaborators to legitimize their claims to dangerous new powers. The high priests of the modern Inquisition are Big Pharma’s network and cable news gasbags who preach rigid obedience to official diktats including lockdowns, social distancing and the moral rectitude of donning masks despite the absence of peer-reviewed science that convincingly shows that masks prevent COVID-19 transmission. The need for this sort of proof is gratuitous. They counsel us to, instead, “trust the experts.” Such advice is both antidemocratic and antiscience. Science is dynamic. “Experts” frequently differ on scientific questions and their opinions can vary in accordance with the demands of politics, power and financial self-interest. Nearly every lawsuit I have ever brought pitted highly credentialed experts from opposite sides against each other, with all of them swearing under oath to diametrically antithetical positions based on the same set of facts. Science is disagreement; the notion of scientific consensus is oxymoronic. Corporate Kleptocracy The modern intention of the totalitarian state is corporate kleptocracy — a construct that replaces democratic process with the arbitrary edicts of unelected technocrats. Invariably, their fiats invest multinational corporations with extraordinary power to monetize and control the most intimate parts of our lives, enrich billionaires, impoverish the masses and manage dissent with relentless surveillance and obedience training. In 2020, led by Bill Gates, Silicon Valley applauded from the sidelines as powerful medical charlatans — applying the most pessimistic projections from discredited modeling and easily manipulated PCR testing and a menu of new protocols for coroners that appeared intended to inflate reporting of COVID-19 deaths — fanned pandemic panic and confined the world’s population under house arrest. The suspension of due process, and notice, and comment rulemaking meant that none of the government prelates who ordained the quarantine had to first publicly calculate whether destroying the global economy, disrupting food and medical supplies, and throwing a billion humans into dire poverty and food insecurity would kill more people than it would save. In America, their quarantine predictably shattered the nation’s once-booming economic engine, putting 58 million Americans out of work, and permanently bankrupting more than 100,000 small businesses, including 41,000 Black-owned businesses, some of which took three generations of investment to build. These policies have also set into motion the inevitable dismantling of the social safety net that nurtured America’s envied middle class. Government officials have already begun liquidating the 100-year legacies of the New Deal, New Frontier, the Great Society and Obamacare to pay the accumulated quarantine debts. Say goodbye to school lunches, health care, WICS, Medicaid, Medicare, University scholarships, etc., etc., etc. The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in Modern History While obliterating the American middle class and dropping an additional 8% of Americans below the poverty line, the 2020 “COVID coup” transferred a trillion dollars of wealth to Big Technology, Big Data, Big Telecom, Big Finance, Big Media behemoths (Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch) and Silicon Valley internet titans like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Jack Dorsey. It seems beyond coincidence that these men, who are cashing in on the poverty and misery caused by global lockdowns, are the same men whose companies actively censor critics of those policies. The very internet companies that snookered us all with the promise of democratizing communications have created a world where it has become impermissible to speak ill of official pronouncements, and practically a crime to criticize pharmaceutical products. The same Tech/Data and Telecom robber barons, now gorging themselves on the corpses of our obliterated middle class, are rapidly transforming America’s once-proud democracy into a censorship and surveillance police state over which they profit at every turn. For example, this cabal used the lockdown to accelerate construction of their 5G network of satellites, antennae, biometric facial recognition and “track-and-trace” infrastructure that they, and their government and intelligence agency partners, will use to mine and monetize our data for free, compel obedience to arbitrary dictates and suppress dissent. Their government/industry collaboration will use this system to manage the rage when Americans finally wake up to the fact that this outlaw gang has stolen our democracy, our civil rights, our country and way of life — while we huddled in orchestrated fear from a flu-like illness. The Systematic Demolition of the US Constitution Predictably our other constitutional guarantees lined up behind free speech at the gibbet. The imposition of censorship has masked this systematic demolition of our Constitution, including attacks on our freedoms of assembly (through social distancing and lockdown rules) and on freedom of worship (including abolishing religious exemptions and closing churches, while liquor stores remain open as “essential service”). They’ve demolished our right to private property (the right to operate a business), due process (including the imposition of far-reaching restrictions against freedom of movement, education and association without rule making, public hearings, or economic and environmental impact statements), the 7th Amendment right to jury trials (in cases of vaccine injuries caused by corporate negligence), our rights to privacy and against illegal searches and seizures (warrantless tracking and tracing), and our right to have governments that don’t spy on us or retain our information for mischievous purposes. The right to dissent … is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail to totalitarianism. ~ Edward R. Murrow Public Enemy No. 1 Silencing Dr. Mercola’s voice, of course, was the Medical Cabal’s early priority. For decades, Dr. Mercola has been among the most effective and influential advocates against the pharmaceutical paradigm. He was an eloquent, charismatic and knowledgeable critic of a corrupt system that has made Americans the world’s top consumer of pharmaceutical drugs. Americans pay the highest prices for drugs, and have the worst health outcomes among the top 75 nations. Putting opiates — which kill 50,000 Americans annually — aside, pharmaceuticals are now the third biggest killer of Americans, after heart attacks and cancer. Like a prophet in the wilderness, Dr. Mercola has argued for years that good health does not come in a syringe or a pill, but from building strong immune systems. He preaches that nutrition and exercise are the most effective medicines, and that public health officials ought to be pushing policies that discourage reliance on pharmaceutical products and that safeguard our food supplies from Big Food, Big Chemical and Big Ag. These predatory industries naturally consider Dr. Mercola to be Public Enemy No. 1. How Big Pharma Controls the News Big Pharma’s $9.6 billion annual advertising budget gives these unscrupulous companies control over our news and television outlets. Strong economic drivers (pharmaceutical companies are the biggest network advertisers) have long discouraged mainstream media outlets from criticizing vaccine manufacturers. In 2014, a network president, Roger Ailes, told me he would fire any of his news show hosts who allowed me to talk about vaccine safety on air. “Our news division,” he explained, “gets up to 70% of ad revenues from pharma in nonelection years.” Thus, pharmaceutical products were both the predicate and the punchline of the Cancel Culture. The Pharmedia long ago banned Dr. Mercola from the airwaves and newsprint while turning Wikipedia — which functions as Pharma’s newsletter and propaganda vehicle — into a mill for defamations against him and every other integrative and functional health physician. At COVID’s outset, the social media robber barons — all with their own financial entanglements with Pharma — joined the campaign to silence Mercola by ejecting him from their platforms. It’s a bad omen for democracy when citizens can no longer conduct civil, informed debates about critical policies that impact the vitality of our economy, public health, personal freedoms and constitutional rights. Censorship is violence, and this systematic muzzling of debate — which proponents justify as a measure to curtail dangerous polarization — is actually fueling the polarization and extremism that the autocrats use to clamp down evermore draconian controls. We might recall, at this strange time in our history, my father’s friend, Edward R. Murrow’s warning: “The right to dissent … is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail to totalitarianism.” Commentary by Dr. Mercola Not surprisingly, Amazon is being pressured to ban “The Truth About COVID-19 — Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal,” or at bare minimum add some sort of warning label to it, under the auspice that it might make people rethink their decision to get vaccinated.2 Censorship has been a go-to strategy for all authoritarian regimes, and as detailed in “Vaccines Are the New ‘Purity Test’” and “IBM Colluded With Hitler, Now Makes Vaccine Passports,” we’ve entered an era where the absolute worst parts of history are being repeated under the cloak of public health. In stark contrast to previous dictatorial regimes, however, the current takeover is a global phenomenon, not a national one. Citizens of every nation now face identical threats to freedom and liberty, and medical professionals and scientists around the world who are trying to shine a light on reality and truth are all facing the same censorship. Globalist-Backed Group Pushes for Radical Censorship While calls for censorship are coming from a wide variety of sources, including elected officials,3,4,5 state attorneys general6 and media, one very vocal advocate for radical censorship is the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a tiny U.K.-based organization with anonymous funding that has taken to publishing hit lists of individuals it wants Big Tech to deplatform.7 Kennedy and I are both listed targets. While more or less a one-man show, the CCDH, by way of its board members, has ties to globalist strongholds such as the Trilateral Commission, the Atlantic Council, the European Council of Foreign Relations, the CIA, Reuters and even Bill Gates. I reviewed these ties in “Pressure Mounts to Ban Dr. Mercola’s New Book From Amazon.” The CCDH works with an equally obscure group called Anti-Vax Watch, which recently put on a demonstration outside the halls of Congress. Ironically, while the CCDH claims to be anti-extremism, you’d be hard-pressed to find a clearer example of actual extremism than this Anti-Vax Watch demonstration, illustrated in this Tweet.8 Government Officials Are Breaking Laws As irksome as groups like the CCDH may be, the fact that government officials are openly calling for censorship are of far more serious concern. What they’re doing is illegal, and they ought to be well aware of this. The fact that they’re blatantly ignoring the law of the land and are trying to wield the power of monopolistic Big Tech platforms for their own personal gain is disconcerting to say the least, as it clearly indicates an unabashed transition into totalitarianism. The First Amendment, which governs our freedom of speech, reads:9 “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The U.S. Constitution is the highest law, and it clearly spells out that members of Congress do not have the right to impose limitations on the freedom of speech or the press. They can disagree with what’s being said all they want, but they are not allowed to impose censorship on speech they don’t like. It’s important to realize that the censorship they’re calling for (under the justification of protecting public health) is in fact a totalitarian iatrarchy strategy for which there is no reasonable justification. Censoring vaccine information also violates the Nuremberg code,10 which states, “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential,” and specifies that in order for the subject to be able to make an informed decision, “all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation” must be disclosed. Informed consent simply isn’t possible if potential hazards and drawbacks are censored. All of these issues spurred me to write “The Truth About COVID-19 — Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal,” which you can preorder on Amazon. This is a dangerous time in history, and the most important weapon of the day is information. >>>>> Click Here <<<<<
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/12/technocracy-vs-democracy.aspx

Each year the Environmental Working Group releases a list called “The Dirty Dozen” of produce that is most heavily contaminated with pesticides.1 The results are from an analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2021, strawberries, spinach and kale occupy the top three spots on the list, of which 90% of the samples tested positive for two or more pesticides.
Data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which evaluates produce for pesticide residue, indicate that every time you eat conventionally grown fruit you’re likely consuming a measurable amount of pesticides.2 The FDA continues to assert that pesticide residue is not a cause for alarm, yet the long-term consequences of cumulative exposure are unknown.
The most current FDA report3 using data from 2018 was published in September 2020. The testing methods used in 2018 found 809 pesticides and industrial chemicals, and residues of 212 different pesticides in 4,404 human food samples tested in the program.
The FDA report revealed the list of pesticides included the organophosphate chlorpyrifos, which was detected in 228 samples.4 The chemical, known to disrupt brain development and cause brain damage, neurological abnormalities, reduced IQ and aggressiveness in children, has a half-life on food of several weeks, making nonorganic foods a major source of exposure.5
Neonicotinoids were also widespread in the samples, including imidacloprid that took the top spot found in 395 samples. These chemicals are known to impair the immune system of bees, making them more vulnerable to infection and death when exposed to viral or other pathogens.6
Although the report evaluated 27 selected herbicides, it did not include paraquat, which the EPA states is “one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States.”7
Paraquat Herbicide Has a History of Poisoning People

Paraquat dichloride, commonly shortened to paraquat, is the active ingredient in Gramoxone, which is an herbicide widely used in agricultural practices to control the growth of grasses and weeds.8 The chemical was developed in the 1960s and is active against most plant species.
Glyphosate was first registered in the U.S. in 1974.9 However as more glyphosate-resistant weeds are appearing, paraquat is becoming more popular once again.10 Farmers use it to clear fields of weeds and unwanted plants before planting soybeans and as a desiccant on legume crops.
The chemical is nonselective — meaning, according the National Pesticide Information Center, that it will kill most plants. It is inactivated when it comes in contact with soil,11 which agribusiness found to be one of the greatest breakthroughs at the time of discovery. This meant that once sprayed on the soil, it would kill the weeds, but no biologically active residues would remain, allowing farmers to plant almost immediately after spraying.
However, it is also highly toxic to humans and even one sip can kill a person. After exposure on the skin or if inhaled during the application, it can result in seizures, heart failure and lung scarring.12 In the 1970s, the U.S. government encouraged Mexico to spray marijuana fields with it in the hope it would kill the crops.13
Instead, what it produced were paraquat poisoned marijuana plants that were being harvested for commercial-grade marijuana and then sold.14 Once the leaves were burned and inhaled it began causing massive damage without a known antidote.
According to The New York Times15 in 1978, the dangers of inhaling, drinking or skin application of paraquat were not a secret to the U.S. State Department. According to The Intercept, the manufacturer was evaluating ways of ameliorating the danger in 1976 when Michael Rose, a scientist at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), which was the current manufacturer of paraquat, produced the “Rose Report.”16
In collaboration with the French newspaper Le Monde,17 The Intercept scoured through hundreds of internal documents and thousands of pages disclosed by Syngenta, the successor to ICI and current manufacturer of paraquat. Documents were also supplied by nonprofit organizations that had been extensively researching paraquat and another chemical the company had added to induce vomiting in an effort to stem a rising toll of deaths from people ingesting the paraquat.
The additive was named PP796 and the problem appeared to be the concentration at which the chemical was added to paraquat. In the “Rose Report,” it appeared the scientists had “cherry-picked” the data to determine the concentration at which PP796 should be added.
At issue was the life-saving additive’s cost, which was the reason the company did not add the emetic to the chemical until deaths were being recorded around the world.18
The EPA Has Not Protected US Citizens

The company’s apparent motivation to finally add PP796 to Gramoxone in the U.S. came in 1986 when the U.S. EPA was considering subjecting the chemical to a special review that may have resulted in banning it from the market.19
In 1990, Jon Heylings, a junior scientist at Imperial Chemical Industries, discovered the concentration of PP796 was much less than would be needed to induce vomiting in case of accidental or suicidal consumption as was being reported globally. He reported the discrepancy to his superiors and believed it was being addressed.
More than 40 years after the “Rose Report” was published with the doctored calculations, Syngenta has not made alterations to the concentration of PP796, which Heylings describes as “a conspiracy within the company to keep this quiet.”
Additionally, papers released during litigation revealed that just one week before the “Rose Report” was released, another scientist at the company also reported the planned concentration of PP796 did not induce vomiting.20
PP796 was added to Gramoxone in other countries years before it was added in the U.S. In 1981, an ICI scientist discovered reports from the U.K. and Japan clearly showed the emetic was not effective. In a memo released by Syngenta, ICI scientist Peter Slade wrote:21

“No statistical evidence has emerged that the emetic has reduced the number of deaths with the product. At best, only a few people have survived paraquat poisoning because of the inclusion of the emetic.”

The company responded to questions from The Intercept, sending an email that emphatically denied that PP796 was ineffective at the concentration reported in the “Rose Report.”22 According to Syngenta, Heyling’s claims that the concentration of emetic is much too low have been investigated and dismissed by the current company scientists.23
In November 2019, EPA published new requirements,24 hoping to mitigate risks associated with the application of paraquat. To meet standards under these new rules companies only had to include label changes, target training materials for those using paraquat, restrict the use to people who are certified to apply the chemical and use a closed packaging system for applications of less than 120 gallons.
In other words, the EPA added a label to a highly toxic chemical that is lethal when just drops are consumed. Mandatory training can be taken online, and certification is given after the individual takes a quiz.
Paraquat Associated With Neurological Diseases

Evidence of an association between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease (PD) emerged in the 1980s.25 After the release of studies showing that animals and humans exposed to paraquat had an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, Syngenta mounted a defense.
The Intercept reported26 that documents released in the litigation showed the company had developed a strategy to address issues of neurotoxicity, which they believed to be a threat to their “business objectives,” and documents showed the company’s global regulatory manager advised taking steps to “shift the focus of serious PD research to other environmental factors.”
Based on scientific evidence, the European Union Court of Justice banned the pesticide in 2007, all while paraquat use continued to increase in the U.S. The number of poisonings and deaths continued to rise.
Although researchers continue to work on identifying the mechanism through which pesticides impact the neurological system,27 these chemicals are known neurotoxins, including paraquat, organophosphates and organochlorine. In addition to the immediate effects, long-term, low-dose exposure may also be harmful.28
Evidence has suggested that cumulative exposure can contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease as well.29 In one animal study, researchers investigated the effects that paraquat had on the development of beta-amyloid plaques and changes in cognition, finding there was an increase in oxidative damage in the mitochondria of the cerebral cortex that directly correlated with impaired learning and memory.
Other animal studies30 have demonstrated the chemical impairs memory, learning and cognition in offspring when exposed during development. Beyond Pesticides31 reports that there is mounting evidence in the past years indicating low levels of exposure to pesticides have an adverse effect on the central nervous system, including the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease and dementia-like diseases.
Many of the pesticides share features, including the ability to induce neuronal cell loss, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress.32 Another study33 used MRI imaging to look at the poison’s effects on humans by focusinv on the acute neurotoxic damage caused by paraquat. They found a significant number of abnormal signals in the brains of survivors after the acute toxic phase.
The results demonstrated that paraquat exerted a sustained neurotoxic effect during the acute and recovery stages of poisoning. Another animal study demonstrated that long-term, low-level inhalation of paraquat caused some male mice to lose their sense of smell.34 The researchers35 suggest that this data supports the importance of identifying the route of exposure when evaluating neurotoxicity.
Danger Increases When Pesticide Is Used on Lectins

Choosing nongenetically modified plants can help to reduce your exposure to pesticides and herbicides. But even if you manage to avoid GMO foods, you still might be paraquat-affected because, at harvest, some farmers may use herbicides as a desiccant to quick-dry the plants and speed ripening in preparation for the harvesting machine.
Farmers can be penalized if grain is moist at harvest, so desiccation also helps to improve profits. Paraquat is one of the chemicals used as a desiccant, which becomes exponentially more hazardous when it’s combined with plant lectins.
Data published in the journal NPJ Parkinson’s Disease in 201836 revealed that when paraquat is combined with lectins it can trigger hallmark damage found in people with Parkinson’s disease. Lectins are compounds found in many plant foods, especially legumes such as peas, lentils, soybeans, beans and nuts.37
The study suggests that these changes to lectins are the key link between paraquat and the resulting increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. To address these concerns, in 1997 the EPA set residue tolerance levels for paraquat for 80 raw agricultural commodities, processed foods and animal feed.38
However, during the re-registration, their updates for the acceptable dietary exposure tolerances for certain crops, included more than doubling the levels allowed in sorghum, soybeans and hops, and establishing a tolerance level for popcorn.
In 2014,39 they updated residue tolerance levels for tuberous and corn vegetables, including ginger, potato and true yam, to 0.5 parts per million, which is one of the highest acceptable levels.
Between GMO crops and the act of desiccating the others with herbicides, this means that most plant-based foods that are conventionally grown are laced with dangerous levels of residual herbicides. Paradoxically, if the raw food found in your local grocery store isn’t enough worry, Bill Gates is now advocating that all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic “beef” like that manufactured by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.
According to the ingredient lists found on these fake meat products, many ingredients come from plants commonly sprayed with herbicides and desiccants. These include pea protein, mung bean, potatoes and soybeans.40
You can read more about Gates’ investments and plans to push many nations into a “full solution to the protein problem globally”41 in “Bill Gates Says He Will Force You to Eat Fake Meat.”
The irony that Gates, who lives in a 66,000 square-foot mansion and travels in a private jet that burns 486 gallons of fuel each hour, is talking about how we can save the environment, is not lost on everyone. The Nation criticized Gates’ contradictions, calling him a “Climate Warrior. And Super Emitter.” writing:42

“According to a 2019 academic study43 looking at extreme carbon emissions from the jet-setting elite, Bill Gates’s extensive travel by private jet likely makes him one of the world’s top carbon contributors — a veritable super emitter. In the list of 10 celebrities investigated — including Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, and Oprah Winfrey — Gates was the source of the most emissions.”

Reduce Your Risk With Locally Sourced Organic Produce

So, while Gates lives in a carbon-emitting heated and air conditioned 66,000 square-foot home, he advocates “saving” the environment by forcing the rest of us to eat highly processed plant-based foods laced with toxic chemicals. Now also the biggest U.S. farmland owner, Gates is calling plant-based and lab-grown meat substitutes “sustainable” and something that people can “get used to.”44
As I’ve already pointed out, it’s important to realize that exposure to pesticides and herbicides is not restricted to GMO plants. Even non-GMO foods may be contaminated when the herbicide is used as a desiccant immediately before harvest. And remember: The poison paraquat is considered one of the “best” drying options for legumes, which are high in lectins and therefore present an increased risk for toxic overload.
This means many of the foods that vegans and vegetarians rely on currently as their protein source pose a significant health risk. To avoid or at least minimize these hazards, it is important to buy organic beans, peas, potatoes and other foods high in lectins from a reliable source, ideally a local farmer you can trust and with whom you can discuss his farming methods.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/10/paraquat-poison-another-hazardous-chemical-in-your-food.aspx

Consistently including mushrooms in your dietary plan may offer unique health benefits, including helping to fight aging and prostate cancer.1 Researchers from Penn State,2 for instance, discovered that mushrooms are an abundant source of two excellent antioxidants, ergothioneine and glutathione.

Both antioxidants help inhibit oxidative stress and are considered important antiaging compounds. Researchers also recently identified one of the mechanisms the fungi use to interrupt and ultimately suppress the cell cycle of prostate cancer.

A mushroom is the umbrella-shaped fruiting body of a fungus that typically grows above ground. The seeds it produces are millions of microscopic spores that are carried by the wind or spread by animals. Once the spores have germinated in wood or soil, it sends out a network of rooting threads called mycelium that often persist for many years.3

The mycelium absorbs food by digesting the surrounding nutrients externally and then absorbing those nutrients. Although they are known as either mushrooms or toadstools, the term mushroom usually identifies those fungi that are edible and the term toadstool is often used to identify poisonous or inedible fungi.

Mushrooms belong to the Agaricaceae family and the most common mushroom found in your grocer’s is the white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), which was the focus of the current research. Science is only beginning to tap into the vast natural medicine warehouse that exists in these fungi.

Scientists do not agree on how many species there might be. Estimations have ranged from 1.5 to 5.1 million different species.4 However, according to a paper in the American Society for Microbiology,5 in 2017 there were 120,000 identified species.

You may be familiar with some of the more exotic mushrooms like shiitake, crimini and Portobello at your local grocer’s. Yet, it is the inauspicious common white button mushroom that was the focus of this study against prostate cancer.

White Button Mushrooms Help Fight Prostate Tumor Growth

Human6 and animal7 studies have demonstrated that white button mushrooms have antiproliferative properties and help inhibit prostate tumor growth. In the current studies, researchers first sought to identify the mechanism white button mushroom extract uses to help reduce prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in patients with prostate cancer.8

PSA is a protein made by the cells of prostate cancer, which can be measured in the blood of men with prostate cancer. In their first study,9 researchers led by Dr. Xiaoqiang Wang conducted a reverse translational study using androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell lines from a prostate tumor.

They found that white button mushroom extract could suppress dihydrogen testosterone-induced PSA and cell proliferation of the tumor cells in a dose-dependent manner.

Several analyses were performed, including immunofluorescence and RNA sequencing. The tests confirmed that the extract could suppress androgen response pathways and tumor growth and reduce PSA levels. In the second study,10 which was presented March 2021, at the Endocrine Society annual meeting, the same team took a deeper dive into the research using an animal model. In a press release, Wang said:11

“Androgens, a type of male sex hormone, promote the growth of prostate cancer cells by binding to and activating the androgen receptor, a protein that is expressed in prostate cells. White button mushrooms appear to suppress the activity of the androgen receptor.”

The researchers implanted human prostate cancer cells into mice and found that the white button mushroom extract could suppress androgen receptor activity and that the mice treated with the extract for six days demonstrated significant suppression of tumor growth and a decrease in levels of PSA. Wang continued:12

“We found that white button mushrooms contain chemicals that can block the activity of the androgen receptor in mouse models, indicating this fungus can reduce PSA levels. While more research is needed, it’s possible that white button mushrooms could one day contribute to the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.”

Nutritional Profile Likely Contributes to Health Benefits

Nearly 88% of the mushrooms that are grown are sold fresh in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,13 on average, people eat about 3 pounds of fresh mushrooms each year and 87% of those are grown domestically.

Mushrooms are also commonly used in some types of traditional medicine. Many of the health benefits are likely related to the high nutrient content found in the mushroom. Mushrooms provide essential minerals such as manganese, copper, zinc, selenium, calcium, magnesium and iron.14

When compared to their size and weight, they are a rich source of protein and fiber. They are high in potassium and sulfur, as well as many of the B vitamins, including riboflavin, niacin and pantothenic acid.15 Ergothioneine in mushrooms has a specific role in protecting DNA from oxidative damage and glutathione is important for the detoxification of heavy metals and other contaminants. As noted in The Guardian:16

“… [S]cientists think [ergothioneine and glutathione] may help to protect the body against the maladies of old age, such as cancer, coronary heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

In a press release following the publication of a paper in Food Chemistry, Robert Beelman, Professor Emeritus of food science and director of the Penn State Center for Plant and Mushroom Products for Health, said:17

“What we found is that, without a doubt, mushrooms are the highest dietary source of these two antioxidants taken together, and that some types are really packed with both of them.

There’s a theory — the free radical theory of aging — that’s been around for a long time that says when we oxidize our food to produce energy there’s a number of free radicals that are produced that are side products of that action and many of these are quite toxic.

The body has mechanisms to control most of them, including ergothioneine and glutathione, but eventually enough accrue to cause damage, which has been associated with many of the diseases of aging, like cancer, coronary heart disease and Alzheimer’s.”

Interestingly, cooking the mushrooms does not appear to affect the compounds, including ergothioneine, which is heat stable.18 In one animal study,19 mice fed white button mushrooms demonstrated a rising number of Prevotella, a species of friendly gut bacteria.

White button mushrooms act as prebiotics that feed beneficial bacteria, which in turn produce short chain fatty acids that have been shown to affect glucose production. While eating a few button mushrooms is not going to have a significant effect on blood sugar levels, the long-term cumulative benefits of a diet high in a variety of prebiotic foods cannot be overstated.

Immunomodulation May Offer Support Against COVID-19

A study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition20 showed that eating less than 1 ounce of cooked shiitake mushrooms each day for four weeks boosted the participants’ T-cell levels, gut immunity and reduced inflammatory properties.

Other studies have also demonstrated that white button mushrooms may promote immune function by affecting the production of antiviral proteins.21 The laboratory-based study showed that white button mushrooms improve the maturity of dendritic cells released from the bone marrow.

Another showed how mushrooms could modify cytokines, specifically in a cancer cell model,22 and an animal study23 suggested that white button mushrooms could “promote innate immunity against tumors and viruses through the enhancement of a key component, NK activity.”

In the current global climate in which many scientists are researching ways of naturally fighting viral infections, including COVID-19, a recent paper in the International Journal of Environment, Science and Technology24 proposed the nutrients and active ingredients found in white button mushrooms may be a source of medicine to combat the novel coronavirus.

The study of coronaviruses in the past 30 years has demonstrated features of pathogenesis and biology like that exhibited by COVID-19. The authors expounded on the immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of the mushroom, and concluded the mushroom:25

“… might also provide sizable support towards COVID-19 because of high nutritional and medicinal properties. Consumption of WBM [white button mushroom] isn’t beneficial just in case of nourishment but also existing as anticancer, anti-cardiovascular diseases, anti-diabetes, antioxidant and antimicrobial.

Most of the investigation has proven that nutraceutical therapy may be a promising source of recent therapeutics against COVID-19 diseases. Furthermore, vitamins B treatment drastically withdrawn neutrophil intrusion into the lungs with an effective anti-inflammatory impact in the way of the ventilator-induced lung damage.”

As mentioned, in addition to the immunomodulatory effects, white button mushrooms are also rich in glutathione. One of the factors that differentiate people with mild or severe illness may be related to the ability to reduce hypercoagulability and the hyperimmune response that leads to a cytokine storm.

Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant your body uses to increase the effectiveness of other antioxidants, which has earned it the nickname “master antioxidant.”26 N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a precursor to glutathione and the focus of a trial announced by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the treatment of COVID-19.27

In early 2020, Russian scientist Dr. Alexey Polonikov published a paper28 proposing glutathione plays a crucial role in the ability to respond to a COVID-19 infection. I discuss this further in “Glutathione Deficiency May Be Associated With COVID Severity.”

Mushrooms May Help Prevent Cognitive Decline

There are several strategies to help keep your cognitive function intact and eating mushrooms may be one of them. Mushrooms are widely available, relatively inexpensive, can be grown in your backyard and are suitable for a wide variety of uses in the kitchen. Adding them to your diet may be one of the simplest ways to help support your brain health.

Research published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease29 found that adults who routinely ate two portions of mushrooms each week reduced their odds of mild cognitive impairment by 50%,30 which was independent of confounding factors such as high blood pressure, heart disease, age, alcohol and cigarette consumption and physical activity.31

The team was from the National University of Singapore. The researchers defined a portion as three-quarters of a cup and two portions as approximately one-half of a plate. These were meant as guidelines since the results demonstrated that even a small portion of mushrooms each week could be beneficial.

Study author Lei Feng, assistant professor in the department of psychological medicine at NUS, said in a news release, “This correlation is surprising and encouraging. It seems that a commonly available single ingredient could have a dramatic effect on cognitive decline.”32

The researchers measured mild cognitive impairment using neurological tests, extensive interviews, physical measurements and dementia rating. The study was performed in Singapore where the six commonly consumed mushrooms include golden, shiitake, oyster, dried and canned mushrooms, and white button mushrooms.

Ultimately, the researchers believe the reason the participants who ate two servings of mushrooms each week had a reduction in mild cognitive impairment came down to ergothioneine, which is found in each of the varieties included in the study.33

Choose Organic or Grow Your Own

While an afternoon searching for mushrooms may sound like fun, it’s vital to recognize the need for caution. There are no simple rules to distinguish the difference between toxic and edible mushrooms. In more than 95% of the cases, amateur mushroom hunters have misidentified a poisonous mushroom.34

The severity of the poisoning can vary, but the most toxic are from mushrooms containing Amanita phalloides.35 There is no antidote for amatoxin poisoning, so it is essential if you have any reason to suspect someone has ingested an amatoxin containing mushroom you do not wait for symptoms but seek immediate emergency treatment.

There are some medications that may help lessen the severity of the poison,36 but they are not always successful. The most famous of these lethal mushrooms is the death cap mushroom, which may kill more people each year than any other type of mushroom.37

It’s also important to choose organically grown mushrooms as the fungi easily absorb air and soil contaminants. Growing your own mushrooms is an excellent option and a far safer alternative than picking wild mushrooms.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/12/white-button-mushroom.aspx

In this interview, Dr. Val Kanter, a board-certified endodontist and biological dentist with a practice in Beverly Hills, California, discusses the oft-ignored dangers of root canal procedures and modern technologies with which these issues can be effectively addressed and corrected.
Unfortunately, few regular dentists fully appreciate the intimate links between your oral health and overall physical health and, as a result, some of their interventions can actually cause catastrophic health challenges.
The sad reality is that if we knew how to eat properly from the time we were born, the need for just about any type of dentistry would, in my view, decrease by at least 90%, because we just wouldn’t develop cavities.
Thankfully we have trained professionals who can help restore our health, and Kanter is one of them. Her transition into holistic dentistry occurred after she moved from Florida to California and started doing some self-exploration.

“I had some enlightening moments,” she says, “and it was really interesting because I was raised in mainstream dentistry and mainstream health, not really understanding what I do now. It was through that self-discovery that I actually learned about water fluoridation and the major damage that has created.
I got involved with the Fluoride Action Network and worked closely with Michael [Connett] for a long time, publishing research on some of the damages. One of the things that is so obvious to us is fluorosis in kids. It was originally thought to affect only 10% of kids, and now we’re up to a place where it’s affecting 50% or more.
That’s a window. It’s a view of what’s happening inside the body. That’s what got me on the path and that led me into learning about ozone and laser therapy and it really opened up a whole new world for me in the field of endodontics.”

Do You Really Need a Root Canal?

One of the founding members of the American Endodontics Society, Dr. George Meinig, wrote the book “Root Canal Cover-Up.” It’s a really good primer and provides solid information as to why you may want to consider avoiding root canal treatment.
The conventional idea is that it’s best to preserve whatever you can of the original tooth rather than replacing it entirely. Hence, they’ll do a root canal and attach a crown rather than pull the tooth and replace it, typically with an implant. The downside is that root canal-treated teeth can cause significant health complications that often aren’t recognized as being a side effect of the root canal.
There’s a whole new world of regenerative dentistry and regenerative endodontics that if you’re using the proper equipment, you can preserve the vitality of the teeth. ~ Dr. Val Kanter
According to Kanter, more than 20 million root canal procedures are done every year in the U.S. “It’s an astronomical number, and most of those root canal procedures are done by general dentists,” she says. That in itself is a problem, as you typically do less than 10 root canals while in dental school, and once you’re in practice, much of the training you get is done by sales reps of various equipment.

“One of the most important things that I want the listeners to understand,” Kanter says, “is that there is a specialty out there that focuses on this procedure. If you do decide to have the procedure done, please go see a specialist. See two or three. Get multiple opinions.
It’s so important, because I feel that a lot of root canal procedures are done unnecessarily. It’s a quick way to hit a symptom, just like a medication. It’s, ‘Oh, let’s take out the nerve and the pain will stop.’ These inflammations inside the teeth can be reversed. I see it daily in my practice. I see a lot of patients who want to prevent a root canal.
There’s a whole new world of regenerative dentistry and regenerative endodontics that if you’re using the proper equipment, you can preserve the vitality of the teeth and that’s my passion and goal. With that said, most of my practice is retreating old, contaminated root canals …
My goal is to teach all of the dentists out there about these procedures because then it doesn’t even have to go to that level. If someone needs a root canal procedure, they should see an endodontist if they decide to go that route.
I think one of the top things that you should be seeking if you are a patient looking for a practitioner that’s going to resonate with the things that you want — which are some of these regenerative procedures — is finding dentists that are using this laser therapy.
It’s becoming more and more popular, but still probably about 10% of dentists use dental lasers. I would start there. Go to Fotona’s website1 and find someone in your area using this laser therapy.”

Prevention Basics
Of course, prevention is the best medicine, and some basic care can help you minimize the time you need to spend in a dentist chair. The most important factor in that regard is nutrition. Three crucial nutrients for oral and dental health are vitamins A, D and K. You also need a good supply of minerals.
“Unfortunately, most of our food is deficient in the minerals and micronutrients we need because of the way that farming has been done,” Kanter says. Ideally, you’ll want to do micronutrient testing along with testing your vitamin D level and hemoglobin A1C. Kanter will perform many of these tests at her office, and helps patients customize their diet.

“It’s challenging because the nutritional component of dental schools is minuscule. That’s why I did advanced training with the ACIMD, which is basically integrative biological dentistry and medicine training to become a naturopath … By decreasing sugar in your diet, and stress, you can actually [heal your teeth].
Your teeth are a beautiful complex system that are actually healing themselves constantly. There’s an outward fluid flow inside the nerve complex in your tubules and it’s protecting your teeth. As soon as you start loading your body with sugar and all of these other things, the fluid flow just reverses, and that leads to an influx of bacteria and other toxins that can start to create inflammation in the tooth.
The tooth is a very complex and unique system, unlike anywhere else in the body. If you have inflammation from any other injury, your skin can stretch and swell, whereas the tooth is encapsulated in enamel, and it can’t stretch. When inflammation starts to build up, it can quickly turn into a pathological process and that’s what leads to major nerve damage.”

Ozone and Laser Therapy
Once pain sets in, you’re past the point of being able to prevent deterioration, but this is where regenerative dentistry can come in and save the day (and your tooth). One is ozone therapy. Another is laser therapy.
Pulpitis is inflammation of the pulp nerve complex of the tooth. Using these regenerative therapies, Kanter has successfully reversed this kind of inflammation in many patients. Even when decay and bacteria have made it all the way into the nerve tissue, laser therapy can sterilize the surface of the nerve, while ozone gas, which also kills pathogens, can actually stimulate your immune system to kick in and eradicate the remaining infection.
In the interview, you’ll find a video showing how the Erbium YAG laser treatment seemingly melts away the decayed tooth structure. Contrary to mechanical drilling, the laser is so gentle on the tooth structure, you don’t even need anesthesia. It also sterilizes the surface as you go along. Why is this important? Kanter explains:

“When you drill, you’re starting to remove decay filled with bacteria. As the dentist is drilling deeper into the tooth into the more vulnerable layers near the nerve, you’re carrying that bacteria that’s trapped in the bur and you’re actually driving it deeper in the tooth. With the laser, you’re sterilizing cell layer by cell layer.”

Were the laser to hit the nerve, it also will not kill the nerve. Once the area is free of decay, Kanter will ozonate the entire surface, and since it’s a gas, the ozone is able to penetrate into and actually disinfect the tubules. Special bioceramic materials that are highly biocompatible are then used to complete the restoration of the tooth.

“Using photobiomodulation or low-level laser … a neodymium YAG laser, which is 1064 wavelength … you can actually stimulate the mitochondria inside the tissues, upregulating ATP production, collagen synthesis and angiogenesis,” she says.
“I generally use it at 20 Hertz, so the frequency is 20. Then, if it’s intraoral, we usually use it at a 2-watt power level. It takes just a couple of minutes … We do these low-level laser procedures on every single patient that’s coming to see me, and it’s profound, the amount of healing and the reduction of pain and inflammation that we can see.”

In the future, we may even have the ability to regenerate tooth material naturally. As explained by Kanter, researchers are investigating the ability of collagen matrices embedded with different medications to stimulate natural tooth formation. There are also studies looking at how to regrow teeth from scratch.
The Hidden Hazards of Root Canals

There are several reasons for avoiding root canals. Importantly, research by Dr. Weston A. Price demonstrated just how interconnected your teeth are with your overall health. He implanted infected root canaled teeth under the skin of rabbits, and in many cases, the rabbits went on to develop the very disease that the donor of the tooth had.
Granted, dentistry has changed a lot since Price, so his results may not be directly applicable to today. Kanter, who is the endo director of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), is now in the process of developing studies to try to recreate some of his studies to see whether the root canals of today, in which teeth are able to be cleaned to a far greater degree, still produce the same systemic effects.
That said, as recently as nine years ago, the American Association of Endodontists, which oversees the specialty of endodontics, admitted that current techniques fail to completely remove all infected material from root canaled teeth. To illustrate this, Kanter shows a CT scan of a root canaled tooth (see video).

“The red area is the area that the instrument has cleaned out. The green area wasn’t even touched. What this means is that a third of the soft tissue of this necrotic tissue in the tooth is completely untouched by instruments. Unfortunately, most [dental students] have in their head, ‘I need to get these instruments in and I got to do this shaping of these canals,’ and that’s actually not what’s cleaning the teeth at all.
What’s happening is that the dentist is grabbing a syringe of a fluid to irrigate the tooth. Generally, they’re using sodium hypochlorite, which is essentially bleach, and they’re just taking a syringe with a small needle on it and they’re introducing it down into the canal. It’s not cleaning everything out. It’s only cleaning a teeny tiny percentage of the dentinal tubules, leaving a ton of bacteria and toxins behind.
In the picture on the right, you see all this black material. These are complete channels of necrotic tissue that are left behind during these procedures. We can see why these teeth can be so toxic if all of this material is left behind. That’s just looking at the main nerve channels, not even tubules. It’s surprising that root canal treatments ever work.”

The good news is that the relationship of apical periodontitis and systemic illnesses is finally starting to be more widely recognized. Apical periodontitis is an infection around a tooth that leads to infection in the bone. “If you have apical periodontitis, you’re three times more likely to develop coronary artery disease,” Kanter says. It’s also associated with a higher risk of kidney disease and cancer.
Up to 78% of the plaques found in heart attack victims have oral pathogens in them, and they’re the exact same pathogens you find in failed root canal treatments. This kind of systemic infection can be identified by looking at biomarkers such as CRP and interleukin-6.
Yes, There Are Ways to Make Root Canals Safer

In cases where regenerative techniques are inappropriate and more aggressive treatment is required, you basically have only two options left: extraction of the tooth or a root canal. The good news is that there are safer ways of doing a root canal these days, but you need to use a combination of ozone and laser therapy in order to achieve optimal sterilization. Ozone alone isn’t even enough. Kanter explains:

“I have incorporated ozone therapy into my root canal procedures for the last five years. In fact, I started a pilot study at UCLA looking at the efficacy of ozone gas and comparing it to traditional techniques. It was a blow to me, but unfortunately the ozone gas wasn’t doing the job.
We use that at about 100 micrograms per milliliter, which is very high, but we only did it for one minute per canal. Now, what we know about ozone is that it’s both dose dependent and time dependent. Further studies are going to be done, but we may need to create a closed system where we can completely infuse the tooth with the ozone gas in order to sterilize it because, yes, of course, a gas is going to travel deeper into tubules than a liquid is.
The main issue is that if there’s debris and blockages in these tubules, I don’t believe the ozone gas to be able to penetrate. Now, with the traditional techniques, you’re leaving so much behind. I have a really cool video that compares the traditional technique with the new laser activated irrigation. This is what’s made me feel really good about these treatments that I’m doing on my patients …
With the new laser activation that I’m using in my practice, watch how quickly this biofilm is disrupted. The laser is simply at the top of the tooth. It doesn’t have to extend down the canal, and look at that energy.
This is what not a lot of people are familiar with. You cannot have a root canal procedure without an advanced irrigation. It is absolutely critical. Within 10 to 20 seconds, look at the amount of biofilm that’s disrupted. We’re also seeing complete cleaning of the dentinal tubules … down to the microtubules as well …
There’s one more technology on the market that’s reaching a lot of endodontists. If you need a root canal procedure, find someone that’s using either the laser or this gentle procedure. The general aid is using sound energy … all of these different frequencies, and you have a closed system on the tooth and it actually sucks all of the necrotic tissue and debris out of the root structure.
Between these two technologies, we’re getting results like this. This is the look of the tubules when they’re just sparkling clean. It is possible, but unfortunately the majority of root canal procedures that are being done are not using this.”

Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment
Another alternative treatment that can be very useful is hyperbaric oxygen treatment. By introducing higher pressures, you’re able to get oxygen deeper into the tooth area, thereby facilitating and speeding healing. Kanter has a couple of different hyperbaric centers in Los Angeles that she will sometimes refer patients to.

“The patients that come see me are generally very committed to their health. We do a variety of treatments that support the procedures that we’re doing. We do ozone inside the tooth, where it has an antibacterial effect, but we also inject it around the tooth. We do that at their recall appointments as well, so we’re constantly stimulating the immune system around these teeth.
We’re also doing the low-level laser treatments, as well as microcurrent and other things to keep energy flowing in these areas where I know that there is scar tissue. We have to break that down, and eventually energy can start flowing through,” she says.

Why Extraction Isn’t an Ideal Solution
The second option, to extract the infected tooth, also has its issues. For example, there’s a decrease in neurofeedback to the brain, and so it’s correlated with early Alzheimer’s and other degenerative, neurodegenerative diseases, Kanter says. Also, when you take a tooth out, the periodontal ligament that encompasses the root needs to be completely removed as well.
This ligament nourishes the root from the outside and acts as a defense mechanism against bacteria. The problem is it also provides 70% of the blood flow to the surrounding jaw bone. So, when you take a tooth and the surrounding ligament out, you also cut the blood supply to your jaw in that area by 70%, which is why you end up seeing bone degeneration and resorption, as there’s nothing left to support that bone.

“There’s definitely cases [in which] a tooth extraction is indicated, but I think there’s plenty of patients out there that can withstand having a root canal procedure and remain healthy. Even Weston Price said there are different categories of patients out there.
There are patients who are going to be very susceptible to any sort of remnant bacteria in these teeth, causing systemic illnesses, and then there’s going to be people that are just fine … Apical periodontitis or root canal infections cause systemic illnesses. But a root canal procedure or a root canal treated tooth in itself does not cause the systemic illness …
We need to do more research with these new techniques. It’s definitely a goal of mine to get the research done, to mimic some of these older studies, using the new technology, and looking at not only getting rid of the bacteria but getting rid of the endotoxins and everything else the bacteria leave behind, because those move quicker than the bacteria once they’re released into the body.”

Replacing Extracted Teeth
If you have a periapical abscess, it is typically too late to save the tooth as it is dead and seriously infected. In that case, it will need to be removed. Once a tooth is extracted, you then have to decide what you’re going to replace it with. Here, there are a number of options — implant, bridge or partial — each with its own pros and cons.

“First of all, if you’re going to extract the tooth, it needs to be done by a surgeon using things like PRF, platelet rich fibrin, which really helps the site heal and create new bone and collagen in the area quickly, and also provides an immune response in the area. That’s really important,” Kanter says.
“Also, if you’re thinking about doing an implant, you need to do sensitivity testing … because [many] are sensitive to titanium, and most of the implants being placed are made of titanium. There are alternatives like zirconia, but it’s important that you find out if you are compatible with these materials before you put them in your body.
If you’re not able to put these in your body because of sensitivity, then your options are going to be a bridge or a partial. But metal in the mouth is becoming more and more of an issue. We’re seeing it constantly. It’s creating these interference fields in the mouth and a lot of people are having hypersensitivity reactions to them.
It turns into a domino effect on the patient’s overall health. We’re constantly evaluating that and helping our patients figure out what materials are best for them and what prosthesis or restorative plan is going to be best for them.”

Call to Action

Unfortunately, many have improperly cleaned root canal-treated teeth, and more often than not, there can be silent infections around these teeth. For this reason, Kanter urges anyone who has a root canaled tooth to get a three-dimensional cone beam image done of the tooth.
Many endodontists have this machine. If they don’t have one, they should be able to refer you out for one. “You should have a 3D scan if you’ve ever had a root canal procedure,” Kanter says. “That’s my call of action to all of your listeners.”
In the interview video, she shows what an infected root canal looks like. You cannot see this infection, however, on a standard dental X-ray. These are the kinds of post-root canal problems Kanter deals with in her practice, using the regenerative technologies discussed above.

“That’s 75% of my practice,” she says. “Patients get the CT, we find these issues, we find the connections into the sinus, how it’s related to all of these [health] problems, and we just start breaking it down and doing our best to help these patients.”

So, getting a 3D cone scan of your tooth is the first step. Kanter recommends having the scan radiographically interpreted by your nearest university or a company called Beam Readers. “These are board-certified radiologists that look through every detail,” Kanter explains.
Again, to locate a biological endodontist familiar with the regenerative technologies discussed in this interview, check out fotona.com, or gentlewave.com. They offer lists of practitioners that are using these technologies.

“If you’re going to someone using either of these technologies, you’re going to generally be in good hands,” Kanter says. “In my practice, I’m using both. I use the laser and the gentle wave, so we are cleaning to the ultimate capacity in these teeth and that’s what I feel is necessary.”

More Information

Kanter is creating an educational platform to teach and endodontists and dentists about diagnosis and precision dentistry on her website, i-endo.com. “These new courses are already starting, and I’m going to be spending the next decade really trying to change this paradigm and shift into the new way of healthcare,” she says.
To learn more about the nutritional aspects of dental health, check out Weston Price’s classic book, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” and for a foundational understanding of the health hazards of root canal treatment, see “Root Canal Cover-Up.”
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/11/the-hidden-dangers-of-root-canals.aspx

At the end of 2020, there were large public demonstrations opposing severe restrictions on civil liberties, including in Germany1,2 and Great Britain.3 In Denmark, there was a public protest against proposed legislation that would mandate COVID-19 vaccination.4
There is increasing civil unrest in many countries after a year of experiencing the crippling side effects of government public health policies that have restricted autonomy and freedom of assembly5,6 and caused mass unemployment and destruction of small businesses,7,8,9 steep increases in substance abuse, depression and suicide,10,11,12,13 and inadequate treatment for other diseases like cancer.14,15
Since the beginning of 2021,16 demonstrations calling for an end to COVID lockdowns and voluntary vaccination have spanned the globe from Canada17 to the Netherlands18 and Lebanon.19 February and March 2021 saw anti-lockdown protests in Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland20 and other countries.
The Netherlands: ‘Love, Freedom, Stop Dictatorship’

In January 2021, the government of The Netherlands instituted strict lockdown rules that banned gatherings of more than two people, shut bars and restaurants and imposed a 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. curfew, the first since the Nazi’s issued orders to Dutch citizens to “stay at home” during World War II.
People who break the curfew face a 95 Euro ($115) fine. Schools and “nonessential” shops have been closed since December 2020.21 On January 24, 2021, the police used water cannons and dogs to disperse hundreds of protesters opposed to curfews.
Tear gas was fired on a crowd of several hundred protesters in Eindhoven, where there were reports of looting and at least 30 arrests and a COVID testing center was burned in the city of Urk.22 In early March, a test center in another city near Amsterdam was the scene of a pipe bomb explosion.23
On March 14, 2021, Dutch riot police broke up a crowd of several thousand anti-lockdown protesters gathered at The Hague. Water cannons, batons and dogs were used by police after protesters violated social distancing rules and disregarded warnings to disperse. Holding yellow umbrellas and chanting, “love, freedom, stop dictatorship,” about 20 people reportedly were detained by police and two demonstrators were injured.24
Ireland: ‘Let Ireland Live’

On February 17, 2021, hundreds of people gathered in Dublin carrying signs like “End the Lockdown” and “Let Ireland Live” and clashed with police, resulting in 23 arrests.
The demonstration was held after the government extended the country’s third lockdown until April, which meant that all nonessential businesses, restaurants, pubs and gyms would remain shut, with the government recommending people stay at home and placing a 3-mile travel limit on movements.25
On St. Patrick’s Day and on March 20, 2021, the Irish police (Gardai) arrested a number of demonstrators for violating pandemic public health restrictions on public gatherings.26 The majority were not wearing face masks and some carried banners opposing mandatory COVID vaccinations.
Denmark: 1,200 Rally Against Lockdown Restrictions

On February 28, 2021, eight demonstrators were arrested in Copenhagen, Denmark, in front of the Town Hall during a mostly peaceful anti-lockdown rally attended by a crowd of about 1,200 people.
Organized by “Men in Black,” it was the first protest since the government announced the extension of many COVID health restrictions to April 4, which includes the closure of bars, restaurants and most secondary schools and universities. Danish police said the eight demonstrators were arrested for rowdy behavior and using fireworks during the protest.27
Sweden: First Protest Opposing New Public Health Rules

Unlike most other European countries, Sweden did not lockdown at the beginning of the COVID pandemic and there were few social distancing restrictions through most of 2020.28 However, when COVID cases began to rise in later in the year, the government instituted stricter rules.
On March 6, 2021, Swedish police broke up a rally of hundreds of people who had assembled in Stockholm to demonstrate against COVID public health restrictions.29 The rally, which was the first to protest the country’s new public health laws restricting movement, was organized by Freedom Sweden, a citizen group that maintains the new laws violate human freedom.
Switzerland: Protest Against ‘Dictatorial Powers’

On March 6, 2021, 4,000 Swiss citizens walked peacefully in the town of Chur, Switzerland, carrying banners in a protest against use of “dictatorial powers” by the government to implement restrictive COVID public health policies that include the continued closure of bars and restaurants.
In Zurich, police reportedly dispersed several public gatherings that violated the 15-person gathering limit outside (five people limit inside buildings).30
Greece: Lockdown Fatigue Fuels Protests

During the month of March, dozens of demonstrations took place in Athens and other cities in Greece against strict COVID lockdown measures that have included nightly curfews and police patrols on university campuses. There also have been riots protesting police brutality related to enforcement of social distancing rules.
One politician in Greece alleged the government is “taking advantage of the pandemic as a pretext to impose harsh measures, restrict democratic rights and freedoms, and advance an agenda that is damaging the public interest.”31
Australia: This All Ends When We Say NO!

On February 13, 2021, health officials in Victoria, Australia put into effect a hard “circuit breaker” five-day lockdown and told citizens “you cannot leave your home unless you are doing it for one of four reasons: shopping for necessary goods and services; care and caregiving; exercise; and essential work.”32
Protests across Melbourne against the new restrictions resulted in several arrests. The protesters urged Australians to “make your voices heard” because, they said, the people cannot endure another lockdown. One demonstrator held a sign that said, “This All Ends When We Say NO!”33
Canada: March of the Rebellious and Walk for Freedom

On March 13, 2021, in Quebec, Canada, thousands of people chanting “liberte” held a “March of the Rebellious” in opposition to Canada’s COVID strict curfews and other lockdown measures.34 The demonstrators asked the Quebec government to support the need for all its COVID-19 health regulations with published scientific reports and “allow people to make informed decisions about vaccines.”
Several people were arrested and tickets issued for failure to wear masks or to social distance. Hundreds of Canadians in the province of Alberta participated in a “Walk for Freedom” demonstration in Calgary on March 20, 2021. Like the protest in Quebec, their goal was to communicate opposition to ongoing pandemic public health restrictions.35 No tickets were issued or arrests made.
Several hundred residents of North Bay in Ontario, Canada, gathered at the North Bay waterfront holding banners that said “No More Lockdowns” and “No Vaccines” and called for an end to pandemic lockdowns and restoration of people’s freedoms.36
Germany: ‘We Are the People’

On March 20, 2021, more than 20,000 German citizens rallied in protest against pandemic lockdown restrictions in the city of Kassel, clashing with police in riot gear. Many of the protesters were chanting “Wir sind das Volk” — “We are the people” — a slogan that was used by protesters calling for and to the Berlin Wall and communist East Germany.37
According to Deutsche Welle(DW), some protesters tried to break through a police barrier, and police used mace and batons in scuffles with protesters and then used water cannons to disperse some demonstrators outside the area authorized for the rally. Police had warned that the demonstration would be broken up if protesters did not wear masks or social distance.38
Britain: ‘Stop Destroying Our Kids’ Lives’

On March 20, 2021, 10,000 British citizens holding banners with slogans like “Stop Destroying our Kids Lives” and “Fake Pandemic” marched in London against COVID pandemic rules that prohibit groups to gather together and engage in public protests for any reason.39 A number of demonstrators were arrested for violating pandemic restrictions on public protests.
According to AP/AFP, the march took place after “more than 60 lawmakers signed a letter demanding that the government change the law and allow protests to take place even when pandemic restrictions bar other types of gatherings.” The letter was coordinated by Liberty and Big Brother Watch, two civil rights groups.40 There also were demonstrations in Newcastle and Manchester.
According to Britain’s Daily Mail, hundreds of protesters in Manchester marched to police headquarters, characterizing the COVID lockdown as a “crime against humanity,” while one of the groups marching through the center of London, Jam For Freedom, emphasized the need to avoid violence, reportedly instructing its members to: ‘Stay tight, stay aware, stay peaceful and polite.’41
France: Thousands Ignore New Lockdown Rules

On the weekend of March 20, 2021, thousands of protesters gathered in Marseille and Paris to oppose new COVID lockdown orders announced by the government. Many Parisians ignored the order and gathered outdoors in parks and promenades to enjoy the warm spring weekend, while more than 6,500 gathered in Marseille to attend a rule-breaking street carnival.42
Under the new restrictions in France, people are not required to spend most of the day confined at home, but “non-essential” shops are closed and people’s movements are confined to a six-mile radius from their home residence.
Finland: ‘Let the People Speak!’

On March 20, about 400 people without masks marched through city streets to the parliament building in Helsinki, Finland carrying signs like “Let the people speak!” and “Facts and numbers don’t add up.” Police said the marchers protesting the government’s COVID restrictions violated social distancing requirements and crowd limits on public gatherings but was peaceful.43
Romania: Parents, Protect Your Children!

Romania’s capital of Bucharest saw more than a thousand protesters opposing mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. According to an AP/AFP report, “the largely maskless crowd honked horns, waved national flags and chanted messages such as ‘Block vaccination’ and ‘Freedom.’ One placard read: “Parents, protect your children! Stop the fear!”44
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/09/lockdown-protests-flare-up-around-the-world.aspx

It was about one year ago, in spring 2020, when the jokes about the “quarantine 15” weight gain began making the rounds.1 But, one year later, one study2 shows that this estimation may be slightly lower than reality.

According to the Trust for America’s Health State of Obesity 2020 report,3 42.4% of U.S. adults are obese, which is the first time the national rate has topped 40%. The data also showed there were 12 states with a rate above 35%.

To put this into perspective, the overall rate has increased 26% from a mere 13 years ago (2008) and in 2012, there was no state with a rate above 35%. Childhood obesity is also growing, with the latest information showing 19.3% of young people ages 2 to 19 are obese, as compared to 5.5% in the mid-1970s.

Yet, these are only the obesity statistics and do not include the percentage of the population that is also overweight. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) showed that there is another 30.7% of adults who are overweight and 9.2% who were severely obese (BMI over 40).4 This means that 73.1% of the population is overweight, obese or severely obese.

New data gathered during 2020, reveals these rates may be even higher in the next NHANES survey, increasing the number of people who experience higher risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, mental illness and all-cause mortality.5

Americans Gained Weight Steadily During 2020

The results of a small longitudinal cohort study6 found participants experienced a consistent weight gain of 0.27 kg (0.59 pounds) every 10 days. The results were gathered from 269 participants in the Health eHeart Study.

They volunteered to report their weight using their Fitbit or iHealth smart scale. The cohort was not fully representative of the general public as they resided in 37 states and the District of Columbia, 48.3% were men, 77% were white, and their mean age was 51.9. At the end of the study, the researchers had 7,444 separate weight measurements spanning February 1, 2020, to June 1, 2020.

This offered data before lockdowns were in place, as well as after. Dr. Gregory Marcus, senior author of the study, expressed concern the trending weight gain, which totaled 1.5 pounds per month, may extend after the lockdown restrictions had ended.7

Over the course of one year, this would have totaled 20 pounds. He noted that many of those being tracked had been losing weight prior to the lockdown orders. Speaking to The New York Times, he said:

“It’s reasonable to assume these individuals are more engaged with their health in general, and more disciplined and on top of things. That suggests we could be underestimating — that this is the tip of the iceberg.

We know that weight gain is a public health problem in the U.S. already, so anything making it worse is definitely concerning, and shelter-in-place orders are so ubiquitous that the sheer number of people affected by this makes it extremely relevant.”

Marcus went on to hypothesize that the weight gain was likely related to a lack of physical activity and greater accessibility to food while working at home. Since working remotely may become the new norm after the pandemic is behind us, he suggests a focus on mitigating “work-from-home-related adverse health effects.”8

A second survey by the American Psychological Association (APA)9 was conducted by the Harris poll, providing data for this year’s Stress in America survey. Information was gathered from February 19, 2021, to February 24, 2021, among 3,013 adults over 18 who lived in the U.S.

The data revealed that 61% of the adults surveyed reported experiencing an undesired weight change, either weight gain or loss, since the start of the pandemic. Overall, 42% told the surveyor they had gained more weight than intended, and the average gain was 29 pounds.

When the information was broken out by generation,10 the results revealed that of those surveyed who reported an undesired weight change, 48% of Millennials had an average gain of 41 pounds. Baby Boomers had reported the least amount gained, 16 pounds, and there wasn’t enough sample size of adults over age 76 to report the average amount of unwanted weight gain or loss.

Focus on Health Not Shame

Many health experts are concerned this growing waistline trend will contribute to the rising rates of obesity and health conditions associated with it — including poor outcomes from a COVID-19 infection. Yet others — including health websites such as Healthline — are encouraging people to accept their new weight and the health risks that go along with it with rationalizations such as:11,12

Dieting is not without risk as it can lead to eating disorders or nutritional deficiencies
Your body image struggles are a brain issue, not a body issue
We need a war on weight stigma, not “obesity”
You deserve to experience joy at every size — and you can
You shouldn’t be ashamed of those extra pounds

Weight is a sensitive topic and shame should never be a part of the conversation but, still, while you can’t control the opinion of others and the unreasonable body image promoted by the modeling industry, it’s important instead to focus on your health and wellness.

Dr. Mark Hyman, author and head of strategy and innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, spoke with ABC News in August 2020, saying:13

“There needs to be a massive public health initiative to educate people about the need for improved nutrition in the midst of the pandemic. I think that this is such a critical moment and it’s central for us to double down on our nutritional quality in our diet, people are completely neglectful that it is a way of preventing COVID-19.”

Unfortunately, there haven’t been governmental initiatives or a focus on nutrition and exercise, both foundational to health and wellness. Instead, the media and agencies have been focused on COVID-19 “cases,” mask mandates, social distancing and lockdowns in preparation for massive vaccination programs.

Health and wellness have taken a back seat to living through chemistry. The researchers from the study published in JAMA concluded:14

“It is important to recognize the unintended health consequences SIP [shelter-in-place] can have on a population level. The detrimental health outcomes suggested by these data demonstrate a need to identify concurrent strategies to mitigate weight gain, such as encouraging healthy diets and exploring ways to enhance physical activity, as local governments consider new constraints in response to SARS-CoV-2 and potential future pandemics.”

Strategies to Mitigate Weight Gain Also Help COVID Illness

There are specific health conditions that increase your risk of severe COVID-19.15 Heart disease, obesity, severe obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cerebrovascular disease all make the list of health conditions that increase your risk of severe illness from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Many of these are ameliorated by improving your metabolic inflexibility, which British cardiologist and author Dr. Aseem Malhotra believes is another factor that significantly increases your risk of severe illness. Malhotra recognized a clear link between metabolic inflexibility and worse outcomes from the virus when data were first coming in from China and Italy.

He talked about the link between insulin resistance and cytokines storms in our interview in October 2020. According to Malhotra, the good news is that these lifestyle factors can be modified in as little as 21 days by simply changing your diet.

This focus has been sorely missed from messaging during the pandemic. The central thesis of his book is we had a pandemic of metabolic inflexibility or metabolic ill-health. There are five primary parameters of metabolic ill health, which include having:

A large waist circumference
Prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes
Prehypertension or hypertension (high blood pressure)
High blood triglycerides
Low HDL cholesterol

As we discussed in the interview in the link above, Malhotra has found from the data that metabolic syndrome can as much as triple the risk of fatality from COVID-19. The knowledge that weight gain and the health conditions associated with it are dangerous and increase the risk of severe COVID has made mainstream media news.

Yet, it is obvious that much of the focus is on surveillance and behavioral control. In response to the overwhelming attention on vaccinations instead of healthy lifestyle choices, Russian lawyer Jenia Finegan commented on Twitter in March:16

“If this is the case, should we not have mandatory weight passports? Mandatory exercise and compulsory weight management programmes? Close all fast food outlets? No job for those refusing to lose weight? What else?”

Weight Gain Is Only One Consequence of Lockdown Orders

The global lockdown was reportedly initiated to protect the general public, and yet experts agree that this policy may well have been one of the biggest public health mistakes ever made.17 Thousands of doctors, concerned citizens and scientists have grave concerns over the damaging mental health and physical health impacts from mask mandates and lockdowns.18

Many are calling for focused protection, as communicated in the Great Berrington Declaration. As of March 26, 2021, 42,059 medical practitioners and 767,577 concerned citizens have signed the declaration.19

The authors note worse cardiovascular disease outcomes, deteriorating mental health and fewer cancer screenings20 as some of the health concerns arising from lockdown policies that are producing devastating effects on public health.

Lockdowns in New Zealand have cost the country at least $10 billion without reducing the number of deaths.21 An analysis22 of nonpharmaceutical interventions, including business closures and mandatory stay-at-home orders in 10 countries, revealed there was no clear significant beneficial effect in countries where more restrictive policies were used as compared to those with less restrictive policies.

Another consequence of the pandemic has been a loss of personal freedom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention inflated the mortality statistics by 1,670%,23,24 which has likely contributed to the growing fear and increasing compliance of society to accept less personal freedom and more surveillance as the “new normal.”

Lockdowns have even taken a toll on pet eating habits and activity levels, which in turn has resulted in a higher number of overweight and obese dogs and cats. According to one study,25 “more than 71% of pet professionals say the pandemic has impacted the way pets eat.”

The survey also showed that 33% of pet owners said their pet became overweight during 2020. Most likely, the weight gain was a result of pet parents spoiling their pets, giving treats more often as a form of love. Pictures of morbidly obese dogs have also made the news.26 One commenter said:27

“I managed to avoid weight gain, but my pets did not. Instead of reaching for a snack every time I went into the kitchen, apparently, I was always reaching for a cat treat … Ever try to put 3 20-pound cats on a diet?”

Consider These Tips to Eat Healthy and Start Moving

The pandemic and subsequent lockdown changed many people’s activity levels. While it may not have seemed like much, walking up and down the stairs, going to meetings and grabbing coffee with a friend all meant being slightly more active than sitting in front of a computer at home all day.

Even those small steps can add up to big results. Added to a lack of activity, is a rising level of anxiety, greater access to food just steps away in the kitchen and increasing boredom.

If you need to lose weight, I recommend adopting a cyclical ketogenic diet, which involves radically limiting carbs (replacing them with healthy fats and moderate amounts of protein) until you’re close to or at your ideal weight, ultimately allowing your body to burn fat — not carbohydrates — as its primary fuel.

This includes avoiding all ultraprocessed foods and also limiting added sugars to a maximum of 25 grams per day (15 grams a day If you’re insulin resistant or diabetic). KetoFasting, the program I developed and detail in my book, “KetoFast: A Step-By-Step Guide to Timing Your Ketogenic Meals,” combines a cyclical ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting with cyclical partial fasting to optimize weight, health and longevity.

In addition, each of the factors below can contribute to eating just a little bit more and moving just a little bit less. Consider using the accompanying tips to begin making healthier choices.

• Create a daily routine — It’s important to get up at the same time each morning, and work to get seven to nine hours of quality sleep each night. Plan your meals for the day, including the timing of your meals and any healthy snacks, and get dressed every day.

Loose fitting sweats or shorts make it easier to ignore weight gain. Include exercise in your daily routine and avoid sitting for long periods. If you work at a computer, stand instead of sitting for the majority of your day. If your favorite gym is closed, consider other forms of activity like walking, hiking, biking, dancing or an exercise tape.

Incorporate the Nitric Oxide Dump two to three times a day to raise your activity level and take advantage of the extra nitric oxide released during the short routine.

• Manage your stress — Unfortunately, many use food as comfort during times of stress. This only increases the difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight. Instead, consider exercise, yoga, meditation, connecting with friends or Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). You’ll find a library of demonstrations at this link, including EFT for stress and anxiety.

• Be mindful — It’s easy to overeat and over snack when you’re watching television or visiting with friends. Avoid eating or grabbing a snack while you’re driving, watching television or working. When you’re busy, it’s also easy to underestimate how much you’re eating each day.

• Change your routine — Steer clear of settings or situations you associate with overeating. After a stress-filled day, avoid the gallon of ice cream in the freezer or the six-pack in the refrigerator. Instead, consider meditating, a soak in a hot tub or a walk with the dog.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/07/americans-getting-plump-during-lockdown.aspx

As predicted last year, vaccine passports are being rolled out across the world, including the U.S. As reported by Ron Paul in his Liberty Report,1,2 which streamed live March 29, 2021, the Biden Administration is “seriously looking into establishing some kind of federal vaccine passport system, where Americans who cannot (or will not) prove to the government they have been jabbed with the experimental vaccine will be legally treated as second-class citizens.”
Paul warns that this system “will quickly morph into a copy of China’s ‘social credit’ system, where undesirable behaviors are severely punished.” I’ve been saying the same thing for many months now, and there’s every reason to suspect that this is indeed where we’re headed.
Indeed, listen to Ilana Rachel Daniel’s emotional plea from Jerusalem, Israel, where a “Green Pass” is now required if you want to enter any number of public venues and participate in society. Daniel, who emigrated from the U.S. to Israel 25 years ago, is a health adviser, activist and information officer for a new political human rights party called Rappeh.
The COVID-19 data simply don’t support the rollout of this kind of draconian measure, as the virus is clearly in decline and has become endemic in most parts of the world. In the absence of a serious, truly massively lethal threat (which COVID-19 isn’t), having to show vaccine papers in order to travel and enter certain social venues is clearly more about imposing top-down government control than actually safeguarding public health.
We’re Looking at the End of Human Liberty in the West

Mandatory vaccine passports will be massively discriminating, and are quite frankly senseless, considering the so-called COVID-19 “vaccines” don’t work like vaccines. They’re designed to lessen symptoms when the inoculated person gets infected, but they do not actually prevent them from getting infected in the first place, and they don’t prevent the spread of the virus.
As such, vaccine passports are nothing but loyalty cards, proving you’ve submitted to being a lab rat for an experimental injection and nothing more, because in reality, vaccinated individuals are no safer than unvaccinated ones. It’s a truly mindboggling ruse, and unless enough people are able to see it for what it is, the world will rather literally be turned into a prison planet.
In Israel … we’re hearing from activists that it’s a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world. ~ Naomi Wolf
As noted by former Clinton adviser and author Naomi Wolf (whom I hope to interview in the near future), mandatory COVID-19 passports would spell the “end of human liberty in the West.” In a March 28, 2021, interview with Fox News’ Steve Hilton, she said:3,4

“‘Vaccine passport’ sounds like a fine thing if you don’t understand what those platforms can do. I’m [the] CEO of a tech company, I understand what these platforms can do. It is not about the vaccine, it’s not about the virus, it’s about your data.

Once this rolls out, you don’t have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. It can be merged with your Paypal account, with your digital currency. Microsoft is already talking about merging it with payment plans.

Your network can be sucked up. It geolocates you everywhere you go. You credit history can be included. All of your medical and health history can be included.

This has already happened in Israel, and six months later, we’re hearing from activists that it’s a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world.

It is absolutely so much more than a vaccine pass … I cannot stress enough that it has the power to turn off your life, or to turn on your life, to let you engage in society or be marginalized.”

Largest Medical Experiment in the History of the World
As noted by Donald Rucker, who led the Trump Administration’s health IT office, the individual tracking that goes along with the vaccine passport will also help officials to evaluate the effectiveness and long-term safety of the vaccines. He told The Washington Post:5

“The tracking of vaccinations is not just simply for vaccine passports. The tracking of vaccinations is a broader issue of ‘we’re giving a novel biologic agent to the entire country,’ more or less.”

In other words, health officials know full well that this mass vaccination campaign is a roll of the dice. It’s the largest medical experiment in the history of the world, and vaccine certificates will allow them to track all of the millions of test subjects. This alone should be cause enough to end all discussions about vaccine mandates, yet the experimental nature of these injections is being completely ignored.
Again, by shaming people who have concerns about participating in a medical experiment and threatening to bar them from society, government officials are proving that this is not for the greater good. It’s not about public health. It’s about creating loyal subjects — people who are literally willing to sacrifice their life and the life of their children at the request of the government, no questions asked.
Vaccinations Are the New ‘Purity Test’

Wolf also points out the horrific history of IBM, which developed a similar but less sophisticated system of punch cards that allowed Nazi Germany to create a two-tier society and ultimately facilitated the rounding up of Jews for extermination. I will be publishing an entire article about this in a couple of days.
Suffice it to say, some of the most gruesome parts of history are now repeating right before our eyes, and we must not turn away from this ugly truth. Doing so may turn out to be far more lethal than COVID-19 ever was.

The short video above features a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor who compares mask wearing to, as a Jew, having to wear a yellow star to mark their societal status. However, back then, everyone understood what was happening, she says.
At no point were they lied to and told that wearing the star was for their own good, which is what’s happening now. So, in that respect, the current situation is far more insidious. She says the “hypocrisy in the public narrative,” which claims that we need to wear masks to protect the old, “is absolutely unbearable.” “I would love to die in a state [of] freedom,” she says, “than live like this.”
She adds that at her age, her life expectancy is short, and she would gladly exchange her death for the life and happiness of the next generations. She wants the younger generations to have the freedom “to live their lives, as I have lived mine.” “To see people defile their children with masks is something totally unbearable to me,” she says. Vaccine credentials, in my view, are even more comparable to the Jewish yellow star, but in reverse.
Not having the certificate will be the yellow star of our day, which will allow business owners, government officials and just about anyone else, to treat you like a second-class citizen and deny you access to everything from education, work and travel, to recreation, social engagements and daily commerce — all under the false guise of you being a biological threat to all those who have been vaccinated.
According to the public narrative, vaccine certificates are a key aspect of getting life back to normal, but the reality is the complete converse, as they will usher in a markedly different society that is anything but normal.
Florida Bucks the Trend

As a resident of Florida, I must applaud Gov. Ron DeSantis who announced March 29, 2021,6 he will issue an executive order forbidding local governments and businesses from requiring vaccine certificates. He’s further calling on the state legislature to create a measure that will allow him to sign it into law.

“It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society,” he said.

States and countries that do decide on such a requirement are also bound to face the problem of black market vaccination certificates, which have already started emerging.7,8
As reported by the Daily Beast,9,10 a number of health care workers have been caught bragging about forging vaccination cards on their social media channels. Apparently, they have not yet realized the public nature of the internet, but that’s beside the point.
In Florida, a man working at a web design company was fired after posting a TikTok video advertising fake vaccine cards,11 and in Israel, where the two-tier society is already forming, a man was recently arrested for making and selling forged COVID-19 vaccination certificates, which are now required for entry into restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, swimming pools and other public venues throughout the country.12
Around the world, people are also being arrested for administering fake vaccines13,14,15,16,17 and selling bogus COVID-19 tests.18,19
Eugenics and Hygiene Obsessions
While it’s often considered bad policy to compare anything to the Nazi regime, the comparisons are growing more readily identifiable by the day, which makes them hard to avoid.
Aside from the parallels that can be drawn between mask wearing and/or vaccine “papers” and the Jewish yellow star, there’s the Nazi’s four-step process for dehumanizing the Jews,20 — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution — a process that indoctrinated the German people into agreeing with, or at least going along with the plan to commit genocide.
In present day, the public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people.
With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. This in and of itself also harkens back to the Nazi regime, which was obsessed with “health guidelines” that eventually led to the mass-purging of “unclean” Jews. As reported by Gina Florio in a December 2020 Evie Magazine article:21

“When Hitler first came to power in Nazi Germany, he kicked off a series of public health schemes. He started by setting up health screenings all over the country, sending vans around to every neighborhood to conduct tuberculosis testing, etc.

Next up was factory cleanliness — he launched a robust campaign encouraging factories to completely revamp their space, thoroughly clean every corner … After the factories, the next mission was cleaning up the asylums …

What started as seemingly innocent or well-meaning public health campaigns quickly spiraled into an extermination of races and groups of people who were considered dirty or disgusting. In short, the beginning of Hitler’s reign was a constant expansion of who was contaminated and who was impure …

We’re seeing an obsession with covering our faces all the time so we don’t spread disease or deadly germs; most public places we walk into won’t even allow us to enter without slathering our hands in hand sanitizer; and people act terrified of someone who isn’t wearing a mask.

Nobody can say with a straight face that this is normal behavior … We’re even seeing people advocate for some kind of tracking device to show that a person is vaccinated or ‘clean’ enough to enter a venue … Let’s hope we can all learn the lessons from the past and we don’t witness history repeat itself.”

History Is Repeating Itself

Indeed, everyone calling for vaccine certificates — which became part of the public narrative early on in the pandemic — is guilty of following in the well-worn footsteps of this infamous dictator, repeating the very same patterns that were universally condemned after the fall of the Third Reich.
Highlighting them all would be too great a task for one article, so two glaring examples will have to suffice. In December 2020, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneurial attorney with political ambitions, tweeted the following:22

“Is there a way for someone to easily show that they have been vaccinated — like a bar code they can download to their phone? There ought to be … Tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames without either mass adoption of the vaccine or a means of signaling.”

Signaling what, if not your “unclean” biohazard state? In his March 2021 Tweet, law professor, political commentator and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman, was more direct about the ill intent behind vaccine certificates, saying:23

“Vaccine passports are a good idea. Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down.”

Comments like these demonstrate that vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don’t want to be part of the experimental vaccine program.
The justification is that they’re too “unclean,” too “unsafe” to freely participate in public society and must therefore be identified and shut out. In reality, it’s really about identifying the noncompliant.
During the Nazi reign, those slated for segregation, discrimination and elimination were identified by their affiliation with Judaism (there’s controversy as to whether Jewishness is an issue of race, ethnicity, religion, national identity or familial bonds, which you can learn more about on JewInTheCity.com,24 but all were relevant criteria in the Nazi’s hunt for Jews).
Today, the global elimination strategy foregoes such identities, and focuses instead on identifying who will go along with the program and who will be a noncompliant troublemaker.
In short, vaccine passports are a device to identify who the loyal subjects of the unelected elite are, and who aren’t. Those unwilling to enter the new world of technocratic rule without a fuss are the ones that need to be eliminated, and willingness to be a test subject for an unproven experimental treatment is the litmus test. It’s really not more complicated than that.
Are You Ready To Be an Outcast?
This is essentially the conclusion drawn by Mike Whitney as well, detailed in a recent article25 posted on The Unz Review. I would encourage you to read the entire article as it succinctly summarizes the reasons behind the current censorship. I’ve reached out to Whitney and hope to be able to interview him about this in the near future.
In his article, he points out that behavioral psychologists have been employed by the government to promote the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and maximize vaccine uptake. They also have a “rapid response team” in place to attack the opinions of those who question the “official narrative.”
Mike also highlights a National Institutes of Health report26 titled, “COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence,” which lays out the intent to turn vaccine refusers into social outcasts as a tool to coerce compliance.

“This is very scary stuff,” Whitney writes.27 “Agents of the state now identify critics of the COVID vaccine as their mortal enemies. How did we get here? And how did we get to the point where the government is targeting people who don’t agree with them? This is way beyond Orwell. We have entered some creepy alternate universe …

If behavioral psychologists helped to shape the government’s strategy on mass vaccination, then in what other policies were they involved? Were these the ‘professionals’ who conjured up the pandemic restrictions?

Were the masks, the social distancing and the lockdowns all promoted by ‘experts’ as a way to undermine normal human relations and inflict the maximum psychological pain on the American people?

Was the intention to create a weak and submissive population that would willingly accept the dismantling of democratic institutions, the dramatic restructuring of the economy, and the imposition of a new political order? These questions need to be answered …

Vaccination looks to be the defining issue of the next few years at least. And those who resist the edicts of the state will increasingly find themselves on the outside; outcasts in their own country.”

Will You Obey?

As detailed in “Will You Obey the Criminal Authoritarians?” the 1962 Milgram Experiment (embedded above for your convenience), tested the limits of human obedience to authority, proving most people will simply follow orders, even when those orders go against their own sound judgment. They’ll commit atrocious acts of violence against others simply because they were told it’s OK by an authority figure.
We’ve already seen examples of this during the past year’s mask mandates. Suddenly, people felt empowered to verbally harass, pepper spray and physically attack others simply for not wearing a mask. Families were kicked off planes because their toddlers wouldn’t wear a mask. People were even shot for the grievous “crime” of not wearing a mask.
If those things were allowed to happen over mask wearing, one can only imagine what will be tolerated, if not encouraged, when vaccine certificates take full effect. The most obvious answer is to take a firm stand against devolution into inhumanity, regardless of whether you think COVID-19 vaccinations are a good idea or not. The question is, will you? In many ways, the months and years ahead will test the ethics and humanity of every single one of us.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/06/vaccines-are-the-new-purity-test.aspx